The Silent World Within You

Chapter 1: Summer

A fly buzzes past Draco's nose. He watches as it circles the gleaming conference table, barely missing the frightful white fuzz that Prometheus Bromley-Malett calls hair. Despite the open windows and the dark wood panelling, the room is too warm and stuffy, and Draco shifts in his seat, discreetly tugging at the tight collar of his robe. He stops at his mother's sharp look.

"It's what you would recommend then, Prommy?" Narcissa asks, her voice low.

The barrister nods. He's been in charge of the Malfoy family's legal needs since Draco's father was a child. "There's nothing much I can do for Lucius," he says, taking off his spectacles and rubbing at them with a spotless white handkerchief. "He'll do the remainder of his time in Azkaban from his earlier sentence, and then he'll go before the Wizengamot again. He'll be lucky enough to be eligible for parole in three years. The Ministry's made it clear that it has no interest in going after you, Narcissa. You can thank young Potter's testimony for that. Draco on the other hand..." He slides his glasses back on the tip of his nose and sighs, making perfectly clear his thoughts on Draco's future prospects with one wry arch of a hairy white eyebrow.

Draco scowls at him, then looks away. "I won't do it," he says after a moment. The portraits of past partners in the solicitors' firm eye each other from above him, their grey heads shaking as they murmur amongst themselves. Ancient old sods, so certain they know everything.

His mother touches his hand. "Darling, if Prommy thinks it best, you shall." Her voice is iron sheathed in silk, and he's quite aware he's buggered. Whatever Narcissa Black Malfoy wants, she gets. Even if it humiliates her son in the process.

"The Ministry doesn't want to waste its time with you and your housemates, Draco," Prometheus says calmly. He leans back in his leather chair, his small, rotund frame nearly disappearing behind the haphazard pile of dusty law tomes piled on the table. With a wave of his hand he sends them somersaulting back to the bookshelves lining the walls. "They'd much rather spend their time and money prosecuting actual Death Eaters, rather than children."

That annoys Draco. He sits up. "I'm not a child--"

Prometheus cuts him off with a snort. "In the eyes of the law you were. While the wizarding code does recognise the age of majority to be seventeen, it also makes adjustments for students who remain at Hogwarts through their NEWTs, providing further legal protection that those who choose to leave no longer have." He shakes his head. "Don't be a fool, boy. The Ministry's willing to consider you a minor under the Schooling Act of 1873, and a year or two of community service versus a decade in Azkaban is not something to be tossed aside in a fit of pique."

"If I admit guilt," Draco says dully. His mother's fingers tighten on his hand. He pulls away, wrapping his arms around himself. He hasn't seen his father in a week. Not since the Aurors marched him away after the battle. He's somewhere in a holding cell deep inside the Ministry. Prommy's not even been able to speak with him yet.

"You are guilty, lad." Prometheus is gentle.

Draco touches his left arm. The Mark doesn't ache any longer, but it's still black and ugly against his skin. "I know," he says after a moment.

The room is silent. Draco can hear the soft tick of the clock on the chimneypiece.

"It's a good offer," Narcissa says softly. She looks at Draco, and in the sunlight from the open window, he can see the sharp lines around her eyes and mouth, too pronounced now to be concealed under her favoured rose-scented powder. There are silver streaks in her blonde hair, faint lavender circles beneath her blue eyes. His mother's barely forty-three, and she looks ten years older. "You'll be safe--"

Draco snorts.

"More so than in Azkaban." His mother's mouth tightens, and she leans forward in her chair, pulling her silk robe tighter around her too thin frame. "I won't let them put you there, Draco. Not after what it did to your father. I won't."