Favoring The Strong {Drarry}

- k -

check the end for an "important" authors note

Harry pulls the chair out from beneath the metal table. It screeches loudly across the floor and he smirks when he catches a flash of annoyance in Lucius Malfoy's pained eyes. He's forcing his mouth shut and Harry can tell that, regardless of how amazing of a feat it is, it hurts.

"Please state your name for the record," Harry says not unpleasantly. Although he isn't an auror, he'd gone through a good bit of the training before deciding on a path where he had more of a chance of saving lives than losing his own for once.

"Lucius Abraxas Malfoy."

"How're you feeling Lucius?"

The older man grits his teeth before spitting out a list of negative adjectives in no particular order.
"Horrid. Sore. Tired. Hungry. Parched. Enraged. Alone."

Harry sees that he wants to ask for his wife, but Harry isn't even sure where she is so he continues.

"Is there anything you'd like us to get for you? Water maybe?"

"No."

"Alright then, do you know why you're here?"

"Yes."

"And why do you think that is?"

"I'm a suspect," responds Lucius, but Harry can tell that saying anything feels better than the pain of not saying anything. Lying by omission. Even if no question has been asked yet.

"Are you aware of what you are suspected of?"

"No."

Harry turns to face Robards, but the man's face is a mask. He's obviously shaken, Harry can see it in the trembling of his knees under the table, but his face is a blank slate. He peers back and forth between Lucius' eyes to ensure the potion has taken hold and has not been tampered with and uses Harry's questions as a basis for a truthful reaction.

"Mr. Malfoy, is it true you were just recently released from Azkaban where you served a sentence for being a supporter for Voldemort during the last Wizarding World War?"

"Yes."

"How long was your sentence?"

"Fifteen years with visitation."

"And did you serve your full sentence?"

"Yes."

Robards opens his mouth again but Harry cuts him off.

"All of that is already on his record. You already have a comparison of when he's telling the truth to know otherwise. And as you've just mentioned, he's been released from Azkaban, that case is closed. Please focus on solving this one, not inflating your own war biases."

Harry's narrowed eyes are enough to keep Robards from continuing down that particular path of questioning and the older man clears his throat.

"Are you familiar with a man by the name of Timothy Briggs?"

"I," Lucius chokes on his own voice harshly before blurting out an accompanying: "am. I am."

"And how do you know of him?"

"He's the muggle who tried to get his perverted hands on my grandson and I—" Lucius snaps his mouth closed again. Harry wishes he could be surprised that Lucius knows about that incident or that he's looked far enough into it to find the culprit when Harry had hoped the man would be brought to justice and it would all just disappear. But he doesn't have time to be surprised, because his eyes are on Head Auror Robards who looks giddy with this unfinished discovery.