Power Struggles

Chapter 3: Conspiracy

The Ministry of Magic was the only magical organisation that worked on two entirely different levels. The first was the open level, the one with the administration staff, Aurors, and other normal people. The second was the covert level. That level, known by few, was the true controller of the wizarding world.

The second level of the Ministry consisted of clandestine group after clandestine group. They were so cloaked in secrecy that individuals in any group had little or no knowledge of anyone outside of their immediate circle. Harry Potter, after ten years working with one of the more secret organisations, still had no idea of the power structures that held the wizarding world together at the seams.

And he preferred to keep it that way.

~~~~

Draco's first thought as he hit the ground was that Muggle movies had gotten it all wrong. Guns did not make cute popping noises when they went off; the sound they made was absolutely deafening. The ringing in his ears distracted Draco for about five seconds before he realised that he wasn't really hurt and that the bullet had actually burrowed its way into the brick wall beside his left ear.

"Consider that a warning," said Harry, holding the snub-nosed muzzle of a gun known affectionately as Lupo, the wolf, against Draco's temple tightly, "Come with me."

Orders, Draco reasoned, should be followed especially when one's life was on the line. He stood up shakily and brushed himself off. In a quick movement, the Lupo shifted to his back.

"Don't think of running. Paralysis is no pleasant experience. I trust you don't want to experience it." A small jerk of his hand and the gun dug into Draco's back painfully. "Move," Harry ordered.

Draco slowly began to walk towards the small group of Muggles he could see ahead. Briefly, he considered screaming for help but dismissed the thought almost immediately. Though the Lupo was an old-style gun, chosen by American killers during the Cold War, it was still a quick and painful weapon. His mind then searched for another plan, perhaps stalling Potter. "What do you plan to do with me?" He paused in mid-step and turned slightly so that he could see the other man's outline in his peripheral vision.

Harry merely dug the gun further into Draco's back. "Don't even think about it, Malfoy."

They had moved into a section of the small alleyway that was more shadowy than the rest. A dim lamp, which was supposed to be overhead, had faded out, leaving objects below privy to the darkness of the cold London night.

In one swift motion, Harry suddenly clamped a hand over Draco's mouth and dragged the other man into the shadows. Harry kicked silently at a section of the wall, which melted away, leaving a sparsely lit alcove and a narrow staircase. He dragged Draco, still holding the gun to his back, into the alcove. Once they entered, the wall of the alleyway rematerialised behind them.

Harry let go of Draco's mouth and prodded him with the Lupo. "Walk."

Draco eyed the staircase doubtfully and began to climb.

Dark, damp and smelly, the staircase was a tightly wound up spiral that ended at a heavy steel door. Harry reached around Draco and pressed his thumb against the door handle. The door slid open with a loud clang, to reveal a small room. It was devoid of all objects except for a sole chair in the centre; a dim bulb swung from the ceiling.

"Get in there."

Unwillingly, Draco walked into the room. "What the fuck do you plan to..." he stopped. The almost imperceptible sound told him that the door had closed behind him. Harry was gone, leaving him here, alone.

The light from the bulb went out suddenly and Draco was left in darkness. The night closed in around him oppressively. Waving his hand in front of his eyes, Draco couldn't even see a faint outline of his fingers. It may have only been his imagination but he could have sworn that he heard a faint whining sound overhead.

His voice, when he spoke, thankfully, only had the slightest tremor. "I see what you're doing, Potter. An ingenious torturing method. You're trying to make me go crazy."

"Correct."

Draco jumped. The voice seemed to come from everywhere, a booming voice that filled every corner of the room.

"You are in a Top Secret Ministry questioning centre. Nobody knows you're here. Now, Malfoy, won't you tell me what you told the Weasleys?" Now the voice had gone quiet, almost friendly.

A dry laugh escaped Draco's lips. "I simply told them that the Certese had assassinated their precious Minister."

"You stupid fuck." Harry's voice was quiet, controlled. "You endangered their lives for something we have under control."

"Under control?" Draco repeated incredulously. "They just assassinated a Minister and you say you have them under control? Say, Potter, where do you work? The Department of Stupidity, perhaps? How can you have the Certese under control?"

"That's classified."

"Classified is only another word for: my superiors won't tell me."

"Who do you work for, Malfoy?"

"What?"

"Who do you work for? Who told you to tell the Weasleys? Who is trying to harm them?"

"You're crazy," Draco said flatly. "Can't you see that I'm on your side? I was trying to help them, for fucks sake."

There was silence and then a sudden gust of wind blew into the room as the door swung open. An outline could be seen in the doorway. "Potter?" said Draco.

"Tu garde encore tes petits copains enfermés ici, hein Harry?" Still keeping your lovers locked in here, are you Harry? The voice was faintly amused.

"Luc! Que-cé tu fout icitte, toé?" Harry's surprised tone rang throughout the room. Luc! What the fuck are you doing here?

Draco slowly walked closer to the doorway, his eyes adjusting to the sudden light. From above, he heard Potter call out another phrase in French. Suddenly the man in front of him moved to block the doorway.

"Don't even think about getting past me!" he spoke with a perfect British upper-middle class accent, which surprised Draco.

"Who are you?" Draco asked as he kept on walking.

"That is none of your business." Harry had appeared behind the strange man, the Lupo pointed at Draco. "Stop moving or you'll be missing an ear."

Draco stopped immediately. "Who are you?" he tried asking again and this time the strange man answered after a hand gesture to Harry.

"I'm from French Ministry intelligence," the man's smile was cold.

The surprise was evident on Draco's face. "You're from the Squad. The Groupe d'Intervention de la Magique Noire?"

The man nodded.

The Groupe d'Intervention de la Magique Noire, Intervention Squad for Black Magic, was the notorious French spy organisation that worked under French Ministry protection. Unburdened with the traditional paperwork that came with espionage, the French intelligence agency was reputedly the most powerful in the world. It was rumoured that the Squad was responsible for the silent killings of numerous former Death Eaters after the Dark War. It was never proven though, and the French Ministry's diplomatic corps had always denied it vehemently. Its agents were silent ghosts, never to be seen by the common man until it was too late.

With shock, Draco realised that Potter must have known this man, known him well if their casual greetings were any indication. Cold fear enveloped him.

Luc turned to Harry, his expression unreadable. "Why do you keep this man here if he is not your lover?"

It was evident from the look of horror on Draco's face that he had not been expecting this turn of events. "Lover?" he spluttered.

Luc regarded Draco through the corner of his right eye. "That is what I said, Mr. Malfoy." Seeing the hastily hidden surprise in Draco's eyes, he smiled again. "You wonder how it is that I know your name," he paused, "and now you wonder how I managed to know that. You have good instincts, that is true, but they street instincts and cannot hope to stand against training. I can read your face like a book."

"Why are you telling me this?" Draco asked, looking suspicious.

The French man shrugged, "Why not?"

Harry spoke, gun still levelled at Draco, "Why are you here, Luc?"

Luc turned around, his long Muggle-style coat sweeping around him. "I am here to talk to Mr. Malfoy. When I could not find him at his old haunts, I came here immediately, realising that you had gotten to him first. We are confident that he will be most helpful with our enquiries."

"Enquiries?" questioned Harry, gun still pointed unwaveringly at Draco though his eyes were fixed on Luc.

"No doubt you know about the Certese Circle already. They are no longer a problem that only London has to contend with. The plague is spreading; Harry we are all tainted by the Circle. It is imperative that we speak with Mr. Malfoy. He is the only known relative of a Certese, he can help us defeat it."

Silence. Then, "Mr. Malfoy seems to have already made up his mind. This afternoon, he made a visit to the family of a Ministry man and told them about the Certese. He is recklessly endangering..."

Luc interrupted him, "We know about that visit to the Weasleys, Harry. Do not forget the first rule of espionage: never let your personal feelings get in the way. You are the one who has acted recklessly, my friend."

Anger flared in Harry's eyes. "My friend," he mimicked, "I know this man better than you will ever know. I went to school with him. I assure you, he is not doing this for some altruistic goal. He may even be Certese himself!"

Luc just shook his head. They do make a nice couple, he thought, it involuntarily came into his mind. He hadn't planned to remark about the possibility of the two being lovers. However, Luc had found out, through years of long hard experience, that people were most informative when they were wrong-footed. His comments had been successful in doing that. It was obvious that Harry was tired; any agent on full alert would have sensed the ploy immediately.

"I will make you a deal," Luc said finally.

~~~~

"Ron! Hey wait up, Weasley!"

Ron spun around and saw his old friend, Tony McInnis, coming towards him carrying a bouquet of flowers.

"For the wife," Tony explained with a grin as he caught up with Ron.

Ron grinned back, a little uneasily. He knew who the flowers were for and they were certainly not for Judy McInnis. His old friend was a well-known womaniser whose current craze was a petite blonde who had just become an Auror.

"I'm sure Judy will love them," Ron finally replied, studying the footpath intently.

Tony seemed to ignore his words. "Anyway, Ron, I've been meaning to speak with you. Ever since the incident with Jack, I've been thinking." Ron saw Tony look over at him expectedly out of the corner of his eye. "I've been thinking about who to nominate at the Board meeting this Friday and I've decided that I'm going to nominate you!"

Ron's head snapped up. "What?"

"I'm nominating you for the position of Minister of Magic!" Tony grinned. "I thought you'd be pleased!"

"Pleased?"

"You can thank me later," Tony said, wearing an impulsive grin, "I have to go now."

Ron watched as Tony hurried off. In the distance, he thought he could see the blonde sitting at a café. Ron shook his head slightly and began to walk in the opposite direction from Tony.

A sigh escaped his lips; Tony would never change. The handsome, good-natured rogue that he met on his very first day at the Department of Security had changed little over the years. Anyone who had thought that marriage would tame himEven though Judy was a beautiful woman, Tony would have no other kind, her charms and graces were simply not enough to keep her philandering husband at home.

Ron supposed he felt sorry for Judy in a way, but curiously, he could not blame Tony. Nobody ever blamed Tony for anything for the cheerful man always had a kind word and a ready smile for a sad face. Just for that, one could almost forgive his actions towards his wife.

But despite a less than perfect home life, Tony had always wielded surprisingly great influence in the Ministry. His charm and good looks were always welcome with the witches and his genuine kind nature liked by all. To top it all off he was now nominating Ron for the position of Minister of Magic.

Minister of Magic: the three words echoed in his mind.

Like all young witches and wizards, at one stage of his youth, Ron had dreamt of becoming something, of becoming someone, of making a change in the world. He had looked at the position of Minister of Magic with stars in his eyes and wished with all his heart to fill it. But like most other people, this desire had petered out and more realistic goals and ambitions had taken its place.

But now he was being given the chance, the opportunity, to fulfil his childhood dreams, Ron didn't know what to do. The tingle of childhood ambition had returned. The more he thought about the possibility, the more the tingle grew.

Ronald Weasley, Minister of Magic.

A frightening thought, a terrifying thought even, but at the same time strangely exhilarating.

But what about Jack? A part of Ron's conscious detached itself from the tumour of ambition and began to question himself. Don't you owe him something? Besides, you wouldn't be a good Minister; you're not nearly diplomatic enough. Who would want you as Minister anyway? The whispers cut at his self-esteem like a knife.

There was no point in thinking about it anyway, Ron decided as he abruptly swerved into a dark alleyway. He would deal with the opportunity when it arose, if it arose. After all, Tony was notorious for playing practical jokes on people.

Ron's eyes slowly adjusted to the sudden dimness as his gaze flicked over the redbrick of the wall. He looked at the redbrick until he came to one with a slight indent in the shape of an oval on it. Ron took out his wand and tapped the indent. Immediately the wall shifted and the tall archway emerged that was the special entrance for Ministry employees.

Going through the archway, Ron headed towards the great glass double doors of Ministry Headquarters. As he went into the Ministry building, acquaintances and friends greeted him cordially.

"Nice lunch, sir?" his secretary Bernice asked as he entered his office.

Ron smiled briefly, still somewhat distracted from the surprising news from Tony. "Definitely. I'll give you the name of the restaurant in case you ever feel the craving for Muggle food. Do you have the files I asked for?"

Bernice handed him a sheaf of papers. "They're all nicely sorted according to dates."

"Thanks," Ron said absentmindedly, as he sat down with the papers. Glancing upwards, he noticed that Bernice was still standing there. "Why don't you go and have lunch?" he suggested.

She beamed at him. "Why thank you, sir." Picking up her large handbag, Bernice left, leaving Ron alone.

Ron looked at the papers. The Malfoy Case. Ordered from oldest to most recent, it said on a note. The note was stuck on the front page of the papers, in Bernice's neat rounded writing. He undid the clasp of the paper folder and began to browse through the files.

It was surprising to note that the oldest Malfoy file dated not from the beginning of the Dark War but from a good ten years before. Ron was more surprised, however, when the file made no mention of the Malfoys, but was simply about a mysterious death of an Auror. At the end of the file, there was another note from Bernice:

I'm not sure, sir, what significance this has to do with the Malfoys, but it was contained within a Top Secret file on Lucius Malfoy. You asked for "every file that can be found on the Malfoys" so I had to use my contact within the Information Files Department to extract this particular file.

Ron stared at the file. What was so Top Secret about it? Involuntarily, his mind went back to the visit made by Draco Malfoy the day before; he had said that his father worked for the Certese, doing "wet work". Perhaps this file was about a killing that was attributed to Lucius Malfoy?

He frowned. That would mean someone high up in the Ministry knew about the Certese Circle, knew about the Malfoy involvement in it, and had managed somehow to get a Top Secret clearance for the file to hide the evidence. If that were true, then perhaps everything else said by the younger Malfoy was true too. Perhaps the conspiracy Malfoy hinted at was well and truly active in the Ministry.

Just thinking about the Certese again has placed everything back in perspective for Ron. Being nominated for the position of Minister of Magic was nothing if the whole Ministry was controlled by a covert organisation, especially one whose interests differed from those of the ordinary wizard.

Of course, Ron reasoned, someone could have simply placed the file in the wrong folder. He hoped that was the case, for the alternative was too frightening for him to contemplate.

~~~~

Molly Weasley cried almost every day. She cried whenever the well of sadness that lived within her bubbled up beyond her fragile control. She cried whenever she read on The Daily Prophet about any happenings in the Ministry. She even cried whenever her daughter Ginny came over to visit.

Looking upon her daughter's face, Molly imagined she saw vestiges of Ginny's friendship with Hermione. It was a friendship that was borne not out of mutual respect or interests. Rather it was borne out of necessity, for neither woman had any other female friends. Molly knew this and she wept.

Her constant red and swollen eyes pained her, but she could not stop crying. Molly knew that she was becoming a burden on her family, but that made her cry harder. She cried because she knew she was the only one who understood the true consequences the birth of Hermione's child would bring. She cried because nobody else tried to understand.

But mostly Molly Weasley cried because she knew that she was right.

~~~~

Draco held his breath as they emerged from a different entrance to the building. They made their way into the still-dark streets of London where a faint pinkish gleam could be seen signalling the coming of a new day. Luc had left some hours before, leaving Draco behind with a very grumpy Harry Potter.

Harry had taken the deal that Luc offered, and that deal was the reason why they were now moving surreptitiously through the streets of Muggle London. Luc had promised to meet them at a French Ministry safehouse on the outskirts of London though getting there was a bother. Draco couldn't Apparate, for his Apparating licence had been revoked two years back because of non-use. Flying was a non-option because of the attention they would receive. Finally, Harry decided that they would take the Muggle Underground provided that they wear his new model Invisibility Cloak that blocked out sounds that came from within the Cloak.

Draco discovered that the surroundings had a surreal look and feel under the light veil-like Cloak. Nothing could be seen with complete clarity, yet he knew exactly what and where everything was.

Harry's breath tickled the fine hairs at the back of Draco's neck as they edged forward slowly, bodies pressed together. Draco could still feel the hardness of the Lupo pressing into his lower back. Or, perhaps, it was something else? The old wizard taunt came back to him. Is that your wand or are you just happy to see me? Involuntarily, he also thought of what Luc had said about him and Potter being lovers.

"Don't think about it, Malfoy," Potter's voice broke into his thoughts. "Luc was trying to..."

"Trying to what, Potter?" Draco asked. Behind him, he could feel Potter breathe in deeply.

"Nothing, Malfoy." His voice sounded tired.

There was a short silence. They had gotten onto the London Underground and were now standing in a dark secluded corner, Invisibility Cloak still over them.

"How did you know that I had contacted the Weasleys anyway?" Draco finally asked. The question had been irritating him for over six hours now. He had taken precautions dammit!

Harry's smile was evident in his tone. "Our equipment is sophisticated."

"And who might this our be?"

"Beyond anything your imagination could comprehend," was Harry's only answer.