Better Than Expected

Draco Malfoy flooed in to work a few minutes before eight that morning, like every other day. Certainly neither his zeal nor his enthusiasm for the job were responsible for that excessive punctuality. Mr Malfoy did not care much for his work and if truth be told nobody really cared for his presence there. Coming early was just part of the routine he had adopted, ever since he had been offered a position at the Department of Justice, a favour he was duly grateful for. It was only one of the many ways he had of avoiding the hustle and bustle of the Ministry. Perhaps he really was an arrogant bastard like some of his colleagues claimed or perhaps he just couldn't shake off the stealthy habits he had acquired during his short time as a Death Eater Either way, Draco Malfoy felt uneasy in the crowd. There was something soothing in the sight of the succession of empty corridors early in the morning and in the knowledge that he was not likely to cross the path of anyone he knew personally just yet.

Some days his face would even show the ghost of a smile by the time he reached the door to his office. Those days were rare though and today was not likely to be one of them if the rumours he had heard in the atrium were true. Perhaps another man would have hoped for the rumours to be unfounded but Malfoys were not men to hope in vain, they just used their power to turn events to their advantage, or so Lucius had told his son. However, given what the power of the last Malfoy was worth these days, that option was not really available.

Still, things were better than he had first expected.

*** *** ***

When the Dark Lord had fallen, a year and a half before, Draco Malfoy had been unsure what to think. In truth, he had never expected it to happen. Like most people by then, he had heard about the prophecy involving Potter and He Who Must Not Be Named, but given what he had seen of the Gryffindor when they were still schoolmates, he had no doubt about who would be murdered and who would be the murderer. The Dark Lord was simply too powerful, too ruthless for Dumbledore's golden boy to stand a chance. And yet Potter had won and for once Draco had not minded losing to the Boy Who Lived. No, he had welcomed the defeat because it was still much better than the life of pointless servitude he had been leading. A life in the service of the pureblood cause, indeed! The Dark Lord had known how to create chaos and strike terror in the hearts of the Mudbloods, but he had proved completely unable to institute the aristocratic order that old wizarding families were longing for. So Draco Malfoy had felt no regret and no anger at his demise. He was not likely to seek revenge for the death of the half crazed wizard and even if he was not thrilled at the perspective of a magical world ruled by goodie-goodies like Potter and his crowd of Muggle-lovers, it was still better than what the alternative would have been.

No, he had not been angry or sad. He would actually have been relieved if he had not been so afraid for his life. Draco Malfoy had no illusions regarding the fate awaiting the losers of a war. He may not have been a very enthusiastic or very useful Death Eater, but he had been one of them all the same. His role in the First Battle of Hogwarts alone would have been enough to earn him a long sentence in Azkaban, and that had only been the beginning. As it was, getting the Kiss was a distinct possibility if he was caught and Draco Malfoy had no intention of losing his soul or his life so soon after being freed from the clutches of his late master.

He had decided he would lie low in one of the lesser-known family properties for a while, recovering from the loss of his connection through the dark mark and from the various wounds he had accumulated in the last few months. He would observe the new political situation from that safe distance and if it appeared that the Muggle-lovers were feeling particularly merciful towards their former enemies, he might try to beg or bargain for a pardon. He was even willing to serve a few years in Azkaban if it meant he was allowed to be part of wizarding society again afterwards. After all he was young, there would be time to consolidate his position and regain power afterwards. He would not let the Malfoy name down. That is, if he was allowed to live.

In those months following the Dark Lord's demise, Malfoy was actually not sure if, in all fairness, he deserved to be spared. He was actually quite certain that, had positions been reversed, the Dark Lord would not have granted mercy to any of his defeated enemies. But after all, wasn't fairness vastly overrated? If one was to treat everybody according to what they deserved, Azkaban and the cemeteries would be choking full and that wouldn't do much good to anyone, would it?

No matter how long it took, Malfoy was determined then not only to survive the aftermath of the war, but also to regain the social position that was rightfully his. Perhaps the solidarity between purebloods would help. Now that wizarding England was likely going to be ruled by blood traitors of all kinds, they needed to unite if they did not want to lose what was theirs.

As it turned out, pureblood solidarity had been surprisingly effective. Less than a year after the end of the war, the young fugitive had been officially pardoned and soon after, he had been offered a minor position within the Department of Justice.

Yes, things had gone much more smoothly than he had expected.

*** *** ***

Going back to the magical world after that self-imposed exile had been a disconcerting experience. Much had changed but not in the way he had feared. His irrational fears of seeing every section of the Ministry under the supervision of a red-haired Potter-lover had been quickly dismissed when the Slytherin had recognised several members of prominent traditional wizarding families among the officials. He had also thought his department would be in turmoil over the St Mungo Massacre, whose perpetrators were still at large, but apparently the case was already closed and had been so for quite some time. When he had raised the question, his colleagues had looked at him with puzzled expressions, as if he had suggested reopening the Potion Traffic Case of 1527.

It seemed that even outside the office, nobody cared much about that particular instance of mass murder or if they did, they did not mention it in public. The anniversary date came and went without any commemoration and as far as Draco Malfoy could tell, he was one of the few who had even noticed it had been a year already. He personally had no desire to spend the day pretending to be sad and listening to overemotional speeches from every available senior official, but he had thought the death of many noted war veterans, including one of Potter's closest friends, would have stirred the magical community more than that. Draco Malfoy himself had just gone into hiding when St Mungo's intensive care unit had been raided and nearly all of its patients killed. Most of them had been injured while fighting alongside the Order of the Phoenix and Potter's little band. Of course, there were none of Malfoy's friends or relatives among them. He knew some of the victims' names from his schooldays, but there was nothing there to touch him personally. Still, the news had caught his attention.

During his year among Death Eaters, the young man had often caught sight of Hermione Granger hurling and deflecting deadly curses in the thick of battle so it was a bit of an anticlimax to hear that the brightest witch in Britain had been killed in her coma-induced sleep, powerless to defend herself, not even aware she was under attack. Of course she had apparently been unconscious for several weeks and might never have recovered anyway, but it did not seem proper somehow. Yet another example, if it were necessary, that life as a rule is not fair.

Still, better she than him; Draco Malfoy was not about to complain.

*** *** ***

From his first day at the Ministry, the majority of the cases handled by the Department of Justice had been Unsuitables. That category was part of the central security policy introduced by the new Minister of Magic, Eusebius Baldermash. When old Baldermash had taken up the job, a few weeks only before the Fall of the Dark Lord, the Ministry had been utterly powerless and disorganized. Unforgivables were routinely performed throughout the country and yet Ministry employees were still wasting their time tracking down underage uses of magic, which, in their immense majority, were perfectly harmless. One of Baldermash's key measures had been the reorganization of the Department of Justice and the creation of a new classification of spells. The three Unforgivables remained, but a number of Dark and otherwise harmful spells had been reclassified as Unsuitables, and could only be used by licensed Ministry officials, including but not limited to Aurors. There were several levels of gravity with corresponding security protocols, supposedly ensuring the Ministry focused on the highest priorities.

The other major security measure undertaken by the new Ministry had been the restriction of Potions and Potion ingredients to one Ministry-approved reserve, Fort Nox. The fort was heavily guarded and only delivered its goods to people and institutions endorsed by the Ministry. While it put a cramp on self-medication and other everyday uses of harmless potions, it also ensured it was much harder to brew or use Unsuitable potions than it had previously been. Those measures had proved relatively efficient and barely a year after the end of the war, the security situation seemed much better than what could have been expected.

The Department of Justice had a book in which were listed the names of all the people suspected of having used Unsuitables. The first time Draco Malfoy had looked at the list, he had almost burst out laughing. Many of the people on the list were actually members of the Order of the Phoenix or sympathizers who had fought the hardest against the Dark Lord. The ex-Death Eater had not been sure if that was pure tragic irony of simply another proof that it was in the nature of a ministry to be utterly incompetent, but the whole thing had certainly seemed rather ridiculous. Why, Potter's name was actually one of the highest on the list, as if the ministry was going to haul him off to jail for killing the Dark Lord! The Ministry had closed their eyes on everything the stupid Gryffindor had committed for years, when the boy had done nothing to deserve such leniency, except wearing a stupid scar, and now that Harry Potter had actually done something useful and saved the magical world from a murderous tyrant, they were going to prosecute him for improper use of magic. That was simply ludicrous, or so it had seemed at the time.

Later, Draco Malfoy had realised that Harry Potter and his crowd were nowhere to be seen. They were not merely staying out of the limelight to enjoy some peace, as he had first assumed, but from what he had gathered, they had gone underground soon after the end of the war and had had no dealing with the Ministry or regular society since then. Draco Malfoy had also been surprised to discover that his department was taking the affair very seriously, actively searching for the Boy Who Lived and even using a great deal of its resources to that end. What purpose finding Potter might serve was not obvious to Malfoy, but then the wizarding world had always been obsessed with the boy so they were bound to be frustrated by his prolonged absence. The reasons why Potter had not surfaced yet were a matter of speculation. Several eyewitnesses had confirmed he had survived the Final Battle, but the extent of the injuries he had sustained was unknown. He had not gone to any known healing establishment in wizarding Britain, which admittedly, considering what had happened to the patients of St Mungo, was perhaps a wise choice on his part.

*** *** ***

When Draco Malfoy had entered the Ministry, the most popular rumour was that Potter and some of his followers had joined forces with the centaurs to create an alternative magical state, opposing the central government of Eusebius Baldermash. Malfoy couldn't help raising an eyebrow when he heard that one, but, like others before, that rumour had soon been forgotten to be replaced by something sillier still. The young man did not know how much store his superiors set by those rumours, but clearly they seemed determined to hear what Potter had to say on the subject of his misuses of magic. More likely it was mainly a pretext to get Potter to publicly endorse the new Ministry. Either way, the irritating Boy Who Lived had eluded all his pursuers.

Why Potter insisted on remaining hidden was beyond Draco Malfoy. Surely, if it was safe for a former Death Eater to come back in the wizarding world, then the hero of their war could do it too? Admittedly, a few war heroes had met an untimely death since the end of the hostilities, but apart from the St Mungo victims, those deaths had mostly been suicides. Probably of people who had not recovered from what they had seen and done during the war. It was regrettable, but it happened; of course no Malfoy worth his salt would have let go of life that easily, but not everybody could be held to the same standard. As for the other deaths, his colleagues from the Department of Justice did not seem particularly worried so obviously there was no significant threat for those who had fought the Dark Lord.

Besides, Potter was many things, but he had never been a coward so fear for his life could not be the explanation. He had been spotted by Ministry operatives on few occasions, so they knew that he was not dead and that he had not left the country either, unlike so many witches and wizards who had chosen to emigrate recently. Clearly, Potter was refusing to dialogue with the authorities and, from what Draco had heard in his first weeks at work, he would even occasionally resort to violence rather than letting himself be taken to the Ministry for judgment. It would probably have saved much time and money if Potter had just accepted to make a statement in court so that his cased could be cleared once and for all. As it was, his obstinacy was only making his life more difficult, but then the Gryffindor Wonder Boy had always been too proud and stubborn for his own good.

*** *** ***

Draco Malfoy had only started to realise the seriousness of the situation about two months after his return, when he had seen two Enforcers carry the body of a familiar redhead to the morgue. Enforcers had replaced Aurors and Unspeakables in the new centralized security system introduced by the Ministry. Malfoy knew a few of them by name, so he got to ask one what had happened. He was told Ron Weasley had resisted arrest and had had to be killed in the fight that ensued.

It's not that he was surprised that Weasley had gotten in some trouble. He had known that his name was close to the top of the Unsuitables List, together with Potter's, and you could always rely on a Weasley to make a mess of things with uncalled-for bravery. He was not sad either obviously, given he had never got along very well with that particular Gryffindor, but he could not shake off a feeling of unease and anger. Why couldn't Weasley just have followed the Enforcers quietly? What did he think he had achieved by dying that way? In all likelihood, he would have been free to go the next day. It was not like the Weasley family could afford to lose still another one of its members. If Malfoy's reckonings were correct, Ron had been the last male of the line so that now the name was bound to be lost. Of course Weasleys had never been one of the most respected families, but they were old blood all the same. It was such a waste.

Malfoy half-suspected the Enforcers of having been overzealous: as far as he had heard, none of the operatives had been seriously injured so the use of an Unforgivable could perhaps have been avoided. However, he was not paid to investigate into the proper conduct of colleagues from another department so he soon dismissed the matter from his mind to focus on the extensive archives he had to classify.

At least he had tried to dismiss it, but it was not always easy. It was the first time he had seen Ron Weasley up close since their days at Hogwarts and even though it had been barely more than two years ago, Weasley had looked at least ten years older. Fate had obviously not been as kind to him as it had been to others. Every time the image of that wasted body came back to his mind, Draco Malfoy remembered how lucky he himself had been to get a place back in wizarding society after the war.

Things were going better for him than he could ever had expected when the Dark Lord had fallen and whenever the young man felt an uneasiness creeping on him, he held onto that thought for reassurance.

*** *** ***

The thought of his own luck soon ceased to be a source of comfort however. A few weeks after Weasley's death, Draco Malfoy had been promoted. He no longer worked in the basement with the other underlings managing the archives, but now had an office in the Department of Justice itself, from which he supervised the court processes. His first reaction had been to congratulate himself on that swift progression towards the spheres of influence where he belonged. He had never been modest and had no doubt that he would do well in his new position. However, even he could see it was strange that he should be offered such a job only fourteen months after he had stopped serving the worst enemy wizarding Britain had known since Grindelwald. It was not as if he had joined the winning side shortly before the end. If he had done so, he would have understood why the new Ministry did not shun him and he would have ascribed his recent social ascension to his own political cleverness. But the truth of the matter was he had not deserted the Dark Lord before the end and everybody knew it. At least his boss certainly did. So how come he was doing so well when those who had supposedly been on the winning side were dropping like flies?

The comparison of his fate with that of Weasley -- or of Granger for that matter -- had ceased to be a source of comfort to become one of further unease. Now that he was working in the core of the Department of Justice, he could see that nearly all of the senior positions were occupied by purebloods, often Slytherins, and that he was not the only former Death Eater working there. Those were ambitious people and Draco was not surprised that they had come back in politics, but they had succeeded more quickly and more completely than would have seemed possible only a year before. More unsettling still was the job itself. Draco Malfoy had acquainted himself with recent affairs so he could do his work in the best conditions and what he had learned had raised many questions that he was far too prudent to voice aloud.

By far, most of the trials held by the Wizengamot since the end of the war had dealt with former Death Eaters like himself. Those trials had all been brief and almost all of the defendants had obtained a pardon. The few trials which had taken more than a day and required the presence of the full Wizengamot had concerned people of dubious loyalties. Most of them had been sent for long sentences in Azkaban, although a handful had obtained a pardon and a few others had been publicly executed. There was no trace of a trial of a former member of the Order of the Phoenix or of any witch or wizard who had fought on the winning side during the war. Yet Malfoy knew that those had constituted the bulk of the Unsuitables List and he also knew that the list had become considerably shorter as time went by. He had assumed that the individuals concerned had received a proper judgment before being either freed or sent to Azkaban, but this did not seem to be the case. If they had not been pardoned and had not been sent to prison, then what had happened to those people whose cases had been closed? Whenever that question came to his mind, the image of Ron Weasley followed it closely and Draco Malfoy did not like that one bit.

This is why when he heard the rumours that Harry Potter had finally been caught that morning, he was not as certain as he once had been that charges would be instantly dropped and that the Boy Who Lived would be hailed as a hero.