A Traitorous Mind

"Get a grip, Potter." Draco put a hand against his own forehead, squeezing his eyes shut as though the deeper darkness could show him the way forward. Finally, he looked up again, unable to hide the fact he was shaking a little, "Where’s your broom?"

"I’m not sure, I -"

"But the house is ages away..."

"I realise that. Negra’s a winged horse. Spanish Bred. They’re the fastest pegasi in existence. Now, go. You’ve ridden one before, and Hippogriffs; this will hardly be a challenge. Just the Aurors too. Not the Ministry."

"Why not the Ministry? Surely they should know?"

Draco’s eyes flashed dangerously in the moonlight.

"Just do it Potter."

Still dazed and feeling more than a little sickened, Harry took the reins being thrust towards him and pulled himself into the saddle, before kicking the mare into the forest. Draco let the sound of beating wings fade out before walking to Jen’s body.

"Lumos."

Draco’d had a suspicion about Jen since she’d started working for him. A suspicion that she was not a ‘Trainee Auror’, as she had claimed. Lifting up the sides of the heavy winter cloak swathed around her corpse, he tapped one of the lapels with his wand.

"Appareo."

Slowly, a silver question mark badge appeared there. Draco swore under his breath. The insignia of the Unspeakables. Jen had been no Trainee, she had been one of the best undercover witches the country had. And they would already know she was dead.

They were going to skin him alive. The sooner Harry got back from his wasted journey, the better.

*****

Harry urged the horse above the trees. He was still shaking by the time the mare got back to the house. He’d only met her that afternoon. There were no danger groups around at that time. She was making a journey she undoubtedly made every day. She couldn’t be dead. Leaping out of the saddle the moment they landed, he ran to the front door of the Mansion. It was ajar. Harry frowned. Even in his haste, Draco would surely not have left his door open, not with Calum there on his own? Cautiously, he pushed it open a little further.

In the hallway stood his answer. Two men in black robes turned to look at him as he entered. On their right lapel was a small metal question mark. Recognising them as Aurors, Harry breathed a sigh of relief.

"Thank Merlin you’re already here. I had just come to contact you."

The taller and Hispanic-looking man nodded in a business-like fashion. He extended a hand to Harry.

"It is an honour to meet you Mr Potter. I’m sorry it must be in such circumstances. My name is Pasco Encanta. I’m from the Department of Mysteries."

As Harry shook the man’s hand, the same dizzy and unbalanced feeling came over him as when he’d touched Jen. As he stumbled, Pasco let go. "I understand that seeing a young woman’s corpse must be a nauseating experience for you Mr. Potter, but we must ask you to accompany me and my colleague back to it. We need you as a witness before we can detain Mr. Malfoy."

"Detain him?" Harry’s stumble was left far behind in his mind, "But he has nothing to do with it! I found the body!"

Pasco frowned. "In that case, you’ll both have to come with us to our Hogsmeade centre. We will need to try and work out what has happened. Now, will you show us the way?"

*****

Harry and the two Aurors Apparated to the clearing to find an infuriated Draco struggling against two more Unspeakables whilst another three surrounded the corpse. With a hand signal from Pasco, the couple holding Draco released him. The silver-blond’s grey eyes flashed as he strode away from them towards Harry. "The Unspeakables are going to the dogs," he spat angrily.

Pasco was unfazed by the words, instead talking as if they had not been spoken. "Now you are both here, I must request you come with me to our Headquarters. Questions must be asked and answered ’ere sunrise."

Draco’s face darkened further. "And if I were to refuse? I have a little boy on his own in that house."

"You really have no choice in the matter, Mr. Malfoy. We will take care of Calum ‘til you or your wife return."

"Just like I had no choice in having one of your lot assigned to me. Or should I say, no knowledge of her assignment."

"Anyone could tell you that an open spy gleans far less information that a covert one. You know it yourself. Now, if you are quite finished with this pointless argument, could you please step into that circle?"

Pasco indicated a ring in the starlit forest floor. With an aggravated sigh, Draco walked into the portal and promptly vanished. Harry followed him. Stepping in, he found himself caught in a whirl of turquoise before he landed upon a new surface.

*****

Draco was watching Harry as he recovered from his abrupt landing with a stumble. "You realise we’re walking dead men," he said angrily from where he leant against a wall.

Harry looked around the room. It bore some resemblance to the study he’s seen in Malfoy Mansion that afternoon. It was quite formal in decor. He noted with some amusement in his eyes that the room was decked out in Gryffindor red and gold. The only furniture was an ornate mahogany desk and four hard wooden chairs, two placed on either side. Looking around the four walls, Harry realised there were no exits. He looked back to Draco.

"And what makes you say that?"

"Oh, I don’t know, Potter. Might just be a hunch. There again, maybe it has something to do with the fact that an Unspeakable is dead on my land with no other suspects in sight. Oh, and, might I also point out the distinct lack of doors?"

Now Harry turned to look at him, obviously confused. "An Unspeakable? Jen?"

A voice came from the desk behind him, "Mr Malfoy is right on that assumption. Jennifer was indeed an Unspeakable. Which, judging from the fact he knew not to contact the Ministry, he’s had an idea of for some time. I find it hard to believe that he thought all Aurors answered to us."

Harry turned to see Pasco and his smaller colleague from the house sitting in the two chairs on the far side of the desk. He was still confused. But before he could speak, Draco responded, his voice filled with barely contained fury.

"How dare you imply I murdered her! I sent Harry for Aurors because there was a murdered girl on my land. I did not mention Unspeakables in my request. I did not think the Ministry could have helped. I’d always had suspicions about her, of course I had. I may be the son of an idiot, but idiot myself I am not."

Pasco’s infuriatingly calm expression remained. "I implied nothing of the sort, Mr Malfoy. I have to follow every suspicious note to a rational end. Please, sit down. We have quite a long meeting ahead of us."

Taking the seat indicated, Harry took the opportunity to ask his question. "Surely Jen was too young to be an Unspeakable?"

Pasco shook his head. "Unspeakables don’t train from school leaving age as a normal Auror would. They train from what would have been their fifth year at Hogwarts. We take them out of school, and give them more specialised training. We don’t find very many these days. The most we’ve had in recent times is three in one year. I believe that was the year you left school."

Draco frowned from where he had remained standing, "Three? I didn’t notice anyone leave."

Pasco’s companion, a small blond male, smiled. "Of course you didn’t. We have ways to assure you won’t. If you knew the name of a spy, they wouldn’t be a very good one. When the name of an Unspeakable is learnt, they get an instant promotion. To somewhere where his or her job is immediately all paperwork or work like this. Why is it, do you think, that Pasco is the only one of all the Unspeakables you’ve seen tonight that has spoken his name?"

Quelled into silence, Draco took the chair beside Harry, "Well, if we’re to be here a while. We’d better start. What do you need to know?"

To Harry, time seemed to hang whilst they were in the strange, exit-less room. He had no idea how fast the minutes were passing, and with no natural light, he didn’t know if they had reached morning yet. He didn’t feel tired in the slightest, which considering he must have been awake nearly twenty four hours was more than a little out of the ordinary. He was just about to answer Pasco’s colleague a question about his last talk with Jen when a letter appeared just above the table. Pasco frowned before plucking it out of the air and ripping off the envelope. Harry caught only a glimpse of the red question mark on the envelope and letter paper before the dark man folded the letter matter-of-factly once more. He’d read it in a matter of seconds. He looked at Harry and Draco.

"Something has come up, gentlemen. We have rooms for you overnight. The girl on reception will show you to them."

Draco raised his eyebrows. "What could possibly be more important?"

"I’m afraid I’m really not at liberty to discuss that with you."

For the first time that evening, Harry made open disagreement with the man. "That’s not good enough. You forget who we are. We’re hardly new to confidential information. If it has something to do with this case, tell us what it is."

Pasco shifted uncomfortably in his seat, neither accepting nor refusing Harry’s request. Finally, frown firmly planted on his forehead, he spoke. "It’s about You-Know-Who. The Ministry have reported that he’s no longer at the Riddle Residence."

Both Harry and Draco sat up straight in their chairs, faces drawn and tense.

*****

The receptionist met the two interviewees outside the room once Pasco had assured them several times over he had no further news and had opened a door in the wall for them. She smiled from underneath brown hair that was constantly falling into her dark eyes. As she was collecting keys for their rooms, Harry caught sight of the clock. His eyes opened even wider.

"Nine o’ clock? But.... that means we’ve been in there for ages."

The woman chuckled. "Of course not, sir. Time doesn’t pass in there."

"Doesn’t pass? What do you mean?" asked Draco with apparent confusion.

"Quite simply that, Mr Malfoy, sir. It runs on a different timescape to the rest of the world. So whilst you may spend what seems like hours in there, you spend no time at all out here. Waking Charms make sure you stay in the land of the living in there. Couldn’t really have you falling asleep whilst you’re being interviewed. I wouldn’t stay up for long if I were you. You’ll drop off in the bath or something otherwise, and we’ll probably need you alive in the morning. Here are your keys. You’re on the fifth floor."

Draco took them both and mumbled his thanks. Together, they headed up the stairs towards their respective rooms. As he handed Harry’s key to him, Draco paused a moment before speaking in a hushed tone.

"Do you think he really is back? That the spell somehow reversed?"

Harry looked back at Draco. "I wish I knew. You’d best get some sleep. I have a feeling we’ll have a long day tomorrow." Turning back to his own room, he pushed the key into the lock, turning it until the tumblers clicked and walked in.

He was immediately hit with a blast of cold air. Shivering, he looked to his right to see that the balcony door was wide open, letting the chill night wind blow through the room. Striding over to it, he pushed it shut, turning the simple latch-lock to keep it secured. He looked around his temporary residence. It wasn’t inhospitable, as rooms went. There was a door leading to the bathroom in one corner. This room wasn’t in the Gryffindor colours that the questioning room had been in, but instead a neutral white and purple scheme. But it wasn’t cosy. It didn’t have any underlying currents of warmth and safety flowing through it. In fact, he felt very vulnerable.

Walking over to the bed, he flopped backwards on it, wincing slightly at the hardness of the mattress as he hit it. Things were moving too fast. Too fast for his brain to keep up. He didn’t understand how Voldemort could have escaped his room. He, Hermione, and the others had all been for just a plain Muggle lock on the door. A wizard without wand or soul was hardly a danger to his guards. But the Ministry wizards and witches who had taken over the guard of the fallen Dark Lord had insisted on all the magical wards under the sun being used in order to ‘protect’ themselves from attack. Many times had they laughed over the failings of the overly nervous Ministry. Most importantly, he knew that those magical wards were secure. Hermione had performed many of them, Remus and Ron others; Harry had even done a couple himself. They had been checked, double-checked, even triple checked.

They’d been flawless, he was sure.

It made no sense.

His mind started to go over the details of Jen’s death again. Could it have been Voldemort? Some of the classic signs were there. The girl had been attacked when she was alone. She’d been killed by Avada Kedavra. But, that said, he’d seen no Dark Mark floating above the trees when he’d been on Negra’s back. Surely he’d have noticed something out of the ordinary about the death if it had been Voldemort. Not that the death had been ordinary by any means – it just wasn’t something particularly outstanding.

Before he could run the murder over again however, the blackness started to swirl up round him, engulfing him and pulling him down into oblivion.

Harry gasped. His eyes flying open, fear overcame him. All he could see was the street far below, no floor where he stood. His hands refrained from informing him that his hands were locked around the balcony rail. All he could sense was the sheer height he was dangling over; all he could feel was the wind whistling up and past his ears.

Suddenly, the rest of his body kicked in, and he pushed himself away from the edge. His heart thumped in his chest. He couldn’t be out here. He had been on his bed, lying down, he had, he had.

He turned around, shaking again. The door to his room was wide open, curtains whipping in the wind. The images from his vision came back to him. Slowly, he leant over the balcony again.

On the pavement far below, he could just make out a body drowned in a black cloak. It wasn’t moving.

This couldn’t be happening. Not again. He ran into his room, and headed straight to his front door. Dashing into the corridor, he pounded on Draco’s front door.

"Malfoy, get out here, now!"

Draco took a while to get to his door. Harry fidgeted as he heard Draco fumbling with the keys. He eventually opened it, just wide enough to poke his head round.

"Well, Potter? This’d better be good. It’s been too long a day as it is."

"It’s just got longer. It’s Pasco-"

"If he wants another interview this evening, he can stuff it."

"Right now he doesn’t want anything. Draco, he.... he’s outside. He’s dead, I’m sure of it."

Draco froze, just like Pasco had before. Harry shuddered at the memory. The silver-blond took only moments to react, despite the tired look in his eyes and the ruffled hair that showed he’d been sleeping. Pulling a black cloak off the nearest hook, he quickly wrapped it round his shoulders and slammed the door behind him.

"Let’s go Potter. This time round, we pick up an Unspeakable first. Merlin, Morgana and Circe...this must be some kind of prolonged nightmare."