Resurgence of Evil

CHAPTER 8 -

Ron gave the door a last glare before he trotted - noisily, he hoped, though he supposed it didn't make much difference to Malfoy, who had practically collapsed on the bed in Fred and George's old room - down the stairs.

He then quit all attempts to fool himself and gulped when he realized that he actually empathized with Malfoy. Resisting the urge to slam his head repeatedly against a wall, he dropped into one of several battered couches in the living room and sprawled, thinking. He'd seen the difference at the trial - hell, when he'd gone with Harry to arrest the git. He'd known there was something different, and he couldn't put his finger on it, exactly. Now he knew precisely what it was. The mask was gone - and he couldn't tell if what he saw now was another mask, or the real Malfoy.

Snorting at his logic, he sighed, tilting his head back and wiggling, trying to get his lanky frame comfortable on the too-short couch. Inadvertently he remembered less than two months ago, when Malfoy had been lying on this couch and Ron, the babysitter that day, had finally given up and pulled out his chessboard.

"All right, that's it," Ron declared, pulling a small table up next to the couch, along with a chair. He plunked down the chess set and got comfortable in the chair. Malfoy was looking at him warily.

"We're going to play chess," Ron announced.

Malfoy must have been bored because he didn't say anything - Ron wondered if he imagined the brief look of relief and interest that flickered across Malfoy's face. Malfoy carefully pushed himself into a sitting position. Ron didn't offer to help - he knew the other man wouldn't accept anyway. But he did watch carefully out of the corners of his eyes, simply so that if Malfoy fainted or faltered Ron could move quickly enough that he wouldn't end up dragging the git to St. Mungo's later.

Several minutes into the game, Malfoy looked up from the board, a surprised expression flickering across his features. "So Dumbledore really wasn't making up a load of crap first year," he commented.

"Are you the only one who doesn't know what happened?" Ron demanded, his pride clamoring at him.

Malfoy shrugged. "Harry kept Voldemort from getting the Sorcerer's Stone, and the three of you had to go through several booby-traps to do it. Other than that . . . " he trailed off, staring at the board with a look of intense concentration.

Eight moves later, three pawns and a rook of Malfoy's had been demolished. Ron was minus a bishop, pawn and castle, however. Ron stared at the board. This was looking to be the most challenging game of chess he'd played since - well, first year. Quickly, thinking maybe to distract Malfoy, he began telling the story of the Sorcerer's Stone.

"Say," he commented when they were about midway through the game, and pretty evenly matched up.

Malfoy glanced up from the board.

"What say you we place a little wager on the game?"

"What kind of wager?" There was interest, and wariness, in Malfoy's voice. Ron glanced up into the pale eyes, then looked back at the board.

"Well, we're pretty evenly matched here. How about - whoever wins gets to ask the other anything, and he must answer truthfully?"

"Got something you really want to ask me, Weasley?"

"And there's nothing you want a truthful answer to, Malfoy?"

The challenge was there, and Ron watched Malfoy's eyes drift over his shoulder and fix on nothing. He blinked, suddenly, and refocused on Ron.

"Done." He held out his hand over the board and the two shook.

The battle was fierce, and only finished two hours later, with Ron barely winning.

"Good game, Malfoy," he said.

"Likewise," said Malfoy, a slight smile on his face.

"Now . . . " Ron began to think aloud, but didn't miss the tenseness in Draco's face. He thought back to the question he'd asked earlier in the week - 'What the hell is going on?'

But he turned his mind away from that - he'd gotten as much of a response to that as he would ever, he supposed, and he was suddenly loathe to demand an answer to a question that would probably break the will of the teller. Pushing the reasons for this away, he pondered another thing that had been bothering him.

Taking a deep breath, he said, "Wandless magic. What exactly is it, how did you use it to kill Voldemort, and why you?"

"I believe that's three questions, Ron," drawled Malfoy, suddenly more relaxed. A smile hovered on the edges of his mouth, and Ron rolled his eyes theatrically.

"Whatever. I want to know everything you know about it," he said.

Malfoy grinned and began to talk, explaining the mechanics of magic and the particulars of wandless magic, explaining how it was a direct tap into the magic inside a person. This, Ron learned, made it much more powerful and difficult to control, since wands only used a small portion of the person's power - the wand itself was more efficient at using power, but less flexible. Wands, and thus any magic accessed through one, were directed by words and spells. "Wandless" magic was simply a direct connection to the magic inside a person, and was shaped by need rather than the spoken spell.

Ron learned more than he'd ever thought to - and it was not until he'd fallen asleep that night that Ron realized that Malfoy had called him by his first name.

Suddenly wondering what Malfoy had wanted to ask him, and trying to push aside the thought that that incident might have been the beginning of something, Ron sighed, pressing his hands to throbbing eyes. He sat up, having resolved nothing and still confused about an acquaintance-ship that was slowly becoming friendship. And with the single person he despised more than any other in the world. Or had despised. Swearing fiercely under his breath, Ron stood and walked to the fire, his long legs eating up the distance in a few strides.

He rolled out of the fireplace of Harry's office in the Ministry, wiping soot off his face and robes, and nodded to Harry. Midgely, Sloane and Jones were sitting silently opposite Harry, and Ron, from where he was standing.

"We're ready to begin," Harry said quietly. A quill next to him was busily taking notes on a long piece of parchment. "Now, tell me exactly what happened when you began questioning Draco Malfoy two hours ago."

Jones began, being the most vociferous of the group. "We led him into the living room, and he sat. He was bleeding - and weak from the blood loss. I asked him to tell us exactly what happened." Jones pushed her glasses back up her nose, and adjusted her auburn ponytail. Her face was stern, her back straight. "He told us that his wards were weak and he was attacked by Death Eaters. He said he was fighting them when Potter and his crew - I take that to mean yourself, sir-" Harry nodded -"Ginny, Ron and Hermione - Apparated in."

"That is correct," Harry stated for the record.

"Well, it was plain that he was lying," said Midgely earnestly, his brown eyes intent. "I was copying everything he said, and something just didn't ring true." Ron snorted softly, glancing at the young man with the longish blond hair. He resembled a type of people Ron had seen in one of Hermione's Muggle Studies books - a kind a person called a 'hippie'. "Anyway," Midgely continued, "I had to ask him why Death Eaters attacked him."

"He claimed not to know, and said that it was probably because he had betrayed Voldemort," said Sloane, talking for the first time. He was a dark, silently dangerous man, and he rarely spoke. But he did not trouble to hide his disbelief, or his contempt.

"I asked him if he really had betrayed Voldemort," said Jones, with a swift glance at Sloane. "I mean, this is the first I've heard of it, and I wasn't sure I believed him. "And just to clarify things for Midgely, I asked if he was a Death Eater."

"It was obvious that he is," Sloane interjected.

"At this point, I knew he was lying," said Midgely confidently. "I even knew exactly what had happened. It was obvious, really, that he'd been meeting with the Death Eaters, and felt his wards go down. Then he staged a fight so that he would be in the clear when your crew showed up, sir," said Midgely, and his pride was obvious. Ron nearly choked on the boy's ego, and he was halfway across the room.

"

So I asked him if that was really what happened, simply to let him know that I was on to him. And then I told him what really happened, and he told us to get out. Said we were trespassing."

"That's when I hit him with the Truth-Speaking Spell," said Sloane. "He was advancing on Midgely and Sloane, and it was clear that he was going to attack. But I didn't think he'd pass out from the spell. He'd lost more blood than I thought. I'd assumed it was all an act, but it appears that he actually was hurt."

There was no remorse in the man's voice - in fact, there was a small sneer of superiority, and Ron suddenly wondered if Sloane had been deputized from the ranks of Hit Wizards.

"So, you used a Forbidden Spell while collecting a statement from a victim at a crime scene?" said Ron, a little more harshly than he'd intended.

Sloane looked at him, giving him a measuring stare meant to unnerve. It was wasted on Ron. "He's a Death Eater, not a victim," he stated clearly.

"Regardless of what he was and may or may not be," said Harry icily, "you have not been given the right or authority to use a Forbidden Spell, on anyone. This is not wartime, and you have not been granted extended powers. Therefore, it's my job to take you off this crew, remove you from the ranks of Aurors, and send you back to the Department of Magical Games and Sports."

Ron stared at Sloane, then at Harry. This psychotic, scary freak worked for the Department of Magical Games and Sports?

"Sir," began Sloane, a slightly desperate look in his eyes.

"You're lucky I'm not sending you straight to Azkaban," Harry snapped. "You've violated one of the highest laws this Ministry has. Take what you're given, Sloane, because that's as good as it's gonna get."

Sloane looked at the floor, and after a few more minutes of tense silence and pointed, terse questions, the three left - all having been de-deputized and ordered to report back to their original jobs.

"The Department of Magical Games and Sports?" Ron sputtered finally, throwing his hands in the air.

Harry said seriously, "I heard for a long time he was seriously lobbying to make rugby a major league sport- for giants."

Ron looked at Harry and said, "You're joking, right?"

"No," Harry deadpanned.

The two broke out into slightly desperate laughter.