The Disappearances of Draco Malfoy

Chapter 11: Magic is Might

The Ministry had changed.

Draco had last visited during the summer before fourth year. His father had stopped by, Draco in tow, to visit a few choice contacts in the Department of Magical Games and Sports. "My son, Draco," he'd said to innumerable people, and Draco had smiled and shaken hands while his father told them that he flew for Slytherin, and eventually—what a coincidence!—Cornelius Fudge happened to look in on Ludo Bagman at the same moment they were visiting with him.

They'd left that day with tickets to the Top Box tucked into his father's robes. Draco remembered swaggering through the large, light-filled Atrium at his father's shoulder, feeling that every door was open to him. He'd flipped a Galleon over his shoulder into the Fountain of Magical Brethren as he'd gone.

Now the Fountain was gone, and the center of the Atrium boasted an enormous statue of black stone: a witch and wizard perched on twin thrones.

Only as Yaxley led them past its base did Draco notice that the thrones were made from multitudes of human bodies, pressed and twisted into each other, seeming—though they were quite still—to writhe like animals. They were naked, and humiliatingly so, their feet and elbows and clawlike hands shoving into each other's stomachs and breasts and buttocks. They were Muggles.

He had the sudden urge to turn toward Granger, to distract her before she could see it, but before he could move, she stiffened beside him. When he next chanced a glance at her, Mrs. Parkinson's dark eyes were flashing and fixed on Yaxley's back, her lips parted as if she were measuring her breaths. She'd seen.

"This way," Yaxley said, beckoning them toward the lift. As they skipped to the front of the queue, he added, "Borrofield, fetch Crabbe for me. He should be up on Level Two. We'll be down in the detention area—Room Four should be free."

Borrofield nodded and peeled away.

Draco let out a laugh, allowing himself to sound uneasy. "Hold on, now, Corban—the detention area? Don't you have an office we could speak in?"

Yaxley gave a dismissive wave as the lift's golden grilles clattered open. "All procedure, Charles, no need to worry." But there was a hint of enjoyment in his voice.

Just before the doors to the lift closed, Draco snuck a last glance at the great golden clock that hung in the Atrium. He and Granger had both managed to sneak their third drink of Polyjuice Potion during the walk through London to the Ministry, which had taken far longer than he'd hoped it might. Now, again, they were nearing the hour: ten minutes before they needed to replenish their disguises. Draco wondered if he could uncork his flagon in his pocket and conceal it in the wide sleeve of his robes.

He saw Granger's hand fiddling in her own pocket and knew that she was altering the coin the D.A. had developed, sliding her fingertip clockwise around its circumference to make the numbers rise. They'd developed a simple set of numerical codes to indicate their status: safe, in transit, in danger, in emergency, and in captivity. Now that they were no longer in transit, he wondered which she would choose to describe their current situation.

But Draco didn't know what it would do, really, to tell Potter and Weasley that they were in danger. If the two Gryffindor boys didn't act like complete idiots, they would be able to get out of the Scavengers' stall without Potter's wand being spotted: they would simply have to hand over their papers, showing that they were below Hogwarts age, and thus below the age that they should possess a wand. But they certainly couldn't burst into the Ministry, disguised as children, and demand that their parents be handed over. Yaxley was treating them cordially enough now, but Draco knew they hadn't escaped suspicion: Drummond had relieved him of his wand before they'd left Diagon Alley. Draco's hands felt very empty, and though he had never spent much time with Yaxley, he still worried that somehow Yaxley would recognize his wand: hawthorn, ten inches, unicorn hair core.