Bright light flooded his cell, turning the insides of his eyelids white. With a sharp intake of breath, Draco snapped his eyes open, mentally marking his twelve hundred and fourth day in prison. Noises of the other inmates' morning routines filtered in through the bars suspended in the small, square window of his metal cell door -- grunting, clanging, moaning; someone appeared to be in a whistling mood.
Pushing himself off the thin mattress and folding his blanket, Draco padded to the sink and splashed cold water on his face. As he went through the motions of his morning toilet, he heard the slide of a plastic breakfast tray being pushed through the slot at the bottom of the cell door. They didn't get metal trays anymore, not past his second year there, when a heated argument in the servery had resulted in one inmate beaning another with a barrage of food service items.
Draco settled himself on the concrete floor, his long legs stretching out in front of him, and lifted up a corner of a bread slice to check what jam they'd been given today. Blueberry, he noted with slight satisfaction. He hated marmalade days. Finishing the bread in a few large bites, he remained on the floor, swigging his milk and waiting.
Before too long, a guard came by, rattling his wand across the bars. "Yard?"
"Yes," Draco replied immediately, scrambling to his feet.
The guard nodded, ticking his name off on a list before moving on to the next cell.
Draco got to stand outside in a fenced area for an hour three times a week, soaking in the elements, rain and shine. It was in the yard that he learned a skill he'd never previously had a need for -- how not to draw attention to himself. He had been born a natural show-off, preening like the peacocks that used to litter the gardens of his now empty ancestral home, backed by generations' worth of wealth to excuse his arrogance and foibles. With much of that wealth now seized by the Ministry, tied up in backlogged legal fees and keeping Lucius sane in Azkaban, Draco had little protection to fall back on.
He almost wished he had been sent to Azkaban, too; there, at least, he was familiar with the company, even if he didn't care for it -- Death Eater after Death Eater, charged and prosecuted swiftly after the war, swelled the ranks of the ancient prison, leaving no room for Draco when he was finally sentenced as well. Instead, he'd ended up in a medium security wizards' prison in Scotland, where companionship ranged from thieves to frauds, none of whom were inclined to entertain the then twenty-one year old whose reported cowardice had triggered a war that had touched, if not them, then their families, in irreparable ways.
So he learned to stay out of the way, to master inconspicuousness, to move as a shadow. It was greatly to his benefit that Draco had always been a quick study.
Waiting for the guard to finish his count and to be let out, Draco made the short walk to the opposite corner of his cell, where he was allowed to keep a neat, if large, stack of mail. Sitting on the floor again, he picked the top letter off the pile, taking his time to draw the missive out of its envelope. His mother wrote him every few days; she made it a point to do so, even if just to tell him the mundane things she had done or seen that day. This particular letter detailed her gardening plans for the next summer at the Malfoy holiday home in France that she had turned into her primary residence shortly after he had been convicted.
He could hear Narcissa's voice in his head, going on as she was about wanting to grow strawberries on the property. He missed her, though they both acknowledged that the distance strangely made his incarceration easier to bear, as the one time she had come to visit him, they had both come away from it feeling more wretched than ever before. She moved to Normandy shortly after that, and he could find no fault with her for leaving the country that had imprisoned her husband and her son, and left her broken and alone.
His stomach twisted unpleasantly, and he fitted the letter back in the envelope and laid it carefully on top of the mail pile.
With a shrill screech, his cell door swung open, in synch with the several other doors of those inmates who were scheduled to be outside as well. Draco stepped out, falling into line, and marched outdoors, guards flanking the whole cohort and positioning themselves in each corner of the yard as soon as they were outside.
It was cloudless and sunny today, a rare occurrence; the sky boasted a startling shade of blue. As a former Slytherin, Draco thought that his being accustomed to the damp and dark would have worked in his favour during imprisonment, but then again, when he was a Slytherin, he'd actually had the choice of lurking in the shadows. Standing stock still on the ground, the sun's rays beating against his skin, Draco understood the meaning of simple pleasures, and silently cursed the circumstances that taught him to find enjoyment in the littlest, stupidest things.
He slowly became aware of being warm, uncomfortably so, and a bead of sweat trickled down the side of his face, as a fog seemed to cloud over his mind. He tried to clear it by shaking his head but that only made it worse. A dark, staticky mist encroached on his vision, and before he could ascertain what was happening to him, he blacked out.
Draco came to in the medical unit, lying on his back in a gurney. He pushed himself up, supported on his elbows, and looked around in confusion. One of the prison Healers was standing across the room with her back to him.
"What's wrong with me?" he asked.
"Nothing, as far as I can tell," she said, turning around to look at him. "You just passed out. Might have been too much sun."
"Oh," Draco said, frowning. It was just his luck for the one thing he enjoyed to screw him over.
"I've got to fill out your report before I send you back to your cell, so why don't you go sit over there? Have a drink of water," she said, gesturing to a meeting area just off to the side of the medical room, where there sat a long, wooden table surrounded by four chairs.
"All right," he said slowly, swinging his legs over the side of the gurney. He felt fine physically, but something was bothering him, and he had no idea what it was. Following instructions -- another skill he'd had to pick up in record time to keep himself alive and well -- Draco crossed the room, sat at the table and poured himself a cup of water.
All of a sudden, the room was plunged into blackness, as if it had been showered with Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder. Reflexively, Draco's hand flew to the side of his trousers for his wand; it wasn't there, of course, having been taken from him the day he entered this facility. Trying to ignore the pounding of his heart, he took a shaky breath, squinting futilely into the darkness, seeing nothing.
Then, without warning, the darkness vanished as quickly as it had appeared before.
Draco scraped his chair backwards in alarm, as, across the table, two well-dressed men looked appraisingly at him.
"Hello, Mr. Malfoy," said the one on the left with a toothy smile. He was short, a little on the plump side, with large, round eyes and deep dimples marking both cheeks, traits that made him look more like a cherub than a grown man. "Allow me to introduce ourselves. I'm Williams, and this is Webb," he said, gesturing to the man standing beside him.
Draco's eyes darted back and forth from one man to the other. Webb bobbed his dark blond head in greeting, apparently playing the strong, silent type to Williams' cheerful chattiness. To Draco's mind, Williams was probably the more dangerous of the two; unearned friendliness always made him uneasy.
"We do apologise for rendering you unconscious and taking up your yard time," Williams went on blithely, "but we thought this would be the easiest way to get to talk to you without running into too much interference."
"What do you want from me?" Draco asked, noticing out of the corner of his eye that the Healer, probably along with everything else, seemed to have been frozen in time.
"It's simple enough," said Williams. "We can offer you freedom, Mr. Malfoy, in exchange for your services."
"I beg your pardon?" Draco wondered if he could chalk this whole experience up to hallucination. Perhaps his milk had gone off, and he was ill and delirious.
"You see, we represent the Ministry Unit for Strategy, Intelligence and Counter-espionage."
"That's cute," Draco said blandly.
"We prefer to just go by 'The Unit' these days," said Williams, his mouth twisting downwards slightly. "We're an unofficial defensive arm of the Ministry."
"And what does that mean?"
"It means we're funded by public taxes, but nobody knows about us. The Minister himself is not aware that we exist. We run some very high-risk international intelligence operations, so it's as much for his security as ours that he and his cabinet remain unaware of our existence and are thus able to disassociate themselves and the official government from our actions, should we accidentally stir up any trouble. We don't, by the way. In any case, what the Ministry doesn't know won't hurt it."
Draco stared at him for a moment. "I think that's been disproven a fair number of times."
Williams tilted his head in consideration of Draco's remark. "In that case, what the Ministry doesn't know won't hurt us."
"How lovely for you."
"If I may be frank, Mr. Malfoy, I think it would behoove you to hear our proposition before dismissing us out of hand."
"I'm still listening, aren't I?"
"So you are. Now, as I said, we're offering an exchange. If you agree to work for us, we can guarantee that your prison term is effectively over."
"You want me to be a spy," Draco said, his tone wavering somewhere between a statement and a question, as Williams nodded. "That's preposterous."
"Is it?"
"Yes," he replied unequivocally.
"On the contrary," said Williams, "we think it's rather a good idea. We will provide training, naturally; we can't just send you out into the world as is. But we have been watching you for a long time. And for someone as unschooled in professional deception as you are, it certainly took a long time -- almost a whole year, I believe -- for anyone to catch on to all the little stunts you'd been pulling at Hogwarts. Ill-conceived plans, for sure, but the potential and skill are there nonetheless."
"What do you mean you've been watching me?"
"It's exactly what it sounds like. We have people everywhere," he said, inclining his head in an almost apologetic fashion. "In this prison as well, if you were wondering. And, by the way, our sources tell us that you have developed a delightful talent at making yourself seem invisible. With your hair, your looks, your reputation -- by all rights, you should be standing out like a sore thumb and getting daily beatings from the much larger and scarier inmates. And yet --" Williams let out a short, soft laugh, his hands gesturing surprise, as if he had just witnessed a remarkable transfiguration trick.
"So what?"
"So," said Williams, stretching the word out, "we believe it would be much more beneficial for all involved if you worked for us. You're wasted in here."
"Right. And, what, you'd just break me out of here?"
"Oh, my, no!" Williams laughed, his dimples creasing the sides of his face, and shared an amused glance with Webb, who snickered. "We like to keep things as clean as possible. And while no one has ever heard of us, we have much influence. Very much, indeed."
Draco raised an eyebrow. "What's your grand plan, then?"
"The Minister will pardon you on the grounds that not only were you a minor when the offences were committed, you also underwent an unjust and poorly managed trial, a victim of a political, overzealous witch-hunt, if you will. You will receive monetary reparations and be offered a mid-level job in the International Magical Cooperation sector in the Ministry. You will take this job. Your work will require long days away on travel, which, initially, will be time taken for your training, and will later serve as your cover for the overseas missions we assign you."
"And if I don't agree to your proposition?"
"Then we'll Obliviate you," he said, his cheerful tone just slightly undercut with an edge to it that strongly suggested Draco think twice before turning down their offer. "And you can serve out the rest of your perfectly sad twenty years in this lovely little hole."
"Well, you certainly drive a hard bargain," Draco said dryly.
"Are we in agreement, then?"
"You know, the last time I worked for someone, it landed me in jail."
"True enough. And frankly speaking, every one of our agents runs that risk. But if I may state the obvious, you really have nowhere to go from here but out. And we can get you there."
Draco knew he should take some time to think this over. He didn't know who these two men were, and had never heard of their organization; for all he knew, he'd just end up under some megalomaniac's thumb again, bound to doing terrible and illegal things just to stay alive. Not, of course, that death didn't occasionally have its appeal. He contemplated it every time he faced down a communal shower, or choked down dry bread slathered in marmalade, or felt disappointment when mail call brought him no mail, or imagined another piece of his heart harden and crack on visiting days filled with hope but no visitors. Usually, he tried not to think of all these things at once, but they were crowding his brain now, fighting for space, and they all pointed agitatedly to one conclusion: he had to get out of this godforsaken place.
"Well, Mr. Malfoy? What do you say?"
Draco swallowed thickly. "Get me out of here."
"We were hoping you'd see it our way," Williams said, smiling happily. He stood, and Webb followed suit. "Give us a week."
Draco sat back in his chair, slumping a little, wondering if any of that had been real and, if it had been, whether he had just made a very stupid decision. He barely registered the room going pitch-black again. When light returned a split second later, Williams and Webb were gone, and the Healer was scribbling serenely across her report form, humming a tune Draco didn't bother trying to make out. He leaned forward, propping his elbows on the table, and rubbed the heels of his hands over his eyes. Fear and hope made themselves comfortable in his gut, settling in for what would surely be the longest week of his life.
Pushing himself off the thin mattress and folding his blanket, Draco padded to the sink and splashed cold water on his face. As he went through the motions of his morning toilet, he heard the slide of a plastic breakfast tray being pushed through the slot at the bottom of the cell door. They didn't get metal trays anymore, not past his second year there, when a heated argument in the servery had resulted in one inmate beaning another with a barrage of food service items.
Draco settled himself on the concrete floor, his long legs stretching out in front of him, and lifted up a corner of a bread slice to check what jam they'd been given today. Blueberry, he noted with slight satisfaction. He hated marmalade days. Finishing the bread in a few large bites, he remained on the floor, swigging his milk and waiting.
Before too long, a guard came by, rattling his wand across the bars. "Yard?"
"Yes," Draco replied immediately, scrambling to his feet.
The guard nodded, ticking his name off on a list before moving on to the next cell.
Draco got to stand outside in a fenced area for an hour three times a week, soaking in the elements, rain and shine. It was in the yard that he learned a skill he'd never previously had a need for -- how not to draw attention to himself. He had been born a natural show-off, preening like the peacocks that used to litter the gardens of his now empty ancestral home, backed by generations' worth of wealth to excuse his arrogance and foibles. With much of that wealth now seized by the Ministry, tied up in backlogged legal fees and keeping Lucius sane in Azkaban, Draco had little protection to fall back on.
He almost wished he had been sent to Azkaban, too; there, at least, he was familiar with the company, even if he didn't care for it -- Death Eater after Death Eater, charged and prosecuted swiftly after the war, swelled the ranks of the ancient prison, leaving no room for Draco when he was finally sentenced as well. Instead, he'd ended up in a medium security wizards' prison in Scotland, where companionship ranged from thieves to frauds, none of whom were inclined to entertain the then twenty-one year old whose reported cowardice had triggered a war that had touched, if not them, then their families, in irreparable ways.
So he learned to stay out of the way, to master inconspicuousness, to move as a shadow. It was greatly to his benefit that Draco had always been a quick study.
Waiting for the guard to finish his count and to be let out, Draco made the short walk to the opposite corner of his cell, where he was allowed to keep a neat, if large, stack of mail. Sitting on the floor again, he picked the top letter off the pile, taking his time to draw the missive out of its envelope. His mother wrote him every few days; she made it a point to do so, even if just to tell him the mundane things she had done or seen that day. This particular letter detailed her gardening plans for the next summer at the Malfoy holiday home in France that she had turned into her primary residence shortly after he had been convicted.
He could hear Narcissa's voice in his head, going on as she was about wanting to grow strawberries on the property. He missed her, though they both acknowledged that the distance strangely made his incarceration easier to bear, as the one time she had come to visit him, they had both come away from it feeling more wretched than ever before. She moved to Normandy shortly after that, and he could find no fault with her for leaving the country that had imprisoned her husband and her son, and left her broken and alone.
His stomach twisted unpleasantly, and he fitted the letter back in the envelope and laid it carefully on top of the mail pile.
With a shrill screech, his cell door swung open, in synch with the several other doors of those inmates who were scheduled to be outside as well. Draco stepped out, falling into line, and marched outdoors, guards flanking the whole cohort and positioning themselves in each corner of the yard as soon as they were outside.
It was cloudless and sunny today, a rare occurrence; the sky boasted a startling shade of blue. As a former Slytherin, Draco thought that his being accustomed to the damp and dark would have worked in his favour during imprisonment, but then again, when he was a Slytherin, he'd actually had the choice of lurking in the shadows. Standing stock still on the ground, the sun's rays beating against his skin, Draco understood the meaning of simple pleasures, and silently cursed the circumstances that taught him to find enjoyment in the littlest, stupidest things.
He slowly became aware of being warm, uncomfortably so, and a bead of sweat trickled down the side of his face, as a fog seemed to cloud over his mind. He tried to clear it by shaking his head but that only made it worse. A dark, staticky mist encroached on his vision, and before he could ascertain what was happening to him, he blacked out.
Draco came to in the medical unit, lying on his back in a gurney. He pushed himself up, supported on his elbows, and looked around in confusion. One of the prison Healers was standing across the room with her back to him.
"What's wrong with me?" he asked.
"Nothing, as far as I can tell," she said, turning around to look at him. "You just passed out. Might have been too much sun."
"Oh," Draco said, frowning. It was just his luck for the one thing he enjoyed to screw him over.
"I've got to fill out your report before I send you back to your cell, so why don't you go sit over there? Have a drink of water," she said, gesturing to a meeting area just off to the side of the medical room, where there sat a long, wooden table surrounded by four chairs.
"All right," he said slowly, swinging his legs over the side of the gurney. He felt fine physically, but something was bothering him, and he had no idea what it was. Following instructions -- another skill he'd had to pick up in record time to keep himself alive and well -- Draco crossed the room, sat at the table and poured himself a cup of water.
All of a sudden, the room was plunged into blackness, as if it had been showered with Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder. Reflexively, Draco's hand flew to the side of his trousers for his wand; it wasn't there, of course, having been taken from him the day he entered this facility. Trying to ignore the pounding of his heart, he took a shaky breath, squinting futilely into the darkness, seeing nothing.
Then, without warning, the darkness vanished as quickly as it had appeared before.
Draco scraped his chair backwards in alarm, as, across the table, two well-dressed men looked appraisingly at him.
"Hello, Mr. Malfoy," said the one on the left with a toothy smile. He was short, a little on the plump side, with large, round eyes and deep dimples marking both cheeks, traits that made him look more like a cherub than a grown man. "Allow me to introduce ourselves. I'm Williams, and this is Webb," he said, gesturing to the man standing beside him.
Draco's eyes darted back and forth from one man to the other. Webb bobbed his dark blond head in greeting, apparently playing the strong, silent type to Williams' cheerful chattiness. To Draco's mind, Williams was probably the more dangerous of the two; unearned friendliness always made him uneasy.
"We do apologise for rendering you unconscious and taking up your yard time," Williams went on blithely, "but we thought this would be the easiest way to get to talk to you without running into too much interference."
"What do you want from me?" Draco asked, noticing out of the corner of his eye that the Healer, probably along with everything else, seemed to have been frozen in time.
"It's simple enough," said Williams. "We can offer you freedom, Mr. Malfoy, in exchange for your services."
"I beg your pardon?" Draco wondered if he could chalk this whole experience up to hallucination. Perhaps his milk had gone off, and he was ill and delirious.
"You see, we represent the Ministry Unit for Strategy, Intelligence and Counter-espionage."
"That's cute," Draco said blandly.
"We prefer to just go by 'The Unit' these days," said Williams, his mouth twisting downwards slightly. "We're an unofficial defensive arm of the Ministry."
"And what does that mean?"
"It means we're funded by public taxes, but nobody knows about us. The Minister himself is not aware that we exist. We run some very high-risk international intelligence operations, so it's as much for his security as ours that he and his cabinet remain unaware of our existence and are thus able to disassociate themselves and the official government from our actions, should we accidentally stir up any trouble. We don't, by the way. In any case, what the Ministry doesn't know won't hurt it."
Draco stared at him for a moment. "I think that's been disproven a fair number of times."
Williams tilted his head in consideration of Draco's remark. "In that case, what the Ministry doesn't know won't hurt us."
"How lovely for you."
"If I may be frank, Mr. Malfoy, I think it would behoove you to hear our proposition before dismissing us out of hand."
"I'm still listening, aren't I?"
"So you are. Now, as I said, we're offering an exchange. If you agree to work for us, we can guarantee that your prison term is effectively over."
"You want me to be a spy," Draco said, his tone wavering somewhere between a statement and a question, as Williams nodded. "That's preposterous."
"Is it?"
"Yes," he replied unequivocally.
"On the contrary," said Williams, "we think it's rather a good idea. We will provide training, naturally; we can't just send you out into the world as is. But we have been watching you for a long time. And for someone as unschooled in professional deception as you are, it certainly took a long time -- almost a whole year, I believe -- for anyone to catch on to all the little stunts you'd been pulling at Hogwarts. Ill-conceived plans, for sure, but the potential and skill are there nonetheless."
"What do you mean you've been watching me?"
"It's exactly what it sounds like. We have people everywhere," he said, inclining his head in an almost apologetic fashion. "In this prison as well, if you were wondering. And, by the way, our sources tell us that you have developed a delightful talent at making yourself seem invisible. With your hair, your looks, your reputation -- by all rights, you should be standing out like a sore thumb and getting daily beatings from the much larger and scarier inmates. And yet --" Williams let out a short, soft laugh, his hands gesturing surprise, as if he had just witnessed a remarkable transfiguration trick.
"So what?"
"So," said Williams, stretching the word out, "we believe it would be much more beneficial for all involved if you worked for us. You're wasted in here."
"Right. And, what, you'd just break me out of here?"
"Oh, my, no!" Williams laughed, his dimples creasing the sides of his face, and shared an amused glance with Webb, who snickered. "We like to keep things as clean as possible. And while no one has ever heard of us, we have much influence. Very much, indeed."
Draco raised an eyebrow. "What's your grand plan, then?"
"The Minister will pardon you on the grounds that not only were you a minor when the offences were committed, you also underwent an unjust and poorly managed trial, a victim of a political, overzealous witch-hunt, if you will. You will receive monetary reparations and be offered a mid-level job in the International Magical Cooperation sector in the Ministry. You will take this job. Your work will require long days away on travel, which, initially, will be time taken for your training, and will later serve as your cover for the overseas missions we assign you."
"And if I don't agree to your proposition?"
"Then we'll Obliviate you," he said, his cheerful tone just slightly undercut with an edge to it that strongly suggested Draco think twice before turning down their offer. "And you can serve out the rest of your perfectly sad twenty years in this lovely little hole."
"Well, you certainly drive a hard bargain," Draco said dryly.
"Are we in agreement, then?"
"You know, the last time I worked for someone, it landed me in jail."
"True enough. And frankly speaking, every one of our agents runs that risk. But if I may state the obvious, you really have nowhere to go from here but out. And we can get you there."
Draco knew he should take some time to think this over. He didn't know who these two men were, and had never heard of their organization; for all he knew, he'd just end up under some megalomaniac's thumb again, bound to doing terrible and illegal things just to stay alive. Not, of course, that death didn't occasionally have its appeal. He contemplated it every time he faced down a communal shower, or choked down dry bread slathered in marmalade, or felt disappointment when mail call brought him no mail, or imagined another piece of his heart harden and crack on visiting days filled with hope but no visitors. Usually, he tried not to think of all these things at once, but they were crowding his brain now, fighting for space, and they all pointed agitatedly to one conclusion: he had to get out of this godforsaken place.
"Well, Mr. Malfoy? What do you say?"
Draco swallowed thickly. "Get me out of here."
"We were hoping you'd see it our way," Williams said, smiling happily. He stood, and Webb followed suit. "Give us a week."
Draco sat back in his chair, slumping a little, wondering if any of that had been real and, if it had been, whether he had just made a very stupid decision. He barely registered the room going pitch-black again. When light returned a split second later, Williams and Webb were gone, and the Healer was scribbling serenely across her report form, humming a tune Draco didn't bother trying to make out. He leaned forward, propping his elbows on the table, and rubbed the heels of his hands over his eyes. Fear and hope made themselves comfortable in his gut, settling in for what would surely be the longest week of his life.
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