Chapter Text
The funeral was a farce.
Anton Travers.
Former Death Eater. War criminal. Torturer. Coward.
One of the many who cut deals after the war, offering names, secrets, bribes. Slithering free of Azkaban by handing over whatever scraps the Ministry demanded. No time served. No public confessions. Just a signed parchment and a nod from the right official, and suddenly the slate was clean.
Except it wasn’t. Not really. The blood never washes off, no matter how many forms you file.
Travers had walked out of his trial with a grin and a new identity. Claimed he’d only followed orders. That he’d never cast a curse himself. That it was all a misunderstanding.
But I remember…
The Ministry couldn’t, or wouldn’t, punish men like him.
But I’m not the Ministry.
Wizards in black wool gathered beneath a crooked sycamore tree, their faces drawn, their silence heavier than the dirt being shovelled over the coffin. Half of them looked inconvenienced. The other half looked guilty. Not one of them looked sad.
Draco Malfoy stood in the third row, unmoving, unnoticed.
He didn’t wear mourning robes like the rest. Instead, he stood out, intentionally, in a tailored black suit. The fabric was smooth, silent, pressed within an inch of perfection. Black dragonhide gloves clung to his hands like a second skin, unmarred by wear. His expression was composed, unreadable, a portrait of stillness beneath the bruised grey sky.
He doesn’t see me. Not yet. They never look behind them at their own ghosts.
There was no priest at the funeral. No eulogy. Just a Ministry functionary muttering half-hearted blessings over a box no one truly mourned.
Travers stood near the edge of the crowd, collar turned up, watching like a man evaluating whether he might be next.
He always lingered at funerals.
Maybe to gloat. Maybe to remember who else had gotten away.
Or maybe just to make sure the dead stayed that way.
Draco’s gaze flicked to the faces around him. Men and women who had whispered in Voldemort’s shadow, now wrapped in cashmere, faking sorrow.
He saw no remorse in their eyes, just calculation. Fear. Paranoia.
And Travers stood apart from them, near the edge of the crowd, collar pulled high, eyes scanning the field like a man who knew better than to be still for too long.
Funny.
All those years of blood on his hands, and he still had the nerve to show up like he was someone worth grieving with.
But not tonight
Draco’s gloves flexed slightly as he folded his arms.
The wind picked up. Someone behind him sniffed. Dirt hit the wood of the coffin with a dull, empty thud.
The Ministry official cleared his throat and muttered the final rites.
One by one, the others began to Disapparate, a rustle of robes. A few murmured farewells that no one meant.
Soon, only two figures remained beneath the sycamore tree.
Anton Travers.
And the man who had come to kill him.
Draco waited. Patient. Silent.
I’ve watched you walk free.
I’ve watched you dine, laugh, rebuild your name.
But you won’t walk away from me.
Anton Travers, now shuffling toward the edge of the graveyard with his collar pulled high against the chill…
…and Draco Malfoy, shadow-silent, gliding across the grass behind him.
The footsteps stopped.
Travers turned at the rustle, scowl already forming. Then froze.
“…Draco?”
Draco tilted his head. “Hello, Travers.”
There was a beat. Enough for recognition to settle in. Enough for Travers to twitch a hand toward his wand, too slow.
“Imperius,” Draco murmured.
The spell left his lips like breath, subtle and sharp. The wand it passed through wasn’t holstered at his side; it slipped silently from the tailored sleeve of his coat, black, foreign, and absolutely illegal.
A wand never registered. A spell never spoken twice. A crime no one could prove.
I don’t need pain.
I don’t need a scream.
I need obedience. And silence.
Travers blinked once.
Then his face slackened.
The scowl vanished. The tension melted from his shoulders. He stood still, eyes slightly glazed, as if soothed by a lullaby only he could hear.
Draco watched him for a moment, studying the stillness.
Funny how quickly the monsters quiet down when someone stronger whispers in their ear.
How easily they submit when there’s no one left to impress.
He stepped forward and clapped Travers lightly on the shoulder.
“Come,” he said softly. “We’ve got lots to discuss.”
And with that, Draco grabbed him by the arm and apparated away.
The world snapped out of place, then silence.
The hut, tucked deep in the Highland mist, nestled into the folds of the hills, did not exist on any map, neither magical nor Muggle. Here it contained his Purging Room, which was silent except for the crackle of firelight and the faint ticking of a Muggle watch mounted on the far wall, Draco’s own addition. He liked the sound. It marked time without emotion.
It didn’t beat like a heart.
It didn’t rush like breath.
It simply ticked. Forward. Unfeeling. I prefer it that way.
Anton Travers was slumped in an old wooden leather chair, arms pressed to the rests by a Sticking Charm, legs fused to the floorboards beneath him. The man blinked slowly, confused, as the last tendrils of the Imperius Curse receded.
His gaze darted around the dim space, stone walls, flickering shadows, and the faint scent of disinfectant.
It had to be clean.
Not for him—for me.
I don’t leave messes. I don’t leave reminders.
Justice is sharp. Controlled.
Sanitized.
Draco remained still in the dimness, just beyond the reach of the firelight, watching the fear begin to trickle into Travers' eyes.
This is the moment I always find the most honest.
Before the questions. Before the begging.
When they realize they’re alone. And no one’s coming to help them.
“Wh…where...what is this? What the fuck is going on?”
Draco stepped into the edge of the firelight, his shadow stretching long across the stone floor. The sleeves of his white shirt were neatly rolled to the elbows, revealing pale forearms dusted with faint scars and a faded Dark Mark. His gloves, the blue latex ones that muggle doctors wore, clung tight around his wrists like restraints he’d chosen for himself.
No one ever suspects the Muggle touch.
No magical signature. No trace of spellwork.
Just sterile, synthetic silence.
The Ministry doesn’t look for what it doesn’t understand.
And I prefer it that way .
In one fluid motion, he slid the black-market wand back into the pocket of his pants, the movement so smooth it looked rehearsed.
This part’s always messy. The mind reboots in panic. They always think it’s a mistake. A misunderstanding. As if justice ever asks for permission.
Travers jerked once against the invisible bonds. His voice cracked.
“Draco...listen...I didn’t...if this is about...”
Draco didn’t speak.
He knelt beside the chair, unbuttoned Travers’ left cuff, and pulled back the sleeve to reveal the faint ghost of the Dark Mark. Still there. Still pulsing beneath the skin, like a stain that refused to fade.
He uncapped a sterile syringe filled with opalescent fluid, T.27, his latest blend. Injected it directly into the forearm, right above the Mark.
Travers flinched. “What...what the hell did you...”
“This won’t take long,” Draco said, standing again. “But in the meantime, let’s have a little story time.”
He turned toward the stone floor, pulling the illegal wand from his pocket and waved it. A circular basin rose from a carved altar-like stand, a Pensieve, heavily modified. Small gears and Muggle projector pieces whirred to life around its rim. Draco extracted a shimmering thread of silver from Travers’ temple and dropped it into the basin.
The memory rose in a mist...
....projected on the wall in vivid, high-resolution light.
Travers whimpered, struggling against the Sticking Charm. “What is this? What’re you doing? I won’t...I don’t want to see...”
Draco’s jaw tightened, but his voice stayed level. Cold. Controlled.
“You’ll watch,” he said, stepping closer. “Or I’ll carve your throat open like parchment and cast the memory into the spray.”
Travers froze, eyes wide, breath hitched.
There it is. The moment they understand I’m not bluffing.
That this isn’t Ministry procedure, this is mine.
Draco turned back to the projection. With a flick of his wand, the image sharpened.
Shadows twisted into form.
“You remember this one,” he murmured. “Don’t you?”
They were in a dark chamber, one Draco knew too well. The Malfoy drawing room. Warped by shadow and cruelty.
A younger Draco, barely eighteen, screaming, thrashing against restraints. And Narcissa… Narcissa was on the floor, her hair tangled in Travers’s fist as he stood over her, wand alight.
He was laughing.
“You think you’re pure, bitch? Think the Dark Lord keeps broken dolls like you for anything but target practice?”
Narcissa lay on the cold stone floor, robes torn, blood blooming beneath her. Her breathing was ragged. Defiant. Still alive.
Travers kicked her hard in the ribs.
“Get up,” he hissed. “We’re not done.”
She tried, and failed, to rise. Her arms trembled. Her wrist was clearly broken.
Another Crucio. Narcissa convulsed, her scream sharp and wet, echoing through the chamber like a curse of its own.
Bound and gagged in the corner, young Draco thrashed against magical chains that bit into his skin. His eyes were wild. Tear-streaked. His voice cracked as he screamed behind the charm, silencing his mouth.
“Mmm...MUM...!”
Travers turned, delighting in the boy’s muffled panic. “He’s watching,” he cooed, voice syrupy with mockery. “You hear that, Cissy? He’s learning.”
Then, deliberately, slowly, he cast Vulnera Sanentur, not to heal, but to toy. Just enough to keep her conscious.
“Can't have you dying too fast now, can we? I am not done having my fun yet.”
He knelt beside her, brushing a blood-matted strand of blonde hair from her cheek.
“You were supposed to be royalty,” he whispered. “Look at you now. A traitor. A toy.”
Then he stood and slashed his wand again.
Draco in the memory screamed against the silence, thrashing until blood trickled from his wrists where the ropes bit deep.
His mother didn’t scream anymore. Just whimpered. Soft, like a dying animal. Her hand reached, just barely, toward her son.
“Draco…” she rasped.
Real Draco didn’t flinch. He’d watched it too many times in his mind.
Every scream etched into the back of my eyelids.
Every curse branded into the walls of my memory.
You don’t forget the sound your mother makes when she breaks.
Travers, gasped. “No...no, I didn’t...that wasn’t me...”
Draco turned slowly.
“I watched you break her bones one by one,” he said, voice flat. “I was bound two meters away. I screamed. You laughed.”
He stepped forward, letting his shadow fall across the other man. Then he knelt in front of Travers.
“Soon, you’ll feel a tingling in your legs, like pins and needles. It’ll creep upward. Slow. First, your knees. Then your thighs. Then your diaphragm will seize. That’s when I’ll watch you struggle to breathe. Just like she did.”
Travers was sobbing now, no longer dignified, no longer dangerous. Just a crumpled, trembling thing in a chair.
“Please...Draco...please...I was ordered...I didn’t mean to...” He choked on the words, gasping as the paralysis in his limbs began to creep toward his chest. “I didn’t mean to kill her...I swear...”
Draco tilted his head, eyes unreadable.
“She died,” he said quietly. “Screaming my name.”
Travers tried to suck in another breath. His chest hitched, lungs tightening.
Draco lifted his wand, no flare, no flourish, and cast a Silencio.
The room fell still. No more begging. No more lies. Just the faint rattle of air in a throat already losing its battle.
I don’t need to hear it.
None of it brings her back.
Draco stepped back and watched.
Fifteen minutes.
That’s how long it took for the poison to shut him down.
Draco didn’t move.
He simply stood, arms crossed, watching every failed breath, every tear, every desperate movement until there were no more. Until Travers’ eyes went wide… then still… then glassy.
Death is quiet when it’s earned.
No speeches. No redemption.
Just the body doing what it does best—breaking .
He waited another sixty seconds.
Then stepped forward, retrieving the second vial, the collection one.
He pressed the wand to the man’s temple and slowly pulled the final memory free. It slid from the skin like silk, pale and trembling, coiling inside the vial like fog trapped in glass.
He held it up to the firelight, watching the swirl.
It shimmered.
Beautiful.
My trophy. His ending. Justice, distilled.
He corked it, sealed it, and slid it into the case inside his other pant pocket.
Then he got to work.
Draco rolled his shoulders once, resetting his focus. The ritual was never finished with the death—it ended with the erasure.
With a slow exhale, he raised the wand.
“Scourgify.”
He moved methodically, layering the spell over every surface, wall, floor, and ceiling. Another sweep over the chair, the restraints, the air itself.
Blood. Skin cells. Magical residue. Intent. Gone.
No threads left for someone to pull.
No mistakes. Ever.
He knelt briefly, checking under the floorboards he’d charmed years ago. Still solid. Still sterile.
Then, without a flicker of hesitation, using the black-market wand, its core pulsing faintly, illegally responsive, beautifully untraceable.
Draco pointed it at the corpse.
“Transfigurare.”
The body shimmered, contorting inward as limbs folded and flesh flattened, until the figure collapsed into something deceptively benign.
A worn black book, bound in cracked leather, the spine stitched with faint threads of silver. The cover bore no title, only a blank space where a name used to live.
They all become stories in the end.
And I keep the pages.
He picked it up carefully, latex gloves still snug on his hands, no trace left behind.
The room is silent now. Not with peace, just absence.
Draco slipped the transfigured book into his coat and stepped into the cold Highland air. No wind. No birds. Just a stretch of grey sky draped over the hills like a burial shroud.
He paused on the threshold, then reached into the inner pocket of his coat.
The silver glint caught the firelight as he withdrew the mask, his old Death Eater mask, polished clean, expressionless. It had no place in the world anymore.
Except here.
He slipped it over his face with the same precision he used for everything else. Not sentiment. Not nostalgia.
Camouflage.
Some ghosts are easier to become than outrun.
A final check of his gloves. The weight of the book. The silence of the hut.
Then, without a word, he Apparated directly into Travers’ home.
Quiet. Opulent. Empty.
The air smelled like old money and expensive dust. He stood in the foyer, gaze sweeping across polished floors, high ceilings, and family portraits that loomed in silence.
Their painted eyes tracked movement.
Of course they did.
With a quiet breath, Draco drew his black-market wand and murmured, “Disillusio.”
The magic slid over his skin like ice water, bending light around his form until he vanished into the marble and shadow.
Just in case one of them had something to say.
Portraits love to watch, and worse, they remember.
He moved soundlessly across the room, the soles of his boots silent against the polished stone. Ornate sconces flickered as he passed, casting light over velvet drapes, gilded frames, too much wealth for too little soul.
So much power. So little consequence.
You always thought you were untouchable, didn’t you, Travers?
But everyone gets their ending.
Then, with a flick of his wand, the book unraveled back into flesh.
Draco stood over him a moment, expression unreadable beneath the mask still upon his face.
Then, casting a levitation spell, the body lifted gently into the air, limbs hanging limp, head tilted sideways like a broken marionette.
He guided it through the grand hallway, past portraits that were still under the Disillusio charm, up the wide staircase where every step echoed like a heartbeat against the marble. The chandelier above shivered slightly in the draft.
You always strutted like a king.
Fitting you die like a rat.
The bedroom door creaked open at his approach.
Draco floated the corpse to the edge of the bed, then lowered it with care, like setting a child down for rest. He smoothed the collar and arranged the limbs with surgical precision. Placed Travers’ wand beside his hand and tilted his head just enough to look like he was sleeping.
Peace looks good on monsters.
Pity it only comes after they’ve stopped breathing.
He stood at the foot of the bed for one long, cold second.
Then, slowly, he peeled the blue latex gloves from his hands, one finger at a time. They came away slick and silent, clinging like regret. With a flick of his black-market wand, he murmured a charm not found in any Ministry-approved textbook.
The gloves disintegrated midair, curling into ash before they touched the ground.
Draco turned without another glance.
One final crack of Apparition, and he was gone.
By morning, London was bathed in pale light.
The Ministry’s atrium glittered with its usual enchantment: warm, golden, deliberately artificial. A sunrise made for people who couldn’t bear to look outside. Draco sat at his desk, freshly showered and crisply dressed, reviewing a case file about dark object smuggling in Knockturn Alley. The scent of ink and enchanted parchment filled the air.
To the world, he was exactly who he was supposed to be.
Auror Draco Malfoy. Top investigator. Efficient. Professional. Polished.
The illusion is the easy part: the robes, the hair, the practiced smirk. It’s what they expected. And no one ever suspects what they expect.
"Morning, Malfoy," said a familiar voice.
Draco looked up. Harry Potter stood nearby with two cups of tea, his usual attempt at diplomacy.
“Potter,” Draco replied smoothly. “Looking more sleep-deprived than usual.”
Harry smirked. “That’s what you get when your twins decide sleep is a myth and jam belongs on everything, including the cat.”
Draco raised an eyebrow. “I don’t miss domesticity.”
“You’re one spilled cauldron from it,” Harry said, placing the tea down.
Doubtful. My life’s a little less toddlers and toast, a little more poison and precision.
Before Draco could reply, the office door swung open and slammed into the wall with a loud thwack.
“Oi! You lot having a tea party without me?” Blaise Zabini strolled in, tie half-done, shirt untucked, grinning like he’d just slept with someone’s wife, and probably had.
Harry sighed. “Morning, Blaise.”
Blaise leaned over Draco’s desk, sniffed the tea, and wrinkled his nose. “That’s what passes for foreplay around here now? Two cups of Earl Grey and a postmortem?”
Draco didn’t look up from his file. “Your tie’s on backwards.”
“Yeah?” Blaise winked. “So was her dress.”
Harry groaned into his tea.
Blaise clapped Draco on the shoulder as he passed. “Try not to look so smug, mate. People will think you’re up to something.”
Then he sauntered off toward his own desk, whistling something wildly inappropriate under his breath.
Then came another sound, heavier, angrier. Footsteps like thunder.
Ron Weasley stormed in with all the subtlety of a dragon in a china shop.
He dropped a folder onto Draco’s desk hard enough to rattle the ink pot. His face was flushed. His glare was venomous.
The folder hit his desk like a curse.
Draco didn’t flinch. Just turned the page of his report with steady fingers, pen gliding smoothly across the margin.
Of course, it’s him.
The one who used to call me a coward is now the one sniffing at my heels like a bloodhound with a grudge.
It’s almost poetic, if poetry were written in pub curses and stale tea.
Ron leaned over him, eyes blazing. “Travers died last night,” he said.
Draco’s pen didn’t pause. “Interesting,” he murmured. “From what?”
Ron stared at him.
“Heart failure,” he said flatly. “But I think you already knew that…didn’t you, you creepy-ass psycho.”
Draco finally looked up, slow, unbothered. Like someone pulled from a pleasant thought, not accused of murder.
He smiled faintly. “Careful, Weasley. You keep projecting like that, and someone might think you're obsessed.”
Harry sighed and stepped between them, but Ron was already leaning in, eyes wide.
Ron’s glare could have set parchment on fire.
“Twelve fuckin’ bodies in the last eighteen months,” he snapped. “All of them are war criminals. All of them walked free. All of them just… croak. No signs. No spells. Nothing.”
He jabbed a finger toward Draco, fury burning behind his eyes.
“And somehow, you’re always nearby,” Ron said, voice low and bitter. “Always untouched. Never the victim. Just the bastard in the corner watching it all burn. Like some posh Grim Reaper in designer robes, just a little too convenient, Malfoy.”
Draco turned a page with deliberate care, voice mild. “I suppose I’m just lucky.”
Ron’s fist slammed the desk.
“It’s not luck. It’s you. I don’t know how, and I don’t know when, but one day, I’m going to catch you doing whatever twisted shit you’re actually up to.”
Draco looked up, unfazed. “Is that suspicion, Weasley? Or unresolved trauma?”
Ron’s jaw locked.
“Call it what you want,” he growled. “I still don’t trust you. And I never will.”
Harry pulled him back by the sleeve. “That’s enough, mate.”
“No. It’s not enough,” Ron growled, voice low and sharp. “Every time another one of these bastards drops, you’re in the vicinity. Close enough to smell the blood, but never a drop on you. Like you're circling the drain without ever falling in.
He jabbed a thumb in Draco’s direction without looking.
“One of these days, Harry, one of these days I’m gonna wipe that smug look off his face with the trial he should’ve had years ago.”
Draco didn’t flinch. Didn’t look up.
There it is again. The fantasy of justice.
They want it neat. Wrapped in parchment and Ministry stamps.
But there’s nothing neat about war. Or what comes after.
“Until then,” Draco said calmly, “please keep the volume down. Some of us are working.”
Ron stormed out, muttering curses under his breath.
Harry remained behind, his expression somewhere between tired and apologetic.
“He’s wound too tight lately.”
Always the peacekeeper. Always trying to glue back together the world we broke.
“He’s always wound too tight.”
Harry exhaled slowly like he’d been holding the tension in his ribs.
“You know he hasn’t been the same since the war,” he said quietly. “Especially after… everything with Hermione.”
Draco raised an eyebrow. “You mean the part where she left him and didn’t look back?”
Harry didn’t flinch. “It wrecked him more than he lets on. He was always the one holding grudges. Now he just holds them tighter.”
A pause stretched between them, thick with things neither of them wanted to say.
Then Harry gave a wry smile, reaching into his coat. “Speaking of grudges…”
He slid a slim file across the desk.
“St. Mungo’s today. Hermione wants your help with a toxicology review of Travers’ death.”
Draco took the file. “Does she suspect something?”
Harry shook his head. “No. She just… knows something doesn’t add up. And you know Hermione, if there’s a puzzle she can’t solve, it keeps her up at night.”
Draco crossed his arms and leaned back into his chair. “A puzzle without pieces.”
“Exactly.”
Harry’s footsteps faded into the corridor, leaving only the soft tick of the enchanted clock on the far wall. Silence settled like ash.
He glanced at the folder again. Still closed. Still whispering her name.
She’ll keep digging. Of course she will. That’s what makes her brilliant. And dangerous.
But even she can’t solve what was never meant to be found.
I don’t leave pieces, I leave doubt.
Doubt is safer.
Doubt doesn’t leave evidence.
He exhaled once, slow and measured, then turned back to his parchment.
So, I do what I always do.
I go back to work.
The morning passed in calm efficiency. Paperwork. Reports. No bodies. No questions.
By midday, Draco stepped into the Ministry courtyard, watching the enchanted vines shift lazily across the stonework. He leaned against a pillar, coat fluttering in the breeze.
Somewhere beneath the flagstones and illusions, a memory vial waited in his pocket, still faintly warm.
Somewhere in the west garden of Malfoy Manor, his greenhouse shimmered under layers of protection, growing poison that no one had yet discovered.
Somewhere in the bowels of St. Mungo’s, Hermione Granger was sharpening her intellect like a scalpel, searching for ghosts no one else could see.
He pushed off the pillar and crossed toward the apparition point.
Time to play the part. Top Auror. Helpful coworker. Harmless Draco.
But just as he stepped into the archway, something caught his eye across the courtyard, a flicker of movement, a too-familiar gait.
Walden Macnair.
The man walked with the confidence of someone who believed his sins were forgotten.
Draco’s jaw tightened.
Not yet.
Not tonight.
But soon.
He Disapparated with a soft crack, the image of Macnair already taking root in the quiet dark corners of his mind.
Next stop: St. Mungo’s.
And after that… the hunt would begin again.