Chapter Text
Draco learned in school that omegas were special, though his family avoided the subject. Magic flows through connections between people. Omegas serve as conduits for magical power.
A subpar alpha becomes a master with an omega at their side. The old tales claim Merlin was a mediocre wizard who relied on his omega children to magnify his abilities. No alpha has their own magic. They need an omega.
Omegas form the foundation of an alpha’s strength.
But, for reasons he cannot understand, Draco is unserviceable as an omega. The Dark Lord’s regime found no use for him. Draco’s fears about that were left unfounded. The Death Eaters barely glanced his way.
Draco fights the urge to ask his father outright if he’s defective. Omegas wield immense power as magical sources, creating magic to be transferred to alphas. Their magic, their devotion, their love is the most powerful force in the Wizarding World.
Yet, no one wants to love Draco.
* * *
Five years after the war, Draco is on his way back to Azkaban after violating his parole.
Goyle is now Draco’s solicitor. The bumbling fool is Draco’s only defence against a life sentence. That’s a terrifying thought.
“Draco—” Greg starts. Whatever he planned to say dies on his lips. Draco stares at his hands and refuses to meet Goyle’s eyes until his name is repeated. Goyle sounds much gentler when he tries again. “Draco…”
“Where were you?” Draco asks. They were supposed to meet hours ago and Goyle is late.
“Had a hearing,” Goyle elaborates, though that explains nothing.
Draco arches a brow. Lucius funded Goyle’s entire legal education. Goyle only graduated two years ago, and he’s shit at practising law. The thought that he might have other clients never crossed Draco’s mind. Who else would hire him?
“I’ve got a good solicitor, I’ll probably get off,” Goyle continues dryly.
It takes Draco a minute to get it. Goyle could be joking, but he very well might not be. Draco decides he doesn’t want to know.
“If you weren’t stumbling around the red light district, maybe you’d remember your job,” Draco says, speaking directly into the little red phone to ensure Goyle hears him. Goyle, a weak and pathetic beta, flinches. He looks downright skittish around Muggle technology. “Your only job, which I pay you very well for, is keeping me out of Azkaban.”
“You could pay me better.”
Draco glares.
“Violent crimes aren’t my speciality.” Goyle shifts uncomfortably, his face pinched like he’s swallowing vinegar. “Draco, I know underneath it all, you’re actually qui—”
The phone cracks against the desk with enough force to rattle the glass divider between them. Draco doesn’t need to hear the end of that sentence. If he wanted to be preached at, he could talk to Pansy. Or Narcissa. Or anybody.
“This—” Goyle’s voice crackles, and Draco can still hear him clearly from where the receiver lies on the desk. “This is exactly what the Wizengamot hates about you. Why can’t you show them what they want to see?”
Draco snatches up the phone again, his voice heavy with bitterness. “The omega? You want me to parade around as some helpless, alpha-starved weakling?”
Goyle’s face is strained with frustration. “Not exactly! An omega pushed to their limit! How else could an alpha like Dolohov end up dead?”
Draco scoffs, fingertips pressing white against the plastic red phone. “So now I’m supposed to grovel? Beg their forgiveness because my biology made me do it?”
“Well?” Goyle asks, waving his hands theatrically. “Why else would you do it?”
Draco rolls his eyes.
“I still think we have something in your relationship with Narcissa—”
“Ugh, Goyle, please.” Draco leans his head back and stares at the ceiling. “Fuck off, please.”
“Did you kill Dolohov for sport?” Goyle asks flatly. “Because if that’s your defence, I can’t fucking help you. Enjoy finding some desperate bastard to mate with in Azkaban. Save yourself some anguish and get on your knees for the first taker.”
Draco doesn’t believe he murdered Dolohov in cold blood, but he’s offended that Goyle doesn’t think he has it in him. And he doesn’t want the Wizengamot knowing about his pathetic withdrawal symptoms. Nobody in that lot will buy Goyle’s argument that criminal activity stems from a lack of alpha attention.
“Why not just take my confession and throw me in Azkaban now?” Draco snaps. “Or better yet, leave me here to rot?”
Goyle winces. “You pose a threat to the statute of security here.” This is true. “The prosecution’s filed notice that you’re…”
His face contorts like he’s tasting sour when he expected sweet.
“Oh, come on, spit it out already, you coward.”
“Detruit,” Goyle whispers, though the guards here wouldn’t understand the term. “Tell me it isn’t true.”
Goyle is using the professional term for a rejected omega. The magic building up inside Draco is driving him mad. As an omega, he can’t channel most of the magic he produces, so eventually it’ll target his brain. Another three years like this, and he’d destroy half the B-block where he’s currently imprisoned.
“Why the hell’d you do it anyway?” Greg asks, leaning back in his chair. “The pictures were brilliant, though. That Muggle gun… inspired, really.”
Greg likes the gory details. Draco ignores him.
“When’s the Ministry sending someone to get me out?”
* * *
Hermione Granger is the ministry lackey. She comes to collect him later that week.
Draco isn’t surprised to see her—Granger is always where he least wants to see her—but his mother is another matter entirely. What shocks him most is Greg standing there beside them both, looking bored, but on time and in dress robes. Miracles do happen, apparently.
Narcissa begins the conversation. “Do you know that you’re bleeding?”
It happened yesterday morning, and the cut must have reopened. Draco doesn’t remember the incident at all—which, as Greg so lovingly pointed out, means his excess magic is frying what’s left of his brain.
“He got himself beaten up like an idiot,” Greg laughs. “Some thug nicked our precious Draco’s library books.”
“—I got them back!” Draco insists.
“You got yourself a real nice souvenir there,” Greg chuckles. He gestures to the gash on Draco’s cheek, covered by gauze. “What a pretty omega.”
Draco swats his hand away, scowling.
Granger tuts, reminding Draco that she’s there. “We’ll get you to St. Mungo’s soon enough, Malfoy.” She turns to Goyle. “Why didn’t you get him out sooner? A Wixen prisoner can be transferred to Ministry custody by their solicitor if you register the transfer and confund the Muggle warden. It’s perfectly allowed.”
“Do you think I can confund anybody? My charms are shit,” Greg tells her. “Besides, it does Dray good to rot here and get his head on straight.”
“Oh, what a solicitor this is! Leaving me to marinate!” Draco exclaims, unable to help himself from joining in the banter.
“You could’ve taken a Ministry escort,” Granger says, missing the sarcasm entirely.
“He made so many friends here, though,” Greg says, motioning again to the big cut on Draco’s face.
Greg, ever the drama queen, bickers with Granger all through Draco’s brief stint at St. Mungo’s and his subsequent return to house arrest. Draco stops listening somewhere between “clerical error” and “unforeseen circumstances.”
Narcissa’s presence baffles him. She offers no warmth, only clinical detachment. When Draco first presented, she had been quick with affection, a haven for him to channel his magic. Now she avoids touch entirely, withdrawing from both him and Lucius. Draco gave up trying to understand it long ago.
Without regular contact with an omega, Narcissa likely struggles to perform even the simplest spells.
“Rose garden…” Draco mumbles, the words sluggish and heavy. He’s slumped in a chair at the window. Beyond the glass, there’s nothing but neatly trimmed hedges as far as he can see.
Granger’s hand lands on his shoulder, startling him enough that her name slips his mind entirely.
“Lovegood, could you pass me that blanket?” Draco asks, picturing the only girl he’s ever seen lingering in the Manor.
Granger—because she is Granger, not Looney Lovegood—frowns.
He takes the blanket from her, not remembering why he even wanted it.
“How have the past three days been?” Granger asks, frowning a little. “It’s hard to get a read from Goyle.”
Three days. Draco left the London prison three days ago?
It’s getting worse.
“Do you see a rose garden?” Granger asks, following Draco’s gaze out the window.
Draco squints at the window, forcing his eyes to focus. There’s nothing out there but those bloody hedges, trimmed to death, and yet he could’ve sworn—he knows he saw roses.
“Why are you here anyway?” Draco asks her.
“I’m a public advocate. I work with defendants and prisoners,” Granger says. “I was assigned because your case is sensitive.”
“I have a solicitor,” Draco says, gesturing vaguely to Greg, who was standing by the hearth, but now isn’t.
Granger gets his meaning anyway. “He’s been suspended too many times. I have to supervise.”
Draco zones out into the hedges again.
* * *
Draco goes to Azkaban the following week because he was already planning it. Draco and his mother are permitted two visits with Lucius every six months.
“A fun little tour of your new accommodations?” Greg asks, scribbling through the sign-in paperwork while some sour-faced Auror watches like a hawk.
“Save it, I’m not in the mood,” Draco says.
Something in his expression must convince Greg that he’s being honest, because he shuts up.
“This is filled out wrong,” the Auror tells Greg, handing back the paperwork.
“Merlin’s beard,” Draco says, snatching the paperwork from Greg before he can make it worse. He examines it but can’t spot any errors apart from Goyle’s atrocious handwriting.
Greg leans over and crosses out something innocuous, and then they’re allowed to see Lucius.
Lucius looks pale and sick when they arrive, already speaking to Narcissa. They stand two feet apart on opposite sides of the cell. His mother doesn’t touch him, doesn’t collect any magic, though she’s perfectly within her rights to. It’s impossible to understand.
Greg claps his big hands together loudly. “Have we discussed Draco’s recent career accomplishments?”
Lucius glares, but he turns to Greg without so much as a glance in Draco’s direction. For whatever reason, Lucius has always taken Goyle seriously and trusted his judgment. They’re both alcoholic deviants, so perhaps that explains the kinship.
“Is there a trial strategy in place?” Lucius inquires of Greg.
Goyle turns to Narcissa. “It would help if you were there looking like a loving, supportive alpha mother, who wouldn’t have a detruit omega son.”
Draco and Lucius exchange a glance. They know that would be impossible, with the frosty way Narcissa conducts herself as the family alpha.
“For how long?” Narcissa asks.
“Fifteen minutes or so?” Draco interrupts when Greg opens his mouth. “Is that doable?”
“More like ten, even,” Greg says, shrugging.
“Some excellent support in this family, as always,” Lucius comments.
Narcissa pivots sharply. Greg scrambles after her, nattering on about whatever tedious legal bollocks needs sorting. Draco mostly keeps Goyle on the payroll for this exact reason: keeping his mother engaged.
Even the guards look shocked, staring at Narcissa’s retreating back. Though Draco and his father are criminals, they are still omegas. It’s strange, to other people, that she refuses to touch them.
Draco has never discussed his dynamic with his father, though their stories mirror each other. After seven years of avoiding the topic, it has become increasingly uncomfortable whenever it is nudged.
Finally, Lucius says, with a signature sneer, “You look awful.”
That’s a bit hypocritical for Draco’s taste. “There’s not a lot I can do about it, is there?”
He means it to sound bitter and accusatory, but it comes out as a genuine question. Standing in his father’s cell, soon to be identical to his own, makes maintaining the performance of Draco’s personality exhausting.
Lucius scoffs. “Find an alpha. I’m sure Goyle could arrange something for you.”
Draco would love to scream. Of course, he should have an alpha. Unfortunately, his chances of finding someone suitable are shit. Even if by some miracle things worked out somehow, someway, with somebody, it’s laughable that Lucius thinks it would help. His father’s been in withdrawal for years. Despite marrying the ideal pureblood alpha witch, he still suffers.
Lucius is not detruit, a small voice in Draco’s head reminds him. Lucius is not clinically insane from his withdrawal.
Draco maintains intense eye contact, hoping it will be enough to prompt Lucius to address the elephant in the room. It doesn’t work.
“Do you feel better with your alpha?”
“You have to keep the animal in check, Draco.”
In all his life, Draco has never associated his omega with an animal. It’s not something he’s proud of, to be certain, but the omega traits have always been a part of him. Not something separate. Not an animal.
Absurdly and embarrassingly, this comment makes Draco’s eyes sting. Draco craves affection and approval as much as anyone. Lucius is usually more understanding. Out of all the idiots he has encountered in the past few days, Draco assumed his father would read between the lines of the broken-parole-drug-dealer story.
Draco is more upset that his foolish tears are such a typical omega trait.
Lucius is doing a remarkable job of ignoring him. “Do you see me crying every time something goes awry, Draco?”
No. He doesn’t.
“Not all omegas are submissive fools.” This suggests that Draco is one. “Not all of us need an alpha tucking us in at night.” Another dig meant for him. “And no omega requires an alpha to wield magic.” That much is undeniable. “We are the most powerful of wizards. Our only weakness is ourselves.”
So, the solution is constant incompleteness. The answer is longing glances at every alpha on the streets. He’s meant to embrace his magical power, even though he knows it will unravel his mind.
“I’m not enjoying the trade-off.”
For a fleeting second, Lucius’s expression softens. Just as fast, his usual poise returns. “Ask Goyle if you can visit when you’re sent to Azkaban permanently.”
Lucius doesn’t pretend that Draco won’t soon be in his own cell. For that, Draco is grateful.
* * *
The next two weeks are a countdown of bitter torture until his trial. It will be a farce. Draco will plead guilty and be sent to City Holding for one night. Afterward, Goyle will have the dubious honour of delivering a deranged omega to an Azkaban cell and sealing the door for good.
The cavernous halls of Malfoy Manor stay unbearably quiet, empty save for the echoing footsteps of two insufferable individuals. His mother putters with endless cups of tea while that oaf Goyle lumbers through rooms like a lost troll. Neither offers good conversation.
Draco talks to the portraits more often than not, if only because their sneering insults show some creativity. He can practically feel the madness creeping in at the edges.
Goyle assures him he is legally allowed to go wherever he pleases, as long as he doesn’t leave the country.
He apparates beyond the wards to Pansy’s building, where she spots him from her balcony the moment he materializes in the alley below and waves him upstairs.
He sits awkwardly across from her, mirroring every uncomfortable conversation he’s ever endured with his parents. She sips whiskey while he pours himself a drink without asking.
“Slow down,” she cautions. “You’re close to your heat.”
That comment throws him a little. “What if I’d never fuck you in a million years, with or without heat?”
She tilts her head to the side. This has been a large point of contention for them over the years. “Wouldn’t fuck me again, with or without heat.”
Draco’s face heats up, which is exactly what she wants. Draco’s conversations with his friends always have a certain sharp edge.
“I’m not going into heat,” Draco says honestly. He sniffs the air, detecting no trace of the sugar-sweet omega scent that would indicate it. He frowns into his glass, trying to find his place in the conversation.
Pansy looks a little confused. “How can I help you, Draco?”
Draco sighs, feeling his blush travel down his neck. “I’m going to Azkaban. I’m in withdrawal. My only chance is the bite.”
A bonding bite means ownership. Pansy’s a beta, so the magic transfer would be weak, but better than nothing. At least it would be visible—protection in prison and something for his weak omega mind to cling to during withdrawal. Draco suspects it’s the reason his father hasn’t gone detruit.
“You’d only be half alive,” Pansy says, taking a slow sip. “I’m not planning to marry you. We don’t have any sort of real relationship.” She hesitates. “And… you don’t want a beta.”
“I know.”
“Go home. Heats are so arbitrary these days. You don’t need me.” She pities him. “I’m not going to bite you. Merlin.”
“I’m not in heat!”
“Sorry. Your magic is so overwhelming, even I can sense it.” Her nose wrinkles, which is odd. Betas shouldn’t react this strongly to his scent. “I don’t understand your mother. You’re suffocating under a blanket of magic, and you’re not even in pre-heat, so you say. How much magic do you have? Don’t alphas crave power like yours?”
Nobody understands what Narcissa wants. Hearing Pansy repeat the same platitudes only sharpens his irritation.
“If you know of any alphas with such a magical requirement, tell them to send me an owl,” Draco says, voice returning to a sarcastic drawl.
“Hmm, let me count the alphas with extraordinary power reserves that I know of,” Pansy hums. She gets an odd glint in her eye. “The Dark Lord and his followers are gone, save for Dolohov, whom you recently killed—”
“—Allegedly,” Draco tries.
“—Allegedly,” Pansy repeats, with a roll of her kohl-rimmed eyes. “Blaise told me that Andromeda Black is an alpha.”
“Perfect! A third Black sister to permanently damage my psyche,” Draco says. He furrows his brow. “How would Blaise know that anyway?”
“The Yaxley sisters,” Pansy says, as if it’s obvious. Draco hasn’t heard from either of them in years, not since before the war. But Pansy doesn’t act like that’s news, so maybe Draco missed Blaise’s latest gossip—what with going insane and all. Pansy continues, “…and there’s always Potter.”
“Excuse me? Aren’t I incompatible with betas?”
It’s easier to fixate on that instead of the Harry Potter of it all. Pansy’s trying to provoke him, but he’s not falling into that trap.
“Potter isn’t a beta,” Pansy says.
“What are you talking about?” Draco is not that screwed up in the head, not yet. He went to school with Potter and was singularly focused on him for years. Potter is a beta.
“You know, if you’re going to live abroad, you should at least read the Prophet,” she tells him. “Ask Greg about it. He got disbarred, the first time, for screaming about this at the Hog’s Head with Aberforth.”
“I remember,” Draco snaps. “That was about disorderly conduct.”
“He was getting in fights with locals about our saviour,” Pansy says. “Everybody thought he was a beta, but somehow, after he killed the Dark Lord, it came out he was an alpha. Bastard must have been taking suppressants.”
Draco’s omega thrums with a weird, restless need. He still doesn’t believe it. It’s the kind of thing that Pansy would make up, to wind Draco up on purpose. It doesn’t make sense that Potter wouldn’t want to be an alpha.
“How is Greg these days?”
“Complete rubbish,” Draco offers.
“He’s doing his best for you,” Pansy says, though the corners of her mouth twitch. Goyle’s incompetence never fails to amuse her.
“He’s the finest solicitor I can afford after the Ministry bled me dry.”
“Well, you’re his only client. Must be nice having his undivided focus.”
Draco remembers being incensed at the thought that he might not be Greg’s only client. He doesn’t need to tell Pansy that, obviously.
“He handled his own divorce, so technically I’m not his only client,” Draco shoots back, grinning.
They laugh, and the sound settles something in him. He loves Pansy. Misses her, even. Time with her quiets his omega, that restless thing inside him always clawing for attention. He lingers in her easy companionship, relishing it, if just for a few hours.
Just before he floos back to the Manor, Draco sabotages the moment.
“If I die in Azkaban, that’s your fault,” he says. It’s meant to be a joke.
“You won’t.” Pansy frowns. “You’re not Celeste, you know.”
Bitter, hot rage boils in Draco’s throat. He wants to spit something truly vile at Pansy just for mentioning Celeste Yaxley’s name. She’s the only detruit omega he’s ever known, and Pansy knows exactly how much her descent into madness unsettled him.
He wants to lean over her balcony and scream, “I am detruit!” for all of Wizarding London to hear. Maybe it’s a shred of self-control, his last desperate grip on sanity, that keeps him quiet.
* * *
Granger drags him to the Ministry on trial day, muttering something about Goyle showing up hungover—as if that’s news. The disapproval etched across her face is almost amusing, really; apparently, his solicitor’s questionable life choices offend her delicate sensibilities.
“It’s fine,” Draco says, cutting her off before she can start. He feels eager to reassure her, for some reason. “Greg actually functions better when he’s half-cut. Something about the alcohol loosens whatever’s stuck in his skull.”
Granger doesn’t find that funny.
Draco looks worse than his father, though he wouldn’t admit it. Granger, of course, notices. She hands him a stick of concealer when they round the corner to the courtroom.
Disorienting dreams kept him awake all night. He woke hyperventilating, the metallic tang of his distress clinging to him. Today, his skin stretches tight over the sharp angles of his face, flesh sinking into violet smudges beneath his eyes. His crisp dress robes only emphasize the dishevelled state. Loose threads fray at the sleeves, evidence of a common omegan nervous habit. Draco keeps picking at it idly.
“Hey, what’d I miss?” Goyle asks, dropping into the seat beside Draco.
“Oh, nothing,” Draco says, stepping in before Granger can start an outraged rant. “Just the usual. Just praying I don’t get myself killed in a cell before autumn.”
“Well, if that’s all,” Greg says.
His briefcase unlatches, sending papers flying all over the floor and into the middle of the Wizengamot courtroom.
Granger sighs and moves into Goyle’s seat while they watch him bumble around gathering the papers. Draco notices half of them are blank. Goyle struggles to pick them all up quickly, his movements hampered by tight trousers. The spectacle would be amusing if not for the circumstances.
“It’s not a full criminal session. Dolohov wasn’t well-liked, and that could work in your favour. You’ll have ten Wizengamot members deciding your fate.” Granger leans in so that Draco can hear her when her voice pitches to a whisper. “They’ll argue that you’re detruit and too dangerous for society.”
In spite of everything, Draco feels proud that people find him to be too dangerous.
Gregory Goyle’s brilliant strategy to lessen Draco’s sentence proves humiliating. He calls a healer to the stand, who explains to the courtroom that Draco’s condition stems from isolation—no pack, no scent-marking, no stabilizing touches. His magic remains intact while his mind deteriorates. It’s the opposite for alphas, who keep their mental clarity but can’t generate magic.
Going directly against his client’s wishes might be excusable if it actually proved to reduce Draco’s sentence. But with prison now inevitable, perhaps the sentence even extended, this spectacle will achieve nothing.
Narcissa arrives at the next recess, prepared to perform her ten minutes of maternal support.
“Interesting strategy that Mr. Goyle has,” she says coolly. She evidently saw the end of the healer’s speech on the witness stand.
Draco only tuts, leaning his head to the side to crack his neck.
“Nothing to say on the matter?”
“Goyle’s very good,” Draco says automatically. He’s said it for years.
Granger occupies the bench behind Draco throughout the trial, her knuckles whitening where she grips the wood. She looks increasingly frantic.
“Don’t you have somewhere else to be?” Greg asks her when they settle back in. “I’m serious!” he insists against her withering stare. “Shouldn’t you be off championing some other defenceless prisoner?”
“Not a prisoner yet,” Draco reminds him.
“And I’m not drunk, but I will be later,” Greg says. “See how that works?”
Greg gets called to the stand to give the High Inquisitor something or other; Draco doesn’t really care.
“He is terrible,” Granger sniffs under her breath.
“Obviously,” Draco says. “But he’d walk through fire for me, albeit poorly. What more could I ask for in a solicitor?”
“Intelligence?” Granger offers. “Sobriety?”
Draco doesn’t have to respond because Goyle starts talking again. He paints a lovely, completely untrue picture of Draco as some pitiful omega harassed by a big, bad alpha. He was so terrified and wounded that he snapped and shot Dolohov in the face for no reason.
It takes great effort not to roll his eyes.
No surprise, the Dolohovs have hired a sharper solicitor. The man is wearing scent blockers, but Draco can tell he’s an alpha. His bicep is the size of Draco’s head, and he has the ugly face of a bulldog.
He’s done his research. He describes Draco’s five-year stint peddling Muggle drugs under Dolohov’s employ perfectly.
Narcissa arches a single perfect eyebrow at the revelation.
Goyle looks furious, which is rich coming from him. As if he has any moral high ground to stand on. It’s not like Greg’s a paragon of virtue.
He leans in, his voice a sharp whisper. “Thanks for leaving nothing out, Draco.”
He says it as if better preparation would have made a difference.
Greg and Narcissa had been perfectly content pocketing his checks without asking questions. But now, at trial, they’re suddenly scandalized that he hasn’t been dutifully shuffling papers at Gringotts all this time. Like either of them actually cared where the money came from!
They should have known better. People always choose money over pride, even omegas.
Draco steps onto the witness stand. Dolohov’s solicitor leans forward, his tone clipped. “Relay the events exactly as they happened.”
“It’s simple,” Draco says, because it should be. “I collect the drugs in London, pack them in a suitcase. I confund the security officers. I board the plane to Moscow, deliver the case to—” his voice stutters.
“To whom, Mr. Malfoy?”
The memory flickers into a flash of a tan trench coat and wide brown eyes. “A Muggle,” he says.
The bulldog’s scowl deepens. “Explain how you dropped the suitcase in Moscow after the murder of Antonin Dolohov in London that same day.”
The story doesn’t add up, and Draco knows it. He boarded that plane with the drugs. He remembers the return trip, handing the empty case to some bearded bloke who looked alarmingly like Dumbledore.
“I thought it was a Muggle…” Draco’s throat tightens, “but it was Dolohov.”
Draco can’t recall a bloody thing. He woke covered in blood with a mangled corpse underneath him, face clawed to pieces and unrecognizable. Explaining his fractured memories on the stand would be pointless. Nobody here would believe he has fugue states anyway, except maybe Greg, and what good would that do?
Draco’s lungs refuse to fill. Panic crawls up his throat. He counts his fingers to ensure there are ten. Somehow, he counts twelve.
“Did you know Antonin Dolohov prior to your employment within his drug cartel?”
“Yes.” Nine fingers.
“Then how did you fail to recognize him?” The bulldog steps closer.
Draco’s throat tightens, his tongue suddenly too thick to form proper words. “I can’t explain it,” he manages. Fear prickles at the back of his neck. “I walked into that warehouse like it was any other job. Then, the bastard disarmed me; that’s when I knew he was a wizard. The drugs were gone. He said they’d never arrived.”
The High Inquisitor raises a hand, silencing Dolohov’s solicitor. “Mr. Malfoy, how did you come to engage in this employment?”
Draco doesn’t know. Those memories are gone. He wakes, follows instructions, and collects plane tickets. That’s all. “After the war.”
“Your Honour, he is being untruthful.”
Draco stares blankly until the High Inquisitor’s voice slices through the silence. “You swore an oath to recount events truthfully.”
Did he take an oath?
He doesn’t remember an oath. He doesn’t remember walking to the stand.
An involuntary omegan whine tears from Draco’s throat, his distress scent rising sharp and bitter. It’s an instinctive response, a way to beg for help, to display his complete submission.
Narcissa recoils in the crowd, and she stands to slip out the back door. The familiar lavender-and-iron scent of her presence withdraws from the room.
Draco’s omega screams for intervention, for someone to step in, but there is no pack here, only cold benches and turned shoulders. Even Greg’s familiar bergamot-and-bourbon scent does nothing to soothe him now, not when it’s laced with disapproval.
“This performance cannot influence the Wizengamot.” The solicitor’s shadow falls over Draco. “Might the court question whether an omega’s… impulses compromise objectivity?”
“Objection!” Goyle jerks upright, finally coming to life. “Badgering the witness—”
“Overruled. Proceed.”
Dolohov’s solicitor slides photographs across the benches. The Wizengamot reps lean forward like hungry birds. Dolohov’s face is obliterated in the images. His team recounts how Draco’s claws tore his body apart. The solicitor pauses between each detail, letting silence do the work. Every demented act upon the corpse is catalogued like ingredients from a recipe.
It’s bloody incredible that even while trafficking filthy Muggle drugs, Dolohov never saw a handgun coming after disarming Draco of his wand.
He probably didn’t expect Draco to do the rest either.
He stares down at the photos of Dolohov’s skull and feels ill. He barely recalls digging into the wound, searching for the bullet, and he has no clue why.
Draco slumps into his chair, numb, and stares at his trembling hands. He doesn’t remember moving from the stand to this seat beside Goyle. The edges of the room blur, time slipping through his fingers like smoke.
The High Inquisitor exhales through his nose. “Have you anything to say?”
Draco’s fingers twitch. He considers reaching for Goyle to anchor himself, but stops. He might vomit. “No.”
Five to ten years in Azkaban. Effective tomorrow.
Goyle celebrates. It’s a lenient sentence.
Draco stumbles out of the courtroom. A guard’s hand clamps around his arm and steers him into a holding room tucked behind the High Inquisitor’s bench.
Through the wall, the Wizengamot members scatter, their voices a dull murmur of satisfied chatter now that they’ve had their entertainment.
Goyle shuffles after him, hovering by the window like some nervous guard dog. He’s staring out at nothing in particular, clearly trying to figure out how to warn Draco about what’s waiting for him.
Hermione Granger opens a back door from further into the chamber.
“Congratulations,” she says.
“What exactly happened?” Draco asks the room.
Hermione launches into some tedious explanation that goes over his head. Greg finally raises a meaty hand to silence her.
“No dementors,” Greg says, grinning. “Only ten years, max! That’s practically a gift compared to what your father got. Or my father, for that matter.”
“Hooray,” Draco says dully.
He got what he expected.
“We’re implementing Azkaban reforms,” Granger says. “Cooperate with the department on a project, and you might get leniency.”
“The department?” Draco asks.
Greg leans back in the room’s only chair, hands locked behind his head. “Draco doesn’t qualify for squat. I checked. Death Eater omegas don’t get special treatment. What the hell would anybody want with him?”
“A lot, you absolute, dimwitted arsehole,” Draco snaps. “I have the Dark Mark. There aren’t many left, and the Ministry would kill for the chance to dissect one.”
And he’s a detruit omega. The ministry doesn’t know that for sure yet, but Draco is certain that Granger suspects it.
Granger gives a faint smile. She clearly dislikes Greg and can’t wait to leave. “I’ll be in touch,” she says. “I’ve got to head back to Azkaban. I’ve spent far too much time here, but I am pleased for you, Draco.”
She disappears. Greg says nothing.
“Well?” Draco asks him, irritated.
“I’ll look into it. Maybe you can be a lab rat or—”
“—I don’t want to be a lab rat. How about you keep me out of any and all labs?”
“Well, it’d be nice for you to have a gentle sentence. I don’t want to visit an omega in the pits of Azkaban, your soul sucked out by the dementors.”
“You visit my father all the time.”
Greg’s eyes glaze over. Clearly, his brain has checked out for the day. Draco follows his vacant stare through the courtroom window to find a wisp of a woman on the Dolohov side, absolutely falling apart into a handkerchief.
“The redhead is sexy,” Greg comments.
Draco shifts his eyes to a girl with a shock of auburn hair several rows behind the crying woman. He admits, begrudgingly in his mind, that she is attractive. Or she would be, if Draco were into that sort of thing.
“Not that you’re into that sort of thing,” Greg points out, mirroring his thoughts exactly. Draco sighs.
“Who’s that crying?” Draco asks Greg.
“Dunno,” Greg mutters, though it’s his literal job to know. “Looks like Russian mafia. Dolohov’s wife, probably.”
Draco stares at her, watching her cry ugly tears. She’s inconsolable, even in a room full of Wizengamot members who are trying to make small talk.
“She’s a pretty young omega,” Greg says, tilting his head to the side. “I thought Dolohov was an old man.”
Draco can’t picture Dolohov; he can only envision that horrible photo of his face blown off.
The worst part of the whole day has been this, seeing Dolohov’s wife crying into someone’s chest, after Draco has been escorted out.
Greg takes Draco’s silence for agreement. “No mating bite on her either,” he comments. He releases a low whistle. “Good for old Dolohov, I guess. Hot, young, new wife crying at his murder trial.”
Draco doesn’t respond, and Greg moves to leave him alone in the room. Bastard.
“I’ll look into it,” Greg says instead of goodbye. He doesn’t specify what he means to look into. He claps Draco on the back hard enough to nearly knock him off balance. “Good luck in there, Dray.”
Draco keeps staring at that crying woman. She eventually stands to leave, only to collapse back down into her chair in another wave of tears.
The worst part is that Draco doesn’t feel sorry for killing her husband. Instead, he feels bitterly jealous. Someone like Dolohov had an omega wife who still cares that much for his stupid, ugly ass. Draco doesn’t recognize that woman at all, so she can’t have been around during the war. A part of Draco that is entirely omega screams inside him. Why had that bastard chosen her?
Nobody wants an omega who can stomach shooting someone in the head and searching for the bullet to conceal the evidence.
* * *
Draco lies in his Ministry holding cell that night, restless as a caged animal. The alpha guard watches him with pathetic, nervous terror, and reeks of it.
The scrutiny grates on his nerves. As if any omega could strangle an alpha barehanded, especially one teetering on detruit.
He’s finally settling deeper onto the thin cot when the door slams open. Another prisoner stumbles inside.
The guard, who has not offered Draco anything all night, immediately asks the newcomer if he needs anything to be comfortable (pillow? blanket? glass of water?)
Draco grits his teeth, fingers twitching against his thighs. He’d been pretending to sleep, but the guard’s reaction is infuriating. He has to see who has joined him in the holding cell.
He sits up.
And there, looking back at him, is Harry bloody Potter.