Chapter Text
April, 11th 2006
'Fuck', Ginny Weasley muttered when she glanced at the clock through sleepy eyes.
She quickly jumped out of bed, grabbed her wand and cast several spells to brew herself a cup of tea and make her bed while she got dressed.
She put on high-waisted black pants with a light-green satin shirt and black block heel boots. Barely looking at her reflection in the mirror, she tied her hair in a messy bun with a simple wave of her wand, then another flick to gather the messy pile of files on her desk and stow them inside the leather briefcase she grabbed on the floor.
Two hasty sips of Earl Grey that burnt her tongue and Ginny left her apartment, intentionally slamming the door on her way out.
She realised she had forgotten her raincoat when she stepped outside and was drenched in a matter of seconds. Neither could she conjure an umbrella or a coat in a street full of Muggles so she simply grumbled insults to herself before practically running to the furthest telephone box she could find and burst inside when the last Muggle in sight disappeared around a corner. She cast a drying charm all over herself and dialled the password to activate the entrance.
It was unlike her to use the visitors' entrance of the Ministry of Magic but today she had no choice – she clearly overslept and didn't want to be anymore late than she already was by walking over a mile to get to work or by being stuck in cab in the middle of the usual London traffic.
She could have apparated near the workers' entrance, but her Muggle neighbour had complained too many times already about the loud crack of apparition. Last time she apparated, she literally called the paramedics and the cops, believing something had happened to her like a gas explosion or something like that that Ginny hadn't really understood.
When Ginny reached the Atrium on floor B8, it was, as usual, crowded with witches and wizards of all kinds, stains of colourful robes zooming everywhere before her eyes. She managed to crawl between them, jumped in a also crowded lift before the doors had time to close and she pressed Two on the board. As soon as the doors reopened on Level Two, she stepped out and headed for her Department Office : the Wizengamot Administration Services.
"Late again, Weasley", sighed Batilda Williams, Head of the Department, when Ginny finally sat at her desk, panting. "Why on Earth do you keep coming to work the Muggle way ?", she chuckled in a lighter tone and folded her arms against her chest.
"I told you that old bat of a neighbour can't hear me apparating another time. Who knows who she's gonna call next time, the Muggle Secret Services ?", Ginny rolled her eyes. "And I didn't, I used the visitor's entrance."
"Can't you conjure a Silencing Spell around that apartment of yours ?", Batilda retorted in a voice that suggested it was obvious.
"No", she replied sharply. "Last time I did that, she couldn't hear me for days and thought I was dead. She kept knocking at my door to make sure I was still alive."
"For Melin's sake, get rid of her already", Batilda burst out of laughter. "Or move out, please, but you can't keep getting late like that", she said, taping her shoulder gently before she left.
"I'll try", she nodded.
Ginny was working as a Defensor – or what you would call a barrister in the Muggle world.
This position had been created after the Second Wizarding War, because of the alarming number of arrested witches and wizards who needed to be tried and the complexity of most cases.
After the war, the Ministry understood the importance of fair trials, that not every case was completely black or white and that it was absolutely outrageous to leave the defendant actually defend himself alone in front of a hundred of officials, hungry for blood and revenge. So just like that, and after many consultations with actual Muggle barristers and legal experts, they decided that it was worth a shot.
By the time Ginny finished her curriculum at Hogwarts, they offered many positions and as she still didn't know what career she wanted to pursue, she thought perhaps it was a sign. She had never known exactly what to do with her life, nothing had ever interested her enough to think – Yes, that's what I want to do, that's the path that was made for me – and the Ministry opening a whole new type of job sounded like a fantastic idea.
And it was.
Against all odds, she loved it.
When most of her former classmates took a gap years to travel the world and discover new Magical horizons, she was studying. Hard. Burying herself into work, a work that she found so exciting, so fresh and new, which was exactly what she needed after the war and the loss of her brother Fred. She needed to focus on something that would remind her that there was justice in the world, that you simply had to make it.
The system wasn't perfect, of course it wasn't, but it was working. She was defending all kinds of warlocks – guilty ones, framed ones, innocent ones, drunk ones, crazy ones. It wasn't always easy – she had her share of failures, but she mostly knew successes. Sometimes she didn't even know how she had done it, she simply did. Most of her co-workers thought of her as a natural, because she was the best at her job, and she had to admit they weren't wrong.
After three hours of reviewing files and preparing the defence of her clients, it was time for a break.
Ginny stretched her limbs, yawned and got on her feet. Her eyes flicked over the picture of Harry and her on the desk and she suddenly found it hard to swallow, a taste of bitterness lodged at the back of her throat. She sighed and shoved the moving picture of them dancing at Fleur and Bill's second wedding – they chose to celebrate it again after the war, to cheer the spirits a little bit – in her drawer and locked it with a spell.
Drawing a long breath first, she walked over to Batilda's office. The door was opened but she still knocked, standing under the door frame with her arms folded against her chest. Batilda – or Tilda, like she was usually called - looked up to her and smiled.
She was a pretty blond witch with bright blue eyes and a healthy pink face. She was around ten years older than Ginny and had previously worked as an Auror, before she chose to defend in court the people she once chased. Except she was hardly defending anyone these days and she mostly did an hallucinating amount of administrative work. Her office was literally crawling under files magically reorganising themselves with quills taking notes here and there, scripting very loudly.
Both witches were getting along very well though Tilda was still her superior and tried to scold her sometimes, but not like a boss would do, more like a big sister would.
"What do you want pumpkin ?", Tilda rose andeyebrow and put the file she was holding on her desk.
"I was wondering if you were hungry. It's almost 2pm, maybe you should eat something before you pass out and I have to revive you", Ginny smiled and sat at the edge of the desk, crossing her legs.
"Nah, I'd rather not, don't want to feel bloated at work, you know I don't", she waved her hand before her face. "Plus, I have coffee, don't worry about me", she pointed at the cup which was filling itself up next to her. "I have way too much work to do anyway."
Ginny shook her head and laid her eyes on her desk. She tilted her head to the side to read the name of the defendant on the file next to Tilda's hand.
yoflaM suicuL ocarD
She scratched her forehead and leaned a bit closer. It took her brain almost a whole minute to process the name and put the letters the right way up. Her heart skipped a beat the second time she read it.
Draco Lucius Malfoy.
Ginny was glad she chose to sit down before reading his name a third time as her legs now felt like jelly.
A cold shiver ran down her spine, like a warning, her whole body was on alert.
She wanted to run, she needed to run. To run until she couldn't feel her lungs no more, until they were burning with an exaggerated amount of oxygen, so painful she would fall unconscious and when she would wake up, it would have been just a dream. Or a nightmare.
Because his name felt like a slap in the face. Not a slap, a punch. Not in the face, in her guts. Like waking up from a vivid dream just to realise it wasn't a dream at all.
Ginny breathed in and tried to keep herself composed when she eventually spoke.
"Tilda, what is this ?", she eyed the file a fourth time and another shiver crawled down her neck.
"Oh that", her superior grabbed the file and placed it on Ginny's laps before she smiled. "It's a gift for you."
The weight of the file started to burn on her laps, as if it was some kind of acid, something toxic. Ginny carefully replaced it on the desk, barely touching it and cleared her throat.
"A gift ?", she asked but it sounded more like she was being strangled.
"I'm offering you to be his Defensor", Tilda went on, still smiling.
"How on Earth did you come up with that ridiculous idea ?", Ginny said outraged. "Why the fuck would I want to defend someone like... Him ?"
"If you're scared to lose this one I can assure you –", Tilda started to argue.
"I'm not afraid to lose the fucking case. I'm afraid to win it", Ginny scoffed and her voice grew colder. "I don't want to win. I want him in Azkaban, where he belongs. I'm sorry Tilda but there's nothing I can do for him", she said as she finally got back on her feet and hurried to the door.
"And, what if that was exactly what I was offering you ? A lost cause", Tilda said in a low and serious tone.
Ginny stopped straight under the door frame, paused for a second then turned around. Tilda was staring at her dead serious. Her smile had completely faded away.
"Get back inside and close the door would you ?", Tilda started to wave her wand in the air, muttering a silencing spell around them.
Ginny sat back on the chair, trying to conceal her shaky hands under her laps. Tilda's face was marble when she spoke.
"You know how the Malfoys have enemies all over the Wizarding World now. Those who once supported the Dark Lord consider them traitors, and those who didn't treat them like pariahs", she started and Ginny nodded. "Well, most of their enemies are inside these very walls, in the Ministry. Lucius Malfoy was thrown in Azkaban right after the war, though he obviously tried to bribe his way out but was proven guilty anyway. Denfensors were still something new and experimental at the time, but that's not entirely why he lost. Some high officials made sure he could never escape again", she smirked before she went on. "Mrs Malfoy on the other hand, she wasn't fully involved so she was only declared partially guilty, mostly because she assured she was only protecting her son. She remained under House arrest until she mysteriously disappeared a few months ago."
"I still don't see your point here. I know what happened to the Malfoy family already", Ginny was growing impatient and nervously tapped her feet against the floor.
"Well, Draco Malfoy, he was discharged", Tilda ignored her. "They let him walk free, said he was only a kid to whom bad things happened too. Now you and I both know that's not true. They only did that to prove they were able to give second chances. Also because they couldn't prove anything he did wrong before a court, I bet his parents made sure to erase any proof that anything he did, he did of hiw own free will", Tilda frowned and drew a sharp sigh. "The only condition for his freedom was for him to behave. To stay off records. Which he did, until now', she opened the file for Ginny to read it.
She braced herself before she nosed into it.
Draco Malfoy was convicted for multiples violations of the Wizarding Law – improper use of magic, use of magic in front of Muggles, hold of proscribed artefacts and several other similar charges. Ginny sighed, pinched the hump of her nose and looked up to Tilda.
"I need you to lose this case, Gin", she said coolly. "Many high-ranking member of the Ministry need him to pay for his crimes just like any other Death Eater have, and will. They asked me to... Well let's say, to not help his cause. To find a way to make justice, for every life he ruined. This is the moment we've been waiting for, for him to violate the law again."
"But that's illegal. I can't lose his case on purpose. That's against everything we believe in, everything we work for", Ginny whispered, leaning a bit forward as if someone could overheard her.
"Not if no one knows. And no one will, because I don't see a soul on Earth that wouldn't want to see him behind bars", Tilda folded her hands over her desk. "Listen Ginny, I can't ask this to anyone else but you. You're the only person I trust to ensure this mission goes exactly as planned", she said, pressing her back against the back of the chair. "Please. Think it through the day, you don't have to tell me your answer right away."
Ginny didn't answer. She simply nodded and left.
The rest of the day died slowly. She kept glancing at the clock, saw how each second faded away and she still couldn't make up her mind.
Losing his case on purpose wasn't morally correct, no it wasn't.
It was against everything she defended, everything she believed in. She knew she could do it easily if she wanted to. She wouldn't have much to do, Malfoy practically dug his own grave already. It wasn't hard to understand he had probably been doing all of this on purpose. For some reason, Ginny believed he wanted to be charged for his crimes, he wanted to be punished. Still, it didn't feel right to push him off the cliff when he was clearly about to jump anyway.
But what if she refused ? Maybe Tilda would give the file to someone else she couldn't trust. Someone she wouldn't ask for the unspeakable. Someone who would do their job. Someone who would try to win his case, to buy him a lighter sentence at least.
And Ginny could simply not let that happen.
The thought of him walking free again wrenched her insides open and she pressed her hands against her abdomen to make sure she wasn't actually injured.She stared at her hands with a blank expression and blinked away this dreadful thought.
No, she could not let that happen even if it meant putting her moral aside for a moment, turning a blind eye on her principles. She would not leave Malfoy's case in the hands of fate. She had do to it, for Fred, Remus, Tonks, Moody, Lavender, Colin, Dobby, Dumbledore and maybe even for Snape.
She had to do it for all those who died because of him, but also for those who had to suffer the consequences of the War. For those who were left with dreadful scars, with the unbearable pain of grief.
She had to do it for George, who had seen his brother die before his eyes, his other half, and had completely lost his mind ever since, lost himself in the depths of depression.
For her parents, who had lost a son and were left with only a shadow of another.
For Hermione, who erased her parents' memories of herself, permanently, disappearing from their lives forever.
For Harry, her beloved Harry, who had never been the same since he had to use the killing curse on Voldemort to destroy him once and for all to end the war Malfoy started.
She had to do it for herself. For the pain he caused her and everyone she loved. For the permanent scar on her throat that still hurt sometimes. For the terrifying war memories she would never forget and that were still haunting every second of her miserable existence. For the nightmares she still woke up from, screaming, shaking, drenched in sweat.
Ginny grabbed her briefcase and conjured herself a raincoat in case it would still be raining outside.
On her way out, she stopped before Tilda's office, who looked up to her, eyes full of hope, longing for her to give her an answer. Ginny took two steps forward, leaned a bit closer, gathered all the courage she had and grabbed Draco Malfoy's file on top of the pile.
"Should I take that as a yes ?", Tilda asked as Ginny was already passing the door frame.
Pressing her lips in a hard line and swallowing the sour taste of bile in her mouth, Ginny simply nodded without looking back at her.
"It's for the greater good, Gin. You're doing the world a favour", Tilda said, a smile cracking the edges of her lips.
Ginny exited the room, afraid she would change her mind if she stayed another second.