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The Devil You Know	By : JBankai89 Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 2281 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns Harry Potter, I gain nothing from this but a way to pass the time.

Chapter List
- 1-Taken
- 2-Hostage
- 3-Survival
- 4-Home
- 5-Aftermath
- 6-Suspicions
- 7-Confessions
- 8-Recovery
- 9-Verdict
- 5
- 6
- 7
Chapter Six – Suspicions

“This is...this is impossible,” Robak whispered as he continued to stare at the small slip of parchment in his hands. He'd migrated back to his office, and was joined by Junior Auror Smythe and the Senior Auror on the case, Auror Richardson. Both of them looked just as alarmed by this turn of events as he was, and despite the fact that it was well past evening, none of them had moved to suggest they pick it up tomorrow.

“The evidence is conclusive, those are Potter's clothes,” Richardson said, though by his tone it sounded as though he couldn't believe it.

“But can we arrest him? If we've somehow made a mistake, the media will have a field day,” added Auror Smythe, and Robak grimaced.

“All we know for sure is that Potter owned these clothes,” he said as he regarded Smythe and Richardson. “We have nothing to suggest that he was responsible for the charade of his own disappearance as well as the kidnapping and attempted rape of Mr Malfoy.”

“So what do we do now?” Smythe asked, and Robak grimaced again.

“Interview his friends, his surrogate family—the Weasleys, his boyfriend—Malfoy...” Robak replied as he ticked them off with his fingers.

“And if Potter gets suspicious of our questioning, what do you propose we say to him?” Richardson asked, “he's a Junior Auror, after all, one of our best. He's not stupid.”

“We'll interview him too, say we want a broader picture of the situation, to surmise why the kidnapper would target them,” Robak suggested, but frowned at his superior's reluctant expression. “It's fairly weak, I know, but it's all that I can think of...”

Robak broke off abruptly when a scroll materialized on his desk with an official-looking seal upon it.

“What is it?” Smythe asked as Robak snatched it up and broke the wax seal, and his gaze zipped across the parchment. He grabbed a quill off his desk, loaded it with ink, and circled a few paragraphs about halfway down.

“The medical report summarizing Malfoy and Potter's injuries. Have a look,” he replied, and pushed it across the table to his colleagues. Both obediently looked down at it, and like him their expressions shifted to surprise.

As to the injuries of Mr Potter, it is possible that he might not be being completely truthful in regards to their origin. A regression reenactment of the head wound shows that it would not be nearly strong enough to make him lose consciousness, even for someone with a strong constitution.

Mr Potter also claims to have been bound by his wrists and ankles. Unlike Mr Malfoy, where there is still clear bruising where the ropes had been, Potter shows no such discolouration of the flesh in these spots. It is unclear why he would choose to fabricate this, however.

“Things aren't looking good for Mr Potter...” Smythe muttered, and she pushed the report back, her nose wrinkled with disgust.

“There's also the panicked letter I got from Mr and Mrs Malfoy, claiming they heard Potter use the same pet name for their son that the kidnapper used in his letter,” Richardson added, his left hand moving to tug at his short salt-and-pepper beard thoughtfully. “I thought they were grasping at straws, but...perhaps not.” The Senior Auror paused, and stood up with a minor groan. “Go home, you two, we'll start the interviews tomorrow, I'll just send off the summons before I head out for the night.”

Neither Auror argued with him, and Robak was quick to follow Smythe out. They kept quiet as they made their way to the exits, and offered each other nothing more than a quick glance and nod before they each disappeared into the Floo.

Tomorrow was going to be a long day.

~*~

At nine AM, precisely, Hermione Granger presented herself promptly at the Auror office. She appeared confused and curious, but not wholly surprised that she was there.

“What did you wish to speak to me about?” she immediately asked Robak as he approached. “Is it about Har—” he silenced her with a look, and did not speak until he'd led her into an interrogation room and shut the door.

“I apologize for all the secrecy, Miss Granger, but considering the sensitive nature of this case, we do not want any false half-truths leaking to the press,” Robak said, and she nodded immediately in understanding.

“Of course, sorry,” she said quickly, “Harry gets enough press as it is, anything extra is just...madness.”

“Indeed,” Robak replied, and motioned for her to take a seat. She complied, and he slid into the chair opposite her. “Would you like anything before we begin? Water, coffee, tea?”

“A tea would be nice, thank you,” she replied politely, and with a swish of his wand, Robak conjured a modest tea tray for her. Once she'd helped herself to a cup, he began.

“Now, we're trying to construct a full criminal profile of the kidnapper, and we've chosen to begin by getting a better picture of his victims—Mr Potter and Mr Malfoy. Can you tell me please, what is Mr Potter like—when he is not in the spotlight? Is there anything you can think of that might stand out? A change in his personality, or perhaps a quirk that might pique the interest of someone in the public?”

Granger hesitated, her lips pursed, and she took a tiny sip of the tea before she answered.

“After the war...Harry changed,” she began, her tone so low that Robak had to lean forward to hear her properly. “I think it was a side-effect of everything he was put through, he just sort of...snapped. He wasn't doing anything bad, exactly, he was just...different.”

“Different how?”

“He...I think it was his way of grieving, you know? We lost a lot of people during the war, and he was so alone. The Weasleys sort of...adopted both of us when it was all over, and he tried to pick things up with Ginny, but then she caught him with another man, and things just...fell apart for them.”

“Had Potter not been open about his sexuality with you and Mr Weasley—Ronald? As I understand it, you three are quite close.”

“We are,” Granger confirmed with a small nod, “I suppose he was worried what we'd say. After he realized that we were fine with it, he started going out all the time, and I mean all the time. It seemed as though every day there was a new pretty-boy on his arm, and he'd try to tell Ron and I specifics of what he'd do with his boys in bed, and he got all...all sulky when we told him that we didn't want to hear it.

“When he started seeing Malfoy, at first, we were a bit worried, he bullied us in school—at least, he tried to—and we thought with Malfoy things would get even worse.”

“And did they?”

“It's weird,” Granger said as she shook her head, “Malfoy was completely changed, and much...quieter than he had been before. Harry was seeing him exclusively, and we thought a little monogamy would be good for him. Malfoy was good for him. But...then Harry started complaining about him with me, and Ron, I think, but he never complained at us both at the same time.”

“What sort of complaints did he make?” Robak asked, and Granger's frown deepened.

“He learned that Malfoy practised the old ways when it came to personal relationships,” Granger explained with a wince. “You know...the whole celibate thing?” Robak nodded. “Well, Harry was pretty annoyed, and he started asking me all these rude questions about how to get someone in bed who might not want to be there...not in an...er, sexual harassment way, more in a seduction sort of way. He seemed determined to have sex with Malfoy, and even started telling me that he'll even marry Malfoy, have their wedding night, and have it annulled the next morning. I got really upset with him over that, and we yelled a bit, and he stopped talking to me about Malfoy after that.”

Robak stared at the young woman, and she mirrored back his look of disgust. He had a hard time believing what he was hearing—Potter had always been a bit thick, but never cruel or sex-crazed. He had no idea what to think, and his mind was abuzz with confusion as he muttered a quick, “thank you, Miss Granger,” before he saw her out.

As the day progressed, Robak's view of Harry Potter, Saviour of the Wizarding World, began to plummet further with every interview that he conducted.

“After a while, Harry started to scare me, you know?” said Ginevra Weasley, “I couldn't ask my mum about it, because she thinks I'm still a virgin, and Hermione can be a bit of a prude, but Harry started to ask me to do things with him in bed...weird things...”

“I think Harry didn't want our view of him to change,” said Molly Weasley, “that's why I think he kept his liaisons, so to speak, quiet from us. It's wasn't difficult to miss that he had a new boyfriend every time we saw him, he changed partners almost as often as one changes their pants. I've had seven children, you notice things when your children think they're being sneaky...”

“I dunno what Harry was thinking,” said Ronald Weasley, “he totally ripped apart my sister, then he burned through any pretty-boy bloke he could find. He was more like an ex-Slytherin than an ex-Gryffindor. It was weird. And he bitched about Malfoy constantly, that he was a tease, a prude, all of that. I tried to explain the chastity thing to him, so did Hermione, but he didn't want to listen...”

All the interviews sounded the same.

Somehow, for some unknown reason, Potter had become some sort of sexual deviant.

He knew that that wouldn't be enough for a conviction however—odd sex practices did not necessarily lead to a major crime, after all.

Robak glanced up from his notes as there was a tentative knock on the interrogation door, and the last person to be questioned for the day peered inside.

“Come in, Mr Malfoy,” Robak said, and the young man nervously stepped into the room. The way his arm fell as he moved lent to the impression that he'd been holding hands with someone mere moments before, and when Robak stood to shut the door, he saw Potter standing on the other side of it, offering Malfoy a warm smile.

The smile did not reach his eyes.

Feeling slightly sickened, he shut the door, and turned to the blond. He was looking nervous and fidgety—less like someone who was guilty of a crime, a manner of body language that he was intimately familiar with—and more like a young child who was deprived of their security blanket.

“What's going on?” Malfoy asked nervously, “I already gave my statement, why am I here again?”

“Just routine, Mr Malfoy, nothing to worry about,” Robak replied with a casual wave of his hand, and a warm smile. Malfoy's shoulders visibly slackened at this. “We're just trying to get better picture of why the kidnapper targeted you and Mr Potter, to see if he's maybe done this before. Does that make sense?”

Malfoy nodded, but he still looked tense. Robak could not work out whether this was tension over the fact that he was at the Ministry being questioned, something, Robak had heard, Malfoy had done before, or if he was more of a nervous person than Robak had originally thought.

“Good,” Robak replied to Malfoy's small nod, “now, as I understand it, Mr Potter has quite the sexual appetite, but you yourself are following the old ways of purity until marriage. How is that going?”

“But...what does that have to do with anything?”

“Answer the question if you please, Mr Malfoy.”

Malfoy did not immediately respond, and instead raked a hand through his immaculately kept hair, and sighed heavily. In an instant, he seemed to radiate stress and uncertainty.

“I thought Harry was different,” Malfoy muttered miserably, “he was sort of known as a playboy, but then he approached me, and he was...different. Sweet, kind, caring...he made me feel safe. But then it started to go wrong. I had to remind him at least once a week when he got pushy that I wanted to abstain until marriage, and then he'd push me to marry...but we've only been seeing each other for a few months! He'd spout all sorts of silly things like, if you really loved me you'd do it, and I just can't control myself around you, I love you too much. It was all so...strange. I only kept it going because underneath all the ridiculous need he seems to have for sex, he really is good to me, and he did help my family following the war. But...I started to get fed up of his attitude towards my beliefs, and I'd planned to break it off with him, but then this whole...thing happened.”

“Did Mr Potter know that you'd intended to leave him?”

“No, I don't think so,” Malfoy replied, and raked his fingers through his hair again. “I talked about it with my friend Pansy...Pansy Parkinson, and I know that Harry wasn't around, because he and my friends don't exactly get on.”

“You said that before all this happened, you'd intended to break it off. Do you feel differently now?” Robak asked, and immediately Malfoy nodded.

“I was just so grateful to him for all he did for me when we were in the forest...he kept me safe. I'd probably be dead if it wasn't for him, and he didn't even get all that upset when I—”

Suddenly, Malfoy broke off and snapped his mouth shut.

“Mr Malfoy?” Robak prompted, but the young man kept quiet. “Mr Malfoy, what did you do?”

Robak waited, and did not push nor pester the man for more information. There was a dead silence between them that stretched on for close to a full minute before he finally spoke.

“When we found our clothes,” Malfoy explained in a very small, almost childlike voice, “Harry found our clothes, but said he couldn't find our wands. Later, I found them in the same spot that Harry had found our clothes in, and I confronted him about it. He got really upset, and said...he said...I thought you knew me better than that or something. I felt so bad for suspecting him, but please, please don't hold that against him, we were both exhausted and terrified, it was my mistake, not his.”

“Of course, Mr Malfoy,” Robak said in an even tone, “we wouldn't want to mix up evidence and just a simple case of mental exhaustion from your ordeal.” Malfoy visibly relaxed as Robak continued, “if you'll excuse me, I just need to step out for a moment.”

Robak stepped out of the little stifling room, and shut the door behind him. Sitting on a wooden bench outside was Potter, elbows braced against his knees, clearly waiting for Malfoy.

Robak looked over to Richardson and nodded.

“Harry James Potter,” Richardson said, addressing him firmly, and his gaze snapped up to the Senior Auror. His eyes widened, and all the colour drained from his face. “You are hereby under arrest for the unlawful kidnapping and attempted rape of Draco Lucius Malfoy. Know you need not speak, but anything you choose to say will be used against you before a Wizengamot court. You have the right to a solicitor, and if you cannot afford a solicitor, one will be appointed to you...”

The Caution continued as Harry was forced to his feet, and an incarcerating spell was directed at him, binding his wrists at his back. He did not fight or speak, instead he seemed to shut down, and became like a stone—completely blank and devoid of emotion. At the same moment, the door behind Robak opened, and Malfoy let out a cry of alarm as he made a rush for Potter. Robak reached out to stop him, and grabbed the Malfoy heir by his upper arms, holding him back as he continued to struggle and cry out.

“Harry, Harry! No! What are you doing? Let him go! He didn't do anything! Let him go, now!”

“It's all right Draco,” Potter said as he was led past his partner, and he smiled warmly at Malfoy. “Just a bit of a misunderstanding. Don't you worry, I'll have this cleared up before you know it.”

Malfoy immediately calmed at Potter's words of reassurance, though tears had begun to streak his cheeks as he looked on. Robak continued to hold onto his arms just in case he made another mad dash for Potter, but he remained still, sniffling as he watched Potter be led away.
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The Devil You Know