Smoke and Mirrors by JewelBurns
Summary: Sequel to The Choices We Made.

With Voldemort dead and Harry's cancer settling life should be returning to normal for Harry and Snape but things aren't always as they seem. Instead they find themselves challenged in new ways. When dangerous events start after Harry's return to Hogwarts can Snape figure out what's going on before they're torn apart again? HPSS mentor Healing/Coping
Categories: Parental Snape > Guardian Snape Main Characters: .Snape and Harry (required), Draco, Dudley, Hermione, Original Character
Snape Flavour: Snape Comforts, Snape is Depressed, Snape is Desperate, Snape is Kind, Snape is Loving, Out of Character Snape, Overly-protective Snape, Snape is Secretive
Genres: Angst, Drama, Family, General, Hurt/Comfort, Mystery
Media Type: None
Tags: Adoption, Alternate Universe, Azkaban Character, Hospitalization, Injured!Harry
Takes Place: 7th summer, 7th Year
Warnings: Alcohol Use, Character Death, Out of Character, Romance/Het
Challenges: None
Series: Choices We Made Universe
Chapters: 84 Completed: No Word count: 697412 Read: 514928 Published: 15 Nov 2020 Updated: 30 Sep 2023
Malfoys' Interlude: Azkaban Prison by JewelBurns
Author's Notes:
Disclaimer: This chapter was written by my beta French_Charlotte and reviewed by me for content and characterizations.

If Draco was being honest with himself, Azkaban didn't live up to its wretched, fearful reputation. But then again, rarely did highly famed and ostentatiously sinister entities live up to their inflated infamy. He learned that lesson a handful of years ago when he stupidly rushed a muggle-raised orphan, expecting the other boy to have a shroud of darkness and be preparing his reign of terror as the next dark lord. All at the age of eleven.

Laying on the top bunk crammed into his little cell, Draco stared up at the ceiling several meters up. It was a tall ceiling, thankfully, designed so that even the tallest of inmates couldn't stand on the bed and reach it to tunnel their way out. A curious design, the young heir mused, when the dewy concrete walls were available to any who wanted to try out an escape plan. The ceiling wasn't reinforced like the walls, making it a vulnerable point for usurpers. Or maybe the jailers designed the vaulted ceiling to constantly tempt prisoners, drive them mad with scheming impossible ideas but ultimately deprive them of carrying them out. It was a distraction for inmates to stare up at and imagine the possibilities, to fantasize about feeling a salty ocean spray on their cheeks, a fresh untainted wind, fulfilling food, the warmth of the sun.

And Draco was laying there, staring up at the ceiling, imagining all of those things. It was his third day in Azkaban and he'd already played into their expectations. He was already a model inmate.

Following the Halloween Ball and his dramatic exit were wispy moments with fuzzy edges difficult to remember. The young wizard was torn between fear of having been arrested and Azkaban, anger at this stupidity for not casting mundane spells to hide the animagus one, and frustration at everyone else - Dumbledore, Snape, his father, Harry - who claimed an invested interest in his wellbeing but couldn't be bothered to pull strings to get him out of the arrest.

For some reason, he thought there would have been more steps before he ended up in Azkaban following his arrest. Booking at the DMLE, taking statements, gathering evidence, firecalling people, something. But no, any due process was wrapped up in a fragile few minutes and he was ushered immediately to the magical prison hidden away in the thick of the cold, desolate North Sea. Where dreams and hopes and happiness and wizards were left to rot and die.

He was stripped of his clothes and dignity the moment he stepped through the dark entrance, drawn forward by the charms restraining him but wanting to flee from the malevolent energy permeating from the prison. He wasn't even fully in it and he could feel the darkness warning every iota within him not to enter. His posh, haute couture robes with a price tag equivalent to an Auror's entire annual salary were balled up and smashed into a wrinkly burlap bag, marked with a short line of futhark runes. The same line of runes were scribbled across every parchment the aurors signed, stamped, or attached to his bulking file; the runes were his runes. His prisoner designation.

Throughout the whole 'onboarding' process, Draco had remained silent, almost like he was in a daze, moving through the motions but mentally lagging a few steps behind. He was still back at Hogwarts, back in the Great Hall when life fractured itself and the threads of fate conspired against him. He was still questioning when he got so careless with his animagus secret. That wasn't something a Malfoy would do. Was he too distracted by all the good in his life? School, friends, his blossoming business plans, the decision to propose to his girlfriend, a prospering relationship with his normally closed off father. Did he let his guard down and assume the world wouldn't notice?

Rolling over on his bunk when the cell door opened, Draco watched his cellmate lazily step in, his enormous body looking ill-fitting in the cramped space.

"You missed a delightful continental breakfast, Master Malfoy," Fenrir sneered with a lopsided smirk, reaching a beefy hand behind him to slide the door shut. The first time he did it, when Draco initially met his cellmate three days ago, the Slytherin feared the worst and expected the werewolf to attack him with the door shut. But he quickly learned that keeping a cell door shut was a simple sign to the rest of the inmates to leave them alone. "The chefs baked their finest selection of pastries."

Draco sighed. "You mean they sprinkled a pathetic amount of cinnamon on last night's dinner's cornbread?"

The once mocking smile on the older male turned less malicious and more humorous. "Something like that." He shoved a hand into his baggy pants pocket and pulled out a small, napkin-wrapped object. "Your room service, Master Malfoy. Beg my forgiveness, it's not on a silver platter. I'm unfavourably inclined to silver."

When Draco made no move to reach for it, Fenrir took it upon himself to place the wrapped piece of cornbread-turned-breakfast pastry on the edge of his bed, all the while laughing and smiling at the young wizard's misfortune. It wasn't that Fenrir grew a bone of empathy and care for his new cellmate. No, he didn't care if Draco didn't go to any meals in the common area and chose to starve himself. It'd be a fast way to get a single cell and privacy again. But Fenrir - like all prisoners - bled every opportunity to deviate from their carved, demanded lives within the prison. The lights went on and out at the same time every day, showers were scheduled with each cell having a designated time, three square meals were served at the same time, rec time only ran between certain hours. That minutely curated schedule festered brazen, rebellious tendencies among inmates, and they sought out the smallest of chances to defy their jailers. And so Fenrir Greyback, the monstrous creature he was, stole a delicate slice of breakfast pastry and smuggled it back to his room undetected simply to prove that he could.

Swinging his legs over the edge of his bed, Draco hesitantly picked up the breakfast pastry, still not decided if he was hungry enough to eat or not. His appetite was still suppressed from the incredible stress following the arrest, but gingerly trickling back in the form of mid-sleep hunger pains and headaches. "This is all we get for breakfast? Every morning?"

Fenrir leaned against the wall opposite their bunk, thick arms crossed over an equally hulking chest. "Sometimes it's a porridge, depending on the auror rotation. Tastes more like poured concrete, though." He silently regarded the younger wizard, watching him peel back the napkin. "Lucky you're here and not with your other Marked mates upstairs, getting served broth by Dementors while turning into a soulless bloke. Still haven't figured out why you're not up there. I guess being a mole counts for more than kidnapping."

It was true - Draco's petty crime of failure to register meant he wasn't locked up with the rest of the heinous criminals. The DMLE and Wizengamot showed that much mercy to him, passing an initial indictment on his registration failure and not on breaking his probation. Had they chosen to consider his arrest a probation violation, he would've been treated as a war criminal and tossed in with the rest of the Death Eaters. They were housed in an isolated area, rumoured to be on the top floor according to Fenrir, and kept in the original Azkaban archaic system with Dementors, isolated small cells, and no recreational or community time. It was a waiting room to die, but crafted to absolve the aurors of any moral guilt.

Draco was enticed enough to leave his cell when it was time to shower, their cell's designated time in the hour before lunch. It was a communal shower, a large sweeping room with offwhite, mildew-encroached tiles covering every surface, with five pillars sprouting up from the center, where water sprayed out in all directions. Magic to be certain, but it was old magic, likely enchanted centuries ago at the prison's initial birth. Five pillars, one cell with two inmates to each, and so the shower room was filled with ten inmates every fifteen minutes.

The fifteen minutes was a wasteful amount. There was no comfort in the showers beyond the bliss of washing the prison's grime of one's body, but beyond that, Draco found no comfort in it. The water was lukewarm at best, the shampoo was the same syrupy liquid used to wash his body, and the idea of bathing amongst criminals left him nervous. But his disquiet wasn't really shared by the others; they were veterans, used to the process, and spent the fifteen minutes telling jokes, laughing, and completely immune to any awkwardness. This was living to them, and no one dared to make a mistake and shatter the fragile normalcy they managed to temper.

Any worries Draco might've had about what happened in the shower room were swiftly proved wrong. The zeal in the air was, interestingly, light and unthreatening.

Lunch was just as underwhelming as every other meal Draco suffered through. Their cafeteria was a sprawling multipurpose room that was rearranged to serve whatever need the guards had for it, similar to Hogwarts's Great Hall if it was bare of any decorum, class, or quality. During meals, various long tables and rickety chairs were arranged, and afterwards half were magicked out and some 'rec' equipment was brought in. Board games and chess, trolleys filled with dog eared books, several gramophones with old records harkened back from years Draco couldn't even guess. Older than the turn of the century at least.

During lunch, Draco sat with the only person who he, so far, extended a minuscule amount of trust: Fenrir. Maybe it would be strange to trust Fenrir to anyone who didn't understand the whims and ambitions of the immoral, but Draco was born and raised in the murky waters of upside-down ambitions. The "good" sort - mostly Gryffindors - didn't understand that morality and justice weren't defined by the concept of what made a good person good. An honourable man wasn't always a good one, and bad men sometimes acted out of the belief that they were doing bad things for the good of society. Gryffindors didn't have short lifespans because they were brave and threw themselves headfirst into battle without strategy and care. They died early because they chose to live believing in half truths, only seeing one side of a person and allowing their 'virtue' to blind them to the other half. They manipulated themselves into believing a falsified mantra of 'good' versus 'evil', and refused to see the margins between the two. They were good foot soldiers if you managed to spin a battle cry within their tune, for they would march to it if they only believed it was good triumphing evil.

But Draco, despite being in love with one, didn't subscribe to any sort of Gryffindor mismanaged logic. Among all the criminals in Azkaban, Fenrir Greyback was one of the most logical, strategic, and loyal to align with. Was he immoral and committed atrocious crimes? The answer to that didn't change Draco's decision to extend a teeny amount of trust towards the werewolf. As irony would have it, Fenrir was a military mastermind with sound strategy. He hedged his bets long enough until he thought he saw a winning ticket to drive his own ambitions. He - and his werewolf army - never took the Mark because he didn't believe in Voldemort's ideology. But they saw a better life opportunity through him, and the chance to expand their own kind.

Sitting at the table with a tray of mushy mashed potatoes and some kind of stew, Draco sifted his nearly flat spoon through the runny meal. He tried to pretend it was the lunch fare served back at Malfoy Manor, the menu likely consisting of a steamy mulligatawny soup, saddle of mutton with sea kale, and a delightful array of almond and mint macaroons. But try as he might, it was difficult to trick his palate into believing the stale slice of bread and bland stew was the extraordinary cuisine from his family's chefs.

And maybe remembering life outside of Azkaban was a mistake. In truth, he hadn't even thought about Hermione, not wanting to invite her immaculate image with the likes of a callous prison.

"It's not bad if you hold your breath before you swallow. Takes some of the taste away."

Draco looked to the side to Fenrir, but paused before he could shoot back a testy retort when he found the older man sniffing the food balanced on his spoon before devouring it. It was a table faux pas but something about it struck Draco as odd beyond the simple lack of manners. He wouldn't have been curious if Fenrir didn't do it again and again, sniffing his food before eating it. "Is that a werewolf thing? Smelling your meal before eating it?"

Fenrir smirked humorously. "You've been an animagus for six months and you haven't picked up any tools of the trade?"

"Besides getting my arse thrown in Azkaban, I can't say my animagus form has left me any lasting impressions, let alone life skills. Kittens are hardly impressive beasts." Draco looked down at his food with renewed interest. "You smell all your food before eating it, do you? Something you learned between ripping open necks and ruining children's lives?"

The werewolf blinked once and slowly placed his spoon back on his tray. "You don't know shite about prison life, do you, boy?"

The sudden intensity and seriousness behind the wizard's words sent a chill down Draco's spine. "Can't say I've been given many opportunities or, for that matter, desires to learn. I didn't throw my hat in with the Order because I dreamed of being a spy." He quickly waved a hand through the air. "Originally, I wanted to avoid all of this."

Around them, inmates found spots at tables, cellmates sticking with each other, bonds formed through alliances stringing certain individuals to claim tables for their own. There was a brotherhood within Azkaban, formulated through their shared plight and reinforced with the knowledge that while they were convicted criminals, they weren't the worst of the worst. They weren't designed to waste away with dementors. Their guards were an assortment of Aurors on a rotating schedule, and their prison was constructed of concrete and refined tourmaline crystal, the dark prism renowned for absorbing the darkest of magic. It wouldn't be strong enough to stop a full-fledged attack, but with the bountiful quantities entwined in Azkaban's foundation and infrastructure, it did wonders in nullifying any modest attempts.

"All those overpriced tutors and shite education your old man wasted on you, don't tell me you think them two Death Eaters who died here 'on accident' was, what, a freak accident?" Fenrir's voice was low, barely over a whisper in such a quiet tone that Draco had to fight to catch every word. "Nothing in Azkaban happens unless the guards - Aurors or Dementors, pick your poison - want it to happen. You shit and shower when they say to, read the books they give you, eat the rubbish they serve you, and die when they order you to."

Draco shook his head rapidly. "You're mad if you're trying to tell me the Aurors wanted those two pisspoor Death Eater zealots dead. They were nothing."

When Fenrir went back to smelling and inspecting his food, Draco thought the conversation was over. But he was only partially right - the werewolf launched into a quiet explanation of how to smell food and what to look for, questioning how and why Draco still couldn't transform to his animagus form without a wand. That, the werewolf declared, was something the young Slytherin ought to remedy during his stay in Azkaban. And when Draco defiantly explained he was only incarcerated for a little while until his trial, after which he fully intended on getting pardoned of his charges and returned back to Hogwarts, Fenrir laughed more heartily and took Draco around the rec area after lunch.

He told the Slytherin the ins and outs, what to do and what not to do. "Don't snitch - just mind your own business." "Don't buy any drugs or gamble unless you're ready to pay up immediately." " If you have to talk with a guard, always bring someone with you so they can vouch you're not snitching."

"What happens if an Auror or guard comes to talk with me?" Draco queried as they found a quiet corner of the rec room. Most of the inmates naturally gave Fenrir a wide berth, either intimidated by his threatening physique or having heard of his ruthless attacks leading up to his arrest. It worked out fine and well for Draco, who learned that Fenrir chose to look out for the Malfoy heir out of pure self-interest; a cellmate was inevitable, and it turned out that Draco ranked as a more desirable one. He was sophisticated and intelligent, didn't pay mind into alliances and maintaining ties with underworld lords, and wouldn't fight Fenrir for dominance over their cell.

Settling into the shadows from the balcony of cells above them, Fenrir shrugged. "Try to talk with them in public and around others if you can. It keeps the rumours from working against you." He looked bothered for a moment. "There was a bloke a few weeks ago - or months, was it? Can't remember anymore - who came around here asking weird sorts of stuff. Strange bloke with a weird kind of outfit, old but the fancy sort, right? Like with the lace around the collar. Anyroad, Big Red taught him with a right hook that he can't corner one of us alone to chat."

"Old Red," Draco fumbled with the moniker, still not sure he felt comfortable calling the shady man who sold blackmarket portkeys the nickname, "punched a man all because he was asking questions? That's absurd. What kind of questions?"

"Can't remember."

"Can't remember or won't remember?"

Fenrir smirked. "See, you're catching on already." He leaned forward, thick arms pillared on his knees to speak in hushed, conspiring tones. "The bloke was a handler for someone else. Probably one of them Prophet writers looking to make a break with a story. Death Eaters always make headlines, aye? Before you botched up and got arrested, they was running dry of material, though. Must've been to send some gopher in here asking about old Death Eater masks. Heh, imagine that. This time a year ago they didn't have enough newspapers to cover all the Death Eater activity, and now theys down to scrapping up crumbs about masks."

Snorting derisively, Draco looked across the rec room as a guard sternly told another inmate to stop bench pressing the book trolley and return the pile of books back on it. "With the right spin, I guess Death Eater masks can make for a mildly intriguing read. I'm sure some poor DMLE intern created an entire database or something with our masks and who they belonged to. Aurors were always trying to figure it out during the war."

"Nah, see, this bloke was so desperate for a story he was asking about the first war, when you was only a baby," Fenrir grumbled back, then pinched his brows together in thought. "Don't matter, though. Gopher must've been a shoddy one at that - they never ran the story. At least not that I saw."

"They were probably too focused on ruining my life with their rubbish lies," Draco mumbled. "They're having a merry time now with my arrest."

"Don't worry, boy. You're in prison now. Didn't you know that we're all innocent in here?" Fenrir laughed darkly and Draco couldn't help but join in with a modest chuckle, his coming-of-age ceremony that he was finally 'getting it'. That he was finally carving his own identity within the prison.

The timing for that milestone epiphany couldn't have come at a grander time. For when the Auror called Draco forward and announced that he had a visitor - his father - waiting for him in the designated vestibule for the rare Azkaban visitation hours, he knew exactly what his father's visit was about.

He wasn't there to get him out-no, had that been the case, his father wouldn't have been waiting in the dim room heavily guarded solely for short-term visitors, typically lawyers and solicitors. For the first time, his father's reach had hit its limits, and the once infallible Malfoys were pulled from their mountain to live and suffer and die like the rest of the mortals.

To be continued...
End Notes:
Coming up Next: Breaking Point


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