Chapter Twenty: Weakness

Draco didn't like to think that he was a weak person. But then again, there were a lot of things that he didn't like to think about himself.

Discrimination comes from the weakness of people's hearts. You cannot judge someone by things they cannot change, like race, family, or birth. That is weakness.

Weakness is also the inability to forgive someone for their discrimination, and reverse discrimination based on the stereotype you, yourself, create. That is also weakness. Not everyone is strong and can stand up to it, but recognizing the weakness is the first step to overcoming it and beginning to forgive.

Hermione's notes were very heavy and very sobering. It turned out that the notes were not just notes about soulmates, which Draco had read through already.

Dying is not punishment for crimes. Living with the knowledge of that crime and working to atone for it is the punishment, a punishment that allows for learning, experience, and eventual self-liking.

Not being forgiven for a crime is the worst punishment there is; it is hard to forget those who suffer for things you have done. You can work to make up for this, but you must also know that there is no such thing as justification. Punishment for crimes never goes away. Let that be a deterrent.

Draco shook his head and put the bits of parchment into his bag. Tomorrow, a Ministry official was going to be sitting in the room with him and Granger, watching them and evaluating his progress. He realized that he should be nervous, but instead, he felt calm about the situation.

Of course that official would evaluate him, but who was there to evaluate? A person who had changed quite a bit since the downfall of the Death Eaters, or so Granger had told him. It made him feel a little confident.

"I think that baby of yours is draining your life force."

Hermione turned to Ron sternly. "What do you mean that baby of yours? She's yours too."

"He has been disowned for making you suffer. Little parasite!"

Hermione didn't like that at all. She hit Ron across his shoulder.

"Are you two done yet?" Draco commented. "We have stuff to do."

Hermione shook her head and shouldered her bag. No one could even tell she was pregnant (based on her stomach) but it seemed that her condition was already taking its toll. Another month and she'd have a slight bulge to lug around; her mood would definitely not improve then.

Their wedding was only two weeks away now, and they had been nice enough to offer to help Draco with his apartment before the Ministry came in and thought he was a serial killer.

"I need food, furnishings, and... a dresser. That's about it."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "I saw the inside of that place. It looks faintly like one of the dingier cells in Azkaban. Therefore, I'll be the judge of what you need. You boys can stand back and watch."

Ron was content to let Hermione do all the work, 'parasite' or no. He didn't volunteer for this outing; he thought that the words 'Saturday' and 'housework' should never be used together.

Of course they ended up finishing before Ron could start complaining; Draco had built up a bank stack from his minimal luxuries and the decreased living expense. He didn't have a bank account, at least not a new one (he still couldn't lay a finger on his old one,) so all of his money was stacked up in the bottom of his closet in gold, silver, and bronze. He'd apparently gotten bored enough to organize the stacks into shining pyramids below his work clothes, which were hanging on wire hangers.

"Ew," Hermione had said when she'd seen them.

"You don't like my money mountains?"

"I like your... 'money mountains.' I was talking about your hangers."

The kitchen was another story; Hermione had done the one thing he hoped that she wouldn't do:

Pull the stove away from the wall.

"Ugh!" she said, surveying the damage. "Do you ever clean behind here?"

Draco was faintly reminded of the first time she had come to his flat, when she was tiring him out by everything she did. He had never been more embarrassed in his life, he suspected, than by some of the things she did in his pitiful little apartment.

Once there was some furniture and some pictures on the walls, he and Ron went to the Farmer's Market on the newer side of Diagon Alley to pick up some food. Hermione had given them a list, but Ron chucked that the first chance he got.

"I know quite a bit about food," he said. "Hermione barely eats, I eat an actual metric ton as a light snack." Draco nodded admittedly and let himself be led from stall to stall.

When they arrived back at Draco's flat, Hermione was using her wand to test paint colors for the walls. The furniture they'd gotten was off-white, which Hermione had done on purpose to allow for a bold wall color.

"Color adds energy to a room; I suppose the grey, stone walls look a bit too similar to your cell to be comfortable."

Draco had shaken his head - he didn't mind the walls so much. They had just been painfully ugly.

A rug now covered his hardwood floor, a moving image of a chimera in its fibers. His bed was moved to his room; Hermione had not been happy that he lived in his main room, leaving his bedroom nearly untouched. Draco looked up. She was switching between a dark blue and green. "I like the blue," he commented lightly. The green was a bit to Slytherinny for the walls of this room.

She smiled. The glow she'd had the previous week had returned. "I think so too. Blue induces peace and contemplation, something that would do you good."

His bedroom had tan walls now, with cherry furniture and a burgundy duvet on the bed. He had no pillows still.

Nodding in approval but secretly not caring what color his little room was, he went into the bathroom.

The walls were now spring green and cream. He raised his eyebrows - he wasn't used to any room being this bright and cheery - and examined the flowers Hermione had put in the corner of his vanity. Was the woman insane?

"There are flowers in my bathroom!" he said as he entered the kitchen. She was shutting the door to his food storage closet. "Never send a woman to do a man's -"

"Shut up before I hit you with these bananas," she said, a bunch of bananas in one hand, a large basket in the other.

"Do it then!"

Hermione reached and struck out, clapping him of the side of the face. Draco laughed. "I can't believe you actually did that."

"Next I'll throw this orange at you."

He backed out of range, letting her set up a fruit basket on his counter, then wash her hands in the sink. He found himself staring - Granger looked like such a housewife in his little kitchen, her hands soapy, bits of curly hair dangling in her face.

He shook the image away as he realized that she was speaking to him. "What was that?"

"Are you ready for the session tomorrow?"

"I think so."

"It's no big deal," she promised, drying her hands on her jeans. "Just like any other day. The officials tend to be... annoying. On purpose, I think. Don't lose your temper. I won't be to hard on you, just in case he decides to get snippy to test your boundaries. It'll be over before you know it. I hope you aren't nervous -"

"Oi, woman, I wasn't before you went off like that!"

Hermione smiled. "They just like to appear like they don't believe you. They almost never extend someones time; at least not my patients."

"Why do you think that people seek power?"

It was the next day, with Draco, physically and metaphorically, on the couch. "Power is addicting. It is a way to look down on others and say, 'look at me. I'm great and powerful.'"

He could hear the scratching of the Ministry official's quill next to him. He wondered if the guy purposely seated himself on the couch next to Draco in order to remind him that he was being evaluated.

Prick.

"You would think that at least some people would want to do something good with it. That is why I don't understand politicians; how can they all be so self centered and greedy? Someone has to step up who means what they say. But no honest person gets anywhere close to powerful with all of the dishonesty. Case and point, Fudge."

"Case and point, me."

Hermione cocked her head at him briefly before writing something down: Was he all that powerful?

"What other reasons are there?"

Draco shrugged at looked up at the ceiling. The Ministry official followed his gaze. "I suppose people want it in order to make a difference, whether good or bad. Something I learned at home was economics - 'there is no such thing as a free lunch.' You have to pay for every little transaction you make, whether you think it is benefiting everyone or not. That even comes with doing good deeds."

"No good deed goes unpunished."

"Something like that."

Hermione nodded, for once not taking up her quill. Draco could tell that she had gears turning.

"Aleksei, what do you think?"

The Ministry official looked up at her, obviously a little taken aback at being addressed, and so informally considering the situation. "Well... I think all power corrupts in some way."

Hermione nodded and wrote a title: Why does power have to corrupt? She underlined it.

"Why does power have to corrupt? What do you think, Draco?"

He fidgeted. "Well, it doesn't have to corrupt. Everyone has some power, whether they realize it or not. For example, you have some power over your patients, no matter their social rank or job status. That is power. I don't think it has corrupted you."

Hermione smiled lightly as she paraphrased his response on her parchment.

"The wrong type of power almost always corrupts," Aleksei put forth.

"And what type would that be?"

"The power to have anything you want."

Hermione nodded. "That's an interesting point. It is weakness to give in to selfish desires. Perhaps all one's power just covers up that they are weak. Perhaps not intellectually, in the case of the Dark Lord... but in the end, on that night, I think we all saw his weakness - he let his thirst for power blind him so much that he forgot logic."

"And he died by a technicality, a fitting end for such a powerful wizard."

Draco rolled his eyes. He'd personally wanted Potter to explode the other man, just to make sure he was dead.

"You disagree, Draco?"

"I wanted The Dark Lord to be tortured and maimed, so that he might understand, in the end, how terrible he really was."

"To him it wasn't so terrible; everything he did was a means to an end. Dumbledore was the terrible one, and Harry Potter was the terrible one. To him they were like little worms trying to dismantle his 'great' plans."

"Aye, that's true. He needen't have died without empathy though. I feel that was more necessary for... closure."

"For revenge," Aleksei said. "You wanted revenge on He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named."

Here is was now - the guy was trying to piss him off on purpose. "Who wouldn't? If one were to have the opportunity, I doubt one wouldn't take it."

Hermione's resulting stare was of approval. He was getting a lot of those looks from her nowadays; it was gratifying.

"I understand you have some questions for Mr. Malfoy, Aleksei. Do proceed." The man stared at her. Draco's therapy session wasn't over for another hour and a half.

"Well, yes I do, of course."

Aleksei turned to Draco.

Hermione kept quiet during Draco's questioning; instead of hearing his responses, she watched the various emotions cross his face. He was very easy for her to read now - she understood what he was thinking when he raised one eyebrow or jutted out his jaw. He wasn't lying, which was good. She had been a little worried that he would be too nervous to tell the complete truth - he should know better anyway. Aleksei could also tell when people lied, whether he prodded it out of them on purpose or not.

Draco was resilient, it seemed. Outwardly anyway.

"One last thing. I see that you travel to the NASROP almost every day."

"Yes sir."

"What is it that you do there?"

Draco looked at the other man. "I read and research things. It helps me pass the time."

"And you enjoy researching?"

Draco bit down a scowl. "Obviously."

Aleksei finished writing and stared intently at Draco for a few seconds. Draco's nose began to itch. "We will be conducting a search of your domicile tomorrow, while you are at work. Someone might be down there in the Department of Mysteries to ask a few questions, maybe not. It might happen sometime on Wednesday, maybe Thursday."

Well, thanks for making everything so organized.

Draco was a little disappointed that he wouldn't be there to watch them search his flat. He wanted to make sure they didn't take anything the wrong way - like his lack of pillows. Who knew what they'd make of that.

After Aleksei left, Hermione smiled at him.

"You are smiling a lot."

She shrugged. "I'm feeling better, it seems. Besides, it pays to have everything stressful done in advance. It keeps you from going insane."

"That's likely," Draco mumbled.

Author's note: Sorry about that huge delay - I didn't die. If you've been keeping up with the author's notes on my profile page, you'll know that my computer crashed sometime in October, and I lost a lot of Therapy excerpts. Also, I've been busy with college applications. This won't happen again, I promise. In the meantime, check out my newer Dramione story. I tend to update that one more.