Work Text:
The interrogation room was ice cold. Rosier kept it that way, a clear ten degrees below the rest of the manor, but it wasn’t only the temperature that was cold. The furnishings were bleak, a plain wooden table and two hard wooden chairs—one for Rosier, and one for the poor witch or wizard who found himself in her sights. The walls, too, were blank stone, not a hint of sunlight; the only light came from what they conjured.
Rosier always had Draco conjure the lights, but not too bright. She was clear on that—the room should still be dark enough for there to be shadows, that whoever was being interrogated could imagine haunting shapes in them. It was natural for humans to be scared of the dark, and Rosier liked to frighten. It made people talk, she said.
Draco leaned against the wall, arms crossed with a wand in his hand. He was uncomfortable. The interrogation room was one thing, but it was a place he had gotten used to as Rosier’s second-in-command—it was the identity of the man in the chair, made to wait on Rosier’s pleasure, that made him bristle.
Edmund Rookwood was noble. And more than noble, he had once been Rosier’s closest friend. And now, he sat, head in hands, in her interrogation chamber.
The door came open with a bang, Rosier using the noise to unnerve. She strode in, the expression on her face unreadable. In the dim light, Draco could see she had taken the time to rough up her own appearance—Edmund was used to her being well put together, and disrupting his expectations was her goal. She wasn’t the woman he remembered, and she used everything she could to emphasize this point.
“Edmund,” she said coldly.
“Aldina.” Edmund’s head came out of his hands. His expression was horrifying: two parts desperate relief, one part nervousness. “It’s… good to see you.”
“I wish I could say likewise.” Aldina pulled out her wooden chair with a harsh squeal on the stone flooring. “I see His Madness has seen fit to send you here as a gift. Does he think I’m a fool?”
“Please, Aldina—”
“Lady Rosier,” she corrected.
“Lady Rosier,” Edmund repeated slowly. “Yes. Of course. I… could not tell you what Voldemort is thinking. I need help, Lady Rosier.”
Rosier leaned back in her chair. Her hair, tied back messily in a tail, bounced. “What are you willing to give for this help?”
Edmund’s eyes fell to the table. There wasn’t much he could barter with, and he knew it—but more than that, there had to have been a part of him that hadn’t thought Rosier would ask. Draco wanted to laugh—in the months he had worked under Aldina Rosier, he knew there was very little that Rosier wouldn’t ask. She carried with her the sort of iron determination that impressed and terrified by turns.
“I can give you what information I can about Voldemort and his forces,” he said finally. “I don’t know much—but whatever I know, you can have it. All of it. And I’ll keep passing information to you, as long as I can.”
Rosier stared at him for a minute, then she shrugged. “Very well. Tell me what you have.”
Rookwood took a deep breath, and then he started.
Most of what he said, they already knew. Voldemort had two main bases, Malfoy Manor and Lestrange Manor. Lestrange Manor held his prisoners, and the Dementors, while Malfoy Manor was his home. If they could just destroy Malfoy Manor, chances were good that they would cut the head off his whole operation. Draco did not want his manor destroyed, as treacherous as the thought might be to the resistance, and he silently gave thanks for the fact that noble manors were difficult to destroy.
Rosier stayed quiet, nodding at the right spots, her expression politely interested—always a warning, Draco had learned. She gave nothing of what she was thinking, and periodically asked for more details, more clarification. She kept him talking, describing things, but after forty minutes, Draco had a foreboding feeling.
This wasn’t right. Rosier was letting Rookwood take the lead, letting him tell her what he wanted to tell her. She wasn’t challenging him, wasn’t pushing him the way that she normally did—she hadn’t called him out on lying a single time, and that was something that Draco had come to expect within the first fifteen minutes of every interrogation. A flat stare, the words you’re lying or stop lying to me, and if it happened again, a loud slap or shove of the table. Once, a spell cast that blasted the witch or wizard against the other side of the room while Rosier stalked over and demanded the information she wanted, while the witch lay sobbing on the ground in front of her. Rosier did not let people dictate the tone of the room.
The fact that she was right now was not a good sign. Especially because even Draco could tell that Rookwood was lying, here and there. Small pauses, the flicker of his eyes to the left and to the right, and Rosier was letting him get away with it.
An hour, ninety minutes crept by before Rookwood’s words dried up. His voice was hoarse, quiet, but Rosier had not offered him any water.
“Is that all?” she asked finally, her expression still revealing nothing.
“Yes,” Rookwood replied, exhausted. “That’s all.”
“Very well,” Rosier said, then she stood and turned to Draco. “Put him in one of the guest room suites—standard sealing spells on the doors and windows. Nothing and no one goes in and out without my knowledge. We’ll hold him where we can keep an eye on him, lest he run back to Voldemort.”
“Wait.” Rookwood said, sounding out of breath. “Wait.”
Rosier paused and turned to look at him. “Yes?”
“You said…” Rookwood’s voice was small, sounding pathetic. “You said that you’d help. I need to go back. Alice is there, and—”
Rosier snorted derisively. “And have you spill everything you now know about my manor to Voldemort? I think not. In case you hadn’t noticed, Edmund, we are at war.”
“But you said—in return for my information, you’d…”
“I said nothing of the sort.” Rosier’s smile was cold. “And even if I did—you lied, and I don’t make deals with liars.”
She strode towards the door, and her hand was on the knob before Edmund replied.
“If Alice dies…” Edmund croaked. “If Alice dies, I won’t turn to you, Aldina. I won’t be with you. You’re not a replacement for her.”
Rosier had frozen, her face gone stiff with rage, the emotion turning the room hot through Draco’s gift. It was a moment before she said anything at all.
“Regardless of what you might believe, Edmund,” she said, her voice cool and clipped. “My decisions do not revolve around you anymore. You’re a fool and a coward, and I wouldn’t touch you if you were the last wizard in the world. No need to be gentle with him, Draco—just toss him in a guest suite and secure him. We have other work to do.”