Draco was sitting in the living room, opposite of 3 reporters. One of the reporter present there was none other than Rita Skeeter. Draco didn"t know how she managed to get in, because as far as he knew, he had excluded Rita from the list of interviewers who were coming today. From the very beginning, as soon as she entered his house, Rita kept staring at Draco. Draco felt uncomfortable by her gaze and stared back at her, wondering what was going on. As soon as he did, Rita pushed the other reporters aside, walking closer with a photographer, who started taking pictures. The flash of the camera was so bright that it left Draco dazed for a while."We can take the pictures later Rita." Fudge who was present there along with some aurors said.
"Yes, we can Minister." Rita said with a smile.
Fudge who had been called a few things by Rita, ignored her as he was already in a bad mood. Fudge who was in a position of power felt helpless as he had to obey orders from a 12-year-old to keep his position. Draco after a brief discussion with Lucius this morning, decided to not interfere with the Minister position for a while. Due to Fudge"s stupidity controlling things would be much easier, so Draco didn"t want someone unexpected and hard to control become the new minister. Fudge too admitted that he had nothing to do with the aurors following them, so after a last warning from the pure-blood community, they let Fudge go but not without certain promises.
The reporter asked him various questions, mostly Rita who kept asking direct and provocative questions.
"h.e.l.lo, I"m Rita Skeeter! I write for the Daily Prophet. But, of course, you know that, don"t you? It"s you we don"t know, so let"s cut the introduction short." Rita said pushing the two reporters aside, "I have been wanting to interview for a couple of years now but you always seem to reject the offer, what makes this time an exception?"
"This time, what has happened with Pius is not my personal issue alone." Draco said calmly, not getting nervous at all, "With the attack on different ministry officials and normal wizards with one of the Unforgivable Curses, the Imperius Curse. The people have the right to know what is going on."
The reporters wrote down the things, Rita included but she kept staring at Draco while writing it.
"So can you give us an account of what happened with Pius from your perspective, from your disappearance to you defeating him." A reporter asked quickly before Rita had the chance to do so. Rita snorted and sat back, ready to write things down.
"Well, it"s difficult to explain actually but I will try to give you some details of what I could remember in the very least." Draco said, "As you might have already heard, I went on a little tour to Romania with my friend."
"You escaped." Rita cut off Draco, "Why?"
"I will appreciate if you don"t cut me off next time, I am not a very patient man." Draco said glaring back at Rita, If it was before the whole fiasco, the reporters would have brushed the comment off as a child"s threat but now they were dealing with someone who defeated a soon to be Dark Lord. Gulping, they all naturally smiled.
"I apologize." Rita said smiling as if nothing happened, "Please continue."
"Hmph! As I was saying, I went off on a tour to Romania with my friend. As for your question, I am a kid, and if you have children you can easily know how rebellious they can be sometimes. For me, this was an act of rebelling against my Father, who wanted to protect me way too much." Draco continued, "Why Romania you might ask, well, of course, it"s for the Dragons. Very interesting creatures they are, and I always had a fascination for it. But after we reached the Dragon farm, we were attacked by Pius and his men suddenly. Lucky for us, my father arrived there along with some help and we managed to delay Pius, but unfortunately, due to all the confusion among the fight, my friend Theodore was captured by Pius who disapparated away with him and I was sent flying back to a forest. Hence the news of my disappearance broke out."
The reporters keenly listened as they wrote each and every word he spoke with complete seriousness.
"As you all know, I am very good at Potions, so with a couple of healing spells and potions, I was able to walk back out of the forest, but due to a bit of very good luck, I found out that Pius was hiding in the forest, opposite of mine. So with a broom in hand, I traveled there quickly and safely. After I reached outside of the forest, I was delighted by the news that the Minister was already aware of the situation and was acting on it immediately." Fudge nodded happily agreeing with Draco.
"It wasn"t a big deal, with some of our finest trained aurors, finding their location didn"t take much time." Fudge added, "And we acted on it as soon as we found their locations. As you might have already known both Theodore and Draco here are very intelligent wizards and are the future of our magical community, so we couldn"t let them fall under wrong hands-- We would do the same if any other children were involved of course."
Saving the Ministry"s reputation was a part of their deal. With so many aurors going rogue, People started doubting Fudge"s position as the Minister. So to save the crisis falling upon them, both of them decided to save the Ministry"s character along as well or else Fudge would be kicked out of the minister"s position just by the public outcry.
"So basically after that, I followed the trails back to Pius and along with the help of some brave aurors who unfortunately couldn"t make it. We defeated Pius." Draco continued, in reality, he could have taken all the credit for defeating Pius, since that was exactly what he did but he refrained from doing so due to various reasons. Draco was sure that with this he could get more believers than people who doubt him since even in the wizarding community, a 12-year-old kid defeating a group of full-grown wizards was basically like a fairy tale. So after some discussion with Fudge, Draco prepared the whole fake statement of some aurors helping him, who unfortunately died to do so. These brave martyrs were none other than ones who were killed by Merc on that auction. Since they needed to justify the missing aurors somehow, Fudge suggested that this was the best idea. Draco knew that Fudge wanted to take every chance he could get to repair his reputation but even knowing his intentions Draco still chose to follow it, as it was convincing and reasonable. "And that"s the end of it."
The reporters quickly wrote all the things down nodding, they too found it convincing that Draco had some help rather than the rumors about him defeating all those wizards under the curse along with some rogue trained aurors, by himself.
"Ask your questions, now." Draco said, "I am busy with other stuff and don"t have all day to deal with this, so let"s quickly end this interview, shall we?"
"Why are you so interested in Dragons?" Rita quickly asked
"They are marvelous creatures, anyone my age would, of course, be interested in Dragons, wouldn"t they?"
"There are rumors that you owned one of the Dragons in the farm that disappeared that day." Rita quickly asked not giving chance to the other reporters, "What do you have to say about that?"
"I don"t." Draco said clearly, "If I owned one, I wouldn"t go through all that ha.s.sle just to see one and I heard about the disappearance of the dragon, and I am extremely apologetic to the Dragon farm and the owner of the dragon. He or she could come to ask me or the minister compensation any time, for their loss."
Fudge coughed awkwardly since he didn"t want to waste his money on repaying for someone else"s mistake. Since Fudge didn"t know that Draco was the one who owned the Dragon, he started cursing Draco in his mind as to why he couldn"t keep his mouth shut.