man in the cage is Moody's missing Auror, Donald Bligh. According to Tonks, Bligh would have confiscated your father's stolen wand from Mister Zabini shortly before being portkeyed to his death."
"That was the evening Tonks was kidnapped," Draco surmised.
"Young Nymphadora has a knack for being at the wrong place at the right time," Dumbledore said, by way of confirmation.
There was only one thing left to ask, Draco supposed. It would have seemed odd and just a tad suspicious not to. "Any word on Goyle?" he added, hoping it sounded like an afterthought.
"Should there be?" Dumbledore intoned, just as carefully.
Draco was instantly annoyed. Damn the man for being cagey.
Dumbledore hopped off the bed and patted Draco on the shoulder. "Rest now. The healers tell me that the draught they gave you will wear off in about two hours or so. Until then, bed rest. You will have no shortage of visitors later."
Visitors?
"Sir?" Draco hated that his voice sounded so young at that moment.
Dumbledore paused at the door.
The gold embroidery in his rich robes seemed to gleam in the low light at the doorway. "Yes, Draco?"
"I don't want to see her. Could you please make sure...no one visits?"
The old wizard looked saddened but unsurprised by this. "As you wish."
Chapter Forty-Nine
Five years after the events depicted in The Dragon's Bride
It was Sunday, which meant it was extremely quiet at the Ministry of Magic.
Still, the building technically never shut and so someone had to be on hand at all times to take complaints, Owls, Floo transmissions and sign for packages.
On Sundays, this job fell to Rosie Pinkerton, Atrium Front Desk Receptionist at the Ministry of Magic.
Rosie put down her quill and stared up at the man who was asking to see Harry Potter. She was two weeks into the job at the Atrium Front Desk. To be honest, there wasn't much to do on the weekends, which was why she was trying her hand at the word jumble in the Sunday Prophet.
Atrium Front Desk duties basically meant that Rosie dealt with the public. The Wizard in the street, so to speak.
Any old Joe Blow could not just walk into the Ministry proper. You could try, but you wouldn't get much further than Rosie and the guards that patrolled the Atrium.
You needed to work there, have a valid Pass or an appointment. And if you had any one of these things, you still had to get past the elevators, which were a whole other level of security.
A lot of her job involved simple diplomacy. It often entailed deflecting disgruntled persons stumbling home early on Sunday morning after a Saturday night out, wanting to give "the sodding Minister" the Irish bird for raising the legal Apparition age to eighteen.
Rosie was Muggle-born and on the whole, considered wizards to be a strange lot. The man who was standing on the other side of her counter was stranger than most, however.
He had dialled in, just as everyone else did, via the red telephone box, giving the name, 'George Merrybones' . But he was not wearing the silver visitors' badge that had been assigned to him.
He was an odd duck, to be sure.
For starters, he looked like he had just trudged through half the Sahara (and brought most of it back with him). He was covered from head to toe in about an inch of dust.
No, not dust, Rosie mentally corrected, it was sand.
The pale yellow, fine kind that got everywhere and into everything. She thought he might be blond, but she couldn't be sure. His long hair was extremely matted and mud caked in some places.
The grime on the man was considerable. Indeed he looked like he had popped into existence straight out of a dust storm. His clothes were little more than rags, save for boots that were the only thing on him that looked passably new.
Goodness, was that a whip he was carrying at his hip? She couldn't see his wand and for some reason, this just made her more nervous.
He said something about a package he had to deliver.
His face was powdered with dust, such that there were tiny, pale creases at the corners of his eyes where he probably squinted from the sun and the dust hadn' t had a chance to get in. God knew how old he was. He could have been anywhere between twenty and forty.
It was his eyes, however, that made Rosie hit the panic button under the counter, even though she wasn't even in a