Malfoy Manor. In a dimly lit room, Draco Malfoy sat curled up in a chair with his arms around his knees, staring blankly at the shattered mirror before him.
A few days earlier, the Malfoy family had undergone earth-shaking changes.
Draco's father, Lucius, had not only failed in his plan to lead a raid on a Mudblood wedding, but had stupidly led the others straight into a trap laid by the Ministry of Magic. Many Dark wizards who had answered his call were captured, and some had even lost their lives because of it.
The Malfoy family's reputation was destroyed overnight. Lucius, who had always been Draco's role model, became a failure in the eyes of countless Death Eaters. He and his mother became targets of the Death Eaters' hatred and scorn, because Lucius's stupidity had caused devastating losses for both the Death Eaters and those who believed in him.
Misfortune seemed to have latched onto the Malfoy family. Not long after the Ministry of Magic's sweeping victory, a pair of Aurors visited Malfoy Manor and brought them a letter from home—and a fifty-thousand-Galleon fine.
It was undoubtedly the craziest thing Draco had ever seen in his life.
That damned Scrimgeour had actually threatened them: if the Malfoy family refused to pay the exorbitant fifty-thousand-Galleon fine, his father Lucius would not even have a chance to enter the Judgment Chamber.
Pay up, or die.
It was his father Lucius's handwriting. Draco would recognize it even in death. In the letter, Lucius had discreetly mentioned that two other wizards were receiving similar treatment. As for the other captured Death Eaters, they had all been killed for "resisting arrest."
Whether they had truly been killed for resisting arrest did not matter. They were dead.
Fifty thousand Galleons was an enormous sum even