The Long and Winding Road

PROLOGUE: "All The Lonely People"

"Bye, then, Potter," said Moody, grasping Harry's shoulder for a moment with a gnarled hand.

"Take care, Harry," said Lupin quietly. "Keep in touch."

"Harry, we'll have you away from there as soon as we can," Mrs. Weasley whispered, hugging him again.

"We'll see you soon, mate," said Ron anxiously, shaking Harry's hand.

"Really soon, Harry," said Hermione earnestly. "We promise."

Harry nodded. He somehow could not find words to tell them what it meant to him, to see them all ranged there, on his side. Instead he smiled, raised a hand in farewell, turned around, and led the way out of the station toward the sunlit street, with Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, and Dudley hurrying along in his wake.

* * *

As Harry and his reluctant relatives headed towards Privet Drive, the platform of Nine-and-Three-Quarters began to empty of wizarding folk. Lingering students parted from their classmates and were reunited with their families. Luggage was carted, pets were found, hugs were exchanged.

The cheerful chaos of homecoming slowly ebbed away. A few last calls of farewell rang out. Fading footsteps were drowned out by a final whistle from the train. Trailing a white ribbon of smoke, the Hogwarts Express departed, leaving the station to its summer silence.

...And in a corner of the platform, a pale, sharp-featured boy stepped out of the shadows.

Draco Malfoy took a few hesitant steps into the empty space and drifted to a halt. He blinked, looking around him in bewilderment and annoyance.

The lanterns overhead were casting just enough light to emphasise the approaching twilight. Empty luggage trolleys were scattered aimlessly about, standing in drifts of candy wrappers and discarded scrolls of homework.

No mother.

He had known better to expect his father...

...though I had hoped. They won't be able to keep him in Azkaban for long...!

...but no mother, either.

His mother was supposed to be here. She was ALWAYS here to meet him at the end of the school year.

She should have been waiting with Crabbe and Goyle's mothers. The great oafs must have told her what had happened on the train...

Malfoy rolled his eyes in disgust. If they had remembered to, that is. Crabbe and Goyle had an attention-span problem. It came from having about half a brain between them.

The conductor had been forced to call in a medi-witch, just to get the three Slytherins poured out of his luggage rack and uncursed enough to toss off the train. Crabbe and Goyle had been released before Malfoy had— because even as unrecognisably hexed lumps of pudding, Crabbe and Goyle were so much larger than he was that they had blocked him from view.

Draco shuddered. Being trapped under an oozing, twitching, tentacular Crabbe and Goyle in a luggage rack was now at the top of his list of Most Important Reasons Not to Go to Hell. If the people in charge there had any notion of the true hideousness of that experience, they'd be scheduling him for an eternity of it.

Had his mother— possibly infuriated by the delay in his appearance— gone to complain to the Ministry, demanding that Potter and his gang be punished for the attack upon her son?

Malfoy glared fiercely around at the abandoned platform again, briefly distracted by a flare of rage at the Boy Who Lived. Chucking his father in prison wasn't enough; no, Potter had to add gratuitous insult to already unbearable injury. This was the second year in a row that Draco had arrived in London unconscious and mauled.

His mother had been furious last year; she had alternated between humiliated tears and icy silence for the entire first week of his holiday, both states somehow implying that the incident had been HIS fault. And while he hadn't exactly been looking forward to a reprise of that performance, the complete absence of a performer was unnerving.

Draco rubbed his forehead, trying to ignore the nasty, sinking feeling that was creeping into his stomach. His mother would surely have left a servant behind to wait for him, wouldn't she? She always had at least one with her to carry the luggage.

...Which implied that she'd never been here at all.

No, she's just been delayed somewhere. Small wonder, with Father in Azkaban. She'll be here.

Feeling rather perturbed, Malfoy sat down to wait.

* * *

Hours later, Malfoy got up from the bench, cold and stiff. Stars were beginning to peer through the windows above. His mother still wasn't here. It didn't look as if she would be coming at all.

Something terrible must have happened. As if the head of the family being in Azkaban hadn't been bad enough for the Malfoys. Perhaps his mother was at the Ministry of Magic, petitioning for his father's release. Perhaps she herself had been detained and was even now being questioned.

Malfoy's cold, pale eyes narrowed in fury. He grabbed the handle of his trolley and shoved. He'd go home and contact Crabbe and Goyle, and see what their families knew about this. He'd Floo the Ministry and complain. He'd scream to the Daily Prophet. The name of Malfoy still counted for something, in spite of that Muggle-lover Dumbledore's newly regained popularity. Too many people still owed his father favours, for reasons that they wouldn't want examined too closely by the authorities, and Malfoy had a good idea where to start looking for them.

With an angry surge, he crashed through the magical barrier and onto the Muggle platform, which was also empty and quiet. He looked around with a disdainful sneer and pushed the trolley towards the nearest door, intent on getting home as fast as possible.

The trolley rattled furiously along at first, but then it gradually clacked to a halt.

...HOW was he going to get home?

Draco's steps faltered, and the forgotten knot in his stomach fluttered sickeningly back to life.

His home was an unknown number of miles away. There was no Portkey waiting for him. He had not the slightest notion of where the nearest Floo Network outlet was, much less how to get to it. He couldn't Apparate; his father had refused to teach him last summer as he'd promised. Lucius Malfoy had been in a foul and frightening mood after the Tri-Wizard Tournament fiasco; Draco had spent most of his last summer holiday trying to stay out of his father's range of vision. Yet another thing he had to thank Potter for.

Malfoy scowled and, with extreme reluctance, considered his non-magical options. He was in an empty Muggle train station. He had no Muggle money. He wouldn't know Muggle public transport if it ran him down, nor which kind he needed to take. And Muggle transport had about as much chance as finding Malfoy Manor as a butterfly did the North Pole. He had no idea what the nearest Muggle town to the Manor was.

He didn't even know how to get to the Ministry of Magic from here. Or Diagon Alley. Or Knockturn Alley.

...Or, in fact, anywhere.

The nervous fluttering in his stomach suddenly became a full-fledged stab of panic. Draco looked around wildly. But there was nothing and nobody— except the pile of his luggage that he would be compelled to remove from the trolley at the door... with nowhere to put it, and no way to carry it.

Draco stood frozen for a long moment, then took a deep breath and pushed his trolley behind the nearest pillar. He opened up his trunks with trembling hands and removed the most valuable items from them, stuffing them one by one into his satchel until it creaked at the seams. The rest of it would have to be abandoned.

He was going to have to fly home. Somehow.

Malfoy paused and glared resentfully at the pile of belongings that he was going to have to leave behind; mostly school uniforms and class equipment. He'd packed everything he had at Hogwarts, swearing to himself that he was never setting foot in the place again. He was going to transfer to Durmstrang, no matter how awful his mother made him feel about it— and when he graduated, he'd come back and show that bastard Potter a thing or two. Visions of triumphantly breaking his father out of Azkaban had seethed in his head as he'd hurled things at his trunks...

His mouth tightened angrily. Malfoy flung the satchel over his shoulders, snatched up his Nimbus 2001, and turned his back on the mess. He wouldn't need his Hogwarts' robes anymore, anyway. They could sit here and rot for all he cared.

Malfoy slammed through the ugly metal doors at the end of the platform. Contemptuously disregarding the presence of the Muggles in the parking lot, he threw a leg over his broom and kicked off the ground. He hovered for a moment, sneering down at their stupid gaping faces, and then the Slytherin Seeker darted away into the sky.

* * *

Malfoy glided to a landing in the courtyard, jumped off his broom— and stumbled, nearly falling on his face. He'd been in the air for what seemed like forever. It was some ungodly hour near dawn, and he had never been so tired in his life. His legs were trembling so badly that they barely held him up.

He'd had to use a Compass Charm in order to find his way home at all, and even that hadn't wanted to obey him— after the Ministry had raided Malfoy Manor twice in one year, his father had made the estate Unplottable.

Draco had been forced to use his own blood to make the charm work, calling on the hereditary tie between the Malfoy line and the estate; and even then, the readings had been so erratic that he'd gotten lost. There hadn't been any roads or villages to steer by, and unlike the downs by daylight (which he probably could have navigated from the air while Confunded), he had been rather unnerved to discover that it all looked the same in the darkness— a silent, steeply rolling landscape of mottled grey-green scrub, dotted with cold pale stones like stars.

Draco had found himself flying in circles for what must have been hours, struggling to determine exactly which pattern of hills and valleys he wanted. And as a final indignity, half an hour ago a wild gust of wind had caught him unawares and tossed him into a blackberry bramble.

Chilled and stiff, scratched and sweaty, tired and furious, Malfoy staggered up the marble steps and violently kicked the front door. "Open up!" he shouted, and kicked it again for good measure. He didn't give a damn if he woke up his mother. She'd be furious— but she'd also be horrified by his disgraceful condition and rush him off to bed with half a dozen healing potions. And frankly, at this point, as long as he got the coddling he would put up with the accusations.

The echoes of his bad-tempered calling card rolled like distant thunder behind the heavy door, then faded into unresponsive silence. He tried again, pounding with his fist, and got the same result.

...Bloody hell.

Malfoy walked back out onto the drive and looked up at his home.

The Manor was a lowering mass of pale stonework, elaborately ornamented in the Baroque style that had been popular when the Malfoys had first come to England. The central part of the building was by far the oldest, and two towers rose from within it to claw at the sky. Two wings in exactly the same style had been added nearly a century later (current fashions be damned) with their own towers, flanking the sides of the courtyard. Only the ironwork fence and gate to the south gave even the tiniest impression of accessibility or welcome.

The windows had strictly ornamental draperies, with no veil of gauze or lace drawn over them to soften the impact of the countless panes of glass— but the windows of the main building were set higher than was normal, revealing only the occasional portrait beneath a vaulted ceiling; and the West and East Wings looked down on the courtyard from galleried corridors that concealed their rooms from the eyes of strangers.

The windows of the Manor were all tall, narrow arches, their glass panes joined with thin black lines of lead. It gave the impression that the "eyes" of the Manor were watching the courtyard, peering from beneath a screen of deviously lowered lashes.

Malfoy Manor seemed alive. It was unmistakably a house that guarded its secrets.

...Especially so today, because every window was dark. His mother was quite obviously not at home.

Malfoy scowled. His mother was at the Ministry. She had to be. Probably against her will, or she would have come home to sleep in her own bed. He'd just see about that. And the servants were going to catch hell for leaving him standing on the doorstep like this. He didn't care what hour of the night it was.

Taking out his wand, he aimed it at the ornate lock. "Alohamora," he snapped. The door obediently sprang open a tiny crack, and Malfoy snatched up his things.

There was a flash of glaring red light as he began to push open the door, and Malfoy instinctively threw himself flat. Flames shot through the gap like a lick of dragonfire, crisping his hair. An angry whining hum from inside warned him that other curses were activating themselves.

Oh, HELL! The full defences are up!

Malfoy yanked off his cloak pin and raked the point of it across his palm for the second time that evening, cursing frantically under his breath. A few small drops of blood welled up, and he hastily shook his hand so that they spattered onto the threshold.

The blood was instantly sucked away into the stone. A ringing silence fell.

Draco swallowed hard, trembling at the thought of what might have happened. Slowly, he got to his feet and pushed the door all the way open. "Lumos," he whispered, holding up his wand.

The entrance hall was silent, with faint wisps of smoke drifting through the air from the trap he'd set off. The staircase swept up the left side of the room to a balcony that overlooked the hall below, some fifteen feet above the marble floor. The intricate arches of the high ceiling were nothing more than shifting shadows and gleams of light.

The Malfoy coat of arms loomed over him, affixed to the railing of the balcony, dominating the room: a silver tower on a black field, the tower supporting a single serpentine vine of green ivy. The tower shimmered as if it were made of moonbeams, its light glinting here and there on the glossy, spade-shaped leaves that spiralled counterclockwise to the top.

There was a thin grey film on the ebony furniture. An artistic arrangement of very rare but very dead flowers sat on a nearby table, reflected in the silver-framed mirror behind it.

Draco's stomach churned again as he drew a finger across the table, then stared in disbelief at the powdery smudge of dust on his fingertip.

There WERE no servants here.

And if Mother or Father were here, the Warding Web would have summoned them. Any Malfoy on the estate would know that the traps had gone off...

After a bewildered moment, he dropped his things, leaving them forgotten in the hall. Malfoy crept further into the house, wand in hand. He went from room to room, proceeding carefully from the public rooms to the private rooms... from the private rooms to the workrooms... and with extreme caution, from the workrooms to those few secret rooms that he knew existed. He discovered something that frightened him badly.

Malfoy Manor had been looted.

Not by burglars, who would have left drawers and shelves carelessly emptied on the floors. Not by magical pests, which would have indiscriminately wrecked everything in sight. Instead, it had been methodically ransacked, leaving everything unwanted equally untouched.

The looters hadn't had to search the manor; they'd apparently known what the most valuable items were. Several rare spellbooks of his father's that he had never been allowed to read. Most of the tinctures and balms from the stillroom. All of the poisons and potions from his mother's workroom. Several extremely dangerous Dark artefacts from his father's private study. Even the cleverly disguised flying carpet in his mother's dressing room.

Worst of all, every single portrait of his ancestors in the Manor had been ensorcelled; their frames now held nothing more than mute black squares of canvas. Whoever had broken into the Manor had been extremely clever— because until Malfoy figured out what had been done to them, he couldn't ask the portraits who had done it. Even the mirrors were silent.

Thoroughly disconcerted, Draco moved through the dark, cold, silent halls of his home, searching everywhere he could think of with an increasing sense of panic. The servants were gone, their quarters emptied of all possessions. The hearthfires had been cold for days, perhaps weeks. The cellars had long since been exhausted of anything perishable, and he could hear mice fighting over the last scraps in the walls. The owls were missing from the East Tower.

—No, there's one!

It was coming in to land. Malfoy ran over to the window and removed the letter from its leg, looking hopefully for his mother's seal...

It was from the Ministry of Magic. He blinked at the large, authoritative emblem impressed in the wax, then flipped the letter over to read:

Malfoy scowled at the 'wandering' part and contemplated throwing the letter right back out the window. He finally sighed in disgust and ripped it open. Perhaps it was about his father. Or his mother. Even bad news from a contemptible source was at least news...

Malfoy felt the blood drain out of his face, leaving it stiff and frozen. His hands tightened around the parchment until it crackled.

" 'Enjoy your holidays'," he echoed in a hoarse whisper, his eyes burning. His voice seemed very loud in the room, with only the wind to challenge it.

He walked slowly back down the stairs, shredding the letter with trembling fingers.

* * *

Draco Malfoy stood at the counter of Gringotts, behaving in a spectacularly dangerous fashion towards an increasingly annoyed goblin. He had had no sleep since leaving Hogwarts the day before, as was evidenced by the shadows under his eyes. His hair was a disgraceful mess. His robes were dusted an ashy green from a harrowing ride through the Floo Network. And every now and then his stomach growled in a horribly embarrassing fashion.

...All in all, Malfoy didn't really feel like keeping his temper.

"What do you mean, it's empty?" he shouted.

"Vault 665 has been emptied," the old goblin snapped, "with the exception of the estate-entailed assets and a trust fund for one Draco Malfoy, to be released to him when and if he reaches eighteen years of age—" and the goblin glared down its long, pointy nose at the trembling, near-hysterical Slytherin, as if to imply that Malfoy's reaching eighteen might not happen if he kept this up, "—or to the guardian of Draco Malfoy, who may remove capital from it prior to that date if necessary for his upkeep and education. All other assets were seized."

Draco rubbed his forehead, not caring for the moment that he was probably smearing ashes all over it. He just didn't understand what was happening. He hadn't understood a single thing that had happened to him since he'd left Hogwarts, in fact.

Those unbelievable bastards... they took Father's money. It wasn't enough that they chucked him in Azkaban, they had to steal from him as well! How the bloody hell am I supposed to help him without any money? "How can I get money out of the trust fund without my guardian actually being present?" he demanded absently, the greater part of his mind seething with plans for revenge against the Aurors, the Ministry, Hogwarts, POTTER... His education could wait— he'd spend the trust fund—

The reply was direct and chillingly final. "You can't."

His attention snapped back to the goblin cashier at once. "But my parents aren't here!"

"I fail to see how that changes anything," the goblin said coldly.

"If I can't find my parents," Malfoy gritted out, his eyes narrowed to icy slits, "because, for example, they are unfairly incarcerated in Azkaban or held illegally incommunicado by Aurors, and therefore unable to COME to Gringotts; and the money which would have been accessible to me has seized by some PILLOCK—" His scathing diatribe was beginning to draw attention from the other patrons. Malfoy drew a shuddering breath and lowered his voice. "—and I am still under eighteen years of age, then obviously I will need capital for my upkeep."

The goblin tapped his book with a sharply filed fingernail. "The protocols for this account are most explicit. If there is an unforeseen problem with the protocols, it is not my place to change them. It is not my account. You must bring your guardian— an original or one newly appointed by the Wizengamot, it makes no difference— to Gringotts, and then and only then will the monies therein be made available to you, contingent upon his or her supervision and approval. No other means are possible or will be allowed."

"Whose instructions are these, anyway?" snarled Malfoy. "The Ministry of Magic's? The Wizengamot's? Dumbledore's?" If he knew who had done this, he might be able to apply some pressure and have the ruling overturned... Although Morgan knew, he hadn't been able to get his father's contacts at the Ministry to tell him so much as where his mother was. Many of them had been mysteriously absent.

"No, Mr. Malfoy." The goblin glowered at him. "These protocols have been established for many years. And while there was indeed a Ministry order issued to us last month to freeze all assets related to this account, it was a useless gesture. The vault had already been emptied."

"By who?!"

"Narcissa Malfoy, née Black," snapped the goblin. "Wife of Lucius Malfoy. Now, if that is all—"

The cashier's window slammed down in front of Malfoy's stunned face.

* * *

Draco stood on the hearth in the drawing room, numbly brushing the dull green ashes off his robes until there weren't any left to fuss over.

He looked slowly around the room. Dusty. Dark. Silent. Empty. Gaps on the shelves and tables that glared accusingly at him. Just like every other room in the Manor.

Eventually, he sat down.

...I knew Father was in Azkaban. As far as I know, he's still there. But as recent events have shown, I might easily be wrong. I need to get my hands on a newspaper. Somehow.

...I don't know where Mother is. She's always been a bit excitable, particularly where Father was concerned. She might have tried to force the Ministry to release him, and said or done something that made them keep her in custody.

At least she dismissed the servants and got them out of the house before she closed it up... Morgan knows what they might have done if they'd been left on their own. The Ministry would have jumped at the chance to raid the Manor again, particularly with none of us here to keep an eye on them. That's probably why Mother took everything with her.

And withdrew all of our money.

And set the Warding Web to maximum lethality.

...There was something wrong with that picture.

Why wasn't I told about what was being done? Malfoy thought, dropping his head wearily into his hands. I would have left school early... If she'd just sent me an owl saying "come home" and nothing more, I'd have done it, I'd have understood.... I knew what Potter and the bloody Ministry had done, everyone did... Why didn't she take me with her?

The Ministry. Malfoy sat up suddenly, his eyes widening. If the Ministry had been intercepting the owl post to and from the Manor... any message sent to him, however innocuous, might have made the Ministry suspect that his mother was planning on going into hiding. They would have arrested her long before he could get home. She would have known that.

...Worse yet, the Ministry might have let him receive the message and come home, might have let them leave together, and then followed them straight to the Dark Lord.

Malfoy shuddered, imagining the horrors THAT would have brought down on his family. The worst aggravations the Ministry could inflict were as nothing compared to the wrath of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

...No, Mother knows I can't Apparate, and that must have been the only safe way for her to travel. She's with the Death Eaters; she has to be. She's probably helping free Father and the others from Azkaban. A malicious smile appeared briefly on his tired face. The hard way. For those fools at the Ministry, anyway.

The other option— that the Ministry HAD intercepted a message for him from his mother and immediately moved to arrest her— didn't even bear thinking about. Although that seemed just about the right speed for the Ministry of Magic; to arrest both of a minor's parents and never bother to even tell him anything, much less leave anyone behind to look after him...

No. That hadn't happened. It couldn't have. His mother might be a little erratic at times, but she was far too clever for that to have happened. She had gone to get help, that was all.

I can't expect Mother to put me before Father. I can't expect either of them to put me before their loyalties to the Dark Lord. I'll have to manage on my own. Father would expect me to defend the Manor until he and Mother can return for me.

In fact... this was the perfect opportunity to prove himself to his father. A bolt of excitement flashed through him. The frightening situation in which he found himself was suddenly something greatly to be desired. Malfoy leaped to his feet and raced out into the corridor. He would search his father's study for some of the nastier spellbooks he knew about, in the hopes that even one of them had been left behind.

Draco ignored the nagging little voice in his head that asked WHY he didn't come before Voldemort for his parents. The one that wondered where he appeared in his parents' priorities at all.