The Long and Winding Road

Chapter One: "Flowing More Freely Than Wine"

Malfoy awoke with a horrible jolt, as if he'd been yanked out of his seat at the end of a leash. Scrolls of ancient parchment cascaded from his lap, followed by the primer on elemental charms and curses he'd found among his father's old schoolbooks. He scrabbled clumsily at the arms of his father's chair, barely keeping himself from following his reading material to the floor.

Draco blinked in confusion, the flames in the fireplace wavering in his vision a little more than they should have, his heart beating with a hard, slow thud in his ears.

He must have dozed off while studying. This wasn't a surprise; he hadn't been sleeping well. The Manor was so very still, particularly at night, that his mind had begun creating noises to fill the silence... and none of the noises had been the reassuring kind.

He'd burned up half a crate of candles in less than a week's time. Mostly because he kept finding himself sitting cold and sleepless on his bed in the middle of the night... staring at the boundary where the light began to fade, certain that something was moving in the shadows beyond it...

A second harrowing shock crashed through him, stronger than the one that had awoken him. It hadn't been a sudden realisation that he'd dozed off, after all. This was from an external source. It ruthlessly kicked his pulse into something resembling its normal speed, clearing the cobwebs of exhaustion and the now-constant dizziness from his head.

...The alarms. The alarms are going off.

They were a rising howl in his blood, a persistent humming against the inside of his eardrums. They echoed through the corridors, the air vibrating but the sound silenced by the adamant stillness of the Manor.

Draco shuddered involuntarily. He had endured that stillness for six days now; the thought that even the alarms did not break it made something inside him want to scream...

The Warding Web yanked his attention back to it, impatiently demanding that he deal with the trespassers now entering the grounds. A picture materialised before his mind's eye as clearly if his skull were a Pensieve, giving him a bizarre sort of double vision. Draco staggered unenthusiastically to his feet–

...the ground floor, the drawing room... a violent explosion of verdant flames in the fireplace, shooting up the chimney and scorching the hearthstones... a tall, formally gowned woman stepping swiftly out of the fireplace... three other intruders that followed on her heels, wands in hand... their shadows dancing ghoulishly on the walls in a secondary flare of light...

–and a distant booming noise echoed through the Manor, the first real sound that Malfoy had heard since leaving Diagon Alley. The initial trap had been set off. The Web's imperative in his mind grew stronger, angrier, throbbing in time with his pulse. Malfoy found himself running for the door of the study, his wand somehow appearing in his hand–

...the room around the intruders in flames now, orange and glaring... charred splinters of the furniture levitating from the floor and hurling themselves like knives... the instinctive leap of one of the invaders to shield the woman who had led them here... the frantic flash and gesturing of countercurses...

–throwing the door closed behind him, Malfoy triggered the spell that concealed his father's study from view. He could hear the invaders now, although the sound of explosions and shouting was muffled by the distance.

How was it possible that these people were here? Draco didn't understand any of this; he was too tired... his head hurt, his stomach ached... But the Web kept pulling and pulling–

...a creeping chill unfurling from the dark corners of the room, coating everything with frost... a young woman pointing her wand at the cruel shards of ice forming in the doorway... the motions of a stuttering chant, her breath fogging whitely... a beam of red cutting through the cold black air...

–yanking him into a run, drawing him down the shortest route to the entrance hall. The abrupt change in temperature within the Manor sent a gust of bitter air through the doors of the ballroom, howling down the corridor. The cold shocked his sleep-fogged brain into alertness, and the curses he'd been studying for days leapt eagerly to his fingertips.

The Warding Web's anger raged through his mind like a forest fire, incensing him with the thought of intruders on his ancestral lands; the wind scraped his face raw, chilled his spirit to an unfeeling cruelty–

...a distorted, looming figure blasting the thick sheet of ice out of the doorway... three of the attackers pouring into the entrance hall, their leader following at a more cautious pace... the dim light of their wands flickering across the cavernous entrance hall, illuminating the silver tower of the Malfoy arms like a streak of sudden lightning... a dark-skinned man leaping backwards as the statue nearest him came to life, swinging its carved weapon down at his skull in a vicious arc...

–and Malfoy ducked through the ballroom and skidded to a halt on the balcony above the entrance hall, his eyes now blazing a maddened silver as harsh and unyielding as the heraldic tower beneath him.

He didn't bother checking to see who the invaders were. It didn't matter. Only a family member could locate the concealed link to the Floo Network– but the Web insisted quite violently that they didn't belong here, and that was enough.

Two of the three figures turned in surprise as Malfoy lifted his wand. He aimed over their heads at the tall, silver-framed mirror on the wall behind them.

"Caecus!" he shouted, and dropped quickly behind the railing of the balcony, shielded behind the coat of arms.

A streak of sparkling white light shot into the mirror and refracted violently, filling the room below in a blinding, agonising dazzle. Cries of startled pain echoed through the hall. Malfoy kept his eyes shut for the few instants in which the light burned redly through his eyelids, then sprang back to his feet.

Revealed in the now-glaring light of the entrance hall were two men and a woman, all holding wands. The woman had clapped her free hand over her eyes and was retreating cautiously towards the drawing room, muttering a healing spell. She bumped into the table, knocking the deceased flower arrangement onto the floor with a crash. The dark-skinned man was pressing his lips together in resolute silence, tears of pain shining on his otherwise impassive face. He scanned the room, his eyes closed but his head tilted, listening for movement. With careful precision he turned towards the second statue that was animating itself, lifting his wand. The other man was holding off the first statue that had come to life, blasting pieces out of the marble torso. The fourth person from Malfoy's vision– the formally dressed woman who had led them here– was standing inside the doorway of the drawing room, shielding her eyes against the light with an upflung arm and calmly murmuring a countercurse.

There was something vaguely familiar about that woman. But this puzzled thought was immediately driven out of his head by his realisation that the three people in the entrance hall looked like Aurors.

...The Ministry of Magic was invading Malfoy Manor.

A terrible, resentful rage flooded through Malfoy's veins, making his slender body shake. The memory of the last six dreadful days rose up in his soul and demanded that someone answer for them. Eagerly, the Warding Web snatched a spell from his memory– a spell recently learned from his father's spellbook– and presented it to him like a gift.

Snarling, Malfoy leaned over the balcony and shouted, "Tempesta!"

A howling whirlwind exploded from the end of his wand, filling the entrance hall. The heavy ebony furniture was knocked over by the winds, some of it cracking apart on the marble floor. A faint gossamer web of lightning blanketed the hall, grounding itself indiscriminately with tiny, crackling pops of static.

The gale maliciously harried the Aurors, hurling their robes up into their faces– tangling the fabric around their arms and yanking their wands off-target– pushing at them when they tried to move–

The young woman staggered into the doorway of the drawing room and turned in it, bracing herself against the wind so as to shield the older woman. She lifted her wand and aimed as best she could, blasting the head off a third statue that was moving to attack them. The black Auror flinched as the winds hurled the shrapnel past him; a cut opened on his cheek, drops of blood flying away into the air.

Malfoy leaned recklessly out over the family coat of arms, holding the whirlwind on the Aurors with his wand, goading it to further violence. He laughed maliciously, the sound whipping away into the screaming gale.

...His elation was short-lived. An unnaturally empty feeling began to seep into him, slowly growing in intensity. Draco sagged over the railing of the balcony, desperately trying to maintain the storm as his strength seemed to drain out of him. Cold crept through his veins, as if snowmelt were pumping from his heart instead of blood. Sparkles danced across his vision that had nothing to do with the static flying through the air below.

His head spun. His legs threatened to buckle. He suddenly wanted to be very, very sick.

Draco bit his lip hard enough to draw blood. No matter how effective this curse was, it wasn't worth it. He lifted his wand again to dismiss the spell.

...At which point, he discovered that he couldn't.

The Warding Web, which had bound the Malfoy family to the Manor for hundreds of years, clamped down on him viciously as soon as he tried to release the curse. This spell was the most powerful that Draco knew; the intruders were not yet dead; therefore, the spell needed to continue.

...There were others of Malfoy blood still living, after all.

Draco clung to the railing with his free hand, trembling, struggling to stay on his feet. Below him, the third Auror demolished the marble statue attacking him in an explosive burst of light and turned towards the balcony.

Mad-Eye Moody glared up at him with his magical eye, and Draco's heartbeat shuddered to a terrified stop.

"EXPELLIARMUS!" Moody roared, audible even over the shrieking winds.

The spell hit Draco with a bone-breaking shock, flinging him back across the balcony like a rag doll. His head and shoulders hit the stone wall first, impacting with a nasty crunching noise. His wand flew off somewhere into the shadows, and he slid down to the floor to lie in a crumpled heap. Dark curtains swept inwards from every direction and swallowed up his vision.

Draco was dimly aware of further explosions... countercurses, shouts of anger... the rippling edges of various elemental blasts licking over him as the Web fought the Aurors. It all seemed to be happening somewhere very far away now.

Unfortunately, deprived of an active member of the family, the Web was much less versatile. It didn't stand a chance against multiple Aurors. Draco tried very hard to care about this.

A repeated shout muddled its way through the ringing in his head and the red waves of pain.

"Finite Incantatem!" That sounded like the older woman, Draco thought.

"FINITE INCANTATEM!" Someone else had gotten the same idea. The Manor shook with rage, sending further spikes of agony through Draco's head.

"FINITE INCANTATEM!" The four unified voices of the invaders shouted over the impotent howling of the Web.

Something shattered with a sickening crack. Fragments of magic ripped invisibly through Draco like shrapnel, and a strangled cry made its way out of his throat. A sympathetic convulsion wracked him as the Warding Web died.

...Silence fell.

There was the weirdly echoing sound of running footsteps.

"Alastor Moody! What in the name of Merlin did you do to him?!" shouted an angry female voice, somewhere off in the distance. The exact distance seemed to be nauseatingly variable.

"I disarmed him," growled someone bluntly. MOODY. Draco shivered– then desisted as the blackness around him swirled sickeningly at the movement, flashes of pain lighting up the darkness with splotches of blazing colour. "The little bastard was in the process of trying to kill us, in case you hadn't noticed."

"I'll thank you to remember that the 'little bastard' is my nephew, and I am responsible for his welfare," the woman replied sharply.

"Mum, calm down–" interjected a younger female voice. Someone's hand wrapped around what Draco thought was probably his wrist. If he still had a wrist. He very badly wanted to throw up. But if he threw up, he'd move. If he moved, it would hurt. If it hurt any more than it already did, he'd throw up harder. Draco whimpered, trying desperately not to begin that unpromising and ugly cycle. The younger woman made witlessly soothing noises at him. "...I think he'll be all right..."

I am NOT all right, you silly bint. I'm dying.

Moody sounded completely unconcerned. "He's just stunned. The fact remains that the boy attacked Ministry-authorised Aurors while in the performance of their duty," he rumbled ominously. "I say we take him to Azkaban right now and question him."

"I will go straight to Albus Dumbledore," warned the older woman, her voice suddenly very cold. "You are NOT taking my injured and criminally neglected ward and throwing him in prison."

I'd rather go to Azkaban than have that old fool Dumbledore rescue me, thanks.

"St. Mungo's might be more appropriate," said a very deep, very calm male voice. "I heard him hit the wall through all of that, Moody. A little less fervour next time, all right?"

"Mum and I can patch up most of it," said the younger woman. Soothing heat crept across Draco's neck and shoulders like warm treacle, then spread over the back of his head. Most of the sharply stabbing bits of pain went away, leaving a pervasive, dull ache behind. The world was still cockeyed, though. He could tell, from that queasy lurching sensation. He wasn't about to open his eyes and check. "He'll have a nasty headache, and probably some spectacular bruises for the next week or two, but that's all."

"He looks terrible," the older woman said, sounding distressed and angry. "Why wasn't I told what had happened?"

"Mum, for Merlin's sake, it took us four days just to find the bloody-bedamned place!"

"Nymphadora!"

There was an exasperated sigh. Draco wanted to echo it, but everything was fading in and out. Possibly it was him that was fading in and out. Breathing was an effort; making noise was probably out of the question. The voices were barely reaching him now, sounding very tinny.

"Andromeda, we are going to have to question him," the calmer male voice said. "He's been here for several days. And while I agree that he doesn't look as if he's been eating or sleeping well during that time, I have to ask myself what he WAS doing."

"Yes, I know," the older woman sighed. "But later. Let me mend what's been done to him first."

No, NO... I'll have to wake up, then... Moody will question me... I don't want to be a ferret again... Wait– if I'm a ferret I won't be able to answer questions... A ferret is good– OW!

Bouncing, however, was still bad. Someone had tried to pick him up and then lost their grip, dropping him back onto the floor with a thud. Draco went away.

* * *

There was something soft beneath him instead of stone. Malfoy pried his eyes open.

The scarred and scowling face of Moody was the first thing he saw.

Draco yelped and tried to scramble away, but for some reason he couldn't move.

Moody smiled grimly down at him. He held up a sheet of parchment with several official-looking seals on it, right in front of his eyes so that Malfoy couldn't help but see it. "Listen up, boy. This is a Writ of Search and Seizure, empowering us to investigate Malfoy Manor for the suspected presence of Dark Artefacts, books detailing the theory and/or practice of the Dark Arts, and any other illegal substances, items, and/or spells. This writ does not expire until such time as we are satisfied with the results of our investigation."

He held up another scroll, equally official-looking. "This is a Decree of Forfeiture, stating that Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy, due to evidence and/or conviction of crimes against wizard and non-wizard kind for which the sentence is life imprisonment in Azkaban, have lost the privileges of property, inheritance, and/or governance of Malfoy Manor as well as all other legal properties, assets, and responsibilities."

With a slightly nastier smile, he snapped a third roll of parchment open. "And this is a Transfer of Guardianship, stating that you are now the ward of your nearest adult blood-relative still in good standing with the Wizengamot. All Malfoy properties and assets, as well as your own instruction and discipline, have been placed under her jurisdiction until you reach eighteen years of age." The face loomed very close. "And you had best toe the line until then, Malfoy. Because if you don't, I will chuck you in Azkaban with your father before you can blink. Have you got all that?"

In defiance of the Full Body-Bind, Malfoy's cold silver eyes narrowed into a rabid glare.

Moody snorted and turned away. "That's what I thought. He's your problem now, Andromeda."

One of the people standing behind Moody sighed and moved to stand at Malfoy's bedside.

Draco blinked at her, some of his anger disappearing under the impact of simple surprise. Once again, he was sure that he recognised this woman from somewhere. Tall, slender, and poised; long auburn hair pinned neatly atop her head; her face serene and beautiful, her blue eyes sharp and sparkling.

She inclined her head to him, as cordially as if they had met over tea. "Hello, Draco," she said, quiet but firm. "I imagine you don't have the foggiest idea who I am. Your mother was my younger sister, which makes me your Aunt Andromeda. It seems that I'm your new guardian."

* * *

"I WANT THEM OUT!" Malfoy shouted.

"I'm sure you do, Draco, but that isn't an option available to you," his aunt replied, sipping her tea, unfazed by either his volume or the anger behind it.

Malfoy's hands clenched around the edge of the breakfast table. He wanted his wand in the worst way. He'd hex the place down around their ears. Which was probably why Moody had confiscated it. By the time he woke up from Moody's countercurse, his wand had been long gone.

He hadn't figured out a way to steal someone else's yet.

Aunt Andromeda's eyes flicked briefly to his whitening knuckles, then returned to her breakfast. "I advise you to eat something," she said calmly. "You have a long day ahead of you."

"I'm not hungry," Malfoy snarled.

She raised a dubious eyebrow at him and looked him over. Malfoy flushed. He'd lost weight in the last week. He hadn't really had any extra weight TO lose, which made it embarrassingly apparent to everyone.

"I'm not going to co-operate," Malfoy informed her, sitting back in his chair, ignoring the delicious smells creeping from the covered silver platters. His stomach growled irritably.

His aunt set down her fork and looked him right in the eye. "If you don't, they'll use Veritaserum. I warn you that I will not prevent them from doing so."

"I won't drink it, you know!"

"Then they will haul you before the Wizengamot for probable cause, have you convicted as an accomplice, and take you to Azkaban." Aunt Andromeda sighed, leaning back in her chair, and gave him a sardonic look. "Draco, you're deplorably expert at putting yourself first; I'd like you to think about whether you want to go to prison at the age of fifteen to no good purpose."

Malfoy stared at her in disbelief. "They want me to help them find my father's things! They want me to incriminate my own parents!"

"Yes, they do." Cool blue eyes met frosty grey. "Will it matter? How many life sentences," she said softly, "do you think your parents can actually serve?"

Malfoy closed his eyes, gritting his teeth, trying not to scream with rage.

"Draco, what you find or do not find, what you tell the Ministry or do not tell the Ministry, will make no difference for your parents whatsoever. But for you it will make the difference between a future," she said relentlessly, "and a prison cell. I would hope," she added, getting up from the table with a strange little sigh, "that your parents would also want you to have a future."

They would want me to curse the lot of you. The threat of prison didn't stop my father.

Somehow, this was not a very comforting thought.

Draco then blinked, as something puzzling briefly caught his attention.

...Wait, what does she mean, ALSO?

His aunt stood expectantly at the foot of the table, waiting for him. Malfoy glared at his untouched place setting and sulked, reviewing his appalling situation one more time.

No wand. No broom. No spellbooks.

No access to the workrooms. No access to the owls. No access to the Floo Network.

No money of any kind. Nothing but miles of empty wilderness between here and the nearest town– wherever the hell that was.

Under constant surveillance during the day by at least one armed, alert adult. Locked in his room every night. No less than two Aurors and the Penitential Aunt in the Manor at all times.

BLOODY HELL.

Malfoy snarled and got up.

All right. They want to find dangerous and illegal artefacts?

...I can help them with that.

* * *

"I'm taking him in!" Moody roared from the corridor. "That tears it!"

Draco gulped in terror and looked frantically around his room for somewhere to hide.

"Mad-Eye, stop– don't– it's not worth–" Tonks' voice was interrupted by an unbelievably violent burst of sneezing. It sounded as if it should be causing injury. It probably was.

"Three times today, that little berk has set something off. On purpose!"

Under the bed? No, that's the first place anyone looks...

"We don't know that–" Shacklebolt said, also from somewhere the corridor, before being silenced by a potent sneeze of his own.

"Explain to me why they only go off near the three of us, then. Anyone hear the boy sneezing in there?" Moody rumbled sarcastically.

Draco glanced around wildly and cursed his aunt for being a good housekeeper. No dust anywhere in sight. He rubbed his nose, trying to summon a tickle. Nothing.

How fast can I catch a cold...?

"Mum will sort him out," Tonks gasped, then blew her nose loudly. "She's about had it."

"Perhaps we should make him take point," Shacklebolt said. "Frankly, we're already having to watch him so closely that he couldn't get hurt if he tried–" He lost his voice to another fit of sneezing.

"I can watch him," Tonks offered, sniffling horribly.

"No. You're soft on him. I don't want a repeat of the Motive Candles," Moody growled. "I had to take four Compulsion Curses off you yesterday."

"I'm fine now!" she said, sounding rather indignant. Malfoy grinned maliciously. She'd been stuck below stairs for HOURS before Moody finally found her, washing her hands over and over in one of the lavatories. Her skin had been the colour of pomegranates, clear to her elbows.

He'd almost gotten hold of her wand. Pity that Metamorphmagi could make their hair prehensile...

"Nymphie? Good grief." His aunt's voice, initially alarmed, turned abruptly sardonic. "...Well, what has he done now?"

The cavalry had arrived. Malfoy fell back onto his bed with a huge sigh of relief.

...The relief was to be short-lived.

* * *

His aunt frog-marched him down the corridor, her fingers closed in an excruciatingly tight pinch on his aristocratic little ear.

Malfoy howled. Tonks was following directly behind the two of them, snickering in what Draco later on would identify as a weirdly sympathetic way.

He couldn't get away from the woman. Not even on the stairs. He didn't BELIEVE this. How hard could it be for a Quidditch-playing teenager to get a forty-something-year-old biddy to stop pinching him?

...Apparently, really bloody hard.

Every time he tried to twist away, she was one step ahead of him. Every time he tried to kick her, he bruised his toes on something behind her. The woman was either a bloody Legilimancer, or she'd done this a LOT to someone else.

Malfoy really hoped it was Tonks.

Aunt Andromeda suddenly planted one slender hand into the small of his back and shoved. Malfoy bounced gently off the door to the library and sat down hard on the floor. He immediately clutched at his earlobe, convinced it had been torn off.

It was still there. Twice its normal size, but at least still attached. Not even bleeding. That wasn't possible, surely.

"Draco." His aunt stood over him, hands on her hips. "How stupid do you think I am?"

Malfoy looked up at her. She narrowed her eyes at him, her manicured fingertips tapping slowly and rhythmically on the wand at her belt.

"Not stupid at all," he said instantly, opting for the safe, non-ear-pinching answer.

She looked down at him for another long moment, then sighed and knelt on the marble floor, bringing her face down to the same level as his.

"My parents and both of my sisters were Slytherins," she said softly, leaning confidentially towards him. "I've been watching your shenanigans with moderate interest– but no real surprise– for days now."

Draco blinked at her in consternation.

"There is a reason I survived growing up in my parents' household. So I will do you the great favour of informing you, Draco, that you are neither old nor wise enough to challenge my wits to any large degree." Her mouth twitched. "Except possibly in figuring out what to do with you."

Malfoy glowered at her and didn't reply. Annoyingly, this did not seem to bother his aunt one bit.

"Now," she said calmly, getting to her feet and dusting off her skirt, "you are going to be a good boy and help the nice Aurors with their work. As I politely asked you to do four days ago."

"Am I?" he sneered.

"Yes, you are." She smiled kindly at him. "Because otherwise, as I ALSO told you four days ago, you will be punished. You will not eat. If you push me, you will not sleep. If you pursue this course, in fact, you will not so much as SIT until I decide it will happen. And I assure you," she said, with a rather Slytherin smirk, "that I can and am permitted to enforce this, magically or otherwise. Now get up off your arse and show me that you have some sense of self-preservation, Draco," she said as she turned and walked away, "or I will hex it into you."

Draco stared after her, completely flabbergasted.

"...Mum's got quite a grip," Tonks said after a long moment of silence. Malfoy turned on her immediately, ready to flare up at his cousin for taking the mickey out of him– but Tonks wasn't even looking at him. She was staring after her mother, with a wry little smile on her face that matched her rueful tone of voice. She reached up and rubbed her own ear meditatively.

Draco was surprised to discover that he actually felt a little better, knowing that someone else had suffered through that humiliating experience. An Auror, at that.

And mercifully, she was also the only person to have witnessed the episode.

"Come on, luv," she said, turning back to him and extending her hand to help him up. "We'd better get to work, before she comes back and decides to make you less lopsided."

Draco glared at her.

But he took her hand.