The Long and Winding Road

Chapter Two: "Some Kind Of Innocence"

Malfoy knelt in the wreckage that had once been the entrance hall, sorting pieces of thick enamel from the grit of shattered marble. Scowling, he turned one of the larger fragments over. A broken piece of silver stonework flashed into view, framed in black.

For nearly three hundred years, the Malfoy coat-of-arms had served as the anchor for the family's defences, and now it was nothing but rubbish. The shield had been nearly pulverised under the force of the countercurse the Aurors had used on the Warding Web.

Malfoy snarled quietly, setting the newest fragment in his pile by the stairs. It was going to take forever just to find enough of the shield to put back together. The Web itself was probably banished beyond recall. It hadn't so much as stirred in the twelve days his unwanted guests had been here, despite the three Aurors coming and going at all hours...

Otherwise I would have set it off again as soon as I woke up. Bloody Aurors. Bloody klutzy cousin. Bloody interfering aunt. Bloody MOODY... If I could just get some Floo Powder!

Of course, having Floo Powder didn't necessarily mean he could USE it.

He glanced over at the door to the drawing room-- or rather, where the door should have been-- and scowled even more furiously. His movement around the Manor had been very restricted. This was the first day they'd even let him in the entrance hall, and what did he find? They'd sealed the drawing room door against him. In his own bloody home.

"Wotcher, Draco," came Tonks' voice from above him.

Malfoy wiped the scowl off his face and looked up, to find his cousin peering down at him from the balcony. Her hair was long and green today, bound up in little twisty braids that stuck out all around her head. Her eyes were an identical shade of leek green.

...Draco had been going to snap at her about the door, but he kind of liked her hair. She looked like a Gorgon. All right, a disgustingly cute Gorgon. A Gorgon with freckles and a perky snub nose. But a Gorgon.

"Very Slytherin hair," he called up at her, smirking. "Thinking of changing your house, Tonks? I suppose I could put in a good word for you, you being family and all."

"Too late," she said cheerfully. "I've been out of Hogwarts for ages now. Come on up, we're going to take a run at the laboratory today."

Oh, bollocks. She'll probably break everything in sight. Draco rolled his eyes and hurried towards the stairs-- then paused suddenly, one foot on the marble step, and squinted suspiciously up at her. "Is Moody going to be there?" he demanded. Aunt Andromeda was unnerving, Shacklebolt was creepy, but Moody was utterly unendurable. He had managed to stay out of the same room as the crazed Auror for five days now, which was a new record.

Tonks rolled her eyes back at him. Draco snickered as she made them spin around in her head like Moody's magical eye. "No. He's gone up to the Ministry. Hurry it up, will you? Let's not stand about all day."

* * *

Malfoy just didn't understand this at all.

He scrubbed irritably at a platinum vial, trying to remove the soot. He also tried to ignore the muffled little bursts of cursing and complaints coming from the other side of the table. Tonks had hurt herself. As usual. Due to breaking something. As usual.

While jumping in front of him. As usual.

Tonks had been doing it for days, ever since Moody and Shacklebolt had begun shoving him into warded rooms as if he were a hat on the end of a broomstick. Malfoy just didn't understand her. If the point was to trigger the spells with someone they didn't give a damn about, why...

...Well, why give a damn?

Tonks yelped in pain and dropped the metal tin she'd been trying to open. Malfoy snorted in quiet derision and scrubbed harder.

Malfoy had assumed that all of the spells in the Manor would leave him alone, even if he were accompanied by strangers. He'd been a little shocked to realise that this was emphatically not the case. Apparently when his mother had fled from the Ministry, she'd cast some fairly nasty spells on a lot of the rooms. Tonks had saved him from probable death twice in the last five days.

Of course, she'd sent things to THEIR untimely deaths a lot more often than that.

Malfoy flicked his eyes at the ceiling in annoyance, thinking of the many things she'd smashed since arriving at the Manor. There was enough broken glass in the place to poison an entire trousseau of dresses. Maybe he could get Aunt Andromeda to let Tonks go on whatever these Ministry missions were that Shacklebolt and Moody kept being dragged away for?

...No, I'll take Tonks over Shacklebolt.

I'll DEFINITELY take Tonks over Moody.

Tonks was easier to manipulate than either of the male Aurors, for reasons that he hadn't figured out yet. So was Aunt Andromeda. If the rest of the lot would just go away and stay there-- doing whatever it was they were so busy with-- he'd probably be free within days.

He suppressed an evil little smile. It wouldn't mesh well with the image he'd been trying to present to his relatives.

He had to admit, though, having Aunt Andromeda and Tonks around was actually a relief in some ways. The Manor was clean and organised and brightly lit-- or at least those parts of it that mattered. Meals arrived on time. Copies of the Daily Prophet appeared at the breakfast table every morning. There were owls back in the East Tower, even if he couldn't use them.

And wretched though the company was, it was still company.

The metal tin clanged loudly out of Tonks' hands, bouncing crazily, knocking a small alembic over on the countertop. There was a faint snapping noise.

"Oh, bugger!" Tonks yelped.

Malfoy gave an explosive sigh and smacked the platinum vial down on the counter. He'd never agreed to do this servant's stuff anyway. But the threat of Moody combined with the threat of another ear-pinching had resulted in him lifting and carrying and fetching and cleaning like a house elf. He must have walked miles up and down the corridors with Tonks, carrying bundles of books and nuisance artefacts...

Tonks had her bleeding finger in her mouth. Her other hand was gingerly righting the broken alembic-- the fragile tube of glass connecting the receiver and the cucurbit had snapped in half. Malfoy irritably snatched up her little metal tin and opened it. Inside were what looked like little parchment-wrapped strips of white padding.

"What the hell are these?"

Tonks said something that sounded like 'bandages' around her finger.

Draco stared at her in bemusement. "Why don't you just cast something? Are you a witch, or aren't you?"

"This is my wand hand," she said sheepishly, removing her finger from her mouth. "Dad uses these all the time, I don't bloody know how, I keep trying..."

Draco sighed and shook his head, then tore the parchment off one of the strips. "All right, give me your hand, I'll-- these things are sticky! What is this, Spellotape?!" He shook his hand wildly, trying to get the thing to let go and only making it glomp more tenaciously around his finger.

Tonks laughed, stifling it behind her good hand.

"Bloody Muggle inventions!"

"C'mere," Tonks said in amusement, and snatched the offending article off Draco's skin with a quick swipe.

"OW! That HUR-- look, give me your wand," Draco said, shoving the box away in a huff. "I'LL fix it."

Tonks blinked. After a long moment, she awkwardly pulled out her wand and handed it to him.

"How did you manage to cut yourself this badly? There's probably blood all over the place, now," Draco grumbled, taking her wand in one hand and her wrist in the other. It was a fairly nasty cut, running straight down the inside of her finger and bleeding profusely. A stupid Muggle bandage wouldn't have helped this at all. He cast a simple healing charm, quickly and painlessly sealing the cut.

Malfoy then blinked at the wand in his hand. He sneaked a quick glance at his cousin from beneath his eyelashes.

No good. Tonks was watching him closely and she was well within arm's length of him. Clumsy though Tonks was, Malfoy had learned in the past five days that she was also fast. There wasn't any point in trying to steal her wand this time; but it was encouraging that she'd been stupid enough to let him get his hands on one, however briefly. His efforts at portraying a "good boy" seemed to be paying off.

Malfoy smothered a triumphant grin and handed the wand back casually, as if he'd never even thought about keeping it. "Could you please try not to break anything else today?" he complained, picking up the vial again. "Remember that 'no money of my own' thing Moody was on about? I can't replace this stuff."

Tonks put her wand away with a little sigh. "I'll do my best, luv."

"And don't touch that crucible, it's cursed. God, they call you an Auror?"

* * *

Draco clutched his wrist, sending little stabs of pain up his arm. Warm red liquid oozed slowly out between his fingers, in spite of all the pressure he could manage to apply. Frightened, he looked up and down the dimly lit corridor.

Shadowed door followed shadowed door into the distance. He could hear the wind moaning around the Manor. Cold drafts insinuated themselves into the silent space and made the candle flames dance.

He hurried down the corridor, calling, pushing open the doors. Each gaping portal revealed a strangely unquiet room. Exquisitely crafted artefacts glittered and spun, flashing wickedly sharp edges... leather bound tomes danced in the air, rustling their parchment pages... brightly coloured fires leaped and flared on the hearths, scorching the stone... but there was never anyone in the rooms with these things.

Even the portraits of his family were abandoned, their rooms and landscapes as empty and silent as the Manor was. A wave of dizziness swept over Draco, making him fall against the wall. He slumped against it for a moment and stared around him, biting his lip to make it stop trembling. He needed help. Why wasn't anyone here? Why didn't anyone answer him?

Blinking moisture angrily away from his eyes, he pushed himself back to his feet and hurried down the corridor, searching methodically from room to room. There had to be someone here. He just had to find them. Perhaps they thought he didn't deserve help if he couldn't find it. This was just a test...

His parents' dress robes were executing a stately minuet in the ballroom, their clothes empty but horribly suspended, as if invisible people wore them. One 'couple' made a misstep in the dance, and the others suddenly turned on them and ripped them to shreds, making Draco jump as tattered bits of fabric showered over him.

In the laboratory, all of the containers were bouncing on the counters, creating a ringing atonal music, the crash of shattering glass marking time. Broken splinters of glass whirled through the air like snow, screeching faintly against each other like fingernails on a blackboard.

He found his father's cane in the library, spilling one scroll after another to the floor in its search and swatting them aside with contemptuous impatience. It nearly knocked him over in trying to get at the copy of the Daily Prophet on the desk. The snake on the head of the cane bared its silver fangs and sank them into a picture of Dumbledore, ripping furiously.

In the East Wing garret, his old set of sketching crayons were scribbling nonsense poetry on the walls and floor, full of defiant little scraps of songs and children's incantations and caricatures of his teachers. They'd also drawn harsh black bars down the insides of all the windows and doors.

He came across a single inhabited frame in the nursery, but he couldn't identify the occupant, even though she looked horribly familiar somehow. He opened his mouth to ask the girl where his parents were, and the portrait suddenly melted. Paint oozed down the canvas as if a bucket of solvent had been flung over it, puddling around his feet in an ugly, indistinct smear. The fumes rose around his face, and his suddenly swollen eyes filled with tears that stung his cheeks as they fell, as if he'd been crying for hours.

Draco struggled onward, trying to ignore the fact that his chest was hurting too, now... a tight ache right around his heart. He began to come across spatters of red on the floor, as if someone who had been bleeding had passed by before him. He touched the drops with a hesitant fingertip and discovered that they were fresh. With a hazy sort of shock, he realised that it must be his OWN blood. But he didn't remember having been in these rooms before.

Panicking, he ran back out into the corridor. Arched galleries stretched crookedly away in every direction, full of empty portrait frames, dust, cobwebs, and rapidly dimming candlelight, each one like every other to his eyes-- just as vacant, just as cold. He didn't know where he was.

He ran from room to room, calling in an increasingly hoarse and desperate voice. Even when he recognised a particular suite, it didn't seem to connect up properly to anything else. No one ever answered him except the echoes, and soon even the echoes disappeared.

Heart pounding, throat raw, his vision starting to go grey and misty, he stumbled to a halt in the entrance hall. His right hand, clamped around his injured left wrist, was now covered in blood. As he stared down at it, the drops began falling faster and faster-- making first a chaotic pattern of dots on the marble floor, then pools of glistening red that gradually began to join up into little rivulets.

He had a vague, confused idea that if he could just get out of the Manor, the bleeding would stop-- but before he could take a single step towards the doors, his legs gave out and he dropped to his knees. Draco watched numbly as his blood trickled around the broken pieces of the Malfoy coat-of-arms that he had piled so carefully together, dulling the glitter of the shattered silver tower, painting the black background a dark maroon. It crept over the roots of the dead ivy, turning them a muddy olive.

The ivy suddenly revived. It gleamed bright viridian and began winding sinuously around the shards of the shield, pulling them back together, smoothing away the cracks. The silver tower began rebuilding itself as the ivy spiralled up it.

A throbbing sensation went through Draco, something like the alarms had done almost two weeks ago; a soundless pulse, a sharp, disturbing pull that became more and more painful--

With a start of terror, Draco realised that the roots of the ivy were creeping across the floor towards him. They lashed out and wrapped around his wrist, painful as piano wire, heavy as shackles, absorbing the blood pouring from the gash. The Malfoy coat of arms, whole once more, began to right itself.

The Warding Web flared back to life and turned its attention towards the only Malfoy still in residence, determined to rid the Manor of its infestation at any price...

Draco tore at his wrist and screamed-- and then realised in horror that even if anyone were in the Manor, it would do him no good. Nothing he did made any sound at all.

"Draco? Draco, wake up!"

A woman's voice shattered the silence. And in that first wildly startled instant, Draco blessed it from the bottom of his heart.

Aunt Andromeda!

He struggled frantically up out of the dream, flailing against what was touching him for fear it might be the ivy-- and discovered that it was nothing but sheets.

Draco blinked stupidly. The candles had almost burned down on his bedside table, which meant it was the darkest hours of the morning. He was covered in sweat. His heart was pounding. The bedclothes were utterly wrecked.

Perched sideways on the edge of his bed was his aunt, her auburn hair loose and straying messily over her shoulders. One hand clutched the neck of an obviously hastily-donned dressing gown. She peered down at him in concern, her blue eyes still a little unfocused and sleepy.

"Draco? Are you all right?" She reached out and brushed a damp lock of hair out of his face. "You were having a nightmare."

Malfoy stiffened in sudden resentful embarrassment. "So?" he snapped.

His mother had NEVER come into his room, not even when he was a child. His father had once told him, when he was still young and foolish enough to come whining to them for comfort, that weaknesses such as that were best kept to oneself. The chill in his voice had implied that having a nightmare was pathetic, unbefitting a Malfoy.

He still remembered smarting with shame as he ran back to his own bed, vowing to never ask for something so stupid again. He'd eventually learned that while he couldn't stop the nightmares from happening... and they happened all too often, necessitating the learning of some fairly complicated silencing potions at a very young age... at least he could see to it that no one ever knew about it.

But he no longer had access to potions ingredients, and now his aunt had caught him having one. Malfoy's face burned in humiliation. He narrowed his eyes and glared at her. "I'm fine now," he ground out reluctantly. He couldn't bite her head off, much as he wanted to. It would set back his plan to gain his freedom.

Aunt Andromeda's mouth twisted to one side in an ironic little smile at his hostile tone. "I can tell that you're back to normal, certainly." She stood up. "Do you need anything?"

"No, thank you," he replied in an icily calm voice. He yanked his covers into some semblance of order and rolled over, turning his back to her.

Malfoy lay there stiffly, glaring at the wall, waiting for her to leave. He heard her footsteps walking towards the door; then the door itself, shutting quietly.

...Sheer exhaustion began pulling him back down into unconsciousness. Images began flickering in his mind's eye as he fell towards dreaming.

In spite of his best intentions, Draco whimpered. The dream was waiting for him. He didn't want to go back there. He struggled to stay awake, but he was so tired...

A hand was suddenly resting gently on his shoulder, and a soothing blue light the colour of a summer sky appeared near his temple. "Tranquillus," his aunt's voice whispered.

Draco tried to indulge in a fit of outraged temper at having been tricked-- but a calm, pleasantly drowsy feeling welled up and dragged him down. He drifted away into a dream of playing Quidditch on a sunny spring afternoon at Hogwarts, while the blond girl from the melted portrait cheered him from the stands, her skirt and hair dancing prettily in the breeze.

He heard his aunt's voice coming from very far away, sounding slightly amused. "Good night, Draco." The door closed once more, this time behind her.

* * *

Malfoy stabbed impatiently at his breakfast. He was going completely barmy, cooped up in here. He still hadn't managed to get hold of a wand, or any Floo powder, or access to the Owlery. He'd been forced to help these bloody Aurors tear his home apart for six days now.

Admittedly, it hadn't been a total loss. In six days, the minions of the Ministry hadn't found a single thing truly worth adding to the list of charges against his parents.

Malfoy smirked. He'd helped, all right-- he'd doled out 'discoveries' of meaningless minor artefacts and Class B Tradable Materials, while passing by or even concealing the location of anything incriminating.

The only trouble was, he couldn't TAKE one of the more useful items without giving its location away. He was still locked in his room every night, so sneaking back to retrieve them wasn't an option-- and taking them while an Auror was actually in the room with him was something he wasn't stupid enough to try. He could probably sneak it past them, but if it turned out he couldn't... Well, anything useful to him was probably actually worth adding to the list of offences.

Malfoy smiled smugly to himself. All in all, he'd done a fairly good job of protecting his parents' interests. Most of the important items that had been left behind were still here, waiting for their return... the Aurors hadn't found any of the genuinely secret rooms other than the chamber beneath the drawing room floor, which had been emptied of anything important three years ago... and if he could just keep up the appearance of co-operation until the Ministry was convinced that there was nothing else to find...

Moody stomped into the breakfast parlour, scowling. He was followed by Shacklebolt, but Malfoy only dimly noticed this, having been instantly alarmed by the expression on Moody's face. His stomach lurched queasily, making him sorry he'd eaten what little food he had.

"Morning, Andromeda," Moody growled. His good eye met his aunt's politely as they exchanged greetings.

The magical eye, however, stayed fixed suspiciously on Malfoy. Malfoy gulped.

"Would you like some breakfast, Alastor?" she inquired. "Kingsley?"

"No, thanks... I've come by to have a little chat with your nephew, here," Moody said, turning his good eye on Malfoy as well.

Malfoy froze like a broken Bludger. Moody stared at him grimly. There was a long silence.

"I see," Aunt Andromeda sighed. She poured herself another cup of tea and pushed the rest of her breakfast away. Nobody around HERE is ever going to be pudgy, that's for certain, Draco thought with a sort of terrified whimsy. "Perhaps you had better speak to him while I'm here," she said firmly.

Moody shrugged, as if it didn't really matter. "I think that we've been led a merry dance by young Master Malfoy, here."

"Why do you say that?" his aunt asked, sounding resigned... and ever so slightly vexed.

That tone of voice in Aunt Andromeda was not good. Malfoy tensed up a little further.

"We haven't found a single truly Dark artefact in four days. A lot of malicious nonsense and silly pranks, but nothing worth the Ministry's time."

"Ah." His aunt stirred sugar into her tea.

"I'm sure you know that we can't afford to prolong this," Shacklebolt said, calm as ever but unusually stern. He flicked a glance at Malfoy, so quick that he nearly missed it. "Not with what's been going on. We're needed elsewhere, Andromeda."

Wait, what has been going on elsewhere? Nobody tells me anything!

"What made you bring this up today?" she asked, sitting back in her chair and looking at her nephew as if he were a not-very-interesting species of insect.

"We've pinned down an... anomaly."

"You, boy," Moody said, snapping his fingers rudely for Malfoy's attention. As if Malfoy weren't already giving him all of the paranoid attention that was humanly possible. "You're going to tell me what's wrong with the first floor."

Malfoy stared at him.

"What's wrong with it?" Aunt Andromeda echoed, her eyebrows arching.

"Yes," he growled, pinning Malfoy in place with his glare, in spite of the obvious evidence that he wasn't ABLE to move. "There's space there that Kingsley and I can't account for, somewhere near the library."

"Are you sure?" his aunt said doubtfully. "I've been through there several times since I arrived. Admittedly, the area reeks of the Dark Arts, but then, most of the Manor does..."

"We've Plotted it," Moody said grimly.

Malfoy was jolted out of his terrified stupor by this bit of information. "What? HOW?" he snapped. "That's not possible! The Manor is Unplottable--" He stopped abruptly, seeing his aunt turn a slight frown in his direction.

Oh, bugger. I think that implied a little too strongly that I knew there was something there.

Moody smiled. It was more terrifying than any scowl Malfoy had seen on his face in the past two weeks. The scarred Auror reached into his pocket, and Malfoy clutched at the edge of the table, struggling with a sudden urge to run. Part of his brain was screaming FERRET! in total, gibbering panic.

Moody pulled out several scrolls. Malfoy sagged with relief.

"Have a look," he told Aunt Andromeda, with a certain grim satisfaction.

Aunt Andromeda unrolled one and studied it carefully. Her eyes darted up to look at him over the edge of the parchment. For a strange moment, Draco thought he saw a weary sort of disappointment in her eyes. She turned her attention back to the scrolls, flipping to the second sheet, then the third.

"Yes, I see what you mean," she said to Moody, and her voice was resigned. She swept her wand over their breakfast and sent it away, then spread all three scrolls open on the table. "...Draco, would you be so kind as to explain this for me?"

A knot of guilty horror clenched in Draco's stomach as he reluctantly studied the scrolls. The first floor of the Manor had been drawn on the three parchments. Not by magic-- not Plotted in a proper sense at all-- but sketched, Muggle-style. They'd measured along each wall. With a bloody ruler. On three different days.

"There's a gap," Moody said with a horrible sort of complacency. "It changes every day-- a different shape, a different size, even a different location on the floor-- but it's always there." He leaned forward suddenly, bringing his face right up into Malfoy's. His magical eye leered over the missing chunk in his nose. "And you know what's in that gap, don't you, boy?"

Malfoy felt the blood drain out of his face. He said nothing.

Aunt Andromeda sighed.

* * *

Aunt Andromeda had calmly asked for a "grace period" from Shacklebolt and Moody. They had acquiesced and left, promising to return in the morning.

Draco had thought, for one blinding moment of hope and joy, that he was saved.

...And then he'd remembered the ear-pinching episode. He'd sent a sudden wild look after Shacklebolt and Moody, as if they were his last hope of redemption.

They weren't. Apparently, he had been left with it. No one ever claimed that redemption was pleasant.

He'd never been shouted at by someone with that kind of vocabulary before. Draco had a sneaking suspicion that some of those five-syllable words were actually synonyms for things that he'd get a mouthful of Mrs. Skower's All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover for saying. He really needed to get his hands on a good dictionary as soon as possible, before he forgot some of them.

Unfortunately, he'd made the mistake of shouting BACK at his aunt. In fact, once Moody was safely out of the Manor, Malfoy had completely blown his top. If breakfast had still been on the table, he'd probably have thrown it at her.

It could hardly have made matters worse. He wished it HAD still been there. At least he would have had the satisfaction of throwing it. Because he was certainly being punished as if he had.

Malfoy sighed impatiently, staring at the wall. There was a message written on the wooden panelling in front of him, in glowing red script two inches tall, impossible to ignore:

Malfoy folded his arms and ignored it.

Tonks had put it there in a fit of pique, after finding out just to what extent he'd been playing the shell game with her. He'd been standing here looking at it for eight hours. The message had sort of lost its impact around the third hour. Particularly since he'd memorised every loop and curl of it in the first fifteen minutes.

His legs felt like they were on fire from the hips downward. He ignored them, too.

He was pretty sure he'd figured out the 'malapert self-besot scofflaw' part of Aunt Andromeda's tirade. It wasn't at all flattering.

...Pretty accurate, though.

Draco felt his mouth twitching. He forced himself to scowl instead, driving the idiotic and inappropriate amusement out of his mind. He was obviously delirious with hunger.

It didn't help that Tonks and Aunt Andromeda were having what was possibly the most delicious tea ever made in the history of the world behind him. They were completely ignoring him, of course. That was part of his punishment, in fact. Neither one of them would speak to him until he confessed, apologised, and promised to co-operate.

That was fine with him, actually. Malfoy didn't want to talk to them anyway.

It was the 'going without dinner', 'going without tea', and 'going without supper' parts that had him bothered.

A muscle spasm raced up the back of his calf. Malfoy gritted his teeth. He was not going to give Ministry officials access to his father's private study. Or anything else important, for that matter. He'd die first.

...What did 'specious Machiavellianism' mean, anyway?

Tonks was currently updating Aunt Andromeda on her progress in finding the things he'd had hidden along the way. She'd hit upon the bright idea of using a Sneakoscope to locate the most recent patch of dishonesty in every room he'd been 'working' in this week.

She'd found most of the artefacts he'd tried so hard-- and so uselessly-- to hide. Some of them were fairly incriminating. He was probably going to be put up on charges now, for aiding and abetting in their concealment.

...Who the hell was Hobson? Why would Aunt Andromeda call him this person's choice? He didn't know anyone named Hobson. Stupid Muggle-sounding name.

Malfoy glared with impotent fury at the wall, listening to his aunt and cousin chatter. How could they sit there drinking tea as if their physically and mentally abused ward weren't standing ten feet away? And suffering under a Leg-Locker Curse?

Aren't Aurors supposed to keep people from doing things like this?!

--Well, all right, I wouldn't have wanted to try stopping Aunt Andromeda, either. Draco smirked ruefully. Not even if she were my mother.

ESPECIALLY if she were my mother.

They had cakes. The sweet ones, with the preserves on top. His stomach growled. He really hadn't eaten enough breakfast to be able to comfortably endure this.

Stabbing pains started in his left thigh as Aunt Andromeda cleared away. He ignored them. He ignored his aunt. He ignored the regrettable passing of the tea cakes and distracted himself by attempting to translate 'feckless, discommoding, parasitic fardel'. He had a vague idea what most of those words meant individually, but all together they had him stumped.

And she had definitely meant them all together. She'd sacrificed air, just in order to hurl them at him all in one go.

Draco reviewed them all in order one more time, adding up what definitions he had, trying to figure out the rest by context. Light began to dawn, and a snicker made its way past his stubborn air of ennui.

He ignored the aberrant manifestation of humour. He was raving. Barmy. Obviously light-headed with strain and hunger and a serious lack of tea. Obviously.

Oh, what the hell...

His voice caught his aunt as she was leaving the room. "...Did you mean 'parasitic' in the sense of useless, or in the sense of sycophantic?" he drawled, not turning his head.

He heard her pause in the doorway. For a long, long moment there was silence, until Draco thought she really wasn't going to answer.

"Both, actually." Her calm voice fell on his ears like rain on parched ground. "The English language is so convenient that way."

"You get hacked off more interestingly than anyone I've ever met, Aunt Andromeda." Draco glanced cautiously at her, just in time to see her smile.

"Thank you," she said with amused modesty. She closed the door behind her, leaving him to his punishment.

...Well, at least he knew what house Aunt Andromeda had been in, now.

Ravenclaw. HAD to be Ravenclaw.

* * *

Malfoy could just see Tonks out of the corner of his eye as she sat down for supper. Not that he was really trying to, at this point.

Tonks stared down at her plate morosely. Then she looked up at her cousin.

Malfoy was still standing, facing the wall. He had both hands propped against it for support. His head was hanging down towards the floor. He probably looked completely pathetic, but he was in too much pain to care.

She shoved her plate away. "Mum, I'm sorry. I can't," she said with troubled finality.

Malfoy heard her get up and leave the room.

There was an equally troubled sigh from the other side of the table. The scraping noise of china being shoved away was repeated.

After a moment, Malfoy looked wearily over his shoulder at the table and his aunt.

After a moment, Aunt Andromeda lifted her face from her hands and looked back at him.

"I'm not going to do it, you know," he told her. He'd been saying that for hours now-- sometimes angry and shouting, sometimes with sneering disdain, and once in a pain-choked scream-- but now his voice was completely without inflection. It was a simple, incontrovertible fact. "I'm not."

She sat and stared at him. She didn't even blink. Malfoy wasn't sure she'd heard him. He dropped his head again. He wasn't going to waste precious energy in talking to people who didn't listen.

Something about that idea bothered him, even through the flames of pain licking upwards from the soles of his feet. Talking to people who didn't listen...

"Draco," his aunt said-- quietly, but so suddenly that he jumped. She sounded almost sad. "You know I won't be able to stop them tomorrow morning, don't you?"

"Yes," he snarled.

"Moody wants to take you to Azkaban. I asked him to give me time to persuade you."

"I know."

She stood up wearily and came to stand next to him. Malfoy saw her lift her wand towards him and flinched reflexively.

She looked startled, and immediately slowed her gesture to something patently non-threatening. "Peace, Draco," she said softly, reassuringly. A cool, soothing tingle crept from her wand and into his legs and feet, slowly melting the pain away.

"You forgot to remove the curse," he said sarcastically, trying not to show how relieved he was. Another hour of that and he would have promised anything. How the hell could just being made to STAND STILL for thirteen hours hurt that much?

It was obviously some Ravenclaw trick. Like the ear-pinching thing. Pain without damage. No awkward Cruciatus curses lingering in your wand to explain to the Ministry, either.

"No, I didn't forget," she said calmly. "Without it, you won't stay put and listen. But I don't want you to claim later on that you were in so much pain you didn't know what you were saying."

Malfoy sniffed scornfully.

"Draco, I'm sure that you hope your father will escape from Azkaban," she sighed. "You've probably even tried to formulate a plan to help him do so." She lifted a hand warningly. "Don't tell me. I don't want to know."

"I wouldn't tell you if I did," Malfoy muttered resentfully.

"Let's speak about it hypothetically, then. Should he somehow gain his freedom, without your assistance, how will your being in prison help him?"

Malfoy scrunched his eyes shut and didn't respond.

"Your mother, on the other hand, is not in prison. She may come home at some point, possibly very much in need of assistance or sanctuary. Again, Draco, I have to ask-- how will your being in prison help her?"

Malfoy flinched. He swallowed around the knot in his throat.

"You know that Moody is in charge of the investigation. Do you have any idea of how utterly implacable he is towards the Dark Arts? Do you know his reputation?"

Malfoy stubbornly held his tongue, burying his face into the crook of his elbow.

"He talked about burning the Manor to the ground on our first day here."

Draco's head snapped up. He stared at his aunt in total disbelief.

Her blue eyes were grave. "He said that it would 'save time and trouble'. I imagine the idea holds considerably more charm now than it did then-- and not only for Moody. Many people at the Ministry would like nothing better. It's a simple and elegant solution, if a person has the stomach for it-- throw ALL the Malfoys in prison and wash your hands of anything that belongs to them. Ashes," she said inexorably, "make excellent soap."

"This is my home!" Draco shouted, his voice cracking. He'd meant to sound indignant. He sounded terrified instead.

She seemed utterly unmoved by his volume, but he saw something in her eyes that echoed his own desperation. "Draco, I just can't do anything worse than what I've done to you today," his aunt confessed with a sigh. "Without your doing something truly horrible, this is about as far as I'm willing to go. My influence with the Ministry is limited. I've reached the end of my half of the bridge. I have nothing left to build with unless you give me something. Will you help me, or should I just pack up and go home?"

There was a long silence as Draco searched her face. She waited patiently.

"Will-- will they really burn it to the ground...?" he finally asked in a tiny voice.

"...Probably."

More silence.

"...All right," he whispered, closing his eyes tightly.

When he opened them again, Draco was startled to find his calm and collected aunt slumped nervelessly against the wall next to him. Her hand was over her eyes.

"Thank god," she whispered.