A/N: Over the Winter break, Draco walks through his home after being unable to sleep and he realizes he's growing up. Set in PoA. I do not own Harry Potter.
Submission for:
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry (Challenges & Assignments): Muggle Studies Assignment #8 - Candor - write a story with no dialogue
The "May The Odds Always Be In Your Favour" Challenge: snow, jump, music, snuggle, candles
Duelling Club Competition: Round 2: Music - Nightwish - Meadow of Heaven
He couldn't sleep. The blond thirteen year old had been laying awake in his elegant four-poster bed for what felt like the past hour and he had been unable to sleep. There was nothing that should be keeping him up. There were no creatures going bump in the night. There was no snow falling outside his window in large thunderous clumps. There were no bright lights shining behind his eyelids. His bed just felt foreign to him and he wasn't sure why.
He threw his thick comforter off his body and put his feet over the edge of the bed. Maybe he needed a warm cup of hot chocolate. When he was younger, his mum usually got the house-elves to make him some to help him sleep. It was that or some type of potion and he didn't want to go that route.
He padded quietly out of his room and into the desolate hallway. His parents' room was much further down the hall and out of ear-shot, but he still didn't want to wake them. His mother may coddle him more than necessary and his father would think him weak for simply being unable to sleep through the night. Draco would do this on his own. He could manage that much.
His socked feet moved across the wooden boards of the second flood as he walked through the dark hallway, the candles snuffed out and the portraits snoozing in their frames. Something felt out of place in the darkness, but he couldn't put his finger on it. The hallway looked the same as it did in the day, but at the same time, something felt like it was missing. It looked like his home but at the same time it wasn't.
He descended the stairs and stopped at the bottom step, the difference finally hitting him. It was Christmas time. He had come home for the holidays this year. The last time he came home for the holidays was two years ago in his first year. Last year, he had decided to stay at the castle with his friends, even with the whole Heir of Slytherin rubbish.
But this year, he realized a lot had changed since he had been away. His living room and parlour room were blank. The rooms were dark, the shadows melding into one another and sucking any light that managed to live beyond the curtained windows. This wasn't what Christmas usually was at his house.
Draco closed his eyes in the dark. He could almost feel the garland underneath his hand on the banister. He could see the large tree wrapped in fairy lights his mother always kept lit throughout the winter months. The different ornaments and baubles were hung, some hovering and zooming about the branches. He could remember the joy he felt as he would jump into his father's lap as they sat around the tree on Christmas morning. There would be a multitude of presents under the tree, all of them for him as his parents would exchange their presents to each other privately. His mum made Christmas all about him and he was happy for that every year.
After presents, they would have a lovely Christmas breakfast as prepared by the house-elves. Draco would have his favourites - blueberry pancakes, and his parents' undivided attention. Once breakfast was done, his father would spend time with him outside in the snow as his mother watched from the deck. They would be bundled up in their warmest, finest clothes though Draco would always manage to get his coat soaked. They'd end the day in front of the fire, Draco snuggled into his mother's chest as she read from a great book. His father would sit across from them before the fire just listening, and then would each have their own mug of hot chocolate.
Draco reopened his eyes. There are no garlands and no fairy lights. There are no presents addressed to Draco as there was no tree to put them under. There would be no father to snuggle into. There would be no mother to put on Christmas music through the house. There would be no blueberry pancakes, no games in the snow, or stories in front of the fire. Those days had gone, disappeared like smoke, and Draco hadn't even realized until now, already a week into his holidays.
Time was passing Draco by. He was growing up. What else had Draco grown out of that he hadn't even noticed? Most times he was happy to be growing. He was becoming a man and on his way to becoming someone his father would be proud of. But right now, this was one moment Draco wished he could hang onto his childhood a bit longer, having not even realized it had begun slipping through his fingers.