In the half-bated breath of summer, a boy sweeps past the ghosts in Malfoy Manor, his steps hurried and chased as he brings himself to mark every part of something he once owned. The vestiges are in the shadows behind worn furniture, clinging to torn paintings shrouded by black cloth, and the stir of his breath is enough to set them loose and feel their glistening stories brush against the tangle of a heart within his chest.
He breathes, he lives, and the chaos of it is enough to momentarily clear the air for something behind his eyes to click and settle, but it doesn't stop his hands from claiming and remembering to the beat of mine minemine mine minemine despite the rejection that shocks under his fingernails with every object.
That chair over there tall and fair was where his Mother read him nursery rhymes under the lazy dance of sunlight, but all he can see is the swallowing darkness as a glowing hand curls around its garnished armrest. A flash of green, red, the full offerings of the spectrum, and he sees these colors wherever he turns, from the vibrant crimson of the wallpaper to the lilied fields of a painting.
The shambles of a home swallow his feet whole, pulverized shards and soft dust gathering in the aftermath of a tornado that had torn up his childhood by the roots. And in the shy light of the fire of rebirth, he steps back from the burns of forget.
The coolness of his bedroom greets him like an old friend; his knees jar with despair in his sole sanctuary. It is his vessel, the remnant of a blonde boy who enjoyed Quidditch and lazy summers under the embrace of a tree, the taste of green apples on his overheated mouth, the twinkling twilight lit up by fireflies. This alone has kept the specters away, the smiling-eyed innocence grounded in the center of swirling ghosts and the beckoning of a snake.