Turn to me with frozen lips
Your hands are icy cold
Your eyes burn bright against the frost-bit sky
You never seemed more lovely then you do tonight
Will time stand still if it's pierced with cold?
~Jewel
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Draco Malfoy stood, strong and proud, encompassed by the sunset on the day of the Winter Solstice, the coldest day of the year, each year. He stood and stared at the nothing that was something, as nothing is harder to come by then it may seem. But, no matter how lost one is, no matter how defeated or afraid, no matter how much hope one is lacking, no matter what trials one is facing, you can never stand and stare forever. Even when you're a desperate teenager, slowing freezing to death on the coldest day, turning to night, of the year.

Outwardly, he calmly lifted his ice encrusted boots and placed one in front of the other until it looked like he was merely out for a stroll, though what poor timing! On the inside, yes, the inside, because even the most foul villans have an inside, even if their mere purpose is for the hero to tear it out in a bloody climax duel, on the inside, he was screaming. Screaming for the hopelessness was crushing him, his dreams, his life. Screaming, because no matter how arrogant he may seem, he still hated himself. Screaming, because although he he went through each day with the kind of mechanical non-attachment of an appliance to it's owner, he had no will and no strength to do anything about it.

He reached the door and pulled it open, trapping himself in the passsionate meet of extreme cold and lovely heat. He trudged towards his dormitory, where he could pretend to sleep. As he passed the different people, he could hear their thoughts as loudly as his own. "Bastard." "Lousy Slytherin." "Son of a bitch." "Damn you, Malfoy." "Arrogant fuckwit." These insults passed from stony glare and narrowed eyes, stinging him with the reality of what the said actually being true. He pulled up his scowl to deflect the biting thoughts but they still chased him- he feared they always would.

He reached his dormitory and lay in his bed, closing himself off from the world with the help of green curtains that hung around his four poster bed. Once upon a time, tears would have helped washed the sting away, but it seems that after awhile, you can cry no more.

Soon, he was asleep, and dreaming. Dreaming was once an escape, but his dreams became darker each night and would soon be devoid of any light whatsoever. In his dream, he stood on an icy field with only with black and silver cloack, and felt no cold. His blues eyes blinked once and then gazed directly upwards, to behold the retreating sunset. Blinking once more, he turned and saw a girl, his age, with long ,dark, chestnut hair, brown eyes, and rosy pink cheeks. What made him think this girl was different was the fact that she looked at him with understanding, not hate. A welcome change.
He looked at her, trying to memorise every bit, every expression, every movement, graceful or not.

He stepped towards her at the same moment that she stepped towards him, and she picked up his hands.

"Your hands are cold." she remarked.

She touched her lips to his.

"So are your lips."

He stood numbly, and as the precious seconds chipped away at his frozen paradise, he dredged up every tiny memory of his personal hell- his life. He took his childhood, not so bad but lacking all kinds of good, and threw it away. He took his terrible deeds, the ones he regretted before he committed, and tossed them aside. He took every waking moment of his pathetic, desolate life, and let it explode into the fading sky, never to be seen again. He had never felt so good.

He focused again on the girl in front of him, who had given him the perfect gift of understanding and set him free.

"You never seemed more lovely then you did tonight." he said, and his words echoed around the clearing until the whole meadow become drenched with the joy he felt when he spoked those simple words.

They kissed, and he held on to her as though his world was ending, but that was not so. Instead, his hell was over and something new had begun. He didn't know what, but wasn't half the goodness finding out?

Draco Malfoy never woke up, so it seemed to those at Hogwarts Academy of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Sure, some people missed him in an artificial sort of way, but Draco Malfoy, wherever he was, never missed anyone or anything.