This was written for the first December competition on the Hogwarts Online Forum. Draco Malfoy, with bits of Bellatrix at the end, because I just can't resist tucking Bellatrix in a corner everytime I write poor, freaked-out Draco. (pure sadism. Tsk tsk)
Theme – Winter
Prompts - ice, cloak, hot chocolate, regret and "Never again!" (to be said by one of your characters).
You must use all the prompts, and stick to the theme.
Word count - 400-1000 words.
The world had colours of ice. His heart felt frozen in his chest. He walked straight forward, silent and numb.
(no cloak could ever warm him up – ice cold despair was taking him under, filling his chest with an aching feeling of hollowness)
Draco Malfoy raised his left arm, and the gates recognized him. He walked through them as if they were mere phantoms of smoke.
(the whole house had become a phantom – haven of bitterness and regret, a lost paradise whose grandeur had been but a shadow)
(he lived in a castle of ashes, his childhood kingdom in which he was now but another nameless, faceless Death Eater; murderer scum, fallen from grace, scarcely alive)
Draco walked up the path in the biting frost of winter. A feeble, lonesome cry resounded through the park, yet he did not turn.
No one had thought to protect the peacocks from the cold this year, as it seemed. But their corpses would go unnoticed in the blinding whiteness of snow.
(who cared about the peacocks anyway. They were there for show, to impress, to amaze – they were just another well thought-out detail to stress their unreachable superiority. What a joke it had all become)
The fountain was still playing, the Manor was still handsome, glorious, impressive. Yet everything was off. The soul of it all was dying.
(the Malfoys had fallen from grace, and there was no more superiority to flippantly flaunt around)
(now they just tried to survive)
Inside the warmth welcomed him.
(it felt shallow)
It was quiet – he was alone. And standing in the middle of the hallway, his snowy coat half-hanging from his shoulders, he couldn't help but lose himself in the past.
(just for one moment)
(he would come in with his parents standing on each side of him. The elf would run up to him and take his cloak away, avoiding Lucius' cane as well as it could. Then they would walk to the drawing room, laughing. A tea would await his mother, black coffee or brandy for his father, and he would have hot chocolate)
Never again would he enjoy such innocence.
(frightened as a trapped animal in his own house, like a prey around a snake)
Draco Malfoy hung his coat in silence, and walked through the empty corridors.
(his parents could have been anywhere)
(but he was used to anguish by now)
The drawing room was so cold. Nobody had thought of lighting a fire. He brushed his fingertips against the only photo of the room, its golden frame smooth and cool. His mother looked radiantly beautiful, glowing with happiness. His father was so confident, and himself so...
(young)
"Never again," he whispered to himself.
A cackle from the doorway answered him.
"Oh no, nephew. Never again!"
He turned slowly, wearily.
(he didn't want to know what she meant)
(but never again would he think that his family was safe)