The dead silence of a once happy household. Where fear had now taken over, where cowardice now ruled. He had never been one to be evil. A jealous boy, trying to become a man in a war zone. Bought up on a mother's love and never his father's approval, he just wanted to do what was right for his family. Draco had started wondering his ghostly manor since he had returned from Hogwarts. Most of the time he didn't know where to go, where to run. He liked walking because he thought if he walked long enough he might trick himself into thinking he was walking somewhere. He had walked everywhere in the castle now. Except the cells. He hated the cells. He knew they were awake too. Like him, pacing, hoping if they walked long enough they could walk right through the walls. It wasn't even seeing them that was the worst part. You could hear them most nights. Not their moans of agony or starvation. You could hear the hope leaving them. And secretly, Draco was hoping with them too. That the war would end. That they'd all be returned to their families, everyone unharmed. Draco wished he could go back to his family too. Their bodies were there, but they were empty. He felt sick just thinking of his mother, how she refused to speak now, how she simply just forgot to eat. And he knew that as quite and the still as the manor was at this moment, not one eye got to blink. Not one soul got to sleep. As they all were victims of the war.
Draco had been sitting in the armchair in the sitting room of his manor for some time. He was awake, but hadn't moved for hours. The time, he did not know. He would wait until sunrise when he would crawl back inside his bed and wait until they had all left before he dare move again. He had had a restless night. Memories, refusing to escape him. The slowly fading dream of a happy family had gotten to him. Voldemort was rising, and whether Draco liked it or not, Draco was apart of this. Draco was the much despised enemy, the one who had brangDumbledore in an a platter, and was now branded with the symbol of evil. He didn't have the heroic tale to tell. He was the enemy. Draco suddenly moved, somewhat violently, as if to shake away a bad thought. He looked around him, almost pleading with his surroundings for a distraction. But there was only one thing on his mind. The lost hope, echoing constantly from beneath him. He needed to visit the cells. Walking along the marble floor, he reached a wooden door he knew led down. Pointlessly glancing around, as he knew his family were in their beds pretending to sleep. He opened the door slowly, as if hesitating with every move. He walked down to stairs, reaching half way down before he sat. Here they were. Asleep. Or appearing to be. He didn't care. It gave him comfort to know that if the people they had robbed everything of could still dream, so could he.