Disclaimer: JKR owns all. Taken from Potter Place's Exile Challenge.



VIVAASA

by: carpetfibers



One year, Day 17

The sky sifts listlessly, the clouds frayed ribbons overhead. He shades his eyes, the dead grass underfoot stretching endlessly over the grounds. The once full elms and sinuous alders pale leafless and grayed. It is summer, and the land shows no appearance of a recently passed spring. There is only the fearless yellow of the stubborn grasses, whose knee-high lengths show the only proof of life. The manor itself stands with equal resilience, and yet there is no luster, no shine- the opulence and grandeur he remembers so vividly are gone.

His childhood home; his teenage home; his family's once kingdom and proud glory is a relic, a ruin. The returned deed in his pocket, absent from his family's hands for nearly six years, stinks of a last laugh, a final rub in the dirt. He crosses the grounds and pulls open the heavy, creaking front door.

Torn drapes, scarred planking, cracked marble, stained wallpaper, grime and dust, disuse and misuse: all abused; his room is the only room unmarred in both his memory and reality. The thick softness of his bed sheets slip smooth and comforting through his fingers. His pillows still smell of sandalwood and cedar. The shelf that wraps the ceiling displays his many school-won awards and medals; pictures flash caught moments of his younger, smirking self, his younger, softer mother, and his younger, unbroken father. An infamous family as told by the papers; a notorious family as whispered by others; and for him, simply a family- and this house is once again his home.

It is large; it is cold. It is money, old and pure, and it is all that is left of his name's station. He begins making the plans, the notes necessary to returning the manor to its former heights. It must be as it once was, he had decided, years earlier. Once it was back in his hands- once it was his- he would fix it all; he would undo all that had been done, in that time before. And then, he would be where he belonged.

Not sleeping on a couch in a tiny flat. Not sitting on a folding chair eating microwave-ed soups. Not watching the telly on mute. Not licking his fingers clean from the grease of a chips-filled newspaper. Not lying beneath an open window shirtless waiting for the temperature to drop. Not tripping out from a suddenly ice-cold shower. Not walking barefoot across linoleum-lined floors. Not breaking blocks of ice from a freezer door left open.

No, he is back where he belongs.

The jar leaves his fingers smudged with soot and dust but his palm fills with green powder. He throws it into the newly lit fireplace and waits for the expected face to make an appearance.

"Mr. Malfoy," the balding head greets.

"Sell it," he says.

"Are you sure, Mr. Malfoy? You only just received the deed back yesterday." The balding head is confused.

"I know." And he is confused as well. He is puzzled and he is worried, but none of that removes the conviction that he feels. "But it's not-" he pauses, unsure of how to explain it.

"I understand, sir," the balding head finishes, bobbing once in the affirmative. "It must not feel like home after so long. Perhaps you ought to give it a few more weeks- let the place grow back on you?"

He considers the decaying living room and imagines it back when the green and gold brocade hung in twin ramparts, the solid oak and marble of the dining room table laden with delicate wine glasses and the finest porcelain dishes. He imagines his mother seated in the corner, her robes impeccable and features contented; he imagines his father standing behind her, his hand on her shoulder and his lips curved proudly. He imagines himself beside them, and the picture cracks.

He imagines instead a folding chair and flowered tablecloth, and his decision is made.

"No," he says. "I don't want it anymore."


End Day 17