Ice
He is a child conceived in darkness; fed hate in streams like milk. Sticks and stones will break my bones, childish and sing-song, and he has always known how false that is. Minor concerns, really, and he finds it so easy to despise them. Those who only worry about falling. He's finding that it's worse to have nowhere left to go.
Every night the scene plays in his head, right before he falls into uneasy sleep: he had frozen, he had failed, it was only a matter of time before he was dead.
He goes over the moment, obsessively, analyzing details and dissecting the steps it took to reach that final breaking point. He steps back, observes coldly, something he has always been so good at. His greatest strength, his father had told him once (his father, his father, what must he think?); ice. Death Eaters do not love, he knows this, he's always known it, but it is only now that he has begun to wonder why.
There had been something in his eyes, and he doesn't want to wonder and he doesn't want to know; futile, probably, but that has never stopped him. Nothing has. Until now. That look in his eyes and a suddenly worthless wand.
He doesn't know where they're going; he doesn't dare to say much. They move in shadows and in silence. Darkness, darkness, and it is only now that he's found it hard to see.
(the end)