It was his old backyard, or at least he thought it was - the same stained ping-pong table, the same gigantic tree looming over from the neighbors' garden, almost the same rose bushes... He turned around to see where he had come from, and there, next to the unmanageable geranium bush, was the same glass door.
He moved his hand to the doorknob - and it vanished.
"What - ?" he croaked, unable to make a decent sound. "How - ?" His vocal cords had given up on him.
There was a deafening rumble from behind. He whirled around - there was nothing there but a small patch of blue skies up above.
The wind was blowing in his face - the dark clouds covering the yard would clear up, then, eventually. He found himself wishing it would happen soon. In this dark light, the backyard looked like some gruesome flashback (or worse, flashforward).
He moved away from the door. He walked slowly past the ping-pong table and out to the old umbrella. Something had happened to it and it was hanging off of its frame, all ripped and limp, but somehow still pristinely white. Beneath it were two benches - one simply old, the other cracked in two. He prodded the broken half with his foot. When nothing happened, he rolled it over - there was nothing there, not even an ant.
The wind was getting stronger, disturbing the tall grass around him; the great tree was swinging its branches. He looked back to the patch of blue sky - it had proceeded toward a small distance, but not much. Definitely not enough to make this yard just some happy memory.
He saw something bright red appear on the long-dead rosebush. He leapt to it, tripping on a rocking chair so old the seat had fallen through and the frame was peeling off in layers. Who the devil had moved it there? It had always been somewhere in a corner other there...
He looked past the chair, to the rosebush. There, a single rose bloomed, against all odds.
He reached out to pluck it, to bring it up against that bit of bright blue sky and pretend the rest of the backyard wasn't covered by a dark, stormy cloud, and with it, a thoroughly depressed feeling. The rose disappeared before he could grab it.
"Who - ?" he sputered in surprise. "Why - ?" he tried again, only to feel a pair of deathly cold hands grip his throat.
"You know perfectly well why, and who," a voice hissed in his ear.
The wind in the blue sky was advancing, and he could almost see the white clouds taking over the storm...almost...
"The only question, then, is how," the voice continued, pressing harder against his throat. Was there no life in there fingers, no warmth? - they felt like a corpse's...
"Yes, I am a dead man - dead because of you," the voice hissed angrily, and the man was astonished to discover that it was his own voice. "So it stands to reason that I have to kill you."
"No- please- I'm your- "
There was a very, very quiet sound, much like a knife moving smoothly into and out of a stomach, masked by a brief scream. Malfoy dropped to the ground, his eyes staring forward in absolute horror. Above him, an invisible man inspected his knife.
"I think you will find," he said, kneeling down to wipe the knife on Malfoy's robes, "that at the moment you are nothing more than my moment."
"Bad dream, Draco?"
"No, Goyle, I'm always like this. Now go away."