Christmas

I watch as the snow falls and imagine I can feel the coldness, even through the thick glass window, creeping into my bones.

It´s Christmas again - Christmas eve - but the manor is lacking its usual feel of festivity. Someone, a house elf I would guess, has hung the garlands on the banister and found a tree for the foyer. Still, I find even the pungent evergreen can not bring Christmas this year.

I think I hear laughter coming from the grand ballroom - laughter and faint strains of chamber music, glasses clinking and healed shoes on the polished marble floor.

It must be a memory, a ghost of Christmas past, because when I step into the room it is empty. I turn, a flash of silver embroidered on deep blue catching my eye - my mother´s favorite dress robes - but it must have been the snow, swirling outside in the darkening sky.

I close my eyes and let the scene paint in my mind, the graceful bodies that fill our ballroom. Everything is elegance, decadence but also restraint - restraint in their motions, their words. You can see it in their faces that blend one into the other - to float in the rich chiffon and finest wool one can never be more or less than perfection.

It´s beautiful, yet like the finest crafted bone china, so delicate.

It´s Christmas eve and my hair is gelled back with not a strand out of place, my skin is the pale of nobility. I stand in the ballroom - my birthright - Prince of all who float before me. At sixteen, it is the year my father should announce me as his heir.

My mother must be sitting, smiling now as the guests arrive in their sleek mink throws that the house elves will hang. They are, we are, the elite - the dying aristocracy.

I open my eyes to the empty ballroom, its marble perfection somehow hollow. I think I hear my mother crying and wonder if that is just a memory too. She should be here, lost somewhere in the recesses of the manor, straining her ears for the sound of my father´s boots, waiting for him to return home.

Christmas is not the same without him.

I think perhaps my own boots are sounding more like his - heavier, stronger. I think perhaps they sound like power.

I don´t think my father remembers that it´s Christmas. He hasn´t yet asked me what I want and the hours are running out before eve becomes morning. But I can wait.

I don´t know what I´ll ask for - I never do until right that moment when he asks me. I try to guess though, in the weeks before. Sometimes I´m right.

I think I may ask for a trip to France. It´s been so long since I´ve seen the vineyards and it would be nice to get away from this political mess in England - if only for a little while.

The candles are beginning to glow as I leave the ballroom, casting strange shadows on the walls in the growing dark.

I suddenly wonder how Potter´s Christmas is. I wonder if Hogwarts with its students gone seems as cold and lifeless as the manor. I wonder if anywhere Potter stays is ever cold and lifeless. I finish off my wondering by wondering why I thought of Potter at all.

The candles are fully lit in the hall, momentarily wrapping me in warmth, in the soft glow of elegance. But the chill is too long set in my bones to be shook and the snow is still falling in the ever blackening sky.

I realize why I thought of Potter as I walk through the corridors. The silence, the chill, this is all his fault. He ruined my Christmas. I think I must hate him an awful lot because I think my mother is crying and my father is still not home.

I think I may ask for Potter to die.

My hand rests against the frozen glass as I watch the snow, impassive to the cold. I know my father must be colder. I wonder if Christmas eve is one of the memories they´ve taken. I wonder if they thought he was happy when he swept into the ballroom, beauty and power and a son to continue the traditions. I wonder if Dementors think at all, or if they just feel.

Maybe beneath their hoods they are nothing more than a bundle of directionless hate. I wonder if anyone knows.

The tree in the foyer is bare and on a sudden whim I charm some silver tinsel onto its branches. I hear the guests in the ballroom again - whispers of Christmases before our families crumbled - and their laughter mocks me.

I think maybe it´s best if I don´t get a Christmas wish. The tricky thing about them is that you never know just how they´ll come about. Last year I asked for power. I think I may ask to give it back.

Wind rattles against the manor and I think this house must be lonely without him, the walls creaking their sorrow. The loneliness is mine now, like the manor. I wonder if people like Potter ever feel lonely. I wonder if it hurts more to lose your parents before you can remember or after you can´t forget.

I think I should go kiss my mother goodnight, make sure she gets into her bed. Maybe she will sleep tonight and wake up to find these past months have been a dream, that it´s still Christmas eve and the guests have yet to arrive. I linger on in the foyer, reluctant to admit the advancing hours, holding tightly to the waning slice of evening.

I think all good children should be in bed, which is why I´m sure Potter is tucked under thick red blankets with golden trim. He must be dreaming of Christmas, of presents and laughter and hot spiced drinks. He would not dream of a Malfoy on Christmas eve.

I think my father does not dream anymore. I think your dreams must be the first thing they take, leaving you hollow as you sleep, tossing and turning and full of nothing. When I wake up I can not remember my dreams.

I hear the whisper of silk on skin, the strains of a waltz, the click of shoes on marble. My feet carry me back to the ballroom. In the strange shadows the candles play I can see the crowd holding glasses of champagne, waiting for me.

I stand beside my father as he places a hand on my shoulder, smiling with pride. This is it - my birthright - all the grandness I see before me is mine. As he opens his mouth to announce me, in the last breath of Christmas eve, I ask to be born something other than a Malfoy.