Nothing does, nowadays. Not the gentle settling of snow, nor the distant roar of a passing Muggle machine. Even the water dripping from the roof of his decrepit hovel feels both silent and deafening; its presence drags at him, grating against his ears. Drip, drop, drip, drop.

A low groan escapes his lips—pursed, bitten, exhausted.

This last week has felt like a countdown. Every second brings him an inch closer to Avada Kedavra, and this cabin is a chain holding him in place; his wrists and ankles still bear the bruises of the trial, from the hands that held him down as though he were not already sinking. What the Ministry has never understood, Draco muses, is how little effort it takes to restrain a man who has already buried himself six feet beneath the world. How does one drown the dead?

In any case, Draco will die.

There is no surprise in it. Not like the orphic shadow of Voldemort, nor the wistful, troubled glances he once cast at certain boys across the Great Hall. A sigh larger than life leaves Draco. Surely death will be no more fearsome than the years he spent watching smaragdine irises blaze with anger—or irritation—or whatever it was Harry Potter ever felt. Draco never understood him: not his pain, not his loyalty, not his anything. It is rather pathetic, he thinks, that on the eve of his execution, he is wondering whether the golden boy ever saw him as beautiful as he was infuriating.

It is the winter solstice, Draco thinks, and who will burn the yule log? Who will weave the fir wreaths? Who will exchange gifts beneath the shadow of the Malfoy home? His mother?

His mother, waiting in that frozen manor, surrounded by the corpses of a dozen peacocks, the scent of his father’s mahogany cologne lingering like a ghost in the halls.

He imagines her dancing across the dining room, clutching his late father’s robe and swaying to their favourite song—Nocturne, Op. 9 No. 2 in E-flat major. Draco remembers because they used to waltz to it every anniversary. They would pass him between them, laughing, holding their little Dragon as if he were made of the finest porcelain. His mother’s hair would be down, and so would his father’s. They would embrace like newlyweds.

Draco’s greatest regret is simply that he did not know better.

One does not ponder entelechy until one has lost their personhood; until the very bones of who one believed themselves to be dissolve into a fate worse than nothingness, and all that remains is a little boy. It is unfortunate, but Draco feels like the same child who asked his father how to ride a broom, the same boy who entered the Forbidden Forest as punishment, the same little boy who thought of Dobby as his only friend.

He withers until he becomes as repugnant as he imagines himself to be. He withers until he is youthful again, as he was two years ago—before the Dark Lord, before the shouting, before the Fiendfyre. Draco trembles as he writes it down.