Snowflakes danced through the air, falling softly on the ground below. The cold breeze was too kind; not a piercing, stinging wind, but more a flutter of chill floating through the winter air. The moon, the queen, took her rightful place in the night sky.

As peaceful as the night was, the Christmas Eve, not all were happy. As most moods were light, there was one who lay in bed, wide awake, contemplating what was to become of himself.

The Dark Lord had lost, and no one thought of him the same way. He was an outsider; still an enemy. If people could just look past who he used to be, maybe they would treat him better.

Nothing was the same after the Battle. And that was the truth of the matter.

Everyone had lost someone, something, and he was no different. There was nothing left of him now. The Dark Lord had fallen, his family was in grief, and nobody believed in him. In everyone's mind, he was still an outsider, and that seemed to be how it would remain.

Tossing in bed, he wished he could fall asleep. He wish he could forget everything; he didn't care that it was Christmas Eve. In fact, he probably didn't even know. He was so out of it, so out of everything, that life seemed to be a blur around him. Everything moved in slow motion, and he was not particularly fond of it. He was hardly living anymore.

Moonlight poured in from his window. He wanted to close it; why did he want that brightness to disturb him as he tried to sleep? He reached up to close it; the light was too bright. It was getting stronger, closer … surely it was only his imagination playing a trick on him?

But he was thrown back, and, frightened, he looked around wildly.

"Please," said a voice coming from what seemed to be the window. He did not see anyone though, "don't scream."

A cold mist, perhaps no more than a breeze, drifted in. His eyes, not up to speed, slowly morphed the figure into a shape he had seen so often, yet feared to look at. It was the Dark Lord. He nearly fainted.

"M-my lord!" he exclaimed, not quite sure what to say. "What brings you here?"

"Lucius," he said, "I come with important news." The figure, the ghost, had a plea in his eyes. Was it his imagination? Was he asleep? Lord Voldemort would never plead …

"What is it my lord?" Whether it be a dream or not, Lucius still wanted to know what was happening.

"Change, Lucius. Look out your window, feel the beauty of the moon, wrap your arms in the presence of the midnight wind, and never let go. From me, this may sound … pathetic, or maybe dreamlike. But it's true, Lucius! You must now lose the beauty that stays with you! Relish it, grab hold of it!" Voldemort was nearly panting now. He was trying so hard to be convincing that he showed it all in his face. Lucius could not help but believe him, but what was he going to try to convince him to do?

"My lord, what are you trying to tell me to do? Every since the Battle, nothing has gone right for me. Can't you see this? I am nothing; I am useless. Tomorrow is Christmas, now is it? I can hear the word on the street. Do I care? Do I need something as useless as Christmas? No. I don't need anything anymore." Lucius stated this, as he felt that was the truth. It was the principle he had been living by for so long.

"No! Lucius, you are wrong! Treasure Christmas. I never did. Life is … precious, Lucius. You will see, just as I did. And I lived all wrong! I made all the wrong choices. I did all the wrong things. I don't want you to make that mistake, Lucius. And this may not sound right coming from me, but please. It's your only chance." Voldemort bent down, nearly collapsing, onto his legs until he was nearly laying on the floor defeated.

"How am I supposed to realize that life is precious? What proof can you give me? How do I know that this is not just some kind of dream?" Lucius asked. Nothing, nothing at all could work for him now. He was nothing.

A twinkle in Lord Voldemort's eye was a sure sign that something was about to happen.

"I can prove it to you, Lucius." And Lucius was swept away in the midnight breeze.

How softly Lucius and Voldemort landed on the ground was unbelievable. Lucius was still sure that he was in a dream, a trance of some sort. He had not even looked around, he had not even tried to experience the "beauty." How strange a dream it was that the Dark Lord would come to him and persuade him to "relish it, grab hold of it!"

"Do you recognize this house, Lucius?" Voldemort asked, softly, slowly, in a voice quite unlike the one Lucius used to know.

That house … he did recognize it! It was … no, how could the Dark Lord know?

When he and Narcissa had just had Draco, they had lived in a different house; this house. The memories from this house, of happier times, had been locked away in a deep, dark, corner of his mind in which he never dared venture.

"Come inside," Voldemort said, wrapping his hand around the doorknob, "and witness this for yourself."

"But I've already been here!" said Lucius. "I've already seen this, I've already done this. I need not go back!"

"I beg to differ," said Voldemort. "You are in dire need of going back to this moment to see what Christmas were like when you are happier."

"Please!" begged Lucius. "I do not want to go back."

"Perhaps," said Voldemort, "you should have considered that before you started being such a bad sport about Christmas. Let us go." He started to ever-so-slightly twitch his wrist so that the doorknob turned.

"Wait!" cried Lucius, though trying to keep his voice down. "Won't they see us?" he asked. but if this was true, how had he never noticed.

"Don't worry," said Voldemort, "we're fine." He opened the door and it was like walking into a furnace because of the difference in temperature. It was cold, very cold, on the outside, but inside, a fire burned bright, toasting all inside.

"Lucius," Narcissa told the Lucius from the memory, "this is so nice." She hugged her baby, little Draco, tighter. She looked genuinely happy to be here; happy to be alive. It was so different than the Narcissa that Lucius knew now. He looked away, as seeing her like this was too much to bear. He had not wanted to relive these memories. He had already chosen his path; he must not go back. What was the point? He couldn't go back and change anything, so wouldn't it be more useful to find some way to live with things the way that they already were?

"I don't want to go back," the memory Lucius said. Lucius remembered having said this line; he had known it was coming. A main part of this night that grabbed at his brain was the fact that he had told his wife that he did not want to go back and serve the Dark Lord. It was a sentence, even if it was merely just that, that was more important than anything else he had said that night. It was a sign of regret, and to him, regret almost always meant that you were not happy with the way things were, and you would find a way to change things. But Lucius had not changed things. He had gone back to serve the Dark Lord, he had abandoned his son with his wife, and he had done what, in his heart, he knew was not right. That had made all the difference.

"Then don't, Lucius," Narcissa said. Her eyes, surprisingly soft and tender, gazed into his, and it was a look that should have convinced him never to leave. But he had not. He had gone and served the Dark Lord.

"Narcissa, I can't just refuse to go. The Dark Lord will find me, hunt me down, and things will have been worse off than they were before!" the memory Lucius said, his temper rising. Lucius wondered how Voldemort felt, standing here, listening to a conversation about himself. As Lucius snuck a peak over at him, he looked taken aback indeed, and he looked very sad, something Lucius had never seen in that cold face before. Of course, it had turned unnervingly warm, something Lucius still wasn't quite sure that he could handle.

"Tell the Dark Lord! He will understand!" Narcissa said, and with her surprisingly fierce tone, baby Draco looked up, confused. His eyes … they were so … what was the word people used? Was it cute? They were so warm, and big, just observing the world for the first time, the world that his parents were setting a bad example of.

"How could he understand? Are you joking with me? This is no time for a joke; this is a serious matter, and I am shocked at how you are -"

"Relax, Lucius! Maybe he won't understand, but -"

"Even if I brought up the idea, he would laugh in my face! He would make fun of me, and he would find it funny that the question even came up! I cannot afford to lose what I have now! It is the only reason we are still here!" The baby started to cry, just a little whimper, and Lucius and Narcissa both looked down.

"Lucius, I understand. It's no use. I don't know what I was thinking. I just … I've had such a great time with you and Draco. I don't want you to go. Draco doesn't want you to go. It would be so much better. But I know; there's nothing we can do," Narcissa said, and her eyes slowly started to fill up with tears.

"I wish I could stay, too. I really do. But in the better interest of this family, I have to go. Worse things will happen. Let's just enjoy the time we have here now, Narcissa, instead of using our precious time to grieve over what could have been."

With that, they snuggled together, the happy family of three. Baby Draco's eyes lit up as his parents cuddled over him, and the Christmas could not have been warmer.

Lucius and Voldemort carefully opened the door and walked back outside.

"Don't you wish that you could have that same experience now, Lucius? Looking back on that, don't you wish you could do that?"

"Of course I do, but there is nothing I can do now! We can't just simply do that, so much has to happen!" said Lucius. He did, very much so, wish that he could go back to that moment and make it happen again right now. But, as he had said, it was just not that simple. You couldn't just do whatever you wanted these days … his family had been broken apart so much already. There was too much needed to be done to make this Christmas like that one.

"No, it doesn't. Just gather 'round your family; they will understand!" said Voldemort, hoping this was true. After all he would not know himself. He only hoped that this was true. Having seen that Christmas, Voldemort was more than ashamed. He was extremely upset that he had such a big impact on making their Christmas like that. What would the Malfoy family's Christmases have been like if Lucius had never served him?

But he did not want to think about that … he was here to do one thing and one thing only.

"They will not just understand! I can't just gather up my family and say 'Merry Christmas!' They aren't like that! They would look at me like I am a madman!"

"And maybe you are!" exclaimed Voldemort. "Maybe you are a madman for sulking here for what could have been without even trying to fix things! You said you would give anything to go back to that Christmas, so why not try? What would be so bad about that?" asked Voldemort.

"And what would you know about trying things? You never just tried things. You could've killed Harry Potter much sooner if you would've tried more things. But you had to be the one to do it, or it was a bad time, or you gave another excuse like that! Why should I take an example from you?" Lucius asked, exhausted from arguing and having to go back to that memory.

Voldemort was completely shocked and spoke only in a hushed whisper. "You will see. When you end up like me, Lucius, you will see." Lucius sighed.

"And why is this any different for me?" asked Lucius. "Wasn't everyone affected by the Battle? Hasn't everyone's family been changed? Why is it me that you chose to do this to? You never had any respect for me."

"I regret that Lucius, I do. I regret everything. Please, believe me." Voldemort feared he was not doing a good enough job. What if he failed? What if Lucius didn't take his advice?

"Then why me? Why did you pick me?" asked Lucius, still curious.

"You are affected badly, more so than any others. You are in extreme danger of going down my path, and it is not the right way to go! Other people can look past the Battle! You can't!" cried Voldemort.

"Really?" asked Lucius, in his icy tone.

"Yes," said Voldemort, "and I shall show you."

“No,” said Lucius, realizing where he had ended up. “We can’t go here.” He stared at the tall, lopsided contraption that was a house. It seemed to lean to one side, and then to the other, oddly contorting; it looked as though it were about to fall over.

“Why not, Lucius? What can possibly be so wrong?” asked Voldemort, as a sarcastic smile lit his face. Lucius only glared at him, and his expression alone answered Voldemort’s question.

“My Lord,” he began, but Voldemort interrupted.

“Please, Lucius - call me Tom.” Lucius had noticed an odd side of Voldemort, but never had he expected Voldemort to say “call me Tom!” as if they were best friends, even acquaintances. Lucius had always been his little puppy, following him everywhere, doing what he asked. Never had expected, no matter how odd the situation got, Voldemort to look at him as an equal.

Though it was kind of Voldemort to offer, Lucius decided that he would try to avoid addressing the Dark Lord by his name. That would be too awkward for his taste.

“Come inside,” Voldemort said, swinging open the door to the Burrow. With a soft moan and a drop of his shoulders, Lucius grudgingly walked inside. He knew this could not be good.

Much to his despair, he saw eight red heads and freckles galore. They were all sitting ‘round the table eating what looked like (though Lucius did not want to admit it, even to himself) a fabulous meal. He almost wanted to sit down at the table and join them. He did notice that there were no empty chairs, something he had not expected. There were only eight chairs, and he had expected there would be nine, but the extra one would be left empty.

”You’ve spied it already, Lucius, I can tell. They got rid of the chair; they didn’t want it to ruin their Christmas. They got rid of the chair, the memory. That’s not something you’ve done. You sit on your chair of gloom all day. You refuse to get off. Why, it wouldn’t be much of an effort to get off your chair, now would it?” Voldemort asked. Lucius knew that he was right, or at least that his theory had some amount of logic behind it.

“Let’s go upstairs,” said Voldemort. “We have more to see.” Together, they walked up the makeshift staircase, happy that it the Weasley family didn’t have to hear it creaking.

They came to a room, it looked like a bedroom, and Voldemort quietly pushed open the door. As his hand lay on the door, Lucius was taken aback as he noticed that it was no longer snakelike, but a real hand. In fact, now that Lucius snuck a quick look at his face, it looked … normal. Lucius had tried to avoid eye contact, for he still slightly feared Voldemort and was baffled by his sudden change in character, but now that he did look at him he noticed that he really had changed. Not just on the inside, either.

It was a warm little room, with a bed and some cheap looking furniture. A few things hung on the walls: a Gryffindor flag, an advertisement for a shop called “Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes,” and a picture of two boys, both identical, smiling and laughing next to each other.

“You see?” said Voldemort. “George took out the bed, but he kept a picture - not just any picture, but a happy memory. He can always look up at his wall and remember happier times. Aren’t you taking an example for any of this, Lucius?”

“I’m afraid I don’t have a camera on me every time something good happens,” Lucius said sourly.

“You don’t have to!” Voldemort said. “It’s all in your mind; they’re memories, even better preserved than a picture may be! Your only problem is that you’ve locked them all up and prepared to never see them again! This is where you go wrong, Lucius. Open up those memories; you know they’re in there,” Voldemort said, and his voice became soft.

“What if I don’t want to?” asked Lucius. “What if I don’t want to go back? There’s nothing I can do about the situation I’m in, so why would I taunt myself? Answer me this: do you have any happy memories stored in the back of your brain?” Lucius stopped and breathed heavily. Voldemort’s eyes widened.

“No, I don’t,” he said. “They were there, but I released them. I set them free. Even I had some happy memories. “

“Even so, why should I say to myself, ‘I had happier times. Let’s relive them so I can feel that much worse about my predicament right now. Let’s remember my cheerful moments in life as I regret what I did and think about how wrong I am.’ What good does that do me? Why is it better to feel badly about where I’m at now? Why can’t I just try and make the best of it?” asked Lucius, his temper rising.

“If you do, if you do think about how bad your situation is, then you will work to make it better! You will be determined to fix things! And remembering the cheerful moments, and the drive to fix yourself with push you off the chair, and make you hang that photograph on your wall. Lucius, I wouldn’t have come here without a good reason. You’re just determined not to believe me, and I don’t know why,” said Voldemort.

“You don’t know why? You don’t know why I am suspicious of believing you when the darkest wizard of all time showed up at my house and told me to unleash my happy memories? Does that make sense to you? Do you think I can believe you just because you say so? If you still think you are the most powerful thing in this world, you are quite mistaken. There are lots of people greater than you.”

“Exactly, Lucius! Exactly! This is the way you should be thinking! Forget the Battle; forget that you ever served me! Now that the Battle is over, you should be willing to start over, just as I have. You should take my visit here as an opportunity, not an oddity. Welcome me, embrace me, for things have changed at last!” Voldemort said, throwing his hands up into the air as if rejoicing. “Rejoice for the brand new day!” he added, repressing the urge to dance around the room.

“It’s not that easy!” cried Lucius. “You don’t understand!” Voldemort stopped rejoicing.

“I don’t understand, do I? I, the one the whole Battle was fought over, don’t understand that it’s not easy to rejoice? I, the one so feared, the one that’s dead, don’t understand that you can’t just forgive and forget? I, the one who did so much wrong, don’t understand that life goes on? Think about it, Lucius! Is it easier for me or you to move on? You! And who did? I did! It is not that hard, I promise you Lucius. Would you give it a try? Would you try to move on?” Voldemort asked.

Lucius tried to think of some way to rebuttal, but he could not. What indeed would be the harm in trying? There was no way he could end up worse off than he was already. He instead pretended to be extremely impatient and upset, as if his point were too obvious and right to miss. He began to walk out the door. Voldemort sighed and followed.

They silently walked down the steps and observed the Weasley family still managing to enjoy their Christmas Eve.

“They lost so much,” Voldemort whispered to Lucius. “They were scarred for life. They could move on; why not you?” His voice wafted over to Lucius’s ear, as if nothing but the wind.

In his head, Lucius answered silently. I don’t know, he thought. I don’t know. Was it really worth giving a try? But if, perhaps, he did try and move on, it would be a sign of weakness. He would have just agreed to Voldemort, just because of his power. He did not want to be weak. He did not want to simply give in. But Voldemort wasn’t here for his own good … was he?

They walked out the door of the Burrow and were quickly welcomed by a sharp embrace of the cold winter wind. Snowflakes drifted through the air; gliding in the breeze. They landed softly on the ground, just coating the grass. Lucius could not help but have his eyes follow one’s path, from way up high down to the blanket of grass and fellow flakes.

“What will happen,” Lucius asked, “if I don’t try and move on? Will I regret it? Will I wish I did?” Voldemort smiled.

“You already should regret it, Lucius. But to answer you, yes you will regret it. Yes, you will wish you did move on. It’s what I’ve been telling you for some time now. I’m pleased to see you’re catching on.”

“Can you show me?” Lucius asked. “Can you show me what I’ll be if I don’t move on?”

“I suppose if it will help you to do the right thing,” Voldemort said, “then yes.”