ICE.

There was little the shuddering trees could do to dispense the snow from their laden branches. They were the only protection the crunchy, frozen woodland surface had left and the even the quivering, once proud and handsome firs, were bowing to the strength of winter. Even the castle seemed to lose strength as it found itself being battered near-continuously by the relentless weather. That was why many refrained from stepping out into the grounds. Even those with questionable addictions could still be found cuddled up in the warmth of the common rooms. Later there was no doubt they would crack open a window in order to sate themselves but that was later, this was now and now was entirely too freezing for the idea of going outside to even be entertained. She did entertain it though. As dark tendrils of hair fell from the high pony tail she’d scraped it back into that morning, her mind turned in wonder, wonder of whether stepping out tentively into the frozen world so like that of her own person would do her any good. She had never been told what would happen if ice met ice - always fire, never the other end of the spectrum. Though she supposed ‘If you fight ice with ice then you’ll get frozen’ didn’t sound nearly as good as the other saying. She could see why they would have picked the latter over the former.

The young woman had always had an affinity with all things below freezing. She couldn’t decide now whether that was cruel irony or not but as an absent minded hand fell to her stomach she felt as if it was. Her thoughts were sombre and reflected as she stood in the mouth of the open entrance hall doors. Her feet, oddly bare though her shoes were stood neatly side by side not a few metres behind, were poised, thinking as carefully about reaching out for the ice as her mind was. Her thoughts were more focused on the memories of the tiny, elf-like features of the child she’d lost to mere Mudbloods. Pureblood, doomed to waste away in the hands of dirty blood. Truly that was not what she was most worried about and certainly, the thought of that had taken a back seat in her mind since the very day her daughter was taken from her arms. What haunted the young woman was the idea that her daughter wouldn’t remember her. Thoughts were retained, even at such a young age, and she hoped something might’ve been taken by the wide-eyed child. She doubted that, though. Very, very highly. Still, as her mother said, life goes on. Audrey could not help but wonder whether the events that had occurred the year before had stunted her life somewhat, and certainly, stunted her growth as a person. Still, there was little that could be done about that now. Surely by sixteen she was set in her ways? Surely.

Taking in a shaky breath, the young woman lifted her left leg off of the warm, far warmer than it perhaps should have been considering the gale swirling through, stone floor and pressed it down into the soft freeze that coated every surface beyond the boundaries of the castle walls. A shock of ice shot up her leg and her eyes shot open, her ruby red lips parting and spreading into a slow, almost sinister smile. She tucked her foot into the blanket of snow and, ignoring the way her hands began to quiver from the cold, slipped the other slender, pale foot in after the first. Her breath left her lips in visible clouds and her chest began heave as her blood surged down towards her toes in order for some sort of warmth to be found there. Her eyes slid shut and her hands gripped the floral skirt she’d elected to wear and as the ice slid through her, she truly found herself reconnecting with the world, even just a little.

You can’t fight ice with ice, can you? It’s numb with numb and one always gets shocked back into life.