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b e f o r e
Draco was still in Adeline's hold when the world stopped spinning and they arrived at the commencement of their deaths.
The room they stood in was dark and cold. Wooden floors and brick ceilings caged them in. Without much light, Adeline thought they might be in some sort of house. Everything is very still, very quiet for the few moments after they land. A dizzying sort of silence keeps everything in an odd sense of limbo like they're not really here; like they're not even very alive. Then Adeline feels the texture of Draco's jacket between her fingers and all reality pushes in on her. She lets go immediately, summoning Lumos in her palms. She'd gotten better at controlling it now, rays of light scattering against the walls.
Adeline had been right, they stood in the middle of a house in the living room. An orange couch in the middle of the small room, an unlit fireplace sitting in the dark across from the lounge. A small matching armchair was beside it, ghastly red throw pillows decorated on the seats. It was too dark to see the smaller details of the room, the people in the hung picture frames, the titles of the books on the shelves that line the back wall, what lay outside the closed windows.
"No one's home." Draco broke the silence, his voice whispered despite his statement.
Adeline turned to him; he was looking around the room just as she had been. His hair looked whiter than she'd ever seen from the light coming from her palms, shadows from his lashes and nose danced around his pale face. His eyes settled on her, quiet.
"Everyone in town has evacuated," He continued. "They all know the Dark L- Voldemort has returned."
Adeline turned away from him, taking the light with her as she headed for the door by the bookshelves. It was wooden and creaked when she opened it. It led into a dark kitchen, mustard yellow tiled floors, slightly discoloured from age, an island in the centre of it with bowls of slightly old fruit, jars of nuts, grains of rice and dried portions of pasta. The kitchen was fairly large and looked recently lived in. There was even an old mug of coffee sitting on the bench. Windows above the sink showed nothing but darkness.
Across from the kitchen were a flight of stairs next to the front door. By the entrance, a mess had been made of shoes and coats, umbrellas, scarves and hats. Whoever lived here, left in a hurry.
Upstairs there was a bedroom and a bathroom, both messy from a quick packing job. There were spaces on the walls that once hung picture frames, on shelves that had housed something else valuable to its owners.
The house was quaint, and it probably would have made a lovely home to these people, before fear drove them away.
Downstairs, Draco was in the kitchen. The light above the island was on, warm tones brightening the room. It made the yellow floor less bearable. He was leaning over the stove, staring at a boiling kettle with two mugs on the bench beside him.
