Rating: PG
Author's Notes: Another companion piece. I know already what the next one will be. I kind of twisted the text of the song for my own purposes. Hope you don’t mind. The song “The prettiest thing” can also be found on Norah Jones’ new album, “Feels Like Home”, and this is another quasi-songfic. Poor Norah. I feel like I’m raping her songs.

Draco Malfoy was sitting on a window seat in Astronomy Tower again. He liked coming there, because it was one of the only places that were not stuffed with other people. Somewhere deep inside him, he hated crowds. Today he was trying to figure something out. Something that seemed oddly important. He was holding a crumpled letter in his hands, and staring at the lake blankly.

The prettiest thing he ever did see... what was it? He guessed it was some sort of nature phenomenon. The Weasel knight would surely die of shock if he knew that Draco Malfoy liked watching blooming trees, or stormy weather.

Lightning was something he could connect to. It reminded him of himself a little. It was dramatic. It came as a surprise, and where you least expected it to. It revealed it’s surroundings only for a short time, and left the spectators in an even more engulfing darkness than they had thought themselves to be. It was illuminating. It preceded thunder. It was dangerous. It was quick. It was determined. It aimed for the highest places. He was lightning.

Some distant part of his brain piped up that perhaps a clear sky had its merits too. He shut it down quickly, because the clear sky that came to mind was oddly red. Lately, he wasn’t being himself. The prettiest thing he’d ever seen seemed like it was a picture hanging on somebody else’s wall at the moment.

This whole thing was heavy on his mind. Groaning, he let his head fall back, so that it was leaning against the wall, and he was looking at the ceiling. He had known that he was making the biggest mistake of his life. Whyever had he kissed her, back then? Whyever had she kissed him back?

He was dreaming again. Not really dreaming, but he had his eyes closed, and a stream of pictures was flashing in his mind. He could not block them out. He could not open his eyes. He could not escape.

Because deep down, he knew that the prettiest thing he ever did see was not lightning. It was also not a clear sky. It was neither wind, nor weather. It was not a flower, nor was it a tree, a lake or a mountain.

It was dusty as the handle on the door, and rusty as a nail. It smelled of old tomes, and of creaking floor boards. It felt like something he had never had: it felt like home. It felt comforting. There were no loose floor boards at Malfoy Manor. Neither could you find dust there. Nor rusty nails. Nor comfort.

Of course, he was dreaming again, like he had always been. And way down low, he was thinking of the prettiest thing.

It was her.