Being Crazy

Being Crazy

Ever so casually, he strolled down the main road in Diagon Alley. Clad in a heavy black cloak even though it was late August, his expression empty and uncaring, he may have seemed unsettling to the strangers around him. Those who knew him, however, would not have been surprised. For it was Draco Malfoy, afterall, what could you expect? None of them could see through the façade that he put up, and for that Draco was glad. Because to know him truly would kill them, he mused. Or at least drive them over the edge. He was just to... intense. Yes. That was it.

He had to stop himself from snarling at the boy who'd almost just run him over as he'd run past. Probably off purchasing school supplies before term began. That was also probably why there were so many people around. Despite the large crowds and his own discomfort, Draco made his way to his usual destination.

Draco hid a scowl as he passed by a group of laughing adults. He knew those ones... He knew he did. He must have gone to school with them, and pushed their identities from his memory because they were pathetically insignificant. And he bet that it was him they were laughing at. Why? Why couldn't he just get a break? Why was everyone always breathing down his neck and waiting to get him while he was down? It made Draco want to kill them. They owed him too much to humiliate him like that. But they didn't know how Draco had sacrificed so much just to help their side during the war, even though he hadn't wanted to. He did it because it was right. They didn't know how he'd become a Death Eater just so he could spy for Dumbledore. They didn't know how traumatizing it had been when he had been discovered and how the days of torture turned to weeks, and then to months.

They didn't know what it was like to wait, to wonder if anyone cared whether you were alive. To wonder if anyone would bother to look for your body after you died...

It made Draco's head hurt, all those thoughts and memories. Sometimes it would hurt for hours on end and he'd lie on his bed crying, waiting for the pain to go away. He went to the hospital once and the doctors there told him that chronic migraines were common in people who'd been exposed to the Cruciatus Curse for long periods of time. There was nothing they could do for him, but they did tell him he was lucky he'd survived You-Know-What with his sanity.

His sanity.

"What's this? A Malfoy at a flower cart?" came a voice from behind him. From the group. Draco suddenly awoke from his thoughts and became aware of his surroundings. He hadn't even realised he'd arrived.

"Who would have thought?" The group laughed again. Draco felt rage flow through his veins as he ignored them and forced himself to focus on the flowers. Roses? No, they had many many roses. Irises, he decided. They were quite pretty and he knew she liked those. And daisies too, he added. Poor daisies. Nobody above the age of six liked them. But she would, he knew. Draco pointed out what he wanted and the man behind the counter arranged them into a nice bouquet.

"You're actually buying flowers?" Damn that annoying voice! And that stupid group! If Draco would have allowed himself, he would have seen that the person speaking was in fact a man by the name of Neville Longbottom. But Draco had enough self-control to stop himself. Controlling himself, trapping himself inside his head was something Draco was very good at doing. It was very necessary, because most of the time, Draco did not think very nice thinks. Like at that moment, without any of that patented Draco Malfoy self-control, he would have turned around and strangled Neville with his bare hands, and then would have impaled all of his companions with his wand. But Draco was better than that, so instead he just paid for the flowers and walked away.

"That man comes here three, sometimes four times a week," the man behind the counter explained gently. "He practically keeps us in business."

"But why? What would he need flowers for?"

"I don't know," the man shrugged. "Maybe to impress some lady friend?"

sss

Something caught his eye and Draco carefully made his way forward. He was careful because he didn't want to step on any of the flowers, for they were everywhere, all over the floor, the counters, the coffee table, the loveseat... Some were wilting away, some were potted and still growing vibrantly. Some were potted and dying because they hadn't been watered. Some were old and in vases, mixed with freshly bought ones. Some were completely dried out and shattered into tiny flakes when you stepped on them. Every single bouquet Draco had ever bought Ginny, for the past 4 years they'd been living together, had remained in their home. Ginny loved flowers and just couldn't bear to part with them.

Among the flowers littering the floor were large hunks of black plastic, alongside some pieces of metal. Draco recognised it to be the remains of his cordless phone. It looked as though it had been thrown and smashed against the wall.

"Draco," he heard her sob, her voice muffled by something. Draco tossed the bouquet he'd been holding onto the bed and once again looked around to see where she could be. Across the room, the closet door swung open and there she was. Ginny was lying on the floor, there in the far corner of the closet, completely naked but wrapped in the blanket that belonged on the bed. Her eyes were swollen and red. She had been crying.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm hiding."

"Why would you hide from me?"

"Not you. The colors." She pointed at the heaps of flowers that flooded the room, their vibrancy magnified by the dullness of the peeling gray paint on the walls. "They hurt my head today. I have this sodding headache..." Draco merely nodded. He, too, knew all about those headaches. He made his way towards her and gently sat down by her side in the (empty) closet. He was sure to close the door behind him and together they sat in the darkness, shielded from the seemingly attacking colors.

It had become routine now. A regular part of their lives. When something truly distressed her, she would shut herself away in the comfort of solitude and hide. She'd wait for Draco to find her, no matter where she was, so she could confide in him. It had been that way for many years, though it al began when she was around sixteen, back in their school days.

Through her fifth year, she and Draco had dated secretly and had developed a very meaningful relationship. In her sixth year, she had been taken by the Dark Lord (or perhaps she went voluntarily? Draco still wasn't sure...) They found her in his fortress after they defeated him, unclothed and trembling in a lavishly decorated bedroom. She wept hysterically as they dragged her away, because for some reason, she hadn't wanted to go.

She retreated deep within herself, the sorrow of whatever unknown things that had been done to her being too much to bear. She spoke to no one, not to her family, not to her friends. At night, while she slept, they say she screamed so loud the neighbors wondered who was being murdered. It got to the point where her family couldn't deal with her anymore, so they sent her to St Mungo's. She should have been in her seventh year at Hogwarts.

Once Draco had been rescued from his entrapment at the Dark Lord's fortress, and had physically recovered, he searched everywhere he could for her. When he arrived at St. Mungo's, she looked at him, her eyes teared, and she began to blubber.

"He left me there to be found. He didn't want me. He didn't really love me. Nobody loves me."

"I really love you," he answered as he took her hand. "And I'll never leave you."

"Will you take care of me?"

"Forever."

Together, they left the hospital on the way to a new life that they would make for themselves.

Meanwhile, back in the closet, Ginny reached out and tightly grasped Draco's hand. "Ron telephoned. He called me crazy again."

Bastard, Draco thought. He couldn't believe that rotter actually claimed to love his sister. Ginny continued to speak.

"I tried to explain how I felt to him, Draco. I really did! But the words, they didn't come out right. The thoughts were all there but the words were all wrong. " She paused, and Draco pulled her against him. Her cheeks were wet with tears. Draco knew what she was talking about. There were some times when she would seem completely normal, at least to him, anyway. Then there were other times when she was completely different, so unlike the Ginny he knew before... before You-Know-What. "It's like I'm trapped. Nobody can save me because I'm stuck in my own head," she whispered. "Trapped. Maybe I really am crazy, Draco? Maybe that's what being crazy is? Trapped?"

Was it, Draco wondered? Draco himself knew what it was like to be trapped. Sometimes, when he was all alone, he'd feel like he was back in that cell, like five years ago. He knew his mind worked differently than others' and he hated them for that. He knew the thoughts he'd had earlier that afternoon had not been those of a normal person... Had those been the thoughts of a madman, even though on the outside he'd appeared so calm and collected? In that sense, he wasn't all that different from Ginny. Their outer selves and their inner selves were both very different even though they were part of the same person. But if Ginny was crazy, what did that make Draco?

"I'm trapped," he confessed, whispering into her hair. "I look like I'm alright, but really, I'm not. I think bad things, Ginny. It scares me." And it truly did. He knew it was not normal to want to murder someone as he had Neville Longbottom that afternoon. What real reason did he have? And it wasn't only Longbottom who he'd felt this way about. Surely, these demented urges were a sign of insanity?

Ginny affectionately cupped his face in her hands, obviously not surprised or angered by his words... This woman, who knew him so well...

"You know what?" he asked her.

"What?"

"You drive me crazy." Without wasting a second, he dove forward and kissed her passionately. He felt her arms snake around his neck. He kicked open the closet door, picked her up, and laid her back down on the bed. As he undressed, Ginny gleefully discovered the new bouquet of flowers he'd brought her and proceeded to flutter the petals down his bare back.

Draco looked down at the woman he loved so much, her orange hair splayed out over the pillow, her eyes rolled back underneath her eyelids, the passionate moans escaping from her supple lips. He loved her so much that it hurt. To have someone that could understand him, that would actually take the time and try to, was all he'd ever wanted in all his life. When they had been separated for that year before and after Voldemort's downfall, the void inside him had been too much to bear.

It drove him crazy.

"Tom... Tom..." Ginny moaned as she thrust up against him, her fingernails digging into his back.

"No, it's Draco... Draco..." he answered gently. Ginny opened her eyes and focused on him. The tears slid silently down her cheeks. He loved her, he truly did, even if it wasn't him that she was thinking of.

Yes, the war had taken its toll on everyone, but they each had to heal in their own way. Even if it meant shutting themselves in their minds, in their tiny apartment filled with flowers, just so they could protect themselves. Even if it meant being crazy.