The Price of Fear

The Price of Fear

Fear is so expensive

And freedom is so free that it's hard to buy

Lies. The building blocks of his life, as it were. These blocks were the foundation of which he relied on. He never really questioned it; the fact that nothing in his life ever really amounted to solid truths. He never saw the point of asking when he knew the answer would be a deception at worst and a half-truth at best. His life was as fragile as the Wizarding World made it out to be. There was only one thing in his life that was solid.

He had always felt somewhat trapped, caged in by the bars and limitations people placed upon him. Even by people who claimed to love him, but Harry knew better. He didn't trust them, he did at first but he learned. He grew suspicious of even his closest friends, Ron and Hermione, even Ginny and the rest of the Weasley family. The only person he could trust was the person he knew he couldn't count on to be kind. The person he could count on to tell the truth, even if it was ugly. He was the only person who would never think to cage Harry in.

Draco Malfoy was one to be feared. His father held power in title and in possessions and Draco would inherit these. Draco was wealthy and sophisticated and cold. The only emotion he showed was pride, despite his puffy childish indignation of his younger years. He instilled fear in many a heart in his last days at Hogwarts, but fear is expensive and there was one person who would never pay that price.

Draco resented Harry Potter. Harry was The Golden Boy, The Boy Who Lived. Someone who could draw attention away from Draco far more then he was comfortable with. There were a great many people who loved Harry - adored him even. Draco was not among them in any sense. Draco saw how the attention affected Potter. He saw how it ate away at him but no one else seemed to notice it. All they could see was the glorious Harry Potter, complete with wire-frame spectacles and scar.

Harry hated the way he lived his life, hated the way he was forced to live his life under the gaze of the entire Wizarding World. Harry could not escape it, he could only draw himself further into his shell. Shutting out everyone, even people that were important to him, because in the end it was the people that meant the most who were pushed the farthest away. Harry was afraid of many things, but most of all he was afraid that he would die without ever knowing truth. Without ever escaping the maze of lies and deceit he was forced to wander through. He was afraid that if he ever awoke from this nightmare, he would discover it to be real.

Harry was not afraid of Draco Malfoy. Harry despised Draco for his cold-heartedness, his cruelty, and his scorn, but he was not afraid of him. Harry thanked Draco for being the sole fixture in his life that would never judge him. Harry could always count on Draco to trade insults and dirty looks, and he leaned on that certainty like a crutch. He never forgot the way Draco fit into his life.

Draco was indiscriminate, at least towards Harry. He would always harbor the same attitude towards Potter, regardless of the latest gossip. Draco could be depended on to be the most trusted person in Harry's life because he never lied in the way that other people did. He didn't try to lure Harry into a false sense of security. Never attempted to tell Harry that "everything is going to be okay."

Draco would never be free, not of his blood or his name. He would always be tied to the Malfoy line and the Malfoy's deeds and he has accepted that he would never be able to escape his past. That he would never be able to fully live his future. Freedom was an illusion to Draco, something he could never touch. The only time Draco felt the thrill of freedom was with Harry.

Harry and Draco depended on each other. Not physically, not even on the surface of their minds. They depended on each other in a way so deep and foreign that they hardly knew about it themselves. They were each other's escape, their escape from pressure -- from reality.

They both had an innate fear that surrounded them, the fear of a life repressed by the outside world. They could both relate in their absolute terror, that deep aching fear of failure, of never reaching the sky. Never touching the extent of the world. Fear is expensive and Draco and Harry both paid enormous prices for their fear. But it was easy, there was no doubt in giving yourself over to that dark terror.

Freedom was not that easy, you couldn't just give in and let it consume you. It was something so free and so unreachable that you strived just to force it to make sense. Stretched to your limits just so there would be meaning behind the word. Harry and Draco could each rely on one thing to help them make sense of it all and that was their deep and unchanging understanding of one another.

They could never buy freedom, only hope for it, only look for it in each other.

Loyalty had made him tell lies.