The Cage

Alone with my thoughts, alone in the silence, alone in the night, alone in my life. The life that does not stretch before me, but looms above me instead, gray and bleak as a glistening wall of ice. How does one climb a wall of ice with nothing but their bare hands?

Draco Malfoy closed the tattered, soft leather journal with a sigh, leaning back in the darkly carved chair that had come with his prefect's room. The light of a single candle reflected in his eyes, the fitful shadows accentuating every plane of his finely-featured face. He rested his hand on the surface of the small book, absently feeling its familiar cover. It was the keeper of his thoughts, protector of his mind, gate key to his soul. A key that no one possessed but him, and one that none ever would--he saw to that.

But recorded in it was more than that. It also held the names of every person he had ever taunted, ever been snide to, or had put down meaninglessly. All in neat, alphabetical order. And underneath each name, carefully written out in his flowing script, were the exact words of each encounter. The pages were charmed so that they never ran out; that was good, because for some names, there were enough to fill almost another whole journal by themselves. But they didn't, and heldhe pages of this worn, unassuming book were six years of pain.

He had started writing back when he was a first year at Hogwarts; for some hateful, perverse reason, it had occurred to him that it would be interesting to look back on every barb he inflicted on another person. And so he had began writing, unknowingly beginning something that would soon grow out of his control faster than he had been able to anticipate.

As could only be expected, the first entry had been Potter's name.

He didn't know exactly what had started their private war, all those years ago on the train. He knew that he had been fascinated by the other boy: he was his polar opposite in everything, his black, unruly hair so unlike Draco's neat, blond own. And his eyes--sparkling green and open, defiantly meeting the secretive, controlled, ebon-gray eyes that coldly regarded Draco in the mirror every morning.

He had felt himself drawn subconsciously to Potter by the gulf that separated them; he supposed that it was this that had led him to offering Harry his friendship, if only he would leave behind Weasely. Draco did not quite know what he had expected, then, but it was over now. The sting of rejection, the jab of refusal-they were still wounds, but only when he cared to dwell on them. He and Potter were not friends--they never would be. And he had long since reconciled himself to that. But still...to have such a friend!

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So instead, he went on the attack. Every word spoken to Potter was spiteful, cruel, said with derision that was all too real inside himself. He tried to hate it, but it never left, goaded and fed by memory. And the number of pages in the journal had grown, and grown, as steady as the enmity between them.

But as he hated, however, he also watched, and learned. Learned everything that could be learned from a distance about Potter and his friends. And as a result, he knew exactly what to say to plunge the proverbial knife, and what to say to twist it deeper. And he felt a cruel, if illusionary, sense of satisfaction every time he saw in Potter's eyes that he had succeeded.

The candle slowly burned down as Draco silently mused, his s still moving over the cover of the journal and his eyes still vacant as he gazed expressionlessly at the glossy surface of the desk. Suddenly, though, his face changed as if remembering something, and he picked up the journal, standing gracefully and moving across the room.

At the far side, he took out his wand and tapped one of the large, rounded gray stones that made up the wall. Immediately, the one to the right of it disappeared and he stood looking at a carefully concealed hiding place. He had created it himself--it was merely a simple Illusion charm--but it was all he needed.

It usually held only two things, and as Draco replaced the journal he took out a small, silver dagger. It was tiny, actually, and had a minute 'M' worked in gold wire into the hilt, betraying its fine craftship. The crossbar curled delicately, and the blade was remarkably narrow and keen, apparent even to the naked eye. The whole thing was no longer than the palm of his hand.

He stood for a moment, looking down at it as if in deep thought or consideration. Then he went to the center of the small room, near the end of his bed, and knelt on the soft, black rug. Laying the knife to the side, he meticulously rolled up the left sleeve of his white, fine-spun cotton shirt, exposing his arm to the elbow. In the waning light of the candle, a long line of scars were revealed, pearly and thin where they had long since healed, red and angry where the recent ones had not. They were straight, mostly, although on nights when he had been feeling some particularly strong emotion, the knife had bitten deeper and they had a tendency to trail downward. The smaller, lighter ones, he knew, had never scarred at all.

Without hesitating, he picked up the knife and set the blade against his forearm. Pressing down first gently, and then harder, he began to draw it slowly across, watching in morbid fascination as the red drops began to grow in a straight line, bright against his ivory skin. And as he went, the words he had spoken, and then written, flashed across his eyes even as he heard them in his ears. Hateful words, spiteful words, true and untrue words. All burned beyond recall into his memory, and then bled out by the knife. Even when the pain made his , his face never changed its expression. But in his mind...

Potter, if only you knew how I bleed for you.

And then...

But you will never know, because it is my secret.