Telling

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'When the day is long and the night, the night is yours alone...'

R.E.M., Everybody Hurts

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You know, I've been standing here, by your coffin, for about four hours now. It's getting late and I really should be off - back to the manor to see how mother is. She's been terrible since... just awful, awful state.

I never could work you two out, and I suppose now I never will. What you saw in each other - for I'm sure there was something aside from the power, physical attraction, money, influence and bloodlines. There was something else there, I know it, there's got to have been. There must have been something.

Must have been.

What did you talk about when I was at Hogwarts? Did you talk about how you thought I was doing? Did you laugh over Professor Snape's reports back to you? Did you grow angry at my failing at the end of the year? Did you agree, did you disagree?

I don't know. I never will.

I thought that once I was of age I could ask you. You'd told me before that there were some things that you'd only tell me when I was eighteen - and now you never will, not in person. I've still got to go through your office; I'm sure you'll have left something there, passing on your final thoughts. Of course you would, you'd have been prepared for something like this.

Yet what do I know?

Not much it seems, not much at all. Not enough anyway. Not enough to be able to stop my mother crying or to be able to stop her staring vacantly into space. Not enough to be able to comfort her, to hold her and tell her that it'll be alright. I lay awake last night, staring at the ceiling and I could just feel it - not her crying, not her staring at the window, turned on her side unmoving. Even in my room at the other end of the corridor I could feel it. You weren't there anymore.

I couldn't stop her crying. I couldn't make it better.

I can't stop her crying.

I enjoyed coming home during the holidays, I really did. I enjoyed coming back into the manor and knowing that you - both of you - were there. There was this presence about the place. Oh, it was old; it was ancient in places, let's face it, but there was this... presence the both of you gave it. Nothing could touch me there, I knew you'd keep me safe. And now...

Now it's empty, the presence has gone. I feel the night as I haven't felt it since those first few days at Hogwarts. Never told you that. Homesick - no. Nervous, yeah, I was, a little, not that anyone saw. Even back then I imitated you, not allowing anyone to see what I felt.

We really are alike, you and I. I'm looking down at you, your eyes closed, your hands folded on your breast and it's like looking into a mirror of me in about thirty years. I only hope that... I only hope that I can make you proud of me. I never quite achieved that, I don't think. Never quite, not completely. If I do half the things you did... achieve half of what you achieved...

So they've taken you from me, from us.

And I'm stoic. I turn a cold face to those offering their sympathies, their false sympathies with their empty platitudes. I hold my feelings in, not letting them be seen. I don't move a muscle when they - those Gryffindors - glance at me, whispering and I look dismissively at them when they try and offer me their sorrow. It's false and I know it. It's all the same for them, a cause for celebration even if not openly admitted. What do they know? Do they know about a son trying to comfort his mother alone? Do they know about a son with the ground taken from under him? Do they know about an empty house? Do they know what the night is like when there is nobody there?

How do I know what to do? I'm still learning, I'm not even of age, I'm still at school, yet I have to take responsibility for everything, trying to keep the load off mother. You really were her rock - and I wonder what you would have been like if it were the other way around. Would you be a wreck? Would you hold that facade together? Would you react?

What would you do if it were you?

Just once more...just once more to hear you...

He's coming tomorrow, after the funeral. At the manor. It was supposed to be on my eighteenth birthday that I would be initiated but now I'm head of the family, no longer your heir.

I am Malfoy.

They took you from me, they took you from mother.

They made her cry.

That alone is reason enough. That alone, even if nothing else. They made her cry.

I love my mother, you know that. The first time I ever stood up to you - properly - was over something you snapped at her. Oh, you'd been busy, you were tired and I knew deep down you didn't mean it; it was stress and frustration. She knew you didn't mean anything by it. But me - me! - young, brash, furious - I reacted and confronted you. All for her, I confronted you for her. Do you have any idea how much anger there was in me at that moment, how much it took me to get over my... my... for you. You are my father. How much it took me to confront you...

And yet it went the other way. I defended you to her, not that you needed it. She loves you so much, so deeply.

They made her cry.

That would be reason enough.

That would be enough.

But it's not the only reason. They took you from mother. And they took you from me. And, I fear they've taken my mother from me as well.

And... I'm sorry I never quite made it, that I never quite made you totally proud of me. I sorry that I never knew you, that I never found out the answers to a hundred questions, answers that you'll never give, questions I'll never ask.

I'm sorry that I'll never say what I should have, never tell you what I felt. You should have known. Did you know? I wish I could say, I wish I could make you hear...

Morning now. Early morning. I'd best go home, look after mother. I will, I promise. I swear I'll look after her. I swear it.

I'm looking at you again, your face lined with creases, you hair neatly combed, your eyes shut. Would that I could shake you and that you would wake, that I could touch you and you open your eyes, fixing me with your eyes. I'd give anything for you to wake, anything to hear your voice just one more time. Anything to hear you talking, anything to feel you standing over my shoulder, looking at my work. Anything to hear you critise me, berate me, talk to me, instruct me. I'd give anything for that.

I just want to hear you, speak to you once more - is that too much to ask between a son and his father?

Just once more, just one more please!

Just once more so that I could tell you that, say something that I could never say.

Did you know? Did you understand that I could never say it for the same reason you could never say it to me? Did you know that? I wish I knew, I wish I'd said before this. But now you've gone and all I have left is unsaid words. All that remains is... silence.

I'd better go, I have to prepare.

Goodbye, father.

I love you.