My Weakness

My Weakness

The dark is my refuge. As a child, whenever I'd get frightened or depressed, I would get into bed and pull the curtains shut. My Nurse knew not to bother me whenever I'd do this, as did Mother. I don't recall Father being around to react to this behavior when I found myself in one of my hiding moods.

As a child, I would cry sometimes, but not always. I don't recall the last time I cried. That's a lie, in retrospect. A few times, I have awoken to find my face streaked with tears, but not known where they came from nor what I was dreaming about that would illicit such a reaction. These times tended to make me angry, realizing my weakness, my ability to cry when I could not control myself, pull my emotions into the bucket of ice water that I alone had instilled in my breast.

After speaking with Pansy, I went back to the Common Room. I walked in on gossip about myself - no doubt, for the room fell silent when I appeared. But I felt in no mood to berate younger girls for idle chatter. No. I had bigger fish to fry, lies to tell myself. I descended the staircase to my dorm room, and found someone there - I forget who. I told them that if anyone came looking for me, I was not to be disturbed, and I wasn't going to dinner.

Then I kicked off my shoes, removed my jumper and robes, and slid onto my bed. I took my wand into hand as I pulled the curtains around me. Wand went to the shelf upon the headboard after I lit a candle. Then I slid my necktie over my head, depositing it also on the shelf. Unbuttoning the top three buttons on my shirt, I at last lay down. Confident that no one could see me behind curtains that had been charmed against spy objects and permeated with a silencing spell, I curled up into a ball.

I forget how long I laid there, not thinking of anything, only listening to my own breathing. The silence - eerie and total thanks to the charms on the bed - allowed me to listen to the rush of air in and out of my lungs. My breathing stilled somewhat after what seemed like hours.

No thoughts came until they all came at once.

Then it seemed that a thousandfold of me sat in the semidarkness, bouncing on my bed, hanging from the posts, glaring at me, laughing at me, mocking me. Their voices tumbled across one another: You love her? Fool. Idiot. She will never love you. You took advantage of her for far too long. You were cruel to her, pushed her aside for other girls. You told her that she could never have your love. It's a little too late to change your convictions.

I knew that no voice rose from my lips, but in my ears my own thoughts seemed a thunderbolt. I was wrong. A Malfoy can be wrong. I can make her see that. I can show her that I've changed - that I can be the man that she admitted that she loved once.

Wrong again, my consciences shouted back with a sardonic laugh. There is no saying that you are sorry now. You apologized for your past behavior and she didn't believe you. She will never accept your word.

I threaded my fingers of both hands through my hair, clasping my hands involuntarily over my ears. Yet the voices did not go away.

Your father would be ashamed of you for letting feelings come into this. Pansy will be your wife. The marriage has been arranged. Take a look at your parents. If you are wise, which you have proven not to be today, you will emulate their marriage. Sleep alone, Draco. Keep her at arm's length. Have your life separate from hers. Wait for a respectful time and take her only  when you are ready to, at last, bring your heir into the world. Keep her as a possession. Another artifact for Malfoy Manor - glittering, expensive, and not meant to be touched by any hands save for yours. It was easy for you to treat the other girls the same way. Why is Pansy any different?

I did not answer the voice in my head, for a headache took over, starting at the back of my head and radiating up to my jaw. The pain pulsed with every heartbeat. I was unaware that I clenched my teeth until I let out a moan between them.

Stop being a child. You are eighteen years old now. This is what you will do, if you value anything that is within an iota of your soul. You will pretend that the little show in the courtyard never happened. You will stay out of her way for the rest of the night. Sleep well. Then, in the morning, it will be gone. Should she mention it, tell her that you had a headache. It's not exactly a lie, is it?

No. It was not a lie. In fact, the pain that set my skull aflame seemed to be one of the worst I had ever had in my life, save for my recent Quidditch-induced concussion.

Good boy. Tomorrow morning you will go out there and greet her as if nothing ever happened. You will not put on another show for her again. Shut it. I don't care if they were your true feelings. Malfoys do not show their true feelings. Malfoys do not display a chink in their armor with a great big bull's eye. They live. They plan. They build networks. Infrastructures. They set men and women on one another. They manipulate. The only person you have manipulated here is yourself. Whoever said you had a right to have any sort of public feelings?

I opened my eyes, staring at the green curtain within a short distance of my head. Sparkling motes of light danced in my field of vision, undoubtedly caused by my headache. I only watched them as they moved and vanished, feeling every beat of my heart in my teeth and eye sockets. My second conscience did not receive an answer - thought or otherwise.

A laugh rose somewhere within me, dancing around the pain, leaping with it like a whirling Dervish. Do you know why Pansy wanted to marry you in the first place? Do you think she loves you, Draco? Oh, no, no, no. I could almost see the Dervish's toes pivot around the twinkles within the womb, the safety that the green curtain provided. Let's make the logical connection, shall we? She's not pretty. Shut it. I'm speaking. I don't want to hear anything from you about you finding her attractive. Her mother has likely told her that for years. Pity to have such a nose. Such a body. She's been beaten into submission by the entire world. She tells you repeatedly how stupid and ugly she is. She won't listen when you tell her that she's not.

Don't you see it? Feel it? She hates herself so much that she set out to marry a man that would punish her forever. A man that would never love her, a man hated by so many of his own housemates that he should be frightened of being killed in his sleep, but was too worried about his hair to realize the ramifications. You are her Hell, Draco. No matter how much you try to change it, to deny it, to try to put in clouds and harps and Merlin himself, there will always be flame and fire and hatred and despair. Hell will always be Hell no matter the veneer.

"She sees me as an object." I could not stop the words from leaving my lips as they did so, but heard my voice twisted. Strained. Pained.

My second conscience answered me simply with this: Ironic, isn't it?

Oddly enough, I didn't feel more upset by this realization. In fact, I felt a sudden sense of clarity, even despite my headache. I moved my head to a pillow, sliding my hand beneath it as I did so.

Sleep, Draco, my second conscience crooned in my ear. Sleep on the bed that you have made and dream dreams of what you have done.Â

But for the first time in my life, I could not have felt less tired.