Swallow my pain

Swallow my pain

I watched him pacing in front of me, saw his face contort in a frown as he tried to find the words to voice the tangle in his mind. I was surprised at how old he was beginning to look, the bags under his eyes grey and mournful, his eyes themselves bitter and cold. Although he was only the same age as me, he seemed to have lived three lifetimes in one. This was the first time I had seen him up close for a long time. I hadn't seen him at all at first, after we had left Hogwarts, after the defeat of Voldemort. But the magical world is a small place, I suppose you can't avoid encountering your former peers for long. And once I began seeing him around, in Diagon Alley, at Quidditch matches, I couldn't help noticing that every time I saw him he seemed more introverted, more damaged anew. It was strange how quickly I had begun to feel pity for him, this boy who I had once hated, even feared. How it would gall him to know that all I felt now was that detached feeling of pity, as if for someone in another country, on another planet even. His suffering had seemed so far removed from my own world. That pity has become a dull ache of guilt in my stomach as he stands before me now, and I am suddenly confronted by someone whose plight I have acknowledged, but ignored.

It's worse for them, I have often thought since I began to notice how Draco was suffering alone. Those who chose Voldemort's side, the thousands who have come before and will come after them who will always choose power over friends. Those to whom loyalty is an empty word. The Slytherins, perhaps, if you value those petty house distinctions. His pain is understandable. He has suffered a lot, this boy who stands before me now, vulnerable and volatile, although it is true that there are others who have suffered more. Harry has lost parents too. But every time Harry has lost a battle, we have been there. We have been by his side. Friends he can rely on. Draco, as he stands here in front of me, is so very alone. Those who were against Voldemort see him as evil. Those who were on his own side have turned on him and see him as weak. He has nobody, nobody at all, and that is why it is worse for them. For us, we can recover. For them, a failure is final.

I had begun to notice him watching me of late, just as I had begun to watch him. Now I wondered how long he had been watching me before I had spotted it. It must have been a while, why else would he have asked me to slip away from the Firebolt II launch party, which we were both attending, into this small, cold room? Something about his tense movements scared and yet intrigued me. What did he want, this strange young man who gazed on me with such intensity? Suddenly, he turned and began to speak. It took me a moment to realise that he was speaking to me and not to himself.

"I didn't know who else to talk to. I know you probably think you're the last person I would turn to, but..." He paused, his fingers flexing restlessly as he paced. "You may be the last person, but now... you're the only person I can. There's no-one else left. I've been trying for so long, not to mind that there's nobody... but it's hard." His hands shivered restlessly across his face, rubbing his palms down his cheeks, across the back of his neck. "Trying to work through what happened back then, trying not to go insane, all by myself, it's more difficult than I could ever have imagined. With no-one to depend upon. It's not like I'm a hermit, not like I have no contact with the world. I have business associates. But they're not friends. They don't care about me, only care about my father's money. My money now, I suppose, though it's still strange to think about it like that.

"Maybe I never had friends, not real ones, but the charade was realistic enough for it not to matter back then. And that was when I didn't need them, when none of this had happened. I suppose that's what proves those friendships were just illusion, the fact that they were only there when they weren't necessary, that they evaporated like dew in the morning when circumstances took a turn for the worse." His expression soured for a moment, his fists clenched briefly, and in some part of me I almost felt the edge of that old fear. Yet still my overriding instinct was to try to comfort him, calm his anger, and protect him from the pain of the past.

"Back then," he continued, the sting of betrayal in his eyes fading again, "I never thought I would need anything other than money, never imagined there could be a lack which felt so painful... Maybe it wouldn't have mattered as much if the situation hadn't been so bad anyway, or maybe loneliness always hurts like this..." He shuddered, his eyelids closing over his painful gaze momentarily, those cold eyes filled with acidic sorrow, red, raw and burning, and my heart leapt for him, I almost made a move towards him. And yet still I couldn't seem to force my tongue to conjure words of consolation. He seemed to notice my sudden start and his tone turned apologetic... it seemed strange and ill-fitting for this boy.

"I know you probably don't want to hear this, I don't even understand why I'm telling you..." He looked directly at me momentarily, his gaze filled with desperate sincerity. "I supposed that this would be the only cure to loneliness, telling someone, anyone, just so that..." He hesitated, struggling to pin down the words fluttering around his mind, beginning to pace again. "I don't know. And I've seen you watching me, at least I think I have, and I guess I thought... something, I don't know. It's easier telling you than it would be any of the others. You think a lot. You might think before you speak, think before you laugh out loud at everything I'm saying." I felt I should say something, tell him it was normal to need someone to talk to, tell him it was the best way of dealing with any problem, tell him that I didn't mind listening... and yet still my tongue clung desperately to my now dry mouth, still the words refused to materialise, and I just stared at this boy, standing in front of me letting his defenses down.

"When I was young, I was always taught that money would get you what you wanted," he was still again now, but looking away from me, studying the wall intently, as if his past was inscribed there. His tone had acquired a bitter edge. "Maybe I wasn't told directly, but it was always the impression I received. My father demonstrated that it could get you power, which was all a Malfoy should desire. I myself was never denied anything. A tantrum would see that my mother got me whatever was the subject of my latest infatuation. There was never anything she couldn't buy for her little Draco. Money could provide anything. The house elves were there to answer my beck and call. That's why this is so strange, now, realising that all of my previous conceptions were wrong, that there are things that money can't get you... things that are more important than wealth and power. I find it so hard to understand that, but what other explanation is there for the emptiness inside me? Despite wealth and possessions the hole remains, growing every day."

He looked up at me sharply, his eyes bright and aching with sorrow. "I can't understand it, but I just need... someone who will. Someone who can understand this sort of thing, in the way I've never been able to. I've been trying, but I just can't make it all make sense. And I don't know, maybe it's finally all driven me crazy, but I kept noticing you, and thinking, maybe hoping, that you were noticing me too. And I began to wonder if maybe you could be that person who could understand, and help me to fill this hole, take away this pain.

"But the worst thing is, I don't even know how to ask you, not properly. I don't know what to give you in return. I don't understand needing something like this, which isn't a need for an object, or even a need for something to be done, just for someone to be there, to listen... So I don't know what the price is, or even in what currency you pay. I'll have to make the trade in the only way I know, and hope that that's enough." He took a deep breath, stilled his restless hands, and looked up again to face me, his eyes boring into mine.

"I'll give you anything you wish for, if you'll teach me how to fill this hollowness. I've always been taught that it's crude and foolish to draw attention to your own wealth when making a trade, but I hope you'll forgive me if I do so now. The Malfoy fortune is great, we're both well aware of that. There's nothing I couldn't get you, nothing. Anything you asked could be yours, if you'll help me bear my burden. Swallow my pain..." His eyes were pleading with me more eloquently than his words ever could. "Swallow my pain, and I will buy you a house, I could buy you cars, brooms, a full staff of servants... Swallow my pain, help me to fill this emptiness, and I will buy you clothes... jewellry, perfume..." He scanned my face desperately, as if he would be able to find there the answer which eluded him, the key to obtaining my compassion and aid, and so hopelessly confused, so lost to find that nothing he was offering me was kindling a spark in my eyes. Even now that he had discovered that his own self was incomplete simply with material possessions, he still could not comprehend that he had anything else to offer me. "Swallow my pain and I will buy you theatre tickets, holidays, anything you ask, whatever you want..." His voice was shot through with desperation as he began to run out of ideas. He fell silent, and stared at me, his eyes shimmering with pooling tears which he was too proud to allow to spill over. "Swallow my pain," he said weakly, almost silently, so that I had to strain to catch it, but still with the fierce intensity of despair, "and I will buy you flowers. Swallow my pain, and I will buy you flowers."

He fell silent, and still I simply stood and watched him. There he was in front of me, a terrifying vision of isolation. A vision of one who understands that they need healing, but has never even been aware of the existence of the disease, let alone a cure. A vision of pride which is no longer a comfort, but which cannot be abandoned for fear that without it you will collapse, the terrible fear that by now the pride and the snobbery and the family honour, the exterior which everyone sees, that they are all that really compose you. The chilling fear that if you take away the shell you will discover that there is no longer anything left inside. A vision of one who burns with pain, who has tried to ignore the problem but has found that that only makes it worse, to the point that now it can't be ignored, and the wound is too far advanced to be treated by any but the most extreme methods.

I watched him as he stood in front of me, suddenly frail and vulnerable in my eyes, his soul bared before me. The only outward signs of his suffering were the slight rumpling of his dinner jacket from his frustrated pacing, and the tufts of hair which stuck out at odd angles from his hands running through it, shining like shards of pure light. And his face, of course. His mouth slightly open, his cheeks paler even than usual, and his eyes, so wide and searching, filled with longing, and staring at me so intently, as if he were trying to absorb me and whatever secrets I held simply through them.

My heart went out to him, he who was so cold and cynical, so worldly-wise, and yet so ignorant of so much. Damaged by the horrors of war and death, of treachery and loneliness, and yet without any experience of kindness. He knew nothing about what he was feeling, but he knew that it was there, and he knew that he couldn't bear it any longer. Desperation had driven him to me. I couldn't not try to help him, anyone with even a shred of mercy would take pity on him. All that worried me now, the only question which was arcing through my whirring mind, was whether or not helping him was even possible. I felt as if he were a yawning abyss, a black hole for emotion, never touched by caring, friendship, love... And I felt a terrible fear grip me, that maybe the task was too great, the hollowness in him grown too vast for anything I might give to make a difference, fear that if I tried I would myself simply be swallowed by that abyss. But scared as I was of what I might find if I ventured further into that void, I couldn't not try. He needed me, and I couldn't turn away. I had to do what I could, even if it took all I had.

I stepped forward stiffly, my mouth clamped tight and still refusing to utter a word. I put my arms around him and hugged him to me awkwardly. He tensed and then clung onto me, as if I were a lifebelt in a great, dark ocean. I stood there, in that tiny room, with him clinging onto me for dear life, and I wondered, with a shiver of apprehension, where could we go from here?