Dealing With The Pain
Drake awoke from a nightmare and sneaked down the stairs to the common room.
Call you up in the middle of the night
Like a firefly without a light
Drake then crept silently up to the girls dorms to get Ginny. He woke her with his hand on her mouth so she wouldn't scream but she tried to.
You were there like a blowtorch burning
I was a key that could use a little turning
"Shh. It's me, Drake. Meet me in the common room." Drake whispers to her. "I need to talk with you please?" Ginny gives him a look but agrees and they go down to the common room.
So tired that I couldn't even sleep
So many secrets I couldn't keep
"I want to tell you everything, Ginny. Like Ron said 'tell her you…' and well I saw how you looked when you saw I'd kept something back… disgust… shock… I can't let you look like that. Besides you look much better happy." Drake says with a wink. "Well, You know how I told you I'd killed the American Minister Of Magic's family? That had huge repercussions on me while I was locked up in a deep cavern behind Niagara Falls also known as The Pit to people who did time there and Alkabaz to the Ministry Of Magic in America and textbooks."
I promised myself I wouldn't weep
One more promise I couldn't keep
Drake starts to remember the last scene fresh and vivid as he recalls it to Ginny and unknown to him he is weeping silently.
"You killed my family?!" Donna McVeigh screams at the weeping Drake.
"Yes ma'am I did." Drake holds his wand up at her.
"Why would you turn yourself in?! Are you trying to be funny?!?!?!" Donna McVeigh continues to scream at him.
Drake stares into her eyes with his watery bloodshot ones. "Do I look like I'm joking?"
"Well no. But why turn yourself in when you could have fled the scene?" Donna McVeigh asks becoming a little kinder towards Drake.
"I killed a family I deserve what I get." Drake replies still holding his wand out to her and she finally takes it.
Donna McVeigh tests for spells on him and finds traces of Imperious Curse. "You can go free you were under Imperious."
"No I killed a family I deserve what I get." Drake says.
"Fine, I'll make sure it's only 5 years in Alkabaz." Donna McVeigh says leading Drake away…
It seems no one can help me now,
I'm in too deep, there's no way out
This time I have really led myself astray
Drake looks into Ginny's eyes. "It was Hell in the pit. Worst place I've ever been and I was in Azkaban once, not as a prisoner though."
Drake recalls The Pit with not so fond memories.
[How long do I have to be locked in this barrel thing?] Drake thinks to himself.
Drake relives showing up at the American Minister of Magic's house and relives killing all of them everyday at least 5 times while he's in the barrel for his first year in the hell hole pit.
Runaway train, never going back
Wrong way on a one-way track
"So horrible… so you understand why I was whooping with joy in the barrel when I heard my sentence was two years in the hell-hole of the pit. And 3 years parole in America. But it wasn't all fun since I was kept in the barrel for year two instead of released in to a normal cell like I should have been." Drake says and relives the day he was free.
Drake jumped up and down stretching too when his parole caretaker came to get him out of the pit.
"Hello Drake, I'm Alexander Phoenix you can call me Alexander." Alexander says walking up to the still stretching Drake.
"Hey you old poot." Drake says ignoring what Alexander had just said. "I'm never going back to The Pit again. So you should help me be nice…"
Drake looks up at Ginny again. "It wasn't as easy as I'd thought it would be. For I was already going the wrong way down a one way road…"
Seems like I should be getting somewhere
Somehow I'm neither here nor there
"After a month with Alexander I wasn't quite the punk that had made me join the Black Death, America's Death Eaters, but I still wasn't a good person. I always called Alexander an old poot cause he looked it from barely sleeping. And one day everything just weighed on me heavily… It finally sunk in what I was that I should never have been released so soon… I was as bad as the Dark Wizard, called himself Dragon, don't ask, who killed my father for screwing up on a mission for him. That's when I did this…" Drake relives a moment…
Can you help me remember how to smile?
Make it somehow all seem worthwhile
Drake remembers the day he first felt all the weight of what he'd done and tried to kill himself by cutting his wrists… He didn't get deep enough and just bled for a little bit. Alexander found him bleeding and set to his task of setting Drake on the path of good and eventually Drake was starting to lighten up and becoming good. He was even smiling which he hadn't really and truly done since he heard his sentence was shortened. Drake decided that being good made his life seem worthwhile but then something happened with Alexander that made Drake start to rethink that.
How on earth did I get so jaded?
Life's mystery seems so faded
Drake starts his silent crying again and says. "A year into Alexander taking care of me and turning me around he tried to kill himself Falcore showed up just in time to stop it…" Drake relives the moment.
Drake ran out of the house when he found the note. And saw Falcore outside having made a square of earth rise up to catch Alexander on the first step off of the roof and bring him down. Alexander stepped off of the square when it was still sort of high and Falcore made another rise up to catch him and bring him down. Alexander tried again and Falcore caught him so Alexander just gave up sat down on the square and started to weep over losing Rosalyn. Drake thought if that could happen to the dude he started looking up to then how could he handle all of this.
"Well I had just turned 21, Ginny. So even though it was against parole and all that Alexander was preoccupied so I went out each night to a local wizard pub and made use of a little known use of Dragon's Blood… I ordered the Hairy Dragon named as such because it was said it could 'put hair on a dragon's chest' and well it was strong stuff…" Drake explains and then recalls what happened after a year of this routine.
I can go where no one else can go
I know what no one else knows
"I *hic* don't see why everyone says drinking is *hic* bad. I think it's rather *hic* a good way to deal with your troubles. *HIC* Yep." A very drunk Drake says to the bartender of the pub. "See it takes you to a place where you don't worry 'bout nothin' *hic* but the hangover later and we magical folk have a cure for hangovers, at least my caretaker does, so *hic* I get the good of the Hairy Dragon *hic* and not the horrible hangovers. Good isn't it?"
"Yeh. I know what yeh mean but I think yeh've had enough if yeh're going home alone." The bartender says.
"Ok. Thanks for the drinks Todd, be back again next week cause my caretaker is heading to Texas for a week."
"The week of no booze nearly drove me crazy Gin, cause I was desperately hooked to the stronger than anything Hairy Dragon. And none of the crap in Texas was anywhere near it so I stopped after the first night." Drake says. "But that had repercussions on as heavy of an alcoholic as I'd somehow become."
Here I am just a-drownin' in the rain
With a ticket for a runaway train
"So the day we got back…" Drake recalls.
"Todd, 3 Hairy Dragons, and stop watering them down." Drake says to the bartender.
"Sorry about that Drake, comin' right up." Todd says and 3 Hairy Dragons appear.
Drake chugged two down and smuggled one back to his house. And he realizes how much he needs booze but doesn't look at it as something bad yet.
"It would take a while for me to get it." Drake explains.
And everything seems cut and dried,
Day and night, earth and sky,
Somehow I just don't believe it
"So I kept boozin' and losin' sense of myself. Didn't really know much just knew day from night and earth from sky though I always felt like I was floating with my constant drinking… I was pathetic but…" Drake remembers a bad drinking night.
It was rainy and Drake had just guzzled down 5 slightly watered down beers then punched a dude who had tried to take his barstool while he was still getting out of it. Drake passed out in the den of the house and really reeked but Alexander was lost on other stuff so he didn't realize anything yet.
Runaway train, never going back
Wrong way on a one-way track
"I started to think about quitting but I knew I'd need help and I didn't want to bother Alexander who had his own miseries. And I also though there was no going back cause I'd traveled the wrong way down the road again…" Drake says.
Seems like I should be getting somewhere
Somehow I'm neither here nor there
Drake kept getting wasted every night for 3 months. Dark circles had formed under his eyes and even the bartender was a little worried about him. Drake just kept it up and sneaking drinks to Alexander's house.
Bought a ticket for a runaway train
Like a madman laughing at the rain
"One night I really screwed up Ginny. I mean I totally utterly f'ed up. I decided…" Drake explains the night he screwed up.
Drake decided to drink the beers he brought home in front of the TV one night and Alexander walked in and saw the three tankards Drake had already drunk and the four others he was about to start and the one up to his lips.
"YOU KNOW THAT'S AGAINST PAROLE! DO YOU WANT TO GO BACK TO ALKABAZ?! ARE YOU REALLY THAT DUMB?!" Alexander screamed and ripped the Hairy Dragon Drake was drinking and tosses it at the wall watching the tankard shatter and the drink splatter all over the wall. He does the same to the other four. "Drake! How long has this been going on?"
"What do you care? You don't give a shit about me all you care about is that dead bitch." Drake says.
Alexander loses it and picks Drake up by the collar. "Don't you EVER say that about Rosalyn. EVER!" Alexander throws Drake back into his chair hard and Drake looks scared.
A little out of touch, little insane
It's just easier than dealing with the pain
"I was scared out of my mind then and went up to my bed to sleep. I woke up the next day and Alexander made me clean the wall where all the beer had hit. After that…" Drake remembers.
Drake had just finished cleaning the wall when he went up to his room and grabbed the stained dagger he'd used on the Minister and others in his family. "Well I'll avenge their death. Even if their daughter won't." Drake then slit his wrists a little higher and deeper than the last time and Alexander walked in.
"I just wanted to say I'm sorry…" Alexander trails off staring at Drake's wrists. "DRAKE! Why'd you do that?"
"Well you old poot…" Drake says weakly. "It's easier than dealing with the pain."
Something clicks between the two then as Alexander finds something to stop the bleeding of the wrists.
Runaway train, never going back
Wrong way on a one-way track
"Well Alexander got me helped and dealt with his own problems and I started to be a real good guy…"
Seems like I should be getting somewhere
Somehow I'm neither here nor there
"Then Alexander went ahead to Britain and arranged for me to come with him. That's when I ended up captured by the Malfoys. And now I'm here with you and I've finally told someone other than Alexander everything and it feels pretty… good. I guess death isn't easier than dealing with the pain. And dealing with the pain… yeah, I am."
Runaway train, never coming back
Runaway train, tearing up the track
Runaway train, burning in my veins
Run away but it always seems the same