AN: I'm updating again. So soon? Yes.Act proud.
It was different back then. Every moment you could blink and see no more, every breath could be your last… every morning you feared the sun wouldn't rise and every night you dreamed of never dreaming again.
At the time it hurt. It hurt so much and you would have given anything to end it… Everything and anything just to make the pain and the fear go away… But that was then.
Then you still had something to fight for. Then your family were living, your friends fighting and your enemies running and dieing. Then life hurt but it had a purpose. And it was a good purpose. It kept you going. Then he was nothing more than an irritating footnote in the chronicles of your life.
But that was then.
And this is now.
Now you have a world of anger and hate to fight for but no means to do so. Now you have lost everything. Now life hurts and it is never ending. They wont ever let you die. Now he is everything. Your life is dark and he is your world.
You hate him, but he keeps you going.
"Loss and possession, death and life are one. There falls no shadow where there shines no sun."
It was almost a song you thought as you whispered it into the dark. The words so suited to the situation in an ugly kind of optimism.
"That's very pretty." A dry voice spoke from the abyss. "Where did you hear it?"
"I dunno. Somewhere beyond the grave most likely."
"Uh huh. Was it a muggle saying?"
"At one point. Seems more like a bright expression of reality at the moment."
"Depressing isn't it?"
"Hell yeah."
"So, sing much?"
"I'm not singing to you Malfoy."
"Oww. Not even for a little bit?" He snickered.
"Why don't you?"
"Because my singing voice is far to heavenly to grace this hellhole. The dust mites could get confused, and we wouldn't want that."
"Indeed."
"I see your point though."
"What point?" (There was a point?)
"You know, no shadows where there shines no sun. There aren't any. Everything is constant. Could even be considered a good thing if you squint and tilt your head a bit."
"I'm not tilting my head anywhere. My neck's still cramping from… whenever it was they last came here."
"Yeah… we really need to work out a way of measuring time. Starting to get irritating."
"'Tis a bit."
"Yeah."
"So. And death and life are one. Is that a good thing too?"
"Well… Not necessarily a good thing… but it seems to hold some truth. In all honesty we could die and never notice."
"I'm not sure. Death would surely stop the pain and I know for sure that is something I would notice."
"That would be providing you don't believe in the afterlife. Every faith in the world claims that bad people are punished in the next world. For all we know we could have died the moment they locked the door and this is in fact our own personal hell."
"Eternal torment… we deserve it don't we?"
"Yeah. Well, I certainly do."
"Ha. Know the feeling..."You shake your head. "Listen to us. What would Ron say? Right pair of losers we are, sitting here questioning our existence like we were talking about the weather…"
"Well, it's not like there's much weather to speak of down here is it?"
"True…"
"But we are still alive you know."
"How'd you figure that out?"
"Well, you're here." As if that explained everything.
"I'm afraid I don't follow."
"Well, if there were such a thing as immortality in death and our time had already passed, you sure as hell wouldn't be here. You'd be up there with all the other good guys, singing and dancing with all the other martyrs and heroes."
"You think very highly of me Mr Malfoy. I'm not sure whether to be flattered or sick."
"Charmed, I'm sure."
"What makes you think I'm any better than you were? I killed too. Far too many people… I lived for selfish reasons, I fought for selfish reasons, and I'm sitting here, ignoring the fact that if I went you'd have to endure this on your own, and praying to whatever's out there to hear me that I just want to die, all for selfish reasons. "
"And I suppose there were selfish reasons in all the people you saved, set free and healed?"
"Yes! If I hadn't done that I would have been entirely consumed by guilt and wouldn't have survived the war whatever happened."
"See! Guilt. Proof you are a good person."
"What? That proves nothing, any human being capable of feeling knows guilt. It doesn't determine whether you're good or bad, just proves your conscience is in working order."
"I've never felt guilty. Am I not human?"
"Well, that's debatable." You almost smile. "But you have felt guilt, just never identified it as such. I blame your upbringing personally. They drilled it into your head that guilt was a weakness, so in your mind it was just switched to self-loathing, something that can be blocked out far easier than guilt because it seems irrational."
"As beautiful as the psychology lesson was, I can't say I'm convinced. You're saying that my little lapses into depression were in fact an interpretation of my guilty conscience and a product of my childhood household rules, as opposed to the fact that I had made myself a traitor to my own name and the people I was sweating blood to help didn't (and never would) fully trust me?"
"That's not what I'm saying."
"Oh really?"
When all right is wrong and wrong is right and light is gone and dark is true…
Perhaps that is why they do it? Keep you here in the dark. It emphasises your hopelessness to the extreme… No light, only dark.
Is that not the world now? Is that not the world they created when they destroyed your army and your friends and your entire life? The existence you once lived is eternally mocked by the darkness you know exists not only here but outside your four walls as well. The remainder of the Army of Light hang suffocated in darkness. Is that not fitting?
All is changed in this utter despair of blackness. Up is down and down is up and you can no longer tell because the sun is gone and here there are not even stars to guide you. Only him. The dragon, named for an ancient constellation he is all that is left of your light. Your guiding star in the darkness of this eternal night.
"I faced the wall and I cried. I cried solidly for hours and it was as though- as though a hood was pulled over my eyes. Blinkered. I felt so blinkered. And lost. Blinkered and lost. It was like… it was like watching the world ending and feeling it. Feeling it in your very heart… that it had been your fault… that I was at fault for simply standing there and watching when so much was going wrong. I was at fault for surviving and I've never stopped hating myself for that." You laugh and you sob, so close to choking on your words. But it feels good to get it out. Out in the open. "It sounds so melodramatic, but I never thought I'd ever stop hating myself for that. Or hating them. Hating them for making it happen. For making me feel that way. It… it just wasn't fair. They had no right. They had no right…"
You had stood there and watched. Watched the city lights flicker and die. You had stood and cried and watched, helpless and alone. Alone because your team were dead, helpless because on the inside you were too. It felt like the world was ending, starting with those you worked with, spreading to those you loved. Like a cancer or a virus or some flesh eating fungus that just grows and grows and never dies… it spread and it spread until it was only you. Only you and him. And it wasn't even deliberate.
And that's what you think hurts the most. In the end, when everything else has been dissected until it really doesn't matter any more, that's what hurts the most. Because it truly is unfair. Beyond unfair. Because there was nothing you could do. Ever. Because it wasn't meant to be… it wasn't fated or planned out… it was just there. It just happened and it is so unfair, because there was never anything you could have done. It could have been anyone but it was you. And in a way that makes you proud or grateful or something… because it is you, you that survived, and not another you love…
And you try and try and keep on trying and sometimes you even believe that yourself. That you are grateful it is you suffering no another innocent.
But you don't really.
You don't believe. You wish you were like that. You long to be the person they thought you to be. Loving to the point of self-sacrifice. But in the end – in this end – you know and he knows that you are not that person. You never were and you never will be. It is not something human nature possesses. We are not bred to love unconditionally and try as you might you cannot be glad in any way of your fate. Try as you might, and as you do, you cannot be happy that it is you here instead of Ron or Ginny or Harry. It makes you feel sick and dirty and utterly, utterly wrong, but not a day goes by that you wish it hadn't been you. Not a day goes by and for that you hate yourself.
"You don't understand… And I don't expect you to either. I shouldn't expect you to. It isn't fair really. We're bad people. They're bad people. They're worse than us and we keep telling ourselves it. We keep saying that they're worse and we were right, even though we did bad things it was for good cause. And for us it worked… it kept us going and kept us fighting and killing and winning for so long… But in all that time, all that time it never occurred that they were doing that exact same thing, and it just doesn't make sense, because it's so obvious now. Why did I think they were fighting? Why did I think you and them were fighting? Schoolchildren. Schoolchildren don't fight because it's evil and it feels good to be evil. You were old enough to think for yourselves, you didn't march into battles just for the hell of it. You were fighting for a cause. Just like we were. You were fighting and we were fighting and in the end we were all fighting for the same thing, only it was expressed slightly differently. We were both fighting for what we believed was good and right and just. We were both fighting for vengeance and for prevention and we both thought each other evil for the exact same reasons. We were all human and all we ever wanted was a world where things made sense and there were no bad guys.
"All we ever wanted to do was kill the bad guys…"
He just sits there and there is silence. And really you think he does understand. Even though you don't expect him to and you shouldn't expect him to, you think he does. Because he was there. And he fought. And just like you he lost and pays for it. Just like you he thinks and cringes at his former blindness. That's what it does, you know, the darkness and the pain. It gifts you hindsight. They have given you all the time in the world to sit back and pick your faults and their faults and the general faults of humanity until you lose your minds. Lose your minds with the insanity of it all. Because it all makes sense. The madness makes sense and you feel so inadequate for not seeing it before. Before, when it could have made a difference.
They cage you and gift you with hindsight and with it you slowly drive yourself mad. Clinging to him as though he was your innocence reborn, when in reality he is just as screwed as you. And will continue to be. Because that is why you are here. Both of you, together, because you were both wrong and you both misjudged. You both thought that life was a good thing. Death was bad and death was evil and death was their weapon of choice.
It wasn't.
It wasn't evil. (It has become your sweetest dream – your fairytale ending in death).
It wasn't bad. (It could have saved you – it would have saved you were it not for him and you and damn stubborn, clingy life).
It was never their weapon of choice. (This is ultimate destruction – when you allow the prisoner to do it themselves. Pick holes in their own psych until all crumbles and dies.) ("Psychological torture." He said. "There's a knack to it")
You know what they're trying to do. What they're doing. You know and you know it works, and you can feel it working. You try and try to fight it off (because you know the plan and that should make it easy) but it just doesn't work. Because it is human nature. You know it and they know it and even he knows it… and they exploit it and you are helpless in the face of it, because even though you know, you are powerless because it applies to you, and it will always apply to you.
Human Nature: To argue with whoever opposes. Whoever is different, unknown, 'wrong'. To pick and pick and pick until the wound opens and bleeds and then keep on picking until you drown in the blood. Because you don't know when to stop. Or you do but you still can't make it happen. It's destruction. Ingrained in our genetic make up. Destruction of nature, destruction of others, destruction of self.
It will always apply to you.
Sometimes you dream (the kind of dreams that make you laugh on waking) of breaking out. You dream of having your powers back, finding strength from the very despair that makes their pain superfluous. You dream of knocking out the torturers and the guards and all the bad people until you can take the keys and go to him. In your dream you go to him and you hug him and unlock his chains and hold him. And he holds you back. And all is right and good, and even if you died in that one moment it would be all right, because it would be you and him and the bad guys would be gone. The chains would be gone. Last of the Army of Light, dying in each other's arms. It has a ring to it. A good ring. The ring makes you happy.
But then you wake and you remember and you laugh because it stops you crying (you cry too much). You laugh because to you it sounds so fairytale. It sounds so perfect and beyond romantic. It sounds like heavenly perfection with soul mates and divine, all-conquering love and goodness. It sounds so beautiful when in fact it is two broken souls, two broken people, two broken lumps of flesh, clinging to each other because there is no one else left to cling to. It is two broken enemies clutching each other because they no longer have the will to cling to life. It is desperation in a windowless cell. Dust and dirt and sweat and blood and it is your picture of beauty, because all other beauty is too far gone to contemplate. It is Draco Malfoy and you hate him and yet if you died in his arms you would die happy.
It is a different story. It is a new brand of superheroics, a new style of dreaming. It is a new fairytale and it doesn't (can't) (won't) (does) make sense.
AN: Tehe. That wasn't very happy.It was also written at about 1am last night, so try to ignore all the stupid mistakes etc. I have a tendency to ramble and get caught up in streams of thought when i'm tired... miffle. English Lit exam on Wednesday and i dont want to work :( Wish me luck lovely nice people who blatantly want to review.