Alone Together
The rain pounded on the castle's roof. Slamming into the windows and colliding against the walls, it beat out a pattern. I shifted slightly in my position, inching closer to the window pane and leaning my head against it, longing to feel the cold rain against my hot skin. The room was dark, lit only by the light of the half-moon outside and I liked it that way.
The dark was comfortable, familiar. It hid me and my flaws, keeping me safe from the rest of the world. The world that causes me such pain, though no one hurts me. I hide from the rest of the world within myself, everyone who knows me knows a different person. Which is why the only time I can be me, and just me, is the night.
In the day, I become so many different people. To each different person I speak to, I am somebody else. No one knows who I am. They know who Pansy Parkinson is, but not me. And I can't show them, I'm closed off from the world, my emotions have been long hidden and I don't know how to show them anymore. I've become robotic in my actions, acting only how I've been trained to and not how I want to. But it doesn't matter, because in this world, my wants and my actions should be the same.
And the night is my safety blanket, it makes me feel whole. Not the empty shell of a person I and everyone else is accustomed to. In the nighttime, I'm free. I can be whoever it is that I am. But I shouldn't have to pretend during the day, I should be able to be me without having to put a façade on for the rest of the world.
When I talk to a person and I say something I don't mean, I can hear a little voice screaming in my head, telling me not to say it. But I don't listen, I never do. It's necessary to tell people what they want to hear, but you can't please everyone. You have to choose who to please because by pleasing one set you're disappointing another. And I, the real me, is part of the set that must be disappointed because not everyone can have their way.
My 'friends' get their way, though. I say what I need to, to please them and though it makes them happy, I honestly don't do it for them. I can't say I do it for myself either, considering all it does is hurt me. But I do it because it's all I have left, because it's essential to move forward in this world. And moving forward is what I intend to do; my ambition is all I have. And it all goes back to whom to please and whom to disappoint; I please the more powerful and disappoint the others. And it works, I've become powerful. But I care for none of it. It's not enough and I can't stop from wanting more. It's a vicious cycle; you want something and you find a way to get it, but once you have it you want more.
I have no real friends; I have allies and enemies. I don't honestly like the people I spend my time with, nor do they like me, but we are allies and therefore we pretend. I am on no one's side of anything; I'm on my own side which is a lonely side. I understand why people do what they do and can see right through them, and what I see is that they aren't even worth it. They aren't worth the effort of trying to befriend them, and so I don't. I prefer my solitary existence, surrounded by people.
People look at me and say I'm a bad person, that I'm horrible. But they don't know the truth, they don't know that I only do the things I do so I won't be ridiculed, so I won't be scorned. Because I refuse to be, I refuse to be made a fool of. And that is what started it, that's what made the way I am. I couldn't be made a fool of, so instead I became the one who ridiculed, the one who scorned others. And this gave me power, and the more power I felt the more I wanted. And what I wanted, I got.
And now, I'm on top. The best of everyone, surrounded by others who think they're just as good. But they aren't. Because after we leave school, they'll fall back to the bottom, while I keep rising. And the higher up you go, the less there is. The farther I go in life, the lonelier I'll be. I'll die old, yes, but alone and bitter. And I don't like that. Not one bit.
And yet, there is no stopping it. There isn't a way, because as long as I crave power, as long as I want to stay on top I'll never be able to act myself and let people in and let them love me. I am destined to lead a lonely, miserable life and die a lonely, miserable death. And all because my ambition is all I have left. But it started it too, because that same ambition took over me, making me ruthless in my attempts to become powerful. Willing to destroy, not only others, but myself as well, in the process.
A cloud drifted across the moon, momentarily plunging the room into darkness and I wondered if this was a sign. A sign of what, I have no clue. But it was a nice idea, that someone might care enough to send me a sign. I pulled my feet under me, flinching when my icy foot touched my warm leg.
Now that the war is over, and we're all back at Hogwarts for our seventh year, everything has changed. Now I realize how horrible it all was, how I could have been the next one to die, how lucky I am. My family wasn't untouched by the war, though. My father died at the hands of Lord Voldemort himself, along with my aunt and uncle. And it seems such a waste, letting my life turn out the way it will, when they died for what they believe in while I sat back and watched, acting like I didn't care.
I remember the day of the battle. How I had stood up and voiced my opinion on how we should just give Potter to Voldemort. Everyone looked at me like I was crazy. But I don't understand why, giving up Potter would have saved the lives of so many others. After the battle everyone who had survived was convinced that I had been supporting the Death Eaters because of what I had said. But I wasn't then and I'm not now. I'm not on anyone's side except my own which means the only one I support is myself.
My eyes drifted around my dorm, passing over the sleeping forms of my fellow Slytherins, and landing on a silver picture frame that was gleaming in the moonlight. The picture was a moving one of Draco and me, both sneering at the camera and both looking in a foul mood. It had been one of my favorite pictures, but now it was just a reminder of the life I was trying to leave. Picking it up, I noticed something I had never picked up on before. Draco had the same look in his eyes that I do; the same sad, desperate look, much the same look as a trapped animal. But he and I, we're the same; we try and hide our pain and appear to be fine. We hide deep inside ourselves and only let people see what we want them to.
And what they see in me is an arrogant, stuck-up, and rude woman who doesn't give a damn about anyone other that herself, and even deep down in my hidden self, that's true to a degree and I can't help that. It's just who I am, but I exaggerate these things so everyone sees more than there honestly is to see. And so I become an entirely different person, a personality that I alter for each person I speak to so they can see the Pansy that they want to see and not the real Pansy. And I tell myself that it will help me, that it will put me ahead and help me to get whatever I want, but what if what I want is to stop? To be myself in front of other people? Then there is no way it can help me, and if I can't help myself, then who can?
Nobody. Nobody can help me, and I'll just keep climbing my way up the ladder and once I'm on top, the very best a person can get, I'll be even more dissatisfied. Because then I have nothing to work for and my ambition will be useless, and all I won't have anything left. I'll be empty and alone. And that's what keeps coming back to me; that I'll be old, empty, and alone and nobody will care.
I stared out the window, watching the rain fall and wishing that I could be out there in the rain, letting it wash over me and comfort me. Before I knew what I was doing, I had gotten off my perch on the window seat and was walking down the stairs, clutching my blanket to my body and my bare feet making a quiet slapping noise on the ground as I walked. In the entrance hall, I approached the door, taking care to check that I was the only one there. Heaving the door open, I stepped out into the rain and smiled for the first time in weeks.
I just stood there for some time looking up at the sky and letting the rain fall on my up-turned face, before deciding to lie down. I lay on my back with my eyes closed enjoying the feeling of the rain pelting me even though my soaked pajamas were clinging to my body and I was shivering from the cold. I just lay there letting the rain relieve all of the tension in my body, until I felt an icy-cold hand reach out and squeeze my own hand.
"What are you doing, Pansy?" asked a low male voice.
I opened my eye a bit and saw Draco Malfoy crouching next to me, staring at me intently. "I was sleeping, until you came" I said snottily.
"You weren't sleeping" he stated, using a tone of voice I had never heard him use before. It was a firm yet gentle kind of voice and it was very strange to hear Draco use that tone. "What were you doing?"
"You wouldn't understand" I sighed, hoping he would just leave me alone again.
"Try me" he answered, lying down on the slick grass next to me.
"I just like the rain. It's that simple."
"But why were you compelled to leave the castle in the middle of the night to lie in the rain when it'll still be raining in the morning? Not to mention that nothing is 'that simple' with you, Pansy" he answered, arching an eyebrow at me.
"Well, why were you? You left in the middle of the night, too" I shot back, sounding very childish.
"Yes, I did. I wanted to be with you."
"I prefer to be alone" I told him icily. I don't know why I say the opposite of what I mean; I suppose it's just an automatic thing I do to try to protect myself. But I don't want to be alone and I don't want him to leave me here, either because then I'll know that it's true; that I will grow up to be alone and unloved.
"No you don't, Pansy. You hate being alone and you're afraid that you will be forever" he answered.
My eyes shot open and I turned on my side so I could look at him. "H-how did you know that?" I asked, forgetting that I was supposed to guard myself and that now he knew my greatest fear.
"I've know you my whole life, Pansy. I know you better than anyone, even yourself" he said, turning on his side as well so that we were facing each other.
I looked up at him, studying his face. His eyes were always guarded, but now I could see, even through his guard, that he's just as sad and miserable and alone as I am. "If you know me so well, Draco, then you know I'm not going to tell you" I answered, turning away from him.
He ran a hand over his face and sighed loudly. "Fine, don't tell me. I don't care."
Somehow this hurt me more than anything else. That he could give up on me so quickly and easily. "You can't mean that...of course you care..." I trailed off, feeling very lost.
"Just tell me, Pansy!"
"No, I just want to be alone" I lied.
"Then let's be alone, together" he whispered in my ear, pulling me closer to him. And I didn't feel qite so alone anymore.
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