"What did you want to say?" Pandora sighed, jumping up onto a desk. "You know, of months of ignoring me."
"I'm sorry," I said. "It wasn't only you. It was for your own good."
"For my own good? Really?" She scoffed.
I stepped closer to her. I took a breath.
"Promise me you won't be scared." I said.
"I promise," she agreed. "What's going on, Regulus?"
I pulled up my sleeve slowly. She looked at my arm. Looked at my imprint. Looked into my eyes. And gasped. She clapped her hands to her mouth.
"I have it, but i'm not it," I said. "Do you understand?"
"Not really, no." She said. She got off the table and stepped back so there was a distance between us.
"I was forced," I said. "I am not one, nor will I be one even though I have this mark on my arm. I will not kill anyone. I will die if I have too."
"And the meetings?" She asked. "You have to meet with The Dark Lord, don't you?"
"I won't go," I said. "I refuse."
"And if you get punished?" Pandora asked.
"I get punished," I said. "But i'm not one. I promise, Pandora. And i'm so sorry I didn't talk to you for months, but this was the reason."
"It's understandable," she gradually took a step forward. "Is that why you lied to Potter?"
"What?" I asked, even when I knew what she meant.
"You told him that you don't love him. That's untrue, I know you."
"I couldn't bare him saying it when he would find out what I was," I sighed. I sat down. "I couldn't hurt him."
"But you did," she said. "You hurt him by lying."
"He doesn't know i'm lying." I shrugged.
"But he should," Pandora said, she came and sat next to me. "He needs to know you love him. Maybe not about the whole mark thing, yet. But you can't keep love hidden."
"I've always done it that way," I said. "I can do it again."
"Not for James you can't," Pandora said, she lifted my chin so I looked into her eyes. "He thinks you don't love him."
I looked back down.
"As i've said before," She said. "The things we lose have a way of coming back to us in the end. If not always in the way we expect. Come back, Reg. He lost you. And he won't do it again."
