Dramione and the Half Blood Prince.

32. Draco

"I really hope you can hear this Mi, because I don't want to have to say this again. I don't want you to hate me, I can't let that happen...

But I can't keep anything from you. Not now, not ever...

Mi, you know what my Father did to me – you know he made me a death eater. You know he made the worst choices of my life for me, you know I'm not that person. But...

I don't know how to sugar coat it. I don't want to have to say it out loud, to admit it's real.

But the Dark Lord... he's not a Lord what am I saying – he's a fear monger, who threatens you with everything you love and hold dear to make you do his dirty work for him... and if you don't do it he will make your life not worth living, he'll have you begging for death and not let it take you... if you fail him... it's not even worth thinking about...

He gave me a job, more specifically he gave my father a job for me to do while I was on the floor almost bleeding out from his near as damn it deadly mark of allegiance. He told my Father I had to- that I have to get rid of Dumbledore, permanently – or he'd kill my family one by one until it was done.

Bellatrix and my Father I wouldn't be overly fussed about, but my mother... That sounds sick and twisted but it's true, as horrible as it is – they have made me something I'm not, forced me into this life of cruelty and murder and filled my head with hatred and malice since I was young... That can't be right, can it?

The vanishing cabinet in the room of requirement has a twin, the one in Borgin and Burks... although I can't imagine you've been inside there... It can act as a gate way for the death eaters to walk through...

Mi, I can't kill Dumbledore – he's not my favourite person in the world but he's done nothing to deserve it. I don't want Voldemort to take over, I don't want a war, I don't want anything to ruin how everything is at the moment. I just want you to be safe. I want to feel safe with you by my side.

But we can't be safe if Dumbledore is dead, and we can't be safe if I don't kill him because Voldemort will kill my family... and if he finds out about you - he will kill you and yours too... not that you can remember them... that's all my family's fault too – he's already started destroying our lives... he's already won.

So is the only way to keep you safe to kill Dumbledore?

...Mi please say something...

Please just sit up and give me that look when your nostrils flare and you look at me like I've got to be joking...

Or don't...

Or tell me what I have to do, or just squeeze my hand back and not say anything because you always remember that if you can't say anything nice then don't say anything at all...

I've always admired you for that, you know. For your self-control, for being able to stop when enough is enough. For being able to protect people no matter what the cost.

My family's not like that... apart from my mother. She's always tried to protect me; I guess my father just wore her down over time.

She used to look him straight in the eye and tell him she didn't want me doing whatever he had planned... but over time she couldn't deal with his anger and learned to hold her tongue, to deal with the after math rather than stop it from happening.

Who can blame her when she is married to someone as abusive as my father? Someone as self-centred as him ... A drunken coward...

She tried to protect me, you know. I never told you – how could I if you didn't know what mess I'd been left with, I tried to tell you so many times but it just wouldn't come out... but she made an unbreakable vow, an unbreakable vow with Snape of all people. She showed me the memories.

Bellatrix was there with them, she made him swear to my mother that if I could not do it then he would...

I've thought of thousands of ways round the task but each of them involves Dumbledore not actually dying, which means that instead of killing a man who is 115, I'd affectively be killing a man of 37... I don't need Arithmancy to work out which one makes more logical sense...

I'm sorry Mi, I know what you'll think of this... you'll say it's not my fault and we can work a way around it, but the truth is... we can't.

There is no way around it.

The impossible situation is between the deaths of two people, and if I choose the latter there is no telling that the first won't die at his hand anyway...

Either way, we aren't safe anymore and there is no way of telling who will be next in the great game of dominoes...

Maybe Dumbledore's death will cause enough momentum to knock over all the rest of the tiles like Voldemort wants it too... but maybe we'll get lucky, maybe it will make everyone stronger – more resilient.

Maybe it will cause everyone to fight to bring him down before a war has even begun...

Either way I will be an outlaw, if it doesn't work I'll be forced into the inner circle of death eaters...

I've been near those meetings, they are terrifying to be in and to more people than you'd expect - deadly. I can't be one of them...

But if it makes the Order stand up and fight before the war has begun then I'll be exiled, not welcome in wizarding Britain for my crimes... The crimes I am yet to commit.

Hermione, I can't lose you. You don't remember your parents, your closest family is the Weasleys and honestly, right now, they seem to be massively unstable. If you are looking for one person to blame for you being in here it's the Weasel, he found out Pansy and Ginny loved each other and flipped – he sent you flying into a bookshelf and Pansy is in Saint Mungo's, she nearly didn't make it. Weasel is a mess because Bones can't stand the sight of him, he got sent a howler from every member of his family shunning him for his homophobia. His mother's was terrifying.

Their family is a wreck, but I suppose, again, you could trace that back to me. If I hadn't been infatuated with you then Pansy wouldn't have gone looking for answers from your friends and Ginny and they would never have gotten close...

Mi this is all my fault. I'm so sorry..."

"Mr Malfoy, you need to leave now"

"Mi, I love you. I have to go – If I don't see you before you wake up... or after, just know I love you. Merlin, I should have written this down; you might not even remember – how could I be so stupid?"

"Mr Malfoy!"

"I'm going!... Just please... Please remember me."