I ran to him and grabbed him around the waist, yanking us both backwards away from the edge. We fell to the floor with a bang and he backed into a corner, hugging his knees and sobbing.
"I couldn't do it. I couldn't. I wanted to but I couldn't."
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU WANTED TO?!" I screamed at him. "DID YOU NOT THINK ABOUT WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF YOU DID IT! YOUR MUM YOUR DAD, ME? DID YOU NOT THINK ABOUT THAT?!"
"I.....I knew if I gave you a sign you'd help me. If you came I knew you didn't hate me, I can deal with everyone else in the world hating me but I can't deal with you hating me Belle."
"You knew what you were doing with that drawing." He looked up at me and nodded slowly, and I slid down the wall to sit next to him. We both sat staring into space.
"I'm sorry." He said eventually.
"Draco I'm worried about you. I'm really worried about you. Please tell me what's going on."
"I want to. I really want to, but I don't want them to come after you if they know that you know."
"Even if whoever they are come after me I'm not alone, I've got people behind me, people to help protect me."
"I wanted to be the one to protect you. Belle I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry for everything, I shouldn't have pushed you away like I did, I should have told you in the summer. But my family, they told me I couldn't tell anyone at all."
He turned to look at me, his grey eyes full of tears, looking the most vulnerable I've ever seen him. I didn't see the man he was becoming, I saw a scared little boy who didn't know which way to turn. After all, that's what he was, he was just a boy.
"Can....can I see it?" I asked and he swallowed hard before rolling up his sleeve. There it was, the dark mark that almost every witch and wizard feared, carved into his skin for eternity. It was red raw and full of scratches, I gently took his hand in mine and just held it.
"I.....I tried to get rid of it. I hate it. I hate looking at my arm and seeing it. I'm not evil, I'm not."
"I know you're not. You're the least evil person I've ever met, you've just got a fucked up family." I rested my head on his shoulder and he placed a kiss on the top of it.
"I wish we could just run away and never come back" he said softly, his voice shaking.
"So do I."
"I have to tell you something, but you have to promise me right now Belle that you won't tell a single soul, not even Potter."
"I promise. What is it?"
He turned to look at me for a few seconds before he eventually started to talk.
"I have to do something. A task. Kind of like an initiation but mainly because my father failed his task of getting the prophecy last year. If I do this then he'll forgive my family, but if I don't do it then he'll kill them and me."
I swallowed hard. "What do you have to do?"
"I have to kill Dumbledore."
I sat bolt upright. "Shit."
"Shit."
"Urm...when?"
"By the end of the school year. But there's something I have to do beforehand. There's a vanishing cabinet in the room of requirement that I have to fix. So that when the time comes I can have backup."
"Wow."
"So there you go. That's what's going on."
I cupped his face with my hand and placed a gentle kiss to his lips.
"Figured you needed that" I said as I pulled away from him."
"You always seem to know what I need." He looked down at me before pulling me into his chest, resting his head on top of mine. Neither of us moved, we just stayed wrapped up in each other's arms for what seemed like forever.
"So what happens now" I asked eventually.
"For me? I need to figure out this cabinet. You, you do nothing. This is my task, I don't want you involved in my mess."
"It's not your mess Draco. It's your family's. You don't need to do this alone."
"Yes I do. If you get hurt because of me I'll never forgive myself."
"Ok I'll do nothing. But this doesn't mean that I'm staying away from you or moving on from you. You're mine Draco, mine. We're in this together."
Draco placed a firm, desperate kiss on my lips. "And you, Victoria Belle Greenwood, are mine."