“I’m not judging you, Draco,” Mal says quietly. “Not any more than you’re judging me. You don’t know my life either, mate. So, maybe you’re right, afterall.
Afterall, if I go back to Hogwarts, I’m good as marked, anyway. The Carrows are there now. I can evade and hide. But they want this place. They want me. Snape’ll be gone from the manor. It’s just a matter of time. You’re right. I’m wrong. Cho’s better off without me, too, then, if that’s the case.”
“Maybe they will corner you,” he shrugs, honestly feeling bad for his friend. “But you have a choice to make. You have a choice that I didn’t have. What are you going to do? You see how I am. You see what it’s done to me. You want that for yourself?” He didn’t want it for him. Hell he didn’t even want it for himself. He would be damned if another of his friends got pulled in too. “If you do, then say goodbye to Chang. If you love her, I mean. You — it’s hard, being in love with someone on the other side. You put them in danger. You put yourself in danger. You put everyone you care about in danger. This life doesn’t come without a price, mate. And the price we pay is a life of loneliness. Are you ready to give that up?” He took the flask and took a long swig, trying to drink his problems away. It wouldn’t help forever, but it would get him through the night. One step at a time, that’s what his mother had told him. Every minute they were to be thankful they were still alive. So it was one fucking step at a time. He did not want that for his friends.
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