Thanks to Hannah, Sarah, Elo and The Darkest Wizard for their reviews.
A huge thank-you to xX Starlight-Moon Xx, without whom this part would never have been written to begin with, since she had the niceness and patience to send me the whole dialogue from the movie. Check out her fics, they're awesome...
He couldn't. He couldn't bring himself to do it. Helpless. The Headmaster was helpless, and he...he had a wand in his hand, directed straight to his heart. Two little, lethal words, practised again and again for months, and it would be over. Yet there was a huge lump in his throat, and he felt lost, speechless, at the brink of tears.
"Good evening, Draco. What brings you here, on this fine spring evening?"
"Who else is here?" he barked, "I heard you talking!"
"I often talk out loud to myself, I find it extraordinarily useful," the old man replied casually. Relaxed, calm, completely fearless - I hate him, I hate him so much – "Have you been whispering to yourself, Draco?"
His inner voice was yelling. Strike - kill - do it – was this his voice, or hers?
"Draco, you are no assassin."
"How do you know what I am?" he cried, "I've done things that would shock you!"
"Like cursing Katie Bell and hoping in return she'd bear a cursed necklace to me?" Dumbledore asked, his voice a little colder, "Like replacing a bottle of mead with one laced with poison? Forgive me, Draco, but I cannot help feeling these actions are so weak that your heart cannot really have been in them."
How did he knew? What did he think? This is my duty...
"He trusts me! I was chosen!" In a violent move of despair, Draco pushed his sleeve up. The Dark Mark was there, black against his skin.
Dumbledore's expression did not change.
"I shall make it easy for you," the old man said softly, and he raised both hands slowly. There it was, his wand.
"Expelliarmus!" he shouted as loud as he could, and the wand flew out of Dumbledore's hand, colliding with something somewhere with a sharp noise.
"Very good," the Headmaster whispered, "Very good." The man was mad. And he was, too. His hand trembling so violently that his wand could have fallen too, his face contorted in an ugly snarl he couldn't control.
What was left that he could control?
A door slammed somewhere. Someone was coming. He couldn't think, or wish anymore.
"You are not alone," Dumbledore said. He had spoken matter-of-factly, but somehow Draco knew that this has shocked him, while nothing else had. "There are others." And he, Draco, now that the old man had seemed to react at last, he was more terrified than ever, as if realizing for the first time what all of this truly meant, and he shivered violently.
"How?"
His lips moved as if by their own free will.
"The Vanishing Cabinet in the Room of Requirement," he hissed, "I've been mending it."
He sounded in pain. But he was in pain. The old man had taken a step forward, and he, who held the wand, wanted to step back, yet he held his ground.
"Let me guess... it has a sister. A twin." Dumbledore's voice was no higher than a breath.
"In Borgin and Burkes. They form a passage."
"That's genius!"
This moment was out of time, as Draco stood frozen, gazing in the Headmaster's blue eyes.
"Draco." Dumbledore's voice was louder again, it sounded soft and sad. "Years ago, I knew a boy who made all the wrong choices. Please let me help you."
"I don't want your help!" he squealed, "Don't you understand? I have to do this. I have to kill you. Or he's gonna kill me."
On the brink of tears. His wand trembling in his hand, ready to lower. His fate written somewhere, and he had no hold on it. Helpless - and he gazed into the eyes of wisdom.
As footsteps came closer and closer.
Until his fate burst into the room.