UsernameEmailRegionInterestAOL IMICQ IDYahoo! IDMSN IDJabber

She couldn’t be looking at him like that. She couldn’t be looking at him like he had just told her that the world was ending that night. If she kept it up, he wasn’t sure if he could look at her at all, but he knew that it was his own fault – his own inability to be faithful. Even the excuse that it was a near-death situation - for the both of them, seeing how he wasn’t sure just how much protection he could get from his brother for protecting a muggle-born – didn’t seem to make it okay, in his mind. Yeah, it was…it was Danielle, and she made him feel…God, he didn’t even know what word could explain how she made him feel. One day he hated her - that’s what he had thought, at least – to what he felt when he was with her at Mungo’s. He couldn’t even explain it, but looking at her now, he felt as though his heart were breaking. He had to make it a conscious effort, to try and keep those stormy blue eyes of his on hers, even though there were times he had no choice but to look away.

His eyes lifted to hers when she finally spoke, swallowing around the knot that was in his throat.

“That’s what I don’t know…”

His voice cracked slightly, still sitting in his chair until now, when he stood and turned towards her, though he kept his distance for now.

“Cecilia…she’s been through a lot. She lost the person she loved only months before our parents made the arrangements. Her lover, Evan Rosier, he was found to be a Death Eater at the time of his death…and because she was involved with him…she was scrutinized. To her parents…I was convenient; an eligible pureblood bachelor, with parents who were just as eager to marry off their youngest son as they were with their youngest daughter…” He paused, and then continued. “My relationship with Cecilia, it’s nothing…set in stone. Whatever happens, in the end, we still have a choice…but I can’t make any choices until I can be sure that I’m making the one that’s right…” He stepped towards her, slowly.

“You have to understand, that I’m in no position to just…take a chance, Danielle.” He approached this carefully, trying to make her see things from his perspective. “I just want you to think for a second, what would happen if I ended things with Cecilia… What do you think my family would say, especially after finding out that I chose a muggleborn over a Hooke?” He added quickly, “You know that doesn’t matter to me, but it matters to them. It matters a great deal to them.” He stepped just a bit closer, almost cautiously. “I would need to be one hundred percent sure that being with you would work, Danni…I would need to make sure I wasn’t making what could be the biggest mistake of my life…because if things didn’t work – if for whatever reason, you got scared, or if you left again – I wouldn’t ever be able to go back.”