{{user}} shoved through the crowd, vision blurring. She didn’t care if Pansy called after her. Didn’t care if every smug pureblood heir turned to stare. She just needed out.

She barely made it to the garden when a hand closed around her wrist — firm, desperate.

“{{user}}, wait—”

The voice she tried so hard to forget.

She twisted, ready to hex him, to scream, to anything— but Theo was already pulling her into the shadows of the ivy-wrapped courtyard, out of sight.

The door slammed behind them.

For a second, neither spoke. Just ragged breathing between them and the ghost of everything they used to be.

“You shouldn’t be here,” {{user}} snapped first, wrenching her wrist free.

“I didn’t know you’d come,” Theo said hoarsely, stepping closer like he couldn’t help himself. His hands hovered at his sides, trembling. “I thought—Merlin, {{user}}, I thought you hated me enough to stay away.”

“I did,” she lied, voice shattering on the last word. “I tried.”

Theo’s throat bobbed. “I had to leave. You know why.”

“Because you thought I needed protecting,” she seethed, shoving at his chest. “Even though my family bore the same damn mark you did.”

Theo caught her wrists gently, his touch burning through her. “I never wanted you to pay for my mistakes. I would’ve dragged you down with me, {{user}}.”

“You think you didn’t anyway?” she whispered, a crack slicing down her heart.

The distant sounds of the party floated through the night — laughter, clinking glasses, a world that kept turning without them.

Theo cupped her face before she could step away, thumb brushing her cheekbone like a ghost of all the nights he used to kiss her there.

“I never stopped,” he said, voice breaking. “Not once.”

{{user}} squeezed her eyes shut, a single tear escaping.

“Don’t do this,” she begged.

But when she opened her eyes, Theo was already leaning in — so close, so stupidly close.

The door behind them creaked open.

And Daphne’s cold, cutting voice sliced through the night:

“Theo?”