The library was quiet, except for the soft flick of turning pages.

You sat curled in the corner of the Slytherin study, one leg tucked under you, chin tilted down, the blue gleam of your eyes cutting across the aged parchment in your hands. Your hair was loose for once, dark strands falling wild about your shoulders, a sharp contrast to the prim way you usually carried yourself. You preferred order. Clean lines. Quiet.

But your life had not been quiet for months.

Draco’s hand was the first to find you, curling around your wrist gently, like a silken shackle. His thumb traced over your pulse as if tasting it, knowing exactly the way your heart jumped at sudden touch.

"You don’t talk to me," he murmured against your temple, voice sharp and soft all at once. "Always sitting here with your books. Like you’re some untouchable thing."

Theodore was already there, folding into the opposite side of you like a shadow made of warmth and shape. His fingers brushed aside a lock of your hair, exposing the pale line of your neck, and before you could lean away, his lips pressed just below your ear. Slow. Lazy. Possessive.

“I told you she wouldn’t answer,” Theodore said, almost bored, but his fingers splayed against your waist like iron. “She likes to be quiet. Doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy ourselves.”

You sighed, low and steady, not in protest but more like resignation.

They had made a habit of this. Of you.

Draco’s hand moved from your wrist to your jaw, tilting your face toward him, as if daring you to speak. His silver gaze was molten with irritation—and something deeper, something greedy, something needy. It was always need with him. He wanted your words the way others wanted riches or blood.

Theodore didn’t care for your voice. He liked the shape of you—liked having you filled by their presence, surrounded, trapped between two ancient bloodlines, two obsessions in silk and teeth.

“You’re too lovely for your own good,” Draco muttered, kissing the corner of your mouth, like punishment. “Not fair, really. You sit there with that little face, pretending you’re above it.”

“And she lets us touch her,” Theodore breathed into your throat, nosing the column of your neck, dragging his teeth lightly along your skin. “Lets us have her. Doesn’t she?”