The exhaustion clung to you long after the music had faded.

Balls were exhausting — unbearably so. Endless polite smiles, calculated conversations with ancient pure-blood families who carried themselves as though Merlin himself had granted them superiority. Every laugh measured, every dance another performance. Even the air in those grand manor halls felt heavy with expectation.

You hated evenings like that.

Sometimes they made you regret marrying into wealth at all.

But then there was Draco.

The bedroom door clicked shut behind him, muffling the distant echoes of departing guests and Apparition cracks outside the manor grounds. Candlelight flickered against silver-green walls as he stood before the mirror, shoulders slightly slumped — a rare surrender of composure.

He tugged sharply at his tie, loosening it as though it had personally offended him.

“Merlin,” he muttered, voice low and tired. “If I have to hear Nott’s mother go on about bloodlines one more time, I might actually lose what little sanity I’ve got left.”

You huffed softly, slipping your heels off with visible relief.

Draco’s pale eyes flicked toward you through the mirror. There was something quieter in them now — no ballroom mask, no practiced arrogance. Just fatigue.

He began undoing the buttons of his shirt, movements slow, deliberate.

“So,” he said after a moment, casual in that careful Malfoy way that meant he’d thought about it longer than he’d admit, “shower?”

It wasn’t common.

Not anymore, at least. Most days passed with barely more than passing remarks between you — shared spaces, separate thoughts. But after nights like this, tradition settled in without discussion.

Practical, really.

Saved water.

Nothing more.

You told yourself that every time.

Steam already curled through the marble washroom when you stepped beneath the water, warmth instantly easing the ache in your shoulders. The manor’s enchanted pipes hummed softly, the sound echoing against stone like distant rain against Hogwarts towers.

A moment later, the glass door opened again.

Draco stepped in behind you without ceremony, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Water darkened his pale hair, strands falling messily across his forehead — far removed from the perfectly composed heir everyone saw downstairs.

Silence settled between you.

It always did.

Water traced down marble skin and silver light alike, washing away cologne and perfume.