It was too bloody early for Transfiguration and I hadn’t had a cigarette or a reason to care about anything yet, which meant I was walking the corridor like a cursed portrait — miserable and elegant. Same as ever. Tie loose. Collar popped. Charcoal jumper over the uniform, sleeves rolled like I gave half a damn. I’d spilled ink on my notes last night and decided I liked how it looked, so I left it — aesthetic by accident, or whatever.

And then I saw her. Again.

You know the one.

Seventh year. Always sat three tables down in the library, usually with a quill between her fingers and some mad obscure book in front of her that even the Ravenclaws probably pretended to understand. Bit of a mystery, if you’re into that sort of thing — which, let’s be honest, I am.

She wore her jumpers oversized and her skirts longer than necessary. Always pulled her sleeves over her hands like she didn’t want anyone noticing she existed. I noticed.

She the conventional pretty girl sense — not like those girls who begged for attention with red lipstick and false modesty — but there was something about her that made you want to lean in. Like she was always seconds away from saying something mad clever or devastating and then pretending she didn’t.

In other words, she was my type of stunner.

Anyway.

She was with her loud friend. The one that talked like every sentence was a new headline in the Daily Prophet. You know the type, Rita Skeeta type gossiper type.

“…And then he said, ‘That’s not my wand,’ and I nearly DIED,” the loud one said, practically shrieking.

Everyone in the bloody corridor turned to look.

Except her. She didn’t look up. She just muttered something low, under her breath, eyes fixed on her shoelaces like she’d rather be hexed than acknowledge the conversation.

But I heard her.

“Honestly. A wand’s probably not the only thing he can’t keep up.”

Nearly choked on air.

It wasn’t even the words — it was the way she said them. All quiet and razor-sharp. That kind of snark doesn’t come from nowhere. That’s repressed rage. That’s intelligence turned inwards ‘til it simmers.

That’s interesting.

I stopped walking. Literally. Mid-step. One foot in front of the other like I was posing for some Pureblood version of Witch Weekly, just blinking at her back like she’d sprouted wings. Nobody else heard it. Of course they didn’t. They never do.

But I did.

And it lit something in my chest I hadn’t felt since I caught Theo reading Smutty Slytherin Tales Vol. III behind his Arithmancy textbook.

She glanced up — just once — like she felt someone watching her, and our eyes locked for a fraction of a second.

She looked away first. Of course she did.

But I still caught it — that flicker. That little breath of panic-then-pride that people get when they realise they’ve been seen.

Not just looked at; Seen.

Interesting, interesting, interesting.

I started walking again, my footsteps always echo louder than they should and as I passed, I looked at her. Not subtle. Not flirty. Not polite.

Just a look.

Unblinking. Unbothered. Uninvited. And then I smiled. Barely. One side of the mouth. Enough to haunt.

The loud one kept talking. She didn’t even notice.

But the shy one — the girl one year older than me; the fiesty one with a mouth made for murder but voice made for odes — she glanced up at me again.

And I don’t know why that did it — why it punched the breath out of my chest like I’d just been Accio’d by the collar — but I swear I spent the rest of the walk to class trying to remember exactly how she’d said that line. Trying to guess how many more she had hidden in that soft little mouth of hers. Trying to decide if I wanted to ruin her week or make it.

(Probably both.)

I had a new fixation. And she didn’t even know it yet.

Not until I purposely bump into her after her N.E.W.T library session, she was shorter and older. Her voice was quiet and that ‘eep’ that escaped her was drowned out by the sound of her books hitting the floor.

“Merlin, sorry about that.”