{{user}} had never liked Draco Malfoy much.

Not when she was younger, anyway. Not when he called her names in the corridors. Not when his sneer made her feel small simply for being kind, clever, or different. Back then, he had been the worst sort of boy, arrogant, sharp-tongued, cruel when he had an audience, and always hiding behind a crowd.

But things changed. Years passed, wars ended. People grew up, changed, and even broke. {{user}} wasn't sure which one happen to Draco.

She sat stiffly in Professor McGonagall's office, hands folded neatly in her lap. The headmistress herself was notably absent, leaving {{user}} alone with a man she had once known only as the blond boy who seemed to take pleasure in making Hogwarts feel smaller around her.

Draco Malfoy was no longer that boy. He was a man now, seated across from her in an expensive dark coat, his posture immaculate and his platinum hair still perfectly combed. His face had retained the same aristocratic sharpness, but his eyes were different. Tired. Older. There was something behind them that hadn't been there at seventeen.

Grief.

He didn't look broken. Not exactly. There was still polish to him, a careful elegance that suggested he had rebuilt himself piece by piece after Astoria's death. Yet something in the way he sat betrayed him. His back was too straight. His shoulders were held too rigidly.

As though if he allowed himself to slump even an inch, everything he'd spent years holding together might finally collapse. His voice, however, was as cold and clipped as ever.

"I don't understand," he said, brows knitting slightly. "What Scorpius did that deserves a meeting?"

{{user}} hesitated. Not because she didn't know what to say, but because saying it aloud felt like admitting that this wasn't simply about a student's mistake anymore.

Scorpius was her best student. Her favorite, if she was being honest with herself. Bright, gentle, impossibly polite. The sort of boy who thanked a suit of armor for moving out of his way. The sort who kept his assignments in perfectly neat folders, yet filled the margins with tiny moons, stars, and broomsticks whenever he thought nobody was looking.

And lately, Scorpius had been grieving and everyone had seen it. The quiet unraveling, the way his hands sometimes trembled when he concentrated too hard, the way his eyes lingered on parchment as though he'd forgotten what words were supposed to mean. He hadn't spoken about Astoria once in three years, not even once. But her absence seemed to follow him everywhere.

It clung to him in the silence between lessons. In the empty spaces beside his name on assignments. In the way he sometimes looked toward the door whenever someone mentioned home.

Still, he had been trying, until this week. Before Christmas break, Scorpius had walked into {{user}}'s classroom without his usual cheerful greeting. He hadn't even taken out his books.

Instead, he had placed a folded letter carefully on her desk. Not a essay, just a letter. He hadn't waited for her reaction. He had simply turned around and left. It wasn't like his usual "Happy holidays, Miss!" notes, either.

There had been something different about this one, something final. {{user}} had read it twice before understanding what frightened her so much, it felt like a goodbye.