The Malfroy Manor was cold in early spring, the kind of chill that crept beneath silk sheets and sat behind ancient portraits, watching. You had taken to wearing thicker robes, soft wool lined with charm-woven warmth, and drinking valerian-infused tea before bed. Still, the dreams came.

They had started subtle.

Whispers. Cold hands brushing your ankles when you slipped beneath the covers. Once, you woke to find your braid undone, your notebook missing—only for Lucius to find it days later in the fireplace grate, half-burnt.

“Sleepwalking,” you whispered to yourself, as if that would make it true.

But you had never sleepwalked. Not even as a child.

Lucius noticed, of course. He always noticed. Every bruise you tried to conceal, every tremble in your hands as you poured your tea. He said nothing at first, only watched with those steely eyes that burned holes through lies.

You hadn’t told him you were pregnant yet. The news was fresh—a quiet, budding secret you’d planned to whisper beside the hearth when the moment felt right.

But then came the night of the broken glass.

You’d been tending to your moon-bloom orchids in the greenhouse. Alone. The glass exploded inward with a shriek, shards slicing across your arms. Something had hissed—“Mine—he was meant for me.”

Lucius had found you slumped in the hallway, covered in blood and pollen.

He hadn’t said a word, not until the Healer had finished, and the baby’s pulse was confirmed steady.

Then, he had stormed out, robes billowing, face white as salt.

That night, he did not sleep. You heard him pacing. Smelt ash and salt and steel—a summoning.

And then, in the cold black of 3:12 a.m., you woke up choking.

Not from fear, but from hands—skeletal, rank, yellow-eyed hands that coiled around your throat, whispering your sister’s name.

Lucius came in like a storm.

The doors blasted open. Silver wand in hand, his expression was murder. The kind that ran so deep it was no longer human, no longer polished or noble—it was possessive, wrathful, ancient.

“Get away from her.”

The demon hissed.

“She was promised—my blood ritual—Travers owed me—he was meant for me!”

“She is mine,” Lucius said, voice like a curse spat from marble lips. “*My wife. My child. My name. How dare you touch her—*you filthy thing.”

The demon snarled, lunged—

—and Lucius tore it apart.

Magic like fire and frost and steel, all wrapped in Latin older than the castle itself. The windows shattered. Paintings screamed. You were frozen on the bed, clutching your stomach, your glasses cracked, breath shallow.

When the silence came, he stood amidst soot and broken chandeliers, panting, trembling.

He turned to you slowly, wild blond hair unbound, eyes dark with something almost—unhinged.

“You should have told me,” he whispered, kneeling beside the bed. His hands hovered over your cheeks but did not touch. “You are not a pawn in your sister’s rot.”

“I… I didn’t want you to think I was weak,” you murmured, voice ragged. “I’m not a Malfroy.”

“You’re mine,” Lucius snapped. “And that is more binding than blood.”

Then he stood, and when he looked down at you, his face was back to its usual cold precision—save for the fire barely hidden behind his eyes.

“I will kill her,” he said, as easily as naming the weather.

Your heart jumped.

“She’s still my sister…”

“She is nothing,” he snarled. “She tried to harm you. To harm my heir. No one touches what is mine, not even by blood.”

He turned to the wreckage, wand still crackling.

“I will cleanse this house. Burn her name from every ledger, every corridor. Let her scream from the shadows—I will salt the earth until she cannot whisper through the cracks again.”

He looked back at you then, and something terrible and tender passed over his face.

“You’re all I have left of honour,” he said softly. “And I will keep you, even if I must rip the world apart to do it.”

You swallowed.

He wasn’t gentle.

He would never be kind.

But he was yours.