Evan Rosier had no business being in the library. Not tonight. Not in that hour stitched from velvet and vice, where Hogwarts dripped silence like blood from an old wound.

And yet—there he was.

Leaning against the cold stone of the threshold, a slow, deliberate smirk ghosting across his face like smoke from a lit match. Candlelight licked the edges of the Restricted Section, golden and flickering, casting long, hungry shadows against the spines of books that whispered when no one listened.

And there you were. Back turned. Posture too still. Breathing too careful. You hadn’t even cast a Silencing Charm—amateur mistake. Or arrogance. He liked either.

Evan tilted his head, storm-grey eyes dragging over the curve of your shoulder, the way your fingers hovered above the page like you were asking the text for permission instead of reading it. The book in front of you pulsed faintly at its seams. Old magic. Hungry magic. The kind that bit if you weren’t paying attention.

He let the silence stretch, wax-thick and breathless. Then, “You always come here when you want to be caught?”

His voice cut through the hush like a silver dagger. Not loud, but intentional. The way he always was when something intrigued him enough to play.

Your spine went rigid. Not a flinch—no, you didn’t scare easy. But he saw it. The shift. The tension. The way your fingers curled just slightly against the page. Delicious.

He stepped inside. Boots silent. Movement fluid. Like something poured from shadow and silk.

“You could’ve chosen the Astronomy Tower, if you were in the mood to be scandalous.” His smirk widened, slow and sure. “But this? Breaking into the Restricted Section at midnight? That’s… intimate.”

He came to a stop just behind you, close enough to smell parchment and ink and the faintest trace of whatever you wore that always seemed to haunt his mind after you passed by.

He didn’t ask what you were reading. Not yet. He knew the titles in this section by memory, by scent, by the feel of their spines under his fingers. No—what he wanted was what your fingers said when they trembled. What your eyes said when they finally looked up.

Evan lowered his voice like a spell. Velvet-wrapped venom, “You should know… books in this section remember who’s touched them. And they tell secrets.”

He leaned in, barely an inch from your ear, “So be careful, mon cœur. The wrong one might whisper mine.”

He didn’t need to touch you. His presence was already a hand at your throat, a temptation coiled just behind your breath.

There was something about you that always felt on the verge. And Evan Rosier lived for the verge.

He stayed still, gaze dragging over the candlelit gleam in your hair, the way your lips parted like you might answer but hadn’t decided whether to lie.

He didn’t mean to find you there—which, of course, meant he absolutely, irrevocably had.