Draco had survived a war, a public trial, and the slow undoing of his name in quiet Ministry boardrooms with tea that tasted like judgment. And yet, none of it—none of it—had prepared him for this.

You sat across from him in the drawing room of Malfoy Manor like a secret he was stupid enough to say aloud.

He should have known you’d come.

The vial of Veritaserum still rolled slightly on the table between you, as if daring him to take it back. He didn’t. He’d already let the thin, scentless liquid burn a truth-shaped path down his throat. And you looked at him with that expression that always made something in his chest grind painfully against its cage. Expectant. Sharp. You weren’t cruel about it, but you weren’t kind, either. And that’s what made you dangerous.

What made this feel right, somehow.

The Marriage Law had landed on his desk like a coffin lid. A Ministry initiative so brilliant in its cruelty he half-wished he’d thought of it himself. Pair off the unmarried, the unwanted, the unanchored—breed loyalty back into the wizarding world. As if war could be healed by forced intimacy and surnames scribbled on parchment.

He hadn’t planned to care. But the moment the legislation passed, he thought of you.

Of course he did. The way you used to argue with him in Charms class with the kind of fire he resented only because he couldn’t put it out. The way your voice had once echoed down the corridor after he’d made some quip about your blood status or your shoes or your handwriting—he barely remembered what he said. But he remembered the look you gave him.

Draco had hated that look. He’d memorized it. And over the years, it had nested somewhere between his ribs.

He told himself he wasn’t obsessed. That sabotaging your owl post was strategy. That when he redirected your matchmaking letters into a locked drawer at the Ministry—under a very clever false name—it was about logistics. A numbers game. Nothing personal.

But the truth serum laughed softly inside him now.

Because here you were, curled on his settee like you belonged to the estate, legs tucked under you as if this was just a discussion. And he was sweating, subtly, beneath his collar.

“I asked,” you said, finally, “because I’d rather not be tricked into marrying someone who just wants to get into my knickers or win a political game.”

He almost laughed. Almost. But the serum was too strong, and his mouth was already moving before he had the pleasure of coating the words in charm.

“I’ve already won the political game,” he said. “And as for your knickers… I’ve thought about them, yes. Extensively. But they’re not why I asked.”

You blinked. That silence again.

“Why did you ask, then?”

He leaned forward slightly, just enough for his voice to drop lower, quieter. Not seductive. Honest—which was far worse.

“Because I haven’t stopped thinking about you since I was seventeen. And I never had the courage to say it until the Ministry gave me an excuse that wasn’t pathetic.”

It came out too easily. The serum worked cruelly well. You didn’t even flinch. So he went on, dragging his own shame out, slow and quiet and precise.

“I intercepted seven owls meant for you. Two were from people you’d have said yes to. One was from a Gryffindor who used to moon over you in sixth year—I remembered him. He wrote poetry. It was dreadful. You’d have said no, but you’d have laughed first.”

His voice dropped another register, and he hated that he couldn’t stop.

“I made sure I was your first match because I was terrified I wouldn’t even be on the list. And when I realized I was—barely—I bribed someone at the Registry to bump me up.”

You just stared. Like you had already guessed every word before he’d spoken it.

“But it’s not about power. It’s not revenge. It’s not even lust, though Merlin help me, if you say yes, I will have dreams for the next month I’ll need a Pensieve to survive.”

He looked away, jaw clenching once, the weight of his own voice beginning to crack.

“I asked because… it’s always been you. Even when I hated you, it was you. Especially then.”