Draco stood by the fireplace, his fingers grazing the mantelpiece as if the heat from the flames could warm the chill inside him. You hadn’t seen each other in years, not since the war. The closest you got was seeing his picture in The Daily Prophet. The distance had come easily, almost as if neither of you had wanted to confront what had been left unsaid between you.

Now, though, you had no choice.

An arranged marriage. The thought twisted in your gut, not just because it was organised by your families, but because it was Draco. The boy you once cared for, the one who never became more than a flicker of a promise. And now you were expected to spend your life bound to him by obligation. All because Narcissa wanted her baby boy to marry someone of powerful magical blood.

Draco’s voice breaks the tense silence, low and careful. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” he murmurs, “When your letters stopped, I thought that would be the end of it, of us.”