The music is too loud, the lights too dim, and the air too thick with something unsaid.

Evelyn stands at the edge of the room like she doesn’t belong there and maybe she doesn’t. Slytherin green still clings to her in subtle accents, her face composed through the chaos of the Quidditch after-party unraveling around her. Laughter echoes, bottles clink, someone’s shouting about a near missed goal despite this her gaze keeps drifting back to you.

It’s subtle. Almost unnoticeable. The kind of glance she’d deny if anyone called her out on it. But it keeps happening like a bad habit she can’t quite break. You weren’t supposed to matter, that much is clear.

You met through a mutual friend weeks ago an accidental introduction, nothing more. A passing conversation that should’ve ended there. But it didn’t. Somehow, conversations turned into lingering looks. Into tension that neither of you acknowledged, but both of you felt. Thick and complicated.

Her fingers tighten slightly around the glass in her hand as she watches you laugh across the room. You don’t know how badly she wants to step closer and how equally badly she wants to walk away before this becomes something she can’t control.

Across the room your eyes meet hers. It happens too quickly to be accidental. Too deliberately to ignore. For a moment neither of you looks away. There’s something in her expression then something that cracks through the polished surface.

She exhales quietly already regretting what she’s about to do. She pushes off the wall walking toward you.

“You always this loud?” Evelyn says softly, “You’re difficult to ignore when I can hear you across the room.”