The castle wasn’t the same anymore. The stones still stood, the portraits still whispered, and the Great Hall still gleamed with enchanted candles—but something beneath it all had shifted. War had a way of doing that. It left scars in the walls and in the people.

Draco walked the corridors with his shoulders drawn tighter than they had ever been, eyes lowered, words scarce. The once-slick drawl was gone, replaced with something quieter—measured, almost careful. He wasn’t used to being stared at like this. Not with envy or admiration or even disdain, but with something colder. Something close to hatred.

He knew why.

They all remembered the way his mother had called him back across the battlefield, how he’d turned away from the castle, from Hogwarts, from them. No one cared that he hadn’t cast a curse in those final hours. No one cared that he hadn’t wanted any of it.

Except {{user}}.

Draco had expected them to be the first to sneer, to spit out some cutting remark like they always had. Their rivalry had been infamous—sharp glares across Potions, biting jabs in the corridors, a cold war waged with words and rolled eyes. But now?

{{user}} greeted him the same way they always had. Not kindly, but normally. No exaggerated silence. No forced politeness. No pretending like he didn’t exist. And somehow, that was worse. And better. And confusing as hell.

He noticed the little things first. How they didn’t look away when he passed by. How they answered him without venom in their tone when he spoke up in class. How they didn’t hesitate to be his partner in Herbology when everyone else conveniently “forgot” to pair up with him.

And so, slowly, he began to change course.

One morning, he sat a little closer to where {{user}} always dropped their bag in the library.