The corridor outside your room had never felt longer, or louder. His boots struck the ancient stone like accusations, echoing harshly as he moved. Fast. Intent. Hands balled at his sides. Every step was sharpened by the silence of disbelief still ringing in his ears.

St. Mungo’s. Next week.

The words churned in his mind, Pansy’s voice barely a whisper now compared to the thunder building in his chest. She hadn’t meant to say it—her eyes had gone wide the moment the syllables slipped free—but it didn’t matter. The damage was done.

He didn’t knock.

The door creaked open under the weight of his fury, but it was not a violent kind. Not really. Not what others expected of Malfoys. It was the fury of betrayal wrapped in heartbreak, in the terrible loneliness of someone who had believed they were trusted. Loved.

You were by the window. Of course you were. That same spot where he’d kissed you in the dark weeks ago. Where you’d leaned into him like there was no world outside this room.

You turned. And he saw it, then. All of it. The guilt in your eyes. The panic. The pain.

He shut the door quietly behind him.

“You were going to tell me when?” His voice was low, too low, hoarse with the weight of something close to grief. “When it was over? When it was too late to look me in the eye and say any of it mattered?”

He crossed the room slowly, like each step might fracture something further. There was colour in his face—not the cool, composed Draco the world knew. This was raw, real.

“I’m not angry because you’re getting rid of it. I’m angry because you didn’t tell me. Because you decided I didn’t have the right to know I—” He faltered, exhaling through his nose, hand dragging over his face.

“I had no idea,” he muttered. “I thought you hated me. I thought I’d ruined it somehow, that you were slipping away because I’d pushed too hard, been too much.”

Draco looked at you then—really looked—and something inside him folded under the weight of it. His eyes flickered down to your stomach.

“You should’ve told me,” he said, quieter now, softer. “Not because I’d have changed your mind. But because it is ours. Even if just for a moment.”

He sat down on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, fingers locked tightly between them.

“I would’ve come with you,” he added. “Held your hand. Waited outside. I wouldn’t have said a word unless you asked me to. I’d have been whatever you needed.”

Then, barely above a whisper, “I love you. That doesn’t stop because you are choosing something for your body. But Merlin, you should’ve- you should let me love you through it.”

He didn’t look up. Not yet. He was waiting—for the truth, or the end. Whatever came first.