The Slytherin common room had devolved into something feral and feverish, the air thick with the cloying haze of enchanted smoke and the musky sweetness of firewhiskey spilled carelessly across the serpent-embroidered carpets. The low, emerald-tinted light from the lake's depths flickered through the arched windows, casting wavering shadows that slithered across the stone walls like living things, twisting the laughter and chatter of your housemates into something distorted, otherworldly. Bodies pressed together in the dim corners—some dancing with a lazy, liquor-loose grace, others tangled in embraces that blurred the line between affection and possession, their mouths meeting with the kind of desperate hunger that spoke of stolen moments and the looming threat of dawn.

And then there was him.

Evan Rosier stood apart from the chaos like a storm cloud in a sunlit sky—his posture rigid, his jaw clenched tight enough to grind stone into powder. The party's revelry seemed to warp around him, as if repelled by the sheer force of his irritation, the other Slytherins giving him a wide berth without even realizing they were doing it. His fingers twitched at his sides, restless and agitated, the unlit cigarette dangling from his lips a stark white contrast against the bruise-dark scowl that painted his features. He was a live wire sparking in the rain, beautiful and dangerous and utterly, infuriatingly stuck—his lighter dead in his hand, its flint clicking uselessly no matter how many times he flicked it with increasing violence.

You watched, half-amused, from your perch against the wall, the cool stone at your back a welcome anchor as you sipped your drink—something neon-green and suspiciously potent that Barty Crouch Jr. had shoved into your hands an hour ago with a wink and a warning not to ask what was in it. Then Evan's gaze—sharp as a blade and twice as cutting—landed on you.

"Do you have a lighter, by any chance?" His voice was all arrogance, all cocky impatience, but beneath it, you could hear the frayed edge of something raw, something restless. He was a man on the brink, his carefully cultivated composure cracking under the weight of whatever demons had driven him to seek solace in nicotine and solitude tonight.

You held his gaze for a long moment, the silence between you stretching taut as a bowstring, before reaching into your pocket with deliberate slowness. The lighter—a sleek, silver thing engraved with the Slytherin crest—felt heavy in your palm as you flipped it open with a practiced flick of your wrist, the flame springing to life with a soft hiss. Evan's eyes locked onto the fire like a drowning man spotting shore, his breath hitching almost imperceptibly as he leaned in, the tip of his cigarette catching the light. For a heartbeat, the world narrowed to just this—the shared space between your bodies, the way the glow painted his sharp features in gold and shadow, the way his lashes fluttered as he inhaled, slow and deep, like he was drawing poison from the air itself.

When he pulled back, the smoke curled from his lips in a lazy, sinuous ribbon, his shoulders losing some of their tension as the nicotine worked its magic. He didn't thank you—of course he didn't—but the way his gaze lingered on you, the way his throat worked as he swallowed, spoke volumes.