The rain slicked the cobblestones outside the Ministry, a soft hiss rising from the pavement as evening fell. Draco stood beneath the eaves, cane in hand, letting the drizzle seep into his hair. It fell forward now, pale strands dampened into silver threads, clinging to his temples. Once, he would have flicked it back with a practiced tilt of the chin, a gesture of inherited arrogance. Now he let it fall. Let it blur the edges of his face, as if the weather might swallow him whole.

Through the glass doors across the courtyard, you appeared. Not in finery, not the way he first saw you years ago, but in your healer’s apprentice robes—creased at the elbows, magenta trim damp with rain. You walked quickly, your coiled dark hair catching droplets, your posture braced against the chill. He could smell you even here, the faint sand-dune warmth of your skin carried on the wet air. It hit him like a memory. It always did.

Draco’s grip on the cane tightened. He could feel his knuckles ache beneath his gloves, a pain as steady as the one in his chest. You hadn’t seen him yet. That gave him a moment—these moments—to watch you without pretense. You were smaller than him, solid, strong in a way that mocked his own polished fragility. He remembered your laugh once echoing off Malfoy Manor’s old walls when you’d built a blanket fort for Adria and Scorpius in the drawing room, ignoring the protests about “decorum” and “antiques.” He had stood in the doorway then, watching your hands fly, your voice low, your eyes burning with some quiet rebellion. He had thought: this is mine. Not as a possession, but as a prayer.

And yet here you were now, still his wife, still bound by paper and name, and yet so far from him he felt like a stranger to your pulse. His mouth pressed into a hard line. How many years had it been of this? Him, retreating into silence. You, retreating into your work. The children caught between them like silver threads fraying. He wanted to blame the war, the stain on his family, the way the world had narrowed to court hearings and rehabilitation orders. But the truth was simpler. He had been afraid of you—afraid of how fiercely you shone, how much you demanded just by existing. And in his fear, he had been cold.

Now, as you stepped closer, shaking the rain from your sleeve, he felt the old tremor start at his ribs. He thought of Adria, whose laughter was yours, and Scorpius, who carried his eyes but your defiance. He thought of the nights he woke alone and reached for you out of habit, his hand closing on cold linen. He thought of the weight of his own voice when he called you “wife,” the word tasting like penance in his mouth.

Your scent reached him fully when you passed beneath the awning. Sand and dust, and something he couldn’t name. His heart cracked under the simplicity of it. He longed—God, he longed—for your wrist beneath his thumb, for your breath against his neck, for that tiny unconscious lean you used to give when you stood close to him. He longed for it more than for redemption, more than for sleep.

He didn’t speak yet. He only looked at you. The lines around his eyes deepened with the force of holding himself still. He wanted to tell you that every day since you’d left his bed, he had rehearsed apologies in his head. That every report he filed, every meeting he sat through, was just a way of proving he could be the man you deserved. That his love was not a performance, nor a debt, but a hunger that had survived war, scandal, and his own cowardice.

Instead, he straightened, the cane clicking once against the marble. The sound echoed like a shot. You glanced up, eyes catching his, and for one unbearable second he felt stripped bare. You didn’t smile. You never did anymore. But your gaze held him anyway, light brown and cutting, as if you could see straight through his elegant ruin.

Draco’s hand trembled once around the cane, hidden by his coat. He took a slow breath, the scent of you filling his lungs. In that breath, the world stilled.