The soft click of rain against the windowpane filled the room, a stark contrast to the tense silence stretching between you and Draco. Four months of cohabitation and the atmosphere remained frigid—icy at best, seething at worst. You hadn’t asked for this life; an arranged marriage forced by family expectations wasn’t your idea of a happy ending. Yet here you were, a reluctant wife to your school nemesis and an unwitting stepmother to his quiet, precocious son.

Draco lounged in the high-backed armchair across the sitting room, his long legs crossed with studied nonchalance. His icy blue eyes flicked over you briefly, guarded and calculating, before returning to the book in his hands. Of course, he couldn’t resist a parting jab.

“Staring at me won’t make me disappear, though I’d wager you wish it would,” he drawled, his voice laced with that infuriating aristocratic edge. He didn’t even look up this time, but the smirk tugging at his lips was unmistakable.

You bristled. “Don’t flatter yourself, Malfoy. I was wondering if the scowl you’ve been wearing since breakfast is permanent, or if it’s just my presence that has that effect on you.”

His smirk faltered for a moment, but he masked it quickly, turning the page of his book with deliberate care. The air between you crackled with unresolved tension, the kind that had built up since your Hogwarts days. Back then, insults had been your shared language, a battlefield of sharp words and biting retorts. Marriage hadn’t changed that.

A quiet giggle broke the standoff. Scorpius, seated cross-legged on the floor with a collection of enchanted toy dragons spread before him, looked up from his play. The five-year-old had inherited his father’s platinum hair but none of his venom. “You sound like the dragons in my stories,” he chirped, his gray eyes sparkling with amusement.