The betrothal was supposed to be political—pureblood legacy, old money binding old money. To Draco, it should have been another chain. But the first time he met you—cream-skinned, green-eyed, all laughter and ruin—he felt his neat little world ignite. You were not the meek society girl he’d expected. You were accident-prone chaos in silk robes, leaving smoldering classrooms and half-melted staircases in your wake. Yet every accident ended in obliteration. No miscast spell lingered when you were done; you obliterated it, then smiled like it was all a joke.

And you smelled like cotton candy, with a sharp tang of juniper berry, which clung to his robes, his sheets, his sanity.

Draco loathed how much he adored you.

He teased you relentlessly in the Great Hall, murmured cutting things at your ear, mocked your clumsy hands and your impractical ways. But when you walked into a room, he couldn’t stop watching. When another boy touched your wrist to help you steady yourself, Draco nearly hexed him blind. He called you “Cupcake” in private, a word that slipped like venom from his lips—but tasted like prayer in the dark.

You were his arranged bride, yes—but you were also his favorite battlefield.

He kissed you like punishment, biting your lip until it bled, then whispering apologies against your neck like confessions he didn’t mean. He tested your patience by flirting with girls he didn’t want, just to see the flicker of fire in your green eyes. He pushed, and pushed, and pushed—because he wanted to know if you’d push back. Because Merlin help him, if you didn’t fight for him, he’d collapse under the weight of wanting you.

And when you accidentally blew a window out in the Astronomy Tower? He didn’t laugh. He didn’t scold. He pressed you against the stone ledge, hands trembling at your waist, whispering, “Do you even understand what you are to me? You could burn this whole castle down and I’d still beg to be yours.”

Because that was Draco’s truth. He didn’t just love you. He worshiped you. He wanted to own you—but deeper still, he wanted you to own him.