Your house had just pulled ahead of Slytherin, victory sealed in the final minutes of the match. The stands had erupted, but the tension on the pitch was far from over.

Blaise Zabini, Slytherin’s captain, had trained mercilessly for weeks. Precision, strategy, obsession. And yet, the loss had come at the last moment, quick, careless, humiliating. If there was one thing Blaise couldn’t tolerate, it was losing.

You were the last to leave the changing room, the cheers from outside still echoing faintly in the stone corridors. As fate would have it, he stepped out at the exact same time.

He stopped. His eyes locked on yours, dark, sharp, unreadable. He looked at you like you were the cause of everything that had gone wrong. And maybe, in a way, you were.

At least for the thing he’s buried deepest. The one misfortune he won’t admit : That the person he keeps pretending to hate… is the only one he can’t stop thinking about.