It started with a pillow.

Evan Rosier hadn’t planned on laughing tonight—not properly, not the kind that made his stomach ache and his throat scratch and his composure fracture like cheap crystal. But somehow, between the snatched quips and flying cushions, between the way you dodged and dared and looked at him like you had nothing to fear, he forgot to hold himself together.

The Slytherin dorm was cloaked in candlelight and chaos, books knocked sideways, his tie flung somewhere near the bedpost, and his wand long abandoned on the floor. You were quick, but he was quicker—normally. Tonight, he let you win. Once. Twice. Maybe every time.

Not because he wasn’t capable. But because your laughter was a better reward than victory ever tasted.

His breath caught as you scrambled across his bed—his bed—and something in his chest pulled tight like a drawn bow. This was dangerous. Too close to comfort. Too warm, too familiar, too damn easy to want.

You were his best friend. The only person who didn’t flinch when he was cruel, who didn’t flatter when he was clever, who challenged him with that maddening spark in your eyes and never asked him to be anything other than this—unraveled, undone, real.

He caught your wrist at last, fingers curling around it with more care than he meant to show. Your face was inches from his. His grin faltered.

And for one awful, exquisite moment, Evan Rosier forgot how to be charming. He just was.

Too aware. Too still. Too in love with the one person he could never afford to lose.

His voice, when it came, was hushed and reckless, a secret slipped between exhales, “You’re not supposed to look at me like that.”