He’d been hiding. From magic, from the past, from connections, from himself. Slipping through Muggle London like smoke through brickwork, all dark coats and sharpened silence, anonymous in the blur of Shoreditch mornings. But somehow, he’d stumbled into it like a man walking into rain before realizing he’d left his umbrella at home.

It started on a Tuesday.

A small cafe, barely visible from the main street, tucked beneath the overhang of rusted scaffolding and a wall of climbing ivy, the kind of place the city seemed to forget. He only meant to sit once. Read. Maybe finish his coffee in silence. But you were there—always there.

You were the one behind the counter, quietly orchestrating the rhythm of the place, never trying to charm him. That’s what got to him, he thought later. You weren’t looking to win anyone, and yet, you won him. Gradually. With the way you remembered how he took his coffee, how you let silences sit without trying to fill them, how you once handed him a pastry and said, “You look like someone who needs sugar more than sleep.”

He never liked pastries. But he ate it.

Somehow, it became daily. Then weekly walks. Then odd little night outings—midnight markets, rainy rooftops, parks too dark for comfort. And then, inevitably, there was a day where he asked if you’d like to go somewhere that wasn’t neutral ground. A place that meant something to him. A museum. An old record shop. His flat.

And now you were his girlfriend. A word that felt foreign in his mouth but terrifyingly correct. You, who knew nothing of spells or curses, and yet believed him when he’d finally told you anyway. About the war. The wand in the box under the bed. The mark that wasn’t just ink. He’d spoken with his head bowed, voice low, like confession. He had expected disbelief. Or worse—pity.

But you had only taken his hand, held it in that small back room with the coffee grinder still humming, and whispered, “Okay.”

That was the moment. Not when he kissed you for the first time, or when you fell asleep on his shoulder on the night bus after too much wine. No, it was when you didn’t flinch.

And in that second, the parts of him he thought had rusted shut opened. Enough for him to ask you, weeks later, under the blurred flicker of a broken streetlamp, “Will you be mine?” And you’d said yes.

Six months had passed since. Six months of you in his space. Laughing into his neck. Falling asleep on his couch with old films playing. Six months of not sleeping together—not for lack of attraction, but because this was different. This wasn’t about the body. He didn’t know how to undress in front of someone he didn’t want to lose.

But tonight felt different.

The sky over London was low and bruised with summer rain, the streets slick with light. He stood outside the café again. It was nearly nine, and the windows glowed gold from within. The last customer had left. The chairs were upturned. And there you were—pulling on your coat, brushing a hand through your hair before locking the door behind you.

Draco moved before he could think. Stepped forward. Kissed you—slow, deliberate, the kind that lingered like cigarette smoke on a collar. And then, almost without thinking, he took your bag off your shoulder, looped the strap around his own. A small thing, but in that gesture, something cracked open.

As you walked beside Draco, his hand found yours—fingers curling around yours like he was anchoring himself. And he didn’t speak for a while. There was a hum in the silence between you. An understanding, wordless but palpable. Tonight might be the night.

And Draco Malfoy—once prince of something he no longer believed in—was terrified. Not because of what might happen. But because of what it might mean. Because he loved you, and he’d never touched anyone like that while loving them.

The idea of it was louder than any war spell he’d ever cast. And yet, as your head rested lightly against him in the elevator up to his flat, your breath slow, your body warm against his arm, he understood something:

He didn’t need magic for this.