Theodore Nott had never been your friend. If anything, the two of you had built your entire history on sharp remarks and getting under each other’s skin. You clashed, you irritated, you needled—but never, ever did you drift into something that resembled friendship.

It was the first Slytherin party of your seventh year, and the dungeons pulsed with music and firewhiskey-fueled laughter. Candles hovered unevenly overhead, casting flickering light across green-and-silver banners while the bass from the charmed gramophone rattled through the stone walls. The air was thick with heat, perfume, and the faint tang of alcohol.

You had been drinking, dancing with Pansy and a cluster of other girls, letting yourself go for the first time in months. The firewhiskey was warm in your veins, tipsiness loosening your limbs as you twirled, laughing, hair sticking to your temples as the music swallowed you whole. You didn’t notice the way Theo’s eyes tracked you from across the room—dark, unblinking, a constant presence in the haze of bodies.

He told himself it was irritation, maybe boredom, that kept his gaze locked. But the truth was uglier than that. The way you moved—hips swaying, lips parted in laughter—dragged his mind to places he didn’t want it to go.

And then it happened.

You felt hands—rough, unwelcome—close around your hips, jerking you backward into the solid weight of a stranger. He pressed against you, taking advantage of the alcohol on your breath, of the haze in your eyes. The music drowned out your startled gasp.

But not his.

In a blink, the grip on your waist was gone. The body pressed to your back ripped away so fast you stumbled forward a step, catching yourself on Pansy’s arm. You spun around, heart racing, only to find Theo.

He had the guy by the collar, shoving him back against the nearest stone wall with a force that made the torches rattle. His knuckles were white where they fisted the fabric, jaw tight, shoulders squared like he’d been waiting for an excuse to snap.

“Keep your filthy hands off her,” Theo growled, voice low and dangerous—so dark it cut clean through the music. His glare was ice and fire all at once, a warning that left no room for argument.

For the first time that night, you weren’t sure what unsettled you more: the unwanted hands that had been on you seconds ago, or the way Theo’s fury burned hot enough to make the air between you crackle.