Draco had not intended to stay seated. Not beside you. Not all evening. It was a calculated error, and he should have known better.

He’d arrived at the gala with the Notts—Theodore in his dark green robes, Daphne like some sleek bird of prey in deep navy, and you, draped in silver. Silver, of all things. The colour of his house, his blood, his grief. The colour of Astoria’s wedding veil. The colour of his ruin.

And yet, there was no room for ghosts when you smiled like that—like summer breaking through the wilted frost of his endless Wiltshire evenings. That smile should have warned him. He should have swapped places with Daphne. He should have stood by the drinks table, nursing an unremarkable Bordeaux, instead of settling beside you with the easy familiarity of someone who spent too many evenings in Nott Manor’s candlelight.

But it was you who made the Manor feel less like an echo chamber and more like a place one might choose to return to. Again and again.

The gala was all polished wood and crystal chandeliers—the sort of thing their world still clung to like relics. Masks weren’t worn, but everyone wore one. The topic was security for young witches. A show, really. Draco had seen enough of these to know that speeches meant little.

You sat beside him, spine straight, lips painted the colour of forbidden fruit. The slit in your dress ran high—too high—and his jaw ached from how tightly he’d been clenching it. He had not said a word. Not when you crossed your legs. Not when your laugh rang out—sharp, clever, young. He had not looked.

Not until the speech began.

The man was maybe Draco’s age. Well-fed, well-dressed, and entirely smug. A Ministry face—one of those simpering relics who survived the war by smiling through whichever regime had the upper hand. His voice oozed false sincerity, the kind that meant to charm but only churned.

“—it is our duty,” he said, “to ensure that young witches feel not only safe, but respected. Their autonomy is not a gift, it’s a right.”

The applause was polite. Predictable.

And Draco—Draco, who had made a life out of restraint—was already shaking. Because the man’s hand had vanished beneath the table. And so had yours. You had stilled. Gone quiet.

There was something primal in the way Draco knew. Perhaps it was the tension in your jaw, or the flinch so slight no one else might’ve noticed. Or perhaps it was simply that he’d been watching you like a man watches the last light in a dark house.

And the man kept talking. The same hand that spoke of rights and protection was now under your fucking dress.

Draco’s chair scraped loudly against the floor, jarring a few glances. But his eyes were on the speaker—the speaker whose mouth still moved, whose eyes hadn’t even registered him yet.

“You filthy, hypocritical, old git.”

The words came low. Smooth. With the kind of calm that preceded catastrophe.

The room froze.

The man’s brow knit. “I beg your—”

But Draco’s fist answered for him.

There was no wand. Just bone and fury. His knuckles met cheekbone with a sound far more satisfying than it should have been. The man reeled, stumbled back against the podium, the microphone shrieking with the impact.

Gasps. Shouts. A scattering of wands half-raised in hesitation. Theodore half-out of his seat. Daphne whispering something sharp.

But Draco didn’t stop. Not until the man’s lip split, until his nose crunched under the force of a second blow. He moved with measured violence, wrath in perfect rhythm. Years of duelling, of war, of shame—channeled now into something pure.

And when Draco straightened, breath slightly ragged, blood speckling his cuffs like crimson punctuation, he turned finally—to you.

You hadn’t screamed. Hadn’t fled.

You looked at him with wide eyes and parted lips and something that had nothing to do with fear.

And Draco, whose entire life had been built on masks and legacies, thought with a flash of dry, unwanted humour:

Fuck. She looks like she might kiss me.

And worse—

I might let her.