You should’ve known better than to make a bet with Draco Malfoy.

Not just because he was Draco bloody Malfoy—smug, sharp-tongued, insufferably privileged—but because you knew how he worked. You’d grown up alongside him. You weren’t friends—God, no—but you’d been circling each other since First Year like rival storm clouds. The snide comments, the hexes in the hallways, the glares shot across Common Rooms. He called you “Mudblood lover” once in Third Year just to get a rise out of you. You slapped him in front of everyone.

He said you hit like a girl. You said he kissed like a frightened owl (which, to be fair, no one had ever confirmed… or denied). He’d smirked. You’d shoved him.

It was years of this. Of biting, cruel remarks. Of secretive, charged glances. Of detentions earned because neither of you could back down.

So when you sat down in Potions and saw his name on the seating chart beside yours, of course your first reaction was, “Oh, for Merlin’s sake, not him.”

His? A lazy, “Try not to cry this time, sweetheart.”

The bet came out of nowhere. You were both too stubborn, too smart, and too good at Potions to resist.

“Winner chooses anything the loser has to do,” he drawled, voice slow and smooth, like a trap. “No backing out.”

You snorted. “You really think you can beat me?”

“I know I can.”

So you shook on it, heat in your cheeks and fire in your eyes.

And then—of course—he won. By one point. Thanks, Snape.

Now he was standing beside you at the end of class, smug as ever, watching the exact moment your pride shriveled into reluctant submission.

He leaned in, mouth too close to your ear. “Midnight. Astronomy Tower. Alone.”

You glared at him. “You can’t be serious.”

He tilted his head, mock-innocent. “A bet’s a bet.”

You hated him. You loathed the way his voice could get under your skin. The way he watched you when he thought you wouldn’t notice. The way, in Fourth Year, when you broke your wrist in a Care of Magical Creatures class, he was the one who sent your books to your room—no name, no note, just left them there like he hadn’t done a thing.

You hated the way you remembered that.

You hated the way you sometimes caught yourself imagining him during the most inconvenient moments—during boring lectures, while brushing your teeth, during dreams you refused to acknowledge when you woke up.

But most of all, you hated that right now, walking away from you with that signature Malfoy strut, he looked like he already knew exactly what he was going to do to you at midnight.

And part of you?

Part of you was going to let him.