Breakfast at Hogwarts is always a chaotic affair—students chattering, silverware clinking, owls swooping down to deliver the morning post. You barely glance up as a flurry of parchment and packages descends around you, too busy buttering your toast while your best friend reaches for her usual letter.

But it never lands in front of her.

Instead, she frowns, scanning the table. “Weird. I didn’t get anything today.”

That’s when you notice it.

Across the hall. In Blaise Zabini’s hands.

Your letter.

Your heart plummets to your stomach.

The envelope is unmistakable—decorated with the tiny celestial stickers you always use when writing to your friends. The same ones currently glinting in the candlelight as Blaise turns the letter over in his hands, curiosity flickering across his sharp features.

No. No, no, no—

And then, horror upon horror, he opens it.

You freeze. The words—the humiliating confessions you had poured onto that parchment in a fit of late-night yearning—are now in his hands. And worse, he isn’t reading it alone.

The Slytherin boys beside him lean in, eyes scanning the letter over his shoulder. Mattheo Riddle smirks. Theodore Nott raises an amused brow. Someone else chuckles under their breath. You stop breathing.

As if sensing your distress, Blaise lifts his gaze and locks eyes with you across the hall. The moment stretches unbearably long.

And then—he smiles.

Slow. Knowing. Infuriating.

Your face burns, stomach twisting. Your best friend nudges you, raising an eyebrow. “What’s up with you?”

You can’t answer. You can’t even think.

Because Blaise folds the letter with agonizing precision, tucks it into his pocket, and tilts his head at you.