The bright moonlight throws flickering shadows across the Slytherin common room.

It is late. Almost everyone is asleep, except you and Draco.

The table before you is strewn with parchments, sketches and books from the Restricted Section about the Vanishing Cabinets.

Draco stares at the book in despair and mumbles various spells.

“This won’t work." He murmurs, running trembling fingers through his hair. “We’ve already tried so many spells…If we don’t succeed, we’re dead.”

You look at him, feeling the weight in his words. He bears the Dark Lord’s burden, just as you do.

But while he seems on the verge of breaking under this task, you have learned to hide your fear.

Your mother taught you that feelings are weakness. Your wrist burns where the Dark Mark brands you.

Still fresh. Still raw.

“We’ll do it, Draco. We have to. Failure is not an option.” You say hard.

And then you hear it.

Footsteps, a cough.

You whirl around.

Lando.

"Have to what?" He leans in the doorway, his gaze boring into you. Dark, cutting, burning.

The Moonlight sharpens his features in a way you’d never noticed before.

“Lando…” You heart clenches.

“You know what? Don’t tell me.” He hisses. “I’ve heard enough.”

His eyes sweep the table, past Draco’s nervous hands, over the scratched sketches and books, and then stop on you.

On your wrist, which you cover too late.

“No…” His voice is broken, but loud enough to make Draco flinch. “You…you really are one of them.”

You want to say something, but the words won’t come. All you feel is the ground dropping away beneath you.

“I trusted you!” Lando steps forward, his voice a trembling roar. “You were the only one who wasn’t like the others. You were…” He breaks off, shaking his head. “And now I see you here…with him and that…mark.”

You stand and move toward Lando. Your pulse pounds so loudly you think it must fill the whole room. “Lando, listen..”

“Listen to what?” He laughs coldly, but his voice cracks. “To your confession that you’re opening Hogwarts’s doors for Voldemort?”

His hatred cuts deeper than any curse.

“You don’t understand! I had no choice. They would’ve killed me if I refused. My mother…” Your voice falters, breaks. “She would’ve cursed me herself.”

“Understand?” His eyes glow. “Understand that you have the same madness in your blood as your mother? That you’re betraying Hogwarts with your damned mark?”

“I had no choice!” Your voice breaks. “If I had said no, I’d be dead by now! They would’ve killed me, Lando. My own mother would’ve done it.”

“Then at least you would’ve been free! Instead you wear this mark willingly? You walk around with a burn that makes you their property!”

The words slice. Deeper than you thought they would.

Everything that had held you, the belief that he knew you, that he saw you, shatters in that moment.

“Because I have to!” You scream, your voice echoes off the stone walls. “You think I want this? You think I chose to be born into this darkness? I’m a Lestrange, Lando. I’m her daughter. There is no other way for me!”

And then, utterly unexpectedly, his expression narrows. He steps closer, so near you can feel his breath.

His voice is barely a whisper. “You’re wrong. There is always another way. I won’t let you destroy yourself. I will stop you. With everything I have.”

And then, without warning, he grabs your face with both hands, rough, desperate and pulls you to him.

His lips crash against yours, hard, full of anger, full of pain, full of something you never meant to allow.

The kiss hits you like a curse.

It is fire. It is war. It is salvation and damnation at once.

When he breaks away, gasping and whispering, you see no hatred in his eyes.

Only a vow.

“If you finish the Cabinet…then it’s over. Hogwarts falls. People die. You will be a murderer. I swear to you, I will stop you. No matter what it costs.” He says quietly.

Your heart stops. “And if you lose me?”

His answer comes without hesitation. “Then I’d rather lose you…than lose you to him.”