Abraxas had long since perfected the art of stillness—the aristocratic discipline of watching the world unfold without so much as a twitch of emotion. He wielded silence like a scalpel, refined and deliberate, and had rarely found cause to raise his voice in all his years at Hogwarts. Power, after all, should not need volume.

But today, the Common Room stank of something vulgar.

It was early evening. He sat in his usual corner, surrounded by the usual cabal: Riddle, thumbing through some obscure text on magical lineage; Nott and Rosier playing wizard’s chess; Avery sprawled too comfortably.

And then—you.

You’d slipped in like the smoke from the fire, quiet and unassuming as always. Not unwelcome, but unnoticed by most. Not him. Never him.

There was something in the way you moved—like you were always shrinking yourself, like you had learned long ago that Hogwarts had made up its mind about you. A Slytherin who smiled too easily, who said “thank you” in hallways and never barked hexes at someone for bumping into you.

You were soft where the House was sharp, strange in your kindness, and somehow, still inexplicably here.

He hadn’t meant for it to happen. But you’d caught his eye one day across the Arithmancy classroom, biting your lip over a miscalculated rune equation—and it had been over. It wasn’t a thunderclap, wasn’t some grand, poetic thing. It was worse.

It was quiet. Inevitable. Like gravity.

And so, for weeks now, there had been the occasional brush of fingers beneath the library table. The midnight parchment passed hand to hand with inked riddles only you would understand. The books he left for you to find—always annotated.

He hadn’t kissed you in public. He hadn’t dared. But you were his, already. In his mind, in his logic, in the cruel algebra of his heart—you were his.

And that’s what made this moment unforgivable.

Avery laughed and said something… lazy. Cruel. “She’s sweet, I’ll give her that. But Merlin, Brax—she smiles like she doesn’t know she’s a joke. You could do better. Hell, you have done better.”

Abraxas did not move at first. Only his eyes lifted. Icy grey, slow, flat as a frozen lake. His ringed hand tapped once against the green leather armrest once, before he stood. It wasn’t rushed or violent. It was deliberate.

“Say that again.” His voice was low, measured. The edges of his calm had torn, there was breath behind the words. The kind of breath that promised death.

Avery blinked, mouth half-open, a grin frozen in place. “It was a joke—”

“No.” Abraxas stepped forward, slow and soundless. “It was a display of vulgarity. Of idiocy. Of unearned familiarity.”

Rosier shifted in his seat. Nott stared. And then—Riddle. He hadn’t looked up from his book, until now.

“Abraxas,” Tom said, mildly. “Let it go.”

And that’s when something inside Abraxas cracked. “Why should I?” he snapped, the firelight catching in his pale hair like blood in snow. “Is this what your vision of power entails, Tom? Letting pigs like Avery grunt over those beneath them, as if we’re no more than beasts in robes? You preach evolution, efficiency—where is it now?”

The room went still. Even the flames seemed to shrink from the walls.

Abraxas gaze swung back to Avery, who now looked appropriately pale. “Speak of her again with anything less than reverence,” Abraxas said, quieter now, “and I’ll take your tongue the way I take a wand. Without hesitation, and without need to return it.”

Then he turned—not to storm off, but to find you. You’d been there, just barely in earshot. He knew you were.

He reached you, eyes still hard, chest rising. His fingers brushed your wrist. Just enough to claim you, openly.

When he spoke again, it was softer. A concession, “They’ll understand, eventually,” he murmured, voice low and meant only for you. “Or they’ll learn. One way or another.”

And then, for the first time since he was eleven years old, Abraxas Malfoy walked out of the Slytherin Common Room without waiting for anyone to follow because you were already with him. And that was all that mattered.