The Manor was quieter now.

That unique, cavernous silence it wore like old velvet—faded in places, familiar and noble, but not entirely comfortable. Draco had come to appreciate it after the war, even after Astoria’s death. It gave shape to his thoughts, a wide and echoing thing to pour himself into.

But lately, the silence wasn’t the same. Not quite.

Because you were here. Somewhere down the east hall, likely curled in the window alcove with one of his books—half of which he suspected you chose simply because your fingers liked the texture of the covers. He’d never admit how long he’d spent watching those fingers move.

Draco stood in the old study now, one hand resting against the fireplace mantle, eyes fixed on the reflection of flames in the glass of the portrait above. A slow exhale. Controlled. Always controlled.

It had been seven months since Madam Malkin’s. Seven months since the moment the world he’d carefully buried under decades of guilt and precision split in half just to make room for you.

He should’ve run.

Should’ve left the robe shop, blocked the bond, seen a cursebreaker, gone north for the winter like an animal.

But he hadn’t. And now he knew why. Because it wasn’t a curse. It was you.

You hadn’t rejected him—not yet. And he hated how much relief that gave him.

The books said the Veela always loved their Mate. That was the danger of it. There was no middle ground. No polite interest. No casual curiosity. Love or nothing.

And for him, it had become love in a thousand agonizingly human ways—your half-bitten smiles, your mismatched socks, the way you stole the last scone with the gall of a seasoned thief. You annoyed him, fascinated him, disarmed him. And you hadn’t even meant to.

He should be ashamed. He often was. You were twenty-one. A breath of a girl in comparison to his grief-burdened life, a creature of now while he was still caught somewhere between then and then.

But he couldn’t stop watching you laugh in the garden. Couldn’t stop listening to your footsteps in the hall or the way you said his name when you didn’t mean to. Like it was familiar already.

The pain—he didn’t speak of that.

That dull, low-burning ache in his chest whenever you left a room. How his skin prickled cold without you near. The raw, visceral wrongness of your absence. It lessened when you moved in. Slightly.

And that, he told himself, was a good sign.

He dragged a hand through his hair—longer now, silver more prominent. A ghost in a mirror. He hated how old he felt some days. Hated more how young you still were. But the bond didn’t care. Fate didn’t care. Blood didn’t care.

Only he did.

He found himself walking now, slow and deliberate. Toward you. Always toward you. Past the tapestry of the Black family crest, past the place where Scorpius’ laughter once echoed, toward the faintest scent of your perfume lingering in the air. You’d been here recently.

He stopped at the threshold of the drawing room.

There you were. Cross-legged on the floor in front of the low hearth, hair spilling forward as you pored over some book you’d found in the west library. One of the older volumes, if the leather binding was any indication.

Draco leaned against the doorframe, watching. Every part of him calmed, the moment you entered his vision. It wasn’t fair, what you did to him without trying.

He didn’t speak at first. Just looked. Inhaled. Let the ache settle into the warm thrum that your presence always brought. And then—quietly, voice low and almost unwilling—he said, “You could’ve left. Any time.”

A pause. “I wouldn’t have stopped you.” Another pause. “But I would’ve felt it. Every step you took away from me.”

He looked down at his hands—long fingers, pale and veined, one of them still trembling faintly from when he hadn’t seen you this morning.

His voice, when it came again, was softer. Honest in a way he rarely let himself be. “You make it easier to breathe.” Then quieter still, “And harder to pretend I’m not in love with you.”