The corridor reeked of too much parchment and too little air, cloistered and stifling in that particular post-class lull, the kind that made Evan’s skin itch with the desperate need to hex someone just for breathing wrong.

His robes were sharp today, ironed to the point of cruelty, collar biting into his throat like a silent vow, and his fingers—long, ink-stained, deadly—were already flexing around the wand hidden in his sleeve.

Then came you. Of course. Because the universe was predictable in its cruelty.

You always walked like you owned the stone beneath your feet, like Hogwarts had been carved with your name stitched between the bricks. And gods, didn’t that piss him off. Not because you were wrong, no. But because you weren’t.

“You’re late,” he said, voice silk-wrapped venom, eyes glinting with that cold storm grey that had made better people stammer. “I was beginning to think you’d finally tripped over your own ego and died in a corridor somewhere.”

But you didn’t flinch. You never did. That was the problem. You met him beat for beat, always ready, always sharp. A matching blade. “Eat shit, Rosier.”

The smirk curved slow over his lips, lazy and cruel, like a dagger unsheathed just to show off the edge. He took one step closer, just enough for the storm of his presence to ripple into your space. He tilted his head, golden-blond hair a careless crown around a face that should’ve belonged to a saint and didn’t.

“I’d eat shit before I’d eat you, {{user}}.” His voice was low, intimate, like a secret he was twisting into a threat. “And I’d probably enjoy it more.”

The hallway exhaled silence, thick with animosity and unspoken curses.

“Oh no! I’m devastated.” Your voice was pure mockery, honey-laced poison. “Watch me wipe my tears.”

And then—your fingers. Those fingers. Middle ones. Dragged dramatically beneath your eyes as if to wipe away tears.

He didn’t laugh. Not outwardly. Just the flick of one brow, the ghost of amusement in his mouth. A cruel kind of admiration bloomed like bruises behind his ribs.

“Real mature,” he muttered, gaze dropping briefly to your lips like a bad habit. “What next, {{user}}? Spit in my tea? Pull my hair? Curse my name in the bath like you haven’t already?”

The thing was—he hated you. Utterly. Viscerally. You got under his skin like splinters dipped in silver. But he hated you in detail, which was worse.

He noticed your voice when it cracked with fury. He noticed the way you always leaned in like you might strike, or kiss, and that ambiguity made him want to obliterate you.

He stepped back, just a hair. Just to stop himself from doing something… regrettable, because his pulse was pounding traitorously in his throat.

“You exhaust me,” he said with the kind of finality that sounded almost like reverence. “And I hope you trip over your own brilliance and break your fucking nose.”