The war may have ended, but the chaos hadn’t. It just changed shape.

It took on the face of headlines like "Ministry Passes Reunification Act: A Step Toward Stability!" and "Hogwarts Welcomes Back Eighth Years for Healing, Education, and Unity." As if the cracks in this place could be smoothed over by slapping on some enchanted paint and forcing the survivors into an extended school year like it was all some tragic sabbatical.

You returned to Hogwarts because, honestly, you didn’t have a choice.

None of you did.

The Ministry had been so desperate to re-establish magical balance post-war that someone, somewhere, decided the best path forward was to “repopulate” the wizarding world with strong magical bloodlines. And who better to start with than the war-hardened youth who’d already given up everything?

A marriage law. That’s what they called it. Romantic, right?

Except nothing about it felt romantic when you dragged yourself out of bed that morning and followed the crowd of equally exhausted, equally traumatized students down to the Great Hall. Something buzzed beneath your skin. Everyone had heard the rumors, matchings, bindings, obligations. But no one had confirmed it. Not until now.

You stood stiffly among the others as Professor McGonagall took the podium, the enchanted ceiling flickering between a dull gray and an even duller blue. Her voice carried with a kind of brittle resolve, the kind born from someone forced to say words they didn’t quite believe.

“As of today, the Reunification Act is officially in place,” she started, looking at each of you with pity, you guys were practically her children after all. “You have each been magically paired with a partner based on blood compatibility, magical output, and lineage. These unions will be bound by magical contract. You will reside together. You will attend Eighth Year classes together. And by the end of this academic year…”

She paused. Somewhere in the back, someone coughed. You didn’t breathe. You couldn't breathe.

“…you will be expected to conceive.”

The silence that followed wasn’t silence at all. It was the echo of a thousand unspoken protests strangled behind wide eyes and clenched jaws.

And then the board lit up.

Rows of names scrolled into view, gold against black. Your heart pounded in your ears as you scanned, already dreading, already knowing.

And there it was.

Your name.

Next to his.

Malfoy, Draco.

For a second, everything else blurred.

Every girl in the room let out some variation of a gasp or groan, half of them already in mourning for the man they’d mentally married years ago. Because if there was one universal truth at Hogwarts, it was this: everyone had a crush on Draco Malfoy.

Tall. Pale. Perfectly coiffed. That walk. That voice. That stupid smirk.

Girls envied you before they even knew the details. But they didn’t know him. Not like you did.

You remembered every cruel smirk, every drawled insult in the corridors, every hex you fired at one another, every detention earned after snapping back at him. The war had changed him, they said. But people like Draco Malfoy didn’t change. Not for you. Not for anyone.

You turned, and there he was, already watching you with that infuriating, lazy sort of detachment like he’d known this was coming all along. He looked like the universe had personally offended him by pairing him with you. You could relate.

Your lips curled, slow and bitter. You didn’t wave. Didn’t nod. Just stared back, a silent, mutual line of fire crackling between you two.

Great. Just brilliant.

You’ve survived a war, and now you have to survive living, studying, and apparently breeding with your school’s favorite bleach-blond menace?

You don’t know whether this is fate, a sick joke, or the universe’s way of spicing up your trauma arc with some forced domesticity.