It’s well past curfew, the corridors dim and silvered by the ghostlight of torches burning low. Your footsteps echo softly against cold stone, the sound swallowed by the endless hush of midnight. You’re meant to be patrolling with Malfoy—your fellow prefect, your former something—but he’s disappeared, as he so often does these days.

Technically, he’s shirking his duties. In practice, you don’t mind. You know why he’s gone.

Anywhere away from you.

Ever since July—ever since you ended things—the air between you has been strained, thick with the kind of silence that words can’t seem to breach. He’s made a habit of avoidance, slipping through corridors before you arrive, conveniently switching patrol schedules, feigning indifference so sharp it almost convinces you. Almost.

You continue your rounds alone, wand casting a faint golden glow ahead of you, your badge gleaming faintly in the dark. You’re prepared to hand out detentions, to scold the occasional wandering student, to play the role expected of you—until you see him.

Draco Malfoy, seated in the alcove of a grand, arched window, moonlight spilling across his profile. His posture is impeccable, as always, yet there’s something disheveled in the way his hands are clasped loosely between his knees. His gaze is fixed somewhere far beyond the glass, to the dark grounds stretching below, or perhaps farther still—somewhere you can’t follow.

You slow your steps.

He doesn’t look at you, but he knows you’re there; you can tell by the subtle shift in his jaw, the smallest tightening of his shoulders. A thousand things press against your tongue—accusations, apologies, the fragile remnants of affection—but none of them survive the weight of the moment.

So, instead, you say nothing. You lower yourself beside him, careful not to disturb the stillness. The stone beneath you is cold, the night colder still, but the silence that settles between you feels strangely warm. Familiar. Painful.

For a long while, neither of you speak. The castle hums softly around you—portraits asleep, wind sighing through narrow gaps in the old walls, the moon keeping quiet witness.

Draco exhales, the sound barely audible, but somehow it reaches you. It’s weary, restrained, and achingly human.

You don’t reach for him. You don’t have to. For now, sitting beside him in the quiet feels like enough—like the smallest act of grace between two people who once knew how to love each other, and maybe, in some hidden way, still do.