The hour was quiet in the way late afternoons often are—soft and golden and heavy with the kind of warmth that didn't heat the room so much as drape over it like silk filtered through sunlight, light slanting through the tall western windows in long, shimmering ribbons that cast the entire room in the drowsy hush of something sacred, something theatrical and suspended between breath and dreaming. The sun poured through the enchanted tapestries she had charmed to stretch across the wall—celestial silk depicting constellations in slow, hypnotic motion, their ancient dance stitched in starlight and rune-thread—so that the floor itself glowed with pale, dappled constellations that shifted and shimmered with every movement of her limbs, as if the sky had descended to follow in her shadow.
The plants in the corners of the reading room swayed gently without a trace of wind, leaning not toward light or warmth, but toward mood, as though even the flora had come to obey the quiet, gravitational pull of Granger, who lay at the center of it all like a whispered rumor too persistent to vanish.
She was stretched across a conjured couch of deep twilight velvet, its color somewhere between storm-cloud and midnight, and though it hadn't existed until she conjured it an hour earlier with a flick of her fingers and not even a second thought, it had already become part of the room as though it had always belonged to her.
She reclined there with the lazy confidence of someone born into royalty but raised in chaos, one leg draped over the other, bare toes tapping some silent rhythm only she could hear, her robe pooling around her like mist made tangible, her hair—untamed, moonlit, and full of memory—tumbling around her shoulders in effortless chaos that looked anything but accidental.
The couch, like her presence, didn't quite match the clean austerity of the space Draco had once considered his, and yet it fit, entirely, because she made it fit, the same way she always did, folding contradictions into beauty and leaving him to choke on the realization that it worked.
In her hand was a folded card, thick cream-colored parchment that practically radiated expense, the sort of stationary that whispered of ancient families and generational power, its corners stamped with a sigil that shimmered faintly whenever she tilted it toward the sun, and the cracked wax seal—blood-red and pressed with intention—clung to the back of her wrist like a charm she hadn't yet decided whether to remove.
The ink inside glimmered in enchanted script, silver and serpentine, letters that moved just enough to suggest sentience, the kind of script meant to be read aloud, designed to impress and to unsettle, steeped in the magic of legacy and invitation that felt more like command. She held it with languid grace, her fingers curling around the edges like she was toying with the edge of a secret, and when she finally spoke, her voice unfurled with that same maddening blend of softness and clarity that always seemed to belong to her alone—an unbothered, almost amused lilt that turned simple sentences into riddles, poetry, or warnings, depending entirely on how closely one listened.
"We've been summoned," she murmured, her words floating across the room like threads of smoke or dandelion seeds on a still wind, spoken not with urgency or complaint, but with a kind of intimate bemusement, too detached to be called intrigue and too sharp to be mistaken for indifference. "Masquerade. Formal attire. Magical concealments encouraged. Bring your husband."
She glanced up over the edge of the parchment then, her gaze steady and light-catching, sharp even in stillness, her smile not quite visible but undeniably present at the edge of her mouth—the kind of smile that had no teeth, no warmth, no claim, only history. She said it like the word husband was just a placeholder, an item on a list, but it landed in the room like a stone dropped into water, quiet and vast and full of ripples.
Draco didn't speak.
Not a breath out of rhythm, not a twitch of posture, not even the lift of an eyebrow to suggest he had heard her—and yet he had, of course he had, every syllable embedding itself into the fibers of his nerves with the precision of a curse. He remained seated in the armchair by the fire, that chair that had begun to mold itself to the shape of his brooding silences, the back slightly curved from habit, the armrests smoothed by tension, the very space around it dimmed by the consistency of his withdrawal.
He didn't look at her directly, but sat angled just enough to keep her in the corner of his vision, as though that somehow protected him from being seen in return, as though he could pretend her presence was atmospheric rather than personal. The porcelain rim of his teacup rested lightly against his bottom lip, a shield he wasn't drinking from, only hiding behind, the steam long since vanished, the tea cold, forgotten, but the ritual intact.
He didn't ask who had sent it.
There was no need.
He knew the handwriting, the deliberate, flamboyant curves, the self-important loops that reeked of inherited confidence—Pansy's signature was unmistakable, the way her letters always bled drama into the margins. She never sent invitations; she issued directives. Her parties weren't social gatherings; they were stages set with precision, and every guest was part of the spectacle. This wasn't a party. This was a performance. And the moment he saw the card, the moment Hermione read it aloud, he knew it would be a night of masks, of theater, of careful appearances and even more carefully hidden truths.
And worst of all—it would be a night of marriage.
She had said the word like it didn't matter.
But it did.
And if Parkinson was throwing a masquerade, it would not—could not—be for something as trivial as whimsy, or leisure, or the delicate excuse of seasonal sociability under the flicker of enchanted candlelight. It would never be about gowns or gossip or polite distraction. No, if Pansy was hosting, it would be calculated from floor to ceiling, constructed like a spell and assembled like a snare—each detail threaded with intention, each attendee hand-selected not for charm or companionship but for what their presence could provoke.
It would be a performance disguised as pleasure, a carefully engineered tableau of power and pressure, layered with insinuations so fine they wouldn't be felt until it was far too late to pull free. A stage, a script, and a hundred masks—each one meant to reveal as much as it hid. It would be a test dressed in silk, a dare dipped in wine, a declaration sharpened into a smile. An invitation not to attend, but to compete.
And Draco knew that flavor of social warfare intimately—knew the shape of it in his marrow, the rhythm of it in his blood. He knew it the way he knew old hexes, the way he knew the weight of a wand mid-duel, the way he knew the silence before something exploded.
Still, he said nothing.
Not because his mind was empty, not because her words hadn't struck somewhere deep, but because to answer would be to let something show—and he'd long since learned that silence could hide what speech might give away. He remained still, fingers wrapped around his teacup like a man holding a weapon he couldn't brandish, spine perfectly straight even as a coil of unease tightened somewhere low and familiar inside him.
The cup lifted to his lips again, slow and deliberate, not because he meant to drink, not even because he meant to stall, but because it was something known in a moment that felt increasingly surreal. The tea, now tepid and over-steeped, had gone bitter, tasting faintly metallic on his tongue, but he drank it anyway, letting the heatless sip anchor him in something that felt like control, the cool porcelain a small, rigid piece of ritual he could still pretend to own.
He drank it like it might be poisoned—and perhaps, in some way, it was.
And still, without looking directly, he watched her.
Granger sat across from him with the nonchalance of someone entirely aware that she held the upper hand and entirely uninterested in using it, the kind of woman who didn't need to press power to anyone's throat because her presence alone did it for her. The parchment twirled between her fingers with idle elegance, the motion unhurried, thoughtless almost, but graceful in a way that made his eyes track it even when he didn't mean to.
Every turn caught the afternoon light, refracting glints of silver along her skin, catching in the hollows of her wrist and the angles of her knuckles like tiny sparks suspended midair. The card shimmered as if alive, reflecting the gold of the room and the quiet in his chest, a small, spinning threat disguised in charm.
She let it dance one more time through her fingers, then flicked her wand in that maddeningly effortless way she always did when she wasn't trying to prove anything, and the parchment rose from her hand as if summoned by thought alone.
It floated slowly across the room, weightless and deliberate, before gliding to the far wall and pinning itself neatly beside the dream map of Saturn's rings—a glowing parchment constellation joining the collection of impossible things she called décor. A masquerade invitation tucked beside a rendering of a celestial body no one had ever dared map until she had charmed the sky into obedience.
It belonged there, somehow.
And so, infuriatingly, did she.
She rose with the kind of grace that made movement itself seem like a spell, a ripple of unbroken ease passing through her limbs as the conjured velvet beneath her let out a low, contented sigh—an exhale of satisfaction, of completion, of quiet surrender to the inevitable vanishing of its purpose, folding back into nothingness with the sound of silk slipping off skin. She didn't stand so much as unspool, her body unfolding from the couch like smoke rising from the last breath of a candle, every line of her posture languid, every gesture precise but unhurried, her presence slipping from one moment into the next without ever brushing against the need for haste.
The robe she wore clung to her thighs with the obedience of fabric that knew better than to misbehave—thin, iridescent silk that caught the fading afternoon light like moonlight skimming over water, flickering between silver and pearl, and in a place he would never name aloud, a dark and bitter chamber carved into the back of his ribs, Draco hated the way softness seemed to worship her. Hated that even light bent around her without resistance. Hated how easy it was for her to be fluid where he was stone.
She drifted toward the wardrobe without a word, the long, slow echo of her steps swallowed by the charmed hush of the room, and when she touched the pale ash wood, the furniture sighed open—not with complaint, not with the grudging creak it gave him, but with the warm, fond murmur of something ancient recognizing its mistress. He had never liked that wardrobe. It was alive in ways that unnerved him—slightly sentient, impossibly sensitive, a piece of furniture that responded to affection like a house cat, sulking when he approached, purring when she did. Its frame curved gently like the belly of a ship, carved with celestial patterns he hadn't noticed until the first time it refused to open for him. The hinges never groaned for her. They whispered. Reverently.
She opened it without hesitation.
And there it was—the arsenal of impossible fabric, of colors that didn't exist in the natural spectrum, of textures that rippled with spells and history, floating just above their hangers like they were suspended in breath, not air. Silks woven with wards of protection. Veils that shimmered between opacity and transparency depending on how closely one dared to look. Velvet constellations that mapped the stars of forgotten skies, gleaming faintly even in shadow. Magic lived in those seams. Intention lived in those seams.
And she moved through them like she was brushing her fingers across options, not weapons—like choosing power was nothing more than a midday ritual to slot between her tea and her musings. She reached toward the fabrics without reverence, without hesitation, her fingers gliding across hems like memory through dreams.
And Draco remained in the chair by the fire.
He did not move. He did not speak. He did not breathe with the rhythm his body preferred.
He told himself he wasn't watching. That he was simply occupying space. That he was observing, the way one might observe a spell being cast from afar—interested only in form, in function, in the technical integrity of her movements. But still his gaze followed her fingers as they danced across gowns that shimmered in the light, still his eyes found the slope of her back where her robe dipped slightly too low, the shadowed space between her shoulder blades, the faint catch of breath that pulled at her waist when she reached upward.
He noticed the edge of a freckle where fabric had slipped open near her collarbone—just one, unassuming, possibly imagined, but now burned into the inside of his skull with the clarity of a curse he'd never heard spoken. The light slipped over her hair like dusk turned to liquid, painting her in muted gold and impossible calm.
She selected a gown.
Of course she did.
Gold—sleek and luminous, with a low-cut back and an iridescent sheen that shifted with every breath she took, catching the quiet magic of the room and twisting it around her like a halo. She held it in front of her, lifting the fabric across her front with clinical, unbothered precision, not preening, not performing—just appraising, as though choosing a second skin required only a few seconds of thought. And when she turned toward the mirror, tilting her head to examine the drape of the neckline, something happened to the room, to the air—it bent. It held its breath.
The gown clung to her like it had been waiting for her bones. It molded to her hips with the slow reverence of spellwork, it kissed the curve of her waist, it traced the rise of her chest with the care of something ancient remembering worship.
It was not dramatic.
It was not scandalous.
But it was devastating.
And he watched.
Not with hunger. Not with lust. With something quieter, something stranger—like a scholar watching a living artifact, like a boy with frost in his lungs witnessing the first fire. He watched the way her breath moved the fabric, the way her lips pursed slightly in concentration, the way she seemed to exist fully in the mirror's gaze without apology. He told himself he wasn't affected. That he was only making note of her choices. But he sat too still. Too quiet. The pulse in his neck beat too loud. The silence inside him rang with the ache of something unsaid.
He watched like a man trying not to drown.
And he didn't move.
Didn't flinch. Didn't lean away. Didn't retreat—not physically, not visibly—but the tension in his body told a different story. It rang through his shoulders like a taut bowstring, echoed in the grip of his hands against the chair, in the way his eyes hovered just below her collarbone and refused to lift higher. His jaw—tight, white-knuckled, traitorous—twitched once. Not with rage. Not with longing. With restraint. With something rawer. The twitch of a man holding down something monstrous, something ancient, something half-dead and half-starved.
And of course, she saw it.
She didn't laugh. Didn't tilt her head or arch a brow or reach for the easy, performative flirtation that so many others might have offered in a moment like this. She didn't fill the space with noise or banter or a cutting remark dipped in sugar, didn't make a show of his discomfort, didn't brandish his reaction like a prize to be paraded. She merely stood in that golden silence and watched him—not in challenge, not in triumph, but in quiet observation, the kind of gaze that didn't prod or pry but simply… saw.
She observed the twitch of his jaw, the stillness of his limbs, the way his eyes had held just a fraction too long on a place they shouldn't have lingered, and instead of naming it, instead of weaponizing it, she tucked it away—catalogued it with the care of a scholar preserving a rare specimen, pressed it like a fragile bloom between the pages of some secret volume only she would ever read again. And then, almost imperceptibly, her mouth shifted.
Not a smirk. Not a smothered laugh. Just the barest curve, a breath of expression at the corner of her lips, so faint it might've been imagined if he hadn't felt it hit him. It wasn't cruel. It wasn't mocking. It was knowing. The kind of smile that didn't ask anything, didn't demand or claim or conquer—it simply understood. A wordless acknowledgment. A shared truth unearthed and left untouched.
The expression of someone who had just seen a piece of him he hadn't meant to give, hadn't even known was vulnerable, and instead of slicing him open with it, she simply kept it. Filed it away. Cherished it, maybe. But never exposed it.
She turned then, not with drama, not with flourish, not for him—but in the quiet, instinctive way of someone who moved through the world certain of their own place in it. There was no seduction in it, no coquette's sway, only that same impossible ease she always wore like second skin, as if the very air made room for her and not the other way around. Her hand lifted, brushing the silken strap of the gown higher over her shoulder with a movement so small and so unbothered it might have gone unnoticed if it hadn't made the light shift.
And gods—the light. It fell down across her shoulder like it was reaching for her, like it had been summoned not by charm but by gravity, cool and silver from the warded windows he'd enchanted himself, the same light that refused to touch him with that kind of softness. It gathered in the hollow at the base of her throat, highlighted the gentle dip of skin between her collarbones, wrapped her in a glow that felt almost reverent. Holy. The room, impossibly, felt quieter in that moment, as if the house itself had drawn breath and held it.
She didn't look at him as she spoke, didn't need to. Her voice was low, measured, the edges brushed with something like invitation but no pressure, a tone that felt more like a page turning than a challenge. "Well," she said, like a thought that had taken its time getting to her lips, like a whisper in the middle of a ritual, "you'll need a mask." The words weren't flippant. They weren't even particularly pointed. They just were—settled into the space between them with all the weight of inevitability, as if it had always been true, always waiting to be spoken aloud.
Draco said nothing.
He didn't lift his gaze. Didn't shift his posture. Didn't breathe, for a heartbeat too long.
And it landed. That silence—his silence—landed like a thunderclap beneath still water. It said more than a dozen sharp retorts ever could. Because something had been torn loose in him in that instant, something small but heavy, something he'd meant to keep buried beneath layers of posture and pride and purebred arrogance. And now it sat there between them, bare and unspoken, and he couldn't pretend it hadn't happened.
He hadn't given it to her.
But gods help him—she already had it.
***
The manor hosting Pansy's masquerade rose from the ground like something decadent and dangerous, a monument to temptation etched in marble and silk—sin given shape and structure, framed by columns that gleamed like bone and crowned with archways that whispered enchantments as one passed beneath them. It didn't look like a home so much as a spell cast at scale, the architecture itself humming with intention, each curve and corner draped in velvet shadows and golden excess. The walls breathed magic, slow and steady, as if the building were alive and pleased with its own extravagance.
Illusion spells flickered along the edges of every surface like firelight trapped behind glass—doors that shimmered as if dipped in molten dusk, floors that rippled like pools of gold beneath enchanted soles, ceilings enchanted to reflect unfamiliar constellations in shifting motion, stars blooming and dying in time with the music. Hallways curved with purpose, drawing guests down winding paths like silk ropes tugging softly at their sense of direction, and if one paused too long in a shadowed alcove, the very walls would whisper names and memories that didn't belong to them—sultry murmurs meant to disorient, to seduce, to unsettle.
The air was thick with sound and scent, the distant strains of music floating in from nowhere, slow and lush and full of danger—notes wound with old magic and half-felt rhythm, slinking through the room like smoke through lace, curling around ankles and waists, sliding into breath. Wine glittered in crystal goblets, not red but garnet, not sweet but spiced with something that lingered on the tongue like a secret. Laughter erupted in bursts—sharp, breathless, wicked—punctuating stolen kisses and glances exchanged behind feathered masks. Bodies brushed against one another, slow-dancing without choreography, hands lingering too long, words whispered just beneath the noise.
Magic clung to everything. It dripped from the chandeliers. It pooled in the corners. It wove itself into scent—rose petals soaked in midnight, citrus peel laced with clove, something darker and unnamed that thrummed low in the senses like the promise of teeth. This wasn't a party. It wasn't a gathering. It was a performance.
A ritual.
A test.
A carefully spun web, glistening in glamour and excess, waiting for the first fool to misstep, to speak too loudly, to reach for something they shouldn't have touched—and the only question was which mask would slip first.
And when they arrived—when the grand doors parted on a hush of spellcraft and polished anticipation—every head turned with the slow, magnetic pull of inevitability.
Every conversation faltered mid-sentence, voices trailing off like threads snapped in midair.
Every glass hovered in the air, frozen halfway to parted lips, forgotten in hands that trembled with the weight of new gravity.
They didn't enter the ballroom so much as seize it, the way a storm claims the sky—uninvited, uncontainable, impossible to ignore. Their presence didn't announce itself with fanfare. It didn't have to. The magic of the room shifted with their arrival, bent around them with silent recognition, as though the very wards of the manor had drawn a sharp breath and held it. As though the house, like everyone in it, understood that something had changed.
She led, of course—walking not like a guest but like a force of nature, bare-shouldered and bare-backed beneath a gown that looked less like it had been sewn and more like it had been conjured out of moonlight and memory. Silver, fluid, otherworldly, it clung to her figure with a reverence that bordered on worship, rippling with subtle enchantments that caught and refracted the light with every step she took. The hem shimmered like water. The bodice pulsed softly at the seams with magic older than the Ministry itself. She looked like she had bled starlight just to be stitched into it.
Her hair fell down her back in soft, cascading waves that had not been overly styled, only pinned back loosely with slivers of enchanted moonstone that pulsed with magic too ancient to name, humming against her skin like a heartbeat. And her mask—light, laced, shaped like a crescent moon carved delicately over her cheekbones—didn't obscure her identity in the slightest. It revealed it, somehow. Amplified it. As though whatever she'd been before she stepped into this ballroom was nothing compared to what she became beneath that mask: a myth given breath, a secret given shape, a goddess unburdened by the need to be gentle.
She didn't just walk into the room. She shifted its orbit.
She was no muse. No siren. No poetic symbol of virtue or fragility. She was the kind of goddess people used to worship in silence, kneeling on stone floors with bloodied palms and desperate prayers, the kind whose name was only whispered when thunder cracked and omens spilled across the sky. She shimmered like a promise. Glowed like a warning. She didn't blend into the crowd. She disassembled it.
And behind her—just one calculated step back and three precise paces to the side—moved the man who looked less like a companion and more like a myth forged for her protection.
Draco Malfoy: cloaked in black and dressed in tailored defiance, his magic caged and coiled beneath the collar of his robes, his mask carved like bone and shadow, cruel at the edges, expression unreadable beneath it. He did not smile. He did not posture. He moved like something dangerous on a leash, like a dragon she'd summoned and no one else was brave enough to look in the eye. He followed her not because he had to, but because he chose to—and that choice, more than any spell, was what made the room hold its breath.
They didn't arrive.
They descended.
Draco moved behind her in a silence so absolute it felt almost sacred, his footsteps soundless against the enchanted marble floor, his presence a study in restrained violence wrapped in opulence. He was dressed in tailored black that fit like a second skin, the fine fabric threaded with silver so dark it vanished into shadow unless caught at the exact wrong angle, glinting just enough to make onlookers wonder if the suit itself was enchanted to conceal weapons—or secrets. His mask, sleek and merciless in its simplicity, cut across his face like a blade, obscuring nothing and revealing everything, drawing sharp attention to the unyielding angles of his cheekbones, the elegant cruelty of his jawline, the cold, measured quiet behind his eyes.
It wasn't the kind of mask meant to hide. It was the kind worn by predators who didn't need disguise, who allowed others to project whatever fear they liked onto the surface because the truth would be worse. He didn't smile. Didn't acknowledge the murmurs curling in his wake. Didn't so much as glance toward the bodies parting for them like water. He didn't need to.
Because the performance wasn't his.
Because it was already in motion, and he was simply the shadow behind its light, the consequence that followed the catalyst, the blade that glittered behind the hand that never had to lift it. Everyone could see him—see the immaculate precision of his attire, the deliberate way his body held tension without releasing it, the air around him charged with the kind of magic that had nothing to do with showmanship and everything to do with restraint. And they could see her. See what she'd made of him. What she'd claimed. What she now walked ahead of like a queen followed by a revenant.
He looked like a man dressed for war rather than revelry—only the battlefield was her, and the war was internal. The armor was silk and spell-thread, and the leash—though invisible—was a presence he could feel tightening every time she moved, binding itself to the corners of his wrists, twisting through the hollow at the base of his spine, knotting itself in the back of his throat with every breath he didn't dare take too deeply. It wasn't a leash of obedience. It was a leash of want. Of memory. Of ache. And he hated it, even as he followed it. Even as he gave in to the pull.
Because he was looking at her—of course he was looking, how could he not—and the way she moved ahead of him was nothing short of spellcraft. Her spine was straight, chin lifted with that quiet certainty she wore like second skin, arms loose at her sides as though untouched by nerves, by pressure, by the hundreds of eyes tethered to her silhouette. Her hips swayed with a rhythm that wasn't exaggerated, wasn't performed, just natural—a product of confidence rather than choreography—and the gown she wore moved like sin in motion. The silver fabric clung to her like devotion, painted itself across her curves with reverence, sheer in places where suggestion carried more weight than exposure, enchanted to ripple even when she stood still, as though it was alive, as though it knew who wore it and worshipped accordingly.
She looked like seduction made incarnate, divinity poured into flesh and given motion, a living contradiction—too soft to be safe, too powerful to be ignored, too luminous to be held. And every time the light touched her, scattered across her bare shoulders or shimmered along the column of her neck, it did something to him—something that reached down through the polished surface of his calm and clawed at the old blood in his veins, the ancestral part of him that bowed to lineage, to power, to beauty that couldn't be bought. That blood didn't just stir. It rose. Recognized. Revered.
She was too much.
Too dangerous in her elegance, too tender in the wrong places, too formidable in ways no spell could ward against. She unsettled him with kindness, with poise, with the unbearable truth of her presence. And yet she walked ahead of him with the careless grace of someone who knew what she was and didn't have to prove it. She didn't look back. Didn't need to.
And still he followed.
Not because she'd commanded it. Not because of law, or contract, or obligation.
But because in that moment—between enchantment and illusion, music and masks— she moved like freedom .
And he followed like fate .
Blaise spotted her from across the ballroom and his expression shifted with a precision that suggested calculation rather than surprise, the corners of his mouth curling into that signature smirk that had made too many women second-guess their better judgment and too many men want to punch him squarely in the jaw. It was the look he wore when he was about to make something dangerous look effortless, when the game was already moving in his favor and he was content to take his time drawing the pieces into place. His eyes, slow and dark and glittering with something undeniably wolfish, tracked her like a predator not pressed for time—no urgency in the hunt, just the long pleasure of circling something rare.
He wove through the crowd with the smooth, sinuous grace of someone who knew he was being watched and counted on it, his robes a deep forest green threaded with black so dark it shimmered like oil in candlelight, every inch of his movement touched by casual decadence. He held his drink like it was an extension of his hand, his posture loose, fluid, languid with the kind of charm that always looked half-drunk and half-deadly. He wasn't in a rush. He didn't need to be. The room might have been glittering with wealth and bloodline, masks and murmurs, but Blaise had already chosen his entertainment for the night—and he was staring straight at her as though the rest of the evening had dimmed to backdrop.
"Hermione Granger," he drawled when he finally reached her, voice like silk scorched at the edges, velvet wrapping itself around the syllables of her name like it was something to be tasted instead of spoken. He didn't bow. He didn't extend his hand. He just looked at her, let her feel the weight of his gaze settle somewhere low and deliberate, his smile slinking deeper into mischief as he added, slower this time, "Or should I say… Hermione Malfoy?"
Her head turned with the kind of grace that came not from surprise but amusement, the barest lift of her chin accompanied by a smile that bloomed like moonlight catching on glass—soft, unbothered, and entirely untouched by his provocation. If the name held weight, she didn't show it.
Her silver gown shimmered as she pivoted, the fabric brushing along her hips like water following the curve of its container, bodice tight with rune-laced magic that shimmered when she breathed. Her mask caught the light as well—sharp, translucent, crescent-shaped—and it made her look untouchable, not hidden but heightened, as though she had chosen this disguise not to conceal but to elevate. Behind it, her eyes gleamed, open and calm, her voice floating out in a tone so honest it almost disarmed him.
"I prefer Hermione," she replied, gently but firmly, her words as smooth as her smile, her tone unmarred by offense or pride, spoken like a truth too simple to be argued with.
Blaise leaned in slowly, not with the haste of pursuit but with the certainty of someone who knew his presence didn't need to be requested. His shoulder angled toward her, his body tipping just enough into her space to make its intent known—confident but not crude, flirtatious without slipping into farce.
His breath brushed her cheek, warm and heady with aged firewhisky and something darker beneath it, something heavy and unspoken and humming with the kind of interest that rarely ended in conversation. His eyes traveled down her figure in a way that skirted the edge of audacity, unapologetic in their appreciation, drinking her in like she was both invitation and indulgence.
"Then Hermione it is," he murmured, voice low and full of sin dressed in silk, every word drawn out like he enjoyed the shape of it on his tongue. "Tell me, how does one get bought by the Gods? And what must a man sacrifice to tempt them into doing it again?"
She laughed at that—not sharply, not as a deflection, but with a warmth that shimmered out of her like light spilling over the rim of a glass. It was the kind of laugh that turned heads, that caught in the air like a spell half-cast, that glittered in the space between them like something sacred and unintentional. It was not mocking. It was not seduction. It was something quieter—amusement wrapped in distraction, the laugh of a woman who had heard a thousand flirtations and didn't need to choose which one she allowed close. A laugh that said she'd heard him.
She didn't notice how close Blaise had leaned, didn't register the shift in his voice from flirtation to something far more pointed, didn't see the way the air between them had thickened into something laced with heat and challenge. She didn't notice how the music behind her had dulled to a hum, how the distant clinking of glass and laughter had been drowned beneath something heavier. She didn't feel the weight of another gaze fixed on her back—not Blaise's—but one that burned colder, sharper, quieter.
She didn't notice Draco.
Who was standing just a few feet away.
Still.
Silent.
And not just watching—but seething, so tightly coiled with jealousy that his stillness wasn't still at all, it was the forced restraint of a man holding back an instinct too primal to be rational. He hadn't moved, hadn't spoken, but the tension vibrating off him was unmistakable—an aura like a curse that hadn't been spoken yet, like a spell bottled just before it shattered. His eyes, normally unreadable behind all their cold polish and detachment, were fixed on the space between her and Blaise with an intensity that bordered on predatory. His jaw had locked so tightly the muscle there was twitching, fluttering beneath his skin with every second that Blaise's gaze dipped lower, every moment her smile lingered too long, every breath she didn't know she was sharing with someone else.
His fingers flexed once—sharp, involuntary, like the ghost of a wand move, like violence rippling beneath skin that hadn't yet split open—but he didn't draw. Not yet. Because Blaise hadn't touched her. Not truly. Not yet. But Gods, if he did—
And Granger?
Granger just kept smiling.
Soft. Effortless. Unbothered. Smiling like nothing was wrong, like Blaise was harmless, like there wasn't a man behind her unraveling at the seams with the effort it took not to intervene. She stood between them without knowing it—between charm and catastrophe, between a smirk that had always meant trouble and a silence that was about to detonate.
The ballroom around them blurred at the edges, dissolving into something hot and reckless—music that throbbed too low, too close to the spine, laughter curling sharp as glass, hands brushing too near and bodies moving like they'd forgotten whose they were. Magic shimmered in the air like smoke made of silk and heat and want. The chandeliers spun slow and lazy above, casting starlight illusions across the crowd as if the entire room were trapped inside some enchanted constellation that could collapse at any moment.
She stood at the edge of the chaos, haloed in silver and shadows, her gown glowing faintly with every step, not from charm but from something that felt like moonlight stitched directly into the threads. One loose curl had fallen along her neck, dragging attention downward in a way that wasn't meant to seduce but did, in a way that made Draco's breath lock behind his teeth and his pulse spike in his throat. That one inch of skin—unmarked, unguarded—felt suddenly too visible. Too claimed. Too easily stolen.
And she didn't even know.
Didn't know that Blaise had leaned in too close.
Didn't know that Draco was standing behind her like a blade she didn't realize she'd drawn.
Didn't know that the look in his eyes had nothing to do with propriety or possession.
And everything to do with the fact that watching her smile at someone else felt like swallowing glass.
But Blaise noticed and he knew exactly what kind of man a true Malfoy was, understood the anatomy of their silences, the way pride lived inside them like armor strapped to bone. He recognized the danger brewing behind Draco's stillness, knew the weight of possessive fury when it began to coil in the chest, recognized the warning signs in the muscle of a clenched jaw and the way old bloodlines held grudges tighter than magic itself. Blaise had grown up beside that kind of anger. Had studied it. Knew exactly how to poke it with a smile and a hand placed just too low.
And still, he didn't back off.
Blaise had been circling her all evening, not like a snake—no, snakes were too elegant, too silent. He was something worse. Something bolder. He moved like hunger wrapped in velvet, all sly grins and the kind of heat that made people forget their good sense. He had stopped pretending hours ago. There was no performance now, just intent. Clear. Carnal. Shameless. From the first moment she'd looked at him through her veil of starlight and said—dreamy, unthinking, utterly sincere—that she liked his mask, he'd decided she wasn't just the most beautiful thing in the room. She was the only thing worth chasing. Every refill of her glass, every comment whispered too close to her ear, every laugh she gave—genuine or not—had only sharpened his focus.
And now he was here.
Directly in front of her.
Not beside her. Not drifting past like the others. Here. Centered. Close enough to count her freckles, to smell the faint floral trace of whatever she'd laced behind her ears, to track the rise and fall of her breath as it hit the edge of her bodice. His presence was a hum against her skin, a pressure that said I see you and I want you and I don't care who notices.
"You know," he murmured, and the sound was molten, half-laugh, half-threat, voice dipped in low fire and indulgence, "if this is what the moon is offering these days, I might start howling for it."
The way he said moon wasn't metaphor. It was possession.
She blinked, still smiling, amusement softening her expression though her confusion didn't waver. She tilted her head with effortless calm, eyes steady, her voice light but edged with steel.
"Do you always flirt this badly," she asked, arching one elegant brow, "or is it just when you've been drinking?"
But Blaise didn't shrink beneath her teasing. No. He thrived on it.
His grin was slow and decadent, full of teeth and intent, curling up beneath the edge of his mask like smoke rising under the rim of a door you hadn't realized was on fire.
"No," he said, smooth as silk dragged over skin, "only when I'm enchanted. Which, for the record, started about five minutes after you walked in—and hasn't let up since."
And then he touched her.
Not boldly. Not with the theatricality of a man asking for rejection.
But intimately.
A single finger brushing the curve of her shoulder, slow and deliberate, knuckles grazing bare skin in a gesture so light it could be mistaken for accidental—but it wasn't. Not with the way his thumb ghosted across her collarbone like he was testing the edge of something sacred. Not with the way his eyes never once left hers, gaze heavy with unspoken questions and darker promises. He left his hand there just long enough to be noticed. Just long enough for the heat of it to register.
He wasn't flirting anymore.
He was daring her.
Across the ballroom, Draco moved—not with the languid grace he was known for, not with the smooth detachment that usually cloaked his presence like armor, but with something jagged, something too fast, too deliberate, too visibly coiled with fury to pass as anything but raw instinct.
One moment he stood by the far wall, alone, a shadow carved from black silk and stillness, glass untouched in his hand, his entire body taut with the kind of focus that didn't belong at parties, the kind of focus that belonged on dueling platforms or battlefields or burial grounds. His gaze had never once drifted—not from her, not from Blaise, not from the way her bare shoulders tilted as she laughed at something soft and wicked and undeserved. He hadn't spoken a word in over ten minutes. He hadn't blinked in two.
And then, in the space of a breath—he was there.
Not walking. Not weaving. Arriving.
Like distance itself had given way to something ancient, something dangerous, something too sharp to be called emotion and too wild to be controlled by it. No warning, no hesitation—just the silent, shocking violence of his presence cleaving through the space between them.
One hand closed around her waist before she had time to register surprise—not painful, not cruel, but firm, his grip searing through the thin barrier of skin and nerves and pride, solid enough that her elbow jerked slightly, not from fear but from shock, from the raw power humming up his arm like a live current looking for something to destroy. The contact was real. Immediate. Territorial in the most brutal, unspoken way.
His magic hissed around him, angry and electric, thickening the air with ozone and tension, threads of ward-breaking power coiling outward like smoke from a smoldering wand tip. Blaise—smirking just a second before—took a slow, measured step back, hands raised in the universal language of I was only teasing. The charm in his face cracked just enough to show what lingered beneath it—restraint, sharp and startled. Blaise knew a threat when he saw one. And Draco wasn't posturing.
Draco's eyes didn't flicker, didn't drift, didn't even acknowledge Blaise. They stayed locked on her, sharp and cold and burning, not with hatred but something far worse—need. His voice, when it came, was low and flayed raw, scraped from between his clenched teeth like a blade drawn too fast. "We're leaving."
It wasn't a request.
Hermione blinked, breath caught between protest and confusion. "Draco—"
But she didn't finish the sentence.
She didn't have time to.
The air split open with the sharp crack of magic detonating—not elegant Apparition, not the quiet compression of practiced travel, but something urgent and volatile, something that startled the chandeliers overhead into flickering spasms of gold and shadow. The music stuttered. The light fractured. The wards groaned as the space between heartbeats collapsed into nothing—
And they were gone.
Mid-word. Mid-moment. Mid-everything.
The crowd gasped, staggered, drawn to the gaping vacuum left in their wake. The orchestra faltered for half a beat before dragging the music onward, but the mood had shifted. Something had broken. The air was too still. Too hot. Too haunted.
Blaise stood exactly where he had been, staring into the empty space they'd left behind, expression unreadable. Then, slowly, he exhaled a low whistle and tipped his glass toward no one.
"Possessive," he muttered, half to himself, smirk curling back into place like a cat licking its paw. "Didn't know he had it in him."
But Draco—wherever he had taken her, whatever corner of the world he had split the night open to reach—wasn't smirking. He wasn't composed. He wasn't cold.
He was burning.
Because jealousy had only been the beginning. The first match struck in a tinderbox he hadn't realized she'd filled. Rage had followed—hot, consuming, irrational—but beneath it, beneath all of it, was something worse. Something truer. Something older than any bloodline.
Attraction.
Real. Visceral. Terrifying. The kind that landed in the gut like a curse and rooted in the ribs like a vow. The kind that didn't ask permission before it claimed something. The kind that didn't whisper—it took. And tonight, when she had smiled at Blaise—careless, soft, his—something inside Draco had snapped. The realization came not with words but with certainty—that she was exquisite, untouchable, infuriating—but also his. His wife by law. By blood. By name.
And some ancient, snarling part of him would kill anyone who thought to touch what belonged to him.
Especially Blaise.