The morning air was crisp, too crisp for the molten rage simmering just beneath Luna's skin, and the golden sunlight streamed through the windows of her little cottage as though nothing had changed, as though the world had not been ripped from its rightful axis and twisted into something unrecognizable.
Her cottage, her sanctuary, her space, her carefully cultivated haven, stood there in perfect condition, every detail preserved with unnerving precision, as if it had not been torn from its original place and dropped without ceremony into the clutches of a man who seemed entirely incapable of understanding boundaries or the most basic principles of human decency.
It should have been miles away, hidden deep within the quiet solitude she had built for herself, far removed from the oppressive grandeur and overindulgent chaos of Malfoy Mansion, and even farther from the utterly unhinged man she had, against all common sense and better judgment, allowed herself to become entangled with.
But that was not the reality she faced.
Because Draco Malfoy was not a man who functioned like a sane or rational human being. He had no interest in compromise, no inclination toward mutual agreement, and no concept of asking permission. Draco Malfoy took what he wanted, and now, because of his relentless and deeply warped sense of entitlement, her entire life had been taken from her and placed under his control. It had happened without her consent, without any warning, and certainly without so much as the courtesy of him saying, in advance, "Luna, I am about to rearrange the literal coordinates of your entire existence."
She had woken that morning already alight with fury, the rage from the night before having fermented into something hotter, something sharper, something far more dangerous. With every second she remained here, caught inside the unshakable gravitational pull of his obsession, breathing air he most likely believed belonged to him, her grip on her own composure began to slip, her patience fraying at every edge.
He was too much. His presence was too loud, his magic pressed in on her from every direction, and his love, if it could even be called that, felt more like a cage than a comfort. She knew that if she did not act, if she did not find some way to let the fury out, she was going to implode.
So she had thrown the door open and stormed out of her cottage, her feet pounding hard against the garden path that now, with sickening convenience, linked their two homes as though he had anticipated every ounce of her resistance and designed the layout to ensure she would never have to go far to confront him.
Of course he had positioned her home within such easy reach of his own, close enough that he could watch her whenever he pleased, close enough that he could hear her if he wished, close enough that the simple fact of its proximity felt like ownership. And as she crossed the threshold into the doorway of his grand, sunlit dining room, she barely registered the obscene, suffocating luxury that surrounded her, because the moment her eyes found him, everything else in her vision blurred away.
Draco Malfoy, the root cause of every single one of her current emotional catastrophes, sat there in the sunlit dining room as if he had not committed the most unhinged act imaginable only hours ago.
He lounged in a chair that probably cost more than her entire wardrobe combined, his posture the picture of decadent ease, dressed in clothes so crisp and perfectly tailored that he might as well have been advertising his own smugness.
He looked like a man who had enjoyed an uninterrupted night's sleep after committing magical crimes so audacious they would be studied in cursebreaker classrooms for years to come. In his hands, a porcelain coffee cup balanced lightly, steam curling in the air above it, and that infuriating calm on his face only deepened as he took another leisurely sip.
He looked pleased with himself. Pleased, content, unbearably self-satisfied. Smug in a way that suggested he believed, with absolute certainty, that he had solved a problem instead of creating one.
Her steps had been loud enough to echo through the marble hallways, but it was the sharp shift in the air, the presence of her magic sparking dangerously around her, that made him finally lift his head. That trademark Malfoy smirk began to form on his perfectly symmetrical face, a slow curve of lips that had once made her stomach flutter and now only made her fingers twitch for her wand.
She did not give him the satisfaction of a greeting. She did not even pause in the doorway.
"Shut up," she said sharply, her voice cutting through the air like a blade. The wand was already in her hand before the words had finished leaving her mouth, magic crackling along her skin like a storm barely contained. The fury radiated off her in waves, her stance a clear warning that she was not there to negotiate. "I am going to Obliviate you now. This has to stop."
The smirk faltered.
It was subtle, almost imperceptible, but she saw it. His fingers tightened fractionally around the delicate handle of the coffee cup, the gleam in his eyes losing a hint of its sharpness. Something like uncertainty flickered across his features, there and gone again so quickly that anyone else might have missed it.
"You wouldn't dare," he said. The words were laced with that same effortless arrogance he had perfected since childhood, but the tone wavered just slightly. It was enough to tell her he had finally, belatedly, begun to grasp that he had gone too far this time.
She did not pause.
She did not blink.
She did not take a single breath before raising her wand and murmuring the incantation under her breath, her magic slicing through the space between them with cold precision. The air shimmered, just for an instant, as though reality itself held its breath.
Draco blinked once, then again, his brow creasing in the faintest frown. For a heartbeat, his gaze went distant, his expression emptying as if a piece of him had slipped from view. He shook his head once, the movement slow and slightly unsteady, as though trying to clear a fog he could not name.
That was when she moved in, quick and merciless.
"What did you have for breakfast this morning, Malfoy?" she asked, her voice syrupy sweet, each syllable dripping with venom disguised as charm. Her head tilted in mock curiosity, her gaze locked on his face as the weight of the question began to settle.
He parted his lips to answer. Nothing came. He stared at her for a long, silent moment, the muscles in his jaw working as if the answer might somehow materialize through sheer force of will. At last, in a voice that had lost its usual confidence, he said, "I… I don't know. I don't think I had any."
Her smile bloomed slow and wicked, curling at the edges like smoke. "Test me again with Obliviation," she murmured, her tone low and deliberate, "and you will be miserable for the rest of your life."
He said nothing. Not a word. Not even a scoff to pretend he was unaffected.
And that silence, that stunned and hollow quiet from a man who had built his entire identity around having the last word, felt like the most satisfying thing she had experienced in days. It was rare, almost mythical, to catch Draco Malfoy without a retort, without the sharp edge of his voice ready to cut her down. She let herself savor it for the briefest flicker of a moment before deciding she was not finished.
"Oh, and by the way," she said, her voice cooling into something precise and cutting, "just because you have unresolved issues with your mother does not mean you get to act like this."
His mouth opened. She could almost see the excuses forming there, the pitiful, gilded little arguments about trauma or love or family legacy, the kind of self-serving speeches he was so fond of delivering. But before he could drag a single syllable into the air, she cut him off.
"I told you to shut your mouth."
And for once, impossibly, he listened. Something in his expression shifted, not much, just enough to make the change noticeable. The arrogance in his eyes dimmed, if only for a moment, replaced by the smallest glimmer of something that looked dangerously close to fear. He closed his mouth.
Luna drew in a deep, steadying breath, forcing the wild heat of her rage into something cooler, sharper, the way a blade is tempered before it is used. Her voice came out even, clipped, cold. "Have you ever heard of communication, Malfoy?" she asked. "That thing normal people do? That was what we were supposed to do. Talking. Listening. Remember those? Having sex with you does not mean I forgive you. It does not mean I want to be with you. Just because you made me come does not mean I want a relationship."
That one landed. She saw it hit him, felt the shift in the air between them as the words found their mark. His jaw tightened, the tendons in his hands flexing where they rested on the edge of the table.
"You said you love me," he said. His voice had gone hoarse, roughened into something that sounded almost wounded, like he could not comprehend how she could throw this at him after saying that, as if those three words had been a binding contract that excused everything he had done.
She rolled her eyes, the sound of her breath heavy with contempt. "Could have been a moment of weakness."
The movement that followed was sudden and violent. His chair scraped against the polished floor, the coffee cup tipping over and spilling its contents across the table in a dark, careless streak. He leaned forward in a surge of energy, his face sharpening with something volatile.
"You lied to me?" The question came out low and dangerous, the kind of tone that cut deeper than any shout.
She did not blink. "As I was saying," she replied, her voice almost bored, "moment of weakness."
He began to move again, slower now, like a predator narrowing the distance with its prey. Every step carried a deliberate weight. The tension between them thickened, sparking in the air like static before a lightning strike.
"You are a terrible liar," he said. His voice was quieter now, but no less dangerous for it.
Her smirk was small and deliberate, the kind of smile meant to provoke. "I learned from the best."
His hand twitched at his side. His chest rose and fell with sharp, uneven breaths. "I never lied to you," he said, each word quiet but edged with the heat of something restrained.
She tilted her head slightly, her eyes glinting with challenge. "Do you need a reminder?" she asked, her tone soaked in venomous mockery. "The night you begged on your knees—"
That was enough.
That was the moment something in him snapped.
He closed the distance before her thoughts could catch up, before the next insult could form on her tongue, before the armor of her anger could be reinforced with another sharp-edged truth. One moment she stood rooted in the center of the room, her fury like a living thing burning through her veins, and the next his hands were on her.
There was nothing gentle in it, nothing measured, but there was purpose, a raw intention that burned hotter than violence. His fingers wrapped around her wrists with the kind of grip that was not meant to bruise but to hold her in place, to tether her to him as though she might dissolve into air if he released her.
Then his body was against hers, all heat and tension, a steady pressure that stole the air from her lungs. Each step she took backward was drawn from her as if he had pulled it from her bones, her heels skimming the floor until her spine found the wall with a muted thud. He did not retreat. The space between them vanished entirely, the world narrowing to the smell of his skin, the hard line of his body, the thunder of his breathing. One hand slid to her waist, the other braced against the wall beside her head, forming a barrier that left no room for escape.
"Do you or do you not love me?" His voice was not smooth. It tore from him in something jagged, something stripped down to the marrow. The sound carried both command and plea, yet it was neither. It was a demand that came from a place so deep it shook the air between them, edged with a vulnerability that was almost unbearable to hear.
She did not answer.
Her lips parted, but nothing came. The words she had sharpened like knives earlier were gone, melted away beneath the weight of the moment. Her mind felt wiped clean, her body held taut between resistance and something far more dangerous. Her throat was tight, her breath caught halfway, her chest lifting in uneven pulls as the silence between them thickened until it was almost a living thing.
The truth sat there with them, heavy and unyielding. She felt it in every rapid beat of her heart, in the press of blood rushing through her veins, in the shallow ache in her chest where air could not quite reach. It hovered just behind her teeth, close enough to speak but impossible to release.
She kept her gaze locked on his, unblinking, her eyes holding steady against the burning force of his stare. She did not shrink back. She did not search for a way to twist the moment into something easier. She had made a life out of sidestepping what she did not want to name, of turning truths into riddles no one could solve, but there was no evading this. Not here. Not with his body caging hers and his voice still ringing in her bones.
And somewhere under the fire, under the resentment that still smoldered in her chest, under the exhaustion that came from surviving him again and again, she knew the answer. She had always known it, even in the moments when she would have sworn she felt nothing but rage. It was there in the way her heart stuttered against her will, in the way she had not yet run, in the way the space between them felt both unbearable and impossible to break.
She did not say it. Not yet. But it was there, alive and undeniable.
It was in the way his gaze held hers as if she were the last point of light left in a sky swallowed by darkness, the way her name broke in his throat as though it carried something holy, something he was afraid to lose. Even when she pushed him back, even when she tried to drive him away with every sharp word and every defensive edge she could muster, he stepped closer.
It was in the way he let the word love leave his lips with the gravity of a vow that had been etched into him long before he had the chance to speak it aloud, as though there had never been a single moment when it was in doubt, as though she was the only thing in the chaos of the world that had ever truly made sense to him.
It made her want to scream. It made her want to tear at her own skin, to rip herself free from the treachery of her own heart. She had spent her life defying what was expected, fighting against inevitability, perfecting the skill of severing ties before they could tighten around her. Her walls had been built over years of deliberate solitude, stacked high and reinforced so thickly that no one could ever hope to breach them.
Yet here he was, crossing every line she had drawn, pulling apart every brick and stone she had set into place, dismantling years of careful distance with nothing but the force of his belief. He had done it without hesitation, without the faintest shadow of doubt, with the unshakable certainty of a man who had already decided what he wanted and would set the world alight before he let it be taken from him.
She hated that about him. She hated him for it. She hated the way his hands found her waist as if they had been made to rest there, hated the way his scent wrapped itself around her until she could not tell where he ended and she began, hated the way his voice found a precise inflection that cut through her resolve and left her unraveling in silence.
She hated how easily he dismantled the armor she had spent a lifetime forging, how deeply he had buried himself in the quiet corners of her days, how wherever she turned, he was already there waiting. Inevitable.
She drew in a breath that felt too shallow, too tight, her head still tipped back toward the ceiling as though the uneven lines and faint cracks might hold some answer she could not find anywhere else. Her pulse was loud in her ears, thrumming with the aftershocks of everything he had just said, but she would not look at him. She would not let him see the way his words had burrowed past her armor, the way they had caught on something deep and unsteady inside her.
"I told you the truth," he said, his voice quieter now, but carrying the same relentless weight. The softness made it worse, like a blade hidden in silk. "I never loved Astoria. I had a physical relationship with her, nothing more. That was before I understood what I felt for you."
Her throat tightened, catching on the sudden swell of something she did not want to name, something she could not afford to let take root. She swallowed it down, forcing herself to keep the steel in her spine. "You just forgot to mention it to her," she said, each word laced with deliberate precision, as if careful edges might keep the rest from spilling out. If she did not keep pushing him back, she might never be able to again.
He faltered. Just for a heartbeat. His voice caught, and she saw regret flicker across his expression, brief and shadowed, as if he hated the truth of it as much as she did. "I did."
She pressed her lips together until they ached, her jaw so tight she thought her teeth might crack beneath the pressure. Every muscle in her body was drawn taut, the air between them charged with the weight of everything unsaid.
When she finally spoke, her voice was quieter but sharp enough to cut. "Why did you need to relocate my house?" The question hung heavy, each word anchored in betrayal. "What was the reason, Draco? What could possibly justify that?"
His hands found her waist again, the touch steady and unyielding, as if he could root her to the spot by sheer will. "I needed you to move in," he said, simply, like that alone explained it, as if there was nothing unreasonable about the thought.
"You could have asked," she said, her voice breaking into a sharper edge, climbing over the knot of disbelief in her chest. "You could have asked."
But he didn't retreat. He didn't shift beneath her fury or shrink away from her glare. If anything, the stillness in him felt deliberate, like a man who had already decided that remorse was a luxury he would not afford himself. The faint tilt of his head was the kind that always warned her something dangerous was about to follow. He leaned in, unhurried, closing the space between them until his breath brushed against her skin, the movement careful in its control.
Then, his lips found her temple in a touch so deceptively soft it unsettled her more than any fight they had ever had. It was not a kiss meant to charm or soothe. It was not romantic in the way she might have been able to dismiss. It was worse. It was familiar. Claimed. It was his.
"And what would you have said?" he murmured, his voice a slow, velvety thing threaded with self-assurance and the faintest curl of provocation. It was not a question in search of an answer—it was a challenge disguised as affection, a deliberate push against the last line she had not yet drawn. And gods help her, it made her want to scream.
She let out a slow, measured breath, as if drawing it too quickly might unravel the fragile thread holding her together. The ache behind her eyes still lingered, a faint, stubborn pulse that carried the memory of the panic attack which had hollowed her out the night before. Her fingertips pressed into her temples, chasing a relief that refused to come.
When she finally spoke, her voice was quieter, but edged with reluctance. "Eventually, yes," she said, and the admission felt foul in her mouth, bitter and metallic, as though it had been forced past her teeth by sheer inevitability. The words carried the weight of something dragged into daylight against her will, a truth she would have preferred to bury until the ground above it had turned to stone.
His reply came without hesitation, low and unshakably certain. "That's a long time without you." The sound of it was too close, his breath brushing her skin like something intimate and unguarded, threading itself into the air between them. His hands, already resting on her waist with a kind of casual possession that felt anything but casual, tightened ever so slightly. Not enough to hold her in place, not enough to cage her, but enough to remind her that his presence was fixed and immovable. Enough to make it clear that letting go was not part of his plan.
Her mind fumbled for a retort, for the bite of anger that would let her push back, for the cold detachment that had always been her refuge. She was gathering it, pulling the pieces into shape, when a sound slipped into the moment—soft, steady, and entirely out of place. It was faint at first, a gentle shuffle against the polished wood floor, followed by a muted thump and the delicate chime of something metallic.
She turned her head slowly, half-afraid she was imagining it, half-hoping exhaustion had finally tipped her into absurd hallucination. But no amount of fatigue could conjure the sight waiting for her. Dandelion stood in the doorway, placid and utterly serene, as if she belonged in the middle of Draco Malfoy's pristine, marble-heavy kitchen.
Dandelion blinked up at her with calm, unhurried eyes, each movement untroubled by the charged air she had just walked into. Her coat was as thick and luxuriously unkempt as ever, her little horns gleaming faintly in the sunlight, and perched atop it all, stretching around her stocky frame in defiance of taste and logic, was a sweater.
Again.
Luna let out a sound that lived somewhere between a sigh and a groan, the kind that carried both weary fondness and the sharp edge of disbelief. She crouched, the hem of her skirt pooling on the gleaming floor, and pressed a slow, deliberate kiss to the warm patch of fur between Dandelion's horns. The cow smelled faintly of hay, of sun-warmed grass, of something soft and grounding that settled in Luna's chest like a steady heartbeat.
Her fingers slid into the dense tangle of fur, combing through it with absent familiarity, and for the span of a single breath she let herself relax. Her shoulders loosened, her jaw unclenched, and the world shrank to the simple comfort of an animal that had never once lied to her or tried to rearrange the literal coordinates of her life.
Then the absurdity hit. It crashed into her like a wave, sweeping away the quiet in an instant. This was Draco Malfoy's kitchen. Draco Malfoy's ridiculous, sprawling, sunlit kitchen. And Dandelion was here. Which meant someone had put her here. The fleeting calm evaporated.
Luna straightened, spinning on her heel with the precision of someone aiming a spell. Her eyes found him instantly, and sure enough, he was leaning against the counter like the picture of satisfaction, a man who had clearly convinced himself that this was all perfectly reasonable. He even had the audacity to lift his coffee in some lazy, aristocratic salute before taking a sip.
"Why," she asked, her voice cool and level in a way that should have been more frightening than shouting, "is my cow in your kitchen?"
Draco tilted his head, that infuriatingly composed expression never faltering. "It's our cow," he said, smooth as polished marble. "And our kitchen."
She stared at him, too stunned for words at first, feeling the slow, incredulous rise of heat crawl up her spine. Her hands lifted, then fell again, then lifted once more as if her body could not quite decide between strangling him and storming out. "There is no ours, Malfoy," she snapped, finally finding her voice. "We are not married!"
He did not so much as blink. "Yet," he said, with the same infuriating serenity a person might use to remark on a sunny forecast. No emphasis. No argument. Just quiet inevitability, like it was already written, like her protestations were not the barricade she imagined, but merely scenery he had to walk through to reach the ending he'd already chosen.
"NO!" Luna's voice cracked against the walls, sharp enough to send Dandelion's ears twitching. She threw her arms into the air, every muscle in her body vibrating with disbelief. "You cannot do this! You cannot just decide things unilaterally and then act like I agreed to them! And for the love of all things magical, stop dressing up my cow!"
Draco's mouth curved, that dangerous, infuriating sort of smile that made her want to throw something heavy. He had the gall to scoff, his tone dripping with condescension. "She's helpless without me."
Luna dragged her hands slowly down her face until her palms scraped her jaw, the gesture exaggerated enough to make her frustration a physical thing. "Be fucking for real, Draco. She is a farm animal. A literal, actual cow. She does not need a wardrobe. She does not need your creative direction."
His arms folded across his chest in a perfect portrait of arrogance, shoulders relaxed as if her fury were nothing more than background noise. His eyes—those sharp, infuriatingly silver eyes—glinted with a mix of mischief and certainty. "She needs to look presentable," he said, the words delivered with maddening confidence. "What would our children think of her?"
Luna froze.
Her body locked into stillness so complete it felt unnatural, every breath stalled, every muscle rigid. The room seemed to narrow around her as the words echoed again and something in her chest gave a slow, shuddering pull, as though the ground beneath her had shifted. The chaos that had been roaring through her skull fell away in an instant, replaced by the cold, strange clarity that comes with shock.
She stared at him, unable to summon movement or speech for several seconds, because how did one respond to that? How did one respond to Draco Malfoy speaking of children like they were not a hypothetical but a foregone conclusion?
When she finally found her voice, it came out low and deliberate, clipped in a way that made each syllable sound like it could cut him. "We are not having a child." The words landed between them with the precision of a blade, sharp and certain, but even as she said them, her stomach knotted violently under the weight of the look he gave her.
It was not smugness this time. It was something far more dangerous. He looked at her like she already belonged to him, like the idea of family was not up for debate, like he had seen their future clearly and was only waiting for her to catch up to it.
Draco leaned against the marble counter like a man entirely untouched by the storm he had set in motion, his posture a study in lazy elegance, his every movement deliberate in a way that made her want to scream. He regarded her with that infuriating blend of quiet amusement and something harder to name, something that pressed against her ribs from the inside, something that made her pulse stumble even as her temper burned hotter.
His eyes, sharp and bright as polished silver, caught the morning light and held it, carrying a gleam that told her he had already decided the outcome before she had even walked into the room. It was the look of someone who did not need to argue, who did not need to persuade, because in his mind the matter was settled. He knew she would stay. He knew she was his. He knew, and the knowledge was carved into the set of his mouth and the slight curve of his smirk.
Gods, how she wanted to tear it from his face.
She imagined reaching for the nearest mug, or a heavy plate, or perhaps dragging the entire coffee machine across the counter just to smash it into the floor. Anything to shatter that composure, to crack the smooth surface he wore like armour.
She wanted the satisfaction of seeing his expression falter for reasons other than triumph. She wanted to scream until her voice gave out, to shake him hard enough that the smugness fell away like loose dust, to make him understand with absolute certainty that what he had done was not love, not tenderness, not some sweeping gesture worthy of forgiveness. It was an invasion. It was lunacy.
And then there had been that single word, dropped between them with all the subtlety of a detonation. Yet. Spoken as though her anger was only a temporary obstacle, a pause in the inevitable path he had mapped out long before she realised she was on it. Spoken as though he had already chosen the furniture for a house she had never agreed to live in, already named children she had never agreed to have, already built the life in his mind and was simply waiting for her to stop resisting.
The most dangerous part was not his certainty, but the flicker of something treacherous inside her that wanted to believe him. A small, hidden place in her chest that wanted to step into that imagined life and let him wrap it around her like a blanket she could pretend was safety.
"Stop it!" The words tore out of her, sharp enough to cut through the quiet morning and make the air vibrate with the force of her magic. Her voice carried more than anger; it carried the raw edge of something dangerously close to breaking. Power prickled across her skin, gathering like a storm about to split the sky. And still, he stood there, maddeningly still, his smirk untouched, his coffee cup steady in his hand as if her fury were nothing more than background noise to a morning he had already claimed as his own.
Draco released a slow, deliberate sigh, the kind that seemed designed to tell her she was the one being unreasonable, as though her entire world had not been upended and planted here without her consent. He placed his cup down with a soft, infuriatingly careful clink, folded his arms across his chest, and regarded her with a patience that only made her angrier. "Yes, yes, communication. I know," he said, his tone balancing somewhere between boredom and condescension, as if she were demanding something extraordinary, as if the bare minimum of respect were an impossible request.
Luna's gaze burned into him, her magic sparking in the air between them, the heat beneath her skin building in steady, dangerous waves. She drew in a sharp breath, clinging to the discipline that kept her from acting on every violent impulse that flared in her chest. "I am furious with you, Malfoy," she said, every word measured, her voice low but cutting. "You crossed lines you had no right to cross. Do you even understand that? Do you even care?"
Something in his posture altered then, so subtly it might have gone unnoticed if she had not been watching him so closely. His back straightened just enough to break the illusion of indifference, and for the briefest moment something unguarded flickered in his eyes. It was faint, fragile, almost like regret, but it vanished before she could decide whether it had been real. "How do I fix it?" he asked at last, the question quiet, stripped of arrogance, landing between them like an offering. "Tell me what I have to do. Please."
The word hit her in the chest, but she refused to let it change the shape of her anger. She shook her head, a scoff slipping past her lips, the bitterness sharp and familiar. "Move my house back," she said, her tone flat and unyielding, her arms crossing tightly over her chest like a barrier. Her eyes held his without a blink, daring him to tell her no.
"Absolutely not," Draco said, the refusal spilling out without even a pause, his voice as steady as it was steeped in that overdramatic flair only a Malfoy could manage. "You would leave me, and I would not recover. I would waste away, wither from heartbreak, and perish in the cold, probably in my study, surrounded by half-finished letters, an open bottle of wine, and the crushing weight of my despair. It would be a scene so tragic they would write songs about it. And all of it, darling, would rest on your conscience. Is that really what you want?"
Luna stared at him, her mouth falling open, the expression on her face suspended somewhere between disbelief and exhausted resignation as she tried to comprehend the absurdity of what he had just said. "Why are you like this?" she asked, her voice quiet, almost flat, as if her mind could not decide whether to laugh or hex him into oblivion.
Her temples throbbed, the dull ache in her skull made sharper by the knowledge that she had not yet had breakfast, and somehow, impossibly, this morning had spiraled into a nightmare orchestrated entirely by him.
Draco, of course, only seemed pleased with himself. His smirk deepened as he tipped his head to one side, pretending to consider her question as if it were a puzzle worth solving. "I think," he said with mock seriousness, "that I have quite a number of issues."
Luna groaned, pressing her palms to her face, briefly entertaining the idea that wiping her own memory might be less painful than enduring another minute of this conversation. "So I am meant to simply accept it?" she asked, lowering her hands just enough to glare at him. "That my home now sits on your land, that this is just my reality?"
"Yes," he answered without hesitation, his grin widening, the glint in his eyes sharp and victorious. "That is exactly the attitude you need."
She exhaled through her nose, long and loud, counting the beats in her head like she might when weaving an intricate charm. "I think I need to slap you again," she muttered, her gaze sliding to his cheek as she calculated the distance, already picturing the sting in her palm and the satisfying sound it would make.
He did not so much as blink. He did not move away. If anything, he inclined his head the smallest bit closer, his smirk curling like an invitation, daring her to follow through.
Because of course he would.
Draco, maddeningly composed and somehow even more insufferable in his calm, leaned forward with a slowness that was deliberate, almost predatory, but never crossed into threat. His movements carried that easy, unshakable grace he wore like fine silk, the kind that made every inch of him feel intentional.
His head tilted in that lazy way that always signaled trouble, a small, knowing curve to his mouth, and that gleam in his eyes that meant he was about to push her to the edge. It was the same look he always gave when he was about to get under her skin, the one that made her want to hex him and kiss him in the same breath.
He didn't flinch, didn't waver, only let his voice drop to a smooth, velvet register that was dangerous in its quiet confidence. "I'm right here," he murmured, the words slipping into the space between them like a dare, low and mocking but so close to intimate that it made her pulse spike. He was infuriating in the way he met her anger with his own brand of heat, unyielding and wild, matching her stubbornness step for step. He was a mirror, reflecting her chaos right back at her, feeding it, amplifying it until her whole body thrummed with the sharp, electric pull between striking him and pulling him in.
Her fingers flexed at her sides, itching to touch him, whether in violence or in surrender she could not decide. Her hand wanted the sharp sting of his cheek beneath her palm just as much as it wanted to grab him by the collar and drag him close.
The tension coiled in her spine until she forced a sharp breath through her nose, clenched her jaw, and shoved him with both hands, the sudden burst of motion sending him back a step across the polished floor. The sound of his shoes dragging against the stone was almost as satisfying as the fleeting look of surprise that crossed his face.
She didn't linger on it. She didn't give him the satisfaction of a final word or another glance. She turned away with her chin high, each step crackling with the stubborn current of her magic, and walked to the dining table.
Dropping into one of the high-backed chairs, she sank into the cushions like gravity had doubled, her shoulders folding under the weight of exhaustion. The fight had drained her from the inside out, leaving her hollow and stretched thin, her nerves frayed raw by the impossible strain of dealing with him.
Her fingers pressed against her temples, rubbing slow, hard circles as if she could knead the chaos right out of her skull. "I don't have the energy for this," she muttered, her voice a low rasp, the words barely escaping her breath. "I'm just… hungry."
It wasn't rage that ended the argument, or betrayal, or the fact that he had uprooted her entire home. It was hunger. The simple, human need for food broke the battle faster than any cutting remark could have.
Draco's laugh came quietly, warm in a way that felt almost out of place after the firestorm they had just walked through. It rolled out of his chest and settled into the air like it belonged there, and the fondness laced through it was the kind that slipped past defenses without warning. She hated how it landed inside her, hated that it felt like comfort, hated that some part of her wanted to keep hearing it.
When she finally lifted her head, her movements slow and reluctant, her gaze found him already in motion. He was halfway across the room, his steps purposeful as he slipped into the kitchen, the clean lines of his shirt shifting with each movement.
Without looking at her, he began rolling his sleeves to his elbows in smooth, practiced turns, revealing the pale strength of his forearms. The fridge door opened with an easy pull, and he reached in without hesitation, gathering ingredients with the kind of efficiency that spoke of habit. He moved like a man who had done this countless times before, who knew exactly where everything was, who knew exactly what he was making.
It was the casual confidence of it that caught her off guard. The way he stood there in her stolen home, behaving as though it had always been his, as though nothing had been upended or forced into place. As though this was simply how their life worked. The domestic ease of it all made her chest tighten in a way she couldn't name.
"You're lucky I'm an excellent cook," he said over his shoulder, his voice smooth and far too pleased with himself. The corner of his mouth lifted into that infuriating smirk, the one that always held two truths at once—smugness and something unbearably soft.
Luna groaned, the sound drawn out and heavy with defeat. She let her head drop forward until her forehead met the cool table with a dull thud, the wood pressing cold against her skin. The echo seemed final, like the ceremonial seal on her surrender. She stayed there, breathing into the quiet, refusing to watch him.
The silence filled in around her, broken only by the rhythmic sounds of Draco in the kitchen: the soft clink of glass, the muted thud of a chopping board on stone, the low hum of him moving with purpose. It was domestic noise, the kind that belonged to long-settled couples, to mornings without conflict, to homes that hadn't been built on theft and stubbornness.
She knew then, with a clarity that sat heavy in her bones, that she was never going to escape him.
Not anymore.
*
She was in love with him. That was the truth she could not escape, the kind that lived deep in her chest and made her restless when he was too far away, the kind that turned her pulse into something reckless the moment she saw him, even when she was meant to be furious. It was a truth that made her traitorous hands ache to reach for him, to bridge whatever distance lay between them, even when her mind screamed that she should keep away.
None of it meant she had to endure his absurdity, or his constant need to claim and control, or the way his possessiveness sometimes felt like a cage. It was overbearing, unnecessary, suffocating at times, and yet there was something in it that pulled her closer instead of pushing her away. No matter how much she swore she would not allow him to dictate her life, she still found herself at his table every morning, as if drawn there by a force she could neither name nor fight.
It had started in anger, a reluctant habit born from stubbornness. She had told herself she came to prove a point, to show that she could face him without yielding, even after he had committed the unforgivable act of moving her entire home onto his land without a whisper of consent.
She had told herself she came to look him in the eye and make sure he saw that she was not broken, that she would not be worn down. And yet, over time, the sharp edges of that defiance had begun to smooth. Without meaning to, she had let it become something else entirely—something softer, something almost comfortable. It became a ritual. A quiet arrangement they never discussed but both honoured without fail.
Every morning, she apparated into his home. She refused to actually live there, no matter how many times he hinted, no matter how casually he mentioned that her bed was cold, or that the house felt empty without her in it.
She arrived with a huff, ready to lecture him for whatever new stunt he had pulled, already rehearsing the words she would throw at him.
And every morning, without exception, he was there before her. Always leaning against the counter like he had all the time in the world, always in the middle of cooking, always with that faint smirk that said he had been expecting her.
There were always two plates set out, never just one, as if it was the most natural thing in the world that she would sit across from him and eat. He never admitted he was waiting for her, but the truth of it hung in the air between them, quiet and undeniable.
She barely had time to settle into her chair before his voice drifted across the kitchen, smooth and warm with the rasp of early morning still in it, carrying that effortless ease he seemed to wear like a second skin. He spoke as though this was nothing unusual, as though it was entirely natural for her to be sitting here in his home, as though there was nothing dangerous about the fact that she kept coming back.
"Good morning, love," he said, like she hadn't spent the past month raising her voice at him at least once a day, like she hadn't thrown more than one object in his general direction, like she hadn't been moments away from wiping his memory clean for being the walking embodiment of chaos.
"Good morning, darling," she replied in the same smooth tone, matching him without missing a beat, pretending her heart wasn't tumbling over itself at the sound of his voice, pretending this wasn't a pattern they had both slipped into without meaning to, pretending she wasn't already in far deeper than she could ever climb out.
He leaned against the counter, arms folded, watching her with the kind of expression that usually preceded some remark designed to provoke her into throwing her coffee at his perfectly smug face. Sure enough, just as she raised her mug to her lips, he tilted his head slightly and asked, "Don't you feel lonely in your little cottage?"
She nearly choked, lowering her cup with deliberate care as her eyes narrowed and her fingers tightened around the handle. It was so like him to phrase it that way, to take her quiet, peaceful home and frame it as some sad, isolated corner of the world. "Do not degrade my home," she snapped, glaring over the rim of her cup, inviting him to press the issue, inviting him to turn it into the fight she expected.
But instead of smirking, instead of meeting her challenge with the sharp edge of amusement, he looked at her differently. His head tilted in a way that felt unguarded, his expression softening into something almost gentle, and it caught her so off guard that her chest tightened. "I'm asking," he said, and there was nothing calculated in it, nothing meant to bait her. He spoke as if it was simply the truth, as if the answer mattered.
And she, against her better judgment, let the question sit in the air between them. She let herself feel the weight of it. She let it settle. When she finally answered, the words slipped free before she could catch them. "I… I do."
The moment it left her mouth she wanted to take it back, to claw the truth out of the air before it reached him, but it was too late. His smirk did not return, not exactly, but something shifted in his eyes. There was warmth there, something close to relief, and something else too, something that made her stomach twist in a way that was both unnerving and impossible to ignore.
"We can spend the evenings together," he offered, his voice quiet and careful, as though he was giving her an option when they both knew he was already certain of her answer. "Maybe. If you want. I have a thing called a telly. It's in my movie room. We can watch it together if you like."
She pressed her hand over her face with a groan because of course he would play it like that, casual and harmless, as though the idea of curling up next to him for a film wasn't a calculated move. "I do know what television is, Draco," she muttered, forcing an eyeroll as if the thought of that kind of closeness didn't spark something warm and unwelcome in her. "I even have my favorite movies."
"Oh?" His brows rose, a flicker of genuine intrigue lighting his expression, and for some reason the fact that this was something he didn't already know about her felt almost intimate. "That's new. I didn't know that about you."
Her fingers toyed with the rim of her mug, her gaze flicking away as she tried for casual, though there was a faint smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "I adore Muggle technology," she said lightly. "I even have a cell phone."
Draco stared at her, unblinking, as though she had just confessed to harboring a secret identity or revealed some shocking cosmic truth. His brow furrowed, his lips parting slightly, every inch of him radiating disbelief. "You have a what?" he asked at last, his voice low with genuine astonishment, as if the notion of her willingly adopting something so ordinary, so Muggle, so entirely removed from magic, was beyond the scope of his comprehension.
Her mouth curved into a small, knowing smile, the kind that carried the faintest hint of mischief. She held his gaze, savoring his confusion. "Although," she continued, letting the word hang for a beat, "my contacts are just Hermione and Pansy."
The sound he made was equal parts groan and sigh, his hand dragging down his face with exaggerated weariness. "Of course they are," he muttered, like it was both the most predictable and most exasperating thing she could have possibly said.
And before she could stop herself, before she could remind her body that she was meant to be annoyed, that she was meant to be holding on to her anger, she smiled. It wasn't calculated, it wasn't intentional. It simply arrived, quiet and unguarded, because this was exactly the kind of thing she had never realized she had been missing. It was warmth in the middle of the chaos, something absurd and light that slipped into the cracks he had left in her walls, something that made her feel, for a fleeting moment, like she might be able to breathe again.
*
Popcorn had, quite without warning, become Draco's latest obsession. It had begun as nothing more than a passing indulgence, a casual snack to fill the silence while he adjusted to the strange rhythm of having Luna in his orbit more often than not. But the moment he realized there were infinite variables to perfect, he threw himself into it with the same ruthless precision he applied to everything he cared about.
He had spent the better part of the week in quiet experimentation, measuring and adjusting like a Potions Master, until tonight, when he poured freshly melted butter over a bowl of steaming, cloud-like kernels and dusted them with the precise amount of salt, he knew he had reached something close to art. This was perfection. The bowl was golden and warm, fragrant enough to tempt even the most stubborn of hearts. If she didn't fall for him after this, he might have to accept that she was entirely unsalvageable.
Luna had settled beside him on the couch, though not too close, as if she had measured the space between them with some invisible ruler. It was just enough for him to feel her presence without being able to claim it, just enough for the heat of her body to brush against the edge of his awareness, just enough for every small shift she made to tug at his attention. It was maddening.
All it would take was the smallest lean, the briefest surrender, and she would be against him, folded into his side where she belonged. And she did belong there. He knew it as surely as he knew his own name. But she was playing her game, keeping her distance while pretending she wasn't tempted. Pretending she wasn't drawn to him in exactly the same way he was drawn to her.
And as if the situation wasn't already absurd enough, Dandelion had joined them.
Draco let out a slow breath, his eyes drifting to the enormous, downy-furred creature sprawled contentedly on the rug beside Luna. The cow was a fixture now, an undeniable part of their peculiar arrangement, and he had long since stopped asking how or why she appeared indoors so often. But there was something about the way Dandelion leaned against Luna's legs, utterly at ease, that made him narrow his eyes in faint disapproval.
"This is ridiculous," Luna said at last, breaking the comfortable quiet. She shifted to tuck her legs beneath her, her tone carrying the kind of weary amusement that came from repeated battles she knew she wouldn't win. "You cannot treat her like a dog."
Draco scoffed, popping a piece of popcorn into his mouth, not even bothering to glance at the cow. "She is my pet. I can do whatever I want."
Her head snapped toward him, her voice sharpening with instant offense. "My pet."
"Whatever you say, Lovegood," he replied lazily, waving a hand in her direction without looking away from the screen. He was far too entertained by the flash of possessiveness in her eyes, too pleased by how easily she fell into these small, pointless arguments with him instead of retreating to her so-called independence. "Just watch the film."
She exhaled, a short, sharp sound that was more resignation than defeat, and to his quiet delight, she didn't move away. She didn't throw the popcorn at him or retreat to another room. She stayed. And as the film unfolded, its shifting light spilling across their faces, the world outside the soft glow of the room faded into nothing.
Time seemed to loosen its hold. Somewhere between one scene and the next, without ceremony, without words, she moved—closing the gap, letting her shoulder find his, letting her warmth sink into him until he could no longer tell where he ended and she began.
It was such a small thing at first, barely more than a ripple in the air between them. A quiet lean in his direction. The faintest shift of her weight. The sort of movement most people would have missed entirely, but he was not most people. He noticed everything when it came to her, catalogued every glance, every breath, every inflection in her voice as if each one were a key to some private language only he could learn.
So when her hand slid across the narrow space separating them, when her fingertips skimmed against his, when she finally, deliberately, curled her fingers into his palm, he felt it like a jolt of raw magic straight through his veins.
His eyes dropped to their joined hands, the sight almost too much to take in at once, his pulse thudding hard in his ears. He stayed very still, refusing to risk the smallest motion that might make her retreat.
She kept her gaze fixed on the screen, offering him nothing but the soft, certain weight of her hand in his. It was warm and small, impossibly soft, fitting against his like it had been made to rest there. Something in his chest tightened almost painfully.
"Couples are supposed to hold hands during a movie," she said at last, her voice quiet and almost careless, as if she hadn't just set the ground under his feet tilting dangerously.
He swallowed, tilting his head slightly to catch her in his peripheral vision, fighting the pull of a smile that threatened to give him away. "Oh, do they?"
She nodded once, still keeping her eyes forward, still pretending this wasn't a moment worth marking, still pretending it didn't matter.
"What else are they supposed to do?" His voice was lower now, softer, threading between them in a way that made the air feel heavier.
The pause that followed was full enough to make his pulse stutter. He could feel the faint flex of her fingers within his, could hear the catch in her breath before she pressed her lips together, as if weighing her answer. When it came, it was quieter, slower, edged with something almost shy. "I'm not sure. Touch each other. Kiss."
The words landed in him like a drop into deep water, sending ripples outward until every part of him felt their pull. His stomach dipped, his chest tightened, and for a moment, the film in front of them no longer existed. Only her voice, her hand in his, and the quiet ache of wanting more.
His grip tightened just slightly, enough to make her aware of the strength in his hand, of the way he was anchoring her there as if letting go had never been an option. Her words lingered between them, warm and reckless, carrying with them the dangerous promise of a line that, once crossed, neither of them would bother redrawing. She tried to mask it with that half-hearted question, that flimsy little veil of innocence, but he could see straight through her.
A slow, knowing smirk curved his mouth, one that told her he had already caught the scent of her surrender. "We can make new rules," he said, his thumb brushing a deliberate path over the back of her hand. The contact was small, almost subtle, but there was nothing accidental about it. He was steady, unyielding, as if daring her to look up, daring her to acknowledge that every unspoken truth was already laid bare between them.
Her lips parted, the faintest hitch in her breath betraying her. She was too still now, too conscious of the heat curling between them, of every inch of space they had yet to erase. The air shifted when he leaned in, the movement so slight it might have been nothing, except it carried the weight of his focus, the intensity of someone who was all in and had no intention of stepping back.
"So tell me, love," he murmured, his voice a slow drawl that landed somewhere between a challenge and a promise, his breath brushing warm against her skin. His thumb moved in lazy circles over the delicate skin at her wrist, coaxing, teasing, grounding. "What's our first rule?"
The question seemed to steal the air from her lungs. She took in a sharp breath, as though trying to steady herself, but her mind felt stripped of anything solid. Her gaze flicked briefly to his mouth, unbidden, and the smallest flicker of triumph passed through his eyes at the movement. He didn't speak, didn't push—just waited.
With a faint tilt of her head, she let her gaze meet his again, her eyes holding a glimmer of amusement that didn't quite hide the tension winding through her. Her voice, when it came, was quiet and deliberate, like she was offering something she could never take back. "Nothing inappropriate in front of Dandelion."
The sound that left Draco's throat was not the cold, sharp laugh she was used to. It was warmer, thicker, tangled with something so fond it hurt, something so far gone it was almost dangerous. His grin was sharp but not cruel, his eyes catching the light in a way that made her stomach twist. There was something unreadable there, something dark and certain, and then he was moving before she had even processed it—pulling her into his lap with a suddenness that made her breath catch, arms locking around her waist like he had been holding himself back for far too long.
She had only a second to gasp before her knees were bracketing his thighs, before her chest was pressed to his, before she felt the solid, steady weight of him beneath her. The rhythm of her heartbeat stumbled, hard and fast, rattling in her ribs, but she didn't fight him. She didn't tell him to let go. She didn't even pretend to want space. This felt too much like something inevitable, like something she had been on the edge of all along.
"You didn't let me kiss you for a long time, love," he said, his voice low enough that it seemed to sink straight through her skin. The roughness in it made her chest tighten, made the moment heavier, sharper. "I almost died."
Her lips curved, eyes rolling, but her fingers had already betrayed her, sliding into the soft hair at the back of his neck. She gave the smallest tug, just enough to feel the subtle catch of his breath, just enough to make his eyes flicker half-shut. "I'm sure you almost died," she murmured, her teasing gentle, threaded with warmth she didn't bother hiding. "You look exactly like that."
The corner of his mouth twitched, but the humor didn't linger. His gaze shifted, something heavier drawing in like a tide. "I died inside without you." The words came out without hesitation, almost like he hadn't decided to speak them until they were already in the air. "I may have crossed a line moving your house here."
"You did," she said softly, and the faintest trace of a smile ghosted her mouth as her touch grew lighter. Without thinking, her shoulders eased, her body sinking into his hold in the way her mind had been resisting for weeks.
His breath left him slow, his forehead finding hers, their noses brushing, the faint warmth of his exhale sliding over her lips. His hands moved over her spine with a steady rhythm, like he was relearning her shape one inch at a time. "I'm sorry," he said quietly, the words unvarnished, their weight pulling at the space between them.
Her eyes searched his, lingering there long enough for something unspoken to pass between them. Then she sighed, fingertips tracing idly over the back of his neck in slow circles. Her voice dropped almost to a whisper. "Well… it's fine."
And that was the moment he knew. He had won.