He smirked, slow and deliberate, the movement sharp as the edge of a blade. It was the kind of smirk that had always driven her to the brink of madness, that infuriating curve of his mouth that made her want to rip through the arrogance and see what lay beneath.
She wanted to strip away the layers of control he wore like armor, tear past the meticulously polished cruelty, break through that maddening, unbearable poise that made her pulse thunder and her skin feel too tight. It was barely there, nothing more than the twitch of his lips and the faintest glimmer in his otherwise frozen expression, but it was enough.
Enough to tip her off the edge she had been clinging to for far too long. Enough to snap the last thread of composure still holding her upright. Enough to ignite something wild inside her, something volatile that twisted low in her gut and burned its way outward until it licked at her skin.
Her hands curled into fists that trembled at her sides, her breath rasping in a ragged exhale caught somewhere between rage and longing. She stepped forward, too close, dangerously close, and when she spoke her voice came out as a broken whisper laced with venom, each word cutting like shattered glass.
"Fuck you, Malfoy."
His eyes, which had been cold and distant, darkened with sudden heat. The smirk curved further, no longer just arrogant but dangerous, bitter, and edged with something that felt like it could draw blood.
"Come and fuck me then, darling," he said, each word measured and slow, his voice curling like smoke. "Wasn't that what it was supposed to be?" His tone dropped, lazy in rhythm but heavy with something volatile just beneath the surface, the kind of strain that would snap if pushed too far. "Just a mediocre shag, wasn't that what you called it?"
Her heart slammed hard against her ribs, the air locking in her chest as though a scream had been trapped there. She could not tell if she wanted to slap him or kiss him or collapse into him completely.
He was doing it again, twisting her emotions like a blade, pulling her into his chaos until she could not think straight, could not breathe properly, could not be anything except consumed by the fact that he was standing in front of her.
"Draco…"
The smirk faltered, only for an instant, just long enough for something raw and unguarded to flash in his eyes. It was gone as quickly as it came, but it left an ache in her chest that she did not want to examine.
"You had your chance to speak your mind," he said quietly, the arrogance stripped away, his voice rough around the edges. "To tell me the truth. And now…" He swallowed, the muscle in his jaw tightening, his composure fraying at the seams. "Now you can go. If that's what you want."
She went still, every part of her locking in place. Her nails dug into her palms until they left crescent-shaped marks, but she hardly felt it. Her stomach twisted with the kind of clarity that made her want to scream, because somewhere deep enough to hurt, she already knew. She fucking knew.
This was not a bluff. It was not one of their familiar games, not the kind of sparring match they always fell into with cutting remarks and charged silences and touches that lingered far too long. It was not just another round in their exhausting, intoxicating battle of wills.
He meant it. Every word. He was handing her an exit, a clean break disguised as something merciful, and it carried the quiet devastation of someone tearing out his own heart to set it down in front of her.
And she did not want it. She did not want the freedom he was offering. She wanted to scream until her voice gave out, to grab him by the collar and shake him until every answer spilled out, to demand what the hell he was thinking, why he was speaking like this, why his voice had taken on the sound of a farewell wrapped in grief. She wanted to know why he was looking at her as though he was already mourning her, already bracing for an ending that had not yet come.
Draco exhaled sharply, the sound quick and pained, and dragged a hand through his hair. His fingers shook as they moved, though he tried to hide it. When he spoke again, his voice had lost the sharpness that usually cut through every word. It was quieter now, hollow in a way that felt more like surrender than rage, steeped in a bitterness that seemed born of something he had already decided was final.
"I put your house back where it belongs," he said. Each word was slow, deliberate, as if he had practiced them over and over until they felt real. "So you can pretend none of this mattered. You can tell yourself that this year meant nothing. You can tell yourself that I was not standing there, ring in my pocket, planning to propose to you on our anniversary."
The world stopped moving.
Her heart lurched and then seemed to stop altogether, her breath caught halfway in her chest and refusing to leave. The room fell away until there was nothing but the echo of his voice in her mind. The sound of it pressed against her ribs, against her throat, against every fragile part of her that had been holding together by force alone. The edges of her vision blurred. She could not hear anything except the relentless drum of her own pulse.
"What?"
The word slipped out, rough and small, barely more than the scrape of air past her lips. It did not sound like her own voice. She did not even notice the faint tremor in her hands or the way her eyes stung. She just looked at him, really looked, and took in every detail. The set of his jaw. The faint tightness around his mouth. The flicker of something unguarded in his eyes before he blinked it away. She let the full weight of what he had just said press down on her until she could feel it in her bones, heavy and unshakable.
Draco's jaw was locked so tight she could see the tension in the muscle, a faint tremor beneath the skin as if the strain of keeping himself together was tearing him apart from the inside. His eyes gave her nothing, a perfect, cold blankness, but the rest of him betrayed the truth. His shoulders were pulled inward, his spine rigid, the posture of a man holding himself upright only by sheer force of will.
"You're free to leave," he said again, softer this time. The words seemed to drag through him on the way out, as if they hurt to speak, as if each syllable had been pulled from somewhere raw and unprotected. Yet they landed with the same weight, no less final, no less cutting.
She stared at him, frozen in place, her mind struggling to reconcile the man before her with the one who had torn through her life like a storm, who had stripped her of every barrier and left her bare to the bone. He was the one who had fought for her when no one else had, the one who had challenged her, infuriated her, pulled her apart and remade her into someone who could stand in the fire with him. He was the man who had loved her with a ferocity that was as terrifying as it was beautiful.
A proposal.
He had been planning to propose.
The thought was so absurd it almost made her laugh, except nothing about this moment was remotely funny. Was he completely out of his mind?
She should leave. Every instinct screamed it. Turn away. Walk out. Put the door and the garden and the long path between them and never look back. Let the pieces fall where they may. Save herself. But her feet stayed rooted to the floor, unmovable, as if the air itself had solidified around her.
She should push past him, shoulder brushing his on her way to the door, and let this become just another wound to bury. Pretend the sharp ache spreading through her ribs was nothing more than a trick of the moment. Pretend the way his words had cracked her open, precise as a blade, was something she could forget. Pretend that she was not standing here wanting answers she had no right to want.
Her throat felt tight, the lump there almost choking her, but she forced her voice into the space between them. It came out rough and unsteady, trembling under the weight of everything she could not name.
"Why would you say something like that?" she asked, the words breaking over a jagged edge. Her hands were fists at her sides, her body tense and shaking, though not entirely from anger. There was something deeper threading through it, something far more dangerous. "Just to fuck with my head? Is that what this is? Because I do not appreciate that kind of game, Malfoy. Not from you. Not like this."
Draco exhaled, the sound uneven, as if it had been dragged straight from somewhere deep in his chest. His hand went through his already disheveled hair, restless and unthinking, the movement almost violent in its need to do something other than stand there and come apart. His breaths came heavy, each one slow to fill his lungs, as though even breathing cost him more than he could afford.
When he spoke, his voice was low and raw, roughened by something dangerously close to desperation. It was not the voice of a man trying to win an argument or hold his ground. It was the voice of a man who had stripped himself down to the truth because there was nothing left to hide behind.
"I did want to propose," he said, so softly the words barely seemed to exist between them. "That wasn't a line. That wasn't a tactic. That was me—terrified out of my mind and trying not to lose you. Because you are the only person who has ever really seen me. Not the family name. Not the money. Not the heir to some hollow legacy. Not the arrogant, possessive bastard everyone assumes I am. You saw past all of it, past the walls I didn't even know I had built. You saw me before I even knew who I was."
His voice caught, and for a moment he seemed to fight with himself, jaw tight, hands curling into fists as if the only way to keep the words from shaking was to anchor them with tension. "That's why I needed you to be mine. Not because you belonged to me. Not to own you. But because you had already become part of me, and I couldn't find the edges where you ended and I began. That's why I wanted you to be my wife."
Luna's breath hitched, sharp and audible, her chest rising as if she had been holding her breath without realizing it. Her eyes were wide, too bright, unblinking, her lips parted in disbelief. She looked as though he had taken every moment between them and rewritten it in a single sentence.
Like she wanted to run, like every instinct was urging her to turn away, but she couldn't. She stayed rooted, caught in the pull of something she hadn't prepared for, unsure whether to believe him or to shield herself before the truth sank in too deep to escape.
Draco didn't let the moment breathe. He didn't let her speak. He could feel the words burning through him, and he knew if he stopped now they would never make it past his lips.
"I needed you to be the mother of my heir," he continued, the words coming rougher now, fraying as they left him. "I needed to see your hair turn grey next to mine. I needed to hear you complain about your knees in the morning while I brought you tea. I needed to fight with you about curtains when we were seventy and too stubborn to compromise. I needed to grow old with you, the way love makes even the smallest irritations worth everything. I needed you there beside me, in all your maddening, beautiful chaos, every day for the rest of my life. Because I don't know how to breathe in a world where you're not mine."
His throat worked, his voice breaking as if the truth itself had cut him open. "I know it's wrong. I know I'm obsessive. Possessive. Twisted in ways I will never fully untangle. I don't love cleanly or gently or in a way that makes sense to anyone else. But it's you, Luna. It has always been you."
Her laughter slipped into the space between them as though it had always belonged there, warm and alive and carrying the faint sting of shared history. It startled him, not because he did not recognize it, but because it had been so long since he had heard it like this, unguarded and real. He did not realize how rigidly he had been holding himself until the sound broke through him, loosening something deep in his chest that he had been keeping locked away. For weeks, everything in his world had been washed out to shades of grey, each day feeling as though it carried no air, no light, no room for anything but the grind of survival. Now, just for a heartbeat, there was color again, vivid and immediate, all because she was standing there laughing like that.
"And it has always been you," she said suddenly, the words slipping out without hesitation. "I am in love with you, although I am fairly certain something is very wrong with you."
"I am aware," he replied without missing a beat, his tone dry enough to make her smile widen.
"I do love you," she went on, "even though you snore."
His eyes narrowed faintly. "Do not laugh at me," he said, though the words came out softer than he meant them to, almost closer to a plea than a reprimand. He wanted to sound annoyed, wanted to find something cold and biting to shield himself with, but the sound of her laughing at all had already stripped the fight from him. "I do not snore."
"You do," she said with a calm certainty that was almost smug. She tilted her head like she was examining some rare creature. "It is not loud. It is… comforting. Like sleeping beside a thunderstorm that refuses to admit it is tired."
He gave her a look somewhere between disbelief and reluctant amusement. "That is absurd."
"Maybe," she said, "but it is true. And I like it."
He should have argued. He should have told her she was impossible. But the way she said sleeping next to him made his throat tighten, because it was not past tense. It didn't sound like she had closed the door on him. And if she hadn't closed it…
He stepped in, slow but deliberate, close enough that the air between them shifted. "Luna," he murmured, her name almost reverent, as if speaking it alone was dangerous. His hand twitched at his side, aching to touch her, but he kept it there, not trusting himself.
Her smile faded, the teasing falling away like a mask she no longer wanted to hold. Her gaze locked with his, steady and searching, and it felt like she was peeling him apart with her eyes. "I do love you," she said again, slower this time, each word heavy enough to land in his bones. "But I need to be able to breathe. I can't be yours if being yours means losing myself."
The words lodged deep, clean and sharp. He could feel them pressing against every instinct to tell her she was already his, that she always had been. But something in her tone made him stay still.
For once, he didn't push. He didn't try to win. He just stood there, so close he could almost feel the warmth of her skin, but far enough that she would have to make the choice. If she stayed this time, it would not be because he cornered her. It would be because she wanted to.
"Back to the serious topic," she murmured, her voice lowering, pulling them both into the gravity of everything that had been momentarily softened. The air seemed to thicken, charged with that familiar, dangerous tension that always came when they brushed against something real. Her gaze searched his face, steady and deliberate, as if she were peeling away the layers he kept so carefully in place. "Why are you so obsessed with me?"
Draco paused, only for a breath, but the quiet that followed said more than hesitation. It was the stillness before impact, the tight pull before truth. The answer had never been complicated. It had lived inside him from the moment he first truly saw her, woven into him, bone-deep, in the way his soul tilted toward her without asking for permission.
"You smell like my Amortentia," he said at last. The words came low, roughened at the edges. His gaze stayed fixed on her, dark and unreadable, but weighted with meaning, as if he were bracing for her to laugh or to turn away or to not understand the depth of what he had just given her.
Luna tilted her head, a small movement, yet it shifted the air between them. Her face was unreadable, as elusive as moonlight on water. Her lashes lowered, casting faint shadows on her cheeks, and her lips parted. When she spoke, her voice was softer, but it carried danger in its quiet. It wrapped around him like silk threaded with thorns, like a whispered spell that could undo him with a single breath. "And?" she asked, daring him to go further, to give her all of it.
Draco stepped forward, slow and deliberate. He was not simply closing the space between them. He was pressing the entirety of himself into it, filling it with heat, with the steady pull of his presence.
It felt less like nearness and more like gravity, and she was caught in his orbit. His voice, when it came, was low and almost calm on the surface, but beneath it was something feral, something raw, something that wanted her far too much.
"You smell like mine too," she whispered before he could answer. The words struck him hard, clenching his stomach so sharply it made him lightheaded, as if the ground had shifted beneath his feet.
But she was not finished.
"That doesn't mean you get to behave like an actual dragon."
A sharp exhale left him, caught somewhere between a breath and a laugh, though there was no joy in it. It was tension breaking for a heartbeat, a crack in the steel he had been holding too tightly. "An actual dragon?" he repeated, one brow lifting in disbelief, as if weighing whether he should take offense or be entertained.
Luna gave a small shrug, the motion infuriating in its casualness, as though she had not just reached straight into him and closed her hands around something sacred. "It's the hoarding for me," she said, her voice carrying wry amusement but softening on the edges, touched with something almost tender. "You collect rare, beautiful, expensive things and guard them like the whole world is plotting to take them from you. You get so possessive. And I think you—" Her words faltered, her breath catching before she forced it out again, as though she were reining herself in before she gave away too much. "I think you see me like one of them."
His jaw locked until it ached. His fingers flexed at his sides, restless and aching for her, the urge to close the space between them almost unbearable. Heat swelled in his chest, a wild, suffocating rush that felt like it might consume him from the inside out.
She was not wrong. He did see her that way, though not as an object to possess. She was something singular, something that could never be replaced or copied or shared. She was the rarest thing he had ever found, and he needed her so fiercely it bordered on starvation.
He knew it was not healthy. He knew that the way he loved her lacked softness, that it would never fit into polite definitions or gentle boundaries. His love was not built on light touches or quiet promises. It came in violent surges. It came like a storm that tore apart the horizon.
And he knew, with a certainty that burned like a brand, that the way he looked at her was not normal. The way he wanted her, craved her, needed her was not something that could be explained in reasoned, measured words. It was the kind of hunger that hollowed out his chest and rewrote the bones beneath his skin. Madness dressed in longing. Devotion disguised as possession.
If he tried to speak it aloud, it would sound unhinged. Like a man possessed. Like someone who would scorch the skies, drown the seas, and bring down entire empires just to keep her within reach, just to feel her heart beating close to his.
And maybe that was what love had always been for him. Not careful. Never easy. It was fire and teeth and unending need. It was a force that devoured and remade him, a black hole with her name carved at its center.
He moved closer, step by deliberate step, until there was barely space left between their bodies. Close enough to hear her breath catch, sharp and shallow, caught halfway in her throat like something she was not ready to admit. Close enough to see the storm in her eyes, where rage collided with hunger, where fear tangled with something that looked dangerously like love.
The air between them was no longer something you could simply breathe. It was charged, alive, waiting for the smallest spark to ignite. If he leaned even an inch closer, he knew he would feel the tremor running through her, the tension wound tight in her spine, the way she was holding herself together by sheer will.
He reached for her hands with a care that felt almost out of place, taking them in his own as though they were something breakable. He lifted them slowly, pressing his lips to each finger in turn, unhurried and precise, as though each kiss was a vow he could not yet put into words. When he reached her ring finger, he stayed there, his lips brushing her skin with the reverence of a man praying in a chapel. It was sacred. It was inevitable.
"I love you," he said against her skin, the words spoken softly but weighted with a truth that seemed to fill the air. His voice was stripped bare, reverent in a way that could not be faked. "More than the universe itself. More than anything I have ever known."
She shuddered, and he saw it. He saw the way that single sentence travelled through her like a current. The way her chest rose on a sharp inhale, the way her pupils widened until they devoured the light, the way her fingers moved faintly as if she no longer trusted them. As if she no longer trusted herself not to close the gap and hold on until the world fell away.
Part of her wanted to slap him. To curse him, to wound him, to demand he stop making her feel this much. Part of her wanted to rip every piece of clothing from his infuriating, beautiful body. She wanted to claw at him, to make him hurt, to force him to feel her in his bones.
She wanted to kiss him until they broke apart under the pressure. She wanted to be destroyed by him and to destroy him in return. She wanted all of it, all of him, for as long as she could have him. That truth terrified her more than anything else ever had.
But she was finished with pretending. She did not care anymore. Not about the fights that had left their mark, not about the wreckage they had built together, not about the fact that their love had never been gentle. Perhaps that was the point. Perhaps they were not made for softness. Perhaps they were meant to clash until the impact burned them clean, to blaze hotter than anyone else, to push until one of them surrendered.
And tonight, it was her.
She moved without hesitation, without giving herself the chance to stop. Her body seemed to know before her mind could form the thought.
She stepped into him as if closing the space between them was an act of war, her hands gripping his collar hard enough to bruise her palms. With one fierce pull she tore his shirt open. Buttons scattered across the floor, some clattering against the wood, others vanishing into shadow. She did not look at them. She did not care.
All that mattered was the heat pouring from his skin, the frantic rise and fall of his chest beneath her palms, the black hunger in his eyes that seemed to pull her in until she could not see the edges of herself anymore. He looked at her as if she was gravity, as if she was breath, as if nothing else had ever been real.
And then she kissed him.
It was not soft. It was not slow. It was not the kind of kiss anyone would write into a love letter or remember under quiet skies. It had none of the gentleness people claimed love should have, if there was even such a thing as rules for love in the first place.
This was something else entirely. It came sharp and unyielding, wild enough to feel like a fight more than an embrace. Their mouths crashed together with a force that stole breath, all teeth and tongues, bruises blooming where their lips met.
It was messy, unrestrained, a war dressed up as intimacy, but there was no tenderness in it. No sweetness, no carefully measured touch, no pause to breathe. Only the feral, relentless pull of hunger. Only the kind of need that had been caged for too long and was now tearing its way out.
She kissed him as if she meant to punish him, as if every second of pain he had given her could be taken back by sinking her mouth into his. She poured her anger into him, let resentment bleed into longing, let heartbreak taste like possession.
Every tear she had swallowed down. Every scream she had locked behind her teeth. Every night she had tried to hate him and failed. All of it was there. And for a moment, Draco took it. He absorbed it. He let her burn herself into him.
Until he didn't.
He broke the kiss and stepped back, the space between them widening in a single movement that felt like a fracture. His breathing came hard and uneven, chest rising too quickly, the sound of it rough in the charged air.
His hands were clenched so tightly at his sides that the skin across his knuckles had gone bloodless. It looked as if he was holding himself back by sheer force, every instinct in him straining to pull her in again.
His shirt hung open, the fabric slipping from one shoulder, pale skin marked with the faint trails of her nails, his lips reddened and swollen, every line of his body sharp with tension.
Luna stood where he had left her, chest still rising fast, her skin alive with the aftermath of what they had just done. Her mouth tingled, her pulse drummed in her ears, her whole body humming with a charge she could not name. She drew the back of her hand across her mouth, her eyes never leaving his.
When she spoke, her voice was low and steady, but it carried something dangerous beneath the quiet. "Be a good boy."
She might not have known it, but the moment the words left her lips, she struck something deep in him. He could be obedient, restrained, careful, but not now. Not after that. Those three words had unlocked whatever chain he had been holding himself with.
And the wild thing inside him was already moving.
Draco moved before she could take her next breath. One moment he was holding himself together by some fragile thread, the next he was breaking it.
He closed the space between them with the force of someone who had decided there would be no more waiting. His arms went around her in one sure movement, lifting her clear off the floor as though she weighed nothing at all, as though she belonged there, in his hold, and nowhere else. Her back hit the wall with enough force to make the frames beside them rattle, the sound sharp against the pounding in her ears.
She gasped, the air catching painfully in her chest, her hands rising without thought to grip his shoulders. Her nails dug in, half for balance, half for something to hold on to while the world narrowed to nothing but him.
He was heat and muscle and breath pressed against her from every angle. He was the wall at her back and the air in her lungs and the weight that kept her from floating away. There was no room for reason, no chance for doubt, not even the faintest spark of escape. And she did not want it. Not now. Not with him looking at her like this.
His breath was harsh against her neck, too warm, too close, uneven with the effort it took to keep himself from tearing right through her. His hands slid down to her thighs, gripping hard enough to make her breath stutter, pulling her open until there was nothing between them but heat and need. He held her there as though the right to do it had been his from the beginning, as though her body had always been meant to fit like this in his hands.
Her pulse raced beneath his mouth when he found her throat. His teeth caught the skin, his lips pressing heat into every inch he claimed.
He kissed, bit, and sucked until her skin ached and burned, until each mark was a brand, until she tilted her head back without even thinking. It was a surrender and an invitation all at once, and she hated herself for how badly she wanted him to take it. She hated herself, and she loved herself, and she could not keep his name from leaving her lips in a sound that was half whimper, half plea.
Then his hand slid between them, rough and urgent, his touch shaking just enough to betray the war going on inside him. She barely had time to register the sound of his zipper before his fingers were under the waistband of her knickers, pushing them aside with a frantic determination that left no space for thought. She sucked in a sharp breath, her legs tightening instinctively around him, her head falling back hard against the wall.
"You're fucking impossible," he growled against her skin, his voice low and uneven, torn somewhere between anger, hunger, and something far more dangerous. His fingers grazed her in a way that was both teasing and claiming, as though he wanted to undo her completely before he even started.
"Then stop talking," she breathed, her voice ragged, her nails raking down the planes of his chest and leaving angry red trails behind. "And fuck me."
Draco's exhale came fast and sharp, half growl, half desperate gasp. His eyes locked on hers with a look that could have set the world alight, like she was the only thing holding him here, like she was the fire and he was already burning alive inside it.
She choked on a gasp when he entered her, her head slamming back into the wall as her body strained to take him, to stretch around the sudden, relentless fullness. He gave her no chance to breathe, no time to adjust, no room for her mind to catch up. Thought would only ruin it. Thought would remind her why she had been so furious, and she wanted none of that now.
"Gods," she moaned, her voice breaking under the weight of it, her fingers tangling in his hair and pulling hard enough to drag a groan from his throat, hard enough to draw another sharp, deep thrust. The sensation rippled through her, brutal and all-consuming.
His hands gripped her thighs with bruising force, his forehead pressing to hers, his breath mingling with hers in quick, shallow bursts. "You drive me fucking insane," he bit out, the words guttural, each one hitting as hard as his thrusts.
"Good," she gasped, barely forming the word through the ragged pull of her breathing. "Maybe now you'll understand what it feels like."
A dangerous curve touched his mouth, and then he shifted her hips just slightly. The angle changed, and the shock of it made her vision flare white at the edges. A wrecked sound tore from her throat before she could stop it, her body jolting around him, clenching hard, dragging a deep, filthy groan from him in return.
"I understand," he murmured, pressing a kiss to her lips so lingering and soft it felt almost cruel before pulling back and driving into her harder, deeper. "I understand perfectly."
After that, there was no thought left in her. No anger, no reason, no lines to hold onto.
There was only the way he was tearing her apart and remaking her in the same breath, the way each thrust felt like he was carving himself into her bones. Her nails clawed at his back, her voice gone raw from the sounds she could not stop, his name leaving her lips over and over as if it was the only thing she had ever known how to say.
Her mind was empty, stripped of every thought except the unbearable pleasure that tore through her in waves. Her legs locked tighter around him, holding him there as if sheer will alone could keep him inside her forever. He didn't slow. He didn't give her a reprieve. He drove into her with relentless purpose, each thrust stealing the air from her lungs, each movement pushing her further past the point of no return. She shattered around him again, her body clenching, spasming, breaking under the force of him, and still he didn't stop.
She had no idea how many times he had pulled her apart already. She couldn't keep count of the number of times his name had fallen from her lips in ragged sobs, or how many times he had breathed hers against her skin like a prayer, a promise, a benediction. Now she was wrecked. Her body was raw, oversensitive, trembling with the aftershocks, yet he kept her there, dragging her higher, refusing to let her come down.
"Draco," she gasped, her voice breaking into something between a plea and a cry, her nails digging into his shoulders as he thrust again. His thumb found her clit, circling slowly, deliberately, in movements that were almost cruel in how they kept her teetering on the edge. Her legs shook, her breath stuttered, and her head pressed back against the wall as she tried to find the words. "I… I can't… please…"
His hands gripped her thighs harder, holding her wide open for him, his mouth brushing the curve of her jaw, his breath scorching hot against her ear. "You know what to say, doll," he murmured, his voice a low rasp, heavy with the strain of holding back, every word dripping with the kind of control that could snap at any moment.
Her body arched into him, her mouth falling open in a soundless gasp, and then the words came. The ones that broke him completely. The ones that stripped away the last barrier between restraint and ruin.
"Please, Draco," she whispered, her voice so hoarse it was barely sound at all. Her hands came up to his face, forcing him to meet her eyes, forcing him to see her and understand exactly what she was giving him. "Come in me."
He let out a deep, guttural sound that vibrated against her skin, his body tensing like a bow drawn too far. His pace turned wild, almost brutal, every thrust a hard, desperate push to get deeper, to lose himself entirely inside her.
His forehead pressed against hers, their breaths tangling in the tight space between them. His grip on her hips was so fierce she knew she would feel it tomorrow, dark bruises blooming under his hands, but she welcomed it. She wanted it. She wanted the proof that this had happened, that he had been here, that he had claimed her in a way that would linger long after the heat faded.
And then he was coming, spilling inside her with a low, wrecked groan that seemed to tear itself from somewhere deep in his chest.
His whole body went rigid, his arms trembling with the strain of holding himself over her, and his mouth found hers in a kiss that was messy, unrestrained, desperate. It tasted like relief and surrender, like something that had been inevitable from the very first moment. She kissed him through it, swallowing every broken sound, every harsh breath, every tremor that ran through him, letting him unravel completely, letting him take whatever she had to give.
When he finally drew back, it was only far enough to let her breathe, only far enough that she could see his face. And there he was. This was him stripped bare. Unmasked. Shaken. In his eyes she saw something that made her chest tighten until it ached. Something raw and fragile, something so unguarded it felt dangerous to witness. He looked at her like she was the only thing keeping him from coming apart entirely, the only thing holding him here in this moment, in this life.
"Come back to me," he whispered, the words trembling at the edges. "Please. Be mine. I'm begging you."
It wasn't a command. It wasn't possession. It was stripped of all the pride and armor he usually carried like a shield. A plea that came from somewhere far deeper, from love that had nowhere else to go.
She didn't answer with words. Words would have been too small for this.
Instead, she lifted her hand, the smallest, quietest motion, and the air between them shifted. It seemed to hum, low and warm, a current of magic stirring around them, born not from any spell but from something older and more instinctive. It moved with her pulse. It knew what her voice couldn't shape.
The first to return were the books. They drifted through the halls as though they had been waiting for her call, worn covers and dog-eared pages fluttering gently in the air. They found their way to the library—their library—where space had always been left for her. Each one slid into place with a soft, familiar sound.
Her clothes came next, folding themselves neatly as they floated down long corridors, slipping through doorways until they returned to the wardrobe that stood beside his.
In the kitchen, a chipped mug with a faded constellation spiraled slowly through the air, settling into the cabinet with a faint clink, the sound impossibly loud in the hush that had fallen over the manor.
And then came the plants.
All of them.
Trailing ivy, blooming orchids, and tiny succulents in hand-painted pots drifted into the sunroom he had built for her. They moved slowly, almost reverently, as if they were remembering, as if they could sense that something sacred had returned.
One by one, they found their places, leaves bright and open, drinking in the golden light that poured through the glass. The manor seemed to exhale, a long, quiet sigh, as though even the walls had been waiting for her to come home.
Luna stayed where she was, her back still pressed against the wall, her limbs trembling from the weight of everything they had just given each other. She was undone in every way that mattered, but she didn't move. Not until the last plant had settled into its place and the air had stilled again.
Only then did she lift her gaze.
Her eyes found his.
Something shifted in that moment, something neither of them could have named, yet both of them felt deep in the marrow of their bones. Draco felt it like a second heartbeat pounding in his chest. She hadn't spoken. She didn't need to. The truth was in the way she looked at him, in the quiet certainty that wrapped itself around them.
She was not leaving.
Not now. Not ever.
*
Waking up next to each other felt different this time, but Luna couldn't quite place why. They were still tangled together, still sharing the same warmth, still breathing in sync as if their bodies had never been meant to be apart.
But there was something else, something subtle yet undeniable, something that settled in the air.
It was peace. Not the forced, uneasy kind of peace that came from ignoring problems, not the temporary relief of finding comfort in touch without solving anything—but real peace. Something deep, something unshakable, something terrifyingly close to acceptance.
Luna wasn't sure when it had happened, wasn't sure at what point she had stopped fighting it, stopped resisting the truth she had been trying so hard to deny.
Maybe it was in the way he had broken down in front of her, stripped himself raw, laid his entire soul at her feet without hesitation, without shame.
Maybe it was in the way he had said her name like a plea, like a prayer, like it was the only word that had ever mattered.
Maybe it was in the way he had loved her, worshipped her, made her feel like the center of his universe, like she was something untouchable, something irreplaceable. Or maybe, just maybe, she had lost her fucking mind.
Because logically, she should still be mad at him. Logically, she should still be fighting this, still be reminding herself of all the ways he drove her insane, all the ways his possessiveness should have been a problem, all the ways he would never stop wanting to own every single piece of her. But logic didn't stand a fucking chance against the reality of Draco Malfoy.
Because he loved her. Not just in words, not just in fleeting, passionate declarations, but in every single way a person could love another. He loved her in the way he got her a fucking greenhouse in the Manor because he knew how much her plants meant to her. He loved her in the way he hired extra help at the coffee shop so she wouldn't have to work every single day, even though she had never asked for it, even though she would have refused if he had given her the chance.
He loved her in the way he had completely made peace with the fact that a tiny, ridiculous cow had taken over his home, in the way he let Dandelion wander freely as if she owned the place, in the way he never once complained about the fur, the mess, the occasional headbutts.
He loved her in the way he let her take up space in his life, in the way he had carved out an entire world for her inside his, in the way he had built a home around her presence without her even noticing.
Draco was an obsessive, possessive, overbearing, emotionally unhinged man who would rather set the world on fire than let her go, and Luna had finally stopped pretending that she didn't love him for it.
It didn't matter anymore. She wasn't going to waste any more energy pretending she wanted anything less than all of him. He wasn't going to change.
He wasn't going to suddenly become someone who didn't want to keep her, didn't want to own her in every way a person could be owned.
He was never going to stop watching her with that sharp, unwavering gaze, never going to stop touching her like she was something sacred, never going to stop treating her like she belonged to him just as much as he belonged to her. And maybe, just maybe, she didn't want him to.
So yeah, maybe she had lost her mind. But fuck it. Let it be gone. She had never cared much for sanity anyway.