Chapter 1

They had been married for three agonizing weeks, and each passing day dragged behind it the heavy weight of silence, bitterness, and the creeping, inexorable realization that the lives they had once known—the futures they had once imagined—had been dismantled, twisted, and repurposed into something grotesque and unrecognizable, something that bore no resemblance to love or companionship or even begrudging tolerance; it was a bleak, soulless farce, this forced union, a perverse and calculated maneuver orchestrated by the Ministry in the war's devastating aftermath, wrapped in rhetoric about rebuilding and unifying, but beneath all their polished speeches and falsified optimism lay the truth: it was control, it was desperation, it was eugenics wrapped in a bow, a last-ditch attempt to preserve "purity" and conjure peace from the rubble by chaining together enemies and calling it progress, sacrificing the broken bodies and exhausted hearts of survivors on the altar of a nation too afraid to reckon with the blood still wet on its hands.

Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy—names that once stirred venom and reverence in equal measure—were now names hyphenated by law, spoken together with bureaucratic coldness in the records of this grotesque social experiment, unwilling participants in a union meant to symbolize healing but forged in fire, distrust, and the kind of trauma that never really stops echoing; they were Patient Zero, the Ministry's first tragic prototype, a test of what might happen when ideology and cruelty disguised themselves as reconciliation, and it was, by every metric imaginable, an unmitigated disaster, not loud or violent or explosive, but quiet in the most insidious way—silent meals not shared, footsteps not met, eye contact never held, the kind of failure that hums beneath your skin and corrodes you slowly.

The initial shock, the dry-mouthed horror that came from standing at the altar beside someone whose very name had once ignited arguments and hexes, had faded with startling speed, and in its place had grown a furious, unspoken resentment that settled in their chests like rot; because how could they—how could anyone—expect to build something real on the ashes of such long-standing hatred, on the corpses of friends and principles and choices stripped away, when every moment of proximity reminded them of war, of betrayal, of the blood between them that no marriage contract could cleanse? It was a mockery of everything sacred, the idea that they, who had stood on opposite ends of a battlefield with wands raised and eyes blazing, could now play house in the shadow of so much loss; laughable, yes, if it hadn't been so devastatingly real, so tangible, so heavy, and the bitter irony of it all—of having never spoken more than a handful of civil words before being bound for life—only deepened the chasm that yawned between them.

And now, as the days blurred and bled together into a thick soup of awkwardness and silence, the grandeur of Malfoy Manor—a home that once pulsed with dark power and gilded entitlement—stood hollow and echoing, every luxurious detail twisted into a parody of comfort, a tomb of velvet and marble where two unwilling strangers coexisted in separate orbits; the air itself felt stifled, like it too recoiled from their presence, and the house, far too vast for only two souls, seemed to stretch in unnatural silence, its halls becoming battlegrounds of avoidance, its rooms echoing with the kind of loneliness that made the edges of sanity blur.

In those three weeks, he had seen her only twice—twice, and both times she had moved like a ghost, like smoke avoiding fire, like the very thought of him was poison she couldn't risk inhaling; the first time, she had swept past him in the hallway with her eyes pinned forward as though she were being pursued by something she couldn't let herself see, her hair wild and defiant in a way that reminded him she would never belong to this house, to this name, to him; and the second time, they had almost collided at the library doors—his mother's shrine to stillness and secrets—and she had vanished with the sharp silence of a blade, not even sparing him a glance, her presence erased before it could stain her with acknowledgment.

It stung more than he wanted to admit, that silence, that absence of rage, of fire, of anything at all; because he had imagined that they would fight, that there would be shouting and venom, that she would spit every grievance at him until it scalded—but instead, she gave him nothing, and that emptiness hurt in ways no curse ever had; it gnawed at him in the quiet, hollowed him out from the inside, made him feel like a ghost in his own home, like something untouchable and unwanted, and that wound—one carved not with anger, but with indifference—bled constantly beneath his skin.

He was bored, yes, and restless, yes, but more than that—more deeply, more dangerously—he was miserable, and it was the kind of misery that didn't scream or sob, but sat heavily on his chest and made breathing feel like a choice he had to keep making; the manor, once a fortress of pride, now loomed like a mausoleum of all he had lost, and the cold distance Hermione kept between them only sharpened the edges of his loneliness, a blade pressed to the throat of every moment that passed without her voice.

So he wandered—through corridors that no longer remembered laughter, through rooms still haunted by memories not his own, through shadows that whispered the names of the dead—and in those long hours of aimlessness, he clung to distractions: relics from the past, echoes of his father's firelit study, books he didn't read, portraits he didn't meet the eyes of, all in a futile attempt to drown the gnawing ache of failure, of exile, of the unbearable fact that he no longer knew what it meant to belong, not to his family, not to his name, and certainly not to his wife.

Because he was an orphan now—barely nineteen and already carrying the empty ache of that word, the finality of it—and the war had taken his parents, his childhood, his certainty, everything that had once made him feel like a person instead of a shell dressed in heirloom robes, and though he had a wife now, in the legal sense, in the cold ink of Ministry paperwork, it felt more like possession than partnership, more like being tethered to someone who despised the rope just as much as he did, and it was cruel, unbearably cruel, that the only person he had left in the world was a girl he had once mocked and maligned, a girl whose eyes held storms and whose silence was sharp enough to cut bone.

And she hadn't said a word, hadn't needed to, because the line was drawn clearly in the air between them, a boundary of mutual disdain and wounded pride, and he—arrogant, brittle, aching—refused to cross it, refused to humiliate himself by trying to reach out when every inch of her body screamed that she didn't want to be touched, seen, or known by him; because what would he even say? "Sorry for the unforgivable things I've done—shall we share a scone?" The absurdity of it was only funny in the way pain often is when you've run out of ways to cry.

So he stayed away, let her have her refuge in the library, let her live as though he didn't exist, and he told himself that was mercy, that was respect—but the truth, the thing that coiled like a serpent in his gut, was that the quiet was starting to unmake him, thread by thread, until he wasn't sure there'd be anything left to unravel.

It was easier, on the surface, to blame her—to be angry with her for the frost in her gaze, for the absence of even pity, for the way she walked the manor like she was alone in it—but deeper down, in that place he rarely let himself feel, he knew it wasn't her fault, not really, because she had lost things too—her youth, her ideals, her people—and she hadn't asked for this any more than he had; she was surviving, just like him, and her silence wasn't cruelty—it was protection, maybe, or grief, or the quiet collapse of someone trying not to fall apart entirely.

But knowing that didn't make it easier—not the marriage, not the silence, not the unbearable weight of coexisting without connection—and the strangeness of it all, the sharp, surreal ache of living day after day with a woman he had once sworn was his enemy, a woman he didn't understand and who didn't want to understand him, only deepened the loneliness that had begun to bleed through every wall, every step, every breath.

And slowly—quietly, without permission—a thought began to seed itself in the corner of his mind, stubborn and terrifying: what if it didn't have to be like this? What if the silence could break? What if they could find a way—through the wreckage, through the anger, through the unbearable weight of history—to speak, to meet as something more than victims of a Ministry experiment?

But Draco Malfoy had never learned how to reach across the void without armor, and Hermione Granger was a fortress unto herself.

So they continued—parallel ghosts in the same ruined mansion, bound not by affection but by law, strangers in every way but name, living out a sentence written in ink and blood.

Three weeks. Three unbearable, endless weeks.

And no light on the horizon.

~~~

Hermione Granger felt like a prisoner, not in the traditional sense of chains and dark cells, but in the cruelly refined way only the upper echelons of power could manage—draped in elegant robes, surrounded by art and marble, fed the finest meals by timid house-elves, and yet utterly and inescapably trapped behind the gilded walls of Malfoy Manor, a place that breathed wealth and rot in equal measure; three weeks she had endured this purgatory—three endless weeks of suffocating silence, of wandering endless, echoing corridors with no destination, of wearing a name she had never asked for and carrying a title that felt like a noose—and all of it a consequence of a decree inked in polished Ministry halls that had upended her world, reduced her humanity to a policy decision, and tossed her—brightest witch of her age, war heroine, survivor—into a cage made of old money and fresh trauma under the abominable banner of the Forced Marriage Act, which still sounded like something out of a fevered dystopian nightmare every time she thought it, let alone said it aloud, and yet she was living it, breathing proof of its inhumanity.

She had no freedom, no power, no say in the shape of her own days anymore—every ounce of control she had once fought for, bled for, marched through fire for during the war had been stripped from her in the cold, impersonal moment the decree arrived, turning her from a woman into a symbol, a pawn, a policy—Hermione Jean Granger, the girl who had helped end a war, who had stared death in the face and refused to flinch, was now Mrs. Malfoy, and the very thought of that name sitting beside hers, printed on documents, spoken in formal greetings, burned her from the inside out with a fury that felt like poison in her throat.

The war had been supposed to end things—the violence, the fear, the sleepless nights and frantic duels and whispered horrors—and instead, it had merely shifted the battleground, from blood-soaked fields to silk-lined drawing rooms, from survival to endurance, from defending her life to defending her sanity; this wasn't a war of spells or strategy, but a quiet, suffocating battle that drained her will in small, daily humiliations.

She was unbearably bored, not the kind of boredom that could be cured by a good book or an afternoon nap, but a deeper, more existential sort, a bone-deep stagnation that made her feel like she was rotting from the inside, surrounded by the luxury of a manor that might as well have been carved from ice—dark stone walls that loomed too high, polished floors that gleamed too brightly, chandeliers that cast cold, sterile light, until even beauty felt like a kind of mockery; she spent her days pacing the same looping corridors, reading until her eyes ached, making stiff conversation with kindly but anxious house-elves, who, for all their attempts at warmth, could not hope to fill the gaping void that had opened in her chest where companionship, purpose, and freedom used to live.

She missed her friends with a kind of desperation that made her chest ache late at night—missed Harry's steadfast loyalty and Ron's easy, familiar banter, missed the way they had once held each other up when everything else crumbled, and now, despite their efforts to reach out with letters and words of comfort, they felt oceans away, separated not by distance but by something far more insidious: shame, bitterness, and the suffocating weight of a situation they could never truly understand, because how could she possibly explain that she, of all people, had been forced into a marriage with Draco Malfoy, that she now shared a last name with someone who had once made her life at Hogwarts a daily torment, and worse, that she didn't know how to live with it, how to feel about it, how to make sense of the twisted mess her life had become?

And she missed her parents too, perhaps even more achingly—missed the soft, grounding rhythm of their voices, the scent of tea and toothpaste in the mornings, the ordinary safety of being someone's daughter rather than someone's symbol—and the tragedy of it was that she had never truly gotten them back, even after the war ended, never had the time or space to reconnect with them fully before this next chapter of madness was thrust upon her, and now they were across an ocean, unreachable in more ways than one, and the distance stretched infinitely wider with each day she spent suffocating beneath a name and a role she never chose.

There was nothing for her here—nothing but the endless marble silence of Malfoy Manor's grand but lifeless halls and the cold certainty that her life no longer belonged to her, that the choices she had once wielded like weapons had been taken from her hand and replaced with a cage.

She avoided him with the kind of intentionality usually reserved for battlefield strategy, mapping out her routes through the house to reduce the chance of crossing his path, because every time she thought of him—her so-called husband, the boy who had once made her school years a parade of insults and superiority—a sharp, ugly swell of loathing twisted in her chest, hot and venomous and unrelenting, and she couldn't comprehend how anyone, least of all the Ministry, had thought this arrangement was anything short of barbaric; how could they do this to her, and how—how—could he have accepted, signed his name, stood there beside her in front of that officiant, knowing who she was and what they had been to each other, knowing that everything about this was wrong?

He was everything she had fought against for years—an emblem of pureblood arrogance, a sneer in human form, the embodiment of all the structural cruelty and prejudice she had sworn to tear down—and now she was tied to him, legally, magically, in name and consequence if not in heart, and it made her want to scream; because yes, he had been a Death Eater, yes, he had stood on the wrong side of a war that had cost them all so much, but even more than that, he was Draco Malfoy, the boy who had spat slurs at her with practiced ease, who had wielded cruelty like a badge of honor, and being forced to wear his name felt like the final betrayal, a dagger slid between her ribs by the very institution she had bled for.

She hated him, hated every glance she caught of his too-pale face and every ghost of a smirk that reminded her of schoolyard cruelty and war-torn nights; being married to him felt like being shackled to her worst nightmare, and she couldn't decide if it was the past or the present that made it more unbearable.

But he wasn't around much, and that—at least—was a mercy she clung to, because the manor was large enough to swallow them both in its cold grandeur, allowing them to move like specters in opposite wings without ever needing to share air, and she had not spoken to him since that horrid day, that mockery of a ceremony where they had stood beside each other like statues, stiff and unwilling, the air between them colder than the marble under their feet, with no witnesses, no smiles, just binding words and finality.

She had seen him only in passing since then, flitting through distant corners of the manor like a shadow she refused to look at too closely, and he seemed content to stay hidden away in his own secluded corner of hell, which suited her perfectly, because the idea of engaging with him, of sitting down and acknowledging that this was real, that they were husband and wife by law, made her stomach churn with something dark and primal.

So instead, she fled to the only place in the vast, suffocating sprawl of Malfoy Manor where the air didn't feel thick with ghosts and judgment, where the walls didn't whisper of dark history and silent expectations, where she could hear something softer than her own heartbeat echoing back at her through stone and silence—something alive, something real, something as simple and essential as the wind stirring through the leaves—the garden, that quiet haven tucked away behind wrought iron gates and ivy-covered walls, where time seemed to slow and the burden of her unwanted reality briefly loosened its grip.

The garden was, in so many unexpected and desperately needed ways, the only redeeming feature of Malfoy Manor, a wild and meticulously curated miracle in the middle of a house that otherwise reeked of curated decay; it was enormous, almost unnervingly so, with paths that twisted through blooming archways and under towering trees older than most family lines, a labyrinth of soft petals, winding hedges, and velvety grass that felt like a different world entirely—one untouched by the war, by bureaucracy, by politics, by his name, by her name, by any of the things that had stolen her peace and rewritten her life without consent.

It was a place that pulsed with life and movement, a riot of color and scent that stood in stark, almost defiant contrast to the cold stillness of the manor's interior, which seemed to drain the warmth from her skin and thoughts alike—but out here, everything was vivid and growing, from the heavy blooms that bowed toward the earth under their own lushness to the bees that flitted between lavender stalks and peonies, to the birds that sang without care or comprehension of the war, or the marriage, or the silent suffering taking place just beyond the glass doors.

And perhaps most blessedly, most miraculously, it was a place where Malfoy never seemed to tread—not once in all the mornings she had escaped here had she seen so much as a flicker of pale blond hair or the swish of his tailored robes among the roses, and it gave the space a sacredness, a sanctuary that belonged to her and her alone, untouched by the man who had come to symbolize everything she resented and mourned.

It was almost absurd, really—how he avoided the garden like it might burn him, how he seemed to retreat deeper into the shadows of the house every time the sunlight filtered warm and golden through the windows, as though he truly were allergic to brightness, allergic to softness, allergic to the idea of beauty not controlled by wealth or legacy; and Hermione, in her most bitter moments, often found herself musing that perhaps he might actually melt if the sun dared to kiss that too-pale skin of his, as if his entire existence had been molded in shadow and couldn't survive the light.

But the garden… oh, the garden was hers in a way nothing else in this wretched arrangement was, and she clung to it with the kind of quiet desperation born from long nights without sleep and days filled with too much silence; every morning, without fail, she slipped away from the house and all its expectations, letting the crisp air cut through the fog in her mind as she stepped into that little pocket of world where she didn't feel like a stranger in her own skin, where she could remember—if only fleetingly—what it was to feel human and whole and herself again.

She spent hours there, drifting between flowerbeds and along mossy stone paths, letting the scents and sounds of the garden pull her from the endless, circling thoughts that haunted her, and sometimes she brought a book—not because she always read, but because the familiar weight of it in her hands grounded her—and sat beneath the ancient oak that towered in the garden's center, its branches sprawling like a cathedral canopy above her, like arms outstretched in wordless protection, letting the filtered sunlight paint dappled shadows on her skin and reminding her, for a little while, what warmth felt like.

Other times, she wandered aimlessly, feet dragging through the grass, letting the hush of the place do its work, letting the rustle of leaves and hum of bees drown out the echo of vows she hadn't wanted to say, of a name she hadn't wanted to take, of silence she hadn't wanted to live in; she would sit by the marble fountain and watch the water glint and shift, her gaze fixed on the gentle ripples like they could carry her somewhere else—somewhere far away from this reality, into a dreamscape where she was free, where her choices were her own, where she could laugh with her friends and return home to her parents and wake up in a world where she wasn't tethered to a man she could barely look at.

But for all its wonder, for all its beauty and solace, the garden could not undo the truth; it could not erase the contract, the binding magic, the cold weight of her new last name—it could not change the fact that no matter how long she lingered among the roses, she still had to go back through those looming doors and return to the mausoleum that was Malfoy Manor, still had to live in the house of a man she despised, still had to fall asleep in silence and wake up alone in a gilded cage.

Three weeks—it had only been three weeks, and already Hermione felt as though she was unraveling at the seams, like the threads that held her together were fraying faster than she could hide, and the question—how much longer?—looped endlessly in her mind, unanswered, unbearable, because she didn't know if she could do this for another month, another week, another day.

But for now, in the absence of anything better, in the absence of control or freedom or even the ability to scream without the walls closing in around her, all she could do was cling to the small, fleeting mercy the garden offered her—the rustle of leaves, the scent of earth, the sun against her face—and pray, quietly and desperately, that somehow, in some way she couldn't yet see, she would find a way to survive the nightmare her life had become.

~~~

She lay sprawled out beside the fountain in the furthest corner of the garden, her body stretched lazily across a woven blanket, the cool stone beneath her spine grounding her in the present as it soothed the low, restless ache in her muscles, offering a welcome reprieve from the sun that poured over her skin in golden waves, warming her limbs in a way that felt both luxurious and exhausting, the kind of heat that made the world feel softer, slower, like everything around her had paused for a moment to bask in the quiet hush of the afternoon; the air, thick with the scent of jasmine and roses in full bloom, carried the faintest hint of green things growing, of petals unfurling and bees flitting from blossom to blossom, and it should have been perfect—it should have brought her peace, should have settled her thoughts and lifted the heaviness from her chest—but even with the sky clear and endless above her and the sunlight pressing against her closed eyelids like a soft touch, the ache remained, coiled deep in her ribs, a stubborn, silent weight she couldn't seem to dislodge.

She let her eyes fall shut, drawing in a slow breath as she turned her face toward the sun, letting it bathe her skin in warmth as she focused, with effort, on the sound of the fountain's gentle trickling beside her; the water, sparkling as it arced and fell in a perfect, practiced rhythm, caught the light in its spray and shimmered like scattered crystal, the steady, soothing splash against the stone basin creating a rhythm she could almost lose herself in, and for the briefest sliver of time—just a blink of calm in the storm of her mind—she let herself drift away from where she was, let herself imagine that this wasn't Malfoy Manor, that she wasn't trapped beneath a name that wasn't hers, that she hadn't been bound to a man she could barely look at without her hands curling into fists; in her mind, she wandered instead to a distant shoreline, to a beach where the waves kissed the sand and the salt air tangled her curls and she was no one's wife, no one's symbol, just a girl with her toes in the surf and the whole world ahead of her.

But like all illusions, the moment was fragile, fleeting, gone before it had fully settled into her bones, replaced once again by the oppressive awareness of where she truly was.

The garden had become her sanctuary, a place carved out from the madness of her current existence, the only patch of ground where she could draw breath without feeling like she was drowning; it stretched for what felt like acres, impossibly vast for something so meticulously maintained, with gravel paths and hedgerows that twisted in on themselves, roses climbing over wrought-iron trellises, and flowerbeds that exploded in color no matter the hour—every inch of it so curated it should have felt artificial, but it didn't, not to her; to her, it was a strange, almost enchanted place, with forgotten corners where ivy swallowed old statues and wildflowers pushed their way through cracks in the flagstones, and in those hidden spaces, where the garden felt less manicured and more alive , she felt closest to herself.

It was nothing like the manor—no sharp angles or frozen portraits, no gilded mirrors that reflected nothing but hollowness, no silent reminders of a family that had fallen apart long before she had ever stepped foot through the door—no, here in the garden, things breathed and grew, here time moved forward instead of standing still, and it comforted her in ways she couldn't explain, even as her mind remained splintered and raw.

She sighed softly, one arm flung lazily across her forehead to shield her eyes from the sun, her body loose against the blanket as she tried to anchor herself in the present moment, focusing on the layered sounds around her—the rustle of wind moving through leaves, the faint buzz of bees, the occasional chirp of a distant bird hidden in the branches overhead—all of it ordinary, all of it grounding, and yet, even as she tried to relax into that peaceful lull, something prickled at the edge of her awareness, something sharp and cold that didn't belong.

It was subtle, barely a whisper at first, but the sensation tightened at the back of her neck, an uneasy tingle that made her brow furrow faintly even beneath her closed eyes, and though she tried to dismiss it, to sink back into the quiet, the feeling refused to fade—an unmistakable sense, ancient and visceral, of being watched.

She told herself she was imagining it, that the isolation and silence of the manor were finally playing tricks on her mind, that it was absurd to think anyone could be lurking here, of all places, in this garden so heavily warded and bound by generations of defensive enchantments, woven with old magic and protected by the kind of spells that could tear intruders apart without so much as a whisper—Malfoy Manor was impenetrable, had been for centuries, and no one could simply sneak through the garden gates without alerting half the house.

She shifted slightly on the blanket, fingers brushing over the fabric as if the sensation might anchor her again, reminding herself that it was probably nothing, that perhaps a house-elf had wandered nearby and chosen not to announce themselves—as they often did, silently appearing and disappearing at the edges of her awareness, always ready to serve but never quite seen unless needed.

And yet the feeling didn't pass; it grew, slow and insidious, gnawing at the edges of her peace with increasing persistence, wrapping itself around her thoughts like vines, until the certainty of it, the knowing , settled deep into her bones—she wasn't alone, not truly, not in this moment—and she could feel it now, a pair of unseen eyes trained on her, watching, observing, taking in her every move with a quiet intensity that made her stomach twist.

Her pulse quickened beneath her skin, each beat thudding louder in her ears, and she opened her eyes in a sudden rush of motion, blinking rapidly against the brightness of the day, her vision swimming before it settled; lifting her head slightly, she scanned the garden slowly, methodically, her eyes tracing the borders of hedges and the flicker of shadow beneath the trees, the stillness of statues and the dancing of petals in the breeze—but everything looked as it had before, unchanged, undisturbed, perfectly serene.

And yet the feeling wouldn't leave her, stubborn and cold, wrapping tighter around her ribs as if daring her to ignore it.

She pushed herself up slowly, her fingers curling into the edge of the blanket like it might offer some stability, her gaze flicking back toward the house, toward the looming structure of Malfoy Manor with its towering stone walls and high, arched windows that now felt more like watchful eyes than glass; she half-expected to see a pale figure standing just beyond one of them, some shadow caught in the act of retreat, but there was nothing—no movement, no sound, just the cold, gleaming windows staring back like empty sockets in a skull.

Hermione frowned, her brows knitting as she tried to reconcile the tension coiled in her chest with the apparent tranquility around her, her thoughts running in circles as she told herself again and again that she was alone—that she should be alone—that the garden was safe.

But the feeling stayed. And she couldn't shake the certainty that somewhere, unseen, someone was watching.

A flicker of movement caught her attention out of the corner of her eye, a flash of pale motion slicing through the sun-drenched stillness of the garden, and her gaze snapped upward instinctively, her breath catching as she followed the source of the disruption to its origin—there, perched with casual arrogance and unnerving stillness on the very edge of the manor's roof like some twisted architectural flourish, was Malfoy, his lean frame balanced with a dangerous ease that made her stomach turn with a mixture of disbelief and irritation.

Of course, she thought with dry exasperation, her frown deepening as her eyes adjusted to the glare of the midday sun, zeroing in on the ridiculous figure above her—his platinum blond hair gleaming almost unnaturally in the sunlight, a harsh, silver-white contrast against the dark slate tiles of the roof, and he looked utterly unbothered, legs swinging idly over the edge as if it were the most normal thing in the world to be lounging atop a centuries-old manor like a moody, brooding gargoyle with a superiority complex and a death wish.

She lifted a hand to shield her eyes from the brightness, squinting up at him with a mixture of incredulity and annoyance, her voice rising just enough to cut through the stillness of the garden as she called out, "What are you doing up there?" the words sharp and tinged with disbelief, because even for him— especially for him—this was absurd.

He didn't move immediately, didn't flinch or startle like a person caught somewhere they weren't meant to be; instead, he tilted his head downward with the lazy precision of a cat surveying a mouse, his expression unreadable from the distance, but his posture was loose, languid, completely at ease as though he had every right to be there, every right to watch —"Just thinking, princess," he replied, his voice floating down with maddening calm, smooth and indifferent and soaked in sarcasm like he couldn't help himself, couldn't resist that pointed little jab, that smirk made audible in the way he said princess like it was both a nickname and an insult.

She let out a short, derisive snort and rolled her eyes so hard it nearly hurt, irritation prickling just beneath her skin, because princess, really? As if he could reduce her— Hermione Granger , war heroine, strategist, survivor—to some delicate, ornamental title that meant nothing, as if he could strip her of everything she had fought to become by twisting her into a caricature with a single word.

"If you're planning to jump," she shouted back, her tone dry and dripping with mockery, lips curving into a sardonic half-smile she didn't quite feel but couldn't stop from forming, "at least do a backflip. Make it interesting."

His laugh echoed down from above, low and dark and laced with that maddening edge that always made her feel like he was three steps ahead in a game she hadn't agreed to play, and the sound of it—so carelessly amused—made something twist inside her; "You'd love that, wouldn't you?" he called back, the words cutting and flirtatious and infuriatingly knowing.

"Very much so," she retorted, the smile still tugging at her lips despite herself, her arms folding across her chest as if to shield her from the way he always managed to slip under her skin, always made her pulse quicken—not out of affection, certainly not—but out of some strange chemical reaction between fury and fascination, some unspoken challenge that neither of them would admit to.

He was unbearable, truly—arrogant in a way that seemed carved into his very bones, self-absorbed to the point of delusion, and always hovering just outside the bounds of acceptable behavior with that air of bored detachment that made her want to scream—and yet, even now, watching him balance so carelessly on the edge of the world, like he didn't care if he fell or flew, she couldn't entirely deny the strange tightness in her chest, the flutter of something sharp and unwanted that pulsed just beneath her irritation.

From his perch, he sighed—long and performative and clearly for her benefit—his gaze sweeping over her with exaggerated boredom before it caught, lingered, sharpened, and she felt it, the shift, as his eyes narrowed slightly, not with curiosity, but with something assessing, something too focused; his gaze dropped from her face to the rest of her, his eyes skating over the thin summer dress she wore—just a soft cotton thing she'd pulled on in the heat of the morning, its narrow straps slipping slightly down her shoulders, the hem barely grazing the tops of her knees, the fabric clinging in places it had no business clinging—and she felt the weight of his attention like a brand, sudden and infuriating.

"What are you even wearing?" he asked finally, his voice edged with judgment and something colder, his brows drawing together ever so slightly as he leaned back on his hands, crossing his arms over his chest in a display of lazy disapproval, his entire posture radiating that specific brand of disdain he had perfected over years of practice. "What if someone sees you like that?"

She raised an eyebrow slowly, her spine straightening, annoyance flaring hot behind her ribs as she met his gaze without flinching, not willing to let him dictate how she existed in her own skin; "And what if they do, huh?" she snapped, her voice steady and sharp, a blade she wasn't afraid to wield. "It's not like I'm parading around Diagon Alley, Malfoy—I'm in the garden . Your garden, in case you've somehow forgotten that I'm locked up here like an inconvenient relic."

"They can't see you like this," he muttered, his voice softer now but no less irritating, the words curling in on themselves as he looked away, his gaze drifting toward the horizon like the very idea of someone else catching sight of her dressed like this was a personal offense, like her body was something that should only exist in shadows or under control, and not out in the sun, warm and alive.

"And… whatever, Granger."

She glared up at him, jaw tight, arms still folded protectively over her chest as frustration simmered just below the surface—she was so sick of this, of him , of the constant scrutiny, the judgment, the maddening, complicated push and pull between them that never seemed to stop—"Get off the roof," she demanded finally, her voice brittle with exasperation, because she wasn't in the mood for games or riddles or theatrics, not from him, not today.

For a moment, he didn't move, just sat there with the silence stretching between them like a wire pulled taut, his figure poised against the sky as if he were part of it, and then something shifted in his expression—not quite an apology, not even regret, but something tired, something unspoken that flickered and disappeared just as quickly as it came; he exhaled, slow and deliberate, a breath that sounded more like surrender than agreement.

"Fine," he muttered, the word barely audible, more to himself than to her, and with a kind of fluid grace that irritated her almost as much as everything else about him, he rose from the roof with the ease of someone who'd spent a lifetime balancing on the edge, and without another word, he turned and vanished from sight, his tall figure swallowed by the shadows of the manor's towering façade.

Hermione let out a shaky breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding, her hand lifting instinctively to press against her chest, feeling the steady thud of her heart beneath her fingertips, each beat loud and furious and entirely too fast for what should have been a harmless interaction; she shouldn't have let him get to her—she knew better by now—but somehow, despite three weeks of avoidance, of distance, of barely existing in the same space, every time they spoke, every time their paths crossed, it felt like being pulled into a duel, a battle of barbed words and unreadable glances, where neither of them truly won, and neither of them truly walked away.

Three weeks. Just three weeks, and already she felt like they were living out the slow unraveling of something neither of them had ever asked for—an arrangement forged in policy and bitterness, a fate sealed with magic and ink—and now they were two people forced to exist in each other's orbit, bound by law but repelled by everything else, locked in a cold war of silence and sudden flare-ups, with no end in sight.

She shook her head, turning her gaze back to the fountain, watching the water ripple and shimmer in the sunlight. The peace she had felt earlier was long gone, replaced by a strange tension that knotted in her chest. She knew she wouldn't be able to relax now, not with the memory of his piercing gaze still lingering in her mind.

But as much as she hated to admit it, a part of her couldn't shake the question that had been gnawing at her ever since the day they were married:

What was he really thinking?

Because despite all the snark and the cold indifference, despite the distance he put between them, there was something in the way he looked at her just now—something she couldn't quite place. And it bothered her.

She picked up her book, intending to distract herself, but the words on the page blurred, her thoughts drifting back to him up on that roof, his sharp features silhouetted against the bright sky.

Whatever it was he was thinking, she knew one thing for certain: she couldn't afford to care. Not about him. Not about what he thought. Not about them. Not if she wanted to survive this twisted arrangement with her heart—and her sanity—intact.

With a frustrated sigh, she closed the book and lay back down, closing her eyes against the sun. She would not let Malfoy take any more space in her mind than he already had.

But deep down, she knew that was easier said than done.

Draco was livid—no, livid didn't even begin to cover it—he was seething, vibrating with barely contained rage that simmered just beneath the surface of his skin, his every nerve alight with irritation, his jaw clenched so tightly it sent pulses of pain up the sides of his face and into his skull, but he didn't care, not one bit, because the physical discomfort was nothing compared to the molten fury boiling in his chest, and with every step he took storming down the manor's grand staircase, his feet thudded against the marble like punctuation marks to his spiraling, vicious thoughts, each footfall a manifestation of his festering anger and the utter audacity of the woman who had so thoroughly invaded his once-quiet misery.

He had been minding his own bloody business, doing what he did best these days—brooding in self-imposed exile, indulging in what he had half-mockingly come to refer to as his "daily depression hours," those long stretches of silent solitude spent perched on the edge of the roof where the air was thin, the wind cold, and the drop just enough to make him feel something again, something real, something sharp, because the height and the isolation gave him the illusion of control, of clarity, of distance from everything he didn't want to face—but then she'd gone and ruined it, ruined it, with her irritating voice and her infuriating presence and her ridiculous demand that he get down from the one place that made this entire forced cohabitation bearable.

That woman—Merlin, that woman.

His mood blackened like storm clouds gathering on the horizon just thinking about her, the way she had been laying there in the garden like she belonged there, like she hadn't upended his entire life with her righteous speeches and unbending morals, like she wasn't a walking, talking reminder of everything that had gone wrong; sprawled out across the grass like a scene from a bloody painting, her limbs relaxed, her head tilted back, eyes closed, sun bathing her skin in gold, as if she didn't have a care in the world, as if she hadn't been dropped into his life like a curse from the gods, and to make matters worse—because of course it could always get worse—she had been dressed in what could only be described as the flimsiest excuse for a summer dress, something light and barely-there that clung to her in the heat, translucent in places where the sun hit just right, as if she were daring the universe to test his restraint.

He hadn't meant to stare—hadn't even realized he was staring until his eyes refused to move, locked on the delicate line of her throat, the swell of her breasts as her chest rose and fell in quiet rhythm, the way the light caught in her curls and turned them to molten gold—and his pulse had jumped, a sharp, startling thud in his chest that he had tried and failed to ignore, because in that moment, she hadn't looked irritating, she hadn't looked insufferable—she had looked like something divine, like a sun goddess lounging beside a fountain in some lost myth, radiant and untouchable and maddening.

No, not stunning, he thought, trying to edit the word in his brain to something less dangerous, but his mind rejected it, refused to settle for something so tame.

Not stunning—gorgeous.

No, not even that.

Delicious.

Wait, what.

He came to an abrupt halt mid-step, body frozen as if he'd hit an invisible barrier, his mind grinding to a screeching, horrified halt at the word that had just leapt unbidden into his thoughts, and for a few long, excruciating seconds, all he could hear was the relentless pounding of his own traitorous heart, each beat like a mocking drum in his ears, as if even his body had decided to betray him, to laugh at him for daring to entertain that kind of thought about her —Granger, of all people— Hermione bloody Granger , the girl he had insulted, fought with, loathed for the better part of a decade, the girl he had been raised to despise not just casually but ideologically.

Pull yourself together, Draco, he snapped inwardly, forcing himself to breathe, to think , to remember who he was and what she represented, trying to shake loose the thoughts that had wormed their way into his brain like some twisted enchantment, thoughts that didn't belong to him, that couldn't belong to him, because she was not someone he admired, not someone he respected, and certainly not someone he—

But before the sentence could finish forming in his mind, the image of her flashed again—this time brighter, bolder, almost cinematic—the wild cascade of her hair tumbling down her shoulders, the way the sunlight wrapped around her like a lover, the dip of her waist, the subtle curves of her body beneath the thin fabric of her dress, clinging in places it had no business clinging, revealing more than it concealed, and his mouth went dry as heat surged up his neck and settled across his cheeks in a flush that he couldn't will away, the memory playing on a loop behind his eyes like some cruel hex he couldn't shake.

What the actual hell is wrong with me?

He scrubbed a hand through his hair, frustration mounting with every passing second, the need to purge these thoughts from his head becoming almost physical—he had to stop thinking about her, he had to, because it wasn't just inappropriate, it was impossible , and if his mother could see him now, if she could hear the kind of lascivious, unhinged things crawling through his brain about the girl she would have sooner hexed than spoken to, she would rise from the grave just to slap him across the face for daring to entertain such thoughts about a Muggleborn, about that Muggleborn.

He had been raised better than this, taught better than this—every tutor, every family dinner, every carefully coded lesson had drilled into him the idea that girls like her were beneath him, that she was the enemy, that she was wrong —and yet here he was, flushed and flustered, heart hammering in his chest as his mind betrayed him again and again with images of her that had no place in the rational world.

She was supposed to be everything he despised—Muggleborn, overachieving, sanctimonious, infuriatingly clever, always speaking out of turn, always correcting, always judging—and now she was also his wife , though that last part was the Ministry's doing, not his, and he had never agreed to it, never wanted it, and yet that legal, magical chain between them didn't seem to stop his thoughts from circling back to her over and over again.

To her eyes, sharp and bright with disdain when she looked at him; to her voice, clipped and full of bite when she snapped back at him; to her smile—rare, fleeting, and never directed at him, but still carved into his memory like a mark he couldn't erase; to her fire, her anger, her body stretched out like temptation itself beneath the sun; to her—Hermione Granger—gorgeous, maddening, delicious Hermione Granger.

Stop it. Stop it. STOP IT, he commanded himself with increasing desperation, as if sheer force of will alone—his infamous self-discipline, his ironclad control, the same cold detachment he'd relied on to survive the war and its aftermath—could somehow banish the madness that had begun to uncoil in his mind like smoke, curling tighter and darker with each passing second, wrapping itself around his thoughts until he could hardly distinguish reason from ruin, sanity from impulse, hatred from hunger.

And yet, maddeningly, infuriatingly, the more he tried to suppress the image, the more he fought to bury it beneath logic and disdain and the sharp sting of pride, the more her presence bloomed like wildfire behind his closed eyes, vivid and undeniable—the soft curve of her body sprawled in the grass, the way the sunlight bathed her skin in gold, the serene tilt of her mouth as if she were dreaming of something far beyond the manor's cold walls, her dress slipping across her frame like it was made of air, and the quiet power in that stillness, the sheer rightness of her being there—it was driving him insane , clawing at the inside of his skull, because he was supposed to hate her, supposed to resent every breath she took within his ancestral home, and yet here he was, standing in the middle of his own godforsaken manor, drowning in the unbearable truth that he couldn't get her out of his head, not for a second, not even now.

He dragged a hand through his hair, rough and frustrated, the movement almost violent in its force as he groaned low in his throat, trying to claw his way back to reason; maybe it was just the proximity , he told himself, clinging to the idea like a lifeline, convincing himself that it had nothing to do with her , not really—that it was just the unnatural closeness of their situation, the forced intimacy of being bound in a marriage neither of them had chosen, trapped like caged animals in this too-large house that reeked of history and expectation, and of course the mind would start playing tricks under those conditions, start grasping for anything familiar, any distraction from the crushing, soul-deep loneliness that came from living in silence and shadows, from pretending that they weren't unraveling alone in adjacent rooms.

Yes, that had to be it— had to be it.

But then, like a whisper curled in shadow, a traitorous voice rose in the back of his mind, calm and cruel as it cut through his rationalizations: You don't even see her that often.

And that, gods help him, was the truth—one he couldn't escape, couldn't argue, because in all the weeks since they'd been forced into this sham of a marriage, he had only laid eyes on her a handful of times, and even then, those brief, glancing encounters had been nothing more than fleeting specters—twice, maybe, not counting today—and every time, she had slipped past him like smoke, quick and silent and cold, eyes fixed anywhere but on him, and he had let her, gladly, gratefully, because their shared silence had become its own kind of peace, a buffer that kept the past from clawing its way into the present.

They were like ghosts, the two of them—haunting the same house but never occupying the same room, passing one another without acknowledgment, without connection, pretending that none of it was real.

But today had been different.

Today had cracked something open.

Today, she hadn't been just a presence—she had been a revelation , a blinding, unbearable force of nature, and for reasons he couldn't even begin to explain, he hadn't been able to look away— not once , not from her hair gleaming like fire in the sun, not from the graceful way she moved even in stillness, not from the way her eyes had met his with challenge and fire, like she wasn't afraid of being seen, and now he was spiraling, terrified not by her body, not by her beauty, but by how aware he had become of every detail, every breath, every memory he didn't mean to keep.

He exhaled slowly, pressing his back against the cool stone wall of the corridor, the ancient surface unforgiving against his shoulder blades but grounding nonetheless, forcing him to feel something solid as his heartbeat slowed just enough for him to think again, because this— whatever this was — had to stop , and he knew it, needed it, couldn't afford to let himself spiral into fantasies and feelings that had no place in his world, not when she had made it perfectly clear that she wanted nothing from him, not when he had built his entire defense on the assumption that he felt the same.

It wasn't real—it was the house, the law, the circumstances.

It was just the situation: the forced marriage, the suffocating walls, the silence that echoed too loudly and filled the space where reason used to be.

That was all it was.

And yet, even as he told himself that, again and again like a prayer, like a curse, he couldn't stop his gaze from dropping to the intricate patterns of the floor tiles beneath his feet, could barely focus on them as his mind betrayed him once more with the realization—the admission —that no matter how much he tried to rationalize it, no matter how many walls he put up or how often he reminded himself of who she was, some part of him, some small, hidden, shameful part, was undeniably drawn to her, pulled to her like the moon to the tide, helpless and instinctive.

And that— that —scared him more than anything else.

With a sharp, frustrated sigh, he shoved himself away from the wall and resumed pacing, his steps restless and uneven, trying to outrun his own thoughts, trying to find oxygen in a house that suddenly felt too small, too close, too full of her, as if her presence had sunk into the very walls, into the air he breathed, into his bloodstream—and he knew he needed to get out, now , needed to put as much distance between himself and her as the grounds would allow, to escape the suffocating weight of her, the scent of her, the echo of her laughter in his head, the way she smiled when she thought no one was watching.

But somewhere, deep down where pride couldn't reach and denial began to lose its grip, he understood that it wouldn't matter, that no matter how far he ran or how many doors he slammed behind him, there would be no escaping Granger , because she wasn't just a problem he could outthink, wasn't just an equation he could solve or a challenge he could conquer and walk away from—she was his wife , by magic and by law, but now, frighteningly, by something else too, something that made his chest ache and his thoughts spiral.

And whether he liked it or not, whether he was ready or not, some part of him was beginning to feel something for her—something reckless, something unwanted, something dangerous, something real .

And it was only a matter of time before he could no longer pretend otherwise.

~~~

Draco paced back and forth across the length of his room, his footsteps quick and uneven, fists clenched so tightly at his sides that the tension shot up his arms and into his shoulders, every muscle in his body coiled and humming with frustration as he tried— tried with everything he had—to shake the image of Granger from his mind, to scrub the memory of her from behind his eyelids where it burned like a curse, but no matter how many times he raked a hand through his hair or muttered angrily under his breath, it clung to him with relentless, maddening persistence, driving him further into a spiral he couldn't seem to claw his way out of.

It was infuriating, utterly and completely, and it made his blood boil with something dangerously close to shame, because ever since the day she had arrived at the manor— his manor, the place that had been his fortress, his cage, his inheritance and his prison—forced into his life by that cursed, bureaucratic decree that had upended both their worlds, she had been nothing but a persistent, unrelenting thorn in his side, all stubbornness and sharp retorts and blinding righteousness, and yet today, something had shifted, something different had cracked open inside him, and he didn't know how to close it again.

It wasn't just her attitude, not her usual know-it-all superiority or that pointed way she had of challenging him with nothing more than an arched brow and a silence that bit harder than words ever could—no, today, it wasn't her intellect that was tormenting him; it was her body— her stupid, gorgeous, infuriatingly perfect body —that had wrapped itself around his brain and refused to let go, and he cursed again under his breath, dragging his hand through his already-mussed blond hair in a desperate attempt to will the thoughts away, to douse the fire building in his gut before it consumed him entirely.

She had been lying there by the fountain, practically lounging , wearing what he could only describe— with great mental effort —as some kind of Muggle undergarment or swimwear or whatever-the-hell-it-was, because he couldn't for the life of him understand what purpose that minuscule scrap of fabric was supposed to serve aside from driving him to the brink of madness, and yes, it was probably something normal in her world, something casual, innocent , even—but gods, it had shattered any semblance of composure he'd been clinging to.

And it had all started with her yelling up at him, calling him out as he sat on the rooftop—the place he had claimed as his own, his solitary perch, his designated hour of brooding and quiet unraveling, the only time of day where he felt like he could breathe without the weight of legacy and failure pressing against his ribs—and she had interrupted it, pierced the stillness with that damned voice, mocking him, baiting him, dragging him out of his carefully curated misery like it was some game she had decided to play, as if his pain was something entertaining to her.

He had brushed her off, obviously, thrown back some sarcastic remark to keep her at a distance, but the second he'd climbed back through the window and reentered the suffocating hush of the manor, something inside him had gone wrong , because he couldn't stop thinking about her—about how she had looked stretched out in the sun like she belonged there, like she was part of the garden itself, her skin glowing golden, her wild curls catching the light like fire, and her expression—peaceful, unconcerned, untouchable—had lodged itself into the deepest, most inconvenient parts of his brain.

She looked like something conjured from a dream—no, worse than a dream, a nightmare , because there was no way he should be thinking of Hermione bloody Granger this way, no way he should be having these thoughts about the woman he had spent years despising with every carefully honed instinct he possessed.

He let out a low, guttural growl, his pacing accelerating as if movement alone could banish the image, but it was no use—the curve of her waist, the way her bikini clung to her in all the wrong—or rather right —places, the sunlight tracing over her body like it belonged there, like he should be the one touching her instead, and before he could even catch the shift, a searing heat surged through him, pooling low in his stomach, and his body betrayed him, hardening with the kind of urgency that made him stop in his tracks, horror and disbelief crashing into him all at once.

He looked down, eyes wide, mouth twisted in mortified fury as he realized he was— fuck —hard, rock hard , like some pathetic, hormone-drunk teenager seeing a woman for the first time, and the humiliation was immediate, sharp, and bone-deep.

"Oh, for Merlin's sake," he hissed, the words barely more than a breath as he pressed a palm to his face, groaning into it, trying to hide from the reality that his body had chosen now , of all moments, to rebel.

And then—because of course the universe hated him—she stepped inside.

Granger.

Still wrapped in that obscenely small excuse for clothing, skin flushed from the sun, eyes cool and unreadable as they slid over him with practiced indifference, and it should have been reassuring that she seemed unfazed, that she wasn't looking at him with the same fire he felt, but instead, it only made things worse, because Draco was frozen— utterly paralyzed —his mind screaming for him to move , to look away , to say something , to do anything , but his limbs refused to cooperate, and he could only stand there, stiff and burning with shame, his trousers doing an absolutely terrible job of concealing the state he was in.

She can't see me like this, he thought frantically, panic flaring so brightly it nearly drowned out the arousal—but it was already too late.

She stopped a few feet from him, her expression unreadable, her brow arched in what might have been amusement, irritation, or some terrible combination of both, and her voice—cool, casual, cutting—floated across the space between them like it was nothing: "Your suicidal moment is over, Malfoy?"

He opened his mouth to respond, but all that came out was a strangled sound—a pathetic approximation of speech, and it took everything he had to force out a single, mortified syllable: "Uh... yes."

He felt like a complete idiot, a red-faced, hard-as-steel idiot , standing there in the middle of the hallway with no defense and no explanation, and she—cool as ever—just turned, gave him a dismissive glance, and walked past him like he was the one being ridiculous, her hips swaying with every step, her skin catching the light like temptation personified, and he couldn't tear his eyes away, not for a second.

STOP IT, he screamed inwardly, trying to summon even a shred of self-control, this is Granger, you hate her, she's your wife only on parchment, she's the enemy, the infuriating, righteous, impossible girl who used to make your blood boil in all the wrong ways—

And yet, here he stood, unmoving, still throbbing, still watching her disappear around the corner, a complete mess of fury and confusion and lust , unable to look away, unable to breathe, unable to cope .

He let out a long, shaky breath, his body practically trembling with effort as he dragged both hands through his hair, trying to shake the images loose from his skull, but it was no use—this was bad , worse than bad, because for the first time since this entire nightmare of a marriage had begun, he realized the one thing he'd been too stubborn to admit.

He wanted her.

Not in passing, not in theory—he wanted her in a way that scorched through his thoughts and made him forget logic, made him forget hate, made him forget everything except the unbearable fact that he hadn't looked away.

And that thought alone was enough to send him spiraling into an entirely new realm of internal chaos.

How the hell had this happened? How had Granger , of all people, wormed her way beneath his skin like this, breached the carefully constructed walls he'd spent years building to keep her out, to keep everyone out? He had mocked her, dismissed her, convinced himself she was beneath him, had spent years preaching it to himself like a mantra, and now all it took was one sun-drenched afternoon for his brain to throw all of it out the bloody window.

He was trapped— trapped in his own home, in his own head, in this unbearable, uncontrollable, utterly twisted attraction to the last person he should ever want, and it was driving him mad.

He needed to get a grip, needed to find some corner of the manor that didn't still smell like her skin or echo with her laughter or burn with the memory of her presence, because whatever was happening between them—this unbearable tension, this magnetic pull— couldn't happen , wouldn't happen .

They were nothing more than strangers bound by a cruel twist of law, two people with too much history and too little future, and there could never be anything real between them.

But even as he told himself that, even as he tried to choke down the want clawing at his throat, Draco couldn't help but wonder how much longer he could keep resisting the slow, steady descent into obsession—how much longer before he stopped trying to pull away and let himself fall. And that thought terrified him most of all.