Mine to Ruin, Mine to Keep

Time dragged cruelly, each day bleeding into the next in a haze of longing and regret, the weight of her absence settling deep into his bones, turning every breath into a battle, every waking moment into an unrelenting, torturous stretch of nothingness. 

A month passed, an agonizing, unbearable month where time seemed to mock him, stretching endlessly, moving painfully slow, forcing him to live in the hollow space she had left behind. 

He had lasted less than twelve hours before he found himself back at Moonbrew the very next morning, reckless and desperate, driven by something primal, something that felt like instinct, something that had no reason but her. There had been no plan, no carefully crafted words, no thought beyond the single, all-consuming need to see her, to explain, to make her understand that what she saw, what she thought she saw, was nothing compared to what she was, compared to what she meant to him, compared to the way she had utterly rewired every part of his being until he could no longer function without her.

But the moment he stepped toward the entrance, his fingers twitching at his sides, his breath sharp and uneven, he felt it before he even saw it. The magic hit him like a cold, invisible wall, unseen but absolute, humming with the unmistakable pulse of her power. It was silent, but it may as well have been screaming. The moment he tried to cross the threshold, the spell responded instantly, repelling him with a quiet, devastating finality, as if it had been waiting for him, as if she had known he would come, as if she had wanted to ensure that when he did, he would have no choice but to understand what she had already decided.

It wasn't a hex, wasn't violent or forceful, wasn't the kind of magic meant to hurt or punish. No, this was worse. This was rejection woven into a spell so strong, so deeply personal, so thoroughly Luna, that it did nothing but hold, firm and unwavering, denying him entrance in a way that was far more painful than any curse she could have thrown at him. He pressed against it, hands flat against the air itself, shoulders braced, magic curling inside his veins as if his body thought he could fight it, as if some part of him still believed he could break through. 

But he couldn't. It was unbreakable. It was her will made manifest. It was a barrier stitched with her magic, reinforced with something final, something unyielding, something that told him in no uncertain terms that he was not welcome, that he would never be welcome again.

He had pleaded, whispered her name into the cold, quiet morning air, his voice low and wrecked, desperate in a way he had never let himself be before. He had begged for just a moment, just a second, just enough time to tell her that he was sorry, that he had been stupid, that none of it mattered, that she was the only thing that mattered, that she had become the axis on which his entire existence spun. But nothing. 

No response. No flicker of movement behind the shop windows, no sign that she had even heard him, no indication that she was inside at all. And still, he had waited. Hours upon hours, standing there like a man cursed, unmoving, undeterred, refusing to accept what was so plainly in front of him. But nothing changed.

And so, it became a ritual. A self-inflicted torment he couldn't abandon, a masochistic devotion he didn't have the willpower to break. Every morning, he would try again, returning as if some part of her would weaken, as if her anger, her hurt, her determination to keep him out would lessen, as if she might wake up one day and undo the spell keeping him away. 

But every time, the barrier remained firm, cold, unyielding, refusing to bend no matter how many times he pressed against it, no matter how many times he spoke through the silence. He knew she wasn't listening. Knew she wouldn't answer. Knew she had meant it when she told him to stay away.

Some days, his voice was steady, composed, coaxing, as if he could reason with magic itself, as if words alone could rebuild what had been so violently broken. Other days, he was not so composed. Other days, he shattered. He shouted, slammed his fists against the unyielding force of her spell, let his magic flare wildly around him, let himself break apart in the only place where she had ever felt like home. He let her see it, whether she was watching or not, let her hear the way she had ruined him, let her feel the aftermath of what she had left behind. And yet, no matter how much he burned, no matter how much he begged, no matter how much his magic lashed out against the invisible boundary she had placed between them, it never changed.

She never came outside. She never spoke. She never let him in.

At night, in the suffocating solitude of his manor, the grief was unbearable, a living, breathing thing that coiled around his chest and refused to let go. The emptiness stretched wide and endless, swallowing him whole, turning every shadow into a ghost of her, every creak of the house into the echo of a memory that refused to fade. 

He had never been the type to cry, had never been the type to let himself break in such a raw, undignified way—Malfoys didn't do that, he didn't do that—but that was before Luna. Before her laughter had filled the quiet spaces of his life, before her warmth had sunk into the cold places he thought would always remain frozen, before she had become something worth crying for, something worth losing sleep over, something that had carved itself so deeply into his soul that he didn't know how to exist without it.

He tried everything—gin, firewhiskey, things stronger than that, things laced with magic that promised dreamless sleep, that promised oblivion, that promised even a second of relief from the crushing weight of her absence. But nothing worked. The potions dulled the edges, made his limbs heavy, turned the hours into a sluggish blur, but they couldn't take her away. 

They couldn't remove her from the spaces she had filled, couldn't erase the way she had settled into his bones like a sickness, couldn't quiet the voice in his head whispering her name into the silence of his empty bedroom.

He had cried to God, to Merlin, to the universe itself, to anything that might take pity on him, had whispered his apologies into the cold sheets of his bed, had stared at the ceiling until morning, aching, suffocating, drowning in the sheer fucking loss of her. He had pressed his palms to his eyes, as if he could physically shove the memories away, as if he could scrub her from his mind like ink from parchment, as if he could undo the way she had become the first thing he thought of when he woke and the last thing he saw before he fell asleep. 

But there was no escape. He couldn't will her away, couldn't drink her away, couldn't even hate her for leaving, because the only person he hated was himself.

And when that did nothing, when the silence became unbearable, when the walls of the manor felt like they were closing in on him, he went to Blaise.

Blaise, who had watched him unravel, piece by piece, who had tried—really fucking tried—to help, to offer distractions, solutions, anything that might dull the ache. Blaise, who had shoved drinks into his hands, had dragged him to dinners, had put him in rooms full of beautiful, willing people, all in a desperate attempt to snap him out of it. But nothing worked. Because there was nothing—absolutely nothing—that could comfort him, nothing that could reach inside and rip out whatever was left of the hollow, burning wreckage of his heart.

Blaise had seen him at his worst before. Had witnessed his lowest moments. Had stood by his side in the aftermath of the war, when guilt and self-loathing had nearly eaten him alive, when the weight of his father's name had felt like a curse he could never outrun. But this? This was different. This wasn't guilt, wasn't shame, wasn't some internal reckoning with his past. 

This was loss, pure and unfiltered, something deep and gutting and cruel, something that had taken root inside him and refused to let go. And Blaise—who had always known when to let him be, when to let him self-destruct, when to step in and when to step back—had tried to pull him out of the abyss, but Draco didn't want to be pulled out.

He wanted to stay there.

He wanted to wallow in the grief, wanted to feel every sharp, jagged edge of what he had lost, wanted to let it cut him, let it bleed him dry, let it devour him whole. Because if he didn't—if he tried to move on, if he tried to let go, if he tried to put distance between himself and the pain—then what the fuck else was there? What else was left of him? What was he supposed to do with the version of himself that only existed in the presence of her?

Blaise told him it would pass, told him he had survived worse, told him that time had a way of healing even the deepest wounds. But Draco didn't want time to heal this. He didn't want to move on. He didn't want to be okay. He wanted her. He wanted her voice, her hands, her laughter, her absurd, infuriating, impossible existence. He wanted her in every way that mattered, in ways he hadn't even fully understood until she was gone.

The days blurred together, indistinguishable from one another, a loop of pain and longing and self-inflicted torment. His mind never stopped replaying it—the moment she walked away, the moment she disappeared, the moment he knew with absolute certainty that he had lost something irreplaceable. It haunted him, followed him like a specter, like a punishment, like a cruel reminder that he had held something rare, something once-in-a-lifetime, something that could never be replicated, and he had let it slip through his fingers.

He could still feel her, still feel the ghost of her touch against his skin, still hear the softness of her voice curling around his name, still remember the way her lips had felt against his, the way she had melted into him when she kissed him, the way she had made him feel like he belonged somewhere for the first time in his entire fucking life. And now, she was gone, and he was drowning.

He was drowning, and no one could save him.

***

By the time the second month came and went, Draco had stopped expecting her. The first few weeks had been unbearable, a torment of waiting, of hoping, of convincing himself that she would come back, that she would change her mind, that she would see reason and let him explain, let him fix what had been broken between them. 

Every morning, he woke with the suffocating weight of expectation, his ears straining for the sound of her footsteps, his eyes flickering toward the door as if she might appear, as if she might walk in as if nothing had happened, as if she might give him the chance to make it right. 

But the days bled into weeks, and the weeks stretched into months, and still—nothing. No letters. No whispered rumors of her in the village. No fleeting glimpses of her at Moonbrew. Not a single sign that she had ever been real at all.

The silence was suffocating, pressing down on him with a weight he couldn't shake, a gnawing, relentless ache that burrowed itself into his bones and refused to let go. He had thought he could endure it, had thought he could bear the emptiness, had thought he could convince himself that maybe, just maybe, if he suffered long enough, if he repented enough, the universe would grant him mercy and bring her back to him. But the universe had never been kind to him, and it sure as fuck wasn't about to start now.

So when the furious pounding on his front door shattered the dead silence of the night, when the unmistakable sound of her voice—sharp, seething, furious—echoed through the corridors of the manor like a battle cry, he barely had time to think before he was moving, before he was running, before he was flying down the grand staircase like a man possessed. His fingers fumbled with the lock, his breath caught somewhere between his lungs and his throat, his pulse roaring so violently in his ears that he thought he might pass out before he could even lay eyes on her.

And then—there she was.

The love of his fucking life. The one thing in this world that mattered. The only thing that had ever mattered. 

Standing in the doorway like an avenging angel, like a storm wrapped in flesh, like a vision of rage and devastation, her wild hair tangled from the wind, her cheeks flushed with fury, her eyes burning with something that made his knees go weak. She was everything. Fucking everything. And she was here, standing in front of him, finally, after all these weeks, all these miserable, endless days without her—and she looked like she wanted to murder him where he stood.

Draco had never been so fucking in love.

Her hands clutched a thick stack of paperwork, her grip so tight that the pages crumpled under the force, her entire body vibrating with barely contained rage, magic snapping in the air around her like an impending storm. She was furious—no, beyond furious. She was wrecked, shaken, barely holding herself together, and it was all because of him.

"Why would you do that?" she spat, her voice razor-sharp, cutting through the still air between them like a blade. "No one asked you to do that! You are just—selfish!"

She didn't wait for a response, didn't even give him a chance to open his mouth before she was shoving the papers against his chest, the impact hitting harder than it should have, as if her rage alone had given the simple act more force. The pages bent and curled under the pressure of his grip, but he barely noticed them. All he could see was her—the wild flash in her eyes, the flush of frustration high on her cheeks, the tremor in her hands as she tried, tried, to hold herself together.

"I did it for you." His voice was quiet, steady, but the second the words left his lips, he knew it wasn't enough.

Her laugh was sharp, bitter, hollow—an empty sound that twisted through his ribs like a knife, like something designed to hurt. 

"I would never ask you for money, Malfoy. Never. Why would you pay my debt? And why would you—" She sucked in a sharp breath, as if she couldn't even bring herself to say the rest, her head shaking in pure, unfiltered disbelief. "Why would you rent it for ten years in advance?"

"Because you care about that place." The words left him without thought, without hesitation, because there was nothing else to say—nothing else that mattered.

Luna let out another disbelieving huff, shaking her head again, her lips curling, her fingers tightening into the fabric of her coat like she was trying to physically anchor herself to something, like she was resisting the urge to hex him into oblivion. 

"It is my decision," she shot back, her voice rising, her hands trembling with the weight of her fury. "If they take it away, it's fine. Maybe it's not meant to be." Her breath hitched—just slightly, just enough for him to hear it, just enough for him to know that she didn't mean a single word coming out of her mouth. And when she spoke again, her voice was quieter, but somehow even more devastating. "Sounds familiar, doesn't it?"

Draco stilled.

The words hit like a curse, like a hex straight to his chest, like a reflection of every mistake he had ever made.

"Please stop it." His voice was raw, pleading, desperate in a way he couldn't control.

Luna scoffed, shaking her head again, stepping back like she was done, like she was ready to leave him all over again, like she was ready to rip out whatever was left of his heart and disappear into the night. 

But then—because of course she wasn't finished, because of course she had one last thing to twist the blade—her eyes flickered toward the corner of the room, where a ridiculous bundle of knit fabric sat draped over the armchair.

"And stop buying fucking sweaters for my cow!" she exploded, her frustration reaching a breaking point, spilling over into something ridiculous and so incredibly her that he should've laughed, should've found amusement in the absurdity of the moment. "She looks hideous!"

Draco blinked, momentarily thrown off course. "She'll get a cold," he muttered, and fuck, he sounded pathetic.

Luna's glare was instant, scalding, utterly unimpressed. "She is fine. Just fine." Her hands clenched into fists, her breathing sharp, uneven, ragged. "We are fine without you."

And that—that—was what finally broke him.

The words slammed into him like a physical blow, like a fist to the gut, like a knife carving through the last remnants of his restraint. We are fine without you. A sentence so damning, so utterly final, that he felt it tear through every nerve in his body, leaving him standing there, breathless, drowning, unraveling in ways he had never unraveled before.

He couldn't breathe.

He couldn't think.

He couldn't stand there and let her say that, let her believe that, let her leave him again.

His body moved before his mind could catch up, before logic could sink in, before he could remind himself that she was angry, that she hated him, that she might never forgive him. He stepped forward, reached out, grabbed her—not rough, not violent, but firm, like a man drowning, like a man starving, like a man who had nothing left to lose.

She barely had time to gasp before he was hauling her against him, lifting her as if she weighed nothing, throwing her over his shoulder like some enraged, desperate caveman. She shrieked—actually shrieked—kicking her legs, pounding her fists against his back, thrashing like a wild animal, but he didn't let go. Didn't budge. Didn't give her a fucking choice.

"Put me down, you absolute bastard!"

"No." His voice was a growl, low and full of finality, as he carried her through the foyer, through the hallways, past the grand staircase—past the very spot where she had walked out on him all those weeks ago, past the very place where his entire world had crumbled into dust. He didn't stop, didn't hesitate, didn't care if she hexed him into oblivion because fuck that, fuck this, fuck everything, he wasn't letting her go this time.

He stormed into the sitting room, straight to the sofa, and dropped her onto the cushions—not hard, not in a way that hurt, but in a way that left her stunned, breathless, pissed. She scrambled upright immediately, hands bracing against the armrest like she was ready to lunge at him, but he was faster, already kneeling before her, already caging her in with his hands gripping the arms of the couch, already blocking every possible escape route.

His breath came in ragged, uneven bursts, his chest rising and falling too fast, too sharply, his heart slamming against his ribs like it was trying to break free, like it knew—knew—that this was it, that this was the moment everything would be decided, that this was the moment that would either save him or shatter him completely. His mind was a wreck, spiraling through every possible way he could fix this, through every word he could say to make her stay, through every desperate, pathetic, fucking useless attempt at undoing the damage he had already caused. But no matter how many times he ran through the scenarios, no matter how many times he searched for a way out, there was no solution, no escape, no version of this where he didn't bleed for her.

"My love—"

The words slipped out before he could stop them, before he could analyze them, before he could think about what they meant, about how she would react, about how he had never said them before—not like this, not out loud, not to her. 

But the second they left his lips, the second they entered the air between them, something shifted. Her lips parted slightly, her body going unnaturally still, her breath catching in a way that told him he had touched something raw, something deep, something neither of them were ready for. 

Her anger flickered with something else, something softer, something terrifying, something he could almost mistake for hope if he was foolish enough to believe he still had a chance.

"My love, please forgive me for my sins." His voice was quiet, hoarse, barely above a whisper, yet it carried more weight than anything he had ever spoken before. 

His hands were shaking where they gripped the fabric of the couch, his entire body bowed before her, in front of her, offering himself in a way he had never done for anyone, in a way that felt dangerously close to surrender. 

"I had a silent agreement with Astoria, that she would be my mistress, that she would be someone to fulfill my needs, that she would never be anything more than that. But never in my life—" his breath shuddered, his throat aching from the weight of his own confession, his chest burning with the unbearable truth of it "—never in my life did I think that you would come into my world and change everything."

Luna wasn't moving.

Wasn't speaking.

Wasn't shoving him away like he deserved, wasn't stopping him from spilling every last broken, desperate piece of himself at her feet.

"Please, Luna." His hands reached for her, fingers ghosting over the fabric of her dress, gripping the edge of her sleeve like it was the only thing tethering him to this world, like if he let go, she would disappear, and he would be left with nothing. "Forgive my sins."

And fuck, fuck, if she said no, if she walked away again, if she left him this time, he wasn't sure he would survive it.

Then, after a moment that felt like an eternity, she finally exhaled, a slow, deliberate sound, as if she had reached a conclusion he didn't yet understand.

"You expect me to forgive you," she said, and it wasn't a question, wasn't an accusation, wasn't even laced with anger anymore. It was a statement, a simple observation, but somehow, somehow, it held more weight than a curse, more devastation than any hex she could have thrown his way.

Draco didn't know how to answer. Didn't know how to defend himself. He had never begged before, not like this, not for anything that mattered. He had never kneeled before anyone, never offered himself up as something fragile, something breakable, something unworthy but willing to be remade. And yet here he was, kneeling before her, asking her for something he wasn't sure he deserved.

"It was before you," he said finally, his voice quiet, wrecked, desperate to explain, to make her see that it wasn't what she thought. "Before I knew it would be you. Before I even knew I was waiting for you."

A sharp inhale. The first crack in her mask.

He saw it, felt it, knew he had touched something real.

"And you ended it?"

"Yes."

"When?"

He hesitated—fuck, of course, she would ask that. Of course, she would make him say it out loud. He couldn't lie to her, wouldn't lie to her, not about this, not about the only thing that had ever mattered.

"The night you left."

Silence.

The air between them shifted, something cold curling at the edges of it, something like disappointment, something like inevitability.

"Not before."

He wanted to lie. Wanted to tell her it had been over long before that night, that Astoria had been nothing but a fleeting mistake, that it had ended the moment Luna had walked into his life, but the truth was a crueler thing. He had been a coward. He had kept the arrangement because it had been convenient, because it had been easier than facing the fact that he was already too far gone for her long before he ever admitted it.

Her fingers twitched at her sides, curling into the fabric of her dress, her only visible sign of restraint.

"You kept another woman in your bed while chasing after me."

"It wasn't like that."

"Wasn't it?"

Her voice wasn't raised. She didn't lash out, didn't scream, didn't throw things, but somehow, this was worse. This quiet, this cold, steady devastation, the slow and painful unraveling of whatever fragile thing had been left between them. He would have preferred her rage, would have taken her magic striking him down, would have rather felt the scorch of her fire than this quiet, crushing disappointment.

"I never touched her after you," he swore, his voice low, rough, broken, his hands reaching for her, but she took a step back before he could. "I swear on everything I have ever been. The second I knew what you were to me, it was only you."

Luna remained motionless, her expression unreadable, but her eyes—those infuriatingly perceptive, all-seeing eyes—tore him apart where he stood. She was looking at him like she could see through him, see into him, past every carefully constructed mask, past every lie he had ever told himself, past every excuse, stripping him bare in a way that had nothing to do with magic and everything to do with the quiet, terrifying power of simply knowing.

He hated that she could do this to him, that she could reduce him to nothing with a look, that she could make him feel like a boy again, one who had never truly known what it meant to love, to be loved, to belong to someone who could break him without even lifting a wand.

And then, after what felt like an eternity, she spoke, her voice calm, steady, the very embodiment of something that had already been decided.

"Have you fucked her while we were together? Tell me the truth."

There was no anger in her tone, no accusation, only the weight of a truth that had to be acknowledged before anything else could happen, before she could decide what came next, before she could decide if she would let him keep her.

The words barely had time to leave her lips before Draco's response came, sharp, absolute, immediate.

"No. Never."

He had never meant anything more in his life, had never spoken a truth with such force, with such conviction, with such desperate fucking need to be believed.

She said nothing, didn't even blink, just kept watching him, waiting—waiting for what, he didn't know—but the silence was suffocating, pressing down on him like an unbearable weight, demanding something more, something deeper, something that would cost him everything.

His breath was a mess, ragged and uneven, his entire body locked tight with restraint he barely had left, his hands twitching, his jaw clenched so hard it ached, but he couldn't stop—not now, not when this was the only moment he had to give her everything, to lay himself bare, to let her see every ruined, shattered, fucking pathetic piece of him before she made the final decision to walk away for good. 

His voice came out raw, jagged, torn from his throat like a wound that refused to heal.

"I fucked her the day you sat next to me."

The words landed between them like a death blow, heavy, violent, irreversible, a confession that bled out into the space between them, ripping it wide open, leaving no room for misunderstanding, no room for excuses, no room for anything but the brutal, unbearable truth.

"That was the moment I knew I was so fucking done. I invited her over, and I fucked her, and I couldn't even look her in the eyes because all I was thinking about was you."

He felt his pulse hammering, his stomach twisting, nausea curling in his throat, his own disgust clawing at his skin, because saying it aloud, putting it into words, made it worse, made it real, made him want to tear himself apart piece by piece just to erase the memory of what he had done.

"I imagined it was you."

His voice dropped lower, darker, filled with something wrecked, something ruined, something that sounded so much like self-loathing that it nearly cracked under the weight of it.

"Even then, even while I was inside her, I was thinking about you. Even fucking someone else made me think of you."

The silence that followed was excruciating, stretching between them like the final moments before a storm, before lightning split the sky, before everything fell apart completely.

But Luna—Luna didn't react the way he expected her to.

She didn't flinch, didn't tremble, didn't crumble beneath the weight of his words like a woman who had just been betrayed.

Instead, her lips curled slightly, her expression shifting into something cool, something distant, something that made his chest cave in on itself.

Indifference.

She looked indifferent.

But he knew her better than that now.

Knew that behind that cold, collected exterior was something far crueler, something sharper, something far more devastating than anger—disappointment.

And fuck, that was worse.

"Should I congratulate you?"

Her voice was deceptively light, airy, almost amused, but he heard it, could feel the quiet devastation laced in every syllable, could see the way she held herself perfectly still, controlled, as if she were keeping herself from breaking apart completely.

"No."

The answer came immediately, firm, final, because this wasn't something to be proud of, wasn't something he could ever justify, wasn't something she should have to fucking endure.

Luna let out a slow, measured breath, controlled, distant, but something inside her had already shifted, something had already hardened, something colder taking root beneath her skin, and he knew, knew he had lost something he couldn't get back.

"Well… I had my adventures too, just so you know."

The words hit him like a curse to the chest, like a Killing Curse that didn't land fast enough to end him, only slow enough to let him feel every second of the agony before it tore him apart completely.

His vision went dark, his thoughts snarling, twisting into something violent, something primal, something vicious that clawed its way to the surface before he could stop it.

"WHO WAS THAT?"

The question came out like a snarl, low and furious, barely restrained, barely human, a voice that belonged to something feral, something territorial, something on the verge of losing control completely.

Luna didn't blink. Didn't flinch. Didn't soften.

Instead, her lips curved, slow and taunting, her eyes flashing with something dangerous, something deliberately cruel, something designed to destroy him from the inside out.

"Stop the dramatics," she murmured, tilting her head slightly, watching him like she wanted to see him fall apart, like she wanted to see just how much he could endure before he broke completely. Her voice was calm, mocking, dismissive, knowing exactly what she was doing to him, exactly how much she was making him suffer.

"It was just a random man."

No.

That wasn't good enough.

That wasn't nearly fucking good enough.

"That man is dead from now on."

His voice was rough, deadly, filled with a promise that wasn't empty, that wasn't just possessiveness, that was something darker, something deeper, something that burned through his blood like wildfire, something that said he would rip apart the entire fucking world if it meant undoing what had already been done.

Luna only hummed, lifting her chin, her gaze never leaving his, never backing down, never breaking, pushing him, testing him, taunting him, because she knew, she fucking knew what this would do to him.

"He was a good fuck, actually," she mused, watching his expression shift, watching him unravel, watching him break piece by piece, watching him fall apart at her feet.

"He made me come. It was fun—"

He didn't let her finish.

He wouldn't let her finish.

He was on her in an instant, the distance between them erased in a single breath, in a single movement, in a single act of pure, unfiltered, desperate fucking possession.

He moved without thought, without hesitation, without the burden of restraint that had kept him caged for far too long. 

One second she was sitting there, defiant and untouchable, and the next, she was his—his hands gripping her arms, hauling her up so fast she barely had time to react, barely had time to catch her breath before he was tearing at the fabric of her dress with nothing but sheer, unfiltered desperation. 

The material gave way beneath his fingers, ripping apart with a sharp, brutal sound that echoed through the room, that left her exposed, that left her exactly where she had always meant to be—trapped between the push and pull of a war they had been fighting since the day they met.

A sharp gasp tore from her lips, her magic sparking wildly around them, flashing hot, dangerous, an unspoken warning, a reminder that she was not weak, that she would not be claimed so easily. 

But Draco didn't care—he couldn't care, not when she had done this, not when she had pushed him to the edge of oblivion, not when she had made him suffer for months while she walked around untouched, unbothered, unfazed by the wreckage she had left in her wake.

She had provoked him, wielded her words like a dagger, cut him open, bled him dry, ripped apart every last shred of self-control he had left. She had tempted fate, had looked him in the eye and dared him to prove that he was more monster than man, and now—now—she was going to face the consequences.

He had spent weeks drowning in the agony of losing her, clawing at the walls of his own fucking torment, and she—she had stood before him tonight and mocked him with whispered tales of someone else, of another man between her legs, another man where only he should have ever been. She had shattered him, destroyed him, and there was no coming back from that, no returning to whatever fragile balance had once existed between them. She had done this. She had asked for this.

Draco didn't beg. Draco didn't plead.

Draco Malfoy took what was his.

And for a lifetime, she would be his.

Because fuck, he loved her. He loved her so hopelessly, so maddeningly, so devastatingly that it felt like it was killing him, like it had sunk its teeth into his bones, like it had rewritten his very existence without his permission. It hurt, it ached, it consumed, a relentless hunger that would never be satisfied, a need that could never be sated, an addiction that had rooted itself deep inside of him and refused to let go.

His gaze devoured her, burning a path over every inch of newly exposed skin, memorizing the way she stood there—breathless, trembling, defiant—like she wanted to fight him but couldn't find the words, like her body had already betrayed her, like her pulse fluttering against the delicate column of her throat was enough proof that she was already lost, already his, always his.

"You're wearing matching baby blue underwear."

His voice was low, edged with amusement, dark with satisfaction, entirely too pleased by the discovery, because she had done this on purpose, hadn't she? She had dressed for him, had put on something delicate, something pretty, something meant to be seen, something meant to be ruined.

"Let me go," she pleaded, but it was weak, lacking any real conviction, her hands pressed against his chest but with no real force, no real effort to push him away, no real desire to stop this from happening.

"Never."

The word was final, a declaration, a promise, an unshakable truth that had always existed between them, even when she had tried to pretend otherwise.

And before she could argue, before she could push him away, before she could find another excuse to make him suffer, he lifted her, his hands gripping her thighs, spreading her open, pinning her against the nearest wall like she weighed nothing.

The cool wood was a stark contrast to the heat of his body, to the way he was pressed so tightly against her, to the way his hips locked her in place, his hands gripping her with the kind of possessive desperation that told her there was no escape, that there would never be an escape, that he was done playing her games, done pretending she could walk away, done letting her think she had a choice.

Her chest heaved, her head tilting back, her magic flickering wildly against his skin, curling around them, wrapping them in something untamed, something uncontrollable, something that neither of them could stop even if they wanted to.

"Please, let me go."

But fuck, it was barely a whisper, barely an argument, barely anything at all, and he knew it, could feel the truth of it in the way her thighs clenched around him, in the way her body softened just slightly, in the way she was already coming undone beneath him.

"Never."