Everyone was here. Every pureblood family that mattered, every politician who owed the Malfoys a favor, every debutante who'd spent the last month agonizing over gowns and seating arrangements. The Slytherin table had been rearranged into clusters of velvet chairs and small round tables, and the air smelled of expensive perfume, mulled wine, and ambition.

You'd been standing beside Cordelia for the better part of an hour, holding a glass of champagne you'd barely touched, and watching Draco Malfoy navigate the room like he'd been born doing it.

None of you knew what was coming.

Not yet.

The room shifted before anyone spoke. A subtle change in energy, conversations faltering, heads turning. Lucius Malfoy had stepped onto the raised platform, his wine glass catching the candlelight.

Draco had been standing near the fireplace, talking to Theodore Nott. A glass of firewhisky in one hand, posture perfect, expression unreadable. You watched him set the glass down. You watched his shoulders tighten, so subtly that only someone who knew him would catch it. You knew him. You caught it.

Something cold settled in your chest.

And then Lucius gestured—a hand extended toward the side of the room, toward Isadora Rosier, who stepped forward with the grace of someone who'd rehearsed this moment a thousand times and knew exactly how beautiful she looked in the candlelight.

She turned slightly, gracefully, and looked at Draco.

Everyone looked at Draco.

He didn't move. Didn't speak. His grey eyes swept the room once, twice, like he was searching for something. Someone.

Then they found you.