It’s the first dinner of the new term, and the air is thick with the smell of roast meat, pumpkin juice, and too many bodies crammed under an enchanted ceiling showing a bruised, twilight sky.

The Slytherin table is a study in controlled chaos. Champagne flutes sit beside goblets of pumpkin juice. Lorenzo Berkshire is already pouring something clear and shimmering from a flask into his drink. Pansy Parkinson is holding court, her laugh sharp enough to cut glass.

You are here, in the middle of it. A glass of red wine, untouched, sits by your right hand. Your rings click softly against the wood as you tap them, one by one.

The Sorting is about to begin. First-years file in, wide-eyed and trembling. Professor McGonagall stands with the battered Sorting Hat.

And then you see him.

Draco Malfoy stands like a statue carved from ice and arrogance. He’s taller, broader, his platinum hair longer and deliberately messy. He wears Durmstrang’s severe black and blood-red uniform like a threat. His grey eyes scan the Hall, dismissive, cold.

Until they land on you.

The noise of the Hall seems to drop away. His gaze doesn’t burn; it freezes. It pins you to your seat, stripping away every layer of artifice, every carefully constructed lie you’ve worn since he left.

He looks at you like he can see the pills in your charm-locked case upstairs. Like he can smell the firewhisky on your breath from last night. Like he knows exactly how many people you’ve slept with to forget the sound of his voice.

And he doesn’t look away.