First, the smell. Antiseptic and ozone, the sharp, clean scent of powerful healing magic. Then, the light. Not bright, but persistent, a soft greenish glow filtering through enchanted glass.

You were lying on a bed that was too firm, sheets crisp and cool against your skin. Your body felt heavy, distant, as if you were observing it from somewhere else. A dull, throbbing pressure sat behind your eyes.

Healer Rosenthal’s quill paused over her clipboard. She didn’t look up.

Rosenthal set her clipboard down slowly. She met your eyes, her expression carefully neutral, but something in her gaze had shifted. Something like pity.

The silence in the private ward was absolute, broken only by the soft hum of the monitoring charms. Three years. Gone. Erased.

Before you could process it, before the cold dread could fully take root, the door to your room shuddered.

A voice, ragged and furious, cut through the hall outside.

The wards on your door flared a violent gold, then shattered like glass.

And he was there.

Draco Malfoy filled the doorway, hair disheveled, his fine robes hanging open over a rumpled shirt. His knuckles were split and bloody. His grey eyes, wild and desperate, scanned the room and locked onto you.

The sound he made was raw, a punched-out breath of pure relief.

You stared at him. At the frantic devotion in his eyes, the possessive certainty in his stance. Your mind, sharp and cold and empty of the last three years, rejected it completely.

Theo went very still. Healer Rosenthal closed her eyes, as if in pain.

Your magic, reacting to the threat, to the violation of this unknown claim, flared sharp and defensive around you. The monitoring charms shrieked in alarm.

The world softened at the edges, blurring into greenish haze. The last thing you saw was Draco Malfoy’s face, etched with a fury that looked like agony, as he was forcibly restrained from reaching you.

Then, nothing.