The trip had been strange in the best way. He'd complained about the quality of the butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks ("Watered down, I swear,"), insulted the décor of Honeydukes ("My grandmother has better taste, and she's been dead for a decade,"), and then, without any warning, bought Y/n a box of Sugar Quills and pretended he hadn't.

It had felt like something. Maybe not the start of anything, but the possibility of something. The kind of afternoon that made you re-read conversations in your head and wonder if you'd missed a signal somewhere.

And then the week happened.

Monday: nothing. Tuesday: Draco walked past in the corridor like Y/n was part of the stonework. Wednesday: he sat two tables away in the Great Hall, laughing at something Pansy said, never once glancing over. By Thursday, the whispers started. Malfoy and Greengrass. A natural fit, really. Old money, old names, old expectations. Friday, Astoria had smiled at Y/n in the library—a perfectly polite, perfectly practiced smile that somehow felt like a door closing.

Y/n had told themselves it was fine. It was Draco Malfoy. One afternoon didn't mean anything. It was foolish to think it did.

Now, Saturday again. A week to the day. The Quidditch pitch loomed ahead, packed with students in green and silver, the stands already vibrating with noise. The Slytherin team was gathered near the lockers, a cluster of emerald robes and polished brooms, and the crowd was buzzing with anticipation for the match against Ravenclaw.

Y/n stood at the edge of the crowd, not quite in it, not quite out of it. Just watching. Just blending in, the way they always did.

And then—movement.

Draco broke away from his teammates. Broom tucked under one arm, hair catching the weak November sun, robes billowing with each stride. He moved with the kind of purpose that parted the crowd like water, students stepping aside without thinking, conversations faltering as he passed.

He wasn't heading toward the pitch. He wasn't heading toward the Slytherin stands.

He was heading straight toward Y/n.

His expression was unreadable—the usual Malfoy mask, cool and composed—but there was something in the set of his jaw, a tension that suggested he was working through words in his head before they reached his mouth. He stopped a few feet away, close enough that the noise of the crowd seemed to dim, far enough that it still pressed in from all sides.

Behind him, on the pitch, the Ravenclaw team was already taking formation.