Tom carried your books despite not needing to. He waited outside classes just to walk you two corridors over. He kissed your knuckles absentmindedly while reading. Your friends called it “walking him on a leash”. Tom overheard once and simply said with his cold tone: “I’d wear the collar proudly.”
The next morning was a disaster. You woke up slowly. Warm. Comfortable. Confused. The ceiling was unfamiliar. The room was unfamiliar. Everything was unfamiliar. Then you spotted hockey posters. And immediately remembered. Oh no. Dean. Dean's room. Dean's bed. Dean!
"Theodore created a castle-wide hands-off rule." You stared. "A what?" "A hands-off rule." You blinked. "I don't know what that means." Pansy looked almost impressed. "Theo announced after your breakup that nobody at Hogwarts was allowed to ask you out."
After catching Draco cheating on you, you don’t think it too much. You just grab the first boy passing by and kiss him senseless, not realizing is Tom Riddle, Draco’s biggest rival.
Your phone buzzed in your hand. Mattheo. ‘You’re doing it again.’ You stared at the screen. Then another message appeared before you could answer. ‘Don’t stalk girls I barely tolerate. It’s embarrassing for both of us.’ Your throat went dry. Because he knew. Of course he knew. Heat crawled slowly up your spine as you typed back before pride could stop you. ‘You’re unbelievably arrogant.’
Your eyes snapped toward Draco's falling figure. His silver eyes were already locked on you. Even now. Even while plummeting toward the ground. ‘You can hear me.’ Only true bonds could do that. The rarest kind. The kind people waited their entire lives to find. The kind that could never be mistaken. And it wasn't connected to Harry. You looked desperately toward your boyfriend. Searching for another thread. Another pull. Anything. There was nothing. Nothing at all. Harry was falling. And you were worried. Terrified even. But it was your fear. Your concern. Not a bond. Not a soul connection. Nothing.
Neither of you understood what was happening. Neither of you wanted to examine it too closely. Yet the shift continued anyway. Small. Persistent. Impossible to ignore. And somewhere in the background, Logan watched the entire disaster unfold with growing amusement. Because unlike you and Dean, he had figured it out weeks ago. The idiots were in love. They just hadn't caught up yet.
Your life together exists somewhere between two worlds. Your textbooks scattered across his truck. His flannels draped over your apartment chair on campus. Weekdays apart. Weekends tangled together beneath cotton sheets while rain taps softly against the ranch house roof.
"I need you to pretend to be my girlfriend." Silence. "I'm sorry?" "My fake girlfriend." "Have you hit your head?" "It would only be for a little while." "You've definitely hit your head."
Dean had spent years perfecting emotional detachment. Relationships complicated things. Feelings complicated things. Casual was easy. Safe. Reliable. Then suddenly your laugh mattered. Your attention mattered. Your texts mattered. And that was a problem. A serious one. Because while Dean was quietly becoming attached, you remained exactly where you'd always been. Having fun. Living freely. Protecting your heart.
‘I think I’m going to do it,’ Jean says. ‘Do what?’ Connie asks while eating some peanuts. You stare at Jean in silence. ‘I’m going to ask Mikasa to give us a chance.’ Jean’s eyes are on you as he says it, almost as if he’s searching for something. Anything you’ll give away. The silence is deafening.
At night, when the flat is quiet and the world feels smaller, Mattheo lies awake with his hand on your stomach, feeling movement, breathing you in. He talks about the future like it’s a given—because with you, it always has been. You aren’t just lovers. You’re partners. Teammates. Home. And as the due date inches closer, everything else—the matches, the noise, the pressure—fades behind one simple truth: No matter how fast life moves, Mattheo always finds his way back to you.
After listening to him ramble about how boring his love life was for nearly an hour during a party that had already dissolved into drunken chaos, you took his phone and informed him that if he was truly this desperate, he needed Tinder.
“Are you going to pretend you don’t notice?” Mattheo finally said, voice lazy but eyes sharp. You didn’t look up from your book. “Notice what?” “The way he looks at you.” A pause. “The way I do.” Theo’s hand stilled, just for a second. You closed your book then, slow, deliberate. “And the way you look at each other?”
Draco remained unconscious for hours and when he finally woke, the room practically vibrated with relief. Until Draco looked directly at you and frowned. He reached for your hand automatically, intertwining your fingers with his like it was familiar. Then he looked around the room, visibly irritated. “Why is everyone staring at my girlfriend like she’s dying?” (inspired by @lisaa_m)
The guy continued talking. Continued leaning closer. Continued acting like persistence was somehow romantic. Then something changed. Not in him. In the room. The strange shift happened before you even turned around. The guy suddenly stopped speaking. His expression altered slightly. Eyes lifting. Looking somewhere behind you. Confusion flickered across his face. Then uncertainty. You frowned. Slowly turning. And immediately understood. Dean. Of course.
You’re in your bedroom reading when Fred sneaks in. Turns out he’s heard people talking about how you smiled at some boy and he’s not taking it that well. Dramatic even. Slytherin and Gryffindor shouldn’t match that well, and yet… there you stood, hand in hand.