Howdy! 22, genderqueer he/they; Requests open!!! Your local mentally ill n disabled writer is here to provide love and comfort pieces! 🫡 Nsfw included. Feel free to chat with me or send in a request!! Have a great day!!! 🎷🐝 NSFW and 18+ content!!! I reblog nsfw and darker content sometimes as well. :)
Please keep in mind that I am mentally ill, disabled, autistic, and usually write most about my special interests. I write NSFW, Angst, Hurt, Comfort, Fluff, and almost anything. (TW: sh, depression, su**ide) Topics involving depression, mental health issues, and su*cide will not trigger me, so feel free to request anything. I am not the best person to write family/parent headcanons. Please keep this in mind. In general, I am always open to talk and answer questions, I’m friendly, I promise!! (Essentially theres not much im not willing to write about, if im not interested i just wont do it haha)
summary: On the verge of failing Potions thanks to your idiotic lab partner and Quidditch rival Draco Malfoy, the two of you are forced to sneak into the greenhouse at night for a final ingredient, only to stumble into some strange plants along the way.
tags: 18+ MDNI, [sex pollen] [enemies to lovers] [quidditch rivals] [eighth-year at hogwarts] [mutual masturbation] [dubcon but only because it's sex pollen lol ] [oral sex] [malfoy whimpers] [hate sex] [switchy] [penetrative sex] [multiple orgasms]
author's note: It felt weird not writing Draco & Snitch from Lessons in Losing, but i hope you like Nineteen :) Title is inspired by the song Fatal Attraction by Reed Wonder. 9k words
“This is a terrible idea,” you hiss, rounding the corner toward the side exit of the castle.
Draco scoffs. “Like you have a better one.”
While he draws his wand from his robes, you cast another wary glance over your shoulder. The hallway is empty behind you, lit with dim floating candles. The castle sleeps, blissfully unaware of the plans you and your Quidditch rival have in store tonight.
Sadly, you don't. Have a better plan, that is. That's why you're out after curfew, dodging prefects and paintings like it's your full-time job.
"There's just got to be another way," you say, checking behind you again.
"There's not. Unless you count failing an option. You want to fail tomorrow, Nineteen?”
Draco Malfoy has never called you by your real name—only your Quidditch number. Because that’s all you are to him. Not a person. Just an obstacle on the pitch. But you know the truth: you’re the only Seeker in the entire school who gives him a run for his money.
“No—but I think it’s important for you to remember how it’s your fault we’re in this predicament in the first place!”
“I beg to differ,” Draco says, opening the door with a flick of his wand and stepping out into the night. “I’m quite good at potions.”
You rush to slip after him before the door swings shut behind you with a heavy thud.
Prick.
You’re not sure why Draco really even gives a shit about this assignment. All he cares about is winning Quidditch matches and getting the hell out of this school.
And why should he care?
It’s not like anything bad will happen to him if he gets one bad grade. You, on the other hand, have a bit more to lose. As a trainee healer, you need to score well on the NEWTs this year to secure your spot in the coveted apprentice slots. Needless to say, failing your Potions final just simply isn’t an option.
The air outside is muggy and warm—an unusually humid night for early April. The sky is clear, though, boasting a bright full moon. A perfect night for harvesting a nocturnal plant. An owl hoots somewhere in the Forbidden Forest beyond, and the tall grass tickles your ankles as you make your way to the cluster of greenhouses on the grounds.
You yank on Draco's sleeve as he walks straight past the entrance to Greenhouse Three.
He shrugs off your hand and gestures impatiently to the latticed door. “Hurry up and open it.”
“One of us should stay on the lookout,” you huff. Your fingers brush your wand in your pocket. “I’ll go and grab the sample, and you signal me if there’s any—”
“Wait.” He stops you. “Why do you get to go inside?”
You stare at him, jaw slack. “Because I’m the healer?”
“Not yet, you’re not.”
Sometimes, you take comfort in your fantasies about Draco Malfoy.
You’re up to ten different ways you might be able to knock him off his broom. Make him suffer in a way he never saw coming. And thanks to that comment, you’re now trying to come up with the eleventh.
“Why don’t you be the lookout, and I retrieve the sample?” He asks pointedly.
You sigh, irritated. “Because, Malfoy, I don’t trust you to get an accurate sample, okay? You couldn’t even keep our original sprig alive long enough for us to use it tomorrow!”
“You know, that’s a good point.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “Perhaps I don’t trust you, either. You know, we never did specify which of us was supposed to give the plant the appropriate amount of moonlight…”
You squint up at him. “Oh? We didn’t? That’s right. Maybe that’s because when we got assigned this potion, I stole the Snitch from under your nose at finals, and you didn’t speak to me for a week!”
Normally, you wouldn't complain about that. Being Quidditch rivals was one thing. Mouthing off to each other on the Pitch? That was a given. Outside of that, you didn't talk. It was a hard line.
That week just happened to be the one week you actually needed him to speak to you.
Because while he was busy trying to salvage his pride and keep his ego somewhat intact, you were actually doing all the heavy lifting for the assignment in Potions. The one Snape assigned to the both of you.
He huffs, irritated. He’s obviously annoyed you keep bringing that loss of his up, but you won’t stop anytime soon.
“We both go in, or I’m out," he says, his jaw set in determination.
You weigh your options. You could probably get the sample on your own, but you’re not willing to risk getting caught by yourself. If you get caught with him, you can do the obvious.
Blame him.
Turns out, it’s not much of a decision after all.
“Fine,” you mutter through grit teeth. “Let’s just get this over with.”
You unlock the door with a few precise spins of your wand and whisper the password low enough that Malfoy can’t hear it. The door unlatches with a hiss, and a warm, earthy smell hits you in the face. It’s familiar to you, and soothing in a way.
Malfoy shifts on his feet, eager to enter, but right before he pushes the door open, you bar his chest with your arm, wand at the ready.
You level his gaze. “Whatever you do—don’t touch anything.”
He scoffs, slipping past you and through the door with a flick of his robes. “Scared of a few plants, Nineteen?” He looks over his shoulder. “Bit concerning for a future healer and all. You might not make the cut.”
He shrugs with false sympathy before disappearing into the darkness beyond.
Nevermind. Gone are the thoughts of making his death a swift and easy one. Now, you’re envisioning something longer, slower, your hands around his neck—
You wonder if he begs half as prettily as he flies.
You’ve never really understood it.
The strange utopia that is Greenhouse Three. It’s always felt more like a portal to another dimension, rather than a plant nursery. But seeing it under the night sky is an otherworldly experience.
The tall domed ceiling stretches high above you, and dimmer disks fly from their assigned pots to line the narrow walkway upon your arrival.
There’s a silence about the place, but beneath it all, something living without breathing. As you walk among the taller plants lining the path, it feels like walking through a graveyard. But instead of the bones turning to dust under the earth—they’re watching.
The Nightbell Stalk lives all the way at the back of the greenhouse, in a secret locker called the Lumen Garden. You’ve never seen this garden, given the fact that it magically appears only when the moon is at its peak, and disappears again before the sun rises. Even despite the blatant breaking of curfew, you’ve been warned never to enter, given the dangerous nature of the plants one might encounter.
But, as they say, dangerous times call for desperate measures. Or, desperate times call for dangerous measures. Something like that.
All you know is it’s as desperate as it is dangerous, or you would never be so reckless.
Soon enough, the Lumen Garden door looms over you. It’s tall and black, and it sparkles in the light of the skimmer dimmers, like it’s made of crushed black diamond.
You turn to Malfoy. “Do you have it?”
He pulls an aged piece of parchment from his pocket. You reach for it but he snatches it back just in time.
“I didn’t risk my life in the Restricted Section, so you could show off your poor Mermish,” he says.
“‘Risking your life,’” you roll your eyes, unimpressed. “As if you don’t practically live there. Get on with it, then.”
He clears his throat. You try not to watch the way his fingers carefully unfold the paper, holding it like it’s something valuable. He’s always been like that when it comes to ancient scripts.
“Vaelith mora selune,” he whispers.
By moonlight reveal.
Your pulse leaps as the scrape of stone on stone reverberates throughout the silent room, bouncing off the glass panes above you.
As the stone door rolls back, it reveals a room so beautiful it nearly takes your breath away.
Opal stones guide you forward, leading to a circular pool in the center. The water lies perfectly still, glassy and undisturbed, yet the plants rooted beneath its surface sway gently in some unseen current.
Overhead, moonlight spills through the curved glass dome, and the panes are cloudy on purpose, filtering and diffusing the moonlight into something stronger and more even.
You tiptoe onto the landing, barely noting the black mossy walls surrounding you before the stone rolls shut behind you. Malfoy’s polished shoes click decisively down the opal stones, not the least bit fased.
You swallow and follow after him. Mist rises up from the pond, and when you lean closer, curiosity pulling you in, you catch sight of movement. Thin, glowing threads streak by under the glassy surface. Jilly bugs. They help the plants thrive in the lowlight conditions.
“Keep up, will you?” Draco hisses, drawing your attention to him.
He’s standing over a garden bed beyond the pond, half swallowed by the shadowed wall behind him.
These nocturnal plants only bloom at night, and they die without it. Because of this, these plants have different colors than normal ones. Most of them are varying shades of black, purple, or blue, evolved to camouflage with the night or their natural habitats.
As you step closer, the vines come into view. There are tons of them, growing along a nearly imperceptible trellis that spans the full length of the back wall, their long stems twirling and looping, spilling out across the floor and crawling up the dome above.
You’re just reaching his side when something moves out of the corner of your eye. Your head whips towards the wall, eyes narrowing through the gray haze.
But there’s nothing. Just vines, their leaves sitting so still they could almost pass as wax.
“Where’s the bloody vial…?” Draco mutters to himself, patting down the pockets of his robes.
His features catch the light as he looks down. Your eyes drift over the edge of his nose, the slope of his brow, that strong jaw. You look away when his chin tips up.
Reaching into your pocket, you retrieve the small glass bottle, holding it out for him to see.
Draco frowns. “Thief.”
You shrug, glancing down at the Nightbell Stalk in front of you.
It’s a deep violet, with small, downward-facing flowers. Inside each one, the stems glow a faint gold. You can smell the nectar from where you stand--sweet, like honey, but heavier. Thicker.
When Malfoy reaches for the vial, you snap it back in the last second.
“I’m doing it,” you say.
“Like hell you are.” He scoffs. “Just because you’re a healer doesn’t give you the right to fuck this up. It’s my project too, you know.”
Anger sparks in your gut and you turn on him. “You haven’t given a shit about this potion the entire semester, and I’m supposed to believe you actually care now? Besides, you don’t have the experience required—”
“Oh, I have the experience. Stand aside.” He reaches for the sample vial. “I can handle something as simple as—”
You snatch it back again. “Oh, so you know that the bells ring when disturbed, so you only touch the stem. Did you know that Malfoy?”
“I—yes! I know more than—”
“So, obviously, you’d be cautious around the petals, since they’re so sticky they can leave a residue on your hands for a week.” Your lips set in a taunting line and narrow your eyes at him. “But you knew that, huh?”
Draco glares down at you. “I’m well aware of the difficulties with this plant. And by the way, I suggested this plan. So, I’ll do it.”
Your argument continues, words overlapping, while your voices ring eerily loud in the silence of the greenhouse.
Push, pull, counter, strike.
You fight the same way you fly on the pitch, chasing the same goal. Competitive to a fault.
The exact fault being that while the two of you are too busy arguing over who gets to hold the stem—and where the vial goes exactly—you don’t realize one vine unfurling from the wall behind you, growing curious in the moonlight.
“My hands are steadier,” Draco says from his place over your shoulder.
You bite your lip, ignoring the way his breath ghosts across your ear, focusing your energy on getting the ingredient.
You accidentally graze the edge of the downward-turned petal with the rim of the glass and the flowers on the Nightbell Stalk ring softly.
“Shit,” you mutter.
“You know it’s true,” he continues, voice low. “How many times have you lost the Snitch because of your poor grip, hmm? I haven’t. Not once.”
With one sharp movement of your fingers, you scoop up the drop of nectar from the stems inside. It slides down the glass, glowing a deep orange. Satisfaction curls warm under your ribs like your feline familiar back in your dorm room.
You grin. “Got it.”
Reveling in your win, you turn, ready to shove your success in his face, but the movement only presses your back further into his chest.
“Move, would you?” You bite, trying to slide around him, but the tight space doesn’t allow for much wiggle room.
He shifts to let you through, but the narrow corridor between the wall and the garden bed seems to get tighter with his body pressed against yours. Somewhere, your feet get tangled and he stumbles, sprawling back against the garden bed, which pushes you flat against the ivy wall, glaring up at him.
His head blocks the moonlight, his silhouette falling over you like a living shadow. His lips part like he might say something, and you find yourself leaning forward, waiting breathlessly, when something brushes your ankle.
You leap forward. Draco’s arm wraps around you out of instinct. The two of you stare at each other before he seems to remember who you are and drop his arm like you’ve burned him.
“Throwing yourself at me, are you?” He drawls, breaking the silent tension.
“No!” You look down at the ground, but there’s nothing there. Just mossy stone under your feet, the shadow of the vine wall at your heels. “Something just…grabbed me.”
Draco shakes his head and shoves past you. “It’s always drama with you, isn’t it?”
“I’m serious!” you snap. “It almost tripped me!”
“Ah, yes. Do me a favor and twist that pretty little ankle would you? Just secure me a win next match, thanks.”
His words make you pause, forgetting all about the mysterious touch. A smile steals across your face before you can stop it. “So, you admit I need to be taken out for you to have a shot at the Cup, then?”
He spins on the spot, a shadow etched between his brows as he scowls at you under the moonlight. “You’re twisting my words.”
“I am not! Merlin, Malfoy, do you ever just shut up—” Something brushes your shoulder. You freeze. “What was that?”
To your surprise, Draco actually shuts his mouth to listen. There’s nothing. No frogs, no crickets, no owl, no water dripping, no jilly bugs splashing in the pond.
It’s…silent.
Suddenly, something moves above you. Both your gazes jerk up at the same time. A leafy vine—so green it’s almost black—drops down from the wall and brushes Draco’s hair.
He flinches, and as the light catches on the small, glass-like beads growing between the leaves, your stomach drops.
You know exactly what that is.
The Veleroux Vine. Some call it Sirenlace. But it’s best known for another name.
Sex pollen.
You recognize it from your studies. The pollen pods contain a powerful aphrodisiac, said to heighten biological desire to mate in extreme ways. The more you resist, the worse the fever gets, making you wild with lust.
“Draco—don’t touch—” You throw a hand out to stop him.
But it’s too late.
Malfoy rears back and slaps the invading greenery away like he’s swatting a fly.
Shit.
“Dammit, Malfoy, what did I say about not touching anything?” You shriek, surging forward and shoving at his chest. “Get away from th—”
The first bead snaps open in a plume of dust. Fear rushes through your limbs and you try to jerk the both of you away, but you’re not quick enough.
One after another, the pollen pods pop in sequence, traveling down the vine, dusting your hair, your robes, and filling the air.
You jerk back, furiously rubbing at your skin, but it’s no use. It settles on you like a thin glitter, small enough to even to slip into your pores.
“Oh, shit. Fucking—fuck. Fuck!” you holler, but you shouldn’t have opened your mouth. Now the back of your throat feels like when you stuck your head in the sugar jar as a kid.
Draco sends you a withering look, brushing down his robes. “Calm down, will you? Bloody hell—just a little plant dust.”
“Just a plant—” You scoff, throwing your hands up in the air. “Merlin help me, you can’t just fucking listen for one second. I know what I’m talking about! Hurry! We have to get out of here before it—”
The vine slips around your shoulder at the very same moment Draco glances down to find another one winding around his ankle.
“—grabs us,” you finish weakly.
You try to scramble away, but the leaves thread around your arm in a silky vice.
Draco curses loudly at the thing, hopping on one foot, losing his robes in the process of trying to extricate himself.
“You have the wrong…pair,” you tell the inky leaves while you fumble for your wand. “We aren’t—we can’t…do what you want.”
“It wants something?” Draco casts a disbelieving look at the vine now wrapped around his dark slacks, settling around his knee. “Merlin—what?”
“It wants us to have sex,” you say, matter-of-factly.
He looks at you like you’ve grown two heads. Then his gaze darkens, snagging on the way your hard nipples strain against your shirt.
Already? This shit works fast. You finally free your wand and cross your arms over your chest.
“Sex?” he sneers.
“Yes. It’s an aphrodisiac plant, native to rare jungles. Its job is to encourage mating between compatible species.”
“Compatible.” He scoffs. “You and me? Farthest thing from it.”
“It doesn’t know that..." You gasp as your wand is whisked out of your hands by a particularly strong leaf.
“Talk to it again. Tell it!” Draco shouts. He looks down and shakes his leg violently. The vine doesn’t budge. “Shit—just get it off me!”
Whispers of leaves dragging against stone make you turn to face the corner of the room behind you. A cluster of vines has begun to twist together, the husky hush of plants twining and looping filling the air. Vines slide across the floor, retracting into the dark corner, while more gather from the ceiling, shifting the beams of moonlight through the dusty air.
You inhale sharply. “Oh no.”
Draco curses somewhere behind you. “What now?”
“It’s building its nest,” you reply, eyes on the plant.
“It’s…what?”
You turn to see Draco fighting tooth and nail. He’s got his wand out now. Streaks of light bounce across the room, flames erupt in the air but they bounce off the leaves like they’re nothing but a few stray sparks. Across the room, past the pool, some of the other plants wither and shrink away from the light.
Adrenaline surges through you as your mind scrambles for a solution. You’re already beginning to feel it, a tugging deep in your core.
That familiar tight ache that blooms in the dark, alone, in your bed. But unlike then, right now, you can’t give into it. You try not think about how the longer you resist, the worse it will get. From your brief research, sex pollen isn’t fatal, but it certainly isn’t pleasant.
Unless you give in.
Then, of course, it’s rumored to be the best sex of your entire life.
You don’t have the luxury of finding that out.
There is an antidote, of course, but it is completely and totally, one-hundred percent, without a doubt—out of the question.
Sex with Malfoy? Not happening.
There’s only one answer. You have to escape.
Your gaze swings to the stone door, framed in elegant iron bars that allow climbers to reach moonlight.
Maybe if you could get out of the vine’s reach, it wouldn’t be able to chase you.
It only takes a second to form a plan.
Tipping back, you let your weight fall backwards into the vine, hoping to catch it off guard and force it to loosen its hold. Instead, you trip over a stray pot and go tumbling to the ground.
But before you hit the stone, the Veleroux is there.
Your breath catches, heart pounding, suspended in the air. Then the vine pushes gently into your lower back, guiding you forward util your feet find solid ground again. You stare, openmouthed, as the leaves brush along your leg, almost as if checking for injury, before nudging you toward the corner of the room.
“Oh, Merlin. Yes, I see your nest,” you say weakly, watching as the vine curls in on itself to form a sort of ball—more of a fist, really—and uses it to push softly against the heels of your shoes, urging you forward. It uncurls when you take a step, leaves fluttering as if pleased. Then it spins in the air, gesturing as if to say, look, I made this for you. A cozy, safe place to mate. “Very nice. Lovely, really. But you see, we can’t—”
“Blimey! Get back!” Draco’s voice interrupts your one-sided conversation.
You look over your shoulder, wobbling a bit as the plant continues to nudge you towards the silky hammock in the corner. He’s covered in vines, now. His wand has fallen somewhere off to the side, out of both your reach. He’s still flailing, hair mussed, trying and—failing— to break free.
You look down. The vine’s not even holding onto you anymore. Is it because you’re not fighting as hard?
You take a step towards the door. Nothing happens. You take another, and the vine edges closer. On the third, it finds your ankle again. But it doesn’t squeeze you or cinch tight enough to sting. It just curls softly around your leg, firm enough to stop you from running, but gentle enough that you start to suspect it doesn’t want you damaged.
Malfoy, on the other hand, looks almost black and blue.
“Stop!” You call. “The harder you fight, the tighter it tries to hold you. Just—watch. Walk towards me.”
“You’re insane. You know that?” he spits. But his eyes catch on your vineless body anyway.
“Trust me, Malfoy.”
That’s a phrase you never imagined yourself saying to him.
“It doesn’t want to hurt us,” you whisper. “I don’t think.”
He shakes his head. “That’s not good enough for me.”
Despite his words, Draco takes one step towards you. The vine’s hold loosens. Another step and it slips from his chest entirely.
“See?” you say, encouraged. “It’s biological nature is to keep its prey alive and well. It can’t force us to mate. It just…heavily suggests it.”
“Of course it doesn’t force it,” Draco sneers. “A plant can’t make me do anything I don’t want to do.” But even as the words leave his lips, his eyes drop to the edge of your skirt. The hem suddenly feels six inches shorter, though you know it hasn’t shrunk.
Draco moves closer and the vines start to retreat, but he keeps a wary eye on them until they disappear into the Nest.
He glares at it, then at you. “What is that?”
“It’s a hammock,” you answer, eyes darting around for another escape route. “The vine thinks it will make us more comfortable. Since it’s not all over us anymore, I say we try to appease it. Just a little.”
“Appease it?” He gasps. “You want to—I can’t believe this. That—” he gestures towards the jumble of vines. “Could be a swan down comforter with silk sheets. I don’t care, I’m not going near it.”
You roll your eyes. “Merlin, you don’t listen. I’m not saying we go in the Nest. I’m saying we just…pretend. Then we can make a run for it.”
He doesn’t look convinced, so you turn to face him. “This plant spreads pollen to encourage mating, right? But how does it know when it’s worked? It’s not aware like we are.”
His eyes narrow. “Your point?”
“My point is…it’s pheromones, right? With our heightened hormones right now, we might be able to trick it into thinking we're on board, and it will let it's guard down.” Your stomach swoops with the words about to leave your tongue. “So maybe if you—if we—”
Draco’s eyes snap to yours. “If we what?”
His tongue swipes over his lower lip, leaving it glistening in the moonlight.
Stupid fucking pollen.
You swallow hard. “I think we should kiss.”
A beat of silence passes, the only sound your heartbeat kicking up, drumming in your ears.
“Fine,” he agrees.
That surprises you. You thought he’d gag at the very idea.
It must be the pollen, overriding his blatant hate for you and digging into his more urgent needs.
A shiver rolls down your spine at what those needs of his might be. You’re feeling it too, of course. The effect of being so close to him.
It’s only biological. To be drawn to a specimen of the opposite sex.
And why not Draco? He’s tall, healthy, miles of lean muscle. He smells good, and he’s not bad to look at. Especially when his eyes do that—flashing over at you thing, while his mouth quirks into a crooked smirk…
No other reason. Right?
You don’t have time to debate this, however, because Draco’s moving.
You’re vaguely aware of the vine brushing your ankle, keeping you steady as he crowds your space, and then—
Your lips meet his.
Your breath catches at the warmth you weren’t expecting. And that warmth…blooms. Your lashes fall shut as your whole body seems to sigh at the touch, like he’s the cure to the dull ache in your limbs, the antidote to the burning in your core. Just a gentle caress turns the sharp heat into a molten lava that invades your bloodstream.
He groans softly into your mouth, and the sound alone makes you gasp. Next thing you know, you’re pressed against his chest. Whether by his arms around you, or your own feet carrying you, or the stupid fucking vine playing matchmaker, all you know is he smells like green apples and teakwood. Cold luxury, but with a hint of…home.
At the first taste of his tongue, your stomach swoops dangerously. As he slants his mouth further, exploring, kissing you deeper, your heart feels like it’s beating as fast as a Snitch’s wings.
Your hands find his hair. It’s soft as silk between your fingers. A whimper escapes him and he breaks the kiss, head dropping back instinctively.
You watch through half-lidded eyes, taking in the way his wet lips gleam in the moonlight, blond lashes fluttering.
Merlin, he’s gorgeous.
His throat bobs on a swallow, and before you know it, your mouth is on his neck. He lets out a choked sound, something between a gasp and a groan, before jerking suddenly in your hold.
You stumble away, already missing the heat of his hands, lips buzzing like you’ve just downed a shot of fire-whiskey.
It’s him, you realize. He’s your drug. And when he lurches backward, breathing hard, you feel as if he’s just taken your last fix.
His eyes stay pinned on you as he retreats. The vine stops him with a gentle pressure at his back, but he doesn’t even seem to notice. He lets it guide him toward the nest, stopping just beside it, his back hitting the wall.
You scramble back until your heels knock into the stone wall opposite him. The Nest sits between you, off to the right, tucked in the dark corner of the room.
“Brilliant plan,” he grits out. “Bloody brilliant.”
And you’re back to square one.
“Ah!” Draco shouts, pointing at his wand lying on the ground between you. “You crossed the boundary.”
“I did not!” you snap at him, eyes flashing. “I was just adjusting. My foot kicked it accidentally—shit—would you just shut up? Your voice makes it worse.”
Over the last several minutes, you and Draco have tried everything under the sun to escape. The farthest you ever made it was all of ten feet. You did manage to retrieve Draco’s wand, though. Which then started the slew of fire spells, sharp object summoning charms, and so on. An earthquake hex was threatened, but that could’ve brought the whole school down, so you couldn’t risk that.
Although it was considered for one brief—and selfish—moment.
But none of it did a thing.
Turns out, this plant has some sort of magical resistance. It’s so bad that he couldn’t even make a force field or proper line divider between you, so he placed his wand there instead.
You’ve slowly slid down into a heap on the floor, attempting to make yourself smaller, as if that might ease the ache building deep in your core. It’s relentless, hot and gnawing, and you know it’s only going to get worse if you don’t come up with another plan soon.
Draco’s sitting now too, half draped in shadow. His arms crossed over his crisp white button-down, and he’s still glaring at you as if this is all your fault. The one knee strategically placed in front of his groan is the only sign you’ve gotten that the pollen is effecting him at all.
Bastard.
His tie is loose though, and his hair is tousled. Like it always is after a match. There’s no wind in here though, just the whisper of leaves and the steady drip of water.
No. Your hands are the only thing to blame for that.
Shit.
Now all you can think about is how soft his hair felt, how easily your fingers sank into it, and all the ways you could drag him closer by it, yanking his hot, wet mouth to your—
“What did I tell you about thinking those things?” Draco says. You peek up to see his head hit the wall, eyes sliding shut.
“I’m not thinking anything—”
“Stop lying, Nineteen.” His nostrils flare, and his eyes snap open. Somehow, his pupils have grown even larger. “You're so wet I can practically taste it from here.”
Merlin. Your thighs press together instinctively.
“I’m not thinking anything that has to do with you,” you snap. “Except how much I hate you. How much I despise your face, how much I want to steal that Snitch from you every damn day, and how if I had to be here, I would rather it be anyone else other than you!”
Your chest heaves as you catch your breath. But the way he looks at you makes your pulse spike all over again.
“Is that right?”
His cheeks are flushed, the same way they are when he’s hot on the Snitch’s trail. Your slick walls flutter at the sight. You’ve always thought he looked good like that. All sweaty and warm, hair stuck to his forehead, eyes bright with a fire that matches yours.
Not that you would ever tell him, of course.
“Who would you want instead?” he rasps. “Montague? Flint? I see the way you look at them on the pitch.” He looks away for a second and drags his knuckles across his lips before his gaze snaps back to yours. “Lucky for you, you’re trapped here with someone who can show a little restraint.”
You bark out a laugh. “You think you’re the only one here with restraint? Take one step toward me, Malfoy, and I swear I’ll hex you.”
He grunts. “You don’t have a wand.”
Your head tips back with a quiet groan, your clit aching to be touched. You make another weak attempt to get away, but the vine catches you.
It doesn’t snap, claw, or hold you against your will. Rather it settles around your shoulders, brushing a waxy leaf along your cheek, tucking your hair behind your ear before retreating again, as if to say, Stop fighting. Just look at him. Don’t you want to?
And somehow, that’s worse.
Because you do.
Badly.
You find yourself looking at his hands. Your gaze drifts over the curve of his palms, the long lines of his fingers, the tension there, the veins, the control he’s barely holding onto and—you’re salivating.
Snap out of it.
“It’s so hot in here, f-fuck,” you whine, pawing at the collar of your shirt.
Draco eyes lock on you fingers. “Take that off and I swear—don’t.”
But your tie feels like it’s choking you, and your pulse booms in your ears. Your fingers keep loosening it. Draco curses.
You whimper. “That’s not fair, you took yours off!”
“Stop talking. Merlin, just—” he cuts himself off with a rough breath, his large palm grinding down into his erection beneath his slacks. “Shut up.”
You try to stay quiet. You really do.
But every shift of your body sends heat spiraling lower, making it harder to think. Every brush of your thighs squeezes your swollen clit, and has you gasping into the wall behind you.
Draco’s breathing is uneven now, too, echoing faintly off the stone. He hasn’t been able to keep his hand off his dick, still hidden under his clothes.
Not that you’ve been watching.
“I think—‘ you swallow. “I think I have a plan.”
Draco moans. “Fine. Enlighten me.”
“Remember what I said about the pheromones?” You manage. “It’s clear kissing wa—shit—wasn’t enough. Maybe…” Your eyes drop to his erection.
“No.”
“Draco, we’re going to have to touch ourselves. It’s the only way.”
You expect him to be glaring at you, but when you look up, his eyes are on your legs—that bare skin between your shoe and your skirt.
“Fine.” His throat bobs on a swallow. “You first.”
You barely have time to debate the ramifications of your actions. Your body burns, thick pressure building low and sharp.
You slip your hand under your skirt, straight under your panties. You inhale shakily, trying to steady yourself, but when your fingers meet a slickness like nothing you’ve ever felt before, the breath leaves your lungs.
The sound of of your wetness fills the silence between you and Draco makes a low, strained sound.
You glance over at him and immediately wish you hadn’t.
He’s taken his cock out, and he’s stroking it from base to tip. It’s long. Thick enough to fill up his palm, and veiny. The tip is darker than the rest, and you just know, if you were to take him in your mouth and suck—you’d feel his heartbeat against your tongue.
His jaw is tight, eyes half-lidded, like he tried to close them but his body won’t let him. When he sighs and bucks his hips into his own fist your mouth runs dry.
Whatever cavern of distance used to exist between you is crumbling now. It’s being burned away. There’s no space for it in this heat, this constant pull towards each other. Your skirt rides higher up on your thighs, and the cool air brushes your wet inner thighs.
After a minute, the relief starts to fade. You squeeze your eyes shut, trying to focus. But your body won’t cooperate. Your hips jerk back from your own touch, your clit bordering on overstimulation. You frown, plunging two fingers inside yourself to rub the ache away. But they feel like cold pencils in your pulsing channel.
The heat drags through your veins like hot cotton, begging for a deep release. But every brush of your arms against the cold stone behind you makes your elbows start to itch, and your very skin start to feel like a husk.
You need water. No—not water.
You need him.
It’s almost as if your body is punishing you for doing it to yourself.
“It’s not w-working,” you whimper, helpless.
Draco groans, his frustration evident in the bulging vein in his neck. His cock looks so angry in the dim light. He bites his lip in determination, and you watch his fist grip tighter. He only gets to three more strokes before he’s hissing with discomfort.
“There’s got to be another way,” he rasps, his hand dropping away.
You huff, so needy you’re almost on the verge of tears. “I’m thinking!”
“Well, think harder.”
You glare at him, dimly aware of how on display you are right now. Legs open and spread towards him, skirt barely concealing the way your fingers move against yourself. “Maybe I could if you could just shut your mouth for one damn second!”
His voice is not helping. All low and deep, with a hint of a rasp curling around his accent, making your belly tighten.
In fact, none of this is helping. Silence fills the space between you, only broken by uneven breathing and the quiet rustle of the Nest.
When his eyes drop to your dripping cunt and you don’t even have the decency to close your legs, it’s like the pollen has overridden your higher thinking. Your knees widen instinctively, begging for him to look. To touch…
Your composure slips further. And when he licks his lips, your lips actually part in preparation to ask for him.
Merlin, if this keeps up much longer, you’re not above begging if that what it takes. And begging Draco Malfoy for anything is beyond the lowest you’d ever thought you’d go.
You work yourself harder, but your fingertips feel like sandpaper against your soft folds, even as your arousal continues to leak steadily from you, your pussy desperate to be filled.
But that feels impossible.
A tear slips from the corner of your eye, and you’re helpless to stop it. You squeeze your eyes shut and turn your face away from him, still chasing any kind of relief, begging for it to feel like something worth grabbing onto.
Somewhere, distantly, you think Draco might be saying something, but you’re not sure what. Your body’s honed in on the vibrations of his voice, the way he smells—
“Nineteen.”
Hearing your nickname snaps you back to reality.
You open your mouth to answer him, but no words come out. Little gasps punch out of your parted lips, hips twisting and writhing, searching for friction. For heat. For him.
“Tell me,” he says firmly.
You turn your head. You can barely see him, your eyes refusing to open more than a sliver. He’s leaning forward now, one knee planted on the ground.
“W-what?” you rasp.
“Your plan—the pheromones—shit.” Then, quieter, he adds. “Tell me how to make it stop hurting you.”
Your eyes snap to his. He’s watching you with that sharp focus you’ve always admired about him. The look that says nothing is getting in the way of what he wants.
You’re not sure exactly what makes him give in.
Maybe it’s the way your breaths come in soft pants that make the rise and fall of your breasts visible beneath your loosened tie. Maybe it’s the way your eyes drop to his lips, his neck, your tongue running over your teeth like you’re imagining how he tastes. It might be the ways your hips slant forward, knees falling open, your body begging even if you don’t have the words to.
But he must see it.
Because, he just says, “Fuck.”
His shoulders catch the moonlight as he shrugs out of his shirt in one smooth motion. Lines of lean muscle come into view, and you feel as if you’ve been presented with a feast after almost starving to death.
Malfoy’s always had a very determined walk. A powerful stride, one that commands attention. You’ve seen in in the halls, backed by his loyal little following. You’ve watched him stride towards the Quidditch cup, shoulders back, chest high.
But right now—he’s not walking.
He’s crawling.
Towards you.
“Close your eyes. If it helps,” he says before his hand meets your ankle and he’s bowing in front of you.
Something deep in your mind catches on those words, but he’s yanking your panties the rest of the way down your legs, and the heat of his mouth against your core whisks your thoughts away.
The second his tongue finds your clit you can’t help but cry out. Your head tips back against the stone, the relief so immediate it’s almost staggering. Draco attacks you with warm, lascivious licks that aren’t meant to soothe, despite his words. They’re meant to claim.
Your hands dig into the mossy floor beneath you, arching your hips up for him. His strong, hot tongue parts your folds like it’s his life’s work. The view of his back muscles shifting and stretching in the moonlight as he makes out with your pussy is so seductive to you it’s nearly frightening.
In fact, it is.
Frightening.
“I hate you,” you grit out, not even entirely sure where it came from. Just a need to set things back in order, even as he’s unraveling you.
He groans against your clit, the vibration licking up your spine.
“Say it again.”
You gasp, caught between resisting and wanting more, even as your pelvis shoves forward and you grind into him like you’re in heat. His tongue dives lower and when his nose nudges your clit, you nearly scream. Your orgasm rises like something sharp. It’s so powerful of a burn, of an ache, you find yourself scrambling backwards in an attempt to get away from the promise of such delirious pleasure.
Merlin, you need it. More than you’ve ever needed anything in your entire fucking life—
It scares you how much.
But Draco just hums against the pulls on his hair and follows you anyway, scuffling forward on the stone ground, gripping your hips and spearing his tongue deep inside you.
“Malfoy, I’m gonna—oh, fuckkk—”
“That’s it,” he says, and the sound of him quietly speaking against your slick folds nearly does you in. “Scream my name, Nineteen. N-need—fuck—wanna hear you say it like that.”
The soft rasp of his voice, and the two long fingers being pushed inside you send you straight over the edge.
The release pulls you under in waves. Dark, pulsing tidal waves that drive deep through your pelvis, erasing through your body until the pleasure nearly blinds you. You feel yourself going rigid in his hands, thighs trembling against his soft hair, but he just hauls you through it, like a lighthouse in a storm. Strong, steady, and never stopping until you’re jolting and gasping, crying out in relief.
But the second your orgasm fades, the heat rushes in again. The fever. It’s back, and with vengeance this time.
Sweat beads your forehead and your vision swims, but you look up just in time to see Malfoy scramble backwards like you burned him.
You frown. “Dra—what?”
He throws a hand out, pressing himself against the opposite wall. “Don’t come closer.”
A whimper escapes your lips before you can stop it. The heat is different now. Instead of feeling like a thread about to snap, your body has narrowed down to one singular need.
Breed.
Your fingers fly to your shirt without you telling them to, unbuttoning your shirt with ease. You feel the way your breasts move with your harsh breaths, but your gaze is locked on him. And when you drop down to all fours and slink forward, Draco looks like he’s going to have a heart attack.
“Merlin—I can’t.” he chokes out. “I can’t even think about it.”
Your gut feels like it’s been punched. Is he so disgusted by the thought that he can’t even look at you?
Does he truly not want you? Was that some sort of…pity—
You can’t even finish that thought.
You slink backwards until you’re half in shadow. He must see the look on your face because his head falls back against the wall on a groan. You can smell his sweat in the air and it’s making you downright feral even though you can barely look at him from embarrasement.
“I can’t think about it, because if I do, then I’ll do it,” he says. “And if I do it…I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop.”
Control. That’s always been Malfoy’s vice, hasn’t it?
This situation is probably his worst nightmare.
Not for the first time, something plucks on your heart strings deep under your ribs. He’s scared of losing it? You can give it back to him.
Slowly, and with deliberate care, you cross the boundary. The wand clatters somewhere to the side. Draco watches as you crawl to him, his eyes raking over you, a mixture of pain and hunger in his eyes.
You can only imagine what you look like.
Hair mussed, left in just a lace bra and soaked panties, your skirt hanging loose on your hips.
“Then don’t,” you murmur.
Your voice is so quiet in the stillness, but it spears through him all the same. Your gazes click together like magnets.
He shakes his head, chest heaving. “You don’t mean that. It’s just the fucking plant dust—”
He stops short when your hands settle on his knees, gently forcing them apart to make room for yourself. Your breath catches when you drop your gaze to see his cock sitting heavy and hard against his lower stomach. It twitches under your watchful gaze and your mouth waters.
Carefully, you settle into his lap.
He exhales sharply, and his hands find your soft skin, undoing your bra before you can even blink. Testament to a lot of practice, you’re sure.
You don’t have the strength to be self-conscious. You just need him. Now. Even so, somewhere through the lust-filled haze, you remember his words.
“The plant just lowers—” your breath hitches as his teeth find the soft skin of your neck. “—your inhibitions. It can’t make you fuck someone you don’t…w-want.”
“How do you know so much about this?” he groans into your hair. “Why are you so—”
“What? So smart?”
“You wish.”
The words barely brush your ear before you lean back to get a better look at him. You’ve barely straightened by the time his mouth is on your tits.
You cry out as he swirls his hot, greedy tongue around your nipples, sucking on the hard buds until you’re panting. Your clit swells and you bite your lip, threading your fingers through his hair. The first rock of your hips has you both groaning.
You grind down on him again and you nearly black out at the feeling of his bare length sliding through your slick folds. You reach between you to tug his slacks down further. His balls are heavy in your hand, and he grunts, shoving himself up into you.
“Merlin—I can’t—” he chokes out, mouth leaving your tits as his palms fly up and dig into his eye sockets.
Without thinking, you lean forward and kiss his fingers one by one. His bare chest stutters against yours at the softness of it, and when you slip his thumb into your mouth and swirl your tongue around it eagerly, he drops his hands.
You look down to find him staring up at you with a familiar expression. You make that face. When you're seconds away from catching the Snitch.
You swear you can feel every vein in his dick, so hot and hard against you as you grind your slick cunt against him. It’s instinct to drop your head and search for his mouth with yours, but you pull back at the last second. That last thread of lucidity coming back to haunt you.
This is your rival.
For a second you just breathe each other in, mouths parted, groaning and writhing into the other, but when the blunt head of his cock catches on your entrance, your hips react on their own—circling, pelvis arching, body begging in a primal, secret language you don’t fully understand.
And he moves with you—meeting you there with the deep urges of his own.
His hips don’t snap into you, brutal and deep. Instead, they slide. Back and forth. His hands clamp onto your hips, holding you still in his lap as he eases the tip in and out, letting your slick coat him until you’re ready to take the whole thing.
The way his body moves speaks to something primal and powerful in you. How his sweaty muscles bunch and tense, and his hands dig into your skin at your hips, your thighs, your waist— it’s better than anything you could’ve imagined.
“This doesn’t mean anything,” he growls into your ear.
You nod frantically, clenching around him.
In one long thrust, Draco fills you up. The stretch is breathtaking. Literally. He’s so long that his tip kisses your cervix with every thrust, sending you mewing and clawing at his hair, his shoulders, just to stay afloat through the pleasure.
He’s not fairing much better.
He’s growling and moaning, his cock jerking desperately in your slick walls as he pulls back just far enough to yank your hips back down to meet his.
Sounds spill out of you. They might be words, you’re not sure. But the next thing you know, cold stone meets your back, and Draco’s warm body is spread out over you. His thrusts grow heavier and deeper. You can feel the way your body tries to hold onto him, clenching and fluttering desperately, even as your arousal makes it easy for him to slide so deep.
You’ve never been this wet in your life. And now, you’re wondering, if it’s from the pollen, or if it’s just from him. Because you’ve never had sex this good, and that’s saying something.
Your bodies just…move together. Like they’re one of a kind puzzle pieces meant to fit. The give and take is so instinctual it’s almost unbearable how good it is.
“Fuck, you take me so well,” Draco pants, a lock of hair falling over his sweaty brow. “Knew you would.”
You throw your head back, your ankle finding solace in his lower back, sealing him to you and begging for more. Your body gives into the heat, the pleasure cresting and pulling you into something dangerously strong. So strong you’re worried your body might not survive it.
“So pretty on the pitch,” he groans, seemingly unable to stop from talking. “Merlin, I just—I lose the bloody Snitch every time you look at me.”
That does it.
Your orgasm rushes through your body like lightning. Your spine snaps straight, muscles clenching down with a pulse you feel everywhere. A moan leaves your chest, so loud you’ve probably woken the whole damn castle, but you’re too gone to care.
Draco makes a rough sound against the skin of your neck. “Holy—fuck, I’m gonna—where should I—”
“Inside,” you gasp. “Please. Please, Draco. I need it. P-please—”
“Ah, fuck—” His mouth seals against your throat, nose brushing the pulse point below your ear. “Need you.”
He jerks hard, once, twice, and then he’s spilling inside you. Your body seems to understand, back arching, pulling him deeper with your ankle as he stills and lets out a groan that curls low in your belly, and will certainly live on in every wet dream you have from here on out.
The fever fades like a receding tide. You blink, slowly coming back to yourself. Your clit is throbbing, and your pulse is still hammering, but strangely you feel...lighter somehow.
Like maybe the last few years of tension between you and your rival finally needed to snap.
You turn to him. He’s on his knees, breathing hard, buttoning up his pants. He looks up at you, and something in his eyes softens.
“What did you mean?” You find yourself asking. “When you told me to close my eyes earlier?”
He shrugs, reaching for his shirt.
“Well, you said you’d rather be here with anyone else. I just—” he looks away, suddenly seeming very interested in the way the Nest is unraveling like it did its job, and the stray vine that’s currently retrieving his wand for him.
You don’t let him finish.
You lurch forward and grab his face, pulling his lips to yours.
This time, he doesn’t hesitate a second before meeting your mouth. He kisses you back, long and hard, digging his fingers through your hair to pull you closer. You exhale into it, something long unsaid passing between you. But it’s not enough. You still need to say the words.
So, you break the kiss first. He blinks down at you, eyes dark, hair mussed.
“I only think about you, Malfoy,” you whisper in the shared air between you. “On or off the pitch, it’s only you.”
He leans down and brushes his lips across yours. “I still hate you, Nineteen.”
You reward him by deepening the kiss. He answers it, slower this time, but no less intense. When he finally pulls back, you’re already smiling.
𝖘𝖚𝖒𝖒𝖆𝖗𝖞: Savina Lovett was accustomed to her status as a peculiarity. The faultlines between many worlds were fragile—magical and muggle, joy and grief, who she was and who she needed to be—and she inched along those delicate borders daily. Following a violent incident at her girls’ academy in London, the Hogwarts letter she had long believed was her destiny arrived. A piece of parchment and wax—but it would be one of many things to change her life. In spite of it being something she'd always sworn she was prepared for, the reality of it would form a crack in her mask.
Fate was a belief long since shirked by Sebastian Sallow. He had renounced it once confronting the reality that it wouldn't save those he loved. Forced to stomach the pain of that realization again, he had run out of patience for the insistence of a conventional cure for his sister’s curse—or lack thereof. Forever gnashing his teeth against the taste of defeat, he would instead cling to the tenacity that always served him well—even if it led him to thresholds not meant to be crossed. But his focus would splinter upon the entrance of the new fifth year, and a draw not unlike the same fate he rejected would pull them into a dangerous orbit, risking a frightening collision.
𝖓𝖔𝖙𝖊𝖘: hello friends. it's finally happening. i am so scared of posting this. who knew that almost 3k words could be so terrifying. i am going to go lay in the road now. please me nice to me. also, small text keeps breaking in random places. idk dawg
The sound of a bone breaking was not one meant to grace the ears of polite society. It belonged to a particular catalogue of noises—some joyous, some dreadful, and some so very grotesque that, once heard, could never again be banished from memory. In the nights that followed, Savina would hear its echo just before sleep: an ugly, jagged cadence, to which her dreams swayed in a deformed waltz.
How very telling that the first bone she’d broken had not belonged to her.
If there was one thing Savina indulged in often, it was the art of people watching. It was the sort of pastime that could be hidden beneath the presumption of others, such as the airy lilt of her peers murmuring that she was lost in her notions again. Even with the note of derision that sometimes carried upon the laugh that would follow, depending on who voiced it, she remained poised in that statue-state. Stiller than marble, and just as cool. The less eyes upon her the better, and so letting them have their jests at her sake before dismissing her entirely was a necessity.
Many observations of a person could be made without their knowledge, from even the smallest of things—the way they clasped their hands, or the face they made as they chewed, for example.
Griselda Clements—Mrs. Griselda Clements—always gripped her hands as if she meant to rip the skin from her fingers, and was never in short supply of a soured expression, no matter if she was having her lunch, or simply just breathing. Savina attributed these things, and her overall severity, on the fact that her name was Griselda Clements. Her version of mercy came in the form of a firm lash to the hands.
Miss Holloway’s Academy for Girls was not an inherently terrible place. Not unless you made an exception for Mrs. Griselda Clements, and perhaps Celia Whitlock.
Savina made that exception, with ease and consistency. Mrs. Clements worked specifically on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and it was on those days that she was most tempted to fake illness. Though this was an excuse she had to play cautiously—not quite so often as to rouse her father’s suspicions, though she had a hunch of her own that he’d long since caught on, but just often enough to hint at something chronic, which, in fairness, was not an absolute falsity. It was hard to fool a doctor, after all, even when you were his daughter. One of the more unfortunate strokes of luck—of which she had many, swatched across the canvas of her life—was that Celia Whitlock attended the same five days of the week that she herself did. With her burnished gold hair and feline eyes, perhaps Celia would have been a beauty, were it not for the ugliness at the corner of her mouth. There was nothing the gilded veneer of courtesy could do to smooth that unsightly twitch. Savina’s other favorite hobby, naturally, was pointedly staring at it whenever she was forced to endure the displeasure of Celia’s attention.
On the landing before the staircase that led to the main corridor, she was doing exactly that. The late summer sun was at its highest point in the day, and from the tall window at her side, shafts of amber light streamed through the glass in thick stripes. Warm, but of no comparison to the heat growing in her chest; rapid and burning, and rising with the sort of pressure that constricted the lungs. The day had already been far too long, following her rise from bed that morning.
“There you are, Savina,” Celia’s voice was unfortunately melodic, but the way it twisted was much like a knife: sinking into her belly, snaring on the flesh and muscle corded about with serrated edges. It was the way she spoke whenever she was about to say something of particular cruelty, Savina had come to learn. A backhand poorly hidden beneath silky, lilting twitters and feigned care.
Do not glare, she reminded herself, trying to temper the embers already smoldering, sending dark smoke up into the cavity of her skull. Aside from the day being long, an awful tenderness had hung over her heavily the last few days, and she felt like one large bruise. An ugly bloom of burst capillaries and soreness. Put on your pretty smile, and your honeysuckle voice.
Her fingers twitched in agitation at her sides, curling upwards into the hem of her sleeve. There, they held fast to the fabric, and acted as the only barrier between the cut of her long nails and the softness of her palm.
It was Friday, and soon it would be time for their meal break. Luncheon, and then an hour of French, and then she could go back to her father’s apartment. She did not like that there wasn’t a fourth point to add to that list, not because she wanted an extra moment to endure, but because three could not be separated into clean categories. It wasn’t a good sign.
“Hello, Celia.” She said, with a voice that did not sound like it was her own, and certainly not as though it had come from somewhere inside of her body.
There were many things that Savina disliked about Celia, that much was as fair and true as the fact that one needed oxygen to survive.
“Are you well? You look a bit..” Behind Celia trailed her thralls: a round, horse-faced girl named Esther, and then there was Ruth, who was two years Savina’s senior, with a just-slightly crooked nose, and eyes so beady they could put a rat to shame. The worst of them, besides Celia herself, was none other than Myrna Bartley. She laughed like a duck—quacking far too loudly at every remark Celia made, as though she might receive payment for each chortle. She always stood to Celia’s left, with her arms crossed and her wide shoulders stiff.
Savina regarded the little troupe with a brief, unblinking stare. Perhaps there will be rice pudding, she thought, trying to wedge the idea into the scant space between her preemptive annoyance and her desire to disappear entirely.
“Ghastly.”
It did very little.
There were too many of them on the landing now, all crowded near her like a flock of puffed up pigeons. The glow of the sunlight had lost its charm entirely, and with the way it glinted off of Celia’s ridiculously coiffed hair, it had become far too bright. Her tired eyes burned.
“She always looks as if she’s suffered some great tragedy,” Ruth confirmed in her rodent’s squeak of a voice, and something else entirely began to stir in her chest. It was not something that burned with anger or grew cold with indifference, nor did it idle in despair. It unfurled like a creature waking from a long rest, the way Antigone might stretch out the length of her body with a fresh gleam in her eye post-nap. Savina felt that gleam, too—a glinting thing, razor trimmed, familiar. Sharper in her chest than Celia’s snotty comments could ever be, and Savina could only picture a maw of teeth in the hollow of her thorax. Unhinging its void-mouth like a snake, but with no cunning of venom, and all the brutality of a predator gone hungry for too long.
They shared that in common, this thing and herself: hunger.
Perhaps when she had been made, her skin had simply been stretched too taut over her bones, so much so that nothing could ease the sense of pressure and trepidation, the fright that one wrong step would spell the end of everything that was left. That nothing could ever fill her for fear of bursting. Regardless, that cautious frailty had suddenly evaporated like raindrops on hot cobbles. The entity swelled larger and larger, eclipsing what she thought could have been her very soul—a scratching, writhing sensation that twined around her like thorny vines, tore up her esophagus, clawed at her eyes. It could not, would not, be contained.
She did not know whose voice rang out next. There was nothing to differentiate it from anything else; the landing blurred and the light washed away. The space around her shifted and turned to muddled shades, white-black-grey, with smears of contorting shadow forms lining her peripheral.
“Her own fault if she has, I’m sure.”
The stairwell had always been too narrow for so many girls and their cruelties.
Hushed and humming, the whispering began. Indecipherable static words, prickling along her grey matter. Louder, and louder, and louder still. So high in pitch that it caused her nerves to vibrate and her temples to pulse. Just as swiftly, silence.
Pure and blessed quiet. And as was always the way with the pure and blessed, it did not remain that way for long. A half second of quiet was disemboweled by a scream that ruptured the air like the wail of a wounded animal, echoed by a series of thuds—paced in time with Savina’s own heartbeat, fast but rhythmic. Thud, thud, thud. Another set of threes. Perhaps, if added together, they could make six, and then—and then—
It was not a cracking sound, but more like a gruesome type of crunch. The first bite of a burnt biscuit, but only much worse—though she could still feel it gritting between her teeth, and taste it on her tongue—magnified by a meaty tearing that could only be made by something with flesh. Another shriek, rattling up high from someone to her right. Savina still could not see the world as it was, but she could hear it, and she could feel it; the panic rushing in like a match to dry kindling, terror thinning the air until there was not enough to share.
But she could breathe. Easily, in fact. One breath, and then two—a pause, holding just until it began to pinch—as the shade receded, and the sun grew pleasantly warm against her shoulders once more. A hazy flutter of eyelashes brought the brick walls of the academy back into focus, clarity sharpening until the pieces of the situation slid back into place. Their mending displayed a clearer picture: a body not quite at the foot of the stairs, but close enough to it. Half crumpled like old newspaper, legs and arms askew.
Arm, Savina corrected herself, as there was only one in view. Gnarled it was, twisted at an angle most unnatural, like the feat of a contortionist's act. And through the skin of the forearm, a length of bone sprang up, the jagged end doused in crimson and bits of meat. It popped through Celia’s flesh like an embroidery needle through linen. Although the execution was far less clean, perhaps there was an artfulness to the sight. The girl’s other arm was tucked beneath her, possibly in what had been a failed attempt to brace herself. Her hair had fallen half out of its meticulous style, and from her mouth, an eerie noise of pain gurgled.
A deeper inhale ushered in the scent of slick iron and salt, Esther’s citrus perfume that did nothing to mask her perpetually reeking breath. Savina stared down from on high at Celia’s crooked body, silhouetted by gleaming gold, and once more, she did not blink. More iron-and-salt crowded her senses; the register of moisture on her cheeks was a dull one. The tears felt perfunctory when directed towards the sight of Celia’s splintered arm.
“Have you all foregone any sense of discipline?” The squawk of Mrs. Clements’s voice bounced through the corridor with force, in that disgruntled hitch that meant your hands were going to be smarting all weekend.
Savina could hear the click of her mind, the one that meant something had turned itself back into place; this was a situation that needed to be handled carefully, and most of all, quickly. There was no time to dawdle. Perhaps even less than that. Jerked back to life by whatever conductor pulled her marionette strings, she sniffled with emphasis, and in a warbling voice, called down to her teacher:
“It was Myrna,” The thoughts she tried not to think filtered back into her head. A different scream, not wordless, but scathing. A statement as false as it was hurtful. Damp cheeks pressed to a pillow, and breath moist against the fabric in hot puffs. A letter that sat, unfolded, on a bed just like her own. Savina’s throat went raw and tight, and when she continued to speak, the words were hiccuping and hoarse. Too believable. “She pushed Celia.”
A swaying carriage, she thought, was not so different from a cradle. The clip-clop of hoofbeats was, in a way, a sort of lullaby. Maybe it was simply her own exhaustion catching up to her, but with her head tilted against the window, Savina felt particularly heavy.
Heavy, but no less aware of the way her father glanced at her every few seconds, with a worried crease gouging the space between his brows. If you were to question her, she would tell you that Ambrose Lovett was, arguably, the best man in the world. The unfortunate con of being the best man in the world was that it came with certain prerequisites—such as worrying, possibly a bit too much, about his family. But how could he not?
For all that her opinion held any weight, it was hardly a misplaced concern. Her own red-rimmed gaze sunk down to her lap, where her father’s handkerchief was held loose between her fingers and stained with blood. Lower still to her feet, settling on the shiny black leather of her shoes. She had acquired them just two weeks ago. A present from the man who sat next to her, with his own heaviness pulling at the hem of his coat and the corners of his mouth. Clip-clop. Clip-clop. Savina let them echo in sets of two. Even the silence that stretched between them felt cumbersome, beginning to bow under the weight of the things that were not said, but thought.
“Darling,” Her father ventured, his voice thin at the edges with the affection that meant that he was not trying to upset her, but there was a necessity for this specific conversation.
“I didn’t mean to,” Quick to interject, her own voice was frail, cracking glass that would fall apart with a high shatter if pressed. If there was any one person in existence who she could not lie to, at least not with the same ease and frequency as with others, then it was her father. The shame and remorse that she would feel would drag her under and drink her marrow, as it always did. Her hand, which she had not realized was still shaking until lifting it, dabbed the embellished handkerchief to her nose and cupid’s bow again. Savina had made this kerchief for him as a present, spending hours at candlelight embroidering his initials into the fine cotton. And now she had ruined it, stained it with the evidence of her sickness.
Her stomach rolled with a sickly wave of nausea. There had been no rice pudding, or anything else for that matter, as she had spent the remainder of her afternoon in Griselda Clements’s office, insisting that her version of events was the true one through half-legitimate tears.
A long, too patient exhale echoed in the confined space of the carriage. Clip-clop.
That was only one. Savina did not hear the other.
“I know that you didn’t, Savina.” She was not sure that she believed him, though she’d never considered that her father was anything more than a man who did his best to be honest when the situation demanded it. “You are not a cruel girl.”
All over again, her throat was too hot, and too tight.
“Perhaps we should forgo our trip home this weekend,” That softness remained in his voice, but she knew at once that this was not a perhaps, but a decision already made. “The week has been a stressful one for both of us, and I think some time to rest would do us well.”
Savina shifted uncomfortably, a jerk of her legs as her fingers pinched the fabric to her nose tighter. She thought of her mother then, alone in their cottage, with the tombstone that rested beneath the shade of the big willow. The gargantuan tree had once been their favorite.
It didn’t feel fair. Her heart twinged with the all too familiar sting of sorrow, the eternal ache of mourning. Black leather glimmered in the late glow that filtered into the cabin, too pristine and too nice. Her father was half right: she was maybe, possibly, not always a cruel girl. Arguing with him was not a sport she was skilled at, save countering him with the cunningness he had taught her. That did not stop her from murmuring, whisperish and pitiful:
“But Mama—she needs—”
Her father’s hand twitched.
“She needs her rest just as much. Your mother will understand, Savina. She wants you to be well, as greatly as I do.”
Her lips began to part on another interjection, and then closed again. She wanted to remind him that it had been multiple weeks since they’d last made their weekend visit home, away from the hustle and smog of London. He was not, however, a man who so easily forgot things.
Instead, Savina inclined her head in the scarce hint of a nod. Nothing else was said for the duration of their trip back to the townhome, until they had drawn up to the gate, and had not yet stepped out into the evening.
“Savina, sweetling—” Despite hardly being one for hesitance, Ambrose Lovett’s voice wavered. Weighing the scales of hiding a secret, or letting it be known. Understanding the unavoidable nature of its truth, and the jarring weight it held. “—something came for you today. A letter.”
My fellow Hogwarts Legacy enthusiasts... as I have been cheffing up the dessert (*wink* *wink*) for An Honest Challenge, I found myself in need of something I'm sure you've all needed at one point or another:
An in-depth map/anatomy of the Hogwarts Legacy Castle
Because I am currently away from my gaming platform -- and honestly, who wants to run through the castle looking for that precise setting -- I found a true treasure trove I'd like to share with all of my fellow fanfic writers/enjoyers.
Hogwarts Legacy Map discovered and described with Walkthrough and Game Guide, Spells, Characters, map with locations of NPC, Traders, Quests
It's SO user friendly, covers the game map in its ENTIRETY, and has helped me immensely. 10/10 recommend!
hello! sorry to bother you i just wanted to drop in and say i’m currently reading your hogwarts legacy masterlist (im working my way down) and i adore your writing. just wanted to let you know your writing is great! have a great week :3
I was having a rough day so this lowkey has me crying in the club 😭 tysm this was SO kind to receive. I've been thinking about writing again soon so this was like. a Sign for me mayhaps.... But tysm. truly ahhh!!!
miss yall lots. i miss my mutuals and friends and community. i am just trying to keep my head above water rn but. we'll see. love yall. i hope i can return to Creating again soon. thanks to e everyone who still puts out literally any content for HL that folks like me consume.
It should be on February 29th, but since this is not a leap year…
It’s Giraldo’s favourite person’s bday! So he absolutely makes sure that Savina will be so extra spoiled today, just like any other day ofc, but many gifts are to be expected… She’ll be getting plenty of those collectible trinkets that she loves like antique daggers, broken compasses or animal bones ~ and my girlies ofc wouldn’t miss their bestie’s celebration forrrrr theee wooorld (not even Lilith!!)
Thank you @sallowsoul for creating Savina because she’s such a pretty angel babygirl that blesses us every day and we all love her sfm around here 🥰
It should be on February 29th, but since this is not a leap year…
It’s Giraldo’s favourite person’s bday! So he absolutely makes sure that Savina will be so extra spoiled today, just like any other day ofc, but many gifts are to be expected… She’ll be getting plenty of those collectible trinkets that she loves like antique daggers, broken compasses or animal bones ~ and my girlies ofc wouldn’t miss their bestie’s celebration forrrrr theee wooorld (not even Lilith!!)
Thank you @sallowsoul for creating Savina because she’s such a pretty angel babygirl that blesses us every day and we all love her sfm around here 🥰
worm off a string..what sins will you commit… had no damn idea what to do for savina but eventually made her this strange leetle creechure…. thank you @amus2110 for tagging me hehehe. here’s a link to the creator
np tagging: @alliezarin @wolfwaill @soapallo @witheringwidgetwrites @amethystandemma @lyra-prag @eggzeroni @mavenantonia @cheonchi and uhhhh ( soulja boy voice ) YOUUUU 🫵🏻
No tags or anything, im just trying to work myself up into actually being a person again so im doing ANY reply is better then the Perfect one. New motto. Anyways here is a worm i made. Maybe I will make a Mia worm. for now, this one is just A worm that I enjoy. Thank u, comrades. Pleased be the Savina worm!!! 💞 🪱
Mia, right? Tell me about her. What is she like? Who are her friends? Does she have a love interest? What is a fun fact about her you think is interesting?
And about you:
Most importantly: How are you? 🫶🏻
Do you have a favourite animal? And where do you find their most inspo?
Sending you love,
Laura
LAURA!!!! IM SO GIDDY TO HEAR FROM YOU!! Okay, so I'm sorry I took a few days to answer this, but I'm genuinely so excited AHH!! (I had this half ready for a few days but i decided that A response is better than no response or never finishing it. sorry laura, i have genuinely just psyched myself out of doing anything lately but answering this has been on my mind!!)
Mia is my sort-of fleshed out OC!! She actually started as like. a casual talk with @sallowsoul but then Mia turned into a FULL person, by no choice of my own, I assure you... Mia is an Ominis girlie at first sight!!! As am I, admittedly. In my head, her best friend is Savina Lovett (Sallowsoul's OC) and Poppy, in canon! I just think Poppy would become someone that Mia attaches to REAL fast lol. Garreth and Natty are very close seconds tho. I think she adores Seb, and his flirting flusters her quite a bit so she keeps her distance at first! She's definitely a very like. bubbly, friendly person but I do think she harbors some deep rooted rage n whatnot. A fun fact? Hm.... I can't think of a random fun fact but!!! I can say that she definitely holds a grudge against Ominis after he finds her in the undercroft.
Me? I'm honestly doing rough but I'm trying to. be a person and use my coping skills lol, harder said than done. but i hope you're doing okay!!!
Animal wise... I enjoy most animals tbh. I think bunnies are generally my go-to!!! Holland Lop, specifically!! :D I do have a soft spot for all animals though. I am also wondering abt your answer for this!! I'd love to know if you and/or your OC's have an assigned animal mayhaps?
Also my inspo lately has been sparse bc my motivation is shot but i've been really trying to read a long-fic instead of JUST one shots. idk why but im so scared of committing to a multi-chapter fic to read bc what if the ending is sad??? Idk, im definitely overthinking it lol. im also really hoping to write something small soon! but im trying to be gentle with myself!
I hope you are as well! Taking care of yourself and such obviously. Sending my love, and my thanks that you thought of me! This was genuinely a really nice ask to get bc I am going through it lolol, thank you!! 💞
I hadn’t realised how loud the Quidditch stands were until I didn’t belong to them anymore.
The noise rolled over me in waves chants, jeers, laughter an ocean of scarlet and gold clashing violently with streaks of green. Gryffindor versus Slytherin. Potter versus Malfoy. The rivalry Hogwarts practically breathed.
And for the first time in years, I wasn’t cheering for Harry.
I sat rigid between my friends, hands clasped in my lap as if I were afraid they might betray me. My stomach twisted itself into something unpleasant and tight, the sort of feeling you got before an exam you hadn’t revised for or a conversation you’d been avoiding for months.
Because that was exactly what this was.
Avoidance.
Harry and I had broken up three weeks ago. Three long, awkward, quiet weeks where we’d passed each other in corridors without quite meeting eyes, where he’d lingered with Ron and Hermione and I’d pretended not to notice the way his shoulders slumped when he saw me.
“It’s not that I don’t care,” he’d said, running a hand through his hair in that familiar, frustrated way. “I just... there’s too much. Classes. Quidditch. Everything. I need to focus.”
On everything but me.
I swallowed and forced my gaze to the pitch, where the players were mounting their brooms. Gryffindor cheers erupted as Harry swung onto his Firebolt, looking every bit the hero everyone expected him to be. Tall, confident, brilliant.
I felt something sharp and traitorous twist in my chest.
You’re not meant to cry at Quidditch matches, I told myself firmly.
My fingers tightened around the hem of my jumper as movement caught my eye on the opposite side of the pitch.
Draco Malfoy.
He stood apart from his team, broom tucked casually under one arm, pale hair catching the sunlight like it had been spun from silver. His eyes sharp, grey, and infuriating were scanning the stands.
And then they landed on me.
I froze.
Of course he’d notice. Draco Malfoy noticed everything he wasn’t supposed to care about. Especially me. Especially when Harry Potter was involved.
Our eyes locked, and something unreadable flickered across his face. Not smirking. Not mocking.
Interested.
My stomach dropped.
He pushed off the ground a moment later, soaring effortlessly into the air as Madam Hooch called the teams forward. I tried to focus on anything else the banners, the clouds, the way my friends were cheering for Gryffindor already even though the game hadn't even started. My attention however snapped back when I realised he wasn’t heading for the centre of the pitch.
He was flying towards the stands.
Towards me.
“What is he doing?” one of my friends muttered.
I stared as Draco angled his broom upward, hovering just a few feet from our section. Gasps rippled around us. Even the chants faltered, confusion spreading like wildfire.
Draco Malfoy didn’t break formation. Draco Malfoy didn’t do anything without a reason.
His eyes found mine again.
He lifted one hand, motioning sharply. Come here.
I blinked.
He mouthed it this time, whisper-yelling over the noise. “Come here.”
My heart slammed against my ribs. “Is he talking to you?” someone hissed beside me.
“I don’t know,” I lied.
But I did.
And against every ounce of common sense I possessed, I stood.
The steps down the stand felt unsteady beneath my feet as I moved closer to the railing. Draco leaned in on his broom, hovering impossibly still, lips curling into something dangerously close to a grin.
“You’ve got five seconds, sweetheart,” he murmured. “Before Hooch notices.”
“What are you doing?” I hissed back. “Are you mental?”
“Possibly,” he said lightly. “But humour me.”
I didn’t have time to argue.
He reached out, fingers catching the sleeve of my jumper, pulling me closer and then he kissed me.
Not soft. Not tentative.
It was sharp and sudden and entirely Draco Malfoy his hand braced against the railing, his lips firm against mine, stealing my breath before I even had time to react. Gasps exploded around us. Someone shouted. Someone else laughed.
I stood frozen, heart hammering, as he pulled away just as quickly as he’d leaned in.
For half a second, his expression softened.
Then he smirked.
He released me, dipped his broom, and shot back towards the pitch like nothing had happened.
I stood there, stunned, fingers numb, lips tingling.
“What the hell just happened?” my friend breathed.
I didn’t answer.
Because I’d just seen Harry’s face.
He was hovering in mid-air, gripping his broom so tightly his knuckles had gone white. His jaw was clenched, green eyes blazing not with surprise.
With fury.
The realisation hit me like a slap.
Draco hadn’t kissed me because he wanted me.
He’d kissed me because Harry Potter was watching.
“Oh, you absolute bastard,” I muttered.
The whistle blew.
The game began.
And Gryffindor fell apart.
Harry flew recklessly, missing passes he’d never normally miss. He overshot the Snitch twice, nearly collided with a Bludger, and snarled something at one of his own teammates that I couldn’t hear.
Meanwhile, Draco played like he was having the time of his life.
He flew close to Harry at every opportunity, smirking, murmuring things that made Harry’s grip tighten and his movements more erratic. Once, Draco glanced up at the stands straight at me and winked.
I nearly screamed.
By the time Slytherin caught the Snitch and the final whistle blew, Gryffindor’s defeat was humiliating.
The stands erupted in green and silver.
I was already moving.
I didn’t remember storming down the steps, didn’t remember pushing through the crowd or vaulting the railing onto the pitch. All I knew was that fury burned hot and bright in my chest, and Draco Malfoy was about to feel every ounce of it.
He was laughing with his teammates when I reached him.
“Draco!” I snapped.
He turned, eyes lighting up like he’d been waiting for this.
“There she is,” he drawled. “I was wondering how long it’d take.”
I shoved him in the chest. Hard.
“You used me,” I hissed. “You absolute, arrogant...”
He caught my wrist effortlessly, grip warm and firm. “Careful,” he said mildly. “People might get the wrong idea.”
“That was the idea, wasn’t it?” My voice shook despite myself. “To wind Harry up. To ruin his game.”
Draco tilted his head, considering me. “And did it work?”
I hated that I didn’t answer immediately.
A slow smile spread across his face. “Thought so.”
“That wasn’t your decision to make,” I snapped. “You don’t get to drag me into your petty rivalry.”
“Petty?” he echoed, amused. “Sweetheart, this benefited both of us.”
I stared at him. “How?”
“You’re free,” he said simply. “Single. Unattached. No longer Potter’s problem.”
My stomach twisted. “You don’t get to decide what I am.”
He stepped closer, lowering his voice. “And Potter got reminded that he doesn’t own you.”
Before I could react, he leaned in and pressed a quick, infuriating peck to my cheek.
“There,” he murmured. “Fair trade.”
Then he turned and walked away, smug, victorious, infuriating.
I stood there shaking, torn between hexing him into next week and screaming.
That was when I saw Harry.
He stood a few meters away, eyes locked on Draco’s retreating figure, chest heaving, hands curled into fists.
He looked like he wanted blood.
And for the first time since our break-up, I wasn’t sure whose side I was on anymore and there was one thing Draco Malfoy did exceptionally well, it was commit to the bit.
I realised that about a week after the match.
At first, I thought the kiss had been a one-off an impulsive, cruel little stunt designed solely to get under Harry’s skin. That was very Draco Malfoy. Strategic cruelty, well-timed arrogance, a complete disregard for collateral damage.
Me.
But then he started turning up everywhere.
Not accidentally. Not subtly.
Deliberately.
It began in Potions.
I was bent over my cauldron, carefully slicing valerian root, when a shadow fell across my workspace. The familiar scent of something sharp and expensive like mint and smoke hit me before his voice did.
“Careful,” Draco drawled. “Sloppy cuts ruin the potion.”
“I didn’t ask,” I muttered, not looking up.
He leaned closer, so close I could feel the heat of him against my side. “Didn’t say you did.”
His hand reached out, fingers brushing mine as he adjusted my grip on the knife. It was unnecessary. Entirely inappropriate.
And my pulse betrayed me by jumping.
Across the room, Harry looked up.
Draco noticed. Of course he did.
“Much better,” he murmured near my ear before straightening and sauntering back to his station, smirk firmly in place.
I stared at my cauldron, heart pounding, cheeks burning.
What the hell was he playing at?
The answer, it turned out, was everything.
In the corridors, he’d slow just enough to let his shoulder brush mine, murmuring something low and infuriating that made my skin prickle.
At meals, he’d pull out the chair beside him if I passed the Slytherin table, eyebrows lifting in silent invitation.
At parties Merlin help me he was unbearable.
One Friday night, music thudding through the Slytherin common room during one of their less-than-legal gatherings, I felt a hand settle confidently on my lower back.
“You look bored,” Draco said, lips near my ear. “Let me fix that.”
“I’m not bored,” I snapped.
He glanced over my shoulder, eyes flicking briefly to where Harry stood on the other side of the room, jaw tight, watching us like he might combust.
Draco’s grip tightened. “Could’ve fooled me.”
He leaned in, deliberately slow, breath warm against my neck. “You know,” he said softly, “Potter’s staring. Hard.”
I swallowed. “Stop.”
“Make me.”
I spun around, fury crackling beneath my skin. “What is wrong with you?”
His expression shifted just for a moment. Something darker, more intent.
“Nothing,” he said lightly. “I’m enjoying myself.”
And then he was gone, leaving me rattled, flustered, and painfully aware of Harry’s gaze burning into my back.
By the end of the second week, I’d had enough.
I cornered Draco in the courtyard on a rare afternoon of weak sunlight and cold stone. Students milled about in clusters, but we stood slightly apart, half-shadowed by the arches.
Harry was across the courtyard, pretending very badly not to watch.
Draco leaned against the wall, arms crossed, perfectly at ease. “If you’re going to glare at me like that, at least buy me dinner first.”
“Enough,” I hissed. “What are you doing?”
“Living,” he said. “Breathing. Occasionally irritating Gryffindors.”
“You know exactly what I mean.”
His eyes flicked past me, landing briefly on Harry. A slow, knowing smile curved his mouth.
“Oh,” he said. “This.”
I stepped closer, lowering my voice. “You kissed me to get to him. Fine. Message received. But this touching me, commenting, following me around like some smug...”
“boyfriend?” he supplied lazily.
My breath caught. “You’re not funny.”
“No,” he agreed softly. “I’m serious.”
I stared at him. “About what?”
Draco straightened, closing the distance between us until I had to tilt my head to meet his gaze. His voice dropped, losing some of its bite.
“About the fact that Potter fumbled a good thing.”
My chest tightened. “Don’t.”
“He did,” Draco continued, unapologetic. “He had you. And he chose everything else.”
“You don’t get to comment on our relationship.”
“I do when I’ve been watching him take you for granted for years.”
That surprised me.
“You’ve been… watching?”
His lips twitched. “Hard not to notice someone like you.”
I shook my head, trying to ground myself. “I don’t understand why this is continuing.”
“Because it doesn’t have to stop.”
“And why,” I pressed, “would I agree to that?”
Draco’s eyes gleamed. “Because it benefits both of us.”
I scoffed. “Oh? Enlighten me.”
He leaned closer, voice low, dangerous. “You get control. You get power. You get to remind Potter exactly what he lost.”
“And you?”
“I get to win.”
I frowned. “That’s not convincing.”
Draco sighed, like I was being deliberately slow. “You get someone who shows you off instead of shelving you. Someone who chooses you publicly. Loudly.”
My throat went dry.
“You get revenge,” he added quietly. “And I get Potter’s undivided misery.”
I hesitated. “That’s… twisted.”
He smiled. “Effective.”
I glanced behind me, just once. Harry was still watching, unreadable and tense.
The truth settled heavily in my chest.
I liked this. The attention. The control. The way Draco made me feel sharp and powerful and chosen.
I hated myself for it.
“I’m not promising anything,” I said finally.
Draco extended a hand. “Just try.”
I took it.
His grip was warm, confident.
“Good girl,” he murmured.
Before I could protest, he stepped forward and kissed me.
This time, there was no subtlety.
He cupped my face, kissed me slow and deliberate, turning me slightly so anyone watching could see. I heard the sharp intake of breath across the courtyard.
When Draco pulled back, his smirk was lethal.
Harry looked furious.
And I realised, with a jolt of fear and thrill I didn’t want Draco Malfoy to stop.
If Hogwarts had been a stage, Draco Malfoy and I had turned it into our personal theatre.
We stopped pretending otherwise.
What began as pointed glances and calculated touches escalated quickly into something far more visible far more deliberate. Draco’s hand at the small of my back in corridors. His arm slung casually over my shoulders during meals. Fingers laced with mine beneath the stands at Quidditch matches, his thumb brushing slow, idle circles against my skin like he had nowhere else he needed to be.
People stared.
I let them.
There was power in it. In the way conversations faltered when we passed. In the way Slytherins smirked and Gryffindors bristled. In the way Harry’s jaw tightened every time Draco leaned in to murmur something meant only for me.
And Merlin help me, I liked it.
But somewhere between the show and the spectacle, something else began to happen.
Something quieter.
It was late one evening in the library, long after most students had gone, when I found Draco sitting at a corner table, sleeves rolled up, parchment spread before him. No audience. No smirk. Just concentration etched into his sharp features.
“You’re going to strain something if you glare at that essay any harder,” I said lightly.
He startled then relaxed when he saw it was me.
“Didn’t hear you,” he admitted.
That alone felt like a confession.
I slid into the seat opposite him. “You hate History of Magic. Why take it seriously?”
He shrugged, gaze dropping back to the page. “Because I’m expected to excel.”
“By who?”
His quill stilled.
“My father,” he said after a moment. “My family. Everyone.”
The silence that followed was heavier than I expected.
“You don’t sound thrilled,” I said quietly.
Draco huffed a humourless laugh. “Thrilled isn’t really an option.”
I studied him then not the Malfoy mask, not the cocky provocation but the boy beneath it. Tired. Controlled. Wound too tight.
“Do you ever want… something else?” I asked.
His eyes lifted to mine. For once, he didn’t dodge the question.
“All the time.”
That was the night I realised Draco Malfoy was lonely.
Not in the obvious way. He was always surrounded by people, followers, expectations, noise. But no one ever seemed to ask him what he wanted. No one expected him to falter.
Except, maybe, me.
After that, our conversations shifted.
Still sharp, still teasing but threaded with honesty. He told me about the pressure of his name, about being raised like a weapon polished for use rather than a person allowed to grow. About the constant fear of disappointing someone who never seemed satisfied anyway.
I listened.
He listened too.
About Harry. About always being second to something bigger like 'his destiny', duty, the world on his shoulders. About how small I’d felt standing beside someone who was always running towards something else.
Draco never mocked me for it.
That mattered more than I expected.
By the time the next Quidditch match rolled around, we weren’t just performing anymore.
Slytherin versus Ravenclaw. Draco wasn’t playing an injury from a previous match but he sat with me in the stands, arm draped around my shoulders, posture relaxed and unapologetic.
When Ravenclaw scored, he leaned in. “Still bored?”
I snorted. “Immensely.”
“Good,” he murmured. “Means you’re focused on the right thing.”
He kissed my temple.
The roar from the crowd barely registered compared to the way my heart lurched.
I didn’t tell him that something inside me had shifted. That the line between pretending and truth was blurring faster than I’d anticipated.
I didn’t tell him I was starting to care.
Harry noticed.
Of course he did.
He cornered me after Defence Against the Dark Arts one afternoon, frustration practically radiating off him.
“Seriously?” he demanded, blocking my path. “Malfoy?”
I crossed my arms. “Excuse me?”
“You hated him,” Harry said, voice tight. “You used to talk about how awful he was. And now you’re what? Dating him?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“It is when...” He cut himself off, breathing hard. “I don’t understand how you can defend someone like him.”
I felt something flare sharp and protective in my chest.
“You mean someone who’s actually present?” I snapped. “Someone who doesn’t treat me like an afterthought?”
“That’s not fair.”
“Isn’t it?” I shot back. “You broke up with me, Harry. You don’t get to interrogate my choices now.”
He ran a hand through his hair, voice cracking. “He’s cruel. He’s selfish. He’s...”
“There’s more to him than that,” I said firmly. “You just never cared to look.”
Harry stared at me, stunned.
“You’re actually defending him,” he whispered.
“Yes,” I said. “I am.”
The door creaked behind him.
“I think you should leave, Potter.”
Draco stood in the doorway, arms folded, expression cool and unreadable. He didn’t raise his voice. Didn’t need to.
Harry’s gaze flicked between us, disbelief warring with anger. “This isn’t over.”
Draco smiled faintly. “For you? It is.”
Harry stormed past him, shoulders tense, and disappeared down the corridor.
The silence that followed was deafening.
Draco turned to me immediately. “Are you alright?”
I nodded, though my chest felt tight. “Yeah. I just...”
He stepped closer, hands gentle as they settled on my arms. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“I wanted to,” I said.
He studied my face, something soft breaking through his usual composure.
“Thank you,” he said quietly.
The words hit harder than any grand gesture could have.
I realised then this was no longer a game.
And I wasn’t sure how to stop falling for Draco Malfoy.
Somewhere along the way, the agreement stopped being an agreement.
All the late-night conversations stretched longer than intended, hands lingering without an audience, the way Draco started looking at me like I was something fragile and priceless all at once.
Like he might lose me if he blinked.
Slytherin lost to Gryffindor again.
It was miserable weather grey sky, bitter wind, the sort that cut through robes no matter how tightly you wrapped them around yourself. The stands were loud, triumphant on one side and viciously disappointed on the other.
Harry flew well. Draco didn’t.
When the final whistle blew, I felt the tension in Draco beside me long before he said anything. His jaw was tight, shoulders stiff beneath my hand.
I nudged him lightly. “You alright?”
“Fine,” he said, clipped.
Later, back in the quiet of the courtyard, I tried to lighten the mood.
“So,” I said, nudging his arm, “not winning much lately. Not sure you’re getting your side of the deal.”
It was meant as a joke. A stupid, careless tease.
Draco stopped walking.
I frowned and turned to him. “Hey”
“That’s what you think this is?” he asked quietly.
My stomach dropped. “Draco, I didn’t mean...”
He laughed, short and humourless. “You think I meant Quidditch?”
I searched his face, suddenly unsure. “You said you wanted to win.”
“I did.”
“Then what?”
“You,” he said.
The word landed between us like a spell.
“You’re what I won.”
I stared at him. “Draco…”
He stepped closer, voice low but steady. “I don’t care about the matches. I care about you choosing me. Standing with me. Looking at me the way you do.”
“That wasn’t what I thought you meant...”
“I know,” he cut in. “That’s the point.”
My chest tightened painfully. “Why did you start this at all?”
His expression softened, something raw breaking through the polished edges. “Because I didn’t think I was allowed to want you.”
The air felt suddenly too thin.
“I’ve liked you since first year,” he admitted. “You were clever and kind and you didn’t flinch when people were cruel. And then you started dating Potter, and I hated him for it.”
I swallowed. “Did you hate me too?”
“Never,” he said fiercely. “I hated myself for not being him.”
The words stole the breath from my lungs.
“I told myself this was just strategy,” he continued. “That it was revenge. That I was winning something. But I was lying.”
“About what?”
“About why I wanted you.”
Silence stretched between us, heavy and electric.
I didn’t know what to say. I only knew my hands were trembling.
Before I could find my voice, shouting echoed from the corridor behind us.
Harry.
He was storming towards us, anger etched into every line of his face.
“So it’s official now?” he demanded. “You two?”
Draco moved instantly stepping in front of me without hesitation.
“That’s enough,” he said coldly.
Harry scoffed. “This is between me and her.”
“No,” Draco replied, voice sharp. “You don’t get to corner her. Not anymore.”
I felt something in my chest snap... relief.
“She deserves better than being questioned like she’s done something wrong,” Draco continued. “You broke up with her. You don’t get to interrogate her choices.”
Harry’s eyes flicked to me. “Is this true?”
Draco didn’t wait for me to answer.
“I love her,” he said clearly. “And I’m not afraid to prioritise her.”
The world seemed to tilt.
I stared at him. “You… love me?”
He turned to me, softer now. “Yes. I do.”
My heart slammed against my ribs.
Harry looked stunned, hurt flashing across his face. “I said I needed time. You said...”
“I needed someone who chose me,” I said quietly. “And he does.”
Draco reached for my hand, squeezing it gently.
“I love you too,” I said, the words tumbling out before fear could stop them. “I didn’t mean to. But I do.”
Draco’s breath caught. He smiled real, unguarded, almost disbelieving.
Harry stepped back, the fight draining from him. “I hope… I hope you’re happy.”
“I am,” I said.
He nodded once and walked away.
Draco turned to me, eyes bright. “You mean it?”
“Yes.”
He kissed me not for show, not for anyone else but slow and certain, like a promise.
🏄♀️ one day left until the reveal. I’ve really enjoyed seeing your responses to my asks and I hope you’ll like your gift.
I DID! I am genuinely so thrilled and giddy by everything. You have spoiled me with beautiful art and engaging questions and I am so thankful. I hope I'll get to know you more as time goes on if you're up for that!!! 💞
i am.... trying to contain my pure unbridled joy and excitement. But it's not going too well. I am in LOVE she looks so cute waaaa 😭 thank you so much, you've been such a good secret valentine and i had so much fun with your asks!!!
🏄♀️ I don’t have any questions so this is a request to yap about whatever you’d like
!!! Hi SV! I don't have anything specific to yap about, but I have been reading a lot of fake dating tropes. I'm really wanting to write and whatnot, but im in the writers block stage where i have convinced myself that i've read TOO many fanfics so my interpretation that I write of the characters is gonna be too OOC. So I'm psyching myself out unfortunately 😭
also American healthcare is shit and my ins is starting to give me trouble for covering my meds. i am quite grumpy about it lol, it SUCKS. Especially my narcolepsy medicine. BOOOO
Anyway, sending my love SV! I hope you're doing okay!! 💞 Thanks for letting me yap lolol
Mmmm urge to create a Draco Malfoy fake dating fic but i have SO many ideas for it so it'd be slow burn, and i dunno if i should take on another multi chapter project 😭 but also. ominis. baby boy. my beloved. ugh.
im just struggling with writer's block actually i think- i wanna write so bad,,,,, if yall have any suggestions or something you'd like to read, I'd love to hear them 🫡
🏄♀️ I forgot to include this in my previous ask: have you written anything for Mia and has anyone ever drawn her?
!!! Not yet! I'd loooove to commission something one day tho so i have at least one piece of art to like. visualize her! But I've written a liiiiitle drabble about Mia in a hyper specific AU once! Not much tho 😭
🏄♀️ I love reading about other people’s ocs so the long responses are encouraged!
What’s Mia’s life like after Hogwarts?
:D !! Hi SV!!! I'd love to hear about your OC too when it wont reveal your identity 😭 💞
But unfortunately im not too sure about her life after hogwarts!!! i generally imagine her chilling a bit more after school, or maybe doing some exploring just for a while? I also don't know enough about the actual work positions to decide yet 😭 .
