The portrait in the corner of the common room had spent the last hour being particularly loud about the supposed sanctity of the Malfoy reputation. Draconia sat in a velvet armchair, watching the fire die down to glowing embers, while the painted faces of old wizards bicked about the ethics of a girl who looked far too composed for a woman in a crisis. It was the way she held her head that did the damage. She could keep her spine straight and her expression neutral, but the portraits saw the way her eyes glazed when she walked past the dungeons. They saw the way she looked when she returned from a lesson, her hair slightly mussed and her skin flushed. They told stories of a girl who was too perfect to be human, which was a lie that felt like a heavy, suffocating blanket.
Greta sat opposite her, nursing a cup of tea that had gone cold long ago. The girl did not look up as the fire crackled. Draconia wondered if Greta was actually listening or if she was simply waiting for a gap in the silence to strike. The silence in the Slytherin common room was never truly empty; it was filled with the weight of things unsaid and the rhythmic breathing of the house. Draconia fingers traced the rim of her own cup, feeling the porcelain chill against her skin.
"You look tired, Draconia," Greta said, her voice cutting through the quiet.
"I am merely focused," Draconia replied, refusing to let her voice waver.
"Focus is a very clever way to say you are distracted," Greta countered. She finally raised her eyes, and Draconia saw the pity there. It was a sharp, jagged thing. "The portraits are talking again. They say you have become a saint of the classroom. They say you are so perfect that you have become untouchable."
Draconia felt a flare of heat in her chest, a sharp reminder of the cauldron and the bench. She thought of the way the stone floor felt against her feet and the way his hands felt on her waist. She wanted to tell Greta that she was not a saint, but a woman who was losing her mind one lesson at a time. Instead, she adjusted her robes, smoothing the silk over her thighs.
"Let them talk," Draconia said. "The portraits have nothing better to do than invent versions of me that serve their own amusement. They do not know the half of it."
"They think you are a martyr to your own discipline," Greta said, leaning forward. "They think you are doing this for the sake of your grades or your name. They think you are in total control."
Draconia laughed, though the sound was dry and lacked any real mirth. "Control is the only thing a Malfoy possesses. If I am not in control, then what am i?"
"You are a liar," Greta said simply. The words were not an insult; they were a diagnosis. "You have built a whole system of rules to pretend that this is a transaction. You have made it a chore, a task, a service to your own education. You have even given yourself terms, Draconia. You have written them down as if they were law."
"They are my terms," Draconia insisted. "I set them. I decide when the door is locked, and I decide when it is opened. If he obeys them, is that not a victory?"
"It is a very clever way to hide," Greta said. She stood up, the movement graceful and decisive. "You have spent months convincing everyone that you are the one in charge of the arrangement. You tell yourself that you are the one doing him the favour. You tell yourself that he is merely a tool for your perfection."
Draconia felt the sting of the truth. It was a physical sensation, like a needle under the fingernail. She remembered the way she had stood in the dungeons, listing the rules of her engagement to him as if she were reading a ledger. She had been so careful to make it sound like a gift she was giving him. She had made it a way for him to be near her without the mess of actual emotion.
"Is it not a favour?" Draconia asked, her voice dropping an octave. "He is there when the lights go low. He does exactly what is required. He is consistent. He is... predictable."
"He is not a tool," Greta said, stepping closer to the chair. She did not offer a hug or a comforting word. She knew Draconia would hate them. "You have turned your desire into a set of instructions. You have made it a business arrangement so you don't have to admit that you are drowning."
"I am not drowning," Draconia snapped. She stood up too, her movements jerky. The poise she had spent all day cultivating began to fray at the edges. "I am the one who holds the key. I am the one who decides the duration of the sessions. He follows my lead. He is the one who is subject to my terms."
"That is the most beautiful lie you have ever told," Greta said. She reached out, her hand hovering near Draconia's sleeve but never quite touching it. "You have made yourself the master of the situation so you don't have to be the subject of the man."
Draconia looked away, her gaze landing on the darkened window where the lake shimmered in the moonlight. She thought of the empty bench in the dungeon. She thought of the way she had sat there in the dark, waiting for the sound of his footsteps, feeling the ache of his absence like a physical wound. She had tried to turn her hunger into a lesson, to turn her need into a way to practice her charms and her poise.
"The portraits are wrong," Draconia said, her voice turning brittle. "They think it is a game of power. They think it is about the way you move or the way the light hits the cauldron. They think it is about the discipline of the magic."
"It is not about the magic," Greta said.
Draconia turned back to her, her eyes bright with a sudden, desperate frustration. She wanted to scream that she was not a saint, that she was a girl who was being unmade by a man who never said a word about how much he wanted her. She wanted to tell Greta that the terms were a cage she had built for herself, but she could not find the courage to break the final seal.
"It is a favour," Draconia said, her voice a whisper that sounded like a lie even to her own ears. "It is a temporary arrangement. It has no weight beyond the term."
Greta looked at her with a profound, devastating clarity. She saw through the silk, through the poise, and through the carefully constructed walls of the Malfoy name. She saw the woman who was terrified of being known.
"It is not a favour," Greta said.
Draconia closed her eyes, the darkness of the room pressing in on her. She wanted to go back to the dungeon. She wanted to go back to the moment where the rules were still clear and the air was not heavy with the truth. She wanted to pretend that she was the one in control, that she was the one granting him access to her.
"He's not a favour," Greta said.