The door clicked shut behind him, and for a moment, Christian just stood there, staring at nothing.

His room — the small, private quarters afforded to him as Slytherin's Head Boy — was quiet, dimly lit by a single candle hovering above his desk. The walls were cold stone. Books were stacked with military precision. The silver serpent on his bedpost gleamed faintly. Everything was in its place.

Except him.

He shrugged off his robe with slow fingers, letting it slip to the floor. His jumper followed, pulled over his head in a jerking motion, as if his own skin offended him. Then the shirt. He hesitated, eyes locking on the left sleeve. It trembled slightly as he reached for the cuff.

Don’t look. Don’t make it real.

But he did. He always did.

The Mark was there, etched like a curse into his pale forearm, black and sharp and angry. The skull grinned up at him, the serpent coiling through its teeth like a secret he could never unsay. His breath caught.

He touched it — barely — and flinched.

It wasn’t burning tonight. But it didn't have to. Its presence alone twisted something in him. Not just shame — that was familiar, almost manageable. No, this was dread. The knowledge that one day, someone would see it and everything would crumble.

That she would see it.

He sank onto the edge of the bed, elbows on knees, head in his hands. His heart drummed a steady rhythm of guilt against his ribs. The walls of the castle couldn’t hear his thoughts, but sometimes he was sure the Dark Lord could.

The Mark had not been earned. It had been taken. Given in his brother’s stead.

Let Theo have something I never did — a future.

He pulled the sleeve back down and fastened the cuff with steady fingers. It was always the left sleeve. Always that extra moment spent straightening it, tugging it down past the wrist, checking it twice in the mirror. A ritual of shame.

From the hallway, voices drifted — students leaving for dinner. He should be there. Watching. Keeping order. Pretending.

Christian stood. Pulled his jumper back on. Then the robes. He didn’t wear the Head Boy badge on his chest — he kept it in his pocket. It felt wrong, like a medal awarded in a war he didn’t believe in.

He checked the mirror. Hazel eyes, unreadable. Jaw clenched. The sleeve? Covered. Good.

The Great Hall was warm and loud. Candles floated overhead, shedding golden light onto four long tables of chatter and clinking cutlery. Platters of roast chicken, steamed vegetables, and pumpkin mash hovered briefly before landing with a soft thud. Conversations buzzed like wasps.

He slipped into the room quietly, moving along the Slytherin table — sharp nods from some seventh-years, indifferent glances from others. Blaise lifted a brow but didn’t speak. Theo gave him a slight glance, then looked away again — unreadable. He’d learned that from Christian.

But it was her Christian sought out.

She was seated near the middle of the table, surrounded by their usual circle — a blend of clever cynicism, sharp tongues, and careful reputations. Yet even among them, she stood out.

She was smiling at something Theo had said, genuine and open, and Christian felt it again — that strange, quiet ache. Like longing and guilt woven into one unbearable knot.

Her smile wasn’t practiced or poised like Pansy’s. It was warm, unguarded, soft at the edges. It made something inside him clench.

She hadn’t seen him yet.

He let himself look at her a moment longer. Her hair fell a little loose tonight. There was a faint smudge of ink on her finger — from a quill, probably, or maybe she’d been up late again, helping Theo with Charms. She did that sometimes. She helped.

He sat beside her. Automatically. As if drawn by gravity.

She turned toward him and smiled again, this time just for him — a light that cut through everything wrong in him and made the world feel less cruel, if only for a second.

“Hey,” she said softly, nudging his knee under the table. “You look like you haven’t slept.”

He huffed a quiet breath, almost a laugh. “That’s because I haven’t.”

She reached out without hesitation and tucked a strand of his hair behind his ear — a simple gesture, gentle, thoughtless — but Christian froze.

Because how could he let her be this close, when he was hiding something this big?

She didn’t know.

She didn’t know that the boy who kissed her in quiet corridors, who slipped notes into her books, who pulled her into alcoves just to press his forehead to hers and breathe for a while — ...was now a Death Eater. Marked. Claimed. Unfree.

She didn’t know that the same hands that held her waist like porcelain were now branded by a man who stood for everything they whispered against at night. That the lips which kissed her so carefully, like she was a spell he didn’t dare miscast, had tasted loyalty sworn under threat and blood.

She thought he was good. Maybe a little damaged. A little dark around the edges. But still good.

And he was — when he was with her.

But he wasn’t sure how long he could keep the lie breathing.

He reached for the platter, passed her the roast chicken without a word, and let the conversation around them swell like a tide. Her knee stayed against his, warm and unknowing.