The doors of the Great Hall creaked open on their heavy hinges, and a hush rippled through the crowd. Draco Malfoy stood silhouetted in the light, Scorpius bundled against his chest in a black sling stitched with faint silver thread. The baby’s pale hair caught the sun, a mirror image of his father’s, drawing stares from every corner of the room.

The gossip had long since reached a fever pitch: Malfoy, scandalous and beautiful, raising a son in the castle’s old tower rooms — and not alone. Everyone knew the rumours. Everyone knew he shared his private quarters with her, the child's mother. Separate bedrooms, they claimed. Strictly co-parents. But the way Draco’s grey eyes found her across the crowded hall — slow, hungry, utterly certain — left little room for doubt about where his loyalty truly lay.

Girls twisted in their seats, whispering behind their hands, desperate for a glance, a word, a second of the attention he never gave them. Draco didn’t spare them so much as a look. He cut a straight line across the hall, ignoring the swell of noise that followed him, until he came to a halt just in front of her.

The smirk that curved his mouth was pure sin, lazy and knowing.

"You’re late," he said, voice low enough that only she could catch it. Scorpius stirred with a soft murmur against him, but Draco didn’t look away. "The heir and I were beginning to think you’d finally come to your senses and fled."

He shifted his weight, crowding her space without apology, his gaze tracing her face as if memorizing it all over again.

"Tell me... should I be expecting you back in our rooms tonight? Or should I clear out your side of the suite?"