I pull the curtain back.
Dracogoes still. Not frozen—present. His eyes trace me once, then hold my face.
"Turn," he says lightly.
I turn. The mirror shows someone I half-recognize. A woman who might say yes.
He steps close, lifts the collar with his thumbs, adjusts it. My skin wakes everywhere. He doesn’t linger. Just nods once. "Better."
The clerk reappears with ankle boots and a chain belt. "These boots are religion."
I laugh, shaky but real.
Draco crouches to lace them when my fingers fumble. His knuckles graze my ankle. My whole body takes note. When I stand, the floor feels different.Ifeel different.
At the counter, I unzip the inside pocket of my purse and count out the smaller bills. My hands don’t shake. Draco watches my count, not the money, and nods once when I’m done.
"Wear the jacket out?" the clerk asks.
I look in the mirror, not at Draco, and hear my own voice: "Yes. Please."
They cut the tags and slip them into the inner pocket. I smooth the leather at my sides like armor.
We duck into a CD shop with a sandwich-board that reads "Touch Everything". It smells of plastic and time. Draco flips through cases until he finds an album: a woman screaming into a mic on the cover. "She sings until the whole room feels different."
"I don’t know her."
"You will." He glances at me with a faint curve to his mouth. "Your collection starts somewhere. And I want to watch what happens to you when you play it loud." The thought of his unflinching, approving gaze on me makes my chest tighten and my pulse quicken.
I pay for it, the bills crisp against my fingers.
On the curb outside, I buy a pretzel and break it in half, steam puffing into the air. Draco accepts his share, salt clinging to his rough fingertips. I smile. "Strange how something this plain can taste so good."
He snorts, biting off a corner. "Because it’s real. Honest. That makes it better."
Mustard dribbles down my wrist, and Draco shows me how to fold the waxy paper so the mustard doesn’t drip. I memorize the trick and can't help wondering about his life. I want to know everything he's ever done, every thought that's flown through his mind. But I would no more ask intrusive questions than flap my arms and fly to the moon.
Across the street, a corrugated door yawns open, spilling sparks and metallic sounds into the air. A man in goggles welds inside. I can’t look away.
"You keep watching," Draco says, tilting his chin toward the door.
"I like… making things." My voice goes thin. "Metal. Fire. It’s interesting."
He doesn’t press, keeps his gaze on the door, and not me. "When you’re ready, you’ll tell me more." After a beat, he adds, "The sound of hammer and spark—it’s always the same. Work. Creation. Survival."
Something in me softens.
We don’t talk much on the ride home, the rhythm of the train filling the silence. By the time we cross the familiar paths of the estate, twilight is deepening.
Back at the cottage, Lucky launches himself at my knees. Draco rubs his chest until Lucky sighs like an old king and collapses on his boots.
I dig an old CD player out of the small closet still filled with some of my sister’s things that no one thought to remove. Dust puffs when I set it on the counter. The CD slides in. The speakers crackle alive. The woman screams, then sings like she’s on fire. Something in me stands taller.
I shift my shoulders once. My hips answer. Not performance—agreement.
Draco watches with his head slightly tilted. "You move freer already," he says. "Like the music unties you." He doesn’t grin. He just gives that complete stillness that meanskeep going if you want.
Something in me opens.
