To insanity.
The door clicked softly behind her.
She hadn't even managed to take off her coat before Blaise turned from the window.
He was already standing. Already waiting. The room was too quiet. Too still. The kind of still that meant danger. The kind of quiet that came just before thunder ripped the sky open.
Ginny dropped her bag onto the floor, casual, defiant, as if her heart wasn't hammering behind her ribs. As if she couldn't feel the temperature shift in the room the second he laid eyes on her. She unfastened the top button of her coat and looked at him like nothing had happened. Like she hadn't just snuck out of their home for three hours without telling him. Like she hadn't disappeared into the dark while his mind was already halfway down the road of what-ifs and who-the-fuck-was-watching.
"Don't start," she said simply.
Blaise didn't speak. His stare burned.
She stepped further into the room and pulled the coat off her shoulders. "I was at Theo and Luna's. You can floo-call them if you need proof."
His voice was quiet when it came. Too quiet.
"You left the house. Without telling me. On the same day that name came back up in the news."
Ginny sighed, sharp and irritated. "Oh, for fuck's sake."
"Three hours," he continued, eyes still locked on hers. "No message. No call. No fucking trace of you anywhere. Valerius was asleep, and you thought that was the moment to vanish?"
She threw the coat onto the armchair. "It wasn't about you, Blaise. I needed to breathe. I needed space."
His jaw clenched so tight it looked like he might crack a tooth. "You want space? I'll build you a fucking greenhouse. You want air? I'll charm the whole bloody estate to feel like the Alps. But you don't vanish on me. Not when I've spent the last three hours thinking I was about to lose you the same way I almost lost Theo. The same way I almost—"
"You don't own me." Her voice cut through his like a blade. "I'm not a pet. I'm not some pretty little prisoner to be kept under lock and key until you feel like letting me out."
He stepped forward. One pace. But everything in her instincts bristled. She didn't move.
"You think this is about control?" His voice dropped, low and rough, and she felt it in her stomach. "You think I care about the principle of being obeyed? No. This is about not having to imagine your body in a fucking alley because I wasn't there. This is about the fact that someone from my past just crawled out of the grave, and the first thing you do is walk out without a word."
Ginny shoved him. Hard.
He barely moved, but his hands twitched at his sides like he didn't know whether to grab her or let her go.
"You don't get to wrap your fear in the excuse of loving me," she snapped. "You don't get to smother me just because you're scared."
Her breath came out hot and ragged.
He stared at her like she was the only thing that had ever mattered. His chest rose and fell once.
Then she kissed him.
Fast. Hard. Like a slap. Like a claim. Like she wanted to rip the anger out of him with her teeth. Her fingers fisted in his shirt, dragging him down, her mouth hungry and defiant and furious.
He grabbed her waist. Pulled her tight.
Kissed her back like a man starved of reason.
Clothes were half-on, half-off. Her coat still lay forgotten on the chair. His shirt undone at the collar, breath hot against her throat.
He broke the kiss and stared down at her. His voice rasped like sandpaper against silk. "You want to go out without telling me? Fine. But you wear my ring."
She blinked. "What?"
He pulled away just long enough to cross the room. Opened the drawer by the bed. Pulled out the silver chain she used to wear.
He held it out to her, the band of his wedding ring hanging from it.
"When you leave this house, you wear this under your blouse. I want it against your fucking skin."
She looked at him, eyes wide. Then narrowed.
"You want to brand me?"
His mouth twitched. "No. I want to mark you."
"Oh, that's better."
His eyes were on fire. "You are mine. And I am yours. So wear the fucking ring."
Ginny took it from his hand slowly. Let it slide through her fingers.
"Fine," she whispered.
He took a breath. Just as she stepped closer.
"But next time you fuck me," she said, "you don't stop until your name is on my thigh."
He stared.
"Carve it in," she whispered. "With teeth or magic or anything you want. Just make it permanent."
His hands shook.
And then he kissed her again like a man breaking, unmaking, rewriting what it meant to be owned.
The silence after her words wasn't calm—it was taut, electric, snapping like a live wire between them. Blaise didn't speak. He just stared at her, eyes dark as ink, unreadable in that way that used to terrify her. Not anymore.
Now it thrilled her.
His hand reached out slowly, deliberately, and he brushed a strand of hair from her face with a gentleness so precise it felt surgical. "You don't know what you're asking for," he murmured, and the rasp of his voice sent a tremor down her spine.
"Yes, I do."
Her voice didn't shake. Not once. She tilted her chin up like a challenge, like she hadn't spent the last hour trembling with the idea that he'd never touch her again after this. Like she hadn't come home hoping he'd still be here.
"Ginny."
He said her name like a warning, like it meant something sacred. His hand dropped to her shoulder, not rough, not soft either. Just firm. Grounding. Controlling. She should have backed down. She should have laughed it off, rolled her eyes, given him that smug Weasley smirk and gone to bed.
Instead, she stepped closer.
"So do it," she whispered.
Blaise's eyes didn't blink. He took one step back and said nothing, just reached for his belt, pulled it slowly through the loops, and dropped it on the bed.
Her heart kicked.
He didn't say a word as he crossed to the dresser, pulled open the second drawer and took out the small black box she hated how much she recognized. The one with the silver monogram. The one he'd used once before.
Her throat was dry.
She watched him cross the room like a man preparing for a ritual, not a fight. Every movement calm, every breath measured. She could see the outline of control in his muscles, the restraint wrapped around his posture like armor.
He opened the box.
The brand wasn't big. Not like she imagined. It was thin, elegant, not meant for livestock. It looked more like a crest. Old Italian letters curling into his surname's first letter, the same way it appeared stitched into the lining of his suit jackets and the signet ring on his finger.
B.Z.
She swallowed.
"I'll only ask once," he said, voice so low it barely made it across the room. "Take it back now if you don't mean it."
She stepped out of her jeans without a word. Peeled her blouse off her shoulders and stood there in her bra, red hair wild around her face, spine straight, defiant. She didn't look at the brand.
"I said do it."
His jaw flexed.
He walked back toward her, and his hand went to her waist, thumb brushing her hip bone, the soft skin just beneath where the edge of her knickers sat.
"I'll mark you," he said, voice thick now, like the control was cracking. "But don't forget—this wasn't my idea."
"It never is," she whispered, leaning into his palm.
He took a breath. His forehead touched hers for a second. A single heartbeat.
"Get on the bed."
She obeyed.
He didn't ask her again.
She lay back on the sheets, her pulse loud in her ears, skin flushed and alive and trembling. Blaise moved around the bed with the focus of a man who had already committed to the crime.
His silence wasn't cruel, it was reverent. And the way he looked at her like she was the altar and the sacrifice, that what made her stomach twist with something that was not fear, but something like worship.
The brand sat heating on the small charmfire plate he conjured near the edge of the dresser, glowing faintly gold. The kind of magic passed down through bloodlines. The kind of ritual that came with rules, with lineage, with ancient family oaths spoken in languages no one spoke aloud anymore.
Ginny's breath hitched as he knelt on the bed between her knees, hands spreading over her thighs. His palms were warm. Reverent. His thumbs brushed over the soft skin at the top of her thigh, and her legs instinctively parted further.
He looked up, and for the first time, he seemed hesitant.
"This is permanent," he said.
"So is our marriage," she whispered back.
His eyes closed for half a second. When they opened, she saw it again—that flicker of violence and devotion tangled together in his chest. That thing in him that could never be softened, only redirected.
"You'll wear my name," he said quietly.
Ginny's hands slid into his hair, slow and deliberate. "Then burn it in."
He bent forward first. Pressed his lips to the place he would brand her. Kissed it like a goodbye and a promise all at once. She swallowed a gasp, hips jerking slightly when his breath dragged across her skin.
"Don't move," he murmured, voice like silk fraying at the edges.
The heat was already thick in the room. The air pulsed with it. She could smell it now—the soft bite of heated metal and old magic.
Then his hand was on her hip again, and the other one lifted the small silver brand, still glowing with conjured fire.
Her breath locked in her lungs.
"Count to three," she whispered.
He didn't.
The metal met her skin with a hiss, a sharp bloom of white-hot pain that stole the sound from her throat. She bit down on her wrist to stop herself from screaming. Her other hand clawed the sheets, and tears sprung to her eyes before she could stop them. It was fast. It was brutal.
It was done.
Her chest heaved. Her heart slammed against her ribs. She stared at the ceiling, lips parted, eyes wet, but she didn't make a sound. Not even when the smell of scorched skin hit the air.
He dropped the brand, extinguishing it in the dish without a word, and touched her as if she were breakable. His fingers brushed gently along her thigh, avoiding the raw, fresh mark, until he reached her hip and pulled her to him like she was his salvation.
"Look at me," he said, his voice hoarse.
She turned her head slowly, eyes glassy.
"You're mine," he said, kissing her like an oath, like he was desperate to prove it without words. "Forever. Even if you leave. Even if you hate me. Even if the whole bloody world turns on us."
She grabbed the back of his neck and yanked him down to her, kissed him until her lips hurt, until her lungs burned. Then she whispered into his mouth, "Then next time, don't flinch."
He froze.
Then he laughed. Just once. A soft, breathless, wrecked sound.
"I married a fucking menace."
"You branded a menace," she said, grinning through the ache, hands wrapped tight around his throat.
"Same thing," he muttered, and kissed her again.
"Blaise," she gasped, tugging at his hair. "Please."
He looked up at her, his lips swollen and his eyes dark. "Please what?"
"Please fuck me," she said, her voice raw with need. "I need you inside me."
He groaned, his forehead dropping to her chest for a moment. "Fuck, baby girl. You're going to be the death of me."
He stepped back, hands already at his waistband. In one smooth motion, he undid the button of his trousers and shoved them down over his hips, boxers with them. Her gaze dropped immediately, lips parting slightly as she took him in — thick, flushed, already dripping at the tip.
He wrapped his hand around himself, stroking once, twice, his eyes on her. "You want this?" he asked, his voice low and rough.
She nodded, her tongue darting out to wet her lips. "Yes. Please."
He climbed back onto the bed, spreading her legs with a quiet sort of authority, like he'd done it a hundred times before and would do it a hundred more. His knees bracketed her thighs, settling himself right between them, and she felt the hard press of him against her — hot, heavy, dragging through the slick ache between her legs like he already knew exactly what he was doing to her.
He rolled his hips, just once, slow and deliberate. The head of his cock nudged her clit, made her jolt, made her hips lift in a desperate sort of rhythm that wasn't even conscious.
"Blaise, please," she breathed, the words catching halfway up her throat. "I need you."
He leaned in, forehead resting gently against hers, his breath warm against her mouth. "I know, baby. I know." His voice was quiet but rough, full of something unspoken that clung between them.
One hand moved down, steady and sure, guiding himself to her. He pushed in just a bit, just the tip, and she gasped at the stretch, at the way her body opened for him like it always did — like it had been waiting. He was thick, and it had been too long. Her nails caught in the sheets.
"Just breathe," he murmured, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek. "You've got me. Let me in, love."
She took a shaky breath and nodded, letting her legs fall open wider, letting herself soften around the slow, steady push of him. Inch by inch, he filled her, and it was overwhelming — not just the size of him, but the weight of it, the intimacy of it. The way he stayed right there, his eyes locked on hers, like this meant something more than just bodies.
When he was fully inside her, he stilled, and they both just breathed for a moment. Her body was stretched, almost to the point of pain, but it was a sweet kind of ache — the kind that made her feel real again.
"Fuck, you're tight," he whispered, his voice low and wrecked in her ear. "So fucking tight, Gin. You feel unreal."
She tightened her legs around his waist, heels pressing into the backs of his thighs, pulling him impossibly close. "Then don't stop," she said, voice rough with want. "Move, Blaise. I'm not asking."
He let out a breath that was almost a growl, pulled out slowly, then pushed back in just as slow — like he was trying to memorise the way she felt, every inch of her. The rhythm he set wasn't fast, but it was devastating, each stroke dragging deep, hitting the spot inside her that made her legs shake and her vision blur.
She clung to him, and he moved like a man who knew exactly what he had, and wasn't planning to let go.
She was moaning now, her hips rising to meet each of his thrusts, greedy for it, wild for it. Her nails raked down his back, dragging red lines through sweat-slick skin.
"Harder," she gasped, the words half sobbed. "Please. I need it. Don't hold back."
And he didn't. His rhythm shifted instantly, his hips snapping harder against hers, fast and brutal in a way that made the headboard knock against the wall. The sharp sound of skin slapping skin filled the room, mixing with broken moans and the low creak of the bed under them.
"Fuck, Ginny," he bit out, his voice wrecked. "You feel unreal. So tight around me. So fucking wet, like you were made for it."
She couldn't form proper words, just whimpered, her breath catching as her fingers curled into the flesh of his arse.
She dragged him closer, held him tight like she wanted to fuse their bodies together and never let go. She needed everything. Needed him deeper, rougher, until there was nothing left of her but the way he made her feel.
He shifted again, one arm bracing beside her head, the other slipping between their slick bodies. His hand found her clit like it had a map, and he started working tight, relentless circles over it in time with every savage thrust.
She cried out, loud and unfiltered, her whole body jerking beneath him. "Right there, love. Please don't stop. Just like that."
He didn't stop. His pace stayed maddening and perfect, his cock hitting that spot inside her again and again while his fingers never let up.
"Come for me," he growled, voice low and demanding, almost broken with want. "Come all over my cock. Let me feel it."
It tipped her over. Her back arched, her thighs locked around his waist, and she screamed his name as she came, full-body and shaking, her walls clenching so tight it dragged a groan straight out of him.
"Fucking hell," he choked, hips stuttering as he buried himself deep, coming with a rough sound and a full-body shudder. His hands fisted the sheets on either side of her. For a moment, they just clung to each other, breathing hard, hearts hammering like they'd run through fire.
Then he slumped forward, his weight pressing her down into the mattress, his chest heaving against hers. He kissed the skin just above her collarbone, then licked a drop of sweat from the curve of her neck.
"Fuck," he breathed, his voice hoarse and completely spent. "You're gonna be the bloody death of me."
She laughed, light and wrecked, brushing the damp hair from his forehead. "Wouldn't be the worst way to go."
He hummed low in his throat, a pleased sound, and nuzzled her neck like he didn't plan to move for the next decade. They stayed like that for a while, quiet and tangled, their skin still warm, their breathing slowly evening out.
Eventually, he slipped out of her, hissing a little as he did, too sensitive to drag against her but unable to help the need to keep her close. He rolled onto his side and pulled her with him, wrapping her up against his chest like a secret he didn't want the world to touch.
His hand drifted down to her thigh, his fingers brushing the bruised skin where his name sat, raw and real, marked into her like a vow. He didn't say it softly. Didn't whisper it like a poet. He said it like a man who meant it.
"You're mine now, tresoro. In every fucking way."
She sighed, eyes fluttering shut as she curled into him. "I always have been. From the first time I saw you."
He pressed a kiss into her hair, arms tightening around her like he could shield her from the whole damn world.
"And you always will be."
They drifted off like that. Skin to skin, tangled limbs, his cock still sticky against her thigh, his breath steadying near her ear. And for the first time in what felt like forever, she didn't feel like she was drowning in the mess of them. She felt like she'd finally come home.
~~~~~~
The last of the sun bled slow and heavy across the horizon, its dying light sinking into the clouds like ink spilled in water. The air was thick with that stillness that only came at the end of the day, when even the wind seemed tired.
Blaise stepped out onto the terrace, his boots scuffing softly against the stone. The ground still held the heat of the afternoon, warm enough to seep through the soles of his shoes. Between his fingers, a cigarette glowed to life, the orange tip flaring against the dimness like a tiny, dangerous heartbeat. He inhaled, long and steady, and for a moment the smoke caught the dying light, curling upward in ribbons that looked almost beautiful. His knuckles stung when he flexed them.
The blood on them had dried in uneven patches, dark at the edges, copper at the centre. He could have cleaned it hours ago, but he hadn't. He wanted the sting. He wanted the reminder. He wanted to feel something that wasn't the hollow, restless ache still rolling through his chest.
Below him, the garden spread out in slow, quiet layers of green and shadow, soft and secret under the falling dusk. The smell of wet soil drifted up to meet him, sharp and grounding, mixing with the faint scent of roses and smoke. Down there, half hidden among the flowerbeds, Ginny was crouched over the earth.
Her hair was twisted into something that had probably started out as neat, now half undone, loose strands curling around her neck and sticking to the faint sheen of sweat on her skin.
Her jeans were streaked with mud at the knees, the cuffs damp with dew, her bare feet pressing into the soil as if she needed to feel the pulse of the ground beneath her. She wasn't using a trowel or her wand. Just her hands. Fingertips black with dirt, palms scratched from roots and thorns, she pressed each rosebush into the ground with the same focus most people reserved for prayer.
Blaise watched her the way a starving man watches the last thing that might save him.
She didn't look up when she spoke. Her voice carried easily through the thick evening air.
"You going to stand there all night, or are you going to come help me bury the corpses?"
Blaise's mouth curved, the faintest ghost of a smile. The sound of her voice did something to him every time, cutting through whatever quiet madness sat under his ribs. He let out a slow exhale, smoke spilling from his lips in lazy spirals.
"Already buried one today," he called back, his tone easy but rough around the edges. "Thought I'd earned a break."
Ginny tilted her head, the corner of her mouth twitching though she didn't turn around. "There's tea," she said, pausing just long enough to make him listen. "And I've hidden the good biscuits from Valerius."
That was enough to make him move.
He came down from the terrace with unhurried steps, the cigarette burning low between his fingers. There was no rush in him, no sharpness, just that steady, deliberate pace of someone who could afford to take his time.
He didn't care about the blood on his skin or the dirt under his nails. The garden had always been the one place where the rest of it didn't matter. The smoke trailed behind him as he crossed the grass, a faint, ghostly line in the cooling air.
This was their place. Their quiet, broken piece of the world. Their own ruined Eden.
Ginny didn't stop working, her hands still moving through the soil, her focus steady. She only looked up when his shadow stretched over her, long and dark in the last of the light. Her gaze moved first to his hands, then to the bruised line along his jaw. Her voice was softer when she finally spoke.
"Was it him?"
Blaise crouched beside her, close enough that he could smell the lavender and earth on her skin, but not close enough to touch. He was quiet for a moment before he answered.
"No. One of his."
She kept her eyes on him, searching his face for something she wasn't sure she wanted to find. "Still breathing?"
He shook his head once. "Not anymore."
There was no shock in her expression, no visible flinch. Only a slow nod, a quiet understanding. She reached for his hand without hesitation, her fingers sliding over his, cool and sure.
She turned it over in her lap, her thumb tracing over the broken skin, the dried blood. Then she pressed her palm flat against his, letting the dirt and blood mix between them. It felt almost ceremonial.
She kissed his fingers one by one, slow and deliberate, her mouth brushing each knuckle like it meant something more than comfort. Like she was counting the ways she still had him. As if by kissing each one, she could undo the violence written into the dried blood there.
"Help me with this," she said at last, her voice quieter than before, a little rough around the edges. "I want them to bloom by next spring. I want this place to feel like something that lives."
He didn't answer right away. Just flicked the end of his cigarette onto the grass and watched it smoulder out beside the rosebushes. Then, wordlessly, he dropped down onto the grass beside her, knees sinking into the dirt without complaint. The smoke faded between them, curling away into the cooling dusk.
For a while, neither of them spoke. The silence didn't stretch so much as settle. There was only the sound of hands moving through earth, the soft scrape of roots and fingers shifting soil, the slow exhale of breath shared between two bodies trying to remember how to exist quietly. Insects chirred in the distance, and somewhere closer, the magic that guarded their home hummed faintly, steady and low, like a second heartbeat neither of them ever noticed until moments like this.
It was Blaise who broke the silence first. His voice was quiet, but not uncertain.
"Valerius asked me if monsters sleep at night."
Ginny's hands paused in the soil, her fingers curling just slightly around the base of a young rose stem.
He didn't look at her. His eyes stayed fixed on the earth. "Said he saw something in the alley behind Luna's. Big. Black. He thinks it followed him home."
"What did you tell him?" she asked, barely above a whisper.
He scrubbed a hand over his face, jaw tightening. "Told him monsters sleep. That they're cowards. That they're scared of brave boys with loud voices."
She stared at him. "And do they?"
"No," he said, and the word came out flat, too heavy for a lie. "They don't. They wait. They wait in the dark. Just like I do."
Ginny reached for him then, not with urgency, but with something else entirely. Her hand found his jaw, her thumb stroking slowly over the faint bruise blooming beneath his cheekbone. Her touch was careful, but she didn't flinch at the rough edges of him. Someone had hit him. Hard. Not hard enough, by the look in her eyes.
"You're not a monster," she said softly, like it was a truth she refused to doubt.
"I am."
She didn't pull away. Her fingers stayed right where they were. She leaned forward and pressed a kiss just beneath the bruise, warm and quiet and completely unsentimental. Then she kissed him again, lower, at the corner of his mouth, where his breath caught.
Then she shifted, slowly, crawling into his lap and settling across him until she could press her body to his, her hands slipping beneath his open jacket, sliding over his chest until she could feel the thrum of his heart against her palm.
"You're my monster, then," she whispered, her voice rough and warm and full of something more dangerous than love. "Which means you don't get to die in alleyways or chase ghosts alone. That's not part of the deal."
He looked up at her, eyes darker now. "That's not how this works. If they come for you—"
She cut him off before he could finish, her mouth finding his again with a kiss that wasn't sweet or soft or patient. It tasted like rage. Like tea gone cold. Like everything she hadn't said while waiting for him to come back in one piece.
"If they come for me," she said, pulling back just enough to speak, "we burn them. All of them. This garden. The house. The city. Everything. You and me, Blaise. We don't just survive. We become fire. Little gods of our kingdom."
His hands found her waist then, dirt-smudged fingers curling into the soft curve of her hip like he needed to hold her exactly where she was, like he needed to feel that she was real.
"And Valerius?" he asked, voice rough.
"He stays safe," she said, no hesitation. "He stays soft. That's the deal. We take the burn. He doesn't."
They lay back slowly, their bodies sinking into the grass as the sky deepened above them. All around them, the rosebushes stood half-planted, the earth disturbed, roots tangled, petals still tight in their buds.
The last of the cigarette was ash.
Ginny's hands settled over Blaise's chest, her fingers brushing rhythmically against the fabric of his shirt. His lips found her temple. Their legs tangled. The dirt clung to their skin like it had always belonged there.
This wasn't peace in the traditional sense. It wasn't safety. It wasn't stillness. But it was something real. Something hard-won.
This was the version of peace they had carved out with their bare hands.
This was the world they had chosen.
And if it ever came under threat, they would burn it down without blinking.
They would do it together.
~~~~~~
The kitchen smelled like toast and last night's coffee.
The smell lingered in the quiet way it always did when the flat had been lived in too hard the night before. Something burnt at the edges of the air—maybe the crust of forgotten toast, maybe just the echo of everything they'd said, everything they'd done, still clinging to the corners like smoke.
Ginny padded in barefoot. The tiles were cold against her soles. She didn't bother with slippers. Blaise's shirt hung off her shoulders like it didn't belong to her yet, but had made itself at home anyway. The hem just barely grazed the tops of her thighs, brushing her skin each time she moved. Her legs were bare, her hair a half-tangled mess. She scratched absently at her neck, fingers brushing over one of the bruises he'd left there with his mouth the night before, the shape of it just starting to bloom.
The flat was still, like it was holding its breath. The kind of stillness that came right before the city woke up and remembered it was alive. Ginny rubbed at her eyes, still fogged with sleep, then blinked at the slow hush of light that pooled across the counter, the dull hum of the refrigerator filling the silence between everything else.
Blaise was at the kitchen table, sitting like he had been there for some time, although it wasn't clear how long. His chair was pulled slightly off-centre. The sleeves of his white shirt were rolled up to his elbows, and there was a faint pink mark on his forearm, like he'd burned himself on the kettle again but hadn't noticed or hadn't cared. His hair was damp from a recent shower, curls falling forward a little. A cigarette smouldered in the ashtray beside him. Unsmoked. Lit and left. Its ash had built up without interruption, long and curved like a question mark no one wanted to answer.
She caught his eye. He didn't smile. He just looked at her.
There was something in the air that hadn't quite settled yet. Not tension exactly, but something close to it. Something quieter. He was turning the page of a book, slowly, without really seeing the words. She couldn't tell what he was reading. She didn't ask.
Ginny moved toward the kettle, arms stretching above her head in a lazy, half-hearted attempt to wake herself up. Her spine arched, her toes lifted off the ground for a second. She yawned.
Blaise didn't say a word.
She reached for the chipped mug she liked best—the blue one with the fading charm that once kept tea hot for hours but now only worked if you sweet-talked it first thing in the morning. She didn't bother with sugar. Just filled it with whatever had been left in the pot from last night, grimaced, and drank it anyway. Her eyes flicked toward him once more.
It was only as she turned around, mug in hand, that she noticed something out of place. Something lying on the floor just beyond the leg of the table, resting near Blaise's foot.
It wasn't there before.
She took a few steps, brow furrowed. Crouched slowly, knees bending, shirt riding up her thighs without her noticing.
It was a photograph. Slightly curled at the edges, the gloss gone dull with age. Black and white, grainy. A candid shot—one of those old Hogwarts year-end prints that always ended up shoved into trunks or lost between pages of books. Most people forgot about them. Left them to warp in heat or yellow in sunlight.
Ginny picked it up by the edge, careful not to smudge it further. She stared at it for a moment. Then frowned.
There was a crowd of students, some moving, some not. The faces were young. Laughing. And in the background, there she was.
Seventeen. Maybe sixteen. Maybe younger. Laughing at something someone had said just out of frame, her mouth open in a smile that was too wide to be posed, her hair falling across her face in a way she never quite managed on purpose. She wasn't looking at the camera. She wasn't even aware it existed.
Ginny looked up slowly, the photograph still in her hand.
Ginny flipped the photo over and went still.
It was old. Faded, worn at the corners like it had been held too many times.
Hogwarts, clearly. Late afternoon light slanting through the courtyard. A few students slouched on the benches, half in shadow. And in the background—her. Laughing. Head thrown back. Caught mid-turn, hair flying, face all scrunched up and unbothered. She was glowing in the way only seventeen-year-olds could glow, completely unaware of being watched.
She didn't remember the moment. But her body did. That kind of laugh sat in your ribs long after the day forgot it.
She looked up at him, slower now, something unreadable tugging at the edges of her voice. "You kept this?"
He didn't blink. Just nodded, like it wasn't worth explaining.
She frowned faintly, holding the photo up by its corner. "But we didn't even talk back then."
"You didn't talk to me," he said, voice low. "I would've."
Her brow arched. "You never even tried."
"I watched you," Blaise said, quiet now, like the words had weight. "Every bloody day. And I hated every person who made you laugh like that."
Ginny let out a small breath, half laugh, half disbelief. "Bit intense, don't you think?"
"I wasn't aiming for reasonable."
That silence between them cracked a little—turned heavier, thicker, like it knew it was sitting on top of something old and too well-protected.
She looked back down at the photo. Turned it in her hands. Pressed the edge into her palm like she needed the weight of it to be real. Like maybe she wanted to feel what it meant to be seen before you even realise you're worth watching.
And when she looked back at him, Blaise still hadn't moved. One hand on the book, the other relaxed over the arm of the chair. Hair damp from the shower, collar of his shirt open. Chest marked up with love and bruises and whatever came before both. The kind of stillness that wasn't nervous. The kind that was waiting.
"You know this is mildly creepy," she said softly, teasing him with a look. "Keeping secret stalker photos of girls you never spoke to?"
He raised a brow, just barely. "You're one to talk, Miss I-Made-Out-With-My-Enemy-In-A-Broom-Cupboard."
Her laugh broke through before she could stop it. "That's different. There was a bet involved."
Blaise tilted his head, slow. "So was mine."
She blinked. "You bet on me?"
"No," he said. "I bet on you ruining me. And look how that turned out."
Ginny let the photo slip from her fingers. It fluttered to the floor beside her bare foot, landing gently near the hem of his shirt that still hung off her frame. She crossed the kitchen with that lazy, barefoot ease she had in the mornings, then stepped between his legs without asking.
He looked up at her.
She placed her hands on his shoulders, light but steady. "You never said a word," she murmured.
"There was never a version of me you were allowed to want," Blaise said. "But I kept that. Just so I'd never forget you were real."
Something twisted sweet and sharp behind her ribs. "You know, I was never going to fall in love with someone normal."
He gave her a look that was all exhaustion and hope and lust tangled up in one breath. "Good. I would've killed him."
Her lips curved slowly. "You say the most romantic things, darling."
And then she kissed him.
She kissed him like she was late for something, like the day had finally caught up to them and neither of them wanted to let it win. Her mouth moved over his like it already knew the taste. Her fingers tangled in his hair, tugging. His hands gripped her thighs like she might vanish if he didn't hold tight.
They only broke apart when the air demanded it.
Ginny stayed close, resting her forehead against his, her voice barely a whisper.
"You had me. From the start."
Blaise let out a short breath, almost a laugh, almost not. "That's the part that ruins me."
Her mouth curved again, slower this time. "Then we're even."
The toast popped up, smoke curling from the edges.
Neither of them moved.
Not for the toast. Not for the photograph on the floor. Not for the city pressing in through the windows.
She kissed him again. He let her.
And this time, it didn't feel like regret. It felt like the beginning of something they'd already survived.
~~~~~~
The scream caught in her throat.
Ginny jolted upright, gasping like she'd come up too fast from underwater.
Her lungs stung. Her fingers clutched at the damp sheet tangled around her knees, the cotton twisted and kicked halfway down the bed. Her heart was racing, wild and uneven, like it was trying to punch through her ribs to get away from whatever had followed her out of the dream.
The sweat on her neck had already gone cold. Her hair clung to the back of it.
And Blaise was already awake.
He wasn't startled. He was just there, already watching, already waiting, as if he'd seen the dream arrive before she had.
His head rested on his hand, his elbow dug into the pillow behind him. The sheet was low on his hips, one bare arm folded loosely across his stomach. The light from the corridor slipped in through the cracked door, catching the edge of his jaw, the quiet tension in his brow. His chest rose slowly, too slow, like he'd been holding his breath long before she woke up.
Ginny didn't look at him straight away. She dragged her fingers through her hair, shoved it back off her forehead, and stared straight ahead for a moment. The wall looked different at this hour. Almost unfamiliar. She couldn't tell if it was the shadow, or her.
When she finally turned toward him, she didn't know what to say.
His voice broke the silence first.
"You're alright," he said.
Not a question. Not reassurance. A statement. As if saying it out loud made it true.
Her eyes were wide, still wild with sleep, still trying to ground herself in the room she already knew. She didn't nod. She couldn't yet.
Instead, her voice rasped out, low and raw from the scream that had never quite made it. "You saw it again."
Blaise didn't look away.
He gave the smallest nod. It was the kind of movement people make when they're too tired for words.
"I could feel you watching me," she said.
There was no edge to it. No blame. Only the exhausted recognition of being seen.
He shifted slightly. His body curved closer, slow and careful, like she might break if he moved too fast. Then he lowered his head until his forehead pressed gently into her shoulder.
That was where he stayed.
The silence between them was long. Not heavy in a dramatic way, but heavy in the way grief always is, even when no one says the word out loud.
Ginny didn't lean away. She closed her eyes instead. Her hands were still trembling faintly, the muscles in her arms pulled tight from the dream, her thighs aching from how hard she'd curled them in her sleep.
Blaise's next words were almost too quiet to hear.
"I haven't slept in two nights."
It landed with the kind of weight that made her stomach sink.
She reached up slowly and ran her fingertips along the curve of his spine, grounding herself in the familiar feel of him, the warmth of his skin, the tension sitting just beneath it.
Her voice barely rose above a whisper. "Because of the dream?"
He didn't answer. Not in the way people usually do.
There was no nod. No confirmation. No elaboration. Just the feel of his forehead against her shoulder, the heat of his breath on her collarbone, and the way his silence filled the room more honestly than words ever could.
Ginny closed her eyes again. She could still feel it—whatever it was that had chased her through sleep.
A hand she couldn't see.
A breath too close.
The sound of her own name spoken like a warning.
She could still taste fear in her mouth.
And somehow, Blaise had known. He'd been lying there the whole time, listening to the rhythm of her breathing shift, watching the way her body started to tense under the sheet, and waiting.
Waiting for her to wake up in a panic.
Waiting because he already knew how it would end.
She turned her face into the side of his neck and let herself breathe him in. Not deeply. Not in some poetic, comforting way. Just enough to remind herself that he was real. That she wasn't alone in the bed.
"I hate this part," she whispered.
His fingers tightened slightly against her hip.
"So do I."
He didn't lift his head. Didn't try to comfort her with platitudes or promises he couldn't keep.
And maybe that was why she didn't move.
Maybe that was why she let him stay exactly where he was, holding onto her like a man who hadn't dared sleep in two days because the thought of her vanishing had become more real than anything else.
They sat like that for a long time.
No movement.
No light.
Just the weight of their breathing slowly syncing up, and the quiet, shared understanding of what it meant to carry nightmares into the waking world.
They weren't done unraveling yet.
But at least they were unraveling together.
Ginny swallowed. Her fingers tightened against his jaw like that could anchor him, like touch could somehow convince him of a future that hadn't shattered yet.
"You don't get to ask that," she said, barely audible.
"Why not?" His voice had turned low and dangerous, not because he meant to scare her, but because his fear always wore itself like armour. "Why not think about it now, while we still have the choice? What happens if the worst comes for us?"
"Then we go down together," she said, without blinking.
He stared at her. Her tone hadn't wavered. There was no metaphor in it. No comfort. Just the same raw truth he'd been carrying in his chest like a blade. Something in him cracked wider.
"You mean it."
"Of course I do."
"I thought I was the mad one."
"You are," she said, brushing her thumbs under his eyes. "But I'm the one who followed you in."
He let out a breath that sounded too much like a sob. "If you die—"
"I die," she said, firmly.
There was no space between their bodies now. His hands had curled into the fabric of her shirt at the waist, twisting the cotton until his knuckles went pale. Her hands stayed on his face. Neither of them looked away.
"I'd kill the whole world to get to you," Blaise whispered. "You know that, right?"
"I know." She pressed her lips to his. Not a kiss. Just contact. Just the press of skin reminding him she was still there.
"And if it's me first," he said, "you don't go on."
"I won't."
It was not a threat. Not a performance. It was the same thing they had always been, twisted and inseparable, built out of broken pieces and the promise that love could be sharp enough to cut back. They didn't deal in fairy tales. They made vows in the dark. In whispers. In the breath between nightmare and morning.
Ginny slid back under the covers, pulling him with her. He came easily, curling around her like he always did, one arm over her ribs, the other flat beneath her head. She could feel the thud of his heart in the place where their chests met.
"We're unwell," she murmured against his throat.
"I know," he said. "It's the only reason we work."
Outside, the sky stayed dark.
Inside, they lay awake, breathing in the same rhythm, two people clinging to the same sinking wreckage and calling it devotion.
Time didn't pass in a straight line between them. It never had. Minutes stretched, bent, doubled back on themselves. The clock on the wall ticked, but neither of them heard it.
Ginny's fingers moved in slow, absent circles on Blaise's chest. She wasn't even aware she was doing it. Just skin to skin, heartbeat to heartbeat, the only language that still made sense when everything else had unraveled.
"You know we're going to outlive everyone else," she said quietly, after what felt like hours.
Blaise let out a sound that wasn't quite a laugh. "Not if I get cursed first."
"That's not funny."
"Wasn't meant to be."
She propped herself up on one elbow, just enough to look down at him. His eyes were open again, staring at the ceiling like it held answers. There was something brutal in the way he held himself still. As if movement might shatter whatever thin thread was keeping him from falling.
"I don't want a life without you," she said.
"You won't have to."
"No, I mean it," she said, firmer now. "I want you to understand this isn't just something I'm saying in the dark, after a nightmare, when everything feels too much. I want it on record. I want it burned into the walls."
Blaise finally turned his head to look at her. "Go on, then."
"I don't want a backup plan. No contingency. No second chance. If you go, I go."
He stared at her.
He sat up slowly, dragging the sheet with him, as if the weight of the moment required him to be upright. "Say it again."
"If you die, I die," Ginny said. "And not in a sweet, tragic sort of way. Not in a Romeo and Juliet, poisoned goblet in hand, doomed lovers sort of story."
"No?"
"No. In a way that means I won't let this world take me from you. In a way that means I won't become some half-alive version of myself who lights candles on your birthday and keeps going like you didn't tear through every part of my life like a war."
Something in Blaise's face shifted. The kind of change that comes when someone hears a truth they already knew but had never dared ask for out loud.
He reached for her wrist and pressed her hand flat to his chest. "Then it's sealed."
"Properly."
"Yes."
Ginny nodded. "Say it back."
"If you die, I die," he said, like he was reciting a spell. "And not in some noble, grief-stricken way. In a violent way. In a way that makes the world notice. In a way that leaves scars."
Their fingers tangled.
"And what about Valerius?" she asked, softly. "What do we do if he's still small?"
"We make sure he never has to be," Blaise said. "We raise him until he's fireproof. Then we go."
"And if he's grown?"
"Then we leave him the truth," Blaise said. "That love like ours is dangerous. That we gave it everything. That the story ended when it was supposed to."
Ginny looked at him, really looked, and saw the boy in him. The one who had stood in shadows and watched her laugh without knowing he was seen. The man in him too. The one who would kill for her, and had.
"You think we're monsters," she said.
He shrugged. "We are."
"Good."
She leaned forward and kissed the corner of his mouth, then his jaw, then the place just below his ear where he always shivered. "Let's be monsters together."
His hands came to her hips. "No one else gets you. You know that?"
She kissed him again. "That's why I chose you."
They lay back down, side by side now, eyes still open. Neither of them pretending to be healed. Just two broken people with a pact stitched between their ribs.
No metaphors. No rescue.
Just this.
If you die, I die.
And they meant it.
They didn't kiss.
They didn't reach for each other with the hunger that used to come so easily, the kind that burned through rooms and reason and turned arguments into something wordless. What was between them now wasn't lust. It wasn't tenderness either. It was something darker, heavier, born out of the night's panic and the echo of screams that still clung to her throat.
They just sat there.
Their bodies were already close enough to touch everywhere that mattered. Knees drawn together. The air thick and humid. The smell of sweat still faint in the sheets. Her skin was hot against his, slick with fear and heat and the kind of closeness that grief makes unbearable.
The wardlight on the far wall flickered, throwing soft gold and shadow across their faces. For a long while neither of them spoke. The room had gone too quiet, that strange kind of quiet that feels like holding your breath in a church.
Then Blaise spoke, his voice low and uneven.
"Sometimes I wonder if this is what being cursed feels like," he said. "To love someone so much it stops feeling like love. It starts feeling like a wound."
Ginny didn't look up. Her cheek stayed pressed against his shoulder. She could hear his heartbeat under her ear, fast and uneven, like the rhythm of a man trying to outpace something invisible.
"I want it to be a wound," she murmured. "I want it to scar."
He made a sound then, a quiet, wrecked sort of laugh that wasn't joy. It was disbelief. Maybe surrender. He slid his hands around her waist and pulled her into his lap. The movement was slow, uncertain, like he wasn't sure she'd let him.
She did.
Her legs folded against him. Her fingers found the edge of his jaw, rough under her thumb, still warm from the tears he hadn't cried. He held her like he was trying to convince himself she was real. She could feel the tremor in his arms. The faint smell of smoke still lingered in his skin from the night before.
"I would drag myself through the veil for you," she whispered.
He swallowed, his throat tight against her mouth. "Do you understand that?"
"I do," he said. His voice cracked but he didn't hide it. "Because I would pull you back through it."
The way he said it didn't sound poetic. It wasn't meant to be beautiful. It was a confession. Brutal. Unpolished. Real.
And then they stayed that way.
No words. No tears.
Just the sound of two people breathing in sync, trapped in the same rhythm, the same quiet storm. The sheets were tangled at their feet. The lamp hummed once and went still. Outside, the wind moved through the trees with a slow, restless sigh.
Ginny's fingers drifted through his hair, soft and absent. The gesture wasn't gentle, not really. It was grounding. Every so often she felt him exhale against her neck, a slow, shaky breath that sounded like the edge of prayer.
"I keep thinking about the first time I saw you," Blaise murmured eventually, his voice so quiet she almost missed it.
Ginny tilted her head. "At Hogwarts?"
He nodded. "You were wearing a jumper that didn't fit. You had ink on your fingers."
She smiled faintly. "Romantic."
"You looked like trouble," he said. "I think that's why I stared. I wanted to know what kind of man I'd have to become to deserve touching you."
Her eyes softened. "You never stood a chance."
"I know." His mouth twisted into a tired grin. "And yet here we are."
Her fingers traced the line of his collarbone. "Here we are."
The silence that followed wasn't empty this time. It was full. Of everything they had lost. Everything they still clung to.
They sat there until the light outside began to fade completely, until the shadows stretched across the ceiling like old memories. His hands moved up and down her back in slow, rhythmic strokes, and every so often she would breathe out his name like it was the only one she remembered.
When she finally spoke again, her voice sounded far away.
"Do you think we're broken?"
Blaise's lips brushed her hair. "I think we're alive."
"Is that the same thing?"
"Sometimes."
Her hand moved to his heart. It was still beating too fast. "Then we hold the madness. Until it stops shaking."
And that's what they did.
They held on. Until the night gave up trying to scare them.
The air had gone cold by the time she spoke again. The wardlight was dim. The world outside had quieted completely. Somewhere in the distance, one of the clocks ticked, steady and soft.
"Promise me," she said. Her voice was hoarse, scraped raw from hours of talking and not talking.
"Promise you what?" His eyes stayed closed.
"That no one buries the other."
He opened them now, blinking once before answering. "I promise."
"No funeral," she continued. "No speeches. No fucking flowers."
"No gravestone either," he added, his mouth curving just slightly. "Just ash and sky."
Ginny leaned back to look at him properly. The faintest trace of a smile tugged at her lips, the kind that came from exhaustion more than joy. "I mean it, Blaise. I'd rather be madness with you than sane without you."
He studied her for a long moment before answering. His expression changed slowly, like the words sank deeper than she meant them to. "You are madness with me," he said at last.
And then he smiled.
A small, terrible, beautiful smile that looked nothing like peace but everything like truth.
When he kissed her, it wasn't a start. It was an answer. His mouth was soft but insistent, tasting of exhaustion and coffee and the remnants of the fear that still sat heavy in their chests.
She kissed him back until her lungs hurt. Until her body forgot where the fear ended and he began. Until the tremble in her hands steadied against the side of his neck.
The kiss didn't fade. It changed. Grew deeper. Quieter. It wasn't about lust. It wasn't even about comfort. It was survival. The kind of kiss that doesn't go away even when it stops. The kind that stays in the bloodstream.
Her mouth opened for him. Her hands slid around his neck. She pulled him down until she could feel the weight of him again, pressing her into the mattress. For a moment, there was no past. No future. Just the sound of their breathing.
When they finally broke apart, she didn't let go.
They lay back together, tangled in the half‑light. The sheet was twisted around their legs. Her fingers curled in the fabric of his shirt like she feared she might float off without him. His chest rose and fell beneath her cheek, the steady rhythm of someone who had promised too much and meant every word.
He kissed the top of her head. Once. Then again.
Neither of them spoke.
Outside, the city was starting to wake. But in their room the night hadn't ended. The air still felt heavy with everything they had said. Every vow, every crack, every piece of truth that had no right being spoken out loud.
Ginny's eyes drifted closed, but she wasn't asleep. Not yet. The exhaustion in her bones felt like something ancient, something earned.
And then, in the quiet, Blaise spoke. His voice was low, nearly broken, and honest in a way that hurt to hear.
"If you die, I die."
There was no pause. No shock. No protest.
Ginny didn't cry. She just opened her eyes again and looked at him through the dim light. Then she reached up, placed her palm over his heart, and whispered, "I know."
He turned his head and kissed her hand.
She didn't let go.
They stayed like that, still and breathing, two people who had loved too hard and gone too far to turn back. The kind of love that devours, that scars, that doesn't fade quietly into old age but burns itself out, fierce and certain.
Outside, morning crept closer. Inside, they stayed locked together in their version of forever. Not perfect. Not gentle. But theirs.
The first thing Ginny heard was the sound of little feet.
Soft. Quick. Completely unbothered by the weight of the world.
She opened her eyes slowly. The light was pale and kind, filtering through the curtains like it was testing the room before coming in. Blaise was still beside her, one arm slung heavy across her waist, his face pressed into her hair. He had finally fallen asleep. His breathing was slow, steady, deep. She didn't dare move.
But the footsteps came closer.
The door creaked open, just enough for a small voice to whisper into the space between night and morning.
"Mummy?"
Ginny turned her head slightly on the pillow. Valerius stood in the doorway, clutching his toy hippogriff, curls wild, pyjamas half‑buttoned, one sleeve rolled up and the other still trapped halfway down his arm. His little face was scrunched in that serious way only small children could manage.
"Baby, it's early," she murmured, trying not to wake Blaise.
Valerius didn't answer. He crossed the room with determined little steps and climbed right onto the bed. He didn't ask. He never asked. He crawled straight over Blaise's arm and plopped himself down in the middle, wedging between them like he'd done it a thousand times before.
Ginny smiled despite herself. "You're a menace."
Valerius looked up at her, eyes wide. "Daddy snores."
Ginny's hand went to her mouth to stop the laugh that tried to escape. "Yes, love. He does."
Blaise shifted behind her, making a low, half‑awake sound. "I do not."
"Yes, you do," Ginny whispered.
"I heard it," Valerius announced proudly, like a witness giving sworn testimony.
Blaise cracked one eye open. "Traitor."
The boy giggled, wriggling further down until his small head rested on his father's chest. Blaise groaned softly but his hand came up to rest protectively over Valerius's back, fingers moving in slow, sleepy circles.
Ginny watched them. The sight hurt in a way she had no name for. The night still sat heavy on her ribs, the memory of their vow lingering like smoke, but this — this small, ridiculous scene — cut through the darkness better than any spell could.
Blaise opened his other eye. "What time is it?"
"Too early," Ginny said. "He had a nightmare."
Valerius looked up, indignant. "I did not."
"You came running in here."
"I wanted breakfast."
Blaise snorted, rubbing his temple. "You sound like your mother."
Ginny raised an eyebrow. "Flattering."
He smiled, eyes still closed. "Terrifying."
She flicked his shoulder. "You love terrifying."
Valerius giggled again, sensing that the grown‑ups were being silly, and took that as permission to climb fully onto Blaise's chest. He planted both hands on him and announced, "Wake up, Daddy."
"I'm awake," Blaise muttered.
"No you're not."
"Val, it's six in the morning."
"I'm hungry."
Blaise groaned, dragging a pillow over his face. "So am I. Go wake your mother."
"I'm here," Ginny said dryly.
The boy looked between them, delighted. "You're both grumpy."
"Go on then," Ginny said, sitting up. "You win. We'll make breakfast."
Valerius gasped. "Pancakes?"
"If you promise not to tell the elfs we burned half of them last time."
"I promise," he said solemnly, then paused. "Can I tell Uncle Theo?"
"No," both parents said together.
Blaise finally pushed himself upright, hair a complete disaster, eyes still heavy from too little sleep. He leaned forward, kissed Ginny's shoulder, then rested his forehead against her back. "You're up first."
She turned slightly, smiling over her shoulder. "You wish."
He smiled back, tired but alive. "Always."
She kissed him quickly, just a soft brush of lips and morning breath, before swinging her legs out of bed. "Come on, little terror. Let's go ruin the kitchen."
Valerius jumped down, toy still clutched in his arms, and bolted for the door with the kind of unholy energy only children could conjure at dawn.
Blaise watched him go, then looked at Ginny, who was now standing at the dresser, pulling on one of his old shirts over her sleep shorts.
"What?" she asked, catching his stare.
He shook his head, smiling faintly. "Nothing."
"Liar."
He reached out a hand, fingers brushing her wrist. "Just thinking how strange it feels to be alive."
She went quiet for a second. Then she nodded, eyes soft. "Yeah. Strange."
He pulled her hand up and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. "Don't get used to it."
She smiled and tugged him out of bed. "Come on, Mr Dramatic. Pancakes await."
They walked to the kitchen together. The house was a mess — toys scattered, books half open, someone's cloak hanging off the back of a chair. The window over the sink glowed with weak sunlight. The kettle hissed. The smell of life, small and ordinary, began to fill the air.
Valerius was already standing on a chair, spoon in hand, waiting like a king about to be served.
Ginny looked at Blaise. "You flip, I stir."
"You always burn them."
"You always judge."
"Because you're terrible at it."
She laughed, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek before turning to the bowl. "Keep talking and I'll hex the pan."
"You won't."
"Try me."
Valerius watched them both, grinning wide, eyes darting between the two of them like he was storing the moment somewhere important.
The morning moved like that. Warm. Messy. Full of small arguments and laughter that broke through the last of the night's shadows.
Blaise poured the batter. Ginny made the coffee. Valerius dropped flour on the floor and swore softly under his breath because he'd heard his mother do it. They all pretended not to notice.
By the time the pancakes were stacked and the coffee brewed, the house smelled alive again. Not new. Not healed. But alive.
Blaise sat at the table, his arm draped lazily over the back of Ginny's chair. She leaned against him while Valerius ate with sticky fingers, his toy hippogriff propped beside his plate like an honoured guest.
For the first time since the nightmares, the silence between them wasn't heavy. It was full.
Ginny turned her head and looked at Blaise. "Still feel cursed?"
He smiled against her hair. "Every second."
"Good," she said softly. "So do I."
He kissed her temple. "You'd better. We promised."
"I remember."
He reached for his coffee, his thumb brushing her thigh under the table. "Then here's to forever."
Ginny picked up her mug and clinked it against his. "To forever."
Valerius looked up, mouth full of pancake. "What's forever?"
Ginny smiled at him. "You'll understand one day."
Blaise nodded. "But not yet."
The boy nodded seriously, then returned to his breakfast, humming to himself.
The grown‑ups didn't speak again. They didn't need to.
The light shifted through the window, soft and gold, catching on the steam that rose from their mugs. It was a quiet morning, imperfect and real. The kind of peace people like them weren't supposed to have, but somehow did anyway.
And in that small moment, surrounded by crumbs and sunlight and the faint sound of a child laughing, Ginny realised they'd already kept their promise in the only way that mattered.
They were still here.
Together.
Alive.
Notes:
Hey lovelies.
Just a quick heads-up before we go any further. The next chapter contains major emotional distress, child endangerment, and the death of a beloved character.
I know some of you read for comfort, and I respect that with my whole heart. If you're not in a place to handle grief, loss, or violence involving children, feel free to skip ahead when the time comes.
You won't miss anything plot-crucial that won't be gently recapped later. Your well-being comes first.
Take care of yourselves. Seriously.