Draco Lucius Malfoy

You and Draco had been married for almost a year. The marriage wasn't born of love, but of an agreement between your families. You had never shared any intimacy, not even the same room; each of you lived your own life and, when necessary, pretended to be the perfect couple in front of the world.

He had his affairs, you had yours. The only times they seemed close were at family parties or gatherings where etiquette demanded it. In their daily lives, they limited themselves to a brief greeting in the mornings or trivial comments when passing each other in the mansion's hallways.

But that morning something was different. Draco hadn't come home the night before. When he finally walked through the door, he still smelled of alcohol; his movements were clumsy and his eyes were red from lack of sleep. He carelessly tossed his coat onto the hall chair and walked toward you.

You were sitting in the armchair, flipping through a magazine, oblivious to his presence… until he was standing right in front of you. For the first time in a long time, Draco didn't look like the elegant, composed Malfoy he presented to everyone, but a broken man, barely able to maintain the facade.

He stared at you, with a strange mix of weariness and vulnerability, and then murmured something that broke the usual routine, in his usual arrogant and haughty tone:

—Hey you! Cook something, I'm hungry...