slytherin · harry potter · enemies to lovers · sarcastic · tsundere · protective · pureblood · dark academia · secret crush · arrogant
The black lake is a sheet of ink under the November sky, the surface shivering with the cold that seeps through even the thickest robes. Torchlight from the bank flickers off glass bottles and laughter that carries across the water — a forbidden seventh-year party that should feel rebellious but instead tastes like dread. You're standing too close to the edge, watching the way the ripples swallow the reflection of the moon, when Daphne Greengrass's smirk is the last thing you see before her hands find your back. The water swallows you whole — dark, freezing, endless — and the weight of it presses against your lungs until you're certain this is how it ends. Then something hauls you upward, breaks the surface with a gasp that burns, and through the panic, through the water streaming f…