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Chapter Text

Draco Malfoy awoke on his eighteenth birthday with a hangover, a parched throat, and something unfamiliar burning on his skin.

For a brief moment, he thought it was just residual shame from last night’s birthday dinner—hosted, rather tragically, by Pansy and Blaise and featuring a truly lethal champagne cocktail called The Soulstriker. But when he rolled onto his side and the scratch of the bedclothes brushed against his ribs, he knew.

He scrambled upright, kicked the covers off, and yanked up his shirt. There, curling in sharp, ink-black script just beneath his ribcage, were the words:

“Of course it’s you. Bloody typical.”

Draco stared at them.

Then he let out a long, slow groan and flopped back on the bed like a man who’d just been sentenced to death by sarcasm.

It was official. The universe hated him.

Soulmarks—those mystical, often unhelpful snippets of your soulmate’s first words to you—were supposed to be romantic. Mysterious. Longed for.

Not… whatever this was.

He turned to glare at the empty bedroom. “Well, happy birthday to me.”

---

Narcissa Malfoy sipped her tea with suspicious calm when Draco appeared at breakfast, scowling and tugging his robes uncomfortably around his middle.

“I take it you’ve received your mark,” she said lightly.

He gave her a flat look. “Yes.”

She offered a knowing smile. “What does it say?”

“Something stupid.”

“Oh, darling. They all are.” She took a sip, then added, “Your father’s said ‘Move. You’re standing on my cloak.’”

Draco paused. “That explains… so much, actually.”

Narcissa merely smiled, serene.

---

By noon, Draco had locked himself in the library with three books on soulmark history and a blank roll of parchment titled:
“Probable Soulmate Candidates – DOOM LIST”

He began with a sensible question:
Who do I know that would react to me being their soulmate with mild horror and unrelenting sarcasm?

The quill scratched furiously:

Potter (Merlin help me)

Theo Nott (but he’s far too chill)

Granger?? (No. No. Brain bleach.)

Blaise (but he’d just say “of course it’s me” like a compliment)

Pansy (already dated. Disaster. Unlikely.)

That rude French barista in Diagon—

He sighed, threw the quill down, and slumped in his chair.

None of this helped.

The mark didn’t shimmer when he met new people. It didn’t glow. It didn’t sing.

All it did was sit on his side, mocking him.

“Of course it’s you. Bloody typical.” He muttered it under his breath, mimicking a drawl he couldn’t quite place.

It was familiar. It was. But from where?

---

Later that night, curled up on the sitting room sofa with a half-finished cup of tea, Draco had a moment of terrible inspiration.

He shot up, knocking the tea over, and bolted for the Floo.

“Spinner’s End!” he shouted, green flames licking at his heels.

If anyone could help him figure this mess out, it was the most emotionally constipated, magically gifted man he knew.

Severus Snape.

Chapter Text

Severus Snape had precisely three rules for his post-war life:

1. No students.

2. No social calls.

3. No Malfoys.

The universe, as ever, found this hilarious.

The Floo roared to life with no warning, belching out green fire and ash as Draco Malfoy stumbled gracelessly into his sitting room, dusting soot off his otherwise immaculate robes.

“Severus,” Draco began, panting slightly. “It’s an emergency.”

Snape blinked once. Slowly. Then turned back to his book.

“You’re not on fire,” he said. “This hardly qualifies.”

Draco collapsed into an armchair like a man who’d just survived a duel. “Emotionally, I am.”

“That’s not an emergency, that’s a Tuesday.”

---

“Look, I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t serious,” Draco huffed. “You’re the most knowledgeable person I know on obscure magical phenomena.”

“Flattery won’t work.”

“It wasn’t flattery. It was a fact. You’re unpleasant, antisocial, and frighteningly intelligent. I need your brain.”

Snape sighed, setting the book aside. “Merlin save me. What, precisely, do you need my brain for?”

Draco stood and started pacing. “It’s my soulmark. It showed up this morning. It's—it's awful.”

Snape’s brow furrowed. “Define ‘awful.’”

“It says: ‘Of course it’s you. Bloody typical.’”

Snape went very, very still.

“…I see,” he said at last.

“You don’t see, Severus! It sounds like the beginning of a divorce, not a lifelong bond. Who starts a love story like that?”

Snape didn’t answer. Mainly because he’d said those exact words two days ago—to Draco. After he knocked a jar of powdered asphodel off a shelf while ranting about soulmarks and how they were “a glorified magical tattoo for the emotionally desperate.”

“Are you certain the words haven’t been misinterpreted?” Snape asked, very carefully. “The font, perhaps. A trick of the light.”

Draco looked personally offended. “It’s not written in bloody Elder Futhark, Severus. It’s in English. Gothic, maybe, but still English. And it’s unmistakable.”

Snape pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why, exactly, have you come to me?”

“Well, aside from your sparkling personality—” Draco ignored the warning glare “—I need help identifying who the mark is from. Surely there’s a spell for tracking magical imprints or verbal resonance or something.”

“You want to cast a trace spell on a soulmark?” Snape asked, horrified.

Draco tilted his head. “Is that bad?”

“It’s deeply unethical. And illegal in four departments of the Ministry.”

“Oh.” Draco paused. “What if we don’t tell them?”

Snape stood abruptly and walked to the shelves. “I am not committing a felony because you don’t like your destiny.”

“I don’t dislike my destiny,” Draco muttered, following him. “I dislike that it sounds like my soulmate already regrets the decision.”

Snape’s back was to him, but his hands had gone white on the bookshelf.

Draco sighed dramatically. “Fine. We’ll do this the boring way. Old-fashioned magical deduction. Process of elimination. I'll make a list.”

“Gods help us,” Snape said under his breath.

---

Twenty minutes later, Draco was lounging in Snape’s armchair, gleefully dictating names while Snape pretended to be deeply absorbed in a very outdated journal on wandless spellcraft.

“So far, I’ve got: Potter—”

“No.”

“Granger—”

“Absolutely not.”

“Theo—”

“Doesn’t speak with enough emotional conviction.”

“Madam Rosmerta—”

Snape turned his head slowly.

Draco smirked. “What? She’s aged well.”

Snape sighed the sigh of a man who had seen too much, too young.

Draco leaned back. “You’re unusually invested in eliminating people, Severus.”

“I simply have taste.”

“Hmm.” Draco tapped the quill against his lips. “What about you?”

Snape’s head snapped up.

“Me?” he repeated, and if Draco had been paying closer attention, he might have noticed the slight edge to his voice.

Draco shrugged. “You’re sarcastic. You’re familiar. And you’re certainly bitter enough to call fate ‘bloody typical.’”

Snape’s expression froze somewhere between horror and disdain.

Then, smoothly: “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Right. Of course.” Draco snorted. “Imagine being stuck with me forever.”

Snape turned away so quickly Draco didn’t catch the strange flicker in his expression.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “Imagine that.”

Chapter Text

Draco Malfoy, despite all evidence to the contrary, considered himself a logical man.

Which was why he spent the next week interrogating everyone he'd ever had a remotely sarcastic interaction with—as if he were conducting interviews for the world's most awkward job posting:
“Now Hiring: My Soulmate. Must be emotionally unavailable, dry-witted, and vaguely insulting.”

---The Leaky Cauldron (unfortunately)

Harry Potter blinked at him over his pint of butterbeer.

“You think I might be your soulmate?”

Draco looked extremely pained. “Look, Potter, I’m not accusing you. I’m eliminating you.”

Harry sipped his drink slowly. “Wow. I feel so cherished.”

Draco groaned. “You’re not the one with a snarky tattoo on his ribs that sounds like a hungover divorcee. Can we move this along?”

Harry held up his hands. “Fine, fine. What does it say?”

Draco muttered, “‘Of course it’s you. Bloody typical.’”

Harry burst out laughing.

“Very helpful, Potter.”

“No, sorry, it’s just—you know, that sounds exactly like something Snape would say.”

Draco went rigid. “What.”

Harry blinked. “You know—he used to say that every time I entered a room. ‘Of course it’s you. Bloody typical.’ Like clockwork.”

Draco stared at him, horrified. “You’re joking.”

“Wish I were. He hated me with style.”

Draco stood up abruptly, knocking into a waitress. “I have to go.”

“Wait, you think—? No, Malfoy, you’re not seriously—?”

But Draco was already out the door.

---Malfoy Manor

Lucius Malfoy sipped a glass of firewhisky and stared at his only son like one might observe an untrained Crup chewing on a priceless rug.

“You think Snape is your soulmate?” he asked, after Draco breathlessly summarized his latest theory.

Draco rubbed his temples. “No. Maybe. I don’t know.”

Lucius swirled his glass. “He is old. Gruff. Deeply unpleasant.”

“Is this helping?”

Lucius took another sip. “I’m just saying. He reads Dostoevsky. For fun.”

Draco groaned. “Father, please.”

Lucius regarded him thoughtfully. “Then again, your mother did call me an ‘unbearable, preening bastard’ the first time we met. And here we are.”

“That’s... oddly comforting.”

“I do what I can.”

Lucius set down his drink, suddenly serious. “But if it is him, Draco—you’ll have to be the one to do something about it. You know how he is.”

“Emotionally catatonic?”

Lucius nodded solemnly. “Just like my side of the family.”

--- Grimmauld Place (a Mistake)

“Your soulmate might be who?” asked Pansy, looking like Christmas had come early.

“I said might, Pans. Not is.”

“Draco. Darling. Please. If it’s Snape, I’ll throw you a wedding myself. I’ve always said you need someone more terrifying than you to keep you grounded.”

Blaise looked up from the sofa, lazy grin spreading. “Imagine the family dinners. You and Severus brooding over wine while Narcissa makes passive-aggressive toasts.”

Theo added, “Honestly, you could do worse.”

“I have done worse,” Draco muttered. “Remember Marcus Flint?”

Pansy shuddered. “Please. I’m still in therapy.”

---

Draco returned to Spinner’s End with a stack of books, two bottles of elf-made wine, and a half-baked plan to prove once and for all that Snape was not his soulmate—so he could stop thinking about the possibility every time the man tilted his head just so or said his name in that low, dangerous tone like a spell.

Snape opened the door, saw Draco, and sighed.

“You again.”

Draco smirked.

“You know,” he said, brushing past him, “at this rate, it’s starting to feel… inevitable.”

Snape didn’t respond.

But his fingers tightened minutely on the doorframe.

Chapter Text

Draco Malfoy was not a Gryffindor. He did not charge blindly into danger, nor did he dramatically throw himself at emotional cliffs.

No—Draco Malfoy plotted, schemed, and executed.

Which was why, rather than outright ask Severus Snape if he was his soulmate (again), Draco had instead begun laying a series of carefully placed verbal traps. He called them:
Operation Verbal Ambush: How to Trick a Gruff Former Professor into Accidentally Declaring You His One True Love.

So far, it was not going well.

---

Trap 1: The Simulated Chance Encounter

Draco casually loitered outside Snape’s private potions storeroom for a solid twenty minutes before Snape appeared, robes swirling, as always, like the inside of a very judgmental storm cloud.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Draco said, voice bright.

Snape raised a brow. “You’re blocking my door.”

Draco stepped aside. “Of course it’s you,” he said, exaggeratedly.

Snape froze.

Draco’s heart thudded.

Snape’s eyes narrowed.

“Bloody typical,” Draco muttered, under his breath.

Snape blinked. Slowly. Dangerously.

“Have you taken leave of your senses, Mr. Malfoy?”

Draco deflated. “Just checking something.”

Snape swept into the storeroom without another word.

Draco added a sad little “X” to his mental scorecard.

---

Trap 2: The Potion Disaster

Draco burst into Snape’s sitting room mid-afternoon, waving a singed piece of parchment and wearing what looked like soot and shame.

“I tried to recreate a truth serum,” he declared, coughing smoke. “There was… an incident.”

Snape didn’t look up from his book. “And you lived.”

“I know! Bloody typical, right?”

Still nothing.

Draco stared at him. “Come on. Of course it’s me? Doesn’t that ring any bells?”

Snape looked up. “You’ve come to set yourself on fire again?”

“No!”

Snape returned to his book.

Draco left five minutes later, hair smelling of burnt lavender and disappointment.

---

Trap 3: The Flirtation Escalates

By the third attempt, Draco dropped subtlety altogether.

He sauntered into Snape’s study wearing a high-collared dark green shirt that was just sheer enough in candlelight to be either fashion or flirtation.

Snape looked up and immediately glared.

“Is there a reason you look like a Slytherin-themed harlot?”

Draco grinned. “You noticed. How flattering.”

Snape muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like “Merlin smite me.”

“Thought you might appreciate the view.”

“I don’t.”

“Liar.”

Snape stood so abruptly his chair screeched. “Mr. Malfoy—”

Draco stepped forward, just once, daring. “You can call me Draco, you know. We’re adults. Colleagues, almost.”

Snape stared at him like one stares at a ticking time bomb in a crowded room.

Then he turned and fled to the next room.

Spinner’s End, Later

Blaise’s voice crackled through the Floo.

“You tried to seduce him by quoting his own lecture notes?”

Draco groaned. “It was supposed to be romantic!”

“‘You must respect the volatility of essence of wormwood’ is not romantic.”

“I panicked!”

Pansy’s voice chimed in. “Draco, dear. You’re going to have to do something bold.”

“I am being bold!”

“No, you're being deeply unhinged, which is adorable but not effective.”

Theo added, “Have you considered just telling him you want to jump his robes?”

There was a long pause.

“…I think I need to regroup.”

---Snape’s Sitting Room, Again

Snape had officially run out of patience, which was an impressive feat considering he’d once taught Neville Longbottom how to stir aconite.

He looked up from his desk to find Draco lying on the rug in front of the fireplace, shirt untucked, one hand dramatically across his forehead.

“Is this some new phase of magical delirium?” Snape asked.

“I’m practicing dying tragically,” Draco said.

“Must you do it here?”

“Thought you’d want front row seats.”

Snape muttered something that might have been a curse and turned back to his papers.

After a beat, Draco added softly, “You know, you could just say it.”

“Say what?”

Draco looked at him. Really looked.

“‘Of course it’s you. Bloody typical.’ Just say it. Then I’ll know.”

Snape was silent. Tense. Still.

But he didn’t say it.

Draco exhaled. “Right. Thought I’d try.”

He got up and left without slamming the door.

Snape stared after him, a fist clenched tightly in his robes, the echo of those words—of course it’s you—burning behind his teeth.

Chapter Text

Draco Malfoy had never been known for his restraint.

But after three failed attempts to seduce a man who treated romantic advances like an invasive species, he had to admit: Plan Flirt-Until-He-Caves was not yielding results.

Which was why he, inexplicably, found himself showing up at Spinner’s End the following Tuesday with… soup.

“You’re ill,” he said by way of greeting, shoving a steaming bowl into Snape’s hands.

Snape blinked. “No, I’m not.”

“You look ill.”

“I always look like this.”

Draco paused. “...Yes, well, that’s what concerned me.”

Snape sighed, but sat down anyway.

Draco sat across from him, watching like a hawk as Snape reluctantly sampled the soup.

“Did you hex this?”

“No.”

“Is there Veritaserum in it?”

“Tempting, but no.”

Snape stared suspiciously at the bowl. “Then what, exactly, is your angle?”

Draco shrugged, trying for casual. “Can’t I simply bring a man soup without it being a grand gesture?”

Snape looked him over. “No.”

---

Later That Evening

Draco wandered the shelves of Snape’s sitting room, trailing his fingers along the dusty spines. “You’ve read all these, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Even An Empirical Analysis of Thestral Bone Powder in Post-Mortem Charms?”

“Twice.”

“Merlin.” Draco whistled. “Your love life must be thriving.”

Snape muttered something that sounded like “It was, until you showed up.”

Draco turned, smirking. “That sounds dangerously close to flirting.”

“It wasn’t.”

“You’ll notice,” Draco said, sauntering closer, “I haven’t tried to seduce you all evening.”

“You brought soup.”

“I was being nurturing. There’s a difference.”

Snape’s eyes flicked up to meet his. For a moment, the air between them felt… tight. Dense with something unsaid.

“I’m not playing anymore,” Draco said quietly.

Snape didn’t answer.

Draco leaned forward, voice lower. “I know it’s you.”

Snape turned away, jaw tightening. “You don’t know anything.”

“I do. I remember. That night in the potions lab—I spilled something, you snapped, and said exactly what’s written on my side.”

Snape’s voice was thin, brittle. “Coincidence.”

Draco stepped closer. “You’ve known all this time.”

Snape looked up, and for the first time, there was no sneer—just exhaustion. Grief, maybe. Or guilt.

“I didn’t want it to be me,” he said quietly. “I didn’t want to ruin it for you.”

Draco’s chest clenched. “You didn’t ruin anything.”

“You deserve someone kind. Someone with a future. Someone unburdened.”

Draco reached for his hand. “You’re not a burden, Severus.”

Snape stared down at their hands, but didn’t pull away.

“You’re a choice,” Draco said. “And I’m choosing you.”

---

Later That Night

Draco didn’t stay over, though Snape offered a tight, halting invitation that sounded like he was asking him to walk into a cursed forest.

But when Draco left, he did so with something lighter in his chest.

And Snape, left alone with cold soup and an unread book, touched his ribs absentmindedly—where he’d felt the warm tingle of magic years ago—and finally admitted to himself, just barely:

He wanted to be chosen.

Even now.

Even like this.

Chapter Text

Severus Snape had spent the better part of two decades building walls so high even his own emotions couldn’t find the door.

But ever since Draco Malfoy started showing up with soup, smugness, and hope, those walls had begun to creak.

He noticed it in little things: the way Draco’s voice lingered after he left, how the fire seemed colder without his commentary, how the scent of his cologne clung to Snape’s armchair.

Most damning of all: he’d begun looking forward to Thursdays.

Draco always came on Thursdays.

Spinner’s End, Thursday Night

Draco arrived without warning, as usual, but this time he carried no soup, no books, no seductive trap in the form of a half-buttoned shirt.

Just… himself.

He flopped onto Snape’s sofa like he belonged there. “I’ve been thinking.”

Snape, from his armchair, made a noise like a reluctant swamp toad.

Draco pressed on. “About soulmates. And fate. And whether it’s all a load of dragon dung or not.”

Snape lifted an eyebrow. “A revelation.”

“I’m serious,” Draco said. “Because the mark—mine, yours—it’s not the point, is it? It just starts the conversation. We decide what happens next.”

Snape didn’t answer. Couldn’t.

Draco leaned back and stared at the ceiling. “If it’s a choice, I choose you. Even if you’re infuriating. Even if you insist on wearing those terrible charcoal waistcoats.”

Snape looked down at said waistcoat, then back at Draco with an expression somewhere between indignation and fondness.

“You’re absurd.”

Draco smirked. “Takes one to know one.”

---

Later That Night

The silence between them had shifted. It was no longer sharp or brittle, but soft, tentative.

Draco stood to leave—too early, Snape thought, and hated himself for thinking it.

At the door, Draco paused. “Do you want me to stop?”

Snape blinked. “Stop what?”

“Trying. Hoping. Wanting you.”

Snape opened his mouth. Closed it. Then, quietly:

“No.”

Draco inhaled, like he hadn’t realized he was holding his breath.

“I want you to kiss me,” he said, plainly.

Snape went still.

“Not because of the mark,” Draco added. “Because you want to.”

Silence stretched between them, heavy and crackling.

Then, slowly—deliberately—Snape crossed the room.

He reached for Draco’s face with the cautious reverence of someone touching something fragile and long-denied. His thumb brushed Draco’s cheek, then jaw.

And then—finally—he kissed him.

It wasn’t practiced or perfect.

It was hesitant. A little rough.

But it was real.

Draco leaned into it, soft and certain, and Snape let himself fall—just a little.

When they broke apart, Draco’s voice was a whisper: “Bloody typical.”

Snape’s eyes narrowed, amused. “Don’t start.”

Chapter Text

The morning after the kiss, Draco Malfoy woke up with a spring in his step and a wholly inappropriate grin on his face for someone who had spent the evening lip-locked with Severus Snape.

He had not, technically, stayed the night. He’d let Snape stew in his emotional aftermath like a dignified gentleman and gone home, humming to himself and floating up the staircase at Malfoy Manor with the grace of a besotted idiot.

Unfortunately, he’d floated directly into his mother.

--

Malfoy Manor, Breakfast

Narcissa raised one perfectly arched brow as Draco poured himself coffee.

“You’re smiling.”

“I am.”

“You’re humming.”

“I am.”

“You’re smiling and humming before noon.”

Draco paused. “…Yes.”

Narcissa sipped her tea, studying him like a potions puzzle. “Did you sleep with someone?”

“No!”

A beat.

“…Not yet.”

Her brow climbed higher.

“Mother,” he warned.

She merely smiled. “Well, I suppose it was bound to happen eventually.”

---

Grimmauld Place, Later That Day

Pansy stared at him, hands clasped over her mouth, vibrating with barely contained glee.

“You kissed him?!”

“Yes.”

“You initiated it?!”

“No. He did.”

“Oh my Gods, I owe Theo ten galleons.”

From the corner, Theo smirked. “Told you. Snape has too much repression to not be hiding soulmate-level pining.”

Blaise leaned back on the sofa. “So... what now?”

Draco shrugged, trying very hard to look casual. “Now we date, I suppose.”

Pansy blinked. “You suppose?”

“Alright, I hope.”

Theo added, “You realize this means you’re going to have to deal with Snape… snuggling.”

Draco’s face went momentarily blank. “...I’m sorry. What?”

Pansy patted his knee. “You brought this on yourself, darling.”

---

Spinner’s End, Same Evening

Meanwhile, across town, Severus Snape was having a quiet breakdown.

He hadn’t slept.

He’d reorganized his potions cabinet twice. Alphabetically. Then by toxicity. Then by likelihood of being weaponized against him.

He’d also read the same page of Magical Etiquette for Problematic Soulmates six times and retained none of it.

The problem wasn’t the kiss itself.

The problem was how much he wanted it to happen again.

And how much worse that was than denying it ever happened at all.

---

Later That Night

When Draco returned to Spinner’s End that evening—per usual, without invitation—he found Snape seated stiffly in an armchair, clutching a book like a shield.

“Did you come to gloat?” Snape asked, without looking up.

“I came,” Draco said, slipping into the chair opposite him, “to see if you were still pretending last night didn’t happen.”

Snape didn’t answer.

Draco leaned forward, elbows on knees, suddenly more serious.

“Because I know you, Severus. And I know what you’re doing. You’re thinking of reasons why this is a bad idea, and all the reasons why you are a bad idea.”

Snape closed his eyes. “You deserve someone whole.”

“I don’t need whole,” Draco said softly. “I need someone who sees me. Who listens when I ramble about Thestral taxonomy. Who makes sarcastic comments when I’m being dramatic.”

“…You are always being dramatic.”

“And you always notice.” Draco smiled. “So you can either keep pretending we’re nothing, or you can admit you care and let me care back.”

Snape was silent for a long time.

Then, finally: “I haven’t done this before.”

Draco blinked. “Romance?”

Snape hesitated. “Letting myself be wanted.”

Draco’s chest tightened, but he covered it with a grin.

“Well,” he said, standing. “Lesson one. If you kiss someone like that and then go radio silent, you are absolutely getting hexed.”

Snape’s lip twitched. “Duly noted.”