womenstennis
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- Parts 11
Sunday Louise Kincaid never belonged at Hogwarts.
Not really.
The only daughter of a Kentucky folk-witch and an American soldier stationed in England, Sunday grew up with holler charms, Bible hymns turned to spells, and the drawl of mountain songs in her bones. When her letter arrived on her eleventh birthday, she stepped into a castle of stone and shadows that was never built for a girl like her-an Appalachian witch with dirt under her fingernails and coal in her pocket.
For six years she kept her head down. A Hufflepuff with sharp eyes and sharper instincts, Sunday avoided trouble, avoided gossip, avoided Draco Malfoy most of all. Not because she hated him-no, that would have been easy-but because she had always seen something behind his polished sneer. Something dangerous. Something broken. Something she wasn't supposed to touch.
Now it's their seventh year.
Voldemort has risen. The Carrows rule the school. The halls echo with screams and silence.
And Sunday can't avoid Draco Malfoy anymore.
He's not the boy she remembers. He's thinner. Paler. His silver eyes hollow, his hands shaking as if carrying a weight too heavy for seventeen. He's marked now-Death Eater-and everyone knows which side he stands on. But when Sunday looks at him, really looks, she sees the truth: he's unraveling.
What begins as stolen glances in the library grows into whispered words in the dark.
What begins as silence grows into something that feels like salvation.
But salvation is dangerous. Forbidden. Impossible.
As war bleeds into the walls of Hogwarts, the two of them are pulled into a secret tether of desperation and want. Every step closer is a risk. Every kiss is betrayal.
When the final battle comes, Sunday will stand and fight.
And Draco will face the question that has haunted him all year:
When the smoke clears, will he walk back to the parents who beckon him-
or toward the girl who taught him there's more than ashes waiting at the end of the world?