Never Bet A Snake | Draco Malfoy

"Perhaps it would have been kinder never to know love at all than to know it just long enough to lose it."

Ophelia Blackthorne has spent years learning how to keep herself hidden.

A Slytherin from a family whose name carries more secrets than affection, she knows better than most that trust is rarely given without a price.

Draco Malfoy, unfortunately, has been given two very good reasons to see her.

The first is an order from his father. The second - a wager. Not quite in that order.

All he has to do is earn Ophelia's trust before January. Get close enough to learn what the Blackthornes are hiding, report what he finds, collect his winnings, and walk away.

Ophelia, however, is not nearly as oblivious as he would like.

So when Draco begins constructing something that resembles trust, she decides to construct one of her own.

He thinks she is beginning to believe him.
She thinks he is beginning to reveal himself.

Neither considers what might happen if two people pretending to trust one another accidentally stop pretending.

After all, a lie is perfectly harmless so long as everyone remembers which part was invented.

Isn't it?