Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Harry was used to a lot of stupid things happening to him.

In fact, it was almost an expectation now that he’d stumble into at least one life-threatening event within the ten month period he was at Hogwarts. Well, that and ruining the career (or life) of the DADA teacher that year. Though, another trend that he’s noticed is that the one expected life-threatening event has started to increase to two, three, four, bloody fifty with each year that has passed.

And now.

Now .

With this stupid, bloody, impossible tournament that he didn't even want to be a part of in the first place, the number has increased ten-fold.

Why did it have to be dragons ?

He was bloody fourteen and trying to dodge a giant, flying, fire-breathing lizard that wanted to, what, eat him? Burn him alive? Both? It didn’t matter now , he survived with minimal injuries and got that annoying golden egg, so he didn’t have to stress or think about it anymore, but it was the principle of the matter.

(He’s purposely ignoring how there were a few words, sounds, growls that the dragon had made that Harry had understood. It was heavily accented, almost like Krum, but the hissed words connected and smoothed themselves out if Harry focused enough on them. But it didn’t matter, he was ignoring it, enough people hated him this year already and he did not want to bring back the whole Heir to Slytherin fiasco.)

So, he was ignoring half the stuff in his life and was focusing on all the good.

Hermione, the saint that she is, had helped him catch up on all the school work he’d been ignoring after figuring out he’d been fighting a dra- nope ignoring -so school wasn’t stressing him out as much anymore. Ron and him were talking again, after a bit of grovelling from the ginger because he’s forgiving to a fault but he does have some standards. But after a verbal and written apology, they're on good terms and Ron’s back to defending him with ludacris amounts of viciousness against anyone who even side-eyes him. Another good thing that he hadn’t quite expected to happen was getting closer to Neville, Ginny and a Ravenclaw girl named Luna. Ginny had taken Ron’s place in defending him when the hate against him got louder and closer towards physical, getting into the people’s faces and spewing insults and venom that Harry was thankful he wasn’t on the other side of. Through her, he ended up meeting Luna, a girl who got some sort of protective nature in him to burn, to strike out against people who relentlessly bullied her even though he wouldn't do it for himself. There was a moment, about a week ago, where Ginny was snarking back against a sixth year Ravenclaw after saying some vague, cruel comment about his mom. Harry was so used to it at that point that it just rolled off his back, hell, if he could ignore the Dursleys’ for years then this was nothing. However, the Ravenclaw decided that the best response would be to call Ginny a bitch and Luna a failed experiment, and, well, he doesn’t quite remember what he did in response, what he said, but Ginny and Neville hadn’t been able to stop laughing to themselves and the guys tears since. 

Now Neville brought a quiet acceptance that Harry hadn’t quite experienced before. Whenever Harry needed to escape from the sneers, the glares, the badges, the-the everything , he would go hide up in a little windowed archive towards the Hufflepuff common room. He had needed to levitate himself and his things up, since it was closer to the ceiling than the floor, but it was wide enough to sit comfortably with his back against the side of the arch and his legs stretched out across the stone, his bags, books, whatever sitting against the glass. Neville had found him there, somehow, about two weeks into hiding there once a day and he didn’t ask a single question, didn’t give him a look, nothing, just levitated himself up there as well and lounged himself opposite of Harry in the same position, ankles and feet crossing over each other.

It continued like that for a day, a week, a month, then two and throughout that time a different kind of friendship formed, a safe one. There were no expectations, no status, no dangerous history, or trauma bond. It was quiet, soft, normal, safe . A friendship with whispered secrets and wordless understanding. Neville is the only person he’s told that he almost got sorted into Slytherin, that he sometimes wonders if he’s preventing himself from being completely truthful with himself and everyone else because he’s afraid that it’ll prove that he was always meant to be there. 

Another aspect of their friendship is the ability to be truthful and still be compassionate. It’s something that Neville has had to teach Harry, that being honest and blunt doesn’t automatically mean cruelty and sharpness. The proof was how Neville had responded to his confession, not looking away from his Herbology essay as he spoke, ‘ So what if you’re a Slytherin, Harry? It doesn’t make you any less of a Gryffindor, and it doesn’t change who you are or who you want to be. ’

Harry had paused for a moment, circled the words over in his mind, waited a breath so Neville could continue.

‘You know, sometimes, I’m afraid that the sorting hat was wrong about me too.’

‘Really?’

A nod, he bit at the edge of his lip, tilted his head, squinted at the paper and elaborated, ‘I’m not very brave. Or very loud. Not very Gryffindor if you ask me.’

‘Well, if you ask me,’ Harry took a breath, turned the page of his Charms textbook and decided to take a page out of Neville’s book, ‘you’re just brave quietly. You’re not prideful or attention seeking with it, that’s the only real difference. And you’re loyal, Nev, I think that’s the most important Gryffindor trait, yeah?’

Neville smiled then, ‘Coming from the ultimate Slythador, I’m flattered.’

‘...I think I’d rather you call me a slur honestly.’

That earned him a heel to the shin and the amount of curses that left his mouth would’ve scandalised even Ron, but all Neville did was laugh at him, with him.

So.

Some bad, some potential death, but a lot of good as well.

Obviously, of course, that’s when the wizarding gods or Merlin or whoever decide to throw a wrench into his day.

At seven in the morning.

Angelina was trying to kill the entire Gryffindor team, he decided then, because there was no bloody quidditch this year because of the tournament, and as much as he loved it, loved playing, loved being outside, he didn’t want to be doing practice drills. Not a seven in the morning before a full school day, not on a Friday, and not in the bloody rain. There was mud in his hair, under his nails, and probably in his mouth from when George accidentally grabbed onto him to prevent slipping on the wet grass, which only led to them both being soaked with rain, grass, and mud and Fred laughing hysterically at the two of them.

That wasn’t bad though, not really, not when he was used to the wet clothes and the cold and the grime from gardening or cleaning outside at the Dursleys’. 

What was a bit off was the pulling sensation in his gut, throwing him just slightly off balance at first but completely ruining his dexterity after a few minutes. It was like something was trying to drag him somewhere, similar to how Quirrell jinxed his broom in his first quidditch match, though it wasn’t as malicious or demanding.

Harry huffed, let go of the broom with one hand to press his hair back and out of his face, squinting at Angelina fifteen feet in front of him and trying to listen to her instead of the pulling.

Underline trying.

“Potter, are you listening?”

Hiding a grimace as the pull strengthened and moved him to the left, Harry gave a sheepish smile and shrugged, “Sorry, Ang, the rain is messing with my hearing some. What was it you said?”

She rolled her eyes at him, probably knowing he was absolutely lying through his teeth, but thankfully let it go since they weren’t practising for any upcoming game or competition, “Right, okay, what I was saying was I think we should practise you flying in between the twins while they’re passing the bludger back and forth. In a game, the other seeker wouldn't be able to follow you and the other players wouldn’t mess with you so you could focus more on the snitch.”

“If I manage to learn to dodge the bludger consistently.”

“You’ll be fine, mate, we won’t kill ya.” Fred winked at him and George followed suit with a smirk, twirling his bat in his hand.

Great.

“Great, I’m just oozing with confidence, so how do you want me to-” Something yanked at him and his broom shot forward a few feet, following his body.

“Potter?” Katie Bell, moved forward a few feet, arm held out like she was prepared to catch him if he threw himself off, “Are you alright?”

“Um-”

He tightened his hold on his broom, a white knuckle grip with aching, cold fingers, and he was holding his breath, like if he was tense and still then whatever the hold on him was would start to ignore him.

“Harry?” George moved closer then, going towards the other side of Bell, eyebrows pinched together in a way that was endearingly similar to his mom.

The wood around his hands was splintered slightly, probably from yanking it from where it was wedged on the tower, but the wood wasn’t as glossy as it was before, more worn in, more loved, but that was all Harry was able to focus on at the moment. The splintered wood, the air sitting painfully in his lungs, the raindrop falling from his nose and sliding down his exposed wrist, his heartbeat mixing with the sound of rain in his ears. 

Harry exhaled 

and he was flying.

Not with his broom, not with his wand, not with magic, or maybe it was magic, but whatever it was yanked him from his broom, from the sky and launched him, spiralling towards the castle.

“Bloody fucking -” The wind was whipping past him like he was in a dive for the snitch, the rain was cold bullets against his skin, his face, and-and oh god, he was heading towards a window. Closer and closer and, he can see the students through the glass, he’s going to hit the glass, be impaled, and die and everyone is going to be pissed that a fucking window offed the Boy Who Lived instead of bloody Voldemort, Merlin his parents died for nothing if this is how he’s going to go-

-the glass disappeared.

He blinked, sucked in a breath as he was pulled, unharmed through stone walls, doors, windows, corridors, round and round for seconds, minutes, hours, an eternity before Harry was in an empty corridor with a blank wall. No, wait, not blank, there…where the hell did that door-

The door opened and Harry was thrown into it, and within the few seconds before the pulling stopped and he was falling to the floor, he saw the room shift and change, a fireplace appearing from the wall, a lush blue couch, a coffee table, rugs, a kitchen table and chairs, bookshelves, and a canopy bed with sheer grey curtains and baby blue sheets.

Harry hit the ground, well a ground cushioned with random, colourful pillows, blankets, and quilts but the floor nonetheless. He stared up at the ceiling, watching dark, wooden arches shimmer and form across the surface and he took a moment to admire the beauty of it, he did love charms and transfiguration after all, before scrambling to his feet and taking his chance to get out of the room before the whatever came back.

One step, two, three…and the giant wooden door slammed close, fading slightly into the wall with a loud and definite click of a lock, the haunting sound echoing in his ears.

He stared at the door, soaking wet, mouth slightly agape, eyes wide, mouthing to himself, “ What the actual fuck? ”

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Theo was a lot of things and a morning person wasn’t one of them.

The Slytherin dorms were slightly beneath the lake, making it so that the sunlight was diluted by the time it reached their windows, but it was enough for Theo to realise that it was morning and immediately decide he didn’t want to deal with the day at all.

Someone was already awake in their room, probably Zabini since he was the only one that enjoyed starting the day with the sun, but thankfully he was quiet and respectful about it now. (That was probably because he wasn't in first year and Theo had cursed him to walk on his hands for twenty-four hours after waking him up at five-fifteen.) 

That was growth, yeah?

Though, there was something was tugging at his blankets, trying to pull it off from over his head and-

-nope.

“Zabini, if you’re trying to pull my comforter off of me right now, I’m going to switch your eyeballs and your teeth, so help me-”

“ Nott .” The tone itself was enough for Theo to stick his head out of his slowly moving blanket cocoon to glare at him as he spoke, watching him as Zabini stopped partway through buttoning his undershirt to stare at him, “The blanket isn’t moving.”

“Do you think I'm a bloody idiot? I can feel it-”

Malfoy stuck his head out of the curtains on his bed, “For the love of Merlin, Nott, you’re floating off of your bed. You’re the one moving.”

They stared at each other for a moment, their eyes darting back and forth over each other like they were trying to see if the other was being serious, but then Theo felt it, a pull at his chest, his sternum, squeezing over his heart and lungs.

Oh bloody hell .

“Someone is summoning me.”

Zabini stepped closer, forgetting about his shirt, “ Someone ? You mean you don’t know who could possibly have your blood or hair?”

Theo barely stopped himself from scoffing, choosing to focus on taking steady, even breaths instead of making any sudden movements. He’s not an idiot, he had made sure to teach himself a sustainability spell that would immediately destroy any traceable or usable DNA that left his person unless it was with his explicit consent. So no blood rituals, no polyjuice potion, and no summoning spell could be used against him.

Or, well, that should be the case.

And they all knew that.

Malfoy huffed, swung his legs around the side of the bed, ran a hand through his ungelled hair, “We all know it’s impossible for Nott to be summoned specifically. But what if someone is performing a spell where you just so happen to fill out the qualifications?”

His brows furrowed at both his words and the tightening of the spell over his body, it was getting stronger since he wasn’t actively moving with it, the spell sinking into his bones, his blood, the air in his lungs. 

How did summoning spells even work within the Hogwarts wards? He thought that without the ability to apparate within the wards then the spell wouldn't work, especially since most common summoning spells forced the being that was summoned to appear within a contained or warded space.

On the other hand, what qualifications could he possibly fill out?

And why is someone so desperate that they are willing to forcibly summon a person to them that can help?

His body jerked to the side, his blanket falling off completely, and Nott could feel the magic circling around his body, latching onto his limbs, and Theo realised in that moment that there was nothing that he could do to stop the spell now.

He blew out a breath, “Right. Okay, will one of you tell Professor Snape what is happening? And if I’m not back, tell the other professors as well, will you?”

He’s going to curse the ever-living hell out of the bastard, however they are, that’s doing this.

With that Theo relaxed his body, the hold over it he’s been subconsciously maintaining, and let the spell take over. A moment passed, then two, and then he was being tossed through the air, out the door, into the common room, out into the hallway, his body materialising in and out of a physical state whenever he needed to go through a wall, a window, a closed door. Then he was in a blank hallway in between the Hufflepuff dorms and the kitchen, watching as a large wooden door with metal accents appeared within the wall, then opened, and he was being tossed in.

Someone else was in there, but he couldn't quite tell who, couldn't see well enough between the blurriness and speed before that person called out a, “ Bloody fucking hell. ”

Huh, so they're probably not the one summoning him.

But that thought was quickly cut short when the spell disappeared from his body and he was sent flying and falling into the other person, the person cursed again and arms were around his back and cradling the back of his head (which doesn’t make any sense since Theo was currently landing on top of this person), and they collapsed against the cushioned ground.

The door locked behind him.

Theo realised multiple things at once then.

One: He was just yanked throughout the entire bloody castle, which means that everyone probably just saw this happen to him.

Two: He’s still in his pyjamas, the dark grey cotton pressing against his skin and the person beneath him.

Three: Theo is in the room of requirement. He doesn’t know how the spell knew where it was, how he got access to it, or how to get out of it, but he’s been looking for this place for the past three years and he was not going to pass up this opportunity, summoning be damned. 

Four: He was trapped in the room of requirement.

Five: He was trapped in the room of requirement with a Gryffindor quidditch player.

And six: The person he was trapped with, when he finally got his limbs to cooperate without magical aid to look down at the person, the boy beneath him, was Harry bloody Potter .

“Oh bloody hell.” Theo groaned and rolled over onto his back, pressing his hands into his face like maybe, if he forced himself into denial hard enough, everything would disappear.

There was movement beside him, like Potter was shifting into a sitting position, and then a tentative, “Nott, was it? Are you alright? Did you hit your head at all?”

“You-” He paused, swallowing the words that wanted to ask Potter how he knew him, they've never talked before and Theo made it a point to stay out of everyone’s business, “-yes. Yes, I’m alright. No, I didn’t hit my head. Did you?”

“Did I what?”

Theo moved the hands from his face to peer at Potter, watching the Gryffindor squinting at the glasses in his hands, fingers tracing over the edges, “Hit your head, Potter. I’m assuming you came from the quidditch field and that’s a lot farther to be taken then from where I was.”

He hadn’t been this close to Potter before, he thinks. Maybe in passing in the halls or on the other end of the long tables in the library, but now he was right there. Could touch him, if he wanted to, there was something there, itching underneath his skin, brewing in his blood and rattling his bones the longer he kept his eyes on him. Black strands of hair were falling over his eyes, over his nose, and curling at the edges of his ears and at his neck, and Theo couldn't tell at that moment what he wanted to do with that information, if he could do anything with it. 

There wasn’t an answer for a moment, maybe Potter had decided to ignore him then knowing that he wasn’t harmed, but then the boy blinked, shook his head slightly, “Oh, right, sorry. Uh, no, no I don’t think I hit my head. I just, like, moved through everything getting here, kind of like a ghost, ya know?”

Hm, okay, so it was probably the same spell that was used against him that brought Potter here as well.

“How long have you been in here?”

“About thirty seconds longer than you have. I was walking towards the door to see if I could, I don’t know, pry it open when you were thrown in.”

He sat up then, glanced at the door that was slightly embedded into the wall, “You were going to pry that open?”

Potter shot him a look, not unlike how Zabini does whenever someone says something absolutely ridiculous and he needs support in his judgement, and Theo saw that on the edge of his glasses there was a small crack. He seemed to notice it too then, and he immediately started glaring at the crack like it was the cause for everything wrong in the world.

“Right. Okay, Nott, do you have any better ideas on how to get us out of here?” He rose to his feet as he spoke, rubbing the back of his head with a wince as well.

“I thought you said you didn’t hit your head.” Theo got to his feet as well, slightly scowling at the boy in front of him as he watched him pause in his movements.

“Oh. Oh , no, no I didn’t, I swear. There’s just mud, like, caked in my hair right now and without the rain slowly washing it away I can feel it drying.”

He hummed then, glancing over Potter and, yes, he was covered in mud, his skin slightly pale, his hair, fingertips, and clothes dipping water on the rug beneath their feet, “Okay then…do you have any idea why you could've been summoned?”

“Summoned?” 

“ Yes Potter,” Did he not know what had happened or was he just taken and hoped for the best in the process, “We were both summoned here because we fit some sort of qualifications that the person who did the spell needed, and we can’t leave this area until we fulfil whatever is needed from us.”

Potter was blinking at him, before turning in a slow circle like he was inspecting the area that he was trapped in, then looked back at him with raised brows, “ Please tell me you’re fucking with me.”

“I’m not dignifying that with an answer. So, you don’t have a clue why you were summoned?”

A scoff and Potter rolled his eyes, “I mean it could be an attempt on my life or it could be Skeeter trying to weasel an interview out of me, but neither of those things explain you so…no I’ve got nothing.”

Theo paused, absorbed the words, and squinted, “You’re joking, right?”

Potter grinned, “I’m not dignifying that with an answer. But in all seriousness, I have absolutely no clue what’s going on here, so I’m relying on you to be the brains.”

Wonderful. 

“You’re willing to trust a Slytherin with that?” He couldn't stop the words from leaving his mouth even if he wanted to, and he watched as Potter simply raised a brow at him and then shrugged.

“Sure. Why not?”

“ Why not? That’s your response?”

“Well, what do you want me to say? ‘I don’t really have a choice in the matter, but I don’t care enough to get myself out of here, but I can trust that you do care about getting out of here, and I’m hoping you’ll let me leech off of your intelligence and success, please and thank you.’ There . Is that better?”

I-what?

“That- what ?”

“Perfect. Okay, I’m going to go-” He glanced around and then grinned as a closed area appeared in the far corner of the room, “-shower. Awesome, I’ll be back in just a few minutes to help. If you need my help, I don’t want to, like, assume that you’ll need my help but-you know what? I’m going.”

Bright eyes were darting back and forth between the new bathroom and Theo, like he couldn’t decide where he wanted to look, what was most important at that moment. The words, Potter’s words, were muddling and scrambling themselves in his mind, running around each other and refusing to settle into a consecutive sentence, leaving Theo desperately trying to figure out what should be his main focus at that moment as well.

Potter’s eyes were overwhelming, his brain settled on.

Theo didn’t have a chance to realise what that meant before Potter stepped away and was speed walking towards the bathroom, shutting and locking the door behind him.

Breathe in.

He could hear his heartbeat in his ears.

Breathe out. 

The silence echoed in the space around him, stretching over his skin and bringing him back to the solace that being alone always did. He swallowed, glanced around the room, and walked towards the bookshelves that were sitting in the corner behind the kitchen table. 

Books he could do, books he was comfortable with. Their inked words were old, faded, embedded into the paper and bound to be read, torn apart, debated against without the fear of surprise, of novelty. It was something stable, something that grabbed the scattered pieces of his mind and pulled it into a usable entity again.

Dragging his fingers carefully across the well-loved spines, Theo paused at a dark red one, the title on the spine was faded, the silver lines barely visible to him, until he slid it out of its spot and turned the front towards him.

The title read , ‘ What Does the Human Soul Call For? A Study of Magic, Humanity, Love, and Souls.’

Unlike all the other books on the shelves, this was the only one with no author, no research team, no description, nothing besides the title.

Theo glanced around the room, heard distantly that the shower had started, and made his way to settle into the velvet, soft sofa in front of the quietly crackling fireplace.

He thumbed open the cover and started onto the first page, eyes scanning over the cursive, informal words.

Time to put his, what did Potter call it, brains to good use.

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Somehow there was mud under his chin.

Which, truly, didn’t make any sense because he had landed on his back, so all the mud should be there, and sure there was some on his hands but he didn’t remember ever rubbing the skin where his neck met his chin so-

-whatever. It didn’t matter. What was most important right now was making sure he didn’t look like a disgusting, wet mop in front of Nott. Or, no, not just because of him because really Harry didn’t like feeling gross in general, but it’s important to look decent when first meeting someone, right?

Though ever looking better than a- skinny, ungrateful, dirty-blooded brat -might not be something he could ever possibly achieve, it was good to put in the effort, yeah?

So Harry peeled off his quidditch uniform, threw it in the laundry hamper beside the door (there was no need for one, but old habits die hard and he didn't have his wand on him), and glanced at the running shower to see what supplies he subconsciously magicked into existence.

He was in the room of requirement, he knew that much. In his panic before when he was being thrown around he couldn’t put the pieces together, but now that everything had settled, Neville and Luna’s conversation came back into the forefront of his mind. All three of them had a free moment together where Hermione was in Runes and the Weasleys were doing their weekly group writing to home, and the two of them were debating on where the location of the room could be.

‘There has to be some sort of ritual to reveal it, yeah? Or else everyone would have found it by now.’  

Luna had hummed, eyes unseeing towards the ceiling where she was probably eyeing something that neither of them could see, before responding to Neville ‘Maybe, or maybe Hogwarts hasn’t wanted to reveal it yet.’

Harry had glanced up, he was half listening half ignoring the potions essay he needed to write, but tuned in then, 'You talk about Hogwarts like it’s, I don’t know, alive?’   

‘Well, Hogwarts is magic and magic is alive, isn’t it Harry?’

He shook his head, stepped into the shower and ignored how her words had seemed almost accusatory towards him, well, no, like how her or Hermione or Ginny sounded when he should know something blindly obvious, but he hadn’t quite grasped it yet. 

There was steam steadily filling the bathroom, Harry realised as he started scrubbing the mud from his skin with a pale purple bar soap that smells faintly of lavender, then he tried to tackle his hair. There were a lot of products there that he’s never seen before but had heard of from Hermione, shampoo and conditioner that were used for curly hair and Harry knew, somehow, that there was more hair stuff for him to use after the shower sitting on the sink. He knew he had to have curly hair, he saw pictures of his father and he had curly hair and his hair looked the exact same, or it probably would if he ever took care of it; but with Petunia periodically cutting his hair so he looked less foreign and the bare bones showers that he’s been doing for years, there wasn’t much opportunity for hair maintenance. 

Until now, he supposes.

But his hair and body was now mud-free and he, on a whim, used the cinnamon vanilla body wash that had appeared when he was rinsing out the conditioner, so now he was warm, clean, and smelled good.

(Which was a combination that he hadn’t got to experience before, even at Hogwarts)

Harry couldn't help but smile a bit at the folded pyjamas sitting on the toilet seat, red and black plaid pants that were just a little too long for him, covering his grey, sock covered feet, and then there was a black graphic tee with the faded words David Bowie draped across the top. He paused then, pinching the bottom of the shirt between his fingertips, the material had been worn down, having been worn over and over and over again.

This was somebody else's.

But wh-

He lifted the neckline of the shirt up, ducking down and smelling it (because if this was someone’s shirt that the room stole then who knows the last time it's been washed) and being immediately struck by the smell of chocolate, old books, and faintly of whiskey. 

Oh.

This was Remus’s shirt. 

Oh.

The lavender soap, the cinnamon vanilla body wash, smells that had, for years, reminded him of what he imagined home would be like. He hadn’t known, really, what his parents looked like until Hagrid showed him pictures when they first met, and he hadn’t known what they sounded like until the dementors brought their final moments, their final words echoing into the front of his mind. He had those two things from them, and that was it. Harry didn’t know what holding his mother’s hand felt like, didn't know the sound of his father’s laughter, didn’t know what their skin felt like, if they’d be chronically warm or cold, didn’t know if he scrunched his nose like his mom or rolled his eyes like his dad.

He didn’t know what they smelled like. If it was true that a child’s parents smelled a certain way for them, if that would be the case for him.

But Harry could imagine, and he had. When he was locked - stuck, alone, trapped, forgotten - in his cupboard and all he had to entertain himself was the fantasy world he had created.

A world where his mom smelt like lavender and his father smelled like vanilla with a dash of cinnamon, and he would be surrounded by those smells for years, never knowing what it was like without them.

The room had-had-

Harry blinked several times, ignored how his eyes were burning, and slipped his glasses back on, deciding to also ignore how his heart squeezed in his chest and instead walked out of the bathroom with a cloud of steam, “Nott, dude, I’ve got to say that that might've been the best shower of my entire life.” 

Nott scowled slightly and peered at him from where he was sitting on the couch, talking to a house elf, “Did you just call me dude ?”

When the hell did a house-elf get here?

“Nevermind that, you didn’t tell me we had company,” The house-elf was a girl, he knew that much, and was glancing back and forth between him and Nott like she didn’t know who to turn her attention towards, her hands were wringing themselves together in a nervous frenzy from where they were laced behind her back. The movements, the anxiety, the apprehension, and unassuredness were so painstakingly familiar to him that Harry couldn’t help it when he sat down on the coffee table beside her and pushed the rush of questions he had to the backburner, “Hello there, I’m assuming you already know who I am, but it would be rude not to introduce myself, yeah? I’m Harry Potter, what’s your name?”

The elf blinked at him then, her hands falling to her sides, subtly wiping her hands off on the tunic she was wearing, “I-It is a pleasure to officially meet you, Mister Potter. My name is Jipsy, and I serve as a kitchen-elf in the castle.”

He made sure to smile then, soft and kind and genuine with no hint of an alternative meaning that Jipsy in her anxious mind could conjure up, “Right, Jipsy, it’s a pleasure to meet you as well. You can call me Harry if you’d like.”

There was an intake of breath beside him, like someone, obviously Nott, wanted to suck all the air out of the room and Jipsy’s eyes widened from where she was looking at him, “I-I’ve never …I wouldn’t…I shouldn’t-”

She was wringing her hands together again, almost like she was trying to scratch the skin off and Dobby punishing himself immediately came to his mind, and Harry’s eyes widened as well before he carefully set his hands on top of hers, making sure to keep his voice nice and soft as he spoke.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, I swear. I’m just not used to people being so formal with me, is all.” That seemed to settle her some and Harry took a chance, then, to see if he could ease some of the tension brewing from Nott beside him and some more anxiousness from Jipsy, “Can I tell you two a secret?”

Immediately, Jipsy nodded her head, “I won’t tell a soul, Mister Potter.”

Harry turned to Nott then, finally facing him for the first time since this whole conversation started. He was still sitting on the couch, a throw pillow set in his lap with an open book laying across it, and he had an expression on his face that Harry, for some strange reason, wanted to spend hours deconstructing. It was like he couldn't tell whether he wanted to furrow his brows together or raise them both, so it created a mixture where there was a slight wrinkle between his brows and yet the edge of one brow was raised. His jaw was clenched, like he was physically holding back what he wanted to say until he thought it completely through, and he ran his teeth over his bottom lip then before his jaw relaxed and he rolled his eyes.

“Well, I can’t really spill any secrets here, now can I?” Nott’s eyes bore into him then, the colour of clear, spring water and the sky before rain daring him to make his move.

So Harry did.

“I think talking to people is absolutely terrifying.”

Nott let out a sound that might've been a laugh, might've been a groan, might've been both, but Harry chose to ignore him and continue, “Yes, that sounds stupid, I know. But it's just…there's so many expectations and contingencies and-and with everyone it’s different, ya know? Like…you can’t be the same person, you have to choose whatever part of yourself that’ll work best with that person, and then you have to keep up with it all. It’s exhausting, and I’m constantly terrified of messing it all up.”

Jipsy looked solemn for a second, eyes and expression understanding, her hands were calm and still by her sides, “Humans are complicated.”

“Very.” Harry glanced up to Nott when he spoke, noting that the tension in his shoulders had relaxed some.

It was probably safe to start asking some questions.

“Speaking of complicated, Jipsy, how did you get in here? Nott said that it was warded.”

“Right.” Nott sat up, shifted the pillow and book from his lap, “I was just about to ask that when you so rudely interrupted.”

“ Rudely interrupted? Why do you talk like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like we’re in the seventeenth century.” 

He squinted then, and Harry had the vaguest ideas that he was trying to set Harry on fire with his mind. His eyes darting between Harry’s towel dried hair, his cracked glasses, and then his pyjamas with his eyebrow raising slightly at his shirt before turning his attention back to Jipsy, “Are you able to apparate in and out of these wards as well? Or were you simply trapped in here before the wards went up?”

Is he…is he just ignoring him?

She shook her head, “No, I wasn’t trapped in here Mister Nott, house-elves aren’t barred from wards like magic folk are. Master Dumbledore told me to find you two and let you know what was going on.” 

If Dumbledore knew where they were then why were they still there? Why wasn’t he trying to get them out? Was he not able to?

They glanced at each other then, and Harry knew that Nott was thinking the same thing he was.

“So…Dumb-sorry-if Headmaster Dumbledore knows where we are, is he not able to get us out?”

Jipsy looked down slightly, “Unfortunately not, Mister Potter. You see, after Mister Nott was taken, Professor Snape was made aware of the summoning ritual and informed the Headmaster. They soon found the makers of the ritual, two students, and they informed the Headmaster that they…messed up the ritual. It was supposed to do something with those two students but instead the ritual took you two.”

Two students ?

“What was the ritual?” Nott immediately followed up, leaning forward slightly so he was closer to the two of them.

Harry only realised it then how good Nott smelled.

Something earthy, something electrifying, something ancient, something dangerous, and Harry felt something alive in his chest lurch against his skin towards Nott. It was like it wanted to settle into Nott’s body, his blood, his bones and prove to Harry that it could, that Nott would allow it, that Nott would carve a space for it inside of him to make itself a home there.

He rubbed at his chest, swallowed the feelings and words bubbling helplessly up his throat, subconsciously telling whatever it was in him to calm itself down, and then focused his attention away from his body, away from Nott, and back towards Jipsy.

“Master Dumbledore wouldn’t tell me, but he did give me this.” She snapped her fingers and two pieces of rolled parchment appeared, floating in the air in front of them. One was completely normal, a wax stamp that Dumbledore used to sign his writings holding it together, while the other one was a glowing silvery, blue being held together by a ribbon made completely of shining white stars. “The ritual came with a set of instructions when it was finished that stated what needed to be done to release the wards, however no one could open it besides the two people that were partaking in the ritual. So, just in case, Dumbledore wrote down what the intended ritual was according to the students so you two wouldn’t be left completely in the dark.”

That…that…

They both must have been making some kind of face because Jipsy immediately started wringing her hands again, “I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help.”

There wasn’t enough time for Harry to react, to stop her hands again before Nott was leaning forward and resting his hand on top of hers, just like how Harry did before, and he watched as Nott’s face softened just slightly, just barely, almost entirely invisible, “You did nothing wrong, actually, you were a big help. I, for one, was completely lost before you showed up, and I-I thank you for that.”

Nott had smooth, unblemished skin, Harry noted. He had long fingers, pale skin that led to cool toned veins in his wrist, not a scar or mark or hint of imperfection in sight. It was so unlike his own hands, tan and scarred and calloused as they were, and Harry wondered then if Nott’s hands were as soft as they looked.

“I-I appreciate that Mister Nott, but I’m still sorry I couldn't help you more.”

House-elves liked to feel useful, they liked to help, to serve.

“Actually, do you know what would be a big help, Jipsy?” Harry asked, sending his magic towards the two floating scrolls and pulling them through the air towards him before grabbing them out of the air and gently placing them on the table.

There were eyes staring at him then, and he knew it wasn’t only Jipsy, but there was something weird going on with Nott at the moment and he didn’t want to aggravate it further by meeting his wide-eyed gaze.

Take that Hermione, he didn’t always put himself in dangerous or uncomfortable situations.

“Yes, Mister Potter?”

He grinned, “We’ll need a minute to look over the papers, yeah? If you wouldn’t mind getting our wands for us, and also if you wouldn’t mind getting us some breakfast? I don’t think either of us have eaten yet. Have you, Nott?”

Nott was still staring at him, eyes impossibly wide with lips slightly parted, “Have I what?”

“Eaten. Have you eaten?”

Thin, black eyebrows scrunched together as the words made sense in his brain, “Oh. No. No, I haven’t eaten. Would you mind getting me some eggs and bacon, Jipsy? Oh, and also, when you come back, depending on how long we’ll be stuck in here, would you mind grabbing a few more things for us then?”

Jipsy smiled at the two of them, “Of course, sirs. Eggs and bacon for you too, Mister Potter? Yes? Perfect, I shall be right back with your things.” She disappeared with a snap and a pop and they were, once again, alone.

Harry took a deep breath, released the tension in his lungs, and went to grab Dumbledore’s letter before Nott interrupted him, “You just did magic.”

A blink, Harry stared back at Nott, “Uh, yes?”

“Without a wand.”

“I guess? Wh-”

“ And without any incantation.”

He huffed, rubbed his knuckles over his eyes, slightly moving his glasses to the side, “Yeah, okay, I guess I did. But I just-”

Nott interrupted him again, “No. No , there’s no just anything . Do you understand how difficult wandless magic is? How difficult wordless magic is? And the fact that you just did both? Both ? Like it was normal?”

There was something in Nott’s tone that gave him pause. It wasn’t mocking or accusatory or annoyed, it was like there was something he had been waiting for and it was just in his grasp. It was something awestruck, something excited, like how Harry was when he was first discovering that magic actually existed.

That there was something more to the life he’d been living.

“How about we trade?”

A raised brow, “Trade?”

Harry hummed, “You teach me how you knew it was a summoning spell, and I’ll teach you how I did that?”

They stared at each other for a moment, then two, and then Nott moved over slightly on the couch so there would be more room for him, “Sounds fair to me. But after we read the papers, of course.”

“Of course.” Harry moved from the table to the couch, their legs brushing against one another, and he was dying . 

He’d rather face another dragon then- oh my god -Nott had reached over slightly to grab the two scrolls, his stomach brushing against Harry’s knee and he barely bit back a, frankly, embarrassing noise.

What was wrong with him?

This was like Bill, and Wood, and Cho, and Cedric and- nope

Nope.

Merlin, he hated pretty people.

They truly didn’t need to exist.

“Dumbledore’s first?” Harry held the plain scroll up and Nott nodded, leaning over slightly to look at the writing as well.

‘Dear Mister Potter and Mister Nott,

I am terribly sorry for the situation that you are in, and I can completely understand the frustration you both must be feeling.

Unfortunately, I cannot help more than simply give you the acquired information and have Jipsy assist you with any additional needs.

It seems that two of your classmates, a Slytherin sixth year and a Hufflepuff fifth year were attempting to do a compatibility spell. Their plan was for the spell to read and articulate the compatibility between their magic and their souls to prove they were meant to be together. However, the spell, clearly, did not go as attended and instead picked the two people within the already established Hogwarts wards that have the most compatible magic and soul readings. Those two individuals being you two, Mister Potter and Mister Nott.

The needed steps and extra information should be in the other parchment. Unfortunately, none of us were able to open and read it, so what you chose to do with the rules and steps will be on the two of you.

Do not worry, we will let your friends and faculty members know what has happened, and you will be excused from all possible activities until further notice.

Good luck,

Headmaster Dumbledore.’

Harry pushed the air from his lungs, tossed the paper onto the table, put his face in his hands and groaned, “Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

Nott was mumbling something to himself and Harry heard him shifting around beside him, and then he heard pages turning frantically, and he realised that Nott had grabbed the book he was reading before. 

“Is there something in that book that can jinx Dumbledore from here?” Harry asked, face still in his hands and his voice slightly muffled.

Good luck.

Good luck?

Did he seriously say good luck ?

“No. No, unfortunately not, but…” Nott flipped a few more pages and Harry raised his head when the page turning stopped, watching as Nott scanned a few lines, before stopping and tapping his finger against the words, “Here. This book stood out to me here when I was looking through the room, and I couldn’t find out why it stood out to me or why the room put it here. But now…here listen. ‘While we aren’t entirely sure how witches and wizards are chosen to have magical abilities (except for a few ancient houses who believe it is all in the hands of Lady Magic herself), we do have some probable theories. One of these theories is that magic has existed since the dawn of time, it cannot be created or destroyed, so it just reincarnates and moves between every living thing. An adjacent aspect of this theory is that bits and pieces of the same magic split apart from each other and into different people, creating abnormally high levels of magical compatibility, sequencing, and attachment between the two individuals.’ Is this what Dumbledore was talking about? That we’re-” 

He interrupted him then, “-we’re magical soulmates.”

“Seems like it.” Nott, carefully, like he was manoeuvring a bomb, he closed the book, running fingertips over the cover before he set the book on the table beside Dumbledore’s letter.

“I-”

Nott held up a hand, stopping his sentence, his words before Harry even knew what they were, “ Don’t . I know you don’t want anything to do with me, you don’t have to say it, we can just-just finish this and go our separate ways.”

Harry couldn’t help the scowl etched across his face even if he wanted to, “That was not what I was going to say. Don’t put your own bloody words in my mouth.”

“ My own words?”

“You're projecting your own thoughts onto me, so you don’t have to actually say them outloud. I’m not a complete idiot, Nott.” He crossed his arms then, leaning back into the couch and staring at the fire in front of him, watching it grow brighter every other second.

“Now who’s putting words in whose mouth? You have no clue what I’m thinking.”

“Then why, pray tell, are you assuming you know what I’m thinking?”

“Oh my word,” Nott ran his hands through his hair, gripping the back of it like it would tether him to sanity, “Then tell me.”

“Tell you?”

“What you were going to say.”

“Oh, before you rudely interrupted me?”

“ Potter. ”

“ Fine. Fine. I…I was going to say I’m sorry.”

A blink, a scowl, then a carefully smoothed over face, “Now, I’m not going to assume anything, but please, elaborate on what you could possibly be apologising for.”

See, there was the crux of the issue. There were so many things to apologise for, so many things he could say, how could he ever possibly choose just one? How could he ever say them all? He’s sorry that Nott was stuck in here. He’s sorry that Nott was stuck in here with him . He’s sorry that Nott has to complete bloody challenges to get out when he never asked for it. He’s sorry that Nott has to be in the same room as in, has to associate with him, has to-

-Harry inhaled, “I’m sorry that you’re forced to be bound to me.”

Nott crossed his arms then, exhaling slowly and controlled, “You…are apologising for our magic being bonded together.”

It wasn’t a question but Harry answered anyway, “Yes.” 

“Something that you have no control over.”

This…feels like a trap, “Uh, yes?”

With closed eyes, Nott took a deep breath, “Potter, you don’t have to apologise for that.”

“But..I mean, I kinda do?” Harry ran his palms against his pyjama pants, pinching the soft fabric between his fingers so he wouldn’t pull on the joints there.

(They were already hurting because of the rain and cold and if he pulled on them then apparently it wouldn't help.)

“Why?”

Harry raised a brow then, watched as Nott’s eyes blinked open and the blue was so bright, so calm compared to his furrowed brows and clenched jaw, “Why, what?”

“Didn’t you just say you weren’t an idiot? Why are you sorry?”

Because he’s dirty, Harry wants to say. He’s tainted and painful and weak and everything wrong in the world, so he has to be corrupting Nott, right? His magic has to be chipping away at him, rotting him from the inside out, and no one can tell yet. But Harry can feel it bubbling inside of him, screaming at him to relax, to let it settle and rest comfortably in his bones instead of where it’s tightly woven inside his chest.

“Nothing leaves this room, okay? Whatever…whatever we say to each other, whatever we reveal, we won’t tell anyone else.” It wasn’t a question, it wasn’t a statement, but it was something in-between and Harry couldn’t help but hope that Nott knew what he meant, that he would agree.

Thankfully, Nott nodded, “Everything stays in here.”

The words were stuck in his throat, blocking his air, and Harry knew that if he didn’t get them out then he would suffocate, he would shrivel onto himself, his body would start to decay while the words created a vice around his throat.

Harry dug his fingernails into his palms then, letting the split second of pain and then the dull ache draw him away from the suffocation of the words, drawing him away so they could slip from his tongue and into the open air, “Every year, without fail, people who are close to me almost die.”

There was silence in the air then, festering and strong and potent, and Harry wanted to scream, to cry, to beg, doesn’t he understand? Does he understand now? Does he see the death wafting off of him like a disease, like an infection, like a parasite or plague that destroys everything he touches?

“Well…that’s unfortunate. Luckily, you said almost .” Harry’s head shot up from where it was blankly staring at the fireplace, wide eyes staring at Nott as he shrugged and grabbed the ritual’s scroll, “What? We live in a magical world where things can, quite consistently, kill us. So what if you seem to be at higher risk than others? People can choose to be around you, I can choose to never see you again, binding or not. Now, can we at least try and be productive before Jipsy comes back?”

There was some sort of buzzing in the back of his mind, an alarm system that was blaring loud and frightening, and yet Harry had no idea what the alarm was for. It was like he was frozen solid where he was seated, his bones turning to stone, his blood into ice, and the air in his lungs had chosen to solidify, until there was nothing he could do but stare.

Stare at how Nott carefully untied the ribbon made of stars, how the lights glowed against his pale skin, how Nott gently set the ribbon on the table, fingertips grazing the non-existent fabric like he couldn’t help himself.

Stare as he leaned back into the couch, legs crossing over each other, the fabric of his pyjamas pulling off his skin, his shins, his knees, his wrists, and elbows, pulling the clothes taunt against his body in certain places and leaving it loose and open in others.

Stare while he, seemingly subconsciously, tucked his hair back behind his ear while also ignoring how several strands of dark, midnight black hair were falling over his forehead and into his eyes.

Stare at the eyes that were now looking back at him (probably because hadn’t said anything and was just staring like an absolute creep) and Harry wished that he was a painter, wished that he could see the names of colour in real life, could label and identify so he could know the exact shade of Nott’s eyes. They were grey, but not, blue, but not, and Harry swore that when Nott tilted his head slightly the fire made a hint of green shine through and and and-

“-Potter?”

He thinks he hummed, or at least made some sort of noise in response, and Harry realised then that he hadn’t blinked since he started staring.

“Potter, aren’t you a bit young to have a stroke?”

“I-I’m…” Harry blinked several times in a row, forcing moisture back into his eyes and oxygen back into his brain so he wouldn’t sound like a complete idiot when he spoke, “I’m not having a stroke.”

Brilliant.

Exceptional.

He should've been a Ravenclaw, truly. 

Nott rose a single dark, thin brow and rolled his eyes, “Right. Okay. Shall we?”

Right, the scroll.

The instructions.

Harry nodded and scooted slightly closer to Nott, desperately trying to ignore everything about him and focus on the grey, cursive words in front of him (also ignoring how Nott took in a deep breath and clenched his fist when he moved closer).

‘For Theodore William Nott, the sole heir to the Ancient and Noble House of Nott, and for Harry James Potter, the sole heir to the Ancient and Noble House of Black, Noble House of Potter, Noble House of Prewett, and the conquered Heir of Slytherin, thank you for your participation within this experiment.

The rules are simple. 

You both will be given thirty-six questions in which you will have to answer completely and truthfully for the questionnaire to progress. The questions will appear on this parchment, one after the other in sequences of twelve, releasing you both after a minimum of three days once the thirty-six are completed.

Again, thank you for your cooperation’

He squinted at the parchment, carefully taking it from Nott’s frozen hands, reading the words again, “Why does it sound like it’s talking to us?”

“Potter.”

“Like, it’s a bit strange innit?”

“ Potter. ”

At the strange, almost strangled tone of Nott’s voice, Harry looked up from the writing and blinked at the wide-eyed, nearly sick look on Nott’s face, “Uh…yeah? Is everything alright?”

“You-” Nott huffed, grabbed the paper for Harry’s hands and waved it in his face, “You have four Wizemgamot seats? Four? How-I don’t-Potter I can obviously understand but what-how-”

There was something in Nott’s eyes again, something wide and shocked and terrified and awe-struck, and Harry didn’t know what to do with that information, didn’t know how to respond to it.

Frankly, he had no clue what Nott was talking about, period.

“-Nott, are you having a stroke?”

The glare that was immediately sent his way could've put Petunia or Snape to shame, and Harry didn’t shrink back, he didn’t god dammit he fought a bloody basilisk when he was twelve and a dragon quite recently. He wasn’t going to back down because a boy in his year had a glare that made him want to go curl up inside his cupboard and not come out for a week.

For some reason, Nott’s glare softened slightly and he simply shook his head, eyes squinted towards the fireplace, “I’m-right-that was very unbecoming of me, I apologise Potter.”

That…

“I…I can be blunt with you, yeah? Right, um, what are you apologising for?” 

A blink, “Um-”

Undeterred, Harry interrupted, “Cause, to me, it looks like you're apologising for reacting to your emotions without filtering them out. You didn’t, like, offend me or hurt my feelings so there’s really no reason to apologise.”

Nott, again, rolled his eyes, “You looked at me like I was going to set you on fire.”

“Well, you have a glare that gives off the impression.”

“I’ve heard that I got that from my mother.” There was a small, but genuine smile pulling at Nott’s lips, and Harry immediately wanted to latch onto that little fact, tear it apart and inspect what it could mean (he’s never heard any talk about Nott’s mom before), but refrained against it when he noticed the look in his eyes.

The bittersweet, grief coated look.

Oh.

Maybe that’s a topic Harry could dissect on a different date.

“Well, if that’s the case, then I’m sure she was a force to be reckoned with.” Nott’s eyes shot up then to meet Harrys’ and he didn’t give Nott any time to respond before barrelling on, “Right. Okay. So, to answer your question I have no clue what the Wizengamot seats even are, so I actually have no response as to how or why I have four of them. How about we start on those questions while we wait for Jipsy, and after we’re done with today we can..I don’t know, move on from there?”

There was another strangled noise and Harry couldn’t have hidden his wince if he wanted to, “ You don’t know what the -nope. No. Okay, you’re right. We have the rest of the day to discuss whatever it is that we need to.”

Harry started nodding along with Nott’s words, taking the slightly wrinkled parchment from his hands so he could smooth the paper across the coffee table, watching silently as the words shifted and changed and moved across the paper.

Question one…

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Theo was stuck between watching the question form on the parchment and watching Potter instead.

Several aspects of what he had thought he knew about Potter was shifting and realigning the longer he was speaking with him. He hadn’t meant to make assumptions, not really, making assumptions was foolish and left people underestimating their peers, their allies, their enemies more often than not.

But still somehow, at least subconsciously, he had made several false assumptions about Potter.

One: He wasn’t downright cruel and prejudiced towards Slytherins.

Two: He wasn’t egotistical and vain. He knew where his weaknesses lie and wasn’t afraid to let someone else compensate for them, if need be.

Three: He was unnecessarily and selflessly kind. The care and grace and patience in which he had spoken to the house-elf was proof enough.

(That’s with ignoring the soft, worried eyes and gentle words that had been pointed towards him on multiple occasions in the small amount of time they’ve been interacting)

Four: He wasn’t weak-willed. There was an underlying and unyielding kind of strength that refused to have false information shoved down his throat, while still communicating with the other person with a borderline saint amount of patience and understanding.

Five: He was powerful, exceptionally so. From the Wizengamot seats alone, the ancientual powers were something that Nott hadn’t known could exist, and then with the casual use of wordless and wandless magic? Maybe all those stories and rumours about Potter were true. The troll, the Philosophers Stone, the monster from second year, Sirius Black and dementors and patronus’. 

Six: He-

The question appeared, finally, on the paper and Nott immediately read it outloud, desperate to get out of his own head, “ Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?”

Potter blew out a breath, manoeuvring himself so he was sitting criss-cross on the couch, fingers tabbing an unknown rhythm against the plaid fabric, “Do you reckon it means anyone? Like alive or dead?”

Almost immediately, an answer popped into his head of who he’d want to dine with. Of course, there were other obvious answers, Merlin, Salazar Slytherin (or really any of the other Hogwarts Founders), Morgana, any of those would be good answers. 

But

But, it wouldn’t be the most honest answer he could give, and the idea of saying the words out loud made his skin crawl, made him want to sew his mouth shut, or cut out his tongue to prevent anything besides breaths of air from leaving his mouth.

Without an immediate answer, Potter blew out a breath and looked up towards the ceiling, “I’m just going to assume that that’s okay, since it’s not exploding in my face. Um, I would have to say my mum.”

Something painful was seated in his chest, squeezing his heart, and burning his eyes, and all Theo could possibly think about was a pale, sickly woman with chestnut hair, crows feet and smile lines, showcasing a life full of smiles and laughter, and eyes that were exactly like his own.

Choked words escaped his mouth, “I would say my mom too.”

Potter looked back at him then, eyebrows furrowed with a small, melancholy smile and Theo hated that look, it normally was filled with pity or false remorse, but now it was filled with quiet understanding.

There were no questions, no half-assed sorries, no awkward silence that was filled with heavy unsaid words.

And that silent solidarity was the only reason he opened his mouth again to explain, “She-she got sick. When I was young. I…actually don’t remember what she looked like without being sick, but she was still really happy, you know? The whole time. I don’t know what she was sick with or if she was sick before I was born, but she died when I was about eight? I think? I can’t remember, but I’d want to talk to her again, see what she looks like, healthy and happy. See if she’s, I don’t know, proud of the person I’m becoming.”

Potter didn’t say anything for a moment, simply absorbing his words (and that was number six on his list, that Harry bloody Potter was thoughtful and introspective above all things), and when he finally inhaled to speak Theo was torn in whether to tell him to stop or let him say whatever was on his mind.

He didn’t want any ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’ or ‘ She would be proud of you’ or some either insincere shite that he’s heard on repeat the past few years.

Instead of any of that, Potter simply leaned back into the sofa and said, “Tell me about her.” 

A blink, “What do you want to know?”

“Anything you want to tell me.”

So that’s how Theo ended up talking about his mother, really for the first time since her death, for over half an hour. Inconsequential details about her that no one would have cared about besides him and his father; like how she always kept her hair up in a bun with her wand and would consistently forget it was there and would search frantically for it. How she always had her nails painted some sort of glossy, bright colour, how it was so different from everything else in the house. How she was a horrible cook but an amazing gardener, would whisper soft reassurances to the plants she was growing like they’d be able to hear her. How she was the only person that could consistently make his father laugh, how Theo only knew his father snorted whenever he was laughing and had dimples when he was smiling because of her. How she had dots of freckles appear on her skin when Spring and Summer came about, how she would let him trace and create his own constellations using those same freckles.

His faint and few memories of her are the only reason he knows that he gets his freckles and eyes from her, that he gets his hair (ignoring how in the warmer months his hair lightens with some kind of red tint) and dimples from his dad, how he laughs like her but smiles like him.

And the whole time, the whole time Theo was stumbling through more words he’d ever spoken in one sitting, Potter was sitting there quietly with a sad smile, and oh something in him ached to see the sadness leave him.

“I’m sorry.” Theo shook his head, “I was just completely rambling, wasn’t I?”

In response, Potter shrugged and pursed his lips slightly, “It’s fine. I don’t really mind.”

A moment passed, and Potter started moving back towards the parchment, probably to see if they could move on to the next question, and it hit Theo suddenly that he was just talking about his dead mother to a person who’d…who…

“What about you?”

Potter’s mouth was open, he was about to say something, but his teeth clanked audibly together at Theo’s words and wide, almost scared green eyes were looking back at him, “What about me?”

Theo swallowed the panicked apology and backtracking that was in his throat, fighting to lurch from his mouth, and copied Potter’s supposed nonchalant shrug as he spoke, “Why your mom? For…for the dinner, I mean.”

Squinting, Potter replied, “Isn’t it, I don’t know, kinda obvious?”

“I don’t want to make any assumptions.”

Initially, Potter simply rolled his eyes, but he didn’t keep moving towards the parchment, his fingers back to tapping an unknown, anxious rhythm on his knees. His body was a mixture of tense and loose with resignation, like he was worried about the answer but had also already accepted whatever consequences might come from it.

Sickness and regret was bubbling in his throat, “You don’t have to-”

“-no. no, it’s fine. It’s just kinda…depressing.”

Okay, that’s something.

“Depressing?” Not pushing, not prodding, letting Potter control what he wanted to say, how he wanted to say it, and how much he wanted to reveal.

A huff, “I just…I don’t know anything about her.”

Oh.

Now that those words were out, the faucet was spilling everywhere, “I didn’t know what her or my dad looked like until I was eleven, and I didn’t know what they sounded like until last year when I heard their deaths through the bloody dementors. Re-Professor Lupin told me some about my dad, they were friends and went to school together, but he would always get really quiet about my mum and I-I don’t know anything. I want to know.”

Oh.

The idea was near unfathomable for Theo to register, to understand, because knowledge was something that he used to survive . Memories of better times, of things that could come again in the future were one of the only reasons that he even bothered to try with his father anymore, with his friends, with his house, and with himself. It seems, assumptions be damned, that Potter never got those family memories to fall back on.

Something akin to grief etched and carved itself into his bones, settling into his fingers, and there were no words, no nothing that could soothe the ache that had to be written into Potter’s blood.

Though the words, “Do you miss her? Miss them?” left his mouth anyway.

His chest cracked when Potter simply smiled and said, “Pretty hard to miss something you don’t remember having, yeah?”

Words rushed through his brain, written words that he had studied over and over again after his mother died, words that were supposed to help simplify and explain what grief was and how he was supposed to be feeling.

None of it had helped.

Not really.

But

But, “You can still grieve the idea of them or miss the idea of what could’ve been or-”

“-or what I could’ve had.” Potter finished for him, his thumb rubbing at his palm (a subconscious soothing technique?), and he suddenly looked up then, squinting senselessly into the air.

What?

“What is it?” Theo couldn’t help but ask and Potter was staring at an open spot on the ground like there was something-

-Jipsy popped up with a snap, exactly where Potter was staring, and Theo was about to lose his bloody mind.

How the-

How did-

“I’m terribly sorry for the delay, Mister Potter and Mister Nott! Here, I brought you breakfast, your wands, the morning paper, and your schoolwork for the day.”

All of those items appeared on the table, and Jipsy was glancing sheepishly at the both of them as she spoke, her hands wringing together frantically.

Potter grabbed a piece of bacon from one of the plates, “Thank you, Jipsy, but how did you…”

“I heard you.” She immediately replied, gazing towards the ground, “When you two were reading the rules, I’m so sorry, I hadn’t meant to!”

Both of them locked eyes for a moment, and Potter nodded his head to him as he took a bite of his bacon, letting Nott take control of the conversation for a moment. Like before, Theo set his hands on top of hers, stopping her frantic movements, “You did nothing wrong, Jipsy. Hearing the rules doesn’t matter, just…did you hear when we-”

Immediately, she started shaking her head, “No! No, I left immediately after that. I didn’t want to risk waiting and hearing something private.”

Simultaneously, tension that was embedded into both of their shoulders loosened and they both relaxed further into the couch, Potter moving his plate with him and levitating Nott’s plate to him with a wave of his hand.

There was something warm in the air, he noticed then. It was like a wave of heat travelling through the air and surrounding the area, and he…he wanted to simply relax into it. It was sitting by a fireplace after coming in from the Winter chill, it was settling into a warm bed after a long day of work, it was stepping outside to the warmth of Summer for the first time in months, it was being held in an embrace without any worry about how long it would last. It was something tangible, something that he could feel against his skin, brushing against his hands as he grabbed the plate from the air, and Theo realised then that this was Potter’s magic.

Potter’s magic was all warmth.

It was warmth and heat and gentle touches and comforting embraces and quiet understanding and-

“-Nott? Nott, are you alright?”

A blink, and he was back into reality, glancing around towards Potter with a fork filled with eggs halfway to his mouth and Jipsy who was…gone.

Where?

There must've been some kind of expression on his face because Potter set his fork back down and started speaking, “She went ahead and left, since we didn’t really need anything at the moment. But she’ll be back every meal time to bring us some food, and we can ask her for anything when she pops up.”

Right.

“Right, okay.” Theo blew out a breath, looked down at his food (purposefully ignoring how Potter was still looking at him) and took a bite of the eggs.

“Where did you go?”

Theo paused, risked looking back up towards Potter, swallowed at the earnest look that was being given to him, “What?”

He waved a hand again, grabbing another piece of bacon with that hand, “When you, you know, zoned out. Where did your mind go?”

Oh.

“Oh uh,” Where did all those etiquette lessons go when he needed them, bloody fucking - “I felt your magic when you levitated the plate. I just…never felt magic so tangible like that before.”

Potter chewed for a few moments before swallowing and, “Oh. Okay. Um. What does it…you know?”

“Feel like?”

A nod and he grabbed another piece of bacon as he waited.

“Warm.” Theo immediately replied, a small smile pulling helplessly at his lips as he went to take a bite of eggs, “You-it feels warm.”

He paused in the corner of Theo’s eye, staring at the fireplace in front of him, and Theo watched as Potter slowly clenched and unclenched his hands, fingertips rubbing against each other in some kind of comforting gesture or a nervous tic. It was startling, just a bit, at how quiet ( and small ) Potter was able to make himself, it was different from every other time Theo had been in the same vicinity as Potter.

He didn’t know what to do with it.

With him.

“Would you like to be famous? In what way? Well, I already know my answer.”

Theo hummed, staring at the boy as he waited for some kind of clarification to what he had asked.

Thankfully, Potter nodded his head towards the parchment on the table, “That’s the next question.” He made some kind of vague noise of acknowledgement as he leaned further back into the couch, crossing his legs and moving a pillow into his lap so he could set his plate on top of it, he leaned his cheek against his palm, pursed his lips, and squinted in thought.

Would he want to be famous?

What would that entail, really?

Being known for every thing that he ever did, good or bad? Being a figurehead for everyone to spew their own opinions about him and the world?

That? No.

Politics and morality surrounded by fame sounds exhausting and pointless.

But for something he’s studied? Something he’s discovered about the world, about magic? Something that he’s done that changed how people moved about certain parts of the world?

That…

“If I were going to be famous,” Theo started, sitting up slightly and putting his hands on his crossed knees, fingers drumming some sort of beat, “I’d want it to be because of something that I’ve contributed to the world. A new potion, a new creature study, a new series of spells, a new philosophy on magic, something like that.”

Potter nodded, setting his empty plate back onto the coffee table, “Right. You’d want to be known for your mind or your accomplishments.”

Theo smiled slightly, nodding his head upwards, “What about you? You said you already knew your answer.”

A scrunched nose and furrowed brows, and Potter grabbed his wand and started twirling it between his fingers as he spoke, “Well, I mean, I’m already famous, yeah? Or infamous. Or…well it depends on who you ask, I guess. I don’t really like it. It feels like I’m being praised for something I didn’t really do.”

He glanced at the twirling wand, waiting for it to go off, “Well, you did though. You defeated the Dark Lord. You survived the killing curse.”

“Not really, though. Like, I was one , Nott. I had no clue what I was doing or how I did it. Honestly, I think my parents, my mum , should be getting the credit for defeating Voldemort. Not me.” He tried to hide his wince at the Dark Lord’s name, but it was apparently still noticeable enough for Potter to wince in return and mouth a quick apology.

Theo waved his hand, honestly it was just a name, and leaned forward with elbows on his knees, “What do you mean by that?”

“That my parents should get the credit?”

A nod.

Potter blew out a breath, squinted towards the ceiling, “Do you remember how I was practically catnip for the dementors last year?”

“That’s an odd way to describe it.”

“Well, if I can’t process trauma through humour and sarcasm then what else can I do?” Potter grinned at his words, and stuck his tongue out at Theo when he rolled his eyes at him, “Right, well, when the dementors were, ya know, sucking the soul out of my body, I would hear…would hear my parent’s death. I heard their final moments, heard what they did, and I can just tell that it was something that my mother did that destroyed him. It had nothing to do with me.”  

What could someone say to that?

How could anyone respond to that?

Some of the words, humour and sarcasm, circled around Theo’s mind and he decided to take a leap, take a chance, take a risk.

“Your mother was a muggleborn, yes?”

A turned head and squinted, suspicious eyes, “Yes…why?”

“The Dark Lord believed and preached that people of muggleborn descent were lesser in every manner. So, I just think it’s a little, I don’t know, amusing that a muggleborn was the one to defeat him.”

Potter simply blinked at him, eyes still squinted and lips pressed together into a fine line, it was like he was trying to think or decide on something. But before Theo could ask, Potter opened his mouth saying, “Do you think it would be disrespectful for me to, like, laugh?”

Theo shook his head, “No. No, I don’t personally think so, and I think your mum would forgive you anyways.”

Immediately, wheezed and muffled laughter fell from his lips and Theo watched as Potter pressed a fist to his mouth and folded over himself to try and quiet down the sounds as it left him. The movements and motions were practised and learned, something instinctual and hard-wired into him that made him need to be quiet when showing any kind of emotion, even joy, even laughter.

He didn’t know when it might've happened, and he didn’t have any place in Potter’s life to comment on it, so instead he simply let himself chuckle along with him and enjoy the fact that he’d manage to make Potter laugh at all.

“Okay,” Theo stopped, took a breath around the laughter in his lungs, and continued, “So that’s a no to being famous?”

A smile and a shrug was sent his way, “I wouldn’t mind being known in my, like, town, ya know? I’d like to be known for helping people carry groceries to their cars, helping my neighbours with their gardens, babysitting and pet-sitting, things like that . Not-I don’t-not like this.”

The sincerity in the statement alone would’ve been enough to convince Theo that Potter was telling the truth, it was the conviction, the ease in which he laid out the wish like he’d daydreamed of the possibility for years, but then the parchment shimmered and new words showed on the page.

Potter leaned over and pursed his lips, “When you make a call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say beforehand? Why?”

Immediately, Theo shook his head, “No. I always know what I’m going to say.”

An eye roll, “Lovely, well for us mortals, we need a little extra help to make sure everything comes out properly.”

At the words, he blinked, rose a brow, and watched as Potter huffed and crossed his arms, “I don’t make phone calls very often, but when I do it’s usually because something important needs to be done, and I don’t want to fuck everything up.”

“What’s a phone call?”

“It’s a muggle thing.”

A muggle-

He opened his mouth to ask, to clarify, maybe to simply ask ‘what the fuck’ but the parchment had moved on to the next question and Potter was already reading it outloud, “What would constitute a “perfect” day for you?” 

A perfect day?

Potter hummed and leaned back into the cushion, fingers tapping against his knees again, “I’d mainly want to be with my friends, honestly. Maybe walking around Hogsmeade? I just wouldn’t want to be… lonely , I guess.”

“So you like being around people?” Theo couldn’t help but ask, mind still trying to figure out the answer while he waited for Potter to respond.

“Just in general? No. No, not really.” He paused, squinted at the fire, mulling over his words, “It’s…complicated. I like being alone , but I don’t like being lonely . I don’t know if that makes any sense or-”

“-it does. It-I’m the same way.”

A small, sincere smile and Potter tilted his head towards him, “What about you, Nott? What’s your perfect day?”

He wouldn’t want to spend his day surrounded by a bunch of people, he knows that for certain, but being in a completely silent and dead environment doesn’t sound appealing either. His home, no his house, was silent. There wasn’t any laughter, any light, any life, and love in that dark, decrypted manor, not for many years. Nott knew he was comfortable with the silence, him having been raised within it, but for his perfect day…

“There’s this area in the courtyard that’s difficult to see for anyone who doesn’t know it’s there…my perfect day would be sitting there for hours with new books beside me. I’d want to spend the day annotating them, studying them really, without being interrupted but without being, ya know.”

“Shut in?” Potter finished easily for him and Nott immediately nodded, grinning at the table in front of him.

“I bet that sounds boring.”

Potter made some kind of noise, “It’s not boring , Nott. It sounds…peaceful.”

“Peaceful?”

“Mhm.”

His wand was tucked behind Potter’s ear, he realised then, and it was making his glasses go slightly off centre, and Theo took another chance, another risk, and plucked his wand from where it was resting, ignoring Potter’s simultaneously weary and wide-eyed gaze as he set the wand on the coffee table.

“You’re going to blow your own head off if you keep doing that.” Nott said to the table as a form of explanation, turning back towards him when there wasn’t any form of response.

His glasses were still slightly off centre, the crack around the rim more visible now that he was paying more attention to it, and he nodded towards the glasses, “May I?”

A blink and then a slow, confused nod.

Theo took the opportunity and grabbed his wand from the table, moving the wand up (slowly so as to not look like he was about to attack him) towards Potter’s glasses and muttered under his breath, “ Oculus Reparo .”

There was a snapping noise and the crack on the glass slowly mended itself, and Potter didn’t have a chance to fully react before Nott was reaching out ( stupidly, oh my word, what was he doing ) and manoeuvring the glasses so they were on properly.

His fingertips brushed against Potter’s hair, his cheekbone, and the warmth emmeting from the skin made him draw his hand back like he was burned, quick enough that Potter blinked and flinched out of the silence.

They stared at each other for a moment, then two, and then green eyes focused in on the rim of his glasses, a smile pulling at his lips as he saw them fixed, “You, uh, you didn’t have to do that.”

“It was bothering me.”

Potter squinted, lips quirked up slightly at the edge,  “Right. Noted. Next question?”

This time, Theo leaned over towards the parchment and read aloud, “ If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want?”

Ninety? That was…surprisingly young for a wizard to die. Where were these question co-

“Oh, mind, absolutely.”

He blinked, eyebrows furrowing and shaking his head before replying as well, “I’d say mind as well. There would be no point being physically able if my mind wasn’t there to go through life.”

“Great minds think alike. Though, between the two of us, you’re obviously the brains of the operation.” Potter replied, eyebrows furrowing as well the more he spoke, “Right, okay…when did you last sing to yourself? To someone else? Uh, never? I don’t sing.”

Theo grinned, “Never? Not even once?”

An eye roll, “I’m sure that I sound like a dying cat, so no, I wouldn’t torture anyone with that.”

“So you don’t actually know ?”

“I-no. No, I guess not.”

Challenge accepted.

Something must've shown on his face because Potter was immediately scowling at him, shaking his head, “No. No . Absolutely not, you little shit, you’re not getting me to sing.” 

He shrugged, “That’s not very Gryffindor of you.”

Immediately, he didn’t even have time to block bloody hell , Potter smacked him with the pillow that he was previously lounging on, holding it up again like the soft, stuffed fabric was a threat. The glare that was being sent his way wasn’t particularly angry or vicious, if anything Potter looked like he was on the verge of laughter himself, so Theo didn’t worry too much when he decided to poke a bit more fun.

(Though he did keep an eye on the still raised pillow, just in case)

“Well…I’m certainly seeing the Gryffindor n-” He ducked, the pillow went above his head with a woosh of air, and Theo scrambled from his hunched over position to his feet, using the arm of the couch as a kind of shield.

Potter was definitely laughing, his lips pursed together while he was trying to keep the laughter in, “Are you running away?”

“Self-preservation, ever heard of it?”

“From a pillow ?”

Theo couldn’t stop smiling, why couldn’t he stop smiling, “I’m a Slytherin, Potter, self-preservation is-”

The pillow was launched at his head, smacking him dead in the face, and he gaped as Potter started insistently and helplessly laughing at him. There was some sort of light brewing in his chest, a warm tightness that wrapped around his heart and lungs and squeezed until he was laughing and smiling too, stooping down to grab the pillow from the floor and throwing it back.

He grabbed it right before it hit his face, sticking his tongue out when Theo simply glared at him, before continuing on with his wheezed snickers.

This.

This was the laughter Theo wanted.

Unrestrained, relentless, joy-filled, and pure. 

There was no logical reason as to why the sound of it brought some sort of warmth and light into his chest, squeezing at his heart.

But it did, it does.

So, for once, Theo wasn’t going to question it at that moment and just let everything be.

“I feel like-” More laughter, Potter was shaking his head, “I feel like you’re responding like this because you also sound like a dying cat when you sing.”

That little-

Theo scowled, reached over and grabbed the throw pillow he was previously using, and chucked it as hard as he could at Potter’s head, “For your information, you bloody brute -” Potter held up his own pillow with a yelp and blocked his attack, “I sing like an angel.”

“Who told you that? Malfoy? Parkinson?”

“Where’s my bloody wand, I swear to Merlin I’m going to hex your hair pink-”

His wand was on the coffee table and he didn’t hesitate to dive for it, cursing under his breath when it suddenly flew into the air, resting slightly above jumping distance. Immediately, Theo glared at Potter who had his hands raised so they were beside his head, though green, smiling eyes were glancing back and forth between him and the floating wand.

“Potter.”

“Nott.”

“Give me my wand.”

“ Technically , I don't have your wand.”

Fuck it. 

If he can’t use his wand-

-Theo watched as a small mountain of freshly appeared quilts, blankets, and pillows fell on top of Potter, effectively suffocating him and startling him enough for the enchantment on his wand to drop and land into his hand.

There were loud sputters and uncoordinated struggling underneath the mound, and he contented himself with simply sitting back down on his side of the couch and watch as Potter struggled, “Bloody-fucking-Merlin’s hell-Nott-”

Messy, statickly, mostly dry black hair eventually revealed itself, followed by glaring green eyes, scowled eyebrows, flushed cheeks, and an off-skewed shirt and glasses. 

Potter opened his mouth then, probably to continue with the banter or perhaps hex him, but Theo quickly beat him to it, moving to fix his shirt over his shoulders and repositioning his glasses and taking advantage of the stunned silence it had brought to speak, “The last time I sung was to myself, well it was more hummed, but it was an old song my father used to play on the piano. I don't remember the name and only remember a bit of the chorus, but still. The last time I sang to someone else was…I think to a songbird that was in the garden over the Summer.”

His mouth looked like it was welded shut, but Potter’s eyebrows rose in response, in question, so Theo rolled his eyes and continued, “It was whistling a tune and I simply whistled it back, don't worry I’m not mental.”

Shaking his head, Potter pursed his lips and replied, “I didn't think you were mental , Nott, it just reminded me of some old muggle fairy tales, is all.”

He furrowed his brow, “Muggle ones?”

Surprisingly undeterred, Potter continued with a shrug while lounging further into his blanket cocoon, “Yeah, frankly, I don’t know a whole lot of them, but I know some have woodland animal companions, one had mice…I think? Oh, a new one just came out I think, the movie version at least, and I believe the princess had a fish, a crab, and some kind of bird. Oh, I think the mice and fish talked too. Maybe . I’d have to ask ‘Mione to be sure.”

Movie?

‘Mione?

“You mean Granger?” Theo couldn’t help but ask, subconsciously scooting closer still, “Is she the one who tells you all about the Muggle world?”

A squint was sent his way, like Potter was the one confused, “I mean…no. Well, yes, on certain things. She definitely goes out more than I ever am allowed to, so she's more aware of stuff going on, but I’m not, like, a hermit, Nott.”

“But why would you be aware of it at all if you didn’t live there?”

Potter blinked for a moment, before his face cleared and some form of amused understanding formed on his face, “Nott, you realise that I was raised as a muggle, right?” 

Theo froze, another subconscious expectation burning in front of him, another hazy puzzle piece falling into place.

“You were-”

“-raised as a muggle, yes.”

“So you didn’t-”

He interrupted him again, “Know about magic? No. Know about my parents murder? No. Know that I was famous? Know why I was famous? No.”

For just a moment, just a singular moment, Nott let himself be absolutely dumbfounded by the information. Everyone had been told or, maybe they just expected it, that Harry Potter was taken from his parent’s murder location and was taken to some sort of exclusive, private, other-wordly place to live until he started at Hogwarts. 

But, apparently, that was wrong.

Apparently, Potter was kept more in the dark then anyone else was. 

“I’m sorry.” Theo eventually said after giving himself that moment, saying words that didn’t feel quite right for the situation, but he didn’t know what else he could possibly say instead.

Potter’s smile was obnoxiously fake and small as he glanced at Theo and back towards the fire, “For what? For growing up muggle ?”

Theo shook his head, “No. Merlin no. I just…I can sympathise with muggleborns already having difficulty adjusting to a whole other world that they hadn’t known existed. So, you not only had that disadvantage, but also…you had expectations that everyone had set for you before you even knew those expectations could have ever existed . It couldn’t have been easy.”

There was silence for a moment, only the fire crackling and the soft breathing from both of them being audible, before Potter shifted, the layers of fabric moving with him, and he pushed out a sigh, “Well, I managed.”

“You did.” Theo agreed, watching Potter watch the fire, “You managed very well. I’m sorry that you ever had to.”

“Oh.”

He hummed, gave Potter himself a moment to adjust to his words, and instead focused back onto the parchment, the new words shifting and forming before his eyes.

The words and sentence formulated and Theo was about to read it aloud when he felt a gentle touch to his wrist.

Immediately, warmth flooded the area, his skin buzzing where tan fingertips were pressed against the delicate skin, and when he looked down to actually see the touch, make it real in his mind, those same fingertips softly, almost nervously traced down until their fingers could overlap, would overlap and intertwin if either of them made the next move. 

But, apparently, all of Potter’s Gryffindor bravery was used up in that small, but oh so bold movement and two whispered words, “Thank you.”

Theo wasn’t a Gryffindor.

Theo wasn’t brave.

He wasn’t bold or reckless or bull-headed.

But he was a Slytherin. 

He was ambitious, was cunning, was selfish.

He was someone who always got what he wanted.

And oh, oh , he wanted .

So Theo scrounged any bit of simple audacity he had within himself, shaped and carved it into something that could symbolise bravery if he squinted in low lighting, before he threw it into moving his fingers apart slightly, shifting them so that Potters’ could fit in between them.

Potter’s fingers curled in between his.

It was enough.

(It was everything)

Theo curled his as well.

Neither mentioned it as he exhaled a slow breath and finally read the next question, “Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?”

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Harry was dying. 

Which was kinda ironic given the next question, but his brain wasn’t even giving him a single fuck to give about it because he was currently holding Nott’s hand.

Had he ever held somebody's hand before?

Hermione had grabbed his hand to yank him away from a tree branch when they were running from Professor Lupin last year, but he didn’t think that counted. 

Luna and Ginny had both grabbed his wrists and hands to drag him some place or other when he wasn’t moving fast enough for them, but that also probably didn’t count. 

He doesn’t think it ever happened before Hogwarts either.

His relatives had treated him like he was infected with a disease so any attempt at physical contact when he was younger and didn’t quite know better was quickly dealt with.

Friends didn’t really exist for him back then either, for one reason or another he never cared to think much about, but that was a no go as well. 

So, probably, most likely, this was the first time he ever held hands. 

And he was dying. 

Nott had long, thin fingers, he noted for not the first time, fingers he imagines a pianist having and he couldn’t help but wonder if Nott ever played the piano with his father. 

Did he sit beside him, his dads hands covering his own little ones as they moved note by note, key by key down the board? Did he play any instruments at all? Or did he like to sing? Would he sit with his dad while he played, humming the tune as it went? Did he eventually memorise the wordless songs and would sing along with his music? 

Maybe his mom joined in. 

Maybe his mother would stand beside the piano with Nott on her hip, or maybe they would be lounging on the couch as his father played, Nott sitting in his mother’s lap as they quietly hummed and tapped out the notes so that he could learn. 

Maybe they sang together when his mother was gardening, switching between whispering kind words to the plants and singing tunes with the birds in the air. Maybe she sang when she cooked too, maybe she couldn’t cook well because she got too wrapped up in the melody. Maybe Nott would help her in the kitchen, distracting her with wanting to dance to the music they were making. Maybe they would bully his father into joining the dance and song with them, all three of them dancing in the kitchen, dinner absolutely ruined but they wouldn’t have cared because they were all happy and together.

Was that too happy of a picture?

Was that not realistic enough?

Maybe not, maybe Nott’s childhood was nothing like that at all.

But until he knew any better, he's going to imagine that Nott had everything he wasn't able to. 

It was a bittersweet thought, but a good one though.

He thinks at least.

Back to the issue at hand ( ha-ha hand ), the next question was about how he thought he was going to die and Harry didn’t quite know how to answer that.

- he had too many answers-

But Nott was looking at him like his brain was melting or he was having a seizure or a stroke, so he should probably respond in some way.  

“Um.”

Eloquent.

Nott squeezed his hand and it simultaneously helped and worsened his mental situation, so the only thing he was able to say was, “Which time? Or, like, now?”

The grip on his hand tightened some, like Nott was used to clenching his fists and that translated to gripping his hand hard, hard enough to almost hurt, but again Harry literally couldn’t give a single damn if he wanted to.

Blue-grey eyes were staring at him, unblinking and wide and so so so concerned , and Harry loved it and hated it and wanted to bundle into the gaze and run away screaming from it all in one confused, horrifying, beautiful mixture. 

“If I asked for all of it…would you tell me?” Nott asked, gaze down towards the couch and their resting hands.

“How much do you want to know?”

Repeating his own words back to him, Nott replied, “Anything you want to tell me.”

Harry scowled at him for a moment, just a moment until the weight of his gaze, his touch, his presence became too much and he had to look elsewhere. His magic was creeping its way out of the tight hold he has always kept on it, oozing into his blood and bones and fingertips, trying to surprise him enough so that it can leap out of him and into Nott, settling into and around him like a blanket, like an embrace. Nott’s hand on his wasn’t helping, his eyes on him weren’t either, but he couldn’t, wouldn’t do anything about them so he was just left to suffer.

And die.

See, full circle.

A blown out breath, his fingers started tapping the song ‘Another One Bites the Dust ’ by Queen against the blanket and Nott’s hand, “So in, like, chronological order, and ignoring my childhood before Hogwarts; the troll, the jinxed broom incident, that three-headed dog, devil snare…though I got out of that pretty easy, um Quirrell and that whole fiasco. Second year…I would really only say the whole basilisk thing, so that year wasn’t too bad. Uh, last year, it was mostly the dementors and my parent’s traitor stalking around me… oh and the whole werewolf thing. Then this year…really anything regarding the Tournament, this whole thing is probably going to end up killing me, so I guess my current answer is that.”

A moment passed, then two, Nott’s hand was loose against his and Harry took that as a sign to take his hand back, but the second that he tried to move his hand away, Nott’s hand tightened with a vengeance with his other hand clasping on top of Harrys’.

“I’m sorry, what ?”

“What?” 

“Don’t what me. You just-you-can you-”

“Elaborate?”

Squeezing around his hand, “Yes, that-what-I don’t understand at all. That all happened here? Here ? At Hogwarts?”

Harry ducked his head with a grin, “I mean, yeah, but like you said, we live in a world where things can constantly kill us.”

“ Not to that degree, bloody fucking hell, Potter.”

“Well, I can explain one of them,” Nott glared at him and Harry rolled his eyes, “if I explain all of them, we’ll never move onto the next questions. Choose one for me to explain now, and later, if you want, I can talk about the rest.”

He might have to lie about Sirius…maybe…could he write to him and ask? Or would that be bothering him?

Nott huffed and leaned back into the couch, his hands still cocooning around Harry’s and he simply watched as Nott pursed his lips, furrowed his brows, how those eyes were staring intensely at the coffee table like it would know all the answers. People watching was normal for him, if he watched and learned a person’s mannerisms enough he’ll learn when they’re upset with him, angry with him, and how he can best manoeuvre around that. But with Nott he just wanted to look, to see, like he was one of those portraits in the halls, something delicate and beautiful that was created solely to be admired. 

What was he supposed to do with the urge to look at someone but not study them?

A sigh and Nott moved his legs so that they tucked underneath the mound of blankets that he had summoned to smother Harry, twisting them around his legs and laying them on top of Harry’s own legs before raising a brow at him like he dared him to comment on it. Instead, Harry shifted his free arm from within the blankets until it was laying on top of Nott’s legs, feeling the expensive fabric against his skin.

God, did he actually sleep in this?

What the fuck was it made of, unicorn hair?

Going along with it, Nott also didn’t comment on the new position, “I’m going to hold you to that, just so you’re aware, but tell me about second year. The basilisk. What…where the hell was the basilisk?”

Harry rolled his eyes, “Of course you’d want to learn about the giant snake, you’re such a Slytherin.”

Nott scoffed, “You know how rare basilisk’s are? I’ve only read about them and seen them in pictures, is it-did you see it in person? How big was it? What were the scales like? Did you manage to see the teeth from where you were? Or were you too far away from it? Wh-”

“ -Nott . Do you want me to tell you what happened or not?”

“Will you answer my questions?”

“If I know the answer, then yes.”

“...fine. You may continue.”

“Oh thank you , oh gracious on-”

“- Potter. ”

He felt Nott’s leg lift slightly before dropping back down, like a half-assed kick, and he pinched at the skin of his knee through the pyjama fabric as a sort of warning. 

“So, you remember how in second year, a lot of people were being, like paralyzed?”

A nod, “But it wasn’t permanent, they didn’t die like how you would if you looked at a basilisk.”

Harry hummed in agreement, “Right yeah, because no one looked at it head-on. Colin looked through his camera lens, nearly-headless Nick was already a ghost and can’t, ya know, die twice, Mrs Norris saw it in a puddle, and ‘Mione figured it out so she carried a mirror with her just in case it snuck up on her, which it did, so she saw it through that.”

“Damn, I forgot Granger was affected as well,” Nott pursed his lips, “How did she figure it out?”

“Well, besides the fact that she’s just bloody brilliant, before Mrs Norris was petrified, I heard this…voice in the wall talking about, well, killing and when I followed it, it led to Mrs Norris and some blood writing on the wall. It said something like, ‘The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir, beware.’. Hermione figured out that the Chamber of Secrets was made by Salazar Slytherin and the enemies of the heir were muggleborns and blood-traitors, which are who the basilisk went after. With the manner of attack, the voices only I could hear, and the connection to Slytherin, she figured out it had to be a basilisk. She managed to write down on a piece of paper from the library that it was travelling through the pipes within Hogwarts when…well you know.”

Nott nodded his head, “That’s… really impressive. But wait, you could hear the basilisk?”

“I’m a Parseltongue, remember?” Harry replied with a grin, watching Nott’s eyes go wide for a moment in recognition.

“Right, bloody hell the whole Heir of Slytherin thing from that year. Can you-”

“~-say something? I can.~”

There was a sharp intake of breath and Harry watched as Nott’s eyes went wide, how redness bloomed on his cheeks, his nose, his ears, and Harry grinned at the reaction.

Harry pressed his thumb into the covered skin above Nott’s knee and hissed again, “~ Oh. Is this a thing for you?~ ”

A glare was sent his way, “I know you’re messing with me.”

“Am I?” Harry asked, leaning back so he was resting against the arm of the couch, “I didn’t realise. ~ Silly me.~ ”

Nott’s eyes were on his mouth, watching the differences in the movements between the normal English and Parseltongue, almost like he was trying to memorise it.

He took this opportunity to continue, “We figured out that Ginny was going to be sacrificed down in the chamber, so Ron and I went to Lockhart for help when we went down there. ~ The absolutely useless bastard that he was. ~ I ended up getting separated from the two of them, and was forced to enter the chamber alone.”

Those sharp eyes cleared, ingesting his words, and his brows immediately furrowed, “Wait, what? Why was Weasley being sacrificed? Why were there no adults?”

“The year before, when I went to any adult about the whole Philosopher's Stone being stolen, no one believed me or did anything. So, I just…handled it myself with Ron and Hermione. If we didn’t go immediately, Ginny would've died , we didn’t have time to not be believed so we just went to someone we knew would want the glory of it all and believe us just in case we were serious, and we went.” He replied, shrugging slightly, and watched as Nott’s face pinched a little bit, like the information left a bad taste in his mouth.

“Professor Snape would have.”

Harry blinked, “No. No, he wouldn't have.”

“How do you know that? He helps Slytherin’s all the time with dangerous situations or their abusive households.” Nott pushed back, rubbing his thumb across his knuckles.

“Exactly, Nott, he helps Slytherins .” He shot back, “We’re Gryffindors, and, well, he absolutely hates me so he might have just said no because it was me asking.”

“Do you know why he hates you?”

He shook his head, “No. No, I’d like to. I’d like to know what I did before my first class with him to ruin any chance with him…do you know?”

“No.” Nott said back.

Wonderful.

Fantastic.

The simple truth behind those words pushed at something Harry never bothered to inquire about before. What did he do? Why did Snape hate him? It had to do something with his father, right, with how much he brings him up when insulting him, it had to involve that. But why? What could his father have possibly done that would bring such spiteful, petty hatred past his death (which happened over a decade ago) and to him? Who, for Snape’s information, knew little to nothing about his dad at all.

What happened?

Was it even his fault?

Did it matter?

“I’m sorry, I’m glad that Snape is someone who can make Slytherins feel safe. I know you all get a lot of shit from the other houses.” Harry ended up saying, willing for the conversation to end and get back to nicer topics.

Like Disney, like pillow fights, like singing. 

By the grace of Merlin, Nott seemed to catch onto the shift and jumped back to the story, “Right. Well. Anyways, you never answered why Weasley was being sacrificed.”

“It’s a bit complicated, really.” He tilted his head side to side, trying to make the list of events make sense within his own mind.

Quick and easy, Nott shot back with, “Then explain it to me.”

“Your thirst for knowledge is a bit relentless, isn't it? You sure you aren't secretly a Ravenclaw?” 

Nott shifted his leg to dig his heel into the side of Harry’s leg, “I have been told I can be quite incorrigible, so I’m going to take that as a compliment. Now, get on with it so we can move onto the next question.”

“Don’t you still need to answer?”

An over-exaggerated eye roll, “Bloody hell, it’s like pulling teeth with you. I reckon I’ll probably die from some kind of disease, since that seems to be a trend in the Nott lineage, or some kind of research accident. There, happy now, you absolute arse ?”

Harry felt his eyebrows pinch and words leave his mouth without any say so from him, “Doesn’t that scare you?”

“What? Death? Dying?”

“No. No, no that.” Death hadn’t scared him for a long time, or really, death had never scared him, “Not having any say in it-or-or-control of how you’ll go.”

“Is that what you want? You’d want it to be on your own terms?” Nott asked, bending his knees and using that slight leverage to pull himself closer.

“That and not dying, like, alone, I guess.”

Being snuck up on and murdered without anyone there, without any knowledge that everything and everyone else would be okay, without being held, without being resituated so he wasn’t thrown haphazardly across the ground, without being prayed over, without having his wounds tended to, without-

-no, no, that didn’t sound like something he wanted.

A hum, “That sounds nice, the not dying alone part. I think I’d want someone to hold my hand when I go.”

“I’d like that…maybe I’d want someone talking to me too.”

“Maybe music?” Nott added and Harry nodded in agreement.

A moment passed in content silence before Nott whistled under his breath and chuckled, “Wow, that was extremely depressing. Okay, less death preparations and more near death experiences . Tell me what happened with the Chamber of Secrets and Weasley.”

Harry rolled his eyes.

“Fine, alright, Merlin’s beard. Just-just go with me here, yeah?” Multiple eager nods were sent his way and Harry pushed out a breath, squinted at the wooden coffee table as he spoke, “So, there was this, like, sentient diary that, I think , Lucius Malfoy snuck into Ginny’s books at the beginning of the year. Do I know why? Nope , not a clue. But this diary contained the vestige or ghost or something of this guy named Tom Marveleo Riddle, who was the owner of the diary back in the, like, 40s, and he was kinda, like, possessing Ginny to open the Chamber and write that weird stuff on the wall, right? So she was weirded out by everything and dumped the diary, I ended up finding it and talking to Riddle about the last time the basilisk was released by him back in the 40s. So, when I went down to the chamber, Ginny was lying in the middle of it, looking like she was already dead, with an almost fully formed version of Tom, and he said that he was, like, draining her life force so that he could become alive again.”

He took a breath and continued, “Low and behold, Tom Marveleo Riddle rearranged actually spells out ‘I am Lord Voldemort’, shocker, I know. So young Voldemort, Tom, called forth the basilisk to…I can't remember if it was going to just kill me or eat me but whatever, but before it could Fawkes, Dumbledore’s phoenix, flew in and gouged its eyes out. With me so far? Cool, so, it chased me around the chamber for a bit since it could still, ya know, hear me, but I eventually got back to the main part and saw that Fawkes had came back to drop off the sorting hat, and for some reason the Sword of Gryffindor came out of it. So now I had a weapon, I climbed up this weird snake head looking thing and stabbed the basilisk through the head but it ended up biting me in my arm. Now that the basilisk was dead, I used the tooth that was…well in me to stab the diary and destroy it which killed the ghost-spirit-thing. I told Ginny to follow the path out to meet up with Ron, since I was bitten and gonna, well, die, but Fawkes came back for the third time and cried on the wound so it healed and I ended up living.”

Silence. 

“Wow, that was a lot,” Harry took a breath and shifted in his seat, “Now that I’m thinking about it, Fawkes really did a lot of the heavy lift-”

“-where?”

The suddenness and seriousness of his tone was enough to give Harry pause, but then he noticed how Nottt’s eyes were scanning over the skin of the arm he was holding, trying to find something there.

“Where what?”

The hand that was cupping his own moved up, twisting his arm around until he could see the previously hidden skin of his upper bicep, his soft ( and slightly shaking-why was he shaking ) fingertips tracing the two-inch white scar on the skin there.

Nott pressed into the scar, “Here? It bit you here?”

Oh.

Harry made some sort of vague noise of acknowledgment, freezing himself solid, forcing himself still so that Nott wouldn’t move away from him, wouldn’t stop talking to him, wouldn’t stop looking at him, wouldn’t stop touching him, and

and

why did that matter so much to him?

He felt his fingernails catch gently on the skin, grazing the scar, and he moved his hand so just his thumb was pressing into it.

Nott sighed, “You survived, though.”

“I did.”

More pressure, more warmth, more intensity.

“Good.” A cleared throat, and Nott’s eyes shifted towards the table, “Name three things you and your partner have in common.”

“Hm?”

“That’s the next question.” Nott clarified.

Oh, right, he should probably know that by now.

How many questions deep where they? Seven? Eight? How long have they been talking?

He took a quick glance at the position they were still in, Nott’s hands still touching his arm and holding his hand, his legs curled over Harry’s underneath all the blankets…how the hell did they get there?

Well…”Can I make a really insensitive comment?”

Nott grinned, “Oh, always.”

He had a dimple on his left cheek, Harry noted, and a hint of teeth appeared as well, molars and canines on display.

What the fuck was wrong with him?

Everything. 

Bloody, fucking, everything.

“For my first thing…we both have dead moms?” He spit out, hoping to Merlin that Nott wasn’t about to hex him into oblivion.

Nott choked, snorted, and covered his mouth with wide eyes. Their eyes met, Harry pressed his lips together to smother any potential noise, ducking when Nott grabbed a spare throw pillow and started trying to smack him with it.

Though he was laughing during the assault, so Harry wasn’t too worried.

“Potter.” Smack. “Potter, you stupid-” Smack. “-bloody-” Smack. “- bastard . What is wrong with you?”

Harry yanked his arms up and grabbed the pillow, laughing alongside him, “I’m right, though!”

“Just because you’re right, doesn’t mean you aren’t a-”

“-stupid, bloody bastard?”

A playful glare, “You just love interrupting people, don’t you?”

“Eh, I blame Hermione and the twins.” Harry shot back with a shrug, pulling the pillow out of Nott’s grasp and holding it to his chest.

He pursed his lips, “Never have a conversation with them. Noted. Hm, we both aren’t fond of people.”

“That makes us sound like hermits.”

“What are hermits? You said that before.”

“Apparently, we are.”

“You’re insufferable, Potter.”

“Yet, you’re still talking to me.” He winked and smiled at Nott’s rolling eyes, “We both enjoy Defense Against the Dark Arts.”

“We both like Care for Magical Creatures.”

Harry opened his mouth, paused, “Wait, how do you know that?”

Nott tilted his head, squinted, a small smile pulling at his lips, “I saw you with Jipsy, I heard you freed Dobby from the Malfoy household because he was being mistreated, you tried to go to trial with Granger to save the hippogriff last year, I heard that you were talking to Diggory about if the dragons themselves were going to be taken are of properly after you were almost eaten by one, need I go on?”

He felt his cheeks flush the more Nott spoke, strangely fascinated with how much Nott seemed to know about him and what he’s done, especially the things that seemed so little and miniscule compared to everything else.

Something was glowing in his chest, warmth spreading through his veins, and he could feel his magic rearing its head and banging against the cage that he keeps it in, begging him to be released, to be left to run wild, to let him eviscerate every obstacle in his path, and gently hold onto and cradle every single person and thing he cares about.

( Especially The-No-nope )

“Didn’t-” Harry licked his lips, swallowed, tried again, “-didn’t-weren’t you the only Slytherin to get an O in that class last year?”

A blink, a shy ( beautiful ) smile, “I did, yes, I still hold that over Zabini.”

“Oh, I bet he hates that.”

“Serves him right for getting a higher score on the Herbology final in second year.” 

Immediately, Harry started laughing, holding the pillow tighter to his chest and even raising it up so it muffled his laughter and words some, “Wait, wait, wait, I have another one. We’re both incredibly petty.”

Nott ducked his head down with a smile and a snicker, biting his lip, “May I say something a bit bold?”

Please, be bold. Harry wanted to say. Please, be brave for the both of them, please take that leap, that next step, please prove to him that everything isn’t all in his head, please keep talking to him, please keep looking at him, please don’t go away-

-”You’re talking to a Gryffindor here. I’ll always say yes.”

A breath.

Then two.

Then, “My last one would be that…we’re both happy that we’re stuck here with each other.”

Oh, he’s so brave.

So much bloody braver than him.

He opened his mouth to agree with him, to ask the next question, to-to something, but what came out of his mouth was, “Can I call you Theodore?”

What.

What the fuck.

Why did he fucking say that?

What is wrong with him?

Isn’t that rude? It felt like it would be rude, like the person should normally give permission to use their first name first, right? But did he do that? Did he wait? Did he act like a civilized fucking human being?

Nope.

Nope. No, he did not. No wonder Remus or Sirius haven't messaged him since they left, they wouldn’t want to be associated with such a stupid fucking failure-

“-you can call me Theo. I…don’t really go by Theodore, that’s more my father’s name.”

Oh.

Oh my god.

“Oh my god, I didn’t fuck up by asking you that?” Harry blabbed out and immediately tried to suffocate himself with the pillow he was holding when No- Theo’s eyebrows furrowed.

The pillow was pried, quite literally, from his face and N-Theo forced eye-contact, “No, Potter, no you didn’t fuck up.”

Merlin, his eyes were stunning.

Wow.

He was really pathetic, wasn’t he?

“Okay then, Theo, you can call me Harry.”

Theo swallowed when Harry said his name, mouthing ‘ Harry ’ under his breath before pulling himself even closer to him using his legs, “I’m on a first name basis with Harry Potter …Malfoy is going to be such a prat about this.”

Harry choked on a laugh and the closeness but he was going to ignore that, “Seriously?”

A hum, “He was already going to be mad that I was the one trapped in the room with you, but now that we’re also friends ? I reckon he’ll throw some sort of tantrum.”

Friends.

Oh my god.

Oh my god, he was friends with Theodore Nott.

Wait-

“Don’t forget about the soulmates thing.” Harry added, smiling to himself slightly at the mental image of Malfoy losing his mind over this.

That soft, thin, pale hand intertwined with his, squeezing his fingers and Harry watched as Theo looked a bit fond at their hands when Harry squeezed back, “Yes, there’s that too.”

Harry glanced towards the parchment on the coffee table, reading the next question aloud, “For what in your life are you most grateful?”

Oh, that’s easy.

Theo seemed to think so as well, immediately answering with, “My status. My family, while being primarily dark wizards, have usually been fairly neutral in major political affairs, and I’m also the sole heir to an entire fortune. I have no political or financial obligations I need to attend to. This has put me into a position where I can really do whatever I like.”

He tried to imagine it, having no obligations or needs to uphold, being able to do whatever he’d like.

For one, he’d move out of the Dursleys, maybe move to some kind of small wizarding town that wasn’t near London, something that was close to muggle society so he could experience both worlds comfortably. Maybe he’d have a cabin, a small house, something that could feel easily lived in and not something he’d need to keep picturesque . His house would be made out of dark wood, brick, and maybe white stone, something with dark green shutters and planters underneath the windows. A garden would be nice too, (not flowers, Petunia traumatised him enough with that ) but maybe he’d grow vegetables, fruits, herbs, and ingredients for potions and spells and such.

Maybe he could build the cabin, he had the money, and he could travel all across the world before settling down and building his home with his own two hands.

He could cook himself whatever food he wanted; pumpkin pastries, french onion soup, and treacle tarts, and he could season everything however he liked, not having to worry about salt and pepper making it too spicy for consumption.

( He wouldn’t ever go hungry )

For once, maybe, he’d be ahead on his studies. He’d be able to get all the different books he could find, whatever subjects he wanted, and learn and read out in the open without it being thrown in the bin or into the fireplace. 

Hedwig could fly free, she wouldn’t be cooped in her cage for days at a time.

He could write to his friends and family ( what family ) however much he’d like, hell, he could even invite them over if he wanted.

( He wouldn’t be locked in his room, his cupboard, hidden away from everyone like he was a disgrace, a parasite )

“That-that sounds really nice, actually. You know, having that freedom to choose.” Harry eventually said after he realised he’d been quiet for too long.

Theo hummed, his other hand tracing patterns across his skin, connecting sparse freckles and old burn marks and scars like he was trying to make his own constellations, but he didn't comment on his moment of dissociative silence, just simply asked, “And you? What are you most grateful for?”

With no hesitation, “My loved ones…cliche, I know.”

As stereotypical as it was, he couldn’t say anything else.

Without Ron, without Hermione, without Fred, and George, and Ginny, Neville, Luna, Hedwig, Sirius, Mrs Weasley-

Without any of them, he wouldn’t be here.

( He would’ve given up by now )

That got him an amused eye roll, “The fact that you mean that too is absolutely ridiculous. You’re, like, too sweet.”

Harry raised a brow, “I’m sorry?”

“Was that a question?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never been called sweet before.”

Eyebrows furrowing, Theo started nodding his head, “So, I need to say more nice things to you?”

A scowl, “If you start doing that, I swear to Merlin, I’m going to compliment you so much, I’ll fry your brain.”

Another eye roll, another smirk, “Oh, is that a challenge, sweetheart ?”

Oh fuck.

Oh fuck.

Oh fuck, Harry, what did he do?

Abort.

Abort.

His face was on fire .

Abort .

The magic in his chest exploded, the previously simmering fireplace bursting to life with a stupid amount of unnecessary sparks.

Theo’s head whipped around, his eyes wide at the loud, crackling fire, and the smile that was blooming on his face could only be described as positively beaming .

Harry hated it.

( He loved it )

By the time Theo turned back around, eyebrows raised and smile still there, Harry was already shaking his head, “Nope. No. No, we’re not talking about this. Nope. Nope. No-”

“Harry-”

“No. Oh my god, I will lock myself in the bathroom, don’t test me.”

He raised his hands in mock surrender, “Alright. Alright, loud and clear, no talking about the randomly sparked fire and your blushi-”

“-next question! If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?” Harry interrupted, though he slowly trailed off once he understood what the question was asking.

What his answer would have to be.

Theo rolled his eyes at the quick interruption and shrugged, “I’d like to not have a dead mom, so uh, that.”

Okay, they weren’t being serious about this.

Thank Merlin.

So Harry nodded, “Good answer, I wouldn’t have minded having living parents, but uh, I think I’ll stick with not being raised by my aunt and uncle.”

A wince, “That bad?”

“I mean, they didn’t actively try to kill me.”

His eyebrows furrowed, his head tilting, “Is…is that your bar? Everything else above attempted murder happened?”

Abort.

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

Abort.

This was getting way too close to emotional conversations he wasn’t emotionally prepared for having… ever.  

A huff, “They didn’t want another kid, and they didn’t like magic. Two variables that didn’t bode well for me. Now, can we please not talk about this and just move on?”

They locked eyes for a moment, then two, then three, then Theo’s eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched, like he was physically restraining himself again from saying what he wanted to, instead turning his head towards the parchment to read the next prompt.

“Take four minutes and tell your partner your life story in as much detail as possible. You first?” Theo grabbed his wand and casted a quick timer spell, looking back towards Harry with a wave of his hand.

So, for the next four minutes he described his past few years at Hogwarts, excluding a good chunk of the illegal activity they committed the year before, and instead focused on his first time in Diagon Alley, meeting Ron and Hermione, skimming over the near-death experiences and the mysteries, but he managed to finish with the dragon trial for the tournament by the time the four minutes were up.

Theo whistled under his breath, “Are you saying all it took to be your friend was to sit next to you on the train and not be a dick?”

A shrug, “I mean, I care more about not being a dick, to be honest.”

“Noted.”

Harry glanced at his wand on the coffee table, feeling his magic latch onto the familiar magical energy of the wood and pulling it towards him, catching it in his palm and casting a quick four minute timer, “Your turn.”

He let out a sigh, shifted his body so he was leaning more against the back cushion and Harry, “Alright, um, I was born on December 2nd, 1979 to Malec and Theodore Nott Senior. The first eight years of my life was spent with my mother being beyond doting and affectionate, we’d spend hours together painting, gardening, playing music, tending to the wildlife and magical creatures that surrounded our manor, things like that. My father was either at work with the Ministry, being pulled along with whatever scheme my mother and I had brewed up, or simply reading beside us while we did our own thing. The sickness caught up with her quickly, which I think was more merciful than if she was suffering from it gradually worsening for years, so within a month my mother went from running with me from my father around the house to being completely imobile and bedridden. My father and I were in the room with her on her last day, he was holding her hand and sitting on a pulled up chair beside her, and I was lying next to her on the bed, reading this, uh, poetry book out loud to her.

“He-he stopped me after a while and told me to say goodbye to her, I didn’t understand at the time why he was crying, but I realised when I got older that he was monitoring her magic levels to see when she would-” He stopped, inhaled, started again, “…and she was about to die. So, I hugged her, told her I loved her, and I swear I felt her arm move like she wanted to hold me back, she just wasn’t strong enough to. My father, he uh, moved us so he was laying on the bed, her cradled in his chest with me cradled in hers, and a few minutes later, she died.”

Oh no.

Oh god. 

There were tears in Theo's eyes, slow and inconsistent streams falling down his cheeks, his lips pressed together and his jaw locked like he was controlling himself again. 

Harry didn’t comment on it. 

He simply let him pause, wait, recuperate, and after fifteen seconds on the timer, Theo sniffled, swallowed and continued, “ Merlin . Um, I can’t remember the funeral or the weeks after that, but I know that for months to almost two years after, it was like my father and the manor died with her. I was never neglected, mind you, my needs were always met, my father made sure he was around and didn’t completely shut down, but I could tell everything had changed, ya know? I started focusing on my studies after that, wanting to learn about anything and everything, magical or muggle, it didn’t matter, so when I came to Hogwarts I was already well-prepared for all my classes. I breezed through my courses year after year, tried to steadily make my way through every book in the library, I will say I’m making good headway even though I’m only a fourth of the way through, I made… friends with Zabini and Parkinson, and just made my way through life until…”

A breath, filling the air in his lungs, and Harry squeezed Theo’s hand when he asked, “Until?”

“Until now, I guess.” Theo responded, a smile somehow pulling at his lips while tears fell down his cheeks.

Something ached and cracked in his chest, swallowing up his heart and lungs and bundling up all his internal organs into a tight ball, suffocating him and burning him from the inside out. His body and hands yearned to hold Theo, his magic, his empathy craved to wrap Theo up in their protective grasp and not let a single thing hurt him ever again.

He thought back then, days and weeks and months and years in his life when he was in this exact same position at Theo, feeling grief sinking its claws into them and feeling undeserving of being hurt by the marks it leaves behind, and he thought about how he wanted to be treated in those moments.

Harry moved Theo’s legs from on top of his own, momentarily ignoring Theo’s choked and muffled noise of confusion, and instead using his free hand and the hand he was holding to pull Theo into his side. Both of their legs hung from the couch, still covered with blankets, and Harry let Theo situate himself into his arms, manoeuvring Harry’s arms around his shoulders and chest, his own arms around Harry’s abdomen, his tear-streaked face tucked into his neck. Neither spoke, not even when the slow stream of tears stopped and Theo’s breath became steady, not even when Theo mumbled, “Merlin, this is a bit pathetic, isn’t it?”

Immediately shaking his head, Harry set his chin against Theo’s head, gazing at the locked wooden door, “No. No, I don’t think so. Truly, I wish I had people that held me more when I was upset, like they could hold me together when I wanted to-

“-fall apart?” Theo interrupted this time, shifting his head back so it rested against the back cushion, his eyes slightly red even though they were closed, his smile small and sad but still there.

A hum and Harry let his head drop back against the couch cushion as well, enjoying a few moments of quiet and calm before they continued on with the final question. 

For that day at least.

“How are you feeling?” He ended up asking after a few minutes had passed.

A snort, “Hallowed out. Emotions are disgusting.”

“Agreed.”

Theo’s lips quirked up at the edges, “We have one question left.”

“We do.”

“Then we should probably do our school work for the day.” He continued and Harry barely had to dramatise his groan of disdain. 

“But Theo ,” The smile on his face was turning into soft snickers of laughter, so it was worth it to whine and be dramatic a little bit, “You don’t understand , I had Potions today, and if I look at the work Snape gave me I’m going to start a fire and throw myself into it, I swear .”

More laughter, Harry couldn’t help but put on a fake pout and puppy eyes when Theo opened his eyes to look at him, especially when it got him an eye roll and a playful shove, “You’re absolutely insufferable, stop making that face, it’s not that bad.”

He made a show of dropping his head back against the arm of the couch, throwing an arm over his eyes, “But you’re a potions expert , Theo. I can’t even look at a cauldron without wanting to throw myself out of a window.” 

“Oh you poor baby, how will you ever survive?”

“I won’t survive, Theo, this will be the end of me.”

“A tragedy, really. The Boy Who Lived, dead by potions homework.”

An exaggerated groan, “My reputation will be ruined, Nott. Ruined .”

“Doesn’t that happen every year and it always bounces back?” Theo asked, reaching over Harry to grab the arm still over his eyes and pull him upright.

Harry gasped, “You aren’t taking this seriously, are you? I-how dare you? Does our friendship mean nothing to you?”

He made an attempt to untangle himself from the couch, but hands pulled him back down with enough force to make him bounce in the cushion and push the air from his lungs. 

“How about this…” Theo started, a hand on Harry’s chest and holding him back from making another escape attempt, “I’ll help you with potions if you do something for me.”

That sounded vaguely sexual.

His thoughts must’ve shown on his face because Theo flicked him on the nose with a glare, “Not anything like that , just, I don’t know-”

“-I could bake you something?”

Theo’s eyes squinted, “You can’t brew a potion…but you can bake?” 

“And cook.”

“...how?”

Harry shrugged, “I don’t know, they’re just different for me. Does that work for you?”

“You don’t have a kitchen.”

He imagined baby blue cabinets and white marble countertops, lined in an L-shape in the corner, a grey gas-powered stove replacing a cabinet with a grey sink two cabinets down. A big matching fridge would be nice too, maybe one of those ones with double doors and shelves on the inside of them, like he’d seen on TV. Some open cabinets too on top of them all, holding cups and bowls and plates, and then a matching island and barstools. 

Blinking his eyes open, Harry grinned as the exact detailed design in his mind formed in the corner of the room beside the door, he waved a hand over towards the area and watched as Theo looked over and rolled his eyes. 

“Fine, alright, you win. You bake something for me and I’ll help you with your potions homework.” Theo held out his hand and Harry shook it in mock-seriousness, trying his best to look determined though the smirk on Theo’s face said that he was probably failing.

Leaning over to glance at the parchment, Harry said, “ If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be?”

Theo pursed his lips, tilting his head from side to side, “I’d probably say I’d like the ability to heal. I like the idea of being able to heal any kind of sickness or injury with a wave of my wand.”

“Makes sense…do you want to be a healer?”

“Maybe not a full-time one.” He replied, twisting their legs together again under the blankets, “Owning my own practice sounds nice, I could control my hours and my clientele, and then I would have plenty of time for research and things like that as well.”

A raised brow, “Your own practice, huh? Would you want to specialise in anything or be more of a general practitioner?” 

“Ironically, I was thinking of either working in incurable diseases or diseases spawned through magical influence. You sound like you've researched this, do you want to be a healer?” He said back, fingers tapping a melody against Harry’s shirt. 

He shrugged, “I’ve thought about it, but I haven’t decided on anything concrete, yet.”

Humming, Theo shifted some, “Well, you have time. What about you? Any ability or quality, what would you want?”

It was a strange question to ask when magic was at their disposal. When he was in primary school, his teacher had asked the class if they could have any superpower, what would it have been, and most of the answers that were given (including his own) he could already do. Back then, he said he’d want to fly, and now he can do that pretty much whenever he liked. Telekinesis? Magic. Super-strength or speed? Potions. Mind-reading? He vaguely remembered that there was a spell for that. Shapeshifting? Potions. Anything elemental? Magic.

What ability could he want when he could do almost anything?

Almost because magic wasn’t enough to keep him out of life-threatening situations.

Almost because Sirius was still wrong-fully convicted and imprisoned. 

Almost because his parent’s traitor, a grown fucking man, was secretly rooming with children for years. 

( he didn’t want to think about the fact that Pettigrew was there while they all were getting dressed, while they were sleeping, what he was doing or thinking in those moments )

Almost because his parents and so many others were still murdered.

“Well, for me, it would be a tie between two things.” Harry started, trapping Theo’s foot between his own, and ignoring the huff of annoyance when Theo tried and failed to free himself, “There’s this American superhero named… Spider-man… I think , and he has this, like, danger sense that tells him when something bad is going to happen or if he’s unsafe, and I think that would be a good substitute for my lack of self-preservation. So, either that, or being able to speak to the dead, it would kinda fix the no relationship thing with parents, ya know?”

Theo snorted, “So super-human intuition or half-assed necromancy, noted.”

Harry scowled, successfully rolled Theo’s sock off his foot  and quickly started on his other foot when he started moving away, “You’re kind of a dick, you know that?”

“And yet, you’re still friends with me, so maybe your ‘not an asshole’ rule isn’t as airtight as you th-can you not steal my socks? What are you, five?”

“~ What are you, five~ ?” He hissed back, waiting for Theo to pause at the use of another language (which he did), and he used that advantage to yank the blankets off of him and onto Theo, quickly standing up and making his way over to the kitchen.

There were curses, thankfully only verbally, sent his way and he couldn't help but smile at the unruly head of hair and scowling eyes that were sent his way, the new imperfection of it made Theo seem a bit more human, a bit more obtainable, even if he was no less ridiculously attractive.

Merlin, the unruliness might actually make him look better, what the fuck.

Theo started searching through the blankets for his socks as Harry spoke, “So, anything you have in mind, I can summon a recipe and ingredients for pretty much anything.”

“Anything?”

He rolled his eyes, “Yes, I do believe I said that.”

“Fine, smartass, I want a…butter cake.” He shot back, sitting back down on the couch to put his socks back on.

Butter cake, he made that once a few years back when the neighbourhood had a bake sale, and Aunt Petunia had forgotten about until last minute, too worried about the stomach bug Dudley had. Instead of not doing anything, she had Harry stay up all night and make a butter cake with vanilla filling, decorated with little fondant flowers and vanilla icing. 

It shouldn't be that difficult to make again. 

“Alright, I can do that.” He imagined all the ingredients he would need, step by step so he wouldn't forget any, and then he imagined the needed bowls, measuring cups, spoons, trays, mixers, watching as they all appeared on the island, “What kind of filling do you want?”

Theo paused from where he was sitting down on one of the barstools, both of their school work laid out on the other side of the island, “Wait what? Seriously?”

He raised a brow, punched in the numbers to preheat the oven, and turned back around to see Theo looking at him, eyes wide and sincere and vulnerable. 

When he didn’t say anything in response, Theo started elaborating, a hand running through his unruly hair and Harry had to make sure he was focused on the words Theo said and not how his hair looked, “I wasn’t being serious, Harry, you-you don’t have to bake me a whole bloody cake .”

“So you don't want a butter cake?” Harry replied, pausing in sorting out the ingredients into the needed order. 

“That’s…well-”

“Okay, so you do. What flavoured filling do you want?”

A scowl, “That’s a lot of work, you don’t need to put all that effort into-”

“-Theo, I really, truly don’t mind. I enjoy baking and cooking like this.”

Like a bloody fucking bloodhound, Theo caught onto his wording, “Like this? Like what? What do you mean?”

Too preoccupied with measuring the sugar, the words, “Well, are you going to beat the shit out of me if it’s not to your liking?” slipped from his mouth.

Silence. 

The words caught up to him then, and every muscle, every tendon, every joint and bone and vein in his body turned to ice. For a moment, Harry could truly sympathise with how those paralysis victims felt in second year, like his lungs physically couldn’t move to intake air, like everything in his body was stiff and useless and corpselike, like his heart actively pumping blood was fundamentally unnecessary besides keeping him conscious and aware of his lack of bodily control.

“Harry-”

“- don’t .”

That single word came from some desperate, hurt part of him, one that hated that the comfortability that this room, this situation, that Theo created made him subconsciously peel back the iron locks and barricaded doors that kept anything involving his aunt and uncle inside, inside and away from where anyone could see and touch and poke and prod. He wanted to crumble into a ball, wanted to rip his bones from his body and build a fortress out of them so no one could see the pathetic ball of shame and guilt that made up who he was, wanted to bleed himself dry, wanted to tear the skin from his bones so that there would be no evidence of the scars and bruises and tears and pain that had plagued him since he could remember.

He wanted.

But he didn't.

And Theo, no matter how much he probably wanted to, didn’t peel back the barricaded doors and unclip the iron locks, he didn’t push and prod and dig insensitive or pitiful fingers into the open wound to see what the cause was.

He took a stuttered breath, reached out and pressed soft fingertips against Harry’s hand, and said, “I’d like whatever you made for me, but vanilla and coffee filling sounds lovely.”

‘I’d like whatever you made for me’

Warmth from his hands and words flooded his body and thawed out everything that had gone still in fear and panic. 

Harry released the breath he was holding and smiled down at the mixing bowl, “Coffee and vanilla? I can work with that.”

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Theo hasn't been paying any attention to his Herbology homework, instead focusing on trying to figure out the muggle contraptions Harry was using to bake him a bloody cake . 

“What’s that?” He ended up asking, pointing to a giant square metal thing with a glass door when Harry looked up at him with a raised brow.

“Oh, that’s an oven…and a stove. It’s both really.”

“And what do those do?”

Harry paused in his mixing, he was using another contraption that he already explained to be called a mixer, something that uses whisks and automatically combines all the baking ingredients together, but he stopped after it was mostly mixed to finish by hand, saying that it ‘made it taste better’, “So, a stove is kinda like a muggle cauldron. We use electricity to produce heat, right, and we put pans and stuff like that on top of the heat to cook our food, boil our water, things like that. An oven…you know what the fridge is, yes?”

He nodded his head towards the large, two-door rectangular thing, and Theo nodded, “I didn’t know that was what it was called, but yes. It’s like an ice-box, but muggles use electricity to keep everything cold instead of a spell.”

“Right, well, an oven is the opposite of that.” He went back to mixing as he spoke, and Theo was torn between listening to his explanation, watching the muscles in his forearms move as he mixed, or smile at the bit of flour that was on his nose and cheek, “Electricity makes heat, it can go up to around 250 degrees celsius, and we use it to cook meals that need cooking all the way around. Think like turkeys, pizza, things like that.”

Pizza?

“Zabini said something about pizza when he went to Italy. Is it good?”

A grin and a tilted head, “Merlin, you’ve never had pizza before? We’re going to have to fix that one of the days we’re here, I don’t care if Jipsy can bring it or I have to make it, you’re going to experience that. Personally, I love pizza, but I know it’s not for everyone, Hermione isn’t a big fan of it.”

“It's flatbread, yes?”  Theo asked, going back to his homework now that his question wasn’t gnawing at him.

“In a way, the bread is covered in tomato sauce, cheese, and then any combination of toppings a person could want.” Harry poured the cake batter into greased pans, setting the bowl and spoon to the side.

“Anything?”

“Pretty much, I prefer pepperoni and mushrooms, but you can put peppers, sausage, veggies, hell, I think some people even put pineapple on it.”

“ Pineapple? Really ?” Theo raised his head and watched as Harry slid the cake pans into the oven, and grabbed some circular, white clock and turned the notch on it to a specific time, setting it back down on the counter with a quiet ticking noise.

Harry hummed, started pulling out the ingredients and utensils for the fillings, and glanced up at Theo, “Do you mind if we work on the potions assignment while I make the filling? I work better when my brain isn’t, ya know, melting from focusing on one thing.”

A shrug, “Fine by me, I can honestly talk you through the rest of your homework too, just so you can focus on the baking.”

He moved his Herbology work to the side and brought out both of their potions assignments, thankfully Slytherin and Gryffindor houses shared the same potions class so they had the same work, it was just a simple step-by-step explanation of how to make a calming draught. 

Simple. 

Easy.

“Okay Harry, I’m going to cast a spell that will write down your words onto a piece of parchment, so that I won’t be doing your work for you, but I can help edit it down and explain some things if it doesn’t make sense, sound good?” 

A smile was sent his way, “That’s brilliant, actually. Thank you…I won’t be distract-”

“-Harry, you’re baking me a cake.”

“Noted. Okay, uh, hit me. Oh, wait, real quick, do you want the bowl or the spoon?”

He tilted his head towards the batter covered bowl and spoon he previously set aside, rolling his eyes and explaining when Theo just stared at him, “Do you want to eat the batter off of the bowl or the spoon?”

Oh.

Oh Merlin, he hadn’t done that since his mom baked a batch of brownies about two months before her death.

“Um,  I’ll-uh-take the spoon.” He took a shaky breath, apparently his emotions were still haywire from his embarrassing breakdown earlier, “You can have the bowl.”

Theo knew Harry heard his shaky voice, how stuttered his breath was, and he knew that Harry was connecting the dots in his head, but he didn’t press any further and simply handed the batter covered wooden spoon to him with a smile and, “If it tastes bad, don’t tell me, it’s too late to restart now.”

Rolling his eyes, he went to lick at the spoon but was forced to pause and stare with his mouth ridiculously agape as Harry ran a finger through the batter in the bowl and stuck it in his mouth with a hum, licking it clean.

Unsurprisingly, he made a panicked noise in his throat and Harry’s wide, beautiful green eyes shot up to his, and Theo knew the exact moment that he realised what had occurred because a gorgeous flush bloomed across the tan skin of his cheeks and ears, and a shy smile pulled at his lips, “Sorry, love, just wanted to see if the batter was good or not.”

Love.

Love .

Theo now understood why Harry had such a visceral reaction to his sarcastic pet name earlier, the warmth and light building in his chest filled his heart and limbs with something only akin to joy, and it was impossible to stop when the spoon slipped from his hands and landed flat onto his potions textbook.

Shit.

“Oh shit , Theo, I am so sorry.” With a wave of his hand, the spoon was levitating in front of Theo and the batter on the textbook was magicked clean.

He, hesitantly, grabbed the floating spoon and watched as Harry’s shy smile turned sheepish and he scratched the back of his head, “My bad, uh, potions, right? What do we- I need to do?”

A slow, steady inhale with a cleared throat, “Right, uh, what is a calming draught?”

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You know what you never explained to me?” Harry asked, carefully spreading the vanilla and coffee filling on top of the bottom layer of cake.

In the corner of his eyes, Theo looked up from his Charms assignment with a raised brow, “And what would that be?”

“The Wizengamot seats, what the hell are those anyways?”

“Oh, right, the Wizengamot is the high council and parliament of the British wizarding world, it predates the Ministry of Magic itself and the members of it are all from the bloodlines that were established back then. In the early 1700s, the members Minister of Magic, Undersecretary of the Minister of Magic, the Chief Warlock, and the Court Scribe were all added in for some trials and judgements.”

Harry absorbed the information, he knew that Cornelius Fudge was the Minister but he didn’t know that it expanded that far, “How many members are there normally?”

Theo set his quill down and pursed his lips, “So, it’s a bit complicated. There are two levels of houses within the Wizengamort court; there are active houses, ones that have active members and heirs, and dormant houses who have no current holder or heir. But you’re, apparently , the heir to a previously dormant house so it mixes some things up.”

“Oh.”

A small smile, “Yeah, oh . So, with you being the heir to the House of Potter, Black, and Peverell, which was the previously dormant house, you will hold a total of…twenty seats, I believe. With Black being an ancient and noble house, that includes ten seats while the other two should have five, I think , I’m not totally sure about how many seats Peverell has, though.”

That…huh.

He stopped making diagonal lines of fillings, carefully laying the second butter cake on top of it before he gently started icing again, “Now, I might be wrong about this, but that sounds like a lot.”

An eye roll, “Your brilliance never ceases to astound me, Harry. Yes, that’s a lot, Wizengamot seat holders will plan arranged marriages and alliances for decades to just gain a singular house. You have four .”

“Brilliant, sounds like more responsibility that I don’t want to deal with,” Harry huffed, swiped a finger over a small leak on the side of the cake and eating it quickly before going back to work (ignoring Theo’s choked noise), “But, wait, you said I had four. You only said three before, where does the, uh, heir of Slytherin thing fit in?”

“Heirs to Hogwarts Houses or other major educational and influential figures, like the Chief Warlock, have a singular seat that is normally used for tie-breaking votes and things like that.” Theo replied, eyes still wide and staring at him as he spoke.

“Oh, so, those people are probably more neutral leaning, yes?”

Pursing his lips, Theo shook his head, “Not really , you’re the only heir to a Hogwarts house that I can recall in recent history, or well I guess besides Tom Riddle, so I can’t say much about that, but since the war with Grindleward, the Wizengamot seats have been very light leaning.”

Harry paused, “But…shouldn’t the main court system of the British wizarding world be completely balanced and unbiased? It doesn’t make sense for it to be more light or more dark, that’s going to make the laws that are passed be completely one-sided and lead towards resentment.”

“That’s…”

“What?”

“I don’t know, it’s just surprising for you to think that.” He replied with a shrug, setting aside the apparently finished Charms homework.

He squinted at Theo, though it probably wasn’t too threatening with a cake right in front of him, “What does that mean?”

Another eyeroll, those this one held a ting of fondness to it, “You’re the figurehead of light, Harry. Potentially more than even Dumbledore is.”

“Oh, so, because a Dark Lord tried to murder me as a baby , I’m suddenly the-the holy hero of light?”

A shrug, “According to wizarding society.”

“That’s bloody, fucking ridiculous.”

“Truly, I mean, if they heard the mouth that you had, they certainly would rethink having you as the figurehead.”

Glaring at him, Harry grabbed the plate the finished cake was sitting on, “You know, because of that comment, I’m going to eat this whole cake by myself.”

Theo’s smirk dropped and his eyes went wide, “Wait wait wait wait, no, I’m sorry.”

“Are you re-”

A magical signature appeared beside Theo, the air tightening around it like the magic was trying to rip a hole in the atmosphere in that exact area, he took a breath, squinted at the spot and waited for a seconds, then two, then Theo opened his mouth while glancing back and forth from the spot he was staring at to him, but before he could say anything Jipsy appeared with a grin and hands behind her back.

“Oh bloody Merlin-” Theo stumbled out of his chair, pressing hands into his face as he folded in on himself.

“Mister Nott, I am so so sorry! I hadn’t meant to-” She stopped her tear-filled words when Theo waved a nonchalant hand towards her.

Harry grinned and winked at her, “I think he thought I was a bit possessed there for a moment, that was my bad. Anyways, Jipsy, how are you?”

She glanced at Theo but visibly relaxed when he smiled at her and sat back down in his bar stool, “I’m doing very well, Mister Potter, thank you so much for asking. Is there anything I can help you two with? Any lunch requests?”

Theo perked up then, “Oh, you’re taking requests? We can ask for anything?”

A nod.

An ecstatic smile was sent his way and he continued with saying, “Can we try pizza? What were the toppings you said you liked? Mushrooms and…?”

“Oh, pepperoni? Yeah, Jipsy, are you able to make that?”

Jipsy frantically nodded her head, “Yes, of course, I haven’t actually made pizza before, is it alright if I get some assistance from the other kitchen elves?”

“Of course, we really appreciate you doing this.” Theo grabbed his wand and muttered gemino under his breath before duplicating the plate and the actual cake itself, “As a thank you, why don’t you take this cake to share amongst yourselves?”

She looked to Harry for confirmation and he reminded himself to nod to her, his mind focused on the simple, immediate kindness and generosity that Theo seemed to do mindlessly, with graceful ease. His magic rattled the cage he kept it in, wanting to create lights, stars, galaxies to showcase how much that compassion was worth, how much it meant to people like him, to people like Jipsy, to people who were terrified and suspicious of every word, every intention, every action. 

Did he know?

Did he understand?

Jipsy nodded her head down in thanks, “You are too kind, the both of you, is there anything else I can do for you?”

He tilted his head towards their finished homework and classwork, “Would you terribly mind giving these to our professors?”

Theo gathered the papers together and handed it towards her, the papers and plated cake floating alongside her and she gave a small bow before disappearing with a crack, leaving them alone again.

Letting out a breath, Harry cleared his throat and started cutting a slice for the both of them, laying them both on separate plates and sliding it over with a fork towards Theo, then he took a bite of his own slice. 

It was okay, all things considered, the coffee overpowered the vanilla which was to be expected but maybe he should have incorporated vanilla into the butter cake itself so that it was stronger…though that would've made the cake itself a lot denser so that wouldn’t have been good as well. Maybe he should have made some vanilla icing to go along with the filling, like a top layer while the filling could have dripped down the sides and connected the two cakes together?

Could he still do that?

It wouldn't be too difficult and wouldn't be too time-consuming so-

“Harry, what the hell?”

A wince, “Not good? I can remake it no problem, maybe I’ll even out the coffee and vanilla filling with some vanilla icing so it isn’t as-”

“-no. No, no no no, that wasn't what I was saying at all.” Theo interrupted, frantically shaking his head and using his fork to point down at the food, “Harry, this is absolutely bloody brilliant. This is…”

He stopped, took another bite and groaned, and Harry was dying again. 

Heat rushed to his cheeks and he ducked his head down to take another bite so his embarrassing amounts of joy wasn’t as visible. 

Merlin, he was like a dog .

Licking his lips, Theo scrapped some more filling onto his fork with some cake, “What were you saying about icing? Did you want to make some?”

“Maybe? The coffee is a bit too strong for my liking, I normally make mine ridiculously sweet or I down it and ignore the taste, ya know?” He replied with a shrug and took another bite, regardless of the coffee flavouring it wasn’t a bad cake and he wasn’t going to let it go to waste. 

A hum and Theo hopped up from his seat and stood beside Harry, “Bet, okay, let's make the icing.”

Harry blinked at him, glanced from him, to the cake, to the now empty seat and back again, like he was piecing together the chain of events that led to Theo wanting to make icing with him.

“Are-are you sure? You don’t have to-”

Hip-checking him out of the way, Theo made his way over to the sink and started washing his hands, “Yes, I am sure. Yes, I’m aware I don’t have to. You need to get it into your mind, Harry, that I usually don’t do anything I don’t want to do. I don’t feel guilty and offered to help because I felt bad. I don’t want to help because the cake is bad, I want to bake again and this is a good opportunity.”

Oh.

“Okay.” Harry said back, mentally going through the ingredients that he- they would need for the icing.

He rolled his eyes and smiled at him, “ Okay . Besides, this’ll be a good way to pass the time until lunch. Now, I don’t think I’ve made icing before, what's first?”

Theo was a line of heat against Harry’s side, long and lean muscle and pale skin hidden beneath those stupidly soft pyjamas, and he took a quick inhale before washing his hands as well.

Right.

Okay, Potter, you can do this.

—-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There was pizza on the counter, Theo realised, and Jipsy hadn’t made a sound when she had brought it.

He was a little bit worried that falling out of his seat last time she popped up made her not want to show herself unless absolutely necessary, but there wasn’t much he could do about that now.

Besides, he needed to focus.

They had finished making the icing (it was too sweet for him), but Harry loved it on the cake, making a small pleased noise with his first bite that Theo wanted to internalise and keep with him for the rest of his life, and afterwards they had decided to spend their time waiting for pizza with learning about summoning spells and wandless, wordless magic.

Theo had explained to Harry, in depth, about summoning spells, rituals, the usage of blood and hair and other forms of DNA that could make a person do whatever the caster wanted. Then he explained the sustainability spell he cast upon himself, trial and error for weeks until the spell did what he needed it to do, how the spell that was used against them found a strange loophole.

Harry nodded, listening intently with furrowed brows and pursed lips, asking clarifying questions like he wanted to pick apart each step of Theo’s thought process, like he wanted it laid out in front of him so that he could study and memorise it.

But then he asked, “How do you maintain the spell?”

“I use my own magic.”

A squint, “But doesn’t that leave more room for error? Or, at least, I’d think it would. What if your magical core is exhausted? What if multiple people are trying to get your DNA at once and you get overwhelmed? What if you’re put under an imperius curse and they make you? What if your mind becomes so deteriorated that you don’t have control over it anymore? Does it work when you’re unconscious? When you’re asleep? Is it every form of DNA or is it only things like hair and blood? What if people figure out how to use skin cells or something incomprehensible, will the spell adapt or does it rely solely on your own knowledge? What if you’re put to sleep or-or unconscious and someone needs your DNA to save you? Does it read intentions or-”

“ Harry. ”

Teeth clinked together with how quickly Potter’s mouth closed, and the look on his face could only be described as sheepish.

His words, his questions circled Theo’s brain and dozens of new contingencies and worries and  weaknesses were lined up for him to dissect and take apart later.

Later.

Because Harry looked like he wanted to bang his head into the island counter, so Theo quickly nudged his shoulder and grinned, “Okay, Mr. Ravenclaw, what would you suggest?”

An eye roll, “Merlin, I would be a horrendous Ravenclaw, don’t smear their reputation by saying I could be one of them. But, in all seriousness, I’m not sure? Maybe having a daily potion that connects to your magic might elevate some of the strain on your magical core, and it would allow for personalization as well but…I don’t know, I’m terrible at potions.”

Theo had hummed, nodded, and asked for Harry to uphold his end of the deal and teach him how the hell he does wandless and wordless magic so casually.

Which is why he needs to focus and ignore the steaming pizza sitting on the counter.

They were sitting on the floor (on a rug but still), facing each other with crossed legs and Harry holding one of his hands, “Okay, so, fair warning, I have no idea what I’m doing so please bear with me. Easy start, what does your magical core feel like?”

Um.

Right. 

Wincing, he scratched the back of his head, “I don’t know how to, ya know.”

“Describe it?”

A nod. 

“Well, you were able to describe mine, right?” He tilted his head and Harry squinted his eyes with a huff, “When you use magic, when it travels from your magical core and into your wand, what does it feel like? If you were writing or-or reading a story, how would you write it? How would you read it? What words would be used?”

The image in his head started to form with Harry’s words, a baby blue novel with hand-written cursive words flowing along its pages in a grey, almost black, ink. In his mind, in his book, he played back the moments in his life when his magic was the strongest, the most potent, he scanned the pages, traced fingertips over the words, and mouthed them to himself inside his head

and said out loud, “It feels electrifying. Like-like there’s lightning in my veins.”

Harry smiled at him, soft and proud and fond, “Great, now scale it down to an everyday experience. Like, when you shock yourself or someone else when you caused too much friction or running your fingers over an active lightbulb or-”

Theo interrupted him, “It feels like standing outside during a thunderstorm, how you can feel the electricity on your skin or smell it in the air.”

“Brilliant, now recreate that feeling. Imagine it in your head, make yourself feel it.”

“Like manifestation?”

“What’s-”

He rolled his eyes, “It’s like you willed something into existence.”

“Oh. Then, yes, like that.” He replied back with a small smile, and it was distracting enough that Theo needed to close his eyes to focus.

So Theo imagined himself in the middle of a field, dewy blades of grass dragging across his pants, stormy grey clouds with dashes of blue and black painting across the sky, flashes of bright, crackling light dance across the clouds, leaving behind only cascades of colours behind his eyelids and echoes of thunder that travel likes waves over his head. 

Behind closed eyes, Theo imagined himself there, imagined himself hearing the thunder, the smell of rain and electricity in the air, the cold breeze and static against his skin, let those imaginary feelings become real in his mind, and only then did he feel electricity, his magic alive and active and sentient within his body.

It was moving, stretching fake limbs out like they haven't been used properly in awhile, tapping incomprehensible rhythms against his rib cage, knocking against his sternum, stretching around his inhaling and deflating lungs, tracing the veins and arteries around his heart like they wanted to check everything was in working order themselves. 

“Good, Theo, okay. Now, I want you to move it into your hand, the one I’m holding. I want it to be like you’re replacing your fingerprints and the creases in your palm with it.” Harry’s voice wasn’t as startling as it should've been in the moment, it was surprisingly gentle with how it shattered the silence their shared breathing had been in.

What was startling was how willing his magic was to listen to his, to Harry’s commands. It felt like it spun around or hopped up in excitement at his mental request of movement, happily and easily travelling over his shoulder, down his arm, and settling in his hand. The idea of replacement didn’t sit well with him though, he didn’t want to get rid of or ignore any aspect of himself, so he instead told, asked his magic to cover his fingers and palms like paint. Almost like he was finger painting pictures for his father’s office again, when his hands were too small and clumsy to properly hold a paintbrush so his mother spread paint out on the easel and told him to go wild .

To create his own perception of beauty and put it into the world, into their reality.

To make it real .

His magic obeyed him (though obeying felt like the wrong term to use, like he had an ownership over it instead of it being a partnership), and coated his hand, creating tingles and sparks of electricity across the pale skin.

Was it real?

Was his magic actually sparking across his skin?

Could Harry feel it?

Could he feel the lightning dancing across his palm, twisting around scarred, calloused fingers like it would make itself into a shield that Harry would never have to take off?

More quiet, gentle words, “Brilliant. Okay, I’m going to do the same thing as you but with my magic, and when you feel it I want you to grab it with your own magic and use it to pull me towards you. Can you do that?”

The commands barely registered in his brain before his magic was bouncing in its place again, reaching sparks of electricity like makeshift hands to grasp onto Harry’s magic with, and when it, when he felt the steady, comforting warmth of his magic create a small imaginary bonfire in his palm, it wasted no time in overlapping with his magic like they were interlocking fingers. 

He barely heard Harry’s shaky, emotion filled exhale before the other half of his goal came back into his mind.

Bring the warmth to him.

Bring Harry to him. 

Immediately, like it was sick of being separated from the boy in front of him (of its other half), Theo’s magic yanked Harry’s magic towards him and Harry was nearly thrown forward in the force behind it. 

Theo’s eyes shot open when Harry let out a panicked curse and he had no time to react before Harry was pulled to his knees and then forwards more until his body was pushing Theo back against the rug. Harry’s knees were straddling his hips, their newly interlocked hands were pressed into the ground slightly above Theo’s head, his free hand was pressed against Harry’s chest like it alone would keep him from being flattened, and Harry’s free arm had the forearm pressed onto the ground like it was also trying to keep him upright. 

Um. 

They blinked at each other for a moment, eyes widened in shock, alarm, and humiliation when it came to Theo.

Harry smiled at him then, a little sheepishly, and Theo noticed that Harry’s body was shaking slightly, like there was some kind of strain on it. He squeezed their interlocked hands, his fingers digging into the fabric of his faded muggle shirt, “Are you alright?”

A hum, “Uh, yes, yeah, I’m okay. Did you hit your head?”

“No. No, I didn’t. You’re, um, shaking.”

At his words Harry launched back onto his knees, like he was trying to separate himself as quickly as possible, but their interlocked hands simply pulled Theo up with him.

The shaking worsened and a bit of panic appeared on his face before he was trying to move himself away again, underline trying because he just stumbled back onto his knees. 

Okay…that…

“Listen, I’d love to help you get up, but you kinda need to make the first move.” Theo eventually said, and the only way to describe the glare sent his way was piercing.

He smiled, soothed the still conscious magic in his chest since it was banging against his ribcage, begging to be holding Harry again, and raised a brow while waiting for him to reply.

After a moment, the glare softened some and with a huff, Harry replied, “Sorry, my magic it, I don’t know, lost its bloody mind and I’m trying to reel it back in.”

That’s an intense reaction, much stronger than Theo would have expected for their magic simply interacting with each other. His thoughts must’ve shown on his face because Harry shook his head and looked to the side, pointedly avoiding looking in Theo’s direction. 

“It was my mistake.” He explained after a moment, “I knew it wanted to be let out and, well, I thought I could control it better but it’s acting like a bloody rabid dog , so reigning it in is a bit-”

“-difficult?” Theo finished, brows furrowing slightly at his words, squeezing their intertwined hands, even though he could feel Harry’s twitching with unused energy, unused magic .

A nod.

Theo let out a breath, “What do you mean ‘let out’?”

“I mean, like, you keep your magic in a box, right? Or maybe a cage or on a leash or whatever you want to call it, and you have to constantly make sure that it stays put.”

Something only akin to terror grasped in Theo's chest and his magic reacted with it, pulling Harry closer to him, like if it kept him close then no harm would come to him. The hand still on Harry's chest clenched tightly into the fabric of his shirt and he couldn’t prevent the fear in his voice for the life of him, “You do what ?”

“I-”

He might've felt bad for interrupting him any other time but, “Harry, you-you’re suppressing your magic? Is that-is that what you’re doing?”

Brilliant, bright green eyes were scanning around his face, before he pressed his lips and pinched his brows together, “I…guess? I’ve always…I didn’t-is that not good? I used to do a lot of accidental magic when I was younger, and my aunt and uncle hated me for it so I would just press down the feeling that occurred whenever it started to happen. I didn’t know it was magic, I didn’t know what I was doing , I just wanted it to stop so I made it.”

He wanted to burn those relatives of his alive. 

But Harry was more important than any justified revenge or anger, “But you still do it?”

A shrug.

He fucking shrugged .

Again, at his expression, he elaborated, “Well, I-I don’t know, I got used to it. Whenever I ‘let it out’ it’s just so… intense . It feels suffocating and overwhelming and I don’t…I don’t know how to manage it. What am I supposed to do with it?”

“Just…let it be? Let it rest in you?”

Harry frantically shook his head, eyes silently pleading with him to understand, “But it doesn’t rest , Theo. It’s like a fucking toddler who wanted to touch and taste and feel everything . I can’t walk around Hogwarts or attend classes or play quidditch with my magic running amuck like that.”

Theo squeezed his hand, ran his thumb over his tan skin, “Okay, but, you-you can’t suppress it, Harry. You can’t.”

“Why? What happens? Will I lose my magic or something?”

“No. No, it’s, um, have you heard about obscurials? Or obscurus?” He shook his head, which Theo figured but he asked anyway, “Right, okay, so an obscurus is a dark parasite that appears in a young magic user if they suppress their magic for too long. Infected individuals are called obscurials and this parasite makes their magic volatile, angry, and violent. Most people infected end up causing massive amounts of destruction and it usually ends with an auror killing them or them killing themselves.”

A blink and Harry’s free hand went up to rub at his own sternum, right where Theo assumed his magic was chained up again, “Then why am I not…”

“Infected? You have to be aware of your magic for it to take effect, so, as awful as it is, your relatives keeping you in the dark about your magic while you were forced to suppress it probably prevented it for all those years. Now, well, you said it's been released before, yeah? When did that happen? What did it feel like?” He asked, shifting his hand some so it was holding Harry’s other hand too.

“You mean besides intense, overwhelming, and suffocating?”

The sarcastic tone was enough to get Theo to roll his eyes.

Taking that as a yes, Harry pursed his lips as replied, “The first time was at the end of my first year and I accidentally burned Quirrel to death with my bare hands. He was possessed by Voldemort, right, and so he was trying to choke me to death and kill me, but when I grabbed his hand to, ya know, pry it off my throat it started to smoke and turn to ash. When I realised this, I just decided to say ‘fuck it’ and pressed it to his face and, well, killed him, I guess. That time it felt like fire , like it was burning through my bones and filling my lungs with smoke, and if I didn’t release it then it would burn me alive too.”

What the fuck. 

“What the fuck, Harry?”

His soulmate was a murderer at the age of eleven. 

It's probably weird that that sounded simultaneously terrifying and thrilling to him. 

Harry breathed out a laugh and rolled his eyes, “Right, the second time was…probably the summer between second and third year when I blew up my uncle’s sister.”

They blinked at each other.

He elaborated, “I didn’t explode her, Theo. I mean I blew her up like a balloon.”

“Oh thank fuck.”

That earned him a flick on the nose and a playful scowl, “Oh sod off, she called my mum a bitch and it pissed me off. I didn’t intend to do it, but I certainly didn’t bloody regret it.”

“She called your mum a bitch?” Theo couldn't help but repeat, reiterating the outlined revenge plan in his head to include that aunt.

“Among other things.”

“Like?”

A tilted head, “Uh, that I was lucky my aunt and uncle took me in because she would have simply left me at an orphanage, that I’m an ungrateful brat that needs to be repeatedly beaten, sorry, disciplined to stay in line, and then the whole ‘if there’s something wrong with the bitch, then there’s something wrong with the pup’.”

“Can I kill her for you?”

The words left his mouth before he could stop them, and he immediately winced and flushed at the unfiltered words, silently cursing himself because now Harry was surely going to move from where he was sitting on Theo’s thighs, pressed against his chest, and Theo had just managed to get him to settle into-

-laughter. 

Bright, bold, brilliant, loud laughter and Theo watched as Harry started shaking his head as he laughed, wheezing slightly and removing one of his hands from Theos so he could smack at his shoulder.

“You’re impossible. Oh Merlin , you’d be caught, ya know.”

“You’d bail me out.”

A raised brow around muffled chuckles, “Of Azkaban?”

“You have enough power, money, and influence to bail me out, I’m sure.”

“Who says I would? Who’s to say I wouldn’t let you rot in there?” He shot back with a grin, a fond enough one that Theo knew he wasn’t being serious.

So Theo pushed the joke (ish) further, “Well if I’m in Azkaban, how am I supposed to complete the rest of my revenge plan?”

Through renewed snorted laughter, “ Revenge plan? ”

Theo nodded, jokingly serious, “Yes, well, it’s more of an outline, really. So, I either murder all of your relatives, steal you, and have you come live with me or, if you aren’t comfortable with murder, I’d torture them, erase their memories of everything, including you, steal you, and you’d live with me.”

A weighted, heavy pause. 

Then, “You’d want me to live with you?”

“ That’s what you got from this conversation?”

A waved hand, “I can only process so many things at once, Theo. I’m not a genius.”

The ‘like you’ went unsaid but it still warmed his heart some.

“Right, well, obviously I’d want you to live with me, especially if that was your alternative.”

Theo couldn’t describe the look Harry was giving him, he’s sure he’s read it before, scanned over the written words and lines in his head, traced over them with careful fingertips, but he couldn’t remember the exact books, exact scenes, exact words.  

But it sent warmth into his blood, like Harry was sending his magic out again, and his magic begged him to let it hold onto him, to cradle him in its arms, to bare its teeth for anyone who even looked at him with distaste. 

He didn’t want to be a hypocrite, so he let the magic out slowly, the lightning and static and electricity caused his fingers to twitch and shake and Theo could tell when Harry felt it when his body tensed, he inhaled sharply, then relaxed into an exhale.

“Do you have any other examples?”

Harry blinked at him for a moment, before shaking his head like he was rearranging his thoughts, “Well, uh, can you keep a secret? Like a big one?”

“You just confessed to murdering one of our professors.” Theo replied, “And I just spent the last few minutes describing how I plan to commit various crimes against muggles and then kidnap you.”

“Touche, well, I used the patronus charm against, like, a hundred dementors to protect Sirius from getting his soul sucked out of him.”

A hundred?

Sirius?

Sirius Black?

“The-the man who betrayed your parents? The mass murderer?”

A knowing, borderline cheeky grin, “Actually, fun little thing, it wasn’t actually him. He was framed by Peter Pettigrew who hid his not-dead status by pretending to be the Weasley’s pet rat for a dozen years.”

Theo stared at him for a moment. 

“So, ‘Mione and I broke him out of his cell here and he escaped on Buckbeak, who we also saved, so he’s kinda on the run but he still writes me letters and stuff sometimes since he still wants me to live with him once his name is cleared.”

More staring.

“Pettigrew escaped again, if that wasn't already clear.”

When was the last time he blinked?

“Oh, and he’s my godfather, by the way. He’s not just a random man who wants me to live with him.”

A blink, then five more, and a forced exhale, “Right, well, is that all?”

Tilting his head back and forth, Harry replied, “No, actually, not at all, but that covers all my escaped magic fiascos.”

Right.

There was a point to this conversation.

Besides the fact that Harry’s godfather is a mass murderer, or rather, a framed mass murderer.

Focus, Nott.

Priorities. 

He took a moment to sort out all the information Harry spewed in him for the last few minutes and organise it into some kind of timeline or chain of events that Theo can follow into some form of explanation. 

Event one: Quirrel tried to kill him and his magic lashed out in self-defence.

Event two: His mother got insulted and his magic reacted to defend her.

Event three: His godfather (fucking hell) almost gets murdered in front of him and his magic strengthened the used spell to save him.

“Do you think it’s a possibility that your magic was so insanely overwhelming because it was being used in defence of you or someone you care about?” Theo asked, and he watched as Harry narrowed his eyes and furrowed his brows in thought. 

So he continued, “I mean, think about it, our magic is strengthened by our emotions, yes? So imagine the combination of your magic being naturally incredibly powerful, it being repressed for forever and being released for one of the first times, it’s being released because of a heightened emotion, and it’s being released in some semblance of self-preservation as well, which we know also leads to stronger magical abilities. Harry, no wonder your magic felt like that, how else was it supposed to feel? To react?”

There were a few moments of stunned, contemplative silence, and Theo let Harry sort everything out in his head, let the quiet fester around them until Harry was the one to break it with a simple, soft, breathy, “ Oh .”

“Oh.” He said back, and Harry met his gaze again with wide, stunned, and hopeful eyes.

“So you think I can-I can-” He paused, huffed out a frustrated breath, and started again, “-you think I can let it go and it won’t, like, explode everything?” 

He couldn’t help but roll his eyes even as he smiled, “Your magic isn’t destructive, Harry. You aren’t destructive. So, yes, I think you’ll be fine.”

Harry didn't react for a moment, he simply stared at Theo like he had all the answers, all the knowledge to fix every problem in Harry’s life, and he didn’t know what to do with that look, with those wide eyes that were darting all across his face. No one had ever looked at him like that before, even if he’d seen that look on others, even if he couldn’t remember who those others were. 

Another moment passed.

Then two.

Three.

Fo-

Something in the air changed.

Heat from the Summer’s sun enveloped every inch of his skin, sending warmth and pressure into his joints and bones, making his hair warm to the touch. The fireplace roared to life, flames licking the stone archway on the outside of the furnace, the flames turned bright blue and white at the base. Theo stared at the fire for a moment, watched the flames dance, and only then did he notice little sparks of individual fire that were twirling around on the stone, on the wooden floor, on the coloured rugs. 

For a moment, Theo swore that the whole bloody room was going to catch on fire, but then those individual flames shifted, changed, took different small shapes. 

A stag with grand antlers jumped onto the couch, pranced along the back like it was showing off to the two of them.

A pair of dragons flying over the kitchen island, circling the hanging lights like a special kind of dance.

There was a hippogriff sauntering across the counters, flapping its wings in mock flight before continuing its curious path, sniffing and nudging the salt shakers and dishes left on the surface.

Curled underneath the bed behind Harry, attempting to hide in the shadows, was a kind of snake, its forked tongue flicking towards him and snake eyes blinking once at him before it went back into its protective ball.

A phoenix landed just a few inches, maybe a foot to Theo’s left, chirping at him before waddling over and nudging his pant leg, the heat from the fire somehow hot but not burning. 

Harry gently, carefully, hesitantly moved a hand and pet over the bird’s head with a shaking fingertip, and the smile on his face when the bird preened and and moved into his touch was positively breathtaking. 

Of course there were others that Theo barely gave a thought to. Unicorns, centaurs, mandrakes, pixies, fire-breathing salamanders, werewolves, cats, dogs, lions, badgers, several breeds of owls and more. But none of those really mattered because Harry was looking back up at him with unadulterated joy and relief on his face, tears bridging his eyes even as he smiled wide at him. 

“This-this is- Theo .”

The few spoken words were interrupted as another flame shot from the fireplace and circled Harry, once, twice, three times before settling on his shoulder and transferring into a…doe? 

Harry and the doe stared at each other for a few seconds, his eyebrows furrowing before his eyes widened and tears fell down his cheeks as the doe stepped forward and pressed its snout against his wet cheek. 

“Thank you for being patient with me. For everything, really.” Harry whispered, and Theo realised that this whole spectacle was Harry’s magic thanking him for letting it free, “I’m sorry it took me so long.”

The doe stamped its hoof against Harry’s shoulder, like it was telling him off for apologising, before it transformed back into a flame along with all the others and they flew back into the quieting fireplace. 

Theo watched as Harry stared at the fire before looking back at him, rubbing his wrists across his cheeks to remove the tear tracks even as he smiled at him, “Well, that was unexpected.”

A grin, “A good unexpected?”

“Yes, Merlin, that was-I didn’t-I didn’t know it could be like this.”

Moving to gently caress his thumb across Harry’s cheek, just under his eye to remove the last of the tear tracks, Theo replied, “Well, I didn’t know how to do any form of wandless, wordless magic before, so I’d say we’re pretty even.” 

“Oh, right, there was a point to this. Um, wonderful first lesson. Next time we can try on an inanimate object since that’ll be a bit more difficult, but I’d recommend letting your magic settle back down, it’s ridiculously draining, and I’d be bored out of my mind if you passed out for the rest of the day.” He watched as Theo dropped his hand from his face, eyes following it in such a way that Theo couldn’t tell if it was out of longing or apprehension. 

Right, okay, settle his magic down.

Easy. 

He closed his eyes and imagined he was back in that field, watching the lightning filled sky move overhead, slowly and carefully pulling the electricity away from him. Gradually, slowly, like the rushing water of a waterfall turning into a simple dribble from soaked through wood, until nothing was left and all the energy, the magic in his body settled. 

Inhale.

Exhale. 

Wow, okay, he wants to go back to bed.

Without his permission, his body started to fall back against the carpet, Harry’s hand on the back of his head cushioning his already cushioned fall. Blinking sluggishly at the arched ceiling above him, Theo vaguely registered that Harry’s solid and warm weight moved from his thighs and the abscess of it made his eyebrows furrow a bit.

Soon followed by the annoyed words, “Where’d you go? Why’d you leave me?”

Okay, maybe not annoyed, that was a little pathetic even for him. 

There was a vague choked noise from beside him and he used the last of his energy to reach his hand out and grab onto the blurred plaid fabric of Harry’s sweatpants. 

A warm, calloused, and now familiar hand grabbed onto his, gently prying his fingers from the fabric and intertwining them instead, “Okay. Okay, I’m not leaving you. I just-uh-do you want to take a nap for a little bit or stay up and eat?”

Eat?

“Eat what? We’re not in the great hall.” His brows furrowed even further, a small pout joining them with the thought that Harry wouldn’t be talking to him right now if they were in the great hall. 

Another noise, this one sounding a bit wounded, “I didn’t know you wanted to talk to me, Theo.”

“I didn’t.” He licked the roof of his mouth, turning his head to (kinda) look at the boy beside him, “I didn’t know before, but now I do, is that okay? That I know now? Is that enough?” 

There was a hand in his hair, brushing the strands back, and Harry spoke, “It’s more than enough. Merlin, Theo, it’s like you’re bloody pissed. Maybe trying magic like that without Madam Pomphrey available wasn’t a great idea.”

“You mentioned something about eating.”

Slightly fond, “You’re changing the subject, Nott.”

He subconsciously wrinkled his nose, “Was the subject you calling me by my family name and ignoring me? If so, I’m glad I changed it.”

“I can’t tell if I’m talking to a drunkard or a toddler.”

Theo tilted his head up and attempted to bite the hand in his hair, the hand moved back, flicked his forehead, and shifted down to his shoulder, “Maybe both. Okay, Theo, you’ll have to help me get you upright, so we can get you to bed.”

Bed?

Bed means sleeping. 

Sleep does sound nice but-

“-but what about the food?”

“I reckon you’re a bit too tired to eat right now. The pizzas are under a status charm, so I’m sure-”

Launching himself upright, he ignored the blurriness and exhaustion settling into his bones and glared at Harry, “I want to eat pizza.”

A pause.

A blink, “Theo-”

“- pizza .”

The blink turned into a glare, “You’ll pass out halfway through.”

Honestly, no wonder this boy was a Gryffindor, he’s so bloody stubborn. 

Rolling his eyes and forcing his vision to sharpen, Theo shot back, “Then we’ll have to do something to keep me occupied, and I can just have some coffee as well.”

“I don’t trust you to not burn yourself making coffee right now.” Harry replied with a huff, “And besides, what could we possibly do? Our options are a bit limited .”

He pursed his lips, thinking back through their past conversations for something that could keep them both entertained.  

Talking, pillow fights, spells, magic, cooking, baking, sing-

“What was that thing you mentioned earlier?”

An exaggerated eye roll, “I mentioned quite a bit of things, Theo. You have to be a bit more specific.”

Merlin give him patience.

“The muggle thing you brought up when I talked about ‘singing’ with the bird. The fairytales?” He elaborated, willing Harry’s brain and memory to work slightly better than his exhausted one.

Harry blinked at him, “You mean movies? You want to watch Disney movies while you eat pizza?”

“And drink coffee, can't forget about that.”

“You’re not making yourself coffee.”

“Fine, you’ll make it for me.”

“Will I?”

Theo smiled, “Won’t you?”

This version of Harry was a bit softer around the edges, his hair and clothes blurring more and more the further away they were from the centre of him, but his face held bright eyes and pursed lips that Theo thinks is hiding a smile.

He made Harry smile.

Again .

Malfoy is going to be so fucking jealous.

Through still pursed lips and rolled eyes, Harry grabbed him underneath his elbows and pulled him to his feet, “Okay, you big baby, I’ll make you coffee.”

“And we can watch Ditney movies?”

“Disney movies.” He gently corrected, leading him to sit down on the couch, loading pillows and blankets around him like he was trying to stealthily smother him, “I just need-yes-okay, Jipsy?”

With a pop, Jipsy appeared with hands clasped behind her back, “Yes, Mister Potter, is everything alright?”

Theo waved at her.

With a tilted head and a confused smile, Jipsy waved back.

“Is-is he alright?”

Harry tucked Theo further into the couch, “Honestly, I have no clue. I just have a favour to ask you, if you aren’t too busy?”

“Not at all, I was just finishing up a slice of that cake you gave us. It was quite well-made, Mister Potter.” Gracefully moving with the shifting conversation, Jipsy nodded and sent a quick, small smile to both of them.

Now he’s made two people smile.

Look at him go.

Wow, he’s warm.

But he could be warmer.

“Harry?”

At his call, Harry looked away from Jipsy and back towards him, “Yeah?”

“Come here.”

A raised brow, “Why?”

“You’re warm.” Theo answered, moving some of the blankets around so that Harry would have more space.

He blinked at Theo for a moment, nodded his head a few times, then looked back towards Jipsy, “Right, okay, I guess I’ll make this quick then. One, thank you, I’m glad you liked the cake. Two, could you ask Madam Pomfrey what to do with a person who’d used a lot of their magical core? Three, could you find my friend Hermione Granger, and ask her for a list of Disney movies she thinks we should watch?”

Jipsy glanced at Theo in renewed understanding, “Oh, is that why Mister Nott is-”

“-acting like a drunk toddler? Yes.”

A nod, “Alright, I will be right back.”

Harry’s shoulders dropped and he grinned at her, “Thank you so much.”

“Thank you!” Theo grabbed Harry’s sweatpants, “Now, come here. ”

There were hands on his shoulders and a glare was sent his way as Harry steadied himself, “I thought you wanted pizza and coffee?”

“Aren’t you magic ? Can’t you just-” He made a vague motion with his hand before dropping it to cup Harry’s wrist.

“I’m good, Theo, but I’m not that good.”

Theo’s eyes squinted, “Aren’t Gryffindors supposed to be egotistical?”

“I don’t know, aren’t Slytherins meant to be mysterious?”

“I am mysterious.”

“Sure you are.” Harry tilted his head and smiled, “Now, are you going to let me go so I can get you your food and drink, or are you going to hold onto me like I’m your glorified stuffed bear?”

He never had a stuffed bear, but he did have a stuffed owl. It was a horrendously ugly thing, covered in undone stitches and mismatched colour, but his mother had attempted to make it for him (along with cooking, knitting is something she could never quite get right) and he never had the heart to throw it out. He’s sure it was still in his dresser, underneath all his pyjama bottoms, he forced himself to put it there after his father got him a real owl that looked exactly like his stuffed one.

It was better to live in the present, he had told himself, besides there was no harm putting his attention into a living creature instead of a stuffed one.

Slowly, he released his grip on Harry’s wrist and pants and sunk into the couch.

“There’s a love.” Quickly, before Theo could even process the words being spoken to him, Harry brushed his hair back from his forehead, pressed his lips to the revealed skin, and walked away, asking over his shoulder how he liked his coffee.

Theo ignored how red and hot to the touch his face felt, ignored how his mind came into stark and clear focus and silence when his lips touched his forehead, and instead exhaled a slow, even breath.

Merlin, this was absolutely pathetic.

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Excuse me, are you Miss Hermione Granger?”

An unfamiliar voice spoke from in front of her in the steadily filling Potion’s classroom, and Hermione lifted her head from her parchment to see a kitchen elf smiling at her.

They blinked at each other for a moment.

Hermione ignored how Ron and everyone else in the classroom, including Professor Snape, had gone silent and instead smiled back, “Hello, yes that’s me, and you are?”

“My name is Jipsy, Miss Granger, I was wondering if I could have a moment of your time? It will be quick, I promise.”

Moving her parchment to the side, ignoring how Ron slightly kicked her foot underneath the table for wrinkling his own parchment, she answered, “Oh, it’s no trouble at all. We still have a few minutes before class starts.”

“Wonderful, so I’ve been helping Mister Potter and Mister Nott where they've been kept, and they wanted me to ask you for something.” Jipsy answered, shifting forwards slightly so Lavender Brown could step past her to her seat.

Hermione’s eyes followed Lavender as she moved, watched as a stray curl fell from her ponytail and into her eyes, but quickly looked back towards Jipsy when Lavender’s eyes met her, “Oh, yes, how are they doing?”

“Have they killed each other yet?” Ron interjected, setting his elbows on the table and further wrinkling his parchment.

Immediately after, Malfoy scoffed and lent back in his seat, “If anyone is dying in there, it’ll be Potter for not watching his mouth around Nott.”

A black-haired Slytherin girl, that she’s pretty sure is named Pansy, rolled her eyes at Malfoys and Ron’s comment, “Honestly, you two are way too excited about those boys fighting each other.”

Hermione huffed and nodded her head, “Agreed, it must just be a guy thing.”

Jipsy glanced between them all, furrowing her brows, “I don’t see why they would be fighting at all. They seem to be getting along really well.”

“Really?” Professor Snape drawled from the front of the classroom, “I’m sure Mister Nott could only be entertained by Potter for so long.”

Instead of replying, Jipsy looked back at Professor Snape for a moment, Hermione couldn’t see her face but he had sat up in his chair like he was going to say something before she turned back around to face her, “Well, anyways, Mister Potter mentioned something about…uh… Disney ? He was wondering if he could have some recommendations.”

Another Slytherin girl, Hermione didn’t remember her name, spoke out, “Potter wants to show Theo Disney movies ?”

A shrug, “Truthfully, it seemed like Mister Nott was the one who suggested the idea, but yes I do believe that’s what Mister Potter told me.”

How were they able to watch movies, Muggle movies, within the wizarding world?

Where were they?

“Well, um, yes let me just get a-” Ron handed her one of his spare pieces of parchment, and she shot him a quick smile before dipping her quill into the jar of ink (Merlin, she sometimes wished she could write in pen or pencil instead of a bloody quill), “-right. Thank you, Ron. Um, Jipsy, did he specify any specific kind of movie besides Disney?”

She shook her head no, so she started writing down any she could think of off the top of her head.

Beauty and the Beast.

The Aristocrats.

Robin Hood.

Cinderella.

Alice in Wonderland.

Lady and the Tramp.

Um.

Hermione looked up from her parchment and towards the Slytherin girl she couldn’t remember the name of, “Excuse me?”

The girl glanced at her from where she was speaking to Blaise Zabini, and then turned to her, “Yes?”

“Do you know many Disney movies? I’m having trouble remembering them all.” She hated acknowledging that she couldn’t remember them all, but she hadn’t watched most of them besides an assorted few.

She perked up a bit, shimmed a bit out of chair and sped walked over to her table, nodding towards Jipsy and scooting up beside her with her own quill, “You mind if I just-”

Her pale, blonde hair shifted from her shoulder and brushed against Hermione’s cheek and a faint smell of caramel filled her nose, and she didn’t know what she was agreeing to until she started writing movie titles on the parchment.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Pinocchio.

Fantasia.

Dumbo.

Bambi.

Treasure Island.

Peter Pan.

Sleeping Beauty.

The girl paused as she dipped her quill into Hermione’s ink jar, grinning at her, “My little sister tried to say that she watched more Disney movies than me, so I memorised a bunch of them in chronological-ish order, so I could beat her.”

Hermione glanced at the names on the paper, “And you watched all of them?”

A grin, “No, but, she didn’t know that.”

The Sword in the Stone.

Mary Poppins.

The Fox and the Hound.

The Black Cauldron.

The Little Mermaid.

Aladdin.

Hocus Pocus.

The Lion King.

She glanced up at her, “ The Lion King ? I haven’t heard of that one.”

“It’s new, like, came out a few months ago kinda new. My aunt took me to see it in theatres during the Summer.”

Hermione smiled, “Oh, really? Was it good?”

“Oh it was absolutely brilliant.” She grinned, tucked her quill behind her ear, “Brought me to tears and everything. I reckon you might enjoy it.”

Oh Jesus.

“If you two are done gossiping, Miss Greengrass needs to return to her seat.” Professor Snape’s drawled out voice snapped them both back into reality, and while Miss Greengrass (that’s her name, noted) made her way back to her desk, Hermione handed the finished list to Jipsy.

“There you are, can I get you anything? Food or…”

Jipsy shook her head, “No, that won’t be necessary. Mister Potter had baked Mister Nott a cake earlier today, and Mister Nott was kind enough to duplicate it for me to have. Thank you, though!”

A cake ?

Harry baked him a-

“Bloody hell, I didn’t know Harry could bake.” Ron whispered to her, and Hermione nodded in agreement.

“I will be off! Thank you for your help, Miss Granger.”

She blinked, tapped her nail on the desk, “Right, well, tell them both I said hello, will you?”

A nod and Jipsy disappeared with a snap.

The classroom was silent again.

“Did I just hear that Potter baked Nott a bloody cake ?” Malfoy exclaimed, “What is he, housewife?”

Hermione barely registered herself replying, “You’re just jealous Harry is giving Nott all the attention he’d never willingly give you.”

Ron choked beside her.

Oh no.

“Fifteen points from Gryffindor, Miss Granger. Learn to control your temper.” Professor Snape immediately shot back, but Malfoy barely had enough time for a smug smile to start pulling at his face before Greengrass exclaimed, “Well, if she has to control her temper, maybe Malfoy should learn to control those teenage hormones.”

Immediately, the entire classroom was laughing at themselves and Hermione watched as Greengrass smiled and winked at her, even when Professor Snape reluctantly took away five Slytherin points.

She smiled back.

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Which one are we watching?” Theo asked, and Harry decided to watch him clumsily eat pizza for the first time, making a small happy and satisfied noise after the first bite instead of immediately answering.

The room of requirement was being extremely generous with the amount of electricity and technology it was allowing to function, so he didn’t want to push his luck by asking for a fancy television, instead opting for a classic projector that can showcase coloured film. He silently willed the wall above the fireplace to be cleared, carefully aligning the light from the projector into a good viewing point from the couch, the written movie list sitting beside it on the coffee table along with Harry’s pizza, Theo’s coffee, and a tall glass of water.

Jipsy said that Madam Pomphrey explained that resting and building up energy was the best thing to do, so couch time, good food, and water it was.

Until he could convince Theo to fall asleep that is.

After a few moments of silence from him, he felt a socked foot nudge at his back with a huffed, “Don’t ignore me.”

“I’m not ignoring you.” Harry shot back, waving a hand so that his pizza would levitate beside him as he turned around to settle into the spot on the couch Theo had made for him, “I was concentrating, there’s a difference.”

“Well, you still didn’t answer my question.” He replied, immediately using his free hand to pull Harry closer.

“I didn’t answer because I don’t know what movie is going to play first, I just let the room decide and I’ll cross it off the list afterwards.”

The plated pizza landed on the makeshift pillow-table on his lap, Theo hummed in response, and he silently asked the room to dim the lights for them, thanking it under his breath when the fire significantly dimmed down and all the other lights in the room extinguished themselves. 

“Oooo, ambience .” Theo whispered in his ear, and Harry nudged him with his elbow as the semi-familiar Disney opener appeared on the wall. 

He had briefly explained the concept of movies to Theo in between the time Jipsy left and returned, but it was still memorable to watch the wide-eyed wonder and awe fill Theo’s gaze as music and sound and colour filled the room. Harry supposed that it’s probably a different experience hearing about it and seeing it, so he can’t technically blame him. 

The title Peter Pan showed on the screen and Harry lent back into the couch cushion and grabbed a slice of pizza, ready to enjoy the show.

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Did that ginger seriously just assault a fairy and kidnap a bunch of children?”

“I-I guess?”

“And he’s the good guy?”

“...yes?”

“Just what kind of stories are muggles showing to their children?”

…

“Oh my word, Harry, he has an army of stolen children. This guy is fucking crazy .”

“He’s also a child himself, Theo.”

“ No . No, he’s not. Just because he doesn’t age, doesn’t mean he’s still mentally a child…and he’a flirting with a thirteen year old girl?”

“Well when you put it that way-”

…

“Those don’t look like mermaids.”

“They don’t?”

“No, those are too humanoid...though the drowning of annoying and bothersome people is realistic.”

“Aren’t there mermaids in the black lake?”

“And a giant squid, yeah.”

…

“Did that fairy just try to kill herself because she couldn’t have her pedophilic man?”

“I think so, yeah.”

“Okay, Tinkerbell, girl, the size difference alone -”

“-oh my god, shut up, don’t continue that thought.”

…

“Is it bad I’m rooting for Hook?”

“Nah, I am too, Pan got his hand bitten off. Seems kinda justified.”

“Right?”

…

The movie ended and the pizza was gone.

“So Theo,” Harry started, grabbing both of their empty plates and setting it on the coffee table while grabbing Theo’s coffee and his hot chocolate from where they were placed under a status charm, “First ever movie, thoughts?”

His fingertips ghosted across Harry’s when he grabbed the mug from his hands, smiling softly in thanks before pursing his lips and furrowing his brows in thought, “Well, besides the blatant racist themes and pedophilic undertones, it was a surprisingly entertaining experience.” 

Harry grinned, took a sip of his cocoa, letting the mug warm his hands some, “Entertaining enough to watch another one?”

“Oh yeah, I mean, we only have three days and how many to get through?”

He leaned forward and quickly counted the remaining movies, “There’s about twenty-one left.”

“Bloody hell, well I know what we're doing for the rest of today, put the next one on. One of the ones you mentioned earlier.” Theo elaborated, shimmying underneath the blankets until he was comfortable before his hands floundered around until Harry interlocked their fingers.

“Merlin, you’re so high-maintenance.” He snarked back, making sure to keep his tone light and playful enough for Theo to know he wasn’t being serious. 

“And yet you keep maintaining me. Wonder what that says about you, Potter.” 

The next movie, Pinocchio , started before he could reply.

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Did that old man just create life out of fucking wood?”

“Well, he didn’t fuck wood-”

“Harry?”

“Hm?”

“Shut up.”

…

“Why are the fairies in these movies such bitches?”

“ What? ”

“No, like, that’s the most inconvenient curse I could ever imagine? I’d rather be dead than be forced to tell the truth all the time.”

“You know what, honestly, same.”

…

“Is this more human trafficking?”

“No, the last movie was kidnapping, this is human trafficking. There’s a difference.”

“Who the fuck comes up wi-did he just turn into a donkey ?”

“Appears that way, yeah.”

“...are we sure this isn’t a horror story or movie or whatever?”

…

“And after that he gets eaten by a whale ? Let them catch a bloody break.”

“I think it’s supposed to be karma or something.”

“He’s barely been alive adjacent for two days and he’s already been almost sold and turned into an animal. What karma ?”

“Touche.”

…

“I don't think I’ve ever been so happy to see an anamorphic puppet become a living person before.”

“He deserves it after everything.”

“True, I hate that fucking fairy.”

“ Merlin Theo-”

“- shush , the next one’s starting.”

“Alrea-oh, it’s a live action one.”

“What’s live-”

Harry watched with barely contained glee as Mary Poppins began to play on screen.

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“She’s not usually my type, but I’m kinda in love with Miss Poppins here.”

“Same, but what is your type? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Her chimney sweeper friend. Dark hair, rugged appearance, bright eyes.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh .”

…

“I’m going to have these songs stuck in my head for the rest of the night, Potter.”

“Apparently, that's a trend for these kinds of movies.”

“Oh, brilliant . Love that for me.”

…

“Are we quite sure she isn’t a witch?”

“I doubt it.”

“She has magic, and she uses an umbrella like Hagrid.”

“Hagrid doesn’t fly with his umbrella.”

“True that, poor lad wouldn’t even get off the ground.”

“That’s a bit rude.”

“It’s nothing against him , Harry, it’s against the fact that the man is eight bloody feet tall .”

“I-fair enough.”

…

“I love how she just flew away afterwards.”

“Very productive of her.”

“She has other families to take over, Harry, didn’t you know that?”

“Oh, of course, silly me.”

Theo glanced around the still darkened room, squinting at him slightly, “How long have we been sitting here?”

“Probably about five hours or so.” Harry cast a quick charm to vanish the dirty plates and mugs into the sink for him to deal with later, “Give or take a few minutes.”

A forced exhale and pursed lips, “I reckon we watch one more then tackle dinner, see how we feel, and go from there.”

“Brilliant plan as always, you truly would have done brilliantly in Ravenclaw.” Harry replied back, waiting for the credits to finish and the next randomly chosen movie to begin.

Hey, maybe it’ll be a princess one this time.

Squeezing their interlocked hand, Theo said, “Truthfully, the Sorting Hat had some difficulty placing me in a house.”

Harry squeezed his hand back, silently allowing him to elaborate if he wanted, and after a moment he continued, “It was stuck between Ravenclaw, Slytherin, and ironically Hufflepuff for me.”

Anything but Gryffindor, huh.

“And I’m assuming you chose from those options?” Harry guessed, earning him a half-assed side-eye and a sarcastic grin. 

“How’d you guess?”

He paused, weighed the consequences of sharing with Theo in his head, then threw the metaphorical scale out because Theo already knew way worse stuff about him already, “It was the same thing for me, well kinda, it basically said I would do well in all houses but it preferred me in Slytherin. I basically told it to fuck off and pick something else, so it put me in Gryffindor.”

Almost like it was subconsciously done, Theo barked out a laugh and started shaking his head, though he was still smiling to himself, “How’d your opinion of Slytherin get skewed that badly so quickly?”

“Honestly, it was a mixture of things, and it was less about my own personal feelings about the house and how other people viewed it.” When Theo simply rose a brow at him, glanced at the still moving credits, then back towards him with a circular wave of his hand, Harry simply sighed and started to elaborate, “So, first I met Malfoy at the entry hall, and his attitude and demeanour reminded me of my cousin, so I knew I wouldn’t want to be around him. Then I heard how Professor McGonagall named each of the houses, then I heard how Ron said that pretty much every bad witch or wizard in history came from that house. I didn't know any better back then, so sue me. After Malfoy got, like, immediately put into Slytherin I was a bit apprehensive and then I thought about it some. So, I knew by that point that people were going to be watching my every move, and I knew that if I was sorted into the stereotypical ‘bad’ house then that watchfulness would grow tenfold. I was already used to being seen as nothing but a troublemaker, so I wanted to give myself some change, ya know?” 

Theo did nothing but blink at him for a second.

Then two.

Then three.

Then he pressed his lips together as muffled laughter tried to force itself through anyways, though his efforts immediately failed as some kind of betrayed look must've appeared on his face.

Harry hit him with a pillow, “Are you laughing at me?”

“No, no, Merlin’s beard , I’m laughing that you manoeuvred yourself out of being sorted into Slytherin in, quite literally, the most Slytherin way imaginable. Harry Potter, you’re absolutely, bloody brilliant .” The laughter smothered words eased the ball of tension in his chest, allowing him to take a deep, easy breath for the first time since he said he wasn’t originally going to be a Gryffindor.

He huffed, playfully almost lightly smacked Theo again and sunk back into the couch, “You’re an idiot.”

“Well if I’m simultaneously an idiot and the brains between the two of us, then you must be pretty fucking screwed, huh?”

Theo managed to dodge the pillow to the face this time, and he quickly started pointing at the screen so that Harry would pay attention to that instead of divine retribution. 

Whatever.

He’ll get what’s coming to him.

For now, The Little Mermaid.

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Merlin, that’s some red hair that could rival any Weasley.”

“Ginger and red are different things, Nott.”

“I don’t know. Skinny, pale, with red hair? Sounds just like a Weasley to me.”

“You’re a prick.”

“Duly noted, though you didn’t disagree with me there.”

“Shut up.”

“ Ha .”

…

“Is this the one with the talking fish, crabs, and birds in it?”

“I think so, yeah.”

“Well, I mean, it has all three components in it so unless this ‘Disney’ is running out of ideas-”

“-shut up, oh my god.”

…

“You know who that Prince Eric kinda looks like?”

“What, you?” 

“I-no-that wasn’t what I was going to say. You think I look like that?”

“A bit, yeah. Though your eyes are a bit more grey and you have sharper cheekbones than he does.”

“Like in a good way or in you’re not prince material kinda way?”

A thoughtful pause.

“I’d say less prince-like and more like I’d expect to see a statue of you from the Roman empire or maybe a Renaissance painting.”

You’re too sharp, Harry wanted to say. Your clenched jaw could cut glass and your cheekbones, your nose are such hard lines that only someone with dedicated, skilled hands could recreate them properly. Your eyes a painter would surely spend an eternity on, the downturned shape, the long lashes, the confusing mix of colour that Harry could never hope to name all of. The pale skin, the pink undertones, the hidden specks of freckles that would appear proudly in the sunlight, the deep blue veins, the slim, slender frame that any sculptor, any painter, any artist would be enraptured by. 

Those bow-shaped lips could be somebody’s muse, Theo. 

Somehow the words, “You’re positively devastating, Theo.” managed to escape the careful filter Harry had attempted to hold over his tongue.

But that apparently didn't work as well as he thought.  

He pressed a fist onto his mouth like he could shove the runaway words back in and he’d never have to live in the reality where he just said that to a person he’s officially only known for a few hours . 

What the fuck.

What the fuck was wrong with him?

The animated sailor boat was on fire, Eric was submerged within the purple, blue, red mesh of water, drowning in his recklessness and Harry never related to anything more in his life . 

Theo was silent and still beside him, eyes drilling holes into the side of Harry’s head. 

A hand squeezed his.

Ignore it, Harry told himself.

Ignore-

-a hand cupped his chin, a finger on his cheek and his head was forcefully turned to the side, making him lock eyes with Theo.

He was glaring at Harry but simultaneously he wasn’t, his eyes were narrowed but they lacked any real heat or anger that Harry would have expected. Instead, the look in his eyes was intense, was awe-struck, was somehow overwhelmed and overwhelming to look at. The pointer finger on his cheek pressed in just a bit further, a bit harder the longer they stared at each other with the movie and music in the background. 

“Harry.” His name was sighed against his lips, and Theo’s head tilted closer still, their noses brushing together.

Was Theo trying to headbutt him?

Maybe bite him?

He tried that before, so it wasn’t that far of a stre-

- a soft exhale ghosted across his lips, at the same time that Theo’s other hand somehow ended up tangled in the hair on the back of his head, and Harry suddenly, stupidly realised what was going on.

Oh.

Oh okay.

Harry tilted his head up a bit and closed his eyes, silently letting Theo know that he wasn’t going to punch him and the quiet huff of laughter was a reply enough for him to move closer.

The hand on his chin, on his cheek shifted towards the top of his neck, like he was steading Harry in place.

Closer.

A thumb ghosted across his bottom lip.

Closer.

There was the faintest amount of pressure against his lips and-

“ But daddy, I love him !”

That-

They both paused as the shouted words echoed across the room, and Harry couldn't stop himself from pressing his own lips together into a fine line, like that would stop the laughter from escaping.

Theo licked his lips, pursed them, and leaned back to look towards the ceiling while his chest shook with muffled laughter.

“Didn’t-” Harry took in a stuttered breath, “-she hasn’t spoken to the guy yet, right?”

Shaking his head, Theo replied, “No, but, Harry she loves him-”

-their laughter escaped in bursts and they were leaning into each other as wheezed, hysterical laughter echoed into the open air.

Somehow, they were still too close together, still not close enough, they were in a strange in-between that didn’t match what almost, what could’ve happened.

He was still too close to him, there was a hand twisting strands of his hair on the back of his head, and there was a brand of heat on his thigh where Theo’s hand dropped to stable himself as he laughed, and Harry couldn’t help but think about how beautiful he looked when he smiled, when he laughed.

It was absolutely ridiculous. 

This whole situation was ridiculous.

Harry took a breath, the air catching in his lungs when Theo leaned forward and pressed his lips against his forehead, right on the top of his scar. A pause, he didn’t move, and Theo took that as permission to follow the chaotic lines of his scar on top of his now closed eyelid with his lips, before he pressed a final, firm kiss to the scar across his cheek.

Is this what death felt like?

Burning skin, breathless lungs, an ache in his chest?

His skin tingled where Theo’s lips graced, and Harry couldn’t tell if it was his magic acting up or the fact that no one had ever touched him like that before.

No one had ever touched him that gracefully, that carefully, like he had something precious within his hands.

Without saying a word to him, only grinning at him like that was his plan all along (maybe it was, maybe the Slytherin in him was showcasing itself), he looked back towards the movie where a purple, octopus lady was starting to sing to Ariel.

What the fuck?

What the fuck?

…

“I feel like it was kind of a bitch move to not give her, like, any clothes.”

“True, also she had no fucking clue how to swim with legs. Truthfully, she should've drowned.”

“Agreed, it would've been a depressing story though.”

“I think in the original fairytale, she killed herself by jumping back into the water and turning into seafoam.”

“ What. ”

“Yeah, she was blonde too.”

…

“Why did they give that poor girl a pink dress?”

“What’s wrong with pink?”

“She had bright red hair, Harry, she needs a contrasting colour or else she’s going to look completely washed out.”

“I…huh…I can kinda see-oh my god, did she just use that fork in her-”

“-I want to bang my head against the table.”

“She’s seriously set up for failure here.”

…

“Not her not being able to walk a day ago but now she’s driving a carriage.”

“She’s moving up in life.”

“She’s going to kill them both.”

“It’ll be a funny wedding story, I’m sure.”

…

“ That bitch .”

“Agreed.”

“This is why you read the fucking contracts you’re signing, Ariel.”

“Not you victim blaming. She’s a minor, you know.”

“The legality of all of this is absurd.”

“ Absurd. You’re so bloody posh.”

…

“Stab her stab her stab her stab he- yes !”

“You’re such a violent person, Theo, you might want to look into that.”

“Says the murderer.”

“It was in self-defence .”

“So was this. Still murder.”

“Oh bloody hell.”

…

“Why is this so…so…”

“Sad? It's the daddy issues, Theo, I’m in the same boat.”

“...how can you have daddy issues if you don’t have a- ow .”

“ Funny , but you’re on thin fucking ice, Nott.”

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just as the credits started to roll, a subtle pop echoed through the air and Jipsy was standing in front of them.

“Hello Mister Potter, Mister Nott, how are you two this evening?”

Harry blinked, scrambled his brain together into some sense of working order, and replied, “I think we’re doing great actually, how about you? Nothing too stressful?”

“Not at all, my day has been quite relaxing. I just wanted to ask if you two wanted any dinner before the great hall closes for the evening?”

He watched as Theo pursed his lips in thought, “Dinner sounds lovely, but nothing particularly comes to mind. Would you mind surprising me with something?”

“I wouldn’t mind at all and you, Mister Potter?”

A shrug, “I reckon you can just surprise me as well.”

Jipsy hummed, held her hands behind her back with a nod, “Of course, any food allergies I should be wary of?”

Theo shook his head.

“I’m allergic to peppermint, but besides that I’ll eat just about anything.”

“Duly noted, Mister Potter. Anything else I can help you with? Dusting, sweeping, dishes?” She said back, glancing around the room and silently eyeing the dishes that were stacked in the sink.

“Oh uh, no thank you.” Harry replied back, settling back into his spot beside Theo, “The room is pretty clean, and I was planning on doing the dishes before turning in tonight, but thank you so much for offering.”

Cutting in, Theo added on, “And for helping us out so much today, we’re extremely grateful.”

She ducked her head down with a smile, her ears covering her eyes a bit, “You two are very kind, I will be back with your food, enjoy your evening.”

The moment she was gone, Theo turned to him with a slight glare, “You weren’t planning on doing all those dishes yourself.”

He phrased it like a statement, not bothering to even entertain simply asking him, and Harry huffed out a breath and listened to the music playing over the credits as he said, “As a matter of fact, I was. Do you want to help?”

“You’re absolutely ridiculous , Potter, you know that?”

“...is that a no, then?”

A blank stare.

“The sorting hat lied to you, you should never be in Ravenclaw or Slytherin.” Theo snarked back, crossing his arms and laying back onto the couch, watching as a new movie started to play on screen.

“The fuck does that mean?”

“It means, Harry, that I’d be a terrible fucking friend if I let you bake me a cake, have you make me coffee, and make you take care of me throughout the day and then not help you with the bloody dishes .”

Oh.

Harry rolled his eyes, slid his hand into Theo’s crossed arms and forced him to hold his hand with repeated taps until he relented, “Okay, you big baby, I’ll wash, you dry. Deal?”

“Deal.” The sharp word earned him a raised brow and after a quick glance at Harry’s expression, Theo’s body sagged into the couch, “I’m sorry, I know I’m acting childish. It’s just-do you really think that little of me? That I wouldn’t help you with the small things?”

Oh .

“Oh Merlin’s beard, Theo no . It’s not that at all. I’m not used to having people help me with chores like this, so I’ve just come to expect that it’s kinda like, I don’t know, my job? I don’t know how to describe it, but it was nothing against you, I swear.” He said, squeezing Theo’s hand as the misunderstood context of the whole conversation pieced itself together.

They were idiots.

Or, no, Theo was an idiot.

He was oblivious.

What a wonderful dynamic, truly.

Theo got a slightly sad but slightly murderous look in his eye, and Harry felt that he’d probably see that look a lot in these next few days, “Right, well, I’m still sorry. But we never established if it’s an all-clear on killing your relatives.”

“Oh my god.”

“No, shut up, I'm serious. I can write letters as early as tomorrow morning and start on the whole process.”

Harry peered at him, “I don’t believe you.”

“You don’t have to, are you alright with me handling your relatives?” Theo asked again, and the earnestness and seriousness of his tone gave Harry some pause.

…if he said yes, would he become an accessory to a murder? To several murders? How would he even manage to do that? Did he want to know? Would he be guilty by association?

Slowly, carefully choosing his words, “Don’t do anything illegal, I can’t have you risk that.”

A pause, then he slowly nodded and focused on the movie, “I can work with that.”

“Please don’t go to Azkaban.”

“If I don’t do anything illegal, why would I?” He shot back, and Harry pinched his side, smiled when he jerked away, and watched as the word Alice in Wonderland appeared on the wall.

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“She’s hallucinating.”

“ What? ”

“Or dreaming. It’s one of the two.”

“ Why would you possibly think that?”

“She fell down into an alternate dimension and didn’t die on impact.”

“ That’s your reasoning?”

“Yep, and I’m sticking to it.”

…

“Why does the cat look like that?”

“I don’t know, she’s hallucinating, isn’t she?”

“Okay, so now you’re mocking me? I see how it is…but no seriously that cat is terrifying to look at.”

…

“Did he seriously just, like, shove her into a teapot?”

“To save her life, yeah.”

“I bet the leftover tea smell in there is so overpowering, it alone could cause a drug trip.”

“What’s up with you and drugs?”

“What’s up with Disney putting children in life-threatening situations, hm?”

…

“That’s…straight up murder. That’s straight decapitation.”

“I-yes-that’s what she means by ‘off with her head’, Theo.”

“What is wrong with these movies?”

…

“ Ha , I was right! Suck it, Harry.”

“It’s ambiguous what really happened.”

“Like hell it is, you’re just mad that I’m right .”

“I don’t know…”

“You don’t know ? She literally woke up from -”

A pause.

“You’re messing with me.”

“I’m messing with you, yeah.”

“You’re a prick.”

“Noted.”

Before Theo could snark back, there was another slight displacement in the air, a slightly audible pop, then there were suddenly several plates of food with two glasses and a wine bottle on the coffee table in front of them.

Harry grinned, glancing around the room, “Thank you, Jipsy! Have a good night!”

“Is this chicken alfredo? Really Jipsy, you’ve outdone yourself and- oh -is that Cabernet Sauvignon?” Theo leaned forward and grabbed the wine bottle, carefully tracing over the label and mouthing the words to himself.

He didn’t know what Theo was talking about, at least not about the wine, but he did know that he’s never been allowed to have chicken alfredo before (- it was too expensive for him, his relatives had said, why would they waste their hard-earned money on some dirty-blooded freak -) and he was excited to try it for the first time. Carefully, not wanting to drop the glasses or spill the food, he handed a glass and one of the pasta dishes to Theo, situating his own food on a pillow he had put in his lap while holding his wine glass in his hand.

A pop of the cork, and Theo cautiously poured wine into Harry’s glass before pouring some into his own, gently setting the bottle back onto the table. He held his glass out expectantly and Harry hesitantly clinked their glasses together, grinning when Theo smirked and winked at him.

Rolling his eyes, Harry took a sip of the red wine, dry with a hint of a black cherry taste, “I feel this is very distinguished for people who have been in pyjamas all day.”

“I take it as a reward for having our weekend so rudely disrupted.” Theo replied back with a hum, taking his own drink of the wine, before setting it back down into the table.

“Disrupted for better or for worse?” Harry couldn’t help but ask, and the moment the words left his mouth, Harry’s (now free) hand was grabbed and interlocked with Theos.

“For better. I’m sure my weekend would’ve been horrendously boring without the golden boy keeping me entertained.”

“Entertained, huh?” He hummed and pursed his lips, twirling some pasta onto his fork, blowing on it some, “Is that all I am to you?”

“Entertainment, company, and a pretty face to look at.” Theo gently corrected, eating his own bite of pasta.

Harry rolled his eyes again, “And here I thought we’ve already established that you’re the pretty one here.”

“Aw, you think I’m pretty, Harry?”

“Pretty bloody annoying, yeah.”

A sharp grin, “Such a charmer.

“Only for you, Nott.”

His hand squeezed his own, “I feel special.”

“Honestly, you should-oh-the movies starting, shut up.” He ignored the scoff and eye roll that final comment earned him and he instead focused on eating the, frankly, delicious chicken alfredo and the steady pressure of Theo’s hand in his.

And, of course, the movie Sleeping Beauty which was playing on the wall.

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Did this woman literally try and murder this baby because she didn’t get invited to a boring ass christening?”

“Seems like it, yeah.”

“Why does Disney love murdering or attempting to murder children?”

“It’s their brand name.”

“Is it really?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

…

“You know, at least she’s happy singing about her lost love in the woods…with animals…and no shoes.”

“She was literally raised in the woods with three incompetent fairies, give her a break.”

“ I am , but…and the prince is here.”

“Huzzah, the story can progress.”

…

“Well, what did you expect after lying to her for, what, sixteen years ?”

“As someone who’s had their attempted murder kept from them, I can understand her frustration.”

“True.”

“Though, I would've taken being a lost princess over being the saviour of the wizarding world anyday, so maybe she’s being a bit dramatic.”

…

“After all of that and she still -”

“- right ? Like, if they waited an extra day to tell her the truth, all of this could've been avoided.”

“These people are so stupid.”

“ So stupid. Honestly, they deserve this at this point.”

“Agreed.”

…

“Slaying a dragon for the love of your life? My standards have risen.”

“No one should be killing any dragons in real life, aren’t they, like, endangered?”

“Are you saying you wouldn't slay a dragon for me?”

“Are you saying I’m the love of your life?”

A pause.

“Besides, I think I can, kinda, talk to dragons anyways, so I’d just negotiate or something.”

“...you can what .”

…

“Pink or blue?”

“Hm?”

“Her dress, Harry, which one do you like better? There’s only one right answer.”

“Oh, blue obviously.”

“Correct answer, glad we agree.”

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Harry grabbed the empty pasta plates and wine glasses, carefully levitating them over to the sink, eyeing how Theo seemed to sink further into the couch now that it was well into the night and he’s been stuffed full of food.

Briefly, he wondered if he sat still enough Theo would fall asleep and he could sneak off and do the dishes, but the thought was quickly squashed when a dark head of hair landed on his shoulder, a cold nose brushing against his collarbone some, “One more?”

A snort, “You’re practically dead on your feet.”

“Mmm, one more. Need to make it an even number.” Theo huffed, lolling his head to the side so he could see the screen from where his head was perched on Harry’s shoulder, “I know the number seven is lucky, but I want to make it even.”

“That’s-okay-one more movie, dishes, and then bed?” He offered, and Theo gave a lazy thumbs up as he shifted into a more comfortable position.

Almost subconsciously, Harry let out a sigh and pulled Theo closer still and waited the final few moments for the last movie of the night to play.

Hocus Pocus .

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Is this another, what did you call it, a life-action movie?”

“Live-action, yeah. This is kind of an ironic one to finish the night off with.”

“Really, why?”

“The whole movie is about witches.”

“Oh, interesting.”

…

“That’s…not…is that what muggles think witches do?”

“You mean suck the souls out of young children to stay young and beautiful?”

“Yeah…and turning people into cats.”

“Magic people can turn people into cats, though. We have a whole class about it?”

“Harry, that’s not the bloody point.”

…

“You know, I’ve never understood the importance of virgin blood.”

“It’s commonly used for rituals that involve blood, it’s supposedly more pure and a better receptor of magic.”

“But, like, what counts as a virgin? Doesn’t that seem kind of broad? Also, what if you take a person’s blood, store it, and then they lose their virginity, does that blood still work the same?”

“I think you might be looking too far into it.”

“Or, Theo, you aren’t looking into it enough .”

…

“How is water coming down from the ceiling?”

“...do you mean the sprinklers ?”

“The what ?”

“What do you all do if there’s a fire?”

“We extinguish it with our wands? Wait, is that what muggles use?”

“That and a fire extinguisher, though that’s if the fire department doesn’t take care of it for us.”

“The what? ”

“You’ve said that already.”

…

“Salt? Salt ? We’re not fucking ghosts. ”

“Can you even fuck a ghost?”

“ Harry. ”

“Sorry.”

…

“The sun ?”

“I think they mixed a few different magical creatures together.”

“Oh yes, because every fucking witch or wizard is also a vampire ghost-hybrid.”

“I mean, wait, if a person is a witch, then turns into a vampire, then dies and becomes a ghost then they’d technically be right.”

“You…god, I hate that you’re right.”

…

“Why were the sarcastic cat and the zombie my favourite characters?”

“Because they were fucking awesome, Theo, that’s why.”

“It’s almost enough to forgive the ridiculous inconsistencies with the magic world.”

“Well, in their defence, they don’t know about the wizarding world.”

Theo opened his mouth, paused, his teeth clicking together before he started pursuing his lips in thought, “That’s so strange to think about. Is this truly what muggles think magic is like?”

Tilting his head side to side, Harry replied, “It’s a bit more complicated than that. Magic is a myth for muggles, yeah? So we imply make-believe what we think could be a possibility for these myths and legends. For muggles, witches and wizards don’t exist, so who's to say that they don’t burn in the sun and dislike salt? There's nothing to counteract that, we don’t know anything so we fill in the gaps ourselves.”

They both paused for a moment, and Theo grabbed his hand while nodding towards the sink, silently conveying they could finish this discussion while cleaning up for the night. The dishes were already soaking in hot, soapy water (he didn’t remember doing that and Theo looked a bit confused as well, so it must of been Jipsy, Merlin he needed to get her a fruit basket or something), so it was ridiculously easy for Harry to scrub any remaining grease from the dishes and hand them towards Theo to dry.

“Why don't you use magic?” Theo said after a few moments of silence, “If you don’t mind me asking.” 

“It’s kind of complicated…or maybe depressing.”

A raised brow and Harry rolled his eyes and continued, “I’ve…I know I’ve accomplished a lot in the few years I’ve been here, yeah? Practically every year so far, I’ve successfully kept myself and multiple other people alive during life-threatening situations, but, I don’t know, it’s nice to accomplish something without the weight of people’s lives on the line, ya know?”

Wordlessly, Harry handed Theo another plate, choosing to ignore how there was a few seconds of hesitation, of pause before his fingers took the plate from his grasp. 

“Besides, it’s a mindless activity that’s pretty hard to mess up. Nothing bad is going to happen if the plate isn’t cleaned to perfection.” Harry elaborated, choosing to also ignore the slight lie towards the end.

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, Theo was too perceptive for his own good and asked, “Nothing bad will happen here you mean? Or were dishes not an abuse worthy offence with your relatives?”  

“ Jesus fuck, Nott. ”

The wine glass in his hand cracks down the side, and in a subconscious fit of panic- if he breaks a glass he wouldn’t be allowed to eat for a fucking week -his magic lashed out and welded the crack, the glass now almost burning to the touch. A pale hand reached out, freezing when Harry tensed as it entered his field of vision, before moving forwards slowly and intertwining with the fingers holding the glass, almost like he was preparing to take it from his hand but decided against it at the last minute.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said it like that.”

His fingers clenched tighter, heat and fire soaking throughout his body like it could shield him from the world in a furious inferno, and Harry was slightly shocked that Theo didn’t remove his hand, didn’t step back, didn’t flinch back as venom filled words spilled from his lips, “No, you shouldn’t have said fucking anything . It’s none of your goddamn business.”

A hum, the glass was carefully taken from his hands, giving him nothing to hold on to so he instead gripped the sink edge, his knuckles turning white from the strain. The click of the (probably now dried) glass on the counter echoed along with that single, fucking word in his brain.

Abuse.

Abuse.

Abuse . 

“I wasn’t-” the word was like barbed wire on his tongue, scratching his oesophagus, and coating his teeth with blood, “-I wasn’t abused , Nott. Don’t fucking call it that.”

A hand on his spine, fingertips pressing into the small of his back through his thin, stolen t-shirt.

“Okay, well, maybe I’m confused then. Did they ever hit you?” Theo relented, and he knew that Theo was just saying that to temporarily appease him.

Harry hung his head, breathed in through his nose, ignored Theo’s question, and instead started draining the sink, grabbing the still soapy sponge to start scrubbing it out. The longer the silence grew the more the pressure against his back solidified, until another hand finally reached out and grabbed the wrist of the hand holding the sponge.

A sharp inhale, a dozen, a thousand, a million different moments of a hand grabbing his wrists, hard enough for fingerprints to be left, hard enough to yank him around to where he was needed next, hard enough to throw him out of the way if he was bothering any of them with his presence, memories flooded his mind and before he could yank his hand from his grasp, before his magic flared up in defence, Theo’s hand moved down to interlock their fingers again. 

The panic, the pressure released some and Harry watched as soap soaked both of their hands, “Sorry, shit, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have grabbed you like that.”

“It’s fine.” 

A squeeze, soap and water spilled more from the sponge, the hand on his back shifted to his waist and pulled him centimetres closer, “No. No, it’s not. You’re absolutely right, it’s none of my business, and I shouldn’t force you to talk about any of it.”

Sighing, Harry shook his head, “I was being a dick about it.”

“Well, so was I, so I guess we’re even, huh?”

Harry knocked his head gently against Theo’s, squeezing their hands together one more time before gradually separating himself from the comforting grip, “Do you want to shower?”

Theo scrunched his nose in a clearly mock offence, “Was that an insult, Potter?”

“No, dipshit, I was just wondering if you wanted to or not.” He shot back with a roll of his eyes and took a quick survey of the kitchen to make sure that everything was decently clean.

“I might as well.” Theo glanced around the room too before meeting his eyes with a grin, “You mentioned something earlier about the water pressure, might as well take advantage of it.”

A snort, “I thought you were too insulted over the fact I called you dude to hear anything else I said.”

“I’m still insulted over that, but the blatant disrespect needed to be addressed before something like water pressure.”

“ Blatant disrespect . Wow, you sound so bloody posh sometimes it’s insane.”

Grinning, Theo started walking towards the bathroom with a dismissive wave of his hand, “Shame, I was starting to think you had a thing for me sounding intelligent and posh, my mistake.”

“Your ego truly knows no bounds.” Despite the insult, Harry was grinning right back at Theo, not even attempting to hide it when Theo turned back around to lean against the bathroom door frame, arms crossed, eyebrows raised, a smirk on his lips.

Fuck, maybe he was right.

Were intelligent, uptight, egotistical, pompous dicks his type ?

Especially when they were mean to him?

Merlin’s beard, Ginny was never going to let him live this down.

Neither were the twins.

Actually, all of his friends were going to absolutely ridicule him for this, and he couldn’t do a damn thing to deny it.

Well, maybe Luna would be nice to him about it.

Bless her, he was going to need her when this all came out.

A quick up and down and Theo’s smirk widened, “Oh, well, maybe I was wrong.”

Before Harry could say anything snippy back, probably something along the lines of ‘shut the fuck up’, Theo was turning away and calling out from the bathroom, “Regardless, I’m sure you can keep yourself entertained without me for a few minutes, yes?”

Harry opened his mouth.

The door closed.

He closed his mouth and cursed under his breath.

Great.

Fucking wonderful. 

He huffed, crossed his arms, and glanced around the room again until his eyes finally landed on the bed. Something clicked in his brain then while staring at the baby blue sheets, the grey sheer canopy curtains, as the shower turned on, there was only one bed. One bed . Fuck. Something clenched in his chest, wrapping tight fingers around his heart, his lungs and squeezing at the thought of being in the same bed as Theo for hours.

Hours . 

An image of Theo, freshly showered with damp hair, curled up on his side under the sheets, appeared in his mind. The lines of his face would smooth, the severeness of his appearance would settle into something softer, but no less beautiful, no less devastating to look at, and a quick thought that Theo might be a cuddler popped up in his mind and and

and 

Nope .

A vague panicked noise left his mouth and Harry quickly turned his gaze onto the couch they've been lounging on all day instead. He’d certainly slept on worse and the couch was actually long enough for his legs to stretch out on so it really shouldn’t be an issue, but another more fun, more interesting alternative showcased itself and, well, he had the room, right?

Immediately going along with his thoughts (which made him think that the room was somehow sentient enough to have its own thoughts since it didn’t just separate the queen bed into two separate ones) the couch was moved back some and the coffee table disappeared with a quiet pop. Now, he’d never done this before but, really, how hard could it be, right?

Right. 

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Theo knew he spent too long in the shower when he stepped out with a cloud of steam and a pillow monstrosity taking up the space where the coffee table previously was.

(Sue him, Harry had vastly undermined how incredible the water pressure really was and he wasn’t going to deprive himself of that)

A new fact, a new observation, a new truth about Harry solidified itself into his mind as the boy in question crawled out of the cushioned fort structure, stood up, and put his hands on his hips like a mother who was staring disapprovingly at their child. 

Observation seven (?): Harry couldn’t be left to his own devices for too long or else he was going to do something stupid. Side note: in certain circumstances, that something stupid would probably be something dangerous too.

“You know when I said ‘keep yourself entertained’ I meant, like, get a book or something. Not whatever this is.” Theo eventually said, silently proud of himself that he managed to sneak up on Harry some when the boy jumped at the sound of his voice. 

Still, despite the scare, Harry rolled his eyes and grinned at him, “Do you not know what a pillow fort is?”

Shaking his head, Theo stepped forward until he was beside Harry and could see what this ‘pillow fort’ actually was. The cushions on the couch had been removed, instead being used as makeshift wall and roof braces for the numerous blankets and quilts to lay on top of. Somehow he had managed to make the roof into an triangular type shape, and when he peered inside Theo saw that there was a (probably) newly summoned mattress with a few sheets and dozens of pillow surrounding it on all sides, the centre of the makeshift bed being covered with a few blankets that could be unfolded and spread out.

“Can I ask why you made this?” Theo eventually said, glancing back and forth between Harry and the fort.

“I don’t know, can you?”

“I can and will hex you, Potter. Don’t tempt me.”

Harry smiled at him, shrugging, and crossing his arms, “It’s something that children do in the muggle world at, like, sleepovers and stuff. I never had one before, so I figured why not?”

Theo hummed, crouched down, and ran a hand over the blankets inside the fort, pleasantly surprised that the fabric was warm and solid without the texture feeling disgusting on his skin. He twisted and sat down inside the opening of the fort, glancing up with a raised brow when Harry made a vague, choked noise.

“You’ve never had a sleepover or you’ve never had a pillow fort before?”

A blink, “Uh, both. Neither. Um, you don’t have to-I made this so you could have the bed.”

His brows furrowed, “And you were going to sleep on the floor?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time.” He replied, probably too quickly since he winced the second the sentence left his mouth, “It’s fine, really. You get the big bed and I get the cool pillow fort.”

“Did you not want to sleep in the same bed as me that badly?” The words left his mouth without his permission and he quietly sympathised with Harry when he winced at his own words.

Frankly shaking his head, Harry’s eyes went wide and he dropped to his knees to be eye-level with him, “ No . No, no, no, that’s-that’s not it at all , I swear.”

Another thought, more heartwarming and (knowing Harry) more plausible came to the forefront of his mind and a grin pulled at his lips, “Or maybe you want to sleep in the same bed as me too badly?”

A visible flush burned at Harry’s cheeks, his nose, his ears.

Well, that’s his answer.

“Are you ready for bed?” Theo asked when Harry never gave him a verbal answer to respond to.

He furrowed his brow, “Um, I need to brush my teeth?”

“You go do that then.”

“I-okay?”

Slowly, like Theo was a wild animal that would attack him the moment they weren’t making eye contact, Harry rocked back onto his heels, stood up and walked towards the bathroom. He could hear the sink turn on and he figured that was enough of a cue for him to settle into bed himself, though instead of moving towards the giant canopy bed that he could have all to himself, he instead shuffled backwards onto the fort mattress. It was surprisingly comfortable, despite it being on the floor, and when he started moving the pillows (two under his head and one along his back) and blankets (grabbing a deep red quilt and a burnt orange duvet of sorts) to create a padded cocoon for himself it was just as good as his bed at home.

By the time he got comfortable, curled onto his side and borderline suffocated with the amount of fabric around him, Harry was walking out from the bathroom again, stopping for a moment before the footsteps continued towards the fort, “Theo? Why aren’t you in-”

Even with his eyes closed, Theo could determine the exact moment that Harry saw him in the fort, a sharp inhale and a shaky exhale, and the almost silent reaction forced a smirk to his lips. 

There was nothing but silence for a few seconds before Harry’s tongue clicked and Theo heard him say, “Did you seriously just steal my pillow fort?”

“I’m not stealing anything.” He shot back, burrowing himself further into the pillow with a pleased hum, “We’re sharing , now come lay down so I can go to sleep.”

“I-that’s not- Theo .” The stuttered words brought choked laughter up his throat, and he muffled the laughter into his pillow, hoping to disguise it as a cough. Thankfully, it must've worked because he wasn't smacked with a pillow for it, but that also meant that Harry hadn’t moved any closer. Was he genuinely that nervous? That flustered?

A sigh, and Theo sacrificed one of his hands to the cold of the room to pat the side of the mattress he wasn’t lying on, when a few seconds passed and that didn’t work he simply groaned and held out his hand to Harry’s general direction, rapidly opening and closing his fist in a haphazard ‘come here’ gesture, “Today, you beautiful, stubborn idiot.”

After a second passed and Theo thought he was going to have to tackle Harry into the sheets, a gloriously warm, calloused hand slipped into his and Harry allowed himself to be pulled into the fort. His hand released Theos’ for a moment, there was a subtle clicking noise that he assumed was Harry’s glasses, then the sheets were being moved, the duvet (and Theo along with it) was being pulled closer to Harry and with a sigh and a snap of his fingers, the remaining lights inside the room winked out.

His eyes had already been closed, but the sudden, added darkness of the room amplified his senses ten-fold. He could hear every breath that Harry took, which should've been annoying since it normally immensely bothered Theo (there was a distinct time that Zabini had to hold Theo back from suffocating Malfoy with a pillow when he was breathing too loud), but Harry had somehow managed to make his breathing quieter, less distingue, less grating on his ears.

Was that just an aspect of Harry or did he just silently guess an issue Theo might have and accommodate him?

His fingers twitched and shifted from where they were laid between them on the sheets, and Harry immediately laced their hands together, shifting their joined hands underneath a spare pillow so it wouldn't be out in the cold.

Another quiet, easy accommodation.

Words that Theo didn’t understand, didn’t comprehend circled his brain and lined themselves up on his tongue, waiting for Theo to analyse them and deem them okay enough to be a part of a conversation, but he was too tired. Too warm, too comfortable, too used to the easy flow of conversation he’s had with Harry so far to stress over if what he would say was up to his own standards, if they would even make sense.

Because Harry didn’t care.

He would want to hear the unfiltered version anyways.

Which was a strange concept that Theo never thought he would experience.

So he opened his mouth, knowing that Harry was listening, would listen, and the words, “What do you think a soulmate is?” fell from lips without him even knowing what the words would be.

Oh.

Well.

He didn’t know he was going to say that.

Harry let out a breath, shifted some in the sheets, and squeezed Theo’s hand before he spoke, “I feel like it’s not something with a clear definition, like it changes for each person.”

More unfiltered, unchecked words, “Then what does it mean to you?”

The ‘what do I mean to you’, goes unsaid in between them, but he’s sure that Harry understands enough.

It gets confirmed when Harry replies with, “For me, I think, a soulmate is someone who can make you happier than anyone else. It doesn't mean they’re a perfect fit or that it automatically means that they are always going to get along, but I just-I don’t know-I feel like it’s a more direct line towards happiness. But, I don’t know, hell, I don’t know if that makes any sense.” 

Theo clenched Harry’s fingers, silently letting him know that he understood, that his thrown together words and pieced together sentences connected themselves enough in his brain for him. Blowing out a breath, Harry pulled his blankets higher up, possibly over his shoulders, and asked, “What about you?”

There was already an answer in mind, “A soulmate is someone who you’ll always be connected with, even if they're not physically there. It’s-they’re-a soulmate is a guarantee that there’s someone out there who cares about you.”

“That sounds nice, comforting.” He replied, his words forming around a sigh, and Theo allowed their two theories, their potential realities ease his mind some.

Even if their respective definitions didn’t entirely match, both ideas offered some semblance, some promise of a happy future, regardless if they stayed in each other's lives or not. That was enough, somehow, knowing that in some way they both wanted the other to be happy and cared for in life, regardless of the details of it all.

The silence grew around them and Theo could feel himself losing the battle against sleep (though was it really a battle if he wasn’t fighting in it), so he let himself be lulled into darkness, into the quiet.

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Theo didn’t know how long he was asleep for.

He knew it must've been a few hours, his limbs felt stiff from inactivity, but he knew he hadn’t slept until morning since they were locked into place like they usually would be. 

What was strange though, was that he woke up at all. Usually, as Zabini had so graciously put it, Theo slept like the dead and wouldn’t wake up if there was an invasion or fire. (There was one particular moment when Malfoy had accidently set fire to Theo’s bed curtains and when he was frantically woken up by Goyle, he simply ignored him, rolled over and went back to sleep, fire be damned.) So. So, the fact that he was awake before morning was an oddity of itself, and he assumed that the reason was because Harry was no longer beside him.

Groaning, Theo pushed himself upright and willed his ears to work enough to hear where Harry could have possibly gone. Merlin’s beard, if he snuck off to sleep on the bed or the floor , Theo was going to drag him back to the fort by his ankles kicking and screaming. Fortunately for Harry, however, he could hear the bathroom sink running.

No dragging tonight.

A huff and Theo slumped back into the warm blankets, resigning himself to the fact that he was apparently the kind of person that subconsciously knew when his bedmate wasn’t there and couldn't sleep properly because of it. Which is ridiculously embarrassing, but currently unavoidable until he gets back to his own dorm.

So all he could do was wait.

A minute passed.

The water was still running.

And wait.

Another minute passed.

Then two more.

Then three.

Okay, this was a whole new level of pathetic, despite all that he’s already done today.

But…why was the sink still on?

Did-

Fuck.

Goddamn his stupid, paranoid, idiotic mind.

Theo yanked back the blankets for a second time and this time he crawled out of the fort, grumbling to himself as he stumbled to his feet and made his way towards the closed bathroom door.

The water was still running.

Now that he was closer, he could hear the stream of water being disturbed like it would if he was washing his hand, so he knew that Harry was, at least, in there and conscious. But that didn’t explain…carefully, he tested the door handle and when he released the door wasn’t locked, he cracked open the door and peered in, just in case he was showering or wasn’t decent.

Neither were the case, but when Theo processed what was happening he wished he had stumbled upon something embarrassing instead of-

Of-

Harry was washing his hands, that much he got right, but the skin on of his hands, his palms, his fingers, his knuckles were scrubbed raw . The knuckles and the sensitive skin in between his fingers were a bright red and he couldn’t tell if it had gotten to the point of bleeding or not.

Which didn’t matter regardless because Harry was actively hurting himself.

Hurting him-

That thought, those words startled him enough out of his frozen panic to leap forward and yank Harry away from the faucet, “What the fuck are you doing ?”

A panicked, confused noise left Harry’s mouth and Theo was momentarily stunned how wide, how shocked those green eyes were, especially with the red around his eyes and splotches of it across his face, but the pause quickly ended when Harry looked down at his hands, his wrists being held by Theo, and cursed under his breath.

“Harry, what were you doing ?” Theo repeated, squeezing the boy’s wrists and turning his hands around to see how damaged they were, if he had actually managed to draw blood or not.

“I don’t know. I wasn’t-” He paused, winced when he clenched his fists and the raw skin pulled, “-I wasn’t paying attention. I wasn’t thinking . I didn’t realise…”

He didn’t realise what he was doing, Theo’s mind filled in the rest of Harry’s trailed off sentence for him, and he wanted to scream when a thin but steady stream of blood appeared from in between his fingers and slid down skin, pooling at Theo’s fingers. Another curse and he was pulling Harry out from the bathroom, trusting the room to turn the water off for them, and sitting Harry on the unused bed.

Pointing at Harry, he said, “ Stay. ” and rushed towards the kitchen table where his wand was, mentally cycling through all the healing spells, medical supplies, and potions that might be needed. The previously extinguished candles and lights illuminated themselves again, albeit much dimmer than normal, and he was pleased to see that there was a small basket filled with potions, gauze, and other things on the bed beside a silent and still Harry.

Too still.

The lack of fidgeting was just another red flag added to the already stacked set in front of him.

Theo sat beside Harry, watched as he glanced at him quickly before he went back to looking blankly at his hands, his eyes trailing the lines of blood falling down his wrists and forearm. He gently grabbed Harry’s biceps, his hands sliding down to his elbows before using his grasp to pull those red, bleeding hands into his lap, only then picking up his wand.

“ Episkey .” He muttered, watching fascinated as the thin cuts on Harry’s hands started mending themselves, after a few moments the only remnants left were the reddened, dry skin and the stained blood.

Not wanting to test his luck with any additional healing spells he’d read about (healing magic was a seventh year Charms class and he didn’t want to wait that long to start learning about them), he turned his attention towards the basket instead. Theo poured a bit of murtlap essence into his hand, remembering that either soaking the wound in the potion or rubbing the potion into the injured area was best, and he quickly glanced up towards Harry and then back down towards his hands, silently asking him for permission to continue.

A nod, an exhale, and while the silence was a bit jarring, at least he was responding, yeah?

So he started, gently , rubbing the potion into the reddened skin, watching as Harry tensed for the first few seconds of contact before his body sank, his shoulders and head dropping and Theo figured that now would be a good time to breach the ‘what the fuck happened’ conversation.

The potion was absorbed into Harry’s skin by that point, and he went to grab some of the bandages, small ones that would fit on the cuts, when he saw that there was an extra potion there that Theo didn’t remember asking for.

Quickly reading the label, a dreamless sleep potion, he realised that the room was trying to give him a hint towards an explanation, or maybe it was some sort of conversation starter? Regardless, he set the potion back down and grabbed the bandages instead, “I’m going to take a shot in the dark here and say that you had a nightmare?”

Harry scoffed, shook his head some, and looked back towards the ground instead of giving any semblance of an answer.

Wonderful.

“I thought avoidance was a Slytherin trait.”

An eye roll, “I’m not avoiding anything, Theo. Nothing happened.”

Sarcastic as it was, any response was better than nothing.

“Well, to me, it seems like you’ve expertly dodged all of my questions.” Theo replied back, watching as Harry’s gaze turned into slight glare at his words, almost like he was trying to see something small on the floor, but he didn’t give any real response to his words, “Harry, you made yourself bleed. Bleed. I feel like something must've happened to warrant a reaction like this.”

Silence, a moment of pause, and then, “It’s not a big deal.”

“ Bleed , Harry. There was blood .”

“It’s stupid .” He shot back, and Theo was tempted to smack Harry with a pillow on principle alone.

“Anything that constitutes enough of a reaction to make you hurt yourself isn’t stupid.”

Harry lifted his gaze, his glare towards Theo, “It’s not-I didn’t-you don’t understand .”

“Then help me . What happened ?” He was dangerously close to begging, and he would hate himself for it if he did, but he would hate himself more if he allowed Harry to willingly spill his own blood without any resistance from his part.

“I’m fucking unclean. My blood is dirty , Nott.” The words were spit out like they were venom, poison on Harry’s tongue and before that statement, those words could process in his own mind, Harry was continuing, “ There . Is that what you wanted me to say? There. Fine. I had a fucking dream that I was back with the Dursleys’ and they told me that me that I was a dirty-blooded, freak again and I woke up, panicked and tried to-to-”

His mouth slammed shut, his jaw tensing, and Theo is sure his teeth were grinding from the force of it all, but he wasn’t really paying attention to any of that. Two things were fighting for his attention, those vulnerable, angry words that were spat from Harry’s lips and how wide, how overwhelmed, and how terrified Harry’s eyes looked in that moment.

The bandages went law in Theo’s grip and Harry took that as a sign to rip his hands back and forced the heels of his palms into his eyes, finger pressing hard into his hair, “I didn’t-I haven’t let them saying shit like that affect me in so long , I-I don’t know what changed. I don’t know why I reacted like that. I don’t-I can’t-why now ? I thought I was over this. I-fuck-why am I even saying this to you? Why am I-this is so stupid. I’m so stupidly pathetic it’s ridiculous .”

Theo didn’t realise he was shaking his head until he already was, didn’t realise he was moving or saying anything until he was grabbing the fabric of Harry’s shoulder, sinking his hand into his unkempt hair and pulling Harry into his chest, “ No . Merlin Harry, no . Don’t you dare call yourself pathetic for reacting when you’ve been abused . Have they said stuff like that to you? To your face?”

The noise that left Harry’s mouth sounded like a choked, gutted laugh, “Among other things. I just don’t know-I haven’t reacted like this since I was a kid .”

“Like what? What have they said? What do they do?” The words clawed themselves from his mouth without his permission, but he couldn’t make himself regret them, especially when Harry’s fingers were digging into the now navy blue pyjama set the room had summoned for him.

Thankfully, though, the words ‘you are a kid’ stayed where they were in his mind.

More silence, more shaking, more clenched fingers and pinched fabric.

He pressed a firm kiss to Harry’s curls, set his chin on his head and whispered, begged, “Harry, please . I don’t know how to help you without knowing, I’m sorry, but I don’t know how .” 

At his words, Harry shifted so his ear was pressed to Theo’s chest, to his heart and he clenched his eyes shut as words started tumbling from his lips, “You-you already know about the fact they didn’t like magic, so with me having magic it-well-they wanted me out of sight, out of mind. Well, the magic and the fact that I’m mixed, they didn’t like the fact that they were soiling their home and reputation by housing a foreigner , ya know?”

Anger started bubbling in his chest, burning his lungs, and coating his tongue with vitriol and hatred, but he swallowed it down as Harry continued.

“They decided that I needed to earn my place, so as soon as I could reliably walk and hold a rag and sanitizers simultaneously I was put to work. Pretty much everyday I would wake up, cook them breakfast, clean up the kitchen, go to school, then come home and start on whatever list of chores Petunia put out for me. Dishes, sweeping, dusting, mopping, laundry, shopping, weeding, mowing, gardening, vacuuming, nothing was off the table, and then I would cook them dinner and be locked back in until morning.”

Locked back in?

And cook them breakfast and dinner?

An inhale, “About your question before, at the sink, I-I was a bratty kid, Theo, I can’t really blame them for smacking me around some, ya know?”

When there wasn’t an immediate continuation, Theo elected to interrupt, “No. No, I don’t know. There’s no feasible reason to hit a child .”

In his peripherals, he could see Harry frown, “It wasn’t like I was beaten black and blue everyday.”

“Not everyday signifies that it happened some days, and that’s enough for it to be fucking abusive, Harry.”

There was no immediate rebuttal or dismissal so Theo counted it as a win, though he’s sure that this part of this whole clusterfuck of a conversation wasn’t settled, so he pushed a little more on something else, “You mentioned that you cooked from them . Was that-when did you eat?”

A shrug, “At school mostly. I’d be able to eat lunch there for free, and sometimes I’d be able to get a snack from another student or teacher. Though, I was allowed to eat at home sometimes, normally if the Dursleys were in a good mood or they were going to be gone for the day. With that, I’d have to get on their good side and ask if I could make myself food while they were out, at times it was a yes.”

“Why didn’t you sneak it?”

“While they were there, the area was either occupied or I was locked in, and when they knew they were leaving they would make note of how much food was there so I couldn’t steal it.” He said back like it was simple, like it was normal , and Theo imagined what it would be like to shatter a person’s bones with magic.

Truthfully, at this point, doing it with his bare hands or a bloody hammer didn’t sound nearly as off-putting as it should.

Instead of verbally expressing his reemerged bloodlust, he instead asked his final (kinda) question, “You keep saying locked in, what does-”

Harry let out a sigh, like he had hoped he would gloss over his vague word choice, “Nowadays, it means I’m locked in my room. They put multiple sets of locks on the outside of my door and bars on my bedroom window so I couldn’t, ya know, break out .” 

He keeps saying that like Theo knew what it was like to be beaten, starved, and locked in a room like he was a prisoner .

“And not nowadays?”

There was enough of a pause, of a hesitation that Theo immediately started conjuring multiple torture methods, some taking inspiration from stories he’s heard of Bellatrix Lestrange and Mulicber, and he couldn’t feel an ounce of regret that he’d probably be making those crazy fucks proud with his planning process. But he didn’t want to push Harry more than he already has, the amount of talking they’d done today was bloody absurd, and he wouldn’t blame Harry for wanting to finish today and hope tomorrow would be better.

However when he opened his mouth to voice his dismissal of his previous question, Harry said too quietly for a normal conversation but too loud for a whisper, something in between and disgustingly resigned, “I would be locked in my cupboard.”

  Cupboard.

“Like-”

“-the ones under the stairs, yeah. I got my cousin’s second bedroom when I came back from Hogwarts my first year.”

Cupboard.

A cupboard under the stairs.

The words echoed in his mind like they would make sense the more they circulated, the more he sat on it, but he couldn’t imagine it, couldn’t make himself imagine a child, a baby being kept in a glorified broom closet under the stairs .

Unfortunately, the room of requirement had no such problems.

He heard a faint pop to the side of him, well less of a pop and more like a shifting or bending of magic, like when Harry had asked for the bathroom and kitchen; but when both of their heads swerved to look towards the new addition to the room, he saw a blurred wall with only the small door solidified for their viewing.

Beside him, Harry sucked in a breath, the hands still clutching his shirt tightening the longer he looked, his eyes wide and panicked and so so resigned that Theo instantly knew that the room was showing him exactly what the cupboard looked like, no visualisation needed. Obviously, though, the sight of a barely three-feet tall door (there was a chain lock, a lock ) wasn’t enough because there were sounds coming from behind the door.

Sounds like a child crying.

Theo looked back to Harry, not knowing what he was expected to see, but the tears falling down his cheeks while he pressed his lips together, like he was trying to suppress his sobs, wasn’t it. Though maybe he should’ve expected it, he couldn't even begin to imagine how he’d react if he was shown this image.

This memory .

The crying from behind the locked door seemed to muffle itself, and Theo imagined that version of Harry suppressing his cries, his laughter, his emotions just as this version of Harry did and something sharp and painful cracked in his chest. The longer that he sat there without throwing that door open the more that a numbness travelled through his limbs, soaking up anything alive and breathing inside of him and reminding him that this was Harry’s reality and even if he opened the door, nothing would change.

Somehow that fact hurt the most.

A tan, scarred, bandaged hand squeezed his own and Theo managed to propel himself to his feet, rocking back on his heels, eyes still on the door. He took a step forward, then another, then another, and Harry’s hand slipped from his as he moved, his now free hand shakily moving towards the chain lock.

He slid the lock from its place, the rusted gold swaying limp against the chipped white wood.

There was movement behind him, the sounds of sheets shifting, and then footsteps before Harry was sliding down and slumping against the blurry but solid wall, right beside the cupboard door. His legs were sprawled out, bandaged hands laid haphazardly in his lap and his eyes looked up at Theo with a curiosity, “You know opening that door won’t change anything.”

Another body wracking ache, deep enough for each fingertip to throb, for his teeth to rattle, for his eyes to burn, and his ears to ring.

“I know.” Theo sank down onto his knees, ignoring how confirming it outloud made his heart and lungs tie themselves into grotesque knots, “I know that. I just-I don’t like the idea of a child being left to cry in any scenario, even if it’s just a memory.”

The ‘especially that it’s you’ goes unsaid but from the way that Harry’s eyes visibly softened before he ducked his head to hide it showed that it was heard regardless.

Theo took a breath, held the air in his lungs, and slowly pulled the cupboard door open, the old, unoiled joints creaking at the movement. Immediately, multiple things jumped to Theo’s attention; there wasn’t a real mattress just a broken cot thrown on the ground, the singular blanket on the cot was paper thin and covered in moth holes, the pillow looked like it was made of concrete and paint, at the end of the cot there was a trunk with clothes spilling from where it was wedged against the slanted roof and wall, broken toy figurines were in equal company to cobwebs, and there was a single flickering light bulb and a mostly broken chain that provided miniscule amounts of light.

All of those things organised themselves in Theo’s mind without any conscious effort from him, he didn’t have any energy to spare because there was a little boy with familiar black curls curled in the far corner.

His scraped knees were drawn to his chest and bruised arms wrapped around them, his limbs too thin, too pale for it to be healthy. Merlin, he must be, what, seven? Maybe ?

Whispering, he asked, “How old were you?”

Harry’s head tilted upwards slightly, like he was tuning in to Theo’s words, “I think I was about six or so, can’t remember exactly when this incident was from.”

The fact that this was a common occurrence wasn’t necessary surprising, but it did expand his torture methods list some.

He didn’t know how far the room’s magical influence went, but he couldn’t-he couldn’t just leave him like that, could he? Slowly, Theo rolled forward on his knees, a hand outstretched towards little Harry, the boy flinched when he was just a few centimetres away which shouldn't have happened, shouldn't have been possible because this wasn’t real , right? Not in the way they were, there shouldn’t have been a way for six-year-old Harry to feel his presence at all, but that logical supposed reality was thrown from the window when Theo moved the last few centimetres and ran his fingers through Harry’s curls.

Theo distantly heard himself make some sort of noise, he heard his Harry shift from his place and look into the cupboard, he heard him curse under his breath, but Theo’s main focus, main concern was the fact that little Harry’s cries seem to slow down and quiet the longer Theo’s hand was in his hair. Maybe this Harry didn’t truly realise someone was there, maybe he couldn’t see Theo or Harry or that the door keeping him trapped there was unlocked, maybe the room’s magic ended there.

Maybe all the room could manage was giving this memory some semblance of comfort, maybe all Theo could give was the hint of an idea that Harry wouldn’t be alone forever.

So Theo moved further into the cupboard, ducking his head down and ignoring when that still wasn’t enough to avoid the lightbulb string hanging from the ceiling, and his hand moved to draw that child into his chest, just as he did for Harry before. It wasn’t exact, it wasn’t perfect, Harry moved with him but he seemed a bit confused as to why or how he was being moved, though he didn’t question it too much as he laid down on the cot, knees bent, arms tucked to his chest, his nose brushing the fabric at Theo’s hip.

Putting his hand back into Harry’s hair, he started combing through the curls, gently undoing any knots with his fingers, and massaging the black strands between his fingertips. With every movement, every second that passed Harry seemed to relax more and more against the cot, his breaths evening out, his eyes fluttering closed, and Theo carefully removed his glasses, folding them up and going to set them down on the trunk.

They were cracked, a thin but webbed line going diagonally across one of the lenses.

“Can you hand me my wand?” He heard himself ask, his thumb rubbing against the rims of the glasses while he waited for a response.

A hum, and Theo looked up to see Harry staring intently at the younger, now sleeping version of himself, an odd look on his face, but he blinked and quickly looked up when he felt Theo’s eyes on him, “Sorry, what did you-oh-wand, right. Yeah, just a second.”

Almost reluctantly, Harry moved to his feet, stepped out of Theo's view for a moment, then came back with Theo’s wand in his hand, silently handing it to him while his gaze trailed right back to the sleeping boy beside him. Theo nodded his thanks, set the glasses on the trunk, manoeuvred his wand into the proper position and whispered, “ Oculus Reparo. ”

There was a quick flash, the boy next to him shifted some, and the crack fixed itself within a second.

Setting his wand right outside the door, he couldn't help but grin at Harry, “You just have a habit of breaking your glasses, huh?”

Harry rolled his eyes but a familiar amused smile pulled at the edges of his lips, “Oh fuck off, try wearing glass on your face everyday and see how often you crack it.”

“Not as often as you do, I’m sure. I mean, bloody hell, it’s almost impressive.”

Theo felt more than saw Harry flick his ear in retaliation, “Oh, shut your face, Nott.”

“Wow, so creative-” He felt little Harry flinch against him and Theo immediately looked down to see what had happened, maybe his fingers yanked on a knot, but his fingers were closer to the skin of his neck more than anything so he didn’t know what-

-oh.

Right where his pointer finger was gently pressing into the skin on the back of his neck, there were lines of finger-shaped bruises. Like he was in a trance, he moved some of the black hair to the side and-yeah-it wrapped around the back and side of his neck, the bruise the thumb must've left was formed right along the hollow of his throat. His crying wasn’t just being muffled to try and keep himself quiet, his throat was probably too bruised and swollen for the sounds to form properly.

Probably noting how still Theo had gotten, Harry sat down right at the opening of the cupboard, peering over his bent legs to see what he was looking at, and after a quick sucked in breath Theo looked up and realised that Harry was looking at the bruises like they were familiar .