Chapter 6
“Here, check this. I think I have it now,” Hermione said, pushing the parchment across the smooth, wooden top of the library’s table. Theo took it and started examining the long lines of calculations, written in her neat calligraphy. Hermione tucked a stray curl behind her ear, pushing her wobbly plait over her shoulder. Her eyes flitted nervously over his aristocratic features, hardly marred by concentration. His forehead was smooth, his brows angled ever so slightly, his lips slowly pushing up at the corners, as his eyes went back and forth on the paper. Theo was so much more elegant than her when lost into words and theories. She had a face that held subtitles, she knew, while he was the perfect image of nonchalance. It made him look even hotter.
When he reached the end of the exercise, he looked up with a grin.
“Ten points to Gryffindor,” he awarded, handing back the parchment. Hermione jumped in her seat, clapping her hands in excitement and squealing like a seal. Theo laughed, eyes crinkled at the corner.
“Yes! My brain isn’t damaged!” she squeaked, giving a final adoring gaze to her solved exercise. Theo propped his elbow on the table and rested his chin on his palm, observing her with the same gaze.
“You just needed a different angle, Granger,” he said. Hermione looked at him with a shy smile.
“Thank you for your help, Theo. Without you…” she started, but he waved a hand in her direction.
“You would have figured it out anyway. I was already there only because I’d struggled with these calculations for months last year,” he said, humbly.
Hermione tilted her head, intrigued and surprised. Intrigued because she wanted to know more about his role in the war and surprised because he always dismissed praises for his actions. It was very un-Slytheriny not to be cocky and pompous, at least for what she’d seen of them so far.
Somehow, it only made her like him more.
“What do you mean? Why did you have to use this stuff?”
Theo scratched his jaw. “It’s the same line of calculations that’s behind Portkey making and repurposing,” he explained. Seeing as she slightly leaned over the table in awe, he went on. “My aunt couldn’t buy plane tickets for all the Muggle-borns in hiding and she couldn’t apparate them over the ocean, so she used Portkeys. Problem is, Portkeys are very difficult to come by and expensive to make. They need a complicated potion, with very rare ingredients, which takes months to brew. So, I thought maybe we could repurpose those she already had. I looked up the Arithmancy and spellwork behind it and managed to alter the charm to reuse them as many times as needed. It was the biggest headache of my life,” he finished with a smirk. But Hermione could see the melancholy in his gaze, the longing for the challenge of being useful. Sometimes she felt it, too.
“Next time you call your efforts second hand, I’ll ex your hair off, Theodore Nott. What you did is invaluable,” she whispered, unconsciously reaching for his hand over the table. Their fingers brushed and he ran his thumb over her knuckles lazily, eyes absently observing them.
“We could have saved more,” he mumbled, lost in his memories. Hermione pushed her hand further and intertwined her fingers with his.
“We could all have done more. But I’m glad you didn’t risk your life,” she said, searching for his eyes. Right on cue, Theo looked up, lips parted in cautious wonder.
“Library closing in five minutes,” Madam Pince croaked, passing past their table and shattering the intimacy of the moment. Hermione flinched and sent an annoyed look to the librarian’s back.
“I think she enjoys seeing students squirm,” she mused.
Tho chuckled. “Maybe she gets off it, with Filch. They make quite the pair.”
Hermione gaped in horror, then made a retching noise. “I will never be able to erase that image from my mind. You destroyed all my chances to sleep ever again, Theo.”
Theo laughed harder, packing up his things. “Then we can stay up together, Granger. Sleeping is overrated, anyway.”
Hermione slung her bag over her shoulder and they walked towards the exit. She eyed him curiously. “Troubles with nightmares?”
Theo shrugged. “Nightmares, panic attacks, night terrors, you name it, I probably have it.”
Hermione frowned. She waited until they were in the corridor, far from Madam Pince’s extremely sharp ears, before pressing on. “Is it because of last year? I pull all-nighters regularly myself.”
Theo ran a hand through his hair and for the first time Hermione saw a crease between his eyes.
“We don’t have to talk about it, Theo. It’s okay,” she added quickly, an apology unspoken in her voice.
Theo looked at her with a sad smile. “It’s not about the war. I haven’t been able to sleep properly since I was ten. My household…wasn’t very comforting.”
Hermione bit her lip, thorn between curiosity and a dull ache spreading in her chest at his pained words. “Have you tried Dreamless Sleep potion?”
“Can’t use it. My father saw fit to spike my dinner with it when I was little, so I wouldn’t wake up in the middle of the night because of my mother’s screams of pain while he tortured and abused her,” he said, his voice low and bitter. Hermione gasped in horror. Theo continued walking, his eyes set onwards, but full of shadows of the past. The dam was broken and he spoke like he wanted to get it all out, lift a heavy rock from off his chest.
“He was a monster. After Voldemort’s first demise, he avoided Azkaban lying about being Imperiused into his ranks. But he had never been, of course. Pureblood ideology and the need for power were totally his stuff. So when he ended up a no one, back into the shadows of other more prominent families, he fell into a spiral of alcohol and potions dependency. He was always angry and violent, and my mother took the brunt of it.”
Theo swallowed hard, darkness seeping into his blue irises. “One night, I heard her scream and ran into their room. He was torturing her with the Cruciatus. I threw myself between her and his wand. He didn’t stop in time,” he said, words tumbling out of his mouth like drops of blood from a festering wound. Hermione felt the prickle of tears in her eyes and caught his hand, squeezing tenderly. Theo laced their fingers together, but avoided her gaze.
“After that night, he started giving me the potion, so I wouldn’t bother his nightly activities, keeping me away from her, when she needed me the most. My mother was delicate and sweet, the sweetest person I’ve ever met,” he whispered, his voice breaking on his last words. He cleared his throat. “All the abuse broke her mind eventually and she killed herself with poison. I found her, in the sunroom. She was so pale, I…”
He paused, inhaling a shaky breath. Hermione drew circles on his palm with her thumb, in a silent attempt to soothe the impossible cracks in his soul.
When he spoke again, his tone was calm, but she could sense an underlying note of disgust.
“When I came to Hogwarts, he couldn’t administer the Dreamless Sleep anymore, so I had some kind of withdrawal reaction after a couple of days. I still remember Malfoy’s terrified face when I woke the entire dormitory with my cries and screams. Madam Pomfrey kept me in the infirmary for a week and, when she discharged me, she cautioned me to avoid any kind of addictive behavior,” he explained. Hermione peered at him in understanding.
“That’s why you’re struggling with cigarettes,” she said.
Theo smiled, his dimple finally showing again. Her stomach flipped in relief. She realized she didn’t want to see him struggling and helpless and her heart beat faster in her chest.
“Smartest witch of the century,” he said, nudging her shoulder gently with his. Hermione sticked her tongue out to him and he chuckled.
She looked around and noticed she’d somehow directed them towards Gryffindor tower, or maybe he had been walking her back, she didn’t know. What she knew was that she didn’t want him to go, yet. She looked up at him, warm chocolate searching deep oceans.
“Get inside with me. It’s late, no one will be around. We can stay up together a bit longer,” she offered, hoping she wasn’t sounding too desperate.
A corner of his mouth lifted and he simply nodded. Hermione smiled wide and turned to tell the Fat Lady the password. Theo kept his distance, respecting the secret, approaching her when the portrait swung open. She took his hand again and pulled him through the hole and into the Gryffindor common room.
As anticipated, the room was deserted, the fire almost dead in the fireplace. Theo took everything in, his gaze flitting from the stuffed, mismatched armchairs to the oversize sofa with piles of blankets draped over the backrest, from the fluffy carpets to the warm fireplace and wonky chairs and tables. A slow smile lightened his handsome face and Hermione flushed, for no reason at all, as if she’d passed a very difficult exam.
Theo walked to the sofa and slumped onto it with a sigh. He rested his head back on the cushion and closed his eyes. “This is so much more comfortable than what we have in the dungeons.”
“But I bet the view under the lake is much more intriguing,” Hermione hinted, sitting beside him, with her legs tucked under herself, an elbow resting not far from his dark curls. Theo arched a brow and cracked an eye open.
“How would you know about the view down there?” he asked, intrigued.
“You have no idea how resourceful I am,” she retorted, earning a throaty laugh from him. She watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down, the chords of his neck tended and strong. Hermione felt her stomach flip, want burning in her chest like a physical thing.
This broken boy, with a playful dimple and a terrifying past. This beautiful, clever boy, with pain and sorrow in his soul and a glimmer of hope in his ocean eyes. She wanted him to laugh like that forever and she needed to be the one to make him. She still didn’t know much about him, and yet she felt like she’d known him forever. He certainly looked at her as if he knew her most secret nooks and crevices. And he seemed to like her for what she was. And she longed for that, for someone that would relish in her quirks and unusual flukes.
“If you look at me like that a second longer, Granger, I won’t be able to restrain myself,” he murmured, turning to search her face for some kind of rejection.
There wasn’t any.
“Then, please don’t,” she heard herself breathe out, before Theo exhaled a shaky sigh and closed the distance between them, before his lips nipped at hers tentatively. Hermione slid closer, one hand reaching for his cheek. Theo fully turned and pulled her to his chest with a strong arm, while he cupped the nape of her neck with his long fingers. His mouth molded on hers and she felt the tip of his tongue gently tracing her lower lip, asking for permission. She opened for him, moaning into his mouth when he deepened the kiss, exploring, searching, committing to memory. She grazed his lip with her teeth and he groaned, reaching up through her hair with his fingers, angling her to delve deeper. She was flush against his chest, one leg over his lap, but it wasn’t close enough, she wanted more, she wanted him. She was bracing her arms on his shoulders to straddle him, when the portrait scraped open and someone climbed through the hole.
Gasping, Hermione broke the kiss and turned, sliding back on the cushion, Theo’s hands still on her neck and waist. Neville appeared, tiptoeing like a burglar, a dreamy expression on his slightly flushed face. Hermione arched a brow, taking in his tousled hair and untied tie, dangling loosely on either sides of his open collar. Theo snorted next to her and she turned to observe his disheveled appearance. They didn’t look very different. Had Neville been snogging someone?
Her friend noticed them on the couch and halted abruptly, confusion giving way to embarrassment pretty quickly.
“Aw, hi ‘Mione! You okay?” he asked, nervously pushing his hands in his pockets.
“Hi, Neville. Yeah, I’m fine. Theo was helping me with Arithmancy calculations. We were…revising,” she said, with a tense smile of her own. Theo next to her seemed on the verge of bursting out laughing. She pinched him behind his arm.
“Ouch…Ehm, ‘sup Longbottom?” he offered, with a nod.
As if he’d just noticed there was a Slytherins on Gryffindor couch, Neville pulled his mouth into an o, processing the information. He must have decided not to explore the topi further because he only nodded, scratching the back of his head and desperately scrambling for something safe to reply.
“Arithmancy, uh? It sounds bloody impossible to me,” he awkwardly chuckled, settling for playing along. Hermione made a neutral noise and nodded back. Then silence fell in the room and they exchanged mute glances for an obscene amount of time. Finally unable to take it any longer, Theo cleared his throat. As if awoken by his state of stupor, Neville straightened his back.
“Yeah, right. I’m going to bed. Goodnight, guys,” he babbled out, starting to walk towards the dorm’s door. Theo turned over the sofa’s back and called him.
“Oi Longbottom!”
Neville stopped and looked at him from over his shoulder. “Yes?”
Theo scratched at his throat, right under his ear. “You may want to use a delitesco on that hickey there. It’s huge, mate.”
Neville’s eyes widened in horror, as his face went as red as Goosegrass. He instinctively covered the spot with his hand and nodded.
“Thanks Nott, I owe you,” he croaked before vanishing behind the door.
Theo grinned wildly at the disappearing Gryffindor, then turned to Hermione, who was staring at him in disbelief.
“What?”
“How do you know about that kind of spells?”
He sent her a predatory smile and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her on his lap with a single, fluid tug. Hermione gasped, resting her hands on his hard chest. Theo strained his neck up towards her and let her lips hover over his, warm breath tickling skin.
“I’ve been studying lately. I always want to jump into new subjects well prepared,” he murmured, kissing her softly, hands traveling up her back maddeningly slow.
“Can’t wait to share notes,” she whispered onto his mouth.