ivy | theo nott

Grace ran a hand over her forehead, praying for the waves of embarrassment to stop. She had been up practically before the sun, tossing and turning and now running on barely two hours of sleep. Her eyes felt heavy, though she knew even if she turned the lamps out for the third time, she still wouldn't be able to sleep.

What was she thinking... sitting with Nott... crying into his expensive sweater, admitting her feelings for his best friend... After he had proven just weeks before he had no interest in secret keeping and arguably less interest in being her friend...

She huffed out a sigh, leaning back against her headboard and turning back a page in her book once she realized she had been scanning over the last few paragraphs absentmindedly. Leah and Padma had long since left for breakfast, shooting her an odd look when she told them she wasn't feeling well and needed to rest before finally giving up the hope for anymore sleep and pulling the book out of her nightstand.

She glanced over to her desk across the room, the pink hydrangeas sitting there in their vase of water still looked as new as when she had found them in her room three nights before, and she was sure Theo had charmed them to last. There were hydrangeas lining the side of her house back home, and she knew from past experience how quickly they wilted once they were cut from their bush.

Theo. Another familiar wave of embarrassment rolled through her stomach and she forced her eyes back to the book in her lap. It was never this difficult for her to push things from her mind... she could nearly always get lost into a book.

She had barely made it two sentences in before the door clicked open before her, and her eyes flickered over, expecting to find Leah or Padma, but instead linking with the hazel ones she had been trying to push from her mind for the past few hours.

"I..." Theo started, a bunch of daffodils drooped from one of his fists at his side, though he made no move to hide it from her. "What are you doing here? I thought you'd be... at breakfast."

"What am I doing? In my own dormitory? Let me think..." She snapped, her voice low.

"Did you eat breakfast?" He asked, though he already knew the answer, judging from the way she was still buried deep into her covers, the skin around her eyes rimmed red from lack of sleep.

"What are you doing up here, Nott?" She sighed, placing a scrap of parchment into her book and setting it onto the bed.

"I think that's obvious." He answered, unfazed by her sharp tone as he crossed to her desk, pulling the hydrangeas from the vase and refreshing the water instantly with his wand, dropping the bright yellow daffodil's into the glass.

"Theodore, this has to stop."

"Ouch..." He winced, dramatically, sneaking a peek at the blonde from the corner of his eye. "Theodore."

"That's your name." She replied.

He didn't respond, picking the vase up from her desk and starting towards her bed.

"Theo, I mean it!" She tossed the covers to the end of the bed and moved to block his path to her nightstand, ignoring the chill that enveloped her bare legs, Theo's eyes flickering over her small frame quickly before forcing his gaze back to hers.

"Sorry, mean what, bellissima?"

Her breath caught in her throat at the word, her mind flashing back to last night, the dark stairwell, the smell of Theo's cologne...

"The flowers. It's enough, you've got to stop. And it is breaking and entering, I might add."

"I'm not breaking anything." He pressed, hardly trying to contain the smirk spreading over his lips at her frustration.

"Stop coming up here. It's creepy, Theo! I'll tell Flitwick."

"Oh... I'm sorry... Did you think these were for you?" He asked, his eyebrows furrowing as he stared down at her.

"Nott-"

"No, these are for Leah." He shrugged, waiting patiently for her response.

"Right. You've got the wrong nightstand, then, I'm afraid."

"Do I?" He grinned, exposing his perfect, white teeth as Grace resisted a groan and the urge to shove him back through the doorway. "Rats..."

"Please take your flowers and leave."

"Aw, Gracie... I thought we'd overcome our hostility last night-"

"Theo!" She snapped, though he couldn't help but notice the blush rising to her face once again.

"Alright! I'm leaving!" He shrugged, stepping beside her and setting the vase on her nightstand with a lopsided grin. "You'll make sure Leah gets those then?"

"Nott..." She finally shoved him, now that he had set the vase down, and he let himself be pushed towards the door, chuckling as she shut it in his face before starting down the stairs.

➺

Grace had finally managed to get a few hours of sleep, though she was woken up every hour or so by the sunlight pouring in through the half opened curtain. Finally, on her fourth wake up, she decided she must have obtained nearly a full night's sleep, and her stomach was craving food. She threw the blankets off of her once again and slipped her book back into her nightstand, brushing two fingers carefully along the petals of one of the daffodils before there was a knock at the door.

She spun around, her eyebrows furrowing in thought. Leah and Padma still hadn't returned after breakfast, which meant that Leah was likely with Terry, and she wasn't sure neither of her roommates would knock on their own door. Theo had proved that he didn't care for anyone's privacy either, parading through any common room and dormitory whenever he liked.

The door handle turned slowly and Grace's eyes met the familiar blue-gray ones she'd grown so used to searching every room for the last few months.

"Hey Grace." Draco offered her a soft smile, taking a final step into the room and shutting the door with his elbow behind him. "Leah said you'd been up here all morning. You're not feeling well?"

Her stomach practically jolted against itself, though she crossed to her dresser quickly and pulled a thick sweater on over the thin material of her pajamas, very conscious now of how much skin her shorts were showing.

"I'm feeling much better. Got some extra sleep this morning."

"Good." He cocked his head to the side, his gaze following her as she stepped away from the dresser before he held out the containers he'd been balancing in one hand. "I brought you lunch. Figured you might be hungry, assuming you weren't puking when I got up here."

Grace felt an easy laugh rip from her chest as she shook her head, dropping down on the edge of her unmade bed.

"I didn't mean to make you get up. I thought if you were sleeping, I'd just leave them for you and make sure you were feeling alright-"

"No, I wasn't sleeping. I was getting up anyways. Can't waste the whole day."

"You can't maybe. Some of us might be perfectly happy to spend the entire day in bed." He shrugged, crossing the room to her bed and setting the food out between them. He had piled far too many lamb chops than she could have ever eaten into one box and filled the other with a heaping pile of green beans, carrots and sliced potatoes.

"This could feed a dozen students." She laughed, pulling her legs up to the bed beneath her and starting on her lunch as Draco shrugged.

"You missed breakfast! I don't know!" He snagged a green bean from the container and popped it into his mouth, glancing around the dorm as she ate. "Why's your room so clean? Don't you have room mates?"

"Only two though." She answered, "We try to keep it clean, or Leah will lose all of her things by Christmas every year."

"You should have seen our dorm last year. I don't even want to think about what it looks like now. Thank God for the Prefect dorms."

"They give you guys your own dorms?" Grace questioned. All this time, she had been picturing all of the Slytherin boys packed into one cramped dorm, though part of her realized she should have guessed Draco would be looking for any way to get a single dorm.

"The perks of nothing being down in the Dungeons." He answered, "Plenty of room." His eyes followed her as she reached to her nightstand for her water, landing at last on the yellow bouquet there. "Where are you getting flowers from?"

Grace's mind went blank, her eyes flickering quickly over the daffodils and then back to Draco. "Oh... Well... We didn't actually know who they were from-" She trailed off, not wanting to lie, but she didn't want to throw Theo under the bus either... Not after the night before...

Besides, he knew too much now... The least she could do was keep a secret for him and hope he would do the same for her.

"That's rather odd..." He stood from the bed, crossing over to examine the bouquet. "Why are you keeping them? Bit creepy..."

"Well, they are pretty." Grace shrugged, biting back a laugh as Malfoy's eyes rolled up towards the ceiling.

"Yeah, until they're laced with poison or something." He pulled his wand from his pocket, aiming towards the vase and muttering a quick vanishing spell, Grace's heart sinking slightly as the daffodils vanished from sight.

"Yeah... I guess you're right, I didn't think about that..." She mumbled, shutting the half empty boxes before her and forcing an easy smile to her face.

"You're fine, love." He dropped a hand to her head, ruffling her hair messily and laughing as she pulled back to the edge of the bed. "Can I get you anything else?"

"No, I'm really alright now." She nodded, vanishing the boxes from her bed and heading to the dresser to pull out some clothes. "If you wait a minute, I'll walk you back downstairs?"

"Yeah, course." He nodded, stepping into the hallway and shutting the door with a click as Grace pulled on her new clothes, her eyes flickering over the empty vase on her nightstand once more before meeting Draco in the hallway and pulling the door shut.

➺

By the time Monday arrived, Grace felt as though she'd caught up on a weeks worth of sleep, even with her usual amount of studying and homework she had managed to get through on Sunday in the busy common room. Leah, however, had been out late serving detention for Snape and refused to wake up, despite Grace's many attempts before the blonde had finally given in, leaving her friend to catch up on some well deserved sleep, praying she wouldn't miss their first lesson.

She stepped into the common room, bustling with the usual morning activity, scanning over the students before accepting that Terry wasn't there either. He did sometimes wake up early for a jog around the lake, though usually not in the blistery February weather. She shrugged, starting out of the doorway behind a few second years and heading down the steps on her own. She would find someone to eat with, or maybe just grab something quickly and head straight to transfiguration.

Finally, after what felt like a decade of stairs, she reached the warmth of the Great Hall, slipping inside and glancing at the sky where heavy snowfall was vanishing against the clear ceiling, letting out a sigh of relief that she didn't have herbology that morning.

Her eyes found the Slytherin table at once, though after spotting Draco and both of the Greengrass girls, she glanced towards the Ravenclaws. No Terry, though she was sure Michael Corner and Mandy Brocklehurst wouldn't object to her joining them. Her eyes flickered once more towards the Slytherin, and she knew why at once, meeting the hazel eyes trained on her.

She sighed, forcing her gaze away from the younger brunette witch beside Daphne and made her way towards the group, Theo's eyes trailing along as she drew closer before Enzo noticed.

"Abbot!" He grinned, a bit too jolly for the early hour in Grace's opinion, though she smiled back just the same.

"Mind if I join you lot? My friends are apparently sleeping like the dead."

"Like you're one to talk." Draco teased, sliding over in his spot to make space for Grace beside him.

"Saturday's are different. I can sleep if I'd like."

"Still slept through breakfast." He slid the nearest plate of food towards her and she helped herself to a roll and a scoop of scrambled eggs, picking up the fork from the table before noticing Theo's eyes, dark, even in the brightly lit room, his jaw clenched tightly.

"Gracie, Tori and I were just talking about Hogsmeade this weekend. Valentines Day. Got any plans?" Daphne smiled, her eyebrows cocked upwards as if implying something and Grace's throat ran dry.

"Oh... Not really, I hadn't even realized-" She stuttered out before Draco set his goblet of pumpkin juice down beside his plate.

"No... We'll go out." He declared, and her eyes flashed up to meet his.

"What?"

"Why not? Do you already have plans?"

"No..." She scoffed under her breath, hating the feeling of the heat rising to her face as everyone watched.

"Then of course I'll take you out. It's Valentines Day." He shrugged, as if it should have been obvious, before the sound of glass shattering filled their ears and Daphne gasped, looking up towards Theo who shook his hand out carelessly, glass shards spilling to the floor as he stood, not sparing anyone a second glance before he was out the double doors and around the corner, the Great Hall slowly resuming it's loud chatter as Daphne looked to Blaise and Enzo, waiting for an explanation that no one had.

"Did you see any blood?" She asked, and Blaise stood from his spot, waving his wand easily over the bench as the glass sparkled for a split second before vanishing from sight.

"I'll check on him." He muttered, following the path Theo had just disappeared from before he too was out of sight.

"Always so dramatic." Draco shook his head and Daphne barked out a laugh.

"Coming from you?"

"So what do you think? Noon on Saturday?" Draco asked, tuning the rest of the Slytherin out and focusing on Grace at his side. She nodded quickly, trying to pull her thoughts from Astoria across the table from them and ignoring the bubbly feeling that was erupting in her stomach. So what if he chose to sit with her last weekend? So what if he'd been staring at her on Christmas? He was spending Valentines Day with Grace. They were going on a date.

"I'll pick you up then. It's a date."

"Well, don't keep her too long!" Daphne ordered, Grace sighing in relief as all eyes turned to the blonde Slytherin. "You've got to come back in time for our party we're planning! You have to wear red or pink, those are the only rules! Promise?"

"Oh, I promise." Grace nodded, sending Daphne an easy smile.

"I'm not wearing pink, Greengrass." Draco scoffed, though from the scowl he received, Grace was fairly certain she would find the blonde dressed appropriately come Saturday.