Boom.
In a plume of horrendous grime, Theodore Nott stretched tight his black gloves and slammed shut the deteriorated dust jacket on a rather hefty ancient Mayan textbook.
He'd found it to be decently informative regarding the integration of technomagical systems within vessel artefacts.
Beyond the wrought iron cage enclosing the restricted reading section in the Hogwarts library, several groups of students raised their heads in confusion as to where the disruptive resonance was originating from.
Growling, Theo grabbed his cobalt blue jacket and hiked it back over his white dress shirt, collecting the book to depart. He'd been sat there for hours, rifling through endless volumes for clues that might lead him to a victorious recovery of the defective time turner glitching below his clothing.
Angular reading glasses reflected back the golden hue of hundreds of dangerously placed pillar candles within the vicinity as he marched in a sharp stride towards the arched gate, producing a long black key on a beaded metal string to unlock the egress.
The scent of the ancient athenaeum could only be described as an unpleasant, sour odor one might come across upon opening an Egyptian burial tomb for the first time in seven thousand grueling years.
It was a bouquet of reeking mold, rotting cellulose fiber, dripping wax and wooden materials. To add to this nast, at least a dozen feral cats had constructed hidey holes in the vast stacks, tending to leap from the tops of shelves to add dander and dust to the air.
Those misfortunate students with allergies were utterly miserable during exam periods.
Within this cornucopia of priceless collections, the vast majority of literature, papyrus scrolls, carved tablets and cartographical relics had been on the planet for millennia, and it was profoundly shocking to Theodore that a large quantity of these materials were accessible to idiotic teenagers and pissing felines with zero respect for the integrity of antiquities.
Naturally, this explained the purpose and function of a caged restricted section - not only to protect the youth from malignant texts, but also to protect those delicate and fragile remnants of indescribable curio value from the sticky youth.
Locking it behind him, Theodore confidently ignored the attentive whispering of the surrounding student population, some curious as to why he alone bore the right to access it, others in a downright tizzy over the favoritism.
"What's Dumbledore doing, allowing a Slytherin of all students entry to the restricted section, while the rest of us are considered unfit? Reckon he's misplaced just how dangerous those slimy snakes are?" Theodore's left ear pulled back at the recognizable grumbly whine of Ronald Weasley, who frequently reminded him of the jealous child in the play pen which insisted upon coveting whatever toy other children were occupying despite possessing one of his own.
His lip curling up in a slight amused sneer, the sleek Slytherin waltzed straight past the table housing at least four overzealous Gryffindors without sliding his eyes to acknowledge the emphatic commentary.
His spine only began to tingle with a fifth sense that one of them had followed him once halfway across the monstrous pyre hazard of firelight, bookstacks and tables.
"Theodore," a tap appeared on his shoulder, followed by a feminine quip in perfect syllabic punctuation.
Hermione Granger.
Certainly not in the mood for her antics he halted in place, grinding his jaw and cracking his neck. Removing the glasses, he spun elegantly on his Corinthian leather heel to glare at the unwelcome interaction.
There she stood, lips pressed together in predictably unnecessary aggression as if he'd just skinned her cat and cooked it for dinner [https://img.wattpad.com/685aba65e3fab528c47f680e4c20517bb30ac49a/68747470733a2f2f73332e616d617a6f6e6177732e636f6d2f776174747061642d6d656469612d736572766963652f53746f7279496d6167652f5a5344634447534b447579526a673d3d2d313236353035313238382e313739616138646233306533343730303131343935353538313238382e6a7067?s=fit&w=1280&h=1280]
There she stood, lips pressed together in predictably unnecessary aggression as if he'd just skinned her cat and cooked it for dinner.
She was dressed in a pale pink sweater below her Gryffindor robes that Theodore found to be visually itchy without needing tactile confirmation, probably fished out of a bargain bin in a two-for-one nightmare deal that accompanied that unflattering gray skirt.
He raised an eyebrow high into the sky upon landing on her muddy sneakers, wondering if she'd been hanging around that unkempt bear down by the lake earlier.
Hermione was quite beautiful, this he had recognized a long time ago...on the rare occasions she elected to speak in a gentle manner.
However her nose was dotted delicately with a similar smattering of pin point freckles to Audette's, and this was part of the reason he found it difficult to look her in the face.
On top of this her personal attire was outrageously tacky, she was far too righteous, and it seemed that she would be a fit attendee for anger management courses.
"Granger, as splendid as I find your periodic violations of my private space, I have an agenda for this evening that cannot withstand interruption. Displeased with your subordinate placement in Alchemy again?" he coolly narrowed his gaze at her wispy bun, where there laid fragmented remnants of a browned oak leaf, suggesting she had in fact been outside that December afternoon with little care for her resulting presentation.
He'd recently outscored her for a fifth consecutive triumph in their latest examination, by a stifling thirty points, and this led Theo to speculate on why she'd popped up out of nowhere like a mushroom in an otherwise pristine lawn.
Even still, a familiar angst twisted into a little whirlpool in his stomach, worrying that perhaps Hermione's poorly masked crush on him had yet to expire, and that this altercation was instead in relation to the rapidly approaching Yule Ball.
Theo had yet to accept any of the offers passed his way by multiple elegant Beauxbatons girls, who had begun to prance around behind him in little shiny packs of silver and blue. Apparently he was a hot topic amongst the Parisian femmes.
While he had not solidified a mandatory date - mainly out of heart break and turmoil over the subject - the very last person he would consider would be Granger.
He glanced begrudgingly over her head at where Harry Potter, Ginny Weasley, and Ronald Weasley - Hermione's supposed hairy dog of a boyfriend - were all watching from their study node.
Draco Malfoy's estranged cousin Luna Lovegood was seated amongst them as well, sporting a loopy smile as if she'd just consumed tech-grade psychedelics like candy.
And there just behind Ginny, another pudgy face he could hardly make out - perhaps Neville Longbottom, who's vile seasonal allergies never failed to prickle Theodore's patience during classes, what with all the wheezing and snorting and gargling noises associated with the boy swallowing his own mucous.
The repellent attacks by Longbottom were so noisome and graphic, it was entirely conceivable to close one's eyes and picture a drowning baboon at the front of the class in place of a student.
Hermione did not flinch, however her lovely brown eyes grew hard and beady, "Perhaps if I had the added advantage of admittance to the restricted section, we might be able to discern with adequate certainty precisely who is more astute in the topic of Alchemy."
Was this a joke?
"So this is a feudal confrontation over my privileged entry to the restricted section?" Theodore tisked in hilarity.
"In part," she glared at him.
Of the blistering impression he was eons more intelligent than the bushy haired girl, Theo drove his hand into his pocket with a heavy sigh, "Perhaps if you were worthy of admittance you would have a key where I would not. Regardless, the restricted section would do you no good, because no matter how much you bury your nose in books, it does not prove inherent aptitude. Your skills lay in memorizing other's dissertations only to regurgitate them, not in developing independent theories."
"And what dissertations have you yourself written to prove such independent acumen?" Hermione blushed hot red and snapped, stabbing her fingernail into his right shoulder.
Theodore tilted his face to the side impatiently, flickering his eyes at the vaulted stone ceiling to prevent himself from completely exploding at her for touching him without invitation, twice, "Well Granger, if your artistic proficiency in snooping about other people's business has remained up to par, I have total confidence you will answer that for yourself."
Over the past two years he had submitted a vast degree of tentative scholarly articles to several highly regarded Wizarding Academies, all across the world in fact.
However only a handful of his works had finally been received for review upon the arrival of his nineteenth birthday in October.
The affair of pursuing an early doctorate was affordably on the backburner of his priorities now that Voldemort had slithered along to threaten his family and brand Theo with a cursed tattoo he could not stop itching at.
Still, in lingering hope for a future life he would find honor in living, he tended to count each passing day with augmented apprehension of the silence provided by the cynics scrutinizing his work.
"How is it you came about that key from Dumbledore? I demand an answer," Hermione bravely requested to know, her eyes alight with a familiar Gryffindor glint that many of the Slytherins viewed as appearing crazy and manic.
Any time that glint appeared it was a sure sign someone was about to get bulldozed unapologetically.
Upon noticing that particular glint Theodore took a step back to distance himself from her uncomfortable proximity, "And I demand we terminate this conversation before you find yourself irrationally boiling over. Your time would be better spent combing through that rats nest weighing down your skull."
As he turned his back without providing any clues, she lowered her voice, "Theodore Nott...I know what hangs around your neck. I recognize that chain."
Halting dramatically, Theo's eyes flared wide in shock.
Standing there for a good while like a chiseled statue, he contemplated how on Earth Hermione Granger would recognize the ivory Elven chain of the time turner. It was already a miracle that he and Draco had discovered it themselves in their fourth year - covered in dust, broken and in a hidden, abandoned office no less.
"You mean to use it, don't you?" Hermione's tone was now a hush, further surprising him when she placed a hand on his shoulder.
Her irritating face appeared in his view as she circled him like a hungry seagull to a French fry, "Malfoy, he's taken Bellarose, isn't that right? That's why you're frequently in the restricted section; you're aiming to mend the artefact. I know it's broken, because it was I who broke it."
Instinctively, Theo flinched away from the intrusive contact, "You know nothing."
Hermione chimed after him when he tried to walk away a second time, "I can help you, Theodore. I see that you're different from the others. I believe that you're trapped, but you cannot use that time turner, it's far too risky."
Perhaps he was jaded, but Theo was certain that the little charlatan wench did not wish to aide him at all.
Rather, he supposed, that she slated to collect information on Excetra by pretending to be an ally, and possibly relieve him of the time turner.
The only thing that was too risky would be choosing to trust the righteous pestering witch, only to have her steal away his final chance to save the love of his life from spending an eternity at the side of a heartless man.
He spun in a snarling rage to barge at her, towering over Hermione who held her position with a strong spine, although her face told a different story of mild fear, "But it was not far too risky for you to use and break as you claim? I may be different from the other Slytherins, but I cannot in good faith return the compliment, seeing as you are a spitting Gryffindor posterchild supporting hypocrisy and favoritism."
A low feline growl drew Theo's attention downwards to where the ugliest orange cat he'd ever seen in his life was baring it's teeth at him from between her sneakers, crisscrossed yellow eyes filled with confused hostility.
He wasn't entirely confident that the flat-faced atrocity could even tell what it was looking at.
Crookshanks spat his fish breath at Theodore's ankle, pausing once to choke disgustingly, bushy hair just as matted as his owner's with an attitude to match.
The unbelievable urge to pelt Hermione's hideous hairball beast like a football hovered just at the tip of his pointed shoes, but Theo managed to somehow exhale through the unbecoming instinct.
Hermione swallowed injuriously, glancing between her mangy mutt and his burning navy eyes, "Honestly, I haven't told anyone, not even Harry. This is assuming that Dumbledore has kept your secret for intricate reasons. Please, if we repair it together, there will be less chance of a tear in the continuum. Grasp the concept that we share a common enemy in Malfoy. There's no sense in taking him on alone."
Seeing that Theodore was losing control of his composure, both Harry and Ron stepped out from their table defensively.
Before they could reach the bickering pair, Theodore looked straight into Hermione's brown eyes and hissed, "You are stupendously underqualified to offer me support Granger; our worlds could not be any more divergent. Your father is a muggle dentist. I expected after all these years battling with me for top student, you'd be aware that I am not impressionable. You shall not take advantage of my suffering to accumulate surveillance. As for a time turner, that is quite an exotic accusation of which the origin is alien to me."
He left her there stringing her hands together.
When he was almost at the arched double doors to the library and free of the aggravating run in, she called to him in a huff, "Perhaps your suffering has caused you to forget that neither you nor I are top student this year: Malfoy is."
Yes...Draco Malfoy was top student, all because Theodore was overwhelmed and sidetracked.
Malfoy...that devious, manipulative cancer in Theodore's life that had only been diagnosed in it's fourth and final stage of malignancy.
There was practically no chance of survival, only hospice.
Oh, how effectively that embroilment with Hermione had riled Theodore up.
This was very bad news.
Theo had purposefully shown the time turner to Draco Malfoy in the hopes that it would drive him into as equally a wild terror as Draco was forcing on him, expecting that the boy felt isolated enough in his life not to ask for assistance from Snape or report it to anyone else in Excetra for fear of appearing weak.
But never, not in any case, had Nott expected the "Golden Trio" to uncover the time turner in his possession, nor his intentions with the item.
An idea amongst those three was dangerous indeed.
Now he was forced to hold books up to the side of his face whenever he passed Hermione Granger and her famous crew of notorious snoops, so to avoid her meaningful staring.
"Please," she mouthed to him each time.
"No," Theo would shrivel his nose consistently, before raising either his satchel or whatever text was readily available at the time.
It was with good reasoning he daren't trust her not to spread her suspicions; Severus Snape had made sure to educate both his Excetra prodigies against allowing the slightest vulnerability to occur around the troublesome trio.
To inflame the dire seasonal month in which snow drifted down in glittery sheets for weeks on end - all manner of repellent Christmas décor sprouting relentlessly around the castle like a holiday virus - Theodore was faced with the conundrum as to why Audette had vanished in the blink of an eye.
In all five classes they shared, he eyed down Malfoy's sharp side profile with severe suspicion, concerned that Audette's sensitive heart had been very badly harmed - enough to drive her off of the property and as far away from him as possible.
The platinum-haired monster was notably disgruntled and disheveled; showing up tardy, straight white hair sticking out at all angles, eyes tinged with redness from crying and a lack of sleep.
When she still did not reappear after many dreadful days he began forcefully shoving people out of his direct path like a lunatic, so violently that many of his corridor victims lost all of their loose possessions in an instant flurry.
People learned quickly to allow him primary exit of any class - all of them bottling up in the doorway to observe the ferocious boy whisk away at top notch speed, black and green robes flapping at his heels.
He was a known alcoholic when times were rough, decent at hiding the physical aspects of it due to his fitness, but certainly not the stringent odor within a two meter radius.
"Yer nothing but a fecking banjo'd bastard, Malfoy, don't think an Irishman doesn't know a langer when he comes across one!" Seamus Finnigan had shook his balled fist, blurting heatedly after he'd been left twirling red trunks up on the pointed sword of a hunchbacked stone statue, simply for looking at Draco the wrong way.
While some natural satisfaction could be derived from an obvious romantic fallout between his ex-girlfriend and his ex-bestfriend, Theo felt ill, watching with a sour frown as Malfoy snarled around blitzed off his arse to cope with Audette's mysterious absence.
Were they broken up?
Was the nightmare over?
And if so, at what cost to her mental health?
He'd been forced to witness them fall dangerously in love, surveying the pair necking with a passion he'd resisted providing for fear of it leading to another extra-marital aberration like that heavenly evening on his sailboat.
What a sorry mistake...acting a gentleman had been.
Audette was starving to be touched after four years of disappointing rejection on his part.
By acting in line with cordial expectations, he'd effectively impressed upon her that he was as rapturous as a block of ice, when in reality he was as hot-blooded for her as the next boy his age.
On the contrary, it wasn't as if Malfoy was bothering to act honorable.
Yet in a matter of months, news of the priming societal pair had spread like wildfire amongst the community of nobles, placed in the limelight due primarily to the Quadrivial Tournament press and Lucius showcasing the exact same braggart characteristics as his son.
The couple was garnishing a largely positive following from onlooking aristocrats. It aught to have come as no surprise then, that during a loose and disobliging luncheon at the Nott residence that December, Theodore overheard the wife of a visiting French ambassador bring it up, "A stellar combination by each minute degree, Madame Malfoy. A Bellarose and a Malfoy - an unstoppable combination, surely."
Murmurs of agreement burbled from the vapid women in the vicinity, who had gathered together near the wine fountain to gossip heatedly. If Theodore knew any better they despised one another, but the unspoken etiquette was to fake amicability.
This was going on while their husbands milled about in the lounge area across the wing, arguing before the dark fireplace over drab politics - in sight, but resourcefully out of earshot.
Such a role divide was common in courtly associations; particularly one so overdue.
Upon accidentally catching onto the unsettling scuttlebutt, Theo'd dragged his stormy blue eyes sideways to where Narcissa Malfoy was smiling wickedly at the center of the humming stately ladies, soaking up the attention like a sponge in a lake.
"Hmm yes, Draco is exceptionally keen on the girl," she nodded curtly, her frigid white fingers clasped together like a corpse in a coffin about to be buried, "In fact, it is no secret that he has been for hundreds of moons. We are contented with his long-awaited emergence into society - and with such a powerful association no less. He has calculated his debut with surprisingly robust reckoning. There are many benefits to this unity of houses, aside from the obvious pooling of status and wherewithal."
Bragging apparently did not terminate with Lucius and Draco, ostensibly stretching across the entire lot of sinister albino snakes.
Lucky for them, Montgomery and Eloise had not been in attendance. Otherwise, Lord Bellarose no doubt would be busy overwatching from a distance with that scary monocle focused like a hot red ray affixed to an advanced nuclear weapon.
He was perhaps even more intimidating than the dark lord himself, who ironically had also not bothered to attend despite forcing the pessimistic Nott's to host a pureblood Excetra event simply for the sake of punishment.
Theodore had begun to suspect that Lord Bellarose was aware of his mutinous agenda, based solely on the manner in which the man glared at him with dry, telling viridian eyes.
Their rare interchanges had become so uncomfortable that Theo was losing sleep over the mere concept that he would be outed any second by the ferocious man, who no longer bore any reason to extend loyalty to him.
In order to eavesdrop further, Theodore pretended that the fountain of wine nearby the women's conversation was a dysfunctional play toy, recklessly accruing merlot then emptying his goblet back into the circulating waterfall in a relentless loop.
His bright silver suit sleeve was now bizarrely soiled with rouge wine from not watching where it was dripping onto his clothing or tumbler.
"Obvious pooling...bah, you are...laughably immodest..." Madame Yvonne Blanchet had tisked in slow and choppy English, "She eez de sole surviving 'eir to de Bellarose fortune, oui?"
Theo had shriveled his nose, watching the weedy woman darned offensively in head-to-toe furs of endangered magical creatures, reminding him of some modern-age Cruella Deville. She rudely waved around a foul cigarette pinned to the end of an extended smoking wand as if she were a first class attendee on the Titanic.
Indoors, this sort of behavior would never have been permitted in the health-conscious Nott household before the rise of Voldemort and the absence of Theodore's recently passed mother.
Besides the fact that the stench of cancer would soak into the carefully crafted antique furniture, draperies and wallpaper, it was a blatant reminder of their endangered position.
Times had changed, and so had their crystal standing, leaving them at the bottom of the Excetra-influenced ton. They were scarcely scraping by with zero ability to question their responsibilities, lest fight back even below their own roof.
Disgusting, all of it was...
Each person in that room save for his father was welcome to dissolve into slime for all Theodore cared.
Narcissa pressed her lips together, her pointy nose pinching back in similar phenotypical regard to her son's when uncomfortable, "The sole heir, yes, Audette happens to be by unfortunate circumstance. There is no need to go into undesirable details."
Dolores Umbridge, dressed predictably like a vertical pink ottoman, suddenly released a birdy little interruptive pip in her throat - a nearly imperceptible transmission which still drove chills of hatred down Theo's spine.
That unique trill was similar to a gruff poke to the back of one's skull.
Even though the former aggravating High Inquisitor had been dishonorably removed from her overbearing role at Hogwarts years prior, the manner in which she operated and conversed remained triggering nonetheless.
"UNdesirable details," she smiled freakishly as she often did out of context - eyes wide like a murderous clown about to swallow someone whole in a horror flick.
She tended to speak in such a controversially bright tone that it sliced straight through everyone else's sense of calm, to the point of distilling any group harmony and replacing said harmony with absolute unease immediately.
Propping her quaint brown eyebrows at the other women, Umbridge tensely intertwined her hands before her abdomen, preparing to unleash something unthinkable as usual.
She shook her head, "Undesirable details must not be forgotten, elsewise history shall objectionably repeat. The pureblood puddle is but a splash away from collapse. Any incapability of the sort going forward must be removed like a disease you see, else we will witness the finality of our integral lines."
At this notion and to his disbelief, Theodore witnessed several of the ladies nod their heads in silent agreement. His lips parted in shock, wine dribbling in all directions over his fingers from a full cup that could bare no more liquid; what sort of dystopian nightmare was this unfolding before his eyes?
Umbridge grinned, blinking rapidly for no reason as if a blinding sand storm had just initiated in the parlor, "Might we not misplace the...unforgivable shame...underlaying Lady Bellarose's bankruptcy to Lord Bellarose, and remind ourselves that this will simply not pass in the new world."
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Theodore deserved a shining medal for staying put instead of smacking the back of Umbridge's quaff hair with surplus violence, perhaps with enough imaginative force to spin her Exorcist head on it's spinal cord mount.
"Governess Roisin deserves recognition for whipping that girl straight early on, we can hardly say the same for all of the female representatives," another pip escaped from Dolores.
This apparently was the last straw for Narcissa, "Must you insist on concluding each dictum with that grating noise, or have you simply fallen ill with an incurable hiccup attack?"
It was awkwardly quiet then, until Lady Greengrass let slip an uncontrollable snort into her rose-tinted handkerchief.
Lady Rosier - another elderly nightmare - diverted the uncomfortable subject with a wave of her velvet glove, "Well, yes...congratulations are in due order, Narcissa. I expect the garden parties will be sensational in the year following the wedding. We're dying to view the pair promenading. Such a visually striking match. My goodness, the broadsheet photos alone are a teasing gripe."
"Agreed, "Narcissa snapped back in a detached yet fitting manner. Theodore noted that her mood had dipped alongside his own, into a place of fervent distaste following Umbridge's spiel.
She elongated her milky neck and peered at Lucius by the fireplace across the room, who was busy prodding his python-toothed cane into the carpeting to emphasize whatever nasty rant he was embarking on, "We shall do our best to play host during the seasonal months to showcase our latest consummation, contingent of course on the circumstances of our estate's tender residency. However it is entirely possible the wedding affair will be a quiet and humble union behind closed doors."
"Horsefeathers and humbug!" Lady Rosier had cried in a fit of outdated linguistic affront, so loud that the horrid death eater husbands across the gigantic parlor had swiveled their prim hats and mustaches in momentary investigation, "The diamond wedding veiled behind closed doors! You would not strive to conceal such a grandiose event Narcissa! The dark lord himself would not dream to demand such conditions - this all your doing. See sense woman."
Before Narcissa could respond, Millicent Bulstrode's mother blurted in corresponding chime, "Indeed, you wouldn't repel the public from your son's significant matrimony."
Narcissa glared at Lady Rosier and Lady Bulstrode, pursing her lips further so that a quite crisp line was now slicing across her face, "As stated, there exists multiple incidental factors shrouding any upcoming events - matrimonial or otherwise."
Lady Bulstrode apparently could not contain her tongue, glancing around the circle as Lady Crabbe plodded off to inspect the tower of black and green macarons, "Why the devil the girls must remain so long in an educational facility these days is wilting to their true duties by all means. They might end up old maids at this rate. We ourselves are incredibly tremulous that Millicent should carry through on her investment with the Crabbe boy and get a bugger on with it. Although sadly, he has yet to grow a spine, much less dispatch a ring."
"He could dare to grow less in other areas," Lady Greengrass brusquely commented in a tone not quite low enough, garnishing a tittering amongst the nasty encircling women.
Thankfully none of them had bothered to turn and refill their chalices only to spot the snoopy nineteen year old boy in the background occupying the alcoholic wellspring.
Lady Alice Selwyn tipped her glass at Narcissa, "Has...Draco presented a ring? Is the engagement confirmed?"
This inquiry ensured that every pair of eyes raised in gradual curiosity.
Theodore's iron grip on his overflowing chalice just about deformed the metal in his fingers.
Narcissa lifted a vehement platinum eyebrow into a tall arch, indicating that she had reached her tolerance for the Malfoy family being placed under a silk-stocked microscope, "No...no, he has not. He eagerly awaits my blessing, which I intend to provide before the annum concludes."
Theodore observed Lady Malfoy courteously obscure the embellished green snake on her left hand, burying it deep within the confines of her flowing obsidian gown.
Her incredible engagement ring had sat coiled around her fourth finger for over two decades, adorned with flawless emeralds and diamonds worn by royals for centuries. The showy jewelry had always sent other ladies reeling in envy at the mere sight of it alone, and was not a foreign fixture by any unit.
Yet here she was hiding it away for the first time, perhaps to avert from the engrossment occurring.
"Draco is appetent that the accord be executed straightaway. He shall have his wishes shortly," she hummed in vague conversational provision.
Fumbling with his soggy goblet by the wine fountain, Theo found himself pondering when this update was exactly slated to occur.
If Draco proposed to Audette before January...all hope would be lost.
Emptying his chalice for the hundredth time, Theodore peered over his shoulder at where Lady Bulstrode was leaning across the circle to whisper to Narcissa in a hush.
It was a rather defamatory sentence to issue below the Nott roof, "Quite an upgrade from the Nott boy. A festering freak, he is. Straight as an arrow and consentingly mannerly, but something is off, isn't it? Dodged a Dungbomb there, Audette Bellarose has, if you ask me."
No one was asking her. This was precisely why she was running her mouth as she typically did in social scenarios, where it was conceivably her singular chance at being heard.
At this, Narcissa lithically closed her eyes in second-hand humiliation before smoothly reopening them to land directly on Theodore in the background, whom she'd clearly been aware of lingering around the entire time, "Care to elaborate on your passionate accost, Bulstrode?"
While no carve of a smile altered her stony expression, Theodore could tell that this abasing opportunity was funny to Narcissa. In that moment, it became apparent where Draco derived his mocking wit from.
In the spirit of indignifying the poor woman - and probably also in the hopes of indignifying Theodore in a double whammy - Narcissa allowed him the silent grace of continuing to drop eaves, turning her beautiful face to the side only just as they bore into one another's souls.
"Ha," Mabel Bulstrode spat mindlessly, her highly compacted Edwardian brown curls bouncing in the bright winter sunlight pouring into the parlor, "Too smart for his own good. As much an aberration of nature as his outlandish mother. Wouldn't be surprised if he wound up in the grave just as soon, what with all that laboratory drivel and exploratory hoo-ha."
Continuing to drill her freezing blue eyes into Theodore's, Narcissa's flawless face flinched by a mere millimeter, "He is certainly defiant and principled, although I doubt all of his achievements will reach fruition. Let us not expend energy on the boy as it is ultimately insignificant. In no time at all, the name of Nott will be but a forgotten dream."
The message was loud and clear from the powerful witch, her silky voice reverberating in his mind; You...Are...Meaningless....
Lost in the sinistrose crushing clutch that was Narcissa's paradoxically cool blue eyes, Theodore believed it wholeheartedly for a few days afterwards, returning to Hogwarts emotionally crippled.
Meaningless...
Festering freak...
He managed to press onwards through December with the sole comfort of knowing that Draco and Audette weren't officially engaged, and the worst of all acts had yet to conclude - seeing as that unique click in his heart was outstanding to indicate Draco had claimed her.
While it was sickening to imagine, this repugnant act would finally free him of his unbreakable vow to remain at a distance. However Draco was wisely waiting until the last possible second, thriving in the absence of competition.
Alas, those past four months had been absolutely skin-peeling agony for Theodore, left questioning if he'd gone mad and was simply imagining his past relationship with Audette. Did she too now see him as a freak? Had she really loved him once, or was that merely a sweet fantasy?
Was Theodore's story nothing more than the mental delusions of a demented schizophrenic?
At times he could not help pondering how Malfoy had made it four years in comparison, before squelching any natural instinct to administer empathy.
That 1994 day in the courtyard - when Draco's true feelings had been revealed - Theodore ought to have mentioned his feelings as well. As such, this was not a natural vulnerability shared between pubescent boys.
Ergo, the following September had lasted a lifetime.
While trying to press an emaciated Hogwarts pillow down onto his luscious brown locks, Theodore had not been able to escape Draco Malfoy's relentless ranting to the other three boys sharing their octagonal sleeping quarters.
On and on he'd openly proclaimed he was waiting for the perfect instance to ask her out to the Yule Ball, and yet the deadline continued to inexplicably shift.
Days crawled by in frustrating slow motion, in which he took pathetic baby steps towards his goal by asking her to study separately with him, assisting her in potions out of character, and even showing an interest in the Consciaur she clung to when no one else believed her.
Obviously Audette grew genuinely closer to Draco, starry eyed even, who started to sneakily wrap his arm around her shoulders in the hallways while glancing suggestively back at his friends.
One night in the Slytherin male tower, Draco announced a very concrete intention to ask her out, serious enough for Theodore to rip his pillow off in frazzled fear behind his drawn curtains.
Oceanic eyes widening into saucers he'd laid there panting, Draco's darkening teenage voice trilling onwards, "Boys, I've found precisely the right gift for Bellarose. See here. Father says, the trick to a girl's heart is the same trick to obtaining anything in life, so long as you have the means to buy it."
Reading glasses dropping into place, Theo slipped out and leaned speculatively against his bedpost, peering in feigned nonchalance at the situation unraveling.
Seated on his ebony trunk, Draco held out a mossy bone over his bent knees with a single bright, crystal-pink floret blooming along the ridge of calciferous cartilage.
He'd somehow procured the impossible - a bone shard of Gogmagog the giant - a legendary Celtic giant who's carcass was later found at the base of the North Atlantic Ocean after a devastating loss to another mythical giant.
It was said that all parts of the skeleton had been sold on the black wizarding market, but that the bones once exposed to sunlight and air, produced jaw-dropping florals without explanation.
It was sensationally in tune with Audette's Irish background, and the flower blooming there in his lanky fingers was striking.
A carefully crafted gift by all regards.
"You suppose that'll do it?" Blaise had inquired dryly, but even his typically neutral tone was tinged with undeniable persuasion.
"Please, Zabini. She fancies me already, it's obvious, isn't it?" Draco arrogantly stood in his slick black pajamas, stashing the bone away in his drawer where they all embarrassingly knew he hid photographs of the girl.
He beamed and popped his eyebrows, swishing his now long and stylish white hair, "Friday afternoon - she won't be able to say no. Bet my Nimbus she'll let me kiss her too."
That night Theodore hardly slept a blink; it was tomorrow, or never.
He was about to become the pariah of the third floor tower - that much was certain - debating whether a girl truly was more important than his male friendships.
Upon being violently rejected in a public setting that memorable Friday afternoon, Draco Malfoy halted all positive speech about Audette Bellarose immediately.
He was far too proud to admit how gravely damaging the unexpected outcome had been to his ego and heart. But it was no secret that he was devastated, barely audible sniffles ebbing out behind his curtains for several weeks.
"She's nothing but a glorified hamster anyways, cooped up in that profane zoo," he'd gone around diffusing her renunciation of his love in a gust of immaturity, "Bet she's even got her own habitat where cretins can come from far and wide to view the prudent princess on a bedazzled leash."
This out-of-the-blue, tell-tale critique was met with eye rolls and frowns of sympathy from Blaise and the two trolls that trailed after Draco's robes like epic servants.
Forevermore, Theodore's disgraceful decision to covet Audette had effectively tarnished his rapport amongst the other uneasy Slytherin boys. Nobody trusted him for quite a long time, especially Draco Malfoy, who flat out refused to interact with Theo as if he'd died or gone invisible.
Fast forward to their eighth year and he continued to bare the badge of pariah despite being the obvious victim that time around. Even worse, due to his explosive reactions he'd been banished to the tenth floor with the utter Neanderthals that lived up there.
However this revised placement did grant him one advantage; it made it quite impossible for Malfoy to spy on Theo's activities, particularly his sleeping schedule and protective measures installed to safeguard the time turner.
Not long after Audette's attendance had faded into obsoletion, Draco did turn up in a panic for the time turner, ripping open Theo's curtains with murder in mind.
Thankfully Theo managed to expel the adverse boy from the tenth level, but this disturbing brawl spurned a reality check...
The desperation in Malfoy's watery, crystalline eyes had spoken volumes; he would be back, over and over, in every possible setting like a crippling disease.
When the boy finally departed in angry tears, Theodore fell onto his bedspread in shared torment, left there to wallow with Draco's accusatory words ringing in his ears, "You were my best friend once. Now I wish you would just perish and rot, you ruthless parasite."
Removing his glasses to rub at his eyes, insecurities boiled to the surface like his nonna's hand-crafted Italian pasta gurgling in salt water. Theodore Nott, despite his exceptional intelligence, was falling to bits at the seams and questioning his entire reality.
Draco's mother's eyes floated before him heartlessly; In no time at all, the name of Nott will be a forgotten dream.
He found himself wandering through the castle at witching hour with a navy hood pulled up far over his chocolate waves, wand lit and active, a magical magnifier held out in search of heavy pockets of whorling magic where he might test his latest progression with the time turner.
Beyond the courtyard abutting the Great Hall, he paused below a series of flying buttresses supporting the outdoor atrium, stilled in place on a stone promenade facing the Black Lake.
A small island interspersed with tall, wavering pines bloomed like a pimple in the dark loch which carved a path through the mountains - a landscape feature he'd paid no caring attention to previously.
Swirling in the mossen island was a cloud of superior magical energy, presenting through the magnifier like a bright, pulsating storm.
Bingo.
After brazenly coveting a wooden boat from the docks, he made his way across the glassy surface of the water.
Those buoyant miniature vessels intended to sparingly ship first years from the train station to the castle had always been viewed by Theo as idiotic.
The fact that institutional staff would oddly assume without survey that eleven year old children were water-worthy was inescapably atrocious, and it was a miracle that only five children had drowned in the past millennia.
The boat was bloody unruly and unstable, reminding Theo of his first night to Hogwarts; bobbing there helplessly behind Greggory Goyle, who had spent the entire journey nervously farting and paddling ineffectively at the forefront of the boat.
As freezing droplets splashed his cheeks under the waxing moon, he considered how the devil the porky half giant, Hagrid, had managed to avoid faceplanting into the noxious brine below, where carnivorous mermaid's swam untracked and a huge squid was rumored to refuge in the depths.
His teeth chattered as he parted icy waves, passing by the anchored, gargantuan battalion ship belonging to the nesting Durmstrang students. They were actively smashing glass bottles on the wooden deck overhead, causing Theo to cringe in repulsion of the crude behavior, hoping his dim lantern would not flag their blurred consideration.
Reaching the island he moored the boat on a scraggy rock beach and tied it to a bowing pine. Then in sweeping navy robes he subtly crept through grasses frosted into splinters, making his way to the heart of the cay where an ominous, horizontal mausoleum sat partially embedded into morass white flowers smothering the mound of land.
The marble face of the grave provided no inscription indicating who was buried there.
He focused his calculating spectacles on the pristine burial space.
Hmmm...
Holding out a trembling, flat palm, he was faced with a blatant deficiency of stimulation in his magical coursing blood that might suggest a body was yet laid to rest below the slab.
Curious.
An empty mausoleum constructed with preemptive debate was not a commonplace deliberation unless someone important expected to pass soon. But who might that be? And on school grounds, of all places?
Seating himself disrespectfully on the bizarre structure, Theodore hung his head back, icy breaths releasing in white vapors to the heavens above.
He carefully produced the buzzing time turner from it's heated refuge below his shirt collar, it's florid charm lighting up his face like a firefly to a sunflower.
The intricate hourglass at the center balanced back and forth, jostling spikes of highly magnetic black sand which was responding in a whir where gravity seemed to be at it's slimmest regard on the property.
He had spent months toying with the apparatus with inadequate precedence at his disposal.
At first, the young genius was certain that he required further understanding on how the tool had originally been designed to function, in order to solidify a working scientific dialogue.
But of course this research was a dead end; time turners had been rendered illegal in the past decade, and the motion passing this criminalization took with it all public access to any blueprints.
He glanced down at the ancient instrument he had yet to fathom in totality, running his thumb over the rare metal cinctures, all comprised of a different alloy element. He'd wisely deduced that each metal ring represented one of the fundamental string theory constitutes; quantum gravity, spatial dimension, supersymmetry...branes...
Fueled by acrimony, he dug out the blond strand of hair he'd stolen from Audette's last visit in McGonagall's office, meant to confirm her preparations to become an Animagus over the Christmas break.
Theo popped off the top of the central hourglass and shut the hair within the magnetite sand enclosure. It frizzled and fried, adding additional ash to the coarse granules within.
If his theory was correct, then only one spin would be provisional to land him at any point in her lifetime, history or fate. The only issue was, the component broken by dear Hermione Granger was the component responsible for delegating an exact hour, day and year, leaving him to resort to chemical interference.
At a minimum, the turner would bring him to her, but when and where was up to Merlin.
The science of it all was still exceptionally wobbly, but so was his patience.
Fuck it.
He raised the altered device towards the moon and twisted the tiny cog on the side of the time turner, shutting his eyes as it swallowed him up in a whoosh.
In the blink of an eye he'd reappeared in an expanse of daisies and tall grasses. He choked in disbelief, one hand to his chest, his eyes scouring over the familiar terrain.
It was the overgrown field behind his extremely rural home in Britain.
Keeping in mind that Audette had to be nearby, and that time travel was critically dependent on hiding one's invasive presence, he swiftly stumbled towards a bent aspen tree on the edge of a sparse forested ridge and clung to the bark to catch his breath.
The air was hot and sweet; a stark contrast to the scenery he'd just travelled from.
His eyes widened in disbelief when his own voice wavered across the naturalized landscape, "You see, if the downward gravitational force is less than the upward force of buoyancy, then an object is guaranteed to float, otherwise it sinks, there is no in between. Elemental physics, pure and simplistic, little rose."
Fingers tingling from the rapid adjustment in temperature, Theodore dared to glance around his hidey tree at the edge of the meadow to where his seventeen year old self was walking a sixteen year old Audette down a weedy gravel pathway leading to his nearly completed sailboat.
October of 1996, yes, that's where he'd rebounded - his seventeenth birthday.
Audette was beaming up at Theodore with the expression of a person who knew nothing of the topic yet deeply adored the one speaking. She was doing her best to fabricate interest, her arm wrapped tightly through his, eyes locked steadily on his face.
In her glove she had an ornamental parasol, ensuring her delicate skin not acquire any more sun as was instructed by her mother.
Behind them, two of her governesses were trailing in their unique purple gowns reflecting representation of the Bellarose estate, heads hung generally downwards in a sign of respect for the two courtly teenagers they were overseeing.
Aine stretched out her hand to hold Tierney's, the youngest governess in training, speaking with wise kindness, "Well aren't ya a thunderstorm at the beach, Miss Tierney. What could possibly be so weighty on a rare sunny day as this? Is it the culchie terrain that's prickling your petticoat?"
Tierney - far too emotional for her role - had raised her big watery eyes to Aine, "That Master Nott...he's a miserable pox, he is, with this here vessel. Once it's waterborne we'll not see our lady Audette for weeks on end, just you watch."
"Now really. You know quite well Lord Bellarose would never allow her an unchaperoned, overnight visitation at this point - water or land based. They're still reasonably adolescent, these two are," Aine had tisked and smiled up towards the overbearing sun, eyes shut to expose gorgeous tones of lavender painted on her eyelids, "Ah yes, we'll be puttin' up with her nonsense for years still to come, Tierney. Don't ya worry a second - we aren't free of Miss Bellarose by a belching yard."
"By a thousand belching yards would put me to rest. I do love her, as stubborn and pissy as she is," Tierney had shook Aine's hand in place with a wide grin.
The watercraft in the field was a mere week away from it's first anticipated launch, freshly integrated wood and metal finishes glinting in the darling sunlight, propped up on supports for final inspection.
Next to a young Theodore, Audette halted at the base of the sailboat, her rosy summer dress all covered in sewn dahlias waving in the wind.
She ground her parasol in the wet earth, then lifted her pretty pink seasonal bonnet laden with fresh flower clippings, laying her emerald eyes upon the end product of Theodore's three-year struggle, "Hmmm...what an eye sore it is."
"Non sei felice?" Theodore had scoffed interchangeably, patting her back before circulating the finished sailboat in pride, his fingers trailing along the extravagant hull.
A joyful smile monopolized her features as she commented in playful sarcasm, prodding the pointed end of her parasol into the wooden exterior, "My goodness, just look at the tankard. It's an inviolable brick of cork. Tell me - what is the chance of it sinking, and just how many trustworthy water compartments does it possess? I won't be forced to swim over a run-in with an inconsiderate iceberg, Teddy Bear."
Theodore clung to that bark with breathless adoration, wishing he might rewrite it all, watching his unsuspecting, teenage self rotate around the boat pointing out unimportant features when right there next to him a wonderful creature in blush textiles had been dying for his direct attention.
No, it had not all been imagined, the love they'd shared.
"It looks to me to be incredibly unstable," Audette had commented with the sole intention to aggravate Theodore mid-rant, and it had worked.
He paused with his hand on the hull, thick eyebrows drooping, "There are no icebergs this south of the Irish Sea little Rose, and this is no Titanic. It's perfectly stable - moreso than any muggle man could aspire. Built with magical precision."
When young Theodore disappeared around the sailboat, Audette proceeded to naughtily lift up a spare plank of wood with no apparent reason other than to fiddle, and when he rounded the boat he grimaced, "That's not helpful nor necessary Audette. Please, put that down before you harm yourself."
It wasn't Audette who was at risk of harm, unfortunately.
In one fatal swing of the plank she accidentally slammed him directly between his legs before dropping it in a thwacking madness.
Both of the governesses and Audette herself began to giggle as Theodore gasped in agony and crossed his hands over his dress pants, pushing his forehead into the shiny hull.
With her pretty gloves covering her nose she further aggravated the inappropriate situation, speaking through the fabric, "Perhaps I may kiss it better."
"You would suggest no such thing, recall that you are a lady Audette," Theodore had scarcely managed to respond in a strained voice.
The air filled with butterflies and bird song was suddenly barraged with the tittering of Irish feminine laughter, and behind the tree Theodore found himself also smiling in a sad sort of way, wishing that Audette's plaguing misrepresentation was still a part of his life.
Before he could watch anymore of the precious memory, the time turner shocked him by sending him off to another location within spacetime geometry.
This was not good, he concluded as he reappeared in a dark and gloomy room, realizing that the gadget was glitching monstrously without the programming of the fiercely impaired delegating component.
By god, this oversight on his part could not have been more ill and brash. He now bore no ability to control where exactly he landed, nor stop the mechanism from jumping between time and place like a cricket through a lawn.
And where exactly he had landed this second time went entirely unconfirmed, as there simply was not a moment to gather himself before the time turner released a very high pitched whine and went off a third time, then a fourth, then a fifth, until travel through interspatial dimensions was a blurry vision of hell.
It might have been fifty years of spinning madness before somehow, something yanked him from his boundless new prison.
Theodore dropped to his knees in a wintry, foggy place below a large moon in relief, until the time turner reacted to the sudden halt by imploding and flaring in a treacherous bang.
His bare hands were blasted outwards as the device cracked and rotated monstrously, each element of precious metal falling to rest in a hissing heap against his charred suit.
It was now further damaged than it had been upon it's slumbering discovery four years prior.
Third-degree magical burns spread out across both his fingers and palms, and he collapsed in writhing agony, shoving his hands into the tender tufts of fluffy snow before him.
An elderly voice tip-toed over the galling wind of a nearby body of frozen water, "Dark magic...no matter how inviting...is dutifully taxing. I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but there is little one may do to relieve the permanent mar of it's reckoning."
A hand clamped onto his shoulder, a hand that was absolutely scourged black like a frozen skeleton's, "I aught to know."
As the world spun and his fingers surely melted off, Theodore moaned in blinding torment of the burning pain and rippling nausea. It was by a thread of his remaining logical sentience that he recognized the lilt of Professor Albus Dumbledore drifting about somewhere on his left.
"Right on time. Well, given if time is even relative to you after all you've been through, young Master Nott," he commented reverently, the trailing skirt of his familiar pale lavender robes appearing before Theodore's blurry eyes.
Theo raised his vision to confirm from the twinkling myriad of distant firelight that he was once more at the base of the castle, stranded on the island mausoleum where groaning pine trees were snapping in the frosty environment.
There at his side stood a rather ghostly and peculiar figure, squinting down at him from behind elaborate, linear spectacles. Dumbledore's pearly beard - dotted with colored blue beads - was trailing at least four feet from the man's wrinkled and obscured chin.
"How...how lo-" Theodore cried and lost his voice. His fingers were trembling in the snowy bed he'd buried them in, which was contemptuously melting away from his heated embrace, forcing him to constantly readjust and victimize new zones of glaciation available within reach.
From his knuckles to his fingernails, his hands had been disfigured by some horrid obsidian scald; yet it was not a burn. It certainly translated in his nerves as a burn, but this deeply rooted disfigurement was something altogether more sinister and medically unrecognizable.
The hand of Dumbledore's upon his shoulder bore the exact same appearance.
"How long were you absent?" Dumbledore completed the sentence in a frail, calm tone, his light blue eyes glistening in circumspection of the island settings, "Based on your lingering trail of magic...I would say, oh from this end...two days. Miracle really, that I was able to catch you passing by while visiting my future resting place."
"Am I...expelled?" Theo glanced guiltily up at the Headmaster whom he'd never spoken with intimately, surely meaning to expel him on the spot for not only trespassing, but also for possessing and modifying an illegal object on school property.
If so, he would never stand a chance at mending the vanishing cabinet before the new year, and his family would therefore be eliminated.
Upon seeing Theo's helpless grovel, Dumbledore slowly raised both of his wiry eyebrows, "No, Theodore, I don't believe we will be sending you home on the train tonight for inventive curiosity. Something tells me...you've had a punishing enough year as it is."
"I must beg your forgiveness - I have defiled your grave," Theodore gasped in the frigid night air.
As he calmed down, his mind began to reel, wondering how it was possible for any witch or wizard to extract another directly out of a time travel loop.
Dumbledore crossed his arms behind his back, his eyebrows still high as he peered around them nearly comically, "If it were your intention to defile it, I believe you have failed wholeheartedly. A few trodden flowers is a sensationally weak undertaking of vandalism. Mind you; my taste for gardening has never been strong. What we might concern ourselves more seriously with, is that paradoxical time turner."
Sucking in deep breaths, Theo braved raising his injured right hand to touch at the smoking device, "It is broken, I aught to have wielded patience."
"Ah, ah, additional patience is due yet," Dumbledore's brittle voice bounced in warning with a brisk wave of his arm, "Still hot, I believe. And those extremities had best be brought straight to our Madame Pomphrey."
Snow drifted down around them like pretty little atmospheric freckles as Theodore sat on his haunches in absolute puzzlement as to why he was not being punished, unable to face the majestic wizard.
Instead he focused his gaze down on his blackened, upturned fingertips, tears spilling from his eyes, "I do not understand your undeserved tenderness."
His shoulder was squeezed again interactively, then the headmaster swayed off towards a tree to lean upon.
Silver rivers of hair blew off from his shoulders in light and friable trickles, glinting below the moon. Long tendrils of his pastel robes wrapped around the tree gracefully as the old man spoke, "You see, I happen to have made a quite reprehensible mistake myself in recent years, overlooking the needs of a rather intelligent and promising young man in your precise position."
"Malfoy," Theodore barely whispered the name he'd come to despise, blinking in disbelief.
"Yes, Draco Malfoy," Dumbledore continued to observe the deep, dark water lapping up against the ice-ridden shores of the scraggly island.
His stance there was so transfixing to Theodore, nearly apparitional, that it remained silent between them for several moments until Dumbledore lowered his tone, "Too late for him, perhaps. But not for you, Master Nott..."
He rotated gradually and intertwined his hands together, a rather gentle tug pinching his elderly features.
Suddenly a toothy object shot towards the ground from his fingers and caught there, dangling upon a long beaded chain; a key, "If I might offer you some opportunity, I've heard the restricted section in Hogwarts may very well be the last place which houses information on time turners. Might be worth a poke about."
Standing dizzily, Theodore stared into those baggy, wise eyes, "Do you know then, why it does not function adequately, Professor? Have you knowledge of the design?"
Through the blowing snow, Dumbledore's warm gaze wrinkled, "I do wish alchemy were my specialty at times such as these. Although, a comment if I dare; perhaps avoid returning to the future. The future is exceptionally...erratic, and I will not always be out for a midnight stroll to discover your jinxed circumstances."
As if it were believable he'd been out for a midnight stroll in a snow storm...
Just like that, Theodore Nott gained access to the restricted section of Hogwarts - perhaps the first student to publicly do so in hundreds of years.
He was also part of a rare selection of Slytherins who had the honor of being taken under Dumbledore's wing. And while this support was effectively warming and helpful, perhaps it had been too late for him as well, because by the time the Yule Ball had arrived he was in far worse condition.
Now forced to wear gloves everywhere he went until his hands healed - if ever - this, coupled with his visible exhaustion and seriously hostile temperament made him appear absurdly demonic.
Additional to everything, Malfoy had chosen to counter the time turner threat by increasing his destruction of the vanishing cabinet, which blew the lid completely off of Theodore's desperation to rescue his family before the deadline of New Year's Eve.
Christmas Eve arrived at lightning speed it seemed, everyone in the castle absolutely buzzing with cheery enthusiasm for the dance except for Theodore and Draco, who were beginning to look like sour mental patients.
Then for Draco the world unfairly brightened again when Audette arrived at the last minute, in a dress so jaw dropping that the pain of seeing her had thrown Theodore into a mess of tears, jealousy and heart ache.
By the end of the night it was a miracle he could still see straight after all of the boozy medication he'd been force fed by his one real, dependable friend left; the reticent and poise Blaise Zabini, who frequently found himself undesirably playing Switzerland at the center.
Well, apparently playing Switzerland that evening entailed leaving Theodore to choke on his own drool on the Slytherin couch.
He awoke freezing by a dying fire, still darned in his pitch black tuxedo, to a most terrible rhythmic pounding in his chest. At first he sighed and attributed it to a blistering hang over, but...no...
No...it couldn't be...
He sat up bolt straight in horror, brown hair an absolute tangled mop swirling off the top of his head.
"Well now he really does look a mad alchemist, doesn't he, Nutty Nott?" Peeves' voice echoed around the dungeonous chamber in nasally mockery, no doubt having been minutes away from assaulting the sleeping boy in some god awful manner.
This sensation could only mean one thing was occurring, deep within the confines of the Malfoy Manor hellhole where Audette had been drawn in by jewels and silver tongues like a fly to a carnivorous plant.
"No, no, no," he buried his face in his hands, releasing a gut-wrenching sob. The risk of puking all over his shoes, which were already covered in potting soil, increased tenfold by each passing second that Draco defiled her.
It will all be over any minute, surely it can't last any longer, he'd told himself, swallowing through anxious tears produced from the unwanted sentience.
Perhaps Peeves was correct; right there on that couch, Theodore felt himself finally disintegrate into complete insanity, just about ripping his hair out.
When the click had finally concluded in his heart, a rather polarizing mood swept over him. On one hand he was freed of his unbreakable vow to Draco, and he now had the answers to repairing the vanishing cabinet. His family would survive.
But he was walking away from his Excetra contract with Audette not only defiled but engaged, and a brand new enemy that simply did not deserve another second.
I'll show you the true meaning of evil if you marry Audette Bellarose, he'd claimed that day in the hallway.
Now it was time to carry through.
His eyes were as red as flames when he drew down those shaking, blackened fingers from his teary face, a low growl in his throat that drove even Peeves to hide behind a pillar.
It was only after he'd sent his owl, Spectrum, off into the night, talons gleaming with insidious poison, that he noticed a note in his pocket square penned in Zabini's handwriting. Apparently the boy had decided to take pity upon Theodore's torture, denouncing his stance as Switzerland.
The top of the folded parchment read, Draco Malfoy's Secret.