Author's Note: And I have returned! Sorry I've been gone so long, just had to deal with life ect. It's great to be back, and I hope you haven't missed me too much. Now, Theodore has always been a wonder to me, just like the marauders there was hardly anything written about both of them and my mind is free to wonder.

A few notes: -There is more to this fanfiction, and I will update obviously.
- If you don't like the storyline/ how it is written then I really don't mind there's no one with a gun to your head forcing you to read it. I like how I've written it, and if you have any CONSTRUCTIVE criticism I'd love to have your opinion. If you see any spelling mistakes please let me know.

- THIS. IS. AN. AU. MEANING- ALTERNATE UNIVERSE. I guess you could place it in sixth year if you were that desperate.
- There won't be a great deal on the other characters. This is a very introspective story (deal with it).

Hope you enjoy, lovelies.

The ticking of his watch sounds like fingernails down a blackboard. All he can see are the shadows reflected in his mind. And it will be like this tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. His shirt feels like sandpaper.

He imagines people's voices like how they were in the forties. Once, he'd gone to a muggle museum for an exhibition and they were playing an old movie. It was black and white and fuzzy, like how he sees faces now, and the man's voice as he drank was raw. And her's was gripping. And he likes to imagine people sounding like that, so careless and real.

At least with insomnia he has time to work. Though it's not very good, the words won't stick to his brain. They slide off and make puddles in his lungs.

Professor Babblin's voice is like a radio that's just a small bit louder than silence. He can hear it, but he can't make sense of anything.

He imagines Draco with smoke swirling around his face, a black fedora set jauntily on his head. "And you getting this?" He wishes he had a long black coat to flutter by his ankles, one that would flow back when he ran.

"You need help, Theodore." He needs a drink is what he needs.

Sometimes when he's drunk, he imagines that he's sleeping. Even though he's still awake, but he can't feel the cold and he can't see anything really.

He stopped realising the way his fingers shake, and how his skin is almost transparent. When he was young, his mother used to tell him he must've died and become a ghost. But he'd checked and he still bumped into walls.

Sometimes he thinks he can see his mother, floating along with the other Hogwarts ghosts. He thinks she would have liked that. He thinks she would have liked the Fat Friar.

"Can't you just eat something?" Draco looks dark next to Theodore. Draco looks big next to Theodore. Theodore is taller, but Draco eats everyday.

He imagines that the shadows have filled his stomach, and he can't feel the soft pangs in his gut anymore.

Slytherin won the Quidditch match. Blaise is dancing on a table. The whole house is shouting and laughing. The whole house is drunk. He imagines them all, either in swing dresses or suits and sports jackets. He imagines plump red lips and elegant up-dos. And canes.

He imagines them hand in hand with music that is sharp, blaring from gold instruments. He imagines taking her in the centre, and dipping her low and kissing her.

He imagines kissing her a little longer.

But she walks over with Draco's arm around her waist, a sour smell on her lips as she leans into him. "Are you alright, Theodore?" He imagines her in a floral dress, and stockings. He imagines kissing her again and again and again.

"Why don't you get him a drink, Pansy?" She does as Draco says, and Theo imagines the way her hips would look in that floral dress as she walks away.

Draco sits down and doesn't talk. He stays there until Theo has a drink in his hand, and then shoots him a look that is part apologetic, part eager. And in that look Theodore knows where he and Pansy are going and he imagines instead taking her to the Astronomy tower, showing her the stars and watching the way they reflect off her eyes.

He stays where he is past when the party is over and Blaise is asleep in his lap.

He remembers being terrified of disappointing his mother when he was younger. Because she wouldn't yell or scream or cry, she would just want to. And he could always see it in her face, the way she would sigh and her eyes would look away from him and she would be still. And that look would scare him so much that he would fall to the ground and beg for forgiveness.

That is the look on the face of his Ancient Runes professor.

"This is just unacceptable." He looks at the way her cheeks make little lines between her words, as if she wants to say something else but she can't. She probably wants to curse him.

Ancient Runes is his favourite subject, but he can't force himself to listen anymore. He reads ahead, but he doesn't remember it. He doesn't listen when he reads because of the cotton in his ears and the shadows in his stomach.

She tells him his tutor will meet him in the classroom after school.

She sits there and talks as though he can hear her. She is worn and tired and he imagines that it's three in the morning and she is like him. He imagines that he isn't the only one who can't see past the shadows.

He stares at the way her hands shuffle through the pages of the textbook. Her fingers are delicate, her nails are odd sizes. As though she cuts them at different times. There is dry skin over her knuckles.

"You should know this chapter well. She likes this chapter and the exam will revolve around it." Her eyes are filled with light, or something less hopeful. Something that is hollow, but bright.

His eyes move to examine her chapped lips, they're moving. He sits and watches her, until she gets up and leaves.

A piece of parchment sits before him, her neat slanted writing covering the page, tiptoeing across it with little feathered feet.