Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction using characters and elements from the world of Harry Potter, created and trademarked by JK Rowling. I do not claim ownership over any Harry Potter characters or the Harry Potter world. This story is for entertainment purposes only, and is not claiming to be any part of the Harry Potter canon. Thank you to JK Rowling for letting me play with the characters and not suing me for writing them into a new situation.
Twistmas 2018: This story was written for the Twistmas 2018 Fest, hosted by The Slytherin Cabal on AO3. If you look up my work on AO3, you will also be able to find the other great stories in the Twistmas Fest. The idea behind Twistmas was to take a traditional Christmas/holiday/winter prompt, and twist it to make it dark and unexpected. My prompt was: "First kiss in the snow." The pairing I chose was Theo/Luna. Because of the nature of the Twistmas stories, expect things like death, darkness, tragedy, sadness, etc.
The Warmth of Your Kiss (Melts My Cold Heart)
by Maloreiy
~ THEO ~
The day is cold and dark, but Theo doesn't care.
The blustery days always suit his moods far better than the bright, sunny ones ever could. There's something about the grey winter clouds and the feeling of heaviness in the air that relieves some of the pressure in his head. The garish summer days make him feel stiff and dried out, like his skin is too tight.
Today, though, he's too busy being pleased with the company he's keeping to notice what the day is really like.
Looking over at the woman sitting beside him, he's filled with warmth at the sight of her.
Luna Lovegood sparkles even in the low winter light. Her blonde hair is bright, and her face is aglow with humor and warmth. When she turns to look at him, he's overcome, as he often is, at the depth that he sees in her eyes.
She is so much more than just what others see—more than a dreamy eccentric who makes observations that no one understands.
He proudly congratulates himself on being one of the few people to truly appreciate the wonder of her.
~o0o~
He remembers the first time that he'd noticed her.
It had been winter then, too, and there was a dusting of snowflakes in her light hair and on the Ravenclaw scarf dangling from her neck. A stack of carefully balanced items in her arms had gone tumbling to the ground right at Theo's feet, so he couldn't help but notice her.
"Nargle-nuts!" she'd exclaimed, and Theo had been temporarily taken aback, wondering what a Nargle was, and hoping that if its nuts were some of the items rolling on the ground, that it was a plant.
When he'd helped her gather the unrecognizable paraphernalia, he'd looked up into the loveliest ice blue eyes, and he'd never been the same again.
~o0o~
He grins over at Luna as he remembers how beautiful she'd been then, thinking that she's only grown lovelier with time. It almost hurts to look at her, she's so bright.
He doesn't know how he's so lucky to have her here with him, even though all they are doing is sitting out on a bench in his gardens.
Luna likes to just sit quietly and observe.
'Listening to the sound of the air,' she says sometimes, when he asks her. Or, 'listening for instructions,' she'll joke, which always makes him laugh and ask her who is giving her instructions.
'Waiting,' she says occasionally.
Whenever she does, his heart beats quicker, and he can't help but wonder if she means she's waiting for him.
He doesn't ask, though, because if she is waiting for him, perhaps that means she's disappointed that he's so slow-moving.
He desperately wants to do more than just sit on the bench looking out at the gardens, but something holds him back.
He feels so unworthy. She's a war heroine, and he's…a coward, one who had hid for most of the Battle of Hogwarts.
She deserves someone better than him.
But then he tells himself that she's in his garden, after all, and that surely must count for something.
The temperature is dropping as the sun starts to go down, and he pulls his jacket closer around him, checking to see if Luna is okay. But she is not even looking at him. She appears to be breathing deeply of the frosty air, a small smile on her face.
She loves storms. The magnificent energy of it calls to her, and though Theo would rather be inside where it's warm, he wouldn't dream of leaving her out here alone. So he sits with her.
When the first snowflakes begin to fall, he is painfully reminded of that first day they'd met. Images of her in his head—a whirlwind of blonde hair and laughter and bright smiles through the years—flit through his mind, accompanied with a rising drumbeat that is the thumping of his heart.
He finds that he's scooted closer to her on the bench and the certainty fills him that now is the opportunity he's been waiting for. Now is the moment, the perfect moment.
"Luna," he says, his throat dry at the way he's taking his life and his heart into his own hands.
He waits only long enough for her eyes to catch with his. "May I kiss you?"
Her smile is so bright, he can feel it warming him from the inside out.
Hesitantly, he leans in, waiting in case she pulls back, but she doesn't.
Finally, his lips are on hers, and it's bliss. It's everything he imagined it would be. It's magic and romance and reverence and wonder and he never wants it to end.
But he pulls back, his lips parting from hers reluctantly.
"Are you sure you're not too cold?" he asks her. Her skin is freezing. "We can go inside whenever you're ready."
But Luna loves storms, and she really wants to wait longer.
"Should I at least put the Warming Charms on you now?" he asks instead, concerned for her.
He pulls her Ravenclaw scarf closer around her neck, tucking the ends in so the bitter wind can't get through.
She says something about how the bite of the frigid air wakes the body up, reminds it that it's still alive. When he looks at her, unconvinced, she laughs and tells him to take his Warming Charm off, and see if he doesn't feel more alive.
Because he can't refuse her anything, he does cancel the charm, and the icy chill of the impending storm makes him suck his breath in.
They both laugh at the way he shivers and curses. Slyly, he glances over at her and suggests, "Maybe we should move closer, to conserve our body heat."
She laughs again, but doesn't object when he slides even closer on the bench.
He puts his arm around her shoulders, enjoying how she leans in to him.
A shuffling sound beside them reveals a house-elf with eyes shifting uncertainly between the two of them. He's wringing his little hands and then pulling on his ears.
"Is Master ready to come back into the house now?" Winzy asks.
Theo frowns. He doesn't like Winzy to come out and disturb him when he's with Luna.
Luna's friends have some crazy ideas about house-elves and Luna is not very happy when she sees Winzy around the house. But Winzy has been with the Nott family since before Theo was born, and he couldn't imagine turning him away. So he mostly just instructs him to keep a low profile whenever Luna is visiting.
"We'll stay out here a little longer, Winzy," Theo says, trying to convey with his eyes that Winzy needs to return to the house.
Winzy tugs his ears again. "But maybe Master should consider—"
"That will be all, Winzy," Theo coldly dismisses him. He does not want a house-elf telling him what he should do, and he doesn't want to have this conversation in front of Luna.
Winzy should be backing away, but he hesitates. "Winzy will just cast the Warming Charms again, then, Master."
"No!" Theo glances at Luna, concerned that she would be alarmed at his outburst. But he had to stop Winzy before he ruined their special moment. "Winzy, go inside the house now, that's an order. And do not come back out until I call for you."
Winzy moans as he leaves.
Theo apologizes profusely to Luna about the interruption.
She is not disturbed in the least. He thinks perhaps she barely even noticed, caught up as she is in the feel of the snowflakes on her face. The fluffy white specks are really starting to fall in patches now.
Her hair is covered in white, turning her into an ethereal angel. He sees how the snow is covering the garden floor and the brick path that leads back to the house.
He feels a twinge of alarm, and so checks with her again.
"Are you certain you don't want to go back inside now, Luna?"
She shakes her head carefully, so carefully that the snow doesn't dislodge from her eyelashes.
She's so beautiful.
He leans in to kiss her again, marveling at how right it feels to be with her here like this, wondering why he waited so long to show her how he feels.
But then she's kissing him back and he stops wondering anything at all.
~ DRACO ~
Draco was in his study poring over some business materials when he heard a slight scraping sound and a gentle cough.
He froze, having assumed he was alone in this wing of the Manor, and then reached for his wand.
When he looked up, though, he was surprised to see that it was only a house-elf.
"Winzy?" His question was less of identity confirmation, and more of what Winzy, the Nott house-elf, was doing in his home.
The house-elf looked very frantic, tugging at his ears while great fat tears welled up in his eyes.
"P-p-please, Master Draco," Winzy said, sniffling.
"Where's Theo?" was Draco's first question. A rising sense of alarm was ringing in his head. Why would Nott send his house-elf in such a state? Something must be wrong.
He quickly got up, rounding his desk before coming to loom over the little creature.
"P-p-please, sir, Winzy is not supposed to disturb Master Theo in the garden." This statement was accompanied with more tugging of the ears. "But Winzy didn't know where else to go! Where else should Winzy go, if not for Master's good friend, Master Draco? Surely Master Draco will help!"
"What are you talking about Winzy? What's happening? Why are you here?" Without waiting for answers, Draco reached out for his cloak, already thinking of what could possibly be wrong with Nott now.
Nott was very reclusive, preferring to stay at home on his own large estate and rarely venturing out in public. Despite the years that had passed since the end of the war, public sentiment about those who were seen as supporters of the Dark Lord was still very negative.
Even though Nott had never taken the Mark, he was lumped together with those who had. Being of a more sensitive nature, Theo took it really hard. He was wary of anyone outside of their small circle of friends, and he never really felt comfortable in society again.
Draco worried about him, but he had far too many concerns on his mind to do more than check up on the man from time to time. It had been weeks since he had last thought to stop in on him.
As Winzy took his hand to Apparate him to Nott's house, he couldn't help wondering if maybe he should have tried to reach him earlier.
House-elf Apparition was so much smoother than normal Apparition, so Draco arrived without a hair out of place. He looked around at the neatly kept study, and immediately called out for Theo.
"Please, Master Draco, Master Theodore is in the garden."
He vaguely remembered the house-elf mentioning that earlier, and he turned quickly to the corridor that led out to the great room, from which he could reach the gardens.
As he neared the large glass doors, he saw they were ominously dark.
He'd been inside all day working on his business reports and had failed to notice that it was well into the evening, and—
"There's a bloody blizzard outside!"
Winzy moaned and wrung his hands some more.
"What the bloody hell is Nott doing outside in this?" Draco said, running for the doors. "Where is he?"
Winzy trotted after him. "D-d-down by the benches, sir, the ones looking out to the west."
"You'll have to lead me there," Draco said, wracking his brain for spells that would protect them both in the freezing temperatures.
"Nnoooo!" Winzy wailed. "Master says I mustn't go out there." He started hitting the side of his head to punctuate his sentences. "Master said go inside. Master said stay inside. Only Master Draco must go."
Draco sighed. He'd freed his house-elves not long ago, a silly gesture to appease Granger when she was on a tear about it once, but he had not forgotten how to deal with them.
He drew himself up to his absolute most pureblood posture, and he snapped out an order. "Winzy, you will lead me immediately to Theo Nott. Whatever he told you, I am countermanding it. Theo can take it up with me afterwards, but you will not want him to think that you disobeyed me when I gave you a direct order."
Winzy's eyes darted back and forth as he wrestled with his decision.
If Theo had given a genuine order, it probably wouldn't have worked, but the fact that Winzy had shown up uninvited in Draco's study told him that Winzy actually wanted a reason to go out there.
Whatever Theo was up to, his house-elf was worried enough to break protocol. And that made Draco worried, too.
"Yes, sir," Winzy finally said, and he started hurrying out into the blizzard.
The snow was hard and icy, not at all the pretty and soft fluff he'd seen on the ground earlier that morning.
This was nature at its most furious, and Draco cursed as they hurried down the slippery path, looking for the missing man.
"Master, Master!" Winzy wailed, coming up short next to a wrought-iron bench. "Master Draco is here, Master Draco is here."
Theo sat on a bench, facing away from Draco. As Draco reached out to grab his attention, he saw that the man was unconscious. His pale skin was a harsh, bloodless white, and he was stiff, upright, leaning against a shape on the bench.
"Theo!" Draco shouted, the name being whipped away by the wind. He grabbed the man around the shoulders, preparing to whisk him back into the warmth of the house, and he realized that Theo was stuck. His arm was wrapped around the back of the object, and Draco couldn't get it out.
Afraid to hurt the unconscious man, Draco quickly looked him over, trying to see where else he might be stuck, and whether or not he could cut him away.
The whole object seemed moveable, or would be, if it wasn't so heavy. So Draco grabbed at it all—Theo and whatever he was stuck to—and yelled at Winzy to Apparate them out.
They landed with a thud in Theo's drawing room, and the warmth of the air made Draco's cheeks and fingers ache. Frantically, Draco set about getting Theo free of his clothes, knowing that getting him warmed up would be the first order of business.
But his fingers were numb, and Winzy was wailing far too loudly. It took a second, but the words finally filtered through to his panicked brain.
"He's dead! Master is dead! Why did Winzy wait so long?!"
Abandoning his efforts to get Theo untangled from all the clothing wrapped around him, Draco used his wand to check Theo's life signs.
Ice settled into the pit of his stomach, hard and sharp. He thought he might throw up.
Theo was indeed dead—had probably been since before Winzy had set out to find Draco.
Draco collapsed to his knees while Winzy kept wailing.
For several long minutes, Draco sat there, staring at the man who was his friend, trying to comprehend how he could be dead. Trying frantically to understand how he could possibly have died in something so mundane as a blizzard, while sitting in his own garden.
If he had been stuck, why hadn't he used his wand to free himself? Why hadn't he called for his elf?
The minutes ticked by, how many he didn't know. Draco remained unmoving, the shock of staring death in the face once again, overwhelming him.
He finally noticed that Winzy had given way to quiet weeping.
And that the floor was covered in water.
The snow was melting, of course; but there was so much water.
How could there be so much water?
Slowly, Draco got up to approach Theo again, noting how the warmth of the room had not returned any color to his face.
For the first time he saw what it was that his arm was stuck in.
A Ravenclaw scarf.
The scarf was wrapped around a solid block of ice that might have had a different shape once, before it got lashed by wind and snow and then melted. What the shape was, Draco couldn't possibly guess, but the fibers of the scarf were stuck in it, and so was part of Theo's jacket.
A Ravenclaw scarf.
The tears came suddenly then. Grief tore through him as this one item somehow proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Theo was really gone.
Draco knew the scarf, old and ratty as it was.
It had been Luna Lovegood's scarf.
Theo had kept it all this time.
He'd had a terrible crush on her in school, and had been devastated when he'd discovered that she'd died in the dungeons of Malfoy Manor during their 7th year.
Draco had never gotten over the guilt of that—of the stricken look in Theo's eyes when he'd told him. Or the shame of knowing that his classmate had died in his own home.
It had been a turning point for Draco, had given him the slightest push that he needed to break ties with the Dark Lord when it would count the most.
And it had been a turning point for Theo, too.
Theo Nott had never been quite the same.
He'd never laughed, barely even smiled, despite the effort of all of their friends.
As the sounds of weeping, both his and Winzy's, filled the air, Draco's heart broke anew seeing the look on Theo's frozen face…and realizing that he was finally smiling.
A/N: I did try to warn you guys. All the Twistmas stories are similarly chilling and worth checking out. Make sure you go read them!
I want to thank flightglow32 for telling me this wasn't a terrible idea. And AkashaTheKitty and ToriGingerfox for the encouragement to join the Fest, when I was adamant that I was NOT going to do any more Fests till I finish my WIP. But I'm really glad I was able to participate and write this little story. No beta-reader this time, so the strangely uneven writing and mid-story tense change, along with any spelling and grammar mistakes...are all on me.
S&R: CONSTRUCTIVE REVIEWS WELCOME (CRW), meaning all reviews and comments, including constructive criticism, are welcome.