Written for: QLFC, Round One
Falmouth Falcons, Seeker
Mandatory: Write a pairing you've never written before
Word count: 1295
Red
Theodore Nott would never forget the first time he saw her, with her wide, innocent brown eyes and untamable hair. She had on a bossy and confident mask, and that intrigued him the most. If there was one thing that Theodore Nott was good at, it was looking past the front each person put up and seeing what lay beneath it.
Hermione Granger was anxious and afraid, and only Nott saw this. It fascinated him.
"Well, have you?" She asked, impatiently. His mind snapped back to the question she had just asked him, "Have you seen a toad?"
He hadn't so he shook his head. When she started to turn away, he glanced down, almost desperate to give her a reason to stay. That's when he caught sight of her nails, painted red with a cheap polish.
"Are you hoping to get in to Gryffindor?" he asked, not coldly, like one would expect he would, but simply sounding uninterested, even though he was incredibly interested.
Her cheeks flushed almost the same color as her nails, though Nott found the rosy color to be far more appealing on her skin. "How did you know?" she asked softly, her confident mask slipping.
"Call it intuition," he replied, leaning back against the bench of the train's compartment. Only one other person sat in the same space, Blaise Zabini, but he was inconsequential.
"May I ask what House you wish to join?" she asked, straightening her shoulders. She was obviously trying to sound bolder than she felt.
"I know I will be joining Slytherin. It almost isn't even a choice."
She bit her lip and nodded once, instantly defensive. "Good luck, then." He could tell that he had scared her away.
A small smile left his lips when she left the compartment, the sliding door closing with a distinctive 'thud.'
/_\
Much had happened since that first day, the day where the little bushy haired girl with red fingernails asked him a simple question.
In their second year, he watched as the Slytherin king, Draco Malfoy, called her a Mudblood. Her cheeks flushed as red as her sweater.
Third year, as he watched her discretely tuck her Time-Turner under her robes, he noticed she was wearing a red pendant, cheap, just like her nail polish had been in first year.
She took away his breath in their fourth year when she walked in to the Yule Ball, periwinkle dress flowing around her like a cloud. She had a red rose tucked into her, for once, manageable hair.
Fifth year, when he was on Umbridge's Inquisitorial Squad, doing surveillance on Dumbledore's Army, he noticed she liked to tie her hair up with a red ribbon. He didn't tell Umbridge that he knew where the DA was meeting.
However, her mask of confidence never slipped. She remained bright and bossy and cheery, yet Nott could see. Nott could see the anxiety and fear beneath it all when she would play with the edges of her red sweater, or consistently fix the ribbon in her hair. He could see the hesitation every time she stepped into a room. He could tell that she didn't feel like she belonged.
It angered him to see such a powerful witch being so afraid, yet he knew he was a part of the problem.
Yet her mask never slipped. At least, it never slipped before her sixth year.
/_\
A noise drew sixteen year old Theodore from his book, and he glanced out of his sheltered little alcove. He was on the fifth floor, nowhere special. Just a quiet place that was rarely disturbed in the evenings.
With an eye roll, he turned back to the pages of his book. It was just a potions book, but it was still words on a page that he could soak up and make useful in the future. However, the noise sounded again. Naturally curious, he marked his page and glanced down the hallway.
He looked just in time to see her standing, a flock of paper birds surrounding her, creating a wind for her hair to blow in. She looked majestic.
She looked different to Nottc; she was crying.
She said something, and a deep voice let out a bit of a scream. Nott had to inch farther out of his alcove to see who was there and what was happening. He wasn't surprised to see Ron Weasley running from the attacking paper birds.
He was surprised when Hermione crumpled to the floor, shoulders wracked with sobs.
Her mask had fallen. It was laying shattered on the floor, the pieces irreparable. Nott clenched his jaw before making a split-second decision that was sure to change his life.
"He's an arse," he said. Of course he had noticed the tension between the two. She obviously cared about him, and Ron was completely oblivious.
He heard her hiccough and saw her shoulders stop moving. Then her eyes met his, just a wide and brown as they were on the train, but now they were rimmed with red. Anger boiled in Notts chest and he stood up to walk over to her.
"Come to poke at the Mudblood when she's down?" Nott stopped in his tracks, set off by the harshness of the word 'Mudblood,' and the horrid tone Hermione spat it with. "Easy pickings, isn't it?"
Nott's head swam as he realized that it would be strange if Hermione thought he was here to do anything else. Of course, he had always been on the side that consistently told her she didn't belong in the wizarding world.
"No," he said evenly, "I just want to let you know that Weasley is an arse and you shouldn't waste any more tears on him. He isn't worth it."
Stunned by his own words, he turned on his heel and stalked away, not waiting to see if the expression of hatred ever left her beautiful face.
/_\
The Battle of Hogwarts was raging, and Nott was torn. His family was on Voldemort's side, but his heart wasn't. Ducking as a green curse flew over his head, he gazed across the courtyard now turned battlefield.
There were too many dead, from both sides. Lying in the dust, scattered, everywhere, yet only one person mattered to him and he didn't see her.
Another curse blasted the ground beside him and he ran. He ran into the castle, terrified, legs and lungs burning along with the structure around him. This had once been his home, and it had gone up in flames. A curse landed in front of him and he swiveled out of harm's way just in time, only to be put in the pathway of another curse.
"Protego!" Someone shouted and a thin bit of magic shielded him. He hadn't casted that.
Nott frantically gazed for the caster, the one who saved him, only to meet the gaze of wide brown eyes.
She nodded once at him, no mask, just exhaustion, before she began to turn away.
What happened next was something out of a nightmare. She crumpled, no warning, no jet of light, no direct casting of a spell. She just collapsed.
"HERMIONE!" Nott shouted as he sprinted over to the Gryffindor, falling to his knees beside her.
He had associated her with red but would never have imagine it to be spilling from her. He never had wanted to see her life-force. His wand was out, and healing spells tumbled from his tongue, but nothing worked. It was dark magic. It was death-eater magic.
Theodore Nott raised his eyes, the usually cold glare aflame with anger, and he saw him: Dolohov.
"Another Mudblood down," the Death Eater cheered, a sickening smile on his lips.
Something inside Nott snapped and he saw red.