Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
Author's Note: For the Hunger Games Competition on HPFC, using the emotion, pairing, weapon, genre, and subject prompts.
He's small again, just a little kid sitting at the dining room table with his parents, his feet not even touching the floor. His father looks almost monstrous, taller and bigger than Theodore had ever seen him, his body cloaked in shadows. Theodore's mum, on the other hand, looks beautiful and pure - like she could be an angel if it weren't for the furious look on her face as she argues with Theodore's father. The words fade into one another, and Theodore stares at his food, not hungry at all.
Theodore's father puts his fork down onto his plate, pointing at Theodore's mum with his knife. "You're out of line," he shouts, and Theodore sinks down in his chair, wanting desperately to disappear. His father stands up, slamming the knife into the table so that it stays embedded in the wood, point-down, quivering from the force. Theodore is quivering too.
His father takes his wand out, points it at Theodore's mum, and she goes flying across the room, cracking her head on the wall. This time she stands up, blood dripping from her head, down her hair, staining her cream robes, and her eyes are strangely empty as she picks up Theodore. "You're next," she whispers, picking up the knife and-
Theodore Nott sat bolt upright in bed, breathing hard and drenched in sweat.
It had been almost nine years since Theodore's mother was killed, and he was still getting those damn nightmares, replaying her death over and over in his head, slightly different each time. The nightmares didn't come every single night, thank Merlin, but they came often enough to feel like a constant in his life.
"Theodore," Blaise said sleepily from the next bed over, "that's the third time this week."
Leave it to Blaise to keep track. He could be so damn observant sometimes, particularly when it came to Theodore. It was endearing, in its own way, but endearing things lost some of their sweetness at three-thirty in the morning. Theodore lay back down, wishing vainly that he could fall back asleep within the next three seconds.
"You're not asleep," Blaise said. "I know you're not."
"Bloody hell, Blaise," Theodore said finally, turning over and propping himself on his elbow. "Why are you even awake?"
Theodore could see Blaise's dark silhouette squirm a little, and he wished that he could tell Blaise to come into his bed, but they had long since decided that would be a terrible idea with Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle around. The three of them weren't exactly open-minded individuals.
"Guess I'm just a light sleeper this year," Blaise said lightly, his voice sounding a little too blasé for Theodore's comfort. Theodore frowned, swirling the words around in his tired brain.
"You mean because of the Carrows and shit?" Theodore said inelegantly.
"Well..." Blaise sighed. "Pretty much." He sounded almost reluctant to say the words, but it didn't surprise Theodore at all. Showing any bit of anti-Carrow sentiment was one sure way to get that person's arse thrown into detention.
"Did something happen?" Theodore asked. Blaise had never been as vocal about supporting the Carrows as Crabbe or Goyle - who had gladly volunteered to help the Carrows with detentions - but he had never outright rebelled or spoken out against them, either. "I know Amycus asked to speak to you yesterday after Dark Arts." Theodore had wanted to wait to see the results of that conversation, but he had had Potions directly after Dark Arts, so that was out of the question.
A moment passed, and Theodore began to wonder if Blaise had simply fallen asleep without warning.
"Can we speak...more privately, Theo?" Blaise said, his voice sounding slightly strained.
Theodore gave up hope on getting more than three hours of sleep. "Yeah, of course. Common room should be empty now, I guess." He swung his legs out of bed and padded out of the dormitory, hearing Blaise's quiet footfalls behind him. Blaise walked pretty damn quietly for a bloke over six feet tall.
As Theodore had predicted, the common room was empty, the fire long since burned out, the temperature of the room dropping even further than it normally did. The Slytherin quarters were usually a bit on the colder side, but without the fire going, it was downright freezing. Theodore flicked his wand at the hearth, making a small fire of his own. He and Blaise dragged two armchairs close to the fireplace and sat down near one another, Blaise curling up in his chair like a big cat.
"All right," Theodore said. "We're alone. What happened yesterday with Amycus Carrow?"
Blaise's eyes glinted in the firelight. "He caught on," Blaise said. "He caught on to the fact that I don't -" He took a deep breath, looking around furtively. "I don't like them very much," he said. "I think he's a brainless idiot, frankly. Both him and his stupid bitch sister." The words came out vehemently, and he looked startled for a second, as if he hadn't expected that much vitriol to show through. "They figured it out, that I don't like them," he said. "Or at least, they're on the right track. Amycus told me he didn't think I was making as much progress as I should, and that I needed remedial Dark Arts lessons."
Theodore sucked in a sharp breath. "And what, exactly, do remedial Dark Arts lessons entail?"
"He and Alecto brought me to the dungeons," Blaise answered. "They had a couple of the rebel students down there. Macmillan and the Ravenclaw Patil." Blaise stared at the fire, not meeting Theodore's gaze. "The Carrows made me do the Cruciatus Curse on both of them. They made me do it well. They said if I didn't, I would be next - and for Merlin's sake, I lasted this long without getting detention. I wasn't going to give myself up to make some sort of moral stand." He sounded almost desperate, like he was trying to convince himself as well as Theodore.
"I would have done the same thing you did," Theodore said honestly. "You can't regret saving yourself. Others don't always come first. We all know that."
"Of course," Blaise said, "but it..." He sighed. "It feels wrong. Merlin, I can't wait to get out of this place."
"Three months," Theodore said. "Three months until we finish. And then we can go do whatever the hell we want." The freedom sounded like bliss. Free from Hogwarts, free from the Carrows, free from his father...he could leave. They could travel - it would be easy to get permission to Apparate out of the country, considering his father's position as a Death Eater.
Look, dear old Dad, you're actually good for something after all.
"We," Blaise said, almost to himself, a small smile appearing on his features. "I have to say, I like the sound of that."
Theodore snorted, lightly kicking Blaise's leg. "What, you thought I was going to ditch you after Hogwarts? Don't be an idiot. We'll finish Hogwarts, go back home for about a day, and then we'll go travel the world. Just like wizards used to do after Hogwarts."
"It'll be the one traditional thing about us," Blaise said, chuckling.
Theodore smiled, putting his feet up on Blaise's chair.
Three more months, he thought to himself. Three more months, and everything will be over.
He couldn't wait.