for ql, round 5, holyhead harpies, seeker, write about something surrounding the number 7

warning for implied sexual content

2624 words by google docs

i — envy

In his first year at Hogwarts, Theodore Nott realizes that he likes boys. One boy in particular. He realizes this one night, near the end of the year, when he can't sleep, pre-exam stress getting to him. Their dormitory is dark, but Theo can hear his best friend, Blaise, shift on his mattress.

"Theo," his voice hisses out in the darkness. "Are you awake?"

Theo shifts towards Blaise's bed so he can see Blaise's silvery silhouette.

"Yeah," Theo whispers back, trying to stay quiet enough to not wake up their other three roommates.

"Have you ever had a crush on anyone?" Blaise asks next.

Theo considers, turning onto his back and looking up at the dark expanse over his bed. He knows what a crush is, of course, but he doesn't know if he's ever actually had one. Though, he's not even sure if he would know what one would feel like. He can't know what something is supposed to feel like until he experiences it for himself, right?

"I don't know. What's one like?" Theo asks because Blaise is slightly older than Theo, which means he would have more experience. Besides, it seems like — if he's bringing up the topic — he knows what he's talking about when it comes to crushes. Blaise makes a humming sound and pauses for a moment before answering.

"Well," he starts, "you think they're really pretty, all the time. Even if they're not."

Theo thinks about the person he thinks is the prettiest. That's easy. Blaise.

"You think about them all the time. They're always on your mind, and when you think about them, your heart speeds up," Blaise continues.

Theo thinks about that. He spends a lot of time thinking about one person, really: Blaise — they do share a dormitory and all of their classes, though. They're best friends. They're almost always together. And right now, thinking about Blaise, his heart rate is picking up.

"Sometimes," Blaise whispers, as almost an afterthought, "you think about kissing them."

Theo turns back to Blaise's bed, trying to make out his features in the dark. Theo doesn't think he's ever consciously thought about it, but now that it's brought up, he can imagine kissing Blaise. He hasn't really thought about kissing anyone before, but he thinks kissing Blaise could be nice.

Which —

Oh.

He has a crush on Blaise.

He makes himself swallow hard because is that a thing? Do people get crushes on their best friends? He doesn't know the answer to that, but he does think he definitely knows the answer to Blaise's original question — he does have a crush.

And then he starts thinking about Blaise again — yeah, his heart is definitely speeding up — and he starts thinking about why Blaise brought this topic up in first place. It couldn't mean that — No, that'd be crazy.

"I have a crush," Blaise whispers softly. Theo's heart continues to pound against his ribcage. "On Pansy," he says, his sheets shuffling again.

Theo's heart plummets. Something stirs inside of him, a sort of anger at Pansy. Quickly, Theo realizes that it's jealousy. He jealous towards Pansy. Blaise likes her.

Not him.

ii — pride

During his second year at Hogwarts, Theo considers writing Blaise a card. It's during Valentine's day when Lockhart hires little cupids to roam the school. They advertise sending Valentine's cards to whomever you want.

The thing is, ever since Blaise brought up crushes, Theo can't stop thinking about him. About Blaise. About having a crush on Blaise. It's ridiculous. He thought about Blaise the entire summer, and then when they came back to school, he couldn't stop stealing looks, and thinking about the way Blaise's smooth skin catches the sun when they're out on the Quidditch fields, watching Draco practice.

He's ridiculous.

The idea of writing Blaise a card, though, is squashed when Blaise sees the cupids and squeezes Theo's arm hard.

"I should write Pansy a card!" he whispers to Theo excitedly.

Theo falters as he remembers Blaise's crush. Honestly, a small part of him had hoped it would be a small crush, something that would be gone after the summer. After all, Blaise hadn't brought it up the entire year.

Until now.

"Sure," Theo says, feeling like he's swallowed a chocolate frog whole.

Blaise hesitates though, in going up to one of the cupids and asking them to deliver a message, a declaration of his crush. Before he can, a cupid zooms past them, tackling another student, and sings the student a love song in a screechy, horrible voice.

"Maybe not," Blaise says with a small voice, watching the incident.

Theo's heart swells with pride. He knows that there's no real competition, but he feels like he's won something over Pansy. Like for just this moment, Blaise could be his, and not hers.

iii — sloth

Third years at Hogwarts get to go to Hogsmeade. Much to Theo's dismay, that comes with his classmates asking out people to places in Hogsmeade. As a date.

He doesn't want to admit how much pleasure he gets when Blaise asks out his long term crush, Pansy — and then gets rejected.

"Let's just stay here at Hogwarts," Theo suggests, trying to look upset enough that Blaise doesn't know that he's not upset at all but not look too upset that it's weird. Blaise gives him a look, like "really?" and Theo shrugs defensively.

"We don't have to go there, where Pansy —" Blaise gives him a glare at the mention of Pansy but Theo continues anyway. "— Pansy will definitely be."

Blaise gives Theo an overexaggerated sigh, but he eventually, rolls his eyes and says, "Fine. Let's just stay here."

They retreat to their dormitory, and they're there alone, as Draco, Vincent, and Gregory went to Hogsmeade like everyone else.

Theo would be lying if he would say that the idea of them being alone in their dormitory stirs up something in him. There could be so many things that could happen in one afternoon, and Theo's heart races just thinking about it.

Blaise flops down hard onto his bed and motions a hand for Theo to join him. Theo's heart is still beating fast, but he sits down on Blaise's bed. Maybe Blaise will kiss him. Or — No, Theo shouldn't even think about that.

Instead of anything happening, though, Blaise places his head on Theo's lap with a sigh. Maybe Theo should've been a better friend and he should have asked Blaise about his crush on Pansy. Because Blaise lets out another deep sigh, and Theo wonders how deep his crush actually ran.

Yes, Theo would love for Blaise to do something with him, but he's fine with his best friend's head in his lap. Theo's heart swells for Blaise, and they slowly drift off to sleep together.

iv — wrath

In Theo's fourth year, Blaise won't stop bugging him about a date. Specifically, a date to the Yule Ball. By this point, he figures getting with Blaise is pretty unattainable, but if Blaise could stop rubbing it in his face.

"Are you sure there's no girl you'd want to bring, T?" Blaise asks, on the night of the ball, as they both straighten out their dress robes in the bathroom.

"No," Theo says. Maybe he's a little bit stiff, but it's mostly because there's only one person he would actually want to bring the ball. Even if he would settle for someone else, it wouldn't be a girl. That's the part that also bugs Theo about Blaise's constant grilling. He seems to think that Theo would take a girl to the ball.

Which, even though he's never said the words out loud, Theo is almost one hundred percent certain that he does not like girls. Yes, he's had the same crush since he was eleven, but he can still be attracted to other people. And he has been, though he hasn't pursued any of them.

And they're all boys.

Theo can't even imagine being with a girl, not like that. So he's a little bit stiff because his best friend has failed to notice him never showing any interest in any girl. He supposes it could be good, though — Blaise must have failed to notice that Theo has a big interest in Blaise.

"You know, any girl in our year would gladly fall to her knees for you," Blaise says. And the thought of that, of doing what Blaise is implying, fills Theo with anger.

"Shut up," he snaps, stopping fiddling with the collar of his dress robes. "Just shut up." Maybe it's a little uncalled for, and maybe he should stop because Blaise looks taken aback, but he just can't stop the words coming out of his mouth. "I'm gay, Blaise," he snaps, looking at Blaise, then quickly looking away, feeling his face burning up. "I'm gay. God."

With that, he goes back to adjusting his collar. Blaise doesn't respond, and anger pounds at Theo's head.

Fine, if Blaise doesn't accept that. There's his answer on the crush front.

v — lust

It's the start of Theo's fifth year, and he still can't knock Blaise out of his mind. He tries. He tries to be bitter, to be angry, to tell Blaise to never talk to him again, but he can't make himself do it.

Since the night of the Yule Ball, when Theo admitted to Blaise that he's gay, their relationship has become stilted. Theo hates it, because it's been half of a year, and his best friend can't just admit that he doesn't want to be friends because Theo likes guys.

Honestly, if Theo had known this five years earlier, it would've saved him a lot of time. Looking back on it, he spent too much time obsessing over Blaise. It's pathetic, really.

Except that his brain knows he should stop having a crush on Blaise — should stop being friends with him, really — but his heart can't get with the program. His heart still races when he looks at Blaise. His heart is still dumbly in love with Blaise.

It's more than that, though. His heart wants to kiss Blaise, and touch him, and memorize what every part of his body is like. His heart is almost starving for Blaise.

The two of them are sitting in the dormitory alone, Draco, Vincent, and Gregory off somewhere. It's only the second week of classes, but it's also the year of their O.W.L.s. They both are swamped with work, and probably should be doing it, but instead, they're sitting on their beds, facing each other and not talking.

Theo hates how awkward their friendship has become.

Theo doesn't make a move to leave, though. He wants Blaise to say something because the last few months of their fourth year was hell, with neither of them wanting to end their friendship, but neither of them talking anything out. Theo doesn't have anything to say. He already said it all, those two words.

It hurts him to think that his best friend might not accept him.

Theo takes a moment to look at Blaise's face, to see how the greenish light catches on Blaise's cheekbones. He doesn't have a perfect body, of course — they're still teenagers — but Theo knows that Blaise's mother is ridiculously attractive. Even he can admit that. Blaise must've gotten those genetics because Theo can't stop thinking about how Blaise's lips curve in a way that makes them full, and those lips make Theo about kissing them, and kissing them until he can't breathe and God, Theo can't make himself stop liking Blaise.

Theo's been staring at Blaise, so he doesn't know how his brain checks out for a minute. He misses it, though, when Blaise gets up quickly, and cross the few feet over to Theo. Blaise is standing above Theo, now, and before Theo can say anything, Blaise takes Theo's face in his hands and leans down to kiss him.

Theo pulls away and gasps and Blaise looks as shocked as Theo feels, like maybe he surprised himself. Blaise opens his mouth to say something, but Theo cuts him off, pressing their lips together instead.

And God. God.

Theo pulls Blaise down onto his bed, and now Blaise is laying over Theo, and they're kissing, and Theo's stomach (or maybe his heart) is hungry for more, and more, and more.

And so he takes, and he takes, and he takes.

vi — greed

During Theo's sixth year, he becomes dissatisfied. He doesn't know when it starts, but he realizes in November when he and Blaise hook up again. That's what they've been doing, since their fifth year, whenever their dormitory is empty, but Theo realizes that it's honestly not enough for him.

He likes Blaise. He likes Blaise a lot, but their relationship, whatever it is now, is entirely physical.

Theo doesn't want that. He does like the physical part, but he starts to realize that he wants more. So he tells Blaise exactly that, in between them kissing on his bed.

"More?" Blaise repeats, pressing a kiss onto Theo's neck. "What do you mean 'more'?"

Theo melts into Blaise's kisses for a moment before elaborating, "I want you."

He thinks that's a pretty good explanation, because that's how he thinks about it, and he thinks that Blaise gets it when he presses a soft, slow, long kiss to Theo's lips. Theo lets out a breathless sigh when Blaise pulls away.

"You have me," Blaise says, moving his lips down Theo's body, to his chest. Theo lets out another little exhale, but he also squirms away from Blaise a little bit.

"No, I mean," Theo says, flopping over onto his back. He can hear Blaise make a little sound of confusion. "I want to be able to hold your hand," he says, thinking about all the dreams he's had about Blaise over the past six years. "And I want to kiss your cheek, and cuddle with you, and take you out to Hogsmeade, and — I don't know," Theo ends, feeling a little bit ridiculous.

"You want to be my boyfriend?" Blaise asks, putting it plainly. Theo exhales for a third time, this time out of relief.

"Yeah," he says, softly.

Blaise presses a soft kiss to Theo's lips and draws back slowly, allowing for Theo to have an up-close view of Blaise's deep brown eyes.

"Okay," Blaise says, giving Theo a soft smile. Theo returns it.

vii — gluttony

Their seventh year at Hogwarts doesn't feel real. It feels like an entirely different school than the one Theo had been going to.

He has Blaise, though. That's not different. That's familiar. And Theo becomes ravenous for Blaise.

It feels like at every moment, he needs to be with Blaise. Whenever they're in separate classes, Theo finds himself getting annoyed and impatient. He wants to be with Blaise again. Or when one of them has to do hall monitoring — their job as the seventh year Slytherins — and they're away from each other, all he can think about is Blaise, and not if someone's breaking curfew.

He presses hungry kisses onto Blaise's neck when they're together, and he lets himself get lost in Blaise's taste. It's his one constant, his one light in the dark world they've been pushed into.

Theo finds himself wishing for the entire war to be over, just so he can be with Blaise. He wants to just live a happy life, and be able to lose himself in Blaise and never come back from him.

Maybe it's selfish. Maybe it's unhealthy.

Theo doesn't really care.