Ch. 7 Curiosity

Theo

After the book burning, Theo had gone to his dorm and quietly checked his timetable, at first not admitting to himself why, scanning the classes he'd share with Gryffindors: Muggle Studies, Dark Arts, Charms and Potions. The first two were compulsory so she'd be in those. He wondered if she'd be taking the latter two...what lessons did she like?...was she any good at them?...And so the questions came unbidden into his conscious - about her, her passions, even what she was doing at that moment for fucks sake. Questions that he tried to shake off, but which over the coming days became so relentless that he just gave into them, letting them whirl around his mind, molding into fantasies…

And so he scanned the room for her when he entered those classes - she was doing Charms but not Potions - and made sure he sat near her, but not too near. He subtly watched her, studied the back of her head when he sat behind her in Charms, the way the waves of her hair slid softly over each other as she leant in to whisper to her friend.

Her smile - Merlin, that was disarming the first time he'd seen it up close - the way it opened up her whole face, humour dancing in her eyes. It was like she was giving a gift to the person she was beaming at, enfolding them into some special place of warmth and belonging. Not that she ever smiled at him of course. He found himself envying her friend, the Brown girl, who those grins were mainly directed at.

And he watched her when she was practicing spells - how she gave her wand the tiniest of glances before casting. She needed to watch out for that, he noted. That could get her into trouble.

Her scent, of course, was intoxicating.

Theo had always had an unnaturally strong, acute sense of smell. And hearing too, although less so. He picked up on the subtleties of a person's scent, which could reach him from many metres away, something that had become apparent to his parents by the time he was six or seven. It had taken him a while to realise that not everyone could tell people apart from their scent alone or hear what people were saying from the other end of a crowded dining room table. His parents had told him to ignore these experiences like he had to ignore his emotions, to not speak of them. They made it clear that they were something that needed to be kept a secret, something shameful. So, not understanding why he was burdened - or gifted, depending on how you looked at it - with such senses, he had, for many years, remained silent about it.

But that hadn't stopped it.

Sometimes it was useful - especially with potions. He could smell the subtle differences in strength between amounts of ingredients to a degree weighing scales couldn't. And when a potion was getting to just the right amount of brewing - not too much and not too little. These...skills had helped him excel in the subject. Sometimes it could be just, well, interesting, like when he knew Pansy was cheating on Draco with Blaise for those few months in sixth year because Theo could smell Blaise on her, when she was close enough - when she sat near him in the common room or walked next to him in the halls.

But other times it was a burden. Like during fifth year when he'd had to sit in classrooms full of teenagers with increasing amounts of hormones and pheromones coursing through them. It was like an unrelenting assault on his senses, like having a handful of rogue bludgers collide into him over and over again. The girls' scent had often made his body respond in ways that weren't entirely convenient when he was trying to concentrate on passing his OWLs. And the boys' just made him agitated, aggressive, triggering irrational feral urges of wanting to hit out. Even to bite. Fortunately, that was around the same time he'd found out the reasons he'd been bestowed with such unnatural senses. He'd managed to confide in Snape then, who'd helped him with a sensory suppressant potion he could take on the bad days.

But he didn't think he'd ever want to suppress her scent. It was mostly floral - jasmine being the most dominant, with a bit of lavender too - combined with the more subtle sweetness of something like pumpkin juice...

With growing annoyance at himself, he found himself scavenging any information he could get about her, which was pretty hard seeing as a Nott in wartime couldn't be seen to be interested in a blood traitor Gryffindor. He found out she was also taking Herbology and Divination (Divination - really?), that she was in the school choir, that she was a pure-blood, which was a small consolation.

But then he'd learnt who her close friends were and what he'd suspected was confirmed: she was one of Potter's inner circle - one of those who'd been in that bloody Potter fan club in their fifth year. What his father and fellow Slytherins would consider to be the worst kind of blood traitor.

He wondered if he was under a love potion or some other love spell, but he knew potions well enough to be sure it wasn't that, and anyway, why in Merlin's name would she want to bewitch him? As far as Theo could tell, she barely knew he existed, which was fine, which was as it should be.

But he did wonder if she was part Veela, hoped she was part Veela because it would explain, it would help justify, the crazy turn his thoughts had taken.

He tried to shake all of this off, tried to come to his senses - she's the enemy, she's off limits - he chanted to himself.

But he couldn't. He just couldn't.