Ch 21. The Lion's Roar

Theo

He would have told her the password anyway of course.

But when he saw her again, when he breathed in her scent again, he'd so desperately wanted to kiss her once more - to taste her, to feel the softness of her skin, to hear what noises she'd make if he were to bite in to her neck. Then, when he'd moved closer to her, he had seen the anticipation in her eyes and he'd dared to hope that she might want all that too. And his hopes were confirmed when he heard her breath hitch in her throat, when he heard her want in the quickening of her heart beat and, when he'd moved closer to her, he'd smelt it - like before, in the storeroom and at the Gryffindor breakfast table.

Before they'd agreed the deal, he'd nearly lost his self-restraint and closed the gap between them - nearly launched himself at her - but he'd managed to hold back. The metallic smell of blood from that wound on her hand had restrained him, because it had reminded him of who she was and of the darkness that separated them.

So he'd suggested the trade because it had given them both an excuse to give in to their urges - a legitimacy; a charade. Acknowledging that they just wanted each other was far too complex, would mean far too much...would be too dangerous.

Her passion had surprised him. He'd known, of course, that she was uninhibited and unrestrained with her feelings - especially compared to him - it's what had drawn him to her in the first place. But the urgency with which she'd pulled him to her, ran her hands over him, fumbled hurriedly with his jumper and shirt - it had still surprised him. He couldn't fathom why she'd want him, couldn't compute why she would trust him to do the things they were doing together, and his wonder had caused him to pause, to try and understand, but then her eyes - full of want and need - had pulled him to her again, and she'd made him gasp and moan and push his hard-on in to her.

But when she'd scratched her nails up his back, he'd had to stop. Because it was one of the triggers that let the Wolf lose in him. And giving in to the Wolf could lead him to completely losing himself in lust and he couldn't lose control - not with her, not like that. So he'd summoned all his willpower and stopped, taking her arms gently in his hands, moving them away from him, trying to reassemble his thoughts.

He'd whispered the password into her ear, knowing it would end it, because, with a sickening feeling of resignation, he'd known it would have to end at some point.

And he'd been crass and bullying before she left, even though the words had tasted like bile in his mouth, because she needed to remember what this was. She needed to be reminded of what he was and what he stood for. Because if she allowed herself to feel secure with him - to get close - it would mean danger for her.

It kept her safe for her to keep at a distance from him; for her to keep her guard up. He couldn't let what he was poison all she was. So he was cruel and callous in order to crush any ideas she might have that he was different to what he was - to what he had no choice but to be.

xXx

Sometimes, a lion's pride was the cause of its downfall.

It was at times like this that Theo couldn't help but see the flip side of the qualities for which Gryffindor house was praised: honour, bravery, valour - Theo would just as easily have called them pride, stubbornness and stupidity.

It was another delightful Muggle Studies lesson, a few days after Theo's meeting with Parvati in the Potions classroom. A meeting which Theo had re-lived in his mind countless times since: as he drifted off to sleep in the dark of his dorm, when he awoke fretfully in the middle of the night from some half-nightmare, and in the mornings just before dawn. He didn't think he'd wanked so much in such a short amount of time in the whole of his life. He was thinking about that evening again now, casting glances over the classroom to the waves of dark hair that cascaded down Parvati's back, when Alecto's increasingly shrill voice forced him out of his reverie.

The teacher was waving Seamus Finnegan's homework in the air, furious, yelling about the boy's improper use of language.

Why, Theo thought exasperatedly, once his brain had caught up with the details of why Alecto was so incensed, had Finnegan chosen to fight this particular battle? He understood the power words held, but writing 'mudblood' instead of 'Muggle born' repeatedly in an essay was not going to make one flying fuck of difference to what happened in this school.

Alecto slapped the essay down on her desk and abruptly incendio'ed.

"'Now - for your punishment!" she cried at Finnegan, who'd been told to come and stand at the front of the class. "Professor Carrow has mentioned to me that some of you could do with practicing your Dark Arts skills, so we shall take this as an opportunity to do just that."

Theo tensed. Amycus's teaching had been sporadic. They had jumped around the curriculum randomly, apparently covering whatever curse or hex happened to take the teacher's fancy that week. But lately, Amycus had repeatedly returned to the Cruciatus Curse. They had only practiced on insects and animals so far, but even that hadn't been pretty, especially as they'd started to work up the food chain. Theo had had to really press down on that cauldron of emotions that was buried deep within him and, as usual, get the hell on with it. He'd sometimes wondered if acting cold and cutthroat, over time, made someone so...

"Right. Now - who would like an opportunity to practice their Dark Arts skills?" Alecto asked brightly, looking expectantly around the room. A smattering of hands went up. "Mr Flint - lovely. If you could come to the front. I would like you to administer the Cruciatus Curse on Mr Finnegan."

A murmuring rippled through the classroom, and the waft of several people's cortisol - the stress hormone - hit Theo's nose. It was the first time anyone had been asked to Crucio someone else. Although he'd known it was only a matter of time before this happened, Theo's insides twisted, and a rush of mild nausea hit him. Maybe not so cold and cutthroat after all then, he thought.

"No!" Someone yelled - blurted - from across the room and Theo looked over to see Lavender Brown raising her hand and jumping halfway out of her seat. "No - I mean - I - I would really like to practice Professor - do you think I could have a go?"

"No," Alecto replied tersely. "No, maybe next time, although I appreciate your enthusiasm Miss Brown. Go ahead Mr Flint."

Nice try, Theo thought helplessly. The luck of the Irish had clearly failed Finnegan. From what Theo knew of Flint, he would really mean it when administering the curse. The Brown girl, Theo supposed, would not.

Flint had reached the front of the class and was standing opposite Finnegan. A tense quiet settled over the room. The Slytherin raised wand.

"Crucio!" His voice was firm and uncompromising.

As he fell to the floor, Finnegan didn't shout. Or scream. He roared. He let out a kind of agonising roar as his spine curved backwards at an odd angle and his face twisted in agony. Theo was about to turn away when Flint's wand flew out of his hand and landed with a clatter in front of a row of desks: Longbottom's, Parvati's and Brown's.

Another wave of exasperation rolled over Theo. Bloody Gryffindor recklessness again, he thought: if you were going to try and stop this shit-show, that clumsy attempt at disarming Flint was not the way to go about it. A subtle Confundus could possibly have done the job, with much less chance of being incriminated.

Finnegan had stopped screaming. He was now gasping for breath whilst his body slowly moved in to a foetal position. Flint, who'd initially looked surprised as his wand had sailed out of his hand, now looked enraged.

"It appears you were disarmed Mr Flint," Alecto mocked, amusement in her voice. The teacher walked slowly through the desks to where Flint's wand had landed and looked in turn at the three Gryffindors.

"Which one of you was it?" she demanded coldly.

The lions looked silently back at Alecto, their hands out of view under their desks, their expressions unreadable. Theo thought fleetingly that they would actually do well in Slytherin house with masks like that.

"Fine. Show me your hands," Alecto ordered.

Parvati and Longbottom tentatively raised their hands and placed them on the desk. As usual, their wounds were red and raw, but not bleeding.

"And you?" Alecto snapped at Brown.

Lavender slowly lifted her hands to the table. Theo could see they were shaking. And her cuts were seeping blood.

"Fucks sake," Theo heard Draco, who was sitting next to him, mumble.

As usual with Draco, the sentiment behind the comment was ambiguous. Theo didn't know whether Draco's exasperation was directed at Alecto's cruelness or at Brown's defiance. Theo had been wondering about Draco's loyalties for some time now. It had only been last year that Theo had forced himself to snicker along with the Malfoy heir as he'd called Hermione Granger a 'mudblood' in their Potions class. Draco had long been indiscriminate with his disdain for Muggle-borns but, for some reason, his vitriol had always seemed to be especially passionate when it came to Granger.

At the beginning of last year Draco, wearing the Dark Mark like a badge of honour, had boasted about being given an important mission by the Dark Lord. However, over the months that followed, the circles under Draco's eyes had darkened, as the whites of them had become redder and his complexion more sallow. Theo had noticed his frequent disappearances during break-times and in the evenings; heard him creeping about at night. And then Draco had incurred the wrath of Potter to such an extent that the Boy-Who-Lived had unleashed an unknown dark curse on him, slicing him open like a drunk butcher.

It hadn't taken much to surmise that Draco's undertaking was likely to be difficult, dangerous, and cause his soul to be torn and tainted when - or if - he performed it.

"What is it? What is it you're doing?" Theo had finally confronted Draco, as he'd heard him shuffle into their dorm at about three o'clock one morning during Spring Term.

"Really none of your fucking business Nott," Draco had spat out before drawing the curtains closed around his bed.

And Theo hadn't asked again because, well, secrets and lies were part of the thread that held the fabric of Slytherin house together, and who was he to start ripping those seams apart?

But when Theo had seen Dumbledore's shattered body at the bottom of the Astronomy Tower, the headmaster's limbs contorted at odd angles, he'd finally known.

Although Draco hadn't been the one to cast the killing curse in the end, Theo thought now as he looked askance at his Slytherin housemate. It seemed Draco had spent last year fighting some kind of internal demons, and that fight still hadn't ceased. Draco used to relish the power his pure-blood status gave him, but this year he wore it with an air of resignation: going through the motions of joining the I.S. and not questioning, but not inciting, hate-fuelled cruelty either. But despite this, Theo knew that Draco would still do anything it took to redeem his parents in the eyes of the Dark Lord. He'd do this out of love for his family and the fierce, almost obsessive loyalty the Malfoys had for each other. It was this that guided Draco's actions; this was Draco's morality.

There was a movement on Theo's other side: Blaise was fidgeting agitatedly and running his hands over his cropped hair. Blaise was also a bit of an enigma, but possibly less so than Draco. When it came to sex and sexuality, for which Blaise was mainly known inside and outside Slytherin house, many had judged him as amoral. Bisexual, promiscuous and into pretty much anything in the bedroom (and out of it), he had effectively shagged his way through the last few years of school, which was evident by the school ties that were hung up on the rail above his bed - a rainbow of green, yellow and blue, with a small smattering of crimson.

'Tie swapping' was somewhat of a ritual at Hogwarts. If an inter-house couple had started dating, they would often swap ties and wear their partner's one, sacrificing house points for uniform violations, with the aim of displaying to the rest of the school their commitment to their relationship. Or, if the 'relationship' had been more casual and 'short term', a tie would often be coveted, usually by boys, as a mark of their 'conquest'.

But this year, Blaise had been surprisingly chaste. When questioned about this, he'd retorted drily: "Having someone suck you off when you might have to curse them the next day kind of dampens your libido."

So even Blaise had limits, it seemed.

And outside of the 'bedroom', Theo was sure by now Blaise's ethics weren't so ambivalent. Theo had seen a streak of compassion in him on more than one occasion - like when Blaise had sworn he'd 'not seen' those 'blood traitors' sneaking around the castle at night, even though they'd been caught by other members of the I.S. moments later, only one corridor away from where Blaise had been patrolling. And those times when Theo had witnessed Blaise asserting his seventh year authority and putting an end to some of the more brutal bullying, under the guise of 'not spilling magical blood'.

Over the weeks since the start of this Merlin-awful school year, Blaise had seemed to turn away from Flint who had been his best mate for the last few years and Draco, in turn, had drifted away from Crabbe and Goyle, and to Theo's surprise they had both seemed to gravitate towards him. The three had spent more time together, unspoken understandings slowly forming between them: that none of them had any real passion to enforce the Carrows' regime; that if any of them were to be called up right now to perform the Cruciatus Curse on Finnegan, none of them would do so with any conviction - none of them would really mean it.

"Ah, I think we've found our culprit," Alecto exclaimed now, her voice dripping with triumph. "Miss Brown, please retrieve Mr Flint's wand off the floor, come to the front and kindly return it to him. It will be an excellent chance for another student to practice their Cruciatus skills. Who would like the opportunity?"

As a few hands were raised about the classroom, Theo noticed that Parvati and Longbottom were having a frantic whispering conversation. Longbottom was attempting to hold Parvati's arm down, until she wrestled it free and shot it up in the air. Theo found himself raising his own hand, along with Daphne, Crabbe and Goyle.

"Miss Greengrass," Alecto chose, and Daphne, wearing her ice-queen mask, rose from her seat and walked to the front.

When Brown reached Flint, she tentatively held out his wand to him. He abruptly reached out, glaring at her, grasped her thin wrist in one of his hands, yanked her arm roughly towards him and snatched his wand with his other hand. Brown let out a yelp like a startled animal.

"Can I practice on her?" Flint asked, nodding at Brown, his voice cold and hard. Theo knew what that tone meant: Flint was angry. And he wanted revenge.

"No, no. You continue with Mr Finnegan, and Miss Greengrass with Miss Brown."

It only lasted one, maybe one and half minutes.

But Theo knew more than anyone that one minute could feel like an hour. Especially if you're not used to it. Especially if you can't stop the thoughts that you might die from the pain, that quickly fold into desperate wishes for death, to escape how your very bones feel on fire and your blood feels like boiling acid in your veins. Although Theo was sure Daphne was putting her weakest effort in to her curse, Brown's screams still sounded like her insides were being ripped out of her and her skin was being slowly peeled off with a red-hot knife.

Theo averted his eyes, and found them drifting over to Parvati. He couldn't see her face, but noted how her arms were shaking as her hands were griping the edge of her desk so tightly her knuckles had gone white. Something seem to crack in Theo's chest - somewhere near his heart - and he had to quickly smother the anger that started to bubble in him.

When it finally stopped, Alecto addressed Finnegan as he lay trembling on the floor, his muscles occasionally jerking involuntarily.

"Mr Finnegan, if you could kindly re-do your essay using appropriate language by our next lesson, that would be grand as you Irish say."

Theo had to do a kind of audible double-take: had she really said that? Had she really made a facetious joke about Irish vernacular after the kid just got tortured? Psychopathic-sadist says what?

xXx

At the end of the lesson, when the students were leaving the Muggle Studies classroom, Flint pushed forcefully passed Theo and strode up to Brown, who was leaning on to Parvati's arm as the two girls made their way down the corridor.

"Hey!" Flint cried as he grabbed out at Brown's arm. The girl automatically flinched away from him as she and Parvati turned to look at their assailant. Longbottom, who was holding up a pale, shaking and dazed looking Finnegan, turned too.

Theo felt the beginnings of a protective rage flutter in him which, if it had been closer to the full moon or if he hadn't taken his suppressant, he wasn't sure if he would have been able to control. He stepped close to Flint, standing by his left shoulder as if he was his wingman, and a group of Slytherins gathered behind them: Daphne, Draco, Blaise and Goyle.

Flint thrust his wand under Brown's chin, forcing her head up. She was still weak and trembling from the Crucio. Parvati brandished her wand at Flint's chest. "Get off her," she demanded fiercely.

Theo caught her eye and shook his head imperceptibly, trying to communicate: No. Don't. Leave it.

Parvati cautiously lowered her wand, looking wary.

"Nobody disarms me Brown, you shitty little dunglicker!" Flint spat out.

"Marcus mate, we're going to be late for Transfig. The little bitch isn't worth it. She got her lesson," Theo said dispassionately, in a desperate attempt to de-escalate the situation; to get the riled Slytherin away from the mostly-broken Gryffindors.

"I didn't get to teach it to her though, did I?" Flint's anger was like a tightly coiled spring. He looked Brown up and down - a predatory look - and Theo felt a cold shiver prickle at the back of his neck. "When someone disarms me, I make sure they know never to try it again."

'"Marcus," Daphne said softly. She had stepped forward and put a hand gently on Flint's outstretched arm. Again, Theo caught a waft of that scent emanating from her: it was familiar yet not so, and definitely not Daphne's. He could tell that it was a female scent but to his frustration, couldn't place exactly who's it was.

Flint turned to look at Daphne. Her ice-queen mask had been replaced by a coy smile and doe eyes. "Weren't you going to talk me through your latest Quidditch strategies?" Theo had never heard the term 'Quidditch strategies' sound filthy before, but Daphne somehow managed it. He was impressed. "I've got some time now, on the way to Transfig?"

Flint fell - hook, line and sinker. He lowered his wand, leering at Daphne.

"Or later?" Daphne finished innocently.

"Sure. Now's good," Flint drawled. But before he turned to go, he looked intently at Brown again.

"Lavender Brown," he said the words slowly and quietly, as if etching them into his mind. "You better watch your-pretty-little-self."

Then he turned and walked away, followed by the rest of the Slytherins. Theo hovered for a moment, his eyes briefly meeting Parvati's. Her expression was mostly unreadable, except for a hint of something in her eyes - something like pity - before he abruptly turned and followed his house mates down the hall.

xXx

Authors note: "Is anybody out theeeeeeere?" *shouts hopefully in to the cyber abyss and hears the echoes reverberate around her*. Lols - sometimes, I have no idea if anybody's reading this. So, at the risk of sounding needy, I really, really, appreciate you comments - even if it's a 'reading that was a tolerable way to spend my time' - I wanna know what you're thinking! It really motivates me and I have no doubt makes me a better writer. Thanks to those who have commented/reviewed/PM'ed me - you are loved.