A/N: This was originally for Coruscanti Clover's Choose-Your-Wand Challenge, but then I decided that it would be much better as a multiple chapter thing. I think I'll update every two weeks or so (I already have five more chapters done already), but there's no guarantee.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
Title: The Past Does Not Define Us
Rating: T
Pairing: Theodore Nott/Hermione Granger
Summary: "I'm sorry." Those two words shot like an arrow through his soul and Theodore found that there was nothing he could do to stop himself from falling.
Warning(s): Mentions of child abuse and suicidal thoughts
Chapter 1: Memories
Dusty old books bring back memories for Theodore Nott.
The feeling of the pages beneath one's fingers, crinkled and well-worn, yellowed from age with text scrawling from left to right. He remembers his mother when she had been alive, a book open on her lap as she would sit and read to him before he went to bed, candlelight giving her dark hair a golden hue. Her blue eyes would scan the pages before her, her soft voice reciting poetry and fantasy as young Theodore listened in rapt attention, his own blue eyes wide and lips slightly parted. He had been young then and believed everything would have a fairy tale ending, even if his father was not a nice man, even if his father had killed his beautiful and kind mother.
Fantastical tales, historical facts, knowledge unheard of and waiting to be discovered. He remembers playing hide and seek with a young Draco Malfoy in the Malfoy family library, giggling to himself because he knew that the Malfoy heir would never be able to find him, the room was simply too large. Draco would always whine about Theodore cheating, but he would simply reply that he was being resourceful. They as well as their fellow Slytherins learned to be resourceful, learned to hide and be unseen by the Carrows during that disastrous last year. No one was safe, not even the children of the Death Eaters.
Hard, sturdy covers, slightly dented from being accidently dropped too many times to count. He remembers accidently dropping his spoon during dinner and his father's narrowed and cold gaze turning to him. Theodore remembers his heart stopping, he remembers forgetting how to breathe. He remembers the feel of his father's hand clenching tightly around his arm and pulling him to his office – he remembers the curse making him scream for his mother, even though she had been dead for three years at that point.
Dusty old books bring back memories for Theodore Nott.
Not all of them are good.