Because it's Decided

Theo was in a spot. It had been two days since he ran from Lovegood and in the last 40 hours away from that madness, he'd been suffocating under a different one entirely.

Nott Manor had never been well occupied; since his mother died, Theo lived alone in the gigantic cavern of a house with just his father. If he truly wanted, he could go days between seeing the man since Theo had been blessed with a whole wing to himself.

It even included a personal library.

The elves could bring him food- what more could he possibly want?

He sighed disgustedly. Apparently more, Theo thought, as he stalked a discolored path through his plush carpet. An elf had just popped in to take away his breakfast tray and with no acknowledgment whatsoever, the creature disappeared a second later and Theo was alone.

Again.

Since his return from Hogwarts, Nott Sr. has left before the breakfast hour and was gone the entire day every single day. Upon returning, his father would shed his cloak of cruelty in order to put on more civil clothes for "family dinner". Otherwise, Theo was left to amuse himself however he pleased.

And the fact that he found his father's daily rituals like nepotism and torture as regular, predictable even, had him wondering which madness was worse-

The madness of loneliness?

Or Lovegood-laced madness?

Theo halted his stalking. If he were being honest, an estimation of madness in regards to the Lovegoods was harsh. The girl certainly lacked social convention…

He thought of the blonde brushing his leg in the field and the requisite electric shock on contact.

Also, she had no compunction for invading personal space. Madness may be too harsh a judgement, yes, but both Lovegoods were well within the realm of eccentric.

Theo picked up his prowling, agitation coursing through his veins.

And would the chit ever owl him about new journal entries?

"Bloody fucking hell," he growled. Even he could admit that it was just pathetic the amount of talking to oneself that he currently engaged in. So he snatched up his wand and disapparated from his house.

Nearly anywhere would be better than that insanity-courting hell hole. Theo crossed over onto the Lovegood estate and caught sight of Mr. Lovegood himself, donned only in pants, as he trimmed the floating fruit tree in the front of the house.

The boy sighed. Coming upon the man, Theo cleared his throat. Mr. Lovegood stiffened for only a second, then he turned his head until Theo filled his peripheral vision.

"Ah, Mr. Night! A pleasant morning!"

Always, paradoxically, Theo relaxed under the cheerful ignorance that was Xenophilius Lovegood. The straightforward friendly, almost inclusive inflection of Lovegood's tone melted away the tension of his home life. He could get used to that. And yet, he really, really couldn't.

"And to you, sir," Theo replied, "although I do recall saying you can call me Theo."

The blond fellow snipped a single leaf from the tree into his waiting palm. Lovegood stuffed it into the waist of his pants where, now that Theo's attention had been drawn, he could see several others sticking out. Theo pasted a bland smile on his face, trying to work out how he could successfully maneuver around Lovegood before blurting out that the man was a human plant.

Lovegood continued on in the conversation, oblivious.

"No, no. Mr. Night suits you," and the soft snip of scissors punctuated the words as the man reflected, "Theo's a far too simple, wry rendition of your person. You, Mr. Night, are somber. Vast."

Dark, Theo finished for him bleakly. He immediately wanted to shred the reflex thought to pieces, irritated that it ever occurred to him in the first place, that it ever had the gall to send such hopelessness through his veins. He wasn't Draco; he didn't have a crisis of identity.

His father was a malicious asshole and he was just Theo and that was that.

Except it wasn't because somehow Lovegood was still talking.

"In some ways you resemble a Dirgible Plum," observed the man, which left Theo wondering if he made the right decision in leaving his home that morning.

Lovegood remained intensely focused on the tree which Theo presumed to be of the Dirgible Plum variety. So lucky was he, to be getting an Herbology lesson in the early July morning as Lovegood maintained the one-side conversation, as if Theo were all ears.

"You see, Dirgible is such a silly name for this immensely powerful plant. The leaves are excellent for burn poultices but the fruit- ah, therein lies the real power."

The man finally looked over his shoulder fully and snared Theo in a piercing gaze.

"One touch of the unpretentious fruit and they explode."

Gulping, Theo scanned the tree with a newfound appreciation, as well as a healthy dose of fear; his gait was usually nonchalant and the last thing he needed was to be brushing the damn exploding fruit by accident.

"Sir," Theo ventured, "Is Luna in?"

The question broke the pressure of the moment and soon Mr. Lovegood was back to his normal, odd self… as opposed to his scary, odd self. He motioned with his free hand.

"Of course, dear boy. You'll find her in her room."

Theo bolted inside. When he reached Loony's room, he found a mattress levitated to the ceiling and a pale hand gripping a paint brush as it flicked Longbottom into life. He watched in silence for a few moments, reluctantly impressed at the way she seemed to capture more than just eye color or hair style; she caught their essence.

Theo wondered what he'd look like painted across her walls.

"I'll be down in a moment, Theodore," Lovegood suddenly announced and a raging blush flamed his cheeks, being caught in her room like some silent stalker. He only hoped that she was being truthful back at Hogwarts, when she told him that it was his face that gave him away. Because if she were a true Legilimens, he'd be fucked by the thought he just had.

Dipping his head, he emptied his mind and intensely studied the immaculate beds of his fingernails as she finished up her art.

"How did you know I was here?" He asked stiffly, still very much miffed at his own embarrassment. She was rolling off the bed in a fluid motion when her reply came.

"You were breathing loudly." Lovegood dimpled at him then reached for the journal, continuing, "It's as if you have a 6th sense about when an entry shows up. Sure you're not a Seer?"

Theo ignored the strange energy behind the goading question and gripped the journal, reading quickly the too-brief entry.

-fragment of a journal entry

The ritual worked! Draco is safe now, truly safe. It was… unfathomable to witness but of all people, Luna, I think you would understand that it was necessary. Its necessity begs the question, though, of what we really learn about magic while at school. Is there really a clear-cut line about what is good or bad, light or dark? Regardless, my attention turns to research for Harry now. Will we see you at the Weasley wedding?-

He read it once, then twice. Then he looked carefully at Lovegood. She stood, her hands primly entwined in front of her. The scent of gardenia was stronger than normal that morning, as if her hair had been recently washed.

From head to feet she looked the picture of innocence and goodness and Theo was burning from the curiosity of how this wisp of a girl could understand… anything at all. Even moreso, how she could understand what sounded like dark fucking magic.

He took a leisurely step forward while deciding to ask the most innocuous question first.

"What Weasley wedding?" Lovegood's breathing changed as their proximity did. She inhaled and her ribcage fluttered under her short-sleeve shirt.

"The oldest," she responded. "He's marrying Fleur Delacour. The Beauxbatons' Triwizard champion."

"The part veela?"

Lovegood nodded once.

"Lucky him," Theo muttered, mostly to himself, but the grey of Lovegood's eyes sharpened to steel. He stowed that little kernel of gold away for later introspection. Theo moved another step closer.

"You were right," he conceded, sincerity clumsy on his tongue, "about it being related to Draco."

Inexplicably, she glanced up at her ceiling where the half-finished Longbottom joined the Golden Trio, and then brought her eyes back to Theo. She merely nodded.

Curiosity's burn raged like fiendfyre and the heat of it made his head rush as he took yet another step forward. Yet again, he noted her breathing change, shallower now like the frenzied beats of a racing pulse.

He was near mesmerized by it, missing the resolve in her posture as she finally deigned to join the conversation.

"You're curious," and the observation slammed into him, "aren't you? You're curious about what she did. What she meant when she said it was necessary."

He turned it back on Lovegood. "Aren't you?"

A nonchalant shrug of the shoulders before she took her own step forward, slipping the book from his limp grasp. "I was, until I remembered that long before humans invented ethics and the neat dichotomy that dictates the living, magic existed without labels and so- who's to say it's good or bad? In the end, it could very well be just necessary."

Their eyes locked, challenging meeting curious, and Theo thought back to another time where she stepped up to him exactly like this.

Speaking danger.

Revealing truths.

Her whisky-laced honesty back then had been tempting, logical even but he of all people knew that humans thrived much more in irrationality. It literally drove the dynamics of his relationship with his father.

But hearing her now, Lovegood's thoughts were like siren song as they lured him closer to some impossible precipice. He jumped off the edge to the rocky death below.

Theo mused, "You never told me about your mother."

Lovegood stiffened exactly like her father had, before melting back to nonchalance. She swung away from him and moved towards her paint-splattered desk, laying the journal precisely against the top right corner.

"I did," she said, moreso to the wall than his person. Theo smiled a bit viciously at her discomfort and felt for once he had her exactly where he wanted her. Soundlessly he moved across her floor with the intention to box her in.

"Not really," he retorted. Her pale fingers gripped the edge of her desk.

"My friends don't even know," and the whispered confession was as sweet as the gardenia scent wafting from her hair.

As close as he was now, Theo whispered, "Maybe it isn't something you tell your friends."

The words seemed to snap something in Lovegood as she curled her nails into the worn wood, as if grasping at the last shreds of her congeniality, before quickly releasing the anchor entirely. She turned, uncaring in the way her body touched various sections of his.

Challenge radiated off her face again as she delicately raised her eyebrows.

"Are we sharing stories about our parents now, Theodore?"

Unconsciously, he gripped her upper arms and pushed her back against the desk.

"Don't call me that," he hissed, "it's not my name."

She softened.

"Ah." A pause and he braced for the verbal strike, "it doesn't make you your father. A shared name has no influence in that, I would think."

Speaking danger, revealing truths.

No fucking regard for personal boundaries.

Theo gripped her harder and found the bare skin warm, soft, pliant. "You don't know what you're talking about."

Her muscles flexed under his fingers, pulsing disagreement. "You forget I met the man, Theo. You're nothing alike because you decided it."

The utter veracity of that statement left his knees buckling, left his hands to fall hard on the wood of the desk until his forehead dipped into the perfectly shaped curve of her shoulder. She cradled him there, her hands braced next to his, until the truth fully sunk in.

It was something he both embraced and resisted because although her words tempted with their tone of liberation, they were still "her" words. Her evaluation. And Theo was finding himself fast annoyed by the font of knowledge Luna Lovegood had turned out to be for everyone except herself.

Recovered and refocused, he lifted himself from her shoulder and decided to just get the fuck on with it.

"When am I going to learn something about you for a change?" He half demanded.

Lovegood pointedly turned her eyes to her mural.

"When I could trust you with those things, Theo."

He sighed, taking the concession for what it was.

"Fair enough."

oOo

So Theo then showed up nearly every day after luncheon, even sooner in the day if he couldn't stand the loneliness. Sometimes he'd bring books from his personal library and they would spend hours in lounge chairs as they read their way through them.

Other times, he'd show up empty-handed only to be pulled into some half-cocked task of Xenophilius' where by the time he was done, Theo would be covered with ink from Xeno's printing press and reluctant satisfaction.

Then there were other times- his favorite if he were being honest, a trait that he attempted to repress fiercely- when he and Luna would wander the grassy stretches of the estate and just talk.

It was in these moments he decided she must be referred to as Luna, since she had continued with the use of Theo.

Such an afternoon found them strolling through the grass with the house a mere pinprick in the distance. Luna's hands were out in front of her, mummy-like, as they talked about inane little things- the things to look forward to in 6th year transfiguration, for example, and why pudding is the best dessert, a fact which the girl was emphatic about. She defended her position staunchly, on top of some imaginary soapbox as she listed off an infinite list on pudding's all-around perfection; then she suddenly stopped. Luna's voice cut off and her feet planted as her hands contracted against something apparently both invisible and solid to which Theo observed with a raised eyebrow.

"The Weasley wards," she answered. Luna dropped her hands as he raised his. "I wouldn't if I were you," she warned. "I think the wards recognize me as a neighbor but there's no knowing how they would lash out at you."

Theo dropped his hands as well, studying the invisible barrier.

"Why do they need all those wards?"

She flicked a glance, pausing too long, and Theo knew without a bloody doubt that her next words were a diversion.

"They're blood traitors," she said in a tone that meant to dismiss the conversation but Theo refused to be dissuaded.

He'd spent day after day at this bat-shit crazy house that somehow felt more normal than his own home and in that time he'd endured Xeno's talk of invisible creatures and Luna's summery scent and honestly, how the fuck was he supposed to earn trust if she wouldn't entrust him with anything in the first place?

She twirled on her tiptoes in the direction of her home, presumably for tea, and Theo trailed her so he could catch her fingers on the backswing.

They startled as he came even with her, eyes wide as they took in his easy expression. Because it was easy indeed, taking her hand.

Too easy, probably. So he moved to tuck her small fingers in the crook of his elbow like any Pureblood gentleman would do.

"See?" He tried assuring. "I'm like everyone else, right?"

"No," she said slowly as the 'o' rounded her lips, "you aren't," and the straight-forwardness of her words, despite their timidity, twisted his insides in a way he couldn't explain.

They walked along in silence after that, the house growing larger the more they trod along. He felt her fingers trace atop the cool satin of his shirt, as restless as her father, and the constant movement was soothing- something he didn't fully appreciate until she suddenly stopped.

"The Weasley wedding is in a few weeks."

He waited for elaboration which of course she did not provide so he prompted with a gentle, "Mm?"

"Family and friends are invited." At this she shot a pointed look at him. "Neighbors too."

Another pause as if she were dropping breadcrumbs and waited for him to catch up.

Family and friends, he considered. Granger? That was obvious from the journal entry… could Draco, as well?

Anticipation swelled painfully in his chest before he dwelled on her last statement.

Neighbors too, she said. As in herself?

Theo felt stupid as her implication remained out of reach. He really wished she could be as direct and cutting as when she was personally slicing him to ribbons.

"Okay," he tried, and the word canted up to the sky as it tried to reach the point of the conversation.

Finally he asked, "Are you going?"

Luna smiled, self-satisfied. "Yes. Would you?"

The question stole Theo's last functioning brain cell. Inarticulation tumbled from his mouth. "Wait- what?"

"We'd have to disguise you, of course. I don't think the Weasleys would appreciate your presence. They're not very trusting at the moment." He pulled Luna to a stop a dozen meters from the house and stared at her with open mouth and blank eyes.

"You can then see everyone," she enunciated.

A multitude of emotions collided inside of him- shock and awe and a belated comprehension with a real gentle sort of gratitude, so subtle that he wasn't even sure if he was deciphering it right- and Theo kept on staring at this girl who was both labyrinth and lodestar.

And utterly fucking ludicrous all the same.

He needed time to digest this and so he muttered a non committal 'thank you', reversing his direction even as she shouted an offer to tea.

No tea. No talk. No bloody thank you.

oOo

The next time Theo showed up at the Lovegood estate, two days later to be precise, he was greeted by an entirely new scenario- rejection.

Rain fell hard from an afternoon sky darkened by thunderclouds. He knocked on the door only to be greeted by a disappointed Xeno.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Night," he said with a sad shake of his head, "but Luna's not up for visitors today."

Xeno shut the door without further explanation and Theo fell slump on the top step of the house, getting drenched by a storm he entirely forgot to shield himself from.

oOo

The storm blew through. Theo waited it out in the isolation of his bedroom, crying sick to the house elves so his father would leave him be with his conflicting thoughts. The past fortnight spent with the Lovegoods seemed successful, in his estimation. He got along surprisingly well with the blond pair which was either an alarming analysis of his own sanity, or testament of his aptitude handling high-maintenance blondes.

Either way, Theo felt he made headway with them, especially Luna. He also felt largely content- an emotion that typically only surfaced when he was far and away from his father's grasp.

He thought Luna felt the same. He thought they found a rhythm to their coexistence, a give-and-take that benefitted both parties.

Better yet, he thought a tentative trust had been offered and Theo left that day feeling like he was holding the fragilest of glass that needed cushioning and security and respect. All of which he was eager to provide.

But then Xeno turned him away. She denied and rejected him- Theodore Nott, Mr. Charismatic. So bewildered by the feeling, he didn't leave the Lovegoods until he was soaked and shivering.

The storm blew through, though, along with all those conflicting emotions and Theo was now more than ready to return to the Lovegoods and get his overdue explanation. Without further agonizing, he apparated to their grassy hillside. Every window burst with warm light, aglow like some beacon for lost travelers.

Theo pressed towards it.

Anxiously, he rapped his knuckles on the door, holding his breath as Xeno greeted him from the other side.

"She's in her room, Mr. Night," and Xeno waved in the direction of the stairs, already immersed again in his book. Theo had to wonder how the man managed to keep Luna alive and safe all these years if he was willing to wave any stranger- and a male at that- right into the haven of their home.

It was wartime, for Slytherin's sake. Even a blowhard like himself could attest to Moody's "constant vigilance" during a time like this.

Theo knocked again, this time on Luna's door. Almost hesitantly, she pulled it open.

"Hello," she said, her tiny frame blocking the entrance of her room.

He nodded at her stiffly. Unsure. The familiarity built between them during the past few weeks all but vanished and he had not a clue why.

But he was sure as fuck going to find out.

Theo took a half step closer to her and caught the wary shift in her daybreak gray gaze. It darted around a face he tried to keep open and endearing; eventually, Luna capitulated and allowed him entry.

Instantly his eyes went up to the ceiling to find Neville's portrait complete. That didn't bother him at all.

"How are you?" He asked, whirling back to her.

"I need to talk to you." Her voice carried right over his ingrained etiquette, shoving the nicety aside to make room for a dark kind of urgency.

"It's about your father."

Well. Screw etiquette.

"What the fuck could you have to say about my father." Theo said lowly and it wasn't even pitched as a question.

It was statement. Fact. Luna Lovegood was the complete antithesis of his father, so far and away that the very thought of him should taint her.

She remained unmoved by Theo's sudden vitriol and the menacing way he pressed her toward the wall. Her body hit the wall. She kept on talking, intractable to his darkening mood.

"You-Know-Who can sense that he lost his connection to Draco. He wants answers, he demands them. Your father will bring you to him, Theo, I think as an offering or appeasement. Maybe the hope of knowledge."

Her voice cracked on that word as she vied for an air of stability- a poor attempt at such as he had already noted the tremors in her hands, the concern in a too-transparent face and the anger coursed through him like fiendfyre.

"Fucking hell, Lovegood," he raged as the chant of I don't believe you beat in his head, bursting for escape. "How do you know this?"

Her face all at once turned detached as she inhaled another fortifying breath. Her back was ramrod straight against the wall as Theo crowded her but she didn't look intimidated. Only serious.

"I Saw it."

Theo's hands came down hard on her shoulders. Her teeth chattered on impact.

"Salazar, where? Did you fucking spy on them? Are you working with Granger's lot?"

He shook her with every question spewing from his mouth and her back kept softly smacking the wall behind her… thud, thud, thud… but he was too fucking angry to gentle his grip.

Theo knew his fingers would leave bruises on her pristine skin as he squeezed even harder through her lengthening silence, trying to force the answers from her pursed lips.

Then she gave him exactly what he did and did not want.

"No, Theo," she urged, the conviction fanning across his face. "I Saw it, as a Seer would. Because that's what I am."

A/N: The last of my graduates finished up today which in alternative education, is a big deal. So what better way for me to celebrate than to post this chapter! I hope you have enjoyed it so far. I appreciate every follow, favorite, and review- know that once school wraps up in a week that I plan on pouring lots and lots of time into this story which can only hopefully turn into lots and lots of updates!