Author's Note: Sorry this took so long. I had it written and you know I just sort of left the story for a bit but I'm going to get back on this. Enjoy or don't, live your life whatever.
He prefers the nights when he doesn't wander alone. His head is swimming, waves crashing just below his eyes. He likes the feeling.
Blaise is twirling, dancing in his drunkenness and Draco can't stop laughing. It's been a long while since he heard Draco laugh.
He hears noises, joyful footsteps to accompany theirs. He imagines sweet soft and tangy jazz moving through the haze of cigarette smoke from which the pearl-clad women emerge.
The moon reflects off of their jewellery and the sounds of their ringing laughter. He reaches out, taking a gloved hand.
Her scarlet lips curve into a smile. He touches the fire on her mouth.
"How are you?" He likes the way her lips move beneath his thumb.
"Not so cold." She smiles again. Snow fitting in the gaps of the flames.
"Come with us." Her eyes are drifting over the room, lingering slightly on the friends watching them delicately. He pulls her closer, their hips just touching.
"Where?" Her words brush his neck.
"Wherever." He tugs her arm. They stagger off, the footsteps of their companions following them.
He can hear the slurs Blaise is whispering into Ginny's ear.
He likes how much closer he feels to the stars when he looks out from the balcony of the Astronomy tower. He likes the way the knuckles of her hand brush just slightly against his upper thigh.
He thinks about the stars in shades of grey, and her eyes the shades of the night. He puts on those brown leather shoes and paints every colour he can think as she fills her face with wonder. He strokes a blush to her cheek.
He likes the way the skin of her lip sticks, tugging for a small moment as her mouth forms a smile.
He looks back out at the night.
"You looked like you used to when you read those special textbooks." Draco speaks and stares at the ceiling. Theo can still feel her delicate fingers in his suffocated, bony ones.
"Which special textbooks?" Those leather brown shoes felt so comfortable. He thinks of Pansy's floral dress. He imagines it becoming dry and papered and old, with frayed hems that drag in the rain soaked cobblestone of black and white streets.
"The ones you used to underline sentences in. Before Pince banned you from borrowing from the library."
Draco says something else, but Theo can't hear him. He's too busy focussing on the way the ceiling becomes fuzzier.
He can see the colours between the colours.
He sits beside her this time. He likes it. She's warm.
He pushes away the soft brown curtain so that he can see the softness of her cheek.
He rubs his thumb along her skin, watching the warmth move beneath his finger.
The tears run down her flushed face and he imagines the floral dress soaked in black and murky water. She wraps her arms around his body. He sits, letting his cloak absorb her sobbing.
"He won't tell me what's bothering him Theo." She chokes and heaves and still he sits. He is silent. He thinks about how her arms are coiled around his middle. He feels suffocated. The petals are constricting him. His ribs graze the skin of his stomach.
"What if he gets hurt?" He swallows the burning in him to dive through the depths in her irises. Those big black pupils want answers from him.
He sighs.
She gives up.
He used to let people do what they wanted with him. He'd throw himself around, like his bones were made of yarn and they were tied in knots for his knees and for his elbows.
He'd let people tear through his bones looking for themselves. He'd let people rip him to pieces for their own satisfaction. He'd let them destroy him so that they did not destroy themselves.
He still doesn't feel entirely whole, or entirely clean.
Whilst they searched through him he'd look past their heavy and rushed lips and would wonder what he was searching for in the rough groping in the corners of the castle. It didn't take long before he stopped caring about the absence that he felt. He just let himself be full for twenty or thirty minutes until they left him in a gasping heap of robes on the floor.
The only difference of him now is that he is alone when he can't sleep. And he hasn't been kissed in months.
People stopped wanting him when he started imagining things different to how they are. He would think of their hands embraced in white gloves, their hair coming loose from elegant twists or slicked crowns.
They stopped wanting to destroy something that was empty.
All they give him now are quick and hurried looks in the halls.
He balances himself on the very tips of the marble on the floor. Be as quiet as possible. He is as quiet as possible.
He stretches his hands out and plays the piano keys that float in the cigarette smoke.
He feels the jade stab of Blaise's guarding irises. Blaise surrounds him, challenging everyone that dares look at Theodore.
He takes Blaise's safe hands and drags him through the haze of strongly avoiding eyes.
He hooks his elbow into the passing Gryffindor's and sways her into the swing music. She laughs.
And he doesn't want to use her for anything but that. The dance and the laugh.