Disclaimer: JKR is Queen and owns all.
Summary: Another day in the life, from Theo's perspective (mostly, I tried to shut Hermione up, but you know how that girl is ...)
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He watches her sleep, peacefully.
The rhythm of her breathing is soothing, hypnotic, and he looses track of time watching her chest fill, swell, rise up gently and fall again. It is late, or perhaps it is early. He absently finds his breaths coming in close with hers and attempts to match her, but his heart beats too fast.
His need is always greater than hers.
Her eyelids flutter as her dream moves her. He wonders what visions she sees in this place he cannot follow. Does she see him? Is he in the background, soft, out of focus, but ever present, as she is, constantly, in his mind?
She sighs, ruffling the curls that have fallen in her face. It must be a pleasant dream. He gently pushes back spiraled locks to kiss her forehead, and her placid face crumples slightly.
"Don't," she complains.
"Don't what?" he returns quietly, removing his hand and backing away slightly.
"Don't go yet." She opens her sleepy eyes to be sure her order is followed.
He relaxes slightly. He doesn't want to go.
He never wants to go.
"Will you miss me?" he asks in a teasing tone, though he can't help but hang for her answer.
"You know I will. Bastard," she adds in an ironic mutter.
He didn't know, but she takes it for granted. She takes so much for granted, but he never holds it against her, even when she's wrong.
Especially when she's wrong.
"Tell me about your dream," he requests softly. "Was it a nice one?"
She sighs lazily and arches her back, arms slung over her head. "I dreamt of Hogwarts."
"Was I there?" he asks, then curses himself silently. Even he couldn't avoid the needy plea in his voice.
She sighs impatiently, "You were."
Propping herself up on her elbow, she turns to study him. He's naked beside her, painfully exposed beneath the shrewdness of her gaze. Her eyes flick over him, taking him in anew though she's seen him in all his hopeless inadequacies before. Wiry arms, flat chest, boney hips. His left arm rests against her, black charred flesh against angel white. He pulls his arm away, as though the evil may seep through and mar her soul as it has his.
"Not yet," she says with some impatience, assuming he is making his inevitable exit.
She captures his arm and tucks herself under it, effectively pinning him back to the bed. Her fingers graze his chest as she pulls the sheet up around them both. And she holds him tight. So tight. If he had a bit less substance to him, he might have broken under the pressure by now.
He submits easily, relaxing into her. Seemingly pleased with their physical arrangement, she relaxes as well.
"I miss the castle," she continues distantly after a while. "I miss the busy halls, the dorms, the portraits, and even the ghosts." She pauses, lost in a sea of memories, and he is lost with her. Faces pass by him in the halls, some friends, some enemies, some he never knew at all. Or ever will now.
"Well, most of them," she finishes with a sigh.
"I miss it, too," he admits freely. "The grounds, the library, the unbreachable feeling of the Slytherin common room."
"Unbreachable isn't a word," she corrects. The swot.
"No," he agrees. "It's a feeling." A feeling he never knew until Hogwarts, and has not known since. And will never know again, perhaps.
"You felt safe down there," she replies a bit petulantly. "The one place in the castle I would have been most uncomfortable and unwelcome ..."
"As I would have been in Gryffindor tower," he points out rightly. He was almost too shy for Slytherin house. He'd never have survived as a Gryffindor.
She plants a kiss on his chest and whispers, "I would have been your friend."
His heart skips at the thought.
Such bliss.
To have been allowed to speak with her, to sit with her, to conspire and confide. She would have been his then, too, but as his equal in every way. It hurt too much to think of, and he closed his eyes against it. Against her and her silly dreams.
She would have none of it. "Don't do that," she huffs. "I'm the surly one, remember?"
"And I'm your whipping boy," he returns, ironically droll.
"Don't act like you don't like it." She smiles wickedly and fingers his nipple.
How could he not like it? Any attention is good attention, and she hasn't cried in weeks, nor skipped her meals. She appears stronger than ever. Any and all suffering he had paid for this golden goddess draped across him was worth it in spades. No, he had not been miss-sorted. Cursed as he was.
"Or that I don't deserve it," he answers in turn.
She frowns slightly. He said the wrong thing. He was always saying the wrong fucking thing.
"We don't always get what we deserve, Rabbit," she intones with a hint of bitterness.
"No," he agrees, "sometimes what we get is so much more."
Her eyes flit back up, alight, and the corner of her mouth begins to turn.
A smile.
Redemption.
He lets out a slow breath and sucks it back in as she crawls over him and lets her mouth take over for her fingers. Her mouth is soft and hot and inviting, but her teeth are sharp as they grab hold of his tender flesh. She looks up at him with devious eyes and holds his breathless gaze for a long moment before releasing her hold and moving her lips along his chest.
She kisses her way up his neck, inhaling deeply through her nose. The rush of air over that sensitive spot sends pleasure chills up him and he reflexively arches against her. She pushes back with a sly smile in her eyes. He gently strokes her thighs and hips, encouraging her to continue. To press harder.
And she does.
Her playful eyes turn serious, and she drags her nails up his chest, increasing her pressure as she moves up until he stiffens, bracing himself for whatever she decides to give him.
Just before she breaks the skin she relents, sighs, her tensed muscles softening.
She threads her fingers through his hair, cradling his head, and peppers his face with kisses. His relief quickly moves into elation, and as her lips continue moving down is jaw to his lips, he slides his hands gently up her sides, just barely grazing her skin. Her muscles contract involuntarily and she attempts to stifle a gasp.
Poorly.
"Ticklish," he muses mischievously.
"No," she answers, her incredulous tone bordering on offense.
His fingers skate lightly up her sides again, causing her muscles to contract again.
"Liar," he teases, moving his fingers and wrenching an unwilling peal of laughter from her.
Her eyes widen at the surprising lack of control she has over her own body.
He squeezes her sides and she rolls off of him in a fit of giggles. He takes the opportunity presented and rolls with her, pinning her beneath him, and continues to torment and delight her.
He has heard her laugh many times, but never like this. Never for him. Every memory he has of her girlish giggle is eradicated with rapturous gales echoing off the walls, in his mind, in his heart, here, in their bed. She gasps for him to stop. He tilts his hips forward to press against her and she gasps again.
"Stop what?" he asks mischievously, still holding her tightly, possessively.
Her cheeks are flushed so prettily with exertion and glee, her grin is wide and true. She shines bright enough to burn off every failure, inadequacy, and dark spot from his soul and nearly takes his breath away.
"Stop teasing me and make me cum again," she answers with a blissful sigh, angling her hips so that all he has to do is push forward to answer her request.
He leans in to kiss her smiling lips and feels the dreaded burn of his summoning. He pulls away and she knows.
She knows.
And in that moment her flush turns from pleasure to alarmed awareness.
How quickly they had forgotten. How easily, how marvelously.
He slides out of bed without looking at her, but from the corner of his eyes he sees her pull the sheets up to her neck. He hurriedly dons his black robes and with each button done, he can feel her eyes harden upon him. Upon herself. By the time he slips the mask out of his cloak pocket, her smiles and laugher seem like a distant memory, a fleeting apparition, here and gone so quick he cannot be sure that they were real at all.
He glances up at her to find her gaze hard, yet unexpectedly desperate. She's searching his eyes, his countenance. He feels the slump to his shoulders though he stands straight and tall. Does she see it? Does she know her own weight? His mark burns hot and impatient but he cannot look away. Her grip on the sheet relaxes and he thinks maybe she understands.
Where he's going, she cannot follow, but she'll be there all the same.
Constantly, heavily, recklessly; her words in his head, her weight on his shoulders, her eyes burning hotter than his mark ever could.
His eyes darken as he slips on the mask, leaving behind that other self. But not far. Never far. He is bound by she, and no matter the distance, the deed, the danger, she'll be there. Soft, out of focus, but ever present.
In thought.
In action.
In dreams.
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A/N: : : : : : wibbles : : : : : : did anyone like it? Should I keep going?
Also, I am posting this without it being beta read at all. Apologies for any and all mistakes.