Heartless

by ReWritten-string-of-stories

{fourth of the Magically Arranged Marriage series} Battle-worn, Hannah Abbott and Theodore Nott find themselves without much to live for at the close of the War. But dark secrets tie the two weary hearts together and the truth will always out.

6. Chapter 6

Give a little time to me or burn this out…
…all I want is the taste that your lips allow-

|… H …|

"Kid," I said looking down at my stomach which didn't look any different to me in the bath, "mum can't make any money if she's busy sleeping all day."

The fatigue had been the earliest symptom and, so far, the most persistent. I mean, thank God I didn't get morning sickness more than two or three times a week but some days it felt like a battle to get out of bed. Today had been particularly hard (Tuesdays were the worst) – I was tired and in a strange capricious mood. I felt unbalanced and unhappy one moment and thoughtful the next.

"At least you're growing well," I grumbled as I left the bath, "although don't you need to get big first?"

The ninth and tenth weeks were supposedly for weight and movement, according to my doctor. I couldn't really see any change in my stomach but sometimes I felt this weird fluttering movement that could maybe be the baby kicking. Unfortunately, I had other things to fret about. Like the fact that Marla Nott had seen me at the new maternity ward and bustled over without any ado. My heart had been in my throat – she probably knew everything that had happened (she was his sister-in-law after all) and there was no way in hell that she could find out about my pregnancy before I was ready to tell him.

"Hannah, how are you?" she'd asked as she pressed a kiss to my cheek. "You look amazing – is your hair shorter? Is everything alright? Are you visiting someone?"

I flushed without meaning to and scrambled to make something up.

"I did, I trimmed it a few weeks ago! And the ward's the talk at the Ministry and I'm on my lunch break so…just thought I'd stop by and see what the fuss is about." I gestured towards her stomach. "Are there already Healers on call? Were you going to a clinic before? When's the due date?"

"Well, you look lovely, it really bring out your eyes," she said with a large grin, "and I'm due next week - so happy about it. We have a midwife on hand for just-in-case situation – as in just in case I'm actually at home and can't get to the small clinic in our town. But I was curious too…for future pregnancies and what have you. Your mother was Muggle, right? How do they do it?"

"Doctors," I said, "visits every month to monitor the baby's growth and maternal health."

"Frankly, that's far more advanced than us. I want to see her. If I could, I would."

"Why can't you?"

"I wouldn't even know where to begin," she said with a laugh, "and I'm not sure I wouldn't give our world away. That's why I'm so happy the ward is opening up! Anyway, I'll let you go, my dear. It was lovely to see you again."

She had given me a hug and another fond kiss on the cheek before striding away. I'd turned tail and fairly jogged as fast as I could to the lift.

"Since for all intents and purposes, she is your Aunty and wouldn't hesitate to mention this to the rest of them, it's best we keep our distance isn't it?" I sighed.

And let's not even talk about the bond. I don't know why but ever since Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy's wedding Theodore had become a low-grade…thing…in the back of my head. It wasn't a buzzing and it wasn't a ringing – it was a cross between the two. It was like when you hear a conversation – close enough that you can make out distinct voices but far enough away that you can't pick out words. It dialed down to nothing when I really focused on something but I woke up to this bloody knowledge that he was around, somewhere, only to fight off sleep and figure out that he's not.

"I could also do without the new vague awareness of your father-" I paused, feeling the sudden urge to pee. "Again? You need to pee again?"

"Hannah," I heard Cho yell close by, "are you talking to the baby in there?"

"Mind your own business, Aunty Cho!"

She snorted from right outside the door.

"Well Aunty Cho would love it if you hurried on downstairs for dinner! We want to eat, woman!"

I heard her pad away while I stood and dried off.

"You see how they talk to me?" I asked my stomach. "This is what you have to look forward to."

When I got downstairs, they'd already started. At least they'd set aside a plate in advance.

"Abbott."

"Parkinson," I mimicked.

"When are you going to tell him?"

I froze.

Nothing like best mates to blindside you with everything you don't want to hear.

What was the protocol in these situations? I had no idea. I wish I had a guide or someone else who was struggling in a similar situation. And running into Marla Nott had only made me more stressed about what felt like an increasingly heavier secret. He was the father and I wouldn't deny him the milestones I was getting to enjoy. But what does one say - 'Theodore, I know we're not exactly on speaking terms but surprise, you're a father!'?

And how did that affect our relationship? Did it affect our relationship? Did we even have one? Did I want him back (yes…I did, so much, always)? But how could I make the first move? Why wouldn't he make the first move? Why did he seem to find it so easy to let me be? He'd looked unruffled at the wedding, as serene as Lovegood whom he'd accompanied down the aisle. He'd met my eyes without seeming to search first, held my gaze, then looked away. And he never ever looked back at me.

He'd never tried to speak to me.

He'd come to the table where I was sitting with Cho, the Parkinsons, and Mrs. Zabini and not once did he look in my direction.

Not once.

But did I want him?

With every fiber of my being.

It wasn't even galling to think anymore. If I had to admit anything to myself, it would be that I was probably well on my way to falling in love with him…my emotions were a riptide – each swell sucking me deeper and deeper. It was only a matter of time before I hit the ocean floor. And, now, I could feel a very vague buzz in my head that didn't feel like me. Was this the bond? Perhaps. Did I even care? No.

"Hannah?"

What was the point of fighting something that seemed to make so much sense to the part of me that ran on emotion? Why would I even try to fight myself at this juncture? His bloody presence in my head seemed to get louder briefly before it died down.

"I don't know what to tell him." I sighed, deep and gusty. "I know that I should tell him but we're not even on speaking terms right now. And…I want him back."

Pansy's eyebrows lifted.

"Do you think it can work?"

"Do you think it won't?" I asked worriedly.

"I think," Pansy said slowly, "it will if both of you reconcile. I think he misses you dreadfully – Blaise says he's been worrisomely quiet this past month. The one time I saw him he was drunk and trying to get to you and keep you from knowing that. And, apparently, the first time either Blaise or Drake saw Theo genuinely laugh was the stag night before the wedding because he was intoxicated."

It felt like a weight off my back.

Like, I was validated in all this pain I'd been carrying around. I didn't want him to not be alright but I wanted this to be as hard for him as it was for me.

"Alright, wait just a minute," interrupted Cho, "I saw him at the wedding and he looked like he was having the time of his life."

Pansy rolled her eyes.

"Humans in general are good at hiding things…Slytherins are better."

"But why should we give him the benefit of the doubt?" Cho returned heatedly.

"You'd have them live apart for what," Pansy scoffed, "the foreseeable future? No, this mandate has tied us all together and there's no breaking that apart or we'd have heard about it by now. And yes, maybe, Abbott has had an unusually healthy past few weeks but what's to keep her from falling sick like the papers say, eventually? How do we know that the clause won't kick in later and put the baby's life at risk?"

"I don't think one bond works like the other," Cho shot back, "because they don't even seem to have the mental part of it down! I hypothesize that they've spent enough time in close – very close – proximity which negates the whole fatigue clause. They were on good terms before this, they lived in the same house, and they were intimate which should all point to a successful bonding."

All I could do was watch them go for each other's throats as the row unfolded.

"And you're willing to risk the kid's life over a hypothesis?" Pansy said, arching a brow. "Abbott's life?"

"Oh, come on, you know that's not what I meant," Cho snarled back, "I'm saying they shouldn't be together on a technicality. You know what's awful? Knowing your parents are together simply because you exist – that for some reason, they've decided to carry on a charade that should have ended years and years ago just because they thought you needed both parents around."

There was a miniscule moment where we all recognized how much of herself Cho had revealed with that argument before it was swallowed up again in anger.

"But they can work!" Pansy threw her hands in the air. "They did before this and they can again!"

"He seems perfectly happy - too happy, if you ask me - to keep his distance."

I blinked really slowly (somewhere along the line I'd gotten shoved out of this argument altogether). Cho folded her arms across her chest.

"Maybe to you, yes," Pansy argued, "but I think I know him a bit better than either of you. Nott is…well, he was as awful as any of us Slytherins at Hogwarts. And we're products of our environment, yes, but his family declared for the Dark. He comes from one of the most Pureblood families to have ever been born, he is the epitome of Pureblood and Pureblood upbringing. Maybe his father wasn't Voldemort's right-hand man like Malfoy's but generations of Notts were raised on the premise that blood purity was everything, before Lord Voldemort was even a twinkle in his grandfather's eyes. Theodore was raised to be a Death Eater and he changed. I don't think you even understand what that's like, to go against centuries of tradition!"

"Because we weren't handfed on notions of superiority and cruelty?" Cho said with a terrible sneer in her voice.

"Yes!" Pansy gave Cho the most scathing glare I'd ever seen outside a catfight and unleashed her anger in a single long onslaught. "That's exactly it."

"I don't want to fight with either of you about this." She flipped her short dark hair over her shoulder and narrowed her eyes even further. "Is this what this comes down to? It's always going to be an 'us vs. them' with the people who aligned themselves with Lord Voldemort and the people who aligned themselves with Harry Potter. But what I'm trying to say is that none of you understand what it is like to be bred for one thing, and then to have the courage to go against it. I think Theodore is brave…perhaps even braver than Blaise or Draco. Because he is making penance, you can see it – we can all see it. Instead of being lighthearted like them or ignoring the past like Crabbe and Goyle, Theodore apparently can't stop his bleeding heart from regretting everything he's ever done. And I know him. Maybe he always had the potential to be as decent as his older brother but he never got a chance to exercise it!"

You could hear the drop of the pin.

Cho and I just stared at Pansy as she seemed to become herself again.

"He's…he's sorry." Pansy sighed and shrugged again. "He's sorry about what he did and who he was, and he believes his actions have practically ensured that he doesn't deserve anything good. He's the kind of person who will believe that anything awful that happens to him in the future is a direct consequence of his past. Whereas I think actions are good or bad and the person is neither, he believes that actions make a person good or bad and he's done too much bad to turn it around and be good. So-"

"-so he won't fight for me," I finished thoughtfully. "He won't fight because he thinks he's an awful person and I'm a good person who deserves better, or he thinks that staying away should be his punishment."

"Exactly."

Well.

That certainly made sense.

Theodore was exactly the sort of person to believe that…and he'd said as much when he confessed. How odd, to think about all the possible people we could be. I had managed to coast under the radar at Hogwarts, and I don't actually remember Theodore ever being involved in any sort of group bullying, but he couldn't have been all that nice. Whereas I'd been just the sort of sap to cry when an animal got hurt, or if Ernie was mad at me, or if Mum forgot to send me sweets.

Now, here he was – softer on the inside than I had ever been while I was as cold as ice.

How incredible to think of just how different we were two years ago.

I sat in silence for a long time, just eating.

"Why didn't you say anything before?" I asked curiously, "if you know so much about how he works?"

"You didn't ask," Pansy said with a slight smile, "and, moreover, I wasn't sure you wanted to hear it."

Cho put down her fork and plopped her chin in her hand.

"Back to the original question – what will you do? Are you telling him? Are you going to try and get back together before you tell him?"

"It's his child too," I sighed heavily, "what do you two think?"

"Well," Cho said slowly, "I think if you want this to work, perhaps you need to suss him out, just in case. No one hates disappointment."

"I actually think you should just balls-out do it," Pansy interrupted with a sly smile. "You've never been this cautious, at least that's the impression I get, so just continue the way you always have: doing what you want without worrying about the other person."

"You make me sound like an awful person," I laughed a little bit.

"There's a little bit of Slytherin in everybody!"

"So then is there a little bit of Hufflepuff in everyone too?" She rolled her eyes and Cho laughed. "But, honestly, I'll do a bit of both. If you could just…discreetly…ask Zabini about Theodore while I…"

…try to figure out what I want.

"I can do that, no problem."'

"Thank you. Are you both still coming to my doctor's appointment tomorrow? It's the ultrasound to confirm due date."

They looked at me blankly.

"Sonogram? Not ringing any bells?"

"Oh, the baby! You know what's annoying? Calling him/her the kid or the baby." Pansy grimaced before a slow smile spread over her face. "I'm going to call 'em Peanut. Because it's a tiny human who is probably the size of a peanut."

I actually had no idea how small baby – Peanut – was right now.

"Is little Peanut happy with that nickname?" she cooed from across the table. "Isn't Aunty Pansy the best aunty in the whole wide world?"

"Who are you and what have you done with the temperamental bitch I used to go to school with?" asked Cho fondly. "You're being creepy."

Pansy kept making cutesy sounds all throughout dinner, even kept it up when she brought her dishes to the sink. I just sighed and kept eating since that was one problem solved.

… | …

Dr. Kirosaki was a saint.

I watched her prep the gel and field every manner of question from my mates as I lay back on the table.

"Would you say Peanut is the size of a peanut?" asked Pansy blithely. "Or bigger? Is she a normal size for that stage of development?"

"The baby is about this big which is very normal," Dr. Kirosaki said, holding her thumb and index finger a bit apart. "Only a little bigger, the baby is closer to the size of a grape at this point. And, looking at the prenatal visits so far, we're hoping to confirm health and due date today."

"And this gel that you put on Han…it does what?"

"Well," she said patiently, "it lets the transducer slide over her stomach more easily so we can see a clear pictures of what the child is doing."

"What are children usually doing? Besides laying there?"

The good doctor looked amused as she snapped clean latex gloves on and picked up the transducer.

"Usually…that's exactly what they are doing. I can't imagine there's enough space in there to throw any parties though mothers will often say that when the kicking starts, it certainly feels like it."

Cho reached out and held my hand, which was interesting since she eschewed personal contact almost as much as Pansy did. I squeezed her hand reassuringly but she only had eyes for the transducer as it slid around.

"How likely is she to deliver early?"

"First children often come in late." The screen was black and grey, splotchy, and I couldn't really make out anything other than the difference in colors. It looked like an upside down triangle. "Look at the middle bottom of the screen."

…um, I gathered I was supposed to see something there but couldn't make any sense of it. Dr. Kirosaki used her free hand to press a gloved finger to draw a triangle around the screen.

"Inside that space? That's your child."

Oh my God.

"Is that her head?" I gasped.

Now I could see it.

"That's her head, isn't it? I can see her now – oh my God, she has a head! And a body!" I couldn't tear my eyes away from the screen but I could grip Cho's hand tighter.

"She just looks like a blob to me," Pansy mused.

"Don't steal my joy," I scolded.

Oh my God, that was a child. That blob was a child that was growing inside of me. How amazing was that? That tiny little thing was a small human being that I would hopefully get to meet in seven months. How was that possible? How was she possible? That was a baby.

I didn't realize I was leaking tears until Dr. Kirosaki handed me a tissue.

"Thank you," I said through sniffles. "I can't believe I'm a mum."

"Neither can I," whispered Cho.

"Or me," piped in Pansy. "Obviously, Peanut is an apt name. Or I could just call her 'The Blob'-"

I started to laugh.

"Cho will automatically become her favorite aunt if you do!"

Later, I went to my old home to tend the graves.

"Hello Mum, Alfie." The stalks of grass in my hand were unseasonably dry. It made for excellent weaving though. "I told everyone how I felt about having him back yesterday."

How would they feel, if some part of them still existed somewhere in the ether? Would my Mum be proud? Disappointed? Resigned? Would Alfie be angry? Would he hate me? Would he have approved of the way I'd behaved earlier this summer or would he have been stern? Would that I could have them back and know the answer myself.

I didn't want to be angry anymore. I didn't want to be sad or scared or melancholy. I didn't want to look back and think to myself that I had wasted a whole year on nothing and no one, and only hurt myself. But I didn't want to disappoint my family's legacy and I didn't know if I would ever make peace between how I loved them and how I loved him.

Maybe this is how he'd felt when he'd found out.

Maybe that had been why he wouldn't see me.

I looked around at this neatly tended place and beyond it to the path that led back to the homestead. I would never let go of this place, even though its emptiness had haunted me for almost a year. It had been the only home I'd known growing up, the only place we'd all resided in. I couldn't let it go, even if I wanted to. It was as part of me as Mum & Alfie were. I couldn't love it less.

Perhaps there were no easy answers. When we're little, the world is more black and white than grey. Things are or they aren't. Things do or they don't. Things are here or they aren't. There's no real in-between. Is growing up figuring out that we really live in shades of grey? Is growing up realizing that what might be true for you isn't true for someone else but the 'truth' is somewhere in the middle? I might never really bridge my past and my future – I mean, I really really hoped I could – and maybe growing up just meant that I had to come to terms with that.

| … T … |

Marla was due any day now and Max was something of a nervous wreck. I could understand (and admit that I was trying not to be worried too – there was a history of miscarriage in the family and his in-laws were a bit on edge) and was over there every free second I got. The Shemesh women (mother, grandmother, and older sister) were in England and staying at Max's manor to await the arrival of the child. Marla's father, Mr. Shemesh, would be Apparating in this evening to join them. I think it was making Max even worse than he would have been on his own.

The Shemesh women did love him though. They thought Max hung the moon and stars, and quite a few of the planets in between. They didn't speak much English but Max was fairly fluent in Hebrew and often translated. That love spread outwards to include me, and every day that I came over, I was fed like a favorite child. It provided ample distraction from the newness of Hannah in my head.

"Where yours?" Grandmother Shemesh asked in slow English the first evening at dinner. "Yours?"

I arched my eyebrows, looking between Marla and her grandmother.

"My what?"

"Wife," she gestured heavenwards, "your girl. Marriage law?"

Alright, maybe not enough of a distraction from the newness of Hannah in my head.

When I looked back at Marla, she shrugged like she couldn't care less to defend me. I made the universal motion for 'somewhere else' and kept eating, hoping they would drop the subject. When she fired something off in Hebrew and Marla responded in kind, they both looked at me for a minute. I could easily guess what had been said. No, I could definitely guess what had been said and decided to drown myself in soup for the next few minutes to avoid any conversation.

After that first Sunday evening dinner, Marla pulled me aside.

"Max only told me a little bit about what happened. I didn't know either."

"I know," I murmured.

"So…what now?"

I sighed.

"We live…apart." Marla looked confused. "She has the house and her best mates, and I have the Manor."

"No, I know that but…that's your wish? Have you even tried to talk to her? This is truly what you wish for?"

"It doesn't matter what I wish for, it matters what she wishes for," I said impatiently, "and she deserves whatever she wants, even if that's not me."

"Especially."

"What?"

"You mean, especially if that's not me." Marla tilted her head to the side with a thoughtful look on her face. "To some extent, I understand what happened to you and Max with your father; he's told me as much as he could about his own experiences and a little bit about your own. I know you think that you are making up for how horrible you used to be with this life of…penance…or abstinence…or whatever you would like to call it. I know that and I don't agree with it."

I shrugged.

"Answer the question – did you even try to talk to her, Theo?"

"I refuse to put her through any more by forcing my company-"

"Shut up." She put both hands on my shoulders, a surprisingly firm grip for someone almost as tall and usually half as big as me. "Max feels guilty so he won't push you but I will. Stop it, stop using your past as a way to cripple your future. Stop thinking that you deserve the barest crumbs of love – if you think that, people will give you that. You're doing such a bang-up job of punishing yourself that I rather think you made it easy on Hannah to do the same in the beginning of the summer.

"You are a good man now, Theodore. And if you think, for one second, for one minute, that you can make her happier than anyone else can then you owe it to her to be the man she deserves. You owe it to Hannah to go after her, to plead your case, to explain to her that you are different…an-and better and the only man in the world who will love her so…passionately!"

I was so shocked by the outburst that I let her shake me twice.

"You love her, and for people like you, loving is the same as being in love. So this law just means that you have to make it work. There is no living apart from her in this reality, not if you're going to live a happy life. I know you think you're doing what's best but don't you also think this is the easy way out?"

My head snapped back on my spine.

"The…easy way…out?" I sputtered incredulously. "Does this look easy to you? Do I look happy to you? Do I look content, pleased, sure of myself to you?"

"Well, yes-"

I stepped back, forcing her hands to fall to her side.

"This is the opposite of easy," I said slowly. "It's not easy for me to have had things end this way. It's not easy for me to be bound to someone who I've managed to betray without even knowing it. It's not easy for me to wake up every day and come home to a mansion that I no longer think of as home. It's not easy to be in love with her and be so…far…from her. It's not easy to have this incessant buzz in my head, where I can feel little blips of her emotions, like she's a steady radio frequency in my head. No, Marla, it's not easy."

"But it's your concept of easy."

I barely managed a glare before I sighed.

"How so?"

"You're used to being unhappy," she said simply.

I instinctively felt defensive.

"I'm not-"

"Yes, you are," Marla said sternly and touched my face briefly, "so much so that it's become the way you usually operate. You were happy with her, but now because of what you learned and who she is, you're settling back into that old unhappiness. If I were her and I'd learned that you'd watched my brother die, I would leave too."

She was proving my point, that Hannah was better off without me.

"I would leave because it was a shock, not necessarily because I was done with you, but because I would be in shock."

"Wouldn't you hate me?" I asked bitterly.

"Perhaps, but you're missing the point."

Marla's eyes were clear, her gaze direct.

"Theo, I would expect you to fight for me."

|… H …|

I woke up this morning and knew two things. One – the bond…it was getting stronger. All of a sudden, I could feel him like a surge in my head. The indefinable noise was now a song. Maybe it was deciding to get him back, maybe it had to do with Peanut – I didn't now, I was no psychic – all I knew was that Theodore Nott's feelings were present and accounted for. It was really strange. Comforting and strange and wonderful and weird. How did anyone get used to not having any space in their own head?

Two – I needed to tell my work place about my pregnancy. At eleven weeks, I was starting to show. Nothing dramatic, just a slight curve. But I'd read the books – I'd probably be in maternity clothes in the next three weeks (just in time for Luna's wedding, heavens). I had to just get it out of the way now.

To tell the truth, I was a bit scared.

The thing about telling my workplace was that I was certain the word would get out quickly. Wizarding London was large but not that large and the Ministry was more insular than others thought. I was certain that if I were to tell all of my coworkers, Theodore would hear about it within days (if not weeks). Not because he would necessarily be told but because there were enough really social creatures close to him that they would hear and in turn tell him. I was equally certain that if I were to tell just my superiors there would be no spillover.

So I only told my superiors.

"Thank you for meeting with me," I said with a small smile, "and thank you…for talking to me…the other day. I just…well, I'm not really certain how to say this so I'll just say it. I'm pregnant." The scraggly caterpillars that passed for Auror McDowell's eyebrows shot upwards. I hid another smile. "Eleven weeks along, actually, although one can't really tell just by looking."

"No, they can't," he said dourly. "Congratulations."

I bit back a laugh (because even his congratulations sounded dour!) and touched my stomach.

"Thank you."

He scratched his head and looked oddly uncomfortable.

"Will you be sharing it with the rest of the office?" I shook my head. "Just…tell us if something comes up."

When I nodded, an odd look crossed his face.

"Sir?" He opened his mouth then visibly hesitated. "Sir?"

"Nothing. Get back to work."

I smiled, a little one.

"Aye, aye, sir."

I came home to an unusually empty house – no sight of Pansy or Cho anywhere, and no note besides. They were usually home on Mondays by half past 5'oclock and seven at the very latest. It was seven thirty and the house was dark. Understandable, after the shock of my betrothed's disappearance, I was vaguely alarmed. I got out the two sheets of Plunko's that would connect me to them as soon as I hurried to the study.

Pansy, first.

Parkinson? I waited for a long minute. The sheet remained blank. Pansy?

It wasn't unusual, was it? I mean it was, but surely Pansy was entitled to have nights out without a note to let me know. I'd just try Cho next, Cho was so prompt.

Cho?

I stared at the page for a full minute.

"It's probably fine, right, Peanut? Aunty Cho and Aunty Pansy are just out, busy, nothing's happened to them." I waited another minute…nothing. Honestly, it was nothing to worry about. Probably. "We'll just make dinner for everyone and wait for them to come back and figure out what to do about your Daddy."

It slipped out of my mouth before I'd even really thought about it.

Theodore was her Dad. What a thoroughly odd thought to think. The same way I was going to be Mum was the same way Theo was going to be Dad. And he was so careful and conscious now, I could only imagine how much more so he would be with a child. Maybe she'd have his soft hair, and his odd eyes, and she'd consider her toys before she carefully chose one to play with. Good Lord, I could see it now – a dark-headed little tot sitting in front of a chest of toys for hours before she decided she'd rather read.

"Peanut," I rubbed my stomach, "be patient and cautious like your dad – he never seems to rush into things. He probably wouldn't even worry where Aunty Cho and Aunty Padma were right now. He'd just think about all the logical places they could be and decide that that's where they were."

My stomach gurgled.

A hunger pang…of course that's what she responded with.

"Fine, fine, I'm eating," I grumbled aloud, "again. I hope you're proud of yourself in there."

I pottered around the kitchen, pulling together everything I needed to make a soup. By the time I had a bowl of it in my hands, the Plunko notes on the island counter were lit up with color. Apparently Cho would be home within the hour and Pansy was staying the night with Zabini.

Probably for the best…as far as I could tell, Pansy had no right to call my relationship with Theodore 'angst-filled' since she and Zabini were tiptoeing around each other these days like something bad would happen if they finally gave in to their feelings. Cho could definitely do with a little less time with me and a little more time with Neville.

And she will once you get yourself sorted, a little voice said as I slurped down the last of the soup.

Which was…true. I felt guilty at the way Pansy and Cho had put their lives on hold to deal with mine, and they were too loyal to leave me in the ditch now. Even when their own relationships seemed to be heading south. I needed to get my life together so they could get theirs together too.

But how?

How could I initiate contact? Should I send an Owl requesting a meeting, all formal and adult-like? Show up at his work place without a word? Just up and knock at the gate of Nott Manor? Take out an ad in the newspaper and tell him that I was really well and truly infatuated by him and, guess what, he was going to be a father? What? What could I do?

I remember the way Padma had slipped under Ron's arms. I can't even describe it – I just know that it was such a 'couple' thing to do, how he'd resettled his arm around her waist and pulled her in close like it was a habit already formed, the way she looked just at-home with herself in his arms as she did when she stood alone.

I had wanted so fiercely that I'd thought I wouldn't last the ceremony.

The only thing I knew is that we were private people by nature, him and I. If anything happened, I'd want it to stay between us. No one needed to know anything about it until we were good and ready.

Which meant...doing him the courtesy of a note.

I was rubbish at notes. I wasn't the one who ever wrote them, he was. I padded upstairs, sat at my desk, and stared at the blank piece of parchment.

"Dear Father of My Child," I muttered. Kidding, kidding.

Theodore,
I'd be honored-

Too formal.

If you could please meet me for lunch at Enchanted Eats Friday afternoon-

Vague and mysterious, which wasn't what I was going for.

I would like to talk to you about…

Christ, I was rubbish! What did I want to say? What would be a good non-effusive but still…serious…way to indicate that I dearly wanted to meet with him? Why was this harder than I'd thought?

Theodore,
We should talk. Lunch on Friday?
- H.A.

I took a deep breath, suddenly nervous and stomach roiling with anticipation, and reminded I was doing this because I was a big girl who was determined to fix this and help her mates and take charge and…I could do this. What was nervousness in the face of determination?

I rolled it up, sealed it, and went to find Cho's owl. This would just have to do.

|… T …|

I couldn't stop thinking about it.

Literally, my thoughts never strayed far from Marla's revelation…or revelations (plural), as the case may be. I'd left that house full of mothering and nurturing and wallowed deep in thought all of today. Even Blaise had said something about my mood. Was Marla right? Was I taking the easy way out? Was that would Hannah was thinking of me right now, that I wasn't there because it was easier for me to not be? Is that why she'd looked at me so blankly at the wedding?

Maybe I was so used to being unhappy that I'd been waiting for the other shoe to drop all summer.

But, no.

That wasn't it either. I'd suspected that there was something I didn't know, I just hadn't been invested in finding out what that something my might be. Even from the beginning, even when I'd thought to myself 'you deserve this, old boy', I hadn't been able to quite understand why her hatred had seemed so focused. So personal. It wasn't like she'd hated people like me, it was that she'd hated me. Specifically. And on some level, I'd understood that maybe I'd done something to her before that I couldn't remember and torn it before I'd had a chance.

I hadn't been waiting for some phantom shoe to drop just because I was a pessimistic bloke who enjoyed his own angst - I'd known it was going to drop eventually, fell in love with her and tricked myself into thinking there was no shoe, then bam! The shoe dropped. I suffered. She suffered. Everyone regretted everything.

Okay, perhaps I was pessimistic.

But Marla had a point. I hadn't even tried to fight for her. And…that probably had to do with what Max had talked about, how I owed the world penance. Which…I hated thinking that I might look pathetic and downtrodden in the eyes of my family but, God, how could I not try and do right after all the things I'd done? I owed it to myself to be the best possible person I could be but, more importantly, I owed it all the people I watched tortured…everyone I ever did any wrong too…and my family. I couldn't do anything but try and be…good. I didn't know if I would succeed but by Merlin, I meant to try.

Was this mindset affecting me? Was it preventing me from reaching out to the woman I knew without a doubt I could love and protect better than anyone else could?

Was I hurting her by staying away?

Was I hurting her by staying away from her? Is that what I was doing? But how the hell could I dare reach out? What the hell would I say? 'Hey, sorry my father murdered your beloved brother but I'm in love with you and I hope you can forgive me that horrific crime'? I grimaced even as I thought it.

"Bloody fucking hell," I said to my ceiling. "Fucking fucking fuck."

Oddly enough, the uncouthness made me feel better. For a whole minute.

"What do I do?" I didn't know. "What can I do?"

I didn't even consciously think about doing it (actually I would have Jinxed myself if I'd self-aware) – I just did it.

Hannah?

Oh, fuck, fucking fuck, why did I even-

Theodore?

Clear as a bell, a beautiful bell, and just as shocking. My body jolted as I spasmed in my bed before scrambling into a sitting position. Which was a move worthy of an imbecile – she couldn't even see me, what was I doing?

Theodore? I got the impression of her confusion, of her questioning herself, and of her testing the link. I hurried to clear it up.

I'm sorry, I'm here, I just didn't…I didn't expect you to respond.

I shoved my hands into my hair and held my breath the full twenty-five seconds it took her to think-speak.

Why wouldn't I be? I'm the one who asked you to talk.

You…I'm sorry, what?

I sent a note? By owl? Forty-five minutes ago? Her voice managed to sound just the slightest bit unsure and, for some reason, I was comforted. Comforted but certainly still confused.

An Owl? It's not here yet. What did it say?

It said we needed to talk, lunch on Friday if you could make it. She paused for a little while. That's not why you reached out, is it.

No. I don't think I can do this. I wanted to punch myself at the way that came out when I felt her start to withdraw. I can't stay away from you for much longer and I don't want to but it doesn't-

-matter what I want. That's what you were going to say, isn't it?

I blinked. A flare of something that felt almost like vindication and fondness (and what an odd combination that was) thrummed through the bond.

How did you know?

Lucky guess. She was definitely feeling fond now. Don't you think I know you the slightest bit by now?

Do you?

You aren't simple, you know, not the way I used to be. I was a little gullible and a lot naïve, easily flustered. I used to be a big crier, easy tears and easy smiles, and everyone said you could see how I felt just by looking at me.

I licked my lips because they felt too dry all of a sudden, even though a word hadn't physically passed my lips. We had never ever talked about the past, not in all the months we'd lived together, and it felt like she was purposefully erasing that line in the sand. I was deathly afraid of treading heedless into a topic that would make her pull away. Was this alright?

I…well, I wouldn't have guessed it.

Because I'm a dragon now?

I smiled a little because it felt like she was smiling too.

I wouldn't call you a dragon but you're sharp and tough and reserved when you want to be.

Reserved?

You were…very self-contained, in the beginning.

Another pause where I died a thousand deaths-

I…yes, yes, I was. Well…I was and I wasn't. For a long time after…Alfie, I couldn't feel anything. The anguish she felt was a bright flare in the dark of my head, and I felt awful and guilty and sorry and a hundred terrible things I couldn't bear to name aloud. I suppose I just operated at the lowest level I could get away with? Now I know it was a way of coping with it, a way of just cutting out everything that would have made it impossible to function. And, for me, that was emotion. I became reserved because it was the only way I could survive.

Every word from her was another stone in my stomach.

Hannah, you have to believe me when I say that I didn't know - if I had, I would have done everything in my power to help you break the Law. I've never-…I mean, I just-…bloody hell. I dragged a tired hand over my face. I would have done anything to help you get out of it. I can't-

I know. I got the impression of melancholy, of both sadness and regret, and I clenched the sheets to escape it. Theodore, I know that now.

This time the silence was heavy.

How could you even stand to be in the same house as me?

It slipped out before I got ahold of myself.

I couldn't take it back once it was out.

I couldn't.

Fuck.

I'd known it then (I hadn't been stupid or blind, I'd known she'd hated me) but hearing her confirm it aloud for the first time was still like a Cruciatus-

I don't pretend to be proud now of what I did…how I…I punished us both.

Don't apologize, you had every right-

Maybe, she seemed to think passionately, but I've had a lot of time to think in our house this summer. I'm…I'm not who I was before. At first, that made me sad because what happened to the happy girl whose favorite color was yellow? What happened to the girl who laughed when she was happy and cried when she was sad? Life changed me. Death changed me. I'll probably never be that version of myself ever again. But now I understand.

But it was sad, it was terribly sad to think of chubby smiling cheeks and straw blonde pig-tails and a girl who would never be the same. How was this even-

We change. Life changes. That's what happens, Theodore. I got the impression of defiance? Not defiance, more like…that moment when you decide to do something and you straighten your shoulders and lift your chin up to face something daunting. And you were a part of it. I might never be that girl again and I would give anything to have my family back but the person that I am right now? She's not an awful person. She's actually a pretty decent sort.

Hannah-

-and so are you.

I froze. Everything froze.

I know you. I know you, now. Irreverence and warmth bled back into her tone. I watched you all summer, even when I hated you. I watched you – your meticulousness with the work you bring home, how polite and careful you were whenever I was around and even when I wasn't. And when we agreed to start over, I watched how content you were to cook for two, or to lend me books from your collection, or how you withdrew when you thought I needed space. You are quiet…and strong.

I was speechless.

Nothing ever really goes according to plan with us, does it? Was she laughing all the way across town, in her room? That's what it felt like – like the sun in my head, as stupidly poetic as that sounded. The bond fairly vibrated with her positive energy and it made me…buoyant? I'd planned for lunch on Friday and was going to practice and everything.

Practice?

Yes, practice. You know…talking.

Inexplicably, I felt a smile stretching across my face.

Practice what?

The part of my speech where I asked you not to stay away from me anymore.

A billion butterflies, fluttering in my stomach.

You want me…around?

You would have stayed away until I asked?

I don't know, I thought truthfully.

Is it that easy for you…to be away?

Why did everyone think that? Marla, Hannah, my mates, my in-laws. Obviously I was a better hand at playing it close to the chest than I'd thought – which was I'd wanted, wasn't it? I hadn't wanted to make things hard for Hannah (I hadn't wanted to sway her either way) and I'd wanted to let it be her choice, her decision. Even if my sister-in-law was under the impression that I'd been taking the coward's way out all this time.

Never. I was fervent, zealously so. Never.

Will you see me tomorrow, instead of Friday? Will you have lunch with me?

No chance to answer her question but my heart swelled.

Of course. Wherever, whenever you'd like.

I'll come to the office a little after noon. Does that sound alright?

Yes.

I'll see you then. Goodnight, Theodore.

Goodnight, Hannah.

…

…

I stared at the ceiling, feeling shocked and awed and in utter disbelief. I guess I had a lunch date tomorrow.

| … H … |

I stopped right outside of the brick building that housed Theodore's office, and allowed myself one more moment of abject apprehension. I might have been out of my mind last night sending that Owl but obviously he had been too. And that was encouraging (really encouraging) but I'd kept the secret all to myself just the same. Now, at a quarter past noon, the bond was flaring to life as if it knew exactly how close I was to him.

It probably did. That thing was sentient.

"Alright, Hannah." I rubbed my hands together nervously, cleared my throat, shook out my hair, and straightened my shoulders. "Stiff upper lip, girl. You can do this."

I marched up the stairs, through the glass entrance doors, and into the same waiting room as last time. The very same tall office assistant (Marco, I think?) proceeded into the room, in a movement almost as precisely timed as my entrance. Exactly the same as last time. He smiled like he remembered me.

"Here to see Master Nott?"

I smiled back.

"I take it I'm expected?"

His smile turned conspiratorial but he said nothing, just waved me through. I followed the hallway, heart pounding every step of the way, until I stood at the same doorway. It was like déjà vu – Theodore was bent over his desk, quill furiously moving to and fro as he scribbled something down on parchment that looked well-worn, even from here. His hair was a little bit longer than I remembered, softly curling at the ends and touching the tip of his shoulders. My heart beat out an even faster pattern than before, and I watched him stiffen and slowly raise his head.

My world shifted.

This time it was him who was moving, his chair falling back as he jumped to his feet and crossed the room before I could even blink. He stopped just before he reached me, his eyes roving across my face. Good God, I was so in love with this man.

"Hannah." And, oh heavens, the sheer emotion in that was…goodness. I think I made a sound because he blinked and stepped back like he hadn't been thinking. His color was high. "I'm s-"

"Don't be," I said around the lump in my throat. I coughed a little. "Please."

We stood there for a minute, awkward and unsure, before he took charge with a small smile.

"Well, where should we go?"

I couldn't imagine eating with the butterflies stampeding around in my stomach.

"I'm not actually all that hungry."

"Neither am I."

"Maybe…maybe ice cream?" He looked out of the window behind him with a very considering gaze, and I rushed to intercept. "Unless you have too much work to do with Zabini?"

"No." He turned back and his gaze was very…intense. His voice was humming with an emotion I was too scared to look closely at. "I cleared up my afternoon for you."

I was shocked.

"You did?"

"Why wouldn't I? This is more important than anything else."

I don't know how long I stood there with my mouth open, just staring at him while he gazed back, before I pulled it together and cleared my throat. Right. Well. I should probably carry on with leading the way out of his office since I wouldn't want to stand here like a ninny and stare some more. I felt myself flush.

How embarrassing.

"Florean's then?"

"Let me just grab my cloak."

I tried not to watch him swing it around his shoulders but I was starved for the sight (any sight) of him so I won't lie and say I didn't. But I tried hard not to! When he was ready, he gestured me to go before him. I felt slightly anxious but entirely eager the whole way to the glass doors. Every step charged an already charged situation until I was dying to get out into the open air and take an actual breath.

When I stopped on the bottom of the stairs, he stopped next to me quietly.

"Shall we?" he asked, after a moment, carefully offering his arm.

That's the Theodore I knew, mostly emotionally self-contained but entirely too conscientious of me.

"We shall."

He Apparated us there in a moment, and the somewhat busy streets of the Alley were familiar and comforting. By unspoken agreement, we seemed to pull away at the same time and begin walking down the street. For an insane moment, I thought about just throwing everything I felt at him through the bond to tear down these new walls that were between us but I swallowed down the madness and kept it at bay. I had another thought, to just turn to him and tell him everything, tell him right here and right now in the middle of these cobble-stoned streets. Or maybe I'd just outright tell him that I wanted him to move back in with me! Or-

"You think quite loudly." I stopped walking, looked up startled, to see Theodore looking serious. "What are you thinking about?"

"Beg your pardon?"

"Here." His left hand lifted, hovered in the space between us, before he touched my temple with a very faint smile. "Right here. What are you thinking about?"

Everything. Anything. Him.

"Everything," I said honestly, "and that we didn't exactly have a relationship built on lies but that I want to tell the truth from now on."

His face smoothed out into something unreadable and I felt panicked for no reason.

"It wasn't a lie?"

I shook my head. "I couldn't…lie to you, even if I'd wanted to."

He started walking again, silently, and before long we got to Florean's. A thousand thoughts fitted through my head – was he angry, did he think I was lying, did he believe me, had he really forgiven me all these things, had he truly been sad to see me without me, could he ever really forgive me, how would he take the news that he was now a father – and a thousand emotions fluttered in my chest as he paid for our ice cream cones. I followed him closely as he weaved past two families with children to a secluded booth. When we sat, the silence was odd and tense. I held the vanilla ice cream cone in shaking hands and tried to convince myself that I was brave.

Theodore's hands and gaze were as steady as the grave.

Why did this feel so awful all of a sudden? My eyes couldn't settle on one place too often.

"I made a mistake, this place is too public for all the things that we need to or want to say," I blurted out, "can we just go home? Can we talk there?"

He looked surprised before he nodded twice. I was up on my feet, feeling strange and small, and winding my way out of the store without really waiting to see him follow. When we Apparated to the Muggle neighborhood (with more noise than I'd like for subtlety), I hurried down the street and up the stoop and fumbled with the key for a minute. I could feel Theodore through the bond, faintly confused and a little worried, as he I got the door open. We stood on the inside and he touched my arm.

"You said you would."

"I said what?"

"What I read was 'I will do what I must to make him suffer'." I felt myself go pale. "Hannah, I will never blame you for how you felt."

"Theodore, I was angry," I said desperately. "I was angry, I lost everything, I gained nothing, and then the Ministry said you were the one for me! I didn't even tell my best friends the truth about my brother's murder."

Theodore's face was shadowed with pain as we stood in the foyer.

"Everything I wrote in my diary was true when I wrote it," I said resolutely, "but nothing compared to being in the same house with you. I never lied to you with my feelings, Theodore, I never did. I'm good at hiding them from people who…who don't know me that well…but you watched me so carefully that I sometimes suspect you know me as well as I do."

"You're right, I watched you because I…" he lifted his shoulders, "I wanted to know you and I wanted you to like me but I didn't know how."

"I knew that, I'm sorry-"

"Stop it," he said explosively and I reared back into the wall behind me, "stop. Stop apologizing, stop saying that you're sorry. I knew just how much you hated me and I deserve everything you gave me, all of it, every single thing, and if you wanted to be rid of me-"

"Why do you keep saying that?" I shouted back. "What about me reaching out to you indicates that I want you gone? Is it so easy for you to do this? You keep saying that-"

"Because I deserve it!"

"Stop acting like you are the worst person in the world!"

"You don't get it," he said in the most low and most awful voice I'd heard from him to date. It was full of guilt and unhealthy self-hatred and darkness. In the ill-lit foyer, it was like I was listening to the most wretched of souls in some outer ring of hell. Half his face was in the dark, the other dim…hair curling the way I loved so much. I might have even been frightened if the bond didn't thrum with all the sad and bad things that he was feeling.

Something snapped and I experienced a disorienting sense of double-vision. It was like Theodore became background to the images that were flooding my mind (through the bond, I identified vaguely), like torn pieces of parchment overlay with a mood of sadness, of a tall lighter-haired boy playing outside in light rain while someone else's (mine and not mine?) pale hands dug into soil, pulling up a flower before joining the bigger boy and holding his hand. Another fragment of the same pale hands clutching at a big dark cloak in front of it, only to have the owner of said cloak pulling away. The pale hands, bigger this time, squeezed the wrist of a dark-haired girl who looked to be a First or Second Year. They held on, even when she begged for them to let go and squeezed harder too. Her wrists were bruised by the time they let go. Now, the eyes were wrapped around a point and angled under the neck of a face I hadn't seen in months…Ernie Macmillan. This must have been Fourth or Fifth Year – his hear was longer and even curlier than it had been when I first met him. Ernie looked scared and defiant, and he was bleeding lightly from the nose and had a gash across his lip like he'd been punched. It dissipated and reformed into a dark room that must have been Nott Manor, I knew it without taking in anything else in the scene, and a face that has burned its way into my memories. Nott Senior, face drawn and lined and stern, roughly shoving my (not mine) hands down and yanking up the black sleeves to expose an arm. The scene changed again to moonlight and a dark road and people in black with the tell-tale look of Death Eaters-

-I didn't realize I had fallen back until my head jarred the wall. It was enough to push Theodore's memories, because surely that's all they could be, back the way they came through the bond. When I came to, he was gripping my forearms like he thought I would collapse – wrong, I was going to throw up.

I pulled away from him, rushed down the hall to the closest lavatory, and promptly loss breakfast. The first burst left me breathless and half-sobbing, and Theodore pushed his way in and knelt, holding my hair back and off of my face. I closed my eyes and lay my head down on the toilet seat.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't even know what I was doing," he was muttering frantically, at odds with how slow and soothingly he rubbed my back. My eyes slanted as far to the side as they could. His expression was as wretched as ever. "I never meant to hurt you, I always hurt you, this is what I mean, fuck, I'm sorry, I'm sorry-"

Jesus, and there went the litany of self-guilt and flagellation.

A second round of 'let's lose everything we've eaten in the last twenty-four hours' started and my body spasmed with the force of it. I hoped this wasn't Peanut deciding to revolt but I was scared of fainting because I couldn't draw breath; it went on for so long.

"Hannah, Hannah, Hannah."

I guess it was the only thing that he could say.

Another round, his hands stroking my hair back, my eyes closing, more apologies out of his sad beautiful mouth.

"Theodore," I said weakly without bothering to open my eyes, "if I promise to stop apologizing, then you should too."

He went silent after that.

Half an hour later, I was exhausted and shaking. He slid an arm around my waist and hooked mine around his neck, and helped me off the floor. He cupped water in his free hand and ordered me to swish it around in my mouth and spit it out. I would have smiled at his gruffness if I'd felt up to it but, as it was, I just closed my eyes when he swept me up 'bridal style' and walked the four flights up to my room.

He stepped over my clothes, fussed around for a minute, fluffing the pillow underneath my head and tucking me in. The man thought of everything – he even penned a quick note to my work place to excuse me for the rest of the day. When he would have left, I motioned for him to sit down.

"Thank you."

"I caused it."

For a minute, I just watched his emotions play out in a muted fashion over his face.

"Did you mean to share all that with me?"

"I'm still trying to understand how our bond works. I had no idea I was hurting you until you fell into the wall."

I looked at him, really looked at him, and didn't like what I saw.

"This is never going to work if you give me all this power," I said tiredly, turning on my side to face him fully. His face closed in on itself. "We need to be equal, Theodore. I don't know any other way to say it."

"I'm not giving you any power." He met my gaze head on. "It's not that I put you on a pedestal, or at least I don't mean to – I just know myself and know what I used to be, and know what I have to do to make up for it."

"I want this to work. I want to be…with…you. I will say it as many times as I have to, to make you believe it." I had a brief pang of guilt as I thought about the tiny human growing inside of me, but I resolved immediately to organize a surprise for Friday instead…if everything went well (everything had to go well). I also felt a little bit guilty about just not up and admitting that I was madly in love with him and had no intention of letting him go but there was only so much I could unleash on him in one day. "I don't…I'm the last person to tell you how to deal with your emotions and we have a lot to work through. But now, we're going to be honest from here on out because everything should be out in the open, right?"

I saw him think about something before he settled a hand in my hair.

"No secrets, you say?" The faint smile around his mouth didn't entirely erase the frown above his eyes. "Tall order."

He didn't know the half of it. It felt like if I opened my mouth now, he'd never speak.

"The last few weeks were hard. That day when I saw your journal and wandered out in the rain, it was like something…clicked. Anyone betrothed to a Death Eater-" I opened my mouth and he shook his head, "-no, let me get this all out. Anyone betrothed to a Death Eater who hadn't been one would hate me on general principle. When Max told me about the Marriage Law, I was worried that that's exactly what I would get. But, like you said, I usually feel…guilty. I was sorry because no one deserved to have a constant reminder of any loved ones they lost living in their home, sitting at their table, talking to them before bed. I didn't even know who you were when I got that letter – yes, you're name sounded familiar but I didn't know, you see."

"Blaise is a walking talking encyclopedia – he knew who you were in under a minute. He told me you'd lost your entire family during the Second War. I- I mean I didn't- well, I didn't expect you to want anything to do me." Theodore was staring at the pillow beside my head now, even though his hand was still petting me without much thought. "And you didn't, but it was more than that. I expected you to hate me, to want me dead, but I didn't expect you to want it so much that you were willing to hurt yourself too. And that made me realize that this might be personal."

I had been awful and unhappy in June and July, and out to get him with every cell in my body. Now, I just felt bone-weary as I listened to it from his side.

"I knew I had to keep trying to win you over. I couldn't allow myself to give up…somehow winning you over came to equal 'becoming good'. You see, I wasn't a good person before but I want to be better now. I want to be something more than the last name my father gave me. I want to help people I hurt before, I want to prevent any more suffering. I promised myself the night of your brother's death that I could never stand still and watch someone die like that again. Maybe my Father sensed that I would either lose my mind or desert, or maybe he had other things to worry about." Theodore shrugged elegantly and looked me full in the face again. "I never figured it out before he died."

"Was he a…good…father to you?" I asked haltingly.

Theodore blinked.

"I loved him as well as I could but I've always loved my brother more."

I nodded slowly.

"Do you miss him?"

His face crumbled a little bit.

"Rarely. If he were still alive…I would have renounced him."

Not the entire truth, I think. I would never hate a human being as deeply and as completely as I hated Jeffrey Nott but at least a little part of me could respect that Theodore might always love his father a little bit, and hurt for his absence in turn. That was probably all I would ever be able to manage.

"Anyway, everything changed the night the lights went out." Heavens, he really didn't know the half of it! "Everything. Hannah, it was…everything I have ever thought it would be. It was like…I don't know, maybe, a spiritual experience. I've never felt so much in such a short period of time, and it changed everything."

I smiled, not even the least bit ashamed or aghast, until something about the wording struck me.

"Wait, was I your first?" Theodore smiled back. "I was?"

"Why are you so shocked?"

"The way Pansy tells it, you Slytherins are a busy lot," I grumbled.

"Would you have been jealous, if you weren't?"

If the little flash of irritation I experienced was anything to go by, then yes. I huffed.

"You're mine now, aren't you?"

He looked at me…and looked at me…and looked. The moment became inexplicably charged, heavy with importance that I hadn't meant to place there but couldn't take back all the same. When he cradled my face in his hands, my heart pounded out a staccato beat in my rib cage. His response sounded like a promise and a pledge all in one.

"Yes."

I hardly dared to breathe when he pressed his lips to my forehead. This was how I was going to die, anticipation and anxiety and my hands now holding his wrist.

"Hannah." He leaned back a little but his fingers stroked my face. "August was the happiest month of my life. We were here and we'd drawn a tentative truce, and were even getting along. Better than that, actually. Even though we avoided anything that had to do with the past, it was enough…more than enough for me."

He let me go entirely and folded his hands in his lap. I tried not to feel a twinge of hurt at that.

"When I read your journal everything clicked. I understood why you were the way you were before but I also was terrified. It had been too good, if you know what I mean. You were too…much. Marla says I'm pessimistic, and maybe I am, but I was horrified and scared when I got lost in the rain. All this time I'd spent trying to be good and it was like it didn't even matter. I ruined our relationship before we even had one because I was the son of your brother's killer. Better yet, I'd been there." His sudden bark of laughter was grating and scratchy. "I didn't appreciate the irony when I was out of my mind with fever – not that I knew I'd been there until Blaise put two and two together – but the day you came into my office, I did. I was going to lose you before we made a go of it."

His voice stuttered out. The clock on the other side of the room ticked quietly, counting down minutes and minutes of silence. I looked at him, mapping out the five o'clock shadow and the curl developing at the ends of his hair and the crow's feet around his eyes. He'd been even more hurt than I'd imagined.

"So I told you everything I knew. Once I started…I couldn't stop. I watched you – you were confused, then shocked, then ill – but I couldn't stop the words. They kept coming and coming, and only stopped a few seconds after you Apparated away. I was still talking to air. The last few weeks without you have been excruciating. I hurt you, even when I don't mean to, and I can't change the past. But knowing that you probably wanted nothing to do with me after we'd been relatively happy together was harder than anything I've ever had to do-"

I knew what I was going to say, how I was going to say it, long before it left my lips. Everything had been leading up to this, to us. The inevitability didn't scare me (though my eyes were wet) – it just made me confident that he felt the same. I don't know why I'd ever doubted it.

I reached out, grabbed one of his hands in both of mine, and brought it to my cheek.

"Hannah, you're crying-"

"I'm in love with you." He froze, looking comically shocked, and I grinned through the tears. "Well, we're being honest, aren't we?"

His mouth opened and closed, opened again.

"Y-you are?"

I kissed his hand and his eyes grew even larger.

"Should I take it back?"

"Theodore Nott," I smiled fondly, "I'm crying because I am madly in love with you and I didn't know it until you disappeared and I thought you'd been kidnapped or worse. I've had so much time to think and to weigh and to wonder and I choose you. I chose you the night we made love, even though I didn't think I did. I chose you the morning I came back a-and the day "

He made the most undignified noise I'd ever heard from him to date and hauled me into his arms, hands cradling my face again before he was pressing us so close that I swore I could feel his heart beating beneath my fingers.

"Hannah-"

"I love you," I breathed into his neck. "I'm in love you. I never want you to stay away from me ever again."

"I've been in love with you all summer," he muttered in my ear, "losing you was killing me slowly. I woke up every day, went to work, came back home, stared at the ceiling until I fell asleep. Everything was just a cycle, endless, nothing to look forward to but days and nights where I thought about how empty I felt most of the time and, Merlin, I love you so much more than I'd ever thought possible to love someone."

Thank God.

I mean…not that I'd ever considered the idea that he might not reciprocate my feelings but it was still a total burden lifted off my shoulders.

"I would kiss you but I've spent the last half hour retching-"

"I'd kiss you anyway."

Loyal to the end, I thought to myself but ended up yawning.

"No chance in hell of that. Do you need to go back?"

"Not today."

"Then stay awhile." I held his hand, so happy that I could do that. "Just…stay awhile, alright?"

He somehow managed to look cautious and delighted. I moved over on the bed to make room for him and he lay on top of the blanket facing me. With his hands in my hair and his forehead against mine….everything felt better. Better than it had in days and days.

| … T … |

I watched her sleep for three hours.

I know…it probably sounds disturbing (and I don't actually care) because those three hours were the best of three hours of my week. I watched her sleep, watched the rise and fall of the cloth covering her, and looked at the way her spread out on the pillow, and marveled at how I was allowed to touch her now. How incredible. How many times had I wondered what I was going to do with the rest of my life in solitude? How much had I worried about my sins, how much had I thought about whether I was doing the right thing?

I looked at the way her lashes splayed against her cheek and gave in to the urge to touch her face.

Did I put her on a pedestal? I didn't mean to. She was right – there was no way this would work if we had unfair advantages over each other. But I didn't give her an advantage, you see, she'd had one from the beginning. She would probably always have one, to be honest. It's not that I put her on a pedestal but that she was special (the way I felt about her was strong and tangible) and because she was special, I would always be more patient with her. Maybe she didn't think she was perfect (and I knew that this was just the beginning, maybe we would never be the kind of couple that fought but we were bound to have an argument eventually) but neither was I. I would never cut her down for her shortcomings. I would never not allow her the space to think or the chance to change. I owed her that much.

If she thought that was a pedestal then, by God, yes, she was on one.

"Marla," I ended up whispering, "maybe you were right."

Probably.

I followed the crease of her lips with a finger, drew it up to the lobes of her ears, then up into her hair again. I would never take love for granted ever again. I would do my best to keep her safe, and happy, and comfortable.

Hers, I marveled over again. I'm hers.

Is that something people find acceptable? I know that people aren't supposed to belong to other people but that's all I wanted. I was my mother's and father's before I was my brother's. Then my childhood and Hogwarts – I became my mates'. Now her.

I watched her sleep and wondered what she dreamed about. What was she like when she was younger? What were her mother and brother like? What did she want out of life, where did she want to go, what did she want to see? Familiarity would take awhile but I wanted to know everything. I wanted to break down my own walls, tell her more about my brother and myself and what it was like growing up in that house. I wanted to know that she would be strong enough to listen to my stories and I wanted her to know that I would always listen too.

Now that I was allowed to hope, I wanted everything.

She woke up in increments. First, a funny face and a groan. Then, a twitch of her arms and legs. She rolled over on to her side, cracked open an eye, and the bond thrummed with positivity. Another odd noise and then she shook her head as if I'd asked a question.

"You're still here."

"You asked me to stay," I held back a smile and stroked her hair, "didn't you?"

"Thought you mightn't listen," she said through a yawn, "since you're usually determined to be a self-sacrificing martyr."

"A martyr?" I was startled into laughing. "Hannah, really?"

"Sure you aren't a Gryffindor?"

"That's a hero-complex," I corrected.

"Essentially the same motivations behind the martyr complex." She moved forward without any hint of hesitation or shyness, curling into my chest. I couldn't stop marveling at it, even as I automatically wrapped my arms around her. "So, essentially, very Gryffindor-ish."

"Bite your tongue, that's a horrific lie."

"I take it back," she breathed into my neck, "orders and accusations definitely make you a Slytherin."

"That's better."

For a long time, we just lay there. She snuffled a little bit, burrowing in deeper, and settled again. I couldn't stop rubbing her back or stroking her hair and it was…nice. Just the hum of quiet breaths and weak sunlight and a soft bed and warm body. It was really nice.

"Come have dinner with me tomorrow night," I said. "Please."

She angled her head upwards to look at me.

"At Nott Place?"

"Or we could go out," I said quickly. "We never go out, do we?"

She shook her head.

"Anywhere but Enchanted Eats?"

"Why not there?" I asked curiously.

"It's the site of the great Butterbeer mix-up."

"What?!" I almost sat up. "The one that made the newspapers?"

"The couple involved was actually George Weasley and Katie Bell."

"Good God. Definitely not there, then."

"Let's just stay in then," she said with tiny smile. "I'm alright with Nott Place, if you are."

"If it's too soon, we don't have to."

"He lived there, I know that much, but you lived there too. I won't…it won't make me stressed or sad, if that's what you're worried about."

I couldn't help but be worried though. I tried for a different subject.

"Where did you grow up?"

"Slough in Berkshire."

"Huh," I said thoughtfully, "we used to have some property in Windsor and Maidenhead, not too far from them. I had Mrs. Malfoy and Zabini help with some investments…I think it's still in my name."

"You think?" Her eyes were bright, teasing. "You're wealthy enough to just think you own it and not know?"

I laughed.

"It's been a while since I looked at the accounts – I'm not as meticulous as you might think."

"Obviously!"

I couldn't help brushing my nose against hers

"Are you feeling well enough to get up?"

A complicated set of expressions crossed her face, including everything from happiness to caution. Her mouth settled into a wry smile before she pulled back even further. Her hands were actually trembling against my chest.

"I am. I have…something to tell you."

Immediately, I was on high alert.

"What is it?"

"In the spirit of being truthful and never keeping secrets again…" She took a deep breath and pulled away from me completely and rolled off the bed. She padded across her room and searched for something on her desk, when she found it, she came back and sat on the bed next to me.

"What is it?" I repeated.

She reached out and took one of my hands is hers and handed me the thing with her free one. It was black and grey, like organized clouds on a dark background. If I looked closely I could actually see what looked like a circle and a bigger circle. There were lines (like a ruler?) to the sides so it must have been measuring something. A bunch of numbers were at the bottom – half the first line seemed to indicate a date from last week, the others made no sense to me.

In summary, I had no idea what I was looking at.

"What…"

"It's a photo, what Muggles call an ultrasound." The word was familiar but not familiar enough. "It's a type of x-ray. Do you know what those are?"

I shook my head.

"X-rays take pictures of the inside of the human body – depending on what you're looking at, they let you see bones and growths and tissues."

"Don't they use it if someone's sick? Is this the inside of your body?" I said slowly. "Are you sick?"

She pointed at a silvery white blob within a rectangular black space.

"That's a head and here's the body."

I stared at her blankly.

"I'm not being very clear," she said slowly, "and I'm sorry I'm muddling through it. What I mean to say is that…I'm pregnant."

…

…

…

For a full minute, my head was empty. There was nothing there. No noise, no clear thought, nothing. The entire world went blank.

"Theodore?"

Merlin's fucking balls.

"Theodore?"

I dropped the picture and placed both my hands on her stomach. I pressed firmly, like maybe I'd feel something right this moment, and stared just as intensely. I just needed a moment to stop being dumbfounded.

"You're pregnant? How many weeks along?"

Holy shit, we were pregnant. We were pregnant?

"Eleventh week now," she said very seriously. "I…I found out right after that day in your office."

Pregnant!

I was going to be a father. Oh my God, I was going to be someone's father.

"Theodore?" I knew she was looking for some sign that I was alright, a measure of reassurance. "I know that this is…so much to take in one day, and I should have given you more time to absorb one thing before I-"

"We're pregnant?" I started laughing, surging forward to cup her face. "We're having a child?"

She looked at me like I was nuts but I just couldn't stop laughing. To think that by this time yesterday, my life had been sad and dreary. There was going to be a kid in a few months that was half me and half Hannah. An entire future rolled out where I saw flashes of everything - holding a tiny warm baby in a sunny nursery, Hannah sleepy and happy in a rocking chair. I saw a little blonde girl, toddling along on chubby legs that worked hard to help her cross the room. Even though we had all this other stuff to work through and there were parts of our past still hidden from each other, we were going to have a kid! This was incredible.

I closed my eyes and kissed her like my life depended on it.

"We're pregnant, Theodore," she said laughingly when I let her draw breath, "we're having a child."