I couldn't have asked for a better wedding night.

After Baz had abandoned me to go for the Stag night with Theodore and his friends, something I technically had encouraged my brother to do, I got to work.

My package from the apothecary had been tucked away for the past two weeks, the Bilton Nettles. The nettles, when ingested would cause paralysis and, with enough of it, could cause organ failure. I wasn't trying to kill Theodore- not yet, I just wanted to give myself another night without his hands on me.

Were there moments where I thought maybe I shouldn't? No. I processed the nettles to extract their essence which I infused into a lip gloss. I rarely wore lip gloss but I didn't think anyone would think twice about that. I knew as long as I didn't lick my lips I would be okay, it would just sting a little. Ingesting it was what caused issues.

I applied it right before Baz walked me down the aisle and I remained silent as it felt like tiny needles pricking at my lips. Finally, it was time to kiss the bride.

it couldn't have gone better if I had personally directed it. Theodore kissed me with all the enthusiasm that he had at my office, ingesting enough of the lipgloss to do what I wanted. I wiped the stinging gloss off as soon as I could and watched as my husband fell to the ground.

Pansy screamed. Of course, she did. People rushed to save Theodore, he would be fine, probably. and I walked out of the church, skipping the party that I knew wouldn't be happening with my husband in the hospital and I went to the hotel.

It was amazing, there were chocolate-covered strawberries, champagne, and someone- I assume one of Theodore's friends had sent a bottle of whiskey to the room. I ordered room service. It was a great time.

The next morning I had to go not to my home, but to the Nott home. Which was where I would, unfortunately, be living from now on.

I apparated there, the half-finished bottle of whiskey in hand, and was led up to the room I would be sharing with Theodore by one of the family's house elves.

the suite, rather.

Theodore had a large sitting room with a roaring fire, there were built-in bookshelves on either side of the fireplace, and in front of it were a couple of chairs as well as a coffee table that held an in-progress game of Wizards chess. I studied the board and shook my head. I was by no means an expert in the game but even I could tell the person playing black was winning.

I headed for the bedroom, it was just as dark as the sitting room with black bedding, and a huge four-poster bed, made of rich dark wood, there were two wardrobes, I assumed one was mine. I went to the first one and opened it up. It wasn't a muggle wardrobe where it could only hold so many clothes- it was a wizarding wardrobe, it opened up into a whole walk-in closet. this one had to be his though, as it was full of black clothes. I opened the other and sure enough, was greeted with my own clothes hung up in the walk-in space.

The bathroom was just as luxurious, My toiletries had already been brought over and I was eyeing the massive claw foot tub with interest. I had bubble bath around here somewhere, as well as candles- oh I was going to have a good night.

I kind of regretted not making the dosage on the gloss a little higher- then maybe he'd be staying in St Mungoes for two nights instead of one.

When I had done a full tour of the room, I headed out into the greater house to get a feel for my new home.

I wandered the halls, letting my fingertips brush the walls in the dim hallways. All the lights were lit, but somehow everything still felt incredibly dark and oppressive. The halls were lined with art, but none of it seemed- organic. It all felt painfully curated as if the feel of the house was meant to be dark and cold and manufactured.

Then again, with what little I knew about the Nott men, maybe this was exactly who they were and they picked these pieces because that was who they were in their hearts.

Wouldn't surprise me, honestly.

I headed down a large winding staircase, the main level of the home was brighter, with big sweeping windows. Some of the heavy curtains had been opened, but not nearly enough to relieve the darkness of the house. I padded down the hall, this led to the library, I recognized it, well I recognized the painting depicting what I could only assume was meant to be hell.

"Lovely," I muttered.

"I'm glad you appreciate my taste in art." I jumped and whirled, Rochester was standing in the hall, leaning against a door jamb. Rochester Nott was a handsome man, his brown hair was kept neat, and his face wasn't clean-shaven but it gave him a slightly more rugged look. He wasn't wearing a suit like he had been every other time I was forced to deal with him. He was wearing a soft-looking cream sweater with his dark slacks. His brown eyes were focused on me in a way I didn't like. It wasn't sexual, it was like- a predator assessing its pray

"Sure." I quirked an eyebrow. "We'll go with that." He chuckled and pushed away from the wall, stepping closer.

"That was an awful trick you pulled yesterday."

"Trick?" I feigned innocence. He gave me an unimpressed look.

"I know you're not happy about this arrangement, neither is my son." I didn't miss the smirk that graced his lips as he said that. "But both of you need to realize, there is no getting out of it, might as well learn to enjoy it."

"Why did you decide to do this? I know it was all your idea."

"Theodore needed to grow up."

"Mhm. And the actual answer?" I prodded.

"Young lady, Your mouth may be tolerated by a lot of people but it won't be by me." The amused look in Rochester's eyes had dimmed and I could see the fire behind them.

"Should have thought about that before you shackled not only your son but yourself to me forever," I replied. "My mouth isn't going anywhere." I smiled sweetly. "Dad."

"You know, when Theodore was young, he had a friend, a kid named Samuel. Samuel was a lot like you, loud, and didn't know when to shut his mouth. He and Theodore were just- the best of friends. Closer than I'd ever seen him get to anyone, even the Malfoy boy." I quirked an eyebrow, waiting for the story to go somewhere. "And when I got sick of it- I got rid of Samuel."

"Are you admitting to murdering a child?"

"He is alive and well. I mean, he's well as far as I know. No, I scared him off, I made sure he would never want to come here to this house or my son ever again. There is a power in taking away what means most to someone. And I do love power."

"Rochester." I narrowed my eyes on my father-in-law. "I have never been- and I will never be- afraid of a man." Rochester simply smiled.

"We'll see." I quirked an eyebrow, looking Rochester up and down slowly.

"Shouldn't you be in Azkaban? You were on the wrong side of the war, were you not?" I asked. Rochester's smile widened.

"That is the benefit of the mask, my dear. They have to find proof that I was at the battle. Which of course they won't because I wasn't there." The look he gave me said he absolutely had been there.

The two of us stood there a moment, in a standoff of sorts, before he turned, going back into the room he'd come out of, closing the door behind him with a loud click.

"Drama queens." I sighed and walked on, continuing my journey through the home, I had a destination in mind and it took far too long for me to find it.

The kitchen.

And it was a gorgeous, massive kitchen. There were a few house elves moving about, all of them ignoring me. I walked through the room and opened the fridge, only for it to slam itself shut. I jumped, and someone with a comically high-pitched voice cleared their throat behind me. I spun around to see a house elf, with a little tuft of yellow hair gathered in a little bow on the top of her head. She wore an apron over a shapeless blue shift dress.

"Yes?" I asked.

"If you want something to eat, you ask for it and it will appear, you don't need to get into everything." She informed me. "It's all organized how we like it."

I quirked an eyebrow, that is not the kind of sass I expected from the Nott's house elves. I held my hands up in surrender.

"Duly noted." I headed back towards the door. "It won't happen again," I promised.

"Good." She sniffed and nodded her large head.

"Fantastic." I turned on my heel and headed out of the kitchen. Well, that was that. At least I knew I'd be able to get food whenever I wanted it, I paused and stuck my head back into the kitchen, the house elf was still standing there.

"What's your name?"

"Twinkle." She answered proudly, her chin held high. I nodded

"Twinkle, got it." I pulled my head out and let the door swing shut again.

Pretty sure that I had the layout of the house mapped well enough in my head, I walked back up to the room, closing the door behind me.

It was time to take advantage of that tub. It took a moment and some digging but I managed to find the bubble bath that I'd been hoarding for a while. I filled up the tub with warm water and the bubble bath, as well as a few oils, and by the time it was done the room smelled amazing. I poured myself a glass of whiskey from the bottle that had been left in our honeymoon suite, lifting the glass to my lips I took a sip- oh it was a good one. I would never call myself an expert in all things Whiskey but even I could tell this was high quality, smooth and smokey with a touch of cinnamon. I was tempted to hide it and keep it for myself. I poured a little more into the glass and undressed, slipping into the tub, twisting my hair up out of the way, and letting myself soak.

I had music softly playing, it was basically perfect, but it was quiet enough that I heard when the door to the suite opened and closed. I cracked open one of my eyes and leaned trying to look through the door, hoping it was a house elf here to clean and not one of the Nott men.

No such luck, Theodore walked into my line of vision, still dressed in his wedding tuxedo. He did look good in the tux, I had to give him that. I shrugged and relaxed again, closing my eyes.

"I see you've made yourself at home." I hear the whisper of cloth against the smooth stone floor as he kicked my discarded clothes out of the way. I adjusted, moving my arms to cover my body, there were plenty of bubbles on the surface so he couldn't see anything more than an outline but it still felt right, to cover myself. I could hear him walking around the bathroom, pausing at a couple of points.

I didn't open my eyes until I could feel him standing over me.

"Glad to see you're okay darling. I was so worried." I smiled up at him. "Did they tell you what did it?"

"It seems, that somehow, I was poisoned by nettles."

"Wow, that's scary, I can't imagine who might have done such a thing. I made good use of our hotel room, don't worry."

He walked around the tub, standing over my head.

"I'm sure it was, If only my caring wife had bothered to come to my bedside at St Mungoes." He commented, sounding distressingly calm. I knew from experience that the calm was more dangerous than the rage.

"I would have, of course, but we only had the hotel room for one night, I could hardly let it go to waste." I shrugged. There was a plop sound as something fell into the water. I frowned and reached for it, it was the lip gloss container, with the extra nettles settled at the bottom, I had left it on the bathroom counter when I got back to the house this morning. I didn't get a moment to explain before I felt two strong hands on my shoulder- pushing me under the water.

I had less than a second to take a gulp of air before my head was under. I fought, trying to get out of his grip, trying to get back up- my lungs screamed for air and the screams got more desperate as the second wore on.

My nails dig into his wrists but his hands didn't release. Pink began to cloud around his hands as my nails dug in deep enough to draw blood.

Finally, after what felt like forever, he let go, I shot up out of the water, coughing, and sputtering, drinking the air into my lungs as the darkness as the edges of my sight faded. I scrambled out of the tub, completely unworried about the water that I was splashing all over the floor or the fact that I was completely nude and uncovered.

"What the fuck, Nott." I shrieked, my hand pressed to my chest as my body returned to normal.

He didn't reply, just staring at me, not at my body but at my face with a satisfied smirk.

"You're out of your fucking mind." I snapped. "You tried to kill me."

"You tried to kill me." He responded with a shrug.

"That," I pointed at the tub where the gloss was sitting at the bottom, "would not have killed you."

"Neither would thirty seconds without air."

"That was so much more than thirty seconds."

"No it wasn't, you were just stupid, fighting and using up your air." He smiled sweetly. "You might want to get dressed, wouldn't want you to catch a cold." His eyes finally swept over my body for just a moment before he turned and stormed out of the bathroom, letting the door slam closed behind him.

—-

Monday rolled around without the two of us trying to actually kill each other again, really we barely spoke to each other, we ate a silent dinner, Rochester did not join us at the dining table and when it came time for bed, Theodore's bed was massive enough that we didn't have to worry about touching if we didn't want to.

I still built a wall of pillows between us.

"Worried about you keeping your hands to yourself?" He asked.

"You look like the type to sneak over and cuddle in the dead of night." I accused. He scoffed but didn't tear down the pillow wall.

When we woke up in the morning, the two of us were pressed up against the pillow wall.

"See it was a good idea." I pointed out. We parted ways into our own wardrobes. Mine did include a vanity with all my cosmetics. By the time I had finished dressing and doing my makeup, Theodore was already gone. I headed downstairs to the kitchen to find him at the breakfast table.

There were two places that sat at the table and I took a seat, as if it could read my mind, breakfast appeared in the form of waffles.

"I might love your house elves," I commented, grabbing my fork and digging in.

"They're good at what they do." Theodore agreed, he had the paper open on the table, reading over an article.

"Which one are you reading?" I asked, sitting up a little straighter. The Prophet meant a great deal to me.

"Finances." I deflated. That was the part of the paper I didn't care about. Finances were necessary but boring.

"Lame." I shoved another bite of waffle into my mouth and chewed. We finished breakfast and we headed off. I told myself we weren't purposely leaving at the same time, no, definitely not. We just happened to finish breakfast at the same time.

Everything at the ministry was normal. It was as if the entire world hadn't actually changed even though mine had. I glanced at the time and stood up on tiptoe- even higher than my heels went looking for-

"Baz!" I cried out, hurrying towards him, I nearly bowled him over. We had never actually been apart for more than a few hours. Even when we were in school, we'd part ways before bed, and in the morning, He was always down in the common room waiting for me.

It took every ounce of willpower I had to not throw myself at him. I didn't realize how much I really missed him until I saw him. I did throw my arms around him and held him close, He hugged me back and a moment later the two of us let go.

"Are you okay?" He asked, I thought about telling him the details of the night before- about Theodore's hands gripping my shoulders and holding me down, it would be nice to see Baz murder my husband. But I kept my mouth shut and I nodded.

I would handle it on my own.

"Meet me for lunch?" He asked, Baz's eyes flicked from my face back to Theodore who was walking up next to us then back to me.

"Of course."

"Nott." Baz gave Theodore his full attention. "Glad to see you made it out of the hospital just fine."

"I'm harder to kill than some people think." Theodore gave me a pointed look. I kept an 'innocent' look on my face.

"Darling, if I wanted you dead, you'd be dead." I shrugged and went to hug my brother one more time. "I'll see you at lunch," I promised, then headed for the office.

The day went by fairly quickly, the universe sensed that I did not want to go back home with my husband. I had lunch with my brother, apparently, he'd been keeping a much closer eye on Genevieve than I had been recently. He was happy to announce that she had only had two glasses of wine the night before and they hadn't refilled on the sleeping potions in a while.

I was going to keep telling myself that her addictions had nothing to do with me and her getting better when I left was just a coincidence.

When the day finally, thankfully, ended, I headed back towards the main lobby, pausing when I saw Theodore there, waiting. Of course, he was probably waiting for one of his annoying friends.

I unbuttoned the top couple of buttons on my shirt, I was ready to go home, take off the heels, and relax. I loved my high heels but that didn't mean I was immune to the pain that came from having them on all day.

"There you are." Theodore pushed away from the pillar he'd been leaning against. I glanced over my shoulder expecting to see Blaise or something. There was no one there- well there were a ton of people behind me, there were always a ton of people running around the ministry. But none of the people seemed to know Theodore.

"Me?"

"Yes, you. Come on, I'm starving, I want to get home." He held out his hand as if it wasn't the weirdest and most completely alien thing in the world.

"Okay…" I reached out and took his hand, he pulled me to him and apparated away.

We popped into the house and I stumbled a bit, his hand reached out to steady me.

Apparating in heels was always a gamble because if you didn't land on completely level ground you could break an ankle.

"You do know I can do that on my own right?" I asked, smoothing my skirt down.

"I am." He confirmed, walking away. I rolled my eyes, following after him, I needed to get into comfortable clothes. We parted ways as he headed towards the kitchen and I went for the bedroom.

Since he had gone down to the kitchen, the moment I walked through the door I began to undress, kicking my shoes off to the side, untucking my blouse. I was half undressed, my shirt off, and was unzipping my skirt when the door opened. I paused, my eyes shooting to the door.

Theodore walked in, unbuttoning his cuffs, freezing when he saw me.

"Oh."

The two of us stood there, staring, like deer caught in headlights, neither of us willing to move.

He recovered before I did, he finished unbuttoning his cuff and crossed his arms.

"Don't let me stop you." He commented, unlike the day before in the bath, where his eyes had been solidly honed in on my face, his eyes drifted down to my body, to my chest covered by only a sheer black bra.

I straightened my shoulders and unzipped the skirt.

"Fine." I let the skirt drop- the silk material sliding right down off of my body and pooling at my feet leaving me in the panties that matched the bra, as well as my stockings and garters.

I had always been fond of fancy lingerie. It made me feel cute, feminine, and sexual. I went behind my mother's back and bought my first lingerie set when I was probably a little too young to be doing so and I refused to go back to normal cotton.

Theodore's hands clenched into fists as I stepped out of the silk puddle on the floor. I turned my back to him and I heard his sharp inhale.

"Where do you think you're going?" he asked.

"The closet."

"You've not finished undressing, wife." I would definitely not be thinking about the pulse of heat that word had just sent between my legs. It wasn't the word itself, it was the way he said it. For the first time, it wasn't with disdain, it had been with pure, unadulterated lust.

I slowly turned to face him again, unhooking one garter clip at a time from my right stocking, I slipped my thumbs under the lace at the top of the stocking but he stopped me, walking closer and dropping to his knees in front of me.

"Theodore-"

He slowly rolled the stocking down my leg, then unclipped the other garter, taking it off in the same way. I reached back to unhook the garter belt and it dropped to the floor in front of him. My heart was pounding in my head- there was no way he couldn't hear it.

"Dinner is ready." Twinkle's voice announced over us like a ghost wielding a bucket of cold water. We both jumped away from each other, Theodore scrambling up off the floor.

"Right." He cleared his throat and turned, storming away into his closet. I pressed a hand to my chest, willing my heart rate to slow down. When I was pretty sure it wasn't going to beat its way out of my chest, I walked into my own closet, making sure the door clicked shut behind me.

Fuck he was going to be the death of me.