hackthis_archive (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hackthis_archive) wrote2004-10-20 11:53 am
hackthis_archive) wrote2004-10-20 11:53 am
Don't Be Shallow - TN/NL - II of II
Theodore Nott/ Neville Longbottom
Don’t Be Shallow
Part I of II
Part II of II
Theodore took a long bath when he arrived back at the Slytherin dorms. He was frustrated and cold and hot at the same time, and he had no idea what he was doing.
The sensation was distinctly unpleasant and he didn‘t like it at all. He had plans for his life. There were places he planned to go - Nepal, Tibet, Atlantis - and things he wanted to do. He’d promised Alexandria a Puffskein for her next birthday, and he wanted to get his father a tiny Crup to replace Tiberius. He intended to live well into his two-hundreds, or at least long enough to get through the upcoming war. It wasn’t the sort of thing he would ever say aloud, but Theodore was not convinced of the Dark Lord's success. On the contrary, he reckoned that the entire offensive would fail, just as it had in the years before he was born. As he didn’t actually support the Dark Lord, the idea didn’t bother him terribly, but he had a personal investment in the entire matter which made him slightly uneasy.
Theodore didn’t want to be a Death Eater, nor was he willing to die for Lord Voldemort. He didn’t want the Dark Mark or the responsibility of that blot further attached to his family name. He wanted nothing to do with the mess he could see getting nearer every day, but the circumstances of his birth didn’t leave him a large assortment of options. He wasn’t actively looking to join Potter and his lot either, because switching sides during a battle didn’t give you dispensation to avoid the fighting altogether. Nevertheless, he was going to need a back exit in case things deteriorated sooner rather than later.
He loved his father, and he trusted that he would look after Theodore and his sister until his dying day, but his father had already proven entirely too human, and that meant that Theodore had to be able to look after Alexandria. There would be no place in the Dark Lord's army for a ten-year old pureblooded Squib. Theodore had already lost his mother, and there was no way he would allow his family to endure that sort of pain ever again, so he made a point of keeping up appearances as well as he could and minding his p's and q's.
He was polite to the right people and followed in the necessary footsteps of his classmates quietly, but he kept a very sharp eye on his Aunt Narcissa, because everything he was learning about avoiding being marked was coming from her. Theodore considered Draco a fool for wanting to be like his father when his mother was obviously the smartest member of that family.
In short, however, there was no room in Theodore's life for a complication like Neville.
Once out of the bath, Theodore dressed quickly. He dried his hair with a towel and headed back to his room. He heard Draco long before he saw him, and he was just at their door when he heard Draco calling his name.
“Nott! Theodore ‘I can’t be arsed to see my mate play’ Nott!”
Theodore considered standing about in the hall and waiting for Draco to come to him, before thinking better of it and going inside the room he shared with the other boys in his year.
He shut the door behind him, waiting for Draco to begin banging on the door. He passed the time by counting by twos in French the way his mother had taught him. She hated odd numbers, so Theodore tended to count in increments.
Eventually, he opened the door and watched in deliberately subdued amusement as Draco fell through the doorway and onto the floor.
"Yes, Draco?" he said, making a concentrated effort not to smirk.
Even on his hands and knees, Draco managed a semi-superior scowl. "Are you going to just leave me here?"
Theodore sighed deeply, brushing a piece of invisible lint from his dressing gown. The offer was extraordinarily tempting. "Surely you're able to get to your feet on your own."
Draco's scowl deepened as he pushed himself to his feet and wiped his hands on his robes. “What happened to you during the match?” he asked, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice. Inwardly, Theodore rolled his eyes -- far be it from Draco to worry that something serious might have befallen him.
“It was cold in the stands,” Theodore said matter-of-factly. “I got a chill and came in to have a bath.”
Draco narrowed his eyes, and Theodore looked back at him expectantly. He found Draco incredibly trying at times. “Blaise said you were feeling a bit off.”
“And so I was.” Theodore padded across their room barefoot, picking up his discarded jumper and trousers from earlier. His stomach was upset for some reason and his head ached.
Perhaps it was the Draco effect.
“You missed my brilliant version of the Plumpton Pass,” Draco said, and Theodore wondered if he would ever attempt to keep the superiority out of his voice.
This was Draco – of course not.
Climbing onto his bed, Theodore stretched out and rested his head on his pillow. The room hadn’t been spinning when he’d first come indoors, but now...
“Does that mean you caught the Snitch?” he asked pinching his nose and blinking several times. If Draco had finally bested Potter that truly would have been something worth seeing, but Theodore knew it couldn’t possibly have come to pass as there was no victory parade or celebratory fireworks.
Draco dropped down on the foot of Theodore’s bed without invitation. “No,” he admitted eventually. “That infuriating prat got there before I did.”
Theodore didn’t even have to ask who the prat in question was. Instead he made a consolatory noise in his throat. “Better luck next time then,” he said, rubbing his forehead. The pain seemed to be growing worse the more Draco spoke, and Theodore could feel the irritation stirring in his stomach as Draco picked at the cover of his duvet.
“Don’t you want to make it up to me?” Draco said coyly, looking at Theodore from underneath blonde fringe.
Theodore was finding it hard to participate in this conversation; what he really wanted to do was close his eyes and think of anything else except for Draco. Or Neville. “Pardon?” he said eventually.
“Since you missed my spectacular play and then left early, I think I deserve a bit of a consolation present.”
Theodore couldn’t help snorting. “Perhaps another time, Draco,” he said. “I’m really not feeling that well.”
Draco glowered at him as he got to his feet. “Perhaps I’ll see what Blaise is doing.”
“That sounds like an excellent plan,” Theodore called out as Draco left the room.
Naturally, Draco slammed the door behind him since Theodore had never known him not to make a dramatic exit, and once the reverberations ceased, Theodore rolled onto his side and went to sleep.
*
Theodore didn’t have a great deal of experience with giving apologies. In fact, he could only remember apologizing a handful of times in his entire life. It wasn’t something that Notts typically did, and it certainly wasn’t something that Slytherins made a habit of. Nevertheless, the following Tuesday, after he spent forty minutes waiting in Greenhouse Four for Neville, who never bothered to appear, he realised that perhaps he had mucked things up somewhat and resolved to rectify them.
Re-obscuring his Sticky Fingers shirt, he pulled on his robes and left the Greenhouse to head for the castle. He was caught out in the open when it began to pour, and rather than casting a water-repelling charm or running for cover, he slowed his stride and worked to tidy his thoughts.
The Scottish rain was cold and horribly wet, and yet, Theodore enjoyed it immensely. It soaked through his robes and his loafers, and his footsteps made deliciously lewd noises in the mud. It was the sort of thing he thought Neville might find amusing, and that reminded him of the mess he’d made.
Theodore wasn’t terribly certain what he would say in his apology, something to the effect of ‘I’m sorry I snogged you and ran off… and lied to you about the Herbology bit… and even though your House is an abomination of self-righteous berks, I find you quite fascinating and would you fancy…”
Fancy what, exactly?
Did he want Neville back simply because he didn’t want Neville angry with him, or did he want Neville back because he wanted him full stop? That was all well in good in theory, except he’d never really had Neville to begin with and that worried Theodore to no end.
Naturally, this was not the sort of thing he could discuss with Blaise or his father, and Alexandria, intelligent girl though she was, would probably want to know why Theodore was in such a snit in the first place. Her rationale tended to be very simplistic where Theodore was concerned -- if she loved him, obviously everyone else did too. But that wasn’t what Theodore wanted with Neville, was it?
Certainly Theodore enjoyed Neville’s company and while he found his unflagging optimism trying at times, it wasn’t something he found annoying. If anything, Theodore found him quite amusing and entertaining, but pets were entertaining as well, and Theodore didn’t want someone he would have to keep and maintain.
If he were so inclined, Draco fit that bill perfectly, and Theodore didn’t want Draco.
He wanted Neville, and that was going to pose a problem.
A very large one.
Theodore was a sodden mess by the time he’d gotten around to the front of the school, and he slipped through the front door quietly, and made his way toward the dungeons. Water dripped from his clothing and his nose, and his hair was a great damp mass as he pushed it behind his ear.
He had no doubt that he looked a fright, and yet, even when Professor McGonagall appeared from nowhere and began clucking at him in her manner, Theodore simply nodded and paid her no heed.
He would have what he wanted. Everything else was irrelevant.
*
‘Hell’ was a Muggle invention that the majority of the wizarding world wasn’t well acquainted with; Theodore, however, was not a part of the majority. From the time he was small his parents had made a point of making certain he knew how both the Muggle and the wizarding worlds operated. On more than one occasion his mother had said that learning the Muggle ways was simply a matter of being well acquainted with the wider world, but she had stressed that this was not something that everyone would agree with.
After finding himself abandoned by Neville Longbottom, Theodore began to get a better idea of what hell actually entailed, aside from various incarnations of ‘fucking hell’ and ‘bloody hell’ and ‘what the hell?’
Hell, as he saw it, had very little to do with fire and brimstone and large boulders falling from the sky, and everything to do with sitting across from Draco at meals, and during lectures being subjected to his endless whinging and Pansy’s ceaseless pandering. That this was the status quo was irrelevant, because Theodore had never toed the line anyway.
Every time he looked around, all he noticed that Neville was missing. During meals there was a noticeable gap at the Gryffindor table, and when Granger caught him staring, she stared right back. During classes, Theodore kept to himself as always, but the empty space next to Ronald Weasley continually unsettled him.
By the end of the week, Theodore was a flurry of nerves on the inside despite his outwardly placid appearance. His façade finally broke during Potions, and rather than explaining to Professor Snape and Millicent why he’d minced the elderberry root instead of chopping it per directions, he asked to go to the infirmary.
He highly doubted that Madam Pomfrey could fix what ailed him, but he simply couldn’t take another hour of Draco’s incessant whinging, Millicent’s grunting and Weasley making eyes at Granger while he puffed out the Prefect badge on his chest. Potter was just as non-verbal as ever, but all the whispering was making Theodore’s head ache. Perhaps he could convince Madam Pomfrey that what he really needed was a weekend in the infirmary with the latest epistle from Alexandria and a large slab of chocolate. The idea alone soothed his tension, but as he rounded the corner to take the stairs to the Infirmary he was viciously attacked by someone else coming around the corner.
Actually, they simply ran into each other.
Theodore staggered backwards, almost losing his balance and falling on his rear; his assailant simply took a few steps back. The scowl materialised of its own accord and Theodore opened his mouth to dump vitriol all over this other person and instead found himself without anything to say at all.
“Sorry,” said Neville, gracing him with a half-hearted attempt at a smile.
Theodore never opened his mouth unless he knew exactly what he planned to say, so he straightened up and smoothed his eyebrow with his thumb. Then he took a deep breath.
“Where the hell have you been?” he snapped.
Neville blinked. “Excuse me?”
“I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” Theodore carried on, attempting to keep his voice at a reasonable tone. “You weren’t at the greenhouses for our tutorials any day this week. You haven’t been at meals or in classes. I haven’t had so much as a by-your-leave that you were, in fact, leaving me, which I think is very poor manners I have to say.”
It was completely irrelevant that they hadn’t technically been involved enough for anyone to leave anyone else, and Theodore could feel the heat in his face. He batted at his fringe as it fell across his forehead. His breath came out his nose shallowly, and he glared at Neville in frustration.
And Neville did something completely unexpected. He smirked. Theodore knew a smug look when he saw it, and Neville looked very smug, and then he brushed his lower lip with his thumb, and Theodore’s heart began crashing around in his chest.
“Let me see if I’ve got this right,” Neville said, turning away from Theodore to lean back against the wall.
Theodore narrowed his eyes and watched. Neville didn’t have his robes on; he was wearing a threadbare, long-sleeved shirt and jeans. It was quite fetching, and Theodore couldn’t keep from frowning.
“You’re vexed because you were looking for me and you couldn’t find me?” Neville said.
“Yes.”
Neville nodded, but Theodore saw the hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth. “And you’ve been looking for me for how long?”
“A week.”
“Uh huh.”
“Don’t say ‘uh huh’,” Theodore replied irritably.
Neville was toying with him. A Longbottom toying with a Nott. It was unconscionable; it was also terribly distracting the way that Neville ran his hand over his hair.
“You snogged me, admitted you lied to me about needing Herbology help, and then you ran away from me without telling me Merlin knows what else, and then you get angry with me?” Neville’s tone had started out rather flat and bland, but had grown louder and more incredulous.
“Great Salazar’s Ghost,” Theodore snapped, unable to keep the annoyance out his voice. “Your point would be what?”
Neville shook his head. “You are truly a piece of work, Theodore.”
And there was that smirk again.
It was simply too much to be born, so Theodore Nott snogged Neville Longbottom.
Again.
One minute he was a respectable distance away and pointedly not snogging any Gryffindor boys in public places, and the next he had launched himself at the wall and grabbed hold of Neville’s hips to keep him from going anywhere else.
He scraped his knuckles on the stones in his haste, and Neville’s eyes went wide as Theodore leaned forward and closed his eyes.
Neville’s lips weren’t dry or chapped this time, and Theodore didn’t kiss him as much as he attacked Neville with his mouth. His fingers clutched at Neville’s shirt, twisting the fabric and ripping seams, and he used his mouth like a desperate man, moving in a flurry of lips and teeth.
He nipped and licked and swore when Neville didn’t turn his head in the direction he wanted, and then he bit down sharply on Neville’s earlobe and licked the soft spot behind his ear.
He moved down to lick at the cords of Neville’s neck, groping Neville freely until he found the waistband of his jeans and began to stroke Neville’s cock through the material.
In truth, Theodore found it extraordinarily hard to focus when Neville’s hands were groping him through his robe and tangling in his hair, but eventually he licked his way between Neville’s lips and plunged his tongue into the warmth of Neville’s mouth.
Theodore could feel Neville’s hands twisting between them, and for a moment he feared that Neville would push him away, which only made him hold on tighter. It took him a little longer to realise that Neville was simply trying to get inside his robes.
He gave Neville’s dick a final squeeze through his trousers and unwound his fingers from Neville’s shirt to reach around and get a firm grip on his backside. Neville gasped for air as Theodore wedged his thigh between Neville’s legs and thrust against him in a truly salacious fashion.
Theodore wanted, and he wanted now.
His hands tangled with Neville’s as they both fussed with the fastenings of his robe, and he ignored the ripping sound when they finally managed to get it off. Reasserting his hold on Neville’s arse, Theodore began to rub and grind against Neville with considerable ease; and this time when they kissed it was languorous and decadent. Theodore stroked Neville’s tongue with his own, even as he used his hips to propel Neville back and forth against the wall, and he made uncontrolled noises as Neville wrapped his arms around his neck and urged him on with the sort of filthy language that Theodore never would have expected from someone who couldn’t even snog properly.
Neville groaned against Theodore’s mouth as he squeezed and lifted and rubbed himself against the hollow of Neville’s hip, and even when Neville shuddered under him, Theodore kept searching for his own release.
His orgasm twisted his muscles and surrounded him like a warm bath. His limbs relaxed until he had almost no muscle control, and he only moved to disentangled himself from Neville’s limbs when he felt Neville’s mouth brush against his temple.
He busied himself straightened his clothing and retrieving his robe from the floor. When he finally looked at Neville, Neville was biting his lower lip. Again.
Theodore rolled his eyes.
“This is your idea of an apology?” Neville said.
Theodore’s mother had once said that shrugging was a sign of lax parenting and poor posture, but if Theodore Nott had ever shrugged he would have done so now. Instead he brushed his hair behind his ear. “I’ve never done a lot of apologising; I’m not too certain how it’s done. Did this not work for you?”
Neville laughed. “Oh, no, it was fine.”
“Good,” Theodore interrupted.
“But for what it’s worth, I wasn’t avoiding you; I caught a cold that day by the lake.”
“Ah.”
Neville smiled and stepped forward to kiss Theodore on the corner of his mouth. “Don’t say ‘ah.’”
*
Theodore didn’t hum because that wasn’t what Notts did, but he did feel quite pleased with himself as he made his way down to the dungeons and entered the Slytherin common room. A simple Scourgify had taken care of the uncomfortable nature of his robes and trousers, and he was looking forward to an afternoon of writing to Alexandria and perhaps looking over his Herbology notes. It would never do to be less than brilliant in front of Neville again.
His almost-carefree demeanour lasted until he opened the door of his shared room and found Blaise stretched out across his bed.
“Our invalid returns!” Blaise announced to the otherwise empty room as Theodore shut the door behind him. “Feeling better?” he asked as Theodore busied himself removing his robes and hanging them in the wardrobe.
“Yes.” Theodore’s answer was much more curt that he’d intended. “Madam Pomfrey –“
“Mordred would rise from the dead if you actually went to see Madam Pomfrey,” Blaise interjected sitting upright and climbing off Theodore’s bed.
Theodore frowned. “I don’t know what you’re on about.”
Blaise nodded his head. “Exactly, and when Draco asks, you will say that Madam Pomfrey gave you a slab of chocolate and sent you to bed.”
Theodore’s eyes narrowed. Any first-year Slytherin knew blackmail when he or she heard it. “What are you saying, exactly?”
Blaise’s expression was hard, and Theodore swallowed. He trusted Blaise was loyal to him. If he were wrong... well, if he were wrong the results would be disastrous.
“I’m saying that you’re not feeling well,” Blaise repeated again.
“That’s because I’m not,” Theodore said.
“Exactly, which is obviously why you’re flushed and your mouth is so red.”
Theodore exhaled sharply through his nose and then rubbed his forehead; Blaise’s look softened. “Of course.”
“You should probably get into bed,” Blaise prompted.
Theodore pulled his jumper over his head and dropped it on his bed; Blaise nodded. He looked away as Theodore slipped into his pyjamas and climbed into bed.
“Theoretically speaking,” Blaise began, picking up Theodore’s jumper and tossing it into Theodore’s wardrobe. “If I were doing something that I didn’t want my housemates to know about, I would make certain to be more careful about my appearance in the future.”
“A few preventative measures can go a long way,” Theodore agreed.
Blaise carried on. “I understand that it’s possible to catch something from too much proximity to certain types of people, especially when sex is involved. Stupidity tends to be contagious when people are naked, but perhaps a little more attentiveness is in order -- it wouldn’t pay to catch something now would it? After all, we’re not stupid, are we?”
Theodore nodded as he slipped further under the bedclothes. “Of course not.”
Blaise nodded as he headed for the door. “Of course not,” he repeated.
Opening the door, Blaise set one foot in the hall. “I hope he’s worth it,” he said.
Theodore smirked. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said pulling the duvet up to his chin.
Blaise laughed. “He was that good, was he? I’m not surprised. It’s always the quiet ones you have to watch out for in the end.”
“In the end of what?”
“In the end that’s coming,” Blaise answered promptly.
Theodore pushed the covers back and sat up. “I didn’t know you thought of it that way.”
“Only a fool wouldn’t realise that life is about to become very unpleasant for everyone.”
As if by silent agreement, neither one of them mentioned Draco.
Blaise leaned against the doorjamb. “If I were a smart man, I might find someone who saw things my way, someone who might make my life and my family’s life easier if things weren’t to go according to a certain plan.”
Theodore stared.
Blaise straightened up. “You’ll let me know if Longbottom’s got a fit cousin, right?” he said before closing the door.
Theodore studied the intricate woodworking on the back of the door long after Blaise was gone. He could see previous years attempts at carving dirty Runes and where Draco had thrown his ink bottle the last time Potter had bested him in Quidditch.
He hadn’t been particularly knackered when he got in bed, but now he was exhausted, and he turned and extinguished the Eternally Burning Candle next to his bed.
His head was a swirling mass of thoughts and plans and things he had to address. He needed to write to Alexandria and see what she was doing at home, and then he needed to write to his father and see if she had shown any magical development whatsoever since he’d been gone. He had to write to his Aunt Narcissa and see if she had any advice about anything at all. He never directly asked for her help and she never said exactly what she was advising him about; their relationship was built on translating the vague.
He would do all of those things because they had to be done, but tonight he was going to sleep, and dream about Neville and a post-war future when he could wear his band tee shirts without casting an Obscuro first.
And tomorrow, instead of messing about in dragon shit, he was going to teach Neville how to properly snog.
-end-
This would not have been possible or even *conceived* without thepersistent nagging crack-addled enthusiasm of ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
circe_tigana. Thank you
Author’s Notes:
1. You’re only as inspired as your cast, really. The role of Theodore Nott has been portrayed by Cillian Murphy. The role of Blaise Zabini has been played by Wentworth Miller; the role of Draco Malfoy by Charlie Hunnam, and as always, Ciaran McMenamin has been Neville Longbottom.
ETN: Casting of Blaise and Draco are both courtesy ofethrosdemon, who will whip me with a wet noodle if I don't give her credit, because that's totally how Slytherins are.
2. I'd also like to thankdorrie6 and fearlessdiva for their support.
3. Last but never ever least I would be nothing with the constant bettering of the bestbeaters betas a girl could ask for: lalejandra read this not once, not twice, but three times. serialkarma listened to me talk about the damn thing for three days straight, and rolled with every version. You're both are amazing. I was also fortunate enough to coax the ever elusive ethrosdemon into beating this into submission, because that’s love, people. Really. Wanna see the bruises?
4. ETN #2: This story now has a series: The Thousandth Man
Don’t Be Shallow
Part I of II
Part II of II
Theodore took a long bath when he arrived back at the Slytherin dorms. He was frustrated and cold and hot at the same time, and he had no idea what he was doing.
The sensation was distinctly unpleasant and he didn‘t like it at all. He had plans for his life. There were places he planned to go - Nepal, Tibet, Atlantis - and things he wanted to do. He’d promised Alexandria a Puffskein for her next birthday, and he wanted to get his father a tiny Crup to replace Tiberius. He intended to live well into his two-hundreds, or at least long enough to get through the upcoming war. It wasn’t the sort of thing he would ever say aloud, but Theodore was not convinced of the Dark Lord's success. On the contrary, he reckoned that the entire offensive would fail, just as it had in the years before he was born. As he didn’t actually support the Dark Lord, the idea didn’t bother him terribly, but he had a personal investment in the entire matter which made him slightly uneasy.
Theodore didn’t want to be a Death Eater, nor was he willing to die for Lord Voldemort. He didn’t want the Dark Mark or the responsibility of that blot further attached to his family name. He wanted nothing to do with the mess he could see getting nearer every day, but the circumstances of his birth didn’t leave him a large assortment of options. He wasn’t actively looking to join Potter and his lot either, because switching sides during a battle didn’t give you dispensation to avoid the fighting altogether. Nevertheless, he was going to need a back exit in case things deteriorated sooner rather than later.
He loved his father, and he trusted that he would look after Theodore and his sister until his dying day, but his father had already proven entirely too human, and that meant that Theodore had to be able to look after Alexandria. There would be no place in the Dark Lord's army for a ten-year old pureblooded Squib. Theodore had already lost his mother, and there was no way he would allow his family to endure that sort of pain ever again, so he made a point of keeping up appearances as well as he could and minding his p's and q's.
He was polite to the right people and followed in the necessary footsteps of his classmates quietly, but he kept a very sharp eye on his Aunt Narcissa, because everything he was learning about avoiding being marked was coming from her. Theodore considered Draco a fool for wanting to be like his father when his mother was obviously the smartest member of that family.
In short, however, there was no room in Theodore's life for a complication like Neville.
Once out of the bath, Theodore dressed quickly. He dried his hair with a towel and headed back to his room. He heard Draco long before he saw him, and he was just at their door when he heard Draco calling his name.
“Nott! Theodore ‘I can’t be arsed to see my mate play’ Nott!”
Theodore considered standing about in the hall and waiting for Draco to come to him, before thinking better of it and going inside the room he shared with the other boys in his year.
He shut the door behind him, waiting for Draco to begin banging on the door. He passed the time by counting by twos in French the way his mother had taught him. She hated odd numbers, so Theodore tended to count in increments.
Eventually, he opened the door and watched in deliberately subdued amusement as Draco fell through the doorway and onto the floor.
"Yes, Draco?" he said, making a concentrated effort not to smirk.
Even on his hands and knees, Draco managed a semi-superior scowl. "Are you going to just leave me here?"
Theodore sighed deeply, brushing a piece of invisible lint from his dressing gown. The offer was extraordinarily tempting. "Surely you're able to get to your feet on your own."
Draco's scowl deepened as he pushed himself to his feet and wiped his hands on his robes. “What happened to you during the match?” he asked, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice. Inwardly, Theodore rolled his eyes -- far be it from Draco to worry that something serious might have befallen him.
“It was cold in the stands,” Theodore said matter-of-factly. “I got a chill and came in to have a bath.”
Draco narrowed his eyes, and Theodore looked back at him expectantly. He found Draco incredibly trying at times. “Blaise said you were feeling a bit off.”
“And so I was.” Theodore padded across their room barefoot, picking up his discarded jumper and trousers from earlier. His stomach was upset for some reason and his head ached.
Perhaps it was the Draco effect.
“You missed my brilliant version of the Plumpton Pass,” Draco said, and Theodore wondered if he would ever attempt to keep the superiority out of his voice.
This was Draco – of course not.
Climbing onto his bed, Theodore stretched out and rested his head on his pillow. The room hadn’t been spinning when he’d first come indoors, but now...
“Does that mean you caught the Snitch?” he asked pinching his nose and blinking several times. If Draco had finally bested Potter that truly would have been something worth seeing, but Theodore knew it couldn’t possibly have come to pass as there was no victory parade or celebratory fireworks.
Draco dropped down on the foot of Theodore’s bed without invitation. “No,” he admitted eventually. “That infuriating prat got there before I did.”
Theodore didn’t even have to ask who the prat in question was. Instead he made a consolatory noise in his throat. “Better luck next time then,” he said, rubbing his forehead. The pain seemed to be growing worse the more Draco spoke, and Theodore could feel the irritation stirring in his stomach as Draco picked at the cover of his duvet.
“Don’t you want to make it up to me?” Draco said coyly, looking at Theodore from underneath blonde fringe.
Theodore was finding it hard to participate in this conversation; what he really wanted to do was close his eyes and think of anything else except for Draco. Or Neville. “Pardon?” he said eventually.
“Since you missed my spectacular play and then left early, I think I deserve a bit of a consolation present.”
Theodore couldn’t help snorting. “Perhaps another time, Draco,” he said. “I’m really not feeling that well.”
Draco glowered at him as he got to his feet. “Perhaps I’ll see what Blaise is doing.”
“That sounds like an excellent plan,” Theodore called out as Draco left the room.
Naturally, Draco slammed the door behind him since Theodore had never known him not to make a dramatic exit, and once the reverberations ceased, Theodore rolled onto his side and went to sleep.
Theodore didn’t have a great deal of experience with giving apologies. In fact, he could only remember apologizing a handful of times in his entire life. It wasn’t something that Notts typically did, and it certainly wasn’t something that Slytherins made a habit of. Nevertheless, the following Tuesday, after he spent forty minutes waiting in Greenhouse Four for Neville, who never bothered to appear, he realised that perhaps he had mucked things up somewhat and resolved to rectify them.
Re-obscuring his Sticky Fingers shirt, he pulled on his robes and left the Greenhouse to head for the castle. He was caught out in the open when it began to pour, and rather than casting a water-repelling charm or running for cover, he slowed his stride and worked to tidy his thoughts.
The Scottish rain was cold and horribly wet, and yet, Theodore enjoyed it immensely. It soaked through his robes and his loafers, and his footsteps made deliciously lewd noises in the mud. It was the sort of thing he thought Neville might find amusing, and that reminded him of the mess he’d made.
Theodore wasn’t terribly certain what he would say in his apology, something to the effect of ‘I’m sorry I snogged you and ran off… and lied to you about the Herbology bit… and even though your House is an abomination of self-righteous berks, I find you quite fascinating and would you fancy…”
Fancy what, exactly?
Did he want Neville back simply because he didn’t want Neville angry with him, or did he want Neville back because he wanted him full stop? That was all well in good in theory, except he’d never really had Neville to begin with and that worried Theodore to no end.
Naturally, this was not the sort of thing he could discuss with Blaise or his father, and Alexandria, intelligent girl though she was, would probably want to know why Theodore was in such a snit in the first place. Her rationale tended to be very simplistic where Theodore was concerned -- if she loved him, obviously everyone else did too. But that wasn’t what Theodore wanted with Neville, was it?
Certainly Theodore enjoyed Neville’s company and while he found his unflagging optimism trying at times, it wasn’t something he found annoying. If anything, Theodore found him quite amusing and entertaining, but pets were entertaining as well, and Theodore didn’t want someone he would have to keep and maintain.
If he were so inclined, Draco fit that bill perfectly, and Theodore didn’t want Draco.
He wanted Neville, and that was going to pose a problem.
A very large one.
Theodore was a sodden mess by the time he’d gotten around to the front of the school, and he slipped through the front door quietly, and made his way toward the dungeons. Water dripped from his clothing and his nose, and his hair was a great damp mass as he pushed it behind his ear.
He had no doubt that he looked a fright, and yet, even when Professor McGonagall appeared from nowhere and began clucking at him in her manner, Theodore simply nodded and paid her no heed.
He would have what he wanted. Everything else was irrelevant.
‘Hell’ was a Muggle invention that the majority of the wizarding world wasn’t well acquainted with; Theodore, however, was not a part of the majority. From the time he was small his parents had made a point of making certain he knew how both the Muggle and the wizarding worlds operated. On more than one occasion his mother had said that learning the Muggle ways was simply a matter of being well acquainted with the wider world, but she had stressed that this was not something that everyone would agree with.
After finding himself abandoned by Neville Longbottom, Theodore began to get a better idea of what hell actually entailed, aside from various incarnations of ‘fucking hell’ and ‘bloody hell’ and ‘what the hell?’
Hell, as he saw it, had very little to do with fire and brimstone and large boulders falling from the sky, and everything to do with sitting across from Draco at meals, and during lectures being subjected to his endless whinging and Pansy’s ceaseless pandering. That this was the status quo was irrelevant, because Theodore had never toed the line anyway.
Every time he looked around, all he noticed that Neville was missing. During meals there was a noticeable gap at the Gryffindor table, and when Granger caught him staring, she stared right back. During classes, Theodore kept to himself as always, but the empty space next to Ronald Weasley continually unsettled him.
By the end of the week, Theodore was a flurry of nerves on the inside despite his outwardly placid appearance. His façade finally broke during Potions, and rather than explaining to Professor Snape and Millicent why he’d minced the elderberry root instead of chopping it per directions, he asked to go to the infirmary.
He highly doubted that Madam Pomfrey could fix what ailed him, but he simply couldn’t take another hour of Draco’s incessant whinging, Millicent’s grunting and Weasley making eyes at Granger while he puffed out the Prefect badge on his chest. Potter was just as non-verbal as ever, but all the whispering was making Theodore’s head ache. Perhaps he could convince Madam Pomfrey that what he really needed was a weekend in the infirmary with the latest epistle from Alexandria and a large slab of chocolate. The idea alone soothed his tension, but as he rounded the corner to take the stairs to the Infirmary he was viciously attacked by someone else coming around the corner.
Actually, they simply ran into each other.
Theodore staggered backwards, almost losing his balance and falling on his rear; his assailant simply took a few steps back. The scowl materialised of its own accord and Theodore opened his mouth to dump vitriol all over this other person and instead found himself without anything to say at all.
“Sorry,” said Neville, gracing him with a half-hearted attempt at a smile.
Theodore never opened his mouth unless he knew exactly what he planned to say, so he straightened up and smoothed his eyebrow with his thumb. Then he took a deep breath.
“Where the hell have you been?” he snapped.
Neville blinked. “Excuse me?”
“I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” Theodore carried on, attempting to keep his voice at a reasonable tone. “You weren’t at the greenhouses for our tutorials any day this week. You haven’t been at meals or in classes. I haven’t had so much as a by-your-leave that you were, in fact, leaving me, which I think is very poor manners I have to say.”
It was completely irrelevant that they hadn’t technically been involved enough for anyone to leave anyone else, and Theodore could feel the heat in his face. He batted at his fringe as it fell across his forehead. His breath came out his nose shallowly, and he glared at Neville in frustration.
And Neville did something completely unexpected. He smirked. Theodore knew a smug look when he saw it, and Neville looked very smug, and then he brushed his lower lip with his thumb, and Theodore’s heart began crashing around in his chest.
“Let me see if I’ve got this right,” Neville said, turning away from Theodore to lean back against the wall.
Theodore narrowed his eyes and watched. Neville didn’t have his robes on; he was wearing a threadbare, long-sleeved shirt and jeans. It was quite fetching, and Theodore couldn’t keep from frowning.
“You’re vexed because you were looking for me and you couldn’t find me?” Neville said.
“Yes.”
Neville nodded, but Theodore saw the hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth. “And you’ve been looking for me for how long?”
“A week.”
“Uh huh.”
“Don’t say ‘uh huh’,” Theodore replied irritably.
Neville was toying with him. A Longbottom toying with a Nott. It was unconscionable; it was also terribly distracting the way that Neville ran his hand over his hair.
“You snogged me, admitted you lied to me about needing Herbology help, and then you ran away from me without telling me Merlin knows what else, and then you get angry with me?” Neville’s tone had started out rather flat and bland, but had grown louder and more incredulous.
“Great Salazar’s Ghost,” Theodore snapped, unable to keep the annoyance out his voice. “Your point would be what?”
Neville shook his head. “You are truly a piece of work, Theodore.”
And there was that smirk again.
It was simply too much to be born, so Theodore Nott snogged Neville Longbottom.
Again.
One minute he was a respectable distance away and pointedly not snogging any Gryffindor boys in public places, and the next he had launched himself at the wall and grabbed hold of Neville’s hips to keep him from going anywhere else.
He scraped his knuckles on the stones in his haste, and Neville’s eyes went wide as Theodore leaned forward and closed his eyes.
Neville’s lips weren’t dry or chapped this time, and Theodore didn’t kiss him as much as he attacked Neville with his mouth. His fingers clutched at Neville’s shirt, twisting the fabric and ripping seams, and he used his mouth like a desperate man, moving in a flurry of lips and teeth.
He nipped and licked and swore when Neville didn’t turn his head in the direction he wanted, and then he bit down sharply on Neville’s earlobe and licked the soft spot behind his ear.
He moved down to lick at the cords of Neville’s neck, groping Neville freely until he found the waistband of his jeans and began to stroke Neville’s cock through the material.
In truth, Theodore found it extraordinarily hard to focus when Neville’s hands were groping him through his robe and tangling in his hair, but eventually he licked his way between Neville’s lips and plunged his tongue into the warmth of Neville’s mouth.
Theodore could feel Neville’s hands twisting between them, and for a moment he feared that Neville would push him away, which only made him hold on tighter. It took him a little longer to realise that Neville was simply trying to get inside his robes.
He gave Neville’s dick a final squeeze through his trousers and unwound his fingers from Neville’s shirt to reach around and get a firm grip on his backside. Neville gasped for air as Theodore wedged his thigh between Neville’s legs and thrust against him in a truly salacious fashion.
Theodore wanted, and he wanted now.
His hands tangled with Neville’s as they both fussed with the fastenings of his robe, and he ignored the ripping sound when they finally managed to get it off. Reasserting his hold on Neville’s arse, Theodore began to rub and grind against Neville with considerable ease; and this time when they kissed it was languorous and decadent. Theodore stroked Neville’s tongue with his own, even as he used his hips to propel Neville back and forth against the wall, and he made uncontrolled noises as Neville wrapped his arms around his neck and urged him on with the sort of filthy language that Theodore never would have expected from someone who couldn’t even snog properly.
Neville groaned against Theodore’s mouth as he squeezed and lifted and rubbed himself against the hollow of Neville’s hip, and even when Neville shuddered under him, Theodore kept searching for his own release.
His orgasm twisted his muscles and surrounded him like a warm bath. His limbs relaxed until he had almost no muscle control, and he only moved to disentangled himself from Neville’s limbs when he felt Neville’s mouth brush against his temple.
He busied himself straightened his clothing and retrieving his robe from the floor. When he finally looked at Neville, Neville was biting his lower lip. Again.
Theodore rolled his eyes.
“This is your idea of an apology?” Neville said.
Theodore’s mother had once said that shrugging was a sign of lax parenting and poor posture, but if Theodore Nott had ever shrugged he would have done so now. Instead he brushed his hair behind his ear. “I’ve never done a lot of apologising; I’m not too certain how it’s done. Did this not work for you?”
Neville laughed. “Oh, no, it was fine.”
“Good,” Theodore interrupted.
“But for what it’s worth, I wasn’t avoiding you; I caught a cold that day by the lake.”
“Ah.”
Neville smiled and stepped forward to kiss Theodore on the corner of his mouth. “Don’t say ‘ah.’”
Theodore didn’t hum because that wasn’t what Notts did, but he did feel quite pleased with himself as he made his way down to the dungeons and entered the Slytherin common room. A simple Scourgify had taken care of the uncomfortable nature of his robes and trousers, and he was looking forward to an afternoon of writing to Alexandria and perhaps looking over his Herbology notes. It would never do to be less than brilliant in front of Neville again.
His almost-carefree demeanour lasted until he opened the door of his shared room and found Blaise stretched out across his bed.
“Our invalid returns!” Blaise announced to the otherwise empty room as Theodore shut the door behind him. “Feeling better?” he asked as Theodore busied himself removing his robes and hanging them in the wardrobe.
“Yes.” Theodore’s answer was much more curt that he’d intended. “Madam Pomfrey –“
“Mordred would rise from the dead if you actually went to see Madam Pomfrey,” Blaise interjected sitting upright and climbing off Theodore’s bed.
Theodore frowned. “I don’t know what you’re on about.”
Blaise nodded his head. “Exactly, and when Draco asks, you will say that Madam Pomfrey gave you a slab of chocolate and sent you to bed.”
Theodore’s eyes narrowed. Any first-year Slytherin knew blackmail when he or she heard it. “What are you saying, exactly?”
Blaise’s expression was hard, and Theodore swallowed. He trusted Blaise was loyal to him. If he were wrong... well, if he were wrong the results would be disastrous.
“I’m saying that you’re not feeling well,” Blaise repeated again.
“That’s because I’m not,” Theodore said.
“Exactly, which is obviously why you’re flushed and your mouth is so red.”
Theodore exhaled sharply through his nose and then rubbed his forehead; Blaise’s look softened. “Of course.”
“You should probably get into bed,” Blaise prompted.
Theodore pulled his jumper over his head and dropped it on his bed; Blaise nodded. He looked away as Theodore slipped into his pyjamas and climbed into bed.
“Theoretically speaking,” Blaise began, picking up Theodore’s jumper and tossing it into Theodore’s wardrobe. “If I were doing something that I didn’t want my housemates to know about, I would make certain to be more careful about my appearance in the future.”
“A few preventative measures can go a long way,” Theodore agreed.
Blaise carried on. “I understand that it’s possible to catch something from too much proximity to certain types of people, especially when sex is involved. Stupidity tends to be contagious when people are naked, but perhaps a little more attentiveness is in order -- it wouldn’t pay to catch something now would it? After all, we’re not stupid, are we?”
Theodore nodded as he slipped further under the bedclothes. “Of course not.”
Blaise nodded as he headed for the door. “Of course not,” he repeated.
Opening the door, Blaise set one foot in the hall. “I hope he’s worth it,” he said.
Theodore smirked. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said pulling the duvet up to his chin.
Blaise laughed. “He was that good, was he? I’m not surprised. It’s always the quiet ones you have to watch out for in the end.”
“In the end of what?”
“In the end that’s coming,” Blaise answered promptly.
Theodore pushed the covers back and sat up. “I didn’t know you thought of it that way.”
“Only a fool wouldn’t realise that life is about to become very unpleasant for everyone.”
As if by silent agreement, neither one of them mentioned Draco.
Blaise leaned against the doorjamb. “If I were a smart man, I might find someone who saw things my way, someone who might make my life and my family’s life easier if things weren’t to go according to a certain plan.”
Theodore stared.
Blaise straightened up. “You’ll let me know if Longbottom’s got a fit cousin, right?” he said before closing the door.
Theodore studied the intricate woodworking on the back of the door long after Blaise was gone. He could see previous years attempts at carving dirty Runes and where Draco had thrown his ink bottle the last time Potter had bested him in Quidditch.
He hadn’t been particularly knackered when he got in bed, but now he was exhausted, and he turned and extinguished the Eternally Burning Candle next to his bed.
His head was a swirling mass of thoughts and plans and things he had to address. He needed to write to Alexandria and see what she was doing at home, and then he needed to write to his father and see if she had shown any magical development whatsoever since he’d been gone. He had to write to his Aunt Narcissa and see if she had any advice about anything at all. He never directly asked for her help and she never said exactly what she was advising him about; their relationship was built on translating the vague.
He would do all of those things because they had to be done, but tonight he was going to sleep, and dream about Neville and a post-war future when he could wear his band tee shirts without casting an Obscuro first.
And tomorrow, instead of messing about in dragon shit, he was going to teach Neville how to properly snog.
-end-
This would not have been possible or even *conceived* without the
circe_tigana. Thank youAuthor’s Notes:
1. You’re only as inspired as your cast, really. The role of Theodore Nott has been portrayed by Cillian Murphy. The role of Blaise Zabini has been played by Wentworth Miller; the role of Draco Malfoy by Charlie Hunnam, and as always, Ciaran McMenamin has been Neville Longbottom.
ETN: Casting of Blaise and Draco are both courtesy of
ethrosdemon, who will whip me with a wet noodle if I don't give her credit, because that's totally how Slytherins are.2. I'd also like to thank
dorrie6 and fearlessdiva for their support. 3. Last but never ever least I would be nothing with the constant bettering of the best
lalejandra read this not once, not twice, but three times. serialkarma listened to me talk about the damn thing for three days straight, and rolled with every version. You're both are amazing. I was also fortunate enough to coax the ever elusive ethrosdemon into beating this into submission, because that’s love, people. Really. Wanna see the bruises?4. ETN #2: This story now has a series: The Thousandth Man
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That was just one of those random things that seemed to fit at the time, and I'm so glad you liked this sweetie. I'm always happy when you like my stuff :)