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Theo told himself that he wouldn’t be nervous this year. He wasn’t a first year anymore, after all. He wouldn’t quietly follow Draco around the castle this year. He knew where the dungeons were, which staircases liked to move when they could sense one was running late, where the hidden entrance to the Slytherin common room was every time, which trick step to avoid, and which professors would give half credit for clever reasoning even with a wrong answer. He knew all of his professors, and they mostly knew him. He was a proper Hogwarts student now.
He had been looking forward to coming back to school pretty much since he left in June. His father was unhappy with him because Slytherin lost the house cup his first year. Like it was his fault that Potter, Granger, and the other Gryffindors did something stupid and Dumbledore rewarded it. He was top of his class in Slytherin, and second in the class as a whole. But even that wasn’t good enough for his father, who seemed extra annoyed that Granger was the one with top marks. Theo mostly kept to himself over the summer, avoiding his father as much as he could. It mostly worked, and he only really talked to the elves the past month.
Finally, his father brought him to Diagon Alley for his supplies. Father pulled him away from Flourish and Blotts when a crowd started forming around some odd, loud wizard that was apparently going to be his new Defense professor, even though the Malfoys were there. His father just kept mumbling about how Dumbledore was allowing an imbecile to teach his heir. Theo was just glad to get out of the manor for the day. He was even allowed to get ice cream after shopping for all his supplies, which was unusual for him. He was ready and excited to get back to school, ready to seize the day and feel more comfortable with himself and his housemates.
And yet, the moment he stepped foot on the train, his trunk left behind for the elves to load, the press of other students pushing past him in the tight quarters between compartments, the overlapping voices of other students overwhelmed him. His palms went sweaty, he felt like shrinking into himself. He wanted his robes to swallow him. He shouldered his messenger bag with a deep inhale to steady himself, and looked through each open window as he passed. He found and quickly avoided the Slytherin girl’s compartment, wanting to avoid Daphne’s brash attitude and Astoria’s first year nervousness. He loved them, truly, the Greengrass girls were practically family, but he couldn’t handle that level of extroversion right then.
He slowed down as he passed the compartment for his housemates, Crabbe and Goyle already squashed onto one bench, shoving some sort of sweets towards each other. Blaise sat across from the two, leaning against the corner smirking at the other boys. He caught Theo’s eye and raised a brow towards him, like the other boy knew something that Theo didn’t. Blaise was always like that, always somehow a step ahead of everyone else and just enjoying the show. Theo was about to join his dorm mates when movement caught his eye from across the corridor. It caused Theo to hesitate, just for a moment. He slowly shuffled further down the train towards it.
Then, he stopped, seeing what, or rather who, caught his eye. Hermione Granger.
She was sitting alone in the compartment, leaning against the window, her knees drawn up a little. She had a thick book propped against her thighs. Her lips moved faintly as she read to herself. Even so, Theo could tell that she wasn’t really focused on the book she was practically reading aloud to herself in her head. Her eyes kept darting around out the windows, her fingers tapped against her knee rhythmically.
The girl had fascinated him last year. Yes, she was loud, and yes, she could be abrasive in classes. But the professors needed an answer to their questions, and she was the only one with her hand up to answer. Theo knew the answers, too, but every time he wanted to raise his hand, a voice in his head told him to stop, keep his head down, don’t draw attention to himself, and wait for the little lion to answer instead. He smiled to himself internally (never externally, for fear of being noticed) every time her answer matched his. He found her energy, her odd muggley figures of speech, her inability to shield how she was feeling from the world fascinating. Incredibly foreign to him. He thought maybe that was how some young wizards felt when they saw unicorns at the magi-zoo, when he noticed her across the Great Hall. Enraptured by the otherness of it all.
Most of all, Theo admired Hermione Granger. He thought they could be friends, in another world where his father wasn’t so awful and his classmates weren’t so mean. She was clever, and brash, and he admitted to himself even then that he was drawn to it, to her.
He wasn’t sure where the bravery came from, but he tentatively knocked on the compartment door.
“Um, can I sit with you for a while?”
Granger looked up, her eyes wide, and it seemed like a thousand emotions flashed on her face. Excitement turned to disappointment (which Theo tried not to be offended by, she was probably expecting her friends, in which he was definitively not one, though it still stung) which turned to curiosity which turned to wariness when she realized who he was in and which House he belonged to. Theo hoped that the girl in front of him could remember that he had never even said a word in front of her, let alone a nasty one. Though, Theo realized, she might not even know his name. They shared classes all last year but he never spoke up once, wanting to listen to the muggle-born who somehow knew so much.
He was about to speak up, introduce himself, when she slowly, cautiously waved towards the seat across from her in the compartment.
She seemed to curl into herself a little more as he sat down. He felt his cheeks flush with embarrassment, thinking that this was a mistake. He tried to recover as best he could, and pulled out the book he was reading, the latest copy of Magical Misfits, a young-wizards mystery novel series. He only ever read fiction during the summer, and Theo desperately wanted to finish it before the term started. He also, selfishly, hoped that opening a book would be an ice-breaker with Granger.
“I’m sorry to bother you, but this seemed like a compartment that I could read quietly in, if that’s all right?” He asked, nervously, slightly waving his book as emphasis.
She nodded carefully, but she seemed to relax a little bit when he opened the book gently, removing his bookmark and delicately placing it next to him on the bench, and began to read while subtly observing the witch across from him. She continued to read half-heartedly, while fidgeting and looking up through the windows. As the train left the station with its initial jerk, she looked dismayed before attempting to school her expression (poorly, he thought, those darn Gryffindors without any control over their emotions) and gripping the tome tightly in her hands. She kept looking up at him, obviously confused by his presence but not objecting aloud.
Out of his peripheral, he noticed she was reading a recently revised, yet well-loved, edition of Hogwarts, a History. Theo felt a little spark of hope, because he’d practically memorized the edition in her hands. He also knew how much she knew of the previous edition, considering that she carried with her everywhere during first year. He continued to read slowly, distracted by his observing, waiting for what seemed to be the right moment to say something to the girl he wanted to befriend.
After about twenty minutes, he figured, he cleared his throat and tried to start his long-awaited conversation.
“Did you see the updated chapter in that edition of Hogwarts, a History that expands on the historical and ecological significance of the Forbidden Forest?” He asked quietly.
She started a bit at his question, but she ticked an eyebrow up slightly.
“Yes,” she said slowly, “I thought that the Celtic Druid architecture that some researchers found on the northern edge to be fascinating.”
He nodded with a soft smile. “I found the evidence that the older civilizations terraformed the areas around their villages to maximize moonlight for astrological rituals an interesting discovery, especially since that type of ruin has only been found in Ireland previously.”
”I would love to visit some of those ruins someday, I just adore the amount we can learn from people who existed generations and generations before us,” she said, with more enthusiasm, matching his smile and animating slightly with her hands.
”There is an old hedge wizard’s hermit cave not too far from my home in Wales, I used to slip away to explore it during the summer,” he admitted to her, “it was like you could feel the magic permeating the stone walls.”
”I felt that way in France this summer! The catacombs in Paris were just permeating with magical energy in some places.”
His eyes widened. “I’ve always wanted to visit the catacombs, but my mother doesn’t like Paris, it’s too crowded for her. Maybe I’ll go sometime soon. Was it incredible? Was it terribly morbid?”
The girl in front up him lit up, and his stomach flipped as her excitement to share her experience seemed to outweigh her distrust of him.
”It was a little morbid, but I honestly loved it. The history of it all was amazing, we had this great tour guide that spoke English who answered almost all of my questions and led us through the most interesting pathways. Did you know there are entire societies of muggles who live inside the catacombs? And I would bet my last sugar quill that there are magical groups that live down there as well, based on what I saw and felt down there.”
“Whoa, that’s incredible! I had no idea.” He smiled again, larger and more genuine, and Granger matched it.
The two continued to chat idly about their various holidays, leading into the novels he’s been reading, until they were interrupted by Longbottom looking for Granger. The other boy looked warily at them, but didn’t seem as perturbed about her choice of cabin mate as Theo would have thought.
Checking his watch, Theo realized that they had been chatting for over an hour. With a sinking feeling, he knew that he had to go join his house. He quietly excused himself while Granger was talking with Longbottom about her two missing friends. He realized as he slipped into the loo to change into his school robes that he hadn’t thought about Potter and Weasley not tagging along during their entire conversation. No wonder she was so fidgety. She probably thought the two wankers had abandoned her, he figured. It was clear to everyone else that the two boys were closer friends with each other than they were to her.
He quietly joined his housemates in their cabin, sliding the door gently and closing it soundlessly behind him. Crabbe and Goyle were distracting Draco with a game of exploding snap, and Blaise just smirked in Theo’s direction as he pensively slipped into the open seat near the door and closed his eyes, pretending to nap but his thoughts swirled about the witch.
She was just as intelligent and fascinating up close, he decided. Her cleverness wasn’t intimidating, like he thought in classes first year, but captivating. He wanted to learn more about her. How did a muggle-born witch learn so much? How could she sense magic in a foreign city with only a year’s magical education? He wanted to find out, somehow, he decided, as he slipped into a less-than-peaceful sleep through the northern English countryside, only waking for the imminent horseless carriages and the start of term feast.
***
Theo did do one thing that he wanted for himself that term. He spoke up in class more, sometimes even going back and forth with Granger or Draco during classes. He still kept to himself outside of classes, and hid in the library for most of his free time. Draco and Blaise occasionally convinced him to join in a pick-up Quidditch game against the Ravenclaws, but his preferred Seeker position was, of course, taken by Draco since he was on the house team that year, so he half-heartedly played Chaser instead. He ignored Lockhart’s class, absorbed Flitwick’s, and struggled through McGonnagal’s.
He wanted to try to befriend Granger more, but she seemed distracted out of classes, and was constantly surrounded by the two idiots. He wasn’t even sure if she recognized him or bothered remembering their hour long conversation on the train, or if his face blended into a sea of green ties. He still wasn’t even sure that she knew his name.
He thought he had an opening one night, when he saw her check out a book in the library that he had just read and thought they could talk about it, but before he summoned the courage, Draco was bragging in the common room about calling her a mudblood and how she ran away crying. His chest sank in shame at his friend’s words, and heard his father’s similar words echoing in his ears, and Theo shrunk back into himself. He stopped speaking up in classes, he stopped flying with his classmates.
Theo withdrew into himself to the point where even Snape begrudgingly asked him if he was all right. He just nodded, and continued to speak up as little as possible.
Everything changed over the Christmas holiday.
Theo Nott, always quiet, always shy, returned to Hogwarts a broken boy. His friends could tell something was wrong, but they didn’t know enough to see how the small, thin boy now flinched at the carriages from Hogsmeade, and how his eyes seemed to focus on where a horse would be where the others just saw empty space.
The other Slytherin boys noticed his sunken eyes had glazed over, and that he barely seemed to see where he was or who he was with, and that he ate nothing but bland white toast for the rest of term. Nothing they did would pull him out of his daze. They walked with him to classes, tried to include him in conversations, to no avail.
Theodore Nott did not speak a word for five months.
Instead, in his haze of grief and pain and anger and fear, he watched.
He watched how the other students acted as the petrifications continued. He watched his housemates laugh at the muggleborn students walking in groups, never alone. He watched how Hermione Granger disappeared for a month after the Christmas holiday. He watched the two idiots with their heads bowed together, scheming at the Gryffindor table. He watched as a Hufflepuff seventh year prefect gathered her younger housemates so that they were never alone, always pairing muggleborns with a halfblood or pure blood. He watched as Granger returned from her extended stay in the hospital wing, only to be petrified a few short months later. He watched as Draco and one of the Carrow girls drew a caricature of the petrified students that they pinned to the wall in the common room, rising and falling in egregious fashions. He watched as his friends didn’t care that the people (and ghost) that were petrified were their classmates, some were almost friends, but the blood status obsession changed all of that. He watched as Slytherin house, once proper and well-mannered to a fault, became mean and hateful. He watched as pranks became harmful, as words turned from teasing to spiteful. He watched as his friends started turning into their fathers.
Theo resolved, to himself in his head, that he would never become the type of man his father wanted him to be. The type of man to murder his wife in front of their son on Christmas morning.
He did his homework, he scrawled his essays, he revised for exams. He took all his notes in Welsh, the only thing that he felt connected him to his mam. The world seemed to pass around him, instead of including him in its unyielding orbit.
Until, he found himself in the hospital wing. Malnutrition, the mediwitch said. He hadn’t been eating enough, not enough vitamins in his system. He struggled to keep a nutritive potion down for two days. He still didn’t speak.
But late the second night, he realized that he was the only student asleep in the hospital wing that wasn’t petrified. He was surrounded by living corpses in the oppressive silence. He quietly untucked himself from the cot and started walking around the large hospital wing. He slowly paced counterclockwise around the hospital room, visiting every single petrified classmate.
Nearest to him was the older Ravenclaw, Penelope Clearwater, her face frozen in fright, hunched down a few inches. Then, the first year Creevey boy, his hands still locked in camera-holding position. Next, Justin Finch-Fletchley from Hufflepuff. A nice enough boy, Theo thought, who was always kind to him and once shared his sweets in the corridor outside of Charms. Finally, Theo braced himself at the last closed privacy curtain. He knew who was laying in that particular cot. He inhaled deeply and steeled himself before ever so gently parting the curtain and slipping inside the space.
Granger laid in the same position she was petrified in. Her hand was raised as if she were holding something, her leg raised as if she were mid-step. Her stiffness was so unnatural it briefly snapped him out of the fog he’d been existing in.
For the first time in months, noise escaped the young boy’s mouth. He stood at the foot of her bed and sobbed. Sobbed for the clever muggleborn girl in front of him that he so wanted to befriend, sobbed for his murdered mother that was his entire world, sobbed for the life he knew was waiting for him at the manor. He muffled his anguished cries in his arms, biting his forearm. The pain helped, he discovered. Pain pulled him out of his own mind for a moment, gave him something to focus on.
He sobbed until he physically couldn’t, staring into the open, unseeing honey brown eyes of this girl. Usually so full of expression and emotion, they stared blankly ahead, a shocked but fearless look on her face. He realized that she was the only one that didn’t look terrified of whatever creature or person did this to her. No, she was prepared for what was coming. Even in his hazy grief, a small spark of admiration lit in his chest. She was brave, confident, more than he ever would be. He could be a little brave, in his own way, too.
Theo quietly slipped back to his cot, wiping the tear tracks from his cheeks with a quick but firm brush of his robe, and pulled out a piece of grey paper, not parchment, he’d been hiding from his dorm mates. He debated what to write to the petrified girl, shifting between a heartfelt letter apologizing for his house and his desire to be friends versus simplicity. He spent twenty minutes composing his letter in his head, holding onto sincerity and his desire to connect with the witch, but only wrote the first sentence before he heard Pomfrey’s footsteps moving closer. He didn’t even have a chance to sign, just slipped the note on the side table of Granger’s private cot, and dashed back to his own bed to pretend to sleep until she left so he could finish writing.
Pomfrey made her rounds but stayed in the room long enough that Theo truly fell asleep, only having written one, unsigned sentence.
Get Well Soon.