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The letter, folded in half, sat against his ribs.
Theo hadn't opened it. He didn't need to. It would be another of his father's diatribes about Theo being a disgrace, that he'd be disowned unless he straightened up, followed by the contradiction that Theo was the Great Hope of the Notts, the one to carry on the family name. Nothing new. No Howler had ever been necessary. His father simply made sure it was understood, eventually, that Theo had no choice.
Life was full of choices. Right now, he was choosing to leave the common room before Draco could set up court in front of the fire and importune more of Slytherin to sign up to Headmistress Umbridge's Inquisitorial Squad. He'd declined several times over, subtle knockbacks at first but Draco and Pansy wouldn't let up. Theo had finally escalated to a firm no, which became irrevocable when said aloud, for the second time, in the common room in front of everyone.
Theo had never been part of the Slytherin in-crowd. It had never bothered him, or been a bother to him. He'd been like a boulder in a fast-flowing river, Draco's petty feuds, dramas, and other contretemps that kept Draco and his closest friends the centre of attention and at the peak of the Slytherin hierarchy, flowing straight past. Blaise also managed to stay out of Draco's vortex and was liked well enough. Ultimately Theo was, as his father frequently reminded him, at school to get an education.
Today's choice was simple. It was the weekend, a Hogsmeade weekend, and still a bit nippy outside although it was spring. No one would miss him if he spent the day in the grounds, not until dinner.
Someone's carelessly placed bag almost caught his foot as he made his way to the door. Someone else's deliberate foot nearly tripped him. One could be an accident. Two wasn't. There wouldn't be a third. They wouldn't get him, he wouldn't give them the satisfaction. It was all small things, too small to involve Professor Snape. He certainly wouldn't tell his father, because his father would tell theirs, even if the thought of it made him smile.
Bulstrode was sitting on her own on the stone bench just past their common room. She looked like she'd been crying. He walked past, then changed his mind.
"You ok, Bulstrode?"
"Fine, thank you."
"It'll get easier," he said as she looked at him blankly. "I didn't sign up either."
"I did."
Theo frowned.
"Don't look at me like that! I don't have a choice."
"We all have a choice."
"Easy for you to say, Nott." Now she was angry. "You know my father works at the Ministry, you know we've got Muggleborns in the family. You've heard Draco and his gang go on about it enough. And there's my little sisters in Ravenclaw."
"I suppose the extra credits don't hurt either."
"Fuck you."
He watched her stomp off in the direction of Ravenclaw Tower. Not his problem.
The grounds were as empty and as cold as he'd thought they'd be. Everyone would be on their way to Hogsmeade soon enough, or in the library or somewhere else indoors. There were a handful of younger students skimming stones at the lake's edge, and what looked like a mixed group of Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws sharing Quidditch practice. No one looked at him twice.
He went the long way, around the back of the castle, past the greenhouses and the Whomping Willow, then along the tree line, until the noises of Hogwarts receded and he was past the gamekeeper's cottage. He could still feel the letter safely tucked against him, warm now.
He'd been this way in first year when he'd found the glade. Wandering, before he'd learned which corridors were safe, and back when getting lost was still just getting lost. He'd never forgotten the sudden shapes in the trees, darker than the shadows. Shapes that moved wrongly, but had moved away into the forest as if they were frightened of eleven-year-old him. He saw them again in second year, pulling the carriages from Hogsmeade Station to Hogwarts at the start of the term. He'd known exactly what he was looking at by then, and that was worse in a way. But he also knew they couldn't hurt him, wouldn't hurt him. The glade stayed his, though—an escape he allowed himself once or twice a year, when he needed it.
The rill appeared before he expected it, a small, quick wind of water with low banks, almost hidden in the grass. A weathered wooden bridge, flat and soft grey, and barely wide enough for two people, crossed it, and then a faint path would take him to the quiet, sheltered glade.
He stood at the bridge a moment. Absurd, but it felt like the last easy decision he'd make today. Cross, or don't. He crossed.
The clearing beyond was as he remembered it. Out of the way, cut off from the grounds by the encircling trees and most of all, quiet and private. The grass was ankle deep, starred all over with low, hardy flowers: yellows, blues, purples and white. He'd used some of them in potions, like the vibrant yellow, poisonous lesser celandine.
He crossed over to a patch of sun, avoiding the flowers where he could. When he did inevitably crush some underfoot, of course it was the white, star-like clusters of ramsons, the heady onion aroma spreading around him.
He sat down at the base of a tree that had probably been old before his father's grandfather attended Hogwarts. Sitting under his tree, he pulled the letter out and turned it over in his hands. Heavy parchment, the Nott family seal in standard red wax. It was another opportunity to not open the letter.
There was a soft humming, then an equally soft voice, a girl's voice, singing about a meadow in the sun. He heard the gentle tamp of her feet crossing the wooden bridge.
She was singing under her breath in the unselfconscious way of someone who thinks she's alone. He sat and watched the shadow dappled path into the clearing as one of the Hufflepuff girls in his year emerged, a wicker basket full of the flowers he was sitting among, apparently unbothered to discover the place already occupied.
"Oh," she said, more surprised than sorry. "I didn't think anyone else would be out here today." She paused and looked around. "If it's ok for me to… I won't be long."
He recognised her: Abbott, Hannah. He couldn't think of a single conversation they'd shared, but he knew her from five years of shared common spaces, meals and classes. He gave the smallest possible shrug that could indicate he didn't care, and went back to not-reading his letter.
She moved easily into a sunny patch where the flowers grew thickest, and settled with her basket, humming as she concentrated on plaiting and winding stems into a circle: primroses, violets, bluebells. Her fingers were deft, the chain grew quickly.
See the little horse
My little horse
Trotting down the paddock
On his fine white feet
She sang softly and sweetly, her song carrying across the clearing.
Black horse, white horse
Brown horse, grey
Trotting down the paddock
On a bright, sunny day.
"For Susan," she said eventually. "I thought… I thought it might be nice. Something that isn't…" She didn't finish the sentence.
He thought of Draco and his coterie, and of navigating the newly hazardous spaces and relationships he'd not previously been concerned with. He supposed Hufflepuff had its own version.
As he sat against his tree, watching the sky and thinking, thinking, thinking, she finished a crown of flowers, then a second, and a third, then a few smaller pieces and posies, and gathered them into the wicker basket in the crook of her arm. She got to her feet, brushing pieces of stems, petals, and grass from her skirt.
"Thanks for not minding," she said. She moved quickly to his side of the clearing, hesitated, and then placed one of the flower crowns at his feet.
"For you. You look like you need cheering up as much as any of us."
Then just as quickly she was gone, moving back over the little bridge, back to the castle, singing again.
Watching her go, Theo found that he minded less about her interruption than he'd expected to. The day was still young and he had a letter to read. Or not. He opened his satchel and took out an arithmancy text and an apple. He might read the text instead.
There was a whisper of sound from the direction of the little bridge and a girl with wild blonde hair escaping from a blue ribbon, feet bare under her school robes, appeared. She crouched at the treeline, perfectly still with a bucket at her feet, watching something on the other side through the trees. Not in his year, but he knew who she was: Loony Lovegood. Even the Ravenclaws called her that.
"You can see them too," she said.
He followed her gaze and found nothing, until a leathery, skeletal thing, all angles, detached itself from the deepest shadows between the trees further into the forest. When he was younger he would've flinched. Now he knew they were simply part of Hogwarts, the way the Whomping Willow was, or the giant squid. He still didn't care for them.
"Thestral," she said, unnecessarily, turning to look at him. "Most people can't. See them, I mean. It's rather a specific sort of sadness that does it."
He didn't answer that.
"Your shoes," he said, looking at her feet again. "Aren't you cold?"
"I'm in the sun now."
She settled into a sunny patch of grass a little way off, and began chattering about the habits of thestrals. She plunged a hand into the bucket and pulled out a piece of raw meat, using it to entice the creature closer. He watched her handfeed the thestral, which had gone from snatching it from her hand to gentling in. Like one of his father's old horses with an apple. Back when his father still had horses.
The thestral had joined them in the glade, and was licking out the bucket.
"Am I interrupting your studying?"
"No," he said, and it was true. "Not really."
"It doesn't work if you don't wear the flowers on your head."
"What?"
"The flowers," she replied, pointing at the floral crown. "For concentration and clarity."
"It's not for studying." Or was it? Professor Sprout was Hufflepuff's head of house, perhaps she'd shared some arcane herbology knowledge with her house.
"Yes it is," said Luna. "Daddy wrote about it last year. In The Quibbler."
"The Quibbler's a rag," he said, echoing an opinion he'd heard. "Everyone knows that." Then he thought of Luna's father, and The Quibbler, and his own father's opinion on both.
"If it's a rag, why are you using a floral crown to study?"
"Ok," he said, letting it go.
She stayed a while longer, cross-legged, talking quietly to the thestral. When she finally rose to leave, she swung the empty bucket at her side.
"You should introduce yourself," she said, nodding toward the treeline, where the thestral had retreated to watch him.
This time he heard her crossing the bridge, a light drumming of her bare feet as she skipped across it.
He examined the floral crown. As far as he could tell they were just wildflowers plaited together. Perhaps he could give it to Bulstrode who seemed in need of clarity, a bit of cheering up. He looked at the arithmancy text again, bit into the apple, and closed his eyes. The letter was still in the satchel. Time enough later.
There was another drumming of quick feet, in shoes, across the bridge. He heard more before he saw her. She was muttering something about decrees and competence and if she thinks for one minute. Then she was through the trees and into the glade and stopped dead, chest heaving, staring at him in surprise.
"Oh," she said. "It's you."
"Granger."
"I thought everyone would be inside or at Hogsmeade…" She stopped, visibly deciding whether outrage or retreat was the better use of her energy. "You know what, it doesn't matter. I'm not… I just need somewhere that isn't the castle for ten minutes, and apparently that's impossible this weekend, so if you could just…" She gestured, vaguely.
He considered pointing out that she was, in fact, currently the one disturbing him. He decided against it.
She dropped heavily onto the grass a short way away. For a while she said nothing, just breathed, hard.
"Twenty-eight," she said eventually. "Twenty-eight educational decrees! Do you know what that woman has actually taught us this year? Nothing. Not one useful spell. We're meant to sit our OWLs in June and I couldn't produce a single competent Shield Charm if my life depended on it, which…" She gave a short, humourless laugh. "Which it rather might, the way things are going. Now she's given us a chapter on theory and a test on the chapter about theory, and if I hear one more person say we ought to be grateful for the structure, I'll, I'll…"
"You could teach yourselves," Theo said, before he'd stopped to think it through. "You and Potter, and the rest. If the lessons are useless, learn it outside the lessons. Like people do for History of Magic."
Hermione went very still. Stiller than the comment seemed to need, he thought, for something that had only been a passing idea, tossed out idly. Her eyes found his, sharp now, searching. He had the sudden, uneasy sense of having said something that he shouldn't have.
"Why are you suggesting we do that?" she asked.
"It's what some of us do for other subjects, that's all. Like History of Magic. And Care of Magical Creatures. If you think a professor isn't up to it, teach yourselves." He frowned slightly. "Why? Is someone already…"
"No," she said quickly, too quickly. She caught herself and exhaled. "No, sorry. It's… it's not a bad idea. I just didn't expect it from…" She stopped herself before saying Slytherin, though it hung there in the air between them.
"I'm not joining Umbridge's Inquisitorial Squad," he said, surprising himself.
She studied him. She looked like she was assessing whether he'd meant anything in particular, if he was cleverer than he was letting on or as unknowing as he sounded. Her shoulders dropped.
"It's exhausting," she said. "Being the one who's supposed to have the answers. Every single time." She pressed the heel of her hand briefly to one eye.
"It's easier for you, I expect." She sounded tired, not accusing. "Growing up with it all there already. Learning a proper Shield Charm at your mother's knee before you could walk, while the rest of us are stuck copying wand movements out of a banned textbook in a room nobody's supposed to... Well, it's a lot."
He didn't say anything. That hadn't been true for him, but it was for so many of his house, others in her house, anyone from a wizarding family. So he let it go.
He rummaged through the satchel, then held the letter so she could see it.
"I've got some of those issues too," he said. He turned the envelope over, showing the intact seal. "Haven't opened it."
She looked at the letter, then at him, and didn't ask what it was about. He was grateful.
"You don't have to open it here," she said. "You don't have to open it at all today."
"No," he agreed. "It'll keep."
They sat a while. Theo picked at the edges of the letter's wax seal, and Hermione tapped the ground beside her with a restless hand.
After a while she stood, brushing grass from her robes, some of her usual brisk energy returning. "I should get back. I promised Neville I'd help with his potions essay."
"Take this," he said, holding out the floral crown. "It's meant to help with concentration and clarity."
She turned on him and he realised she'd taken it the wrong way.
"Sorry," he said. "Take it. Longbottom might know if any of those claims are true. There was a feature in The Quibbler about it."
"That rag!" Hermione snorted and Theo smiled. Exactly.
She took the floral crown and turned it over in her hands.
"It's really well made," she said, sounding surprised. Then, putting it on her head, "I do like bluebells."
She paused at the path out of the clearing. "Thank you. For this, and the other thing."
"Don't tell anyone about the other thing."
"There's no other thing to tell," she said, evenly and with what might've been the hint of a smile.
He heard her cross the bridge without the fury she'd arrived with, the glade quiet again.
He sat a long time after she'd gone, thinking.
The glade looked the same. The sun had crossed over, but it was the same wild grass, same wildflowers, a crushed patch of grass where Hannah worked, another where Luna had enticed the thestral, and another where Hermione had dropped herself down in frustration.
In the trees, the thestral was still watching. Feeling ridiculous even considering it, he stood and did it anyway. There was no one here to see.
"Theo," he said, to the trees and the loitering thestral. He was quieter than he'd meant to be. "Theodore Cantankerus Nott." Feeling even more ridiculous, he gave a deep and courtly bow.
He thought of what his father would say.
Theo stayed until the afternoon light changed to gold, the thestral silently accompanying him to the flat bridge. He stroked the dark velvet of its muzzle and bid it good evening as he made his way across the rill and then back along the treeline. He'd return to the thestrals, and the clearing.
He'd open the letter tomorrow.
But now he had a task that required immediate attention. He had to find Bulstrode and tell her that if she quit the Inquisitorial Squad, he'd have her back.