[From Litha to Lammas]: Harry Potter and His Saving Theo Thing, Harry/Theo, R, 3/4
Part Two.
Title: Harry Potter and His Saving Theo Thing (3/4)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this for fun and not profit.
Content Notes: Angst, violence, ignores the epilogue, past minor character deaths
Pairing: Harry Potter/Theodore Nott
Rating: R
Wordcount: This part 5400
Summary: Harry can think of worse things to do than helping Theodore Nott rejoin society. And after a while, so can Theo.
Author’s Notes: This is another of my “From Litha to Lammas” fics, for an anonymous request that asked for a light-hearted post-war fic where Harry, deciding not to join the Aurors, doesn't know what he wants to do with his life. Feeling aimless and a little bored, he decides to help Theodore Nott, who has become reclusive, anti-social, and on the Ministry's list for suspicious individuals, rejoin society. There are also a few other parts of the prompt that I will be using. This fic will have multiple parts, but at the moment I’m unsure if it will be three or four.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Part Three
“What do you think of this?”
Theo stood carefully back from the table as Harry spun his wand in his hand. Of course he trusted Harry, but after knowing the kind of power it would have taken to force the Color-Changing Charm past the Nott wards, he didn’t think anyone could blame him for being a bit wary when Harry was about to change the color of the dining room.
Oddly, Theo felt no pressure on those wards. Harry’s magic spread out and away from him in what seemed to be the ordinary charm, although perhaps moving more slowly than usual. Then it landed, and the room wavered and snapped into being around him.
And what a room!
Theo swallowed as he tilted his head back to look up at the walls. The blackness had faded to the soft kind of grey that Harry had used on the doors in the northern wing, except on the upper walls, where there were long tendrils of darkness cutting through the shadowy color. It was an intriguing effect and not one Theo would have thought up.
But more than that, the silver sconces around the walls now glittered as though they’d been giving a good polishing, and circles of gold, like sunbursts, surrounded them on the wall, seeming to extend their light.
“How did you do that?” Theo asked. “Polish the sconces and change the color of the walls at the same time?”
Harry shrugged. “I pictured what I wanted and that’s what happened. What? Is that another thing that shouldn’t have been possible with the Nott wards?”
“No, it just-a polishing spell should have been separate from the Color-Changing Charm, that’s all.” Theo walked slowly towards Harry, now that he seemed to be done for the moment. He touched Harry’s forehead, feeling the lack of sweat, and looked into his eyes. Perhaps they were a touch brighter than before, but that didn’t mean it was the exertion.
“What?” And now Harry’s eyes seemed to be brighter from mischief.
“Most people can’t simply combine two spells like that. Or will something to happen and have their magic enact their will, especially when pressing against wards as strong as the ones that constrict the House.” Theo’s hand slid down Harry’s neck. Harry let his eyelids fall a little, but didn’t look away from Theo. “Do you have the slightest notion of how remarkable you are?”
“Other people have done remarkable things, too. I was the one who defeated Voldemort, but that didn’t mean someone else couldn’t have-”
“I didn’t mean anything about your ‘hero’ status.” Frankly, Theo found discussing it distasteful. That status had forced Harry to be in danger again and again, and it had obviously made it hard for Harry to trust offers of friendship from other people. “I mean that most wizards simply are not that powerful.”
“Intimidated, Theo? Do you want me to leave?”
“Never.”
The moment simmered between them, bright as heat lightning. Harry was the one who lowered his eyes first, swallowing a little. For a moment, his cheeks blazed, and Theo cupped one to feel the warmth. Then Harry cleared his throat. “Well, I personally think that other people could do some of the things I could, but they don’t try. So they never know for sure if they could actually achieve them.”
“You don’t have to do everything. Leave me some things that I can do for you.”
“I’m planning to do that,” Harry agreed, with a faint, amused smile, and a touch to Theo’s cheek. “But in the meantime, we should eat. You told me that we have a long day ahead of us.”
“Given that we’ll be going to some of the furniture shops in Diagon Alley, I’d say that,” Theo agreed, and enjoyed watching the way that Harry paused for a second before he moved to join Theo at the dining table.
“Furniture? Why? I’m sure that I have everything I might need in my rooms.”
“Yes, but the other ones in that wing are going to need new chairs and the like to match the décor changes.”
Harry sat. “I would say that I’m sorry for not having considered that before I made the choices, but I assume that you’re not actually sad about having to spend the money.” He thanked Peony as she brought him a bowl of porridge drizzled with cinnamon and raisins, and Peony stared up at him with dazzled eyes before popping out again. Theo smiled and sipped at his tea. His own eggs would come a little later.
“My father was a bastard who was always telling me exactly how much money I could spend when he was alive. If anything, it’s going to feel good to spite him by doing this.”
“What was he like?” Harry swallowed two spoonfuls of porridge before he seemed to notice Theo wasn’t talking, and added, “Only if you want to tell me, of course.”
“Talking about my father is strange.” Theo stared at his plate, where the eggs had appeared, scrambled as he preferred them and had been able to have them since his father died. “Either everyone knew him already and I never needed to say anything, or they didn’t, and I was left no opportunity to explain.”
“You can say as much or as little as you want. I won’t be offended.”
Theo nodded slowly, and ate a few bites of his eggs while he thought about it, finally musing, “He was like a mountain. He dominated everything about my life. He was the one who told me what I could learn, what classes I should take at Hogwarts, what books I could read out of the library, and how I should dress and eat and interact with the house-elves. For years there were no surprises. I knew everything years in advance and how it was supposed to happen.”
“His death must have hit you hard, then.”
“The unexpected happened before that,” Theo blurted, not having meant to say that, and Harry’s eyes locked on him. “I mean-I never thought he would be captured while he was fighting next to Voldemort in the Battle of Hogwarts. I mean, not really. I never thought Voldemort could lose.”
Harry nodded. “I don’t think there were many people who did.”
Theo looked away, not wanting to be reminded how there were some people who had kept faith with Harry, and he hadn’t. Harry spoke before he could decide what he wanted to say. “I understand exactly why you didn’t. And anyway, you were telling me about what happened when your father died, right.”
“Right.” Theo sighed and rolled his shoulders. It was odd to realize he hadn’t kept his posture perfectly straight since the afternoon Harry had decided to show up at his gates. “Suddenly I was free, but I didn’t feel like it. I went right on wearing the same robes my father had told me I had to and keeping to the same routine. That was the main reason I didn’t venture out to pure-blood events or answer Ministry owls, you know. I didn’t know how. During the summers, Father kept me confined to Nott House unless he decided to make a social call and took me with him. I-didn’t know who I was without him.”
“You’re Theo.”
Harry swallowed porridge as Theo glanced back at him, and his smile was warm and encouraging. “I know it probably sounds strange, but that’s the man I’m learning to know and be friends with. And you want to go furniture-shopping in Diagon Alley. That’s something your father never did with you, is it?”
Swallowing, Theo shook his head. He couldn’t take his eyes from Harry’s shining ones.
“Then we’re already starting to show how you can be different,” Harry said firmly. “Which shops were you thinking of?”
*
“I don’t think we should buy that,” Harry said, giving the couch a dubious look. The entire thing seemed to be made of black lacquer. Harry couldn’t imagine that it would be comfortable to sit on. It seemed to be more the sort of thing that Voldemort would lounge on at the forefront of a Death Eater meeting.
“Harry, I have a truly stupid amount of money.” Theo folded his arms and glanced down as though still startled to see the swish of dark blue robes around his body instead of just dark ones. Harry grinned at him.
“I’m not opposed to buying that because it’s expensive. I’m opposed to buying it because it’s black. We need brighter colors for those rooms, and you have enough black furniture at Nott House.”
“If perhaps the sirs would care to look at something else?” The woman attending to them was a witch so quiet that Harry had actually overlooked her when they walked into the shop, something he wasn’t used to having happen. Her hair was sleek and pale, wrapped up in an elaborate chignon with (ebony) combs on her head, and she had (black) rings on only two fingers and (black) robes that were probably made of Nundu fur or something. She had introduced herself as Madam June Marlayne, owner of Marlayne’s Marvels. “Perhaps this?”
She turned and waved her wand, and a (black) cloth slid off something it had been covering until then. Harry heard Theo’s breath catch. That had already decided him on buying it even before he turned all the way around.
He approved the color at once. It was a thick blue couch that looked as though you could sit on it and go on sinking into the cushions like you would into a lake. Harry didn’t know for sure what material it was made of.
What mattered was the look in Theo’s eyes.
But probably Madam Marlayne would think it gauche not to bargain or something, so Harry strolled over to the couch slowly and considered it. “What do you think, Theo?” he asked over his shoulder. “That sitting room with the two black chairs? Or should we stick to outfitting the northern wing for today?” He did see Madam Marlayne bow her head, hiding a quick smile, probably because she hadn’t realized how much more they might buy.
“The sitting room, actually,” Theo said, his voice gaining strength. “We’ll do three rooms in the northern wing, but also find enough furniture to replace those black chairs that so offend you, love.”
Harry choked at the name, and he saw Madam Marlayne stiffen. Theo turned slowly towards him. Harry saw the truth in his face.
He had deliberately used that term in front of someone else. It hadn’t been unthinking, and it hadn’t been part of the deception. How Harry reacted was what mattered to Theo, not Madam Marlayne.
Harry smiled and inclined his head in a tiny nod. “I’d like that,” he said, and saw Theo’s eyes close in a slow blink as he took in both the meanings.
Of course, then Madam Marlayne began to bustle, arranging to use cloth to wrap the couch again and show them other pieces, but there had been another simmering moment like the one last night when Theo had kissed his hand. Harry marveled that it felt as if they had been alone and the moment had belonged to them, in spite of everything.
He had never felt this strong a connection. He had certainly never thought he would when he strolled up to Nott House’s gates on a whim.
But it was here now, and Harry hoped it wasn’t leaving any more than he was.
*
Theo stared down in silence at the letter from the Ministry. Before this, he had simply used the wards of the house to rip the letters from the owls, incinerate the parchment, and release the birds unharmed. But his preoccupation with Harry-or perhaps his slowly-growing belief that he didn’t need to be exactly like his father-had relaxed his control of the wards and let this one through.
The letter said, We must talk to you at your earliest convenience about the circumstances surrounding the death of your late unlamented father, Theron Nott.
“Theo? Are you all right?”
Remember, someone is here now to help you, Theo thought, and he couldn’t even chide himself for the weakness in the thought, the way he knew his father would have. He turned around and extended the owl before he thought. “This came from the Ministry.”
Harry’s eyes narrowed the moment he began reading. “There’s no reason to use that kind of wording,” he said, and Theo blinked. The crackle of magic that had begun to surround Harry made the air around him thick and bright, and hard to breathe. That was rage, of course, but Theo had never expected to see it used on his behalf.
Why wouldn’t it be? You’ve seen what he’s like with his friends, and you’re one of his friends now.
Theo swallowed back the realization, and said, “What would you do? Do I have to answer this-summons?”
“Of course not,” said Harry. “It doesn’t actually say you have to, does it? Just that they want to talk to you. And it doesn’t clarify what about, so you don’t even know if it’s important. And they say ‘at your earliest convenience.’” He looked up at Theo, grinned, and then shredded the paper with magic, not even using a wand; the tatters fell through his fingers a second later. “What if that isn’t until later?”
Theo found himself huffing out a laugh. “You persuade me to get away with so many things that I wouldn’t have when my father was alive.”
“I wish I had been here for you then. So he couldn’t bully you.”
Theo nodded slowly and said, “I wish you’d been, too. But I don’t want you to regret it. I-am more than content with what we have at the moment.”
Harry smiled, skidded his fingers lightly along Theo’s hand, and then looked around the room they were standing in, the one where Theo had first confronted Harry last week. “Let’s see what else we need to add to make this look perfect.”
*
“Mate! Do you have a moment?”
Harry turned around with a smile. He’d gone to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement specifically to visit Ron, but hadn’t been able to find him. It seemed he’d been at lunch, since he was clutching a steaming bag. “Sure,” Harry said, and nodded to the empty office next to them, which held nothing but a small table and some chairs around it. “Want to sit down in there so you can eat?”
“I always want that,” Ron said, and collapsed into the nearest chair with a sigh. “Did you get Percy’s owl, then? I was a little worried when you didn’t show up yesterday, and so was he, but Hermione told us not to worry about it. I ‘spect the wards on Nott House probably kept you from getting it.” He dug out a small sandwich that had cheese and tomatoes dripping off it and held it out to Harry.
Harry accepted it and took a bite. He was a little hungry, although he’d have to keep this transgression from the Nott house-elves, who seemed to go mental when Harry tried to do something for himself. “Yeah, it was probably the wards. But I came to see you. What did Percy want?”
“Your help getting Nott’s name off the suspicious list.”
But Ron’s eyes darted away, and it had always been easy for Harry to tell when he was lying, anyway, given the intense flush creeping up his face. Harry narrowed his eyes a little. “Do you want to tell me what that really means?”
“Okay, mate, it’s like this.” Ron took several bites before he continued, but that was a childish delaying tactic that hadn’t worked on Harry since fourth year. Ron finally sighed and said, “You suddenly disappeared into Nott’s house, and the next thing we know, you’re escorting him to society functions and pretending you like him-”
“I do like Theo. I’m not making that up.”
“But part of it is to get people to respect Nott again, right? Take him to their hearts as part of the society he walked out of?” Ron kept on staring at Harry until he nodded. Ron picked up another sandwich. “Right. So this is so sudden that some people think you’re being mind-controlled. That includes Percy. And he is worried about you,” he added hastily, maybe because of the incredulous stare Harry was using to burn the side of his face. “He wasn’t there when you threw off the Imperius Curse in fourth year, you know? He really thinks Nott could be in charge of you.”
“I trust you set him straight.”
“Um. It’s weird, mate. I don’t have any problem with you dating a bloke, but why this one? Why did you suddenly decide you wanted to date blokes, and what does Nott have to do with it?”
“I like Theo,” Harry repeated. When in doubt, speak the truth over and over again, and it was hard for even someone who worried about him as much as his best friend to deny him. “And I don’t know yet if it’s going to end up in dating. Probably.”
“If it’s not, then that article what’s-her-name printed-”
“Lacerobe. Yes.” Harry had been pleased with the article, which was appropriately flattering to Theo without gushing too much over Harry, but he had paused when he first saw the picture that had accompanied it. Of course it was good to know that they were going to fool so many people, but the way that Theo had looked ready to lean over and snog him, and the way Harry’s own eyes had shone in a way that he had never known pictured eyes could…
“That article seems awfully out of line, then.” Ron was watching him with a sharper gaze than normal, one Harry thought Auror training had probably given him. “Because she practically states that you’re getting married tomorrow.”
“Not tomorrow. Theo would want at least a week between the announcement of the engagement and the actual marriage.”
Ron paled for a second, then caught himself and rolled his eyes. “Right, mate. Care to tell me what’s actually going on?”
“Theo and I are seeing what happens.” Harry shrugged and finished up his sandwich while Ron stared at him. “Now you know as much as I do, except for secrets that are Theo’s private property. Are you going to tell me what Percy, in particular, is so worried about? I didn’t think he was in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement or responsible for maintaining any list of Death Eaters.”
“Nott’s not a Death Eater,” Ron said, and swallowed some crisps that he’d taken out of the bag as well. “But they do think that he probably knew more about his father than he let on. They want to talk to him, that’s all. Just see if he can answer some of the lingering questions…”
“But he’s not legally required to comply. And the owl that Theo did get this morning didn’t even have a signature or a date on it. They said that they wanted to talk to him at his earliest convenience.”
“Well?”
“That’s not yet. As I advised him.”
Ron groaned, but didn’t spout off as he would have at one time. “You’re speaking about him and protecting him like you would either me or Hermione,” he said, putting his chin in his hand and studying Harry intently. “What’s he done to be worthy of it?”
“Intrigued me.” Harry wasn’t about to try and explain everything that was going on between him and Theo before he understood it himself, and after a few minutes of staring, Ron seemed to get that. He nodded and dug another sandwich out of the bag, handing it over to Harry.
“Well, fine, but you’re the one who’s going to have to deal with Percy yourself. I’m not getting in the way of that.”
“Ah, Harry! A minute of your time?”
“Speak of the devil and he shall appear,” Ron told his sandwich, something that made Harry have to conceal a smile. He was sure that was a saying Ron had got from Hermione. But Percy looked as pleasant as he ever got standing in the doorway of the little room, so Harry turned and motioned for him to come in.
Percy took the chair next to Harry, still looking as if he’d stand up any second. He’d lost a great deal of his pompousness after the war, and especially after Fred’s funeral, but Harry supposed certain qualities would just always be inherent in someone. “I wanted to make sure you were all right, Harry. Disappearing from the public’s sight like that and then reappearing so spectacularly isn’t like you.”
“Oh, but it’s almost a tradition now,” Harry said. “Remember, at the end of my fifth year I emerged from under a cloud of darkness that the Ministry was spreading at the time and proved that Voldemort had returned after all.”
Percy’s flinch at the name was a lot worse than Ron’s, but he nodded, with a stiff smile. “Quite. I just wanted to make sure that you were all right,” he repeated. “And it is strange, you have to admit, that you suddenly have a close friendship with a Death Eater’s son. I remember you playing opposite them on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, but not getting any closer!”
Harry chuckled politely. “I can assure you that Theo isn’t anything like Draco Malfoy was. And I don’t know anything about his father’s doings, and I don’t really know what you’re hoping to get out of him.”
“Well, of course we aren’t planning to interrogate him. It’s only that there are questions about what crimes, exactly, Mr. Nott was involved in-the deceased one, I mean.” Percy played with his robe sleeve for a moment. “And what Death Eater activities he might have financed. And, well, I won’t conceal this from you, Harry. Somehow Mr. Nott killed himself in a warded cell that should have kept him alive no matter what. It was mainly a precaution to protect him from members of a vengeful public, of course, but he shouldn’t have been able to harm himself, either. We want to know what spell he used-”
Percy shut up. For a second, Harry wondered why, and then realized that the air around him had begun to flash with the subdued lightning that had happened when he was in Nott House and reading the letter from the Ministry. With a long sigh, Harry managed to release the buildup. There was no threat here, and Percy was only the messenger.
Still, the messenger could take back a message. Harry fixed a remote gaze on Percy and said, “You want to ask Theo how his father killed himself? Are you insane?”
“I mean, I don’t want to know personally, Harry! Hardly that! But you asked what the Ministry wanted to know, and I answered. That’s the biggest question. They can live without answers to the other ones.”
“You want to ask someone who only left Hogwarts two years ago how his father killed himself,” Harry repeated, and shook his head. “Listen, tell the people who want to know that that they’re more heartless than any Death Eater’s son I know.” He stood up and nodded to Ron. “Thanks for lunch. Tell Hermione that I’ll see her soon.”
Ron smiled a little. It had a sharp edge that Harry knew meant he hadn’t entirely forgiven Percy for what he’d done during the war. Oh, mostly, sure, enough that they got along at the Weasley family dinners, but not enough not to enjoy this. “Sure thing, mate.”
Harry turned and walked out of the room without looking at Percy again. The nice thing about having someone so sensitive to manners and protocol was that he would feel the cut more deeply than someone who didn’t behave “properly.”
Then Harry shook himself and headed directly for the Ministry Atrium and the Floo connections. He’d been fine leaving Theo for a while so that he could see Ron, but he wanted to be back home with him now and explain what the Ministry wanted, and why exactly Theo should never grant it to them.
*
“I suppose that it’s just punishment, in a way.”
“What do you mean?” Harry spun around in the middle of the dining room. Tiny blue bolts actually leaped from the palms of his hands, and Theo blinked. He had heard legends of people who did that when their powerful magic was roused, but he’d never actually seen them. “Nothing about what they’re trying to do to you is just!”
“Only that it sounds like something pure-bloods would have tried to do to Muggleborns a few years ago,” Theo said. And it was all he had meant, but he still felt a shiver move down his spine as he watched Harry ready to defend him, even from himself. “If it’s turned back on me now, it’s all I deserve.”
“Maybe the Death Eaters would have deserved it,” Harry said, as flat as the floor. “Maybe your father would have. You were a kid. You don’t!”
“But other kids were out there hunting down ways to defeat the Dark Lord, or fighting the Carrows in Hogwarts itself. I never did any of that.”
“The vast, vast majority of Hogwarts students never did! Not just the Slytherins! If you keep telling me this stupid shit, I’m going to go change all the sheets on your bed to flannel!”
Theo choked. Then he laughed aloud. Harry paused for a moment, but lowered his hands and smiled a little.
“Do you even know where my bedroom is? And I don’t know if you could get past the personal wards that I have on the room, even though you can get past the ones that are on Nott House in general.”
“It wouldn’t matter. I would have Peony take me in.”
Theo sighed. Of course the most incorrigible of his house-elves was the one who had taken the greatest shine to Harry. “Before you do that, or before you accuse me of needing to see a Mind-Healer, let me tell you something.”
Harry grimaced and took a seat in one of the new set of dining chairs of birch wood that they’d bought from Madam Marlayne, his fingers rapping on the table. Theo nodded a little and sat down across from him.
“I didn’t start feeling that kind of guilt until you showed up.”
Harry immediately surged halfway to his feet, opening his mouth, but Theo fixed him with a patient gaze, and Harry seemed to remember that he was talking and sat down with a little grimace. Theo nodded.
“It made me realize that I’d gone numb when Father died. I simply sat there, and let the world revolve around me, and did nothing more than I absolutely had to, like making sure the wards were strong and the house-elves cared for. Harry-you woke me up. Pain is a part of life returning to any numb limb. Let me feel it, please.”
Harry tilted his head, which Theo had already realized didn’t mean he agreed. “That doesn’t mean you have to blame yourself or go in and give testimony to the Ministry about your father’s death.”
“Not really,” Theo agreed. “I’m going to continue to refuse the Ministry for now, although I’ll speak to them eventually. But allow me to look back and feel guilty for not doing more in the past. If nothing else, we might have properly met before this if I had.”
Harry softened, a smile pulling up his lips in a way that was more beautiful than any picture of him on the front of the papers or visions of him descending the grand staircase of Nott House in dress robes. Theo swallowed. He honestly couldn’t believe that Harry had remained single this long, even if he’d taken months off in his own seclusion to plan what he wanted to do with his life.
Well, no matter. Theo would be taking care of that little problem along with everything else.
“Fine,” Harry said. “As long as you’re not wallowing in your guilt or letting people do things they shouldn’t to you because of it, then I’ll let you feel it.”
“So generous of you, kind sir,” Theo said, with a flutter of his eyelashes perfectly copied from Pansy Parkinson. He’d had seven years to learn it, after all.
Harry looked as if he wanted to gag. “You can keep that to yourself.”
“But you wouldn’t like me to keep everything to myself, would you?” Theo asked, and he had lowered his voice without realizing that he intended to. There was no model for what he wanted to do next in his experience. His father had never acted like this, and anyone attempting seduction in Slytherin House had been laughable.
Harry dropped the gagging expression, and his eyes were sharp as he stood up from his chair. “No. I wouldn’t.”
Theo smiled without really meaning to at the sternly punctuated words, and he made his way around the corner of the table. Harry was waiting for him, watching every movement as though he was about to give Theo advice on his dueling form.
But it wasn’t dueling form that was in Theo’s mind as he stalked up to Harry, as he touched his shoulder, as he ran his hand up the curve of Harry’s cheekbone. He got a flutter of brilliant green eyes. They didn’t close. Harry was still watching him, waiting for him to prove himself.
Theo bent down and gently touched his lips to Harry’s, while clasping his shoulders. Harry shuddered once, and the shudder struck into Theo. He tensed himself, waiting for Harry to pull away-
But then Harry released the softest moan against his lips, and Theo realized what the shudder had really been. He smiled into the kiss, and the last vestiges of the paralysis that had gripped him since the end of the war fell away.
He didn’t hurry, though. He stroked folded knuckles against Harry’s jaw, and felt the stubble there. He ran his left hand through Harry’s hair, and let some of the curls twine around his fingers and then spring back. And he gently laid his tongue against Harry’s lips and left it there.
Harry let out another shudder, and grabbed his waist, as he opened his mouth to allow Theo’s tongue to enter.
Still, Theo didn’t hurry, although he felt Harry’s hands grow tense with impatience against his shirt. He let his tongue dive straight back, then travel in leisurely circles, and Harry leaned heavily against him. No one’s ever kissed him like this before, Theo thought, and smiled again.
By the time he finally licked Harry’s palate and coaxed his tongue into replying, Harry was hard, and twitching a little. Theo stepped back, breaking the kiss, when he thought it best, and Harry stared at him with bright, wild eyes.
“I think that’s enough for today,” Theo said lightly. “Tomorrow, when we’ve had a chance to consider what we each want, we can continue. Do you agree?” And he trailed his knuckles down Harry’s chin again.
Harry gained control of himself with a visible struggle, but he grinned then, and his look was more appreciative than critical. “Yes. But just remember,” he added, and leaned close enough to Theo that Theo found himself leaning back in return, as Harry’s voice dropped to a whisper, “the next time someone says stop, it might be me.”
He flashed one more glance at Theo that wasn’t quite a wink, and walked out of the dining room with his head high. Theo watched him go, and felt a wash of pride and longing pass over him.
It was honorable to give Harry more time to consider this, when they’d barely known each other properly for a week, and honorable was what he wanted to be.
But Theo already knew what he wanted, and was ready to announce it before the entire wizarding world.
Part Four.
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