Fic + Mix: Girls Like You (Theodore Nott/Lavender Brown)
Title: Girls Like You
Author/Creator: elle_blessing
Characters: Theodore Nott/Lavender Brown
Prompt number: 294 ("The moon makes me hungry for...everything." ~Wolf, The Tenth Kingdom)
Word Count: 4,575
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None.
Summary: Lavender was the kind of girl you met and never forgot. She had a way of getting inside your mind and staying there, even when you didn’t want her to.
Disclaimer: I didn’t create the music, or the Harry Potter books. This was done out of love. No money is being made.
Author’s Notes: I got a little ambitious with this. First it was just supposed to be a fanmix, then a fanmix with a few small drabbles, and in the end it turned out to be a series of ficlets to accompany the songs I chose to tell this story. Everything for this project ended up being unexpected: the music changed, the tone changed, and the pairing I ended up with is one I’ve never written before. Each song is meant to be listened to with its accompanying ficlet(s) if you want to immerse yourself in the whole experience. Hopefully y’all like it :) Thanks so much to K and L for keeping the writing as error free as possible!
Tracks: 10
Run time: 40 minutes
File size: 33Mb
Download: Links in Fic
♫ “Girls Like You” by The Naked and Famous ♫
Run, whirlwind run
What will you be when it all comes crashing down on you, little girl?
What if it happened tonight?
Lavender was the kind of girl you met and never forgot. It wasn't that she was stunningly beautiful, because she wasn't. It wasn't that she was particularly smart or clever. It wasn't because she excelled at anything of consequence either.
On paper, Lavender Brown was exceedingly normal.
But the reality of Lavender Brown was anything but normal. She was passionate and vivacious and adventurous and brave. She talked too much and listened too little, but it was okay because she glowed when she spoke of things that she cared about and it was impossible to look away. She would have been plain, but instead her face was interesting. Grey eyes that sometimes looked green, and tilted up at the corners just like a cat’s. Lips that were just a little too full for her otherwise dainty features.
She had a way of getting inside your mind and staying there even when you didn't want her to.
Maybe that’s why he didn’t leave her there that day.
Maybe.
Everyone will remember you when you're gone
Don't you know people write songs about girls like you?
~~~
♫ “No Light, No Light” by Florence + The Machine ♫
You are the hole in my head, you are the space in my bed
You are the silence in between, what I thought, what I said
Lavender knew she wasn’t dead. Or maybe she was, and she had just ended up in hell instead of the place she’d been hoping for. Because she was too damn hot, and she hurt too damn much, to be alive.
Consciousness, she decided, was overrated.
Even so, long lashes fluttered and her eyes opened of their own accord. The first thing she saw didn’t seem right. It was a back. Toned and tan. The back of someone who spent a lot of time in the sun without their shirt on.
It made her aware that the owner of the bare back right in front of her nose wasn’t the only person with her. There was a body pressed to her own back, an arm over her middle, a large hand pressed against her belly. And as her brain began to catch up, she was more than a little startled to realize that the warmth she was feeling was the press of bare skin against her own bare skin.
She was naked.
You are the night time fear, you are the morning when it's clear
You're in my head, you're in my heart
He felt her tense. “It’s not what you think.”
If it was possible, she tensed up even more. He sighed and moved his hand to rest on her hip from where it’d fallen while he dozed. “You were almost dead. Now you’re not. Pack heals pack, skin to skin.”
It was one of the many reasons Professor Lupin had been so scarred. Wolves weren’t meant to be solitary creatures.
She twisted to look up at him, those eyes he’d always had a hard time not getting caught in, staring at him with confusion and more -- more than she could even understand right now. Darkness and wildness and … gods, he could already tell having her around was going to be bad for him.
“Theo?”
“It’s been a long time, Lav.”
You want a revelation, you wanna get it right
But it's a conversation I just can't have tonight
~~~
♫ “Crystalised” by The xx ♫
You don't move slow, taking steps in my directions
You say I’m foolish for pushing this aside
She wanted to be with him all the time. Around him all the time.
It was annoying.
It wasn’t his job to teach the new wolves about their new lives. But he’d known when he’d picked her up after the battle and brought her here that things would be different (Of course it would be different. Of course.). If she survived. (And he’d wanted her to so badly. She didn’t know how close it had been, how much it would have killed him if …)
“Theeeoooo.”
He resisted the urge to pinch his nose. She was different than he remembered. Her body... he pushed those thoughts away. But the way she said his name like that, it wasn’t any different than when they were children. Following him around and pouting at him to indulge her.
Not much had changed. Yet.
He eyed the moon. It would be full soon.
You've applied the pressure
And you've got the faith
That I could bring paradise
Lavender stepped next to her old friend and her eyes were drawn up too. It was clear for a change, and the nearly full moon looked heavy in the sky. Thinking about what it meant for her now made the hair on her arms stand on end. She hugged herself, running her hands over the prickled skin to soothe it away.
“Will it hurt?” she whispered.
He glanced at her. “Yes.”
She licked her lips. “How come I can’t use wolfsbane?”
Theodore looked back up at the moon. “It’s not our way. We are pack, and we embrace the moon. It does hurt,” he looked back to her, “but only for a little while. You’ll learn control eventually. Then you’ll be able to shift without the moon. Wolfsbane is for those who reject what they are. Those who use wolfsbane … it always hurts. They fight the change.”
Lavender hadn’t known this had happened to Theodore, but it explained why their families had stopped spending summers together after fourth year. He hadn’t told her how it’d happened to him. She didn’t want to ask. Didn’t want to know. If it was anything like what had happened to her... she shuddered.
She leaned into his side. “I’m glad you’re with me,” she whispered. She wasn’t sure she could do this without him.
He didn’t say anything back, but he did put his arm around her shoulders. It was enough.
So don't think that I'm pushing you away
When you're the one that I've kept closest
~~~
♫ “Drumming Song” by Florence + The Machine ♫
There's a drumming noise inside my head
That throws me to the ground
The moon was coming and she could feel it. It was exhilarating. She wanted to run, run, run. So much energy inside, a wild kind of energy that wouldn’t ever end. She pulsed with it, was dizzy with it, wanted to dance with it.
It was terrifying.
She still had her own hands, her own skin, and her own shape, but she could feel something inside crawling beneath the surface.
Lavender could see why someone might want to fight it. It was different and scary, and control seemed a far off thought. Someone like Padma would fight it, she thought. Someone who kept everything locked up, who liked to be in control of things and themselves. Ron would fight it too, she decided. He would be afraid, too set in how he thinks it should be to accept the wildness wanting out.
She glanced at Theodore hunched in the grass next to her, arms wrapped around his knees. He was so still. She hadn’t been able to stop squirming since waking that morning. She rolled onto her back next to him, could feel his heat, smell his musky scent, sense something not so composed beneath the surface.
“You feel good.” She grinned. “Let’s go run, or something. Play tag.”
There's a drumming noise inside my head
That starts when you’re around
He looked down at her. Her smile was wolfish. Playful. She didn’t know what she was doing to him. He could smell her too, feel her warmth. She felt good next to him, and he wanted to do a lot more than run.
Theodore didn’t know how to feel about it. He cared about Lavender, had for as long as he could remember. But he’d avoided everyone after fourth year. Kept to himself at school. It was easy. He’d been aloof to begin with. With the wolf inside him, he’d been powerful enough to make others keep their distance without having to say anything. They could sense he was dangerous.
She hadn’t ever been able to. Or maybe she’d never felt threatened by him.
His nostrils flared as she squirmed again and the hair on his arms stood on end when she curled around him.
“Pleeeeaaasee, Theo? The moon makes me hungry,” she said with vehemence as she sat up, grey-green eyes glowing just a little with her intensity. “For everything.” It struck him as a paradox that she was a wolf now and yet her eyes were that of a cat. “I need … something.”
He moved before he could stop himself, his hand twining in her pale hair and pulling. Dark grey eyes flicked to her throat, bare and vulnerable. Pulse pounding with excitement. A growl rumbled in his chest and his eyes flicked to hers. “Run.”
She did.
Louder than sirens, louder than bells
Sweeter than heaven, hotter than hell
~~~
♫ “Crawling” by Linkin Park ♫
There’s something inside me that pulls beneath the surface
Consuming, Confusing
He hadn’t lied when he said it would hurt. She felt like she was dying all over again, body breaking and reshaping, and that she wouldn’t ever be whole again. The pop of cartilage, the crack, snap of bones, and the sickening slurp of flesh moving made her sick -- sicker than she already felt.
She screamed when she felt her spine shift, move, break, shorten, and then her arms weren’t there and her fingers broke and shortened and she wasn’t Lavender anymore.
All she could do was lay there. Pant in exhaustion.
Lavender was distantly aware of the others. Pack her mind insisted. She could feel movement around her, could smell them all, each to their own. Could smell him. His scent chased off what lucidity was left after the moon had wrought it’s work on her, and the wild thing inside of her surged forward to meet him.
Crawling in my skin, I can’t seem to find myself again
My walls are closing in, I’ve never felt this way before
~~~
♫ “Let Yourself Go Wild” by Jasmine Tabatabai ♫
I know you want it, I know you feel it
I know you need to, but still you fear it
She woke in much the same way she’d woke the first time she found herself to be with the pack. Naked.
This time there was someone pressed against her front though, one of the younger wolves. A second year who’d met Fenrir too, though a year before her. Avery Clearwater. His face was pressed into the crook of her neck, and the steady puffs of breath let her know he was still asleep. The steady breathing at her back let her know he was still asleep too. His hand resting on her stomach just like before.
Not too long ago, weeks before this even, the fact that she was sleeping in the woods with a bunch of naked people would have freaked her out. A lot. But right in that particular moment she felt warm and woozy and like everything was right in the world. She’d expected it to hurt when everything was over, but she was only a little achey. In a pleasant sort of way, like when she’d lost her virginity.
She knew Theo was awake, at least partly, when his hand splayed against her. She shivered when the tips of his fingers brushed low, low, and her breath left her in a pant when he buried his nose in her hair, nuzzled the back of her neck.
Perhaps closeness was something wolves craved after the change. She certainly didn’t mind.
I’ll show you it's not so bad
Let yourself go wild
Theodore woke fully in a single moment, and his whole body tensed. He was used to waking close to the other wolves -- it was always how it was after a run on the full moon, but he wasn’t just close to the other wolves. He was pressed against every inch of Lavender Brown, aware of every slight curve, the warmth of her skin, her scent, how she trembled when he barely moved his fingers. Mine, part of him insisted. The wilder part of him.
He knew she was going to be trouble for him.
His eyes opened and he shifted slightly to see past her. A boy was curled into her front and a part of him bristled at how she cradled his head to her.
Just a boy, he reminded himself. The youngest of them. He couldn’t begrudge Avery the comfort he was so clearly seeking.
He rolled onto his back and away from her. He needed the coolness of the mountain air against his skin.
I want to taste you, I want to feel you
I want to touch you, deep down inside you
Lavender thought she could get used to this. Being wolf, being pack. She grinned and spun, arms flung wide as light feet carried her.
Now was the time to dance, apparently. They had made it through the night when the moon was fullest and so the night after they danced, and they drank, and they smiled and just were. She could feel the fire warming her face and then her bum and then the tips of her fingers as she spun and spun, around and around.
She was breathless when she flung herself partly onto the ground and partly onto Theodore’s lap. He hadn’t moved from the log he’d planted himself on when they arrived at the bonfire site. “Come on, Theo. Don’t be such a stick in the mud.”
He raised a brow at her, but otherwise ignored her.
She was giddy with firewhiskey and being alive, and with how the wildness inside of her liked being near him, and what she did next, she did without thinking it over. Where only moments before she was sprawled on his lap, looking up at him, now she was half kneeling between his legs and all but crawling up the front of his body. Her nose found the warmth of his throat and she breathed in deep, fingers curling tight into his jumper. And then she licked him, tasted his skin, seemed to lose herself a little bit more.
And then he wasn’t there anymore. She pouted at him as he held her away from him.
“Stop it Theo. I can taste how much you want it.” She grinned at him and it was wolfish. “You can taste me too, if you want.”
Allow yourself to be mine
Let yourself go wild
~~~
♫ “My Obsession” by Mia Bojanic & Randall Brent Cooke ♫
Standing in the wind, holding my breath
Waiting for a glimpse of you
After three moons it no longer hurts, and after four Lavender no longer loses herself to the wolf when she changes. After she passes through her fifth moon she shifts for the first time when the sky is dark, empty of anything but stars.
She loves being a wolf.
It’s October now and there is a definite chill in the air, but she is still in nothing but short, short ripped denims and a loose tank. She runs hot now, and the cold doesn’t bother her as much as it used to. In fact, she kind of loves the contrast, the prick of it against her skin.
“I know you’re there.”
She sticks her tongue out at his back before slipping from the forest and into the clearing. The meadow grass is pressed down from all the bodies that had filled it the week before. It was the pack’s usual sleeping spot after chasing deer and rabbits when the moon was full.
Theo spent a lot of time there by himself. Or perhaps he had before she’d come. Lavender made herself his constant annoyance these days. The thought made her grin as she fell to her knees several meters away. “You’re no fun. So cranky. Just like an old man.” She fell forward onto her hands and began to stalk toward him. “All this frowning and brooding makes Theo a very dull boy.”
I wanna be the one you talk to,
I wanna be right by your side
“You’re annoying.” His tone was dull, bored, but his dark grey eyes were intent. “I could hear you ages ago. Bull in a china shop.”
She narrowed her eyes at him.
He smirked.
Theodore knew she was being silly, but she didn’t know what she looked like to him. Perhaps when he hadn’t had a wild thing inside him he’d have seen nothing but Lavender being herself, and would have dismissed her. It’s what he’d done often when they were young. He’d been doing it willfully for the past months.
Because the fact was that he wasn’t who he had once been. He was a man now, and she was a woman, and that changed things. The wolves in them changed things; their bodies spoke more than one language.
The boy he’d once been had hoarded her to himself, the friend he’d had to keep a secret when they’d sorted into opposing houses. The man he was now couldn’t help but notice things the boy hadn’t. The slight curves of her body, the softness of her skin, how she fit against him on those mornings when they woke after running wild beneath the moon.
The wolf in him wanted to breath in her scent all the time, wanted to stalk her, chase her, pin her down and claim her.
The image that sprung to mind made his body tense. She was bad for his control.
The way you move, the way you walk
Just what you’re doing
I can’t get enough of what you do
The sun had already gone down and twilight hid his expression, but Lavender didn’t have to see his face to know that something had changed. The air felt different. Weighty. His gaze felt heavier. It made the hair on her arms prickle, sent a thrill of alarm through her. It was a delicious kind of feeling.
She tensed. Usually this meant it was time to run and he would chase her.
Her heart was beating so fast, like it would pound, pound, pound right out of her chest, and every muscle was ready to flee. She was a hunter, but with Theo she’d always felt like the hunted.
The thought made her bare her teeth and before she’d even thought about it she was going forward instead of away, and then she was on him, over him, pinning him down. Something inside of her thrilled at this, but then it was gone and he was above her. She felt the growl in her chest, her muscles flexed, and then it was all a whirl of bodies and limbs, on the grass, and then slamming him into a tree, and then several minutes later she found herself beneath him again, panting and feeling so very alive.
She reached up, wrapped a small hand around the back of his neck and pulled. Lips met and the kiss was hard and thorough, tongues fighting for dominance, nips and teeth, and hands finding skin beneath clothes. He gripped her waist, too hard (so right), rolled his hips into the cradle of hers, and even through their clothes it felt so, so good.
The clothes ended up ruined. She hadn’t liked them much anyway.
Every second, every day, I really got to find a way
To be with you all the time, it’s true
‘Cause my obsession is you, oh, my obsession is you
~~~
♫ “Something I Could Never Have” by Flyleaf ♫
Everywhere I look you're all I see
Just a fading reminder of who I used to be
Her breathing was rhythmic, the deep inhale and exhale of a person deeply asleep, and her body was bathed in moonlight, just very human skin made to look as if it was glowing with magic. His eyes traced a path from her fingertips, up her arm to the soft curve of her shoulder, before following a trail to the roundness of her breast not covered by her arm, and then to the dip of her waist and back up the swell of her hip. The sheet blocked further perusal, which was probably for the best.
He hadn’t meant to let this happen. They’d found a rhythm. She ran, he chased. By the time he caught her all the energy in them was spent. He’d made sure of it.
But then Lavender hadn’t run and his control, what little he had left now, had slipped between his fingers like it hadn’t ever been there in the first place.
This thing is slowly taking me apart
Grey would be the color if I had a heart
It was the coolness that had woken her. The absence of a body, the absence of a warmth that it had been very easy to become accustomed to.
She watched him watch her, but Lavender knew he wasn’t really seeing her. She’d known something was wrong for a long time. Longer than he knew. Their parents had been friends forever and a day, and her earliest memories of a person outside of her family were of him. Their sortings had taken them different directions, as had their personalities, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t been paying attention.
People thought she was silly. Silly people got to do things and say things that others didn’t get to. Silly could be very useful.
But silly didn’t mean unobservant. There’d been no holiday to the coast with the Nott’s after fourth year, or any years after, and during fifth year he’d been haunted. Dark circles under his eyes. Edgy. Pale. More insular than ever. It was hard for a Gryffindor to corner a Slytherin that didn’t want to cornered, both by disposition and convention.
And then there’d been a lot of more important things to steal all of their attention.
Now though, things were what they were.
“Come back to bed, Theo.”
Her voice seemed to startle him. His eyes met hers in the moonlit darkness a long moment and then he was gone.
She sighed.
You were always the one to show me how
Back then I couldn't do the things that I can do now
~~~
♫ “Breath of Life” by Florence + The Machine ♫
And the fever began to spread
From my heart down to my legs
“How do you do it?”
Her gaze lingered on his bare back, the lean muscles the nearly full moon exposed to her. “Do what?”
He turned, too fast for to see all of the movement. His agitation seemed to call his wolf to the surface. “This. This life,” he elaborated, eyes hard on her. “You didn’t cry. You didn’t fight it at all. Why didn’t you fight it?”
She could smell his musky scent, his fur. Her nostrils flared. “You told me not to.”
His brows tightened into a frown. “How could that be enough? How could this not drive you to madness? The fear of the change alone drives most to lose their minds and tear themselves apart before they’ve even made it through more than a few moons. Others lose parts of themselves completely, like Greyback.” He stalked toward her. “But you’re not different than you were before. You’re even brighter, more alive. Why?”
She held very still and only slowly lifted her gaze to meet his. “I thought I was going to die. Then I woke up and it wasn’t horrible, it wasn’t hell. It was warm and I felt safe, and then you were there and I knew everything was going to be okay. How could it not? Alive is better than dead, even if it’s alive as a wolf.”
She lifted her hand slowly and placed it against his chest. His heart was racing, erratic. “You told me it would be best if I just accepted what I was. You’re the most pragmatic person I’ve ever known. If acceptance was the most efficient and beneficial way to deal with it, then that’s what I was going to do.” Her lips curled slightly. “Plus, I knew you’d never lead me wrong. You never have. And it is what it is, yeah? Fighting what I am wasn’t going to change me back.”
You are the night time fear, you are the morning when it's clear
You're in my head, you're in my heart
She made it sound so simple. Parroted his own words back at him. But it wasn’t with ill intentions. It was trust that was in the light touch of her hand against him, the soft, warm timbre of her voice.
He shifted his gaze away from her, stared hard at the darkness beyond her. “My father was ashamed. He wasn’t going to have a halfbreed monstrosity in his house. Mother said nothing against him.” His jaw clenched. He’d not told anyone before, but then no one here had known him before and no one at school had cared to look and see more than he chose to show. “I think she must have said something later though. He never did completely disinherit me. It was best for me to be here when I wasn’t at school anyway. The pack has been good to me.”
Theodore could hear the hitch in her breathing and his gaze shifted back to her. Her eyes were bright with tears. “Now you cry?
“What happened to me was a miracle,” she said. “I should have died that night, but then I woke up and I got life, and it wasn’t one where I was always running and always worrying, and wondering if maybe today was going to be my last. And I got you.”
Small, warm hands slid around his waist and he didn’t resist when she hugged her body to his, pressed a hot, wet cheek to his chest. “I’m allowed to cry for you” she whispered, and her breath was warm against his skin.
And cry she did. The harder the tears came, the tighter he held onto her, clung to her.
Later when they were in bed again and she was asleep atop him, it occurred to him that he was hollowed out as if he too had wept.
I was looking for a breath of a life
For a little touch of heavenly light
~~~
♫ “Cups” by Anna Kendrick ♫
When I'm gone, when I'm gone, you're gonna miss me when I'm gone
You're gonna miss me by hair, you're gonna miss me everywhere
Oh, you're gonna miss me when I'm gone
There was an old rocking bench on the porch of the main house. He didn’t normally like to spend a lot of time around the buildings -- Theodore preferred the forest, always -- but it was consistently freezing now; a light dusting of snow had fallen the night before, even. He found that he didn’t mind so much staying close to the small, isolated mountain settlement when he had Lavender sprawled on him and snuggling under the blanket covering them for warmth.
“It’s time.”
“Time for what?” He twirled a lock of blonde hair around his finger, lips curling slightly when she nuzzled his neck.
“It’s time to leave.”
He stilled.
She pulled away to meet his gaze. “I can shift without any pain at all on a full moon, or whenever I want to. I haven’t any burning desire to see what anyone tastes like,” she said, lips sliding into a lightning quick, razor sharp leer at him. “Except you, maybe.”
His chest rumbled with the beginnings of a growl.
“Mum and Pa think I’m dead, and so does Parvati and everyone else. I should have gone back months ago...” But then she paused and seemed to think a moment before shaking her head slightly. “No, maybe not. It was good I was here.” She smiled again and it was a bright, cheerful thing and his hand tightened on her hip. “But it’s definitely time now. Christmas is coming and I’d like to go shopping.”
He raised a brow. He was ignoring the trepidation in the back of his mind.
You're gonna miss me by my walk, you're gonna miss me by my talk
Oh, you're gonna miss me when I'm gone
“You should go then.”
“I should,” she agreed, and his chest tightened in a certain kind of agony. “But you should come with me.”
I sure would like some sweet company
And I'm leaving tomorrow, what do you say?
She could play coy, but Lavender was too pleased to see the light of surprise and hope in his eyes. Others wouldn’t see it, the nuances of his expressions, but she’d known him as a child, knew him intimately as a man, and as a wolf, and Lavender liked to think she was now an expert in deciphering his minute facial expressions.
“In fact,” she elaborated, “I don’t think I’m going to give you the choice. You must come. It’s your responsibility as the wolf who brought me here to make sure that I get where I want to go next, safely, and that I don’t maul anyone, or something.”
She leaned forward until her lips hovered just millimeters away from his. “Though if you intend to be difficult, I’m not above seducing you.”
His lips curled -- she could feel it. Her own tipped up into an answering smile. “Mum and Pa will be glad to see you. They missed you, too,” she murmured against his mouth.
Lavender shifted to straddle his lap and was more than a little thrilled when his hands found their way beneath her sweater. “Also,” she said, a little breathless now as she sifted her fingers into his hair to grip tightly, “I’ve decided just now that I’m going to seduce you anyway.”
Theo grinned at her, a wolfish thing, and she trembled... excitement, want, happiness. It was all one and the same now. “Not if I beat you to it.”
She squealed when he stood faster than she could react to and tossed her over his shoulder. “Theeeooooo!!”
A lot had changed, but not everything.
I got my ticket for the long way round, the one with the prettiest of views
It's got mountains, it's got rivers, it's got sights to give you shivers
But it sure would be prettier with you
Author/Creator: elle_blessing
Characters: Theodore Nott/Lavender Brown
Prompt number: 294 ("The moon makes me hungry for...everything." ~Wolf, The Tenth Kingdom)
Word Count: 4,575
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None.
Summary: Lavender was the kind of girl you met and never forgot. She had a way of getting inside your mind and staying there, even when you didn’t want her to.
Disclaimer: I didn’t create the music, or the Harry Potter books. This was done out of love. No money is being made.
Author’s Notes: I got a little ambitious with this. First it was just supposed to be a fanmix, then a fanmix with a few small drabbles, and in the end it turned out to be a series of ficlets to accompany the songs I chose to tell this story. Everything for this project ended up being unexpected: the music changed, the tone changed, and the pairing I ended up with is one I’ve never written before. Each song is meant to be listened to with its accompanying ficlet(s) if you want to immerse yourself in the whole experience. Hopefully y’all like it :) Thanks so much to K and L for keeping the writing as error free as possible!
Tracks: 10
Run time: 40 minutes
File size: 33Mb
Download: Links in Fic
♫ “Girls Like You” by The Naked and Famous ♫
Run, whirlwind run
What will you be when it all comes crashing down on you, little girl?
What if it happened tonight?
Lavender was the kind of girl you met and never forgot. It wasn't that she was stunningly beautiful, because she wasn't. It wasn't that she was particularly smart or clever. It wasn't because she excelled at anything of consequence either.
On paper, Lavender Brown was exceedingly normal.
But the reality of Lavender Brown was anything but normal. She was passionate and vivacious and adventurous and brave. She talked too much and listened too little, but it was okay because she glowed when she spoke of things that she cared about and it was impossible to look away. She would have been plain, but instead her face was interesting. Grey eyes that sometimes looked green, and tilted up at the corners just like a cat’s. Lips that were just a little too full for her otherwise dainty features.
She had a way of getting inside your mind and staying there even when you didn't want her to.
Maybe that’s why he didn’t leave her there that day.
Maybe.
Everyone will remember you when you're gone
Don't you know people write songs about girls like you?
~~~
♫ “No Light, No Light” by Florence + The Machine ♫
You are the hole in my head, you are the space in my bed
You are the silence in between, what I thought, what I said
Lavender knew she wasn’t dead. Or maybe she was, and she had just ended up in hell instead of the place she’d been hoping for. Because she was too damn hot, and she hurt too damn much, to be alive.
Consciousness, she decided, was overrated.
Even so, long lashes fluttered and her eyes opened of their own accord. The first thing she saw didn’t seem right. It was a back. Toned and tan. The back of someone who spent a lot of time in the sun without their shirt on.
It made her aware that the owner of the bare back right in front of her nose wasn’t the only person with her. There was a body pressed to her own back, an arm over her middle, a large hand pressed against her belly. And as her brain began to catch up, she was more than a little startled to realize that the warmth she was feeling was the press of bare skin against her own bare skin.
She was naked.
You are the night time fear, you are the morning when it's clear
You're in my head, you're in my heart
He felt her tense. “It’s not what you think.”
If it was possible, she tensed up even more. He sighed and moved his hand to rest on her hip from where it’d fallen while he dozed. “You were almost dead. Now you’re not. Pack heals pack, skin to skin.”
It was one of the many reasons Professor Lupin had been so scarred. Wolves weren’t meant to be solitary creatures.
She twisted to look up at him, those eyes he’d always had a hard time not getting caught in, staring at him with confusion and more -- more than she could even understand right now. Darkness and wildness and … gods, he could already tell having her around was going to be bad for him.
“Theo?”
“It’s been a long time, Lav.”
You want a revelation, you wanna get it right
But it's a conversation I just can't have tonight
~~~
♫ “Crystalised” by The xx ♫
You don't move slow, taking steps in my directions
You say I’m foolish for pushing this aside
She wanted to be with him all the time. Around him all the time.
It was annoying.
It wasn’t his job to teach the new wolves about their new lives. But he’d known when he’d picked her up after the battle and brought her here that things would be different (Of course it would be different. Of course.). If she survived. (And he’d wanted her to so badly. She didn’t know how close it had been, how much it would have killed him if …)
“Theeeoooo.”
He resisted the urge to pinch his nose. She was different than he remembered. Her body... he pushed those thoughts away. But the way she said his name like that, it wasn’t any different than when they were children. Following him around and pouting at him to indulge her.
Not much had changed. Yet.
He eyed the moon. It would be full soon.
You've applied the pressure
And you've got the faith
That I could bring paradise
Lavender stepped next to her old friend and her eyes were drawn up too. It was clear for a change, and the nearly full moon looked heavy in the sky. Thinking about what it meant for her now made the hair on her arms stand on end. She hugged herself, running her hands over the prickled skin to soothe it away.
“Will it hurt?” she whispered.
He glanced at her. “Yes.”
She licked her lips. “How come I can’t use wolfsbane?”
Theodore looked back up at the moon. “It’s not our way. We are pack, and we embrace the moon. It does hurt,” he looked back to her, “but only for a little while. You’ll learn control eventually. Then you’ll be able to shift without the moon. Wolfsbane is for those who reject what they are. Those who use wolfsbane … it always hurts. They fight the change.”
Lavender hadn’t known this had happened to Theodore, but it explained why their families had stopped spending summers together after fourth year. He hadn’t told her how it’d happened to him. She didn’t want to ask. Didn’t want to know. If it was anything like what had happened to her... she shuddered.
She leaned into his side. “I’m glad you’re with me,” she whispered. She wasn’t sure she could do this without him.
He didn’t say anything back, but he did put his arm around her shoulders. It was enough.
So don't think that I'm pushing you away
When you're the one that I've kept closest
~~~
♫ “Drumming Song” by Florence + The Machine ♫
There's a drumming noise inside my head
That throws me to the ground
The moon was coming and she could feel it. It was exhilarating. She wanted to run, run, run. So much energy inside, a wild kind of energy that wouldn’t ever end. She pulsed with it, was dizzy with it, wanted to dance with it.
It was terrifying.
She still had her own hands, her own skin, and her own shape, but she could feel something inside crawling beneath the surface.
Lavender could see why someone might want to fight it. It was different and scary, and control seemed a far off thought. Someone like Padma would fight it, she thought. Someone who kept everything locked up, who liked to be in control of things and themselves. Ron would fight it too, she decided. He would be afraid, too set in how he thinks it should be to accept the wildness wanting out.
She glanced at Theodore hunched in the grass next to her, arms wrapped around his knees. He was so still. She hadn’t been able to stop squirming since waking that morning. She rolled onto her back next to him, could feel his heat, smell his musky scent, sense something not so composed beneath the surface.
“You feel good.” She grinned. “Let’s go run, or something. Play tag.”
There's a drumming noise inside my head
That starts when you’re around
He looked down at her. Her smile was wolfish. Playful. She didn’t know what she was doing to him. He could smell her too, feel her warmth. She felt good next to him, and he wanted to do a lot more than run.
Theodore didn’t know how to feel about it. He cared about Lavender, had for as long as he could remember. But he’d avoided everyone after fourth year. Kept to himself at school. It was easy. He’d been aloof to begin with. With the wolf inside him, he’d been powerful enough to make others keep their distance without having to say anything. They could sense he was dangerous.
She hadn’t ever been able to. Or maybe she’d never felt threatened by him.
His nostrils flared as she squirmed again and the hair on his arms stood on end when she curled around him.
“Pleeeeaaasee, Theo? The moon makes me hungry,” she said with vehemence as she sat up, grey-green eyes glowing just a little with her intensity. “For everything.” It struck him as a paradox that she was a wolf now and yet her eyes were that of a cat. “I need … something.”
He moved before he could stop himself, his hand twining in her pale hair and pulling. Dark grey eyes flicked to her throat, bare and vulnerable. Pulse pounding with excitement. A growl rumbled in his chest and his eyes flicked to hers. “Run.”
She did.
Louder than sirens, louder than bells
Sweeter than heaven, hotter than hell
~~~
♫ “Crawling” by Linkin Park ♫
There’s something inside me that pulls beneath the surface
Consuming, Confusing
He hadn’t lied when he said it would hurt. She felt like she was dying all over again, body breaking and reshaping, and that she wouldn’t ever be whole again. The pop of cartilage, the crack, snap of bones, and the sickening slurp of flesh moving made her sick -- sicker than she already felt.
She screamed when she felt her spine shift, move, break, shorten, and then her arms weren’t there and her fingers broke and shortened and she wasn’t Lavender anymore.
All she could do was lay there. Pant in exhaustion.
Lavender was distantly aware of the others. Pack her mind insisted. She could feel movement around her, could smell them all, each to their own. Could smell him. His scent chased off what lucidity was left after the moon had wrought it’s work on her, and the wild thing inside of her surged forward to meet him.
Crawling in my skin, I can’t seem to find myself again
My walls are closing in, I’ve never felt this way before
~~~
♫ “Let Yourself Go Wild” by Jasmine Tabatabai ♫
I know you want it, I know you feel it
I know you need to, but still you fear it
She woke in much the same way she’d woke the first time she found herself to be with the pack. Naked.
This time there was someone pressed against her front though, one of the younger wolves. A second year who’d met Fenrir too, though a year before her. Avery Clearwater. His face was pressed into the crook of her neck, and the steady puffs of breath let her know he was still asleep. The steady breathing at her back let her know he was still asleep too. His hand resting on her stomach just like before.
Not too long ago, weeks before this even, the fact that she was sleeping in the woods with a bunch of naked people would have freaked her out. A lot. But right in that particular moment she felt warm and woozy and like everything was right in the world. She’d expected it to hurt when everything was over, but she was only a little achey. In a pleasant sort of way, like when she’d lost her virginity.
She knew Theo was awake, at least partly, when his hand splayed against her. She shivered when the tips of his fingers brushed low, low, and her breath left her in a pant when he buried his nose in her hair, nuzzled the back of her neck.
Perhaps closeness was something wolves craved after the change. She certainly didn’t mind.
I’ll show you it's not so bad
Let yourself go wild
Theodore woke fully in a single moment, and his whole body tensed. He was used to waking close to the other wolves -- it was always how it was after a run on the full moon, but he wasn’t just close to the other wolves. He was pressed against every inch of Lavender Brown, aware of every slight curve, the warmth of her skin, her scent, how she trembled when he barely moved his fingers. Mine, part of him insisted. The wilder part of him.
He knew she was going to be trouble for him.
His eyes opened and he shifted slightly to see past her. A boy was curled into her front and a part of him bristled at how she cradled his head to her.
Just a boy, he reminded himself. The youngest of them. He couldn’t begrudge Avery the comfort he was so clearly seeking.
He rolled onto his back and away from her. He needed the coolness of the mountain air against his skin.
I want to taste you, I want to feel you
I want to touch you, deep down inside you
Lavender thought she could get used to this. Being wolf, being pack. She grinned and spun, arms flung wide as light feet carried her.
Now was the time to dance, apparently. They had made it through the night when the moon was fullest and so the night after they danced, and they drank, and they smiled and just were. She could feel the fire warming her face and then her bum and then the tips of her fingers as she spun and spun, around and around.
She was breathless when she flung herself partly onto the ground and partly onto Theodore’s lap. He hadn’t moved from the log he’d planted himself on when they arrived at the bonfire site. “Come on, Theo. Don’t be such a stick in the mud.”
He raised a brow at her, but otherwise ignored her.
She was giddy with firewhiskey and being alive, and with how the wildness inside of her liked being near him, and what she did next, she did without thinking it over. Where only moments before she was sprawled on his lap, looking up at him, now she was half kneeling between his legs and all but crawling up the front of his body. Her nose found the warmth of his throat and she breathed in deep, fingers curling tight into his jumper. And then she licked him, tasted his skin, seemed to lose herself a little bit more.
And then he wasn’t there anymore. She pouted at him as he held her away from him.
“Stop it Theo. I can taste how much you want it.” She grinned at him and it was wolfish. “You can taste me too, if you want.”
Allow yourself to be mine
Let yourself go wild
~~~
♫ “My Obsession” by Mia Bojanic & Randall Brent Cooke ♫
Standing in the wind, holding my breath
Waiting for a glimpse of you
After three moons it no longer hurts, and after four Lavender no longer loses herself to the wolf when she changes. After she passes through her fifth moon she shifts for the first time when the sky is dark, empty of anything but stars.
She loves being a wolf.
It’s October now and there is a definite chill in the air, but she is still in nothing but short, short ripped denims and a loose tank. She runs hot now, and the cold doesn’t bother her as much as it used to. In fact, she kind of loves the contrast, the prick of it against her skin.
“I know you’re there.”
She sticks her tongue out at his back before slipping from the forest and into the clearing. The meadow grass is pressed down from all the bodies that had filled it the week before. It was the pack’s usual sleeping spot after chasing deer and rabbits when the moon was full.
Theo spent a lot of time there by himself. Or perhaps he had before she’d come. Lavender made herself his constant annoyance these days. The thought made her grin as she fell to her knees several meters away. “You’re no fun. So cranky. Just like an old man.” She fell forward onto her hands and began to stalk toward him. “All this frowning and brooding makes Theo a very dull boy.”
I wanna be the one you talk to,
I wanna be right by your side
“You’re annoying.” His tone was dull, bored, but his dark grey eyes were intent. “I could hear you ages ago. Bull in a china shop.”
She narrowed her eyes at him.
He smirked.
Theodore knew she was being silly, but she didn’t know what she looked like to him. Perhaps when he hadn’t had a wild thing inside him he’d have seen nothing but Lavender being herself, and would have dismissed her. It’s what he’d done often when they were young. He’d been doing it willfully for the past months.
Because the fact was that he wasn’t who he had once been. He was a man now, and she was a woman, and that changed things. The wolves in them changed things; their bodies spoke more than one language.
The boy he’d once been had hoarded her to himself, the friend he’d had to keep a secret when they’d sorted into opposing houses. The man he was now couldn’t help but notice things the boy hadn’t. The slight curves of her body, the softness of her skin, how she fit against him on those mornings when they woke after running wild beneath the moon.
The wolf in him wanted to breath in her scent all the time, wanted to stalk her, chase her, pin her down and claim her.
The image that sprung to mind made his body tense. She was bad for his control.
The way you move, the way you walk
Just what you’re doing
I can’t get enough of what you do
The sun had already gone down and twilight hid his expression, but Lavender didn’t have to see his face to know that something had changed. The air felt different. Weighty. His gaze felt heavier. It made the hair on her arms prickle, sent a thrill of alarm through her. It was a delicious kind of feeling.
She tensed. Usually this meant it was time to run and he would chase her.
Her heart was beating so fast, like it would pound, pound, pound right out of her chest, and every muscle was ready to flee. She was a hunter, but with Theo she’d always felt like the hunted.
The thought made her bare her teeth and before she’d even thought about it she was going forward instead of away, and then she was on him, over him, pinning him down. Something inside of her thrilled at this, but then it was gone and he was above her. She felt the growl in her chest, her muscles flexed, and then it was all a whirl of bodies and limbs, on the grass, and then slamming him into a tree, and then several minutes later she found herself beneath him again, panting and feeling so very alive.
She reached up, wrapped a small hand around the back of his neck and pulled. Lips met and the kiss was hard and thorough, tongues fighting for dominance, nips and teeth, and hands finding skin beneath clothes. He gripped her waist, too hard (so right), rolled his hips into the cradle of hers, and even through their clothes it felt so, so good.
The clothes ended up ruined. She hadn’t liked them much anyway.
Every second, every day, I really got to find a way
To be with you all the time, it’s true
‘Cause my obsession is you, oh, my obsession is you
~~~
♫ “Something I Could Never Have” by Flyleaf ♫
Everywhere I look you're all I see
Just a fading reminder of who I used to be
Her breathing was rhythmic, the deep inhale and exhale of a person deeply asleep, and her body was bathed in moonlight, just very human skin made to look as if it was glowing with magic. His eyes traced a path from her fingertips, up her arm to the soft curve of her shoulder, before following a trail to the roundness of her breast not covered by her arm, and then to the dip of her waist and back up the swell of her hip. The sheet blocked further perusal, which was probably for the best.
He hadn’t meant to let this happen. They’d found a rhythm. She ran, he chased. By the time he caught her all the energy in them was spent. He’d made sure of it.
But then Lavender hadn’t run and his control, what little he had left now, had slipped between his fingers like it hadn’t ever been there in the first place.
This thing is slowly taking me apart
Grey would be the color if I had a heart
It was the coolness that had woken her. The absence of a body, the absence of a warmth that it had been very easy to become accustomed to.
She watched him watch her, but Lavender knew he wasn’t really seeing her. She’d known something was wrong for a long time. Longer than he knew. Their parents had been friends forever and a day, and her earliest memories of a person outside of her family were of him. Their sortings had taken them different directions, as had their personalities, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t been paying attention.
People thought she was silly. Silly people got to do things and say things that others didn’t get to. Silly could be very useful.
But silly didn’t mean unobservant. There’d been no holiday to the coast with the Nott’s after fourth year, or any years after, and during fifth year he’d been haunted. Dark circles under his eyes. Edgy. Pale. More insular than ever. It was hard for a Gryffindor to corner a Slytherin that didn’t want to cornered, both by disposition and convention.
And then there’d been a lot of more important things to steal all of their attention.
Now though, things were what they were.
“Come back to bed, Theo.”
Her voice seemed to startle him. His eyes met hers in the moonlit darkness a long moment and then he was gone.
She sighed.
You were always the one to show me how
Back then I couldn't do the things that I can do now
~~~
♫ “Breath of Life” by Florence + The Machine ♫
And the fever began to spread
From my heart down to my legs
“How do you do it?”
Her gaze lingered on his bare back, the lean muscles the nearly full moon exposed to her. “Do what?”
He turned, too fast for to see all of the movement. His agitation seemed to call his wolf to the surface. “This. This life,” he elaborated, eyes hard on her. “You didn’t cry. You didn’t fight it at all. Why didn’t you fight it?”
She could smell his musky scent, his fur. Her nostrils flared. “You told me not to.”
His brows tightened into a frown. “How could that be enough? How could this not drive you to madness? The fear of the change alone drives most to lose their minds and tear themselves apart before they’ve even made it through more than a few moons. Others lose parts of themselves completely, like Greyback.” He stalked toward her. “But you’re not different than you were before. You’re even brighter, more alive. Why?”
She held very still and only slowly lifted her gaze to meet his. “I thought I was going to die. Then I woke up and it wasn’t horrible, it wasn’t hell. It was warm and I felt safe, and then you were there and I knew everything was going to be okay. How could it not? Alive is better than dead, even if it’s alive as a wolf.”
She lifted her hand slowly and placed it against his chest. His heart was racing, erratic. “You told me it would be best if I just accepted what I was. You’re the most pragmatic person I’ve ever known. If acceptance was the most efficient and beneficial way to deal with it, then that’s what I was going to do.” Her lips curled slightly. “Plus, I knew you’d never lead me wrong. You never have. And it is what it is, yeah? Fighting what I am wasn’t going to change me back.”
You are the night time fear, you are the morning when it's clear
You're in my head, you're in my heart
She made it sound so simple. Parroted his own words back at him. But it wasn’t with ill intentions. It was trust that was in the light touch of her hand against him, the soft, warm timbre of her voice.
He shifted his gaze away from her, stared hard at the darkness beyond her. “My father was ashamed. He wasn’t going to have a halfbreed monstrosity in his house. Mother said nothing against him.” His jaw clenched. He’d not told anyone before, but then no one here had known him before and no one at school had cared to look and see more than he chose to show. “I think she must have said something later though. He never did completely disinherit me. It was best for me to be here when I wasn’t at school anyway. The pack has been good to me.”
Theodore could hear the hitch in her breathing and his gaze shifted back to her. Her eyes were bright with tears. “Now you cry?
“What happened to me was a miracle,” she said. “I should have died that night, but then I woke up and I got life, and it wasn’t one where I was always running and always worrying, and wondering if maybe today was going to be my last. And I got you.”
Small, warm hands slid around his waist and he didn’t resist when she hugged her body to his, pressed a hot, wet cheek to his chest. “I’m allowed to cry for you” she whispered, and her breath was warm against his skin.
And cry she did. The harder the tears came, the tighter he held onto her, clung to her.
Later when they were in bed again and she was asleep atop him, it occurred to him that he was hollowed out as if he too had wept.
I was looking for a breath of a life
For a little touch of heavenly light
~~~
♫ “Cups” by Anna Kendrick ♫
When I'm gone, when I'm gone, you're gonna miss me when I'm gone
You're gonna miss me by hair, you're gonna miss me everywhere
Oh, you're gonna miss me when I'm gone
There was an old rocking bench on the porch of the main house. He didn’t normally like to spend a lot of time around the buildings -- Theodore preferred the forest, always -- but it was consistently freezing now; a light dusting of snow had fallen the night before, even. He found that he didn’t mind so much staying close to the small, isolated mountain settlement when he had Lavender sprawled on him and snuggling under the blanket covering them for warmth.
“It’s time.”
“Time for what?” He twirled a lock of blonde hair around his finger, lips curling slightly when she nuzzled his neck.
“It’s time to leave.”
He stilled.
She pulled away to meet his gaze. “I can shift without any pain at all on a full moon, or whenever I want to. I haven’t any burning desire to see what anyone tastes like,” she said, lips sliding into a lightning quick, razor sharp leer at him. “Except you, maybe.”
His chest rumbled with the beginnings of a growl.
“Mum and Pa think I’m dead, and so does Parvati and everyone else. I should have gone back months ago...” But then she paused and seemed to think a moment before shaking her head slightly. “No, maybe not. It was good I was here.” She smiled again and it was a bright, cheerful thing and his hand tightened on her hip. “But it’s definitely time now. Christmas is coming and I’d like to go shopping.”
He raised a brow. He was ignoring the trepidation in the back of his mind.
You're gonna miss me by my walk, you're gonna miss me by my talk
Oh, you're gonna miss me when I'm gone
“You should go then.”
“I should,” she agreed, and his chest tightened in a certain kind of agony. “But you should come with me.”
I sure would like some sweet company
And I'm leaving tomorrow, what do you say?
She could play coy, but Lavender was too pleased to see the light of surprise and hope in his eyes. Others wouldn’t see it, the nuances of his expressions, but she’d known him as a child, knew him intimately as a man, and as a wolf, and Lavender liked to think she was now an expert in deciphering his minute facial expressions.
“In fact,” she elaborated, “I don’t think I’m going to give you the choice. You must come. It’s your responsibility as the wolf who brought me here to make sure that I get where I want to go next, safely, and that I don’t maul anyone, or something.”
She leaned forward until her lips hovered just millimeters away from his. “Though if you intend to be difficult, I’m not above seducing you.”
His lips curled -- she could feel it. Her own tipped up into an answering smile. “Mum and Pa will be glad to see you. They missed you, too,” she murmured against his mouth.
Lavender shifted to straddle his lap and was more than a little thrilled when his hands found their way beneath her sweater. “Also,” she said, a little breathless now as she sifted her fingers into his hair to grip tightly, “I’ve decided just now that I’m going to seduce you anyway.”
Theo grinned at her, a wolfish thing, and she trembled... excitement, want, happiness. It was all one and the same now. “Not if I beat you to it.”
She squealed when he stood faster than she could react to and tossed her over his shoulder. “Theeeooooo!!”
A lot had changed, but not everything.
I got my ticket for the long way round, the one with the prettiest of views
It's got mountains, it's got rivers, it's got sights to give you shivers
But it sure would be prettier with you