Chapter One of 'Imago'- Weasley Is a Prat
Mar. 16th, 2022 09:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lomonaaerenTitle: Imago
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Theo, mentions of Ron/Hermione, Hermione/Viktor, Cedric/Cho, and Draco/Pansy.
Content Notes: AU during GoF, manipulation, child abuse, angst, present tense, violence, underage kissing, manipulation
Rating: PG-13
Summary: AU following on from “Instar.” Theo can see all sorts of advantages that will accrue to him if he just sticks to Harry Potter’s side, including future political power and being able to annoy both Draco and Weasley. But the challenges are also very real—which makes Theo all the more determined to stay in the place that he’s carving for himself in Harry’s life.
Author’s Notes: This is the sequel to one of my Solstitial Shorts stories from last year, “Instar.” This will have several chapters and cover to the end of fourth year. An imago is the mature life stage of an insect.
Imago
Chapter One—Weasley Is a Prat
“Granger and Weasley aren’t here?”
“Do you think I would have asked you to come if they were?”
Theo smiles a little and sits down at the table across from Harry. Harry’s eyes and cheeks are both bright, watching him. He’s been an odd combination of shy and straightforward with Theo ever since Theo admitted to fancying him after the First Task.
“Sooner or later, if this is serious, I’ll have to learn to get along with your friends,” Theo says as he spreads out his Herbology textbook and his essay for Sprout. He watches Harry from beneath his lashes.
He’s chosen his words carefully, and his caution is rewarded when Harry’s mouth tightens. “They should try to get along with you.”
“No sign of that yet?”
“No. Ron still keeps insisting that you did something to me before the First Task, or just after it.” Harry gives a sharp little laugh. “I reminded him that I could resist the Imperius Curse, and he just got upset because he thought I was mocking him for not being able to.”
Theo did, in fact, do something just after the First Task, but since it was to Weasley, not Harry, he can smile with perfect innocence and purr, “I’m glad you don’t suspect me, Harry.”
Harry flushes brilliantly. “Yeah, uh. About this essay.” He hastily digs out his own in a sheaf of rustling parchment.
Theo finds out that Harry isn’t terrible in Herbology, but he doesn’t have the same instinctive feel for the right answers that Theo does. Of course, spending part of your formative years in a magical greenhouse will give you that. Theo doesn’t have Longbottom’s genius-level touch for the plants themselves, but he does have more knowledge about the subject than almost all the other Gryffindors.
“You’re a really good teacher,” Harry remarks, after a period of companionable silence during which Theo’s moved his chair to Harry’s side of the table to show him the answers in the book more easily.
“Probably not as good as Granger,” Theo says, looking down at the table a little like he believes it.
Luckily, after years of lying to his father, Harry is no challenge at all. He looks almost horrified, shaking his head. “No. honestly, Hermione isn’t—she doesn’t really teach. She lectures, and she tells us when we got something wrong, but she says helping us is doing too much of the work for us.”
Theo conceals a snort. With Weasley, he can well believe that. But when it comes to Harry, he suspects Granger’s touch is just too heavy. Harry needs dedication, delicacy, coaxing.
It makes Theo wonder what sort of education Harry had before he came to Hogwarts, but that isn’t something he thinks he can ask about yet.
“Did you tell them that you were going to meet me?”
“Um. Not yet.”
Theo nods. He has no intention of hiding the whatever-it-is that he and Harry have, because that would make it impossible for him to annoy Draco and Weasley, or be with Harry for any length of time.
And amazingly, being with Harry has become something that he does, sincerely, want to do.
It’ll provide me some protection against my father. It’ll give me a loyal friend at my back, even if the dating thing doesn’t work out between us. And it does, still, annoy Weasley and Draco all the time.
Theo sometimes thinks that’s not all there is to it, for him, but it’s the sort of thing that he needs to hear right now. He smiles and says what Harry needs to hear, too. “We can take this as slowly as you want to, Harry. As long as you don’t plan to hide me forever.”
“I would never want to.”
Their eyes cling for a moment in that kind of intense stare that seems to be cropping up between them more and more often since the end of the First Task, and then Harry turns back to the essay and asks another question. Theo happily answers it.
Part of it is just because so many people stare warily at him in the Slytherin common room and ask questions that are intended to work out, one way or the other, if he’s planning to be a Death Eater like his father, but honestly, this time with Harry is the most peaceful Theo’s ever spent.
*
“What are you doing with him, Nott?”
Weasley has a confrontation with Theo practically every day now, accusing him of “stealing his best friend,” but it’s taken Granger some time to confront him. Theo turns around. They’re in a dungeon corridor not far from the Potions classroom, with Theo trailing behind the other Slytherins, as usual.
“Granger,” Theo says. “I’m being his friend. Eventually I hope to be dating him.”
Granger stares at him. Theo smiles at her and wonders if it’s the answer or the blatant honesty from someone she must think of as a lying Slytherin that’s taken her off guard.
She’s not off guard for long. Granger folds her arms and narrows her eyes. “You just want to use him for something.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You—you just ignored him for years, you didn’t even really interact with him like Malfoy does, and now you want to date Harry? Why?”
“I fancy him.”
Theo makes a mental note to use honesty more often around Gryffindors. The way it makes them react is hilarious. Granger is staring at him now with her mouth slightly open, as if showing her teeth will make him confess the “shameful” truth.
Granger takes a huge breath and then shakes her head. “That can’t be the real reason.”
“What do you think is the real reason?”
“You want to gain political power and prominence through him. Or something.”
Theo snorts. “Yes, I’ll gain that by associating myself with one of the most unpopular boys in school. Oh, I know that some people changed their minds for a while after the First Task, but they’re already swinging back around to saying that Harry cheated and Diggory is the real Champion.” Theo has hexed a few of the people, mostly Hufflepuffs, who are saying that. One spent a day in the hospital wing with his tongue literally fused with the roof of his mouth; another lost her ability to hold a wand for several days.
“But at least they sincerely believe Harry put his name in the Goblet. That’s better than whatever you’re thinking about doing to Harry.”
Theo thinks about sharing some of the things he intends to do to Harry in the future, but honestly, he wants Harry to hear them first. “Well, I suppose it makes sense that you believe that about his detractors when you all but insisted that Harry take Weasley back.”
Granger, predictably, flushes. Theo isn’t sure whether her loyalty to Weasley or Harry runs deeper—even the intelligent Gryffindors have the wildest ideas about Harry—but he knows which one she’s decided to stare at with big, doe eyes. It makes Theo’s task easier, but he still despises her for it.
“Harry wanted to forgive Ron! He was miserable without him!”
“And he’s also told me how he’s miserable with him, with Weasley harassing him endlessly about having me for a friend.”
It still stuns Theo, a little, how much he managed with one little Confundus Charm on the day of the First Task. Weasley is doing everything else himself: insisting that Harry is too stupid to recognize Theo’s “twisted designs” on him, throwing a fit whenever Harry wants to study with Theo, and even falling back on how Harry only accepted Theo’s friendship in the first place because he’s “desperate for friends.” That last one caused a shouting match between Weasley and Harry that echoed across the Great Hall and rendered Draco speechless with delight.
Granger sighs and pushes hair away from her face. “Look, Nott, we were his best friends for years—we stood by him through the Chamber of Secrets accusations and the time in first year when our House shunned him for losing all those points—”
“You didn’t stand by him through this.”
“I did!”
“But not Weasley. And Weasley is the one who really has the problem with me, right? He’s shrieking at me all the time instead of asking questions like you’re doing.”
Granger’s cheeks flush, and she looks away. Theo stands there being extremely helpful for himself and not at all for her. Granger should really have known what the end result would be if she asked him questions like this. If she expected him to admit that he’s got an evil scheme or something, she’s far more of a pathetic Gryffindor than he thought.
“Ron has—problems with Slytherins,” Granger acknowledges. “But you can’t blame him. He hears that kind of thing all the time from his family, and he’s got five older brothers who were all Sorted into Gryffindor, and—”
“Spare me the list of Weasley’s insecurities. I don’t care.”
Granger jerks her head up and glares at him. “You should, if you care about Harry! You can’t make him choose between you and Ron!”
Theo gives her a long, slow smile. “I’m not the one doing that, am I? I’ve said I’d like to spend time with you lot and learn to get along. Weasley is the one who’s trying to make Harry choose, by acting like a spoiled brat because Harry doesn’t spend every hour of the twenty-four stuck to his side.”
Granger swallows convulsively. “Ron thought things would go back to the way they were before. After he apologized.”
“I was there for that apology, Granger, remember? It was pathetic. He couldn’t even say that he was relieved his best friend survived fighting a dragon before he was snapping at him again.”
Granger looks away again. Theo waits until he’s sure she’s not going to continue the conversation, and then nods and says, “Whenever you think that you’re ready to be in the side with the intelligent people instead of the side of the idiot that you’re attracted to for whatever reason, Harry and I will be right here.”
It really is beautiful, the way she splutters as Theo strolls away.
*
“Hermione said she tried to talk to you about me.”
“Funny she would characterize it that way. We spent most of the time talking about Weasley and how understanding I should be of him.”
Harry’s quill stops moving. Theo sets aside his own Transfiguration book and focuses on Harry. No one else seems to notice the way that Harry is so quiet when he’s upset, not screaming and yelling like a typical Gryffindor (well, all right, a typical Gryffindor who also has red hair). He’s barely breathing as he stares at his parchment.
“Harry?” Theo asks gently.
Harry throws down the quill and turns towards him. Theo gently moves the quill so that it doesn’t dribble ink on Harry’s essay for McGonagall without taking his eyes off his—
Crush? Future boyfriend? Friend?
While Theo is wondering which word is most appropriate, Harry is blurting, “Is it bad that I’m so fed up with him?”
Theo conceals his smile of delight. He knows that this isn’t pleasant for Harry, no matter how much it is for Theo. “No, I don’t think so. He’s been going on and on about this for weeks, hasn’t he?”
Harry sighs. “Well, I mean—not the thing with you. But the thing with the Goblet. He still hasn’t apologized more than he did right after the First Task. And he’s saying that I should have been loyal—”
“What does he mean by that?”
Harry eyes him for a second. “Wow. You’re scary when you make that face.”
Theo attempts to restrain himself. It’s difficult. Most of the time, he’s alone when he looks into the mirror and sees that expression.
Most of the time, there’s no one else he would want to make it for.
He takes a deep breath and spends a moment tapping his fingers on the side of his Transfiguration textbook before he smiles. “Sorry. I do want to know what he means by that, though. You didn’t put your name in the Goblet, so he can’t object about that.”
Harry shakes his head. “He means that if I was really loyal to him, I wouldn’t have made friends with a Slytherin.”
Theo stares at him. It’s the kind of thing that Draco would say, from the opposite perspective.
It’s startling to realize that Theo actually did think better of Weasley than that. He’s been Harry’s friend for so long that Theo didn’t think he was as stupid a prat as he looks like right now, because Harry would never tolerate that.
Or…
Maybe, maybe, there were long-term effects of the Confundus Charm after all. They don’t happen often, or the Ministry wouldn’t have approved the spell for use on Muggles who see magic. But sometimes, the charm intertwines itself into the mind of the person it was cast on, and they simply go on acting like they did at the moment they were under it. And the behavior gets worse and harder to change as it moves forwards.
Theo feels a sharp throb under his breastbone. He would suspect Harry of hexing with something if it wasn’t Harry. He doesn’t do things like that. At least not to people he likes, and he does like Theo.
This feels more like…guilt.
Theo scowls. He hasn’t felt that for a long time, and he really did hope that that time was the last one.
“Theo? Are you all right?”
Theo takes a deep breath and focuses on Harry. Well, his guilt changes nothing. He can’t time travel and prevent himself from casting that spell. He doesn’t regret casting it, in that otherwise Weasley would probably have prodded Harry into turning away from him, and Theo likes having Harry focus on him and spend time with him. He only regrets that it’s causing pain to Harry.
And Theo is not a Healer to be able to reverse the effects. The best thing he can do is provide support to Harry—the kind of support Weasley should have been providing in the first place, or Theo wouldn’t have had to cast the charm—and hope that things change and Weasley grows more accepting of Slytherins.
“Yes, I’m fine,” Theo says. “I’m sorry this is happening. And I’d leave if it would make things easier for you, but—”
“I don’t want you to.” Harry’s mouth flattens into a stubborn line. “Ron being a prat just makes me glad I have a friend who’s not like that, you know? And who isn’t forever trying to go back and forth between me and him the way Hermione does.” Harry shakes his head. “I haven’t even told them what Professor McGonagall told me yesterday, they’re both so busy talking about this—”
“What did she tell you yesterday?”
Harry’s face flushes a bright, bright red. Theo watches the line of color travel down his throat, the way he did in the tent after the First Task, and thinks, hungrily, Yes.
“Um.”
“Harry.” Theo lowers his voice, and watches the way Harry’s eyes widen. “What did she tell you?”
He thinks about saying that Harry doesn’t have to tell him if he doesn’t want to, but it’s obvious that Harry wants to tell someone. And honestly, Theo wants to hear it. He wants to know what makes Harry this nervous, this flustered, this—
He wants to touch Harry, honestly.
Harry swallows and tries to smile. “It’s ridiculous for me to be so nervous about it. I’m feeling worse about it than I did the morning I walked out to face the dragon.”
“That just makes me want to know what it is more.”
Harry nods slowly. “She told me that I have to take a date to the Yule Ball and the Champions have to lead off the ball with a dance. I wasn’t planning to take a date. I don’t know how to dance! I just—don’t want to do it.” Harry clenches his hands and looks away. “And I don’t want to date someone who thinks I cheated or who just wants to go to the Ball with the Boy-Who-Lived.”
Theo can’t breathe. He knew about the Yule Ball, of course. He planned to attend by himself and make amusing remarks on the dancing for the benefit of the few people in Slytherin who can keep up with him.
But right now, all he can think of is, Harry shouldn’t go with anyone but me.
And he has no idea how to speak about that. No idea how to deal with that.
This is more complicated than the bloody guilt.
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Theo, mentions of Ron/Hermione, Hermione/Viktor, Cedric/Cho, and Draco/Pansy.
Content Notes: AU during GoF, manipulation, child abuse, angst, present tense, violence, underage kissing, manipulation
Rating: PG-13
Summary: AU following on from “Instar.” Theo can see all sorts of advantages that will accrue to him if he just sticks to Harry Potter’s side, including future political power and being able to annoy both Draco and Weasley. But the challenges are also very real—which makes Theo all the more determined to stay in the place that he’s carving for himself in Harry’s life.
Author’s Notes: This is the sequel to one of my Solstitial Shorts stories from last year, “Instar.” This will have several chapters and cover to the end of fourth year. An imago is the mature life stage of an insect.
Imago
Chapter One—Weasley Is a Prat
“Granger and Weasley aren’t here?”
“Do you think I would have asked you to come if they were?”
Theo smiles a little and sits down at the table across from Harry. Harry’s eyes and cheeks are both bright, watching him. He’s been an odd combination of shy and straightforward with Theo ever since Theo admitted to fancying him after the First Task.
“Sooner or later, if this is serious, I’ll have to learn to get along with your friends,” Theo says as he spreads out his Herbology textbook and his essay for Sprout. He watches Harry from beneath his lashes.
He’s chosen his words carefully, and his caution is rewarded when Harry’s mouth tightens. “They should try to get along with you.”
“No sign of that yet?”
“No. Ron still keeps insisting that you did something to me before the First Task, or just after it.” Harry gives a sharp little laugh. “I reminded him that I could resist the Imperius Curse, and he just got upset because he thought I was mocking him for not being able to.”
Theo did, in fact, do something just after the First Task, but since it was to Weasley, not Harry, he can smile with perfect innocence and purr, “I’m glad you don’t suspect me, Harry.”
Harry flushes brilliantly. “Yeah, uh. About this essay.” He hastily digs out his own in a sheaf of rustling parchment.
Theo finds out that Harry isn’t terrible in Herbology, but he doesn’t have the same instinctive feel for the right answers that Theo does. Of course, spending part of your formative years in a magical greenhouse will give you that. Theo doesn’t have Longbottom’s genius-level touch for the plants themselves, but he does have more knowledge about the subject than almost all the other Gryffindors.
“You’re a really good teacher,” Harry remarks, after a period of companionable silence during which Theo’s moved his chair to Harry’s side of the table to show him the answers in the book more easily.
“Probably not as good as Granger,” Theo says, looking down at the table a little like he believes it.
Luckily, after years of lying to his father, Harry is no challenge at all. He looks almost horrified, shaking his head. “No. honestly, Hermione isn’t—she doesn’t really teach. She lectures, and she tells us when we got something wrong, but she says helping us is doing too much of the work for us.”
Theo conceals a snort. With Weasley, he can well believe that. But when it comes to Harry, he suspects Granger’s touch is just too heavy. Harry needs dedication, delicacy, coaxing.
It makes Theo wonder what sort of education Harry had before he came to Hogwarts, but that isn’t something he thinks he can ask about yet.
“Did you tell them that you were going to meet me?”
“Um. Not yet.”
Theo nods. He has no intention of hiding the whatever-it-is that he and Harry have, because that would make it impossible for him to annoy Draco and Weasley, or be with Harry for any length of time.
And amazingly, being with Harry has become something that he does, sincerely, want to do.
It’ll provide me some protection against my father. It’ll give me a loyal friend at my back, even if the dating thing doesn’t work out between us. And it does, still, annoy Weasley and Draco all the time.
Theo sometimes thinks that’s not all there is to it, for him, but it’s the sort of thing that he needs to hear right now. He smiles and says what Harry needs to hear, too. “We can take this as slowly as you want to, Harry. As long as you don’t plan to hide me forever.”
“I would never want to.”
Their eyes cling for a moment in that kind of intense stare that seems to be cropping up between them more and more often since the end of the First Task, and then Harry turns back to the essay and asks another question. Theo happily answers it.
Part of it is just because so many people stare warily at him in the Slytherin common room and ask questions that are intended to work out, one way or the other, if he’s planning to be a Death Eater like his father, but honestly, this time with Harry is the most peaceful Theo’s ever spent.
*
“What are you doing with him, Nott?”
Weasley has a confrontation with Theo practically every day now, accusing him of “stealing his best friend,” but it’s taken Granger some time to confront him. Theo turns around. They’re in a dungeon corridor not far from the Potions classroom, with Theo trailing behind the other Slytherins, as usual.
“Granger,” Theo says. “I’m being his friend. Eventually I hope to be dating him.”
Granger stares at him. Theo smiles at her and wonders if it’s the answer or the blatant honesty from someone she must think of as a lying Slytherin that’s taken her off guard.
She’s not off guard for long. Granger folds her arms and narrows her eyes. “You just want to use him for something.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You—you just ignored him for years, you didn’t even really interact with him like Malfoy does, and now you want to date Harry? Why?”
“I fancy him.”
Theo makes a mental note to use honesty more often around Gryffindors. The way it makes them react is hilarious. Granger is staring at him now with her mouth slightly open, as if showing her teeth will make him confess the “shameful” truth.
Granger takes a huge breath and then shakes her head. “That can’t be the real reason.”
“What do you think is the real reason?”
“You want to gain political power and prominence through him. Or something.”
Theo snorts. “Yes, I’ll gain that by associating myself with one of the most unpopular boys in school. Oh, I know that some people changed their minds for a while after the First Task, but they’re already swinging back around to saying that Harry cheated and Diggory is the real Champion.” Theo has hexed a few of the people, mostly Hufflepuffs, who are saying that. One spent a day in the hospital wing with his tongue literally fused with the roof of his mouth; another lost her ability to hold a wand for several days.
“But at least they sincerely believe Harry put his name in the Goblet. That’s better than whatever you’re thinking about doing to Harry.”
Theo thinks about sharing some of the things he intends to do to Harry in the future, but honestly, he wants Harry to hear them first. “Well, I suppose it makes sense that you believe that about his detractors when you all but insisted that Harry take Weasley back.”
Granger, predictably, flushes. Theo isn’t sure whether her loyalty to Weasley or Harry runs deeper—even the intelligent Gryffindors have the wildest ideas about Harry—but he knows which one she’s decided to stare at with big, doe eyes. It makes Theo’s task easier, but he still despises her for it.
“Harry wanted to forgive Ron! He was miserable without him!”
“And he’s also told me how he’s miserable with him, with Weasley harassing him endlessly about having me for a friend.”
It still stuns Theo, a little, how much he managed with one little Confundus Charm on the day of the First Task. Weasley is doing everything else himself: insisting that Harry is too stupid to recognize Theo’s “twisted designs” on him, throwing a fit whenever Harry wants to study with Theo, and even falling back on how Harry only accepted Theo’s friendship in the first place because he’s “desperate for friends.” That last one caused a shouting match between Weasley and Harry that echoed across the Great Hall and rendered Draco speechless with delight.
Granger sighs and pushes hair away from her face. “Look, Nott, we were his best friends for years—we stood by him through the Chamber of Secrets accusations and the time in first year when our House shunned him for losing all those points—”
“You didn’t stand by him through this.”
“I did!”
“But not Weasley. And Weasley is the one who really has the problem with me, right? He’s shrieking at me all the time instead of asking questions like you’re doing.”
Granger’s cheeks flush, and she looks away. Theo stands there being extremely helpful for himself and not at all for her. Granger should really have known what the end result would be if she asked him questions like this. If she expected him to admit that he’s got an evil scheme or something, she’s far more of a pathetic Gryffindor than he thought.
“Ron has—problems with Slytherins,” Granger acknowledges. “But you can’t blame him. He hears that kind of thing all the time from his family, and he’s got five older brothers who were all Sorted into Gryffindor, and—”
“Spare me the list of Weasley’s insecurities. I don’t care.”
Granger jerks her head up and glares at him. “You should, if you care about Harry! You can’t make him choose between you and Ron!”
Theo gives her a long, slow smile. “I’m not the one doing that, am I? I’ve said I’d like to spend time with you lot and learn to get along. Weasley is the one who’s trying to make Harry choose, by acting like a spoiled brat because Harry doesn’t spend every hour of the twenty-four stuck to his side.”
Granger swallows convulsively. “Ron thought things would go back to the way they were before. After he apologized.”
“I was there for that apology, Granger, remember? It was pathetic. He couldn’t even say that he was relieved his best friend survived fighting a dragon before he was snapping at him again.”
Granger looks away again. Theo waits until he’s sure she’s not going to continue the conversation, and then nods and says, “Whenever you think that you’re ready to be in the side with the intelligent people instead of the side of the idiot that you’re attracted to for whatever reason, Harry and I will be right here.”
It really is beautiful, the way she splutters as Theo strolls away.
*
“Hermione said she tried to talk to you about me.”
“Funny she would characterize it that way. We spent most of the time talking about Weasley and how understanding I should be of him.”
Harry’s quill stops moving. Theo sets aside his own Transfiguration book and focuses on Harry. No one else seems to notice the way that Harry is so quiet when he’s upset, not screaming and yelling like a typical Gryffindor (well, all right, a typical Gryffindor who also has red hair). He’s barely breathing as he stares at his parchment.
“Harry?” Theo asks gently.
Harry throws down the quill and turns towards him. Theo gently moves the quill so that it doesn’t dribble ink on Harry’s essay for McGonagall without taking his eyes off his—
Crush? Future boyfriend? Friend?
While Theo is wondering which word is most appropriate, Harry is blurting, “Is it bad that I’m so fed up with him?”
Theo conceals his smile of delight. He knows that this isn’t pleasant for Harry, no matter how much it is for Theo. “No, I don’t think so. He’s been going on and on about this for weeks, hasn’t he?”
Harry sighs. “Well, I mean—not the thing with you. But the thing with the Goblet. He still hasn’t apologized more than he did right after the First Task. And he’s saying that I should have been loyal—”
“What does he mean by that?”
Harry eyes him for a second. “Wow. You’re scary when you make that face.”
Theo attempts to restrain himself. It’s difficult. Most of the time, he’s alone when he looks into the mirror and sees that expression.
Most of the time, there’s no one else he would want to make it for.
He takes a deep breath and spends a moment tapping his fingers on the side of his Transfiguration textbook before he smiles. “Sorry. I do want to know what he means by that, though. You didn’t put your name in the Goblet, so he can’t object about that.”
Harry shakes his head. “He means that if I was really loyal to him, I wouldn’t have made friends with a Slytherin.”
Theo stares at him. It’s the kind of thing that Draco would say, from the opposite perspective.
It’s startling to realize that Theo actually did think better of Weasley than that. He’s been Harry’s friend for so long that Theo didn’t think he was as stupid a prat as he looks like right now, because Harry would never tolerate that.
Or…
Maybe, maybe, there were long-term effects of the Confundus Charm after all. They don’t happen often, or the Ministry wouldn’t have approved the spell for use on Muggles who see magic. But sometimes, the charm intertwines itself into the mind of the person it was cast on, and they simply go on acting like they did at the moment they were under it. And the behavior gets worse and harder to change as it moves forwards.
Theo feels a sharp throb under his breastbone. He would suspect Harry of hexing with something if it wasn’t Harry. He doesn’t do things like that. At least not to people he likes, and he does like Theo.
This feels more like…guilt.
Theo scowls. He hasn’t felt that for a long time, and he really did hope that that time was the last one.
“Theo? Are you all right?”
Theo takes a deep breath and focuses on Harry. Well, his guilt changes nothing. He can’t time travel and prevent himself from casting that spell. He doesn’t regret casting it, in that otherwise Weasley would probably have prodded Harry into turning away from him, and Theo likes having Harry focus on him and spend time with him. He only regrets that it’s causing pain to Harry.
And Theo is not a Healer to be able to reverse the effects. The best thing he can do is provide support to Harry—the kind of support Weasley should have been providing in the first place, or Theo wouldn’t have had to cast the charm—and hope that things change and Weasley grows more accepting of Slytherins.
“Yes, I’m fine,” Theo says. “I’m sorry this is happening. And I’d leave if it would make things easier for you, but—”
“I don’t want you to.” Harry’s mouth flattens into a stubborn line. “Ron being a prat just makes me glad I have a friend who’s not like that, you know? And who isn’t forever trying to go back and forth between me and him the way Hermione does.” Harry shakes his head. “I haven’t even told them what Professor McGonagall told me yesterday, they’re both so busy talking about this—”
“What did she tell you yesterday?”
Harry’s face flushes a bright, bright red. Theo watches the line of color travel down his throat, the way he did in the tent after the First Task, and thinks, hungrily, Yes.
“Um.”
“Harry.” Theo lowers his voice, and watches the way Harry’s eyes widen. “What did she tell you?”
He thinks about saying that Harry doesn’t have to tell him if he doesn’t want to, but it’s obvious that Harry wants to tell someone. And honestly, Theo wants to hear it. He wants to know what makes Harry this nervous, this flustered, this—
He wants to touch Harry, honestly.
Harry swallows and tries to smile. “It’s ridiculous for me to be so nervous about it. I’m feeling worse about it than I did the morning I walked out to face the dragon.”
“That just makes me want to know what it is more.”
Harry nods slowly. “She told me that I have to take a date to the Yule Ball and the Champions have to lead off the ball with a dance. I wasn’t planning to take a date. I don’t know how to dance! I just—don’t want to do it.” Harry clenches his hands and looks away. “And I don’t want to date someone who thinks I cheated or who just wants to go to the Ball with the Boy-Who-Lived.”
Theo can’t breathe. He knew about the Yule Ball, of course. He planned to attend by himself and make amusing remarks on the dancing for the benefit of the few people in Slytherin who can keep up with him.
But right now, all he can think of is, Harry shouldn’t go with anyone but me.
And he has no idea how to speak about that. No idea how to deal with that.
This is more complicated than the bloody guilt.
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