[Theo/Harry Confectionary]: The Accidental Courtship, 5/5, PG-13

[lomonaaeren]

Thank you again for all the reviews! This is the end of the story.

Part Five

“You want to go? It’ll make it bearable for me if you’re there.”

That was the main reason that Harry had shown up at the Ministry charity gala to attempt to raise money for Hogwarts students left orphaned by the war. Otherwise, Ron or Hermione would have been here instead to represent A Friend in Need.

But the prospect of seeing Theo was enough to make Harry bring out another set of dress robes, this set green, which seemed to keep accumulating in his wardrobe, and to spend longer on his hair than normal, to Ron’s endless amusement. Harry had rolled his eyes at him before he Flooed out, but Ron had only responded by cackling.

It seemed Harry had been earlier than Theo had expected him to be, however, because the only people in attendance right now looked to be Ministry flunkies. Harry smiled politely at a few people and lounged against the wall for right now.

“Harry?”

Harry blinked and looked over at a woman a few years younger than he was, who seemed familiar somehow. She blushed and giggled and ducked her head, and then he recognized her.

“Miss Vane,” he said, as politely as he could to the girl who had once given him a love potion. “How are you?”

“Very well, now that you’re here.”

“Were you assigned to liaise with me for the evening?” Harry couldn’t remember hearing anyone mention Romilda, or that he was supposed to work with her. Then again, if she was new to the job—she’d probably just finished Hogwarts—they might not have.

“Liaise with you. That’s funny.”

“Er, all right?” Harry couldn’t really imagine why she would have sought him out. They’d never been close, and Harry didn’t think they shared any cause in common that A Friend in Need would work for.

“It’s funny because I want to have a liaison with you.” Romilda took a step towards him and fluttered her eyelashes in what was almost a parody of flirtation. “Don’t you want to have one with me, Harry?”

“Fuck, no,” Harry blurted.

Romilda stepped back and stared up at him with round eyes and a rounder mouth. He supposed it was more for the crude language than anything. Although she probably would have heard worse in Gryffindor Tower on a daily basis.

“What?” she whispered.

“Why would I want to be with you?” Harry folded his arms, and ignored the way that the sleeve had slipped back from his wrist and the soul-mark on it. Everyone was going to know about it soon, one way or the other. If Theo rejected him again, Harry would let people know. “You tried to love potion me! Not to mention that I’m dating someone.”

“But I haven’t heard anything!”

“Amazingly, some people have discretion.”

Romilda bit her lip, looking at him, and then gave an unconvincing little laugh. “I think that you’re just joking. I know that sometimes the reporters hound you, and it’s understandable that you would want to—”

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

“Well, no, but I was so sure that you would see how much I loved you and you would want to be with me…”

“No response to the part where you love potioned me?”

“It was just a joke!” Romilda looked near to throwing up her hands. “It was something like—like the Weasley twins’ pranks! You were fine with them making sweets that turned people into canaries, why would you—”

“Harry.”

Harry looked up, smiling despite himself when he saw Theo standing there. Although he lost the smile a bit when he saw the murderous rage burning in Theo’s eyes.

But at the same time, a quickening pulse started somewhere near his belly, and his breath came shorter than he’d thought it would when he watched someone threatening another person’s life.

That rage is for me. He’s gone from wanting nothing to do with me to wanting to have everything for him.

Harry licked his lips. Theo had been carefully on his best behavior so far, thoughtful and controlled and vulnerable and revealing an interest in Harry’s life and activities that not everyone he’d dated did. And the whole time, Harry had been simultaneously enjoying their dates and worried that Theo would reveal his real self and it would be another mistake.

If this was part of Theo’s real self, though? Harry would welcome it.

*

Theo tried to hold back his jealousy, but it was a roaring, many-headed beast in the center of his belly, like a hydra trying to grow out through his body.

He and Blaise had never been exclusive. He hadn’t dated anyone in Hogwarts. He had vaguely contemplated getting married someday, but even then, he had never thought that he would marry the kind of person who would care about jealousy, who would want him to be jealous. They would probably have lovers of their own, on the side, and so would Theo.

But now, he saw Romilda Vane trying to get his Harry to date her, and the rage crashed through him as if it were a wave that had been waiting all his life to break.

Theo strode forwards. Vane turned around, saw him, and squeaked. Harry was watching him with wide, hot eyes, and Theo doesn’t think he was imagining the approval there.

“Hands off my boyfriend, Vane,” Theo said, and his voice was also deeper than he’d ever heard it, a growl that made Harry’s eyes light up.

“What? What are you talking about, Nott?”

“Harry and I are dating,” Theo said, and he reached out and caught Harry’s wrist, the one with the mark. Harry shivered. Theo burned to reveal the mark, but he didn’t know if Harry would want him to, and he still heard those words echoing in his ears.

One mistake.

“Go,” Theo said, turning and drawing Harry to his side instead of turning his arm to reveal the mark. “Go away and stare brainlessly at someone else.” He could feel Harry breathing quickly as he leaned against Theo, and Theo was suddenly sure that he liked this. “Go away.”

“If you were dating, I would have heard about it!”

“The kind of person who believes the Daily Prophet isn’t the kind I want to date,” Harry said, and Theo turned and rested his chin on the top of Harry’s head. He had been one of those people once, and Harry had given him another chance.

But Theo didn’t intend for Harry to ever give another person that kind of chance. He was here. He would occupy the lover-shaped hole in Harry’s life. His hold tightened on Harry, waiting for some objection.

Harry, though, was watching Vane, who continued to flutter and squeak. “But you’ve always dated good people, Harry! Not Death Eaters!”

“Theo doesn’t have to prove himself to you.”

Theo closed his eyes. He hoped that Harry didn’t want him to glare at Vane with any more murderous rage, because now there was sweetness throbbing through him instead. His hold on Harry tightened again.

“Is this still about the love potion, Harry? I told you, it was just a joke!”

Never mind, I’ll have absolutely no problem feeling murderous rage towards Vane for the next century.

Harry twisted himself a little to the right, which “incidentally” pinned Theo’s wand arm to his side. “Hold me, not her,” he breathed into Theo’s ear. “Words are one thing, but no curses. I don’t want you in the Ministry holding cells tonight.”

Damn, he knows how to talk, Theo thought.

He didn’t even see Vane leave, although he gathered that Harry had finally dismissed her. He was too busy staring dazedly at Harry, and Harry was looking back at him with heat quivering in his eyes and his smile.

“Would you like to dance?” Harry asked softly.

Theo looked at the dance floor. He hadn’t actually planned on it, and he knew that this hadn’t been a gala where dancing was the main attraction, but there was a floor, and there was music, a tune that he recognized as a waltz.

“Yes,” he said, and held out his hand.

Harry took it, and grinned.

*

Dancing with Theo was entirely different from the complicated dance-negotiation he’d had with Nott.

Harry was aware of every inch of air that separated them now, and how Theo breathed harshly when Harry swayed a little closer to him, and of the muscles shifting beneath the hand that he rested on Theo’s shoulder. He was aware of what it was like to be in his soulmate’s arms, and it was entirely superior to dancing with other Aurors and random Ministry flunkies.

And even with his friends. He enjoyed dancing with Neville and Hannah, but it was—they were—

They weren’t for me.

Now he had someone whose eyes watched him with hot desire, more than curiosity or the hope to see what would happen or friendly laughter, and Harry couldn’t help pressing himself closer, practically molding his body to Theo’s.

“Someone is going to call us indecent any moment now,” Theo breathed, his hands resting on Harry with a heavy weight of possession that made Harry want to purr.

“Let them. As long as they also call us happy.”

Theo seemed to glance around without taking his eyes off Harry, and then gave Harry an intensely private smile. “Do you want to announce that we’re soulmates tonight, or later?”

“Let them speculate, for now,” Harry said, and reached up to wind his hand around the back of Theo’s neck, dragging him down for a kiss.

A Ministry flunky approached them, probably to tell them off for “being indecent” in the middle of the dance floor, but Harry didn’t care. He kissed Theo, and he was happy.

*

“I see you have decided to stop being stupid, Theo. Well done.”

And that’s probably all Father will ever say about it.

*

“So, Nott’s un-rejected you?”

“I’ve accepted him. There’s a difference.”

“…As long as you’re happy, mate.”

*

Theo sat next to his bed, watching Harry lie asleep in a long strip of sunlight. Harry’s breathing was soft and even, and the sun made his black hair flare with unexpected hints of blue and red.

Theo looked down at the parchment in front of him. An equation waited there, unfinished.

On a whim, he did something that he hadn’t done in years, not since he was a child playing with Arithmancy. He picked up a crystal lens from a table nearby that was awaiting the purchase of lab equipment fine enough for it, and tossed it into the air.

It flipped end over end, shining in the sun like Harry’s hair, and then plunged down and landed in Theo’s hand. Theo held it out over the numbers on the parchment and looked down. Supposedly, looking through a lens tossed like a coin was a way to divine the future from an incomplete equation. The numbers would swim and rearrange themselves into a coherent, predictive picture.

Supposedly. A child’s superstition.

But Theo looked, and there was light all over the numbers, a light green haze the color of Harry’s eyes, surrounded by a black haze of numbers not actually there. A repeating pattern of sevens and threes, the most important magical numbers, and the most powerfully lucky ones when joined together.

A hand reached out and closed over Theo’s wrist. Theo dropped the lens back on the parchment and turned to look at Harry, who was smiling at him in an entirely self-satisfied way.

“Looking for your future?” Harry asked.

“He’s right beside me,” Theo murmured, and as Harry’s eyes brightened, leaned over to reclaim his soulmate in a kiss for luck and joy.

The End.