One day, the Great Hall had been reduced to ruin and stone littered with bodies; and the next—after months of quiet repairs and spells—it stood again, whole and gleaming, though emptier. Even with the addition of the “eighth year,” as McGonagall had announced, there were still fewer voices at the long tables, fewer footsteps on the stairs. The absences lingered heavier than the shadows.

He didn’t deserve to be here. He felt it in the weight of his sleeve against his forearm whenever the Mark burned under his skin—an infinite reminder, etched black and merciless. But McGonagall had allowed him back—perhaps because his trial had revealed what he already knew: he hadn’t killed a single person. His spells had always been defensive, disarming—never deadly. Still, thin threads of disdain followed him in hallways where people thought he couldn’t hear. He let them. It was easier to shoulder scorn than to ask for forgiveness.

And then there was you.

You didn’t whisper—you spat. Or sneered. Or rolled your eyes. Even if it cut, there was something almost refreshing in your honesty. Every time you looked at him with that disdain, it was like standing too close to the flames that had already burned him once before. He should have avoided you. He told himself he should.

But instead, you ended up in his room. Every day.

It had been two weeks now—two weeks of slamming doors, of your sharp words dissolving into breathless gasps as you pressed him against the darkened walls. The dorms were different now: one room each, for the surviving remnants of their year. That solitude had birthed this—whatever this was—between you and him.

The room was dim, the lamps never lit when you came. And still, he could see you—he could always see you, every detail of your face etched in shadow, in memory.

Now, your body was pressed tight against his, the faint scrape of fabric between you an agony. You kissed him like you hated him. Your fingers gripped his shoulders, not tender but desperate, pulling him closer as though you wanted to both ruin him and bury yourself inside him.

Theodore, meanwhile—Theodore worshiped.

His hands slid down your back, fingers curling as if he could anchor you to him. His lips moved against yours with a hunger he barely understood, his breath ragged, uneven. His chest heaved as he broke away for a moment, forehead pressed against yours, strands of his light brown hair falling into his eyes.

“You drive me mad,” he muttered, voice low, hoarse, his breath warming your cheek.

You only caught his chin between your fingers as if to remind him you weren’t here for softness. He let you. But when your lips found his neck, biting down with a force that made his pulse stutter, his hand cupped the back of your head—not gentle at all now—pulling you closer until he felt every inch of you shiver against him.

“You hate me, don’t you?” he whispered, the words slipping out more like a plea than a question. His mouth ghosted over your jawline as he spoke, every syllable vibrating through your skin.

The way you kissed him again—harder, angrier—was all the answer he needed.

He held you tighter, his long fingers digging into your waist, desperate. His body moved with yours, a rhythm that felt half-war, half-prayer. There was no gentleness in the way you ground against him, your sharp breaths breaking against his mouth, but Theodore gave himself over to it anyway. To you.

The room was filled with the quiet chaos of it: the squeak of the mattress springs when you stumbled against it together, the hiss of your mingled breaths. Outside, the castle groaned with memories of war, but here—in this stolen, furious closeness—you and Theodore fought a different battle entirely.

He didn’t understand why you came back to him, again and again. But every time your mouth found his, every time your fingers curled in his shirt, Theodore forgot what side he’d been on, what scar branded his arm.

All he knew was you.

And in the dark, when you gasped his name, he let himself believe—just for a moment—that you didn’t hate him after all.