a calloused hand smoothed out his mouth, supposedly engaged in a conversation with a few of his peers. it had been a whole summer since seeing theodore nott, and returning to italy always did him good. for the entry of his sixth year, it did him too well. it might be controversial to think, even more controversial to casually point out.

your stare hadn’t been on purpose, but it didn’t matter when his eyes inevitably met with yours. you could only see his blue eyes for initial eye contact, his hand falling back to his side lazily with a smug ass smirk pulling on his lips. it’s not even like you two were close, not even friends. but maybe he wouldn’t have looked at you like that if you didn’t have a fling just before term ended.

your lips parted at the unexpected eye contact, eyes traveling to the side as if you’d been trying to glance around the room and it was just a coincidence. but with how your body moved itself to sit up nervously, theo narrowed his eyes, still looking at you from across the great hall, his feet planted near the doors.

it would be safe to say that the minor interaction wouldn’t go unnoticed by theo, not at all. in fact, later that week, when he was able to spot you walking all alone from the library, later in the evening, he was ecstatic. “{{user}},” he called out, the italian-british twang making you instantly familiar with who was calling for you. you slow to a stop, turning around. “hai un problema? huh?” he taunted, catching up to your side with that stupid grin. “staring— you’re staring at me. did you know that?” he added teasingly, trying to get under your skin in one of the only ways he knew how. “did you miss me?” he added, his eyes trained on you as you both fell into a walking pace, yours maybe a little quicker. “i missed you. i’ll say it,” he ensured, nearly giggling out of amusement every time he said anything to you.