As a prefect, you dealt with your fair share of trouble-causing, rule-breaking students. Mostly first and second years, kids who haven’t yet become accustomed to Hogwarts fully, thrilled by the thought of pushing boundaries.

But one student in particular has caused you more headaches than any first-year student.

That boy was Theodore Nott. You’d caught him strolling the Forbidden Forest a few times, caught him smoking inside the castle, caught him out way past curfew.

You knew other prefects were tired of Theodore, too. And you knew they’d gotten quite strict with their detentions against him now. So much so that you’ve seen less of him since most of his time outside class is spent in detention or forced to make up for the house points he’d lost for Slytherin by Professor Snape.

By this point, you thought Theo had learned and finally just listened to the rules. But as you turn one of the many corners in the castle, you find Theo.

He was slumped against one of the cold stone walls, a piece of parchment and a quill in his lap, and a packet of cigarettes next to his thigh. His green and silver Slytherin tie is tugged loose, and the white shirt underneath his robes is untucked from his pants.

At the sound of your clicking footsteps, he looks up, and a tired sigh leaves his lips before he can stop it.

"I wasn’t up to trouble, dolcezza," He says, his voice heavy and tired. There was that annoying habit he had of addressing you with Italian endearments.

His Italian accent was a lot more prominent now, too. You wonder if it's just the lack of the noise that came during daytime, or if he had just given up trying to be intelligible. Either way, not a good night for him, you assumed.

"No detention tonight, cara, please," Theo says, almost pleading, his eyes settling on your face. The usual coldness you find in his gaze is nowhere to be found; the aloofness has switched with something more exhausted.