This whole playing at being a Death Eater thing was a pain, even if he won, he'd still return to school like he promised. And you never wanted to understand that this was part of his responsibility. And your shitty distrust sent everything to hell.

You had left him a couple of months ago, and his cold gray eyes didn't seem to complain. He was stupid. He let you go without a word. Stupid you, who thought you'd find something better than those long arms that cradled you amidst lullabies murmured by that Italian.

Theodore no longer distinguished between insomnia and instinct. He seemed to sleep all the time. He seemed to be awake all the time. He didn't know if in that leather notebook he was writing to your past or your future. He only knew that you were the fifth element of his world—in truth, the first and the second, the third and the fourth.

He missed your satin skin, playing soldier in your skin in his room. That's why it made your hair stand on end, his name in your scream, the hem of the sheets on the floor.

The punishment of vice—you were his vice—bursting his nerves. And it revived only when he wrote what he kept silent, so when he ran into you at a party, he said:

“What makes you think and imagine that one of these fools will love you like I do?” He gritted his teeth, chewing on his pride and showing for the first time that he did care that you were gone from his life. “Maybe one of these guys has already made you believe that, but give it 3 or 2 months and you'll see that they won't.”

He leaned closer to you, his firewhiskey breath against your lips, his eyes closed. He rested his hands on the sides of your head, against the wall, more to hold on than to confine you.

“Every day I see that photo, amore,” he sighed, an air between desire and nostalgia. You knew exactly which photo. “And every day it drives me crazy.”

Another sigh. His eyelids lifted again, his crystal eyes seeming to pierce through you, arching your spine.

“Those fools aren't going to love you like I do, cara mia.”