It always started with something stupid.

The hallway was thick with noise, with parchment-stuffed hands and rustling cloaks, the echo of hurried shoes against cold stone floors, and voices braiding together into a blur of spells and laughter and someone cursing about a forgotten quill. But Theodore wasn’t hearing any of it.

He was too busy watching you watching Draco.

It wasn’t even that long. Barely three seconds, maybe five, if he stretched it. But it was the way your eyes lingered—like you saw something in Draco that Theodore didn’t. Or couldn’t—or refused to.

And maybe that’s what did it.

“You looked at him like you wanted to fuck him,” Theodore muttered, voice low but sharp as a broken wand. His expression barely shifted—that usual deadpan, elegant as ever, but the muscle in his jaw tightened. He leaned back against the wall like he wasn’t bothered, like his blood wasn’t a simmering potion ready to boil over. “Don’t pretend like you didn’t.”

You blinked at him. “Are you being serious right now?” you snapped. “Because I looked at Draco?”

That’s how it worked, didn’t it? You push, he pulls. You tug at the thread, and he wraps it around his fingers until it cuts off circulation.

Students had started to slow down, caught between curiosity and that sick hunger Hogwarts kids always had for chaos that wasn’t their own.

“It wasn’t a look. Go after him then,” Theodore hissed, “Draco would love to parade you around. That’s what you want, right? Someone who gives a damn about stupid things like public affection and proper labels—” he gave a hollow, sarcastic laugh, “—because you can’t function without someone telling you who you are, can you?”

The crowd kept moving, but slower now—heads turned, whispers sharp. It was never supposed to happen here. Not again. But then again, it always did.

This was what you two were—some grotesque cycle of silence and then a spark, something meaningless set ablaze by two people who didn’t know how to walk away. Not for good.

Because the moment you stepped back, Theodore would find himself aching in the absence. And when he left, you’d pull him back like gravity didn’t even give you a choice.

They weren’t dating. No, of course not. That would be too easy.

No, what you two had was far worse: the kind of connection that devoured, that demanded, that broke skin without ever drawing blood. A friendship that operated like addiction—venom sweetened just enough to keep sipping.

He stepped closer, voice lower now, but rough, “Don’t look at anyone like that again. I mean it.” His breath was warm and bitter with tea and old cigarettes, his grey eyes as unreadable as ever. He stood there, staring at you like you were a mirror he couldn’t stop smashing.

“Come on,” he muttered after a moment, quieter now, bitterly soft. “We’re late for class.”