Theodore didn’t believe in fate. He believed in intention, in logic, in quietly folding your wants so small they no longer made a sound. But you—you—seemed to hum with things he couldn’t quantify.

Your magic wasn’t loud. It wasn’t fire and fury like some of the Gryffindors wore on their sleeves. It wasn’t calculated like his own. Yours was softer. Stranger. Like wildflowers growing through cracks in marble, uninvited but somehow meant to be there.

He’d noticed you first in the Library, mid-October, your quill tucked behind your ear and a scattering of star-shaped stickers trailing up your arm like a constellation.

You were Luna’s sister, but a little less celestial and a little more earthly—still dreamlike, yes, but not unreachable. There was a sense of deliberate magic to you. You weren’t like Luna, who floated. You walked. Quietly. Purposefully. As though you knew exactly where the ley lines of the world curved under your feet.

Your hair—moonlit. That was the only word for it. Blonde, yes, but not yellow. Something softer. Almost silver when the light hit right. And always—always—those bloody star clips.

He’d memorized them. One gold, two silver, a blue one sometimes when you were in your moods. You wrote little notes in the margins of your textbooks with stars around your punctuation marks. He’d caught glimpses of your handwriting. Small. Neat. Loopy. Dreamy.

He told himself it was nothing. Passing interest. Maybe the way you smiled with your whole face. Maybe the smell of cinnamon and lavender you always left in your wake like a spell. Maybe how you’d corrected Blaise once on how comfrey root works, and did it so gently that Blaise had actually thanked you.

Theodore Nott was not a romantic. He smoked too much. Thought too dark. Loved too quietly. But that hadn’t stopped him from slipping into a little shop in Hogsmeade the previous weekend and spotting something on a velvet tray in the corner—a delicate golden necklace with a single star.

It looked like you.

It wasn’t even expensive. The kind of charm you might keep in a drawer, forgotten. But he bought it without thinking, tucked it into his pocket, and spent the entire bloody week telling himself he wasn’t going to give it to you.

But it was Saturday now. And you were in the infirmary, where you always were even when no one needed tending to—your small kindnesses going unnoticed by most, except Theodore, who watched more than he spoke.

You were sorting vials, labeling things with your careful handwriting, lips slightly parted as you read. Dressed in white, in that soft, dreamy way that made you look like a vision—sleeves flowing like a page turning, hem fluttering at your knees, those boots he shouldn’t be thinking about.

You looked like a poem someone left half-finished.

He cleared his throat, quiet but deliberate, and slid in beside you at the counter, close enough to smell your perfume—something herbal and clean.

You didn’t startle. Just looked up at him with those unreadable eyes.

“Hey,” he said, low and elegant, like the words cost him something. He took the necklace from his pocket and held it between two fingers, letting the gold catch the light. It swung slightly, like a pendulum, like a yes-or-no question trying to answer itself.

“I saw this,” he said. “Figured it… looked like something you’d wear. Or lose. Maybe both.”

He paused, eyes fixed on the necklace, not you—afraid he’d lose his nerve if he looked too close.

“I was wondering,” he added, like an afterthought, “if you’d want to… maybe come to the Astronomy Tower with me tonight. Not for anything weird. Just… stars. And tea. I’ll bring both.”

He finally met your gaze then, his own grey and unreadable as mist. A flicker of nervousness barely concealed behind practiced nonchalance. Like he might vanish into smoke if you said no.

But Merlin, he hoped you wouldn’t.