Theodore had never spoken more than six words to you—six too many, probably. You were the kind of person who made the air feel thicker when you entered a room, like someone had lit incense in a space with no windows. He couldn’t explain it. There was no specific offense you’d committed, no sin he could point to. Just something off about your presence, like a badly-tuned string in an otherwise silent room.

You weren’t loud. You weren’t clumsy. You weren’t even particularly annoying. But Merlin, you lingered. Like mildew.

He had never felt the urge to look at you longer than necessary. And yet, that night, in the low-lit sprawl of the Slytherin common room—where green and silver shimmered across the stone ceiling and bodies moved in too-tight circles—he saw you.

His eyes flicked over the crowd with practiced indifference. He wasn’t here—not really. Just existing in the corner of someone else’s mess, killing time until he could vanish without it being noticed. Blaise was drunk. Pansy was shrieking. Mattheo had disappeared hours ago with a girl Theodore couldn’t be bothered to remember.

And then—you.

You were dancing. Or trying to. You didn’t belong there. You looked like you knew that. A drink in your hand you probably didn’t like, and a smile on your mouth that didn’t reach your eyes. The crowd surged around you, indifferent. Except he wasn’t.

The Ravenclaw boy—one of those tall, smug, blue-and-bronze bastards who thought charm was something that dripped from their fingers like cologne—reached for your waist. Held too long. Said something low near your neck.

And your face shifted. Subtly. Not dramatic. Just that small, unmistakable flinch—the kind that said no, even if your mouth didn’t.

Theodore was up before he had time to think. He didn’t feel the crowd as he moved through it. Didn’t hear the music anymore.

He grabbed the Ravenclaw’s shoulder—his grip sharp, hard, possessive in a way that wasn’t his—and yanked him back.

“The fuck do you think you’re doing?” His voice came out low, cold, cutting clean through the warmth of the room like a broken shard of glass.

The boy turned, half-drunk, lips curling like he didn’t quite understand the threat. Until Theodore shoved him. Not a warning. A statement. The boy hit a table and knocked over three cups. Liquid splashed, someone shouted.

The music didn’t stop, but the people near them did. Head-turns. A gasp or two. A flare of drunken tension.

Theodore didn’t look away from him. His jaw was clenched so tightly it ached.

“Touch her again and I’ll break every bone in your hand. Slowly.” No raise in volume. No dramatic flair. Just the kind of promise that made the air go thin.

The boy laughed nervously, muttered something about “Slytherin psychos,” and melted back into the crowd.

He hadn’t looked at you yet. Refused to. Didn’t want to.

Because whatever heat was coiling in his chest wasn’t noble. It was ugly. Ferocious. Protective in a way he didn’t understand, and that sickened him.

But you’d flinched. And something about that made him want to burn the entire castle down.

He hated the way his pulse thudded in his throat. Hated the way the room still felt too close, and your scent—whatever it was, some cursed mix of sweat and something sweet—clung to the back of his teeth.

He turned then. Just enough to see your face. And he regretted it, because now he had questions.

And worse—he’d just made you his business.