Always : Theodore Nott

Chapter 28

Her heart was racing.

Her head was scrambled too.

She wracked her brain for reasons why he would get annoyed at what she had said.

Or better yet, she pondered on what he had wanted to her to say.

She made her way up the stairs to the Astronomy Tower and almost fell through the door. Her heart sank when she looked around the room.

It was perfectly in place, just the way they had left it this morning. Her heart clenched as she thought of the night before, how the had slept together in the, now empty, bed she was staring blankly at.

Aurora asked herself the same question Nott had asked her not minutes ago.

"Why did you come back?"

No doubt the celebrations in Gryffindor house would've been amazing and she would've had nothing short of a great time.

Yet, she left. She left her friends and the promise of a good time, to go back to him.
She walked into the desolate sanctuary her and Nott had created and flopped onto the bed.

As she lay there on her back, she tried to rationalise her decision over and and over. Why pick him? Why choose him? She lay there for over an hour as her mind ran back and forth.

After extensive deliberation she came to a conclusion on her reasoning. It wasn't guilt that made her feel like she needed to choose him. It wasn't because she felt obliged. She came to realise it was because she always seemed to pick him. And pity or guilt wasn't to blame.

Her feeling for him were.

The thought felt strange. She actually had feelings for him. She tried to push it away and deny it to herself, but she couldn't. It was true, clear as the evening sky outside the window.

The next question was even more confusing.

What did he want to hear?

Did he want her to give him the real reason? That she had come to value him so much that she'd choose him over her friends. It was a dangerous revelation. Surely he didn't want her to say that? Or did he? Did he feel the same? No, not possible. Aurora was probably just a muse to him. Nothing more.

She pulled herself off the bed and rested her elbows on her knees. What was she going to do now? She wasn't going to beg him to feel the same, so for now, she would just wither away with the unrequited feelings she possessed for her Slytherin classmate.

She got up and left their haven, closing the heavy door shut on her way out. She felt heavy, tired. Like the things she had just admitted to herself had truly taken her energy. But, on top of all that, she felt guilty, because Fred and George were right. There was something going on. For Aurora, anyway. Nott was yet to reveal his cards.

••••••••

Little did Aurora know, her Slytherin classmate harboured an exact copy of the feelings she had for him, for her. His cards were in his hand, and he couldn't deny the urge to reveal them.

But her answer to his question.

It had completely knocked him off the table and his cards were shoved back into his pocket as quickly as he had taken them out. Nott had given her a chance to say how she felt, and she essentially threw it back at him.

He didn't mean to get so angry at her reply, but he did. That's the thing with Aurora, she had such a profound effect in him, his usual level of control over his emotions was abolished. He was raw with her. Real. Anything he felt with her, he showed in one way or another.