Always : Theodore Nott

Chapter 42

The weeks that followed that night were long and lonely for both Aurora and Theo. New Year came and went, as did Valentines and Easter. As he promised, Nott didn't even look in Aurora's direction, let alone talk to her. Well, when she was looking at least. It was torture.

Aurora felt as hollow and as empty as she imagined one could feel. Nothing interested her anymore. She found herself forgetting to eat dinner, or breakfast or, some days, even lunch. She felt utterly shattered. She had lost him for good, and that fact was nothing less than unbearable.

As for him, he was miserable. He barely spoke to anyone anymore. He didn't go out and stopped going to the Great Hall at meal times to avoid seeing her,  and instead he simply pestered the elves for food later on in the night. He felt numb. It was an awful feeling that Theo decided he wouldn't wish on anyone, not even the likes of Malfoy. And no matter how he'd he tried, it wouldn't go away. Not even his reliable methods worked; magic mushrooms, Firewhiskey, vodka, nothing even came close.

As predicted, his father had been writing to him, asking about classes and how he was finding school, what subjects he was exceeding in and which ones he wasn't. Coincidentally, Malfoy appeared to be receiving the same eccentric letters of interest from Lucius. Although, he was convinced it wasn't that relevant, for the time being.

More and more letters came from his father, all containing more and more questions. Things took a turn when he began to ask about Harry Potter, then Theo knew his worst fears had come true. The dormant, unknown idea that Lord Voldemort may have returned was coming into reality  and he knew it was only a matter of time before he looked for followers, and Lucius Malfoy and his father would hardly say no to him.

All he had through all of this, was her. And now, she's gone too. It's poetic almost. Right at the end, he loses everything. He looked at her whenever he could, in potions even though he asked Snape if he could move seats, in the halls one evening, in the Great Hall if either of them actually went to eat and whenever he got the chance. Of course she'd never caught him looking. No, he didn't want her to know he was looking, he had to try and stay angry and betrayed.

The hole in his chest never went away, and in fact, Theo felt as though it were getting bigger by each passing day he didn't speak to her. He wanted to fix it, forget it, move past it and pretend it never happened, that the words never left her precious lips. But they did, and he couldn't just forget it. He'd spend the first few seconds of his staring admiring her beauty and realising how much he missed her, then the painful pang of betrayal would slap him straight in the chest and he'd look away. It was a vicious cycle.

But this morning, his eyes seemed to be able to linger a bit longer, so he let them stay gazing at her face. She looked sad and tired as she poked at her porridge. That's all she did nowadays, poked at her food. Theo had noticed the weight she had lost. Every morning, whenever he did see her at breakfast, he noticed she never really ate and if she did it wasn't much.

He kept staring at her somewhat sunken cheekbones until a different feeling hit him.

Guilt.

She wasn't eating because of him. And he knew this, because the current situation had started taking its toll on him too.

Because they fought, because they weren't speaking, because of it all. He knew because he was in the exact same situation. He didn't have an appetite either, and hadn't had one since their fight.

He thought hard and tossed around the idea of if he had been in her shoes, would he really have done anything different? What she wouldn't know wouldn't have hurt her?

No, he shook his head in an attempt to shake the forgiving thoughts away. But they stayed, and remained with him for the rest of the week.

He watched her as she slipped out of potions class without a single, solitary word to anyone. Theo felt eyes watching her from behind him, and to no surprise, when he turned around he found George Weasley staring longingly at the door she had just walked through.