Summer Nights (Theodore Nott)

There Was This Girl

Theo's P.O.V

Life used to be so simple. Disgustingly so, compared to how it is these days. I was raised an only child, my Father an ex-Death Eater, my Mother died when I was small.

It's almost laughable when I look back now, to how stressed I used to feel about not being home for my curfew, how upset I'd get if I forgot to clean my dish after lunch.

The fact that those were the extent of my troubles, I envy my younger self.

My Father was a complex man to grow up in the company of. Usually, a normal, sane man, who cared for his son and held a steady job within the Ministry of Magic. He was the kind of Dad you could sit with, and talk to, and he would listen and advise. He wasn't the sort to laugh much, but he wasn't abusive. Not even close.

I always imagined he was quite different with his friends, and when I was sixteen I finally understood just how different he really was.

It was at sixteen that everything that had been so stable in my life suddenly turned to chaos. It was at sixteen that I moved from our comfortable little cottage in the countryside to the soulless hell-hole that was Malfoy Manor. It was at sixteen that Death Eaters and Voldemort took over my world.

I wouldn't lie to myself, the concept of dark magic always scared me, beyond comprehension. But it had always felt a distant dream, my whole childhood I was aware of the story, but it was as real as a myth.

I'll never forget the night my Father told me about what had happened in the graveyard. I was stunned. But I couldn't show it. I think that night was one of the last times my real personality shone through. Until the summer of 1996, that was. 

Because the summer of 1996 changed absolutely everything for me. It changed who I was as a person, it changed what was important, it changed my beliefs. It changed my heart.

I decided that summer, to take a holiday. My Father couldn't have cared less, I was almost seventeen and in his eyes his job was done. He was distracted with more important things, such as his duties for the Dark Lord, which I tried to distance myself from as much as I could.

I browsed brochures, and settled on a seaside town in the south of France, which appeared to have a large population of magical folk. I needed that, given I had been mostly sheltered from the Muggle world for the entirety of my life. 

I couldn't apparate yet, of course, so I did side-along with my Father, who assured me he would be back the second last week of August to collect me, and then I was alone in a foreign country, with nothing but my thoughts and the sun. 

For the first day, I sunbathed, I drank, I read a book, and I enjoyed my own company. It was exactly what I needed, and frankly I didn't want to be bothered. 

But it was only the second day of the holiday, when the entire tone of my trip completely changed. The 24th of July 1996, the day that changed everything. 

Because there she was. The most perfect thing I had ever seen, walking towards me. And I knew in that very moment, nothing would ever be the same again. And I was completely fine with it.