Shadow Magic • Harry Potter X Theodore Nott •

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Theodore turns his head to watch Harry leaning back on the couch in front of their fireplace, his attention focused on the tome in his hands. His brows are furrowed, his fingers tapping on the cover, in a sure sign that whatever he's finding irritates him and certainly doesn't conform to what he expected to find.

Theodore can feel every shudder and tap of those fingers through his mark.

He knows that if he told Harry that, Harry would stop the movement and never do it again. He wouldn't apologize, but he would stop. That characterizes a lot of things Harry does, actually.

Theodore leans back and extends his leg from his own couch so one crosses Harry's. Harry shifts his entire attention to him—and Theodore shudders with the knowledge and the joy of it—without ever looking up from his book.

"What do you need, Theodore?"

"You, my lord."

Theodore does call him Harry, sometimes, in the privacy of their home, but he honestly prefers the title. Harry seems to think it separates them and makes them distant from each other, although Theodore isn't sure how much of that annoyance is mingled with the fact that Harry just doesn't like the title. Or having vassals. Or being responsible for them. Or people watching him with fear and awe. Or basically anything that comes along with being called "Lord."

But Theodore sees it as a link. He was the first one to recognize Harry for what he was—although even now, to him, Harry bends the world he moves through so comprehensively that Theodore wonders how others don't see it—and no one else has that claim even if they call Harry the same thing.

Theodore knew, the moment he stepped into that compartment on the train, how much his world was going to change. He deserves to be rewarded for that insight.

Harry smiles, and his face floods with warmth. So often, he's cold, lingering in his shadows and looking at the world from around corners, or listening to private conversations. But Theodore knows how to value the power that Harry wields, and the coldness has never bothered him. It's never been directed against him.

"Come here, then," Harry says, and extends his hand, a shadow unfurling further along the floor in invitation.

Theodore reaches out, grasps the cold mist of the shadow, and flickers through what looks like a high-sided path into a softness. He lands on their bed, gasping, and Harry stands next to him, smiling like Theodore is the jeweled center of the earth.

"You haven't moved us like that before, my lord," Theodore murmurs, carefully respectful and tilting his head back to watch as Harry undresses.

"I've been practicing." Harry winks at him and sheds his robe on the floor. He's naked underneath it except for a pair of pants. Shadows wrap him teasingly, though, flickering here and there like clouds across the sun, obscuring and then showing the bare skin Theodore wants so much to touch.

"Let's practice other things," Harry adds, and uses shadows to undress Theodore and pull his pants off at the same time.

Theodore is more than willing to do so.

*

Making love with Harry is like making love with a windstorm, or a shining waterfall, or some other great force of nature.

Theodore certainly can't complain of a lack of attention. Harry gives his full attention to this the way he gives his full attention to Theodore when he asks, or marking someone new when it's the dark of the moon and he can be persuaded to do it, or the books he studies. It's just that—

Theodore throws his head back, panting, and Harry, rocking on top of him, reaches down to bite the side of his neck. Theodore's mark flares even though Harry's teeth haven't actually touched it.