Chapter Text
It was a clear night, the kind of clear you can only get near a forest, with the kind of a shine that can only be magic wafting around. Even back at the manor the night never shone this beautifully, and he decided he needed to come back here later, many many times.
Theo knew some constellations- though not as many as Luna did, Luna knew more constellations than even his tutors- and he traced them with his eyes idly; at first he had wanted to sit against a tree, but the thestrals wouldn’t even get close to them, so he had gone to lay down at the centre of the clearing. They had the right to it, of course; he wouldn’t want his whole word to stop being the sky either.
The ground was cushioned by clovers. That was nice; grass always made him itchy- Luna said it was because grass was never satisfied with what it was given, and because Theo had nothing to give it, it got frustrated with him. Clovers, on the other hand, were much kinder: they gave freely without expecting anything back; it was because they all had several siblings, Luna said.
He wondered wethers owls would take shorter or longer to deliver letters between them now that he was at Hogwarts; a wound-up part of him that he often tried to ignore gave him the feeling that Luna was farther away from him than she had ever been.
“I didn’t really talk to anyone on the way here. You know, all the pureblood heirs already know each other, and they don’t seem all that open to outsiders, which was about what I expected. I don’t think they like me very much, but to tell the truth I don’t feel like I like them very much either. It’s like, I should be part of their club- why should he anyways? What is “should” anyways? Luna would know- but I’m not, so they don’t really know what to do with me, and always end up looking at me weird. They try to hide it but I can tell.”
Love- a spindly young thestral who was more than happy to lay down beside him and listen to him- huffed at him, as in acknowledgement. Theo took that as his queue to continue speaking more words to her in a few minutes than he does his father a month.
“There were some others that looked at me weird too- but in a different way. I don’t know, they seemed a bit angry at me? I’m not really sure, but they were straying away from me. I think they’re gonna make others not wanna get close to me either. Luna mentions my “feel” sometimes- she says I have an energy about me- she says that everyone does, but that mine is special because it’s beautiful. That it’s dark and inviting as an ocean. I think she’s telling the truth, because I know that she feels like the moon- but I mean, I know many people are scared of the dark, so maybe it’s scaring them and that’s why they’re staying away?”
He ran his hand down her neck, running his fingers through his mane idly. To tell the truth, he wasn’t really all that sure about how he had ended out here. His dad had told him something about how first years got to ride boats to Hogwarts the first time, he probably should be doing that right around now, what if he never got the chance to ride a boat ever again?
Still… his limbs moving on their own, an understanding that then births knowledge… this was a familiar sort of pull. Following it had always been right, it felt right, so whatever he was supposed to be doing probably wasn’t too important.
Inside the forest. Resting in this clearing. A young thestral by his side. Mapping constellations. Yes, this is exactly where he’s supposed to be right now, he can tell.
“Or maybe it’s because I’m a pureblood; some half-bloods might’ve been told by their parents not to come too close to me. Do you reckon I could still make friends with the purebloods if I tried? I mean it’s not very fair to them to take me on when they have no idea what to make of me, is it? I haven’t gone to one of their pureblood parties since before mum died, not even the Malfoy’s fancy one; not even dad can’t squirrel his way out of that one, but he still won’t take me with him. I know it affects us- as house Nott- but he absolutely won’t budge on it.”
Not that he did go out much before. His mother had always had a weak complexion, and knew she didn’t have much time left after giving birth. She chose to spend her last years on this earth spending as much time as possible with her child; that meant no patience for all the meaningless frivolities all the other pureblood families indulged in, not when there were so many memories to be made, so much to teach, to pass one, and so little time.
His mother always told him he was a gift given to her by God, and Luna always made it clear that she never could’ve been complete without him being born- and neither could he have been had she not been born for that matter- but publicly, his birth was barely the announcement of an heir to the Ancient and Noble house of Nott.
All of his interactions inside of polite society were always through invitation and by his mother’s flank, which meant that they were all inside the range of his very early childhood before his mother’s condition confined her to the manor, and before he was old enough to really remember any of them.
For him, his early childhood was all games, stories, drawing silly pictures together, watching her fingers glide around the piano, being chased around, and then less intense games when Theo learned that his mum wasn’t well enough to do that anymore.
Father Edwin always said his mother was taking care of and watching over him from Heaven, and Luna reminded him that no magic- specially magic intertwined with love- ever really fades, but he still missed her. It was weird, of course he would miss his mother, but nobody ever seemed to expect him to- so he pretended not to, most of all in front of his father.
He remembers her more than he told dad. He remembers all the games of play-pretend about him being an angel sent by God to make her all better, and the stories that they made up together while mum made breakfast.
He still asked his dad for lots of stories about her though. One of his favourite ones is one about the time that his mother realized he could already read at two years old; his dad’s voice always gets a little lighter when he tells it, Theo likes to think that maybe he was also a little bit proud of him for that.
“Bianca, how have you managed to turn our toddler into a bookworm already?”
She was cheeky, she was sharp, and she was radiant, “What can I say? It’s contagious. Terminal, I’m afraid.” that's how Dad always talked about her.
“They’ve never spoken my name.” It was a murmur, barely audible. Love waited patiently for him to continue. “They must know it- my other name, I mean. I’m pretty sure most of them get the names of every pureblood British house bombardaded into their brain.”
Not him though. His dad replaced all of his would-be classes on pureblood culture with piano lessons, writing courses, painting, and for father Edwin to come talk with him like clockwork every Sunday- or maybe talk to him would be more accurate.
There’s silence for a while. The other thestrals shuffle around in the clearing, moonlight passing through their wings.
“Is it weird that I can’t remember the last time anyone called me it?” The phrase felt a bit self-defeating, a hand-selected epithet. Is it bad? Is it really all that bad? Was it? Maybe the bad thing was the fact that he felt bad about it. It wasn’t bad, it wasn’t a bad thing.
He wondered how it would’ve felt to have friends that forget his new name- or ignore it. Maybe they would’ve fought, or maybe he would’ve backed down, or maybe he would have had to cut them off. It was better this way, really. Did he want that to happen?
He couldn’t complain. He had Luna, for Magic’s sake, she was literally perfect. How could he ever ask for more.
Love’s skin was leathery and dry as he raked his hands through it. There’s no moon today. Is there anything more vast than the lack of a beacon?
Love nudged him slightly, and as he turned to her, he already knew what would happen. He didn’t falter as he pulled himself upwards and his gaze downwards, he met her gaze like he met his father at home, when he knew that all that was required from him was to sit quietly beside him at dinner.
It was one night sky to another, a change so subtle it flipped to the visceral, like watching the stars from another galaxy and trying to search for the same constellations that you were taught.
It was just as vast but it was closer, an intimacy to him, to life. It knew him, it knew everyone. It knew that he kept all his memories of his mother calling him by the name she’d gifted him carefully wrapped up inside the jewelry box, and that the longer he spent without it being used to refer to him had his stomach doing flips like he was trying to reach the sky with a broom that might fail him any time, never quite sure when the drop was going to come.
The stars were held in them, all around him, and plunged into them he glimpsed a world of pain, one made up of short horror stories without any time for the characters to get paper cuts or burn their eggs for breakfast. Despite that, somewhere hidden and ignored, poking through like a scar,
There’s light in this one
Love nudged him again, and he wiped his face from where tears had started to spill, not really trying to staunch the flow, just feeling them. Her eyes were the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
She looked almost wan as she inched forward to meet and lick a strip up the side of his head, then another right over his nose almost getting some spit in his eye. Her tongue was rough, sandy, and felt surprisingly nice.
She nudged her snout against his neck, and from that point of contact a single, feverish assertion wrecked through him, blossoming through his veins. He only paused for a second, but it was all the time that Lady Magic needed to coax the little sprout of trust he had hidden beneath the debris, carefully guarded but only ever shown to one person before this.
The warmth of her embrace was feverish in the cold night, but still he felt so impossibly light. Yes, of course he trusted her, of course he trusted the thestrals and the forest and of course he trusted magic.
Theo felt like he might have a clue why she felt the need to ask.
That night was the first time he ever flew.
Love went inside the castle with him. He hadn’t expected that, though not sure why- it just didn’t seem to quite fit. Still, Love made no signal that anything was amiss, and he kept his hand resting lightly on her backside through the entire walk, grateful for the point of contact.
There was no one in the castle as he walked through it. He’d been warned there’d be ghosts, but even they seemed to have better things to do right now than to lurk the hallways, as he assumed ghosts did- probably talking about all the new students arriving, or maybe just about the students coming back in general, he supposed; the castle must be a very lonely place for a ghost to haunt during the summer.
Love’s hoofs made no sound as they walked down the cold stone floor. It stood up to him for a second, like a spark, before it slipped his mind; it seemed fit, after all. He didn’t notice his own feet weren’t making any sound either.
The doors of the great hall sat imposing, like insurmountable gates, even as they were still far away enough for them to look dream-like. Oddly, Theo felt that every step they took it should have made the horizon stretch wider, the door farther and farther away like a mirage in the desert. Instead, the oak door grew grander and grander, wood whirling denser within itself, heavy enough that Theo was sure he would never be able to push them open, and real enough that his feet hitting pushing against the floor was like a stake impaled up through his nerves, right down to his fingertips.
Love trudged on, his hand slowly being dragged forward, as if glued to the thestral, and his feet following along in due time. He felt his trepidations melt away from his shoulders with every step Love guided him; they were still going down the same corridor, but somehow, being pulled along by the thestral he felt as if he had stepped into a clear well-worn path after being lost within the forest. By the time he was face-to-face with the gates to the great hall all his worries- of others, of himself- felt oddly quieted, barely there.
He could breathe easier; there was a clearing up ahead.
He lifted his hand and held it against the worked, polished wood. He hadn’t even begun to register its heartbeat when it was already pulling away from him, one side of the gate opening up just enough of a crack for him to slip through.
It held itself there, waiting patiently for him to go inside. So was Love.
Theo knew she could go no further, so he reached up to hug around her neck as she leaned down. It was the warmest hug he’d ever had, his whole being felt like it was singing. Some faint buzzing he’d felt since he boarded the train suddenly reaching a crescendo, something inside of him righting itself as contentment spread through his whole being.
The feeling receded but didn’t fade as he let down his arms, looking at her one last time before turning for the great hall.
The door shut itself quietly behind him. Nobody-
not even Dumbledor- noticed the Castle’s odd behaviour, nor did anyone see a stray skinny boy rushing his way to join the other first years, having to shuffle through it and to the front almost as soon as he reached the back of the pile when his name- his real name- is called by a stern-looking professor.
Theo wonders if she knows what his name used to be- if she corrects it in her mind, sees him as something different than himself, or doesn’t give him a second thought as he goes on to sit on the stool.
Theo wonders if it matters.
I’ll decide that later, he concludes, when I can ask Luna about it, for now, he has a hat to convince to put him into Slytherin.
It doesn’t end up being all that difficult.