The shift between them was immediate, undeniable, and completely inescapable, a fundamental rewiring of every interaction, every glance, every breath they shared—a charged current humming beneath the surface of every mundane moment, thick with tension, steeped in the kind of awareness that left him wrecked with just one look, one brush of her fingers, one whispered word that shouldn't have meant anything but now meant everything.
It was in the way his gaze lingered on her when she entered a room, no longer brief or fleeting, no longer hidden behind half-lowered lashes or buried beneath false indifference, but heavy, molten, reverent, drinking her in like she was something sacred and dangerous all at once, and maybe she was, maybe she always had been, but now he felt it, all of it, like lightning under his skin—and she knew. Gods, she knew. Her eyes caught his every time, soft and quiet and devastating, not because they demanded anything of him, but because they didn't. They just held him. Steady. Present. Unyielding in their knowing.
It was in the way she passed him a cup of tea that morning, like nothing had changed, like everything had changed, the ceramic warm between them, her fingers brushing his with the lightest touch, but it was enough to make his spine go rigid, his breath stutter in his throat, his pulse stumble like she'd pressed a wand to his chest and whispered a curse he never wanted lifted. The moment passed without comment, but not without consequence. She had looked at him as she walked away, and he had stood there, still as stone, wondering if he'd ever be able to touch her again without shaking.
He was already shaking.
And gods, the way she looked at him.
There was nothing casual in it anymore, nothing innocent, nothing playful in that ethereal, otherworldly way she had always possessed—now there was gravity in her gaze, pull, force, something ancient and sacred that made him feel like prey and worshipper all at once. She looked at him like he mattered. Like she had seen the worst of him and decided to stay anyway. Like she already knew how it would end and still reached for him in the dark. Theo had spent his entire life becoming untouchable, unreadable, a master of stillness and silence and control—but she had always seen through it. She had always slipped past his defenses like smoke. Now it was worse. Now it was better. Now it was unbearable.
And still, the world didn't stop for them. It didn't pause to let him make sense of the way his hands itched to reach for her or the way his body reacted to her nearness with something raw and primal and terrifyingly tender. There were things to do. Horrors to face. Mysteries that had stopped being mysteries and become threats—living, breathing, impossible things that did not follow the laws of death or logic or mercy.
There was a body that wasn't a body. Skin that didn't belong. Bones that should have rotted long ago but hadn't. An echo of something wearing the shape of a man he had killed—a memory brought back wrong. Twisted. Breathing. Watching. Something dark had latched onto him in that moment, when the blood had soaked his hands, when the eyes had closed but hadn't stayed shut. Something had crept inside him and smiled, and no one else had seen it but her.
And he was supposed to be focused on that. On unraveling it. On purging it. On surviving it.
But he couldn't stop looking at her.
He couldn't stop wondering what she was thinking when she brushed past him in the hallway, or when she stood too close in the kitchen, or when she reached for her wand and her fingers trembled just slightly, just enough for him to want to take her hand in his and never let go. He couldn't stop wondering if she felt it too—the way their souls had twisted together in the dark, in the sweat, in the silence of her bedroom when she had touched him like he was something breakable and then broke him anyway.
He couldn't stop replaying her voice in his head. Her moans. Her laughter. The way she had said his name like it was something holy. The way she had looked up at him when she came. The way she had whispered "ever" and meant it.
The safehouse was impossibly still in the early morning light, that fragile hour between dreams and responsibility where the world seemed suspended in breathless quiet, the aftermath of the ritual still hanging in the air like the scent of smoke after a fire, clinging to the walls, curling in the corners, heavy and unspoken and too much. The others were still buried beneath layers of frayed blankets and lingering exhaustion, limbs tangled in sleep, hearts still racing from the night before, but Theo had been awake for what felt like hours, his mind far too loud, his body far too restless, and the hollow ache in his chest far too present to let him drift off again into anything resembling peace or forgetfulness or even the numbness he had come to rely on.
Luna stood by the window like she belonged to it, like she had been carved into the frame of it centuries ago and had simply been waiting to be seen there again—bathed in pale light, her arms crossed gently around herself, her nightgown falling off one shoulder in that way that made something deep in Theo's chest clench, her hair a wild mess of tangled silver and moonlight spilling over her back like something sacred, like something ruined, like something divine. She hadn't pulled away from him all night, hadn't said a word about the way they had clung to each other like lifelines in the dark, hadn't looked at him with anything but that same quiet, knowing intensity that made it impossible to breathe without tasting her in the silence—but now, now that the sky was starting to grey and the edges of the world were waking up again, something in her posture had changed, something inside her had pulled just slightly away, and he could feel it like a wound opening up in his chest.
She felt it too—the shift between them, the gravity of what had passed between their bodies, between their mouths, between every desperate, trembling exhale that had come after a night of chaos and blood and the kind of love that burned everything it touched.
Theo let out a slow, controlled breath, dragging a hand down his face before pushing himself up from the bed with the kind of deliberate slowness that betrayed the chaos still ricocheting inside his bones, moving like maybe if he kept his pace steady, his thoughts wouldn't spiral, maybe if he didn't touch her, he could still pretend this wasn't permanent, that it was some reckless mistake, some fever dream spun out of pain and exhaustion—but he knew better, because there had never been anything reckless about her, never anything temporary about the way she'd settled into his body like a prayer he hadn't known he'd been whispering for years.
And gods, he was so fucking tired of lying to himself.
He crossed the room on bare feet, the wood cool beneath his skin, the silence humming around them like a warning, and stopped just beside her—not touching, not yet, but close enough to feel the faint warmth radiating off her body, close enough to hear the way her breath hitched when she noticed he was there, close enough that if he reached out, he could undo both of them with a single touch. The fog outside the window curled around the edge of the forest like fingers made of ash, like something sentient and watchful, and Theo didn't need to look at her to know she wasn't really seeing the trees.
"You're thinking too much," he said, his voice low and gravel-rough from sleep, from silence, from the weight of wanting her and not knowing what the fuck to do with it.
She tilted her head just slightly, enough that her hair brushed against his shoulder, but her eyes stayed fixed outside, her expression unreadable in the half-light. "So are you," she murmured, and gods, of course she knew.
He didn't answer. Couldn't. Not when her voice curled around his spine like that, not when it made his stomach twist with something too big, too real, too fucking much.
And then she turned to face him, and he barely had time to steel himself before her gaze found his like a blade slipping between ribs—gentle but unforgiving, soft but sharp, the kind of look that left nowhere to hide. His hands twitched at his sides, instinct begging him to reach for her, to pull her into him, to kiss her again until the ghosts between them went quiet—but she didn't move, didn't lean in, didn't close the distance that had suddenly become unbearable.
Instead, she lifted a hand—slow, tentative, trembling in a way that didn't match the steady calm in her eyes—and brushed her fingers against the scar carved across his chest, the one that hadn't stopped aching since the moment that corpse had opened its eyes and refused to die.
Theo inhaled sharply, his whole body locking up at the contact, every muscle wound tight with restraint, with memory, with the instinct to flee and the equally violent instinct to pull her closer until they disappeared into each other completely. "Luna..." he breathed, but even his own name in her mouth didn't feel like enough anymore.
She traced the line of the scar like it meant something, like it said something he couldn't, her touch so light it barely registered and yet it lit every nerve in his body on fire, sent a warmth through him that was unbearable in its gentleness.
"The whispers are louder now, aren't they?" she asked, soft and sure, like she already knew the answer, like she had already seen it written in the curve of his spine, the tension in his shoulders, the shadows beneath his eyes.
He swallowed, the truth burning in his throat like poison. He didn't want to talk about that. He didn't want to give it shape, didn't want to feed the thing inside him by naming it. He wanted her—only her.
"Luna," he said again, rougher this time, desperate in a way he couldn't contain, and gods, the way she looked at him then, the way her breath stuttered and her eyes flicked down to his lips, like she was thinking about kissing him, like she was already remembering the taste of his mouth on hers—
It wasn't just in his head.
She felt it too.
"Tell me," she whispered, her voice barely audible, but so fucking clear, the sound of it embedding itself in his chest like a spell. "Tell me what they say."
His breath caught, and he exhaled like it hurt to do so, like letting go of the words would unravel him completely. Her fingers were still on his chest, still touching him like he was something breakable, and he was—he always had been, especially with her. "They don't whisper anymore," he said, quiet and wrecked, the confession dragging itself out of him like blood. "They talk."
She didn't flinch. She didn't recoil. She just nodded—slow, steady, like she'd been waiting for that confirmation, like she had already known.
As if she'd already prepared herself to walk through the fire with him.
The space between them pulsed, the air charged with something too big for either of them to hold alone, something that vibrated beneath the surface of every shared breath.
And then—
She moved.
Barely. Just a shift. A lean. A tilt of her chin that brought her lips dangerously close to his, that closed the distance between them to a whisper, to a heartbeat, to a single breath—
But before he could lean in, before he could close the final inch, before they could crash into each other all over again—
A knock on the door.
Theo jerked back, his entire body tensing, his breath coming out in a ragged exhale as the reality of where they were, what they were supposed to be doing, came crashing back down on him like a fucking avalanche.
Luna didn't move for a second, her gaze still locked on his, something unreadable flickering behind her silver-blue eyes, something that made his chest tighten, something that told him—this wasn't over.
Not even close.
But then, the knock came again, louder this time, followed by a voice that was far too fucking amused for this early in the morning.
"Oi, lovebirds, stop eye-fucking and get downstairs," Pansy drawled through the door. "We've got a problem."
Theo closed his eyes, cursing under his breath. Of course.
Luna, infuriatingly, only smiled.
And as she turned to head for the door, brushing against him in a way that felt entirely intentional, he realized something with startling, horrifying clarity.
This had never just been about the mystery.
This had never just been about the skinwalker.
This had never just been about the whispers in his head, the ritual, the kill that wasn't a kill, the war they were fighting in the background of all of this.
No.
This had always been about her.
Theo stood there for a moment, his body still thrumming with the remnants of that almost-moment, the weight of Luna's presence still pressing against his skin like a brand. The air between them had never felt heavier, never felt more charged, never felt like it was teetering so dangerously on the edge of something that could destroy them both.
And then—she was gone.
She had slipped past him, her movements light, effortless, infuriatingly unaffected, leaving only the faint scent of whatever floral potion she used in her hair and the lingering warmth of her body against his chest. He exhaled sharply, running a hand through his already-messy hair, trying to steady himself, trying to push back the unbearable, fucking maddening need that had rooted itself in his chest ever since last night.
Last night.
Gods.
They had crossed the line—so completely, so thoroughly, so irrevocably that pretending otherwise was a fucking joke. And yet, the way she carried on, the way she simply smiled at him, the way she still moved through the world with that quiet, knowing calm—it was driving him insane.
Because he wasn't fine.
His entire world had tilted on its axis, shifting into something unrecognizable, something he couldn't control, something entirely centered around her. He felt like he was unraveling thread by thread, and the worst part? He wasn't sure if he wanted to stop it.
The sharp, impatient knock against the door echoed again, followed by a louder, more exasperated voice.
"THEODORE."
Draco.
Fucking hell.
Theo let out a slow breath, schooling his expression into something neutral before finally dragging himself out of the room, his movements slow, reluctant, as if he could somehow delay whatever chaos waited for them downstairs.
When he entered the main room of the safehouse, the tension was already thick in the air, heavier than usual, sharp and unsettled, like a storm looming just beyond the walls. The others were gathered around the long wooden table, the remnants of breakfast still scattered across its surface, though no one seemed particularly concerned with eating anymore.
Pansy was perched on the edge of her seat, her dark eyes gleaming with something close to amusement, but there was an edge to it, something calculating, something sharp. Across from her, Neville was frowning at an open book, his fingers drumming against the table in an anxious rhythm. Blaise and Ginny stood near the fireplace, quietly murmuring to each other, while Hermione and Draco were locked in some kind of silent conversation that only those two seemed to understand.
And then—Luna.
She was standing slightly apart from the rest of them, her expression unreadable, her posture relaxed, but Theo knew her well enough by now to catch the subtle signs—the slight furrow of her brows, the way her fingers twitched at her sides, the way she seemed to be listening to something no one else could hear.
His stomach tightened.
Before he could move toward her, before he could demand to know what the hell was going on, Draco turned toward him, his sharp, pale gaze locking onto Theo with the kind of scrutiny that made his skin prickle with irritation.
"Took you long enough," Malfoy drawled, his arms crossed over his chest, his tone laced with something unreadable.
Theo arched a brow, feigning indifference, even as his fingers twitched at his sides. "You interrupted my morning. What's the crisis now?"
Draco exhaled, slow and measured, before tilting his head toward Neville. "Tell him."
Neville hesitated only briefly, the flicker of doubt crossing his expression so fast it was barely perceptible, before he finally lifted the book that had consumed his attention for the better part of the morning, angling it toward Theo with a kind of quiet reverence, as if the contents themselves demanded a certain weight, a certain gravity, and the pages—brittle, yellowed with age—cracked faintly at the spine as they settled open, revealing script so tightly packed and meticulously inked that it took a moment for Theo's eyes to adjust, the curling letters etched in a dialect older than any English he'd studied at Hogwarts, so ancient it made his temples throb just from trying to make sense of the language, but it wasn't the text that snatched the breath from his lungs, not the faded ink or the cryptic margins scrawled with translations—no, it was the image carved into the heart of the page like a wound, like a curse, a grotesque sketch that barely passed for human, its body twisted and unnatural, skin pulled too tightly over elongated bones, limbs too long, too thin, as if stretched past the point of breaking, and the face—Merlin, the face—was all wrong, not a snarl, not a smile, but something frozen between the two, mouth open in a soundless scream that seemed to echo in Theo's skull the longer he looked, its hollow sockets staring up from the paper as if it had seen him too, as if it remembered.
His breath seized in his chest, muscles locking into place as the image bore into him, and he couldn't deny it—not anymore—not when the figure staring back at him from the page was the same one that had haunted his dreams, the same one he'd seen crawling through the edges of his nightmares, the same one he'd killed with his own hands—or thought he had—because he'd felt the blade sink in, felt the blood spill, felt the moment it should have ended, but something in the air had shifted then, something had lingered, had coiled around him like smoke, like a shadow with teeth, and he'd told himself it was exhaustion, trauma, paranoia, anything but what it really was, and now, as the others waited, their silence ringing louder than any scream, Neville's voice broke through the stillness like a quiet verdict.
"We think we know what's happening," he said, his voice low, calm, but unmistakably grim, each word measured like it might detonate if spoken too fast, and as he turned his gaze from the book to Theo, there was a heaviness there, a kind of terrible clarity, the kind that came from too many nights spent chasing the truth and finally catching it, only to realize it was worse than anything they could have imagined, and when he continued, there was no mercy in it, only truth—"This thing, whatever it is, it was human once... but it's not anymore. And if what this book says is true—" he faltered, his eyes flickering briefly toward Luna, as if her presence was a compass even for him "—then it's tied to you now, Theo. It's not just haunting you. It's linked. Bound."
The words dropped like stones in water, rippling through the room, through Theo, echoing in the spaces between his ribs, until the silence thickened into something living, breathing, waiting, and Theo could feel all of them watching him, could feel the heat of their unspoken thoughts pressing down on him, as if the house itself had inhaled and was holding that breath, waiting to see if he would finally break, and gods, he wanted to laugh, wanted to scream, wanted to deny it all over again, but the pulse pounding at his throat gave him away, the tremble in his fingers, the ache building in his jaw as he clenched it harder and harder to keep from falling apart right there in front of all of them.
And then—she moved.
Luna stepped toward him, slowly, deliberately, with the kind of quiet authority that no one questioned, her eyes never leaving his, blue and wide and terrifying in their clarity, and when she spoke, her voice was so soft that the others had to lean in to hear it, but it hit him like a blade anyway, cutting through all his defences like they were nothing, like he was nothing, like she'd always been able to see straight through him.
"Theo," she said, gentle but firm, her voice like velvet wrapped around steel, "it's time to stop running from this."
And just like that, everything inside him twisted, collapsed, rebelled, because she was right and he hated her for it, hated how her voice made the truth feel bearable, hated how she made it impossible to keep lying to himself, to keep pretending he could outrun whatever was inside him, because it wasn't a whisper anymore, it wasn't shadows or dreams or fleeting sounds at the edges of his mind—it was here, it was alive, and it had dug into him so deeply he couldn't tell where it ended and he began.
He exhaled, sharp and trembling, dragging a hand through his hair in a futile attempt to ground himself, to cling to some fragment of control, but there was nothing left—nothing but her, nothing but the way she looked at him like he was still worth saving, like she'd known all along and stayed anyway, and that—fuck—that was worse than anything else, because it meant she'd seen the monster long before he had and never flinched.
His breaths came slow and ragged, each inhale doing nothing to ease the weight crushing his chest, the pressure curling around his ribs like iron bands, and still, she didn't move, didn't speak again, just stood there, letting him unravel, letting him come to the edge on his own, and even though she hadn't reached for him, hadn't so much as touched him, he felt her everywhere—her presence a tether, her silence a steady hand at his back, keeping him from falling apart completely, and when he finally turned away, unable to hold her gaze for another second, it wasn't because he didn't need her, it was because he needed her too much.
His pulse thrummed violently beneath his skin, a steady, pounding rhythm of frustration, of resentment, of something else, something darker, something he wasn't ready to name.
"You should have told me," he muttered, the words clipped, controlled, but everyone in the room could hear the sharp edge of anger woven into them.
He expected her to apologize, expected some kind of excuse, some justification for why she had kept this from him, but Luna simply tilted her head, her expression unreadable as she watched him, her fingers brushing absentmindedly along the edge of her sleeve.
"You wouldn't have believed me," she said softly.
And fuck.
Because she was right.
Theo let out a laugh that had nothing to do with amusement, a sharp, bitter sound that tore from his throat like it had been waiting to escape for days, his shoulders shaking with the effort of keeping everything else contained, and even as the laugh died on his lips, the tremble beneath it remained, curling through his chest like smoke, dark and acidic and unforgiving, his fingers curling into fists so tightly at his sides that his knuckles went white, his nails digging half-moons into his skin, his entire body practically vibrating with the sheer fury of how utterly fucking powerless he felt, how every piece of this nightmare had been stitched together with his name at the center and no one—no one—could give him a way out.
"What does it want?" he asked, voice low and frayed at the edges, each syllable spoken through clenched teeth, through the strain of someone trying not to shatter, and his gaze flickered to the book still lying open in Neville's hands, to the yellowed, brittle pages, to the grotesque illustration etched in black ink that looked far too much like the thing that haunted his dreams, the thing he'd killed but not really, the thing that had crawled inside him and stayed.
No one answered, not right away, not when the weight of that question seemed to fill the room like smoke, suffocating and thick and impossible to escape, and for a moment it was as if the whole house had gone still, had stopped to hold its breath with them—until Luna spoke, her voice soft, too soft, impossibly calm and terrifying in that calmness.
"You," she said.
Just one word, and it hit him like a curse, like a spell that sank deep beneath his skin and settled there, heavy and cold and immovable, and for a second, Theo couldn't breathe, couldn't think, because the meaning behind it cracked through him like lightning, and even though he heard it, even though he understood exactly what she was saying, exactly what it meant, something inside him recoiled from it instantly, from the truth, from the implication, from the sheer horror of being the object of something like this, of being wanted by something not even fully alive.
"No," he said, the denial immediate and instinctual and violent in its desperation, his voice raw, ragged, more breath than word, like it had been torn out of him against his will, but Luna didn't flinch, didn't back away, didn't try to soothe it with pretty lies or easy comforts—her gaze just softened, barely, like a thread loosening, her mouth pressed into a faint line, her eyes steady and patient and unbearable in the way they saw everything, as if she were simply waiting for him to catch up, waiting for him to admit what she already knew, what he had always known deep down, buried beneath every sleepless night and every whisper that crawled beneath his skin.
His breathing turned sharp, shallow, his chest rising and falling too fast, his body tense in that awful, suspended way that meant he was about to break, every muscle locked, every nerve frayed, as if trying to keep himself from crumbling right there in the center of the room, but it wasn't working, because the world had shifted again, and it felt like the ground beneath him had turned to water, like his feet couldn't find purchase, like the foundations of everything he thought he understood were dissolving and he couldn't stop it.
And then—Hermione's voice, steady and clipped, cutting through the silence like a tether trying to pull him back to something solid, something real.
"Theo," she said, tone matter-of-fact, firm in that way that meant she was scared too but hiding it better, "we need to do something about this before it's too late."
Too late.
The words hit like ice, and his stomach twisted violently, because it was the kind of phrase people used when they were already on the edge, when the clock had almost run out, when the threat was no longer theoretical but real and near and hungry.
"Before what?" he asked, his voice low, cracked, the words barely more than a growl scraped from the back of his throat, but no one answered, not because they didn't want to, but because they couldn't—because this, whatever this thing was, whatever had attached itself to him, wasn't following rules, wasn't behaving like a cursed object or a haunted place or a ghost—it was something else entirely, something older, something wild, something that didn't play by the rules of human magic.
And that made it worse.
So much worse.
He ran a hand down his face, dragging his fingers across his mouth like he was trying to hold the pieces of himself together, like he was trying to scrub away the panic clawing at his throat, then looked at Luna again, because even in the midst of all this, she was the only one who had answers, the only one he trusted to tell him the truth, no matter how awful it was.
"What do we do?" he asked, the words quieter now, less demand, more plea, more surrender, and for a moment, she just looked at him, as if searching for something in his face, something buried deep, something fragile.
Her lips parted like she might say something else, something gentle, and her fingers twitched like she wanted to reach for him, to wrap her hands around his wrists or press her palms against his face, to offer something warm, something comforting, something that would anchor him—but she didn't, she just said, quietly, irrevocably, "We sever the tie."
And those words—so simple, so deceptively calm—stretched through the silence like a blade, like a thread pulled too tight, wrapping around his ribs and tightening, squeezing, suffocating, and Theo's breath caught, chest constricting with a pressure that had nothing to do with the creature and everything to do with her, because she said it like it was easy, like it was a solution, like it wouldn't tear him in half, like it wouldn't break something essential inside him to do it.
Like it wouldn't break her.
He stared at her, trying to read something in her expression, trying to understand how she could say it like that, how she could pretend this wouldn't cost them both more than they could afford, and when he finally spoke, the words were hoarse, hesitant, heavy with dread.
"Will it kill me?"
The question hung there, suspended in the charged air between them, and for a moment, everything stopped, and everyone looked at her, and Luna—Luna, who always had an answer, always had some cryptic wisdom tucked in her sleeve—hesitated.
And that hesitation told him everything.
Theo swallowed hard, forcing down the rising tide of something that felt dangerously close to panic.
He wasn't ready to die.
But he also wasn't ready to become something else.
Luna stepped closer, the barest whisper of movement, and when she finally spoke, her voice was gentle, steady, unbearably kind.
"I won't let that happen."
And Theo—gods help him—believed her.
The room felt too small, the walls pressing inward, the silence stretched too tight. No one moved, no one breathed, no one dared to speak as the weight of what Luna had said settled over them like a suffocating fog. Theo wanted to believe her, needed to believe her, but the doubt was still there, curling inside his chest like a second heartbeat, whispering that maybe this was already beyond saving.
His fingers flexed at his sides, his body tense, his mind running through every possible outcome, every risk, every escape. Sever the tie. As if it were that simple. As if whatever had claimed him would simply let go. As if all it would take was a spell or a ritual or another desperate attempt to rid himself of something he barely understood.
As if he wasn't already in too deep.
The fire crackled in the hearth, the only sound in the thick silence, the flickering light casting long, twisting shadows across the walls. Draco was watching him, his sharp grey eyes calculating, his arms crossed over his chest as if waiting for Theo to crack, to admit that this was bigger than him, bigger than all of them. Pansy had a hand pressed against Luna's arm, fingers twitching with some unspoken concern, but Luna hadn't moved. She stood as still as a statue, unwavering, unshaken, watching him as if he were a puzzle she had already solved.
Theo exhaled sharply, running a hand through his hair before he finally forced himself to speak. "How?" The question was rough, raw, edged with something close to desperation. "How do we sever it?"
Luna's lips parted, but before she could answer, Hermione spoke instead, her voice steady, sure, laced with the sharp precision of someone who had spent too much time in books searching for answers. "We don't even know what we're dealing with yet."
Theo turned to her, his stomach twisting. "Then fucking figure it out." The words came out harsher than he intended, but he couldn't bring himself to care. He could still feel it—whatever it was, the thing curled inside his ribs, waiting, watching. It had been silent for the past few hours, but he knew it was still there, knew it hadn't gone, knew that it was only a matter of time before it made itself known again.
Hermione's gaze flickered, something dark flashing in her eyes before she nodded, turning to Neville. "Get the books."
Neville disappeared down the hall without hesitation, and Theo's stomach lurched at the realization that this was really happening, that this wasn't something he could walk away from, that this wasn't something that would just stop if he ignored it long enough.
He swallowed hard and turned back to Luna. "And if we can't?"
Luna blinked at him, slow, unreadable, as if considering his words carefully, as if weighing the truth she wanted to give him against the one he needed to hear. Then, after a moment, she stepped closer, closing the space between them, her fingers reaching for his wrist with a softness that almost shattered him.
"We will."
Theo didn't move, didn't breathe, didn't trust himself to do anything but hold still as her fingers traced over his skin, her touch grounding, steady, familiar. "You don't know that."
Luna tilted her head, the faintest ghost of a smile touching her lips, something too sad, too knowing. "I do."
The room around them faded, the murmured voices of their friends a distant hum as Theo focused on the girl standing before him, on the way she was looking at him like she had already made up her mind, like she had already decided that no matter what happened, no matter how this ended, she wouldn't let him fall.
And that scared him more than whatever was lurking inside him.
Because he wasn't sure he could let her save him.
Not if it meant losing her.
His throat was tight, his pulse hammering beneath his skin as he finally—finally—let himself ask the question that had been clawing at the back of his mind for days. "And what if it takes me before you can?"
Luna's expression didn't change. She only tightened her grip on his wrist, as if anchoring him to the moment, as if refusing to let him slip away. "Then I'll come find you."
The weight of her words settled deep in his chest, threading itself through his ribs, curling around his lungs like a second breath. He couldn't look away, couldn't move, couldn't do anything but feel the way her fingers pressed against his skin, the way her touch lingered as if she were willing something into him, something he wasn't ready to name. The room around them didn't exist anymore, the murmured conversation fading into nothing, the firelight flickering against the walls, casting long shadows that twisted and stretched with the unspoken tension thick between them. His pulse pounded against his throat, hammering hard and uneven, his body reacting to something far more terrifying than the presence he had been fighting for weeks.
Luna wasn't afraid, not of him, not of this, not of whatever had latched itself onto his soul and refused to let go. She was steady in a way he would never be, solid in a way that made his insides shake, unwavering in the way she refused to let him sink beneath the weight of this thing, this curse, this mark that had changed everything. She had always been like this, always known things she shouldn't, always carried the kind of certainty that felt like prophecy, like fate, like something written into the stars long before they had ever met. He had spent his whole life doubting, second-guessing, searching for proof, for logic, for the kind of understanding that could be explained in facts and figures and absolutes. But there was nothing absolute about this, nothing logical, nothing that made sense, nothing that fit neatly into the version of the world he had once believed in.
Her thumb brushed over his wrist, slow, deliberate, grounding, pulling him back from the edge of something dark, something unraveling. His breath came sharp, his jaw locked, his body coiled tight with the tension of wanting to move, wanting to run, wanting to throw himself into whatever this was and never find his way back. He didn't want to be this, didn't want to be marked, didn't want to be claimed, didn't want to be anything except hers, and that realization hit him harder than he was prepared for. This thing inside him wasn't what scared him the most. It was her. It was this. It was what she was doing to him, what she had already done, what she had carved into him with nothing but a look, a touch, a quiet promise whispered between the spaces of his ribs.
His fingers twitched, curling into his palm, the phantom sting of his nails biting into the flesh of his own hand grounding him for a single, fleeting moment before he exhaled, unsteady, rough, not sure if he was breaking apart or putting himself back together. His voice was barely a breath, barely a sound, barely anything at all when he finally spoke, when he finally admitted what he had been fighting against since the moment this started. "I don't know if I can do this." He expected her to argue, to tell him he could, to tell him he would, to offer him the kind of reassurance that came so easily from her lips, but she didn't. She just looked at him, really looked at him, seeing all the parts of him he had tried to keep hidden, all the pieces he had stitched together with jagged edges and shaky hands, all the fractures that made him, him.
Her fingers moved, sliding from his wrist to his palm, lacing through his own like it was the most natural thing in the world, like it was something she had always done, something that had never needed to be questioned. She squeezed, firm but soft, not pulling, not demanding, not pushing. Just being. Just existing with him in this moment, in this space, in this impossible reality where he was losing himself to something he couldn't fight, something he couldn't name, something that had chosen him whether he wanted it or not. Her voice, quiet but unshaken, settled into the marrow of his bones, "Then let me do it with you."
His heart lurched, the air between them thick, the weight of it pressing against his skin, sinking into his lungs, making it impossible to breathe, impossible to think. This was a battle he had never meant to fight, a war he had never wanted to be a part of, a nightmare that had seeped into reality and refused to let him wake up. But then there was her. Her steadiness, her unwavering certainty, her light, and for the first time since this began, he wasn't sure if he wanted to fight it anymore. Maybe this wasn't a battle. Maybe this wasn't a war. Maybe this was something else, something more, something he had been trying so damn hard to ignore, to deny, to pretend wasn't real.
But she was real.
~
The house was far too loud, too full of bodies and voices and the constant scrape of chairs against the worn wooden floorboards, the murmur of overlapping conversations weaving into a dull roar that never quite faded, broken only by the occasional clink of ceramic mugs being set down a little too hard, laughter that didn't quite reach the eyes, tension that hummed just beneath the surface of every movement, every glance, every shallow breath held a second too long, and though the evening had settled softly around them, casting the room in a golden haze from the flickering lanterns suspended overhead and the muted glow of the fireplace curling shadows into the corners, none of it soothed the tightness coiled in Theo's chest, none of it quieted the restless hum beneath his skin or loosened the fists clenched silently at his sides, his nails digging half-moons into his palms as he tried—and failed—to focus on anything but the way his gaze kept betraying him, kept sliding across the room toward her even when he wasn't aware he was looking, like some part of him was tethered to her now, like the air itself shifted when she moved, like nothing in the room could anchor him the way her presence did, even when she wasn't doing anything but existing.
Luna sat near the fire, the orange light dancing across her features, her pale hair glowing in the warmth, though she seemed untouched by it somehow, ethereal as ever, her delicate fingers curled around a mug she didn't appear to be drinking from, stirring it absently with a small silver spoon as her head tilted ever so slightly, listening—not to the room, not to the conversation, but to something quieter, something beneath all of this, her eyes unfocused and distant like she was watching something unfold far beyond the boundaries of the safehouse, her lips parted just slightly like she was about to say something that would cut through all the noise and leave the world irrevocably altered, and Theo, gods help him, couldn't look away, couldn't will himself to stop watching her even though he knew he should, even though he could feel the weight of every other presence in the room, the warmth of shared meals and laughter and the illusion of safety wrapping around them like a blanket, he couldn't convince himself to care about any of it when she was sitting there like a storm wrapped in calm, like a secret made flesh, like something holy and untouchable and utterly his.
He should have looked away, should have turned his attention to the people around him—Ginny bickering animatedly with Blaise about something neither of them would remember by morning, Hermione curled up in the armchair with a thick book open in her lap, arguing quietly with Neville about magical theory, Draco standing against the wall like he owned the fucking place, arms crossed, a ghost of amusement playing at the corners of his mouth, watching everything unfold with that smug, knowing look that made Theo's blood boil because of course Draco knew, of course he had seen it before Theo himself had, because that's what Draco fucking Malfoy did—he saw the things other people weren't ready to admit, and he said nothing, just waited, just watched, just waited for the moment you were too far gone to pretend anymore—but it didn't matter, none of it mattered, not the conversations, not the curious glances, not the lingering tension in his shoulders or the heat that kept building behind his sternum, not when she stood.
Luna rose in a single, fluid movement, her chair scraping softly against the floor as she abandoned the tea she hadn't touched, her gaze fixed on him with the kind of quiet certainty that made the air go still, and it was impossible not to notice the way the others fell into sudden silence, the way the entire room shifted to accommodate her as she crossed it, not with urgency, not with hesitation, but with that strange, weightless grace that made it feel like she was moving through a dream rather than reality, the kind of grace that made you forget to breathe until it was too late, and before Theo could process what was happening, before he could make sense of the sudden pressure in his chest or the heat rising in his throat, she was standing in front of him, close, so fucking close, her body mere inches from his, her hands lifting slowly, deliberately, like she was offering him something sacred, and there was no time to react, no time to think, no time to prepare for what came next.
Because she kissed him.
Right there, in the middle of the safehouse, with all of them watching, with the tension in the room wound so tight it might snap, with the world outside still full of curses and monsters and things with teeth, she kissed him, soft and certain and impossibly gentle, like it was the most natural thing in the world, like she had been waiting to do it for a long, long time, and Theo—who had spent years mastering the art of stillness, of control, of silence—sank into her like he was dying and she was the only thing that could bring him back.
A stunned silence fell over the room, the casual noise and movement coming to a grinding halt as she pressed her lips to his, as if this was something she had always intended to do, as if there was nothing strange about it at all, nothing unexpected. It wasn't rushed, wasn't hesitant, wasn't desperate or hurried or anything that would have implied this was a mistake. It was slow, deliberate, warm in a way that burned through every inch of him, in a way that destroyed the last crumbling pieces of whatever resistance he had left.
His hands found her waist instinctively, anchoring himself, pulling her closer, his mind still scrambling to keep up, to understand, to breathe around the sheer force of her certainty. And that was what killed him—the certainty in the way she kissed him, in the way she touched him, in the way she stood there, openly claiming him in front of everyone.
It wasn't until she finally pulled away, her fingers brushing over his cheek, her silver eyes searching his face for something unspoken, that the moment fully snapped into place.
The room was silent.
And then—
"Finally," Draco muttered, dragging a hand down his face with the most exasperated sigh Theo had ever heard.
"Oh, thank god," Ginny groaned, flopping dramatically against Blaise's shoulder.
Blaise, the traitorous bastard, only smirked, raising his glass in a mock toast.
Hermione looked entirely too pleased with herself, nudging Draco with an I told you so expression that made Theo want to die.
Neville just blinked, looking between them as if trying to figure out if this had actually just happened or if he was hallucinating.
And Pansy—Pansy smirked. Slow and victorious and entirely too smug. "You absolute idiot," she said, shaking her head at Theo like he was the last to figure out the answer to an obvious riddle.
Luna only smiled, soft and knowing, her fingers still resting against his jaw, her breath still warm against his lips.
Theo exhaled sharply, trying to process the fact that he had just been kissed—claimed—in front of everyone, and there was no undoing it now. No denying it. No pretending.
Not anymore.
He stared at her, chest tight, pulse pounding, words caught somewhere in his throat that he wasn't sure he would ever be able to say aloud.
Luna just tilted her head, giving him that soft, dreamy look that had always made him feel like she could see things he couldn't.
"Was that enough confirmation for you, love?" she murmured.
And Theo—Theo was gone.
~
The door clicked shut behind them with a finality that seemed to echo louder than it should have, sealing them away from the rest of the house, from the hum of voices and the shifting glances and the teasing that had followed them like smoke all evening, locking them instead in the stillness of a room that now felt entirely different, the air between them suddenly heavier, denser, thick with unspoken things neither of them dared name yet both of them felt with bone-deep certainty, because this was no longer something they could skirt around or pretend didn't exist, no longer just glances exchanged in the quiet or brushes of fingers passed off as nothing, but the weight of a moment they could never take back, a line crossed not in anger or desperation but in something far more dangerous—clarity, inevitability, the terrifying pull of knowing they had already begun and there was no way to stop it now, no way to go back to what they were before
Luna moved first, of course she did, with that effortless sort of grace that made her seem untouched by the gravity of what had just passed between them, floating across the room as if she hadn't just kissed him in front of everyone, as if she hadn't taken something tightly coiled inside him and shattered it open with something so small and simple it had nearly dropped him to his knees, and she didn't look back as she climbed into the bed, didn't say anything as she stretched out across the blankets like she belonged there, like this had always been the plan, like there was no question he would follow, and gods, he stood there watching her, not moving, not breathing, his fists clenched at his sides and something raw coiling inside his chest, something wild and restless and so overpowering he couldn't put a name to it
She turned then, not with surprise but with that familiar look—the one that made his heart kick like it was trying to escape his ribcage, the one that stripped him down to the foundations of who he was and never looked away, her eyes silver-blue and unblinking as they flicked from his face to his clenched hands, to the way he was holding himself still like a man on the edge of war, and then she smiled, soft and slow and devastating, shifting just enough to make space beside her without asking, without demanding, just offering, as she always did, with that unbearable patience that made his bones ache
He exhaled then, sharp and unsteady, dragging a hand through his hair like he could physically pull the tension from his body, his whole frame locked tight with something he didn't know how to release, something that had lived in him for too long, and the only thing he could manage to say was, "You're impossible, Lovegood," muttered low under his breath, not meant for confrontation but for surrender, and she just hummed, that same maddening sound that never quite gave anything away, that always left him chasing her
He finally sat, heavy and reluctant, pressing his palms to his thighs, forcing himself not to reach for her, not to let the moment overtake him, his eyes locked on the floor like it might offer him answers, his breath shallow as he tried—tried and failed—to ignore the way his heart was still hammering like it hadn't caught up to the truth that she had kissed him, that she had laid claim to something inside him he hadn't even known he was offering
And then—light, hesitant, but certain—her fingers brushed over his, and the touch nearly unmade him
She didn't say anything, didn't laugh or soften the moment or fill it with one of her dreamy, impossible comments, she just let the silence hold, just let the space between them speak, and gods, the stillness of her was louder than any noise he'd ever heard
He turned his hand over slowly, threading his fingers through hers like it might anchor him to something real, gripping tight like he couldn't help it, like if he let go for even a second he would disappear completely, and her hand was warm, steady, grounding, a tether that held him together in the places he hadn't realized were breaking
"You kissed me in front of everyone," he said finally, his voice so rough it didn't even sound like his, still reeling, still wrecked, still trying to process what she had done
She tilted her head, her hair falling like a curtain over her shoulder, her gaze steady and unreadable, and said only, "Yes," like it meant nothing, like it hadn't turned him inside out
His jaw clenched, his grip tightening around her hand as he tried to make sense of it, tried to breathe through the madness in his chest, and forced out the question anyway, the one that had already taken root in his ribs, wrapping around his lungs like a vine, "Why?"
She blinked slowly, calmly, as if she'd been waiting for the question, as if she already knew what it would cost him to ask, and for a moment the silence stretched too long, dragged taut between them like the pull of something ancient, before she answered, soft and certain and entirely unshaken—"Because you're mine"
And everything in him stopped—his breath, his heart, his thoughts—all of it arrested by the weight of those words, by the way she said them like they weren't up for debate, like they were a fact carved into stone, and gods, maybe they were, maybe they had always been, because she didn't say it with hope or hesitation but with certainty, with the steady, terrifying conviction of someone who had always known how this story ended
Something cracked open in him then, something he couldn't put back together, and before he could think, before he could stop himself, before he could do anything but feel—he grabbed her.
His lips crashed into hers with a hunger that had nothing to do with lust alone and everything to do with the months of tension coiled tight between them, everything he'd buried and denied and bitten back now unraveling all at once as his mouth moved over hers with bruising insistence, as if trying to consume her, to claim her, to press the truth of what he felt into every inch of her skin until she couldn't breathe without remembering the weight of it, and gods, she didn't hesitate, didn't falter, didn't pull away—instead, she kissed him back with that same intensity, that same urgency, her fingers threading into his hair, tugging just hard enough to make his breath catch in his throat as she pulled him closer, impossibly closer, her body arching into him like she was trying to crawl beneath his skin, and when his hands found her waist, he didn't stop there, didn't hesitate as he slid them under her shirt, palms hungry for the heat of her, the softness of her, the living proof that this wasn't a dream but something terrifyingly real
She moaned into his mouth as his thumbs brushed just beneath her ribs, and the sound undid him, cracked something open in his chest, something primal and desperate, and fuck, he needed her, needed the feel of her skin against his, the heat of her breath, the dizzying way she whimpered when he rolled his hips against hers, slow and searching, not quite enough but getting there, and when she gasped, her hands dragging his shirt over his head, nails catching on the fabric, he let her, let her strip him bare, let her see the wreckage of him lit by the flickering glow of the lamp on the bedside table, and her gaze devoured him, slow and reverent, her breath catching like she hadn't expected to find all of him waiting underneath the quiet
He was shaking now, not from fear, but from restraint, from the thin thread of control fraying between his fingers as she lay back on the bed and pulled him with her, guiding him between her thighs with that same steady certainty that had always undone him, and gods, she was so soft, so warm, her legs wrapping around his waist, her hips lifting to meet him in that maddening rhythm that made it impossible to think, and he tried—he tried to go slow, to savor it, to memorize every sound she made, every stuttered breath, every whispered curse, but it was hard, it was so fucking hard when she kept looking at him like that, with those wide, dazed eyes, her cheeks flushed, her body so willing, so open, so ready for him in every way
His hand slid between them, fingers finding her with practiced precision, and the way she arched into him, the way her breath caught, the way her thighs trembled around him—he would never forget it, never recover from it, never stop chasing the sound of her falling apart under his touch, and when she whimpered his name, half-gasp, half-prayer, he nearly lost it, nearly came from that alone, from the knowledge that this, this was his doing, that he could ruin her with nothing more than his hands, his mouth, his body pressed flush to hers, and gods, he wanted to ruin her, wanted to worship her, wanted to give her everything, and when she reached between them and guided him in, when she whispered, "Now, Theo," against his lips, he obeyed
He sank into her slowly, inch by inch, shuddering as her body stretched around him, took him in, welcomed him like she'd been waiting for this, for him, and the feeling was unbearable, devastating, like coming home and losing his mind all at once, and Luna gasped, clung to him, pulled him deeper, her nails scraping down his back, her thighs tightening around his hips, her voice wrecked as she whispered how good it felt, how full she was, how much she needed him, and he couldn't hold back the groan that tore from his throat as he buried his face against her neck, breathing her in, losing himself in the slick heat of her, the way she clenched around him, the way she whispered his name like it was the only one she knew
He moved with her, slow and deep at first, savoring the feel of her body wrapped tight around him, but the pace built quickly, desperate and reckless, hips snapping harder with every breathless moan she gave him, every whimper that left her mouth, every curse that tumbled past her lips when he hit just the right angle, and gods, he was unraveling, drowning in her, every part of him breaking open under the weight of what he felt, and when she whispered, "Come with me," when she kissed him like she wanted to own every piece of him—he did
He came with a groan that shook his entire body, hips stuttering, breath torn from his lungs, his climax crashing through him like a fucking tidal wave as she clenched around him, her own release hitting at the same time, her mouth opening in a silent cry as she shattered against him, her arms wrapped tight around his shoulders, her legs trembling as they held each other through it, shaking, panting, ruined
And when it was over, when the air finally settled, when their bodies were tangled and slick and trembling with aftershocks, Theo buried his face in her hair and whispered, "You're mine," and Luna, breathless and glowing, just smiled, kissed his throat, and whispered back, "I've always been."