Notes:
A knife is just a question with a sharp edge.
Chapter Text
The kitchen was already flooded with sunlight when he stepped in. Morning light poured through the open windows, golden and slow, wrapping itself around everything it touched. The breeze carried with it the sound of waves folding against the shore, soft and constant, and it stirred the curtains just enough to make them shift like they were breathing. The floor beneath his bare feet felt warm, like the house had risen earlier than he had and was waiting for him to catch up.
The table was a mess, but not in a careless way. It was a kind of curated chaos that felt entirely lived in, as though it could only belong to her. Teacups sat on top of dog-eared books, a pear cut in half and already browning near the edge, a scattering of potion vials crusted at the rim, glowing faintly from whatever odd residue they held. And in the center of it all, perched like a tiny, judgmental queen, Artemis sat curled in her little cloth-lined basket, watching him.
Luna, of course, was already there. She sat at the far end of the table, one leg folded beneath her in that way she always did, a posture that should have looked uncomfortable but didn't. It suited her. Her hair was half-up, held by a length of vine that probably hadn't been intended for that purpose, a loose strand falling forward where she hadn't bothered to tuck it back. The thin cotton robe she wore slipped from one shoulder without her noticing, or maybe without caring. In her hands she cradled a chipped mug that looked older than either of them, its surface worn smooth in places, the faint trace of an old protection rune barely visible beneath her fingers.
Theo stopped in the doorway longer than he meant to. His shirt clung to his back, still damp with sweat from a night that hadn't given him rest, and his hair stuck in uneven pieces to his forehead. His eyes burned, red-rimmed and heavy, but none of that mattered right now. None of it could override the way his attention pulled toward her, toward the lazy way she traced a fingertip over the rim of her mug, the way she sipped so slowly it made the whole kitchen feel like it had been paused around her, the way she didn't look up, not even once.
For a moment, he just stood there, taking in the sight of her—this quiet, still moment she had carved out without effort, without even acknowledging that she was doing it. She made it look easy, this peaceful ritual of existing inside a space like it belonged to her, like she belonged to it. And maybe she did.
His breath caught somewhere between inhale and exhale, sharp and too full, as if the air in this room held something heavier than it should. Something he couldn't quite name, couldn't quite release.
And then, finally, she spoke, without lifting her gaze, her voice soft and simple, like she had known he was standing there all along.
"Tea's still hot," she said. "You can sit, if you want."
"The ward lines pulsed all night. Did you hear them, or were you too loud in your own head?"
The question caught Theo mid-step, sharp and intimate, even though she hadn't looked at him yet. She didn't need to. The house had already whispered his secrets to her, and they both knew it.
He stepped further inside, each movement heavier than the last, like he was moving through water instead of morning air.
"You always up this early?" he asked, his voice rough, still tangled in whatever restless thoughts had kept him awake.
Luna sipped from her mug, finally turning her head just enough for him to catch the tilt of her mouth. It was almost a smile, but softer, quieter, like she was amused and unsurprised at once. She took a bite of the pear in her hand, chewed slowly, then answered as if she had all the time in the world.
"The house doesn't sleep when you don't," she said simply. "It paces."
He didn't reply, just moved toward the counter, grabbing the nearest mug. He rinsed it without thinking, his hands going through the motions even as the rest of him felt stretched thin, strung tight. He could feel her words inside his chest, lingering in the spaces between heartbeats. She hadn't asked what was wrong. She didn't need to. And that simple fact rattled him more than he cared to admit.
It wasn't until something sharp clamped onto the cuff of his sleeve that he noticed Artemis. The little creature latched on with tiny, furious teeth and a determined squeak.
Theo jerked his arm back instinctively, startled not by pain but by the sheer nerve of it. He glared down at the guinea pig, whose expression was pure judgment.
Luna didn't even blink.
"Artemis finds you very emotionally repressed," she said in a tone so casual it could have been mistaken for weather talk. She stirred her tea with slow, deliberate movements, her spoon circling lazily. "She thinks it's causing digestive issues."
Theo narrowed his eyes at the animal, still stubbornly attached to his sleeve. "She thinks?"
Luna finally looked at him properly, her gaze calm, almost too steady. "She's quite intuitive."
He pried Artemis off his sleeve with as much patience as he could manage and set her carefully back in her basket at the center of the table. The guinea pig turned her back immediately, as if deeply offended.
The kitchen was bathed in warm morning light, golden and soft. The curtains swayed gently in the breeze, the air filled with the quiet rhythm of wards pulsing across the walls, and the scent of bergamot, lemon, and something sweeter he couldn't quite name.
Theo sat stiffly, every movement controlled, as if posture alone might hold him together. He reached for toast, spread marmalade he couldn't taste, and ate too fast. His hands trembled as they worked.
The silence between them was thick, not empty but brimming with everything they weren't saying. She sat there wrapped in her robe, one shoulder bare where the fabric had slipped. Her legs tucked beneath her, a half-eaten pear in one hand, her hair catching the light like something elemental.
It should have meant nothing. But it didn't. It meant everything.
The words escaped before he could stop them, sudden and sharp, cutting right through the fragile quiet like a spell interrupted mid-incantation.
"Did you… mean for me to see you like that yesterday?"
Luna tilted her head slowly, the movement almost avian, her expression unreadable. For a moment, he thought she might ask him to explain himself. But she didn't. Instead, she simply smiled, small and strange, shaped like a secret, and without a word poured him another cup of tea.
He stared at the cup. Then at her.
"I didn't mean to—" he began.
"I know," she replied, her voice even.
"It wasn't… I didn't look at you like—"
"You weren't looking at me like I was naked," she said softly, not hesitant, just stating a fact. "You were looking at me like I was on fire."
The air seemed to hitch in his lungs. He stopped breathing for a moment and then looked away.
The tension between them broke without ceremony, the ease of something long expected. She popped a piece of pear into her mouth, chewing thoughtfully, then began speaking as if he hadn't said anything at all.
"I once tried to bathe with kelpies," she said suddenly, her tone completely serious. "They weren't thrilled about it. I thought they might appreciate the salt, but they bit through the copper basin and dragged it into the river. We didn't see the mayor's cat again after that."
Theo blinked, unsure whether it was meant as a joke. It didn't matter. The heat twisting inside his chest lessened, just slightly.
She rose then, carrying her mug to the counter, the robe slipping a little further down her back, and he quickly looked away again, forcing himself not to think about the shape of her shoulders, the memory of water clinging to her skin like it never wanted to leave.
But she did not leave the room. She moved behind him, her bare feet soundless on the stone floor, and paused just at his back. He felt her breath first, warm against the shell of his ear, before she spoke.
"You smell like iron this morning," she whispered.
He froze, muscles tightening all at once. "What does that mean?"
She gave no answer.
The silence that followed settled like a weight between them, heavy and deliberate, lasting just long enough to scrape at his nerves.
Then the house began to hum.
A slow vibration rose through the walls, quiet but undeniable, like a string being pulled too tight. One of the sigils near the stove flared red for a heartbeat, casting warped shadows across the kitchen shelves.
Luna didn't flinch. She turned, calm as ever, lifting her wand from its place on the windowsill.
"You should finish your toast," she said, her tone smooth and almost careless.
Theo stood abruptly. "Why?"
She glanced at him, already walking toward the hallway.
"Because someone's about to try to kill me," she said lightly, "and I don't think blood pairs well with citrus."
Theo's voice sliced through the air, low and rough, edged with panic that sat too close to fury. "What the fuck are you talking about?" The words tumbled out before he could catch them, sharp and breathless, and he was already pushing his chair back, already standing, already strung too tight. His heart raced, thudding high in his throat, and the taste of iron settled on his tongue without warning.
Luna didn't even flinch. She turned just enough to glance at him, her gaze impossibly calm, like the moment had not shifted, like the air around them wasn't tightening. "Your hearing is excellent," she said, her voice as soft and infuriatingly measured as ever.
That calm only poured fuel over the fire clawing its way up his chest. He closed the distance in two steps, heat rising fast and raw beneath his skin. "Don't fuck with me, Lovegood," he snarled, every word heavier than the last, his breath uneven, almost ragged. "Is someone trying to kill you? Today? Here? When? Answer me. Now."
But she was already slipping away from him, moving down the hall with that quiet grace she always carried, as though nothing urgent had been spoken, as though danger did not live in her shadow. His control snapped. He lunged after her and caught her by the arm, spinning her back toward him, pressing her gently but firmly against the cool wall. His hands gripped her arms, not rough, but firm enough to still her, to force her to stay.
Not to hurt. Never to hurt. Only to anchor himself.
His breath was shallow, his heart racing fast and uneven, but it was the stillness in her that nearly undid him. Her calm sat there between them, sharp and patient, like she was waiting for him to catch up to something she already knew.
Her reaction was immediate. No hesitation, no raised voice, no warning. Luna's fingers closed around his throat with shocking ease, not hard enough to choke, but firm enough to stop him in place, firm enough to remind him she was not someone to be grabbed without consequence. Her expression didn't shift. Her voice stayed maddeningly soft.
"Say sorry."
He froze, completely thrown, heart hammering. "What?"
"You hurt my back," she said, simple and matter-of-fact, as if they were discussing a misplaced spoon rather than standing in a hallway where she now held him by the throat. "Say sorry."
His grip on her arms tightened slightly, not from anger, but from the confusion tightening around his ribs. "I'm... Lovegood, let go of my throat."
She blinked slowly, eyes clear and steady, her fingers not budging. "You first."
The silence between them cracked open, heavy and breathless. His mind spun for a beat longer than it should have before he gave in, breath leaving him in a low, frustrated exhale as his hands dropped away from her arms, fingers curling into fists at his sides like he needed to remind himself what they were for.
"Sorry," he muttered, the word barely making it past his lips.
She released him the instant the word landed, smooth and precise, as if she had never doubted he would say it. The air rushed back into his lungs, cool and sharp and too thin, and yet somehow he felt no freer than before.
But then something worse happened, something that made his skin crawl with the realization of it. In that strange, charged stillness, his body betrayed him. The feel of her fingers at his throat, her calm control, her utterly steady gaze—it lit a fuse deep in his gut, low and hot and undeniable. A discovery he absolutely did not want to think about.
He stepped back quickly, jaw tight, trying to breathe evenly. He worked hard to layer ice into his voice when he spoke again.
"When are they going to attack you?" he asked, desperate to put distance between himself and that moment, to feel like a professional again, like a man who still knew what he was doing.
She was already moving past him, bare feet silent on the stone floor, her voice as casual and calm as ever. "I don't know," she said. "I only saw a vision."
The hallway was filled with a silence so complete it felt almost alive. Not peaceful, not gentle, but something dense and heavy, pressing in around him like a held breath that stretched too long. It was the kind of silence that warned of a break, fragile and tight, the air itself straining under its weight. The wards along the walls pulsed faintly at the edges of his vision, flickering like frightened things, stretched thin. And beneath everything was a feeling that made the hairs on his arms lift, a sensation that something was coming, pressing hard against the very skin of the world, ready to tear through.
Theo felt it before he heard a sound. It climbed through him slowly, inevitable, starting as a tightness in his jaw, the grind of his teeth, the slow heat crawling up the back of his neck. His wand felt heavier in his grip, familiar and foreign all at once, its weight shifting as if it too could sense what was rising in the air. His fingers tightened around it without thinking, bracing himself.
"Where?" His voice was rough and low, cutting through the stillness like a blade, raw with urgency.
But Luna was already moving. Without hesitation, without rush. Her hair had fallen loose, the pale strands catching the dim light, shifting like a veil as she walked. Barefoot and steady, she crossed the stone floor as though there was no danger at all, as though she was simply walking toward the window to let in fresh air. No fear. No hesitation.
"They're already inside," she said, soft and almost calm, the words somehow heavier for their quietness.
A sharp curse slipped from between Theo's teeth, not loud but rough and raw, the kind of sound made when control snaps just enough to show what lies beneath. And then he moved, fast and sure, no more hesitation left in him.
He moved fast, so fast his body blurred at the edges of the room, not because he lacked control but because sometimes the body simply knew before the mind could catch up, and his body had known since sunrise that something was coming.
He shoved past her without a word, a flicker of apology in his eyes but never spoken aloud, every instinct snapping into place beneath his skin, wrapping around old scars like armor he no longer questioned. The corridor stretched ahead, a quiet passage now warped by the erratic flicker of the wards, their usual steady hum shattered into jittering pulses of green and amber that blinked too fast, like a heartbeat out of rhythm. Everything felt wrong. The kind of wrong that turned breath shallow and sharp. The kind that told him something sacred had been violated.
His feet moved automatically, muscle memory guiding him. Eleven steps to the front door, eight to the first window, the one with the cracked pane Luna refused to repair because she swore it let spirits breathe. Three more strides to the side passage that wound toward the study. And just beyond that, the sound.
Not a spell. Not a scream.
A footfall. Heavy. Sure. The kind of step that did not belong in a place like this.
Then, almost too faint to catch, the sharp breath of someone who didn't expect to be heard. Panic exhaled into a silence they didn't understand. That was when Theo knew. Not just that they were here, but that they were amateurs. Someone truly dangerous would not have made a sound.
And then came the crash. A window breaking. A spell misfiring. Someone tripping over something they didn't understand. The noise cracked through the corridor like a curse given shape, shattering the brittle tension into splinters, and before it had finished echoing against the stone walls, Theo was moving again. No pause. No hesitation. No breath wasted on thought or doubt.
His mind narrowed to instinct, his body sharpening to a single purpose. The world had already shrunk down to this: the next step, the next breath, the next strike.
He rounded the corner with the kind of precision that could only come from years of training, wand raised, body low and angled, eyes cutting through the dim like a blade. Then he saw him — the first intruder, tall, too tall, wrapped in fabric meant to obscure rather than truly conceal, hood pulled low but not enough to disguise the arrogance in his stance. His wand was already lifted, lips curling around the start of a curse.
But it was too late.
Theo had already seen everything he needed to.
The man's height, his quick, clipped movements, his false confidence, the way he prioritized speed over silence. This was no professional. This was the kind of operative who believed brute force could replace elegance. The wand in his hand glowed faintly green, curse forming but not yet loosed.
Theo moved first.
Not with raw speed but with precision, instinct tightening inside him like a coil snapping into place. The spell left his wand soundlessly, no warning, a pulse of pressure that did not burn or flash but crushed, brutal and unseen, aimed right at the man's chest. The impact rang down the hall, deep and final, like a bell tolling in some distant ruin.
The intruder flew backward, hit the wall hard enough to leave a dent, a splintered crater cracking the plaster. He staggered, feet skidding, ribs heaving. He did not fall completely.
Good.
Theo wanted him awake for what would come next.
But there was no time to finish it now.
The second one was already here.
Glass exploded inward, a bloom of shattering sound, shards catching the low light and spinning like fractured stars. Theo dropped low and spun, rolling into the next room as a curse sliced through the air behind him. The wall cracked where the spell struck. He did not feel it but he heard the sharp crack and knew how close it had come.
He rose behind the second intruder in one smooth motion, emerging from his crouch as if the shadows themselves had gathered and reformed into him. His hand shot forward, caught the attacker's wrist before the man even registered he was no longer alone. He twisted, sharp and merciless.
The snap was loud, bone giving way, and the scream that followed was ragged and short.
The wand clattered to the floor.
Theo did not wait.
He used the momentum to pivot, dragging the man forward and driving him face-first into the nearest wall. His other arm came up fast, elbow braced against the attacker's throat, his knee pressing into the man's spine, pinning him with precise, ruthless pressure. The man thrashed against him, but it was the panic of someone untrained, a scramble without focus, drowning in pain.
Theo leaned in, voice low and rough, breath grazing the man's ear. "Who sent you?"
The sound the man made wasn't an answer. It wasn't even coherent. Just fear, leaking out through his teeth.
Theo didn't loosen his grip. He shifted his weight again, driving his knee harder into the small of the man's back, tightening his forearm around his throat, enough to stop blood but not breath. He didn't want him unconscious. Not yet. He wanted him to feel this. To understand exactly how close he was to ending.
"Who sent you?" he asked again, quieter now, quieter and worse for it.
Still nothing. No name, no plea, no bargain. Just ragged breath and the sharp, bitter stink of fear turning sour.
Theo didn't ask a third time.
He moved fast. Hooked one arm under the man's chin, the other behind the base of his skull, and wrenched. The sound was clean and final.
The silence that followed was brief, heavy. There were more. He could feel it. The house could feel it too, its walls humming low around him, as if recognizing him for what he was now. Not a guest. Not a guardian.
A weapon.
The broken body slid down the wall, leaving a smear of blood against the stone, a grim signature on the morning. Theo stepped back, breath steady but sharp, gaze already scanning, already searching. The house seemed to exhale around him, wards flickering with an awareness that hadn't been there before.
He knew they would come again.
But now the house knew what he was capable of.
And so did the floor beneath him, warm now with blood, catching the light in uneven streaks among the scattered glass.
The grunt that tore from the attacker's throat was sharp and choked, the startled sound of a man realizing too late that he might not walk out of this alive. It echoed for just a heartbeat, almost enough for Theo to think it was done, almost enough for him to believe that this moment was about to end cleanly. But then, woven beneath that dying sound, quiet and deliberate, came something else. A shift of weight on wood. A footfall that didn't belong.
Not rushed. Not careless. Intentional.
Theo turned fast, fast enough to catch the gleam of a wand, the ripple in the air as a spell left it, silent, deadly. The third intruder hadn't stumbled in like the others. He had waited, patient and clever, a predator crouched in shadows. When he struck, he struck clean.
The spell hit Theo's shoulder like a lash of fire, not forceful but searing, immediate, slicing down his right side and setting his nerves alight. His wand arm faltered. His balance wavered.
But he didn't fall.
He dropped, fast and low, controlled, his body flattening to the floor, moving on instinct more than thought, pulling himself out of the direct line of fire even as pain clawed through him. His breath hissed between his teeth but his training held. His mind narrowed to the essential.
His wand snapped up and he fired a curse without aiming, sending it into the space where the caster should be, low and fast, nonverbal, sharp with fury. He heard it hit.
The sound was immediate. A body meeting a wall too quickly. The crunch of bone. The thud of flesh. A grunt that was louder than anything the others had managed. Then a fall. Something cracked. Something splintered.
But the silence that followed wasn't true silence. Not yet.
There was a whistle, high and shrill, absurdly domestic. The kettle. From the kitchen. Theo rose slowly, pushing himself upright with his good arm, his breath ragged, his shoulder a blaze of agony with every movement.
His wand stayed tight in his grip, slick with sweat and blood. The sleeve of his shirt was dark now, soaked through with a patch of crimson that dripped steadily from his elbow. He didn't bother looking at it. He didn't need to. His focus stayed on the wreckage around him.
The first intruder, the one he had slammed into the wall, sat slumped and unconscious against splintered wood. Blood trailed from his mouth, one arm twisted beneath him at an angle that promised he wouldn't be casting anything for a long time.
The second man, the one who had come through the window, still clung to life, barely. He lay curled on the floor of the next room, wheezing with every breath, his ribs clearly broken. His hand was pressed tightly to his wrist like pressure alone could mend the damage Theo had done.
And the third, sprawled half in shadow, was the worst of them. He twitched, limbs shaking as he tried and failed to crawl away. His groans were thick with pain, with panic. One leg dragged uselessly behind him. His wand was gone. His hood had slipped, revealing a pale face streaked with blood running from his nose and mouth in twin, wet lines.
Theo moved toward him, slowly now, each step deliberate. Not because he was savoring it. Not because it pleased him. But because there was no urgency anymore. And because pain, when accepted, slowed everything down and made time itself feel heavy and pliable.
The man lifted his face and met Theo's gaze, eyes wide, rimmed with disbelief and terror, as if he had thought this job would be simple, profitable, quick. As if he had never imagined he would face someone like Theo.
He tried to speak. Theo didn't give him the chance. He grabbed the man by the collar and dragged him hard across the floor. The body scraped loudly, limbs flopping behind him like something already discarded. Theo didn't care. He pulled him through the corridor without hesitation, leaving a thin smear of blood behind them on the stone.
The man's fingers scrabbled against the walls, against the doorframes, desperate to slow the pull. His nails scraped uselessly over warded wood, leaving only faint scratches and streaks of blood.
And then they were in the kitchen. The kettle kept whistling. Luna stood at the stove. She hadn't moved. Theo dropped the man onto the floor like discarded rubbish, his body landing with a wet, heavy thud that cut short the cry rising in his throat.
Luna didn't flinch. Not when the body hit the tile like a sack of broken stone, not when the blood began to spread in slow, gleaming arcs across the floor, not even when the entire room seemed to contract under the weight of violence.
She stayed exactly where she had been, hands steady as she poured boiling water into two mismatched cups, steam rising in soft curls around her face, the kettle set aside with care. Her robe still hung loose at the shoulders, a pale linen thing slipping farther out of place, one thin strap trailing halfway down her arm, baring the long line of her collarbone and the soft curve of her neck where the ends of her hair clung, damp and curling.
Her braid had come undone completely, strands falling freely in every direction. She didn't look like a woman who had just watched a man dragged in bleeding and broken. She looked like someone who had spent the morning tending to the soil and listening to something older than time itself.
She turned her head slightly, just enough to glance toward the heap of man and sweat and magic crumpled at her feet, and her voice was so calm it softened the edges of the room. "Is that the last one?"
Theo gave a tight nod, jaw clenched so hard it ached, the blood on his knuckles dripping steadily onto the tile, the rhythm of it almost matching the slow ticking of the clock above the stove. The man on the floor shifted, slow and deliberate, testing his limbs, testing Theo, half-clinging to whatever arrogance had convinced him this would go differently.
"Do you want milk?" Luna asked softly, as if she had only just noticed the tea might need it.
Theo didn't answer. He lowered himself slowly, knees stiff, back tight, his body humming with restraint. The man twitched suddenly, reaching toward something tucked beneath the folds of his cloak—a knife or a charm or maybe something worse—but Theo moved faster. He caught the wrist mid-reach and twisted hard, the joint breaking in his grip with a sharp, ugly snap.
The man gasped, a ragged, desperate sound, but Theo was already shifting his weight. He dragged the arm behind the man's back, pinning it there, his knee pressing hard between the shoulder blades until the spine bowed under the strain. The man screamed then, loud and ugly, a sound that bounced off the cupboards and filled the kitchen.
Luna stirred her tea, the quiet clink of silver on porcelain delicate and absurd in the charged air.
Theo stayed silent until his hand found the man's throat, fingers closing just tight enough to crush but not silence, the grip precise, brutal, a perfect calibration of pain and restraint. He leaned in, close enough that his breath brushed the man's ear, his voice low, smooth, cold. "Why are you here?"
The man choked, flailed, fingers scraping uselessly across the blood-slick tile. His broken hand twitched at nothing, hunting for purchase. Theo didn't ease up. His thumb shifted, pressing into the windpipe, pinning him exactly at the edge of collapse. The man's legs kicked weakly behind him, spasms without control.
"I asked you a question," Theo murmured again, softer, almost gentle, the words curling slow and heavy into the air between them.
Still no answer. Just gasps and fear and the unmistakable weight of defeat.
Theo's grip tightened.
He felt the cartilage start to buckle, the man's throat softening beneath his palm. The man's hands clawed at his wrist, nails dragging shallow, burning lines into his skin, but Theo didn't flinch. He would stop when he chose, and not a second before.
Luna set a teacup beside him, the ceramic touching down with a faint click that somehow seemed louder than the man's gasping. "Careful," she said lightly, voice calm as still water. "You'll bruise your knuckles."
Theo looked up at her, just for a moment, and something shifted in the air. The whole room seemed to hold its breath. Her gaze was distant but deep, watching him with that unsettling way she had, as if she wasn't seeing just this moment, but all the moments tangled together. He felt raw under it, scraped open and exposed, as though she saw not only what he was doing, but every reason behind it, all the things he'd never admit even to himself.
He dropped his gaze before the feeling could take root. Looked down at the man beneath him, this intruder who had brought blood into a house that mattered, who had stepped into this space thinking it could be taken. The man's breath hitched, catching hard in his throat, rattling like wind through broken glass.
And Theo squeezed, measured and final, a movement made not in rage but in certainty. The man's body jolted once, a sharp sound rising in the back of his throat and then fading completely. Just stillness after that. The kind of stillness that sat heavy in the air, thicker than steam, thick enough to feel.
And he ended it.
Theo stood slowly, rising as if from a grave, his muscles aching from the strain, blood slicking his hands and soaking the torn edge of his sleeve, his whole body thrumming with the aftershocks of violence and the distant, familiar echo of guilt that never arrived fast enough to stop him.
Luna handed him the tea with a gentleness that felt like sacrilege, her fingers brushing his with a calm so complete it felt orchestrated, like a ritual, like something ceremonial rather than casual.
She didn't look at the corpse on the floor, didn't even glance down, as if death in her kitchen was just another variable in the alchemical equation of their lives, as if the blood pooling near her bare feet was less important than the warmth of the cup she placed in his palm.
"You smell even more like iron now," she said, her voice soft but laced with something more pointed, a glimmer of amusement or maybe reverence or maybe something older than either, and then she smiled, not wide, not bright, but full of knowledge, the kind of smile that came from seeing things no one else would dare claim.
Theo took the cup because there was nothing else to do, because his fingers had already closed around the handle before he realized he was moving, because the weight of the porcelain was suddenly the only thing anchoring him to the moment, and though he held it tightly, with both hands wrapped around its smooth surface, his hands still trembled, the tremor small but steady, as if something inside him had finally cracked open and let the shaking begin.
She moved with the same quiet precision she brought to everything else, her presence a hush rather than a disruption, and when she returned to him it was not with distance or hesitance but with a cloth in her hand, damp and warm and faintly scented with rosemary and salt, the kind of cloth one might use to ease a fever or wash the sweat from a fevered child, and without a word she knelt beside him and began to clean the blood from his fingers, each movement slow and deliberate, wrapping the cloth around each joint with a tenderness that had no place in the aftermath of violence, but which he allowed anyway, without resistance, because somehow it didn't feel like softness, it felt like truth.
Her fingers were cool where his were hot, and he watched in a strange silence as the water lifted the red from his skin, the cloth darkening with it, the water smearing before it cleaned. He didn't look at her face. Not yet. He only spoke when the trembling had stilled enough to form words.
"Are you alright?" he asked, his voice low, roughened at the edges by what had passed, by what still buzzed beneath his skin like static.
She looked up then, her eyes catching the light in a way that made them momentarily too bright, and smiled with a serenity that seemed impossible to hold after what she'd just watched him do. "Absolutely. Thank you."
He shook his head slightly, the corner of his mouth twitching with something like disbelief. "I'm just doing my job."
She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his forehead. It wasn't lingering, wasn't ceremonial, just the soft brush of her lips against his sweat-damp skin. But it landed like a blow, more jarring than the pain in his arm, more disarming than the blood drying on his clothes. When she pulled back she was already moving, already turning toward the shelf where she kept her potions. Her voice followed, quiet and steady. "I'll bring the calming draught."
He didn't answer. He stayed where he was, back pressed to the cabinet, hand resting heavy on his thigh, tea cooling beside him and forgotten. The adrenaline still hummed hot and irrational through his veins. His pulse pounded everywhere — in his throat, at his temple, in his wrist, behind his eyes. Then deeper, lower, spreading into heat that twisted low in his gut and made him clench his jaw, made him shift against the cold tile because, inexplicably, horrifyingly, he was hard.
It made no sense. This had never happened before, not after combat, not after clean kills, not even after the messiest nights. And it wasn't about the blood, not really. He didn't think it was the control either, though that always carried its own dark satisfaction. It might have been the kiss. Or maybe the way she had thanked him. Or the way she touched him like he wasn't dangerous. Or maybe it was all of it tangled together, too much, too fast, too close.
He couldn't think about it. Not now. Not with her steps retreating softly across the tile. Not with his breath still coming too fast and shallow. Not with the kitchen still heavy with the scent of citrus and iron and her.
~~~
He had just begun to settle into something resembling rest, the sheets pulled across his chest, the room dim and warm with the quiet hum of protective wards pulsing along the baseboards, when the door burst open in that infuriatingly casual way that had become far too common in recent weeks. No knock, no hesitation, just Luna stepping over the threshold like it belonged to her, which it did, technically, with Sol cradled in her arms like a diplomatic offering. The tiny creature blinked at him with round, accusing eyes.
Theo sat up with a sigh, already regretting the fragile illusion of quiet he had tried to build for himself. His shoulder still ached, his nerves still raw from the day's violence, and he rubbed a hand down his face as she crossed to the foot of his bed with the confidence of someone who had never once been told no.
"You should knock," he muttered, voice low, the words sliding out on a breath too tired to carry the bite he wanted.
She looked at him, completely unbothered, adjusting Sol in her arms like a mother presenting a child for introduction. "They need to bond, remember?" she said, as if that were not only a valid reason to invade his room but also the most pressing issue they faced.
Theo stared at her, frustration rising behind his ribs like smoke. When he finally spoke, his words were sharp. "Lovegood. Someone tried to kill you today. Actually, several people tried to kill you. There's blood on the kitchen floor, I have bruises on my spine, and you're walking around carrying guinea pigs like this house isn't still echoing with the sound of breaking bones. How can you be so calm? How can you be thinking about the fucking guinea pigs?"
She blinked at him, undisturbed, and lowered Sol into the little cloth-lined basket beside Artemis, who gave a single approving squeak before curling protectively around the newcomer.
"They are social creatures," Luna said, her tone light and matter-of-fact, as if explaining a basic law of nature to a stubborn student. "They need to be friends."
He rubbed both hands down his face this time, groaning into his palms. Then he looked at her again, jaw tight, pulse still uneven. "Are you intentionally ignoring my question?"
She turned to the door, entirely serene, and gave him one of those strange, soft smiles that always seemed to hold half the universe.
"Absolutely," she said, and left him sitting there with a throbbing shoulder, a head full of questions, and two increasingly co-dependent guinea pigs now cohabiting at the foot of his bed.
He stared down at the tiny creature curled in the woven nest at the foot of his bed, her whiskers twitching, her small body pressed close against Artemis like they had known each other forever, as if this moment had always been inevitable. Theo exhaled slowly, the sound heavy with resignation, the long-suffering patience of a man who knew he had lost control of his life a while ago and was now merely along for the ride.
He jabbed a finger toward Sol, as solemn as a man delivering a verdict, his voice flat and dry with disbelief. "That one," he muttered, tone dripping with deadpan venom, "is completely mental."
Sol blinked up at him, unbothered.
He gestured again, slower this time, as if making sure the accusation landed properly. "Your mum," he continued, his words carrying the weight of someone revealing a terrible secret, "is absolutely insane. You live in a madhouse and she's the queen of it."
For a moment, the cottage felt like it might be listening, holding its breath.
And then from somewhere deep in the house, distant but unmistakably clear, Luna's voice rang out, full of bright amusement rather than any real offense. "I heard that!" she called, her words drifting through the walls like a breeze carrying laughter and mischief in equal measure.
Theo groaned, dropping his head back onto the pillows, rubbing a hand over his face. "Of course you did," he muttered, barely loud enough for himself to hear.
Sol let out a tiny, squeaky sound, a noise that might have been agreement or judgment, and Theo sighed again, closing his eyes, utterly defeated.
~~~
The first body was heavier than he expected, not just in weight but in that strange way the dead became heavier when stripped of breath and resistance, when motion was gone and all that remained was absence. Theo, who had moved bodies before, who understood the difference between stunned and emptied, still felt something about this particular weight gnaw at him in a way he couldn't explain.
He dragged it by the shoulders, not gently and not with haste, his boots rasping against the warped old floorboards with every pull. The friction was loud, too loud in the hush that had settled over the house, the scrape of wood and leather mixing with the wet drag of blood tracing behind him in thin, broken lines, like a name signed over and over by an unsteady hand.
The hood had slipped somewhere between the struggle and the fall. The face now stared upward, pale and open-mouthed, lips parted as if trying to speak one last word that would never arrive. The eyes were wide too, blank and glassy, but Theo didn't look away. He didn't reach to close them. He didn't give this man even that final mercy.
He kept going, step by measured step, shallow breaths pulling tight in his chest, as the house watched in silence and the floor remembered.
Outside, the garden sat steeped in a quiet that didn't belong to twilight or dawn, not a pause between breezes or the hush before birdsong, but something deeper, older, a silence that felt pressed into the soil itself. It clung to every blade of grass and heavy leaf like a warning, like a spell waiting to be spoken, like the hush that falls in ancient woods before something sharp and hungry begins to move.
Mist curled low along the ground in long, deliberate coils, heavy with the scent of rot waiting to bloom. It wrapped itself around hedgerows and tangled herbs like smoke from a fire that hadn't started. The air hung dense, damp with copper and salt, charged with magic that waited in the soil, heavy and patient, unwilling yet to rise.
Luna stood at the center of it all, barefoot in the tall grass that licked at her ankles. She looked as though she had always belonged there, her sleeves rolled to her elbows, forearms streaked with something darker than soil, fingers painted with patterns that made Theo's teeth ache when he tried too hard to understand them. She didn't turn when he arrived. She didn't have to.
She raised one hand instead, her gesture small and precise, toward the wide circle she had begun tracing into the wet ground. Salt lined its edges in a careful ring too fine to scatter, sprigs of clover marking its compass points, and some gray powder dusted between them that shimmered faintly in the mist. Theo could not name it but felt it settle against his skin with a pull that went all the way down to his bones.
"It won't work here," she said, her voice quiet but absolute. It cut through the thick air like a bell's echo heard underwater. She didn't glance up from the salt line, didn't pause her work. "The house doesn't like smoke."
Theo stopped at the edge of the garden path where the stone gave way to grass. One boot rested on either side, his breath misting faintly in front of his face as he looked down at the body in his grasp. The weight of it suddenly felt heavier, more intrusive. Blood had dried in the creases of his gloved fingers where they clenched the collar. He blinked slowly and asked, voice low and sharp, every word edged with tension, "What do you mean, it doesn't like smoke?"
She leaned forward, smoothing the salt with her fingers, the movement gentle, reverent, like she was correcting a prayer. "Smoke is too loud," she replied, calm as if reciting a natural law. "Too final. It pushes things into the air that don't want to leave. Pain. Memory. Flame opens doors better left closed. The house prefers offerings."
"Offerings," he echoed, flat and brittle, the word sharp against his tongue. He felt it all the way down his spine, something dense and old stirring in its sound. "Offerings to what?"
Still, she did not look up. Her voice stayed steady, quiet but steady enough to sink deep. "To itself. To whatever lets us stay."
Theo watched her for a long moment, saying nothing. The cold wind pressed softly against the back of his neck, carrying with it a warning he couldn't articulate. Beneath his boots, the ground pulsed faintly, alive but holding its breath, as if the garden itself had paused to listen. The air seemed to thicken around him. Nothing moved but her fingers smoothing the salt. He didn't question again. He turned, the body dragging limply behind him, and walked back toward the house.
The second body waited in the hall, crumpled at the base of the stairs. His eyes were still open, his face slack, as though the question he had tried to ask was still caught in his throat, unfinished, silenced before Theo's work was done. Theo bent and gathered the corpse by the arms, dragging it across the floor without looking back at the dark streak left behind. The house stayed silent. The wards did not stir. Not a single floorboard gave a whisper of complaint. No blood rose in protest.
When Theo stepped into the garden again, Luna had finished the circle. It was larger now, sprawling in a shape that looked almost alive, its etched lines glowing in a slow, amber rhythm. The symbols breathed with a quiet intelligence, ancient and watchful.
At the center of it all sat a stone bowl, old enough to look timeless. The surface was rough and cracked, like a dry riverbed that had not known water in an age, but inside, it was worn smooth, polished by time and countless rituals. The hollow of the basin cradled something that gleamed darkly. Whatever rested there was too fluid to be blood, too heavy to be water, glimmering beneath the moonlight with a strange, oily sheen that caught both the mist and the shadows. It seemed to drink in the night sky itself.
And it pulsed. Softly, steadily, like a breath drawn in and out, or the memory of a heartbeat that refused to die.
Theo looked at it for only a moment. The sight stirred something deep in the back of his mind, something he didn't want to name, didn't want to let surface. He tore his gaze away, jaw clenched, heart pounding harder than it had during the fight. He didn't ask what it was. He didn't want to know.
Luna turned toward him then. She brushed her hands down the front of her robes, streaks of earth and bone dust smearing across the fabric as if it didn't matter. Her expression was unreadable, as always, but something in her stillness carried a quiet purpose.
"Can I help you bury them?" she asked. Her voice was soft, but not fragile. It felt like she was offering to lay a table or pour a kettle, not speak over death.
Theo snorted, the sound bitter as it scraped his throat. He shifted the shovel against his shoulder, blood crusted under his nails and sweat cooling at the back of his neck.
"You'll get hurt," he muttered. "I'll do it myself."
She didn't flinch. She didn't soften or retreat or even seem the least bit moved by the warning.
"I've done this before, Theodore," she said, calm as stone. "I'll be fine."
His mouth tightened, his jaw aching as he stared at her, the words spilling out before he could catch them.
"How many corpses are buried in this fucked-up garden?"
She turned her head, gaze drifting toward the hedgerow where the mist curled thick around the tallest herbs. Her voice stayed steady.
"Too many to count."
Theo dragged a hand down his face, an exhale sharp between his teeth.
"Lovely," he muttered. "What is wrong with you, honestly?"
She smiled then.The kind of smile given in confession rather than pride.
"Too many things," she murmured. "At least that's what the healer says."
He rolled his eyes, tension heavy in his shoulders.
"The healer is correct."
She gave a serene nod.
"You are welcome to leave."
But he didn't move. Not because he wanted to stay, not really. Something in the earth still felt like it was breathing, slow and ancient and patient. And somehow, she was the only thing here that made any sense at all.
~~~
The smell reached him first. Cinnamon drifting through the air, soft and warm, curling around the briny sharpness of sea salt. Sweetness layered over something strange. It felt like two seasons colliding in the same pot.
Theo hesitated in the doorway, shoulders tight, one hand resting near his wand. He watched her as she moved barefoot across the tiled floor. The hem of her skirt skimmed her ankles. Her hair was pinned loosely, held by a single ink-stained quill that bobbed as she stepped. She didn't look at him. She never needed to.
She stirred the pot with careful, deliberate movements. Steam rose and caught the light, curling upward in pale, shifting spirals. The table was already set. Two mismatched plates. A beeswax candle burning low in the center. A small bowl of herbs beside a ceramic dish that looked old enough to have been stolen from a cathedral long ago.
She hummed as she worked. Not a song. Just a soft, tuneless murmur, the sound of someone not concerned with being heard.
Theo stayed where he was, unsure what this was meant to be. A peace offering or a test. The house had been quiet for hours, a silence that had weight, that settled into the walls.
At last he sat, because he had nowhere else to go. The chair creaked under him, and he hated that it did.
Luna moved with the same quiet certainty she always carried. It felt as though even the floor recognized her footsteps, as if the cupboards themselves breathed along with her. She ladled something thick and golden into a bowl, set it before him without a word, then turned back to the stove.
That was when he saw it.
Above the fireplace, etched into the black stone mantle, a rune began to glow. Thin and delicate, it pulsed slowly with amber light.
It flickered once. Then again.
Theo's whole body went still, breath caught tight in his chest.
A moment later, a dark stain began to bloom across the far wall. Slow and certain. Red seeping through cracked plaster like ivy curling toward the sun.
Behind him, in the corner of the room, a mirror cracked. The sound was sharp, sudden, and deliberate.
His wand was in his hand before the echo of the crack had even faded.
Luna didn't flinch. She didn't glance at the mirror. She didn't hesitate as she plated the final spoonful of something dark and fragrant onto her dish. Then she turned toward the table, her movements unhurried.
"Ignore it," she said, as if she were mentioning the weather. "The house likes to sulk."
Theo didn't lower his wand right away. His eyes swept the room, taking in the glowing sigil, the stain on the wall, the mirror cracked clean through. Nothing moved. Nothing shifted. Even the pulse of light had gone still.
At last, he set the wand on the table, close to his right hand, and drew in a careful breath. The food smelled almost intoxicating, warm and rich, curling around the tension that sat heavy in his chest.
They ate without speaking for several minutes. The only sounds were the soft clink of cutlery against ceramic, the quiet hiss of something caramelizing in the kitchen, and the slow drip of blood still winding its way down the cracked plaster. Theo chewed carefully, every muscle in his jaw tight, every bite measured and deliberate, as if speaking would break something fragile in the room.
Halfway through the meal, Luna rested her chin in her palm and watched him over the rim of her glass. Her expression was impossible to read.
"You chew like someone who's been interrogated for dinner," she said finally, voice light, amusement threading through her tone.
He didn't look at her right away. When he did, his eyes were cool, guarded.
"You cook like someone who learned from a ghost."
Her smile at that was slow, secretive, almost soft.
"I did."
The candle between them flared suddenly, not with grace but with a violent hiss. Its flame snapped high and jagged for an instant, casting a sharp, slashing shadow across the table before it settled again. From the far corner of the room came another sharp crack. The mirror splintered further, another fracture spreading like a slow wound through the glass.
Theo's grip on his fork tightened, his jaw locking as he forced himself to stay still.
"Why is the house sulking?" he asked, voice low, sharpened to a point, his gaze fixed on her as if he were interrogating her across an invisible line. "I protected its queen."
Luna did not blink. She lifted her glass and took a slow sip, her calm almost maddening. When she set the glass down, her voice was steady.
"It doesn't like blood. And it especially doesn't like disrespect."
Theo's fist came down hard on the table, rattling the plates and sending the candle rocking violently in its holder.
"I saved your fucking life," he snapped, his words crashing against the stone walls, loud enough to feel like a curse.
A mug flew at him without warning, spinning fast and sharp, and he barely ducked in time. It shattered against the wall behind him, shards scattering across the floor like angry little teeth.
Luna didn't rise. She didn't even flinch. She just sat there, staring at him with a gaze so cold, so quietly pointed, it hit harder than any spell he had ever felt. If looks could kill, he'd already be buried under the garden with the rest of them.
"Apologize," she said, the word low and flat, not a request but a command. There was something ancient curled into the edges of it.
Theo let out a bitter laugh, dragging a hand roughly through his hair, fingers catching, like that gesture was the only thing keeping him grounded.
"You must be a fucking Dom in your private life, Lovegood," he snapped, his voice sharp and mean, full of venom he barely had the energy to spit. "It's not my style."
She leaned back slightly. The candlelight caught her face, a flicker dancing in her eyes.
"Your style?" she repeated, soft, almost gentle, but laced with something that felt like pity. "You mean raw-dogging whores in Knockturn Alley? Or getting your cock sucked behind a pub for fifty galleons?"
His entire body went still.
"Don't test your luck," he warned. But it was hollow. Weak. The words fell flat the second they left his mouth.
She tilted her head. "Am I not correct?"
He couldn't answer. He didn't even try. He just stood there, jaw clenched so tight it ached, shoulders locked, while shame burned hot under his skin because every word she had said was true. And they both knew it.
The mirror cracked again. A new fracture, sharp and deliberate, splitting its reflection even further.
The candle guttered. Its flame trembled before finding balance again.
~~~
She entered his room without knocking, as always. Her bare feet made a soft whisper against the wood as the door swung open, easy and careless, with all the breezy entitlement of someone who had never been taught boundaries and wouldn't have cared for them even if she had.
Theo sat up in bed, a book open across his lap. He was already scowling by the time she reached the center of the room, her silhouette framed in dim light like a shadow that had come alive, utterly unaware of personal space.
"Lovegood," he said, voice clipped, patience worn thin. "Privacy."
She tilted her head, as if the word itself was foreign, as if it didn't quite translate into her language. Her expression was wide-eyed and innocent, maddeningly unaffected.
"You masturbate in the shower," she said, matter-of-fact, like she was commenting on the weather. "So I think I'm entitled to enter your room occasionally. That seems like a fair exchange."
Theo nearly dropped the book. His whole body snapped upright, spine rigid, a flush rushing to his face so fast it burned.
"No," he said, his voice strained and sharp, tight as a hex he was struggling to hold back. "That is enough. Get out."
She blinked at him, unbothered. She seemed to take the escalation in his tone as nothing more than another sound the house might make on a quiet night.
"But they need to say goodnight to each other," she said calmly, lifting a small woven basket into view.
Inside, Artemis and Sol, the two guinea pigs, nestled together, tiny and serene, like twin gods waiting for their nightly ritual.
Theo ran a hand down his face, breathing in deeply like he was trying to keep from exploding. "No," he said again, each syllable carved with disbelief. "They do not. They will manage one bloody night without saying goodnight. Get. Out."
She turned on her heel with the theatrical flair of a stage actress exiting after a monologue, her long braid swinging behind her like punctuation, and swept out of the room with a huff so exaggerated it might have knocked over the candle beside his bed.
He exhaled into the silence, teeth gritted, and muttered under his breath, "Fucking lunatic."
But the house was always on her side. He couldn't deny it anymore. It wasn't just suspicion, wasn't paranoia creeping at the edges. It was fact. The house had chosen her, maybe long before Theo ever crossed the threshold. Maybe before he had even agreed to this ridiculous assignment. Before he understood what it meant to live among things that breathed without lungs and watched without eyes.
And just as his body had finally begun to give in, just as he had almost drifted off, as his breath had settled and the tightness in his shoulders had started to loosen, the house whispered.
"Apologize."
It wasn't a voice like Luna's, soft and lilting, nor like anything he had ever heard in waking hours. It came from everywhere. From the walls, from the grain of the bedframe, from the space between the floorboards and the silence itself. Not a sound, exactly. It pressed straight into the center of his spine.
Theo shot upright. His pulse thundered in his chest as he stared out into the dark, suddenly sure the shadows had grown teeth. He dragged both hands down his face, twice, rubbing hard, telling himself he was dreaming, hallucinating, slipping into one of those delusions Luna always insisted were simply doors opening.
But then it came again.
"Apologize."
It didn't sound angry. It didn't even sound disappointed. But it carried weight. Consequence. Inevitability.
Theo got up slowly, muttering under his breath, pulling on a jumper as if armor would help, and scooped Artemis into his arms. The little guinea pig wriggled against his chest, soft and warm, as though even she understood the quiet gravity of this reluctant midnight pilgrimage.
The hallway felt cold. The wards pulsed faintly along the walls, like veins beneath skin, alive and steady. As he reached her door, he paused. Just for a moment. His hand lifted to knock.
But he never got the chance.
The door creaked open by itself, just wide enough to let him in, as though the house had grown tired of waiting.
She was already sitting up in bed. Legs crossed under her. Her nightdress rumpled, sleeves pushed high on her arms. Sol was tucked into the crook of one elbow, and her free hand stroked his fur in slow, absentminded motions.
She was crying.
These weren't loud, wracking sobs, not the kind that demanded to be seen. They were quiet. The kind that slid silently down cheeks and gathered in the hollow of a throat. The kind that belonged to long hours spent pretending you didn't need anything at all.
She didn't look at him. Not when the door creaked open. Not when his footsteps crossed the threshold. Not even when he stopped in front of her like a man arriving at an altar.
He knelt beside the bed. Gently, carefully, he set Artemis in her lap.
"I... I'm sorry," he said. His voice was rough, low, unused to softness. It cracked around the edges. "I understand that they're important to you."
She sniffed. Her hand kept stroking Sol's back, steady and automatic, but she didn't loosen her hold.
"They need to be friends," she whispered. Her voice broke and sharpened all at once. "They must be friends. And you are ruining it every fucking day."
Theo blinked. The ferocity surprised him, but more than that, the desperation underneath caught him off guard. And then it clicked, all at once.
It had never really been about Artemis or Sol. Not exactly.
This whole strange routine, all of it was scaffolding. Her way of trying. Her way of reaching out with those soft, strange hands of hers, building something fragile and precious that might last. She was doing her best. In her loony, beautiful, infuriating way, she was doing her best to belong.
He sat on the edge of the bed, careful not to come too close, and cleared his throat quietly.
"How old is Sol?" he asked. "How did you get him?"
She rubbed at her face with the back of her sleeve and glanced down at the two guinea pigs curled together like a yin and yang drawn in fur.
"I think it's a him," she murmured. "I'm not sure. I got him because I thought Artemis had no friends. She was lonely. Miserable. She stopped eating her hay cubes and refused the dandelion leaves. I thought... maybe she needed a companion."
Theo nodded slowly. "She did. She needed someone." He paused, then added gently, "That was kind of you. Thank you for that. I think... I think they enjoy each other's company, don't they?"
Luna watched as Sol nudged his head under Artemis' chin, the two of them breathing together in perfect rhythm.
"Sol definitely does," she murmured.
Theo hesitated. His hand hovered near her shoulder for a moment before he pulled it back, but his voice softened even more.
"Artemis too, darling. Don't worry. They're friends. Yeah?"
Luna wiped another tear from her cheek and smiled, small and tired. The kind of smile that lived in the quiet after storms.
"I think so," she whispered.
And then there was only silence, soft and shared.
Just the four of them in the room.
Artemis and Sol. Sun and Moon . Theo and Luna.