Chapter Text
The first time I discover what is concealed beneath a boy's clothes is late into the spring of my Fourth Year. And it's an accident, too.
I'm skipping to the Slytherin common room with exciting news for my brother. The halls are nearly always empty this time of year—everyone enjoying the spring air or cramming in the library for exams—and so my skipping footsteps echo across the stone. I love that sound. It makes this castle feel extra big.
I don't hesitate to step into the Slytherin common room, even though they're strict about who they let in. As a Hufflepuff, I shouldn't be allowed, but being Draco Malfoy's twin sister had its perks. The room is empty. Luckily, I know where his dorm is located and have no problem running through the halls to reach it.
My heart is pounding wildly, madly. My parents had just sent me a letter that morning. It isn't often that I hear from them, so any mail is a pleasant surprise, but their news is even more unexpected. We're going to spend the summer in Italy! The!! Whole!!! Summer!!!! We'll be dining at coastal Michelin-star restaurants, yachting on the Tyrrhenian Sea, visiting the Italian Ministry of Magic. My father has been sent there for work, and Draco and I are due to leave school a week early to go with him and our mother. If I'm lucky, maybe I'll even get to see some merpeople.
Later, when the years have passed like flipping pages through a book, I'll look back on that summer vacation as the catalyst for my interest in magical creatures. There's nothing like witnessing the beauty of Rome firsthand to make you fall in love with magic itself. Because if it isn't for that trip, I'll never spot the first glimpse of powerful hippogriffs, or the terrifying dragons—or the thestrals.
Draco's dorm is unlocked. I step inside just as I call out his name—and freeze. There is one boy in here, but it isn't my brother.
And he isn't exactly clothed.
Form-fitting underwear outlines his faintly muscled legs, but he wears nothing else. Long limbs, the barest definition of muscle—a boy's body, stretching towards the fate of becoming a man. His skin is pale and... I'd never seen so much of it before. Skin. And muscle. And freckles. Not on anyone. Not like this.
He looks over his shoulder when the door opens. Neither one of us move, suspended in a moment of shock. A momentary staring contest.
"I-I'm so sorry, I'm just looking for my brother—" I slam the door shut and hurry back to the common room.
Voices bounce off the walls of the dungeon common room, and I feel strangely guilty, like I've done something wrong, like what I did was mean. Several boys enter the room, the source of the voices. It's the Slytherin quidditch team. They've returned from their daily practice.
I spot Draco and pull him away from his teammates. He frowns at the look on my face. "Ella? What are you doing here?"
"I was looking for you, but I walked in on a boy in your room—" I can't meet his gaze.
Draco crosses his arms. My nose wrinkles, his sweat and dirt-caked uniform finally hitting me. He needs a shower—bad. "Mattheo?" he guesses, listing off his dormmates. "Or Enzo?"
I shake my head. "No, I didn't recognize this one."
Enzo is our distant cousin, but when school began, he clung to Draco and his group of friends quicker than he'd latched onto me. Still, I'd know him anywhere.
Mattheo Riddle is no stranger to me, either.
"He was..." I had been so focused on trying not to picture the boy's body that I struggled to find words to describe him. "Tall. Thin, but strong. Probably on the quidditch team. Black hair..." My voice trails off, a realization halting my speech. I like talking about him, I realize. Like it the way I will soon come to like talking about magical creatures.
Draco sniffs and gives his teammates a dirty look, like the stench is only coming from them. He doesn't seem to be listening. Draco grabs me by the elbow and steers me towards his dorm room.
I tense, anticipating the slow movement of his door opening, but when he drags us inside, the strange boy is now dressed in simple dark blue jeans and a Slytherin sweatshirt. He lounges on his bed, shifting through his charms textbook. Completely clothed. He looks up at Draco and me and smiles. It's a friendly look, no hint of hesitancy or embarrassment or disdain, and I wonder if he's already forgotten about our awkward encounter.
"Hey, Nott." Draco nods to the boy before slumping onto his own bed. His tone is casual, distant. Clearly Draco doesn't spend a lot of time with this boy.
"Hey, Malfoy," the boy replies, voice thick with a European accent. His eyes—blue, like the Ravenclaw banner—follow me as I settle on the edge of my brother's bed. He looks between us once, and then reveals a small smile. It lightens his eyes, sharpens the lines of his cheeks, and I look away quickly. "This your twin sister?"
"Yeah." Distractedly, Draco introduces us. "Elastra, Theodore Nott. Theodore, Elastra."
I glare at him, but there's no heat behind it. "I don't like that name."
He begins to take off his Quidditch gloves, only half-interested in the conversation. "It's your given name, Elastra, the first gift our loving parents ever gave us—" Something is bothering him. I can sense his foul moods as clearly as my own, even if I don't always understand the cause.
But Theodore speaks up before I can ask about it. "What do you like to be called?" he asks me. I like the sound of his accent. He makes all the boring words sound new.
I turn back to him. "Ella." I smile.
"El—what do you want? Why did you track me down?" Half stripped of his uniform, Draco finally focuses on me, but I get the feeling it's more so because he wants me to stop talking to his friend.
Theodore's eyes jump from me to Draco like he's following a tennis match. His smile grows with amusement.
My face burns, skin itching, and I turn to fully face my brother, putting my back to the other boy. I tell Draco, "We're going to Italy this summer. Mother and Father wrote to me this morning about it. Isn't that so exciting?"
Draco opens his mouth but stops himself. He examines me carefully before smiling. It's gentle, and I know if I were anyone else, he would not be appeasing me. But he's always appreciated my excitement about things. Rose-tinted glasses, he always says. Tell me where I can buy a pair.
"Yeah," he finally says. "That's... exciting."
"Why aren't you jumping up and down? It's Italy, Merlin!" The nickname slips out, the one I only use when I'm too excited to contain myself, the one he asked me to stop using in front of people when we were First Years.
He doesn't get mad, though. He just laughs, matching my joy. "Yeah, it'll be fun. Can't wait."
My excitement fades into dust. "Do you not want to go to Europe?" And then another thought occurs. "You already knew?"
He turns his back to hide the guilt, pretending to search through his schoolbooks for something. "I may have heard Mother and Father discussing it over Christmas break."
And he didn't tell me. "Oh."
Draco doesn't say anything for a long moment. The room tenses with a layer of awkward, stiff silence.
It's Theodore who speaks up first. "Italy? Sounds like a fun summer."
I glance in his direction, careful to avoid his stare. "Yeah?"
"Yeah. I was born there." That explains the accent.
A flicker of light sparks. I dare to look at his face, ignoring the way my brain seems to misfire. "Really? What was it like?"
"Venice is kind of cool, once you get used to the sinking part. If you've never been, you should check out Rome. Naples and Florence aren't bad either, it just depends on where you're staying. Verona's beautiful." He talks about Verona with the utmost care. It sparks my interest enough to make a note of bringing it up to my parents over the summer. He rubs the back of his neck with his hand. "I haven't been there since I was ten, though, so I don't know what's changed."
"You haven't gone back to visit?" I lean forward, eager to hear his answer.
His smile tenses and fractures. The sight of it is like a starburst, a great force of light losing its spark. "No, my father hasn't had the money."
Oh. Right. Because trips like this are expensive. There are times when I forget what being a Malfoy truly means, all the privileges I've been handed just by being born with a certain last name.
Draco turns back to look at me. I can feel his gaze on my face. I know he's following my train of thought. "El, do not ask him to come with," he says at the same moment I ask Theodore, "Would you like to come with my family to Italy this summer?"
Again, he just looks between me and my brother, hesitant. Afraid to overstep. "It sounds like a fun family trip. I wouldn't want to impose—"
"It's not a big deal," I say.
"It probably would put my parents out, actually," says Draco.
I nudge him in the ribs. "Really, Theodore, it would be so much fun. You could see your birthplace again, and, between you and me, my brother could really use another friend—"
"I have plenty of friends!"
"—and if you're there, our parents will probably let us have more fun, anyways."
It's impossible to miss the way Theodore's eyes light up with clear interest. But he waits for Draco to tell him either way.
I give my brother a dirty, commanding look.
Draco huffs, rolling his neck. "Fine. Nott, you can come with."
Theodore breaks out into a smile and—oh.
My heart clenches so tightly I think it might fold in on itself, crushed by its own weight. Is that what this is? A crush? Is that why they call it that? Because you feel like you're being crushed by perfection when their face lights up like that?
"Sick," Theodore laughs. That sound—it's even better than his smile. I want to record it and listen to it until I die of old age. I want to take a picture of his smile and look at it every day.
"I'll pack a bag," he says, and then tells me, "By the way, Ella—" oh, the way he says my name! "—I don't like my full name either. I go by Theo."
I think I'm in love.