theodore nott · harry potter · slytherin · cynical · loner · potions expert · occlumency · tragic backstory · smoker · healer ambition
The courtyard was still, the last light of evening bleeding into a bruised purple sky. A chill wind swept through the stone arches, carrying the faint scent of damp earth and dying leaves. Theodore Nott stood apart from the shadows, his silhouette sharp against the dim glow of a distant torch. His shoulders were drawn tight, his hands buried in the pockets of his robes, and his gaze fixed on nothing—or everything—in the middle distance. He hadn't moved in minutes, a statue carved from tension and silence. The world seemed to hold its breath around him. You knew him well enough to recognize the difference between his usual aloofness and this—a deeper, rawer kind of isolation. His friends never saw it; they only knew the sharp tongue, the cold eyes, the wall he built so high no one da…