It was quiet, the kind of comfortable quiet that settles in when half the house is still at Quidditch practice and the rest have claimed their usual corners.

You were curled into one end of a leather sofa, Pansy draped dramatically across the other, Isla perched on the armrest with her legs swinging, Maeve buried in a book that looked older than the castle itself, Daphne and Astoria sharing the adjacent loveseat, and Blaise occupying the armchair nearest the fire with the expression of someone who had already predicted the next hour and found it mildly disappointing.

Then the portrait hole swung open.

And Theodore Nott walked in.

Which was strange, because Theodore Nott was supposed to be at Quidditch practice.

He stood there for a moment, chest rising and falling like he'd sprinted half the castle, dark hair dishevelled, tie loose, robes untucked in a way that would have been unthinkable for him any other day.

His eyes scanned the room once, twice, with an intensity that bordered on frantic.

Then they found you.

And something in his expression cracked.

He crossed the room in long, purposeful strides, weaving around the low tables like nothing else existed.

Before you could fully process what was happening, his hand closed around yours—warm, slightly unsteady—and he pulled you upright with quiet, breathtaking determination.

A heartbeat later, you were seated sideways across his lap, his arms locked around your waist, his face pressed into the curve of your neck.

He breathed in.

Deeply. Audibly. Like a drowning man breaking the surface.

His shoulders dropped. His grip tightened. The tension drained out of him so fast it was almost visible.

He smelled like cold air and broom polish and something underneath that was just him.