Whispers in the Green
Pairing: Theodore Nott x Slytherin! Female Reader (second-person "you")
Wc:4,200
Rating: Mature (16+)
Warnings:Slow-burn, suggestive intimacy, smoking, possessiveness, light trauma references.
Short Summary: Theodore Nott leaves subtle traces of himself in your path until the quiet tension between you becomes impossible to ignore in the shadows of Hogwarts.
The first time you noticed Theodore Nott watching you, it was in Potions.
Slughorn had paired the class randomly and the cauldron between you bubbled a violent emerald. Theo leaned against the workbench opposite, sleeves rolled to his elbows, green tie already loosened like he couldn’t be bothered with decorum. His gaze wasn’t obvious—never was—but you felt it: cool, assessing, lingering on the way your fingers gripped the silver knife as you sliced moonstone.
He didn’t speak. Not once. When the bell rang he simply pushed off the bench, brushed past you close enough that you smelled cedar and faint tobacco, and left a single green-and-silver tie draped over the back of your chair like he’d forgotten it there on purpose.
You kept it. Tucked it into your bag. Told yourself it was nothing.
The second time was in the library after curfew.
You’d slipped in through the one-way passage behind the Restricted Section, craving silence and the smell of old parchment. The Restricted Section was technically off-limits, but the alcove just outside it had the best armchair and no one ever checked.
Theo was already there.
He sat in your chair—legs stretched long, one ankle crossed over the other, cigarette dangling unlit from his lips. Moonlight sliced through the high windows and caught the silver ring on his thumb. He didn’t look surprised to see you. Just tilted his head, dark curls falling into his eyes, and murmured, “You’re late.”
You froze. “This isn’t your spot.”
“Is now.” He patted the armrest beside him. “Sit.”
You didn’t. But you didn’t leave either.
He pulled the cigarette from his mouth, twirled it between long fingers, then offered it to you. “Want one?”
“I don’t smoke.”
“Yet.” A ghost of a smirk. “You will.”
You rolled your eyes and dropped into the opposite chair instead. He watched you the entire time—unblinking, patient—like a cat deciding whether the mouse was worth the chase.
That night he told you nothing personal. Just talked about potion theory in that low, velvet drawl until your eyelids grew heavy. When you finally stood to leave, he caught your wrist. Not hard. Just enough to stop you.
His thumb brushed the inside of your pulse point once. Then he released you and pressed something small and cool into your palm: his silver ring, engraved with a tiny N.
“Keep it,” he said. “Until I want it back.”
You wore it on a chain under your shirt the next day.
After that, it became a pattern.
He’d appear in places you didn’t expect: leaning against the wall outside the Slytherin common room when you returned from prefect rounds, smoke curling from his lips like a question mark; sitting two rows behind you in Charms, quill tapping rhythmically while his eyes traced the line of your neck; leaving half-finished cigarettes on the windowsill of the Astronomy Tower with your initials scratched into the paper.
He never touched you in public. Never spoke to you in front of the others. But in the quiet moments—empty corridors at three a.m., the back of the greenhouses after Herbology, the shadowed alcove behind the Black Lake portrait—he would step too close, breath warm against your ear, and murmur things that made your stomach flip.
“You smell like vanilla and trouble,” once.
Another time: “I keep thinking about your mouth when you’re trying not to smile.”
You learned his tells quickly.
The way his jaw tightened when Draco or Blaise mentioned arranged matches. The way his fingers flexed around his wand when someone said “Nott Sr.” too loudly. The way he exhaled smoke like he was trying to push the war out of his lungs.
You also learned he kissed like he smoked: slow, deliberate, savoring every drag.
It happened in the old prefects’ bathroom on the fifth floor, steam thick and mirrors fogged.
You’d gone there to think after a particularly vicious argument in the common room—Pansy had called you “soft” for refusing to hex a first-year Gryffindor. Theo found you sitting on the edge of the tub, knees drawn up, staring at the mermaid mosaic.
He didn’t ask questions. Just locked the door, shrugged off his robe, and sat beside you.
Water lapped at the porcelain. His knee pressed against yours.
“You’re shaking,” he said quietly.
“I’m not.”
He reached over, took your hand, threaded his fingers through yours. His skin was warm, calloused from wandwork and years of holding cigarettes too tightly.
Then he leaned in.
The first kiss was careful—testing. His lips brushed yours once, twice, like he was giving you time to pull away.
You didn’t.
The second was deeper. Hungrier. His hand slid to the back of your neck, thumb stroking the sensitive skin there while his tongue traced the seam of your mouth. You opened for him without thinking. He tasted like smoke and mint and something darker, something that made your head spin.
When he pulled back his eyes were black, pupils blown wide.
“Tell me to stop,” he rasped.
You didn’t.
He kissed you again—harder this time—backing you against the cool tile until your shoulders hit the wall. His hands mapped your waist, your ribs, the curve of your spine under your shirt. You arched into him, fingers tangling in his hair, tugging until he groaned low in his throat.
He broke away only to drag his mouth down your neck, teeth grazing the spot where your pulse hammered. “You have no idea,” he muttered against your skin, “how long I’ve wanted this.”
“Then show me.”
He did.
Not everything—not yet—but enough that when you finally stumbled back to the common room your lips were swollen, your shirt untucked, and his ring was back on his finger, warm from your skin.
After that night, the game changed.
He still didn’t claim you in public. Still left traces instead of words: his tie knotted loosely around your wrist one morning, a half-smoked cigarette tucked into your Potions textbook with “mine” scrawled on the paper in his sharp handwriting, his cloak draped over your shoulders during a Quidditch match when the wind turned bitter.
But in private he was relentless.
The Astronomy Tower became your place.
Late nights, stars sharp overhead, Theo would pull you into the shadows behind the telescope, press you against the stone wall, and kiss you until you forgot your own name. His hands would slip under your shirt, palms hot on your bare back, fingers tracing your spine while he whispered filthy promises in Italian against your throat.
“Ti voglio,” he’d murmur. “Every fucking inch.”
You’d bite his lip in answer, hard enough to draw a hiss, and he’d retaliate by pinning your wrists above your head with one hand while the other worked the buttons of your blouse open.
He never rushed. Never took more than you offered. But the things he offered in return—slow drags of his tongue, teasing bites along your collarbone, the way he’d drop to his knees and look up at you through dark lashes while he kissed the inside of your thigh—left you breathless every time.
One night, under a sky thick with storm clouds, he pulled back just enough to rest his forehead against yours.
“I don’t do casual,” he said, voice rough. “Not with you.”
Your heart slammed against your ribs. “Then what is this?”
He searched your face. For once the mask was gone—only Theo, raw and unguarded.
“Everything,” he answered simply.
You kissed him then—slow, deep, pouring every unspoken thing into it.
When you pulled away he was smiling. Small, crooked, real.
“Say it,” he demanded softly.
You traced the line of his jaw with your thumb. “You’re mine, Theodore Nott.”
His eyes darkened. “And you’re mine.”
He sealed it with another kiss—fiercer this time—until lightning cracked overhead and rain began to fall in fat drops.
You didn’t care.
You stayed there until dawn, tangled together under his cloak, his ring back on your finger where it belonged, smoke from his last cigarette curling into the storm like a promise.
In the end, Theodore Nott didn’t need grand declarations.
He just needed you.
And you—wearing his tie, his ring, the faint taste of tobacco on your tongue—were more than happy to let him have you.