diligently working on it babe 🫡 but I will tell you that it’s enemies to lovers and set in greece during a wedding AND it’s giving cocky charming asshole enzo vibes
Hi bby!! Saw your Hudson repost and didn’t know if you were aware but there are two pics of him currently circulating online with the n*zi symbol drawn on his forehead. Just wanted to let you know!!!
oh yes I did see that! correct me if i’m wrong but I think I read somewhere that he was 17 and someone else drew that on him during a school tradition kind of thing and he wasn’t aware? again not sure if that’s true but i’ve seen it circulating
"I had all and then most of you, some and now none of you."
word count: 4,347.
summary: in the past, theo leaves london and cuts contact after realizing he couldn't survive loving you while you're with cedric. in the present, both of you struggle with the damage his silence caused until you finally come face to face again at malfoy manor.
author’s note: yeah yikes what kind of heartless wench would write this? (me, it's me). i'll understand if you throw tomatoes at me for the rest of time because ouch this one really hurt.
♫ the night we met - lord huron (feat. phoebe bridgers). nav. chapters. more theo.
Present
June 4, 2003
Nott Manor — Dorset, England
Dear Bella,
London feels different than I remember.
Not in any dramatic way. Nothing has changed enough for that. The streets are still the same tired shade of grey with it rains. The Floo stations are still too loud, too bright, too busy with people who don’t know where they’re going.
It’s just me.
That’s what’s different.
I keep expecting it to feel like coming home, but it doesn’t. It feels like being somewhere I no longer belong.
Draco was the first person I saw at Nott Manor.
Not you.
I think that says more than I want it to.
He acted like nothing had changed. That is Draco’s way. He walked through the house, made a joke about the lighting being criminally depressive, and asked me how long I planned on pretending I didn’t need sleep.
I told him I was fine.
He didn’t believe me.
No one ever really does anymore.
I haven’t seen you.
I keep telling myself that’s normal. That London is large and people miss each other all the time without it meaning anything deeper than logistics and timing.
But it feels wrong.
Because I keep thinking about how, if I had walked through any door in this city a year ago, I would’ve wanted it to lead to you.
Instead, it led to silence.
I’m attending Draco’s birthday gala.
Nonna insists I go. She says it’ll be good to see old friends, which is her polite way of telling me she’s sick of watching me wallow in self-pity.
She’s probably right.
The idea of seeing you there makes my stomach turn in a way I can’t quite name. I don’t know if I’m afraid of it or if I’ve just forgotten how to be around you without falling apart in ways I’m not allowed to show anymore.
Cedric will be there, I assume.
I think I’m trying, in my own terrible way, to be okay with that.
To be okay with seeing you and not being the first person you turn toward first.
I don’t know if I’ll succeed.
But I’m trying.
I think that might have to be enough for now.
For Always,
Teddy
Past
September 22, 2002
Theo’s Townhome — Rome, Italy
He doesn’t remember stepping inside.
Only the moment the silence hits him.
It isn’t familiar. It isn’t comforting. It’s suffocating. A pressure behind his ribs, like the pain had been waiting all summer to finally close in around him.
For a moment, he just stood there. Still holding the memory of you like it might anchor him. Like it might explain why leaving felt like having his heart carved out of his chest.
Then, he broke.
His body gave out on him in the middle of the entryway like it no longer knew how to hold itself together.
He slid down the wall before he even realized he was moving.
And then began to shake.
Not the kind of quiet, restrained trembling he learned in his father’s house. Not the kind he perfected in rooms where silence was safer than sound.
This was worse.
This was the kind of crying he used to do as a child after his mother died, when he didn’t yet know how to hide the parts of himself that hurt.
It was open. Uncontrolled. Ugly in the most human way.
And he hated how much relief there was in it.
Nonna found him like that.
She didn’t ask questions.
She just knelt beside him slowly, her hands gentler than anything in life had ever taught him to expect, and touched his face like she was making sure he was truly there.
“Oh, amore,” she whispered softly.
The endearment hit him harder than anything else.
She hadn’t called him that in years. Not since he was small enough to climb into her lap and insist, with all the stubborn pride of a grieving little boy, that he was too old for pet names now. That he was a big boy. Strong enough.
But Theo didn’t feel strong now.
He felt twenty-three and sixteen and ten years old all at once.
Nonna said nothing else at first. She simply helped him stand when his legs failed beneath him and guided him upstairs with one steady hand pressed carefully between his shoulders.
She made him tea that went untouched on the bedside table. Wrapped a blanket around him with the same quiet care his mother once had after nightmares. When she tucked the edge beneath his arm, her fingers lingered briefly in his hair.
“You don’t have to face this alone,” she said quietly.
That nearly broke him all over again.
That night, he told her everything.
It wasn’t neat or brave. It was raw and exposed, vulnerable in a way he hadn’t allowed himself to be for a very long time. Words spilled out between uneven breaths—you, Cedric, the letter, the silence, the unbearable agony of loving someone so completely while standing helplessly beside them as they chose someone else.
And somewhere in the middle of it, he started sobbing again, properly this time, face pressed into her lap like he was ten years old again with nowhere else to go.
Nonna held him without hesitation.
One hand stroked slowly through his curls while the other rested over his shoulder, grounding him whenever his breathing turned uneven.
“I know,” she murmured softly when his words dissolved into grief again. “ I know, amore.”
Theo couldn’t remember the last time he let anyone hold him like that.
“You love exactly like your mother did,” Nonna said after a long while, her voice thick with something dangerously close to grief itself. “Wholeheartedly. Without apology.”
Theo’s breath caught unevenly.
“She used to love people as though it was the easiest thing in the world to give them every soft part of herself,” Nonna continued quietly. “And you…” Her hand brushed gently through his hair again. “You inherited that from her, whether you realize it or not.”
His chest ached so violently he thought it might split open.
Because no one had ever said that like it was something beautiful before.
His father had called it weakness. Carelessness. Something fragile that would one day ruin him.
But Nonna said it like it was the best thing about him.
And perhaps that was why he finally broke completely in her arms.
Past
December 12, 2002
Theo’s Townhome — Rome, Italy
For the next three months, Theo existed rather than lived.
Rome carried on around him in all its effortless beauty. Sunlight spilled through ancient windows. Markets bustled below. His cousins laughed too loudly over meals, and Nonna’s garden bloomed as though grief had no place there at all. But Theo moved through it like a ghost haunting someone else’s life.
He threw himself into work because it was easier than being alone with his thoughts.
Board meetings. Ministry visits. Endless social appearances with old Italian pureblood families who cared more about legacy than happiness. Theo attended them all with his usual polished smile, sharp wit, and immaculate composure.
And every night, he returned home hollow.
Your letters kept arriving.
At first, he read every single one.
He hated himself for it.
He hated the desperate flicker of hope that still ignited every time your handwriting appeared on an envelope. Hated the way his pulse still betrayed him. Hated how quickly that hope curdled into devastation when each letter remained painfully unchanged.
You told him about work. About St. Mungo’s. About your friends.
About Cedric.
Always Cedric.
Theo wrote replies sometimes.
Short ones. Carefully worded. Just enough to seem present without truly being vulnerable. But eventually, even that became unbearable.
Because every letter felt like reopening a wound that never had the decency to close.
So he stopped.
At first, he told himself it was temporary. That he simply needed space. Time. Distance enough to cauterize whatever still bled when it came to you.
But days became weeks.
Weeks became months.
And the silence between you grew so vast it began to feel irreversible.
Nonna never pushed him.
She only watched with quiet sadness as her grandson, who had once loved so openly, slowly began retreating behind walls even Rome’s warmth could not penetrate.
“You can’t heal by starving your heart, Theodore,” she told him once over morning tea.
Theo had only offered her a tired smile.
“No,” he said quietly. “But perhaps I can teach it not to want what it can’t have.”
Nonna looked at him then with the sort of sorrow only grandmothers and saints seemed capable of carrying.
But she said nothing.
Because some griefs couldn’t be reasoned away.
Only survived.
Past
October 31, 2002
Your Flat — Primrose Hill, London
At first, you were worried.
Theo had always been terrible at communicating when he was overwhelmed, so his initial silence, though unsettling, didn’t feel catastrophic. You wrote often, filling pages with updates about St. Mungo’s, your patients, your mum, your friends.
You called whenever you could.
But each time, there was always an excuse.
Theo was busy.
Theo was with Nonna.
Theo was working.
Theo was resting.
At first, you believed it.
Because you trusted him.
Because Theo had been your person for so long that the idea of him willingly shutting you out felt impossible.
But eventually, concern gave way to confusion.
Then hurt.
Then something far uglier.
Anger.
Months passed, and still—
Nothing. No letters. No calls. No explanations. Just silence so complete it began to feel deliberate.
You asked Draco once. Then Pansy. Mattheo. Blaise. Enzo. Every answer was the same.
Theo was busy.
Theo was adjusting.
Theo needed time.
And perhaps that was the cruelest part of all.
No one would look you in the eye when they said it.
As though they all knew something you didn’t.
As though everyone had collectively decided you were better off excluded from whatever devastating truth had stolen your best friend from your life.
When half a year had passed, your worry had curdled fully into heartbreak.
Because if Theo no longer wanted you in his life, he could have at least had the decency to tell you.
Instead, he vanished.
And you were left reeling in the wake of his absence.
Cedric became your anchor through much of it.
He was kind when you were grieving. Steady when your emotions felt too sharp. Present in all the ways Theo was suddenly not.
He listened.
And perhaps more importantly—
He stayed.
You hated yourself sometimes for how much you leaned on him.
Not because Cedric did anything wrong.
But because some traitorous part of you still measured absence by Theo’s shape.
Still wondered if every unopened letter mattered to him at all.
Still thought of him daily despite how fiercely you tried not to.
Your life, objectively, was thriving.
Your career flourished. Your friendships bloomed. You built something beautiful and functional and full in the ruins that Theo had left behind.
But every so often, usually in the quiet moments, you still caught yourself wondering—
How does someone promise always…
And then disappear?
Present
June 4, 2003
Your Flat — Primrose Hill, London
By the time your mother called from the Maldives, you were already emotionally exhausted.
Cedric had noticed your distance immediately, of course. He was attentive like that—perceptive in ways that were often comforting, even when you secretly wished he’d miss something for once.
“You’ve seemed off,” he said gently earlier that evening, his hand brushing yours as you sat together on your sofa.
You forced a smile, though it felt fragile even to you.
“I’m okay. Just tired.”
Cedric’s expression made it clear he didn’t fully believe you, but to his credit, he didn’t push. That was one of Cedric’s better qualities. He knew how to offer space without making it feel like abandonment.
“Do you want me to stay?”
And there it was again—that kindness. That steadiness. That safe kind of affection that never demanded more than you were capable of giving.
You swallowed hard, guilt rising sharper than expected. “I think,” you said carefully, “I just need to be alone tonight.”
Cedric hesitated only briefly before nodding. “Of course.”
He kissed your forehead before leaving, warm and familiar, and the guilt settled heavier in your chest the moment the door shut behind him.
Because Cedric was good.
And perhaps that was part of the problem.
He deserved someone less fractured than this. Someone who didn’t feel pulled apart by ghosts they could never quite seem to bury.
Your mother’s face appeared in the Floo moments later, sun-kissed and glamorous somewhere impossibly beautiful. The soft golden light behind her only emphasized how far removed she was from the emotional catastrophe unfolding in your London flat.
“Barely,” she replied dryly, pressing a hand theatrically to her chest.
For a moment, it almost felt normal. Easy. Like the version of yourself that hadn’t spent the last several days unraveling might still be recoverable.
But a mother knew her daughter.
Her expression softened immediately. “Will you be alright?”
The question was gentle, but it landed heavier than you wanted it to.
You hesitated.
“Cedric’s taking me.”
Your mother’s silence was subtle.
But noticeable.
She liked Cedric well enough. You knew that. He was kind, respectable, dependable—the sort of man mothers were supposed to adore for their daughters.
But Estelle also knew you.
And mothers, unfortunately, had a way of recognizing unhappiness even when it wore a convincing smile.
“And Theo?” she asked softly.
Your jaw tightened almost instantly. “No.”
Just one word, but sharp enough to wound.
“He’s back,” you said bitterly, unable to keep the hurt from bleeding through. “And apparently wants nothing to do with me.”
Estelle’s face shifted with quiet understanding, the sort that only made your anger feel more fragile. “Oh, sweetheart.”
“Please don’t.”
Your voice cracked more than you intended, and you hated that she noticed.
“He may just need time,” she offered gently.
That cut to the core.
“I needed time too,” you snapped, harsher than intended. “I needed my best friend, and he left anyway.”
Estelle fell silent.
It was a dangerous sort of quiet. The kind filled with too much grief, too much pride, and far too many tears waiting just beneath the surface.
Your mother looked heartbroken for you, which somehow made it worse.
Because if Estelle pitied you, then perhaps this really had broken you more than you cared to admit.
And so, like hurt people so often did when vulnerability became unbearable—
You ended the call before she could say anything else.
Present
June 5, 2003
Malfoy Manor — Wiltshire, England
Malfoy Manor glittered with old money and opulence.
Crystal chandeliers cast golden light over marble floors. Silver-trimmed corridors stretched endlessly, lined with polished portraits and immaculate floral arrangements that likely cost more than most people’s yearly salary.
Champagne flowed freely, absurdly expensive and dangerously easy to drink, while laughter echoed through rooms filled with Ministry officials, aristocrats, and socialites all pretending their lives were far less complicated than they actually were.
The entire evening felt polished to perfection in the distinct way society functions often did.
And for a while, somehow—
You managed.
You smiled when appropriate. Let Cedric guide you through conversations with practiced charm, his hand warm and steady at the small of your back. You laughed politely with fellow healers, nodded through conversations, and played your role beautifully.
Together, you and Cedric looked perfect.
That, perhaps, was part of the problem.
Because at some point perfection started to feel suspiciously similar to performance.
Still, there were moments of genuine comfort.
Hermione and Padma found you near the champagne tower not long after your arrival, both looking effortlessly stunning.
Hermione immediately adjusted a barely visible wrinkle near your sleeve with the deeply ingrained reflex who loved you enough to fuss.
“You look beautiful,” she said warmly.
Padma glanced you over once before sipping her drink.
“You look emotionally constipated,” she corrected dryly.
Her bluntness was oddly comforting.
“Padma,” Hermione sighed.
“What?” Padma replied in her usual flippant way. “She does.”
Before you could answer, Pansy appeared in a sweep of dark silk and perfectly curated efficiency, looking every bit the terrifying social architect she had clearly become.
“Honestly,” she said, glancing between the three of you, “if even one of you starts behaving like a bloody emotional Gryffindor before dessert, I will personally have you removed.”
“You say that,” you replied lightly, your gaze flickering toward where Neville stood nearby reviewing an event ledger with surprising confidence, “but it’s a little hard to take threats seriously when you’re playing event coordinator with Neville Longbottom.”
Pansy’s glare was immediate. “Watch yourself.”
Neville, to his immense credit, merely looked up from his clipboard with all the composed patience of a man who had clearly learned how to survive Pansy Parkinson.
“For the record,” he said mildly, “I’m indispensable.”
“Insufferably so.”
The faint pink threatening Neville’s cheeks didn’t go unnoticed.
“Neville,” she said smoothly, “blink twice if you’re being held against your will.”
Nevilled smiled. “I’ve accepted my fate.”
“Pathetic,” Pansy muttered, though her fond smile betrayed her entirely.
Not far away, a far more chaotic diplomatic effort was currently underway.
Harry, Ron, and Ginny had evidently arrived, which in itself wasn’t particularly alarming.
Draco Malfoy attempting to behave civilly in their presence, however—
That was bordering on disturbing.
“You know,” Ron said, eyeing the hors d'oeuvres with open suspicion, “I still can’t decide if this is genuinely impressive or deeply pretentious.”
“It can be both,” Ginny replied easily.
Harry, ever the exhausted mediator, accepted a drink from an increasingly tense house elf before glancing toward Draco.
“Nice event.”
Draco, standing with all the rigid restraint of a man actively suppressing decades of instinctive antagonism for the sake of his girlfriend’s sanity, gave a stiff nod.
“Potter.”
Hermione, from beside you, placed a placating hand on his shoulder.
“Draco,” she prompted warmly.
He exhaled through his nose.
“Harry,” he corrected, sounding as though basic politeness caused him excruciating physical pain.
Ron looked personally victimized by this social progress.
“Blimey,” he muttered. “Didn’t think I’d live to see the day.”
Draco’s jaw twitched. “Don’t make me regret it.”
Ginny snorted directly into her drink, but somehow, against all odds, everyone survived the interaction. Well, almost everyone.
“I need a stronger drink,” Draco muttered to Blaise as he passed.
Blaise, of course, was utterly delighted by his distress.
Eventually, your friends gathered properly around you.
Draco, Pansy, Blaise, Enzo, and Mattheo.
For a brief moment, the sight of them all together felt painfully nostalgic. Like stepping into a version of your life that had once been whole before everything became so unbearably fractured.
Draco was the first to speak, his usual polished composure softened by something far more sincere. “You came.”
“Of course I did,” you replied, though the lingering hurt in your voice was sharp enough to make several of them visibly uncomfortable.
Mattheo, to his credit, looked appropriately guilty.
Enzo appeared quietly miserable.
Blaise, though composed, had the distinct expression of someone fully aware that the entire situation had been handled catastrophically.
And Pansy—
Pansy looked almost offended by her own discomfort.
Her arms crossed tightly, elegant as ever, though the tension in her posture betrayed more than she likely intended.
“We were wrong,” she said carefully, each word sounding as though it had been dragged somewhere vulnerable. “We all were.”
You stared at her.
Because Pansy Parkinson was many things—proud, abrasive, terrifying—but an inconsiderate friend had never been one of them.
“I was angry with Theo,” she admitted, more quietly now. “For leaving. For putting all of us in that position.”
Her jaw tightened faintly. “But I never meant for that anger to hurt you.”
The sincerity in her voice was almost harder to process than Mattheo’s apology.
Pansy was not expressive in the way others were.
But she loved fiercely.
Protectively.
And though she would likely rather perish than say it plainly, you had always known.
You squeezed her hand. “I know, Pans,” your voice was soft as you looked around at your friends. “I know you were all just trying to protect me. To protect Theo. But pretending nothing was wrong hurt worse than anything else.”
Blaise exhaled softly, unusually serious.
“For what it’s worth,” he said, voice smoother than usual but no less sincere, “we handled things poorly.”
“That,” Padma muttered into her champagne, “feels like the understatement of the year.”
Blaise blinked.
Then, to everyone’s mild surprise—
He smiled.
Not his usual effortless charming smirk.
A real one.
Bright, immediate, and entirely too charmed.
Padma noticed instantly.
“Oh no,” she said flatly.
Mattheo nearly choked on his drink. “Is Zabini blushing?”
“I do not blush,” Blaise said.
Padma arched a brow. “You look unwell.”
You didn’t think it was possible, but Blaise looked even more delighted than you had ever seen him.
Draco pinched this bridge of his nose.
“Brilliant. Another one falls.”
Hermione, instigator that she was, looked deeply amused.
“You do seem to have that effect on emotionally constipated aristocrats,” she mused toward Padma.
“Unfortunately,” Padma replied coolly.
Enzo, predictably, looked thrilled by the unfolding disaster.
“I, for one, support this entirely.”
Despite everything—
Despite Theo, despite the ache, despite the complicated grief still lodged somewhere beneath your ribs, you laughed.
And perhaps that was what hurt most.
How easy it still was to feel like yourself around your friends.
Even after they had hurt you.
Even after he had left.
Mattheo’s expression softened at the sound, something remorseful flickering in his gaze. “We are sorry, you know,” he said, more quietly this time.
Your smile faded slightly, but not entirely. “I know.”
And you did.
It didn’t erase the damage.
But it mattered.
For a little while longer, things almost felt normal.
Until eventually, the weight of the evening began settling heavier against your shoulders.
By the second hour, the smiles felt more forced. Cedric’s hand at your back, though kind, felt less grounding and more performative. Every conversation became just slightly more exhausting than the last.
So eventually, quietly, you excused yourself.
The bathroom offered temporary sanctuary.
Cool marble countertops. Silence. A blessed absence of expectation.
Space enough to breathe.
You stared at your reflection longer than necessary, your expression more fragile than polished.
“You’re fine,” you whispered softly.
The lie rolled easily off your tongue.
When you finally stepped back into the corridor, you stopped so suddenly that a couple nearly plowed right into you.
Draco had told you that Theo would be there. Told you, with his usual infuriating composure, that Theo had accepted the invitation.
But after a year of silence, after months of avoidance so profound it began to feel deliberate, you hadn’t truly believed he would come.
Some part of you had assumed he would do what he had always done lately.
Disappear.
So when you lifted your gaze and saw him, really saw him standing in the middle of all the noise and light, your body forgot how to move.
Theo.
For one unbearable moment, everything else fell away.
The music, the laughter, the weight of the room, even Cedric somewhere behind you. It all blurred into something distant and unimportant.
Because there he was.
And Merlin, he looked like home and heartbreak all at once.
Theo’s eyes found yours almost instantly.
He didn’t hesitate.
He smiled.
That smile.
Soft, familiar, devastating in the way it had always been yours without ever actually belonging to you.
Something inside you shattered so completely at the sight of it.
You couldn’t do this.
Couldn’t stand there and pretend you were fine.
Couldn’t survive another version of him leaving you while still looking at you like that.
So you turned.
Too fast. Too sharp.
“Y/N—”
His voice followed you immediately, cutting through the noise.
“Y/N, hold on.”
Footsteps echoed behind you.
Close enough that your chest tightened painfully.
“You don’t have to leave.”
You stopped so abruptly that your heels clicked sharply against the marble floors.
Then turned, fury and heartbreak colliding so violently inside you that your entire body trembled with it.
“Really?” you demanded, voice shaking. “That’s the best you've got?”
Theo’s expression crumpled instantly.
“You ignore me for a whole year,” you continued, words spilling faster now, messier, less controlled, “you drop me like I never mattered, and now you’re surprised I can’t even stand to look at you?”
“Bella, please just stay—”
“Stay?” you let out a sharp, broken laugh that was devoid of emotion. “I’m not the one who left, Theo.”
Your hands were shaking now.
“I was right here,” you said, quieter this time, like it was worse to admit it softly. “Right fucking here waiting for my best friend.”
Theo looked stricken.
“Only for you to cut me out of your life without explanation.”
Each word landed like reopening wounds you had spent an entire year pretending didn’t still bleed.
“You broke my heart, Theo.”
The confession hung there.
Raw.
Unforgiving.
“I never would’ve done this to you,” you whispered, tears finally spilling over despite everything. “I don’t even know who you are anymore.”
Theo’s face collapsed in on itself.
“I’m sorry, bella,” he said, and his voice sounded wrecked in a way that made your chest tighten all over again. “I’m so sorry.”
He meant it.
You knew he meant it.
And that was the worst part.
Because apologies didn’t erase a year’s worth of silence.
You shook your head slowly, tears blurring everything now. “I’m sorry, too.”
Theo went still.
“I’m sorry for believing you when you promised you would always be there for me.”
His expression broke completely then, like something inside him finally shattered.
the cutest thing would be if she didn’t get the letter and he tells her about it, she asks what it said and he is able to recite word for word what he wrote🙂↕️🙂↕️🙂↕️
me trying not to spoil my own damn fic cause I wanna tell ya'll what happened SO bad
