A Game of Cat and Mouse

F O U R T E E N

If Annie thought that Elio was actually going to fall for that bullshit goodbye of hers, she had another thing coming. Clearly, he hadn't made his absolute devotion to her obvious enough. Did she really think he was going to spend his night kissing her, touching her, loving her and just give up?

Well, if she did, she was going to learn how very dedicated a Nott boy could be.

Annie would probably scold him if she knew what he was doing. His mother would definitely scold him if she knew what he was doing. Scorpius would call him an idiot, his father would disagree aloud but then give him a smirk when his mother wasn't looking, and Astoria Malfoy would probably cast him out of her manor. And Elio had to admit: climbing up the exterior wall in search of her room like a creepy stalker probably wasn't his best move but Annie had left him no choice. He wasn't going to let her leave him like that, not when he could see her mentally resolving against her emotions. Elio had already learned that Annie's head and her heart were at war—and she didn't let her heart out enough to even give it a chance at winning. But if there was any man that was going to bust through her fortress and break down her walls, it would be Elio. Only he would be dedicated enough to scale a damn mansion in search of her. Actually, only he would be stupid enough. 

But Elio's father always told him that stupidity in love could sometimes be genius. "Just look at your Uncle Mattheo," Theo joked. "He was a bloody arsehole but he was a bloody arsehole in love so no one could fault him."

The message that Elio took away from that conversation? To let love guide his heart, even if love was leading him to stalk her like a madman. He always thought matters of the heart were best left far from the head anyway.

Elio was definitely breaking many laws—maybe a few indictable offenses too. He couldn't risk using magic and setting off any charms and Scorpius had let it slip that house elves patrolled the corridors of the ladies' wing to keep from anything exactly like this happening. So Elio's genius solution?

Climb the walls and hope that whatever window he stumbled across was hers.

Luckily for him—and his criminal record—Elio knew that Annie was the only lady who hadn't gone home after the ball. So even though he was being a creepy stalker, at least he would be a creepy stalker only for her. He couldn't imagine the sorts of trouble he would be in if he picked the wrong window and the room was occupied.

Elio reached the first window only to peek in and see that the bed—illuminated by the dim moon—was empty. Damn, he thought. But he wouldn't be discouraged. Not when his only option was to go home and risk never seeing her again. Not when he felt like he had finally gotten through her timid outer layer. I think you're lovely too, she had whispered with a cheek pressed against his. It was heavenly to feel her like that, so warm and real against him. Now he just felt cold against the stone.

"I'm coming for you, Little Mouse," Elio said with a grunt as he clutched onto another stone. This certainly wasn't easy but for her, he would do a million hard things. Including climbing his best friend's house.

He reached another window that thankfully opened easily. Elio climbed over the sill, relieved to be on something solid once again only to groan a little too loudly when he saw the room was empty. Back to the walls I go, he grumbled mentally, slipping out just as easily as he slipped in. Elio climbed up and over, up and over while his hand cramped and he was pretty sure a spider bit his left pinky finger—either that or it was so damn tired that it only felt pain. At this point, both were likely. 

By the time Elio reached the next window, he was panting heavily, cursing Scorpius for not just telling him what room she was in, and praying to every god he knew that this room was Annie's so he didn't have to climb anymore. He could just crawl in bed and wrap her in his arms while whispering to her how he was never letting her say goodbye.