Pulling Strings - Theodore Nott

19. Three steps back

The four walls of her bedroom in Nott Manor were her only company for the next three days. She refused to leave the comfort of them with the exception of lunch and dinner, when her absence would most definitely be noticed.

Every other moment, she remained locked in her room by choice. After all, she had been pretty hard on it when she first arrived, it was not quite as gloomy and depressing as she had thought before. Plus, with Tibby's assistance she had even managed to get a few books from the library that interested her. It had been hard, at first, since the elf didn't know how to read and thus couldn't properly give her a summary of the books he encountered. Then, on the second day of her reclusion, he appeared with three books; one about Potions which she thought at least was going to help her study and the other two were ancient tales written by already dead people, but they proved to be quite entertaining.

She wondered how the elf had gotten so lucky on his pick. For a moment, fearing that...perhaps someone might have helped him, but her doubts were quietened down when he denied ever seeing someone at the library, and as far as she was concerned, house-elves didn't lie, right?

If she was being honest, she would hate for the elf to have run into anybody because, even though she was adamant on staying in her room and avoiding anyone...she didn't want people–especially one– to be aware of it.

It was her most childish behaviour to this date and it didn't fill her exactly with pride to be doing it, but at the same time, she thought it was the safer choice. After... Slughorn's party, Ophelia feared that the fact that Nott had been her first kiss would mess with her in some way, after all, she had no prior experience with boys and as much as she wanted to act like it didn't affect her, it did.

It was a big deal.

It was a huge deal for her. Her first kiss was something that had kept her up at nights sometimes, wondering...when it would happen, with whom. She had always dreamed of it as something special.

A childish dream. Still, she had always harboured that hope.

So, when it finally happened, and with the person it happened...it completely threw her off. Firstly because it was not special, it had been a rushed thing. A means to an end, as he so quickly put it.

She felt...cheated.

But that wasn't the worst part, after all, she had lately come to the realisation that her first kiss would not in fact be special, seeing what her future was shaping out to be. No, what had succeeded in completely ruining the moment was that...Ophelia had liked it.

Hell, more than liked.

And she hated herself for it. She hated that she felt that way because it was completely wasted on someone like him. He was not special, he was not someone who cared about her or even liked her. He had only kissed her to shut her up and she had been weak and played right into his manipulation once again.

She was the most pathetic girl in the world. The most needy. It disgusted her.

After that night, she felt awful. She hated herself and almost cried herself to sleep. But, she didn't, because she was better than that and she convinced herself that it was a one time thing. He had taken her by surprise, after all.

Until the other day in the library.

The way that she —that her own body had reacted to the closeness, the smallest of gestures...it was too much. She had embarrassed herself once more and the worst part was that she wasn't sure there was a way to stop it.

So, she had simply decided to avoid it. She stayed in her room and didn't see Nott unless strictly necessary, and with another person in the room. It was amazing how the presence of her mother in the room was enough to make her want to gauge her eyes out with a spoon and not think about anything else.