Pulling Strings - Theodore Nott

25. Treacherous

Theodore's POV

The words on the book he was reading were dancing on the page, and there was nothing he could do to stop them. He was distracted. Still, he tried to focus his eyes once more on the words, tried to make sense of what the author —an old wizard explaining the basics of alchemy— was trying to convey, but to no use.

Theodore could not focus on anything other than Ophelia.

Closing the book with a loud thud, he dropped it carelessly on his bedside table and sank onto his bed. Feeling defeated. How was it that a single –vexing– girl could mess with his mind this much?

He thought that, after the party, he had finally got her out of his system. That was the sole reason why he had kissed her, or at least, that was the reason he convinced himself it was for. It had been hell, that night. Watching her dancing with other men and later, kissing Avery...he had seen red.

And he hated it.

She shouldn't have this much power over him. Nobody else had previously, not even Daphne. Perhaps it was something to do with how difficult she was. His brain was struggling to understand why she was so against him and turned that obsession with knowing into...whatever this was.

But no, he knew that was not it. This was something new, something he didn't like.

The other day, when he was teaching her piano, he had not felt angry or annoyed at her, but the opposite. It scared him, he admitted now, how easily he could forget the reasons why he hated her when she was that close to him. When she was not scowling at him or accusing him or being the worst person alive.

When she was dancing.

He remembered her movements. Slow and graceful, practised but still a bit unsure. He remembered how awed he felt in that moment and the feeling of warmth that had enveloped him.

He sighed and sat up on his bed. He didn't want to remember that, because if he did, if he let himself remember how good he had felt and how, for a moment, he had thought that perhaps she was not too bad...he also had to remember the aftermath.

Her demands. The way she had questioned him, demanded reasons for a kiss he himself couldn't explain had left him unraveling. How dare she make him feel like that in his own home?

Well, it wasn't like he had ever felt welcomed here either way. He observed his four walls, the lack of decoration and warmth and the feeling of being an outsider in his own house suddenly felt unbearable.

He got up from the bed, intent of going over to the library or to the music room. Those were the only two places he knew his grandfather never stepped foot in, so they were the ones Theodore was always in. Those were also the only places in this big house that he had any good memories from. The library was his escape when he was a child, he always found himself more happy with a book in his hands, almost like he could pretend the outside world was the real story and he was living in the pages of the book.

As he got older, though, he realised how stupid that must've sounded. He didn't believe that anymore but he still enjoyed reading, learning something new, something useful. The idea that he could acquire more knowledge than the adults in his life, the idea of being smarter than them...that indeed was attractive. So far, he had not achieved his goal but he wasn't giving up.

He considered going to the music room too. The old ballroom that had not been used since before Theodore was born. Since his late mother had decided to turn it into a music room, being responsible for acquiring the piano. That room was...special. However, it did not make him feel safe as the library did, the opposite was true. Somedays, he felt he was the one intruding. Almost like the room, since it had been used exclusively by his mother, now rejected anyone who wasn't her.