INTERMISSION (slytherin boys imagines)

Little Freak~ LB

I think he only talked to me because I dropped my ink pot.

Third year, late October. The corridors between classes were always madness, and I had been rushing with my arms full of Herbology notes, trying to beat the bell. The ink shattered, of course—black splatters like bruises on the stone floor—and my parchment floated to the ground like snow.

And then there was him. Lorenzo Berkshire.

He didn't belong in the middle of a mess like that. He was sharp edges and silk-lined confidence, the kind of boy who people watched. A Slytherin who smirked more than he smiled, walked like he had somewhere better to be, and laughed in a way that made people both nervous and excited. His name was constantly linked to detentions, duels, and that inner circle around Draco Malfoy that wore arrogance like a crown.

He looked at my spilled notes and cracked ink bottle and crouched down with a smirk tugging at his lips.

"You're hopeless, Hufflepuff," he said, his voice low and amused.

And I hated that I blushed.

I hated more that he stayed. That he picked up my quill like it mattered. That he handed me my notes without crumpling them. That his fingers brushed mine and I didn't breathe right for the rest of the day.

That should have been it. A fluke encounter. A drop of color in my otherwise invisible little life.

But it wasn't. It turned into something else.

I started seeing him in the library. At first, I thought it was coincidence. Hogwarts wasn't small, but it wasn't exactly huge either. He'd sit across the room, slouched in a leather armchair, one ankle resting lazily over his knee like he couldn't be bothered to sit properly. He always had a book, never school assigned, and his eyes always wandered.

Toward me. It happened enough that I stopped calling it coincidence.

"Do you always read that slowly?" he asked one afternoon, not even bothering to hide his smirk.

I blinked up from Magical Theory and its Misuse, cheeks burning. "Do you always interrupt quietly minding people?"

"Only when they're too focused," he said. "It's suspicious."

That became a pattern. The taunting. The questions. The staring that lingered a few seconds too long. He'd make fun of my hair when it frizzed from the rain. He'd nudge my inkpot when he passed by my desk, like he wanted to remind me of that first time. He was always teasing. Never cruel. Just sharp enough to leave a mark.

He made me nervous. Not because I was afraid he'd hurt me—but because he might not. Because somewhere deep down, I started hoping he'd be different.

And I hated hoping.

"I was thinkin' about who you are... your delicate point of view..."

I don't know when I started to fall for him. Maybe it was when he defended me in Potions when Blaise called me a puffball. Or when he gave me the last chocolate frog from his pocket during our N.E.W.T. review week. Or maybe it was the night after the Quidditch match, when the castle was too quiet and the moon too full.

We were alone in a corridor, both avoiding the noise of our common rooms. I remember how he looked at me that night. Like I wasn't background anymore. Like I was real.

"You're not as invisible as you think, you know," he said, brushing a piece of hair behind my ear.

I don't think I answered. I was too busy memorizing the shape of his mouth, the way his voice softened only for me. The way he leaned in but never kissed me.

And maybe that's what hurt the most.

He never kissed me. Not even once.

One day, he just stopped showing up.

No warning. No explanation. No more sarcastic comments during Charms. No more glances across the library. No more chocolate frogs. Just gone.

He still passed me in the corridor sometimes. Still sat with Draco and Blaise and Pansy, looking like he belonged in a world I could never touch. But he didn't look at me. Like I was anyone else.

Like we hadn't been something once. Or almost something.

"Thought he was yours for a second," Hannah said to me once, quietly. "You always looked at him like he mattered."

He did. He still does but he was never mine. Not really.

And I hated myself for thinking he could've been.

Now, when I sit in the same spot in the library, I catch myself waiting. Listening for his voice. Expecting the soft thud of Slytherin boots dragging against the rug. He doesn't come.

But I still hear his voice in my head.

"I disrespected you, jumped in feet first and I landed too hard..."

I think he landed harder than he meant to. I think that's why he pulled away. Why he couldn't meet my eyes. Why he didn't say goodbye.

I think he was afraid I could see through him. And maybe I could have. If he let me.

Because I never wanted the version he showed everyone else. Not the smirking, cruel, untouchable Slytherin. I wanted the boy who asked about my favorite book when no one was listening. The boy who looked tired when the walls were too quiet. The boy who could only say something real when it was disguised as sarcasm.

I wanted the Lorenzo no one else bothered to see.

"You never saw my birthmark..."

I would've loved every part of him—soft or sharp, light or broken.

But maybe he never believed someone like me could. Maybe he didn't want to. Maybe I was just a little freak to him.

But to me?

He was everything I could never say out loud.