Once More Unto The Breach // DHr

e l e v e n

"Fuck, fuck – " Theodore Nott throws open the seemingly infinite cupboards in the Nott Manor dungeon with an effortless flick of his wrist. He grits his teeth as he gathers in his lanky arms the contents of a particular cabinet, setting them on the bench. The vials clanking against each other onto the metal like thunder.

"You can't keep showing up to my fucking front door half-dead, you moron!" He roars, though not meeting the eyes of the wizard who's so casually bleeding out in front of him, instead busying himself with his potions.

Blaise Zabini all but chuckles, despite the colour draining away from his dark skin at a percentage that was dropping exponentially by the passing second, and looks down at the mess that is his abdomen. His shirt is black but that doesn't really matter since he could still see that the entirety of the fabric is drenched in blood. His blood. Hell, he doesn't even need to; he could feel it – the ripping of the stitches of Theo's hasty wandwork just a mere two minutes ago, one snapping after the other with every breath he takes.

Multiple slicing hexes with a few Crucios as the cherries on top. It seems as though the red and orange banded idiots have picked up a thing or two playing with the big, bad Death Eaters. He narrowly missed a Sectumsempra to the heart, no doubt the curse belonging to Ron Weasley, before being able to apparate to Theo's doorstep and promptly falling into his arms. How he managed not to splinch himself is a question to be answered in the afterlife over a game of Wizarding Chess between him and Death.

"Theodore, darling, I know you're mad at me but if you could please – "He lolls his head to the side and winces at the pain that suddenly crashed into him just from opening his mouth to speak. " – leave your lovely soliloquy until after you've stitched me up again, because that would be smashing."A hiss punctuates the end of his sentence, followed by a sputter of more blood from his lips.

He looks up and tries to gallantly smile, baring his red-stained teeth at Theo who is coming around from the counter to him holding a flask containing whatever's going to save Blaise. Again. For the hundredth time. This week.

Theo watches as he downs the potion in a few gulps, not even caring how rotten the smell is or how it leaves a nasty burn in the throat.

"If I didn't know any better, it would seem as though you're still trying to get yourself killed."

"You know just as well as I do, that I had to." Blaise wipes the excess liquid from the sides of his mouth with the back of his hand and raises the empty flask. Taking a deep breath, "If at first you don't succeed, right?"

Try and try again.

Before either of them could take a another breath, their forearms started burning by the edges.

Theo sighs. "We just can't catch a fucking break."

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A/N:˘

Hello, lovelies! Back after a solid month and a bit. Truly sorry for the lack of structure with my updates for this book! Life is a lil hectic right now between work and social life and work and trying to travel locally more and work that I just don't have the capacity to sit down and write, which is super frustrating and sad bc all I want when I'm stressed is to write.

Anywaysss. You might find that I rearranged the order of the chapters and added in bits here and there. I've just been re-reading and the story wasn't flowing as easy as I imagined it to be in my head so hopefully it's a bit clearer slash better now (with Draco's first appearance much much earlier on as well). I originally thought I had to set up the scene first before introducing the characters but I realised I could do both and still have it make sense.

So ya, this is what I'm trying out, please leave any feedback for how it's going so far! Thank u thank u thank u sm for everyone who is still reading, still waiting for my updates, and still wanting me to continue!

Take care and much love xx