Unwelcome Arrival

Theo was slowly working his way back to work, sort of kind of maybe not really. Not today, at any rate. Maybe tomorrow. He was trying, really, he'd even made it to the front of the building - whereupon he observed a relatively concerning scene involving one Draco Malfoy that made him turn right back on his heel toward home. He'd tried a few times since then, too, managing to go inside and even managing working a couple of hours, but he always ended up going home 'sick'. Theo didn't spend that much time in the actual hospital being a Medi-Wizard and all, but just the very sight of its corridors made him ill. He had no idea how to get over that, so a few more days of rest at home it was. Just a few.

Or maybe none at all, given the speed and volume of the banging at his front door. His bedroom was the closest to the front, and the sound woke him with a dread he'd been expecting ever since that fateful day at work. Surely that was the Aurors, ready to knock down his door and cart him off to Azkaban. But...someone was shouting his name. Theo tilted his head and listened a moment...was that, was that Mali? Maybe it was just wishful thinking, but on the off-chance that it was his unwilling accomplice, Theo bolted out of bed and to the door before anyone else could get to it. Surely it wasn't the first time a woman came pounding on their door looking for them, but Theo most definitely did not want any of his family talking to Mali if he could prevent it. That was asking for trouble; Ashlands were incredibly nosy by nature and he was having a hard enough time keeping his secret from them as is.

It was Mali. As Theo pulled the door open, there she was, in all of her pajama-ed glory. She looked adorable, but Theo didn't have the pleasure of those indulgences right now, because she was shoving a letter in his face, and his heart was soon plummeting straight into his gut, which promptly fell like a lead balloon all the way to his feet. "Oh, Merlin," he groaned, his eyes skating over the letter but not really reading. Mali was telling him all the important bits. Theo ran his hands over his stubbly face, mainly trying not to vomit or pass out or both. They knew? Of course they knew. Why else would they send Mali a letter? Why would Harry Potter send her a letter? Where was his letter?! Theo's brain was bound to catch fire with how fast the wheels of paranoia were spinning now. What should they do? Pack their belongings, Apparate to Brazil, and call it a day, is what they should do. It was more of a matter of could.

"Come here," he said in a hushed voice, reaching almost unconsciously for the hand in her hair that looked like it was pulling rather painfully at some tangles. He tugged her inside. "We can't talk about this here. My family is sleeping. My room, come on." He nudged her toward the one open door in the house, the one he'd just come bolting out of. That was asking a lot, meeting behind a closed door with a man she probably still didn't fully trust; but Theo's family could not find out about this. He was about three steps from freaking out and he didn't want to do it in his bloody living room. "I didn't get a letter. Why'd they send you one, and not me? Maybe they don't know. Maybe they do. Oh, Merlin."

Theo could feel Mali's hesitation, from her fingers to her toes. He was as gentle as a troll can be as he urged her out of the entrance way and toward his room; he needed so badly for her to just trust him, but he would work with what he got. She was moving in the right direction, anyway, so Theo tried to make that as appealing as possible for her - gentle, very gentle - while still communicating his urgent desire to get the hell out of his living room. "I suspect they're up now, yeah, and that's even worse. Come on," he whispered. He listened hard for sounds of wakefulness until they reached his bedroom, where he again shut the door with purpose and blocked out the outside world.

Theo turned from his door only to find Mali making herself comfortable on his bed. The corners of his lips twitched, despite the rather dreadful reason for his visit. Well, that was promising. She wasn't cowering in the far corner from him, or even sitting primly on the very edge of the only seating in the room - she just flopped right down, with none of the hesitation from before. Theo sat down heavily next to her, mirroring her actions and rubbing his face to try to work out some of the sleepiness. Mali at his front door had been quite a wake up call, sure, but the sleepy morning haze hadn't dissipated from his bedroom yet and its influence was strong, no matter if he was on his way to Azkaban or not. Sleep obviously had a special hold on Theo. He flopped on his back, resting his hands behind his head.

He listened carefully to Mali's...could they call it a plan? Apparently not, because she threw it out herself not a moment later. He thought lying was a great idea, really solid. That wasn't really surprising, and it also wasn't really surprising at all that Mali didn't want to do it. She was nothing if not honest. "It's not really lying if you just don't say anything at all," he tried, but trailed off pretty abruptly because she was right. They would come asking if she didn't write them back. And if she didn't want to write back a lie, what could they possibly do? Theo sighed, looking over the bridge of his nose at Mali as she leaned back. "I know, I'm sorry." Theo was rather sure his apologies were losing purpose, for how many times he'd said it to Mali over the past weeks. She didn't deserve to get mixed up in this, but the deed was done. "If it's any consolation, I think you make a pretty terrible criminal. That's a good thing. S'Just, not many criminals lasting too long if the first person they spill it all to is a bloody Auror." He poked her in the side, mouth twitching again. He was near hypnotized with how much he just wanted to cuddle up and go back to sleep right now, sod off from a world where things like killing curses and letters from Aurors and fearful girls existed. It was making him loopy, and not helpful in the least; but he honestly had no idea what else to do. In the spirit of pretending (read: lying, just to themselves) he said in a slight tone of voice, "Maybe. You think maybe they're just talking to everyone to get a better picture?" His very voice sounded disbelieving. Didn't explain why he didn't get a letter; and as far as he knew, none of his sister's mail owls were particularly fond of snacking on paper.

Mali seemed to be going the same route as he. He must have dreamed up some pretty potent sleep waves in here overnight, because she was going loopy too. Theo could just see the little grin on her face from where he lay. Trolls. Their old joke was touchy, something they'd tried to avoid in the days since the attack...but if they were ever going to get through this, any of it, they had to forego the sensitivity. Pretending was a thing that worked for them, sometimes, just acting like nothing out of the ordinary had happened - maybe it wasn't exactly the healthiest of solutions, but it worked. Got them through the really rough days, the stickiest situations - like receiving vague letters from the DMLE and having no idea what to do with them. "I'm a very sensitive troll, Mali." Theo laid his hand on his chest, over his sensitive little troll heart. "We have our comforts too, you know. Me, in a cave? As if."

Theo looked back and shook his head as he led Mali into his bedroom. He understood the tendency to panic very well now; if he had been the one to get a letter, bet your ass he would have gotten a hold of Mali quicker than you can say Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. "No, I'm glad you came," he whispered back. They were in this together. If anything Theo should be happy to have Mali on his front doorstep at the near crack of dawn. Because that meant she was thinking about him first, and not the Aurors she could be telling all about him.

Once they were in the sanctity of his room and his oh so cozy bed, that sense of relief mingled with sleepiness. Theo considered Mali's words not with the panic he expected - that had reached critical peak at the door and promptly crashed in his nest of blankets - but rather a slow, conscious consideration totally unlike him. "I guess. Doesn't it feel a little less dishonest than an outright lie, maybe? What else can we but tell the truth?" That was a very terrifying prospect, but still his eyes fluttered - to shoot open at the mention of Harry Potter's name. Ah, right. That spooked Theo more than anything. "That is weird, innit? Why him? I don't think I could talk to him, either. You think maybe you can just write him back or something without having to see him?" Theo was grabbing at straws here, really trying the best his sleepy brain would allow. Harry Potter was a hero, but he'd become a hero by killing the world's Darkest wizard. Imagine what he could do to a lowly old mountain troll and his unwitting accomplice. Theo really didn't think Mali had much of a choice that day, but her insistence that she chose to help him was still enormously relieving, for the same reason as before. Mali was on his side.

If she wouldn't take his apologies, the next best thing he could do was try to make her laugh. He liked seeing Mali happy. She deserved it after what he'd put her through. Plus, it made him happy. Things weren't so bad in their little world of teasing that even the darkest conversations couldn't completely shoo out of the air. He raised an eyebrow at her confession about Greta, his heartbeat taking a momentary uptick - but relaxed into a smile once he found out what a Greta was. "Sounds like cheap talk. We'll have to keep an eye on that Greta. I trust you are one of the few who speak the language perfectly?" Look, they were even joking about it now, that terrible thing. Call it denial, but it sure felt a whole hell of a lot better than fretting over it every minute of the day.

But nothing, nothing, could feel as good as Mali cuddling up next to him. Trust, affection, warmth - all bubbled up inside Theo, to spill over when Mali's laughter rang out and she spoke again. She fancied him. After all this they went through and all that was ahead, she wasn't denying her feelings for him. Theo thought it was still there, felt it too, but didn't dare act on it. To put all of these problems on her and then his affections on top of that felt more than wrong. But with her admitting it too...it was right. All alright. Had to be. It felt very right, as he rolled over on his side to face her. Her warmth felt very right, too, as he ran a thumb over her cheek and placed the lightest of sleepy little kisses at the corner of her mouth. It was growing again, the sleepiness, with all this warmth all around him. "Well don't you know, from this angle we could almost pretend you're tall. Like my pretty lady troll. Obviously life brought us to this moment to enlighten us to this match." Sleepiness made him say silly things (we'll blame the sleepiness anyway, but we all know Theo is just cheesy by nature); but he couldn't think of another girl in the world who could possibly take kindly to his calling them a troll.

The anxiety wracking Mali's body, from her face to her movements all across the rest of her, was killing him. On top of sharing the feeling, it upset him to upset her (and this was his fault, his brain reminded him all the time); it also made him the slightest bit nervous to see her so worked up about something like this, and it all ultimately just wore him out. Theo was an endless maelstrom of conflicting emotions, but that didn't mean he didn't get sick of it. He was already tired, exhausted, and his problem-solving abilities were wont to shut down on him completely in that state. "That's right," he said quietly. Azkaban. He would definitely go there if he was ever found out; he wasn't entirely sure what they would do with Mali, but he didn't want to risk it. Mali didn't seem to want to either. She acknowledged that they were stuck between a truth and a lie, and that she couldn't speak either of them. So what to do? "Maybe...maybe I could go for you. Say you're too traumatized to talk about that day, or something. I can be pretty convincing when I wanna be." He looked up and met Mali's cheeky little grin, but his voice betrayed him. Convince Mali he could do this, he could not, because Theo had absolutely no earthly desire to ever meet, speak, or look at Harry Potter at this point.

He'd ever rather talk to Greta over the Boy Who Lived, even if she had no loyalty at all. At least she could only speak Niffler. "Hmm, something you two have in common, then?" He teased, Mali's laughter sweeping away all the nasty little feelings hanging in the air, like a broom taken to a stubborn cobweb. Let them just have this, and maybe everything would be okay. Maybe if they were happy they could better figure out what to do. Or maybe not, because Theo was very happy in this moment as Mali curled up next to him and he kissed her, and that happiness filled his brain with light and no good ideas at all (no good ideas about what to do with the letter, at least). He was totally enamored with her holding and kissing his hand, and he nodded against his pillow. "All yours." He bit his lip, searching her face and hesitant to see if he needed to say more. This moment felt heavy with an important question, one that came out only as, "Okay?" Was it okay that he was her's, and she his?