IF IT WEREN'T FOR OPHELIA'S constant insistence and nagging, she was sure Theo would have never agreed to visit the hospital wing.

It was almost midnight, well past curfew, so the castle was empty, for the most part. So was the hospital wing. It looked like Madam Pomfrey was asleep too, and that was an advantage for the two of them, because if Madam Pomfrey saw the heavily injured state of Theo with clear signs of having been involved in a fight, she would no doubt alert Professors McGonagall and Slughorn who would have Theo serve detention for at least a week.

Theo had wanted to go back to the Slytherin common room with Ophelia, but the blonde had refused to go anywhere with him unless it was the hospital wing.

At the moment, he was begrudgingly seated on the edge of a hospital bed, with the Malfoy Heiress standing before him, gently wiping the blood off his face with cotton and warm water.

"If I had known you would be the one tending to my wounds, I'd have come sooner," Theo murmured, just as she brushed the cotton over a particularly nasty cut on his lip.

Ophelia did not say anything. She merely rolled her eyes at the obviously cheesy pick-up line and continued to wipe the rest of his face, and his fingers.

"Or maybe I should get hurt more often just so you'd be my nurse," he joked, one of his hands moving to gently tickle her waist. 

"It's not funny, Theo," the blonde sighed, pursing her lips. Though there was no mistaking the hint of the smile that threatened to break through.

He was funny, and she would have laughed, but she was too vexed in seeing him like this. 

"So, you love me," Theo remarked softly, a wide grin on his face despite the pain that shot through his lip when he smiled.

At this, Ophelia froze. She knew she loved him, and she had even confessed her feelings for him, but it was still strange hearing this out loud. 

"I do," she whispered, the smile on her face growing wider by just a fraction. "Can I tell you a secret?" she added.

"Of course," Theo replied, scowling as Ophelia had taken out her wand and used a horribly painful spell to fix the broken bones in his hands and nose. "Fuck, gently! That hurts," he hissed.

Ophelia pulled away, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at him. "Would you prefer Skele-Gro?" she asked sassily, the expression on her face indicating that she would take no nonsense.

"Fuck, no," Theo grimaced.

"Exactly."

She got back to work.

Theo broke the silence once more. "So, you said you'd tell me a secret..."

Ophelia's cheeks flushed the slightest shade of pink. She had hoped he would have forgotten about that, even though she had mentioned it less than a minute ago.

"I had a crush on you when we were kids," she replied quietly, her eyes looking anywhere except his face.

"Oh?" The inquired interestedly. "How fascinating... But then, I strongly suspected it at some point..." he trailed off. "Wait, just a crush? You weren't in love with me?"

"A huge crush," Ophelia admitted, averting her gaze once more.

"Hmm, thought so. Everyone has a huge crush on me..." he replied smugly.

Ophelia scowled, finally breaking through her insistence of avoiding his gaze and staring directly into his eyes as she scanned her brain to fetch an equally wounding retort to his comment. 

"Says the boy who decided to confess his feelings for me via owl," Ophelia teased with a mischievous glint in her eye. "I mean, talk about low game..."

"Baby, I was eleven," Theo defended himself.

"Baby, I was eleven," Ophelia repeated the words in a slightly high-pitched, mocking accent, accompanied with her signature move of rolling her eyes.

Theo suddenly looked livid. Blood instantly rushed into his ears, sinking down to his chest, before heading lower to spread across the rest of his body, instantly full of the mad desire to put her in her place. Oh, she drove him fucking wild.

The worst part of all of this is that she looked so fucking adorable when she mocked him, and even though he would have knocked out anyone who dared to speak to him like this, he wanted to do nothing but kiss her.

She made his blood boil, she tested his patience, she set his damn, short fuse alight with a single glare or sassy retort.

His eyes darkened by just  a shade as he glared at her, daring her to continue.

"Lia, don't test my patience," he muttered quietly, issuing the silent warning.

"Lia, don't test my patience," the blonde repeated in her most annoying voice, having the sudden urge to stir the waters despite the strong tide.

Within one move, Theo had leaped off the bed and pinned her to the wall, holding both her hands above her head, giving her no space to move, or escape in any way at all.

A small gasp escaped her, as well as a startled, "Oh!"

"Not so tough now, are you, Lia?" Theo chuckled, staring down at her much shorter figure.

 Though she did feel slightly more vulnerable in this position, her face did not betray her emotions. Instead, her silverish blue eyes glared back at him fiercely.

She suddenly had an idea. A crazy one, alright, but an idea nonetheless. It worked on Lucius, and very recently, Draco. Now, she wanted to try it on Theo.

"Theo," she murmured softly, looking up at him with her gray eyes, forcing them to start watering. 

She was an expert at this, seeing as she cried so often. (She also had years of experience, manipulating Lucius like this into getting anything and everything she wanted.)

Theo's brow knitted slightly in concern, and he loosened his grip, but not by enough for her to get away.

Oh, he knew about her manipulation techniques, he'd seen them before. They were an all too familiar scene back at Malfoy Manor, all those years ago, when Lia used to manipulate her way out of getting a scolding for misbehaving as a child.

"I'm sorry," she whispered softly, jutting out her lower lip into a pout. Her eyes had begun to tear up, and become moist with false, unshed tears. 

But despite knowing that her tears were fake, Theo couldn't escape the effect they had on him.

 "Lia, I know what you're doing," he said quietly, raising a brow.

He knew she was just messing around with him, but he wanted her to stop. Her tears were his weakness.

"Don't get mad at me," she whispered, a hint of shyness emerging from the manipulative act she had orchestrated. "It's my birthday... and I was just messing around with you..." 

The way her eyelashes brushed against the curve of her cheeks as she looked up at him with her watering eyes drove him insane. Accompanied with her plump lower lip trembling as she spoke those very delicate words was just too much for him to bear.

In a split second, he let go of her, stepping back, a low growl rumbling from his throat. "Lia— I— Don't look at me like that, you know the effect it has on me..." 

His heart was palpitating, beating hard underneath the tight confines of his ribcage. He was breathing intensely, trying to avoid the way his ears throbbed as blood rushed into them, avoiding her gaze.

But Ophelia still wasn't done with her act. She had caught Theo off guard, and this was the moment he would do anything for her. It was easy to blink the tears away. She moved closer to him, and gently placed his hand on his shoulder, getting him to look at her. This time, she put on the innocent act, the shy act that followed the tears. 

It was a special routine she had, she had done this countless of times before, asking a question in such a delicate manner that it was very difficult for her to not get what she wanted.

She looked up at Theo, widening her grayish blue eyes and fluttering her eyelashes as she blinked, letting the pout do its work.

"Can I have a kiss, Theo?" she whispered softly.

Theo let out a groan of acknowledgement that he knew his life was fucked the moment he looked into her eyes.

He could never say no.

"Yes," was all he managed, before he pinned her back to the wall, and resumed the assault on her lips.

"I hate you," he muttered as she kissed him as if her life depended on it. "You're dangerous. So fucking lethal..."

"Stop complaining," she replied against his lips, momentarily distracting him from his determination to hate her as she tugged his hair between her fingers before pulling away and pushing him back on the hospital wing bed to resume caring for his wounds. "You know I love you."

At her words, Theo lapsed into a momentary silence. Indeed, he knew she loved him, and that was enough. What more could he need? He had the world.

And despite the silence that took over the vast expanse of the hospital wing as Ophelia used Dittany and Essence of Murtlap to disinfect and dress his wounds, the state of Theo's mind was the opposite; full of thoughts speeding all around the streets of his mind without brakes.

Because there was one question he had been dying to know the answer to, and there were countless of times when he'd bit back his tongue from asking her in fear of ruining the moment.

But at the same time, he needed to know.

"What about Creevey?" he suddenly asked softly, his voice full of childish curiosity had tried so hard to mask.

There was no need for him to explain, he knew she knew what he meant. They understood each other perfectly.

"Uhm—" she began softly, slowly looking up into his eyes. 

She did not want to tell him the truth. 

But this was her chance. 

She knew she had to, because if she didn't, she'd regret it for the rest of her life. Pansy had said live without regrets, and Ophelia had been cheating on Theo with Colin, without regret, but now, she knew it was time to untangle her life from this huge mess she had created.

"Theo, I.. I can't lie," she murmured tenderly, reaching forward to hold his hand as she looked up into his eyes. "I.. erm.... I still have feelings for him," she whispered.

Theo's breath hitched at the way she let her vulnerabilities show before him, and he knew she was telling him the truth.

But he also knew that she truly loved him. Because Ophelia was not the type to lie about something like that.

He was the type to lie about love, but not to her.

Never her.

He had been with countless other girls, whispering lies in their ears as he told them he loved them, just to leave in the morning without feeling guilty, but he could never do that to Lia.

He understood what she felt. Sometimes, there were feelings and emotions in life that were unfathomable. They could not be explained.

Like why the sky was blue, and the grass was green.

Or why the wings of the bird were useless in the water, and the wings of the fish were useless in the sky.

Somethings were just there. They existed.

And Theo had asked himself countless of times why he had fallen for Ophelia, only to never come up with an answer.

One cannot choose who they fall for.

And right now, it so happened that Ophelia had fallen for not one, but two souls.

Theo took one glance at her vulnerably honest gray eyes and the silent plead for acceptance at the answer she had given him, and he reached forward to brush a stray strand of hair behind her ear.

"That's okay, princess," he whispered softly, even though it hurt him to say those words. "Can't control what your heart feels, right?"

Because he knew she was really trying. A part of her heart belonged to him, and another part to Creevey, but tonight was a big night for him.

She had just said he loved him, and for now, that was enough.

One day, she would be completely his.

It was alright if that day wasn't today.

"I didn't mean to fall for either of you," she broke the silence once more, wrapping a bandage around his hand. 

She did not tell him she was cheating on him. It would break him. 

She knew this was a fragile topic. 

She knew it was hard enough for him to hear that she had feelings for Colin despite being with him, and that was the main reason for her silence.

She did not want to put him through any more emotional pain for the night.

"I didn't mean to fall for Colin, and I didn't mean to fall for you..."

And Ophelia then opened up her soul to him a little bit, telling him of how she felt like an outcast at Hogwarts, the place she had heard wonders about, and how Colin was the first person to be nice to her, and accept her for who she was instead of judging her for her family.

She told Theo about how she tried so hard to avoid catching feelings for him, and how Lucius had warned her about falling for a mudblood, but she ended up falling for him anyway. She didn't care about his status, but she didn't want anyone finding out about her secret anyway.

And she even told Theo about how she didn't mean to fall for him, because she assumed she was in love with Colin, and her feelings for her brother's best friend were nothing but platonic.

Until she woke up one day, and just knew.

And when she was done, she looked up at Theo, who had been silent all this time, and slowly, his arms wrapped themselves around her as he rested his chin atop her head.

"I love each and every part of you, Ophelia Malfoy," Theodore muttered, just loud enough for her to hear. 

And Ophelia closed her eyes, and for the first time in a very long time, she felt safe. 

At that moment, she wasn't at Hogwarts in the hospital wing. She was back at Malfoy Manor, in the treehouse in the garden, exactly six years ago, on her tenth birthday, when Theo had promised Lia that he would be her friend forever.

She felt home.

Miles away, and many years into the future sits a writer, furiously typing away on a ratty, old typewriter, wearing her grandma's ancient, tattered shawl around her.

She is deeply invested in writing the story of Theo and Ophelia, having found new motivation to let her fingers bleed words into the page.

People are finally reading her work.

So when she finishes the latest chapter she has been working on, she stands up and stretches. A loud crack interrupts the perfect silence of the room as the bones in her hunched back click into place.

Then, she wraps the shawl tighter around her lithe frame, and pushes a large set of octagonal glasses further up her nose before stepping outside for a walk.

Naturally, her feet take her to her new favorite spot; the newspaper stand. Once again, people are gathered around the newspapers, each of them discussing how much they despise Ophelia.

The writer smiles to herself.

She begins to step out of her comfort zone and open her mouth, so people can hear the voice she normally did everything to hide.

She asks a few young women around her questions about what they think of the story so far, all without divulging the fact that she is in fact, the writer of the story.

They all begin to comment about how delusional the writer must be for creating such an awful main character for a story, without even suspecting that in fact, said writer stands right before them, listening with great interest and amusement.

The writer is not in fact, deterred in the least. She is used to people criticizing her.

She has grown up with it.

The writer then asks them what their idea of a perfect romance book is. 

They give her a few recommendations, and the writer makes her way to the nearest bookstore to purchase the set, desperate to see what was so great about the other romance novels.

Then, she buys a croissant and a hot cocoa, and makes her way back to her house.

Having a different mindset from the other judgmental humans that the writer had lived with, her entire life, her knowledge on this kind of common, hypercritical, self-entitled human species is rather extensive at this point.

All humans have faults.

No human is perfect, not even the writer herself. 

And after staying up all night to read all those romance novels she had bought, the writer rolls her eyes at the perfect characters the other famous bestsellers had written.

There was a pattern here, she had noticed.

In every single one of the books she had read, the story is almost always told from the female lead's point of view.

This female character is almost always shown as completely perfect, without fault. Of course the characters have imperfections, just like all humans, but they aren't shown in the books. 

The flaws and the true human nature of the main female characters in all the romance books she had read were completely obscured.

And the male lead was almost always at fault.

The writer understood why the readers thought her delusional. It was because she thought outside the box.

She believed that there were other ways of writing a romance.

But despite the way the people complained about her, the writer knew they could not stop reading for one main reason.

Because they related to the character. Every, single soul knows their own deepest, darkest secrets. Everyone knows what makes them ugly inside.

Yet they hide it, just like the main characters in the other stereotypical novels she had read.

But the writer does not hide her ugliness, that was why no one liked her.

Because she was different.

Openly flaunting the intangible ugliness behind the physical beauty of a character was one thing that was new to everyone.

Indeed, the writer was writing a story that everyone could sympathize with, everyone could relate with. A story where all the feelings and emotion were raw and tangible, out in the open for everyone to see the ugliness behind the mask.

Because no one liked ugly things, no one liked ugly people.

Even the writer herself. It is human nature.

That was why no one liked Ophelia. Because they caught a glimpse of the ugly thoughts in her mind and soul.

But Theo loved her. 

Despite knowing her all her faults and flaws, Theo loved her.

In fact, he loved her faults and flaws, because that was the part that made her herself.

She wouldn't be his Ophelia without her faults and flaws.

And now, one would ask, what is the point of explaining all of this?

The moral of the story, ladies and gentlemen, is that one does not need to be perfect to be loved.

One just has to find that one person who would accept them for who they are, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Sometimes it takes time, and sometimes it happens all at once.

But that doesn't matter.

What matters is that everyone needs to know that they do not need to be perfect to be loved.

And the story of how two perfectly imperfect people come to love each other is a slow burn. Because it takes work. It takes trial and error, and every step of the way is hard work.

But that, in the writer's eyes, that is the definition of a real love story.

{ hey guysss, it's me again, with another updateee!! i'm on a roll rn, istg. i hope you enjoyed this chapter, i really liked writing it...
anyway, follow me on my socials (bio) and comment, vote, follow and share. let's get to 200 votes please?? 🥺🥺
i need motivation... it helps me write faster. 
atm i feel kinda depressed for reasons unknown and i'm so close to making every chapter sad 😭😭
but i'm not... the chapters that follow are just as dramatic as the previous ones, it gets worse, guys. hope you're prepared. we're actually almost done with ootp !!
there's not much to say at the moment, except that uni is starting soon, and that we're almost at 900k. i love all of you sm!!
have a great weekend and please spam this chapter with comments.
lots of love, jasmine
xoxo }

{ OCT 04. 2024 }