Brick

Pairing: Nottpott (Theo Nott x Harry Potter)

Universe: muggle AU

Rating: M

Summary: Everyone has a hobby. Theirs is… uniquely theirs.

The carpet, which had come to the Malfoys by way of the House of Valois somewhere around the fourteenth century, was a priceless antique. It was also an atrocity, having been abandoned to age ungracefully in one of the lesser-used upstairs drawing rooms. But obviously that was neither here nor there, because none of it was currently visible beneath Theo's latest dive into mania.

While this room was typically quite sparse—paying homage, of course, to that priceless and abominable rug—it was currently covered in juvenile structures that, optically, were scattered across a spectrum of cartoonishly bright to offensively garish. The London skyline had been reconstructed beside something that appeared to be an operational space station, and beside that was a temple erected to a mini-figurine closely resembling Draco himself.

"What's this?" Draco asked aloud, falling to a halt. Not that anyone ever used this room, but its vacancy was its primary redeeming factor. There was also something disconcerting (and perhaps borderline dangerous?) about its current occupation.

"Found these," replied Theo, not looking up. He waved a hand around the room, ostensibly indicating that those two words should explain everything without further questioning.

Draco exchanged a skeptical glance with Hermione beside him. He'd warned her there would be some consequences to her moving in, though this particular one hadn't been on the list of aforementioned topics.

"There's no such thing as a casual hobby for him, is there?" she murmured tentatively.

"No," Draco confirmed. "There is not."

"And this is… normal? For him?"

"Well, he's never done this particular thing before," Draco acknowledged with a shrug. "But thematically it's very on brand."

Hermione was a problem-solver at heart, which was something Draco admired about her. He also found it very amusing how tirelessly she threw herself at unsolvable things, such as the very truth and nature of his lifelong friend and eternal plague, Theodore Nott.

"Um, Theo," Hermione called out to him, nearly tipping sideways as she attempted to reach the epicenter of the mess. She stepped over a miniature racetrack and crouched down beside him, engaging a soft, pedantic tone. "I don't suppose you've given any thought to what you're going to do… next?"

"Well, I've been immensely overstimulated," said Theo, still focused on the obelisk he was presently constructing. "You've seen how much sugar I let into my diet. Some might call it irresponsible to the point of lethality."

"Oh," said Hermione, looking concerned. "Well, I'm sure if it's a matter of nutrit-"

"He's joking," Draco growled impatiently, stepping over the miniature petting zoo to urge Hermione back to her feet. "Nott, you've got to stop this," he said firmly to Theo, coaxing Hermione away from the monster at the center of the labyrinth. "You're turning the whole house into your personal palace of eccentricity and frankly, it's all very underfoot."

Theo ignored him, as he usually did, and Hermione turned to Draco with a sigh.

"He's healing," she attempted to reason sympathetically.

"He's a child," Draco corrected.

"Maybe there's a way to get him to channel all this into something positive?" Hermione suggested, tepidly chewing her lip. "I don't want to just be rid of him."

"Well, I do. It's very simple, Theodore," Draco said to Theo, though he may as well not have bothered. "Just stop building Legos in my house!"

When there was predictably no answer, Draco sighed. "Jesus Christ," he murmured to himself, or to Hermione, or to whoever might manifest to assist him in this time of need. "What sort of adult man still does this?"

Just then, something seemed to occur to Hermione with a delayed bolt of recognition.

"Oh," she said. "Hm."

"Potter," called the department head. "May I see you in my office for a moment?"

Harry looked up from his desk with a start, nearly toppling the dragon figurine that had taken him a full week's holiday to build. He'd taken the time off the moment he'd gotten his hands on the special edition Hungarian Horntail, not even hesitating to file the request despite the time he'd probably need later that year for Dudley's wedding. Now the dragon's tail curled comfortingly down onto his computer screen, filling him with a rare and probably short-lived glimpse of happiness.

"Potter, as you know there's been some… cuts to the department," said Slughorn, looking deeply apologetic. "And as you are still only an associate member of our faculty, I'm afraid my hands are tied. I'm happy to provide references—"

Harry tuned out the remainder of whatever Slughorn had to say, knowing there had never been a purpose to getting comfortable. He listened to himself getting sacked for the second time in a year as if it were a foggy gramophone recording and then nodded numbly, rising to his feet to collect his figurines from his office.

That Harry had wound up in academia had always been something of a demented outcome. Mostly he'd wanted to stay in school as long as possible, keeping away from whatever his aunt and uncle demanded of him at home. Presumably they expected him to care for Aunt Marge, who was not even related to him by blood, or to work for Uncle Vernon, who couldn't have cared less whether Harry had any interest in industrial drills. So long as universities kept paying him to research obscure historical documents, Harry had done it. But now, it seemed, his excuses might be at an end.

He placed his collection of figurines—an elf he called Dobby, a giant he called Hagrid, a wizard he called Dumbledore who was in constant battle with an evil sorcerer called Voldemort—into the box he hadn't even bothered to be rid of when he arrived, and recounted how little hope there had been to begin with. His research was so very niche and useless (purposefully, since it meant he wasn't exceptionally bothered by anyone while he worked) that funding would forever be in the process of getting cut for his particular expertise.

As Harry was glancing over his box of figurines and resigning himself to an unceremonious return to Privet Drive, his phone rang in his pocket. He shifted to reach for it, pulling it to his ear without a glance. No doubt it would be Dudley calling about his stag night—again.

"I told you the stripper was handled," Harry said perfunctorily. "And no, I didn't ask for a picture of her tits because that's reductive. I'm sure they're perfectly fine."

"Um, Harry?" said an unfamiliar voice as Harry blinked in surprise, adjusting his hold on the box of figurines. "It's Hermione. From Hogwarts?"

"Oh." Drat. "Sorry, that was—"

"Don't worry about it," she assured him, her voice self-consciously sunny. "I was just wondering… it's odd, I know, but… do you still have that, um. Hobby of yours?"

"My research, you mean?" Hermione, too, was an academic, though she'd specialized in ancient linguistics. The summer after they'd both finished their doctorate programs she'd supposedly gone off to some archaeological site and fallen in love with the son of the program's aristocratic patron. "Yes, I still work in fictional dialects and folklore, though lately I've had to pivot somewhat," he said, glancing down at his recently emptied desk.

"No, I meant—" She let out an uncomfortable laugh. "The… other thing."

Harry frowned wordlessly down at his box of figurines.

"Do you still build things?" Hermione asked him gently. "The little, um. Toys?"

Toys. Speaking of reductive. Not that it was worth getting into.

"I do," Harry said. Over his shoulder he caught sight of Slughorn's secretary, who must have been sent after him to make sure he didn't steal any of the department's letterhead. "Sorry, not to rush you, Hermione, but is there a reason you're asking?"

"Well, I was just wondering," Hermione said. "Would you ever consider meeting up with someone who had… similar inclinations?"

Even from across the cafe, it was obvious that Harry Potter was primarily skinny, messy-haired, and bespectacled. He was also dressed horribly, wearing an overlarge rugby polo with a pair of worn jeans that was as upsetting as it was striped. His haircut was the worst thing Theo had ever set eyes on in his entire life and all in all the view was unsavory—but Harry Potter was useful, and Theo Nott was very utilitarian by nature. Usefulness was all that mattered.

"There's a reality show competition for Lego builders," Theo announced without preamble, nearly startling Harry into dropping his cup of tea. His glasses fogged up somehow, lending him a distinct air of madness as Theo slid the screen of his iPad across the table. "I need a partner."

"What… a what?" Harry repeated slowly. "Who? Sorry." He inhaled deeply. "Who are you?"

"I'm Theodore Nott the second. Do not google me, you won't like what you find." Theo flipped his chair around and perched across from Harry, staring at him. "What's that?" he asked, pointing to the scar on Harry's forehead.

"Nothing." Harry fussed with his hair, covering it up. "Are you Hermione's friend?"

"Not even remotely," said Theo. "But she and Draco needed me out of the house, so for all intents and purposes yes."

"You said this a… Lego competition?" asked Harry, and then glanced up. "You build Legos?"

Theo heard the unspoken implication. Harry was taking in Theo's immaculate suit, the military haircut and probably also the biceps, piecing together his indubitably false impression.

"I dabble," said Theo. "And you?"

"Well, I don't necessarily limit myself t-"

"You don't have a wife or anything, do you?" asked Theo, prompting Harry to balk at him, still vaguely foggy-eyed from clutching his mug of tea protectively to his chest. Theo sighed, impatiently removing the mug from Harry's hand. "What I mean is you don't have any pressing reason to remain here, do you? Because we'll be required to stay in Holborn for filming."

"Stay," Harry echoed vacantly. "Stay…?"

"In a hotel? You've heard of them, yes?"

"For a… Lego competition?"

Okay, so Harry was an idiot. Or slow. Whatever the politically correct term for that was these days. Not that it mattered. He could be anything but comatose and it would be sufficient. It would give Theo something to do, which he sorely needed.

"Listen. Do you have literally anything better to do with yourself?" Theo asked Harry flatly.

For a singular flash of a moment, he thought he recognized something in Harry's glance.

"No," Harry said. His first coherent answer all afternoon.

"Good." Theo rose to his feet. "Then pack your bags. We start filming on Monday."

If Harry could credit Dudley with anything it would be naming Harry his best man, as it was an exceptionally creative form of indentured servitude. Harry fumbled for his mobile phone nearly twenty times a day attending to Dudley's various demands, which had already been Harry's arena of concern for essentially their entire lives.

"Hello?" Harry said, answering the phone as he and Theo pulled up to the hotel. Theo slid out from the driver's seat and tossed his keys to someone standing nearby, which Harry stared after with a frown. "Theo, I don't think that's a valet."

"Oi, Harry, have you got everything Cho's asked?" Dudley said. Fate was a cruel mistress indeed giving a woman like Cho Chang to a man like Dudley Dursley. "She'll be in a foul mood if you've not got the photo booth she asked for."

"What?" Theo asked.

"That's not a valet," Harry said again, pointing to the man who was currently holding Theo's keys. In response, Theo pivoted, whipping his sunglasses from his face with obvious disbelief. "This place doesn't have a valet—and Dudley, can you just give me a minute? I'll call you back in just a minute—"

"I thought you understood this was important," Dudley said. "If you don't want to help, I can always have Piers step in. He's a real mate," he accused snidely.

"Listen Dudley, it's fine, I'll just give Cho a call this afternoon and—"

Harry stopped as Theo yanked the phone from his hand, tossing it over his shoulder and into the street. There was a smack of metal and the crunch of a car tire before a driver shouted profanities out his open window to Theo, who strode into the Hoxton without even a blink.

"What—" Harry froze. "What did you just—? What…?"

"I need you focused," Theo said, doubling back and snapping his fingers. "Do you understand? I need your full, entire focus. Let's go, walk." More finger-snapping.

"But…" Harry stared longingly into the street at his shattered screen.

"Your cousin messaged you three times on the drive alone," Theo reminded him impatiently. "What's so important you can't devote your attention solely to this for the next month?"

With as irrational as Theo clearly was, Harry was somehow struggling to conjure up any rationality of his own. All he could think was Cho, the woman he'd loved for the last decade of his life, had specifically asked his help to give her the perfect wedding, and because he had known Dudley would not do it—and because he knew Dudley could not give her anything close to a perfect life, though nobody had asked his opinion on the matter—Harry had accepted the role of best man and shouldered all the expectations therein. He half-considered a mad dash into the street for the phone's mangled corpse until Theo waved his hands distractingly, this time right in front of Harry's nose.

"Focus," said Theo. "Aren't you unemployed? You need the money. I need the win."

Harry shut his eyes. Theo Nott wouldn't understand this, of course, being the rich prick he so obviously was, but Harry did need the money. Not just the money, but what the money meant. That for once he had done something of value.

"Good luck," Cho had breathed to him, her smile warm and soft as he'd headed out the door. "I'm so happy you've finally taken your shot, Harry."

"Harry," barked Theo. "Are you listening?"

Harry blinked. "What?"

Theo rolled his eyes.

"Come on," he said, grabbing Harry's shoulder and leading him into the hotel. "We've got to get started."

The room was fine. Not especially large and designed to resemble a contemporary flat which was unnecessarily kitschy, but fine. The shower was constructed improperly. Fine. The towels were decent and the shampoo was vegan. Harry was clearly going to be a lot of work. Fine.

If there was one thing Theo relished, it was the thrill of an impossible task.

Though Theo had specifically said not to google him, Harry most certainly had. Theodore Nott was the son of an English nobleman—was a nobleman himself—and had recently been honorably discharged from the British Royal Air Force. He was a pilot, a decorated officer, and most confusingly, a hero. That being said, not one thing in Theo's google search had populated any results to suggest the man Harry was currently sharing a hotel room with was even remotely the same person.

"Are you listening?" was one of Theo's top five questions, though in Harry's opinion it was physically impossible to listen to anything Theo said. He spoke incoherently, in half-sentences, and often interrupted himself to snatch the tablet from Harry's hands and begin drawing it himself. (They were, according to Theo, "casually sketching" in advance of the competition itself, though nothing about what they were doing aside from Harry's wardrobe seemed remotely near casual.)

"I'm trying to listen," Harry said. "But you've spent the last forty-five minutes alternately quoting Shakespeare at me and mumbling to yourself."

"Well, if you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them," Theo replied, dripping with sarcasm. Harry, who seemed to be the only person in the room aware that it was currently four in the morning, rose to his feet and grabbed the tablet back from Theo.

"Here," he said, sketching out a possible landscape. At this point he didn't even care what it was, so long as Theo stopped talking. "There's a good chance we'll be asked to design a dystopia, so here's a duel scene. There's the good guy," he said, pointing, "here's the bad guy, and if we put this in the middle—"

He blinked as Theo suddenly dropped beside him on the bed, the whole thing shifting beneath his weight as if an anvil had collided with the mattress.

"Keep going," Theo said.

Harry glanced at him, bracing for criticism or mockery, but Theo seemed genuinely entranced. His eyes were wide, the shadows beneath them stark against his pale skin, and for the first time it was as if Theo's entire being had temporarily quieted. He vibrated at a slower, almost tranquil frequency, his chin paused beside Harry's shoulder and fixed on the screen with obvious anticipation for whatever Harry drew next.

"Well," Harry said, shifting slightly so that Theo could see better. "What if we added… planes? Or something in the sky? Something to give it dimension, height—"

"No," Theo said. "Not planes. Doesn't even make sense." He slid an accusing glance to Harry. "What kind of narrative involves both wizards and airplanes?"

"Oh." Harry supposed he was right about that. "Maybe… monkeys with wings? Something Wizard of Oz-y?"

Theo shook his head. "People on broomsticks," he said.

"Okay." Harry bent his head, sketching something he'd imagined himself at least a hundred times. "Like that?"

"Like that," Theo agreed, before finally—thank god—covering a yawn.

The other competitors were hobbyists, also amateurs. There were two sets of twins (the Patils and the Weasleys), a father and son (the Diggorys), a set of cosplaying enthusiasts, Loony something and her bizarre partner Severitus, a pair of quarrelsome boyfriends (Sean and Deamus?), and some other people, maybe. Mostly Theo was focused from the start on the newly married couple, the Longbottoms. The husband, Neville, seemed pleasant enough, easily stomped on, but Theo got very disturbing vibes from the wife. Pansy had a slightly unhinged look to her, like possibly she kept a store of poisons under the beams of her floorboards for anyone she considered a threat.

"Watch out for Crazy Eyes," Theo murmured to Harry, nudging him. He had dressed Harry that morning, opting to lean into Harry's professorial qualities with a shawl-collared cardigan. He'd worn a henley and jeans himself.

"Oh, that's Neville Longbottom," Harry said, glancing up with surprise. "He's an incredible brickmaster."

"What?"

"He's very good at building things," Harry clarified. "So good there's a rumor he was asked to be a designer for Lego and he turned them down."

"Why?"

"To do stuff like this instead, I guess," Harry said with a shrug.

Theo frowned. "How do you know this?"

"Dunno. I go on the messageboards and such," Harry said, turning to Theo with confusion. "Don't you?"

Theo had never had much of a childhood, so he'd only discovered the very existence of Legos approximately two weeks ago. Maybe three, depending what day it was now. He had scoured the internet for tricks when it came to building styles, mechanical techniques, and terminology, but of course he hadn't bothered to research the "community," which was full of uninhibited weirdos.

"Does it matter if I do or not?" asked Theo, sliding a glance askance. Since walking into the competition film studio, Harry had become a different person. He was still skinny and bespectacled, definitely, but he seemed to be standing straighter, holding his shoulders back with something Theo suspected was meager but noticeable confidence.

"No," Harry said, glancing at Neville again. "He's good, but I'm better."

"Big words from someone who's never actually done anything before," commented Theo, who had done precisely what he'd told Harry not to do and googled him. Harry Potter had a Ph.D. in obscure linguistics and had shuffled between universities since the completion of his dissertation. His permanent address was listed as the one belonging to his aunt and uncle, where he'd lived his entire life. Even Hermione had said quietly to Draco that while Harry was very good at building things—figurines and whatever else—he had always seemed distinctly odd. Alienated by his own inaction.

"Better late than never," Harry remarked, one hand rising to his scar, though he ultimately refrained from touching it. Theo had told him to move the hair aside, leaving the lightning bolt on display for the audience. It's cool, he'd said, niche, memorable. That sort of shit sticks.

"I don't think I'm that memorable," had been Harry's murmured response.

"Then give them something to remember," Theo replied.

By the first day of competition, there was no question about it. Theo Nott was a madman.

This had good and bad implications. On the plus side, Theo's ability to visualize something before he even set a hand to building it was fucking unparalleled. Harry had never met someone who could stare into space for five seconds and then suddenly produce a full concept of what should come next, and Harry had spent a lot of time observing Lego builds on YouTube. Theo was so proficient it was almost as if he wasn't even doing it in real time; as if he'd frozen portions of Harry's consciousness and bopped around in time and space, only allowing Harry to see the subsequent edits—the cuts and pastes that revealed the final product.

Theo was also rigorously scheduled, methodical, ruthlessly efficient. Building, this sort of thing, had only ever been for Harry's personal fulfillment, never for profit or on a timeline. Nobody had ever asked him why he started or what he enjoyed about it. Nobody cared about any of this at all except for Theo, so Harry had never been forced to admit his origin story to anyone until the day Theo drilled him about it.

"Okay no, it wasn't my hobby, exactly," Harry had said without thinking. The interrogation ("A MEANINGFUL STORY TO CONNECT WITH THE AUDIENCE," Theo had shouted at Harry like a gun going off) was part of a crash-course in media preparation that Theo considered necessary to their success. It had taken place just before sunrise, at which point Harry was too bleary-eyed with exhaustion to contemplate a better answer. "My cousin Dudley went through a Lego phase, but of course he had the most fun destroying the sets after he built them. I'd go into his second bedroom—"

"Second bedroom?" asked Theo, barking it like a sergeant.

"Yeah, he had two bedrooms," Harry said, as mechanical by then as one of his own lifeless builds. "One for him and one for his toys, which took up most of the upper floor. But at night—"

"What about you? Where was your room?"

"I… had a room also," Harry mumbled. "Anyway, at night I'd go into his second bedroom and take the broken bits and fix them and put the sets back together. I just couldn't stand it, seeing them destroyed like that, it felt… I just couldn't stand it." He blinked, rubbing his eyes beneath his glasses. "Besides, it wasn't like I had anything better to do."

Theo's silence in response had been deafening, and then he'd followed it up with an even stranger look.

"That's depressing as fuck," he said, tossing a pillow at Harry. "Go to bed."

But ever since that conversation, Harry had noticed Theo looking at him differently. Almost as if Harry was a supplementary Lego set that Theo was responsible for piecing together invisibly inside his head, though clearly none of the pieces were locking into place.

They won best build of the day in the first round. A lot of that was due to Theo's ability to finish things with extraordinary efficiency—he took almost no time in the production process and used a schedule breaking each hour into ten minute increments—but it was Harry's detailed model of a phoenix with outstretched wings of flame that received the most praise from the judges, Minerva and Filius.

"This is so imaginative," said Minerva. "It's spectacular in the true sense of it. That sense of spectacle is there, the element of the fantastical. This is what Lego is all about: the story, the wonder. There's something very special about this build."

Harry waited for Theo to drill him on something when they returned to their hotel room, but surprisingly, he hadn't. Theo simply picked up his tablet and started drawing.

"Do you want me to work on some new sketches?" asked Harry uncertainly.

It took a second for Theo to tear his gaze from his drawing. "What?"

"Well, I don't know what you're working on, but if you want—"

"I thought you'd want to sleep," said Theo. "I'm just doing this to amuse myself."

He lowered the stylus to the screen again, continuing to work. Harry, meanwhile, shifted his weight from foot to foot.

"I'd actually… rather not," said Harry. "I don't sleep that well, to be honest. And, I don't know, I'm not tired."

Theo glanced up fleetingly. "What's your deal?" he said, as Harry blinked.

"What?"

"Your cousin," Theo said. "You rebuild his Legos. You stay in his shadow. You even take it upon yourself to save his wedding."

"I'm not saving it, I'm just—"

"You are."

He never got a word in edgewise. "I'm n-"

"You can deny it however you like, Potter, but it's quite clear that y-"

"I thought I wanted to be rid of him," Harry snapped, suddenly frustrated with Theo's constant bulldozing. "I thought for years I just wanted to be anywhere he wasn't, but then I realized the rest of the world's no different. There are Dudleys everywhere, a thousand different forms of them, and at least I understand how this particular Dudley works."

He glanced down at his hands, suddenly flaming with anger. Theo, wisely or curiously or disinterestedly or possibly just bored, said nothing.

"I waited," Harry grumbled, falling onto the mattress behind him. "My entire life I waited for someone to walk in the door and tell me I was special, to explain that I was alive for a reason, that I was destined for greatness. That I was put here on this earth for a purpose. And I waited and waited and realized nobody gives a damn if I live or die, nobody cares. There's no such thing as karma, the world's not fair, and we just mythologize ourselves to get through it." He slid a glance at the window, rubbing his temples. "We want to believe in fate or destiny but there's no such thing. There's no purpose to any of it. We just exist because of randomness, entropy, I don't know, some roll of the dice. Statistics. And it makes sense, doesn't it, because why should we be different from any other species? Flies don't have destinies and neither do we. We're not special, we don't get more credit just because we can collectively point to something and call it angst. We're part of an ecosystem that truly doesn't give a damn which of us lives or dies. It doesn't ask for qualifications. We live or we don't and either way, the rest of the world moves on."

Harry's parents had died and he had lived, but for what? Petunia and Vernon, monsters that they were, had lived when James and Lily had died. There was no logic to it, no rationality. There was no reason Dudley was considered special and Harry was not. That was just the way of it, the universe, and it didn't matter whether you were good or bad, special or unspecial. Harry had learned that lesson, finally, when Cho had chosen Dudley over him.

"Wow." Theo set down his stylus, staring at Harry with something very close to a laugh. "That's the imagination that won us the first round? You must be joking."

Harry turned away, sickened. "Never mind. I'll just—"

"Here," Theo said, offering him the tablet and the stylus. "Draw me something."

Harry glanced at him, waiting for the joke. The beat of sarcasm. The underlying pulse of ridicule, the jeering or disdain; the implications of pity or mockery that other people assumed for whatever reason that Harry couldn't hear or feel.

"What? Draw," Theo said, militaristic again. "I'm not going to just sit here waiting all night."

"Why don't you sleep?" Harry asked him, snatching the iPad from Theo's hand. It felt like a jostled recoiling, that single motion. He'd been reluctant to reach out at all, assuming things were safer if he kept within the limited frame of his limbs.

"I'll sleep when I'm dead," Theo assured him, "which by your reasoning could be any moment."

He could hear that Theo was definitely making fun of him that time, but it wasn't the same as Dudley or anyone else who had ever stared at his Lego builds with derision.

"Don't tell me you're an optimist," Harry muttered, falling into the bed beside the desk where Theo sat.

"Me? I know why I exist," Theo said, shrugging. "I'm here to make my father uncomfortable and to take up space in my best friend's house. I already know that my calling is delightfully diminutive."

He propped his feet up beside Harry.

"You know what? Do the planes," Theo said. "Why not. What's the worst that can happen, someone crashes and I get a medal of bravery? The universe would never allow it, it's too divine a comedy."

He'd said it with effortless theatricality, as if he really believed nobody else could hear the echo, the cavernous drop underneath. Or possibly Theo didn't believe anyone was listening for it, and maybe also had a lifetime of watching his suspicions prove themselves true.

Harry was starting to think he understood what kind of adult man became obsessed with winning a Lego competition. It wasn't all that different from the sort of child who painstakingly put broken pieces back together again.

"Don't take this the wrong way," Harry said slowly, "but are you by any chance supposed to be on some sort of high dosage medication?"

Theo gave a burst of laughter so loud and uninhibited that Harry was sure he'd woken their neighbors.

"Aren't we all," managed Theo eventually. "Aren't we all."

Having won the first round, Theo expected he and Harry would be murdered in their beds by Pansy very shortly. By the third round, while the others were starting to be sent home, he'd begun speculating that Pansy was a very specialized sort of gold digger who'd recognized Neville's undeniable skill at Lego building and begun monetizing it, because nothing else could possibly explain their relationship. True, they were constantly holding hands and repeating the same (clearly rehearsed!) portions of their courtship, but Theo was convinced none of it could possibly be real. Pansy always seemed to go a little dead-eyed whenever it happened, and Stockholm Syndrome aside, Theo was almost positive Neville was still a virgin.

"You're being mean," Harry murmured, though Theo could see quite clearly he was suppressing his amusement.

"You know I'm right," Theo informed him. "Look at her," he added, gesturing to where Pansy hadn't blinked in the last three minutes, staring at whatever Neville was building into the scene. "I don't know whether to summon the police, child services, or the zoo. I'm genuinely concerned she'll ingest him like a spider right in front of us if they ever drop into the bottom two," Theo commented, watching Harry's hands shake slightly with laughter while he continued their city build.

They'd decided to build the tallest skyscraper in the room, complete with moving parts that Harry brought to life like magic. Unfortunately something had gone horribly wrong in the transportation of the build, and just before the judging portion of that round, the top of their skyscraper had crashed to the ground, leaving their build incomplete.

Theo had watched Harry's face go blank, his entire frame frozen, before he suddenly darted out of sight.

"You should go after him," said a producer to Theo's left.

"Shut up," said Theo, who was already half-jogging in the direction Harry had gone. The fact that a camera had followed him was not ideal; upon discovering Harry sitting alone in the dark, he desperately wished they'd had the space to be alone.

"Hey," Theo said. "It's okay."

Harry's face was buried in his palms.

"Hey." Theo knelt in front of him, trying to ignore the presence of the cameraman on his left. "Listen to me," he said quietly. "It's not life or death. It's just Lego."

"It's everything," Harry whispered back, barely audible. "Don't you understand? It's everything."

Yes, Theo understood. It was more than just a build. It was transfiguring the chaos of the world into something ordered, something beautiful, something fantastical. It was the transformation of the universe's bullshit, the outcome of their shitty lives into something notable, something of value. He thought of a younger Harry sneaking into his cousin's second bedroom and repairing the damage his cousin had done, unknowingly tying himself to all the damage his cousin would ever cause for the entirety of a damaging lifetime.

Even if either of them were normal people, it would have been a shame to lose nearly ten hours of work. But they weren't normal, not in the least, which made it infinitely worse. They were the sort of people who had to be rebuilt from night to night, from day to day. They were faulty structures with broken parts, men who were hardly even standing.

"Come on," said Theo, pulling Harry to his feet and tugging him into a spontaneous embrace, obscuring their conversation from the camera. "You never know. There might be some sort of miracle that keeps us here."

Harry's reply in his ear was thin and unconvinced. "Like what?"

"Maybe Crazy Eyes out there murdered someone on the studio floor? That's got to merit a spot in the bottom two, at least."

Harry laughed, which might have been a sob, though Theo held him through it regardless.

"Alright, fine," Harry exhaled, pulling away. "I guess the universe is random enough that miracles are bound to happen."

"Statistically speaking, one mustn't discount the anomalies," Theo reminded him.

In the end, they were all tasked with another five hours to add an additional narrative onto their builds, allowing Harry and Theo to repair theirs as part of the subsequent challenge. Pansy shot daggers at them from across the room as if they'd somehow conjured this outcome into being, though Harry was so relieved by the opportunity to fix his mess that he hadn't even noticed.

Theo, for his part, was feeling something very different than he had been. He'd arrived there a man with a plan, intending to win, but now there was… something else.

He was a member of a team, which he had not been for some time. The last time, of course, someone had died, which was why Theo suddenly felt that nothing should ever harm Harry Potter again so long as he was there. From now on, Theo reasoned internally, everything he built with Harry would have to be perfect, if only because it was what Harry Potter deserved.

Harry wasn't surprised when they were asked to build bridges. The competition had always been part science, part art, so the physics of building was certain to come into play. He and Theo constructed something of a stylistic aqueduct, for which Harry was happy to let Theo take the lead. Theo's expertise was architecture, structure, while Harry built a series of ornately grotesque gargoyles to overlook the bridge.

The night before, he and Theo had been spitballing further fantasy narratives (Harry's specialty, given his work) when the tablet made a small sound indicating an email on Harry's account. He saw the name Cho and quickly swiped it away, which of course Theo hadn't missed. He had a hawkish sort of observation, which was funny when it was directed at others and horrifying when it was directed at Harry, the only other person in the room.

"So, you're in love with your cousin's betrothed," Theo drawled. Sometimes when he used that particular voice, Harry pictured him on the cover of a satirical newspaper: Local Man Observes Surroundings, Declares Them Unfit.

"Is that a question?" Harry prompted.

"No."

"Oh." Harry frowned. "You're not going to ask… why?"

"Oh, I know why," said Theo, hauling his long legs from the floor to set them on the edge of Harry's bed. Neither of them slept much, and truthfully Harry was getting used to it, the feeling of drowsiness that accompanied his sleeplessness. He'd never felt refreshed in the mornings before this anyway, and now the sense of having uncovered something interesting during the night was more invigorating than any cellular recharging.

"Oh." Harry slid another look at Theo. "Well, fine."

Theo chuckled. "I take it you want to tell me about it?"

"I didn't say that."

"You don't say much," Theo agreed.

Again, Harry felt the little irk of being under Theo's surveillance.

"I met her first," said Harry. "At university."

"Mm," said Theo. "Riveting. Go on."

Harry glanced up, anticipating ridicule, but Theo was looking at him expressionlessly, waiting.

"She came to visit me once over the Christmas holidays. Friends," Harry clarified, clearing his throat. "We were friends. She'd had a boyfriend and—"

"Ah," Theo said, stretching out until he'd slumped down in his chair, ankles beside Harry's seated hips. "She wasn't available, so you didn't push her. But Dudley did."

"Not exactly."

"Hm?" Theo's smile twitched. "Delightful. I do so love to be proven wrong."

"It was more a matter of… timing," Harry explained. "Cedric, her boyfriend… he was a mate of mine, and well, he died."

"Oh." Theo propped himself up on his elbows. "An unexpected twist. So Dudley was there to comfort her in her time of need while you were both in mourning?"

"I…" Harry hesitated. "Evidently."

"Which he did with his prick, I presume."

Harry felt his cheeks flush. "I really don't kn-"

"Grief," Theo supplied dismissively, "is highly amorous under the right circumstances. It's biological, did you know that? A member of the herd dies, the sexual impulse kicks in. The urge to procreate is a matter of sociological dependency."

"I thought you said it was biological?"

"I haven't the faintest fucking clue," Theo replied, appearing to have already grown tired of the conversation. "I went to military school my entire life and my curriculum was lacking. I only know how to follow orders."

"I find that incredibly difficult to believe."

"Believe whatever you like," Theo assured him. "My father's the one who decided I needed structure. And what's more structured than a cage?" He let out a bark of a laugh, like cannon fire. "Gilded, though. Something like that. The finest iron a man can wrought."

"What might you have been otherwise?" Harry asked, staring down at his tablet. He was learning it was better not to make eye contact when he asked personal questions. Theo, predatory though he liked to pretend he was, was extraordinarily skittish.

"There's really no value to pondering conditionalities," Theo said. "What we might have been, what we deserve, what we are, those are the irrelevancies of life, the superfluities. Aren't you the one who said we mythologize ourselves in order to survive? I have no interest in doing so."

"In surviving?"

To that Theo glanced up so sharply Harry felt it like the pull of his own chin.

"I look forward to being rot," Theo said. "Putting myself to use in degradation."

Harry looked over the features of Theo's face, assessing them again. The arrogant mouth that was nearly feminine. The prominent brow that sat furrowed and angry, perpetually entombed by the wounds he couldn't speak of without causticity. The eyes that saw everything, both existing and not.

"And until then?" Harry asked.

"Until then I will be nothing. I will be anything," Theo clarified, "but the kind of man who breaks things."

Then he removed his legs from Harry's bed and used them to stride into the bathroom, the door securing in the latch without any further sound.

Theo was aware that Harry had gathered things about him. Harry was a hunter-gatherer; he plucked things up and stowed them, putting them away for safekeeping. Theo could see Harry looking over his little collection, frowning at it, wondering what else he needed or wanted to have while measuring it against what he thought himself likely to get.

"What do you know?" Theo asked him over their sixth build. It was a battle scene, good and evil. Harry had wanted to be good but they'd gotten evil, and Harry was struggling with it at first, poor thing, until his instincts took over. Power was a wonderful thing, a terrible thing. It was appealing in its ugliness, its deformities. There was such incredible beauty to the corruption of the human soul.

Harry slid a glance to where Neville and Pansy, their collaborators, were working on the other half of the scene, and then returned his attention to the snake he was constructing. It was haunting, a nightmare snake. Theo would dream of it again and again.

"Someone in your command was killed," Harry said in an undertone. "You're relatively decorated, which means you must have killed someone, too. Many someones. I assume you had some sort of psychological evaluation afterward that you must have failed, which is why they discharged you instead of sending you back into service." He paused. "I'm guessing you failed it on purpose."

"Interesting take," Theo said, glancing at Pansy. She was saying something in Neville's ear that was giving his hand a slight but noticeable tremor of nerves.

"You know what people want to hear," Harry continued to Theo, and then shook his head, amending his answer. "No, that's not right, that's not it. You know what people don't want to hear. You must have sat there for hours saying everything they didn't want you to say. I wouldn't be surprised if you looked them in the eye while you recited it verbatim. I don't think you'd have had any trouble failing." Harry paused again. "I think you must have stayed awake all night memorizing it, the red flags. The loaded phrases. They wouldn't be difficult to find and I know you know how to research. I think you liked flying," Harry added, "because you thought you were out of reach and out of sight and then you realized that was never true and it broke the latch somewhere, the component they installed in you. All that time they spent teaching you to follow orders, it was like one of those retractable coils, a catch in the mechanism. It worked every time until it misfired."

Theo looked over at Harry's snake, the burst of green light he'd constructed as a backdrop, the work of his imagination. He hadn't just built a battle scene; he'd built a death scene. None of that would be mentioned aloud during the judging period, of course, but it was obvious to Theo. Harry had built the split-second of life just before everything went cavernously dark.

"So what's it like," Theo said casually, "being partnered with a madman?"

"You'll hate to hear this, I'm sure, but your madness is actually very serene," Harry said. "There's clarity to your insanity."

"Clarity?"

"I think you're astoundingly rational for a man out of his wits," Harry confirmed. "Almost clinically so. Your lucidity is what's so unsettling."

"To you?"

"To everyone else."

"And it doesn't upset you?"

"It enrages me," Harry said.

Theo fought a smile. "You're angrier than you think you are, generally speaking."

"I know." Harry looked up. "I didn't say I didn't appreciate you for it, did I?"

Fair point. And for one fair point, another: "You ought to be angrier."

"You think?"

"Your docility is letting people get too comfortable."

"You," Harry posed neutrally. "Are you comfortable?"

"Me? I'm on pins and needles," Theo said. "I'm in a constant state of static shock."

He brushed Harry's fingers with his own, passing the sensation along. The hairs on Harry's forearms lifted from his skin just slightly, the skin pebbling beneath.

"So what are you going to do about it?" Harry asked, which seemed to be either a question or an invitation.

"Agonize," said Theo.

"Masochist."

It was unclear how serious the conversation was. It had the rhythm of flirtation, percussive and quick, but meaning was another matter. Hour thirteen of a nearly-completed build on the dichotomy of good and evil wasn't exactly the place to theorize about sex.

"As a rule I don't crave blindly," Theo said.

"Meaning what?"

"I accept devotion or nothing."

"You must have very little, then."

"I," Theo confirmed, "have nothing at all."

At one hour remaining, Pansy came over to speak with Theo about combining the two halves of their scene. He noticed she spoke with an affectation, a lilt.

"Researcher to researcher, I respect your work," Theo commented blithely. "What is that, a clean octave above your usual speaking voice? No, don't tell me. I love a mystery."

She glared at him.

"What exactly do you do when you're not using your husband?" Theo pressed her. "Does he just sort of sit in the cupboard next to the Hoover, or…?"

"Well, I'd have gone with yours," she replied with a flick of a glance to Harry, "but even I know when something's too weird."

"Is that an admission? You won't win."

"We'll see."

She flipped her hair and sauntered away, leaving Theo to glance again at Harry.

Too weird. That was an understatement. Harry belonged to a species Theo felt sure he would never encounter again.

"How's it going?" Cho said on the phone. She'd rung Harry's hotel room that afternoon, missing him, so he'd called her back. She chattered for several minutes about this and that, bridesmaids and hen parties. "I miss you," she said with a sigh, and Harry opened his mouth to answer, but Theo interrupted from where he was lying on his bed.

"Tell her how you'll fuck her when you get back," Theo suggested without looking up from the magazine he was reading. "And I don't mean sentimentally. Give the poor girl some filth."

"Harry?" asked Cho uncertainly. "Are you still there?"

"Yes, sorry," Harry said, his hand tightening around the phone as he looked at Theo. "Sorry, Cho, what did you say?"

"I said—"

"Tell her you've no plans to do it slowly," Theo said, flipping a page. "Let's be honest, we're all aware of her suspicions. She thinks it would be lovemaking with you, pure softness."

"Harry?" Cho said again, sounding confused by his inattention. Which made sense, since as far as their past went, she was almost always his entire focus. "Are you still there?"

"Truthfully, I don't think you'd want it soft." Theo paused to glance up at Harry, musing it to himself. "You strike me as just on the manageable side of sadistic, maybe more so if you really gave in. I think you're just as capable of selfishness as anyone, if anything more so. A little darkness," he advised, finishing his thought and returning his attention to his magazine. "Tell her you won't do it quietly, either."

"Harry, if this is a bad time—"

"Cho, just so you know, I'm perfectly capable of fucking you," said Harry into the phone, and Theo looked up, obviously delighted by the unexpected turn of events.

"What?" Cho asked.

"It's more than sex," Harry said. "I've always thought it was, at least. For me it always has been. But if the question has ever been sex," he exhaled, "then the answer is no, it wouldn't be soft, and it wouldn't be selfless. In fact I think it wouldn't be anything like our friendship has been until now."

He heard Cho swallow through the phone. "Harry, I don't think we should—"

But Harry was looking at Theo, who had shifted on the bed to sit upright, waiting. They were positioned symmetrically now, facing each other.

"It would be possessive," Harry explained. "A little toxic, even, and not nearly gentle or tender enough. I would say a lot of things to you that I've never said before. Things I'd like to say with my fingers on your neck."

"Harry," Cho exhaled.

But she didn't tell him to stop.

"I'd want that as well," Harry decided aloud. "I'd want you to say my name. Mine, over and over. I'd want to make demands. I'd want control, I'd want you on your knees, I'd want to choose how and when, how fast. I wouldn't touch you, not the way you wanted me to, until you were begging, because truthfully there is a part of me that wants you to be sorry. I love you, I always have," he said, his hands tightening around the receiver when Theo's lips parted, just slightly, "but I'd fuck you like you owed me every breath of satisfaction that you got."

"Harry," Cho breathed again. "Harry, does Dudley know?"

"Of course he doesn't know. But now you do. So think about it," Harry said.

"I… I don't know what I'm supposed to say, I don't—"

"Think about it," Harry said again.

"But Harry, there's a lot more to it than just us. I… I admit, there might be something between us, but I can't just cancel the wed-"

"No," Harry said, stopping her in her tracks. "No, you misunderstood. It's not going to happen, Cho. I'm never going to touch you. You made your choice. But I do want you to think about it. When you're living your life with my cousin, when he's failing to give you everything I would have offered you gladly, I want you to remember this conversation. I want you to wonder what you gave up."

He slammed the phone down, suddenly breathing hard, and looked up at Theo, who sat motionless on the opposite bed.

"How did that feel?" Theo asked curiously.

Harry could still feel it buzzing around in his veins. Exhilaration. Rage.

"That was really fucked up," he said, a cool breeze from his conscience reminding him why he'd never said any of that before, why he'd kept it to himself. "I… that wasn't okay, she's… I care about her, she's—"

Theo planted his feet on the floor between them and stood.

Then he took a step toward Harry, sinking to his knees.

"Tell the truth," Theo said.

Harry stared down at him and Theo stared back, his hands wrapping around Harry's thighs slowly, one singularly manic finger at a time.

"You're like an infestation," Harry said. "You drive the people around you to madness, don't you?"

"Mm." Theo slid his thumbs along Harry's inseam. "One of my talents."

Harry reached a hand out, smoothing his fingers through Theo's hair. It was soft, still growing in from his former buzz cut, and Harry tightened his fingers around the roots, tugging lightly at the back of Theo's head until Theo groaned quietly, the sound almost inaudible against the fabric of Harry's jeans.

"Be honest, you're hard as fuck," said Theo. "You loved it, telling her off. You'd do it again in a heartbeat."

Harry yanked Theo up by his collar, tossing him brusquely onto his back in the opposite bed. Theo said nothing, eyes wide, and one hand rose to curl around the faint evidence of a smile as Harry straddled him slowly.

"Thought you only accepted devotion," Harry said, tracing one thumb over the motion of Theo's throat while he swallowed.

"I'll make an exception."

Harry reached down, palm grazing the stiffened evidence he'd expected to find.

"Maybe you will," Harry said, and leaned closer, turning his head to brush experimentally against the stubble on Theo's cheek. "But I won't let you."

Then Harry rose to his feet and walked into the bathroom, turning the shower on cold.

Maybe it had been the distraction. Maybe it had been the way Theo could no longer concentrate when he stood in Harry's orbit. Maybe it was the understanding that he was now being watched as closely as he was doing the watching. Maybe it was the possibility of being wanted, actually, that was so infinitely worse than merely wanting. Or maybe it had always been inevitable that someone would eventually see through him and send them home.

"We're so sorry to say this," Minerva said tearfully on the day of their seventh build, "but Harry and Theo, you're the builders going home this week."

She said something else, many things, something about the story not being clear in their time-turner narrative, the judges' inability to visualize their intent the way they usually could. Pansy pretended to cry. Neville looked genuinely stricken; he had expected to be cut. The other two, the Patil twins, were obviously next on the chopping block. Theo could think of a million reasons their design had been worse; how were they even supposed to put themes like time and love and impossibility into Lego form?

It was Harry who took it stoically, unblinking. He must have known, must have felt it coming. Harry was accustomed to disappointment of this kind, unearned and unjustified, but Theo wasn't. He had prepared for every possible outcome but the one where he let Harry down.

"I don't know what to say," Theo said during their closing interview, staring blankly at the camera. "I don't know what to say."

"Is there anything you'd like to tell us about your time in this competition?" asked the producer. It was the same one who'd told him to go after Harry, which now felt like lifetimes ago.

"We're very grateful for the opportunity to work alongside such talented builders," said Harry graciously. "We wish them the best of luck."

Theo, beside him, fumbled for his mic. He suddenly felt he was being strangled by it, rising to his feet in a fit of discomfort. Something in his mind wasn't working, the mechanism wasn't catching. He could feel the burst, the shift in his narrative, the break. His internal voice wasn't speaking anymore, the train of thought that usually directed him. All he felt was numbness, emptiness, suffocation, the anesthesia of worthlessness that fell around him like a shroud.

He stumbled to his feet, Harry chasing after him as he fled the interview green screen.

"Theo," said Harry, and this time no producers followed them. They were no longer interesting, no longer the subjects in this odd, contained experiment. Theo would not build anything anymore, he couldn't feel his fingers. There had never been a purpose to it, not beyond winning. He hadn't actually projected a time after the competition itself. He couldn't feel his face, couldn't feel it when Harry pinned him to the studio wall. Couldn't feel it when Harry's lips met his. "Theo, Theo, it's not life or death, it's just Lego."

Harry's lips were velvet, passion dripping from the walls like the cool trail of sweat down Theo's spine, impermeable. He could taste Harry's desperation, the hands in his hair, the motion of himself reaching for more until his arms suddenly gave out, falling limp at his sides.

"Come on," Harry said. "Come on." His voice changed, playful to concerned. "Theo."

He wanted to go limp, to rag-doll into Harry's arms. But training kept him aloft and he turned away, walking and walking and not stopping until the ringing in his ears rendered him deaf to the sound of Harry's voice, which faded to nothing behind him.

Harry no longer had a phone. What he did have was whatever Theo had unwisely ignited. That fury, whatever it was, that spark. It had lain dormant for years, dying off—or so he thought—with his hope, his longing, but now it was awake, mutinous. He returned to his aunt and uncle's house and took nothing but the old Lego sets, the ones that were Dudley's until Harry made them his. Vernon yelled and so did Aunt Marge, who, again, wasn't even Harry's biological aunt. Which was why he didn't feel particularly sorry when he wordlessly removed the leash from her hand and walked away with her beloved bulldog Ripper.

"Harry," Cho called, catching up to him after he'd walked two blocks in the direction of the nearest train station. "I wish I'd known," she said miserably, her lips finding his through tears. "If I'd known—"

She tasted like salt and disappointment, but only distant traces; it was all substantially less than Theo's kiss, which had been hysterical and overwrought until it had gone flatly catatonic. Harry knew it probably wasn't Cho's fault; that maybe Dudley had given her something she wanted that Harry hadn't offered her at the time, that maybe she'd want something else in the future and it would be someone else and maybe right now that was Harry, but he wasn't the same Harry he'd once been and that was thanks to someone who wasn't her. It wasn't her at all.

"Yeah, well, good luck," he said, disentangling from her. "Though you really ought to marry someone else, for whatever that's worth."

"Harry—"

But he and Ripper kept on walking until he found a phone.

"Hermione," he said when she picked up the phone. "Can you help me find him?"

"Actually, not even Draco's heard from him," she said, sounding apprehensive. "I really thought this would be good for him, but he just… he walked in and then walked out again without saying anything, just grabbing his things and disappearing on foot—"

"I think there's something really wrong with him," Harry said, which was strange, because even as he was saying it, he kept thinking that the only thing wrong with Theo was the rest of the world. He thought about the fact that someone must have noticed that about Theo right away; someone must have felt threatened by it, because they'd gone and put him in a cage. Harry realized that maybe Theo hadn't purposely said the wrong things during his psych evaluation. Maybe he'd just said Theo things, and everyone else was just really fucking wrong about what the right things actually were.

Hermione made fretting noises and then Draco, Theo's friend, got on the line.

"Yeah, I don't know who you are or what the fuck you want," Draco said, "but I've known him my whole life, I know him better than anyone, and I can tell you right now he doesn't want to be followed. Not by me, not by anyone."

Harry glanced down at Ripper, who was actually not so demonic when he wasn't with Aunt Marge.

"No," Harry said.

"What?"

"No."

"No what?"

He shook his head. "You're wrong. Devotion," he explained.

"What?"

"Theo only accepts devotion," Harry said again.

"Jesus, you sound just like him. Look, forget it, I'll take care of it—"

"No," Harry said. "I've got it."

Then he hung up the phone and got on the next train.

Theo's father's house was palatial. There were plenty of rooms for a child, but of course children were not the ideal occupants of a house of this nature, and certainly not a child like Theo. What had been wrong with him then? What was wrong with him now? Nothing, everything, something. It didn't really matter in the end, the difference. He and his Legos would only be underfoot; not that he'd brought any with him.

He felt Harry before he heard him. "Odd place for a nap."

Theo said nothing from where he'd curled lethargically on the floor.

There was a clatter of sound, some footsteps.

"Build something with me," Harry's voice said.

Theo didn't answer.

"Okay, fine," Harry said. "I'll start. You can join me whenever you like."

Theo didn't turn, though he heard the signs of plastic blocks tumbling onto the floor. He listened carefully to the sounds at his back while he kept one eye on the antique mantle clock, wondering how long it would be until Harry gave up. After an hour, nothing.

After two hours, Theo turned slowly onto his other side, observing Harry's build. It was a castle of some kind, which made sense. Harry had a very medieval aesthetic, very fantasy-based. He was constructing some small figurines, tiny suits of armor, which he was placing experimentally along the half-constructed halls.

"What else does a castle need?" Harry asked without looking up, surveying the build and considering how he wanted to line its interiors.

Theo had to swallow before answering. Nobody had spoken to him in days.

"Ghosts," he said.

"A bit gloomy," Harry noted, "but I'll take it."

After five hours Harry had finished the castle's skeleton and made prototypes of the characters filling it. He had selected four different house colors, arranging the figurines into groups.

"Brooms," Theo said.

"Good idea," said Harry.

After Harry had been building for ten hours, Theo suddenly got up and disappeared. Harry stopped, wondering if he should go after him, but instinctively he felt that was an unlikely solution. Draco had been partially right, at least—Theo did not like to be chased. He was the sort of creature who only approached on his terms, when he was ready.

Theo returned twenty minutes later with a tray of assorted teas and baked goods, setting it beside Harry, who paused.

"English Breakfast?"

"Yes, please."

"Cream?"

"A bit."

"Sugar?"

"Sure."

"There should be something odd in the lake. Merpeople. A giant squid."

"Okay." Fair enough.

"Biscuit?"

"Please."

"Why are you here?"

"Because you're here."

"I'm not very good company."

"No, and you're a very sore loser, too."

"Did Pansy and Neville win?"

"Yes, but you were right about one thing."

"What?"

"Neville's gone missing."

"What?"

"Yes, it's the strangest thing but he's gone."

"Fled? Absconded to freedom?"

"Or ingested by Pansy."

"What about you?"

"What about me?"

"You've absconded, in a sense."

"Yes." A pause. "Help me with the astronomy tower, would you?"

"There's an astronomy tower?"

"Of course. Where do you expect them to see the stars?"

"How long are you staying?"

"Well, it's not my house and I've not been officially invited, so I suppose until this castle's finished."

"And then?"

"And then I'll come back with another build."

"What is this supposed to be, an intervention?"

The opposite, if that were possible. "Build the tower, Theo."

Theo looked up, appearing to spot for the first time the extremely fat bulldog who was sleeping in one of the room's panels of sun.

"What's that?"

"A dog."

"Has it been here the whole time?"

"He's wandered in and out."

"What's his name?"

"Theodore."

"Is not."

"You're right, it isn't. It's Ripper."

"Uncreative."

"I didn't name him."

"Did you steal him?"

"Yes."

"Did you really?"

"Yes."

"Are you lying to me?"

"Theo," said Harry, pausing his motions to look over at him. "Build the tower so we can do other things."

He saw the vestiges of a familiar recklessness crossing the planes of Theo's face.

"I'd like to taste you properly," Theo admitted. "This time."

"You will. And the next time as well. And the next."

"Hm. Is that devotion I hear?"

Harry watched Theo reach out for one of the tower bricks, cradling it gently in his palm.

"Yes," Harry said.

They took breaks from building only to walk the dog in the gardens, eat, or doze off on the floor. Theo had the sense Harry was watching him, measuring his progress. The more they created, the more Theo returned to himself, slowly, gradually. They built a secret room into the castle and then Theo got to work on a nearby village while Harry designed the lake.

And then at some point after days and days of building, they stopped.

They weren't normal people and so there was no normality here, nothing recognizable. Theo had never crawled on his hands and knees like this before, their eyes meeting over the build that had taken over the room. He had never acquiesced like this, lying on his back when Harry told him to, closing his eyes and letting someone else's touch take over.

"Tell me what you want," said Harry.

"Are you ordering me to give orders?"

"Yes." Harry's callused fingers dragged along the inseam of Theo's calf. "Tell me."

"Touch me."

"And?"

"Fuck me."

"And?"

Theo exhaled, Harry's breath perilously close to the zipper on his trousers.

"Love me," he said.

Harry dragged himself upright until he was stretched out next to Theo on his side, one hand reaching over to slowly undo the buttons on Theo's shirt. Harry's fingers traveled over the skin beneath the fabric, torturous. There was nothing economical about his touch. He wasted it, lavished it, until Theo was distorted and emaciated for the ecstasy, an eternal want of more.

"Which version of you do you want me to love?" Harry asked neutrally, and Theo's exhale was a slow, shuddering breath that rattled his insides, scrambling his thoughts.

"Which one do you want?"

"All of them. All of them or nothing."

"None of them scare you?"

"All of them scare me." Harry's lips were acid with lemon, bitter with oversteeped forgotten tea. His voice was jagged-edged, broken, and Theo was moving beneath his hands, communicating his distress with the motion of his hips, the curl of his toes. "Makes me feel alive."

They kissed infinitely. All kisses were conversations and theirs was an argument, no resolution, winner-take-all, until it dissolved into the murky, unintelligible markers of escalation, agitation and panting breaths.

"You're going to have some rules from now on," Harry said with his teeth gritted beside Theo's ear. "You'll not walk away from me again. You'll eat, you'll sleep, you'll create things and not destroy them, and that includes yourself. Are we clear?"

Theo had a feeling Harry had found a purpose in life.

"Yes," he said, and let Harry make him over from scratch, building him up again from nothing.

Several months after Theo ceased his hazardous occupation of Malfoy Manor but one or two weeks before the competition actually aired, Draco looked up from his reading to find that his prodigal friend had returned, the leather leash of a magnanimously sized bulldog looped casually around his arm.

"Where've you been?" asked Draco guardedly, followed by, "Please don't damage any further upholstery."

"Well, primarily I've taken a lover," Theo replied, "but I should think you know perfectly well I've never harmed an innocent textile in my life."

"A lover," Draco echoed. "Surely you don't mean that very strange friend of my wife's?"

"He's quite a dextrous academic," Theo said. "Currently at work on a very impressive book about the philosophy of magic. Or at least an impressively lengthy one."

"Magic," Draco echoed again, "meaning the thing that doesn't exist?"

"Doubtless you're aware of this, Draco, but the frailty of your imagination has always disappointed me," Theo said. "Which is why I've gone ahead and directed my attention elsewhere."

"Can you do nothing without overdoing it?" sighed Draco. "Other people manage to have relationships without acquiring their partners as pets."

"I've heard that," acknowledged Theo. "But in any case, I thought you ought to know. I'm aware how matronly you get when you've grown concerned for my well-being."

"False," said Draco, who had hired a private investigator several weeks to find out precisely what Theo had just told him. "The possibility of your demise delights me, as ever."

"As it should," Theo assured him. "But in any case, do thank Hermione for me."

"You say that as if you have grand plans to disappear somewhere."

"I do, mightily grand ones," said Theo, glancing down at the dog. "Sit if you like."

The dog looked doubtfully upward.

"It's entirely your choice," added Theo.

"That's not how dog training works," Draco said.

The dog sat.

"Well, shows what you know," Theo replied. "In any case, I'm thinking Cornwall will be the place, should you need to reach me. Harry's very partial to open sky."

"I'm fairly confident I won't have any reason to seek you out," said Draco, though of course he would very soon become a religious viewer of the Lego show, and would also write a very strongly worded letter following Theo and Harry's unjust elimination that would involve several deeply litigious threats of judicial incompetence and a scathing public review, ultimately resulting in the show's cancelation. After all, even a cursory reminder of the Malfoy name in the context of immense displeasure was enough to bring things crashing down.

"I'll miss you too," Theo said.

"Get out of my house."

"No need to be so sentimental, Malfoy. You're about as subtle as a brick through a window."

"Goodbye."

"Say goodbye to Draco," Theo said to the dog, whose tongue lolled lethargically from the side of its pronounced underbite. "Well, that's your choice." He straightened and slid on his sunglasses, giving Draco something of a mutinous salute. "Until next time."

And with that he was gone, the sanity in the room finally returning to normal.

a/n: Uhhhh so some things: 1) I know it's LEGO and not Lego but nobody has time for that. 2) Yes I've been watching the show Legomasters. I'm furious with it. There's nothing for my creative process like rage. 3) I hope you're all doing well and I'm sorry everything I ever write for this pairing involves such lengthy contemplation of mortality. It's their brand, I'm afraid. 4) Lastly and most importantly: this is for you, ellejb, on the occasion of your betrothal.