“Yeah, it does,” Theo sighed, with a wry unspoken qualification that just because he could understand it he didn’t know if that would hold water with a normal, well-adjusted passerby, who couldn’t divide their life into before and after anything.

And, yeah, Lestrange was noticeably worse - or at least more unhappy and uninvolved than Theo could recall ever seeing him at Hogwarts, or from the distance of his earlier Cannons days - but he wasn’t going to say it. Rather, there was something in the way he admitted it that made him want to disagree; even though they clearly both knew pretending didn’t make anything better, even though all Theodore felt like was a worse version of himself too, and one without much hope of changing back.

“You’re different, but... I don’t know, you’re still not that bad.” He huffed a hopeless kind of laugh, wanting to ask why Lestrange felt this way, what had created that hollow feeling in him - but leaning back and shrugging instead, letting it be. He amended his previous phrasing with a fleeting smile. “Or at least I’ve had worse company.” (Not that that said much, if finding everyone’s company close to unbearable was why they were hanging around here.)

---