Theo was almost breathless with his insistence, the fervor he was feeling now something that he hadn't felt for more than months, for years almost - the last time he became this animated he'd been sedated less than twenty minutes after.
His fingers were curled tight, would have been almost painful against Greg had he not been just so physically weak. He growled at just the idea of the horrors in his head - horrors that had been real - getting their claws anywhere near Greg, despite the fact that they'd already swiped the once-boy hard enough, deep enough to draw blood and leave wounds. The things he was so afraid of weren't quite restricted to the touch of the Dark Mark, but he couldn't seperate anything out in his head in any way that would stop him thinking that they were all coming as a pack in the night.
He reached out, gathering Greg against him as much as he could and holding tight, and yeah they might have made a strange looking couple, but the way they looked shouldn't have counted, not when they felt like this about each other. Theo had been so different in school, independent to the point where it endangered him, unafraid to carve out his own path when so many around him were trying to choose other people's paths to go down - killing his father and coming here had stripped that away from him leaving him wounded and vulnerable, the bare bones of the gentler boy he might have been had he had any other surname but Nott. Even that didn't matter right then; he would have tried to tear anyone who came near Greg apart with all the paltry strength he had left.