This if for February's Roll-a-Drabble on Hermione's Haven. The drabbles are to be between 100-1k words in length.
The prompts were: Theo/Forced Relationship
Word count: 437
This is my first time doing something like this, so enjoy!
Theo Nott had never really been on Hermione's radar throughout their 6 years at school together. They shared all the same classes, and while his scores were always just under hers, he always just vanished into the crowd that was the 'enemy' in Slytherin house and the louder personalities like Draco and Pansy. He made a particular point to not draw attention to himself from any direction. Solitude was his friend.
Sure, he admired Hermione from a distance. She was a powerful witch and a very intelligent one at that, but everyone saw that. No, Theo admired her work ethic, her drive in their shared classes to be the best. When they had to do group work he never turned his nose at being paired with her.
Theo admired from a distance and that would as close as he would get. Have you seen what type of trouble she was constantly getting herself into? The brash boys, Potter and Weasley, were always within arms reach and everything about them was what he strove to avoid.
It had nothing to do with her blood, her spotlight was what turned him away.
Now as adults they had to cross paths on occasion through work. Theo worked with magical artifacts and Hermione worked with cursed objects. It was not a rare occurrence to have the two overlap especially when old estates came up for sale and they were called in to go through everything before the auctions.
Hermione was working quietly beside Theo, cataloguing every item. This estate had a wealthy widow who loved beautiful jewelry and they had spent the last hour going through the large collection. They worked smoothly, Theo determining if it was an artifact or not before passing it to Hermione to catalogue.
Theo ignored the quiet hiss from beside him as Hermione acquired a small paper cut on the tip of her finger from flipping through her stack of parchment and handed her the next piece of jewelry. His eye's widened in horror as she reached to take it, the little bead of blood still on her finger tip. It was too late, Theo watched it as if in slow motion. Her tiny little bead of bright red blood slowly came down until it pressed itself on the platinum band as she accepted it. A bright light expanded from the ring and it magically popped out of existence to reappear on her ring finger.
They both stared at her hand in silence, unable to speak.
Sometimes intent doesn't matter in magic. Theo offered Hermione a ring that she accepted with blood.
The betrothal was set.