A few evenings later Hermione found herself roaming around the castle corridors. She had no particular destination in mind, nor was she following any particular route. After her collapse during the first class of the morning just a few days prior, Hermione had a lot to think about and Gryffindor common room was hardly a place to sit and think during the early evenings.
Leather-bound journal in her hand and a bottle of ink and a quill hidden in the pockets of her robes, the young witch walked idly, jumping in start when she heard her name being called. She sighed softly and turned to see who it was who'd managed to find her.
"I had thought it was you, what are you doing wondering around by yourself so late?" Regulus asked.
"I've just got a lot of things on my mind and well with the ball around the corner it's hardly quiet back in my common room," Hermione said with a small smile and a shrug.
"Do you want me to leave you be then?" the wizard asked politely.
"Oh no, it's alright," she replied, shaking her head slowly.
"Were you headed somewhere?" he asked, looking in the direction she'd been walking.
"Not really, I was just looking for a little bit of quiet," She shrugged.
Regulus smirked slightly, "I'm surprised you didn't think to go to the Room of Requirements."
Hermione blushed slightly, that would have been a logical place to go, "My mind wasn't really on finding anything, just getting out of the common room. I can't believe I hadn't thought to go there either, not that you mention it."
"Mind if I join you?" He smiled.
"Not at all," the witch chuckled, moving forward as he made his way towards the room.
It wasn't long before Regulus had moved past the corridor three times and the door had appeared. He moved to hold it open letting her enter first and then following, making sure the door closed fully behind them.
The room and transfigured itself into a normal looking common room, bearing neither of the students' house colors in order to keep things less one sided. There was a fireplace with a warm fire dancing and placed in front of it was a small couch with a large wingback type chair placed on either side of it.
Hermione made her way into the room and settled at the far end of the couch, kicking her shoes off and curling her feet beneath her comfortably. "So why were you out and about by yourself this evening?" she asked with a small smile.
"Same as you, I suppose," Regulus replied settling himself comfortably at the other end of the couch. "After your episode in McGonagall's class, I'm surprised you were able to get away for even a few moments."
"You heard about that too then," Hermione mused.
"Indeed, what happened?" He asked curiously.
Hermione was silent a moment, thinking over what had happened. "The one who sent me back here, Draco, he…I guess contacted me. When I passed out, I was dreaming but this time the dream was just as real as it wasn't. Harry and Ron saw me and Draco was asking me questions about my progress here."
The wizard nodded slowly, "What exactly are Harry and Ron to you? I can't quite put those names together."
"They're my best friends from home. We're near inseparable, at least we always were," Hermione explained fondly. "It was good seeing them but they were so worried and something about the spell Draco used to be able to contact me wouldn't let me talk to them. In fact as soon as they saw me is when I started fading back to this time."
Regulus watched her speak, remaining silent and simply studying the young witch. "I dread to imagine what they did when they realized I was gone again. They've never liked him…Draco that is. I've never particularly been fond of him. He holds his family's distaste for muggleborns," she said, simply speaking from her mind.
"He's from a pureblood family then," he commented.
She nodded slowly, "He loved to terrorize Harry, Ron, and myself since we've known him. But even with all of that, I can't so much hold it all against him. He's got so much sitting on his shoulders. His father's…his father's not a good man in any sense of the word. It's still no excuse for the way he treats people but at the same time, I can understand why he did this to me."
"So he was asking you about what progress you've made? From the sounds of it and what I saw the other day, he shouldn't want things changed."
"That's what I'd thought initially as well," Hermione conceded. "But Draco's always lived for what his father wanted. Never really wanted to but basically had to. This was the only way for him to not have to follow the path that his father wanted him to without signing his own death warrant."
"It's hard sometimes though, being here," Hermione said, voice growing soft. "It's hard seeing Lily, James, and Sirius and not having Harry around to see it all. It's hard going into the library without having those to whining in toe…they always hated the library. I'm here and I'm doing all of this for them but…either way I'm unlikely to ever see them again…leastwise not how I remember them."
"What do you mean?"
"If I change things how I'm trying to then thing's will be different anyway. Harry will never be the Harry that I know now. And while that's a good in that he won't have had so much hurt and hardships but at the same time…that's what's made him the Harry that I know and adore. Same goes for Ron. If I don't change things, I lose everyone I've grown to care about in this time period and there's no way of knowing how to get back to my time," she explained sadly.
Through the explanation, Regulus followed his urge to move nearer to her, his hand rubbing soothingly over her back as she spoke attempting to offer some sense of comfort. He couldn't say he could so much relate, but he could understand why the situation was causing her such turmoil. Both were surprised when she turned slightly, resting her head on his shoulder, her eyes gazing into the fire.
"Are you alright, Hermione?" Regulus asked softly.
"I don't know. Yes and no. I've come to really enjoy the life I have here, it's so much more peaceful than my time. But at the same time, I miss my life," she said softly. "I have more friends now than I've really ever had before but because of where I've come from, what I've seen, most of them I'm always going to be suspicious of."
"Isn't it odd to see people now that you knew then?" Regulus asked, curiously.
Hermione smiled softly, nodding her head as it rested against his shoulder, "Yes it is. I knew Sirius and Remus both in my time. It's bizarre seeing them now. Not that they've changed all too much. I met Peter once but it wasn't exactly a pleasant meeting. I knew Severus, very different now from when I knew him. I knew Malfoy, unfortunately enough. Narcissa, Bellatrix, I met both of them briefly though I severely wish that I had not ."
"You knew a lot of us then," he commented, arm around her shoulders and his hand resting against her opposite arm. "I'm sure it's difficult on some levels as well."
Nodding again, Hermione stayed silent for a moment. "Lily and James are Harry's parents. Knowing them and knowing how hard it's been on him not having them around and knowing also how they died…it's hard to come face to face with them. I keep running through everything that I know happened to cause all the immediate deaths that I know of, I even wrote it down in my notebook, all in attempts to stop it from happening. But I'm so over my head right now. I know where to start I just don't know how to tell if I've made progress at all."
"Where do you think you should start?" He asked softly.
"Peter," she said simply.
"Pettigrew?"
Hermione nodded once more, "I've got to make sure things with him go differently."
The wizard didn't press on the aspect any further considering the vague responses he'd received, instead he just fell silent, resting his chin against the side of her head as she continued to rest her head against his shoulder. A few moments later he settled back glancing down as she glanced curiously up at him, "I'm not making you uncomfortable or anything am I?" she asked.
"No, you're fine," he replied softly, the arm that was around her lifted to play with the ends of her brown hair. It was a moment before he glanced back to her face, realizing that she was still watching him. "What?"
She smiled slightly and shrugged, "just looking."
He gave a small smile himself, studying her for a brief moment before bringing his free hand up and softly tracing her cheek with his fingertips and lowering his lips gently onto hers.
Hermione froze for a brief moment, thoughts in her mind reeling before coming to a complete halt. It was just as he started to pull away that the gears started turning again and Hermione, once again, surprised them both and returned the kiss.
It was a slow and tentative kiss. Both sets of eyes fell closed and Regulus slipped the hand that had been tracing her cheek back into her curly hair. They broke the kiss briefly each studying the other's eyes before the resumed where they'd left off, though this time more exploratory.
Regulus teased her lips with his tongue testing and tasting her kisses as she opened her mouth her own tongue teasing his. He broke the kiss moving his lips to kiss a trail across her jaw to nip at her ear, smiling softly when she shivered. Taking that as a sign to continue he kissed, licked, and nipped at her pale neck and throat.
A soft, almost inaudible moan escaped her and her hand rose to rest at the nape of his neck as he reached her collarbone. His hand lifted to unbutton two of the buttons on her blouse, allowing himself better access to her soft skin. His lips traced a trail across her chest, his hand moving from her curly hair to slip beneath her shirt at her waist, his fingers caressing the skin teasingly.
Hermione shivered, tilting her head back to better expose her skin to his attentions. She allowed herself to be pushed backwards gently onto the couch as he straddled her thighs, his kisses still moving over her bared skin while his fingers made quick work of the rest of the buttons.
His hands moved to cup her bra covered breasts, his fingertips brushing teasingly over her hardened nipples that strained against the fabric. A soft gasp and another nearly inaudible moan escaped the woman that was lying beneath him. He slipped the straps from her shoulders kissing the skin that was exposed as he pulled down the last layer of cloth that covered her chest from his lips.
Regulus took one of her hardened nipples into his mouth teasing it with his tongue and nipping lightly. He was rewarded and encouraged by another moan, this time inaudible did not describe it. He smiled softly against her skin, moving his attention to the other breast.
Moving up to recapture her lips, his hands moved over her exposed torso, touching and exploring. He felt her begin to hesitate and drew back to study her, "Hermione?" he asked in whispered tones, his hands pausing their motions.
"We shouldn't do this," she said, uncertainly.
He leaned down and kissed her gently but thoroughly before pulling back again, "then tell me to stop, Hermione. Tell me you don't want this. Tell me and I swear to you I'll stop," he said, locking gazes with her. She was silent for a moment and he had started to think she was going to stop him. "Tell me what you wa—" his words were silenced as she pulled his head down to her and pressed her lips to his.
That's all it took for Regulus to simply let things flow as they would naturally. Somehow he knew that he wasn't her first but he was also fairly certain that it had been sometime since her last. He took it slow to begin with, not wanting to hurt her.
He had to admit that she made it very difficult to last as long as he wanted to for her. Her moans were no longer inaudible, that was for sure. Their lips moved steadily over one another's while their hands explored the opposing body.
She couldn't hold back any longer as she cried out in her pleasure, her fingers gripped his shoulders, nails curling into his skin. Though that only seemed to encourage him that much more. When it seemed that she was only just coming down from one climax, he seemed to be able to drive her straight into the next.
Though this time, he followed very soon after. With the combination of sounds coming from her and her muscles tightening around him, it was all he could do to hold on to give her the second one in a row.
He braced himself over her, not bothering not pull out of her. Their lips met once again and he raised one of his hands to brush her curls back from her face. Hermione drew lazy designs on his back with her fingernails, sending little chills down his back.
Hermione could tell there were many things going through his mind at the current time, she knew she had too many to count going through her own. "Every thing okay, Regulus?" she asked softly.
"Yes, everything's more than okay, it's just that…" he paused slightly as though not wanting to finish his sentence.
Hermione noticed that his face had taken on a slightly pink coloring and she tilted her head slightly trying to figure what could cause him to turn so shy all of a sudden. "Regulus?"
He turned his head back to meet her gaze once again and bit his lip in thought, "You can't say anything to anyone, especially not my brother…"
Her eyes narrowed slightly in confusion but she nodded slowly, "Okay…?"
He sighed softly, hesitance in his voice when he started to speak again, "Well, it's just that…this is embarrassing...I'm not like my brother, I'd never…Well…I'd never…"
Hermione simply looked at him for a moment, the meaning behind his words momentarily lost to her. Then her eyebrows rose slightly as she caught onto what he'd been trying to convey. "You mean…I'm your…first? Oh...wow…I really don't know what to say," she sputtered.
Regulus turned slightly pinker as he pulled out and moved to sit next to her. He flicked his wand cleaning them both up before beginning to redress. "I do want you to know though…I wasn't planning this or anything…you were looking for a place to think and so was I…I swear I wasn't trying anything.."
She chuckled softly and shook her head, "I know you weren't. I'm just lost as to where to go from here."
"What do you mean?" he asked, studying her expression.
"I just severely complicated things," Hermione sighed. "Of course no matter what I do, it seems I complicate things."
"I'm not expecting anything out of this, Hermione, if that's what you're worried about," Regulus said, softly. "I'm not expecting anything more than what was there when we walked in here. I'm asking a friendship and a dance at the ball."
Hermione was silent for a moment, studying him intently as though trying to measure his sincerity. "Promise?"
"I promise. I know you're into Lupin," he replied with a small smile. "And you don't have to worry about any of them finding out about this either. It'll stay between you and I."
"Okay," she said, her expression conveying her relief. With that being said, the two finished redressing and got to their feet.
"I know you didn't get much of your thinking done, but I hope putting some of the things on your mind out in the open helped a little bit," He said.
"You'd be surprised how much it did help," she smiled. She moved to pass by him, squeezing his hand gently as she did.
"Good night, Hermione."
"Goodnight," Hermione said softly with a small smile as she slipped from the room back to her own dormitory.
