It's raining outside when sleep starts to slip away from me, I watch the water beads crawl down the window as my senses slowly start to come back and I feel warmth against my back. It's only when I feel myself being pulled closer to it that I realize that there is an arm wrapped around my waist. A small amount of shock goes through my system, before I relax enough to understand that it must be Regulus. No one else would even bother to put me in a bed, let alone sleep alongside me without needing a reason first. If my instinct hadn't of told me that it was my betrothed beside me, the fact that he pushed my hair out of the way before kissing my neck would have given it away. I smile gently before turning over in his arms and looking into his hooded eyes.
"Morning." I whisper quietly and he smirks at me for a moment before closing his eyes.
"Good morning." He mummers before pulling me closer to his chest and I lean into the hold my head fitting perfectly underneath his.
We stay like this for an undetermined amount of time, a comfortable silence filling the room as we stay close—an attempt to enjoy the first time out of many that we'd wake up together. He grips my waist tightly before rolling me over onto my back as he hovers above my body. He's still half asleep, his eyes slightly hooded and his half glazed over as we look each other in the eyes.
"She's beautiful, and therefore to be woo'd She is a woman, therefore to be won." Regulus whispers before leaning down to kiss me.
"Shakespeare, Regulus?" I tease softly causing our lips to scrape together from how close they truly are.
"Shakespeare, Hermione." He confirms before leaning in and giving me a gentle, easy kiss.
We're only physically connected for a couple of moments but after he pulls away, there is still a connection that pulls us together once more. Kissing Regulus is completely different than anything I've ever experienced—warm, safe, content—these emotions are new to me when it comes to being with someone. Ronald had only ever been sloppy and quick about his actions, always leaving me feeling more confused and mixed up than satisfied. Yet, Regulus, he was so sweet and when it came down to it, I was so, so happy with him.
"Have you wooed me yet?" I ask him quietly as I move my head to the side in order to speak causing him to chuckle.
"Not quite, but I think you've definitely been won." He admits and then kisses the tip of my nose before rolling off of me and getting out of the bed.
"I have." I mummer and uncover myself before getting out of the bed as well.
"I know." He smirks but when I look up, he's giving me a full on grin—dimples included—and I can't help but to smile back.
"I should eat before secluding myself in my room." I sigh and look down at my hands quickly before walking around the bed.
"I need to speak with you about something, I'll get us some breakfast if you want." He offers and reaches out to grip my elbow, pulling me towards him without much effort at all.
"It sounds important." I observe and his eyes dim slightly before nodding.
"It is. I'm not entirely sure that you'll want to be around me after it." I bite my lower lip as I realize that he's being completely serious about this.
"Regulus?" I can't help the fact that my voice quivers slightly as I look into his dark, dark eyes and see how completely uncharacteristic he's being at the moment.
"Go on ahead to your room and change, I'll grab some food and meet you there." He whispers, letting go of my arm, before he stalks out of the room without another word.
I frown to myself as thoughts start to race through my mind, what in the world did he think would make me not be around him? Could it really be something that bad? I make it to my room in what seems like record time and head straight to the closet, choosing to forgo my typical system of choosing what to wear based on the occasion in lieu of finding a really comfortable sweater. I brush my hair slowly, an attempt to calm my already raddled nerves, but it does nothing other than to straighten my hair out. He knocks on the door once before opening it, probably figuring that I would have already been waiting for him. He sits the tray of food down on my beside table and motions for me to sit on the bed with him, making me sit down before he even moves from his upright position.
"Would you like to eat first?" he asks quietly and I look at the food briefly before shaking my head.
"No, I'd just like to know what's going on really." I whisper truthfully and watch him as he twitches uncomfortably under my gaze.
"Before you arrived, I'd been in a relationship with someone else." He states this quietly and his eyes settle on the spot above my head. "I didn't break it off until the night that you signed the marriage contract." I feel this sinking feeling forming in my stomach and know that there is something else as he stands up and begins to pace in front of me.
"Who?" I ask quietly and he flinches at my question, but he must have figured that I would ask it, he should have anyways.
"Before you and I got serious, I was dating Severus." He says the words and I can tell that he's still talking, but suddenly there's this ringing sound in my ears as it really hits me what he'd just said and reality starts to sink in as I think about some of our past conversations.
"My friend, Severus, will be there and I trust that he will watch over you if I cannot. It's important that you get to know him anyway, he'll be coming back with us after the ball and staying throughout the rest of school."
"He doesn't particularly feel like joining up either, you know? With him being here, no one could force him into anything."
"Once you meet him, you'll understand him a bit more as a teen. He's a great person when it comes down to it."
"Is Severus still coming around for the holidays, Regulus? I mean now that Hermione's here…"
"Severus will always be welcome in the home mum, as long as you and father allow it."
"Hermione?" A gentle hand on my face brings me back to reality once more and I instinctively jerk away from him. "Are you okay?" he asks me quietly, his eyes scanning my face as he grips my chin.
"I-" I struggle to find the right words and move from his grasp to stand up as well, choosing not to face his direction and instead looking out of the window.
"You don't have to say anything, if you don't want." Regulus whispers and I'm suddenly aware of the fact that I am crying. "You must think that I'm disgusting." He says so quietly that I can barely hear him.
"It's not the fact that you were with him that hurts." I state quietly and shut my eyes as I feel myself beginning to shake from the attempted effort of trying not to cry. "It's the fact that you didn't tell me." I whisper the truth about it and I hear him getting closer to me, his steps stopping right behind my back.
"I tried-" he starts quietly.
"No. No you did not. You did not try to tell me anything about you and him together, you had me tricked into thinking that he was your best friend and now he's staying in the house permanently!" I turn on him and find it within myself to raise my voice, barely holding myself back from slapping him.
"Severus and I are over. I'm with you and he really is only my best friend." Regulus speaks softly, almost sounding chastened.
"No wonder he was staring at me from the moment he got here, I've stolen you from him!" I whimper as I make the connection and Regulus wisely says nothing. "This can't be happening." My eyes shut once more as I try to force the tears to stop.
"I'm sorry." He whispers this softly, but it makes no difference.
"I came here so that I could start over, I just wanted to belong for once, now I've not only screwed the timeline up from coming here, but my life here is already going down the drain." The truth slips out of my mouth easily and I struggle to breathe as pain invades my every sense.
"It's not. It's not going down the drain. You and I are together, remember? You even admitted that I won you!" Regulus suddenly sounds so very confident in his words, so that I know that he must have had an extra thought about how to fix things.
"Didn't you ever read the end of the play? Just because you've won the woman doesn't mean that you get to keep her." I say this softly before slipping by him and sitting back down on the bed.
"You should let him though." A voice mummers from the doorway and I can already recognize it.
"Severus, you're not helping things!" Regulus hisses quietly and I wipe my eyes even though the tears are still falling.
"Let him win you, Hermione. He cares for you much more than he ever did for me, besides I've come to the conclusion that he and I really are better off platonic." Severus continues as if he hadn't heard Regulus speak, "I'm not taking the breakup and subsequent marriage contract personally by any means, not when I have such a serious request to make of you myself." he states as if he believed what he was saying to be fact.
"R-Request" I flinch quietly as I realize that my voice had broken unintentionally and Regulus sits beside me quietly.
"Yes. That's what I actually needed to speak to you about, Hermione, Severus has something that he needs to ask of you personally." Regulus says this gently, but I can tell that he's trying to be as best behaved as possible.
"Regulus has no doubt spoken to you about how I need to stay here at least until the end of school?" Severus asks me and I nod at him, "There are two reasons for that in all actuality, I'm not entirely willing to jump into the dark side of the war and…" he trails off quietly as if he was trying to find the best words in order to describe something. "I currently have no home to go back to. My father has died at the hand of my mother and my mother is in Azkaban." My eyes, although still teary, meet his as I hear news that I'd never heard before.
"What?" The question falls out of my mouth before I can even comprehend what to say and Severus smirks at me almost playfully.
"That being said, I'm seventeen years old with no experience of raising a child or anything like that. When I heard from Regulus that you were used to being around a large family with children, I thought that you might be the first person that I ask to do me such a personal favor since I'd be living with you anyways." He continues, still avoiding the question in order to go into more detail. "The point being, my mother was arrested two days ago and I hadn't even known about the baby until it was thrust into my arms by the ministry officials." I blink at him for a moment.
"Baby?" It seems that when I'm in shock I can only manage to give monosyllablic answers.
"Yes. My mother had given birth to a baby right before she was arrested. I was hoping, more like banking on the fact that you felt pity on the child and would raise it as your own." Severus states and I know that he's being serious by the look on his face.
I can't really find it within myself to say anything to the man before me, mostly out of shock, and I find myself struggling to comprehend the very words that he's said. As soon as the words sink in and I realize what exactly he's asking of me, I look to Regulus for help. I was hurt by his actions, yes, but I knew that it was something that we could work out and I desperately needed to know his opinion on the matter of taking a child in.
"Severus and I have already spoken about it Hermione. I told him that it was up to you, if you're willing to adopt the child then so am I." he assures me and I blink at him wordlessly for a moment.
It seemed that I was having one of those moments where my brain was working faster than my mouth, because I couldn't stop myself from thinking about how this would help or hurt the future. It's almost like when I first made the decision to spend time with Regulus, my mind was going so quickly as it tried to weigh the pro's and con's that I barely had enough consciousness left in me to remember how to breathe. In all honesty, I had no idea how this could help or hurt the future. If I took the baby in and raised it as my child, then it would grow up in a much better home than what Severus grew up in, it would grow up two or three years before Harry and could become a role model or an annoying relative to him. If I didn't take the baby in, I had no idea what Severus planned on doing, but in all honesty, I knew that the baby was better off being raised as a Black.
"It'll take the Black name?" I ask quietly, looking to Regulus for the answer rather than Severus, because he would, in all reality be the one to make that decision.
"Of course, it'd be our child." Regulus affirms and I look down at my hands, subconsciously noting the lack of a ring on my finger, before making my final decision.
"Okay. Yea. I mean, yes." I whisper finally and Severus smiles at me for a brief second before Regulus stands up and offers me assistance in standing.
"Come on, I'll show you." Regulus whispers quietly and I look at his hand for a moment, wondering if I should accept his assistance or avoid it at the moment.
Eventually, I take his hand and let him pull me up from my seat on the bed, only because I'd figured that he'd make it up to me by allowing me to the choice of whether or not to take the child. I follow Regulus and Severus down the hall into one of the guest bedrooms and frown as I realize that there isn't even a crib in sight.
"Severus! You're not supposed to leave an infant in an adult bed without someone to watch it!" I hiss out as I make my way across the bedroom and pick the baby up out of the covers easily.
I focus on making sure that the child is still breathing and is healthy, before actually looking at it. I breathe in audibly as I notice that the baby couldn't be more than four or five days old and had already been effectively orphaned. I felt a connection to the child instantaneously, I would give it the best life that it could have and it would grow up to be perfectly fine and healthy. I smile down at the face that the infant's making and hold its little hand gently for a moment, noticing the color that the child was wearing and effectively noting it's gender.
"Do you have a name yet?" I ask Severus without even looking up from the baby.
"No. I thought that I'd leave that up to whoever took guardianship." He informs me and I feel an arm wrap around my waist gently.
I don't have to look up to know that it's Regulus, I knew just by the way that he stood beside me. He kisses my temple softly and looks at the infant alongside me without saying a word, almost as if he knew that the moment was much to important for unnecessary words to be spoken. I smile quietly as the infant opens its eyes and sees me for the first time.
"Hello, my little Sirius Triton."
