A/N: Chapter Twenty-Five!

It was around midnight, that we returned to our home in Puddlemere.

The funeral proceedings went on for under an hour, after which most guests stayed for the wake and conversed with Nott about his late father. I learned then that Nott Sr. had been married to two women and had two children: the first one being a girl named Alexandra Nott (died in infancy) and the second one being Theodore Nott Jr. (my roommate). It appeared Alexandra's unfortunate death sparked the end of Nott Sr.'s first marriage, to which he clung on for a long time, until meeting his second, much younger wife, in his early 50s.

Her name was Eleanor and she died in labour, leaving an already bitter man with an even worse existence, and a newborn son to raise on his own. On top of that, she was from House Black. I recognized her name from the Black Family Tapestry, and the accompanying cigar-sized burn that denoted her banishment; not unlike her distant cousin, the famed Sirius Black.

By then, it was clear to me that Nott's family had a checkered past.

But I couldn't dwell on that information. I was too tired and too dazed to focus on anything apart from my grumbling stomach.

I entered the kitchen, starved for something to eat, aware that my roommate hadn't a bite since morning. Perhaps the saying was true and the best way to a man's heart was through his stomach. I clung onto that and made my way to the doorway of his bedroom, watching as he hovered over something in the top drawer of his dresser.

It took about thirty seconds for him to notice me.

"Granger!" he gasped, slamming his drawer closed, startled. "Is — Is something wrong?"

"No," I answered, being the first word I had spoken to him all day. "Just wondering if you want to join me for a late night snack."

His features softened. "Oh…yeah, I'll be there in a moment. I just need to get out of these clothes."

I stood there an extra few seconds, allowing my eyes to dance across the markings that coloured his neck and collarbone area, along with the scratch marks along his back and abdomen, as he began to undress. Perhaps there was truth to the gnawing feeling in my stomach. Perhaps we had slept together.

In thinking this, I couldn't decide which bothered me most: the fact that we could possibly have engaged in drunken sex, or that I had no recollection of the incident.

I swallowed the regret and made my way to the kitchen, fumbling with what little ingredients we had left and tossing together something I hoped was edible. I wasn't much of a cook; another reason our living situation worked as well as it did. Nott was a fabulous cook. His dishes were spectacular. He loved cooking, and I loved eating. It was a match made in heaven — or a broom closet. Whichever.

"Need help?" he asked, eyeing me with a trace of amusement across his lips.

"Er —" I stared at his lips, losing my train of thought. "Yeah — sure."

Nott responded to this with deepening amusement, evident in his lips and eyes, and the shake of his shoulders as he moved past me and plated our food, before placing both servings on the table. It was a stir fry — simple enough for normal people but endlessly difficult for someone as discombobulated in the kitchen as yours truly.

I moved to the table with Nott and sat adjacent from him, falling into silence as we ate and reflected on the days events.

Now and then, there was a look exchanged, followed by an accompanying smile to gloss over the tension between us. I wasn't one for avoiding the obvious, but there was no part of me that was ready to discuss what could or could not have happened the night before. I didn't want to hear the details. I didn't want to hear about how I mauled him into that fountain and fucked him senseless.

I wanted to know it.

But the longer I dwelled on those feelings, the harder it became to sit there with the man of the hour, less than two feet from one another, where I could easily have leaned over the table and swept him into the kiss I didn't remember.

It was hard not to imagine.

I would have him between my legs, with my hands running through his hair and my mouth devouring every inch of his unclothed body, making him writhe beneath me in wave upon wave of pure orgasmic —

"Hermione?"

I flicked my gaze up, noticing him staring at me with a quizzical look. "Er…yeah?"

"Nothing," he answered, eyeing me with care. "You just — You zoned out a little."

"Oh," I blinked, realizing he'd noticed my dream state. "It's been a long day."

Nott moved his head in agreement, having finished his plate. "Sorry, we couldn't talk earlier. I tried but…there were so many people and…"

I flashed him a knowing look. "Don't apologize. Today wasn't about me."

"I know but…"

"Honestly. I just want to know that you'll be okay."

"Thank you," he said to me, holding our gaze for a moment longer than expected.

In the seconds that followed, we cleared our plates and tag-teamed washing and drying. Granted, we could have left it till morning but neither of us could sleep a wink knowing there was a mess in the house. Another reason we were made to live together.

I proceeded into the bath some moments later, itching to relax in the warmth that I had craved since morning. It was a struggle getting ready in time for the funeral, leaving me with no time to shower or even slap on some deodorant. Luckily, there was still scourgify which I used several times throughout the day, fearing my…feminine musk…would gain some unnecessary attention.

That in mind, I stripped out of my dress and knickers, and sunk deep into the tub, submerging my entire body in the water. It was positively blissful. I sighed with an animated smile on my face, enjoying the water as it was for about a minute before reaching over and opening the cupboard under the sink, where a bottle of my most favourite bubble bath lay waiting.

It was a blend of vanilla, brown sugar and nutmeg; delightful to my nostrils and the perfect scent to unwind the knots that networked my arms and legs.

"Granger? You in there?"

"Shit —" I blurted, watching ripples of water splashed to the tiled floor. "Er — yeah. I'm in here. Do you need the loo?"

"No," my roommate answered. "I was wondering if we could talk. I'll...I'll come back when you're…decent."

For some reason, this made me laugh. "It's fine," I told him. "Come in."

"Are you sure? I don't mind waiting."

"Trust me, there's nothing to see. I used about a third of that expensive bubble bath you bought me last autumn."

In saying this, I couldn't help but dwell on the fact that he bought me something as overtly sexual as bubble bath. Granted, there were no strings attached, nothing that would suggest it was a sexual purchase. Just — I had never received anything like that from Harry or Neville. From them, it would have been inappropriate.

But, as I started to realize over the course of the season, mine and my roommate's friendship was different from most.

It took about ten more seconds for that door to open, with Nott standing there, one hand over his eyes and the other clasped over the doorknob. I noticed his knuckles turned white from how hard he was gripping that metallic handle. He then turned his back to the tub and closed the door, leaving us in the loo, alone, with the added tension of what we were about to discuss.

"So…you wanted to talk?"

"Erm…yeah," he choked out, after moment of silence, careful not to catch sight of me in the mirror, as he dropped his hand to his side; slowly and with caution. "I — I realize things got a little heated last night…but I thought you should know…nothing happened beyond that."

"Beyond what?" I asked, with mingled eagerness and embarrassment, mostly over the fact that I had no recollection, whereas he seemed to have some.

Nott cleared his throat. "I can't remember it too well, but we did kiss a little bit at the fountain…and…well…some other things."

I blushed. "Do you…Do you remember those other things…?"

His back was turned to me, though I could tell there was colour on his cheeks, as it carried through all around his neck. "In flashes, yeah. I remember falling into the fountain and realizing you'd hit your head on the stone. After that, someone heard us and came outside to see what all the commotion was about…"

I thought about Draco, about waking up in his room, and about the strange looks he'd been giving me throughout the day, as though he knew something I didn't.

"…I tried to help you up, but I think I might have hit my head as well. It's all a blur from there," Nott continued, speaking with remorse as opposed to the triumph that usually came with the retelling of a drunken anecdote. "Point is, I'm sorry things got so carried away, and I hope we can move past this."

"Is that what you want?" I started to ask, without knowing where the question had come from. "…to move past this?"

Nott shifted a little, as though there was something he couldn't tell me. It stretched on for a long time, his silence. Admittedly, the question was filled to the brim with tension and baggage, and could not have been answered with a simple yes or no —but it had to be answered regardless.

…twenty seconds, thirty seconds, forty, with no response.

I swallowed hard, fighting the urge to dunk my head in the bubbles and vanish. It was bad enough being the only one with no memory of the previous night, but to be left hanging after such an open-ended question was borderline torturous.

A/N: Thoughts?

Cheers

xo.

(P.S. Some of you might be wondering how Hermione was able to remember the fountain incident with enough detail to write a chapter about it in her memoir, and that question will be answered in the next chapter).