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7. Lips

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"I'm sorry we couldn't meet sooner. I would've liked to get to know you."

She brushed his long black hair out of his face, admiring the brave man she never got to know.

She continued staring at him for what seemed like ten minutes...and again she felt compelled to stare particularly at his lips. Perhaps because they were so rosy. So life-like, as if he would speak at any moment. Or draw a breath. Or laugh at her. Not like he was dead at all. Though he showed no signs of life, not even a pulse or breathe. If only...

Without really thinking of what she was doing or why, she bent down over Regulus Arcturus Black's body and pressed her lips to his full lips. Her small white
fingers temporarily clasping his long hair as she bent closer to him...craving a part of him that she knew she would never have.

For a moment their two wet mouths combined-hers wet from saliva and being alive, his lips wet only from the water of the cave where he had been submerged for twenty years...his body somehow perfectly preserved.

Hermione closed her eyes. What am I thinking? I'm being stupid.

She pulled her face away from him and wiped her lips in shame.

This is clearly hopeless, she thought.

Hermione slapped his face for good measure. He still didn't wake.

"You really are dead...And yet you don't look it...not one bit."

Had it been the blood magic he did all those years ago? Did it act as a retrieving spell, preserving him all this time, until they could meet again in the flesh, thus fulfilling the bond?

And yet how exactly had his lifeless fingers closed around the mirror she threw into the water? Was that part of the spell, to animate his flesh temporarily? To give her false hope? Along with throwing his body out of the water, so that they could 'meet'?

Funny spell.

"So we really met in the flesh, Regulus. Except you forgot to add you're dead." She laughed back the pain. "Your dark magic, while strange, is no match for death it seems."

Though she could not deny she was more than mildly impressed at how advanced Regulus Black's magic had been and she wondered what other spells he had learned in his short life. This was impressive magic to do at any age, let alone at an early age, when you were a bored teenager toying around your parents attic. Not to mention his rebellion against Voldemort and the finding of the locket...

Regulus Black had been a very impressive wizard in his short life. And he wasn't at all bad on the eyes either.

She felt so sad to leave him.

Throwing the mirror and her own blood in the water had seemed to retrieve him...but was that the extent of his blood binding spell?

It seemed so. But she could not wait here any longer. Harry and Ron would start to worry. They waited for her in the tent.

"Goodbye Regulus."

She decided to be respectful and put his body back in the water from whence it came. She hated the thought of leaving his body out where it could begin to rot. Hopefully it would never decay and perhaps he would always be asleep in these cursed dark waters...her Regulus...

She levitated his body off the ground and prepared to move him back towards the lake when she thought she saw his lips move.

"Hold on, I believe it goes against good custom to drown a man after kissing him."

She was so shocked she accidentally lost all control of her magic and Regulus dropped several feet to the hard ground.

"Ouch." Regulus finally moved as he reached an arm to his aching head which had hit a rock. "That hurt. Quite a bit actually."

His face winced in deep pain and his movements were still sluggish as if the muscles hadn't been used in a long long time.

"Oh my god. Fuck. I thought you were dead!"

Regulus looked around in confusion before his eyes, unused to being open, focused in on Hermione. "Why would I be dead? Didn't you just stop me from drowning?"

"Drowning? No! How are you alive?" Hermione felt herself shaking, partly from still being wet from cold water and partly from shock that she was actually carrying a conversation with him. "You already drowned before I came here!"

Regulus stared at her with complete confusion. "Is that why you were kissing me? To resuscitate me?" His eyes lit up and suddenly a smirk pulled at his lips. "Or am I really that handsome you couldn't resist for even a second?"

"Shut up!" Hermione could not click her jaw shut. Also she could not get over the fact that Regulus had been back alive for less than five minutes and he was already teasing her.

"I can go back to playing dead if you wish..." He attempted to lay flat again. "My muscles are actually sore. It's why I couldn't move at first. Or talk."

"Wait. You were awake when I kissed you?" She began to burn in embarrassment, though it was the least of her worries in the whole mad mishap unfolding before her. How was she going to tell Harry that her dead godfather's brother was now alive again? She couldn't stop shaking her head.

"I'm not sure, but I definitely felt something..." he smirked. Then he winced as he tried to stand up and then stumbled. "It feels like I haven't moved in ages."

"Believe me, it has been ages!" She reached out a hand to help him up. "Though I still can't figure out how your blood magic worked to preserve you for twenty years."

"Twenty years? What are you talking about?" Regulus quickly regained his strength as he stood over her and rubbed his neck.

Hermione bit her lip. "It's a long story. Perhaps I should tell you after. I wouldn't want you to be shocked. And fall over again."

His grey eyes searched hers for an answer before he winced again and almost fell over, though she caught him so that they both leaned against each other, face to face.

A smirk pulled at his lips as they stood in this awkward hug in close contact. "Fine. Tell me later. I don't know what's going on with my sense of balance or how you found me. But I'm honestly not shocked."

"Why do you say that?"

He pulled her face towards his, cupping her chin under his thumb, as this time, he stared at her lips. "I dreamt you'd be here."

"Oh did you?" She breathed heavily, her heart racing so hard she felt as she'd just resurfaced from underwater too and couldn't breathe. "A clairvoyant too are you?"

Yet his eyes told her he meant his words, even as he teased her to oblivion.

"Do you hate me for my talents?"

"Arrogant." She rolled her eyes and laughed. "I've never put much store by clairvoyance."

"Neither have I." He kissed her back.
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a/n: Please tell me if you'd like this to be continued or you think this is a good ending as is? More chapters?

Thank you to everyone who followed/faved/and/or left a comment, I'm glad people took an interest in this story

Btw if you are reading my antonin dolohov/hermione story "I'm the Bad Guy", that is close to finishing up to and i'll be updating it again this week probably