A/N: Thank you all so much for your reviews, favorites and follows after last chapter! I am still working on reviewer responses, but I should have them done by the end of the day today, so look out for those! I am glad you are liking this one - the premise has just been so fun to tackle. You can follow me on tumblr (nauticalparamour) where I post sneak peeks, story updates and answer questions!
Please let me know what you thought of chapter five and be on the lookout for chapter six next week!
Hermione woke the next day feeling a combination of anticipation and nerves. Their meeting with the Blacks had highlighted some of their deficiencies, but Hermione was also eager to get moving on things. There was a lot that they still had to do - like contact Minerva McGonagall, something they hadn't talked about yet - but she knew there was some low hanging fruit that they could handled easily.
In the night, she and Theo had drifted a bit closer to one another, and he had one heavy leg thrown over her thighs, holding her in place. It wasn't too restrictive and she found herself enjoying the warmth of his skin seeping into her, the light scratch of his hair on her smooth skin. It was an unusual step of intimacy that she had never shared with anyone before, even though she hadn't been a virgin when they were married. She couldn't think of another time that she had shared a bed with a man, let alone someone with so many unknowns as Theodore Nott.
To her surprise, her heartbeat sped up with unspent anticipation, but she wasn't actually uncomfortable lying together with him like this. Turning her head, she drank in every angle of Theo's face, from the gentle slope of his perfect nose to the masculine cut of his jaw, and wondered for the thousandth time how she hadn't noticed him while they were at school with one another.
The clouds shifted and the sunlight streamed into their room, landing on his face. Hermione watched as his eyes move under his eyelids, until they were fluttering open. She didn't look away as his pupils constricted in the light, coming to focus on her face staring back at him.
"Good morning," he mumbled slightly, confused and still half asleep, but Hermione was pleased to note that he made no move to get away from her.
"Morning," she greeted in response, offering a closed lipped smile. "There's no need to get up yet if you want to sleep more. The horcruxes can wait." It wasn't as if they were going to be able to find all of them in one day.
Theo, perhaps more open in his sleepy state, reached out and pushed her hair behind her ear, the palm of his hand brushing against her cheek in the process. The tips of his fingers traced down the side of her neck towards her bare shoulder, towards elbow and eventually wrist, leaving a trail of gooseflesh in their wake."Tell me about the horcruxes," he asked.
Hermione's eyes were nearly half shut when he continued to trace lazy patterns on her exposed arm, the act so affectionate and pleasing that she nearly wondered if she was imagining it. Instead, she forced the quiet noise of satisfaction that was threatening to come back down, focusing herself so that she could answer him. "I believe that he will only have made five in this time. The snake doesn't become a horcrux until he is resurrected and Harry obviously hasn't been born yet," she started.
"Five?" he asked, his voice still graveley from sleep. "That's...daunting, but not something that we can't handle together."
"I know where they should be if he's already put them there, but it's not set in stone obviously," she continued, watching as his eyes dipped towards the collar of her nightgown. "Some will be easier to get than others."
"Go on," he encouraged, his mouth left half open when his fingers skimmed across her shoulder and along her collar bone, feeling the gentle curve and dip of her body.
"There is Slytherin's locket, which I have on good authority is in this particular cave. Harry told me where it was," she answered him, thinking that she was enjoying his touch far too much. Did he know what he was doing, she wondered? Since she had known him, Theo had seemed shy and unsure of himself - not averse to physical affection, but certainly not putting himself in a situation to receive it. Where had this new confidence come from?
"Keep talking," he encouraged.
Hermione felt her cheeks heat up when she realized that she had stopped talking, too focused on the feeling of him touching her. "There is a ring that was in ownership of the Gaunt family. Not sure where that is, but Dumbledore found it last time. There is a curse on it, nasty and terrible. Actually, I am sure all the horcruxes have some level of protection against them. The lost diadem of Ravenclaw is in the Room of Requirement. Hufflepuff's Cup was in the Lestrange vault at Gringotts when we found it. And...there is a Diary that belonged to You-Know-Who-"
"You should probably get used to calling him the Dark Lord," Theo said, his eyes dropping for a moment. "Or….I'm not sure how he will be styling himself just yet. My father was never quite clear with me."
"The Dark Lord," she continued, irreverently rolling her eyes at him, "has given the Diary to Lucius Malfoy for safe keeping."
That had Theo sucking in a breath that he wasn't expecting. "He really had a horcrux in his home while he was raising Draco? Reckless," he sneered, showing his utter disapproval with that man's choices.
"Yes, until our second year, when he slipped it into Ginny Weasley's cauldron, causing her to become possessed and open the Chamber of Secrets," Hermione informed him smartly. It felt a bit like a betrayal to reveal Ginny's secret after all these years, but it wasn't as if it had actually happened yet. There was no need to protect the girl when she wasn't going to be put into that situation again, not if Hermione had anything to do about it.
"So it was the Weaselette? We always figured it really was Potter who'd opened it," he responded, dark eyebrows drawn together, perhaps frustrated that they hadn't been able to work it out.
"Do you really call her that demeaning name?" she asked, finally sitting up. Even though Theo was her only friend in this time, the only person who knew exactly what was going on, that didn't mean that she was going to tolerate him talking about Ginny that way. "It makes you look juvenille and weak."
Theo followed her lead and sat up as well, letting the sheets pool in their lap. "Old habits die hard, I suppose," he said, not sounding too concerned with her insult.
Hermione felt like such an imposter in that situation, embarrassed really, like a child pretending to play house. Only it wasn't pretend, not really. This was her bed and her house and her husband and it was just the domesticity of it all that she was straining to get out of. Yes, she knew that she needed to become this character that she was meant to embody, but it was odd and uncomfortable still.
She flinched when she felt his hands in her hair once again, pushing it behind her back, leaving the slope of her shoulder bare to his eyes. He was leaning in towards her then, closer and closer… Hermione pulled back, feeling like she'd been shocked. "What are you doing?" she asked, unsure of what was going on in the moment, unsure of what he was playing at. A small fear in the pit of her stomach was gnawing away, wondering if he was just using her for some nefarious purpose, before she remembered the unbreakable vow that he'd made.
"I-" Theo started to explain, only to quickly lose his voice. The confident person that he'd been in that uncertain place between waking and dreaming disappeared in an instant, only to be replaced with the cautious and measured Theo she knew so far. That Theo had no response for her.
Waiting a few more beats, Hermione stood from the bed when he nothing else to add, determined to put some space between them to help clear her mind. "I'm going to get ready for the day," she told him, not looking back at the bed where she left him. "I'll join you for breakfast to plan out the rest of our day."
Hermione breezed into the en suite bathroom she had been surprised to find in their townhome, stepping under the scalding heat of the shower. Making a note to look at the pipes - how did wizards heat their water? - she made quick of her routine before stepping out. Towel wrapped around her, she peeked her head out of the door, pleased to see that Theo had vacated their room. While she'd changed in front of him the other night, she wasn't sure if she was ready to get completely naked in front of him, especially not after his display that morning.
Her closet was full of robes now after their impromptu shopping trip. Selecting a pretty set of robes in cream, she dried and styled her hair. Confident that she looked presentable enough in her vanity, Hermione made the quick trip down the stairs.
Theo was waiting at the dining room table with a bowl of oatmeal in front of him, filled to the brim with brown sugar. "I'm afraid I'm rather useless when it comes to cooking...this is all that I can make. But if you want something else, I am sure that we can sort it," he explained.
"No need," Hermione said, before preparing her own bowl of oatmeal, never having been one for a large breakfast. "As much as I am loathe to admit it, having a house elf will help. Cooking is obviously neither of our strong points, and well, I think we will have bigger things to focus on than eating."
He raised an eyebrow at her, looking at her with suspicion. "Really? Hermione Granger is going to happily have a house elf?" he asked, sounding incredulous.
"Yes," Hermione said tersely. "For one, I thought we agreed last night to leave our past in the past, and for me that means my fight for fair treatment of creatures and beings. It won't serve me well at all, so despite personally being very against it, I will relent and get a house elf as it is expected as a pureblood that I would have one. However, I will not stand for you mistreating the elf. We will be respectful and will not punish it in some of the barbaric ways that I know are typical."
Holding his hands up in defense, Theo denied her claims. "I've never been rude to a house elf, so I am not really sure why you would lump me in with everyone else," he said with a frown. "But it will be a good chance to continue to build up our relationship with the Blacks. They were not the friendliest people."
Hermione snorted in amusement. "No they were not. Everything that Sirius had said about his mother seemed to ring true," she said. Rolling out her shoulders and feeling the weight of everything that they had to do piling up on her, she let out a sigh. "It's just one more thing for us to add to the list."
"We could make a plan to work through it...put things in order, so it doesn't seem so overwhelming," Theo offered, looking rather world-weary himself. "And remember that we don't have to do everything to day. We have years before we really need to start worrying. Building up our backstory is the best thing to do right now, so that we are not questioned.'
"Well, we need to defeat You-Know-Who, but that's obviously the last on the list," Hermione said, knowing that it was good that they had some time to work with. It was good to have Theo grounding her expectations. "Before that we should get rid of all the horcruxes. Dumbledore has the Elder Wand...I don't know if that is worth going after. We need to reach out to Minerva...get veritaserum without suspicion."
"Don't worry about the veritaserum," he said, waving off that concern. "We can go to the apothecary today after breakfast. It's tricky to brew, but between the two of us, we should be able to handle it plenty. I'm a very capable brewer, and as I recall, you are a very accomplished potioneer yourself."
"That sounds like a compliment, Theo," she quipped, unused to receiving praise from a Slytherin.
"That's because it is one...no point in denying the truth," he countered, apparently unbothered by the exchanged.
"I don't know if that's true...I certainly am exacting when it comes to following directions, but it's not as if I'm a natural brewer like Professor Snape or even Malfoy," she said with a soft scowl on her face, hating that it was the truth. It was something that she'd grown deeply insecure about in her sixth year while Harry was relying on the handwritten notes of the Half-Blood Prince, not realizing that it was Severus Snape who'd been writing it.
Theo chuckled quietly, suddenly finding his oatmeal very interesting. "If he could hear you know, I am sure that Draco would try to have you committed to St. Mungo's," he said, trying to hide his smile. "That sounded very much like a compliment, Hermione."
She shrugged her shoulders. "As you say, no point in denying the truth," she said, knowing that Draco had been a very excellent brewer. "We probably shouldn't approach Minerva until we get a horcrux. I know that she gave us information to help sway her, to prove to her that we really are who we say we are, but...I just think that having some proof would help her take us more seriously. She is a dangerous witch."
"I agree. I'm concerned enough about approaching her...getting her to sit down and listen to us is going to be tricky and I don't think it will be as simple as inviting her over for tea," Theo said, pushing his now empty bowl out of the way. "We might have to...I don't know? Trick her to get her out of Hogwarts or something."
"I said I was willing to do whatever it takes to make a better future, and I meant it," she said seriously, knowing that she was likely going to have to do things that pushed her well out of her comfort zone. Still, she didn't like to be reminded of that fact.
Theo flushed. "I didn't mean to question your commitment, Hermione," he reassured her quietly. "Just wanted to be sure that we were on the same page and prepared to do what...what we need to do. Silence stretched between them for a moment too long. "So which horcrux do you think will be easiest to get ahead of the meeting with Minerva?" he asked eventually.
"Well, the diadem obviously is the least well protected, but I am unsure of how we would be able to get into Hogwarts again, let alone the Room of Requirement. I can't believe that we didn't just think to grab it when we were there last," she said, suddenly feeling very angry at herself for not remembering it at the time. "Although, we know it's there and undisturbed, so I suppose there is no harm in leaving it there either."
"Hey, don't worry about it," Theo said, reaching across the table and giving her hand a gentle squeeze. Hermione felt the tension she was holding in her shoulders begin to dissipate. "We had more pressing issues at the time...like not getting caught inside the school. That would have been way worse."
"Thanks," she answered softly, her eyes darting to his face, touched by the thoughtful look she saw reflected in his eyes. Realizing that she'd held eye contact just a bit too long, she looked away, clearing her throat. "The horcrux we should probably go for is the locket. Regulus Black will successfully steal it in 1979."
"Regulus?" Theo asked, incredulous. "How did he know about it?"
"You-Know-Who borrows Kreacher to go check on it then...and Regulus figured it out from there," she explained, her eyebrows furrowing together when she thought of how awful it must have been. "Harry and Dumbledore went there in our sixth year and retrieved the fake that Regulus left behind without realizing it wasn't the real one, so I've got a good idea of the general protections on it."
"Why would the Dark Lord need a house elf to check on it?" Theo wondered, thinking that it did not quite make sense, running his hand through his brown hair thinking over the possibilities.
"Apparently there is a boat to take you across inferi-infested waters that surround a small island at the center of the cave," Hermione explained, using her wand to leave behind strands of magic to illustrate her point. "But only one of age wizard can go in the boat at a time. Then there is an elixir that you must drink to get to the locket, that causes terrible despair and thirst...making you want to drink from the inferi-infested waters," she explained. "Basically, you need someone to do with you."
The obvious problem that they were both of age hung between them for a few moments. "De-aging potion?" Theo offered hopefully.
"Don't you think if Dumbledore was prepared for that in the Tri-Wizard Tournament that the Dark Lord would have thought of it, too?" she asked, biting her lower lip. Voldemort was certainly no slouch, even if he was awful and terrible.
"And why can't you just apparate to and from the island?" Theo asked, thinking that bypassing the whole boat would really be the best option.
Hermione rolled her eyes. "I'm sure he's got very heavy anti-apparition wards, not to mention a whole host of others, to prevent that kind of thing. He doesn't want anyone accidentally stumbling on his horcrux," Hermione said, with a frown. If only it were that simple.
But Theo's face was transformed by a smirk, making him look more handsome than he had the right to be when he was clearly scheming. "Well, it's a good thing that both you and I are so proficient in charms….and I've got a thorough working knowledge of wards," he said proudly, making Hermione feel confident for the first time since coming to the past.