A/N: Thank you all so much for your reviews, favorites and follows! And for your patience - things have been in flux lately, but you guys have just been so great about the longer periods between chapters. I am really hoping to find my regular update schedule again soon :) 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 seventeen and be on the lookout for chapter eighteen soon!
April 1968
After much discussion, it was Rodolphus who finally convinced Hermione to do a little bit of studying outside. Hermione was skeptical that he would be able to focus out in the fantastic weather, but knew that she could do with a bit of fresh air herself. Rodolphus had grown more serious about his revision as the weeks had gone by, perhaps impressed with the small improvements that he was making in progress.
Hermione was quickly running out of things to do on the other hand. The curriculum was just not as challenging here in the late 60s as what she was used to in her correct time and she didn't have her swotty reputation to fall back on to ask her professors for additional work for extra credit. In some ways, it was freeing to not be so focused on getting good marks, but on the other hand it left her with copious amounts of time to fill now that she'd finished all the assignments on her class syllabi through the end of term.
Tucked underneath a tree next to the Black Lake, Hermione was happy to spend her afternoon nestled underneath Rodolphus's arm, her head leaning back against his chest, his long fingers working their way through her wild hair. She was fascinated by the way his long legs stretched out in front of him and it was all she could do to stop herself from running her foot up against the firm muscle of his thigh. They hadn't done much more than kiss, but that certainly didn't stop Hermione from wanting more with him.
Needing to focus on something other than the way that he looked, she prodded about an issue that was rapidly approaching in her mind - their impending separation. "Have you thought any more about what you might do after school?" Hermione prodded, biting her lower lip and hoping that Rodolphus didn't think that she was nagging him.
Rodolphus let out a sigh, his fingers stilling their constant motion. "I wish I didn't have to do anything," he said finally. "I wish I didn't have to think about leaving Hogwarts at all. The real world seems too serious. I'm not done having fun."
Hermione turned in his arms and looked up at him, only to see that he was completely pouting. She would have expected so much more from the Slytherin. "Oh, come on Rodolphus, doesn't it sound wonderful? The freedom to finally do whatever you want to, no one telling you what to do," she said, hoping to set a nicer picture for him.
He scowled. "Yeah, well, I forget that you don't know my father," he answered, his brows drawing together in frustration. "I've been useless to him while I was at Hogwarts, but now he is going to have all sorts of things for me to do for the good of the family. For instance, this summer, he's lined up a job for me clerking with one of his friends at the Wizengamot. Utterly boring most of the time, and more research than I've done the whole time I was at school, I'm sure."
She frowned, thinking that Rodolphus's father suddenly having an interest in his son's future and choices did pose some issues for him. Maybe this was how he got wrapped up with Voldemort the first time around. "Well, it sounds like it will be useful experience...you'll get insight on how the Ministry really works," she said, trying to make the experience sound a little more palatable to the grumpy man.
"I guess, if you had an interest in politics," Rodolphus said, still sounding very down about his prospects. "But, it's no secret how the Ministry works - you just need the right name, and a bit of gold if you don't have that."
Hermione gasped at the idea of such corruption in the Ministry, though, she couldn't say that she was too surprised.
"Oh, you are so naive sometimes," he said affectionately, pulling her closer to him and pressing a kiss to the top of her head as though she were some kind of pet. "I'm sure things would be better if it didn't work there, but I don't know how to change it. Except for tearing the whole thing down and starting over again."
Hermione was silent for a minute, listening to the wind on the leaves of the trees, soothing. "At least you won't be far away for the summer," she said finally. "I know that this between us has to end eventually, but maybe I could still see you sometime this summer."
"What, you already planning on finding yourself a new boyfriend next term, Granger?" he teased, though Hermione could undoubtedly hear the hint of hurt in his voice. Was he really so worried about her having a relationship with someone that wasn't him?
"No, I don't have one lined up or anything," she said, feeling uncharacteristically vulnerable. She liked Rodolphus far more than she should have allowed herself to, but her feelings were very real and very able to get hurt. "But, as you say, your father is going to...take a more active interest in your life and I doubt that he is going to want to hear that you've been hanging around with a mudblood when you are supposed to be marrying Bellatrix."
The word mudblood tasted like poison in her mouth, but Rodolphus made no move to scold her for using the word. Perhaps he knew that is exactly what his father would think of her. "I don't think that he'll be too interested in my love life," Rodolphus said with a smirk on his lips. "Especially since Bellatrix has another year of school. The way I see it, I will have at least another year before he starts nagging me about the betrothal. That's plenty of time for things to change."
Hermione's stomach roiled in protest at the thought. She wasn't sure what this meant…did he just mean to keep dating her for another year until Bellatrix graduated and then dump her to get married to the other witch...always going what his daddy told him? Or was he just putting off some confrontation that he knew was brewing? What would happen to her? Would her feelings for him only grow deeper and leave her move hurt when she was inevitably dropped like a hot potato?
Sighing, she decided that was far too many what ifs to be thinking over right now. Maybe she would stop seeing him after the summer. Maybe her attraction to him would wane. But if she was honest to herself, she wasn't ready to give him up just yet. "So you aren't trying to get rid of me just yet, then?" Hermione pressed.
"Get rid of you, witch?" he asked with a grin. "It will be you who wants to get rid of me."
Somehow, she doubted that. "Well, then I might be able to pull you away from clerking and the Wizengamot a couple of times this summer. I could meet you in Diagon Alley for dinner or something?" she asked, pressing her hand against his chest, feeling his heart beating proudly against his ribs.
Rodolphus grabbed her hand in his own, threading his fingers through hers. "That depends..." he trailed off. "Do you really think that the Weasleys are just going to let you do out with a big bad Lestrange? After all that tripe that Arthur fills your head up about me."
That was a little bit of an issue, she supposed. "First of all, Cedrella is very indulgent of me. I can't say that she wouldn't let her Bunny do whatever she wanted," Hermione said with a grin on her face. "But further, I am not a prisoner of the Weasleys. I am free to do whatever I want as an of age witch."
He looked at her with those soft blue eyes showing her that he really was not believing what she was saying. "Or...I could just tell them I am visiting Fawn or Elna or Lottie. I am sure that any of those three would be perfectly acceptable playdates for a young impressionable witch." Hermione did not like the some of the ideas about how a young lady was meant to comport herself in this time period and longed for the greater freedoms she had in her correct time. But, just because that was the way she was meant to do things did not mean that that was the way she was actually going to behave.
"Sneaking out, Granger?" he teased, pulling her closer. "I always took you for a bit of a rule follower."
Hermione scrunched up her nose, thinking of all the times that she had broken the rules to suit her needs or to help Harry Potter accomplish his goals. For Merlin's sake, she had lead Umbridge into a wild pack of centaurs knowing exactly what was going to happen to her and not caring one iota. "Only the rules that suit me," she said primly. "Maybe you don't know me as well as you think you do. I've been sneaking out since I was a first year."
"A first year?" he asked, one fine eyebrow raised in suspicion. "But you didn't go here as a first year...does this have something to do with your secret past life that you won't tell anyone about? Did you really go to Beauxbatons? Or Durmstrang?"
The smile fell from her face at his gentle questioning. "Please - me at Durmstrang? They wouldn't take a muggleborn student in a million years," she whined, knowing the school's reputation for dark magic. She had Viktor had spent a lot of time talking about his school and its connections to Grindelwald, so she knew that they wouldn't take a muggleborn student for at least another decade.
"So Beauxbatons then?" he said, not sensing the way that her walls were coming back up. "I confess I might like to see you in one of their uniforms. And I hear they have veela there - is that true?"
"I didn't go to Beauxbatons either," she answered tersely, looking down at her lap. "And I understand that they don't have any full blood veelas there, just a lot of girls with charming smiles and good looks. Not that it takes much to charm a wizard, I suppose."
"Hmm, if you didn't go to Durmstrang and you didn't go to Beauxbatons, I'll confess, I'm stumped," he said turning to look at her better. "Where did you go to school before this? You are obviously plenty smart."
Hermione felt on edge, completely unprepared to have this conversation with anyone let along with Rodolphus. "I'm not ready to talk about this," she said, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning away from him a bit. "Can we just talk about something else?"
"Come on, don't you trust me?" he asked. "I don't see what the big deal is. Why can't you just tell me a little bit about your life before school?"
She thought that Rodolphus was just about the worst person she could tell the truth to, if she was honest with herself, but she wasn't sure how to tell him that. "Look, I'm just not ready to talk about my past with anyone yet. It brings up too many painful memories."
"When will you be ready to tell me about it?" he countered. "I've been trying to be understanding, but it's been months now, Hermione."
Annoyed with him, Hermione stood up from under the tree and smoothed out her skirt, knowing that she needed to leave before they got into a larger fight. "I don't know? Maybe when you feel comfortable telling your father about me?" she pressed, knowing that it was asking too much. She was fairly positive that Rodolphus would never want to tell his father about her, but if it got him to drop his questions about her past, then it did the job. "Listen, I promised Fawn I would hang out with her tonight. See you tomorrow?" she asked.
Rodolphus reluctantly agreed.