A/N: Thank you all so much for your reviews, favorites and follows! I am so pleased that you guys are in for more Theomione! I will let you know the total chapter count once I finish the plotting. You can follow me over on tumblr (nauticalparamour) where I post sneak peeks, story updates and answer questions!
Please let me know what you thought of chapter seven and be on the lookout for chapter eight soon!
"This is a monumentally stupid idea," Hermione whispered to her friend with a frown, wondering just how she'd gotten roped into it in the first place. "We aren't going to find him."
The air under the Invisibility Cloak was hot and made Hermione feel like she was choking, but leaving the protection that it afforded her was an impossibility. She couldn't be caught roaming the halls this late after curfew.
"You were the one that insisted on coming with me," Harry hissed back. "You could have stayed up in Gryffindor tower if you wanted."
Hermione bit her lower lip, knowing that what Harry said was true, but also knowing that she couldn't just abandon her friend. Ron had been planning on accompanying Harry on his hairbrained plan. Then, he'd gone and gotten himself a detention for fighting with Cormac McLaggen in the hallways for some unknown reason that he wouldn't share with her.
"Don't act like you didn't twist my arm Potter," Hermione hissed with a frown, knowing that her friend had guilted her more than a little bit for help. "I only came with because well...you'll need help when you find him. If you find him."
Harry had been watching Malfoy on the map every night like a hawk, but without fail Malfoy would disappear for several hours, only to reappear later somewhere on the seventh floor. It was eating away at Harry, not knowing how Malfoy was evading the map's magic, and Hermione knew that he wasn't going to be able to let this go until he got to the bottom of it. Harry would stop at nothing other than to wander around on the seventh floor until Malfoy showed up.
"Admit it," Harry said, bumping shoulders with her. "You want to know how he does it, too."
Despite her thinking that Harry had grown rather obsessed, she could admit that she did want to know what was going on. She could feel the solution in the back of her mind, itching away, as if she should already know the answer. "The map never lies," Hermione said grimly. "Perhaps he's found a way around the anti-apparition wards. Or just apparating around the castle"
"Maybe," Harry hedged himself quickly. "But then, he'd show up somewhere else, wouldn't he?"
"Does he always reappear in the same spot on the seventh floor?" Hermione asked, her brain churning with the effort of coming up with a solution.
Even though she couldn't see him in the dim light, she could tell from the silence that Harry was blushing. "I don't know," he admitted. "It's just, one minute he's gone and then the next minute he's there, and I've never really thought to remember if it seemed to be in the same location."
Hermione wanted to roll her eyes. Of course, Harry would notice practically everything about Malfoy, except information that might help them discover what he was actually up to. He was utterly obsessed with Malfoy, but couldn't remember key facts. Not that she was one to talk. She'd become embarrassingly watchful over Nott herself, her eyes always finding his form if they were in the same room, whatever secret that he was hiding proving to be just as difficult to unravel as wherever Malfoy was going.
"Yaaaooowl!" An indignant whine came from underneath Harry's foot, shattering the crypt like silence on the floor. An indigent Mrs. Norris was looking quite furious to have had her tail stepped on by the dark haired boy.
"Shit!" Harry cursed, pulling away immediately. "I'm sorry, Hermione, I was looking at the map."
"Mrs. Norris?" Filch's voice echoed off of the stone walls, sounding as if he were still on his way up from the sixth floor. "Have you found students my lovely?"
Hermione could feel her heart beating wildly in her ribcage, fear at being caught out of bed by the caretaker. She could only imagine the hideous rumors that people would make about her and Harry being caught together and knew that they had to get away at all costs. "Harry, run!" she whispered shouted, giving him a shove and slipping out from underneath the Cloak.
She was a prefect at least - she could pretend that she was on her rounds.
But, if she could help it, she'd rather not get caught by Filch, who was sure to go and rouse Professor McGonagall to tattle on her, and Hermione was sure that her mistake would not be believed by her stern head of house.
Walking as quickly and as silently as she could, she was pleased that Mrs. Norris had followed Harry. She cast a disillusionment charm on herself as soon as she was able, and not a moment too soon, as Filch was coming around the corner. She pressed herself back against the stone wall and held her breath, praying that he didn't hear her racing pulse, which sounded deafening in her own ears.
To her delight, Filch toddled right past her, a spring in his step at the prospect of catching students out of bed. Hermione gave up a silent little prayer that Harry had the good luck and good sense to get off of the fucking seventh floor, and then maybe Filch would catch Malfoy and that would solve that.
Once he was gone, she crept along the edge of the hallway, hoping to make her own great escape. She knew she never should have let Harry go on with this plan, and she hoped that she could just get back to Gryffindor in a reasonable amount of time. She was not expecting a hand to shoot out of one of the doors, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her inside.
Unable to stop herself, she started to make a noise of shock, only to have a large hand shoved over her mouth to stop the noise. "Shut the fuck up, Granger," the familiar voice whispered angrily. "Salazar. Do you want us to get caught?"
Looking up, she quickly realized that it was not Harry who had pulled her to safety, and it certainly wasn't Malfoy either. She would recognize Nott's voice anywhere at this point, even if it was barely louder than a whisper. "What are you-"
"Mrs. Norris is just outside the door, you idiot," he said, pulling her closer to him, so that her face was pressed up against his chest. There was barely any room in the broom cupboard he'd selected for his own hideout, so she had little choice but to try and relax. His heart wasn't beating wildly like hers was, instead just a calm steady thump. She breathed in deeply, noting that he smelled of cinnamon and cloves and citrus-
She stilled when he pressed his own face closer to the top of his head, his arms tightening around her almost imperceptibly. Merlin, was he sniffing her? The thought of it made her belly do a queer kind of twisting, and she wondered why the hell he was doing something like that.
After another minute of silence, being in Nott's arms, he finally pulled away. "They're gone," he said with a frown. "Finite," he whispered, dropping her charm with ease.
Hermione's frown only deepened. "How did you know it was me with the charm on?" she asked with narrowed eyes, looking into his intense blue eyes. "And how did you know Mrs. Norris was outside the door?"
If she wasn't mistaken, Nott stiffened under her intense scrutiny, before scoffing. "How is it my problem if you can't hear that bloody cat?" he asked, completely ignoring her other question. She narrowed her eyes at him in disbelief. Trying to put some separation between their bodies, he took a step back, but there was still barely an inch between them. "Besides, I think you should be groveling right now, thanking me for saving you from Filch," he snapped back.
In the weeks of working together, Theo had never given up his smart mouth, always willing to argue with her just for the sake of it. She didn't mind, though, always mesmerized by the look he'd get in his eyes when he did it. "Oh you'd like that would you? Me groveling at your feet?" she asked, hoping to press a nerve.
Nott sucked in a breath, obviously thrown off by her questioning. The subtext of her words clicked into place just a second later, and Hermione could feel herself blush hard. "I didn't-I didn't mean it like that," she stuttered, their odd banter slipping dangerously close to flirtation.
He ran his fingers through his hair, obviously trying to stop from saying whatever it was that was running through his mind at the moment. "What were you doing up here anyway?" he asked, eyes narrowing when he remembered the circumstances of their rendezvous.
Not sure what to say, Hermione knew that she couldn't tell Nott that she and Harry were stalking his friend. "Nothing," she said far too quickly, sounding utterly suspicious.
He stared down his nose at her, looking completely like he didn't believe her for even a moment. Then something changed in his eyes, his pupils widening and his look growing...hungry. Nott was leaning forward, dipping his head forward towards her, as if compelled by some unseen force. Was he going to kiss her, she wondered? Her heart stuttered at the thought, stomach fluttering. Her lips parted in shock, letting out a shaky breath.
Just as her eyes were beginning to slip closed, waiting to feel his lips on her own, Nott was gasping, his eyes wide, as if he'd been pulled from a trance. He jumped back, as though being so close might burn him.
Hermione tried not to feel offended that he seemed so distraught about almost kissing her, but it was insulting to see the horrified look on his face when he realized what almost transpired. Worse still was the knowledge that she would have let him kiss her if he'd wanted to. He cleared his throat before speaking. "Filch and Mrs. Norris are gone now," he said, sounding confident, his voice sounding graveley and barely restrained. "We should leave now while we have the chance."
She was nodding in agreement, figuring that she should get back to the Common Room before Harry came after her to see what exactly was holding her up. Or if he looked on the Marauders' Map. She wasn't sure that she would be able to come up with any kind of excuse to explain being shoved into a broom closet with Nott.
Even though she was still hurt by her behavior, she figured she did owe him at least a thanks for saving her a detention and some house points. "Thanks Nott," she said quietly. "I don't know why you helped me, but I do appreciate it."
He swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down, before he gave her a curt nod, unwilling to speak another word to her. Instead, he opened the door and slipped out of the cramped space, leaving Hermione alone with her thoughts.
She counted to thirty before leaving the closet herself, replacing her disillusionment charm for the lonely walk back to Gryffindor Tower. Hermione made it back without issue, her mind replaying the moment that Nott had almost kissed her again and again, his smell seeming to cling to her like a pleasant cocoon. He was so handsome with those dark blue eyes of his and lips that seemed entirely too kissable for a Slytherin. She was so distracted by it that she didn't start thinking about how peculiar it had been until she was safely tucked in her bed.
Nott hadn't said what he was doing on the seventh floor either. Had he been up to something with Malfoy? Some Death Eater project, perhaps? And, he hadn't said how he'd known it was her under the disillusionment charm when he pulled her into the cupboard, or how he'd been able to hear Mrs. Norris.
Hermione was only growing curiouser and curiouser. If he was trying to push her away, to get her to ignore him, than he should try not to seem so interesting.