A/N: Thank you all so much for your reviews, favorites and follows! I know that you guys have a lot of questions, but they won't be answered quite yet...soon, though, I promise! 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 sixteen and be on the lookout for chapter seventeen soon!
Hermione woke suddenly in the morning. She had been in such a warm, comfortable sleep that it was difficult to pinpoint exactly what had woken her up until she noticed the warm blue eyes staring at her. The previous nights events came rushing back to her - going to see Theo, confronting him about being a werewolf, him insisting that she was his mate, and the blistering hot kiss.
Gasping, Hermione sat up from where she was lying. She had been cuddled up to Theo's chest, arms wrapped around his middle. He couldn't keep his eyes off of her, and he was blushing brightly, perhaps remembering what they had done just as much.
Clearing her throat, Hermione kept her eyes down on her lap. "See, I told you you wouldn't hurt me," she said, shrugging her shoulders. Now, in the light of morning, when she was no longer feeling so impulsive, she could understand what a bad idea it had been for her to stay there. She couldn't imagine the amount of stress that Theo must have been under.
"Hermione, you shouldn't have been here," he insisted, sitting up with his back propped against the wall. "You could have been seriously hurt."
"I couldn't think of any other way to get you to talk to me, Theo," she countered. "How long do we have here until someone comes back for you?" she couldn't imagine how mortifying it would be for them to be discovered by Professor Slughorn. There would be all sorts of questions that she didn't think that she would be able to answer. If she was Theo's mate, she was sure that Slughorn would be the last person he wanted him to know.
"They never come back to get me in the morning," he said, running his hand down his face. The scruff on his face was back, looking especially attractive. "The wards drop once the sun rises in the morning and I am free to leave whenever I can pull myself up. The only care about locking me in," he groused, sounding especially bitter.
Hermione was suddenly aware of just how awkward this was. She had spent a lot of time talking with Theo and she always enjoyed spending time with him, but now she was painfully aware of the sexual attraction that they had between one another. A part of her wanted to reach out and kiss him again, but another part of her was too worried that he would try to push her away again like he had before.
"You should just forget that this ever happened," he said finally, his jaw held in tension, as though he wanted to say even more but was holding himself back.
She reached out to put her hand on his leg. "Theo...you don't have to worry about me. I won't tell anyone about your...lycanthropy. Your secret is safe with me," she said. "I won't even tell Harry or Ron. I promise."
Theo cleared his throat. "I wasn't suggesting that you would go telling anyone about it," he answered with a frown. "You might be a reckless Gryffindor, but no one could ever accuse you of not standing up for your friends." There was clear admiration in his blue eyes.
"So you admit that we are friends," she said with a smirk, just glad that she could get him to admit it. She had realized that he was just trying to push her away, but she wasn't sure how to let him know that she wasn't going anywhere, especially not after what had happened between them. "You don't have to push me away, Theo," she insisted.
"It's too dangerous, Hermione," he countered. "You can't...I care a lot about you, and I couldn't stand it if you got hurt because of me."
"You aren't going to be able to just keep me away, not when I am your mate, Theo," she said. She wasn't entirely sure what being a werewolf's mate meant, but she was going to get to the bottom of it, one way or another. He looked like he wanted to say something else, but she caught him before he could make some additional argument. "Theo, it's okay. I realized it last night, but...you are what I smell in amortentia. So, we must be...meant for one another."
"Hermione Granger, who hates Divinations, thinks we are meant for one another!" he said, throwing his hands up in the air. "Ask yourself - were we meant for one another before I was bitten?"
She narrowed her eyes, thinking over what he was suggesting. If he hadn't been a werewolf, would feelings have grown between them while they worked on their project? She wasn't entirely sure, but she knew that it didn't matter anymore. Theo was a werewolf and there was no changing it.
But, he did bring up something that she had been wondering about since she put the pieces together. "What happened to you?" she asked, quietly. "How were you attacked?" She knew that it would be a touchy subject, but she wanted to know what had happened.
He swallowed, his adam's apple bobbing up and down. He looked angry, like he was warring with himself on whether to divulge more to her or not. "My father needed to be punished after his failure at the Department of Mysteries. Just like Draco's father," he said, slowly, cautiously. "The Dark Lord decided that my punishment should be to be turned into a werewolf."
Hermione felt herself gasp in shock. She knew that she shouldn't expect anything less from someone like Lord Voldemort, but it still made her heart ache for Theo, to be punished for something that he didn't do.
"He gave me to Fenrir Greyback," Theo continued. "He was only to change me, not to maul me, and that made Greyback furious that he wouldn't be able to do with me as he pleased. But in the end, he bit me anyway. He said he was thrilled to welcome another wolf into the fold."
"And what does your father think?" Hermione questioned, wondering if having your son forcibly changed into a werewolf would be enough to make the elderly man rethink his devotion to the Lord Voldemort.
"He was furious...with himself for messing up so horribly," Theo said with a scowl on his handsome face. "He cares more about pleasing the Dark Lord than he does about his own son. I'd always known that he didn't like me, but I'd at least hoped that he would care more about me than this." His eyes dropped to his hands. "I hope that he dies in Azkaban."
"That's terrible, Theo," Hermione said, wanting to reach out and wrap him up in a hug. He wished that she could take away all of his hurt. "Does anyone else know about it besides me and the professors?" she asked. "Zabini and Malfoy?"
"Of course Draco knows about it," Theo said with a sad smile on his face. "He was there when it happened," he revealed, shaking his head. "Now he only thinks of me with pity, when what he is facing is far worse. Zabini figured it out after the first month. We are roommates after all, and he isn't as stupid as Crabbe and Goyle who can't seem to put it together."
"Crabbe and Goyle's fathers were also at the Department of Mysteries," Hermione murmured quietly. "Have they been punished the same way?"
Theo shook his head. "No, their fathers are as dumb as rocks, and so the Dark Lord doesn't expect much out of them. Not like my father and Lucius," he said with a sneer. "My father was one of the Dark Lord's original followers. Did you know that?" he asked, without any hint of pride in his voice.
Hermione shook her head softly. "No, I had no idea," she told him honestly. She had known that Theo's father was an older man, but that would put him considerably older than many of their classmates parents. Suddenly, Theo's wish for his father to die in Azkaban did not seem so far fetched. "Theo, do you...do you wish to follow Lord Voldemort? Is that why you are trying to push me away? Because...because I am a muggleborn."
He looked horrified that she could even suggest such a thing. In an instant, he was lunging towards her, cupping her jaw tenderly in his large hand. There was such aching sweetness in his eyes that it nearly took her breath away. "I've been trying to tell you all along that my...reluctance to be around you has nothing to do with the fact that you are a muggleborn," he whispered. His thumb moved back and forth across her lower lip, and he looked for a moment like he was about to kiss her once again. "But, I am a werewolf, so you must know that nothing good can come of this. Please, I am begging you, just forget everything that happened last night."
The Gryffindor frowned, knowing that what he was asking her was impossible. She was certain that Theo was going to invade her every waking moment now that she knew the whole truth. "I will not forget it, Theo," she said firmly. "We can work through this together. I am your mate," she insisted, even though she didn't even know if there was such a thing or what it entailed.
He gave her a sad smile, before he stood up from the bed, straightening his clothes with his wand and grabbing his book bag in hand. "You are stubborn, Hermione," he said with a half-smile, as though he might be proud of her. "Please, just forget this ever happened. I won't hold you to anything you are unprepared for."
Hermione wanted to argue with him more, to tell him that it didn't matter, but she knew that he was right. Instead, she watched him leave the little room, and herself, behind him. She wasn't sure how long she sat there, but when she finally stood up herself, she was positive that she wasn't going to be able to get Theo out from under her skin. She needed more answers on what all of this entailed.
Instead of heading back to Gryffindor tower where she should have been the whole night, she turned and made her way to the owlery instead. It was a short walk, but she felt buoyed with each step that she took towards it. She needed answers, but luckily for her she knew exactly where to look for them.
Pulling some parchment and ink out of her bag, she quickly began scrawling a letter to the one man who would tell her honestly what the situation entailed. Dear Remus, she started, staring at the splotch of ink that formed when she couldn't decide how she wanted to proceed. Once she started writing it out, though, the words flowed from her. She mentioned that one of her classmates had the same problem that he had been having at school, caused by a mutual friend.
She decided that the best way to get honest answers from Remus was to just be as honest with him as possible. Was there such a thing as a werewolf mate? And, if there was, what did being a werewolf mate entail? Finally, she begged that he wouldn't tell anyone what she had revealed, but especially not Harry and Ron. She wasn't sure who all had been made aware of the situation.
Feeling anxious, she signed the letter and folded it carefully, before putting a variety of charms on the parchment so that only Remus would be able to read it. It wouldn't do to just have anybody read what was inside. She had forgotten to ask Theo is he was a registered werewolf or not and it wouldn't do to reveal his status to the rest of the world just because her letter ended up in the wrong hands.
Giving it to the owl, she watched the bird fly away, off to Remus. She hoped that he would write her back quickly, because she wasn't sure how she could live without knowing the truth.