A/N: Thank you all so much for your reviews, favorites and follows! I loved hearing all of your fancasts for Rabastan too! Oh, by the way, I've set this vaguely in the early 2000s. So, well, let's just jump right back into the story, shall we? 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 four and be on the lookout for chapter five later this week!


Rabastan stared at her with an odd kind of an appreciation at her offer to go home together before a tortured sort of look came over his scruffy face. "I was planning on walking," he said with a grimace.

Hermione felt her cheeks turn bright pink at his response. "Rabastan, that's nearly eight miles," she told him incredulously. "It's just a few tube stops though," she added on thinking that it would be crazy to try to walk back to their flats, especially so late at night.

"It won't be so bad," he said, his eyes dropping to the pavement in front of them.

Suddenly, Hermione was struck with the realization that perhaps he just didn't want to ride back with her. She had been quite forceful the last time that they'd spent together, and she wondered if maybe she'd really hurt his feelings by being so rude and kicking him out of her flat. Swallowing a lump that formed in her throat, she nodded. "Oh...okay," she said awkwardly, before turning to leave, unable to stand the embarrassment a moment longer.

"Hermione, wait!" She'd barely made it five steps when Rabastan called out to her. He jogged the short distance over to her once she turned to look at him. "It's not that I don't want to ride with you, it's just...god, this is embarrassing," he said, his hands still firmly hidden in his pockets. "I haven't managed to get a bank card yet, and so I can't figure out the damned Oyster machine," he revealed.

"Oh," Hermione responded, looking up at him hopefully. It felt wonderful to know that he wasn't trying to avoid her, but she also felt bad for him. She could totally understand why he would want to avoid the Underground in that case. She couldn't imagine how hard it must be to get your life back on track after being removed from society for so long. "In that case, come on. I can show you how it works."

Rabastan was quick to give her a grin, and follow her inside the tube station. "I don't have any money to give you," he said, sounding a bit incredulous.

The brunette shrugged her shoulders. "I can spot you until you get things sorted out with the bank," she said with a wave of her hand. "Or you can always pay me back when you get a bit of money." She quickly lead them over to one of the bright blue machines, before walking Rabastan through the steps of loading money onto the Oyster card.

"Here you go - that's got ten quid on it, so you should be set for a few rides at least," Hermione explained with a smile, holding out the card and waiting for him to take it.

Rabastan took the bit of plastic eagerly, looking at her as if she hung the moon. "Thank you," he answered genuinely, as if he was completely unused to being treated so nicely.

Hermione tried not to blush under his appreciative gaze. "Don't worry about it. I kind of owe you anyway, for helping me out with my terrible date," she said, pushing some of her wild hair out of her face. It seemed like it had only gotten more out of control when they were running away from the chip shop. "We should hurry if we want to catch the next train," she told him, before leading him down the escalator.

"Yes, what exactly was the story with your Romeo?" he teased, turning to look up at her from the lower step on the moving staircase.

"Met him at a bar - he seemed nice, but a little self absorbed," Hermione said with a shrug of her shoulders, wondering why she'd gone against her better judgement and agreed to go out on a date with Cormac in the first place. "We didn't make it through dinner before I got fed up with his bullshit and left."

"What did he say to you?" Rabastan questioned, sounding annoyed on her behalf.

"Just told me that I didn't have the right interpersonal skills to be a lawyer," Hermione told him with a grimace. "It only hurt because...well, I sometimes worry the same thing. I never seem to make connections with other people easily. I'm lucky to have the friends that I do, but it doesn't stop me from always putting my foot in my mouth and screwing things up."

When they reached the bottom of the staircase, Hermione led them to the green line to take them back to their part of town, easily finding a pair of seats next to one another. She wondered why she was finding it so easy to open up to Rabastan. Perhaps it was the wine and empty stomach that still had her mind feeling fuzzy and pleasant.

Rabastan slipped into the seat next to her and she was overwhelmed by his presence next to her. She could feel the coolness of his jacket through the light jersey of her dress, his scent of mint, cinnamon and new leather making her want to bury her face into his chest and just breath him in. His long legs were nearly too big for the spot in space in front of him, and she could feel his heat seeping into her where his leg pressed against hers.

Thinking that she needed some food, she pulled the styrofoam container out of the bag, before popping the lid. She broke off a piece of haddock, glad that it didn't burn her fingers and brought it to her mouth. Lifting up the box, she offered him a taste. "Do you want some?" she asked generously.

Rabastan took a chip from the box greedily, before taking a bite. "For the record, I think that you'd make a great lawyer," he said, honestly. "And I should know - I've worked with a lot of them. You can argue with the best of them," he finished with a wink.

Hermione smiled at that. "You really think so?" she questioned, before seeing him nod. "Well, I suppose I should trust your expertise. What were you doing out in central London anyway?" she questioned, thinking that it really was such perfect timing to run into Rabastan when she did, when she thought no one was going to help her deal with Cormac.

Rabastan scratched at his beard, keeping his head steadfastly forward. "I was meeting with my parole officer, actually," he admitted finally.

"So, did you really walk all the way out there?" Hermione asked, feeling incredulous. If he hadn't gotten an Oyster card yet, she didn't see how he would have been able to without walking the distance.

"Well, I had been hoping I'd have my motorcycle running by now, but I haven't been able to get it up to snuff yet," he said, his body turning towards hers the longer that they talked with one another. "Walking isn't ideal, but I don't really have the choice not to go, you know?"

Hermione bit her lower lip, wondering how much of himself he would share with her. "Hagrid told me that you share a parole officer," she said casually, before taking another bite of her fish. Perhaps it was far too bold, and she didn't know Rabastan nearly well enough to ask him about it yet.

Rabastan nodded, snatching another chip out of her open container, before taking a bite. "Yeah, Shacklebolt, the parole officer, he was the one who introduced us to one another. He thought that I might benefit from someone like Hagrid, whose been out for a long time," he explained. "And of course, I am so grateful to Hagrid for offering me a place to rent."

She looked at him, watching his eyes shift back and forth trying to catch the movement of the tunnel as the train car raced by. "How old are you?" she asked, knowing it wasn't entirely polite of her to ask, but she wanted to know more about him, more about his life. He'd said he'd been in prison for ten years, but he seemed so young still.

"I'm thirty-two," he said with a small smile. "Birthday's in July. What about you?"

"Twenty-two," Hermione said, feeling that familiar knot form in her throat when she realized that he would have been her age when he went and got locked up. "So, you were in for ten years. You were barely even an adult...that must have been hard." Suddenly all of his behavior seemed to make much more sense. It was almost as if his personal growth would have been stunted, having been locked away from society for almost all of your adult life.

"Yeah, well, I was only twenty when I got charged," Rabastan answered, leaning back into his seat, his face suddenly very serious. Hermione bit at her lower lip, wondering if this was the sort of thing that was easy for him to talk about it. She doubted it ever would be. His light green eyes read her face cautiously. "But the court case dragged on for a while and I was out on bail. That was almost worse than prison."

Hermione felt as if she was on the edge of her seat, learning more about her mysterious neighbor. "How come?" she wondered, thinking that it would be nice to relish your last bit of freedom before you knew that you had to go away.

"Well, you feel as if you are constantly on the edge, nothing is decided. You can't do anything you want, not really, and you can't go anywhere, even though the whole world is available to you," he explained, his hand rubbing at his chin, while he tried to put it in words. The movement brought her eyes to his knuckles, which appeared to have a bit of blood on it. The sight shocked her a bit into remembering that not thirty minutes prior, he'd violently punched Cormac in the face. "At least in prison, the temptations are...limited."

The more that they spoke to one another, the closer they seemed to move towards one another, as if pulled together by some invisible force. Hermione swallowed, her dinner suddenly forgotten, as she was drawn to the masculine cut of his jaw, to the way that his adam's apple bobbed up and down when she was looking at him. Clearing her throat suddenly, Hermione leaned back, desperate for some distance. "I can see what you mean. Why was your court case so long? They usually seem to go pretty quickly."

Rabastan swallowed again, before dropping his gaze to his lap, and Hermione would tell that it was difficult for him to open up about it. "Because well...I had co-conspirators and well, none of us was very cooperative with the police."

While Hermione didn't particularly approve of criminals, she could understand why Rabastan wouldn't want to be cooperative with the police, especially since she knew how perilous it could be to turn on one of your partners. She wondered what it was exactly that he'd done, and couldn't stop herself from prying. The words were out of her mouth before she even realized it. "What did you do?" she asked, sounding breathless.

He gave her a solemn look, but didn't back down from the question. "It was attempted murder," he told her truthfully.

Hermione immediately felt her blood run cold at hearing the word murder. Of all the possible things that she imagined he had been put away for, murder - attempted or otherwise - was the last thing that she ever would have expected. She tried to control her swirling emotions, knowing that she should just be glad that he was honest with her, even though it was obviously an uncomfortable topic. And, he'd done his time, a long time at that.

Closing her dinner abruptly to focus her mind, Hermione tried not to freak out in front of him. She tried to remember that Hagrid himself had been convicted of involuntary manslaughter, even though he always maintained his innocence. Perhaps what had happened with Rabastan was something similar to that.

"It's not...as bad as it seems," Rabastan told her, his eyes showing how desperate he was for her to understand. "Fuck, I mean, of course it was bad, and it was wrong, but I've done my time and I realize how terrible it was, and I've changed. I promise."

Hermione listened to the automated voice call off the stop and realized that they only had one more before their own. At the very least they were almost back home. "You've changed," she repeated, wanting to believe that what he said was true.

"Yes, I've spent nearly all of my fucking adult life in prison - ten years, down the drain. I don't want to do anything that could put me back there," he said with a frown. "I'm ready to move on, and to be a better person."

When their station was called, Hermione stood, and motioned for Rabastan to follow her, even though she was no longer feeling as playful as when they had initially boarded the train. Rabastan followed her, looking like a puppy who had broken the rules. Hermione led him towards the escalator once more, getting on, before turning around to face him.

She stared down at his hopeful face, for once a bit taller than him, nibbling on her lower lip and trying to decide what she wanted to tell him. "I believe you," she said, her eyebrows furrowed. She did believe that he wanted to be a better person, but he also seemed to be slipping back into negative habits. After all, wasn't punching Cormac the kind of thing that got him into this whole mess. "I want to understand...will you tell me what happened?" she asked, feeling her heart hammer against her ribcage.

He didn't answer immediately, and Hermione turned to step off the escalator, giving him a chance to collect himself. She dumped the remains of her picked over dinner into the bin on the way out of the station, not feeling so hungry anymore after her intense conversation with Rabastan.

Once they were outside again, Rabastan fell into step next to her, his long legs catching up with hers easily. "It's not a very nice story. Basically, my brother and his wife and I were trying to rob another gang, and we held this couple up at knife point. My brother went a little crazy and ended up stabbing the guy and he nearly died," he told her, the words tumbling out of his mouth in a convoluted jumble that she didn't quite understand. "We found out later that they were undercover cops. So the punishment was a little bit harsher than usual."

Hermione felt her cheeks color, wondering if what Rabastan had done really warranted an attempted murder charge. "But all you did was attempted robbery," she said finally, trying to think of a way to absolve the handsome man. "It was your brother who did the stabbing."

Rabastan gave her a wry smile once again. "Yes, but we all intended to commit a crime so, we all got the same charges...and besides, I couldn't testify against my own brother," he explained, an air of reluctance in his voice.

She nodded, thinking that the dynamics of the situation were really quite complicated. After all, he was unlikely to snitch on a friend if he'd been in some kind of a gang, but even less likely if it was his brother he would be putting away to save himself. Hermione remembered the horrible guilt she'd felt the one time she'd turned Ron in for cheating when they'd been in school and how terrible a rift it had caused in their friendship.

Before she knew it, they were standing in front of the stoop to their flat. Rabastan followed her up the stairs to her door, stopping to give her a significant look. Hermione fiddled with her keys. "I understand, Rabastan," she told him, hoping that she would be able to look past his misdeeds. "I can tell that you are trying to turn over a new leaf."

He gave her a crooked grin that sent her pulse fluttering. "Yeah, like saving damsels in distress from pricks at chip shops," he teased. His eyes dropped to her lips, and before she knew what was happening, he was leaning forward, pressing her body against the door, his lips slanting against hers in a passionate kiss. He caught her plump lower lip between his perfectly, giving her an affectionate nip.

Hermione's eyes slipped shut, overtaken by the sudden wave of feeling. It felt wonderful to be surrounded by his scent, her fingers finding purchase in his t shirt. But quickly, intrusive thoughts of their night came back to the forefront of her mind, and Hermione was pushing him away.

Rabastan gave her a groan of disappointment, but pulled away. "Babe, I don't understand you," he said finally, little wrinkles appearing at the corners of his eyes while he tried to read her face. "Come on, I've been your knight in shining armor."

She looked up at him in confusion, wondering if he'd only helped her out at the chip shop because he thought that it was a way to woo her, a way to get into her pants. He said that he was trying to be a better person, but it seemed as if he was still hardwired to resort to violence to handle things. Yes, it had been a delight to see Cormac finally shut up after the night she had, but she wasn't sure that she wanted that kind of energy in her life.

Sighing, Hermione hated the feeling of disappointing him. "I'm not going to be swept off of my feet by watching you punch my date, Rabastan," she said, wondering if she was making some kind of horrible mistake. "Good night," she said firmly, before turning and entering her flat, leaving him outside on the steps.