AN: This has not been beta'd. If anyone is looking to waste time betaing for a high-strung, unreliable writer, hit me up! Or even Alpha reading. Cheerleading. Something.
It wasn't something anyone talked about, the unlikely couples that had sprung up over the summer. Hermione, if asked, would have credited them to the public decline of militant pureblood dogma. Theo would have bluntly said it was because they were all less frightened of their parents - after all, his own father was locked up in Azkaban, making Theo the Head of his Family, and his mother had been dead since before he could even walk. Pansy's father had never been a Marked follower, just a quiet supporter, but she'd blossomed after a summer away from his thinly veiled threats and heavy expectations; still, her relationship with Daphne had taken even her by surprise - Daphne had shed every attitude espoused by her father with fervent glee, and had become the opposite of everything he had ever wanted by being quite the outspoken young witch. This had included his attitudes on continuation of the Greengrass name, and she had come out of the closet and snogged Pansy all within the same twenty minutes; Pansy, who was bold as well but slightly less daring, hadn't objected, but she hadn't begun actively participating until Hermione had shown her some old charms that allowed two women to produce a child of their line without a male donor. (Magic still amazed Hermione on a daily basis; she didn't think she'd ever stop loving learning new things.) The two of them were a good match, as far as Hermione could tell - at the very least, they hadn't had any explosive fights in the Great Hall yet, which was more than she could say for herself and Ronald.
"Theo?" she asked after they'd both been quiet for some time. He hummed in response, and she continued, "If I do this, will you still treat me the same?"
He quirked his head at her. "Yes, of course. Why on earth wouldn't I?"
She bit the inside of her cheek, hollowing it out with her own nervous tic. "It's just... You've made it sound like I'm going to turn into a completely different person practically overnight. That leads me to believe people will treat me differently, too."
"Well, I suppose those who didn't already know you well would, or people who wanted something from you. But I wouldn't, and neither would anyone who actually cared about you."
Hermione thought of Harry, travelling around Romania with no access to Britain's news, and Ron, who was already on thin ice as far as she and her friendship were concerned. Then, inexplicably, her mind jumped to Draco Malfoy; the last time she'd seen him had been when he'd testified against his father in front of the entire Wizengamot. He'd been pale - paler than usual, that is - but put together; she'd been impressed with the way his voice had stayed strong up until he was questioned about her short incarceration at the Manor. He'd visibly faltered, eyes darting guiltily over to where she'd sat with Harry in the stands (Ron had been closer to the front, with his mother. They had both seemed to be enjoying the spectacle that was the Malfoys' fall from grace more than was decent), before he had continued; she tried to give him a supportive smile, but she didn't think he'd seen it. His stare had gone right through her. Since that trial, and his own - where he was pardoned but put on magical probation for a year - no one had seen him; it was assumed that he'd sequestered himself and his mother, whose health was failing, away in the Manor. He had yet to announce whether he was intending to return to Hogwarts for his eighth year or not.
"How will I know the difference between someone who's being decent because they mean it and someone who just wants something?" Her thoughts strayed towards Ron, whose attitude had been deplorable lately, and Malfoy, whose treatment of her while they were in school could have been credited to both her blood status and his father's opinions on the matter. She'd grown up around Gryffindors, and as such hadn't developed the necessary cynicism to know if any future overtures of cordiality would be due to her adopted status or an actual change of heart.
Theo chuckled. "Don't worry, principessa. I would never dare to steer you wrong." His easy, fond use of Blaise's newest nickname for her warmed her heart a bit.
"God! " she blew out in a huff, tugging violently on a curl that had escaped her sloppy bun. "All I want is a quiet school year, for once. No dragons, basilisks, or werewolves need apply. I thought after the war was over, things would be less complicated, not more." She let herself fall sideways, cuddling her head into the crook of Theo's shoulder. "If I do this..." She sighed. "I've always wanted to belong properly, to Wizarding culture. But I feel like I'm betraying my parents by even considering this adoption. They were wonderful people - they tried so hard to accept me and this strange world that they could never be a part of - it just..."
Theo picked up the trailing sentence when it became apparent she wasn't going to. "It just wasn't working out, was it? You couldn't tell them too many things, and they felt like they didn't know who you were growing up to be." She nodded against his shoulder, noiseless tear dripping off the slope of her nose. "It happens. Especially with bright driven Muggleborns. You've touched the supposedly untouchable - it's hard to go back to being an average human after that."
"I never tried very hard to explain," she admitted. "I knew they wouldn't understand why I refused to go to Muggle Uni, so I always steered conversations away from the topic. They always talked about Hogwarts like it was an amusing hobby, but not anything I could expect to get me anywhere in life." She took a deep breath before confiding another secret. "The thing is... I feel most guilty about not feeling guilty at all for Obliviating them. I still love them, but now I can do it without being torn between them and... all of this." She made a vague waving motion, knowing Theo would get it. He was surprisingly in tune with her, for all their years of antagonism. Although, he had always been a quiet Slytherin, refraining from baiting her like most of his classmates without being obvious about it. She had most often encountered him in the library, actually, head bowed over a book. It had made befriending him easier, without that blatant hostility hanging over their every interaction.
"Sometimes," he said thoughtfully, hugging her to his side, "we feel the most guilty for not feeling one thing or another."
"Isn't that the truth," she sighed.
AN2: Please leave some constructive criticism! I don't know what I'm doing right and what I'm doing wrong if no one says anything!