A/N: Thank you all for your reviews, favorites and follows after last chapter! Huge thank you to lanamarymack for alpha/beta reading this chapter! You can find me over on tumblr (nauticalparamour).
Please let me know what you thought of chapter thirty-nine and be on the lookout for chapter forty soon!
Gradually, the news that Hermione Black and Rabastan Lestrange were dating one another began to filter through the castle after they let the Slytherins know. Much to Hermione's amusement, it didn't hold the attention of the student body for very long. It seemed like pretty much everyone saw this coming, except for her of course.
And perhaps she shouldn't have been all that surprised that their day to day relationship didn't really change that much. They had already been spending quite a lot of time together. Rabastan had kept up his habit of walking with her from class to class that he had started the year before when she was being followed, they spent a lot of time revising with one another in the library, and they also made time to meet with the other Slytherins in the common room, only Hermione now realized that she had always found a seat close to Rabastan.
And now, he made a point to save a seat for her.
The biggest difference was that all their time spent together did not leave very much room for snogging. There were too many witnesses around and she was getting tired of being interrupted by Regulus when he came back from locating a book during their study sessions or more embarrassingly, by a Professor who was wondering why they hadn't come into the classroom already.
They tried to find more ways to spend time together, though they both still had commitments outside of each other — like Rabastan and his Quidditch practices. But they made it work where they could to carve out time alone.
That was how Hermione found herself in the Potions lab after dinners on Tuesday, while Rabastan worked to make up the practical assignments that he'd missed while he'd been sick. Professor Slughorn didn't keep a very watchful eye on the two of them — retreating into his private office to drink brandy — and it gave them some much needed one-on-one time to talk without the threat of anyone overhearing.
"Mum wrote to me today," Rabastan revealed to her one evening, while he was grating a piece of dragon horn. "Sounds like your parents intend to gift us a townhouse as a wedding gift."
Hermione flushed in surprise. "I wasn't aware of that," she said, thinking that it was awfully generous of Orion and Walburga Black. She often wondered just how she'd managed to make such an impression on the pair, that they had grown to care for her so much so quickly.
"Very generous of them," he said, fighting off a smirk.
"And I am sure that your mother was happy to hear about it," she countered with a snort. Now that she had met Madam Lestrange, she knew his mother would rather him stay as close as possible.
"She was furious, but she can't turn it down," he responded. "She suspects that your mother did it just because she was opposed to the idea."
"Your mother is a smart witch. I'd have guessed the same," she said, hopping up to sit on one of the work tables. She loved watching Rabastan prepare the potions ingredients. There was something so mesmerizing about watching him handle each ingredient. She liked to imagine how his fingers would feel on her skin.
Blinking, she realized that she had been daydreaming again. "I've come to the conclusion that my mother doesn't like your mother very much," she added. "She's the only witch who I've seen get such a rise out of her, so she is on a very impressive short list."
Rabastan smiled, hearing that. "It must be the family history," he said.
"Family history?" Hermione asked, feeling rather stupid.
"Yes, well, my mother is a Rosier, you see, and there was quite a lot of drama when Cygnus decided to marry Druella," he explained.
"Oh?" Hermione asked, certainly surprised. "I did not know that."
"Yes, apparently your mother did not think that Druella was good enough for her brother," he mused. "To be fair, they were both very young and apparently in the family way..."
Hermione was aghast. She had hardly given any thought to the parents of Bellatrix, Narcissa and Andromeda, but to hear that they more or less had to get married was breathtaking. "No! Really?" she asked, aghast.
Rabastan grinned, enjoying the bit of gossip. "Yes, and my mother couldn't stand the thought of her cousin's reputation being harmed that way. Of course, she thought Cygnus should do the right thing and marry her, regardless of how good his older sister thought Druella to be."
"Wait, so your mother is Druella's sister? Doesn't that make Rodolphus and Bellatrix cousins?" she asked, her stomach turning a bit at the thought.
"As if you are one to talk. Aren't your parents cousins?" he countered, teasingly.
Hermione bit her tongue to stop from pointing out that Walburga and Orion weren't really her parents. "Fine, I suppose they are second cousins. But that's a big difference!" she argued.
Rabastan set down the dragon horn and leaned against his work bench to look at her. "No, Druella isn't my mother's sister," he said, rolling his eyes. "But they are cousins. So, I suppose Bellatrix and I must share a great-grandfather or something like that."
"So, why would your family agree to the match, being second cousins? I mean, if you are going to look down on my parents for it," she said, crossing her arms over her chest.
"There weren't too many witches to choose from until you came on the scene," Rabastan teased her again, winking at her. "I don't really know... the same reason all these little betrothals happen. To keep the bloodlines pure, I suppose."
Hermione felt her heart stutter and she wondered about asking him if that was very important to him. What did he think about her being born of squibs? He knew the truth, but they had never really talked about it before.
Rabastan lit the fire under his cauldron and began the hard work of the potion. He dropped in a few valerian sprigs, before he returned his attention to her. "Only, I suppose... I can't really be sure we aren't related. We've never talked about your family... outside of the Blacks," he said, slyly. It was something that he wanted to know, something that had been on his mind, but something that he was conscious she might not want to talk about.
"There's not much to talk about, I suppose," she said, nibbling at her lower lip, worried about the conversation, but she knew that it had to take place. "I don't know much about my grandparents' families, other than their true names."
He rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, to give his eyes somewhere to look rather than her. So she wouldn't feel so much pressure. "Still, I'd like to hear what you do know," he said, before shooting her a soft grin. "Marius was your grandfather, right?"
"Yes," she said, cautiously. Her eyes were drawn to his forearms while he worked — strong and pale and blessedly free of the Dark Mark. "Though, I knew him as Grandpa Mark. He took the surname Baker when he was..."
"You don't have to sugar coat it. I know how these things are handled," Rabastan murmured. "Pretending like they don't exist doesn't make things any easier. They are still family."
Hermione softened, realizing that he must feel the same way that she did. "Yes, I can't imagine doing that to your own child," she agreed. "Though, I can imagine being the only family member not to have magic would be... difficult as well."
"And who did he find along the way?" he asked, clearly interested to learn more about her family — the family that she'd grown up with.
"My grandma was called Amelia," Hermione continued. "Apparently she was a Selwyn, but I'd only learned that later on."
"Hm," Rabastan mused, running a hand across his chin. "I think that I've met a Selwyn... an associate of Rodolphus. A cousin, perhaps?"
"Perhaps. I don't really have much interest in complicating my familial connections more than they already are," she confessed. "After all, the Selwyns must have banished my grandmother as well."
"Fair play," he said, picking up a stirring rod to begin to stir the potion that he was brewing. "And what about your father's side? I don't recall any pureblood by the name of Granger. Unless, you are related to Dagworth-Granger, in which case, why would you drop the Dagworth?"
Hermione laughed at the question. "No relation to the Dagworth-Grangers as far as I'm aware," she said. She actually had looked into it once, when she'd read a treatise that Dagworth-Granger had written, but she'd come up empty handed. "Grandpa Owen took the Granger name, but he was originally a Montague. I don't know if he took the new name from the family that adopted him or what."
"That would make sense," Rabastan agreed. "What was he like?"
"Stern, but fair," she said, thinking about her father's father and what he'd been like. "He wanted us to be successful people, always striving to do our best. And, I suppose he must have had our best interests at heart, but he pushed my father very hard."
"And your parents... they were squibs, too?" her betrothed looked down at the cauldron, points of pink on his cheeks. He was embarrassed to be asking the question. Or maybe embarrassed at wanting to know the answer.
For the first time in weeks, Hermione felt a trickle of dread in her stomach and she worried where Rabastan's true loyalties lied. A small part of her wanted to rub the fact that she was muggleborn in his face, to make him see who he was going to marry, but a much larger part of her wanted to keep the balance they had found. A part of her that she wished to keep secret, even to herself, wanted to believe everything the Blacks said about her being pureblood actually, because it was so nice to have a family that understood what she really was. A witch.
"Yes, but if you asked them, they would think they were muggles," she said, her voice shaking a little bit, waiting for some angry outburst from her betrothed, that he'd been tricked into accepting her. "They didn't know about magic at all until I —"
She stopped herself. She was about to say until she got her Hogwarts letter. That would be a conversation she was not prepared to have.
Rabastan cleared his throat. His potion was at a simmering stage and there was nothing else to do to keep his attention off of her. After half a beat, he walked over to the work bench she was perched on and pressed his hands to the table top, on either side of her body. He was tall, but the work bench made Hermione taller.
Briefly, the thought of distracting him with a kiss flitted past her mind, but Hermione knew that she couldn't shy away from this, not now. If he was going to hate her because of her family situation, she would rather she find out about it now. Before her feelings grew too deep.
"And what did your father do, then? For a job?" he asked.
It was an inane sort of question, one that almost made her chuckle. "He and my mother were both dentists," she said. "It's like a healer for teeth. But, he wanted to be a football player. It's kind of like Quidditch. Grandfather put an end to those fanciful ideas. That wasn't a good enough job for his son."
Rabastan snorted. "That sounds like a Montague," he said, crinkling his nose in delight. "Very concerned with appearances. And your last grandmother? Who was she?"
"An Urquart, as I understand. She was called Elspeth, but I don't know if that is what her family called her," Hermione said. "She visited the store Grandfather worked at until he asked her on a date. I don't even know if she knew that he was a squib, too, or if it was just a coincidence."
Hermione frowned. Thinking about her grandparents always made her a little bit melancholy. She was quite bitter that no one had told her about magic, especially considering she had numerous bouts of accidental magic as a child, which were confusing and made her anxious. It made her feel different.
"I'm sorry if I brought up an uncomfortable topic for you," Rabastan said, his body still crowding her against the table. "What troubles you?"
"I am mad that they never told me... told me about magic or about their real families, once they knew that I was a witch," she whispered. "They just pretended like they had no idea how that could happen."
"Perhaps they didn't know," Rabastan said softly. "From what I understand, some families send their squibs away very young. And, some might even curse them not to talk about magic or obliviate them to forget the world that they came from."
"That's barbaric," Hermione spat, thinking of cursing a child.
"It's a kindness," Rabastan countered, firmly. "Think about the ways that the muggles would react, if a squib would go on and on about the magical world that they apparently came from."
Hermione colored, knowing that he was probably right. A little child wouldn't know how important it was to keep the magical world a secret — especially a magical world that had scorned them. "All the more reason for squibs to remain with their real families," she said, darkly. "If my child were a squib, I would never send them away, no matter what the Blacks say."
"Already thinking about children?" Rabastan teased, one hand finding her calf. He pushed the fabric of her knee sock down, so he could trace her cashmere soft skin with his finger tips.
"It's an important conversation to have before they get here," she insisted. "I assumed that they would be a part of the equation at some point."
He wore such a silly grin that Hermione wanted to roll her eyes. "It had crossed my mind once or twice. I've been promised that the conception is extremely enjoyable," he murmured, his fingers now finding her knee.
Hermione gasped and this time she could not resist giving him a playful swot on the arm. She pressed her hand to his shoulder. "Rabastan, please be serious!" she complained. "If we had a child who ended up being a squib, would you try to make me get rid of it? Because I promise you will not like the outcome."
"I hadn't really thought of it, Hermione, but no, I don't think that I could ask that of you," he said, his face going cloudy. "But, I don't think that we need to worry about it. You are magically impressive and I like to think that I am no slouch either. I do not think we need to worry about our joining resulting in a squib."
She wanted to insist that she wasn't worried, but it would be difficult to have a squib child. A little person who couldn't understand why their parents' magical gifts did not pass to them.
"In any case, I think we need to look at the positives," Rabastan continued, a lazy smile appearing on his face. "I will need to verify with the family tree, but I do not think we share any relatives for at least six generations."
She could not help her giggle at that. It was a relief to know that they were not closely related. And, it was a relief to see that he did not have any truly negative reaction to hearing more about her family. He still looked at her with that same besotted sort of look that he had before, even when she called her parents muggles.
He was about to kiss her, his body finding a place between her legs, when the door to Slughorn's office opened and he had to step away quickly. He seemed to sense that something had been brewing, but didn't say anything. Just looked at them through his bushy eyebrows.
"Mr. Lestrange, you are still here?" he asked. "I expected that potion half an hour ago. Miss Black, if you are going to distract him, I am going to have to ask you to leave."
"She's not bothering me," Rabastan lied smoothly. "I was just about to decanter a vial for you to review."
