A/N: Thank you so much for your reviews, favorites and follows after last chapter! Huge thanks to lanamarymack for alpha/beta reading this chapter, too! You can find me on tumblr (nauticalparamour) where I post sneak peeks, story updates and answer questions.
Please let me know what you thought of chapter fifty-five and be on the lookout for fifty-six soon!
When the door was closed and she was left alone with Rabastan, Hermione felt as if all of the air had been sucked out of the library. She couldn't take her eyes off of him, unable to believe that he was actually there, able to be touched if only she had the courage to walk over and do it.
His gaze on her was heavy. "Hermione," he murmured after a moment, something in his face softening after a moment.
"Rabastan," she said, her voice cracking when she realized just how much his silence had been weighing on her. How could he stay away from her after they'd been apart for so long? How could he be ignoring her the way that he had? "Can I get you a drink?"
After a brief moment of contemplation, he nodded. She walked over and poured him an equal measure of firewhiskey, before handing it to him, letting her fingers graze his when he took the glass. Her breath caught in her throat at the electric sensation. Smiling, she pressed her hand to his arm, pulling him further into the room.
"Come, let's sit over here," she suggested, gently guiding him to the settee.
He was helpless to do anything but follow her, cursing lightly under his breath when she didn't keep space between them at all. Hermione could settle for the press of their legs together, but she was itching to wrap her arms around him, pull him down to kiss her.
"I'm so glad that you are here," she said, after a brief moment of silence. "I was beginning to think that you weren't going to answer any of my messages."
Rabastan smiled at her after a moment, like he couldn't stop himself. "I suppose it wouldn't be right to miss your birthday," he said, his eyes roving over every inch of her body. "Nineteen?" he asked, sounding a bit choked at the thought.
Hermione's gaze dropped to her lap. "Yes," she said, boldly after a moment. She realized that even if it seemed to pain him a bit, he couldn't keep his eyes off of her, still too entranced to help himself. She knew that he wanted her still and she wasn't going to wilt away behind her younger age. "Something wrong with my dress, Rabastan?" she asked liltingly, sitting up just a bit straighter.
He looked away and took a drink, flushed at having been caught. "It's just odd for me. I've only had that picture that Priscilla took to remind me of how we were together, then," he tried to explain. "And, you haven't changed a bit, even though my own reflection has. It's... disorienting. But you are somehow more beautiful, too."
"You've certainly grown into your looks," she said, hiding a smirk behind her glass. Even though he had aged, Hermione was no less attracted to him than she had been before. If anything, he'd only grown more handsome over the years. How she longed to trace her fingers across his cheekbones and jaw while she studied him, or to press her hands flat against the planes of his broader shoulders. She could imagine several afternoons studying his body, wanting to catalog every improvement.
"You don't have to lie to me to spare my feelings, Hermione," he scoffed. "I know that I'm not the wizard that I was when you disappeared."
"I'm not lying," she insisted, hating the way that he was feeling down about it. "I'm just as attracted to you as I was then. I just— I miss you."
Rabastan did not say anything.
Hermione felt her heart drop and she wondered if his feelings for her had wavered in the years that they were apart. Even though it would hurt her, she couldn't entirely blame him. They had been separated for so long, without any real proof that she would ever reappear. As much as she wished he would sweep her into his arms and kiss her silly, she could understand his hesitancy, no matter how much it hurt.
"So, you have been avoiding me, then," she said, after a moment. "Leaving all of my messages unanswered."
"It's not so simple," he countered, looking at her.
"You promised that you wouldn't fight our betrothal," she argued at him, a bit of ire bleeding into her words. "But I didn't realize that meant you'd be completely apathetic to it instead."
"I'm not apathetic to you, Hermione," he said, looking at her with heat blazing in his eyes. "But I cannot sit here and pretend like nothing has happened for me. It was a long time for me to live without you, without being sure that I would ever see you again."
"Believe me, if there was a way for me to go back and erase this hurt, I would do it in a heartbeat," she insisted fiercely. It was true. She'd thought about trying to get her hands on a time turner and return to the past that she'd left behind, only to be persuaded that it would be too dangerous to make multiple years leaps back and forth. As it stood, there was really no reason she should be alive in the first place. Bodies were not meant to make multiple decades long leaps so many times.
Rabastan looked at her, his mouth opening and closing once. "You could have, you know? I think it hurt most to know that you didn't trust me, not fully," he said, eyebrows drawn together as he put into words something that had been simmering underneath the surface for a long time.
She swallowed thickly, unsure of what to say about it. "I told you, I was going to tell you after the wedding," she insisted. "I almost did at Hogwarts. Remember, before our NEWTs?"
"You claimed to love me, but you didn't share a huge part of yourself with me," he said with a frown on his face. "You let me believe all sorts of lies about who you really were."
"How can you blame me? I've told you who I knew you to be, in my original timeline. I couldn't chance you using it against me should the wedding not go through," she said, trying to explain where she was coming from.
"Last time we spoke, you said that you knew my character then. So why not just tell me?" he demanded. "Instead, I had to learn from Regulus, once you were out of my life forever. He couldn't answer all of my questions. I wasn't sure if I'd ever get real answers."
"Rabastan, I know how important your family is to you," she said, reaching out and putting a hand on his arm. "I didn't want to put you into an uncomfortable situation with your father or... or Rodolphus. And, as you probably have realized, his life path did not change."
She'd needled details out of Sirius in his capacity as an Auror, learning that Rodolphus, Bellatrix and Barty Crouch, Jr had still tortured Frank and Alice Longbottom and been sentenced to Azkaban for it. Rodolphus had remained in the prison until he was freed before her fifth year at school, same as the last time.
"I could have helped him," Rabastan said, pressing a hand to his face.
Hermione couldn't help it. She wrapped her arms around Rabastan, pressing her head against her shoulder. "Rodolphus has made his own choices and I know that you have always stepped up where he has failed," she said, knowing that it was a burden her betrothed carried for his family. "How would you have explained your knowledge to him? How would you have kept him away? He would have told Voldemort."
"I wouldn't reveal your secrets to him," he said, after a beat. "I would have found some way."
"It was too dangerous to leave things to chance," she insisted. "If we had been married, once we had made vows to one another, I would have told you, but not... not before."
He turned in her arms, his hand sliding in her curls, pulling her face up to look at him. His green eyes bored into her, looking for the truth. "You still didn't trust me," he accused. "When Sirius brought me here, you still had to check to see if I wore the Dark Mark."
She blushed, realizing that it was true. "I didn't — yes," she admitted. "It was hard, knowing what I knew from the future. So many things have remained the same, I was worried that I would not have made the same impression on you. I am not blind to the fact that our thoughts on blood purity are not completely aligned."
"I promised you I would never wear his Mark," he insisted, bitterly.
Hermione knew that confirming that had hurt him more than she thought. "You know my true story now," she whined, willing him to understand. "Harry Potter's mudblood they call me. I know firsthand how hurtful the pureblood ideology is."
He flinched when she called herself a mudblood, surprisingly. "Don't call yourself that," he insisted, his thumb sliding along the curve of her jaw.
"I am sorry that I didn't tell you before," she apologized. "But I was worried that you would... why would Rabastan Lestrange want me if he knew the whole truth?"
"I've never stopped wanting you," he said, fiercely.
"So my allegiances will not be a problem for you?" she questioned, reading his face for any microexpression that she could find. "You know that I've been fighting Voldemort since I was eleven years old and just because I wear a different name now, I will not stop. If it is a problem, then maybe Sirius and Regulus are right and we should try to break the betrothal."
A great shudder went through him at the suggestion. "I do not want to break the betrothal," Rabastan answered, more determined than ever. "Not when I've only just gotten you back."
"So then, please stop ignoring me," she begged, knowing that she could not handle her owls being ignored again and again.
"I'm here now, aren't I?" he asked, a bit of a chuckle in his voice. His hand moved nearly of its own accord, before Rabastan looked a bit stunned when he realized he was cupping her cheek gently, his thumb sliding along her cheek.
"What did Regulus have to do to get you here?" she asked, smirking at him, leaning into his touch. "He's trying to win points with me, after Sirius brought you to me the first time. Each is vying to be the favorite brother."
She saw the hint of a blush on his cheeks. "Embarrassingly little," Rabastan admitted, dropping his hand to his lap. "Just had to show up and say that you wanted to see me and I was already walking through the Floo."
"But, I invited you already," she said, remembering the little note that she'd sent him.
"I needed an extra little push," he agreed. "Congratulations on your NEWT scores, by the way. I always knew that you were going to smash them all. It feels a bit silly to brag about this at my age, but I passed all six of my own."
"Hmm, Regulus said you were a swot," she teased. "Father said that you are an Arithmancy Master?"
He explained how he'd trained for several years after Hogwarts, before getting his mastery, though his main interest had always been the Wizengamot. With Rodolphus in Azkaban for so many years, his father had finally been forced to lean on him for various tasks. Hermione was interested to hear about the legislation that he'd worked on and Rabastan promised that they could spend some future dinner talking about what they were currently trying to pass.
Rabastan was eager to hear about her plans to pursue a Charms mastery, seeing as Orion Black was eager to hammer out all of the terms. Hermione shared with him her excitement at the prospect, but also revealed that she felt uncertain with everything with Voldemort bubbling up. It felt wrong to focus on her life when the fate of their world still hung in the balance.
By the time that they'd finished their firewhiskeys, it was almost like old times at Hogwarts once again. Hermione could scarcely take her hands off of Rabastan and found herself distracted by his lips more than once. Before she even realized it, they had both stopped talking and had begun to close the gap between them, drawn together like magnets.
The first press of their lips together was feather soft and uncertain, but she was delighted when she felt that same spark of pleasure race down her spine. Rabastan pulled back, but she chased after him, slanting her lips against him, catching his lower lip between her fuller ones. She moaned at the touch and longed to deepen it, remembering the passionate tangle of their tongues. Parting her lips, she wrapped her arms around his neck and sighed so prettily when she felt his hands on her waist, pulling her body against his. Salazar, what was it with them and libraries?
She panted, wanting more with him, wondering how he'd managed to wait so long for her when she was left feeling utterly desperate and it had been less than a month since she'd last kissed him. She was utterly overwhelmed at the feeling that swept over her heart. It felt as if no time had passed at all.
Before they could go any further, though, there was a sharp wrap at the door that had Rabastan shooting away from her, his hands tucked under his legs as though he hadn't been touching her at all. Regulus poked his head in the door.
"Time's up, I'm afraid," he said, not sounding too apologetic at all. "Father and Sirius are back."