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! You can find me on tumblr (nauticalparamour).

Please let me know what you thought of chapter twenty-three and be on the lookout for chapter twenty-four soon!

As spring went on and they got closer to the end of term exams, Hermione, Regulus and Rabastan found that their study groups were joined by more and more of their classmates, hoping to get a little bit of help from their more knowledgeable classmates. Hermione oddly found herself wishing that she had that time alone with them more often, surprised by how much she even missed getting to talk to Rabastan one on one.

She thought that maybe he did, too, because she would sometimes catch her eye across the table while he was helping Angus, who was desperately trying for a Transfiguration NEWT, or while she was quizzing Nella on their Potions work. Rabastan would give her a secret smile or roll his eyes and Hermione would have to bite her lower lip to keep from laughing.

And, for the times she happened to notice the contemplative looks that Regulus would pass between her and his friend, well, she would just stare at her brother as if to question what the hell he was thinking.

She could barely contain the flutters she'd felt when Sirius had somehow implied that Rabastan was a decent sort from her cohort of classmates and she was better off picking him than the rest. He was Sirius and even he thought that Rabastan was alright (though, he didn't have any of the future knowledge that she was blessed with). Surely that meant that Rabastan wasn't a bad apple as she'd always presumed — rotten to the core and destined to fight for the Dark Lord?

Hermione didn't know if she'd be able to stand it if Regulus thought to play matchmaker, too. It might give her hope — hope for some kind of future that she'd figured was probably out of reach when Voldemort continued to prey upon her childhood in her own time. And, really, it was easier for her to swat away Sirius's persistent suggestions that Remus might be a more suitable choice for her, if she insisted on dating someone.

She didn't insist on dating someone. She figured that she'd be too busy fighting to help fix the many broken things from the future she'd left behind, to have any energy remaining to devote to love.

But sometimes, when she caught Rabastan's green eyes or crooked smile half hidden behind his quill, she did wonder what that path would be like.

That was supposing that Rabastan was interested, too, which Hermione did not think was a foregone conclusion, though she was beginning to think that there might be some evidence to consider. It had been weeks, but she still hadn't forgotten the ghost of his fingertips on her nose. Salazar, she was pathetic.

When she walked into the library that evening, she had no hope that she was going to have a quiet night with just her and Rabastan and Regulus. She was sure they would be joined by whoever was panicking the most that week, maybe Ansel or perhaps Nella again. So, she was pleased when she came around the corner and only saw Rabastan and her brother sitting at the table.

Rabastan was saying something to Regulus, though she couldn't tell what he was talking about exactly. All she knew was that Regulus was shooting away from the table, with his bag over his shoulder, without a second thought.

Biting her lower lip, Hermione walked across the room, before finding her usual seat across the table from the younger Lestrange brother. "Will Regulus be joining us?" she asked, raising an eyebrow and wondering what exactly Rabastan would admit to.

"Something else came up," he said, not giving away anything.

"Yes, whatever it was that you told him had him bolting," she said, letting the wizard know that she'd seen whatever it was that had gotten her brother to leave.

Caught, she detected points of pink on Rabastan's cheeks. He looked a bit sheepish. "You are right, I did send him away under false pretenses," he admitted, without much prodding. "It's just that I wanted to speak with you alone."

"Oh," Hermione said, her breath leaving her in a rush. She could feel her heart hammering against her rib cage, while her thoughts sped by at a mile a minute. There were not many reasons that he could have for wanting to speak to her, but one in particular was the most appealing to her. "What's it about? I suppose that it's not my arithmetic translations, or you wouldn't have gotten rid of Regulus."

He laughed a little. "No, I think that subject alone is enough to send Reg for the hills," he quipped, a little barb for her brother that would not sting.

Hermione made a show of pulling out her books and her quill mechanically, hoping to seem unbothered and uninterested. If anything, it gave her something else to focus on than waiting for whatever it was that Rabastan wanted to say to her. But, by the time that she was all ready to begin her revision, he still wasn't saying anything to her. Instead, he was just looking at her with melancholy eyes.

That was certainly not what she was expecting.

"Are you going to tell me what this is about?" she demanded, finally, unable to be kept in suspense for a moment longer. She might go insane if he didn't just tell her.

"I'm trying to think of how to start without you hexing me," he said after another beat of silence. "I know your skill with a wand."

"You are starting to scare me, now, Rabastan," she said.

He cleared his throat. "I've noticed there are some nights when you disappear for stretches of time. Where no one seems to have any idea where you are — not Regulus, not Elvira or Mallory. Not me," he said, his eyes dropping to the table. "At first I thought maybe... things with Ansel had been more successful than he said, but I noticed that your absences don't usually align."

"I'm not... I'm not interested in Ansel," she said, wetting her lower lip nervously. "We aren't compatible."

"I know that," he said, like he needed to reassure her. The thought rankled her, but she pressed it down in her belly, too curious to hear what he was playing at. "I... followed you. I know that you go to that room on the seventh floor."

"You followed me?" she asked, her eyebrows drawing together in confusion. "Why? Why didn't you just talk to me?"

"Because I know you would have just lied about what you were really up to," he said, his voice getting stronger, more confident. "And I know that you are meeting with Sirius."

It felt like a punch to the gut to hear him say Sirius's name. That he knew her secret — that she was sneaking around to speak with Sirius — made her stomach twist queerly. Only, what did it matter to him? Hermione could speak with anyone she wanted to. Rabastan didn't have any say in her life. Jutting her chin proudly in the air, she made up her mind not to let him see her worry. "So? He's my brother," she said, imperiously. "I'm allowed to speak with him."

"Hermione..." Rabastan sighed, running a hand down his face. "You know that isn't true, otherwise you wouldn't be meeting with him secretly."

"What's the problem with Sirius?" she demanded, staring at him unblinkingly.

"Because he's a blood traitor," Rabastan said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Like he didn't even have to think about it. "Because he's scorned your family and your real brother and you know you shouldn't be speaking with him. Do you have any idea how hurt Regulus would be if he were to find out?"

Hermione swallowed. Of course, she knew that she couldn't be seen with Sirius in public, not when things were still so delicate. She hadn't even gotten Sirius to consider the possibility of reconciling with the rest of the Blacks yet, so there was no point in her broaching the topic with Regulus. She wasn't sure if he would understand her going behind his back to try to mend things.

Sirius's words about Regulus dropping her if he found out that she was a blood traitor, too, came rushing to the forefront of her mind. Was it possible that Regulus could be so cruel after they had grown so close to one another? A knot formed in her throat that she tried to push down.

"Don't — don't threaten me, Rabastan," she said, wondering what exactly he was playing at.

"I'm not trying to threaten you," he swore. "I'm just... you need to be careful, Hermione. I can understand wanting to be close to your family, but if anyone found out, they might think that you are a blood traitor, too."

"And that would be so horrible, wouldn't it?" Hermione asked, her voice cracking when she looked up at Rabastan's handsome face. Salazar, this conversation hadn't gone like she'd expected at all.

"But you're not. You aren't like Sirius, Hermione, I know you aren't," he said, fervently, as if he was willing to believe it himself. "He's not even really your brother, just a cousin. I promise that he isn't worth it."

Hermione wasn't sure what to say. She blinked desperately to keep her tears at bay while she realized that Rabastan couldn't ever like her in that way. He would probably hate her if he knew the truth, if she opened up and shared her origins with him. She'd known that the Lestranges were extreme supporters of blood purity, so to know that she was the product of squibs would surely disgust him. He'd think of her as an aberration. And if he knew that she believed herself to be a muggleborn, even just muggle-raised for the first sixteen years of her life, she was sure he'd never even speak to her again! Any crush that she might have been secretly harboring was doomed to fail. Salazar, she'd known all of this, and still she'd let herself hope.

"There are worse things in this world than being a blood traitor, Rabastan," she said, harshly. "A blood traitor — what a preposterous sort of insult. As if thinking anyone with less than pure blood deserves the same rights as you or me is traitorous. Don't be ridiculous." She was seething mad, unable to believe that someone as intelligent as Rabastan could believe something so stupid.

Standing up, she slammed her book closed and pulled out her wand. She smirked when Rabastan flinched, perhaps expecting some retribution, but she only called her remaining items into her book bag and flung it over her shoulder.

Rabastan stood up, a desperate sort of look in his eyes. "Hermione, please," he said, practically begging. "I know that you are stubborn and being told what to do makes you dig your heels in —"

"Oh, so you admit that you are telling me what to do then?" she asked, turning on her heel, her wand still in her hand. "Well, Rabastan, you aren't my father, you aren't my brother, you aren't my paterfamilias. I don't even think you are really my friend. You don't get a say in what I do."

"I'm not trying to tell you what to do, I'm just trying to protect you," Rabastan argued, though she could see that his patience with her arguments was wearing thin.

"I don't need protecting," she insisted, though she knew Bernard Rosier had proved that wrong twice over. She had the Black family in her corner. At least she hoped that she did. Perhaps hearing that she'd been speaking to Sirius would be enough to put them over the edge. Would they toss her out on the street if they knew what she'd done?

She shuddered to think that they might do something worse. They might lock her away, hiding her inside, so that she couldn't speak to anyone else ever again, maybe marry her to some cousin. Because, even with her supposed blood traitor tendencies, she doubted that they would give up such an asset as having a glimpse into the future that awaited all of them.

"Just... leave me alone, Rabastan," she ordered, walking out of the library, hoping to put as much distance as she could between them.