A/N: Thank you all so much for your reviews, favorites and follows after last chapter! I am super excited that ffnet has fixed their alerting issues so hopefully you will get them now in the future. 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 nine and be on the lookout for chapter ten soon!
"Please, just say that you'll come and I'll stop asking," Regulus prompted, with a pleading look on his face.
Hermione stared at her 'brother' from across the table in the library, scoffing. He was really far too cute to be ignored when he was begging for something and she wondered if he had similar success with Orion and Walburga and if that was why he was the favorite. Luckily for her, she'd built up an immunity to her friends asking her to do silly things for them over the years. She picked up her massive Charms textbook and placed it in between them, so she could no longer see his smirking face.
Regulus laughed from his side of the table, before his hand appeared at the top of her book, pulling it down. "Hermione, I want you to come," he said once again. "Please."
"Ugh, I thought that I was done with the insanity of Quidditch when I came here," she said, crossing her arms over her chest, feeling rather petulant. "I thought that I wouldn't have to watch someone I care about hurtling towards the ground on a puny broom now that Harry isn't here."
"Harry?" Regulus asked, astute as ever. His ears always perked up whenever she mentioned some detail from the future, even though he knew that he wasn't supposed to. Maybe that was why he did it so much — he knew it was forbidden and therefore potentially valuable. He had more than a little Orion in him, after all.
"You know I shouldn't," Hermione said, catching her lower lip between her teeth to keep from speaking. The weeks had gone by and it was easier to pretend that there wasn't some future waiting for her to come back to, especially as she'd still been unsuccessful in getting the Headmaster to agree to speak with her. She'd even tried to owl him, to schedule some sort of appointment, but she'd gotten no indication that he'd received it.
"You don't have to give me any specifics," he said, reaching over the table so that he could take her hand. "Just, I know it must be hard, acting like none of it happened."
She softened, seeing the gentle way that he handled her, but she was not stupid enough to not realize that he was primarily motivated by noisiness. "Yes, my friend — well, best friend, really — Harry, he was a very good Quidditch player."
"And you went to his matches?" Regulus asked, unable to help himself.
"Every single one," Hermione said wistfully, before realizing what it was that she was admitting it. "But, I had to watch every game through my fingers because he was much too daring. He would do absolutely anything to catch the Snitch."
"Oh, so he was a Seeker, too?" he said with a grin. "That's great. I won't have to ask Ansel to sit with you and explain all the ins and outs of your favorite brother's position."
Hermione couldn't help but roll her eyes. "If you think that Ansel could talk to me for more than a sentence without clamming up, you are dreaming," she countered.
Ansel was a good Quidditch player in his own right and would likely be on the first team the following year once Ogden Perks finally graduated. Hermione thought that she remembered Adrian Pucey in her time playing Quidditch as well, though he played Chaser while his presumed uncle played Beater. Ansel, despite getting to know her a bit better, remained utterly unable to speak to her. She intimidated him too much, according to Regulus, though she wasn't entirely sure what to believe.
"You might be surprised," he countered, looking entirely like he might want to bet on it. "Ansel can't seem to shut up about Quidditch with us."
Before she could provide a counter reply, another body slipped into the open seat next to Regulus. Hermione frowned when she saw that it was Rabastan. "What did I miss?" he asked, with a friendly grin, making himself right at home while he pulled out parchment and quill of his own.
"No, what did I miss?" Hermione asked, staring Regulus down from across the table.
Immediately, he looked guilty and she knew that this was done on purpose. "Oh, didn't I tell you?" he asked, not sounding the picture of innocence that he hoped to portray. "I invited Rabastan to revise with us for the exam."
"No you did not," she answered with a sweet smile.
Regulus must have picked up on the fact that she did not particularly want to spend time with Rabastan, though he did not ask why. She did not think that he suspected that they had any particular history together, and instead seemed to be under the impression that they had simply gotten off on the wrong foot when they met on the train. Thinking it was something so simple to smooth over, he had gotten it in his head that if they simply spent a little bit more time with one another, they might actually become friends.
A small part of her wanted to just tell Regulus everything about his best friend — about the future that awaited him. But, another part of her didn't want to ruin what was a perfectly good friendship for her brother, especially when she didn't know how he would react to the details. Maybe he would think it was all fine and dandy and not have a problem with any of the things that Lestrange would do in the future.
She knew that would hurt her more than she could bear and so she left it unsaid. Even if it made her a coward, who couldn't face the truth about the sort of wizard her brother was.
"Well, I figured, since he is in Charms with us, it would only make sense to put our heads together," Regulus continued on. "Besides, he's always been in the first five in our class in Charms."
"Although, that's not hard to do when less than twenty students continued to the advanced level," Rabastan quipped at his own expense.
Hermione had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling at the joke. One of the worst things she'd discovered about this younger version of Rabastan was that she secretly found him funny. He was often making witty quips and he could banter with just about anyone in their house. She often found herself having to hide her face, so he wouldn't realize that she was smiling or laughing.
The other thing she'd discovered was that he was much smarter than she realized. He'd teased her and Regulus about being swots on the train and Regulus had said he was one as well. She wasn't sure why she hadn't believed it then — perhaps thrown off by his crooked smile and strong jaw — but she was completely convinced of it now. He was very good at Arithmancy and he had proved himself in the other classes they shared together, consistently getting good marks.
She wanted to dismiss it by saying that he was only continuing with his best subjects, but she quickly learned that he was taking six classes as well, though he was not sure if he was going to drop Astronomy after the year was over.
It was maddening.
"Well, the more the merrier," she said, rather graciously, though she was reminded that Regulus had done this all on purpose. "Perhaps next time, I should invite Priscilla. She is always talking about how helpful you are, Regulus."
"No, don't," Regulus said suddenly, his grey eyes widening at the thinly veiled threat.
Hermione wouldn't actually do that — to her brother or to her new friend. She didn't want to get Priscilla's hopes up, not when she was certain that Regulus was not interested in her. After a night with a few nips of Rosier's firewhiskey, Regulus had revealed to her that he was not interested in Priscilla and actually had his sights set on someone else. He did not tell her who that someone else was, no matter how much she begged, leading her to believe that it was someone he thought was unacceptable.
"Oh, trying to set up some sort of double date, Granger?" Rabastan asked, a crooked smile on his face once again, mischief dancing in his light green eyes.
She wanted to snap at him that she would never go on a date with him, but he beat her to the punch.
"Because, you aren't exactly my ideal witch," he continued, perhaps wanting to wound her pride a bit. Anything to take her down a notch.
"I was not," she said hotly, feeling a blush creep up on her cheeks. Salazar, she had not even imagined something so awful
"You might have better luck with Bernie," Rabastan continued, hiding his smile behind the feather in his quill.
"Rosier?" Hermione demanded, feeling shock at the suggested wizard. He was the last person who she thought would fancy her, especially considering he always kind of gave her the creeps. He always seemed to delight a little too much in cruelty and didn't keep his family's allegiances a secret. She had no idea why he would be interested in her.
"What?" Regulus asked at the same time, perhaps hearing about it for the first time himself. "He hasn't said anything about it to me."
Rabastan laughed, patting Regulus on his back. "Salazar, Reg, why would he tell you that he wanted to get it in with your sister? Don't you know how crass that is?" he teased, delighting in the uncomfortable situation.
"Get it — no, absolutely not," Regulus said, pressing his hands over his ears. "I don't want to hear this. Why are you telling me this?"
"Well, she's not my sister," Rabastan continued, giving her a sly sort of a look. "And I'm not going to keep Bernie's secrets for him, not when seeing your reaction is so funny."
Hermione could feel his eyes on her again, a bit more than a cursory look up and down, lingering a bit too long to be a glance. She could tell that her blush had deepened — her cheeks felt positively hot. Was he just doing this to report back to Rosier what his chances were with her? He didn't seem too bothered by Regulus's response.
"Please, let's just get back to the matter at hand," Regulus begged, wanting to do anything to get the conversation off of her love life (or lack thereof).
"Right," Hermione said brightly, eager to finally begin revising. "Charms."
"Quidditch," he said at the same time. "Just come to the match. It's the biggest game of the whole year and I want to know that I have your support."
Hermione snorted. "What, afraid that I'll secretly be cheering for Sirius?" she asked, knowing that she didn't have anyone else at this whole school to cheer for. Didn't he know that? "And, you say it's the biggest game now, but in a few months when you play Ravenclaw you'll be saying that's the biggest game."
Rabastan rolled his eyes at that. "As if Ravenclaw could put up a meaningful fight," he said, rudely. "No, there is no bigger game the whole year besides Slytherin vs Gryffindor. You have my promise on that."
"See," Regulus said, waving his hand at her, willing to to believe.
"Come on, I thought we established that you were capable of having fun, Granger," Rabastan added, knowing that the argument was now two versus one. "Don't make me go back to thinking you have a stick up your arse."
"I'd rather you didn't think about my arse at all," Hermione said, affronted.
Rabastan laughed at her counter, not even cowed by the look Regulus gave him.
Sighing, Hermione knew that it was important to Regulus that she go to the game. And she wasn't naive. Surely it was the biggest game of the year. Hoping that she wouldn't regret it, Hermione sighed, knowing she was going to agree to the request. "Alright, I'll go," she agreed, realizing that it really was a small request. "Just don't go doing anything stupid. I can't stand the thought of seeing you hurt."
It was true. She wondered when Regulus had come to mean so much to her, but he did. This Quidditch match promised to be an intense one, especially with all the new tension simmering between the Black siblings.
"Ugh, now that you are done talking about Quidditch, Granger, can we finally start to revise for Charms?" Rabastan teased.
Despite herself, Hermione found herself smiling at the cheekiness of that bloody wizard. Too quick for his own good, Rabastan caught the smile, and looking far too pleased with himself, began going over the list of the topics he wanted to focus on.