A/N: Thank you all for your comments, kudos, and bookmarks after last chapter! Huge thank you to lanamarymack for alpha/beta reading this chapter. You can find me over on tumblr (nauticalparamour) where I post sneak peeks, story updates and answer questions. Please let me know what you thought of chapter fifty-two and be on the lookout for chapter fifty-three soon!
It was strange being home at Grimmauld Place again, when so much had changed. So much life had happened in the intervening years when she hadn't been there and it felt like none of the three wizards she lived with knew how to handle her sudden intrusion. It wasn't that they were irritated with her presence, more like they were... hovering. Perhaps needing to convince themselves that she was actually here and wouldn't wink out of existence again if they stopped watching her.
Sirius was the worst. He constantly stared at her with those sad puppy dog eyes and would waffle between apologizing and begging her to forgive him. Salazar, she knew that she was going to forgive him eventually, but he had to remember that she'd only had a few days to process being ripped away from the life she was rather looking forward to and learning about everything that she'd missed. That said, she could tolerate him when he was in his animagus form, cuddling with her on a settee in the library.
The next worst was probably Orion. While he at least was not especially overt in his emotions, she always noticed the sort of misty look in his grey eyes when he looked at her. Hermione wondered if it had to do with losing Walburga, but she couldn't find the words to talk to him about her mother. It still made her stomach twist when she thought of their last conversation together.
That meant that Regulus was the most tolerable (not including Kreacher, who was perfectly content to ignore her unless called upon). When he would drift into the library, she would generally interrogate him about everything that had happened since she left. She clung to every detail he would spill — his NEWT scores, that he was still good friends with Angus, that only Ansel and Mallory had stayed together. She demanded to know everything about his work at the Ministry, where he was being groomed to take over their family's seat in the Wizengamot.
She would needle him about how he hadn't married himself. She wanted to know how he could let their family wither down to only three (well, four now) members, without forging his own branch on the family tree. Regulus was perfectly honest when he told her that it didn't feel like it had been a good time to have a child, seeing as the world was so uncertain at the moment, with Voldemort lurking out there.
And, if she was lucky, he would reveal little things about Rabastan, though never too much. She knew that he wasn't firmly against the betrothal, but he also wasn't for it. Still, he promised that he'd explained things to Rabastan back when she first disappeared, but didn't give her many details about what he was up to.
When she found herself alone in the library, Hermione knew that her thoughts could easily go dark, weighed down on everything that she'd lost, the precious time that she'd squandered, her future not being any the better. It was hard to just sit in Grimmauld Place and not do anything, but she was trying to trust that Orion was handling things so she could rejoin society and begin doing what she should have been from the outset: fighting Voldemort.
She was startled out of her musings by the unceremonious pop of apparition, shocked when Sirius appeared to have brought some unknown wizard into the house. He had his back to her as he shoved Sirius's hands off of him. "What the hell, Black?" he snarled at her brother. "You can't just kidnap me. I was meant to go into the session!"
Her heart almost stopped in her chest. Although it was a little different, certainly a little deeper, she knew that voice. Sirius met her eyes over the other man's shoulder and gave her a little smirk.
"Trust me, Baby Lestrange, I think you will like what I have to show you," he said. "Turn around."
"If this is another one of your —" Rabastan trailed off as he turned, coming to face her, sitting there on the settee. He made a strangled noise, like he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing. Striding across the room, he dropped to his knees in front of her and gripped her chin in his hand, turning her slightly this way and that. "Hermione?" he choked out, like he couldn't even believe it.
"Yes, Rabastan, it's me," she said, her vision going a bit blurry from her tears. Merlin, she hated to think that he was hurt by her absence, but there was no possibility that it couldn't be.
He threw his arms around her, pulling her body against his in a tight hug, unwilling to let her go. He took a shuddering breath and she could feel his body shake while he cried. "I thought that I would never see you again," he whispered, repeating it over and over again.
"I'm sorry," Hermione said, wishing that she could erase the years of hurt. "I'm so sorry."
Another pop of apparition signaled Regulus's arrival. He must have seen whatever Sirius was up to and came to intervene, only for his face to grow stormy when he saw that he was too late. "We agreed to wait until we had a better footing," he hissed at Sirius.
That caught Rabastan's attention. He looked up, reluctantly disentangling himself from Hermione, to glare at his friend. "You would have me wait even another minute more to tell me that Hermione was back?" he demanded, clearly not a fan of Regulus's plans. "How long have you been keeping her from me?"
"It's only been a few days," Hermione soothed, wiping away the tears from her cheeks.
She'd spent a lot of time thinking about what it would be like to reunite with Rabastan, but now that he was actually here, she was overwhelmed. He was older, just like Regulus and Sirius, but there was no denying that he was her Rabastan, not the Rabastan she'd faced in the Department of Mysteries.
He was an inch or two taller than when she'd left him and a bit broader than he'd been as a teenager. His face had changed only a little, his face having grown more angular with age, but his hair was still the same auburn brown and his eyes — Salazar, his eyes — were still that warm, sea glass color of green. He really looked well and Hermione couldn't even begin to process how wonderful it was to see him standing there totally confident in his own.
Rabastan practically collapsed into the wingback chair that sat across from her, the sudden reveal of her presence a bit too much for him to handle. "You left me," he accused, the hurt clearly reflected in his eyes.
"I didn't want to leave you," Hermione explained, begging him to understand. "I tried to tell Sirius how much I love you, but he—"
She watched as he shuddered, at her pronouncement that she loved him. She did, though, didn't she? Absolutely nothing had changed for her. She hadn't lived a decade without him.
"You never told me though," he said, after a beat. "You never told me where you really came from. That you might go back."
"Everyone was convinced that it wasn't possible. That the past was my new home," she tried to explain.
"You lied to me," he accused.
Hermione shook her head back and forth. "I was going to tell you, after the wedding. I wasn't sure if I was safe to share that secret with you before it, if there was a chance that the wedding might not happen," she explained, willing him to understand. "I didn't want to leave you, Rabastan. And now, we have a second chance."
Regulus made a noise. "Hermione, we talked about this," he cautioned her.
"About what?" Rabastan demanded, turning to look at his friend, before his gaze returned to her.
"We just thought... so much time has passed. We should explore the possibility of breaking the betrothal," Sirius said, gently. "I mean, does it still make sense to go through with it?"
"Fuck, you look exactly the same as that day," Rabastan said, his voice nearly a whine. "I worried that I was forgetting what you looked like — all I had was that stupid picture to remind me — but it's like nothing has changed."
Hermione smiled shyly at him. The way that he was looking at her — like he couldn't take his eyes off of her — made her feel especially beautiful. "Nothing has changed," she whispered, softly.
"We probably should try to break it," he said, though he sounded physically pained to be agreeing with Sirius of all people.
"What?" Hermione asked, feeling like the floor had fallen out from under her. "Nothing has changed for me, Rabastan. I still want to marry as much as I did when we left Hogwarts."
He shook his head. "I know that nothing has changed for you, but... I've lived so long without you and now we are separated by age," he said, his eyes dropping to his feet in front of him. "You'll learn that you don't want me anymore. I'm not the same wizard I was."
"Don't you think that you should leave that decision up to me, rather than just telling me how I will or will not feel for you?" she asked, impertinently. She couldn't believe that she was actually having this argument with him.
"I know that you don't see it right now, but maybe it's for the best," Regulus said, gently.
"I already explored the betrothal last summer — damnit, in 1978. If Rabastan and I do not fulfill the terms, then we are just pushing it down another generation," she said, fiercely. "Why should we force two as-of-yet unborn children to get married when I am perfectly happy to hold up my side of the bargain?"
Rabastan frowned, hearing just how much she'd looked into the little magical contract that they were bound by. "I am sure we can find a way to discharge it," he said. "If both Heads of House are amenable."
Hermione stood up and stared at Sirius and Regulus. "May I speak with my betrothed alone?" she questioned, though if her brothers were smart they would see it as the order that it was.
Regulus looked unsure, but Sirius wrapped his arm around his younger brother's shoulders. "Sure, we will be just outside, though," he informed her, apparently not worried that Rabastan would touch her when he was onboard with their stupid plan to end the betrothal.
When they were gone, she crossed the room, until she stood in front of him, in the open space between his legs. She gently cupped his cheek, feeling the slight scruff on his skin. She dropped to her knees and grabbed his left hand in her arm, her fingers going to the button that kept his sleeve together at the wrist. She rolled it up slowly, exhaling when she found that his skin remained unmarred by the Dark Mark.
"Regulus told me that he explained everything to you," Hermione said, letting her fingers trace along the veins in his strong forearm. "But I don't think he knew everything."
"I told you I wouldn't wear his Mark," he said, obviously feeling a bit offended that she had to check.
"In the future that I came from, you were a Death Eater. You, along with your brother and sister-in-law, were sent to Azkaban for torturing Frank and Alice Longbottom past the point of insanity," she whispered. "And in my fifth year, you broke free. I dueled against you — or some version of you — in the Department of Mysteries, before Bellatrix unwittingly sent me to the past."
She could feel every muscle in his body go taut, like he could snap at any moment.
"I think you can now understand why it was such a worry to me," she said, looking at him. "It took me a long time to reconcile the Rabastan Lestrange that I knew of with the new one that I grew to love. A part of me worried that that side of you was always lurking under the surface. But, I also know that it would have been easy for you to fall for Voldemort's promises once I was gone. And you didn't."
He took a deep, shuddering breath, his whole attention on her, on the words coming out of her lips. She wondered how hearing about the future that he'd dodged had affected him.
"I'm not going to change my mind about the betrothal, Rabastan," she told him, looking into his eyes. "I know the character that you had and I am sure that you are still the wizard that I fell in love with."
"It's been so long," he murmured, his eyes fluttering shut at the feeling of her touch.
"Unless... if you have... moved on to someone else, while I was gone..." she trailed off. It was hard to verbalize the possibility, but she knew that it was a long time for the two of them to be parted.
His eyes opened, blazing with annoyance that she would suggest such a treason. "I've never forgotten my promises to you," he insisted. "Not for a single day."
Hermione shuddered from the intensity. "I wouldn't blame you. I know that it was a long time and you couldn't be sure that I'd ever actually come back," she said, hoping to ease any guilt that he felt.
He leaned forward and her stomach swooped, wondering if he might kiss her. "Never," he swore. Instead, he pulled out his tie, showing her the simple tie bar that he still wore — the onyx one that she'd given him. "I never let myself forget you, Hermione."
"So then don't fight this," she insisted. "Please. Everything that I thought I knew is upside down, except for you."
Rabastan took another steadying breath. He took her hand in his, his fingers finding the signet ring that she still wore. "I'll... I'll not fight the betrothal," he agreed, after a moment. "But, I am going to give you time to figure things out. And when you decide that we are not as fated as you seem to believe, I will stand aside and let you go. Because, I've never stopped loving you."
Hermione felt tears spring to her eyes again, surprised at how soothing the pronouncement was. She leaned forward, wrapping him up in a tight hug, afraid to let him go. "I won't," she swore to him, sure that she would get him to see that they were still perfect for one another.