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Valentine’s Day was hardly an ideal time to be sent to monitor mermaid relations on a boat in the middle of the Atlantic on behalf of the Magical Beings office, but Hermione wasn’t complaining. The break-up with Ron had come five years after the end of the war, and while everyone around them had assumed they were approaching engagement, Hermione had been anxiously recognizing the signs of implosion for nigh on two years. The fact that they’d left it until the end of January was a sign of how badly both parties wanted to save the friendship. It was only after a very long and tearful discussion late one night the month prior that they’d finally admitted their mutual fear of losing one another in the aftermath of the inevitable breakup. It had been a relief, a feeling of total calm to discover neither was in danger of losing the people that mattered most.
That didn’t mean that Hermione wanted anyone to know about the breakup. There were two teams in her life pre-breakup, neither of which would have given a desirable response to the news. The Weasley Engagement Brigade was led by Molly Weasley. This was the group of friends and adoptive family that none-too-subtly hinted on a weekly basis that Ron and Hermione should hurry things along. Then there was what Hermione mentally dubbed the Fucking End This Nightmare Squad. The former group was headed by Pansy Parkinson, with whom Hermione had inexplicably become friends after they were paired in an interdepartmental work project.
It was eerie how quickly Pansy had ingrained herself into Hermione’s life—burrowing into her wardrobe to set “frumpy” clothes on fire with unnecessarily aggressive spells, insulting everything about Hermione’s mannerisms and habits (from her cursive to how she took her tea), and constantly insisting that Hermione break up with Ron because “You can do better, and that’s even with my low opinion of you.” For all her arguably abusive behaviour, Pansy was an unusually good friend. She replaced Hermione’s clothing with expensive pieces and never destroyed something that Hermione indicated had sentimental value to her. Despite the terrible things she said about how much sugar Hermione used in her drink (“You remind me of Umbridge; this syrup is disgusting”), Pansy took the time to memorise the order and never served Hermione anything that wasn’t to her taste. She’d intricately braid Hermione’s hair while they were talking—casually, without preamble—even as she compared it to a tumbleweed, and she never tugged hard enough to hurt her scalp. She’d speak with cruelty at the same time as she freely offered gentle touches and gestures of kindness. Hermione came to realise that Pansy Parkinson, the woman who bullied Hermione into spending time in her flat because she was “bored,” was actually a loving, caring individual who had a debilitating inability to verbally express that genuine affection for others.
And Pansy was the one who had brought the likes of Draco Malfoy, Blaise Zabini, and…Nott into Hermione’s life.
The four of them constituted the original Fucking End This Nightmare Squad. Ginny joined it at some point when she discovered that there was an anti-Weasley Engagement Brigade. The five of them would sit in Hermione’s flat after she and Pansy wrapped up at work and would drink wine, bitch about politics, and argue over Hermione’s relationship. At first, it was surreal to have them in her orbit. Two of them had Dark Marks for heaven’s sake, and the only memories Hermione had of Pansy at school were of her being a royal pain in the arse. But they had come upon her like a highwaymen ambush. One day, Hermione was just one third of the Golden Trio, hanging out at the Burrow once a week and otherwise doing her damnedest to avoid her boyfriend. The next, Theodore Nott was elbowing his way into her flat with aged spirits in both arms while Zabini and Malfoy took orders from Pansy on how to arrange the dining table for a game of cards. And the day after that, Ginny Weasley was drunk and sitting in a laughing Blaise’s lap while Draco charmed her hair blue and platinum, and Nott was curled on the floor with Crookshanks (the traitor).
She and Ron didn’t live together, thank Merlin. Even if they had, the Slytherins would have undoubtedly not censored the horrendous things they commented about Hermione’s longtime boyfriend. Ginny, for being Ron’s sister, joined in on these tirades from a different angle. It wasn’t that she felt Ron wasn’t good enough for her. Rather, in her words: “It’s like you’re dating your cousin, Hermione. Isn’t it weird even kissing him?”
But it was Nott who had the most to say. It was always some variation on the theme of “He couldn’t possibly satisfy you—and I mean that in both the intellectual and physical sense, Granger.” Usually, he’d say it with a leer and a wink, stem of the wine glass twirling between lithe fingertips as he lounged on her couch with his shirt half-unbuttoned. She hated him. (Lies, lies, lies.)
By the time she and Ron called it quits, they hadn’t so much as touched one another in three months. Not even a kiss. It was Schrödinger’s relationship; if they didn’t check in on each other, then the relationship was in a constant state of both living and dead. But she still hadn’t allowed herself to so much as fantasise about another wizard. It was off-limits. (Nott was off-limits.)
Nott, with his long discussions of Muggle literature and persistently charming sarcasm. Nott, with his nonchalant gentlemanly nature coexisting with an endless well of innuendo, holding open doors at the same time as he would lean forward to whisper in her ear that he loved her dress. Even dreaming of him was off-limits. So many nights, she’d wished her subconscious would get that memo. It didn’t make a difference, either way, she had reasoned. He could arrive in every vivid dream (and she swore to herself that she’d never admit to anyone that in at least one, he’d been wearing a wedding ring,) and it wouldn’t matter. He was like that—free, affectionate, charming—with everyone. And she was with Ron.
Until, finally, she wasn’t.
January set her free. But the last thing Hermione wanted was the Fucking End This Nightmare Squad to show up at her door celebrating. Not because she didn’t want to celebrate, but—
She thought instantly of Nott on her couch, sly smirk in place, eyebrow arched, eyes trailing over her form even in pyjamas and with her hair in a messy bun. Burning her with his gaze.
No. She wouldn’t give the bastard the satisfaction.
And so, on Valentine’s Day, Hermione found herself on a fishing boat in the North Atlantic off the coast of France as part of an international effort to improve wizarding-merpeople relations. No one knew about the breakup, there was no pressure to pretend to be happy with her dead relationship on a contrived holiday, and she had a magically-expanded cabin on the boat all to herself. She had plans to handle interspecies diplomacy in the morning, take a long bath in the evening, read a good book, and get a good night’s sleep.
But Hermione’s efforts on behalf of her heart rarely went according to plan.
***
The ship was deep into the water when a storm kicked up.
Hermione had been told that there may be riotous weather, but she wasn’t concerned. The ship had been outfitted magically to behave gyroscopically. When it had been explained to her, Hermione had struggled not to point out how the design reminded her of a Muggle toddler seat. Essentially, if the ship encountered tumultuous waves, the battering against the hull of the ship would only translate into the rooms inside sort of…well, floating. They’d shift under the feet of the occupants, much as they usually did on a ship, but, theoretically, it would be smooth regardless of the weather outside. All the unbolted furniture and fixtures within the cabins were charmed to float just a bit off the ground in the event of truly turbulent weather. No one would get hurt, it was reasoned, if all the walls were magically cushioned and there was an environment with reduced gravity in the living spaces. Only the worst possible weather could breach the wards.
The trouble with it, however, was that the hallways had not been similarly outfitted. The crew, after all, still had to function appropriately during terrible weather because, whether the other occupants felt the crushing weight of the waves or not, it still technically constituted an emergency. Therefore, during such emergencies, the cabins were locked with their occupants inside.
Hermione was unbothered by this new situation. She was locked inside, yes, but all bothersome coworkers were also locked out. Voluminous curls precariously stacked atop her head, she sat in her flower petal bath, watching the bubbles lightly float above her and feeling her body at half-weight in the water. She’d spelled the candles to float a bit higher and to not catch anything on fire, and the scent of jasmine and lavender wafted around her. The half-gravity and gentle rocking of the ship were beginning to lull her to sleep. Truly, this was the best Valentine’s she had ever had.
Free of Ronald. Free of expectations. And an entire evening free to herself to relax.
A loud “pop” sounded from the bedroom of her cabin. Hermione jolted awake.
***
“I can’t believe she didn’t tell me,” Theo intoned despondently into his crystal glass. Shirtless and shoeless, he was sprawled in a black leather tufted high-back sofa.
Blaise and Pansy exchanged a look; it said, He has no idea that he sounds lovelorn, does he? Poor sap.
“Well, in her defense, mate,” Draco chimed in, arms crossed as he leaned against the fireplace in Theo’s flat, “she probably was thinking less about you and more about the fact that she’s free of the Weasel.”
“Draco, careful,” Blaise said, glancing apologetically at Ginny. The redhead only shrugged.
“Don’t worry, dear, I’m not bothered. The Ferret’s right.” Draco sneered, but Blaise preened at the term of endearment he’d received. Pansy watched Blaise and Ginny with barely controlled annoyance. They could continue their bizarre will-they-won’t-they after the group wrapped up Theo’s emotional breakdown.
“What I can’t believe,” Draco said, “is that he couldn’t keep his word even after the relationship ended. She requested one full month of privacy. It’s hardly too much to ask.” True this may have been, but it had been Ginny, not Ron, to rush to the Slytherin get-together at Theo’s personal flat to tell them the gossip. And he was the one who had broken the news to Theo despite Pansy's attempts to stop him. But Draco had never been averse to his own hypocrisy.
Theo sighed, throwing back the rest of his drink. “Of course, we didn’t deserve to know,” he muttered. “It isn’t like we’ve been trying to get her to set herself free for months, no, years now.” He walked over to the decanter and poured himself another. “Or—or!” he snapped his fingers at no one in particular, his voice rising, “Or like we were an afterthought, you know? It’s not just that we don’t deserve to know, it’s that our opinion doesn’t bloody well matter! You know, what if we just wanted to congratulate her? She’s always acting like we have some ulterior motive or something!”
There was no “we,” really, in this rant. Only Ginny wasn’t catching onto this fact.
“And this!” Theo declared with some self-loathing as he began to drunkenly approach the desk littered with various magical paraphernalia and a set of hideous variously-coloured teacups.
“Oh Merlin, not this again,” Draco scoffed under his breath. Pansy rolled her eyes. This was clearly a common gripe, but Ginny was out of the loop. Knitting her brows, she leaned toward Blaise.
“Sorry, what are those?”
Blaise hesitated, considering whether he ought to tell her or not, but Theo answered for him. The brunette spun around, losing balance a bit, and pointed at Ginny.
“These,” he gestured in the general direction of the teacups, but he was slightly off the mark, and it looked more like he was gesturing at the chaise lounge to the right of the desk, “are illegally-homemade portkeys!” Pansy paled.
Pansy needn’t have worried. Ginny was unlike the rest of her family in myriad ways, but she would always have too much of Fred and George in her. Her immediate response was not the aghast concerns of a law-abiding witch but utter glee.
“Wicked!”
When Theo saw her joy, he preened a bit and, predictably, began to show off. “Well, they’re not only homemade portkeys. They’re even better.”
“How’s that?” Ginny asked conspiratorially.
He leaned forward (almost tipping over, catching himself on the edge of a chair), and said, “They’re not connected to places. They’re connected to people.”
This baffled her. “You can do that?”
His grin was smug and feral. “Oh, yes. I can do that.” The implication there was that only he could do that. And he was right; he was the only one who could. Morgana save them all if the Department of Mysteries figured out how to do it.
“Well, who are they connected to?”
At this, Theo sobered, remembering his previous heartache. “You,” he replied dismissively.
She couldn’t have been more shocked had he stuck her finger into an outlet. “Sorry, come again?”
He shrugged, leaned back against his workspace. “Well, not just you.” He turned to look over his shoulder. “This one,” he pointed to a dark green teacup, “is for Blaise. This,” he pointed to a lilac one, “is for Pans. The most hideous one,” here, he pointed to the accurately described mint-and-black teacup designed with questionable acts being performed by nude, horned figures, “is Draco’s.” The man in question muttered “prick” under his breath. Theo continued without pause, “This one here is yours,” and it was an orange-and-white checkered thing. Finally, he rested his attention on the last teacup. “That one is hers.” His voice was flat. It was gorgeous, red with gold lionhead emblems.
Something that hadn’t made much sense to Ginny before when she’d come here to tell the group about the breakup clicked into place upon seeing the way Theo stared at the cup. “Ah,” she breathed.
“Yeah,” Blaise confirmed enigmatically.
“So, um…,” she hedged. “Why did you make them? I’ll bet that took a lot of magic and time.”
He nodded appreciatively. “You’re not wrong. But you know how it was after the war.”
Ginny knew how a lot of things were after the war. This, however, she wasn’t sure she understood.
“Explain it to me,” she prodded gently.
Cracking his neck, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “Well, when I got the Mark—” He stopped abruptly. Just as abruptly, he continued. “When I got the Mark, the only family I loved were already dead. I didn’t want the damned thing, same as Draco,” he nodded to his blond friend, who was staring at his shoes with his hands in his pockets, “but neither of us had much of a choice. For me, there was no where to run. Once you take the thing, you don’t get a say in where you go…or in what you do.”
There was a heavy pause here. Ginny had never asked about this. She didn’t think Hermione had, either, but there had been a general unspoken agreement amongst their little group that forgiveness would be granted without discussion. As Nott had already said, he hadn’t had much choice in taking the Mark. Hermione had argued privately that he also didn’t have a choice in what he did. There were things they just didn’t talk about. Until now, apparently.
“Forwards. The point is,” he started again with a gasp and a desperate swig of firewhiskey, “that I never was able to keep in contact with the people I cared about. And, given the things I saw and the only slightly milder things I was told to do, I knew that the people I cared for might not see the other side of the war, no matter how it ended. There were a few…,” his eyes landed on Pansy, who gave him a rare genuine smile, “close calls.” His voice cracked, and he glanced back into his drink. “There weren’t a lot of people I cared for at the time. All of them are in this room.” Ginny’s heart hurt for him. People always accused her of being a little too boisterous, a little too prickly. But she had a soft spot for people who felt helpless to protect those they loved. She’d had a lot of that particular feeling all throughout the war. “And now that small club includes you and Granger.” Ginny thought she might cry, which wouldn’t do at all.
“You’re part of my family, too, Nott,” Ginny replied firmly, translating his words for him. He flashed her a mischievous smile.
“Always glad to have another troublemaker around,” he threw back. “So,” he continued, polishing off his drink, “when the war ended, I decided that I had to have a way to get to all the people I loved in an emergency. I’ve been working on this for the past five years. They use a bit of hair and a drop of the destination individual’s blood.” Of fucking course they do. Ginny held her tongue; she wanted to ask how he’d acquired those things from her or Hermione without their knowledge, but she decided to let it go. Nott occasionally operated in the grey on the spectrum of morality, but she knew he hadn’t done this with violative intent. He watched her as she seemed to process this. When he was satisfied that she wasn’t livid with him, he went on, “I only recently worked out the bugs. Since they’re standing portkeys—not programmed for a specific time—you have to be able to touch them without automatically activating them. I figured out how to include intent; they only work as portkeys if you’re worrying about the person the teacup corresponds to. That way, it also ensures some modicum of ethics.” He winked at her. “It wouldn’t do to just grab the thing anytime I wanted to catch you in your knickers.”
Ginny snorted. At this juncture of the conversation, she knew there was only one person Nott wanted to catch in a state of undress, and it wasn’t Ginny. Which brought her back to the real question on her mind. “So then, why, exactly, does this news make you so out of sorts?” He hadn’t stopped drinking since she arrived to tell them.
“Ugh,” he rolled his eyes melodramatically and heavily dropped the glass onto the desk. His gaze landed back on the lion teacup when he stood and started to pace.
“Because she doesn’t think of—she doesn’t think of me the same way I think of her.” Ginny’s eyebrows migrated to her hairline, and Theo rushed to qualify the statement, not that it did much good. “Not that I mean it like—I mean only that I think about her safety and her happiness,” he pointed to the teacup, “and she thinks of me as a bloody pest!” He heaved, distress in his every movement. “I mean, she doesn’t owe me a damn thing, but we’re friends as much as she and Draco are!” he waved his hand at Draco—actually, it was more in the vicinity of Blaise, but Ginny caught his meaning.
“In Granger’s defence,” Pansy noted, a sharpness in her tone, “she didn’t bother to tell any of us.” Merlin, Ginny thought, Slytherins can be bitter and possessive.
Nott scoffed. “But I’d be the last to find out. And she—she—" He stumbled over his words, ran his hands through his hair, struggled to articulate.
“C’mon, Nott. What is it, really?” Draco drawled, exasperated.
“He doesn’t think it will make a difference,” Pansy answered brusquely. Theo raised his head out of his hands and narrowed his eyes at her. “What?” she said unapologetically. “It’s true. When she was with the Weasel, you could convince yourself that was the reason you and Granger would never happen. Now that she’s single, though, you’re facing the reality that even without the Weasel, you might not have anymore of a chance of winning her heart than a vampire has of vacationing in the Caribbean.”
Fevered frustration swept across his features. “Why the hell not, though?” he bellowed. This was obviously rhetorical, but it was asked with such force that Ginny was mildly concerned. She glanced at Blaise, but he shrugged like this was fairly normal when Nott was in his drinks. “Is it this?” He pantomimed at the room, indicating the wealth inherent in having an enormous, finely-furnished flat in addition to Nott Manor. “Is it this?” he asked again, gesturing to his faded Dark Mark. Ginny was the only one who flinched. “Is it—is it this?!” he shouted, gesturing to the teacup.
Clearly, he was referring to his tendency to flagrantly violate the law and standard conceptions of ethical behaviour. However, his point was lost when everyone stood abruptly and cried out to stop him. Drunk and confused, he turned to look at his hand, the apparent source of their panic.
He had picked up the teacup for emphasis. “Oh, bollocks—”
He disappeared before their eyes.
Silence descended.
Blaise’s face was frozen in an expression of concern. Ginny started to laugh, stunned.
Pansy sighed. “Actually, Theo,” she answered the absent member of their party, “it’s because you’ll never get up the guts to tell her.”
Lazily pouring himself a drink, Draco laughed outright. He raised it up and, before throwing it back, said, “Here’s hoping Nott finds his voice.”
***
Her hand was gripping her wand already, the reflexes she’d honed over her years at Hogwarts still with her. Part of her considered getting out of the bath to investigate starkers. This did not appeal to her. A better idea would be, possibly, to cast a Bubble Head charm and hide under the bubbles in the bath in order to take the intruder by surprise. This, too, did not appeal to her; she’d be expected to hide there. But it wasn’t as if there were a plethora of possibilities at her disposal. Perhaps the cupboard under the sink would do for—
A clatter and hiss. “Blast and gillyweed—”
Hermione only knew one person who swore so endearingly—no, sorry, stupidly—when he was drunk. And he must have been, because she heard him stumbling in a way that could not have been entirely attributable to the gyroscopic orientation of their surroundings.
Rage brimming at the corners of her vision, she called out the bathroom door: “Theodore Nott, I swear to Merlin, you had better not be in my bedroom right now!”
There was a pause, and then several additional loud thuds. He made a sound of mild pain.
“Drat and batwings—Granger, why is everything floating?”
Hermione sighed in both relief and exasperation, dropping her head into her wand hand. How in the name of Morgana had he even been able to get on the ship? He couldn’t possibly have Apparated, could he? That was hundreds of miles, and they were in the middle of the ocean.
Before she could ask that very question, the door to the bathroom swung open, and Hermione immediately began shooting off hexes. Shock crossed his features, but even inebriated, Nott was the best duelist she knew outside of the Auror department. She fucking hated that about him.
“What—” he threw up another shield as the last one dissolved, “Granger! I thought you recognised me! It’s me, Theodore!”
Theodore? She had never once called him that. Nevertheless, “I know, Nott. Why do you think I’m throwing hexes?” she seethed.
“Well—stop!”
She did not. This went on for several minutes. Eventually, he feinted, and she was taken in by it; ridiculously, she thought his lack of sobriety was finally making him sloppy. When a light stinging hex at last landed on his hip, she thought she’d won and that he’d retreat out the door. Instead, he took her brief pause to prematurely celebrate victory to whisper a swift Accio. Her wand left her fingers with a swoosh.
Hermione gasped and nearly made to follow after it. She barely caught herself from climbing out of the tub. That bastard. Even angrier than before, she sank back into the water and scowled. She’d just have to rely on her firmest, most cowing voice to deal with him.
“Nott, you had better think long and hard about this little prank and what it might cost you. I’m not sure if you were planning to ever have children—”
He leaned against the counter and twirled her wand between deft fingers. Nott tossed her a lazy smirk as he replied, “That depends. Are you?”
Ugh. Again, with the flirting. Today of all days, honestly?
“Nott, get out.”
He gestured a bit helplessly. “Actually, I wanted to mention that. Did you know that you’ve been locked into your cabin?”
God help me. Hermione took a deep breath, but it did nothing to calm her frustration. “Yes, I am aware. What the hell are you even doing here?”
Nott steadied himself as the ground seemed to lurch. “I came to ask you about your breakup with Ron. Congratulations, by the way.” She was going to murder him. “Also, why is the ground doing this wobbly thing? I can’t possibly be that pissed.”
He absolutely could, but that was beside the point. “We’re caught in a tropical storm. In the middle of the North Atlantic. And I’m naked in the tub. So, perhaps you could kindly—”
He cut her off with a grin and a whistle. “Yes, I did notice that.” The look she gave him must have been even more incensed than she thought, because he immediately rushed to add, “That’s not why I came in here, I promise. I just wanted to find you.”
“To congratulate me on the death of a years-long, committed relationship?”
He shrugged. “Well, that, and to suggest you do something about your newfound freedom. I can think of several ways we could celebrate—”
“Apparate out this instant!” she shrieked.
He had the audacity to be appalled.
“Granger, you can’t be serious. I’m tipsy,” (understatement), “and we are in the middle of a tropical storm, hundreds of miles from the shore. If I try to Apparate now, I may just splinch myself in half.”
She splashed her hands about, at a loss. “Then do it! Have St. Mungo’s grow back the bits you leave behind, but get out of my bathroom!”
The ever-present amiable quality to Nott’s face seemed to dim into the ghost of hurt.
“You don’t really hate me that much, do you?”
Hermione blinked. “I don’t—I don’t hate you, Nott, I’m just—” I’m just in the bath, naked, and you’re here without invitation, this is a complete surprise, I don’t want to discuss my breakup with Ron, and, as you can see, my response here is perfectly reasonable. This is what she intended to say. What came out, instead, was: “Are you wearing my shirt?” Her eyes bulged as she realised that, yes, Theo Nott was wearing her button-up.
Hermione wore men’s oxfords to work some days. It was comfortable. This had not been one of those days. She had worn an airy, fluid burgundy women’s button-up that Pansy had procured for her from some witch fashion house. And now it was hanging off of Theo Nott’s svelte, defined torso—the sleeves rolled up over his elbows, the buttons undone down to the center of his chest. He was wearing her shirt. And he looked like an androgynous Greek god.
That little tugging in her navel that made itself known whenever Nott did or said something particularly…idiotic? Yes. That was the safest way to frame it. Well, that tugging was currently twisting her insides into a double Windsor.
If Hermione were being honest with herself (and, in this area of her life, she had tried exceedingly hard indeed to avoid doing that very thing,) she’d admit that seeing her clothing on Theo Nott made her throat tight. In the best way possible. Oh, Hell, what gives? She had never been possessive with Ron, and yet, here she was. Seeing him wrapped in her clothing, as if he were hers. Knowing it would smell like him and his clove cigarettes, that when he took it off and she put it back on, she would smell like him.
Dear God, when did she suddenly get this absurdly primal?
“How did you get here?” she rasped out. Upon noticing the bubbles above her bits were beginning to float away, she frantically shoved them back into the tub.
He watched her with a raised eyebrow, but didn’t comment on her attempt at propriety, thankfully. Instead, he ignored her question entirely in favor of picking up the spare copy of her mermaid relations memo sitting on the vanity. He held both their wands in his mouth for a moment, then slipped them into a pocket and buttoned it up. To her complete bafflement, he then reached back into his Muggle trousers (she refused to think about what she thought of the cut of them on him), pulled out an honest-to-Merlin Muggle red pen, and went to work marking the paper up.
The urge to get out of the bath and stop him redoubled. “Just what do you think you’re doing!?”
“Editing,” he replied airily.
“There is no need to edit because I already edited it myself.” The dare was implicit: Go ahead. Say I did a lousy job.
“You may have, but you also don’t speak Merpeople. And whoever wrote those portions was borderline illiterate.”
Hermione was stunned. “You speak their language?”
His glazed-over eyes remained glued to the page, “Better than this translator you hired, that’s for damn sure.”
She knew she ought not to ask. It was asking for trouble. She’d never be able to unhear it. Nott speaking other languages always did things to her. And it wouldn’t do her any good.
Still.
She couldn’t help herself.
“Could I hear something in it, then?”
Nott lowered the paper. A long moment passed where the room tilted and righted itself in the storm, and Nott gave her a strange look of consideration. “Well,” he said, a smile tugging at his lips, “it won’t sound quite the same above water.”
“Oh,” she said, more disappointed than she would care to admit.
“That wasn’t a no,” he continued slowly. A line formed between her eyebrows as she tried to parse out what he was getting at. Then he glanced meaningfully at Hermione’s bath.
Hermione already felt the scorn clawing up her throat when she saw Nott fetch her wand from out of his pocket. He tossed it to her, and she caught it easily.
“You could transfigure something into a swimming costume. I’d hop in, and I could teach you a few phrases underwater.” Oh. Not just a half-arsed come-on, then.
Still, her mind chanted out a warning: Bad idea. Bad idea. Bad idea.
“Alright.” Fuck. Fuck my brain, fuck my libido, fuck it all. Fuck Nott—no, no, not that.
He seemed genuinely surprised. She couldn’t blame him; she was surprised. Gryffindor she may have been, but she hadn’t felt this reckless since she was seventeen, and that had been when recklessness was a necessity for survival.
Hermione glanced around for something to transfigure, only to find her burgundy shirt abruptly floating in the bubbles in front of her. Above her and not a foot away, Nott was standing there, shirtless and staring at the wall as if to preserve her modesty. Quickly focusing on transfiguring the shirt into a one-piece to avoid looking at his torso, she found herself asking, “Why, exactly, are you shirtless?”
He shifted from foot to foot and caught himself on the wall as the ground slowly migrated underneath him. She noticed he seemed reluctant to answer. “I didn’t exactly intend to get here and was unprepared for the journey.” Hermione narrowed her eyes, but before she could follow up with another question, he was stripping off his trousers.
Self-preservation required her to sink her head underwater. She quickly spelled the swimming costume on. Resurfacing, she wiped the bubbles and flower petals off her face only to find Nott –in nothing but black boxer briefs—looking at her hair with a small, secret smile.
“What?” she snapped. If he made a comment about her rat’s nest of hair, so help her—
“There are flower petals in your curls,” he murmured as he settled himself on the lip of the tub. To her increasing consternation, he reached out to fish several out. He must have been even drunker than she thought because he let his hand linger there, and she watched him as he watched her. There was a seriousness in him that she was unused to, a calm determination in his gaze. His eyes seemed to map her features, trailing over her jaw, across her lips, her curls. He tugged at a curl, ran a thumb over her cheekbone so softly that her hair stood on end. Stared at her lips so long she stopped breathing.
The spell was broken when he seemed to realise he was touching her with his left hand, and that his Dark Mark was at her eye-level.
Abruptly, he pulled his hand back and grinned. “Into the tub, then?” Hermione sucked in air, dazed. She’d been entranced.
Before she could reply, he was stepping into the water. Aware now of some undisclosed danger in having him this close, she curled herself into the other side. Nott grinned at her and stretched out his legs, hitting her thigh with one calf. It was getting harder and harder to act annoyed with him. This was not to say that she didn’t find him annoying, but Hermione’s aggravation with Nott had always been tied up in other, more complicated emotions. Emotions she didn’t like to put a name to.
As much as she didn’t want to confront those feelings, there was a stabbing sensation inside her at the thought that Nott would hide his arm from her then hastily try to move things along. He lived with this shame she hadn’t known he carried. It explained why he kept his shirt on in her flat; when she’d come over to visit any of the other Slytherins, he’d always be shirtless until he noticed she was in the room.
“I thought we didn’t do that,” she found herself saying.
He titled his head at her, perplexed. It reminded her of a dog with its ears up. “Do what, Cariad?” That was his nickname for her and her alone, and Hermione wasn’t sure she could take it right that moment. Don’t call me pet names in Welsh. I refuse to be distracted. You know hearing you speak Welsh ruins me, and I have something to say.
“I don’t hide my arm from you, Nott.” It was true. He’d asked her once why she only ever wore long sleeves, and when she’d rolled up one sleeve to show him the scar, he’d told her (forcefully, intensely) that she never need hide it from him. “You survived that bitch, and this is evidence of that. Wear it like a badge of honour.” After that conversation, she hadn’t covered it when it was just the two of them. And then, slowly, she began to show it around others. Ron had noticed and commented that it made people uncomfortable, but his opinion held less weight for her by then. Less weight than Nott’s. And Nott would look at her arm with pride whenever he caught sight of it. Now, the vast majority of her wardrobe held sleeveless tops.
Nott was quiet as he looked at her. “Mine isn’t the same, Granger. It’s nothing to be proud of. I didn’t get it fighting on the right side of a war.” Here, his grin was sloppy and sad. “In fact, I got it doing the opposite. Not fighting, and on the wrong side of the war.”
“You survived,” she countered. “Don’t tell me that’s not something to be proud of.”
Wistful, he scoffed. “Not sure if I ought to have.”
Before she realised what she was doing, she’d surged forward in the water and grabbed his arm. “Don’t you ever say that, Theodore Nott,” she hissed, dragging his arm out of the water. He watched her, his mouth dry. “You did the best you could. I know you helped protect the children at Hogwarts while you were there. I know you refused to kill anyone.”
“There is more than one Unforgiveable, Granger,” he reminded her quietly.
She shook her head vehemently. “If you can’t forgive yourself, I can’t make you, Nott. But, if it’s my forgiveness you’re looking for, then you have it. You’ve always had it. So, don’t you dare hide from me. Don’t you ever fucking hide from me.”
It was a strange standoff, Hermione Granger sitting in a bubblebath across from Theodore Nott, the hand of her scarred arm declaring “mudblood” fastened to the wrist of the tattoo that marked him as a tyrant’s property. He was silent, and she was breathing too fast.
Eventually, she blinked rapidly, loosening her grip on his wrist. Before she pulled away, he slipped his hand into hers and squeezed it lightly, making eye contact. Something significant passed between them, but Hermione couldn’t put it into words. When she let go and returned to her side of the tub, she was relieved to see him lay his left arm on the tub rim—forearm up.
Several long moments passed in which it neither spoke.
“Did you know that for a storm in the ocean to be categorised as a hurricane—which we appear to be stuck in—the winds have to be going at a specific speed?”
Hermione raised an eyebrow at the non sequitur. “I assumed that would be the case.”
“Do you know what that speed is?”
If there was anything Hermione Granger hated, it was not knowing something. Much as she was loath to let him know he possessed knowledge that she did not, she wasn’t not going to ask. “No, I do not,” she said primly.
“48 knots.” He raised both eyebrows, all Cheshire Cat. “You know,” he gestured to the window high above the tub, with a view that looked like the inside of a washing machine. “Knots?” Then, he gestured to himself. “Notts?” There was no use; Hermione burst into laughter. He looked inordinately pleased with himself.
“Alright,” she snorted, “That’s enough with the puns. You promised me some Mermish.”
Nodding, he picked up his wand from the side of the tub and cast two charms with which she was unfamiliar. “What—” She was cut off as he tugged her under the water by her ankle.
She started to splutter, certain she’d have water up her nose. That was not the case. It wasn’t as if she were breathing underwater; it was more like she didn’t need air at all. Surprisingly, this wasn’t uncomfortable. She stayed under the water, facing the ceiling, watching the bubbles and flower petals floating above her like clouds in a sky. Beside her, she felt Nott crawl up so that he was floating at her side under the water, pressed against her from hip to shoulder. She glanced over at him.
His dark hair curled like smoke in the water. His hazel eyes, spliced with yellow, were wide open and that much more vivid with the way the candlelight filtered through from above. Caustics passed over his skin, lace patterns of blue and amber light.
It was dangerous. It was quiet, intimate. The hurricane outside wasn’t something they could hear, but the sense that one was in a storm was a human instinct. That pervasive overshadowing of mortal danger just outside the window, paired with the candlelight, the silence under the water, the knowledge that they were both stripped down to their smalls, nearly bare, and having Nott close enough to feel his warmth—to see his pulse at his throat—created a storm of its own inside Hermione.
This was wrong. She had been with Ron for so long. The idea that she could be feeling this already, so soon after the end of it…
And yet this felt right. There was a gentle certainty, as if something in her had finally found its designated space.
“This feels like stargazing,” she whispered underwater. The sound was lost, but he watched her lips, and when he smiled, she knew he understood her.
He tapped at his throat, then, and began to growl low. A sharp musical yelp, reminiscent of kulning, followed. Coming from anyone else, she might have laughed. From Nott, though, she had no such compulsion. The sound was mostly swallowed by the water, but what filtered through was ethereal in quality. And, as Hermione had expected, beautiful. She wanted to close her eyes and listen to Theo Nott speaking the language of mermaids until she drifted away. It wasn’t until he gestured at her throat with an eyebrow raised that she realised he wanted her to replicate the sound.
That was going to be embarrassing. She shook her head vigorously, aware that she was blushing and not much caring. People seeing her fail was one of her worst fears, but the sheer thought of Nott seeing her fail…well, that was somehow infinitely worse.
He wasn’t having it. As he laughed, big, clear bubbles floated from his mouth to the surface. He leaned over her (such as “leaning” was in water) and ran a thumb from just under her chin to the hollow of her throat. With his lips, he mouthed the word, “Growl.”
Hermione should not have liked being instructed—no, ordered—by him. But she did. Oh, she did.
She obeyed, and he pressed his thumb against her skin with just enough pressure that the sound was rougher than it might have been otherwise. He smiled, shaking his head a little at how weak the sound came out. It hardly traveled under the water. Pulling up, he hooked his arm under her waist to bring them both to the surface.
Once their heads were above water, Hermione realised how close they were. His arm was banded around her back—his Dark Mark pressed against her bare skin. She found she didn’t much care. Breath was back, and so was his. Heady with firewhiskey, it drifted hot across her face. Instantly, she felt dizzy, and she doubted it was from the scent of alcohol.
“I was trying to teach you to say a formal greeting. Women and men say something different; the verb involved declines differently based on gender.”
Fuck, he was describing linguistics. Hermione was going to die.
“Did I say it right?” she asked, knowing the answer.
He chuckled lowly, and the sound traveled down her spine. “No. It was total gibberish. You have to start at about a low C and travel up to an E. You were flat.”
Mermish was musical? “Hold on, how can you tell?”
“I have perfect pitch,” he said without arrogance, shrugging.
“…can you try to teach me again?” When did they start whispering?
He nodded. “Let’s try a slightly different version. It means something similar, more like, ‘How do you do?’ It requires higher notes, which might be easier on you. Round your lips like you’re going to blow all the air out of your lungs. I’m going to need you to start an octave above this note—” and here, he hummed. His tone was deep and molten chocolate. God, she wanted him to sing for her. “—and then just throw the sound upward. Try to land an octave above here—” Again, he hummed. He repeated the two notes together, dragging them into a slide, creating a haunting sound that straddled the line between music and the eerie howl of wind.
He didn’t ask if she understood. She was enraptured, unable to respond, and maybe he knew it.
With that, he lowered her into the water. For a long moment, however, he just stared down at her. The bubbles had almost all dissipated, leaving the surface clear. Half-nude, he leaned over her, his hair dripping in relaxed twists; the water made his silken hair nearly black. His eyelashes glittered. Hermione followed the path of a droplet as it slid over his collarbone and down the center of his chest, through a thin patch of dark hair. Muscles, skin, shining and tense. Something beyond sexual wrapped itself around her throat. She wanted him, yes. She could finally admit that. But she didn’t just want him, she wanted him. The emphasis, the need was different. It wasn’t about the wanting; it was about the man.
After he’d had his fill of staring at her—she wondered what he saw?—he followed her back into the water. Laying next to her again, he stared into her eyes. She looked back. And then, he mouthed: “Keen.”
Holy Hell.
She swallowed hard, but his eyes remained steady and demanding. If there were air down there, she’d have been gulping it down. As it was, her heart was going too fast.
Steadying herself, Hermione closed her eyes. Unbidden, she thought of how she might sound if it were for him—if it were his doing, and not just because they were floating underwater during a hurricane, struggling to replicate Mermish.
The sound came out just as she imagined it would were she keening for Theodore Nott. It traveled perfectly through the water, lilting and musical, suggestive though it might have been.
When she opened her eyes, the look on his face was more than dark. It was desperate, and it was…yearning.
He answered her with a low, long note of vibrato, followed by a gentle trill, and an even deeper howl from his chest. Preternatural, the call echoed through the water like some ancient battle cry.
The tub wasn’t large enough for this sound. The Black Lake wouldn’t have been large enough for this sound. She wanted to hear it again, in the ocean. In the endless depth, surrounded by nothing but the water and the baying of Theodore Nott.
Suddenly panicked by the intensity of what she was feeling, Hermione dragged herself up into the air. Water sluiced off of her, and her hair collapsed around her as the bun came undone. He followed, his face a mask of poorly-disguised fear.
“…Granger?”
“Why did you come here?” it came out in a rush.
Nott swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I meant it when I said I found out about your breakup with Ron. I—I know it must have been hard. I couldn’t understand why you shut me—shut us all out. You must be hurting.”
Hermione coughed out a hysterical laugh, her hands splashing as she gestured around her. “I’m not! I’m not hurting, and neither is Ron! It had been over for so long that it was ridiculous we even still called it a relationship!”
Something akin to hope flashed on his face, but he reigned it back in. “So, I suppose there was no need for me to come here, then?”
She scoffed. “You already said you hadn’t meant to come here.”
“Not directly, no,” he hedged. There was something he wasn’t telling her. She waited patiently. He was sheepish as he finally said, “I made portkeys for each of our friends—Blaise, Draco, Ginny, Pansy, and you. To get to you if ever there were an emergency.” Hermione’s jaw dropped.
“You—the sheer magical talent required to pull something like that off—” She stopped herself. There would be time to ask for specifics on that later.
He raised an eyebrow. “Not appalled that I’d broken the law, then?” Sighing, he continued before she had a chance to defend her law-abiding nature. “Listen, I was a bit drunk and upset when Gin told us about the breakup. I…I was upset that you hadn’t told us yourself. And…,” he paused. “Let’s just say that there were other feelings wrapped up in it. The point is, I picked up the blasted thing to gesture with it in frustration as I was bitching to the rest of the Fucking End This Nightmare Squad. That’s what brought me here.” He stopped himself and stared over her shoulder as if he were trying to work out a problem in his head. “Damn. I need to fix the intent aspect. It was only supposed to bring me here if I were worried about you.”
“You weren’t?” she asked quietly.
Again, he met her eyes. The problem-solving look faded. “You’re right. I suppose I was. I was worried about a lot of things. But, yes, I did worry that…that you were in pain.”
Hermione chewed on her lip, wondering if she ought to ask at all. “Nott—what were you bitching to our friends about?”
Guilt flashed in his face, but it was quickly replaced with hurt. “Goddamn, Hermione.” It was a hell of a way to first use her given name. She flinched back. “Please,” plaintively, “don’t be cruel,” he tacked on, softer now.
She didn’t know what to say to that, but the confusion plainly written on her face must have convinced him that being cruel was not her intent. He coughed out a disbelieving laugh.
“Fucking hell. You can’t—you really don’t know?” Speechless and anxious about whatever he was getting at, Hermione just shook her head slowly. “Hermione—” his voice was wrecked, “Hermione, I’m mad for you.”
And she couldn’t have feigned the kind of shock she felt at that admission. “No,” she replied firmly, shaking her head, “No, you aren’t.”
Now, he was really laughing. It was a despondent sort of laugh. “No,” she reiterated resolutely, pointing at the water beneath them to emphasise her point. “No, you’re just—you’re just flirtatious. You’re like that with everyone.”
“No, Hermione,” he whispered. His hand came up, and his fingers traced her lips reverently. “I may be a flirtatious man, but I’m not like that with everyone. With you—it’s always going to be different with you.”
Hermione gasped in a few breaths. Ridiculously, she felt like she might be about to cry. “I thought,” she was nearly hyperventilating, and his eyes narrowed with concern, “I thought—” She couldn’t finish her thought.
“Listen,” he murmured, coming closer to wrap his arms around her. The water kissed her skin. “I’m not asking for anything. I’m—I’m perfectly happy being friends, Hermione—”
She shook her head vigorously to clear it before gasping out, “You were killing me.”
He flinched, arms receding. His voice took on a note of offence. “I beg your pardon?”
Hermione buried her fingers in her hair, eyes darting all over his face. “I thought you were just flirtatious, and it was killing me,” his eyes widened as she gasped, “to think that I’d—that I’d—”
The room lurched violently. If anything was a bad sign that the storm had become especially harsh, it was that the magical measures the room had undergone to ensure its occupants would remain comfortable had partially failed. Nott turned to the window to glance at the water pressing against the glass.
“And Ron!” she half-shouted, ignorant of the way the furniture shook with the room. His head swiveled back to her.
“What the hell about Ron?” he snapped.
“It was still wrong,” she spoke over him, “I know the relationship was long dead, but I still wasn’t supposed to—to think that I’d fallen for someone—”
He gaped at her, certain he’d misheard. And really, there was a lot of noise, now. The room was shivering. The gyroscopic magic was failing, and the water was sloshing out of the tub. She half-fell onto him, and his arms gripped her tightly.
“Fallen for me?” he asked, sounding far away even as the majority of candles flickered out ominously. The hurricane was strong enough now that the howling of the wind filtered through the wards. The whistling grew louder. The entire room began to float, the safety charms activating to an even greater degree. With his arms around her, the two hovered half-submerged in the water, weightless, and droplets rose from the tub like dandelion seeds in Autumn.
A roaring screamed through the room—the last candle flickered out, throwing them into pitch black darkness. A glow of the moonlight through the water flashed in the ocean out the window, frothy and neon-blue intermittently blotted out by dark swells.
He held her in the water for what seemed like hours, her arms gripping him as tight as she dared, bracing themselves against the sides of the bathtub with their legs. The water had long gone cold, but Hermione was hot in every place their skin touched. In the darkness, the only thing Hermione could see were Theo’s eyes. She drank her fill of him as the ocean threatened to collapse in around them. The strange thought occurred to her that if all she had for the rest of her life were his eyes looking at her just like this, she’d never thirst or go hungry.
The roaring stopped as abruptly as it had started. The droplets rained back down, and the wizard and witch in the dark settled into the water heavily.
Perfect silence. Too perfect. Her head laid on his chest and one arm remained looped around his neck. Hermione felt his heartbeat pounding against her like it was demanding entrance. In the empty darkness, they both knew this was the eye of the storm.
“…Theo?”
It was as good a time as any to start calling him by his first name. The joy on his face, evident by the way she felt his lips curl where they rested on her forehead, let her know that it had been the right thing to say.
“Yes, Hermione?”
“What—” she cleared her throat, equally afraid of asking this question and of never hearing the answer. “What did you say? In Mermish, after I tried to say, ‘How do you do?’”
He pulled back, and though there was little to see, he looked at her long and hard. “Well,” he began slowly, “first of all, you didn’t say, ‘How do you do.’ You managed to say, ‘How do you know me?’ And you know damn well how you said it.”
“Yes,” she replied quietly, blushing, “I know. I didn’t mean to say it quite like that.”
He nodded, smirking.
She waited. When nothing else was forthcoming, she reminded herself that she was sorted into Gryffindor for a reason. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“No, I didn’t,” he said quietly, brushing the wet hair out of his face with a large hand, and his eyes left hers.
It didn’t seem that he would answer her. So, Hermione decided she owed him some honesty of her own.
“I said it that way…,” he glanced up sharply through his eyelashes as she said it, and part of her thought this was going to be a very stupid thing to admit, “because I was imagining—” She struggled with a way to phrase this. After a deep breath, she finally settled on: “If I was going to keen for you, I wanted to sound exactly as I would if I were going to keen for you.”
Ten beats of her heart went by. That might have been long or short in time, she could not tell. Her eyes were tied to Theo Nott’s, and she was imprisoned by his gaze.
“I love you.”
The ship creaked ominously, the sound of the storm moving back over the ship loud enough to be heard beyond the wards. The earth moved beneath her.
“What?” she breathed out.
“What I said in Mermish,” Theo said, tightening his arm around her waist and murmuring against her lips as the hurricane raged beyond their window, “I said, ‘I love you.’”