Chapter Text
The air inside Rosier Manor was thick with the scent of polished wood, burning candle wax, and something sharper—like the lingering echoes of dark magic woven into the very walls. Hermione Rosier had grown up surrounded by that scent, had learned to recognize the undercurrent of power in every corner of the estate, though she never quite belonged to it the way the rest of her family did.
She was only six when she first overheard whispers of her fate. The drawing room, dimly lit with floating candle sconces, held a cluster of aristocratic figures cloaked in black. Her uncle, Leopold Rosier, a man with cold, steel-gray eyes, spoke in hushed but firm tones.
“The contract must be honored. The Notts are expecting a Rosier daughter, and we will deliver.”
Her mother, Genevieve Rosier, gave a slow nod, her delicate fingers wrapped around a crystal goblet filled with deep red wine. “She is young, but so is he. They will grow into it.”
Hermione knew enough to remain silent, hidden just beyond the heavy oak doors. Her father, Evan Rosier, had died in the war before she could form any true memories of him, and her upbringing had been strictly dictated by those who remained. She was not a person to them; she was a name, a legacy, a duty. And now, apparently, a bride.
She did not yet know Theodore Nott. But his name became a ghost, lingering in the edges of her world, binding her before she even understood what betrothal truly meant.
Her first meeting with Theodore was arranged before her seventh birthday, a formal introduction between two children who were meant to shape the future of their bloodlines. She had expected something grand—a boy who stood tall with the same haughty grace as her cousins, someone who would greet her with cool arrogance and well-rehearsed pleasantries.
What she found instead was a pale, hollow-eyed child who barely spoke a word.
Nott Manor was different from her home in ways that unsettled her. The Rosiers had wealth, but the Notts had something else—a suffocating sort of power that clung to the air, thick and oppressive. The moment she stepped inside, Hermione felt as though the walls themselves were watching her.
Theodore sat in a high-backed chair across from her in the sitting room, his small hands folded neatly in his lap, his gaze cast downward. His dark brown hair was slightly overgrown, falling into his eyes, and when she sat across from him, he did not meet her stare.
“Hello,” she said, her voice light but uncertain.
He flinched at the sound.
Lord Nott stood behind his son, a towering figure with a presence that sent ice crawling through Hermione’s veins. His voice was smooth but unyielding. “Theo, greet your betrothed.”
The boy obeyed, though not as confidently as expected. “Hello,” he murmured, voice barely above a whisper.
Hermione tilted her head. “You don’t talk much, do you?”
A flicker of something passed over his face, though he quickly smothered it. “No.”
“Why not?”
Lord Nott’s fingers twitched at his side, and Theo tensed almost imperceptibly. Hermione didn’t understand it then, but later, she would realize that the stiffness in his posture, the way his hands curled ever so slightly, was fear.
“It isn’t his place to speak unless spoken to,” Lord Nott answered for him. His voice held the weight of finality.
Hermione didn’t like that. It was an instinct, something in her blood, a quiet rebellion against the chains of pureblood expectation. Her family spoke often of control, of obedience, of duty, but they had never silenced her in quite the way Lord Nott silenced his son.
So, she did something reckless.
She reached forward and took Theo’s hand.
It was small and cold in hers, and for the first time, his wide blue eyes flickered up to meet hers in genuine surprise. She smiled—not the polite, calculated smile she was taught to perfect, but a real one.
“You can talk to me if you want,” she whispered, as though sharing a secret.
The world did not shatter. Lord Nott did not strike her down for speaking out of turn. But she felt the shift all the same.
Theo’s fingers tightened around hers just a fraction, holding on like she was something precious.
By the time they left Nott Manor that evening, Hermione had learned two things.
The first was that Theodore Nott was afraid of his father.
The second was that, for reasons she did not yet understand, he had already decided she belonged to him.