Work Text:
Submitted for The Houses Competition Forum - Round 7
House: Ravenclaw
Subject: Potions
Category: Standard
Prompts: (Dialogue) “Maybe I’d think that, too, Name, if it weren’t for the baby.” (Romantic Pairing) Theo/Hermione
WC: 2750/3000
Warnings: a couple of swears
Blaise Zabini was not a man prone to panic.
He was known for his smooth charm, his tailored robes, and his complete inability to care about anything that didn’t concern his hair or whether the wine was a year too young.
Which is why it was so unfortunate that he, of all people, was the one who panicked.
It all started at brunch.
The very cursed, eggs-Benedict-flinging, no-good, very bad brunch at the Ministry's annual War Heroes & Peacekeepers Reunion.
Theo had arrived with Hermione. This was not new. After an amicable breakup with Weasley, she had been promoted to the DMLE and had been working with Theo on some ‘Magical Ethics & Beasts Legislation’ project (which sounded suspiciously like a very nerdy euphemism for “we stare longingly at each other over parchment”), and ever since, they had become… concerningly cozy.
They sat next to each other. They whispered. They shared scones.
So naturally, when Lavender leaned over and whispered, “I mean, if I didn’t know better, I’d say those two were dating,” Blaise should have just chuckled, sipped his mimosa, and said, “Don’t be absurd.”
But he didn’t.
Because at that exact moment, his mind short-circuited with horrifying clarity.
He was yanked, unwillingly, into a vivid series of memories—each more embarrassing than the last—of Theo trying to romantically woo a finally single Hermione Granger with the subtlety of a Flobberworm on fire.
There had been the time Theo spent four hours writing margin notes in Hermione’s policy draft on Magical Creature Relocation, where he had added a weirdly tender compliment to every legal amendment.
‘ Excellent clause structure here. Also, your logic is devastatingly elegant. Like your eyebrows.’
And that one Wednesday— oh Merlin, the Wednesday —Theo had staged a “casual” book drop at Hermione’s desk. Except it wasn’t casual. It was a 600-page arithmancy volume with a note stuck to the front that read, ‘In case you’re looking for light weekend reading. See page 432, footnote 7. Also, I think your laugh is statistically the best in the Ministry.’
He had even underlined it. In fuchsia. With hearts. Blaise hadn’t even known a colour like that could exist.
And then, Theo’s proud announcement one night in Blaise’s flat, said with the confidence of a man unveiling a battle plan and the complete cluelessness of a man who had never asked anyone on a real date, “I’ve compiled a list called What Hermione Might Enjoy (Based on Empirical Evidence). Item three is 'discussing prison reform over Thai food.’”
Blaise had replied, weakly, “Do you… want her to think you're proposing marriage or taking her hostage?”
But Theo had just nodded solemnly. “I want to respect her passions.”
And now here was Lavender Brown, questioning whether any of it had worked, and Blaise, who had suffered through the charts and the hypothetical date menus and the monologues about her hair texture, panicked.
He couldn’t let Theo’s nerdy little campaign of love be dismissed as “work friends.”
He couldn’t let people think Theo had failed.
So instead of laughing it off like a normal person, he choked on his mimosa, flailed like a squid out of water, and blurted:
“Maybe I’d think that, too, Lavender, if it weren’t for the baby.”
Silence.
And then, chaos.
He tried damage control.
Sort of.
Step one was to laugh it off. Pass it off as a joke. Classic Blaise.
Unfortunately, the crowd at Table 3 had the same energy as a gossip-starved coven on a full moon.
Pansy had already clutched her chest and gasped, “But she’s glowing! Oh my Merlin. The Hermione Granger Pregnancy Glow . She’s making pregnancy look efficient.”
Neville, blinking at her across the table, muttered, “That’s… not a thing, is it?”
“Oh, it’s definitely a thing,” Lavender chimed in. “I read about it in Witch Weekly. Clear skin, serene aura, terrifying productivity…It’s all there.”
Seamus leaned in and whispered, “If anyone's gonna manage pregnancy and rewrite goblin legislation in one trimester, it's her.” He turned to Blaise, eyes narrowed. “So... How far along?”
And that was where Blaise could’ve fixed everything. He could’ve told them they’d misunderstood. That he’d been joking. That he’d been drunk.
Instead, Lavender gasped and asked, “Wait. So… you knew ? From the beginning?”
And Blaise, with all the self-preservation instincts of a drunk Kneazle on ice, nodded.
“Of course I knew,” he said, too quickly. “I—I helped them get together.”
“YOU WHAT?” Pansy shrieked. “You absolute shite goblin. You never said a word!”
“I was being discreet!” Blaise snapped, then winced. “It was supposed to be their news to share, obviously.”
And then he didn’t know how it happened, but it all began to spiral. He was two lies in. It was too late for dignity. Or logic.
So he leaned back, summoned a dramatic sigh, and let the story flow.
“Well, obviously, Theo’s been in love with her for ages,” Blaise began, voice low and solemn like he was narrating a tragic love ballad. “Ever since that summit in Prague—”
“There was a summit in Prague?” asked Neville, blinking.
“There was something in Prague.” Blaise waved dismissively. “Anyway, he comes back to our flat, all glassy-eyed and hopeless, and says, ‘She corrected my footnote on dragon jurisdiction and I think I saw the face of God.’”
“Oh that’s so Theo,” Pansy said dreamily.
Lavender clutched her heart. “He fell for her over academic feedback?”
“He said it was the most elegant red ink he’d ever seen,” Blaise deadpanned. “He kept the page. Framed it.”
It wasn’t a lie.
There was a collective swoon from three witches at the table.
“And then what?” Seamus demanded.
“Then,” Blaise said, pointing his butter knife for emphasis, “he started leaving her books. Annotated. Nothing obvious—just light suggestions. You know. Arithmantic Theory for Charmcasters. The Poetry of Magical Law. That kind of thing.”
“You mean he courted her through research material?” said Lavender, hands pressed to her cheeks.
Again, not a lie.
“Oh no, it gets worse,” Blaise groaned. “He wrote a list. What Hermione Might Enjoy. It had subheadings. Colour-coded.”
Pansy squealed. “That’s horrifyingly adorable.”
Nauseautingly so. Again, it wasn’t a lie.
“And then,” Blaise said, clearly losing the plot now, “when he finally decided to confess, I—being the loyal friend that I am—offered him use of my Italian villa for the proposal.”
There was a pause.
“You don’t have a villa,” Neville said slowly.
Blaise met his eyes and said, with complete sincerity, “Not in this dimension.”
No one questioned it.
“And she said yes ?” Ginny asked, having just arrived with Harry and already halfway into the story.
“Of course she did!” Blaise cried. “How could she not? He cooked for her, Weasley. He made basilisk-safe bouillabaisse by hand. He wore a proper shirt. Tucked in and everything.”
Harry blinked owlishly. “I’ve never seen Nott in anything without ink stains.”
“Exactly,” Blaise said. He didn’t even know if Theo owned anything without ink stains on it or if he knew how to cook anything besides those crappy Muggle noodles he binged on while working late nights. Still, he was in too deep now, so he went on, “He made sacrifices. He bled for this love.”
“Obviously,” Pansy whispered, misty-eyed.
“And then, well,” Blaise said with a shrug, “things progressed. They’re very private, you know. Didn’t want to overshadow anyone else’s love life.”
“Oh, how thoughtful,” said Parvati, elbowing Seamus.
“And of course,” Blaise added with the nonchalance of a man jumping off a cliff, “they found out a month later she was expecting.”
“Really?” the group asked in a hushed whisper, leaning toward Blaise with eyes filled with wonder and awe.
“They’re having… twins.”
The table exploded in gasps.
“Twins!” Pansy shrieked, clutching at Hannah Abbott. “She’s carrying twins and still organized the International Magical Law Symposium?”
“She’s built different,” Seamus whispered, reverently.
“Frankly, it’s inspiring.” Padma was already reaching for her notebook. “I’m going to start planning my life better.”
Dean piped in with a curious, “Names?”
“Er—Genelia and Harold the Mighty,” Blaise replied too fast.
“Hermione let that happen?” Neville asked, squinting.
“Of course not. She vetoed Harold the Mighty,” Blaise said, scandalized. “They’re going with something more... Latin-rooted. Very literary.”
Ginny turned to Harry with a grin so wide that it looked creepy enough for Blaise to shift on his seat.
“I knew it,” she cackled. “Remember the Wand Rights Gala? He touched her back for like three seconds!”
Harry frowned. “That means nothing.”
“You touched my back once and we got married.”
“…Okay, fair.”
Hermione wasn’t sure when she’d started noticing the way Theo Nott listened.
Theo didn’t just nod along; he absorbed things. He tilted his head, eyes steady and thoughtful, and asked questions that made her heart flutter in alarming, wholly inconvenient ways. And when he leaned in now, murmuring lowly, “You know, I think your clause on wand-sharing rights might actually appease the northern clans,” her brain stuttered to a halt.
She blinked. “You read the footnotes?”
Theo smiled, sheepish. “Don’t sound so surprised. I love your footnotes.”
She stared at him. His hair was doing that soft flop again, like he’d tried to brush it back and it had rebelliously fallen into his eyes anyway. His robes were rumpled in a way that said he’d forgotten to care. And his eyes— Merlin, his eyes —were sharp, amused, and unmistakably earnest.
“I—thank you,” she said, a bit too breathlessly. “Most people skip them.”
“They’re the best part. Like secret little arguments in parentheses.”
Hermione laughed, surprised by the warmth in her own chest. “I always thought so.”
Their gazes caught. Locked. Hovered in that strange, magical space just before something ‘maybe’ happens. Her stomach did a somersault. He was intelligent. And awkward. And thoughtful. And a little too tall when he leaned close like that, elbow brushing hers like it was an accident.
Behind him, across the gala floor, she could vaguely see Blaise Zabini gesturing wildly at Table 3, speaking animatedly to a group of attendees. She made a mental note to ask him what that was about—he’d probably found a new conspiracy about Ministry gala funding—but right now, Theo was smiling at her like she’d just invented magic itself.
Before she could respond, the announcer tapped their wand against the microphone, calling for attention.
“Oh,” Hermione said, “they want me to speak.”
She stood, still flushed with affection and clauses and Theo’s elbow, and began walking toward the stage, only for Blaise to hurtle across the room like he’d been launched straight from a cannon.
“WAIT! WAIT!” he shouted, knocking over a water jug and a very startled child.
Hermione halted mid-step. “Blaise? Are you—have you been drinking?”
He stammered, “Me? No! Just… look at this crowd! So emotional! Maybe I should speak instead. On your behalf. About the twins—THE T-TWINS OF LEGISLATIVE BRILLIANCE, I mean! Y-You and Theo, two minds becoming one. What a beautiful metaphor!”
Hermione narrowed her eyes. “What metaphor?”
Theo, who had jogged up beside her, frowned. “Have you been possessed?”
Blaise let out a short, manic laugh and clapped both of them on the shoulders.
“You know what? Sit down. Have some tea. The last thing you two need is stress. Not in your condition.”
Hermione froze. “What… condition?”
“Your, um, political condition. You know. Heated negotiations. Don’t want to spike the blood pressure.”
Theo stared. “That’s not how blood pressure works.”
Before either of them could reply, Pansy appeared like glittering chaos incarnate, flinging confetti and declaring to the heavens with a beaming smile, “LET US TOAST THE MOTHER-TO-BE!”
Everyone hooted and clapped, the noise swelling around Hermione like a sudden, overwhelming tide.
Hermione froze, her breath caught in her throat. For a moment, all she could hear was the pounding of her own heart, rapid, stunned, and utterly bewildered. Mother-to-be? The words echoed in her mind like a spell gone wrong, a phrase meant for someone else, somewhere else. Her cheeks flamed with a confusing mix of panic and disbelief. She wanted to say something. Clarify. Deny. But the crowd’s expectant eyes bore down on her, and the room seemed to close in.
Theo blinked three times beside her, equally stunned but quicker to blink away the absurdity. Hermione glanced at him, searching for any sign that he’d protest, but his eyes were wide, almost helpless.
“Blaise,” she said slowly, voice dripping with doom, “why is Pansy throwing baby glitter at me?”
Blaise blinked, looking genuinely perplexed. “Well… you know Pansy. It’s hard to tell if she’s celebrating a baby or starting a new kind of magical pest control.”
Hermione narrowed her eyes. “Are people toasting to my uterus ?”
Blaise cleared his throat loudly. “Er… just a smidge.”
Hermione cried out, “What?”
Blaise shrugged helplessly. “There’s definitely champagne involved.”
Ten minutes and a lot of glaring later, Theo and Hermione had cornered Blaise behind a conveniently large potted ficus.
“You told them we’re expecting twins?” Hermione hissed.
“I panicked!” Blaise whispered. “Lavender said something and I meant to shut it down but instead I said the thing that started it and now you’re pregnant.”
“I am NOT pregnant!”
“I know that now, obviously.”
Theo rubbed his temples. “And the villa?”
“I panicked again!”
“You don’t even speak Italian!”
“I’m very mysterious.”
Hermione folded her arms. “Fix it.”
“How?” Blaise asked, desperate.
Theo shrugged. “Fake a breakup?”
Blaise gasped, scandalized. “Kill the fake babies? Are you mad?”
“They don’t exist.”
“You can’t unbirth twins that easily, Theo. It’s suspicious!”
“You invented them.”
Blaise groaned dramatically. “We’re in too deep. Rita Skeeter cornered me next to the oysters. She’s running a full piece called The Lion and the Snake: Forbidden Love and Forbidden Babies.”
Hermione stared at him, her mind drifting away from the disaster and into a very different kind of chaos.
She thought of Crookshanks, sitting patiently on her desk through countless late nights, enduring her very serious and very detailed “emotional presentations.”
There had been the one where Hermione laid out the complex gradient of her feelings for Theo using carefully colour-coded charts and hand-drawn diagrams. It was titled, ‘Analysis of Theo Nott’s Charm Index: From Mildly Intriguing to Heart-Throbbingly Endearing.’
Crookshanks had blinked twice and then tried to paw at the coloured sticky notes.
Then there was the PowerPoint she’d made, complete with pie charts and a surprisingly catchy theme song, called ‘Why Nott’s Quirks Are Scientifically Delightful and Potentially Date-Worthy.’ It included a slide dedicated solely to his habit of brushing his hair back only for it to flop right back down.
Hermione chuckled quietly to herself, imagining the smug look on Blaise’s face if he knew about those.
Well, it’s time to prepare another presentation. This one exclusively about our upcoming dates. Maybe I’ll call it “Operation: Fake-Dating but Actually Not.” It’ll have slides on potential locations, appropriate conversational topics, and how to avoid turning every outing into a debate about wand tax reform.
She blinked, folding her arms again and fixing Blaise with a look sharp enough to cut through enchanted steel.
“Alright then,” she said firmly, “we’re going to have to pretend to be in a relationship now.”
Theo blinked. “What?”
“You started this, Zabini. Now fix it by helping us fake-date until the gossip dies down.”
Blaise blinked back, clearly overwhelmed. “So I accidentally got you two together for real?”
Theo gave him a long look. “Maybe I’d think that too, Blaise… if it weren’t for the baby.”
With a smirk, Theo slung an arm around Hermione, startling her just enough to make her pulse quicken, but she didn’t pull away.
They walked off together, already beginning to bicker quietly about whether the Ministry should allow enchanted date invitations.
Theo’s hand brushed lightly against hers. Once. Then again. The third time, she hesitated just long enough for his pinky to curl uncertainly around hers.
It was awkward. So awkward. Like two highly literate penguins attempting affection in public.
But neither of them pulled away.
Instead, their fingers fumbled for a moment; Theo’s knuckles knocked into hers, Hermione accidentally caught his thumb. And then, somehow, they managed to link hands like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Hermione glanced at him sideways. He was still arguing his point, something about freedom of magical expression, but his voice had gone oddly soft.
And as they strolled back into the party with confetti in her hair and a fake pregnancy rumour between them, Hermione found herself smiling.
Maybe… Just maybe this was already working out better than any chart she could’ve drawn.