Ever since the night that Hermione had fallen asleep in Regulus' bed, most nights she found herself sneaking into his room just before he fell asleep, neither one wanting to admit they just slept better with somebody next to them. Hermione also took advantage of this because she assumed they would all be probably sleeping in a tent eventually while they hunted horcruxes and she couldn't exactly share a bed with Regulus in front of Harry and Ron, now could she?
As the end of the month neared closer, Regulus found himself spending more and more time with Hermione's parents, mostly Richard in particular. Hermione was letting Regulus use her wand more and more to practice simple spells, and he had charmed the regular chess set to a wizard's chess set, showing Hermione's father how much more interesting the magical version was.
"Astounding!" Richard exclaimed as his knight knocked off the head of a bishop that belonged to Regulus. "Hermione, are you seeing this?" Richard looked at his daughter, who was scribbling a letter to Ron where she sat in the armchair. She gave her father a smile, nodding her head, going back to her letter as her mother came in from the garden. "Who are you writing to?" Regulus questioned curiously as he directed his knight to move to another square, eliminating a rook.
Regulus and Hermione had pretty much attached themselves at the hip when they were awake as well. Never farther than a room apart from each other when one of them was not running errands with one of Hermione's parents. "I'm writing to Ron," Hermione informed Regulus, peering up from her letter as her mother came into the living room with a tray of freshly squeezed lemonade, setting it down on the side table and passing a glass to everybody.
"Thank you Dr. Granger," Regulus smiled, taking a few sips. "Tell Weasley I said hello," Regulus looked at Hermione once more. Hermione knew that his request sounded friendly enough to the ears of her parents, but after Regulus had snatched one of her letters the other day and saw how Ron was asking if Regulus was bothering Hermione or being any kind of a 'stupid pureblood supremacist of a git', he had immediately set the letter on fire, almost writing back to Ron an equally insulting letter. The only thing that had stopped him was realizing that his vocabulary was too extensive and the Weasley kid would never understand half the words Regulus would use to describe him and his poor attitude. Hermione enjoyed Regulus' company just fine, he knew so as he gave her a little smirk, watching her roll her eyes, but a small smile played at her lips.
Regulus watched her for a moment longer, Hermione unaware of his eyes on her as her smile faded and the same concerned look she wore on her face when she thought nobody was watching returned. Was she arguing with Ron in her letters back and forth to him? If he was causing her any grief, Regulus was certainly going to deck him the second he saw him, maybe he would steal Hermione's wand and hex the absolute knob, give him a pig nose or something-since he acted like an absolute swine.
He chuckled to himself, thinking about the time he heard Severus call James Potter that. Harry seemed so different than his father... and Severus had clearly turned out exactly how Regulus had expected.
Other than the sounds of Regulus and Richard directing their chess pieces, a comfortable silence hung in the room, and it wasn't until Hermione had returned from upstairs-owling her letter off, did Richard win (read as: Regulus letting him win) his first ever game of wizard's chess.
"Amazing!" Richard exclaimed as Regulus scooted all the broken pieces back on the board and they magically fixed and reset themselves. "Great game, Reg, great game, even though I bested you in the end there," Richard grinned, clapping Regulus on the shoulder as he got up from his chair at the table.
"Hermione, do you want to go for a walk?" Regulus questioned, looking over at Hermione, surprised to find her already watching him.
"Yes, and then you can tell me all about how my father bested you at chess," she teased, grabbing both of their empty lemonade glasses to bring them in the kitchen and put them in the sink.
YOU ARE READING
Between Fine Lines
Fanfiction"The world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters. We've all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That's who we really are." --- Harry returns from the cave with Dumbledore, except this time they co...
