Between Fine Lines

Twenty-six

The shouting match between Sirius, Regulus and Hermione lasted well into the early morning, and when all three of them had finally run out of steam and words to say, Regulus and Hermione had managed to successfully shower before completely passing out in their bed, barely dressed.

Everybody slept well into the afternoon, with the exception of Remus, who periodically went to check on Ron and Harry, who was constantly checking on Ron on his own. Once they had made sure he was stable, they had levitated him upstairs into the bedroom that the two boys were sharing.

The next few days the house was mostly silent, everybody pretty much keeping to their own. Sirius was still seething about all of the teens putting themselves in extra danger and he and Regulus were the ones that kept butting heads the most.

Hermione and Draco sat in hers and Regulus' shared bedroom, watching everybody on the Marauders Map while Regulus was down stairs, yet again, having another argument with Sirius.

"So how did you and Theo end up together, hm?" Hermione questioned, her eyes following Ginny's footsteps in the hallway, watching her disappear from the map, she briefly peeked at Draco from the corner of her eye but he was too invested in watching the complete other side.

"Well..." Draco paused as he watched Blaise, Pansy and Theo walking down the halls in the dungeons. "We've known each other since we were young, we've always been around each other and then after the Yule Ball, we'd had too much firewhisky that Blaise had stolen from Snape's office and ended up kissing in the common room."

Hermione couldn't help the small smile that tugged at her lips. "I bet Pansy was disappointed," she teased lightly. "We actually ended up not talking about it, the kiss, for a while, and if you remember, I somewhat dated Pansy for pretty much all of fifth year. I was just so petrified of my father, and what he would think and how I actually felt, for Theodore."

"So what changed?" Hermione questioned, her gaze moving away from the map to Draco. Draco began to chuckle, looking at Hermione, unable to hide the amused expression on his face. "The summer I got my mark, Theo had no idea, and he came barging into Blaise's manor before The Dark Lord took over my home, said I was a bloody idiot and snogged me silly."

"I don't know much about Theo, but I almost feel like that would be accurate from the few times I saw him talking animatedly from my spot at the Gryffindor table."

"Yeah, and then he saw my mark, and he cried-but somehow it brought us together," Draco shook his head, watching his friends enter the Potions classroom.

"Two tortured souls, destined to do nothing but love each other," Hermione teased lightly. Draco paused his scanning of the map to look at Hermione, the two of them beginning to laugh for no reason at all.

"Hey Hermione do you have the ma-" Ron paused in the doorway as he watched Draco and Hermione, a scowl coming across his face. "What's this then?" he questioned, referencing the two of them using the map. "We're just sharing all of our things with Malfoy now?"

"Is there something I can help you with Ronald?" Hermione questioned, raising a brow at him. "Yeah, I was looking for the map so I can look in on Gin, but I see it's already occupied," Ron watched Draco's eyes cast back down to the map. "What are the two of you looking at anyway?" he began to walk into the room to see where Draco's eyes were fixated, but Hermione was quicker than him, tapping her wand to the map.

"Mischief Managed."

The map folded back up, the ink disappearing from the parchment, closing itself and its secrets. Hermione tucked her wand back into her hair, moving to sit up from where she was laying on her stomach and leaning on her elbows. "Here." She picked up the parchment, handing it to Ron. "You could be nicer to Draco, he did save your life."