August 14th - Open Air Hallway (Late Afternoon, Early Evening)

[booky_knowitall]

Hermione leaned into the post and tried to get her crying under control. Idiot! Stupid, stupid, prat! You do not tell a girl you just snogged what your ex was like, you do NOT! And of course more tears started rivers down her face. Hermione wiped them away again and conjured a kerchief...or tried to. Her concentration was shot enough that the

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[naught_common]

The fact that Theo did not fall down when hit full on by the brunette running full out around the corner was something he chalked up to years of taining in how to not do embarassing things. People simply did not hurtle though the dungeon. There was a snide comment on his tongue and a sneer on his face when he realize who it was that was getting tears on his tie.

"Hermione?"

[booky_knowitall]

Hermione looked up to see who she'd run into. Considering the color of the tie and the use of her first name, she had a fairly good idea who it was, but made sure before he hugged him. A Ravenclaw walked by, but Hermione was currently at the point that propriety didn't matter, and there was technically nothing wrong with hugging a Slytherin. "I'm so mad!" she sobbed into his tie.

[naught_common]

Theo gave the Ravenclaw in question a silent look that caused him to pale and leave. Earnest would keep his mouth shut.

"Come with me. This isn't the place." He wrapped an arm around her waist and led her down the hall, around the corner and through a door hidden behind a tapestry. "My sitting room."

[booky_knowitall]

Hermione looked around for a moment, raising an eyebrow at him. "Another unknown room. I think this castle grows them on its spare time." The slight humor of her own bad joke made her crying let up slightly, and she leaned into his side. She was still occasionally shuddering, but otherwise the crying had stopped. "I realize that Ron's sense of propriety is lower than most, but I thought he had better sense than he just showed me."

[naught_common]

"Sit. You can even put your feet up if you insist. I'd tell you the secret to finding the good rooms, but then I'd have to kill you." He raised and eyebrow. "Tell me."

[booky_knowitall]

Hermione took a seat on the couch and leaned back into the corner. She thought about putting her legs like he'd offered, but she was still in her robes. She crossed her legs instead. "I was on my way out to the grounds to do the Transfiguration reading when I saw Ron doing the same thing. The very idea of seeing Ron study is enough to make you stop and watch, you know? Well, he wasn't really studying, and so I walked up to him, we started to talk, joked like we haven't joked in ages...we kissed-and we kissed-and then he proceeded to tell me in detail had snogging session with Lavender went." It sounded ridiculous outloud, but at the time, nothing could have been worse. She felt her anger welling up again, and she grabbed for a pillow, pushing and pulling at it, but careful not to break it open.

[naught_common]

Theo took the chair across from her, watching as she manhandled one of his cushions. He flicked his wand in a silent request for tea and again resisted the urge to roll his eyes. The girl expected Weasley to have sense. That was so unexpected it was almost funny. Draco would... He quashed the thought immediately suddenly far more sober.

"You did want him to kiss you, did you not?"

[booky_knowitall]

Hermione looked up at him with a frown. "Well, yeah. But that's part of the problem, I suppose." She looked down at the pillow and evenly redistributed its innards so it looked like a pillow again. "I've wanted him to for so long that when the opportunity presented itself, when we were on the best terms we'd been on in over a month, I kissed him first. I was tired of waiting for him."

A couple of stray tears started to fall again, and she wiped them away feverishly. "Maybe I was stupid to kiss him in the first place, but he did not have to bring HER up!"

[naught_common]

"Very bold, m'lady." Theo fished out his handkerchief and handed it to her. "Perhaps he was simply distracted, spoke without thinking?" Theo was fully of the opinion that Weasley was an idiot, but he didn't think bringing that up would be useful.

[booky_knowitall]

Hermione rolled her eyes and took the handkerchief. "Distracted? Theo I appreciate the compliment, but I highly doubt I'm distracting enough to make bringing up the girlfriend appropriate following a first kiss. Spoke without thinking, obviously. Distracted?" Hermione shrugged and lowered her eyes. Deciding she didn't care that she was still in her skirt, she kicked her shoes off and pulled her knees up to her face. "Apparently Lavender's more distracting if she was the chosen topic of conversation."

[naught_common]

Weasley was an idiot. Theo would have been highly amused had not Hermione seemed so genuinely upset. He thanked the house elf that appeared with tea and then took it upon himself to pour a cup and offer it to his guest. "Drink that, promise not to tell anyone I acted the hostess as it would destroy my reputation as an unmitigated bastard, and tell me precisely what he said."

[booky_knowitall]

"Unmitigated bastard? Huh, I had wondered where that reference came from. I had no idea you endorsed it." She took the tea and sipped it slowly. She frowned at the house-elf as he left, but she held back from saying or doing anything-admittedly, that was difficult. "Let's see...how did he say it? It was...oh yes. Our lips had been attached for about three or four minutes, then he pulled away to say, 'Wow, 'Mione-I had no idea that-you know, first time Lavender and I were snogging, and she started to force her tongue down my throat I thought-' I'm sure he had something else to say, but at that point, I really didn't want to hear it. I did not want to hear about Lavender, and I certainly didn't want to heave about Lavender with him."

[naught_common]

"I merely intimated that it was a label that has been applied to me. I can assure you that not only were my parents appropriately married, but each side had the other formally vetted before said nuptials took place. They had to assure suitable bloodlines back at least 10 generations - rather like breeding and American thoroughbred horse." Theo had seen the look she'd given the elf. He also remembered contemplating badges of his own back in fourth year that read W.E.P.S. for We Espouse Personal Slavery. He had refrained at the time.

Theo picked up a biscuit and broke the end off, looking at her for a long moment before answering. "Given the use of the word 'Wow' it might be possible that your would-be paramour was attempting to give you a compliment."

[booky_knowitall]

"Then why want to keep that image up? I'm sorry, but you never acted like one around me." Hermione took a biscuit, too, and looked down for a moment. Most of the time, the purebloods didn't bother her, but the idea of checking back ten generations to make sure...they came from two completely worlds, and most of the time she forgot it, and occasionally she had no choice but to remember it. She nodded in acknowledgment that she'd listening

[naught_common]

"We both know that I was actually referring to things other than my parentage. There are advantages to being thought dangerous. It is unfortunate that I've had to shrug off my persona of being uninterested as well. People that I take points from remember, at least for a few days." He'd seen her response to his comment. He wondered absently if it had hurt, the effort it took to keep from curling her lip. Superiority, it seemed, existed on both sides of the proverbial fence.

"As to Mr. Weasley. The boy blushes at the drop of a hat. He likely thinks that girls don't talk. He probably is of the opinion that his sister is pure, his parents only had sex the precise number of times required to create him and his siblings and that fairy tales really are true. Part of me envies him his niavete, but it's a very small part. It probably did not occur to him that you had ever heard anything about him and Brown."

[booky_knowitall]

"Then if I do say so, you need to work on that dangerous persona. Either I'm stupid-which could be completely possible-or I'm just not afraid of you because I never have been, not truly afraid. And what good does acting uninterested bring you? Other than occasionally being left alone, it's only brought me emotional pains and regrets." She leaned back more comfortably in the chair.

She started to smile about halfway through his analysis of Ron, laughed at the end. True, Ron appeared that way, a great deal of the time, but she knew him better than that. Then again, it wasn't stretching the truth too far. True, Ron did think Ginny was still pure, and gag whenever he sees parents kiss, and had more faith in folklore than just about anybody she knew. "He's not that naive, but by himself and by others deliberately kept in the dark about certain things. I suppose staying ignorant to Lavender's flaunting in my presence was one of things he chose to neglect."