By Reason Of Birth

The Favour

Theo and Blaise stood outside of Hermione's room, waiting for her to answer the door. After a few moments, it swung open, revealing her at her writing desk, scrawling on a piece of parchment. "Hello," she said, looking up.

"Hermione, my favourite sister," Theo said, making her laugh and roll her eyes.

"Already you want something from me? Give me a minute to finish writing and I'll be all yours." They sat on her sofa while she finished penning her letter and sent it off with the owl the Granger's had given her as a coming of age present; it had arrived on the day she had always celebrated her birthday. She had been touched and named it Maddygene after them.

"So, big brother, what do you need from me?" she asked with a smirk as she lightly shook her head in amusement.

"Let's go for a walk through the gardens and I'll explain the situation."

"Explain the situation, eh?" she said. Over the last week, she had found that teasing Theo was rather fun. Of course, he teased her back, and it was the first thing that made her really feel like they were brother and sister, not just two people living across the hall from one another.

"Come on," he responded, standing up and escorting her out of her room as Blaise followed behind, watching the interactions between the two. When they were safely in the gardens, away from the prying eyes and ears of house-elves, portraits, and their mother, Hermione walking between the two young men, Theo started talking.

"I've been dating Lilah Moon since New Years," he started.

"Good for you, Theo. I don't really know her, but she seems nice enough. You could have told me before now, you know."

"Thanks, I know I could have told you," he smiled and Blaise rolled his eyes. At least he wasn't the only one Theo wasn't telling important things to. "The problem, though, is that she isn't allowed to date until after leaving Hogwarts. And now that she has, she still wants to wait and tell her parents so she can make it look like we just started seeing each other this summer.

"I was hoping, if you and her sister Savannah both agree, that you could become friends with the two of them and give us a chance to see each other more."

"Theodore Nott! That is downright devious!" she exclaimed.

"Yes, one of my better ideas," Blaise interjected with a grin.

"Hopefully, sometime later today you will receive an owl from them, saying that they enjoyed getting to know you better at tea yesterday and that they want to help you get used to our social circle from the point of view of a young woman, rather than me, or Mum and Dad."

Hermione walked over to a nearby bench and sat down, looking intently at her brother. "Theo, you do realize that I don't have a lot of friends, don't you?"

He nodded and sat next to her while Blaise sat on her other side, interested to hear where this was going.

"Neither do I, Hermione," he responded quietly.

She nodded in recognition of what he had said before continuing. "I don't become friends with people who I can't trust with my life. I know that if it came down to it, Harry and Ron would die for me, as I would for them. I know that usually that type of friendship takes a long time to develop and I don't want to be friends with anyone I can't trust implicitly, even if it's just with something simple like an embarrassing secret I don't want everyone to know about.

"I'll do this for you, because you're my brother, but if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. I won't pretend to be someones friend. If we all actually get along, then I suppose you get to see your girlfriend more and I'll have a couple of girls I can talk to, but I just want to be straight on that."

"Hermione, that is pretty much exactly why I have so few friends. I promise you that Lilah and Savannah are good people, otherwise I wouldn't be dating Lilah. But I'll agree to your terms. If you don't get along with them, we'll just come up with another way to see each other."

Theo leaned over to give his sister a hug just as an owl flew up to her. She took the parchment from its leg and apologised for not having any treats for it, though the owl seemed understanding.

She opened the parchment, read it, and started laughing. The letter said almost exactly what Theo had said, only also with an invitation to go to Hogsmeade the following day and an apology for the writer's mother. It was signed Daphne Greengrass.

The two boys looked at her, wondering what could be so funny until she handed the letter over to Theo so he could read it. When he started to chuckle as well, Blaise reached across Hermione and snatched it from his fingers.

"Do Lilah and Savannah get along with Daphne?"

"Yes, they're first cousins," Theo replied to Hermione's question.

"I have to go firecall Harry, Maddygene isn't back from delivering the letter I sent him. Do we need permission to make firecalls?" she asked, not having had the need for it since moving into Nott Cottage.

"No, but use the fireplace in the cloak room. It's more private."

She nodded as she stood up from the bench and made her way to the house. "Let us know how it goes!" Theo called after his sister's retreating form.

Once in the cloak room, she took some Floo Powder from an ornate pot on the mantle and threw it in the fire she had started before putting her head in the fire and calling out her destination.

She looked through the fire to see the lounge in Grimmauld Place. "Harry?" she called out. She called his name twice more before he arrived in front of the fire.

"Hey, Hermione. Is anything wrong?" he asked, confused since he had just received her last owl.

"No, I was just wondering if you wouldn't mind a change in plans tomorrow." She explained Theo's situation to him, and how Daphne had invited her to Hogsmeade the following day. "If you don't want to, that's fine, I can always ask to go a different day," she offered.

"No, it sounds like it could be fun, even if the company is all Slytherins. What about Ron?"

"First off, Savannah is in Ravenclaw. Secondly, Ron still isn't invited because we'll only be going out for a few hours. Not to mention that I don't really see him being very friendly, even if none of them are Malfoy and Parkinson followers."

"So I still have to bring dress robes to wear at dinner?" he asked with an exaggerated sigh.

"Yes, you still have to bring dress robes. Trust me, that isn't my idea," she responded with a laugh.

Since the war had ended a month and a half ago, both Harry and Hermione had lightened up considerably, all of the stress that had come with it having evaporated. Harry was still Harry, though, and Hermione was still Hermione. She hadn't really had a chance to talk to Lilah at tea, and she was anxious to ask the young woman about the N.E.W.T.'s and how hard she had found them to be.

"All right then, so I'll let you know tomorrow when we're ready to have you Floo over. See you then," she said.

"I'll be waiting," he replied, smiling, before her head disappeared from the fire.

She pulled out her contact card, asking Theo where he was so she wouldn't have to search the grounds for him. When he answered, she met him and Blaise in Blaise's guest room. It wasn't the fanciest of the guest rooms, but it wasn't the plainest either. Looking around it, she thought that it suited Blaise well.

"Harry's fine with it," she told them, much to Theo's relief.

He then held out a parchment that had arrived for her while she was in the fire. "From Lilah and Savannah," he told her.

"How do you know?" she asked, since the letter was still rolled up and sealed.

"The family crest on the seal," he answered.

"Oh," she replied dumbly before opening it to find the letter she was expecting.

Theo handed her a couple pieces of parchment and a quill, as he ordered her to write back, causing her to laugh at him. "You know, Theo, I might want to check and see if Daphne minds everyone coming along first."

He glared at her, knowing she was right as she wrote a letter to the girl asking if she didn't mind the others tagging along.

An hour later the reply came, telling her it was perfectly fine with her, and giving her the time and place to meet. Hermione then wrote to the Moon sisters, accepting their offer to spend some time together and proposing that they two of them come to Hogsmeade the following day with Daphne, Theo, Blaise, Harry, and herself.

Chapter End Notes:
thanks to lupie and sugarquill39 for betaness, and to everyone for reading and reviewing