Chapter Twenty One

Hermione had a plan. She was exhausted of lying around Antonin's cottage feeling sorry for herself, wishing her life would change. The possibility of someone else rescuing her from her dismal existence was a slim chance and growing slimmer every passing day. If she wanted to get out, she would have to do it herself. It wouldn't be easy, but when had she ever backed down from a difficult challenge?

Antonin was going to be her biggest obstacle. The man was too damn smart for his own good in her opinion. While she was grateful that she wasn't stuck with some Neanderthal Death Eater who was too stupid to keep her alive, she wished that Antonin was not nearly as intelligent and perceptive as he was. She was going to have to tread carefully around him if she didn't want her cover blown and him to figure out what she was up to.

Though she had essentially gone through all of the five stages of grief according to Muggle psychiatrists, she still wasn't all that certain that Lucius was dead. He was nothing if not a survivor. Greg had been bringing her newspapers every single day he came to the cottage to work on the second bedroom upstairs in the attic. Sometimes he was even able to smuggle in a copy of the Resistance's newspaper. Every edition still had Lucius listed as 'Missing'. Until the day arrived with the word 'Deceased' next to his name, she refused to give up hope.

Hermione began compiling a list in her mind. She would've loved to commit it all to parchment but that was too risky. If Antonin even had a whiff of suspicion all of her hard work would be for naught. In order for her plan to work, she knew she would have to be patient. She was going to have to perform acts that would churn her stomach and make her wish she was dead, but she could think of no other way. This wasn't going to be easy.

The first thing she had to hurry up and get out of the way was convincing Antonin that she was ready to move on with some kind of future with him. He had to be convinced or this would never work. So on July 5th she swallowed her fear, pushed off the cloak of depression she'd been living under for weeks and stepped outside of the cottage. Like usual on mornings with clear, beautiful weather, Antonin was outside reading yet another book on how to keep his garden growing and free of pests. He was similar to her in a lot of ways. When he was uncomfortable or at a loss how to proceed, he would search for his answers inside a dusty book. It was an attractive quality that on any other man would make her heart beat wildly.

He didn't see her exit the cottage and she was thankful for a few extra moments to steel up her confidence. His eyes never left the page until the moment she placed her hands on his shoulders. She felt him jump slightly at the unexpected contact, but the moment he saw her face behind him his face split into a warm smile. She returned the smile even though she would've rather hexed his face off than grin back at it.

"Good morning, Hermione."

"Good morning, Antonin."

She leaned down and placed a light kiss on his mouth. He smiled again at her when she pulled back. Hermione took a deep breath. Phase One had begun.

"How are you feeling this morning?" he asked when she sat down in the chair next to his.

"Better," was her only response.

Antonin seemed satisfied by her answer. His eyes fell back to the written word. Hermione gazed at the ocean over the top of the stone wall. Sometimes she forgot how beautiful this place could really be. If it weren't her prison and she was free to go as she pleased, she could see this place being a real comfort and a balm to her soul. The squawking of the seagulls and the crashing of the waves on the beach were sounds she could grow to love and be comforted by.

"It's very peaceful here," she said after long minutes of staring out at the landscape. "It's easy to forget how awful and dangerous the world is outside of these walls sometimes."

Antonin closed his book and looked over in her direction. He had a puzzled expression on his countenance, almost as if he were surprised to hear her speaking.

"Do you really believe the world outside is so terrible?" he asked curious of her response.

Hermione laughed at his question. His eyes shone with the merest flash of hurt before they resumed their usual impassive stare. She almost felt bad about laughing at him. Almost. Was he so blind in his devotion to his beloved Dark Lord that he didn't truly understand the abject peril that everyone else lived in fear of?

"Of course I do," she replied. "What is there for me outside of the safety of these walls? What would happen to me if I was able to stumble outside on my own and completely unprotected?"

"I suppose I can see your point."

"I don't belong in that world, Antonin. Not really sure I ever did. If something were to happen to you, I would be alone, friendless and with a huge target on my back. Dozens of your mates would like nothing more than to catch me, rape me, torture me, and kill me. Thorfinn Rowle is right there at the top of them."

"What about the rebels? Surely you have friends still amongst the rebels."

Hermione covered her eyes and burst into loud, shaking tears. She sat in her chair for an awkwardly long time crying. Antonin reached across to place a reassuring hand on her back. The touch only made her cry harder.

"My former friends are no doubt relieved that they no longer have to worry about me," she finally said, wiping away great, big crocodile tears from her eyes. "I've never really had a lot of friends, Antonin. Just Harry and Ron. Everything would've been much easier if I'd died right alongside them."

"You don't really mean that."

"Yes, I do!" she snapped, forcing hot tears out of her eyes for his viewing pleasure. "When the Resistance found me after Inverness they didn't even know what to do with me. Kingsley told me that everyone assumed I was dead. No one could be bothered to even look for me. Antonin, you were the only one looking for me all that time. My so-called friends and allies just assumed I couldn't survive on my own. They couldn't even bother to find out if I was really dead or locked in some Death Eater's dungeon as some sort of disgusting sex slave!"

She covered her face again to cry more. Antonin's hand continued to pat her back in a rather patronizing attempt to comfort her.

"I don't even know why Lucius cared enough to find me," she continued. "It's not like I was ever anything to him except a filthy, little Mudblood that his son liked to torment in school and a blight to his proud notion of what wizarding kind should be like."

"Lucius has always had an agenda even if no one else is aware of what it is."

"I'm sure Kingsley only made me stay with him because they didn't know what to do with me. Or maybe they hoped that Lucius and I wouldn't get along and we'd rip each other's throats out or something. No doubt they found him just as inconvenient an ally as they found me."

"Lucius seemed to care a great deal about you. He even considered murdering Rabastan at his own party simply because he touched you."

Antonin's tone was bitter, just as it always was any time Lucius' name was brought up.

"Yes, well, even assuming that his feelings for me were genuine and not just a result of two lonely people being locked up in a confined place together, it's not exactly as if it matters anymore. You told me so yourself. Lucius is most likely dead. No one is looking for me out there. No one wants me out there. I have no reason to ever want to leave this place."

Hermione rose from her chair and went back inside the cottage before Antonin had the opportunity to say another word. She closed herself within the locked bathroom to cry a few legitimate tears. Even though she knew there were still people on the outside that loved her and cared about her, it was only too easy for her to believe the words she said out in the garden. At least a grain of truth existed in everything she'd said. At this point in the war, she was more of a burden to the Resistance than anything else. She had nothing to offer her allies and hiding away protected while others did the fighting and dying had its own appeal.

Antonin seemed to believe her when she told him she didn't want to be anywhere else. It was a blatant lie, of course. She wanted to be anywhere else. Even shivering by herself in a tent that smelled strongly of cat urine or even back in the Forbidden Forest with an angry horde of centaurs and hundreds of acromantulas wanting to rip open her soft, creamy, delicious flesh. No matter what, she had to continue to keep him convinced that she didn't want to leave. Phase One would be a complete failure if he discovered she was lying.

Over the next several days Hermione once again allowed herself to ever so slightly move closer to Antonin each morning in their shared bed. He'd welcomed the renewed affections, but hadn't tried to initiate any kind of physical attentions beyond the lightest of kisses occasionally throughout the day. The last thing he wanted was her scared off again and a renewing of the tense standoff they'd experienced since the morning he lavished what must have been an inappropriate amount of attention on her scar. Hermione began to reward his patience with soft touches on his shoulder when he read or with light embraces behind him at the stove while he prepared meals. He was pleased by the tentative affection she bestowed on him for seemingly random reasons.

Every time he returned home from a summons she met him at the front door to take his cloak and welcome him back with tender, short kisses. She would take one look at him and gauge whether or not he needed a cup of tea or a liberal glass of fire whiskey to relax after his meetings with the Dark Lord or his fellow Death Eaters. Once his beverage was secure in his hand she would sit next to him on the sofa and allow him to wrap his free arm around her body in a protective manner while they enjoyed the companionable silence that came naturally to them.

She even learned to bake for him. In the beginning, it was an unmitigated disaster each and every time she tried one of the recipes in the Russian cookbook she found up in the attic. Antonin was patient with her efforts, always willing to try her experiments in the kitchen. She was certain that she couldn't actually kill him with the burnt tea cakes or collapsed apple sharlotka or the partially undercooked piroshky, but it didn't prevent her from secretly hoping that he would keel over after a mouthful of one of her failures. He found her attempts to recreate his mother's dishes endearing and offered her suggestions on how to improve her next batch. Gradually she got better and the cottage began to always smell delicious and homey.

Hermione took charge of all of the rest of the domestic duties inside the cottage. It gave her the chance to keep her hands and her mind occupied. She tried to imagine what Molly Weasley would do if she were living in the cottage. It didn't take long before she had every square inch of the cottage scrubbed and gleaming like new. Every surface was dusted and all of the linens were fresh and clean. All of Antonin's robes and cloak were laundered and pressed. Antonin could hardly recognize the cottage once she began taking care of it. He wondered briefly what caused the sudden change to her domestic sensibilities, but did not linger too long on the wondering. She seemed happy and he did not wish to question anything that made her happy.

She spent a portion of each day directing Greg in how to remodel the attic. Antonin was pleased that she seemed to show interest in expanding and improving the cottage. He deferred all decisions to her. She found it to be interesting work. In only a short period of time, a matter of a couple of weeks, an extra bedroom and bathroom were well on their way to being completed. Greg promised that before the end of August the entire cottage would be finished. The thought of no longer having another person in the cottage, even if it was Gregory Goyle, made Hermione intensely sad. She wasn't ready to give up on her only friend on the outside. As such, she frequently changed her mind about the direction the rooms were going. Just when Greg thought he had everything planned out to her specifications, Hermione inevitably changed her mind and forced him to redesign the entire attic. He might have been frustrated with her if it didn't mean that he could prolong his work assignment.

"You are going to drive poor Greg mad if you keep up what you are doing to him," Antonin teased Hermione one evening as she began cleaning up the kitchen after dinner.

"I wasn't happy with what he planned," she answered, scrubbing the dishes with a little more vigor than was completely necessary.

"You've been making him change everything."

"We are going to have to live with his designs for years, Antonin. Do you really want something less than perfect?"

Antonin was behind her before she was aware he had risen from his chair. He pushed the hair off of the back of her neck and lowered his lips to brush up against the sensitive part of her skin underneath her ear. She shivered at the sensation.

"Years, daragaya? Do you plan on being here for years?" He whispered his question directly into her ear.

Hermione twisted around to face him.

"Are you planning on throwing me out any time soon?" she asked.

"Of course not."

"Then I'm here for the foreseeable future and want it to be perfect."

Antonin took the plate out of her hands that she was still washing and dropped it into the sink. The crash of the dish breaking into multiple pieces caused Hermione to jump and attempt to turn around to view the damage. His arms snaked around the back of her waist to stop her from moving. For the first time since the morning she slapped him, Antonin kissed her deeply. Initially caught off guard, Hermione froze in place. Remembering her plan to lull the Death Eater into a false sense of security, she allowed herself to respond.

"Your face is hurting mine," she teased him after a couple of minutes.

Antonin laughed and rubbed the thickening hair on his jawline. He was still not in the habit of shaving very often.

"Put the kettle on and sit down at the table," she ordered him before exiting the room.

When she returned a few minutes later, the tea kettle had just started to whistle and Antonin was waiting for her at the kitchen table just as she asked. She poured the boiling water into a bowl, leaving a towel inside to soak. Antonin seemed a little nervous by her hands full of the various shaving utensils he rarely used, but he'd learned enough about her personality to not question her when she had set her mind to something.

Hermione crossed the small kitchen to place the bowl, shaving soap, leather strop and the straight razor on the table. Antonin eyed the apparatuses with a suspicious glare, but still said nothing. She took the soaking towel out of the bowl and carefully so as not to scald herself, wrung out the excess hot water. He made the tiniest hiss when she placed the scorching towel on his face to open up his pores. She removed the towel soon after to prevent any discernable marks of discomfort on his face. When he took the time to shave, he used a wonderful shaving soap that smelled of a delicious mixture of almond and lime. She inhaled a whiff of the soap before dabbing it on generously to all of the parts of Antonin's face that needed some attention. He sat completely still while she massaged the cream over his face.

When she picked up the straight razor to strop it to prepare the edge of the blade, she had the slightest fantasy of using the instrument to nick his neck in just the perfect spot that he would bleed out in moments. She would be free to leave without worry about him coming after her. Naturally the fantasy lasted only a moment. She really did not wish him harm. Antonin had been nothing but kind to her even if he was keeping her hostage in his home without her consent. He continued to watch her as she ran the edge of the blade up and down the leather strop in the X pattern her father taught her when she was younger.

Once she was satisfied with the condition of the razor, Hermione began to pull the skin of Antonin's face carefully with one hand while she ran the edge of the razor across the skin with the other. She was quite practiced at shaving with what the nervous called a "cutthroat razor". Her father said that it was a dying art that most people did not appreciate in modern days with disposable safety razors. Despite Antonin's tendency to sprout thick hair quickly, it did not take her very long before his face was as smooth as she was certain it had been when he was a young boy. Using the hot towel that had been soaking once more in the hot water while she shaved him, she removed all of the excess shaving foam still present.

There was something incredibly sensual about this man allowing this woman to shave his face. A bit of trust on his part was required. Even though the words were never spoken aloud, it would not have taken much effort at all for Hermione to slice open his throat just enough to cause his death. Hermione couldn't help noticing the way his dark brown eyes were rapidly growing darker the more she rubbed the hot towel on his face. When all signs of the soap were gone from his countenance, she rubbed her own cheeks against both of his cheeks to test the smoothness. That was all it took for Antonin to pull her back down into his arms and continue the kiss from earlier in the evening.

She wasn't ready to further their intimate relationship, but feared that at some point she would have to in order to keep her plan from failing. Teasing and tempting could only work for so long before a completion was required. Hermione did not want to think about the moment she would finally have to betray Lucius or potentially simply his memory to convince Antonin that she was genuine. Hopefully, she thought, it won't ever have to come to that.

Hermione extricated herself from Antonin's limbs to stand back up on her two feet. He protested her removal and tried to pull her back. She placed a firm hand on his chest to keep him at bay.

"I'm going to go take a long bath before I go to bed," she announced. "Sleep well."

She continued to ignore his objections all the way to the bathroom. It was best to stop his attempted seduction in its tracks before he could get a good start on it. She was only human after all. Eventually he was going to succeed. Hermione lay in the hot bubbles for a long time considering the next parts of her plan. Her blasted silver bracelet kept catching the light. She was going to have to do something about that soon. It would have to be the first thing to go.

The next morning Hermione slipped out of bed before Antonin even woke up. She hurriedly dressed in the bathroom and prepared for the day before he was aware that she was gone. After taking a last look at his slumbering form to confirm that he was still unconscious, Hermione snuck down into his study. In the corner of the room his potions station was organized in a manner that even Professor Snape would approve of. She began searching the ingredients. Normally Antonin preferred her to stay away from his ingredients, but seeing as how he had never actively asked her to leave them alone, she was certain she could get away with pilfering whatever she needed to take.

In the very back row of the ingredients she found a jar of crushed mistletoe berry oil. She carefully removed the lid of the jar with the bottom of her long skirt covering her hand as she did so. When the jar was fully opened, Hermione dipped in a cotton swab she would ordinarily use for cleaning around the outside of her ears. She made quick work of rubbing the swab through the inside of her bracelet. It was very important that she not allow the oil that she was very allergic to to drip on any other part of her body. Once the oil was in place she held her wrist steady by laying it down on the work station until the oil dried in place. As soon as she was certain that the oil wouldn't drip down her arm or onto her hand, she carefully reassembled the jar and placed it back in its original spot. She learned to her detriment in third year that the oil created with those particular berries caused her skin to erupt in a severe, itchy rash.

Hermione rushed up the stairs as quickly and quietly as she could. Antonin had not yet emerged from the bedroom. Either he was still asleep or in the bathroom. Knowing that Greg would be arriving soon to complete his day's work, she got started on preparing breakfast. Her efforts in the study were not in vain. Before Antonin exited the room with a head full of wet hair as the eggs were finishing, her wrist felt like it was on fire. Hermione dunked it in a sink full of soapy water to try to wash the remnants of the oil off, leaving only the rash.

"You're up early," he said, dropping a soft kiss on the side of her head on his way to the kitchen table.

"Woke up early and couldn't get back to sleep."

Hermione took the skillet with the eggs in it straight to the table. Holding the handle in her right hand, she used her left to spoon out the eggs onto Antonin's plate. He smiled at her as she did so, but the moment his eyes dropped down to inspect his plate, he grabbed her left wrist.

"What's wrong?" He asked, his eyes full of concern as he examined the red pustules that were beginning to break out on her wrist.

Hermione pretended she was embarrassed by the attention. She pulled her hand out of his grasp and moved to cross back over to the stove. Antonin removed the skillet from her right hand and pulled her back by her left.

"How long has your wrist looked like this?"

"I don't know. It's been fairly itchy the last few days."

"Do you have an allergy to silver? I've never noticed your wrist looking like this before."

"Not that I know of," she answered. "Unless it's something I've just developed. I think I got some of the cleaning potions I was using yesterday to clean the bathroom under the bracelet. It will probably clear up in a couple of days."

Antonin used his wand to summon a vial from his study. With his hand still grasping her left hand, he tapped the bracelet with his wand and muttered. Instantly the bracelet fell off. He rubbed the ointment from the vial over her irritated skin.

"I think it best that we leave this off for now," he said, motioning towards the bracelet lying open on the table. "Give your wrist some air to breathe and heal."

"Whatever you think is best." She gave him a quick peck on the cheek and sat across the table from him to begin her own breakfast.

For an entire week Hermione resisted the urge to run outside past the garden gates. She had the freedom to do so, but she knew that she had to make Antonin believe she had no desire to leave or he'd put the damn bracelet back on. For the first few days she caught him observing her closely, almost expecting her to try to escape. She would just catch his eye and smile at him like she didn't understand his concerns. At night she started moving closer in the bed to him, even once or twice allowing him to spoon up against her. It helped him believe that she wasn't desperate to escape. Once when he was summoned, she caught him surreptitiously setting up additional wards before he left. She knew he was trying to test her so she kept both of her feet and both of her hands firmly inside the walls of the cottage until he returned. When he was certain that she wasn't trying to escape and had no plans to leave, he banished the silver bracelet to some dark recess in his study. He never brought it up again. In his mind, she was now staying in the cottage of her own free will.

He began to trust her just a little bit more from then on. Even allowed her to walk down to the beach with him one evening after dinner. She was exhilarated by the fresh air and the knowledge that for the first time in over two months, she was outside of his cottage walls. She thanked him for the outing by baking him a perfect cake for dinner the next night infused with her own special brand of sleeping potion. He had been so used to eating strangely tasting baked goods from her as she learned to bake that he didn't even notice the unusual flavors caused by the potion. He was asleep on the living room couch before he knew what was happening.

After testing that he was indeed completely unconscious and unable to hear her, she started digging in his clothes for his wand. She wasn't going to steal it, simply borrow it. Too many questions would be asked if his wand came up missing. Of course if she stole his wand and tried to escape, it would only be a matter of time before he placed a trace on his wand and discovered her whereabouts. She did not want to imagine how angry he would be if that happened.

She used his wand to locate the hiding place of her wand with a handy locating spell she learned during her sixth year at Hogwarts. There was a loose stone in the garden wall. When she pulled it out, her cherry wood wand was just lying there ready for her to steal it back. She carefully removed the wand, not putting it past Antonin to put up some kind of protection spell around it in case she accidentally stumbled upon it. Satisfied that she knew where to find it when she needed it again, she put the cherry wand back in Antonin's hiding spot and replaced the loose stone concealing it.

Antonin's wand was put back in his pocket while he was still snoring on the sofa. Hermione was feeling overly confident. So far nothing had gone wrong with her plan and that usually made her nervous. She lay in the empty bed alone that night worrying about what could possibly go wrong. Several hours of restless sleep passed before the next morning. Antonin was confused by waking up on the couch, but when Hermione greeted him with a kiss and a vial of hangover potion, he seemed less upset. The empty bottle of fire whiskey lying on the floor next to him that Hermione poured down the drain answered the majority of his questions about the night before.

By the time August came to a close and September began, Hermione had completely convinced Antonin that she had no desire to be anywhere else in the world but right there in his cottage with him. He was a much happier and more confident wizard with that false knowledge. Hermione noticed that he no longer cast the extra enchantments before he left each time he was summoned. Her plan had taken a long time, but he had finally been lulled into a false sense of security.

On September 1st, Hermione woke up feeling nostalgic and sad. Though even under normal circumstances this wouldn't have been a day that she would be off to Hogwarts, she lay in bed thinking about all of the young witches and wizards who were waking up excited that morning to go off to school. Of course times had changed. Maybe they weren't excited about heading off to school where the Dark Lord kept his headquarters. Even if she was the purest Pureblood and had the craziest Death Eater parents, Hermione was certain that a school overseen by Lord Voldemort was not a school she would want to attend. Mandatory attendance of all Half- and Pureblood children in the country meant that the school was at full capacity. She could imagine how tempers could flare with so many young people in one building.

"I have to leave," Antonin announced as he leaned down to kiss her cheek. He was already dressed and ready to go. "I'll probably be back very late. Don't wait up."

She waited for the crack of Apparition before getting out of the warm bed. Temperatures were already starting to drop in preparation for the upcoming autumn season. The cottage was sure to be freezing come winter. She desperately hoped that she wouldn't have to spend a winter season huddled up in flannel sheets with Antonin spooned up behind her for additional warmth.

Greg was already working in the attic when she finished showering. He'd still been faithfully bringing her newspapers as often as she could. She was grateful for her one link to the outside world. He, however, was not always very excited to see her coming up the stairs to visit. This morning was no exception.

"Good morning, Greg," she greeted with a false sense of delight.

"Morning, Hermione."

He wanted to ignore her because she was always making him change how he was doing something. It was fine at first when he realized that the more changes she requested, the more work he would have, but after a while, it became tedious.

"If I promised to never make another suggestion on how you design and remodel this room or the bathroom, will you do something for me?"

"Possibly." He was suspicious. He had every right to be. "What do you want in return?"

"Nothing you haven't done before."

"No, Hermione! You don't understand how risky it was last time. Draco almost refused to see me. I had to beg him to meet me in the Three Broomsticks. Even then he looked as if he wanted to punch me the entire time we were there. When I gave him your message and told him it was from you, I thought he was going to hex me. He made me leave the pub with him and go out to the Shrieking Shack. That place was scary when we thought it was haunted, but now that I know what happened to Professor Snape in there during the final battle, it's terrifying!"

"Oh, get over it, Greg. I was there when Professor Snape died. It was horrible, but I doubt that he had any desire to remain on this physical plane as a ghost. He's not waiting for you in the shack to hit you over the head with your cauldron and make you write lines."

"Well, it was still unnerving. I had to stand out there and wait until Draco's father Apparated there with us. Even speaking to an Undesirable could've put me in Azkaban!"

Hermione sighed in frustration.

"If you deliver this second message to Draco, Greg, I will release you from your life debt. I will consider it paid in full."

The young wizard stood in the middle of the unfinished attic bedroom considering the bargain for several long minutes. Hermione didn't even bother to hide her frustration. She crossed her arms and tapped her foot until he finally agreed to pass one final message on to Draco for her.

Hermione rushed down to the study to grab a spare piece of parchment. She considered for several minutes what she was going to write.

My darling Lucius,

I've never given up hope that you were alive. If you are, Draco will know where to find you. (If you aren't, then I would ask Draco to pass this on to Kingsley or someone else willing to face Antonin's temper to find me). This parchment is imbued with a tracking spell. I've been practicing how to discover my geographical coordinates using a spell and the satellites in space. Simply tap this parchment with your wand and say, "rescisco". If done correctly, the coordinates should then pop up on the parchment. There are a number of wards and enchantments that are protecting this cottage. If you can find the area, wait until one in the morning and shoot red sparks into the air. I will be watching for you and I will come out and join you. Please be careful, my love.

-Hermione

She folded up the parchment into a small triangle before heading back upstairs. Her wand was easy to find. Antonin had not removed it since she was able to discover its whereabouts. Every day that he was called away she practiced the tracking spell. She was thankful yet again in her life that she was always able to pay attention during Charms lectures. Once the parchment was imbued with the spell, she took it back upstairs to Greg.

"I can't make any promises, Hermione."

"All I'm asking you to do is get it into Draco's hands. That's it. If you can do that, then your life debt will be paid."

All she had to do was wait for someone to arrive. She didn't exactly expect it to work that night, but she stayed up waiting in hopes that it would. By two in the morning, no sparks appeared in the sky and Antonin had not returned. She went to bed and hoped for the best the next day.

Nothing happened on the second either. Greg assured Hermione that he was able to pass the message on to Draco. He considered his life debt paid to her and refused to do anything else for her including bring more newspapers. She couldn't exactly blame the boy. He was terrified of her host. Antonin would kill him for betrayal without even thinking about it twice.

September 3rd was a quiet night as was September 4th. She was beginning to fear that her plan had failed or that perhaps Lucius really was dead. That would be the only explanation for why no one had come to find her yet. Believing that September 5th was sure to be the night, Hermione drugged Antonin again. She couldn't risk doing it very often. He would eventually either become suspicious, dependent on the potion or even resistant to it if exposed for a long time. Unfortunately, nothing happened that night either.

She was losing hope. When the night of the sixth rolled around, she didn't even try to drug Antonin again. It was getting too risky. He couldn't understand why there were several days he couldn't even remember going to bed after dinner. Too many uncomfortable questions were about to be asked.

Hermione snuggled into bed that night expecting nothing to happen. Her plan failed. No one was coming for her. Her tracking spell didn't work. No one cared enough about her to keep searching. Antonin snuggled up behind her, his arms around her body, his tongue doing delicious things to her ear that she wished he would stop.

"I think I have been very patient, Hermione," he whispered, his voice husky with longing.

She tried to shrug him off like she had a dozen times before, but this night he was insistent. Antonin pinned her down to the bed and began covering her entire body with fierce, hot kisses. She felt sad enough by her failure and lonely enough because she was certain this must mean Lucius was dead that she didn't even try to fight him off as he carefully removed her pajamas. She knew this night would happen sooner or later. Best to go ahead and get it over with even it was an insult to Lucius' memory.

Hermione laid in bed a fairly inactive participant. Antonin didn't seem to notice. Probably assumed she was simply nervous. He crooned to her in a mixture of English and Russian while he made very one-sided love. Hermione summoned all of her strength to not cry. When he finally shuddered and collapsed on top of her, she wanted nothing more than to scrape her skin off under gallons and gallons of hot water. With his protestations ringing through the air of their bedroom, she disappeared into the bathroom to cry in the shower.

She returned to bed reluctantly, wishing she could be anywhere other than where she was. If no one was going to come find her, she decided that the first time Antonin was summoned away, she would retrieve her wand and go. At some point she managed to fall asleep only to be awoken by a screeching alarm going off all around the cottage. Antonin leapt from the bed, almost falling on his face when his feet got tangled in the covers. He pulled his pajama pants on and ran outside. Hermione saw a shower of red sparks in the air. Excited because she knew that it meant someone she loved and cared about had finally come for her, she ran out to the garden to retrieve her wand.

A fierce duel was going on just outside the garden. She rushed to exit the gates, but had to stop herself because of the swirling of curses and hexes flying through the air. She pointed her wand at Antonin to stupefy him. He moved out of range too quickly for her curse to make contact. Hermione ran outside of the gates at full speed, not even noticing she didn't have any shoes on.

Antonin was easy to pick out because his pale skin shone in the moonlight. The other duelist was harder to see. They'd come prepared dressed all in black. Hermione strained her eyes to see who it was, hoping, praying it was Lucius after all. Neither duelist said a word. All of their spells were nonverbal. She ran towards the other wizard and almost made it in range to see who it was when she ran straight into Antonin, dropping her wand on the ground as she did so. With one arm wrapped firmly around her waist and the other holding up an impressive shield, Antonin screamed at the other wizard.

"Not this time, Lucius!"

Hermione couldn't even register the fact that Antonin was screaming her beloved's name before she felt the tightening and pulling of Apparition. When the swirling stopped, she looked up to see the looming Lestrange Manor up ahead.