"She's no more than a prisoner of The Order." Severus said over dinner the next night, picking at his plate. The dinners were lonely without Hermione. "I went to her after questioning last night." Severus didn't finish his thought, leaving it hanging in the air.
"Since when have they been in contact with her?" Rodolphus' voice was hoarse "When did she decide to leave?"
Severus didn't speak for a long while.
"Blackmail." Lucius supplied "An Order member threatened to expose her, expose all of us."
"Why...why didn't she come to us? I would've killed the bastard!" Yaxley banged on the table and pointed his knife at Lucius. "You know who it is, don't you?"
Lucius thinned his lips out and turned his head down, refusing to answer.
"We don't know who started the idea, but we do know that The Order came to agreement on persuading her." Severus looked up at Antonin, but Antonin didn't say anything. "If we were fighting with the Order, we lose our chance for a final battle. She knew that."
"Can we go see her? Severus?" Rodolphus asked hopefully.
Severus shook his head "Not all of you, not all at once, Yaxley maybe."
Yaxley went on a rainy Wednesday, Antonin didn't want to see her, he felt sick with revulsion. How could he have been tricked by her? How could he have thought he loved her? She left so easily .
He was drunk at three, when Yaxley came home from Hogwarts through the floo. He handed a note to Antonin and sat down across from him.
"You're drunk, Tonin, you're always drunk."
Antonin looked up from his empty glass and narrowed his eyes. Everyone was on her side but him. Didn't everyone see that she used them? Betrayed them?
"She's a sight to behold, in the finest LeStrange robes and all alone in a sea of students." Yaxley ran his fingers through his hair. "The Order has completely gutted her, she's so hollow now, merlin how stupid have we been to think-"
"We are stupid, we all got taken advantage of by some teenage mudbl-"
" Don't mention that word in relation to her, Antonin Dolohov. She saved your life." Yaxley snapped "If Hermione hadn't gone to The Order, you'd be explaining to our Lord right now why she was sleeping with you for the last year."
"Why couldn't we save her this time too?" He tossed the letter on the table. "Why-"
"Because if we don't work together with these shits, then this war is never going to end and we're never going to be free. She has to kill Potter, she's there to make sure he's killed, give her a fucking break." Yaxley sighed "Winty, bring me some tea and maybe some sober up potions for Antonin."
Yaxley and Antonin had tea in silence, sobriety was crushing. He could feel the uncomfortable tug of her tracking charm when he was sober. He eyed the neatly folded letter with his name written in Hermione's tight script. Rodolphus sat down wordlessly
"Can we help at all?" Rodolphus was always the concerned father "Does she need anything?"
Yaxley shook her head "I thought about bringing her more robes from here, or food, or something but she says she has all she needs. A letter might be nice, she's lonely." Yaxley eyed the letter too "Open it, tell us what it says. She only had one letter and it was for you."
"No." Antonin said staunchly. "I care little for what she has to say to me."
Yaxley picked it up and opened it.
"Antonin," He cleared his throat and scanned the paper, before speaking "N-Poct-N ."
"That's it?" Rodolphus who had been sitting up to listen, he fell back into the chair "That's it then. We wait until Valentine's day. Should we get her a dress for the ball? Something?"
"Look at you lot, agonizing over a teenage girl." Antonin snatched his letter from them "Are we not death eaters? Are we not powerful?"
"Antonin-" Yaxley started
"Leave it, Yaxley." Rodolphus said and scratched his five o'clock shadow "Just leave it."
He was up at dawn, the time of day that reminded him of her the most. His thoughts swirling as he held the crumpled up piece of paper. In shaky cyrillic, her attempts at his mother tongue, " prosti. "
He missed her. He hated that he missed her so much. He never thought of himself as a weak man, or a reliant man, but just a few days without her had reduced him to nothing. She was his fire, his magic, his meaning .
A knock at the door, Antonin rolled over, hiding the note beneath his pillow. "Come in then."
"You awake?" Yaxley asked standing in the hall with a bottle of wine.
Antonin gave him a look and Yaxley sat on his bed uncorking the bottle. "You okay?"
"I'm a fool." Antonin rubbed his face with his hands in an attempt to wake up. "I'm a fool for her, does she know?"
"If you're a fool, then what does that make the rest of us?" Yaxley poured him a glass and handed it to him "Cheers to us, a bunch of old men pining for a teenage girl."
It was her favorite, a sweet elf wine, he smiled, remembering meeting her parents. "Cheers to us, a bunch of dirty old men."
He took a sip and looked at Yaxley critically "How was she really?"
"A mess, a well put together mess. Her LeStrange demeanor with a Dolohov temper and a bit of Yaxley charm thrown in." He laughed, it sounded forced. "I know she's doing this for us, to keep our cover 'til the end, I do, Tonin, but I want to help her. She looks so sad."
"She is...she is unhurt?"
Yaxley shook his head "I have to wonder if half the reason she stayed with us was because she had been afraid of what The Order was going to do with her. They did a number on her, Severus told me that they tried to dose her with veritaserum again, but-"
"But?" He'd kill them all.
"Percy Weasley intervened, imagine that, a Weasley." Yaxley's voice was muffled by the wine glass "She asked for you, but I didn't have the heart to tell her that you were piss drunk and calling her names."
"I promise, Yax." He said on Saturday while Severus was waiting for the three of them "Let me just see her."
"A vow." Severus insisted "You will not speak or be seen."
"My word." Antonin insisted. Desperation didn't look good on him, but it was all he had.
"Let him." Rodolphus said, it was a few days before the ball at Hogwarts "What will it hurt?"
Yaxley was holding two bags with Harrods in gold lettering on the outside. Dresses, shoes, some of her jewelry, biscuits (the chocolate kind), the book on family magic that she had been reading, letters from Rodolphus, Antonin, Lucius, and Rabastan, and a small painting of Jean LeStrange. A house elf was standing beside him, Winty, and the paintings had gathered to wish both the elf and the young LeStrange portrait goodbye.
Severus stared at him critically for a moment, Antonin felt the proddings of legilimency and immediately looked away. "Fine, not a word Antonin. The location of the Order is at twelve grimmauld place. She's kept there on weekends."
"Secret kept?" Rodolphus said.
Yaxley scoffed "Severus is the secret keeper now that the old man is dead."
"Well, at least we know where she is then." Rodolphus said "And Severus, remember what we discussed."
"I will tell her."
Rodolphus nodded stiffly before leaving the room, Yaxley watched him before turning his attention to Antonin and raising an eyebrow. What was Rodolphus playing at?
Antonin cast a few spells before pulling the invisibility cloak around him. Notice-me-not, silencing spell, and a few wards to prevent those from bumping into them, and once he had finished, he tugged on Yaxley's sleeve. They disappeared.
Grimmauld Place was dingy and musty as Yaxley and Severus stepped inside. Antonin wondered how Yaxley had gotten into their good graces, but then he remembered it was due to his connections at the Ministry that he probably was still a neutral party.
A fat redhaired woman came out and greeted them all in the foyer, tensions were high as she gave the two of them a look over before gesturing to the kitchen. "Hermione, dear, you have guests ."
"Thank you Mrs. Weasley." A voice called, tired, frustrated. "I'll take them in the kitchen."
"I'm not your servant, dear." The woman replied testily before brushing past Severus.
"That woman," Yaxley snapped "As if our little dove wasn't doing enough."
She appeared in the doorway, and suddenly an elf popped out of nowhere, Winty clung to her robes and sobbed. "Mistress Hermione!"
Her hair was slicked back in a low ponytail, she wore her nightgown underneath her robes, dark circles against her pale skin gave her an otherworldly look. Antonin's heart twist in his chest as she bent down to the elf's eyelevel and patted her reassuringly on the head.
"She begged Rodolphus, and we begged him not to." Severus said holding the door open to the kitchen. "Winty, prepare us tea."
"Yes, prepare tea and biscuits for the mistress." Winty rushed into the kitchen and tea kettles began flying.
"It's only temporary. No need to send an elf." She yawned and shuffled back into the kitchen, dead on her feet, her eyes half open, her body half present. "Only a few more days."
Her fingers were covered in ink, and he could see on her pronounced cheekbones smudges of ink where she had fallen asleep.
"You're not eating, love." Yaxley said pulling out a chair for her, she fell into it "You're not taking care of yourself."
She pushed some papers out of the way, arithmancy calculations to make room for others to sit at the table. Winty began to straighten up all the books, the papers, the ink pots and quills, they swirled around the table before stacking themselves neatly.
"No time, no energy." She waved it off and yawned.
"No privacy still either?" Severus looked pointedly at the door that was cracked open, there was a scuffle on the other side as eavesdroppers scurried away.
Yaxley put the bags on the table before her "Rodolphus sends his love, and his books. We al-"
"Please take it back," She said looking in the bags "If they find it...they'll do away with it."
"Absolute rubbish." Yaxley said and suddenly wards went up, blue light bathed the room.
Antonin wanted her to have some privacy. He said he wouldn't say anything, not that he wouldn't do anything.
Severus sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Have they stopped trying to dose you?"
"Yes," She said "I've been eating more often, thank you Severus."
Dosed? Antonin's blood was boiling. He got as close to her as he could without giving himself away.
"We brought the elf to feed you instead, Winty will keep an eye on your food from now on, no more veritaserum mashed potatoes." Severus said and Winty nodded furiously in agreement.
Hermione gave a wan smile before she looked over a few pages of equations, handing them to Severus and Yaxley. "This is the strategy I've come up with last night, The Order must be stationed inside of Hogwarts for this to work."
"They'll never buy it." Severus said looking it over "It's sound, but-"
"But they don't trust me." She said rubbing her eyes, Winty placed tea in front of her "They don't trust me at all, but they keep asking me to plan the strategy. They won't let me sleep, they won't let me eat they won't let me do anything but come up with this!" She was close to tears "I'm so frustrated Severus, I'm trapped ."
"We would have dealt with them, love, we still can." Yaxley said and rubbed her shoulder reassuringly. "We can just leave, no need to put yourself through this."
Severus turned the parchment over and Antonin saw a smudge where she had fallen asleep.
"No." She said "It's only a few more days until…" She grew quiet and then looked at Yaxley hopefully "How is…"
Yaxley fished a letter out of the bag and handed it to her. It was his writing, "my love " in cyrillic on the front. He wrote her a short note in Russian, hoping to keep it away from prying eyes.
She opened it excitedly and scanned it over, a furrow in her brow before she looked up at the two of them, her eyes were watery but she quickly looked away, folding the letter back up.
"Winty," She said as the house elf began to clean the kitchen "Put these bags in the attic. I'll bring them back to Hogwarts with me. They keep me here on the weekends because the castle is too big to let me roam freely." Her sarcasm was biting. She had accepted their comfort. He relaxed a little.
"And Hermione, another thing." He slid a ring, a LeStrange family ring, a simple platinum thing with latin inscribed into it "Rodolphus requested that you wear this."
She slid it on easily and then it disappeared. He felt her magic subside. "A dampener, I knew he had one. Most old families have these old things from when they thought muggles got infected with magic."
"Hermione Granger." A shrill voice "You do not own this kitchen just because you make a mess in it!"
"We must be going." Yaxley said looking over his shoulder "See you at the dance, love."
"Save one for me." She said, a smile playing at her lips.
Yaxley stood up and bent down, kissing her on the top of her head. "Be safe."
"I will be back this evening for dinner." Severus said.
Antonin stayed for a few more moments, watching her smile fade as she stared down into her teacup.
The parchment grew wet, Antonin kissed her too, a slow drawn out kiss through the cloak, he could smell her hair, parchment and ink. She gasped and stilled "Antonin?"
If he lingered a moment longer he would never leave her side. He left. His heart hurt. The three of them arrived back at LeStrange Manor in silence the tug of the tracking charm mingled with the ache in his chest.