Antonin quietly sat beside his best friend as Yaxley dozed off, his body twitching every so often from the after effects of the cruciatus. The Dark Lord had cursed them all that night, a fit of anger when the Vampires declined their olive branch again, down to only inferi and dementors that were both incapable of being controlled, the Dark Lord was weaker than ever, and with weakness comes frustration.
Rodolphus was shivering in the chair closest to the fire, his eyes glassy as he stared into the flames. They all sat quietly, no Hermione to pepper them with questions of how the meeting went, to hand them vials of healing potion left the house drafty and empty. Antonin laid back against the couch cushions that irritated his sensitive skin and sighed.
"How many more days of this? How many more meetings?" Rodolphus asked, perhaps to himself, not many people were still awake. Yaxley gasped for breath as another spasm took him in his sleep.
"Not many." Antonin replied and gingerly laid his head on the back of the couch staring up into the darkness.
When Antonin woke up again, it was to the voice of Severus telling Lucius to "grow a pair" angrily as Lucius groaned in pain in the chair on the other side of Yaxley.
"Drink the damn potion, Lucius." Severus hissed, trying to prevent others from waking "Or bleed out on the carpet, I'm sure Rodolphus will enjoy tossing it."
Antonin woke up, his veins on fire and glanced over at the two men currently fighting over a vial of painkiller. "I can't think when you shove th-" Lucius hissed as pain wracked him again, his head lulling back "I need to have a clear head for these things."
Severus pinched his nose shut and tipped the vial past his lips as he tried to breathe. Lucius balled his hands into fists but relaxed against the chair as the potion took hold. "Severus."
Severus tipped another vial in his mouth, sitting back against the chair where Lucius was currently breathing heavily, waiting for the numbing effects of the potion to take over. There was no coddling, no cooing of reassuring words. This was what the war was like last time, men in a living room, sitting, waiting to fall back asleep so the pain would stop.
"You'll do it then," Rodolphus rasped to Lucius a little after ten in the morning, a tea set untouched on the table, most of the men were still sleeping. Severus' head was on Lucius' leg.
"I'll do it, dammit." Lucius said.
"Don't forget."
"I won't, I won't. Stop pestering me old man." Lucius looked like shit, they all did, but he offered his hand out to Rodolphus who leaned over to accept it.
Antonin wanted to ask more, but his mouth wouldn't cooperate, and his body felt heavy. He dozed back off and woke up again to the insistent tapping at the window.
Yaxley stumbled over the couch, the cold room grew colder with the lack of body heat against his own. "Whassit?"
He threw the window open and a gust of cold air woke the rest of the room up as an owl flew in. Drolly, the house elf tried to catch it before it bothered anyone but it dropped a letter on Severus' lap and began to flutter around the room looking for a perch.
"Tea," rasped Rodolphus as he sat up, covered in the sheen of his own sweat, his hair sticking to his face, his clothes wrinkled and messy. "Tea, Drolly."
Severus looked up at the owl irritably and then unfurled the note. "Damn Minerva and her blasted meetings. The Dark Lord needs me less often." He tossed the parchment on the floor next to him
There was a clatter of china as the house elf placed the tea set on the nearby table, pouring tea for everyone in the room before letting the owl out. The smell of fresh biscuits made his stomach churn but Antonin tried to ignore it, picking one up and contemplating it as if it was a puzzle.
"Eat." Yaxley said with a mouthful of biscuit "It goes away if you eat."
All the men in the room took their tea in silence.
"This the beginning of the end, then?" Lucius said, sipping his tea, his china rattling, punctuating his words. His tremors stopped and he relaxed. "I can't take much more...indignity in my own home."
"Yeah," Severus said pulling apart a biscuit and smearing some jam on it "This is the beginning of the end."
"What of us then? Azkaban again?" Yaxley asked looking at everyone in the room. "The Order isn't going to bail us out."
"That, Yaxley, is where you're wrong." Severus tossed him the note "Share with the class."
Yaxley shot him a glare and stuffed the rest of the biscuit in his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. Antonin leaned over and read the missive, his name jumped out at him immediately.
...and Misters Antonin Dolohov presence is required at The Order of the Phoenix Strategic Planning Meeting by request of Hermione Granger .
"She's clever as a fox, that girl." Yaxley said.
"Spit it out!" Rodolphus said sitting upright now interested that Hermione was involved.
"Get dressed for London." Antonin said "We're going to see malyshka tonight."
He had never seen Rodolphus move so fast, and he laughed. That girl put a fire in all of them. Yaxley looked at him strangely but even he had a smile playing at his lips.
Antonin stood behind Yaxley, who stood behind Severus and Lucius, who stood in front of the gates to Twelve Grimmauld Place, which stood between them and Hermione . His fiery little goddess reduced to a slave of the good .
He heard Rodolphus behind him telling Rabastan to stop fidgeting and they all walked up the short sidewalk to the door in a neat line, a funeral procession if he had ever seen one, and waited patiently for someone to answer the door. When it did swing open they were met with an array of wands all pointed at them and just on the other side, seen between the shoulders of Minerva McGonagall and another auror that he vaguely recalled being related to Lucius was her .
"Hello then," Yaxley said, and pushed through the crowd of people waiting, his teeth gritted as wands jabbed him. "Hello then love-"
"Get away from her!" A redhead said but Yaxley paid him no mind. This redhead was familiar, this redhead was Ron Weasley.
"Yaxley." She breathed his name like a prayer, but even as he gave her a hug Antonin's eyes locked with hers and Antonin felt the world go quiet.
A sharp jab in his ribs brought him back to the present "You're guests here, death eaters, any one of u-"
" Professor Moody they are my guests, and you will refrain from jabbing them if you want to win this war." Hermione said, her back a little straighter as Rodolphus checked her over for any signs of abuse.
Antonin wanted to do a whole host of things to her but settled for standing next to her, his hand floated out to brush against hers, ascertaining that she was real, unhurt, and there was that spark between them that fizzled out through her wild hair. Her hand flew up to her neck and she tugged at the necklace impatiently. It felt so good to feel her magic again, it felt like home.
"Right," She said "You met my demands-"
"Hermione," Harry Potter pleaded with her, Antonin bristled at the whining tone "Please...explain why you need them ."
She huffed, a bit frustrated, a bit frayed, Rodolphus cleared his throat to defend her, but it was the airy voice of Luna that broke the standoff "Rabastan you came!"
In robes that matched Hermione's, except in a beautiful peacock blue, Luna bounded down the stairs eagerly, jumping into Rabastan's arms. Rabastan's smile lit up the room as he enveloped the girl in his arms. "Hello, sprite."
"He said," Harry Potter said tapping on the table angrily "that you turned . Bill sent us word from Remus that you were having-" Here Harry's face turned red "orgies for the Dark Lord!"
Hermione was seated directly across from him in the dining room that barely contained everyone, it was standing room only. She was sandwiched between Rodolphus and Antonin, Rabastan was murmuring something to Luna under his breath.
"You're my girl 'Mione, how could you?" Ron pointed a finger at her and she laughed.
"What does it matter? What does anything matter if all my intellect is going to be tossed aside because of some joke Yaxley told Remus Lupin forever ago?"
Minerva cleared her throat "You're underage, Miss Granger, that makes them-"
"She's not underage." Rodolphus snapped, but Remus cut them all off.
"It was a joke, Harry, I didn't realize it at the time-"
"You're as cursed as she is, mate!" Ron said "Whatever...magic they used to turn my girlfriend against me, they used on you!"
This started everyone in the room chattering, murmuring, judging her. She grabbed her necklace, playing with the dampener ring, he could feel her magic now, it licked at his skin like a bonfire. Rodolphus touched her hand with his own, causing Ron to stand up, knocking a chair into Mad Eye Moody.
Severus' voice cut through the din " Quiet , Mister Weasley, if you cannot control your teenage hormones you will be asked to leave."
"Harry, what do I have to do to make you understand that we're on your side?" Hermione asked. "Even Headmaster Dumbledore's portrait has told you to trust me."
"He told me to trust your strategy, and that's what we did, right? That's why we're here, but Hermione, you've changed, Ron is right, no friend of mine would consort with so many death eaters. Even now they touch you in front of all of us!"
"Ronald Weasley is a liar and he's poisoning you! Can't-"
"There's only one way to prove that you're being truthful, submit to a Veritaserum examination in front of all of us, right now." Kingsley said extracting a vial from his pocket "That way we know that your strategy is sound and you're all on our side ."
Antonin seethed next to her and her hair cracked like a whip as her magic rose with her temper. "Fine." She said as the doors slammed shut in the room, the room went silent. "I want Severus Snape and...Auror Tonks to monitor my dosage so we don't have another repeat of before."
At least at this, the two boys across from them looked sheepish.
For all her bravery, the minute Kingsley stood beside her with the vial and the tear dropper she turned as white as a sheet.
"Hermione, are you sure?" Severus' voice was soft
She nodded resolutely and opened her mouth the taste of the serum made her shudder. She gagged when she swallowed.
No one in the room was ready when the truth began pouring out of her mouth, not even Hermione herself. She sobbed when she recounted Bellatrix's death, admitted how she still felt responsible for Narcissa's early departure, and shamelessly admitted her fears for the future. It was two hours of talking, two hours of honesty that even Antonin had not wanted to hear, but he held her hand even still. He cooed to her in Russian even still. He loved her even still.
At the end of her truths, Ron was asked to quietly leave the room, he did not protest, Antonin was sure everyone felt the same way. No one discussed strategy that night, instead they whispered apologies to her that she did not accept.
"There's no need," She would say honestly "There's no need."
Minerva reminded her gently that she was no longer in Order custody. Minerva spoke her words back to her. "There's no need." The Headmistress said quietly "There's no need."
"It's because of the hormones of some teenage boys that they were so unwilling to work with her, one small lie from Remus Lupin months ago now, and they turned on her." Severus was pacing in front of the fire as she ate dinner in the dusty library.
The table that Antonin had transfigured in the middle of the library was full of food that Winty had prepared while Hermione slept off the exhaustion from the testimony. They all ate quietly, respecting the library's unspoken rules. Gone were the racuous conversations over endless food that they were accustomed to at LeStrange Manor, replaced with a solemn meal as they all waited for the inevitable.
"I already apologized for it!" Remus' voice was pleading. "She smelled like all of you, she really did. Even my alpha thought-"
Hermione waved it off "It didn't matter whether Yaxley said it or not, Remus, I'm sure from the outside we seem a bit incestuous." She twirled the spaghetti onto her fork "We are, really, but-"
"You don't have to justify yourself." Rodolphus said, nursing his firewhiskey "I cannot believe that they would make you justify yourself before them. Who are they to judge you? Who are they to judge a LeStrange?"
"A visitor." Luna said across from Hermione, breaking a breadstick and handing half to Rabastan who looked at her as if she had just handed him the deed to Malfoy Manor.
"Hermione?" A voice asked through the door, Harry Potter.
"Come in Harry, we're just eating." Her voice was hoarse and she raised her glass that suddenly refilled itself. Yaxley would never let her glass go empty tonight.
The door cracked open "It's almost midnight-oh I thought you would be alone."
Harry was in some oversized striped pajamas as he stepped into the library. It was amazing to be in such close contact with him, Antonin figured the great Harry Potter would have more to him, but instead he was an awkward teenager who played with his messy hair as Winty set another place at the end of the table for him.
"Never alone, not if I can help it." She said and looked up at Antonin gratefully.
He squeezed her hand under the table and she sipped her wine and hid her smile.
Harry sat at the table gingerly and Antonin realized Severus was glaring at him from the other end. "Cut it out Severus." Yaxley snapped "I don't care if he fucked your mum or something, you're going to have to work with him."
"You're a piece of work, Yaxley, for being the cause of all these problems." Severus turned his ire on Yaxley instead of Harry.
Hermione didn't seem phased by the bickering and grabbed the bottle of elf wine and held it up towards Harry. "This stuff is great, do you want some?"
"Can I?" His voice broke mid sentence.
"Winty pours for the Mister Potter." The small elf said beside him, dressed in tartan today that looked like scraps of Hogwarts uniforms.
"I shouldn't have listened to Ron," Harry said at last, after Severus and Yaxley quieted down "It...just why would my friend be hanging out with death eaters? Why wouldn't my friend tell me she was living unless she was doing something she was ashamed of? It made sense at the time, but Ron got so fixated on it."
"That much was obvious." Antonin snorted into his glass of firewhiskey.
Harry looked at him strangely and Antonin met his stare. The boy wouldn't intimidate him, the teenager broke eye contact first and Antonin felt like he had won something. He was petty, he didn't care.
"When we took you to seashell cottage it seemed to confirm our suspicions." Harry let the last word hang before explaining "The way you wouldn't trust us, your friends! Ron said you were bewitched, we found so many spells it could have been, some dark, well, most dark. Moody said you were...sharing magic, he could see your signature had changed to something dark and that confirmed it."
"What in the hell does that mean?" Lucius snapped "Her magic was dark," He mocked snidely "There's no such thing as innate dark magic, there's no way he could have told you that in good faith, boy, you are a fool."
"Lucius." Hermione warned.
"When we asked Aberforth, that's Headmaster Dumbledore's brother, how could someone share magic, he told us that only people who have been intimate share magic. The joke wasn't just a joke, it was real, wasn't it Hermione?"
"Aberforth was a fool." Lucius said, clearly irritated that someone could get magic so wrong in front of him "You don't need to lie with someone to share their magic, any strong feelings of...familiarity will allow your magic to flow in and out as needed."
"Then...you're familiar with them?" Harry looked like he was about to be sick.
"What does it matter if she's fucked all of us or none of us, Potter, it's none of your damn business." Yaxley said, clearly irritated. "Is it her cunt that you want or her mind?"
"I just want to know!" He shouted "I want to know if Hermione is-"
"Magic is shared out of love , Harry. I don't need to...to fuck anyone to love them!" She shifted in her seat, clearly upset again. "I love you, it doesn't mean I want to...to fuck you!" She blushed scarlet and looked away from all of them towards the fire.
"If your intent, Potter, was to sit at our table and insult the only person who can get you out of this mess, then, you're free to leave." Severus drawled, pouring himself another glass of firewhiskey "Make your apologies before I drag you out of this room."
"Sorry, 'Mione, it's just hard...to sit here and dine with death eaters." He said sheepishly "Mister...Mister Yaxley? Is right. It doesn't matter to me what you've been doing, only that you're here and you still want to help even after all the crap The Order has done to you thanks to some stuff Ron said."
"People are quick to believe the bad things they hear about good people." Luna said with a mouthful of bread.
Rabastan nodded sagely next to her, stuffing the remaining half of the breadstick in his mouth.
He kissed her in the hall, over and over again until she squealed for him to stop. He was a little tipsy, and a little overjoyed, and a little overwhelmed by both, and she was just so . He kissed down her neck and her hands ran up her body. "Antonin, Antonin." She pleaded in a breathy whisper "We have to stop."
"You left," he growled against her skin, soft and his "You left ."
"I needed to protect you." She pushed at him weakly, his hands came around her waist and lifted her up against the wall so she was a few inches higher than he was.
Her eyes were shining and a smile played at her lips as her fingers tangled up in his hair. No one had ever looked at him the way that she did, as something more than a means to an end, more than a vehicle of revenge, more than a murderer. She kissed him soundly, her tongue tangled with his. Could she feel the passion in his kiss? The way her breath hitched gave him an answer.
"Uh, Hermione?" A girl's voice.
She tried to move, but Antonin wouldn't let her, finishing the kiss as if they weren't being interrupted, his lips only moving an inch away from hers, she exhaled shakily and squirmed. "Put me down, Antonin."
"Make me, malyshka ." He turned his head to see a pale redheaded girl wringing her hands in the darkened hallway. "She's busy, uhodi , go away."
"Ginny." She sighed and her fingers left his hair, he knew he had lost her attention for now. She squirmed and he let her down on her feet, his libido coursed through his blood and he tried to ignore it. Biting his tongue, he followed the two girls inside the library.
He sat her next to Yaxley, sandwiching her between the two of them on the couch, Severus and Lucius had gone, and Rabastan had left with Luna after dinner to do whatever that girl wanted to do, Antonin was not sure.
"Harry told me, well-" Ginny ran her tongue over her sharp teeth and squeezed her hands together before starting again "Hermione, I'm sorry I didn't believe you, or Luna. I'm sorry that...well about my brother."
Hermione looked over at Rodolphus briefly who was ignoring a game of chess to survey the situation, she smiled and turned back to Ginny.
"It's not your fault." Hermione soothed.
"But it is yours." She said, there was a clatter of a chess piece hitting the board. "You could have told us that you were in league with the vampires before The Order offered me up to them, or that you-"
"Your brother knew Ginny, your brother met me there, he-"
"He said that they needed a girl to be the liaison! That we needed vampires to defeat You-Know-Who! When I got there they told me that I wasn't the "right sort!" I can't even go to school anymore!"
"What would you have me do?" Hermione asked seriously, smoothing over her robes.
"You come back here after you've made such a mess of things, everyone waiting on you like you're royalty, listening to you after you got to play house with a bunch of convicts for a year while people like me suffered at Hogwarts and here at the Order. Now Harry is wrapped up in your little scheme -"
"The sins of the father." Luna's voice was like a bucket of ice water on the red head's impassioned rant. "Are to be laid upon the children."
Luna did not walk, Antonin decided, she floated, like a ghost would, her hand held loosely in Rabastan's as they came back into the library after a walk outside, judging by the wet hems on her robe.
"What did you say about my dad?" Ginny said standing up, looking for a fight.
"Hermione was not here when Mister Weasley agreed to send you to the vampires, was she?" Luna looked over at Hermione who was fiddling with the dampener around her neck. "The sins of the father."
"Ginny," Hermione started again "I am truly sorry that your family did not listen to me, refused to listen to me every time they had met me because of Ron, but I am trying to make things right."
"What part of making things right involves fucking the man who murdered my uncles out in the hall?" She pointed a finger towards Antonin, who rolled his eyes.
"I did not kill the Prewett men." Antonin's russian accent slurred some of the words, his boredom was evident. "Get off your high horse, little girl. I may be a murderer, but I am not sloppy enough to get caught . If I recall correctly, those men were not quite so innocent by the time they fell into our hands."
"Murderer!" She shrieked "And you! You turned me into this Hermione Granger. You think you have The Order and Harry fooled with your arithmancy and smarts but I see the real you Hermione Granger, a murderer, a whore, a LeStrange . You make Bellatrix look like a saint." Ginny's voice grew low. Rodolphus stood up, tipping the chess board over, but Hermione didn't move even as Ginny approached her. "Harry can never love me now, because you-"
"Ginny?" Harry's voice was uncertain as he stood in the open doorway of the library. "I heard shouting."
Ginny stood up straighter, smoothing over her clothing and schooling her features. "Nothing, just talking to Hermione, catching up, yeah?"
Luna looked over at the door "It's a shame that vampires can't see their reflections."
Harry surveyed the room "What's that mean Luna?"
"Reflections are the truth, Harry." Luna said and smiled up at Rabastan who was watching Harry Potter with a strange intensity.
"They are." Harry agreed, but he didn't sound like he knew what he was agreeing to.
"Come, little dove." Yaxley said righting the chess board "I'd love to share a bed with you-"
"Yaxley." Hermione admonished "You're what got us into this great big mess in the first place, you and that mouth."
He waggled his eyebrows at her and she cracked a smile, the tension in Antonin's body leaving "Let me show you what I can really do with this mouth."
"Perverted old man." She slapped him playfully on the arm and he pretended to be wounded as they walked out of Grimmauld Place with their prize with little fanfare and only a "See you tomorrow, Harry" as she exited.
Antonin was always amazed at how much trouble his Hermione could get out of just by talking.
It was only that night, when they were nose to nose in his bed, her fingers laced with his when she said "I love you." did he realize how dangerous her words were.
He'd fight a thousand wars, kill a thousand men, die a thousand times, just to hear her love for him, and when he asked for her to say it again, she asked for nothing.
"I love you, Antonin." She smiled, he could feel her heart racing as she said it.
"My love," He whispered back "Moya Lyubov."
How much could his Hermione get with words? Everything. Absolutely everything.