A/N: Thank you all so much for your reviews, favorites and follows! I've been meaning to ask...I usually write individual reviewer responses, but now that FFN doesn't even let you know when you have a PM, are you guys still wanting them? Or should I just respond in the case of individual questions? I want to say thank you for reviewing, but only if you are actually going to see it? I don't know...pretty torn on this one, so let me know what you think!


Hermione appeared home to the townhouse with her heart still beating out of her chest. Theo was in the library when she got back and looked surprised to see her pop in in such a flurry.

"Hermione? What's happened?" he demanded. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

She ran to him and wrapped her arms around him, tightly. Pressing her face into his chest, her nose filled with his familiar scent, trying to relax. But then the tears sprang to her eyes. She'd let Lucius Malfoy kiss her, frozen in surprise. What if Theo was upset with her for betraying his trust? She never told him about Lucius's increased attention over the months, but now she was realizing that maybe she should have.

Hearing her cry, Theo used his hand to tilt her face up to look at him. "Tell me, Hermione," he pressed, worry evident in his eyes.

Hermione could only hope that he wouldn't take it the wrong way. She wanted to be as honest as possible with her husband. "Lucius Malfoy kissed me," she whispered, staring at the buttons of his robes in shame. "He pulled me into an office and he kissed me. I swear I...I don't think I did anything to encourage him, Theo."

"Lucius kissed you?" he repeated back to her, not sounding the least bit concerned. "I'm failing to see the issue here."

She felt stunned. "The issue is that I am your wife and another man kissed me," she insisted, taking a step back at him, to look into his eyes. "A man who purports to be your friend!"

Theo sighed. "I can't say I'm surprised," he said with a shrug. "What I am surprised about is that you aren't trying to use this to our advantage."

Hermione felt new tears well in her eyes and a lump form in her throat. His utter nonchalance about the fact that someone else had made a move on her...she thought that he had cared about her more than to treat her this way. "Use it?" she asked, feeling dumb.

"Well, come on Hermione — we both swore to McGonagall that we were willing to do anything we could in order to bring down Voldemort," he said, an angry edge to his voice. "And I would think that using Lucius's apparent desire for you would fall under a subset of anything."

"So what? You just want me to, what? Sleep with Lucius Malfoy?" she asked, feeling her stomach turn and twist.

"If it means the potential of getting a horcrux, then yes, Hermione. I thought that would have been obvious to you," he said, his face transformed by his frustration that she had been too simple to discover this on her own. "After all, you said that he had the Diary in our time, didn't he?"

"I'm not sure when it would have been given to him," Hermione said, swallowing thickly. She felt utterly heartbroken to realize that Theo obviously didn't feel as strongly for her as she did for him. She thought that he'd become fond of her...perhaps even loved her. They had been married for over three years now, and she'd given him a son. Perhaps she had taken McGonagall's instruction to treat this as a real marriage too seriously. Or perhaps Slytherins just saw marriages as something else than what she did. Godric, she just wanted to run up to her bedroom and cry.

"Well, you should be able to find out, shouldn't you?" he asked her. "If Lucius is anything like Draco, flattery is like a drug to him. Just work him a little bit and I'm sure you'll be able to get him to tell you anything."

She bit her lower lip, but nodded. "If you think this is the right play," she told him, deciding that if he didn't think it was an issue, then...she wouldn't worry either.

"Of course it is," Theo answered, his eyes darting down to his shoes. "He's opened himself up to it, and we will either get a horcrux or figure out that it's not where we thought it was."

"And you'd do the same? If say...Narcissa made a pass at you?" she pressed, wondering if Theo was going to twist the knife.

Theo grimaced. "What do you think I'm doing with Ursula? We've kissed already and if I need to sleep with her I will," he answered hotly. "Just like you would have done with MacMillian."

"I made it so that I didn't have to resort to that with him," she argued back, feeling even more crushed than before to hear that her husband had kissed another woman. Maybe she shouldn't be so surprised.

"Well, not everyone can be as perfect as you, Hermione," he sneered. "I tried to make a pass at Bellatrix when we first met her, too, but she only had eyes for the Dark Lord. I said I would do anything to bring him down."

"I suppose I will just have to get all the horcruxes myself then," Hermione said, nastily, wanting to make Theo hurt as much as she did. "Sleep with Malfoy to get the Diary, befriend Bella to get the Cup. Seems I'm having much better luck than you."

"Don't act like befriending Bellatrix has been such a hardship for you, Hermione," he said with a laugh. "Try to deny it as much as you want, but it's obvious to me that you genuinely like her. Think about that. What does that say about you?"

Hermione snorted. "As if you are one to talk — I've seen you and Dolohov together. It's not as if you have any need to work him. He won't be able to provide us with any useful information about the horcruxes."

"You can't be certain of that," Theo sputtered back, clearly not liking the way that he was being called out. "Antonin has a lot of information."

"Yeah, maybe information about how to curse little girls," Hermione countered, feeling the silvery scar that the dangerous Russian had left on her itch. "Don't forget what he's capable of, and don't forget about what he did to me."

"You're just annoyed because he doesn't like you," Theo said spitefully. "Can't handle the fact that someone prefers me over you, can you? Can't handle that the attention and praise is no longer being heaped on the brightest witch of your age? Can't handle the realization that even Voldemort wouldn't care about you if it wasn't for Harry bloody Potter!"

Hermione gasped as that, wondering where this cruel, hateful Theo had come from. "If that's how you feel..." she trailed off, needing to get a hold of her emotions before she did something like cry in front of him. She would not let Theo see how he affected her. "Maybe we should just work separately. Let me know when you've handled Ursula, and I'll let you know when I've managed to acquire the Diary."

She turned on her heel then, needing to put distance between her and Theo. Her mind was spinning, wondering if he'd ever felt some kind of affection for her or if it had always been so horribly one sided. She wasn't going to let him hurt her anymore though.

Stealing herself, she retreated to her office so she could be alone for a while. She needed to write Lucius, in order to mend whatever offense she might have caused by running out on him like that. It wasn't every day that a witch rejected a Malfoy after all. Taking out quill and parchment, she began to craft a note that hopefully wouldn't seem too desperate, but would still entice him to give her another chance.

L-

Sorry to leave so abruptly earlier, but you very much caught me by surprise. I never dreamed that you might want more than flirtation, but I can't say it's something I'd be opposed to if you can manage to be discreet. Let's discuss over drinks sometime soon.

-H

Pleased with her letter, Hermione walked up the stairs so that she could send it off via owl, hoping that Malfoy would be flattered enough to give her a second chance.

Biting her lower lip to keep from smiling, Hermione wondered what Draco would think if he knew of this development. She couldn't forget that he had wanted to come back in time with her, being the first of the four boys to offer. Would the pair of them have had a better time of it, or would they be unable to shake their adolescent sniping at one another? Would Draco get terribly jealous if some man wanted to start an affair with his wife, with her?

Part of her thought that he would be thrilled to know that someone else coveted his wife, but he would never allow the affair to go through, even with a horcrux on the line. He would try to find some other way to get it that didn't involve his wife being unfaithful to him.

Or at least, that's what she liked to imagine.

Surely Draco only wanted to go back in time because it would save his life, seeing as the fate of those trapped in the Room of Requirement was so uncertain. But it felt better to imagine a life with him by her side than the one she currently inhabited with Theo, who only volunteered to go when he realized he was the only one who could. Reluctantly, he joined her in the past, claiming that he cared enough for the Wizarding world to make a change.

But he didn't care enough about her to even check on her.


Theo had only Draco's first hand knowledge of what Death Eater meetings had been like to prepare him for what to expect when Voldemort called him. Despite his father wanting him to join the group once he'd finished at Hogwarts, Alfred has always been closed lipped about what the Death Eaters actually did.

Draco had shared his experiences with him, whispering about all the horrible things he witnessed when neither of them could fall asleep in the Slytherin dorm. He told Theo about how the Dark Lord was always angry, always paranoid, always certain that someone had betrayed him to the Order. He was obsessed with Harry Potter and the need to kill him. Draco explained how unthinkingly cruel he was, even feeding Professor Burbage to his pet snake right on the Malfoys' grand dinner table while she begged Professor Snape to something — about how he couldn't get the sound of it out of his head no matter how hard he tried.

So Theo had been surprised to say the least when he saw that in this time, Death Eater meetings were usually drunken parties where the men could complain about mudbloods without anyone getting offended by it. He found himself enjoying the time that he spent with some of these men, feeling a camaraderie that he hadn't had in years.

He'd grown too comfortable. He'd forgotten how dangerous it really was.

It wasn't until the little dragon pox plan of Abraxas's fell through that Theo saw a true glimmer of the man Voldemort would become bubble up to the surface.

When he was called, immediately things felt different. The air wasn't hazy with smoke and there was no laughter, no clinking of glasses. Theo found Antonin and stood beside him. "What's going on?" he asked quietly, not wanting to draw unnecessary attention to himself.

"The Dark Lord is questioning Abraxas, and wanted everyone to see it," Antonin whispered back. "He wanted to give us a little reminder of what happens when you fail him."

"Give me an update on your brilliant dragon pox plan," Voldemort sneered, mocking the proud Malfoy to his face. "I have yet to hear about scores of mudbloods being struck down by this childhood disease."

"I...I donated the textbooks to Hogwarts," Abraxas said, his voice quiet, on edge.

"Is that how you address me?" Voldemort asked, letting his displeasure with the blond be known to everyone who was watching.

Theo could see the Adam's Apple in Abraxas's throat bob up and down, clearly not enjoying being spoken to like some peasant. But they were all peasants in the Dark Lord's eyes.

"I donated the textbooks to Hogwarts, my Lord," Abraxas repeated. "Exactly as was planned."

"But then what happened?" Voldemort prompted, fury barely restrained in his voice. "Why didn't they get sick?"

"McGonagall argued that we shouldn't distribute the books in the middle of term, not when so many students already had their books, my Lord," Abraxas explained, desperate to throw someone else under the bus. "We put them in storage, only just for a little while, until next term began. But then Peeves, that poltergeist, flooded the room and destroyed the books."

Voldemort did not seem to be any more pleased hearing Abraxas's explanation. "So you have no problem with how this was handled?" he asked, his voice deadly calm, belying the fury that simmered underneath.

Abraxas did not seem to recognize his old classmate's disdain for him at that moment. "Well, it wasn't a success, but I don't see how it could be my fault," he answered proudly. Seeing Voldemort's eye narrow at him, he hastily tacked on a 'my Lord', almost so quiet that you could miss it.

Theo wondered if this was when people like Abraxas and Rosier and Alfred realized that they had made a mistake in following Lord Voldemort or if they were in too deep to care. Surely, these men who had once been Tom Riddle's peers would recognize how ridiculous it was to be giving him some kind of honorific like he was better than they were.

"Of course it's your fault, Abraxas," Voldemort answered with a sneer, rolling his wand in his hand, drawing attention to it. "It was your plan, and it is your fault that you didn't account for the variables. You let McGonagall argue against using the books? I thought you would be better than a half-blood witch."

Abraxas's face turned a bit ashen when it began to sink in just how much trouble he was in with the Dark Lord. "My Lord, I will think up something else. Something more, something...something foolproof."

"You won't be thinking up anything for a while. I don't want any more elaborate plots when simple terrorizing will do," Voldemort said. "It's time we give someone else a chance. Nott?"

Theo felt his heart rate increase, worried that he was going to have to orchestrate some plot to kill muggleborns. But then, Alfred stepped forward.

"I would be delighted to show you what I can do, my Lord," Alfred said with a sinister look on his face, clearly not one bit concerned with calling Tom Riddle my Lord. He wasn't as proud as Abraxas was, clearly.

Abraxas was trying to slink back into the crowd, but it didn't go unnoticed by Voldemort, who was calling him back. "Oh, I wasn't finished with you, Abraxas," he said with a grin that would have frightened anyone. "There is still the matter of your punishment..."

"This is going to be good," Antoni whispered to Theo, wearing a matching grin. "I wonder how long it will take Malfoy to beg."

"Crucio!" Voldemort cast the spell with such ease, it looked like he could manage it in his sleep. He did not dole out his punishment with a detached sort of manner. No, he was not simply an indifferent observer who was only punishing Abraxas because he needed it. Voldemort was enjoying himself, his smile growing wider when Malfoy collapsed to his knees and then began to cry.

Abraxas was clearly in agony under the weight of the Cruciatus curse, and it didn't take long for him to begin moaning in pain. The moaning increased until he was begging, pleading with Voldemort for him to stop. It was so disturbing, it took everything in his power for Theo to keep from looking away. Only once he was reduced to a quivering mess did the Dark Lord end the punishment.

"I must say that he lasted longer than I thought," Theo quipped to Dolohov once it was over. "The Malfoys seem weak."

Dolohov was laughing then. "It's their very pampered lifestyle," he suggested. "Too bad the Dark Lord didn't pick you for planning."

Theo agreed, although privately he could only feel relief. "I would have liked to show him what I can really do. Perhaps some other time."

Antonin shrugged his shoulders. "Nott is so stingy. I am sure he won't be able to come up with something to satisfy me," he complained. "Say, you want to go to the bar? I'm paying."

Theo thought about it for a moment. His stomach was still roiling from what he'd seen Abraxas endure and his knees felt weak like he wasn't sure he'd be able to walk. He wanted nothing more than to run to Hermione and tell her of how horrific it was, while he rested his head against her chest and let her fingers run through his hair...

But he and Hermione still weren't speaking, not really anyway, since they'd had their fight. She had been so afraid when Lucius had made a pass at her, and like an absolute idiot he told her he didn't mind and that she should use him if she could. The worst thing was that he was sure it was the right play, even if it left him feeling irrationally jealous and angry at himself for encouraging her.

He couldn't face the idea of going home to Hermione and seeing that cold look in her eye, not when he was so fragile at the moment. No, it was better to go to the bar with Antonin and drink himself silly. Then, when he crept into bed later that night, he wouldn't feel so bad about using greedy fingers to pull her close to him.

"I'm in," he agreed.