Hermione finally got home with the feeling she had a lot to think about, her meeting with Dolohov, or Antonin as he had ask her to call him, had been enlightening for lack of a better word, he truly seemed worried about her and the whole Skeeter conundrum, and that didn't feel right, she could understand his worries in case it affected him, but even she could see that wasn't going to be the case, the story was juicy and the wizarding world still had a lot of thinking to do when it came to gender issues, they would be glad to have a new gossip and of course they were going to blame her, for either being just a silly girl letting the big bad guy seduce her or for being the femme fatale trying to add a new celebrity to her list. The wizarding world might have been grateful for her actions in the war but they couldn't forgive her for being single and childfree at her age, in their eyes that meant something was wrong with her.

And he knew that, he might have been in prison for a long time, but he had grown up in the wizarding world so the only thing that made sense to her was that he was using that to his advantage, to what end? Merlin knows, but she hadn't had much fun for a long time, so when he started playing the smooth card she decided to play coy, and now she wasn't sure if that had been a smart move.

Playing with fire had its risks, but well, burn paste was cheap.

At least she had got something clear, he was making plans on the move, sure if he had thought about it he would have seen that that was the wrong direction to move, so clearly he was lost, not as much as she was though, she still didn't know what to do next. And maybe she had misinterpreted his moves, but that was unlikely, she was single, not clueless, she knew when she was getting hit on.

The fact that it had been so easy to follow his game was scary,but then again he wasn't difficult to look at, and maybe she could have some fun along the way. One thing was for sure though, he hadn't said it aloud, too clever for that being still in parole, but he would help her get her revenge.

And that was the big issue at the moment, how to get back at Skeeter. By now she had already published a book on her journey to become an animagus, and how that ability, acording to her, had been crutial in uncovering scandals along the way, sadly if there was one thing Skeeter was not, was stupid, she published the book when everyone was still busy with the aftermath of the war and as a consequence she had gotten away with it without punishment. After that Hermione had been too busy rebuilding her life to worry about her, and now had nothing to go on about, hopefully she would be able to dig something out.

The whole Antonin matter was worrying though, and thrilling at the same time.

Antonin also had a lot of thinking to do, an hour before Hermione got to his flat, he knew the only path not to follow was getting too involved with her, and an hour later he had given her a rather convincing attempt at seduction. What the hell was wrong with him? And what was worse, she had followed through, nothing to obvious, she was far too classy for that, but he had seen the change in her demeanor, she welcomed the attempt, they were in first name basis already and she had even agreed to accompany him shopping to Diagon Alley, and somehow that was scary, even leaving behind that deep down he knew she was way cleverer than to fall for the rogue guy act he had no idea what she was expecting to accomplish with that.

One thing was for sure, he better be careful, she wanted to get revenge on that woman, and he was on parole, was she trying to get rid of him by involving him in something muddy? It would actually make a lot of sense. Bugger, that made way too much sense, she was trying to play him.

Barely a week out of prison and freedom was looking grim.

…..

His first day as a ward on Saint Mungos came too fast and he wasn't really ready to face reality, a significant number of the patients would be people injured during the wars, known and unknown faces equally, it was anyone's guess how they would react at seeing him, upon his arrival he found a welcome committee of sorts, he was introduced to one of the healers and the head nurse, who would be supervising his tasks, also there was his therapist, who was tasked with properly introducing and accompanying him to make sure his presence was not a trigger for any bad reactions.

After a long day Antonin went back home with even more things to think about, Hermione being the last of his problems.

He had thought he was being punished in prison, restrained to a cell with nothing to do for the rest of his life. One day at work and he wasn't sure being locked up was the worst punishment out there. As a practical person he had never given much thought to his victims, and with only one having survived he had given even less contemplation to what happened to those who were left permanently injured.

A physical wound might hurt, most of them could be fixed though, and even the ones that couldn't could be fixed well enough as to live a mostly normal life. He just never thought about the other kind of injuries. Bella and the creepy brothers had been boasting for ages about the Auror couple, so he knew about them, he just never expected to have to meet them, to have to translate the stories into facts, and then have to associate the facts with people.

For maybe the first time in his life he could say that he went back home feeling pain, and a tiny bit of regret, and sadly he was not really sure how to deal with those feelings. For the first time he felt broken and all his planning felt somehow wrong.

Hermione would be coming by the next day to go shopping, would she be someone to talk to or had he fucked up in his haste to make a move and try to outsmart her?