Antonin lay on his side, looking at his wife sleeping in the rays of morning sunlight. Her riotous hair was spread all over the pillow, and her olive skin shone against the white sheets. She looked peaceful, content even, causing Antonin to marvel at how much had changed between them in a few short weeks.
The ghost of a smile flickered across his face as he remembered the wild, blood-covered woman who had stood in his room on the first night, ready to fight him barehanded. Hermione might be impulsive at times, but Antonin found that her fiery personality had won his respect. And, it was dead sexy besides. He curled an arm around the sleeping woman and she burrowed into the warmth of his chest, still blissfully asleep.
Antonin couldn't stop thinking about their conversation from the night before. Deep down, he had a sinking feeling that Hermione was dead on the money, not that he would ever tell her that.
His parents had both tried to tell him when he'd joined the Death Eaters, but he was young and hotheaded, convinced he had all the answers in the world. Now, fifteen years later, he could see Voldemort for what he was- a tyrant. Privately, he had been thrilled when he thought the Dark Lord dead the first time. He had stayed in England, working as a curse breaker, and managed to rebuild his life. He'd had a stylish flat in London and traveled extensively for work. In fact, he'd never been in one place more than a week. He missed that freedom every day, but he knew that Voldemort wasn't going anywhere.
All the travel, he reflected to himself, was probably the reason that he'd never had a serious relationship before. Or maybe he just didn't know how. In the pureblood society in Russia where Antonin grew up, you were either casually sleeping together or married. Getting married signified a deep trust between two people, a mutual agreement to defend the other and their house. Often romance went along with it, sometimes it didn't.
Or at least that was the theory. In practice, most of the relationships Antonin had grown up around were alliances arranged my the heads of families and were frosty, or downright abusive. Antonin had no idea how to be a husband, but he had some very strong ideas about what he did not want to do.
With that thought in mind, Antonin inclined his head to drop a kiss on his sleeping wife. She stirred in his arms, eyes fluttering open, and stretched languidly.
"I'm starving!" she proclaimed, "Can we ask Mospy for a late breakfast?"
On the spur of the moment, Antonin relied, "No. I have the better idea, get dressed."
"Where-" began Hermione, but Antonin cut her off.
"No questions, little bookworm. Just put on something to go outside,"
Hermione raised an eyebrow, looking suddenly interested.
"Okay!" she assented, and darted into the closet.
In a very short time, she was back wearing a pair of skintight blue muggle pants and a jumper. Antonin had changed into a set of sable-lined winter robes, and he had a large shopping bag in his hand.
"You really propose to go out in those pants?" Antonin asked skeptically.
"Don't be so old-fashioned. They're called jeans, muggles wear them all the time, and they're far more comfortable than robes."
Antonin shrugged, "As you wish, but put on a winter cloak. It will be cold,"
Looking even more intrigued, Hermione grabbed a fur-line cloak and threw it over the chair next to her. As she bent down to tie her trainers, Antonin could see why muggles loved those pants. It was taking all of his self-restraint not to bend her over the nearest surface and rip them off of her. Maybe later, he told himself.
Antonin extended his hand and Hermione took it, her hand tiny in his massive palm.
He walked over to the fireplace and took some floo powder from a small jade box.
"Svalsbaarg" he annunciated clearly, and then pulled Hermione closely to him so they could step in together.
His grip on her was tight as they spun in the fire, and when they at last tumbled out they found themselves in a dusty, disused living room. All the furniture was covered with sheets. Despite it being morning, it was dark outside, and Hermione could just make out snow drifts piling up outside the windows.
"Don't go getting any ideas, Kroshka, you need a wand to disable the floo wards at the manor,"
Hermione nodded, "I know. I tried already,"
"Of course you did," groused Antonin.
Hermione looked utterly unrepentant. She had clearly been making an effort to contain her questions, but could not any longer.
"Where are we? Who lived here? Why is it abandoned?"
Antonin did not seem to be in an explaining mood.
"My family. They are dead,"
"Oh," said Hermione awkwardly. However, her silence didn't last long. As she followed Antonin out into the hallway and up the sweeping marble staircase, she couldn't help asking, "Why did you bring me here?"
Antonin put a hand out to steady Hermione as she almost tripped on the moth-eaten runner, too busy looking around at all of the sleeping portraits and art lining the walls.
"I thought you might be tired of stay cooped up in the manor all day,"
"So you brought me to another manor?" Hermione teased lightly.
Antonin ignored her, pulling her through a side door at the top of the staircase that led to yet another staircase, this one rickety and winding.
They climbed in silence for three floors, and at last they reached the top. Antonin smirked at the look of confusion on Hermione's face as they were greeted with a blank wall. In answer to her perplexed expression he pulled down a trap door over their heads. A silk ladder fell down from the door.
Hermione climbed up first, giggling when Antonin placed a steadying hand on her behind. He grinned when he heard her gasp, and quickly followed her up. Hermione was sitting on the carpeted floor of a small tower, staring up in awe through the glass ceiling. The bubble-like glass extended right down to the floor, giving them a full view of the dark sky and surrounding snowy landscape.
"We must be really far north," she breathed after a moment.
"The Arctic circle," Antonin answered.
"Wow," whispered Hermione, her eyes fixed on the stars above her.
"My grandfather was an astronomy professor," Antonin explained, "He was a good man. He taught me everything he knew,"
Antonin tried not to imagine what his grandfather would think of him now. Hermione nodded, open-mouthed.
With a grin, Antonin began unpacking the bag he had brought with him, pulling out the breakfast food Mospy had sent up from the dining room and an excellent bottle of elvish wine.
The couple ate in a companionable silence, starting out into the starry sky and swirling snow. Once they had finished breakfast, Antonin poured them each a glass of wine and sat back against one wall of the room. Hermione settled herself between his legs, learning into his chest and dropping her head back on his shoulder to look up into the sky.
Suddenly, the night began to flicker with eery blue and green lights. Hermione gasped,
"The northern lights!" she whispered, awed.
"You do know everything, little bird?" Antonin responded, amused.
"You know, astronomy was always my worst subject," confessed Hermione, not taking her eyes off of the incredible display of lights above.
"Oh, you get a 99 percent on one exams?" teased Antonin.
"No, really!" insisted Hermione, "I just couldn't see the point of it, I guess."
"You had a shit professor, then."
"You think so?"
"Definitely. Astronomy's crucial in potion-making; so muchf potions depend on the celestial energies aligning just so. And even more so in curse-breaking. Ancient wizards used to create curses that could only be broken at certain celestial alignments."
"Why would they do that?"
"It was a..." Antonin searched for the word, "Maintenance door," he said finally, "It let them enter and strengthen their work on certain days, make sure the curse hadn't lost potency or different curses hadn't canceled each other over time,"
"That's fascinating," said Hermione earnestly.
Encouraged by her genuine interest, Antonin continued, "Once when I working with a team from Jama'a Beruit one of our interns completely miscalculated the alignment of Mercury relative to the moon. Poor boy never get his fingernails back on that hand,"
Hermione grimaced, and Antonin trapped her own hands between his own.
"Not to worry, I will make sure you keep both hands," he smiled.
"I always wanted to learn about curse breaking," Hermione said wistfully, "But Bill won't teach me. Said I was too impatient by half and I'd end up losing an arm or something,"
Antonin laughed softly, "He may have been right,"
He opened his mouth to say that he would still teach her, but stopped himself. Sometimes he almost forgot that if she got her hands on a wand she would be gone from his life forever. At times like this, he could almost ignore the fact that she was in reality his prisoner. He suspected she preferred to ignore it too.
After a moment, Antonin asked, "Would you have looked twice at me? If you'd had a choice?"
Hermione turned her head to look up at Antonin appraisingly.
"I would have," she said simply. After a moment she grinned wickedly, "Ginny always said I like them old and dangerous,"
"Old, am I?" rumbled Antonin, amused. "I'll show you old!"
He dug his fingers into her ribs and grinned as she squealed, trying to escape his tickling.
Suddenly, he clapped his hand to his arm and hissed. Hermione froze immediately.
"Did I hurt you?" she asked with concern.
Antonin shook his shaggy blonde head and replied, "Summons."
They were both dragged back to the cold waters of reality in that instant, and their smiles died away. Without speaking, Antonin waved his wand to send everything back into the bag. He grabbed Hermione's arm roughly and apparrated them back downstairs to the fire place. Taking the jade box outside of his pocket, Antonin lit a fire and threw the sparkling green powered in.
The couple stepped into the fire and sad, dusty living room whirled away in a dizzying storm of emerald.
Their feet had barely touched their bedroom floor when Antonin pecked Hermione on the cheek distractedly and disapparated without another word.