Thank you to all the readers who reached out to express sympathy & understanding after yesterday's chapter. It's much appreciated :)


TWENTY-SEVEN

Antonin folded his lips, repressing the impulse to point out that she'd just lived up to her pet name. Apparently taking his expression to mean there would be a lack of upir sass for at least the next few minutes, her own expression mellowed … slightly.

Speaking of her pet name, he mulled over how she hadn't seemed to make much of a fuss over it. Hadn't asked him not to call her that, hadn't done anything more than give him a quelling look over his explanation.

Perhaps now was a good time to test his thinking.

Trying for an apologetic look, he started, "Let's go back to the Book, моя кошеня. There's a chance it will have some way to reverse this."

The witch shook her head, frowning. "Why should I help you do any such thing? Has it occurred to you that there is a reason you were cursed? That this might be exactly what you deserve?"

"Yes!"

They both started at how he snapped out the word. It took the edge off her reaction almost immediately to see that he, too, had been unsettled.

Antonin breathed out a snicker loaded with self-derision as he let his head fall back against the mausoleum wall. Drawing in a breath so heavy she felt his chest press more tightly to her back a moment before he let it out in a sigh, he said, "I'm very aware that this is probably less than what I deserve. But when this first happened to me, I was only spared burning to death in the sun—spared from days of thirst driving me mad—by this old witch who found me."

"You said you hadn't drank from anyone else!" The moment the words were out of Hermione's mouth she wanted to kick herself—she didn't know if she was disgusted that he would drink from an elderly person, if she was upset that she'd let herself believe him when he'd said he hadn't drank from anyone else, or if … or if she had some other difficult and confusing emotion she didn't want to face about the idea of him taking someone else's blood.

He was glad he was still staring up at the sky just then, that he wasn't looking at her helped him push aside the urge to question her little outburst. "Didn't say I drank from her, did I?" He kept his voice level, letting her believe he was letting it slide, but no, he was tucking it away in his memories.

"The remedy you mentioned… it was some sort of potion, then? One she gave you."

"You really are bright," he said unable to stop a smile curving his lips. "Yes. But the story she told me, the reason she was helping me … I may deserve this curse, but she lost her son to it. He didn't deserve it."

He was aware of her attention weighing on him, but he continued, forcing himself not to meet her gaze or he might lose his focus again. "She told me there'd been an accident, his friend died, and because it was his fault, the curse deemed him a murderer. She helped me when she could've left me to die in pain and confusion."

Hermione swallowed hard, acutely cognizant of her eyes welling and the tip of her nose stinging.

"If there's a way to reverse this in that text, we can test it out on me. And, if it works, maybe others like him could be spared this fate." As Antonin finished speaking, he imagined she must be surprised at his motivations, and the truth of it was that so was he. He'd had no idea how deep these thoughts ran, how honest his words were, until he'd said them.

She only continued to stare at him in the mix of sparse moonlight and shadows. How was it possible this was the same Antonin Dolohov she remembered?

This curse had clearly done a number on him.