I'm sorry, I'm really under the weather today, so unfortunately this teeny tiny chapter is all I've got.


THIRTY-FOUR

He felt nearly afraid to move as she approached. Antonin couldn't recall the last time he'd feared something—well, aside from those first moments beneath the sun's rays before he realized what he was now.

But there was something so … fragile, so vulnerable to her. He knew she wasn't frail, that she was far from easily damaged, but the way she stared up at him as she drew to a halt ….

He knew what he looked like just now, and it was a sight she did not yet fully understand. That she recognized him still, that she reached up and touched his face, the brush of her fingertips as they stroked his shadowed cheek seeming in danger of breaking something inside him for how gently she caressed his skin.

Yes, he thought, his eyes drifting closed at that delicate contact. Yes, he was afraid of Hermione Granger.