THIRTY-NINE
Hermione wasn't certain how long had passed before she could no longer take simply standing there playing lookout. She even thought perhaps her own stillness was making her nervous. Paranoid, maybe, as for a scant moment, she believed certain that she felt that sense of being watched stealing over her again.
Yet it was gone so fast, and this time without the accompanying impression of the watcher being very much present even after she started looking for them, that she forced herself to dismiss the feelings. No point in distracting them both with her imagination running off just now.
They each seemed to have quite enough difficulty keeping focused as it was, no need to toss some rambling and wayward corner of her mind into the mix.
Shaking her head at herself, she slipped from the side of the house. Her steps light and careful, she approached Antonin, who seemed preoccupied with examining the soil beside the road.
"Anything?" she asked, strangely and unexpectedly grateful when her abrupt question didn't startle him. She thought either of them getting jumpy right now—causing the other to get jumpy in response—was not a thing that would go well for their attempt at staying covert.
"Yes," he answered, voice low, solemn. "That's what's troubling me."
The witch swallowed hard, not liking that at all. Not that she very much wanted this to have been her imagination, but that was certainly preferrable to learning some mysterious creature was stalking her.
"What do you mean? You can't tell what it is?"
"No, I can't." He turned where he knelt, looking up at her. He glanced away for a moment, appearing to collect his thoughts, before meeting her gaze once more, crimson eyes glittering in the dappled moonlight pouring onto the road from between the drifting clouds overhead.
"Because you don't recognize the scent?" she prompted, needed something more, something concrete and plainly stated.
Antonin shook his head. Climbing to his feet, he stepped closer.
His voice pitching lower, still, a barely audible rumble in the quiet semi-darkness, he caught her hand in his. He let the side of his thumb trace over the edge of her palm again and again in an attempt to keep her soothed as he said, "Because there's too many."
