My most sincere apologies for not posting last night. See … I have Social Anxiety Disorder (no, seriously, it's kind of awful). Anyway, I took my daughter to a party that involved lots of peopling, things going wrong, then going right, then going wrong again, so by the time I got home, I was too drained to do anything but change into my jammies and crawl into bed.


FIFTY-TWO

She dragged her eyelids open, immediately wincing at the light of day splashing across her face from the seam between the window's closed shutters. Swallowing hard, she sat up and rubbed at her eyes with the heels of her palms.

Last night … didn't come back to her in a rush, exactly. More as though it had never left her, the entirety of the scene still fresh in her mind. Yet, when she thought on any single moment directly, she found herself overwhelmed, as though it were happening all at once in a single near-dizzying arc of touch and sensation and sweet, thrilling aches.

She drew a deep breath, collecting herself.

Antonin was still across the road. After she'd calmed his worry—an overwhelming notion all on its own for how she had never expected him to evidence so much concern for her so fast, nor so easily—and explained the strange vision of a memory housed within some future moment, which technically meant that memory was also a future moment and ….

Oh, bloody hell, she'd gone and confused herself. She hadn't nearly enough sleep for this. Hermione gave her head a slow, sobering shake, ignoring the faint stinging in the side of her throat from Antonin's feeding. The witch was mindful to settle and fluff her hair around the sides of her neck, obscuring any telling marks.

She'd left him so they could both sleep, but not before helping magically secure the little house from any sunlight that might try to invade the meager space.

Now she had a mission.

She thought she knew the spot she'd found the book. Daylight was by far safer from whatever other things seemed to be seeking it. So, to investigate her vision—and she really did despise that she was relying on divination in any sense—while the sun still hung high in the sky was her wisest course of action.

If she found nothing, she'd curse divination as she always had, but if her search were successful?

Hermione stretched, an involuntary groan escaping her as some joints gave a satisfying cracking sound. If her search were successful, she'd cloak the Book with her own spells and wait for Antonin to awaken so they could comb through its contents together. Before letting on to anyone else that it had been found.

Though … she did worry what sort of things might be alerted the moment they opened its ancient cover.

With another shake of her head, she climbed to her feet and crossed to her bedroom door. For now, however?

For now, she was going to see if she could talk Oksana into making her some of that lovely cabbage soup, with the tomato broth and dark, leafy greens. Yes, all things rich in iron. Perfect.

And maybe a side of red meat.

She would save the puzzle of how the hell she'd had that vision in the first place for later.