New chapter time!
Russian translation at the end of the chapter!
The Taste of your Fear
Chapter 5
November 17th 2001, 01:21 am
A blinding yellow light flew towards them, hitting the shield Antonin had cast around himself and Hermione, but it did nothing to break it. More rapid-fire spells made their way to where they stood, each one deflected by his strong shield. The darkened street was flashing in bright and blinding lights, akin to a lightning storm. Throwing a glance back at Hermione, Antonin couldn't help but clench his jaw in anger at the fear he could see in her eyes. He focused all his energy on maintaining the shield, making sure she stayed safe, that was the most important thing. He will deal with the trigger-happy Aurors once he ensured she was out of harm's way and would not be a witness to his… crimes.
Hermione was shouting at the men, begging them to stop, over and over. That's when Antonin realised, only one of the Aurors was firing spells toward him, the taller one of the two. The second man was trying to break through the tall one's shield. He couldn't see their faces to see if he recognised them, surely, he would know of two buffoons working for the DMLE.
All in all, this display was… peculiar.
Maybe this was not the trap he was expecting. Maybe the Aurors' presence was for something else entirely, a mistake of some sort. Meaning, he would be very stupid if he were to send a curse back, less he gave them a reason to book him into a cell for the night. He kept the shield up and waited until the first man got tired, or the second one managed to neutralise the other, whichever came first. It wouldn't be a smart move to neutralise the mutt and display his magical strength, either, as power usually drew everyone's attention, and the last thing he needed right now, was unwanted attention.
Hermione hid her face in her hands and laid her head against Antonin's arm. She was crying now. Seizing the opportunity, he snaked his arm around her, pushing her tightly against his chest.
"There there, milaya, everything will be fine. I won't let anyone hurt you," he cooed, pressing a kiss on her hair, and wiping the fat tears that were rolling down her cheeks with his thumb.
The Auror let out a strangled cry at the display of affection, which allowed the short one to cast a successful expelliarmus, using the temporary distraction to his advantage. The man's wand flew through the air and dropped in a clatter on the paved road a few feet away. He was then bound with tight ropes by his colleague, and when he wouldn't stop shouting obscenities at everyone, he was silenced as well.
"I'm so sorry Alexei, this is all my fault, I should have known… I should not have dragged you into this mess."
"There is no mess, Hermione, everything will be fine. Do you know them?" he asked as the shortest of the two walked up to them.
As he got closer to where they stood, Antonin dropped the shield. Without the blinding lights of the spells, there was no doubt who that was. Mister Golden Boy, Harry fucking Potter.
Out of all people Antonin didn't need to be meeting up close and personal so soon, this was one of them. If Hermione could easily figure out his true identity, so did Potter. The Boy-Who-Wouldn't-Fucking-Die had a suspicious nature, and it was still too close to the war for him to still expect danger at every corner. He knew he would have had to meet with him sooner or later, but he definitely would have preferred it to be the latter.
Shooting a glance at the tied-up and gagged man, he could see now the flamboyant red hair. It had to be the Weasley boy. Another one who never quite held Antonin close to his heart, having heard from a young age how he had killed both of his uncles, the Prewett twins.
The pieces started to fit together in Antonin's mind. Ginger and his Hermione had dated following the war. It was rumoured in The Daily Prophet that their breakup three years later was a messy one, but as he never really put weight on anything that useless rag ever said about her, he did not believe it and thought it was just Skeeter trying to write a flaming article about what would have surely been an amicable separation. Wherever Hermione was concerned, a lot of the things said about her were simply to paint her either as a heartless trollop or a stupid bint.
Seeing the man enraged to be witnessing her in an intimate moment with someone else made it clear to Antonin that there seems to be quite a bit of unresolved issues going on. This might just fuck with his new Hermione-including plans.
The Boy-Who-Didn't-Know-What's-Good-For-Him eyed him suspiciously as he reached them, Hermione's face still buried in Antonin's chest. Potter cleared his throat, making her look up towards him, her eyes red and filled with tears.
"I'm sorry Hermione, I tried to stop him before he got here, but he was too quick," Potter said, taking off his glasses and wiping them on the sleeve of his Auror robes.
"It-it's okay, Harry. I'm sorry you keep getting dragged into this, too," she said, wiping her nose on her sleeve and motioning to Weasley's figure, his face red from his silent screaming.
"What are friends for if not this, Hermione?" Potter asked, his eyes flicking back to Antonin. "I don't think we've met before?"
"No, I don't think we have, but, of course, I know who you are, Mister Potter," Antonin said, offering his hand for a handshake. "Alexei Borisyuk, a pleasure to make your acquaintance at last, I've heard great things."
Potter shook his hand, a tight smile on his lips. He then reached out to Hermione, pulling her into a hug, and walking with her away from where they stood, making Antonin strain not to bare his teeth on Scar-Face's gall to touch his woman. He closed his fist in his coat pocket, the other hand toying with his wand. How I would love to make you regret touching her, he thought to himself, willing his temper not to rise enough that he would act on his darkest, murder-centric, desires.
They were talking amongst themselves in hushed tones, with Potter shooting glances over to Antonin and Weasley repeatedly. Not a very discreet Auror, Antonin mused.
Not wanting to miss out on what could be crucial information, Antonin wordlessly and wandlessly cast a spell of his own making, which temporarily increased the caster's hearing range. It was a very useful tool that had helped him and saved his neck many times during his active Death Eater days. It wasn't perfect as it could only do so much if there was a lot of noise around them, or if the speakers were too far or too quiet, but it would do just fine now.
"… I just don't know how to tell him…" he could hear her say.
"I know Hermione but th…too long…tired of it"
"He won't listen to me… tried Merlin knows… Ron is being a prat and acting like a child."
"…needs time… are you with him now?" Potter asked as he nodded his head towards Antonin.
"No, this is our first… will have to tell him to put things on ice for now… for the best."
Antonin's blood ran cold as he cancelled the spell. Muttering a 'blyat' under his breath, he turned his face away from them, concealing the anger that became apparent on his features and threatening to boil over and make him do things he might regret. His jaw set, and his fists clenched, he didn't look as handsome as he did when he smiled. It was in moments like these that the real Antonin Dolohov would be visible for the world to see. The Antonin Dolohov that was feared by all and even his brethren, the one who decimated families and duelled like no other. Not the persona of Alexei Borisyuk who courted curly-haired witches, bought them dinner, made sure they kept warm and kissed them sweetly goodbye.
He couldn't let his emotions show, otherwise she would know he'd been listening in, and much like Legilimency, he didn't think she would be too fond of him invading her privacy. Reaching deep into his Occlumency shields, he schooled his face and turned back to face the woman that had stolen his heart in record time. He could salvage this. He could convince her to reconsider. One ginger-haired twat wouldn't be thwarting his plans.
Potter grabbed Weasley, and they Disapparated with a loud crack, just as Hermione walked over to him, wringing her hands, much like a House Elf that's about to admit to doing something wrong would do. Antonin felt a pit in his stomach at the display, he was not ready for this conversation yet.
"Do you want to come inside? There are some things I would like to discuss with you if that's okay," she said, her eyes looking everywhere but to his face.
Antonin nodded and quietly followed her inside. Once their coats were off, she went into her kitchen and started preparing some tea in silence. No one said a word until they were seated on the same couch they had been just hours ago. This time though, the air was thick with tension, and Antonin had to strain not to drop to his knees in front of her and beg her not to leave him just yet. He waited until she spoke first, fidgeting with his teacup.
"I just want to say, I'm sorry about what happened tonight. Ron… Well. I left him four months ago, and he's still not over it," she said, before taking a sip from her cup. "He thought… he thought we were it. That we would marry and have children. I wanted that too, at first… but I felt, I don't know, too young?"
Antonin nodded. She was quite young still, twenty years younger than him, in fact.
"We were still babies when we got together in my opinion," she continued, still not meeting Antonin's eyes. "I was not even nineteen yet, so many years of my life were wasted on the War. It felt like I was missing out on just being a child, the War had taken so much from us all. I didn't get to be a regular teenager, I had to support Harry, I had to help the Order, I had to find ways to win the war… It was just constant stress."
She set her cup on the table, her eyes welling with tears as she continued.
"And Ron had gone through all of that with me, it gave us some sort of kinship. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time, I had loved him for a while before then. A couple of years down the line and it became apparent to me that we were just not alike, with different goals, different wants. I couldn't give him what he wanted, and he couldn't give me what I wanted."
She stood up and started pacing in front of her chimney. Taking a deep breath, she finally met Antonin's intense gaze, her eyes watering even more.
"He's been relentless since the breakup. He can't accept that it's over. I just want our friendship back, how it was before all of this. I can see that he's hurting. It's – it's so hard for me, too. I didn't want him to see us. Harry said that Ginny – that's Ron's sister, a good friend of mine and Harry's wife – let it slip that I was seeing someone tonight. I've never seen him this – this angry."
Tears were now rolling down her cheeks, prompting Antonin to get up in record time, holding her tightly in his arms.
"Please don't cry milaya, it hurts me to see you so upset, you don't even know," Antonin said as he wiped her tears again for the second time that night.
"I'm sorry Alexei, I di– didn't want our night to end like this, everything wa– was perfect."
"I loved every second of tonight. Every second. You are an amazing woman Hermione, I feel so privileged that you've accepted my shouted invitation to go on a date with me, no matter how much of a caveman it made me sound like."
Hermione giggled softly on his chest, tightening her grip around his back. The sound warmed Antonin's heart, travelling to the deepest parts of his soul that he long thought to be forever stuck on ice. She will be his undoing.
"Hermione… beautiful, smart, Hermione… you really can't help yourself but carry the weight of the world on your shoulders, can you?" he asked, pressing a kiss on her forehead, as he drew nonsensical patterns on her back. "Like my babushka would always say 'chto upalo, to propalo'. You deserve to be happy and carefree; you deserve the whole world."
Hermione pushed her face away from his chest, meeting his eyes. Brown met blue; the air thick with intensity. They stayed this way for a few seconds, until Hermione spoke up, her face serious.
"I can do many things, but I don't speak Russian, you know," she deadpanned, and seeing the bewildered look on his face, her face lit up in a teasing smile.
"It is fine, milaya, I will just have to teach you, won't I?"
He dropped his face towards hers, his lips ready to worship hers. He expected the night to end in fireworks, steamy kisses, and mind-blowing sex. Antonin was sure she would not be rejecting him as she'd told Potter. But that's exactly what she did.
She pulled away from him, her cheeks red, looking at her hands as if she was seeing them for the first time.
"I'm sorry Alexei, I would love to– to kiss you, but I think I need some time to process all of this."
She could have stabbed him with a dagger to the heart repeatedly and it would not have been this painful. Stuck in place, his body still hunched down to where a witch that's over a foot shorter than him was just mere seconds ago. He couldn't believe it. He pulled his Occlumency shields up as he righted himself. He couldn't let her see just how hurt he was.
"Again, I've really enjoyed our evening, and I would like to see you again, but not… not right now. I need to sort things out with Ron first. Until that's done, I don't think I can appreciate you, and this, fully, and you don't deserve anything less."
"I will wait, milaya," he said, his voice gravelly. "I will wait because you are one of a kind, Hermione."
"What does 'milaya' mean?" she asked, repeating the word almost to perfection.
"I will tell you next time I see you," he replied simply, before walking out into the hall and grabbing his coat.
December 15th, 2001, 04:26 am
Antonin sighed deeply, taking off his tie as he sat down on his bed. Reclining back on his covers, he stared at the canopy, still fully dressed, smelling of stale cigarettes, alcohol, and sweat. The collar of his white shirt was smudged with red lipstick, left there by yet another faceless witch he did not care about.
It has been exactly four weeks since he walked out of Hermione's house. Four weeks since he heard a word from her. She wasn't coming to work, as he had checked a few times, and she was never at her office. When he asked Potter about her when he met him at the Ministry lifts one morning, he said she had taken time off work to rest.
The letters he had written came back unopened and were stacked on his bedside table.
He felt sick.
He had to see her.
He had to make a plan.
Russian translation:
chto upalo, to propalo / что упало, то пропало / "what fell is gone" which is a bit like "don't cry over spilled milk"
