February 8th

Sleep was an impossibility for Hermione. Even as she tried desperately to take advantage of the last full day and night she had access to the rented room, she couldn't get her mind to shut itself off. In her time as a Death Eater, she had done many truly awful things that she knew she would one day have to answer for. Whether or not there was a Heaven or a Hell or a God or a Maker, she didn't know. She'd heard too many people claim to have seen a hint of the afterlife to believe that nothing happened when they died.

There had been days in her life when she was every bit as cruel as Antonin. Worse, even. She had more than a few times surpassed her teacher in her own depravity. It had been intoxicating to be cruel and violent. She had known there was Darkness in her from a young age. Not to the extent that she discovered under her husband's tutelage, of course, but still there nonetheless. As a weird girl living amongst Muggles and not understanding what it was that made her so different from the other children, she'd been ostracized, ridiculed, left out of just about everything.

She wasn't proud of how she lashed out at the children in the neighborhood she grew up in. Sometimes she didn't even mean to hurt them. It just sort of happened. Later, when she was older and in Hogwarts, she confided in her favorite professor what she had done in the past. Professor McGonagall had pursed her lips into a thin line and stared down at her prized student with a concerned glance through her glasses. Hermione was certain that she was about to be told that she no longer deserved to be a witch and her wand would be snapped in moments. The Transfiguration professor simply sighed. It was a common confession amongst those students who were Muggle-born. Children were cruel, especially to those they deemed other. Accidental magical outbursts were to be expected, but certainly not condoned.

Maybe if Harry had known what she was capable of, he would have let the mountain troll crush her into tiny bits their first year. He was the ideal Gryffindor, brave and noble and entirely unable to see anything in shades of grey. Everything to him was either black or white, good or evil. If he'd known that she would one day be so easily corrupted…

Hermione shook her head to try to dislodge the growing disparaging thoughts plaguing her weary mind. She didn't want to think about Harry. It was too hard. Not only would he be ashamed of her, thoughts about him could put her survival in jeopardy. She was struggling enough as it was.

She couldn't be certain if her extreme feeling of guilt about her responsibility in the destruction of the Jordan family was a good thing or not. On the one hand, it proved she still possessed a modicum of humanity deep down inside her battered and bruised shell somewhere. As much as her training and then her dark deeds were designed to make her impervious to human emotions and that inconvenient thing known as her conscience, there was still something of who she used to be in existence. And on the other hand, it was dangerous to even contemplate putting someone else or their family ahead of her need to remain alive. If she didn't put her needs first, who else would?

Rumors had existed for years that she was a bit touched in the head. Perhaps they'd always been there from the very beginning. She didn't know. Antonin kept her so isolated in those first few years and by the time she was free to move about as she pleased, her reputation as being an enemy no one wanted to have was well-known. Wagging tongues usually fell silent when she entered a room. The older she grew, the longer she spent on the run, the more she wondered if there wasn't some truth to the rumors. Did crazy people ever know when they were crazy?

She kicked the thin blankets off of her to rise from the bed once more. Retrieving the stack of newspapers that Malfoy left behind, Hermione sat down on the hard floor to review them for yet another time. Not only were there articles about from the Daily Prophet, he'd slipped in a few from the independent Welsh wizarding newspaper. Though they weren't as heavily regulated as the Daily Prophet, there were enough allies of the regime manning the printing press that nothing was ever too salacious or harmful to the Dark Lord and his followers imbedded amongst the ink.

Lee wasn't born in Wales. Hermione couldn't remember where he said he grew up, but she knew that he had only adopted the area as his home after marrying Sarah. Maybe because he wasn't born and raised in Wales there wasn't as much loyalty afforded him by the Welsh press. Maybe it was the fact that Sarah was a well-known and well-liked member of a prominent family. She'd been there her entire life. It made sense that she would be written about as being an innocent victim and her husband a crazed maniac.

There had been no mention of Antonin's presence anywhere in any of the articles. The press made it sound like Lee had suddenly decided to attack his family. Kill his wife. Injure his little girls. He was being locked away in Azkaban for the rest of his natural life and nothing on Earth would have convinced Hermione that he was guilty. She'd been there when he threatened her life if she so much as looked at his family in a less than civil manner. She'd watched him kiss his wife and smile at her as she walked around the room. Though she hadn't been nearly as blessed as the Jordans in her own domestic life, she knew a couple madly in love when she saw one.

How the story was tilted on its edge to make it seem like it wasn't a result of an angry Death Eater didn't take a lot to imagine. Part of being in the Dark Lord's Inner Circle was almost unlimited power. It had the tendency to cause a person to grow a bit bold with its influence. She'd been the guilty party on several occasions. As much as she firmly believed she wanted nothing to do with claiming the seat of power for her own, she understood how intoxicating, how tempting it was. She even understood how her husband could see his own wife as a threat to his chances of securing the coveted prize. Something about such immense power messed with a person's mind. Antonin would have no qualms using his own threats and influence to make the tragedy appear to be nothing more than a domestic squabble. No one would question him. And if they did, he knew exactly how to take care of them as well.

Every single person who helped Hermione would end up the same. Of that, she had no doubt. Her husband was a jealous and proud man. He wouldn't stop searching for her until he found her and either killed her or dragged her back to the prison that was their home in Hogsmeade. Which was the worst of the two punishments remained to be seen. Whoever stood in his way of fulfilling his goal would find themselves in similar circumstances to the Jordans. She couldn't afford to accept any help. Not from anyone. Not from Alecto. Or Augustus. Not even from a kind Muggle living alone on a farm with her dog. Hermione's presence was as good as a death sentence.

Knowing she had read everything that she could several times, Hermione gathered up all of the papers into a single pile. Maybe it was unhealthy to cling to remnants of the destruction her actions could cause to innocent people she actually managed to care about, but she didn't care. She pushed every single scrap of parchment into her beaded bag. Even if she never read them again, she needed to keep them as a reminder. She couldn't accept assistance from anyone. She couldn't trust anyone.