July 28th

In order to keep her too-stubborn husband from getting out of bed before his injuries were fully healed, Hermione forced a heavy dose of sleeping potion down his throat despite his protests and assurances that his injuries "were not that bad". Of course she didn't believe him. She had enough experience to recognize he was trying to shield her from the worst of the truth. It would've been frightfully frustrating if it wasn't also thoughtful and kind.

He slept over twenty-four hours, completely missing Friday except for the first few hours of the morning before he stumbled into his home. It was still early Saturday morning, the sun was only just rising, when he began to stir from his medicated sleep. Because her mind had been running over all of the possibilities of what happened to him when he was outside in the scariness of the world, she hadn't had much restful sleep. She was somewhat tempted to take a sleeping potion herself, but didn't follow through with the plan when she thought about how unwise it would be to leave Oliver unprotected. Whatever Antonin was involved in, it was bad. She couldn't be certain until he told her the details if they were in even more danger than before.

Hermione didn't just spend the hours waiting for her husband to recover and imagining all of the worst-case scenarios. When her exhausted body would force her into unconsciousness for even just a few minutes or an hour at a time, she was bombarded with images of her past slipping through the cracks of the memory charms. They weren't gone entirely. Babajide Akingbage claimed there were still several that he needed to unravel before he would confidently proclaim her 'memory charm-free'. She couldn't even imagine what memories she might have been blocking, what horrific deeds and acts she'd committed over the years that she couldn't remember.

There was nothing about herself that she saw in those slips of memory that she liked. So many terrible choices had been made over the previous twenty years. Someone looking at her from the outside, especially one who knew her before the war ended, might assume that she only performed those awful acts or said those terrible words because she was brainwashed into believing in the regime. Forced to follow the Dark Lord. How wrong they would be! As more and more became clear, she knew exactly why she'd done what she did for so long. It was entirely her choice.

Her Granny Granger once told her that she had a 'bit of Darkness' in her when she was just a child. Even before she knew that she was a witch or that those beings even existed, Hermione felt different. When she entered Hogwarts and began to learn magic amongst all of the noble, foolish Gryffindors, she thought maybe she was different from them because of the accident of her birth. Muggle-borns weren't as common as everyone was led to believe. There were only three in her entire year and it was long-rumored that Dean Thomas was the son of a wizard who disappeared during the first war. Some were even convinced he was the product of a secret, scandalous affair Kingsley Shacklebolt had with a Muggle in his younger years. Their eyes were apparently similar. Halfbloods were common enough. Of course, anyone who couldn't prove their Pureblood magical lineage back at least ten generations was lumped into the largest group of witches and wizards. There was no shame in being a Halfblood, not really. Only the elitists in the 'very best' of the Sacred Twenty-Eight families looked down on the Halfbloods. Even Professor Albus Dumbledore was considered a Halfblood thanks to his Muggle-born mother and he'd certainly done all right for himself up until the moment he was murdered. There certainly were plenty of people who didn't dare claim he was somehow less of a wizard because he didn't have so-called 'pure' blood.

So it truly was an anomaly when someone was born with magic in a family where seemingly none existed before. Sure, there were explanations of squib ancestors that made some sense. Perhaps Petunia Dursley was more right than they all realized when she called her sister Lily a freak. Not for being a witch. No, there were plenty of magical folk all over the world. But for having magic when no one else in her family did. Years of genealogical research when Hermione was able to spare the time hadn't yielded any reasonable explanation of why she was able to perform spells. She was a freak. The longer she lived in the magical world, the more she understood why so many were suspicious and fearful of her kind. She didn't make any bit of sense at all.

But the darkness that Granny Granger used to talk about couldn't be denied. She could always feel it writhing around just under her skin. How many times had she stopped herself when she was younger from hurting someone that hurt or threatened her? And worse than simple defense, how many times had she felt the desire to hurt someone for no other reason than she simply desired to hurt them? In school she took pleasure in seeing Marietta Edgecombe's ruined face. She knew what she was doing when she lured Umbridge out into the Forbidden Forest. Part of her hoped desperately that the witch would be dragged into the underbrush by the herd of centaurs. It wasn't a surprise to learn later what they did to captured human women. She knew that before she ever entered the forest. And trapping Rita Skeeter into the jar in her animagus form? That was mild compared to what she actually wanted to do to the evil woman.

Becoming a Death Eater gave her an outlet to the darkness within her that she could no longer deny. If it helped her enemies, her former friends, to believe that she'd been brainwashed, so be it. She knew the truth. That was all that mattered. With each recovered memory, each fragment, Hermione was able to piece together parts of her past that she'd not been aware of for at least the past year or more. It wasn't always good.

"How long have I been asleep?"

Antonin's voice was groggy, heavy. Thankful for a reason to stop thinking entirely about herself, Hermione rolled over on to her side to look at her husband. His color was better than it was when he stumbled into the kitchen covered in blood. When he breathed, she no longer could hear him struggle with pain. More than just ribs were damaged inside him when he ran off to do whatever it was he did. She was glad that he was just as stubborn as she. It made killing him that much harder. Glad to see him looking better, she surprised him by kissing him on the lips.

"It's Saturday morning."

Realizing how many hours were wasted, Antonin groaned. Not even the surprising bit of affection from his wife softened the blow. He was not a man who liked to lounge around in bed. Only on very special circumstances when he was completely naked and a warm witch was next to him. Any other time he considered it a waste. When he tried to sit up, Hermione was quick to gently push him back down.

"You're not getting out of this bed until I think you are fully healed and you tell me everything I want to know."

He groaned a second time, much louder than the first. His reluctance to tell her what she wanted to know was evident. Why did he not want to explain what was happening outside the protective wards of their home? Was he afraid that the more she knew, the more likely she was to want to run away again? She couldn't understand the man.

"Fine. What do you want to know?"

"First, I want to know where the bloody hell you went and how you ended up stumbling back home covered in blood?"

Before he would tell her, Antonin took another deep breath to calm himself. She knew his mannerisms well enough to know that he was preparing himself before he had to tell her something she wouldn't like. Whatever she learned, she wasn't going to be happy about it.

"I confronted Rabastan. Demanded to know where his brother has been hiding."

It was Hermione's turn to groan. That couldn't have been a very comfortable visit. With the succession of the Dark Lord still in question, she didn't understand why her husband would've been so foolish as to actually approach a known enemy working against him. Or, maybe the succession had been decided? She didn't know living inside the protective cocoon Antonin created for her and telling her nothing.

"Took me most of the night to even find him. He wasn't at his manor. I know his wife was terrified when she saw me at the front door, but she refused to tell me where he went. I eventually found him at Marcus Flint's house."

"What did Rabastan say when you asked about Rodolphus?"

"He just laughed at me. Said that he didn't know what I was talking about. His brother was probably dead. Then he said…"

Antonin's mouth closed, abruptly cutting off the rest of his sentence. Hermione rolled her eyes. It didn't take a genius to figure out that he was trying to shield her from something nasty that Rabastan said. She didn't understand why he would even bother. Years of sharing an office, and often a bed, with the horrible man exposed her to the very worst facets of his personality. She wasn't going to be surprised or even offended by whatever he said.

"What did he say? Tell me."

"He accused me of being as crazy as my wife."

Hermione rolled her eyes and tried not to let the words hurt her feelings. Even terrifying Death Eaters who had people ripped from their homes in the middle of the night to be dragged down to the lowest level of the Ministry to await torture could still feel pain. It was embarrassing that so many people in their society knew, or at least suspected up until the day of the Dark Lord's funeral, that she was playing with less than a full Quidditch pitch. After learning that Rodolphus had been manipulating her mind for years, she wondered how much of the insanity she knew she experienced was a direct result of his meddling or just simply who she was? It was a question that she wasn't entirely sure she would ever want to know the answer to.

"And I imagine that is when the curses began flying?"

"Actually… it was a bit more physical than that at first."

The image of her proud husband resorting to the violence of Muggle street brawling made her laugh. Perhaps it was the wrong reaction to have in such a moment, but she couldn't fight back the giggles that exploded out of her mouth. She knew that Antonin was going to be all right. In his stupidity, he'd been able to get away quickly enough that he wasn't going to suffer any long-lasting effects. Seemingly offended at first, it didn't take long before the wizard was laughing right along with his wife.

"Then Flint tried to come to his hero's aid and it just… well, the tide changed somewhat when it was two against one."

She leaned down to kiss his forehead.

"You stubborn, ridiculous man. It's a wonder they didn't knock all of the sense out of your head."

They were quiet for a few moments.

"Antonin, I need you to tell me what's happening outside." He started to interrupt. "No, stop trying to protect me. I can't bear another minute being stuck in here with no information."

"Part of why I haven't told you anything is because there isn't much to say. We've just had meetings and no one has made a move yet. It'll happen though. That's why I don't want you or Ollie outside of the wards. Not until we can see for certain who are our enemies."

It was frustrating that he didn't have any more information than that to give. At least Hermione could be somewhat content with the fact that he was every bit as annoyed and frustrated as she.