October 29th

Half a dozen times Hermione started to return to Cornwall to tell Augustus she'd made a terrible mistake in suggesting he actually marry Alecto. What sort of madness would compel her to encourage the man she once loved to leave one miserable marriage and enter into another with a half-mad woman he didn't love? Sometimes she could be the most selfish person alive. She hadn't always been that way. Experiences and disappointments molded her into that creature. Not even becoming a mother cured her of that odious trait. How many times did she forget Oliver completely? More than she was comfortable with.

Hermione focused on whether or not she should convince Augustus not to go through with the plan because she didn't want to think about the last words he said to her before she left Cornwall. Of course, the more she tried not to think about them, the more they bothered her and consumed her entirely. Why was everyone so convinced that she was in love with her husband? It didn't make the least bit of sense to her. Augustus wasn't the only one to suggest such a bizarre idea. Yes, she cared for Antonin. Once he was even her best friend. But did respect and fondness mean that she was in love with him? She didn't think so. No one knew the details of their relationship except for the two of them. If Antonin believed that she loved him as much as everyone else seemed to, why would he be so jealous of the other men that had been in her life before him? She couldn't reconcile those thoughts.

Because it had been almost a week since she last saw her husband and for no other reason, she decided to check in with him. Waiting until it was dark made the day creep by slowly. Whoever thought that being in the middle of a war was nothing but non-stop excitement clearly had never been inside of one before. There was a lot of boredom. Many hours that passed with nothing to do. Was it any wonder that so many people went mad in the middle of them? It wasn't just the violence.

She stared at her husband's wristwatch for several long moments before she cast the spell on it just outside of the Three Broomsticks. Given to him when they had only been married a few months, she hadn't put much thought into it when she bought it. He didn't know that. Every single day from his fiftieth birthday until the day she stole it from him weeks earlier, he'd worn it proudly and faithfully. Would he still cherish it if he knew the truth? Deciding that it didn't matter and she was just trying to delay her visit for a reason she didn't understand fully, she cast the spell. When the watch glowed blue, she Disapparated from Hogsmeade.

Returning to Aubin's cottage was one of the last things she ever wanted to do again. When the squeezing of the Apparition stopped and she saw the abandoned cottage looming up ahead, Hermione grew worried. Did she make a mistake? Was she stepping straight into a trap? She couldn't understand why Antonin would be there. With her wand held out in front of her, prepared to curse anyone who was unfriendly, she carefully pushed the door open.

Antonin spun around in a single fluid motion when he heard the sound of her entrance. Prepared to curse anything that moved, when he saw his wife standing in the doorway, he immediately relaxed. Hermione was thankful that he didn't curse first and look second. It wouldn't have been the first time he'd inadvertently struck her with a curse when she caught him unaware.

"What are you doing here, Hermione?"

"Looking for you. What are you doing here?"

He relaxed even further when she stepped inside and closed the door behind her. Nothing in the cottage was different from the day she was attacked by Aubin and William Wood. If she caught Antonin in the middle of ransacking the place in search of something, she must've caught him only minutes after he first arrived.

"I've hit a wall in my search for Aubin. I think someone is hiding him. Hoped that I might find some sort of clue in here to tell me where to go next."

"When you find your brother, what are you going to do to him?"

"Kill him. He threatened my son and tried to kill my wife. He's no brother of mine. Not anymore."

It wasn't easy for him to make such a bold declaration. Even if he wasn't particularly close to his brothers and he had gone many years between visits with them before, he still valued blood. The chill in Antonin's voice reminded his wife of how deadly he could really be. He was not an enemy that anyone wanted to have. Hermione could never understand why her brother-in-law had been foolish enough to attack her. Perhaps he was arrogant enough to believe that he wouldn't fail in his mission to kill her and that his brother would never know he was responsible. She didn't blame the horrible wizard for hiding. If Antonin ever found him, he would be in more pain than he could imagine. The same went if she was the one who found him. She hadn't been an expert at her job for nothing after all.

"Do you think that you could track Aubin the way you track me?"

Hermione didn't see why she couldn't. As long as she was able to get one of his possessions, it should work. Draco made her swear a vow that she would never tell anyone the spell he taught her. Now that the world was different and the Dark Lord was dead, she didn't understand why it was such a big deal to him that his spell remain a secret, but she wasn't one to break vows when they were made. Unless they were of the marital kind. Those she'd broken more often than she kept them.

"I won't tell you the specific incantations or how it really works because I promised the one who taught me that I would keep it a secret, but I can tell you that we need one of Aubin's personal possessions to cast it on."

"He owns everything in this house."

"It still may not work. He inherited most of it and I don't know if that makes a difference or not. And he hasn't been here in years except for the night he…"

She couldn't finish her sentence. Not with the stricken expression on her husband's face when she brought up the night she was tortured almost to death. It was a failure of his as her husband in his mind. Maybe there would never be a day they could talk about it openly without him looking as if he was going to vomit. Annoyed that it might not work, Antonin kicked at the sofa, knocking it backwards several inches. Hermione had a suspicion where Aubin might've been hiding. And if it was the place she thought it was, Antonin was doing an excellent job of avoiding it. That knowledge lifted her spirits ever so slightly.

Excusing herself to slip into the bedroom, she wanted to see if maybe her brother-in-law accidentally left something behind when he tried to kill her. Immediately after stepping into the bedroom, Hermione felt her stomach roil and rumble. It was no wonder that Antonin had been so afraid when he arrived at the cottage and couldn't find her. Blood was everywhere. How she managed to stay alive long enough for Draco to pour three vials of blood replenishing potion down her throat at his flat was a miracle. Her experience and special set of skills taught her exactly how much blood a human body could lose without it being fatal. She'd been very close to tipping over that edge.

Macabre fascination kept her from leaving the bedroom. Antonin didn't follow her. Not that she blamed him. If the roles were reversed, she wouldn't have wanted to see his blood in a massive puddle on the floor. Just thinking about it made her want to be sick. Imagining him not being in her life wasn't something she was prepared for yet. Even when she was on the run for a year he still loomed large in her life. Maybe there was a slight bit of truth to Augustus' statement the day before.

The light from the end of her wand caught something in the middle of the room. Pushing past her squeamishness that she was about to be stepping across dried stains of her own blood, Hermione went towards the object. A single silver button lay on the floor. She didn't recognize it as belonging to any set of robes she owned and Antonin didn't care for such showy buttons. His brother, however, had always been the sort to prance around in the finest robes he could afford. Where he got his money was a mystery. She never cared to spend enough time with him in conversation to ask. Not ready to show it to her husband just in case it did take her to the hiding place she was almost certain Aubin was in, she slipped it into her pocket.

"I couldn't find anything in the other room that he might have left. Guess I'll just pick something at random to cast it on."

She picked up a pillow from the sofa to test. Because of Draco's lesson about fabric being poor conductors of the magic the spell used, she tried to cast it. If Aubin was where she believed him to be, there were more secrets that would be uncovered if she took Antonin. Secrets that she wasn't ready for him to know yet. Though she was relieved when the spell didn't work, her husband was furious.

"I'm sorry, Antonin, but we need to find something that he's held recently."

Running his hands across his face in frustration, she could tell that her husband was reaching the end of his tether. She gently tugged his hands away from his face. Thirteen years of marriage taught her one way to calm him down with very little effort. She pressed her lips gently against his, unprepared for the passionate onslaught of emotions that accompanied the simple gesture. Antonin needed something to keep his mind off of his disappointment.

There was nothing that would ever persuade either one of them to enter into the bedroom they used to share again. Not when it was still coated in her blood. Without removing his lips from hers, Antonin led his wife backwards over to the sofa he'd abused. Needing to feel the warmth of her body, they didn't even bother to remove their clothes. A sharp tug ripped her knickers away and she was only just able to pull his trousers down to his hips before he was insistent that he needed to be inside of her. Not that she minded. Each of his hard thrusts into his wife reminded Antonin that she wasn't dead, that despite the carnage in the next room, she'd lived. With such an intensity of emotions in both of them, they didn't require much time to reach the culmination of their pleasure. He collapsed on top of her, holding her tightly against him. She reveled in the feel of his heavy weight. It reminded her that she wasn't alone. She was weary of being by herself. Maybe she didn't have to be.

"Would you like your watch back?"

Her true meaning wasn't missed by Antonin. Leaning up to stare at her face, he kissed her before he spoke.

"Nothing else in this world would give me greater pleasure, my love, than to have you by my side again, but I don't think this is the right time. The more I've thought about it since we were last together, the more I'm worried that Rodolphus will only become even more aggressive to keep us apart."

He was right. Next time, Rodolphus wouldn't use an old secret to tear them apart. Or even a new one. He likely would go straight to murder to fulfill his desires. She kissed him, allowing her lips to linger against his for several seconds.

"You're probably right. I suppose we need to worry about getting rid of our enemies first or we might not even have a future at all."

Before he could utter a response, a vibrating in his trousers startled them both. Laughing, he reached into the pocket to pull out the silver mirror he'd shown her during their last visit. When he opened it, he closed it immediately before Thorfinn could even speak. He kissed her again and climbed to his feet.

"I'm very sorry, but I need to go."

Once his trousers were adjusted, Antonin kissed her a final time and rushed out of the cottage. No longer needing to remain in the horrible cottage, Hermione stepped outside. The aura of the building was unsettling. She hoped she would never return. It needed to be burned down in her opinion. Feeling very tired, she wanted nothing more than to return to her bed in the Three Broomsticks.