The summer was long and muggle London was bursting with tourists from all over the world. There was an inexplicable sense of hope in the air as this was a time when muggles believed in the best of their ability through the acts of their sportswomen and sportsmen in the Summer Olympics.

London was at her magical best, teeming with colour and noise and people and heat. They were right in the heart of this city, the bustling, impossibly touristy heart, in Leicester Square. Of all things, Dolohov had begged for a hamburger, which he was scarfing down with great speed, while simultaneously cramming greasy chips into his mouth. All of which he washed down with monstrous amounts of Coca-Cola, the cup of which was proudly declaring its Olympic credentials. Ron Weasley felt nauseated by this sight.

"Do you know what goes into that hamburger?" he asked sceptically. "This is not food, my friend, this is poison. When you eat food such as this you are torturing yourself, beating your body into a slow, painful death as you shut down its functions by sheer overdose of artificial chemicals that the body cannot process..."

"Can't be worse than the food in Azkaban," Dolohov retorted, with his mouth still full.

Ron made a face. "Surely gruel is better than this. There are oats and rice and that's a good lot more nutrition."

Dolohov scoffed derisively. "Gruel? What are we in, Victorian times?" He gestured at the hordes of tourists in polo shirts and shorts, shod in modern sneakers, draped in accoutrements such as their national flag and the occasional Union Jack purchased from a souvenir stand.

"What do you eat then?" Ron asked, slightly alarmed it was not the gruel he assumed it to be.

"Leftovers? Expired food. To keep the costs of running the prison low, they take in all the stuff that the shops are about to throw away."

"You can't be serious?"

"Sometimes, the vegetables are half-rotten when they get to us," Dolohov said, relishing the horror on Ron's face. "I know, I work in the kitchen."

"You?!" Harry exclaimed. "They put you in the kitchen...with all those knives around?"

Dolohov shrugged. He seemed to enjoy the shock on their faces. "You can ask prison management."

Hermione shook her head in dismay. Azkaban had been privately run after the Ministry sold off some functions in a recent privatisation spree. Some functions, she believed, should never be run for profit. Prisons were one such example. She made a mental note to look into this.

Dolohov finished the last of his hamburger, licking the greasy paper with glee.

"Alright," Harry said, looking at his watch, which used to belong to Fabian Prewett. "It's almost time. Let's head over to Pizza Express. Are you sure you'll be able to eat some more?"

Dolohov nodded enthusiastically, smiling. He looked so happy around food, Hermione noted. It was as if he were a completely different to the one in Azkaban, sullen and silent and extremely difficult. The burly, tattooed, menacing Death Eater persona had seemed to fade away the moment they left the prison.

The group headed off to Pizza Express, where they had arranged for a special meeting with Dolohov's sister, who was in town for a business trip and who also had corporate-sponsored tickets to the Olympics. Dolohov had several tracking spells on him in case he decided to make a break for it, and he also had some spells that invisibly handcuffed him to Hermione. Harry and Ron had been tasked with muggle protection, as Aurors, ensuring that nothing would go wrong.

They were early, and they took their seats at the table. Hermione took out her muggle mobile, procured for this occasion, to check with Katherine Cohen if she was on her way. She asked them to order first, which they did, and she turned up just as the first pizza arrived.

She was dressed smartly in a muggle business suit, tailored to fit perfectly in high-quality fabric. Her handbag was structured and professional, and her blond hair was neatly pulled into a bun. She was supposedly five years younger than Dolohov, which put her in her early fifties, but she looked a great deal younger, especially when contrasted to her Azkaban-aged brother.

There was disbelief on her face. "Antonin?" she asked, her voice ringing with an American accent. "Antonin."

"Katya," he replied.

"Oh gosh," she replied, clapping a hand to her mouth. "I thought you were dead! I thought you died that day..."

"I thought you died too," Dolohov replied.

"What's happened to you? We have so much to catch up on." Katherine looked around the table at Hermione, Harry and Ron. "Are these...your children?"

Harry shifted around in his seat.

"No, Katya," Dolohov said. "Not my children. They're my guards for today. Prison guards, I'm a prisoner, so sorry you have to see me like this."

Katya looked up from her pizza, shocked. "What have you done? Oh Tosha...what happened to you?"

"I murdered someone," Dolohov said plainly. "Or people, many people."

"Why would you do that? How could you...? Why?"

"There is no why," Dolohov dismissed. "But I thought you should know. Maybe it's good we are not family anymore."

Katherine shook her head. "No," she said firmly. "We're still family. You have to tell me everything. I want to know all that's happened to you."

"You don't want to know, Katya, trust me. Let's talk about you. You look very well."

"I am well, but maybe very stressed out from my job. But never mind that, I want to talk about you."

"No," Dolohov said, shaking his head.

Katherine reached across the table, holding his hand in hers. "You saved me that day," she began. "Without you I would be long dead."

Hermione's curiosity was piqued, as, she was sure, Ron and Harry's. There was, naturally, the question of how the Dolohov family had come to be scattered all over the world, but the idea that there was some act of heroism from the one who ended up a criminal begged for more investigation.

"I don't want to talk about that. It's all in the past anyway."

Katherine was shaking her head, possibly holding in tears. "I cannot believe you would end up a murderer. Do...mum and dad know? Did you ever find out what happened to them?"

"They're dead, Katya. They moved to Canada a long time ago, perhaps they had given up on finding us. I am fairly sure they must have heard of what I've done too, if they were at all in touch with the news. You couldn't avoid the story. But they must have been ashamed as they have never contacted me all the years I was in prison."

"I didn't hear anything in the news about you."

"That's because you're a squib, Katya, and you've been brought up by muggles."

"What's that?"

Antonin uttered the Russian words for squib and muggles.

"Oh," Katya said. "I thought...I thought all that was a joke! Papa and mama, I mean, my adoptive parents, they said all that stuff about magic was all my imagination and probably my way of coping with the loss of my family. So magic is real after all?"

"It's not very magical," Dolohov said plainly.

"What did you do? What was it that landed you in prison?" Katya asked.

"I killed someone," Dolohov replied. "Someone I was...someone I was in a relationship with at that point in time."

Katya shook her head, dismayed by the implications of this violence. Having grown up in the United States in a progressive household, and as a successful businesswoman in a male-dominated field, she held not a few strong opinions that were feminist in nature and she had read all too much about the connection between murder rates and domestic violence. "Why did you kill her?"

"Him. I killed him," Dolohov replied.

"Why did you kill him?" Katya corrected.

"He just...he didn't fit into the rest of my life," Dolohov said.

"You don't kill anyone for a reason like that!" Katya exclaimed.

"He wouldn't go away," Dolohov said. "I couldn't think of any other way to get rid of him."

Katya had a look of utter disappointment that the brother she had thought so fondly of should turn out to be a criminal.

"I'm sorry, the reality is that you have a murderer for a brother. It may be bad for your business image so I will not mind if we never speak again."

"No, I do want to speak to you again. But right now, I think I need time to process all this." Katya looked at Hermione, indicating that she would like to wrap up and leave. Hermione nodded, and there was some tussle over the restaurant bill, for Katya insisted on paying.

All that done, Ron turned to Dolohov and said, "So you were in a relationship with Uncle Fabian after all! I'm not going to let you get out of explaining this one."