Chapter Ten – Tea Time

Hermione didn't know what had come over her as she held the Death Eater. There was something pitiful about the whole situation, although she had no idea as to why he would be crying. He had everything he wanted now, didn't he? He was the villain of the piece. She could hear his sobs by now, and that shook all of her senses. The only Death Eater she had known to cry had been Peter Petigrew, and that was when he had been fighting for his life in the Shrieking Shack all those years ago.

The Shrieking Shack… It seemed such a long time ago when she had holed up in that decrepit building that awful evening, her Time Turner warm against her chilled skin. She had finally been able to tell her friends the truth about the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, and watched how he was connected to the whole Sirius Black scenario. A convicted killer, turned godfather, turned good man and friend.

As she held the Death Eater in her arms, her heart pained. Sirius had been killed – struck down in the Ministry, whilst she was unconscious. She could have helped in the battle, but no. Other plans had been laid out for her. A shiver ran up her spine as realisation sunk in. She was holding the man who had maimed her – left a still hideous mark on her skin.

Slowly, she started to withdraw her arms from him, but his hand shot out, catching her wrist. His fingers enclosed over them, holding her in place. It wasn't a tight hold, she could wriggle out of this, but something stopped her. His fingers were marked, scarred, as if he had been a Muggle labourer, instead of a Dark wizard.

"Don't go," she heard him say softly.

Hermione floundered for an excuse. She doubted very much whether, "You frighten me, and I want to go home," would cut it. And realistically, when had that ever worked for anyone?

"I think you need some tea," she eventually settled on, realising how much she sounded like Molly Weasley in that instance.

His fingers loosened their hold on her, and she backed up off the bed. She hadn't even got to the door, when he had done likewise. His shirt was rumpled, marred with wet spots where the tears had fallen. He tried to straighten it, along with his hair – it was tufted up in places like ducks feathers.

"We could both do with a drink, I think," he said, and pushed past her towards the kitchen.

Having no other choice, seeing that her poorly formulated escape plan had already failed, Hermione followed him into the kitchenette area, where the Death Eater was already moving around cups and filling the kettle with his back to her.

Hermione's eyes slid to the door, but thought better of it. She still felt weak, and he was bigger than her. He would be faster than her - and he probably had a wand. She had nothing. There would be a better chance for escape soon - she just knew it.

"Mr Dolohov?" she said. When his response was to put teabags into cups without a word, she tried again. "Antonin?"

He turned so quickly that she thought he would give himself whiplash. "Yes, Hermione?"

She tried not to bristle at the way he said her name. She could still recall her dream – breakfast and a shower had done little to distract her from that. She took a deep breath, and decided to approach the matter head on.

"Why were you so upset?"

Antonin dropped the teaspoon on the floor with a clatter, and he hurried to pick it up. He didn't reply straight away. Instead, he tossed the spoon into the sink, found another and finished making the warm drinks, taking a long time to squeeze the bags. She was grateful that he did not use tea leaves – it was bad enough that she was trying to seek some kind of answer to her dreams, but if he offered to read her tea leaves, she might just explode.

She jerked out of her thoughts when he pushed the spotted mug into her hands. A mug that had seemingly become hers for the duration of her stay. "Thanks."

"Do you want a biscuit to go with it? Think Thorfinn's left a packet of bourbons in here." He started searching through cupboards, cupboards she noticed that were quite well stocked. He produced a pack, took two out and pressed them into her free hand. She tried not to pull away from his touch. Instead, she tried a different style of questioning.

"You and Thorfinn are pretty good friends then?"

"Knew each other from school. We were sorted the same year – both Slytherin, in case you were wondering." He dipped a bourbon biscuit into his mug of tea as he leaned against the worktop surfaces. "To be honest though, he was one of the only people who spoke to me in the early days – many people thought I shouldn't have been educated at Hogwarts."

"Why's that? It's not like you're a werewolf or anything, are you?" Hermione bit into his biscuit, crumbs scattering down the loose shirt, turned dress. She knew instinctively that this was one of his – along with the boxers that she was using as underwear. At least he hadn't stared at her like she was a piece of meat.

"Have you not heard my accent?" He smirked.

"Russian," she said confidently.

"Yes, Russian. Many thought a foreigner should have gone to somewhere else – Beauxbatons was an option, but people said I wasn't handsome enough." His mouth twitched in a bigger grin, and for a moment, Hermione could see the man from her dream. "A lot of people thought I should have gone to Durmstrang."

"Why did you come to Hogwarts, then?" Hermione could have hit herself – that sounded so rude.

Antonin laughed, a short bark, almost doglike, before biting once more into a biscuit. "Even as far as Russia, Albus Dumbledore was still revered to be a great wizard. Hence, why I begged my parents to write and enquire when I was a child."

"He was a great wizard – until your cronies struck him down." Hermione busied himself with drinking from the mug, keeping her eyes downcast.

"I'll have you know that I wasn't part of the Tower attack. I was busy downstairs, fighting the Order, keeping them away from the task at hand. I had no part in Dumbledore's death."

"No, instead you were busy attacking the school that you had once longed to attend! Wow, that's being loyal and true."

"Aren't they the traits of a Hufflepuff?"

He wasn't letting her jibes hurt him – the man clearly had spent enough time on these kinds of thoughts before. Instead of retorting, Hermione simply sipped her tea, letting her eyes find him every so often. He was focused on her the whole time, but surprisingly, Hermione did not want to cower from his gaze. The man was clearly a match against her own stubbornness, and even though, they had barely spoken before, she found him easy to talk to, for a Death Eater...

Hermione enjoyed a challenge as much as the next person.