Hermione forced a smile to her face. Naturally, Dolohov would show up at this inconvenient time. Why couldn't he just stay under a rock like the insect that he was? He was a complication she didn't need. Not right now.

Ron already had his wand pointed at the former Death Eater. "There's more of us than there are of you, Dolohov," he said. "Tell me why I shouldn't just kill you right now."

Hermione could feel Dolohov's smirk slither along the back of her neck. God, she wanted to tell Ron to just do it. She wanted to do it herself. It would be so easy. She could see the beating of Dolohov's pulse at the side of his neck. It would take just the tiniest of curses to put a cut there, to slice open his artery, to watch him bleed to death at her feet. And, looking at his smug face, she could barely contain herself. Then she glanced over at Draco. It wasn't that he would stop her. He was probably entertaining similar fantasies. But, for all that his father was a malicious drunk and his mother terrible, he loved them. And she loved him. And she didn't want to let Dolohov ruin them all with his carefully constructed blackmail.

The deep breath she took to center herself stung her throat as though she were inhaling poison, but she held a hand out toward Ron and said, "No, put it away."

Ron looked at her incredulously. Dolohov's smug face grew even less attractive as she did what he wanted.

"It isn't that he's not a piece of shit," she said. No point trying to put too much lipstick on this pig. There was only so much Ron would believe and only so much she could stomach. "But he has been helping to arrange some of the blackmail materials."

"The lovely letters Mrs. Malfoy has been sending to you?" Dolohov said. "The things that helped you set all this up?" He waved a hand to take in the crowds and the signs and even the graffiti of the rising phoenix charmed onto a wall. "I knew about it all."

"He did," Hermione said grimly. It was adorable how he was telling the exact truth. So adorable she hoped he'd choke.

He smiled at her and resolutely did not choke.

"You're telling me Antonin Dolohov has been on our side?" Ron clearly thought she had lost her mind. It was, she had to admit, a reasonable supposition. In his place, she'd think the same thing.

"I'm telling you he was smart enough to know which way the wind was blowing and join the winners," Hermione said. She could be just as technically honest as that bastard. She sighed and rubbed at her forehead. She'd been so happy just a few moments before. They had been marching. She was reunited with Ron and Harry. Little Archibald Lestrange had his signed frog cards which made her feel she'd somehow righted that wrong. Everything had been right with the world. And now this. What had her life come to that she was talking her best friends out of murdering this man? Her shoulder still bore the scars of his curse.

"It doesn't work out well if you slaughter turncoats," Draco said rather dryly when no one else said anything. "Other people become less motivated to change sides."

"Well, look who's gotten an opinion on that," Ron said, "Surprise, surprise," but the moment passed and he lowered his wand. The Death Eater got to live another day.

Goody.

Dolohov fell into step alongside them as if he belonged there and no matter how much Hermione hoped a convenient attack by angry wasps would get rid of him, he seemed more than pleased to be seen alongside the Chosen One and his entourage.

At least he would be another wand on their side. She would take the silver linings she could get. She wouldn't let a need for purity keep her from winning. People who clung too tightly to ideology lost.

Besides, she could always kill him later, once she tracked down how he had his safety net arranged. Once she'd removed it. For now, they marched and it would be fine.

A few steps further into the fray, however, and any belief they could do this and get it over with was ruined again, this time by Narcissa Malfoy. She emerged out of nowhere, wrinkled her nose with displeasure at the sight of Ron and Harry, then turned to lay one cool white palm along Dolohov's cheek.

"Well, the gang's all here," Ron said. "Any more Death Eaters plan to join us for this march to freedom? Maybe Fenrir Greyback can come along?"

Hermione shot him a dirty look which he ignored.

"I was always a big fan of Snape," Harry said.

She decided to ignore that too.

"Mother," Draco said, his tone guarded. "What are you doing here?"

She ignored them to smile at Dolohov. Hermione had faced a lot of evil men and women in her day. The Carrows. Yaxley. She had been tortured by this woman's sister. She had seen Harry kill a monster made from myth and horror. She still thought she would have nightmares about Narcissa's smile.

"I just wanted to come by and say hello to my old friend," Narcissa said. She slid her palm along Dolohov's jaw in a gesture that was uncomfortably intimate, caressing him until her thumb rested at the base of his throat. Then she pushed in. Hard. A shock of blue light flared up and Dolohov stepped back in shock.

"What was that?" he asked, his hand flying to his throat. He looked like he was trying to drag the spell out, but the blue light settled into his skin, gleamed, and then sank away. Despite the fading light, Hermione didn't believe the magic itself had dissipated.

"It is a gentle reminder of what happens to people who speak ill of the Malfoys," Narcissa said.

"Mother?" Draco asked. "What have you done?"

She didn't acknowledge his question directly but she did give an explanation. Even the most refined of the wretched, wizarding world aristocracy couldn't resist the urge to grandstand a little, it seemed. "As long as you never say anything bad about or cause any harm to my family, nothing will happen to you," she said. Her smile became even more predatory. "If you do, however, that curse will choke the air from your throat and you will die gasping on the floor."

"How does that work?" Ron asked. "Not that I object, or anything. I'm just having trouble believing you. That's not something taught at Hogwarts." Or by Moody, who knew more than his share of curses best left unmentioned but that he'd passed along to the Order anyway.

"You children," Narcissa said dismissively. "You think you know everything by eighteen."

"You can't power a curse for that long," Dolohov said, agreeing with Ron. "I know you are a remarkable witch, Narcissa, but that threat is empty."

"Which is why I built a power source into the curse," Narcissa said, and for the first time Hermione realized that this was a custom spell that her mother-in-law had designed. She hadn't pulled it from some decrepit tome on black magic. She shivered. She preferred to think of Draco's family as people who had made a few bad choices rather than a group of truly Dark witches and wizards. Maybe, when this was over, they could move out of the Manor, away from his parents, into a small flat of their own. One without Dark artifacts. One with a cat.

"Explain," Dolohov demanded tightly. His hand was back at his throat.

"It feeds off of your own magic use," Narcissa said. She sounded inordinately pleased with herself. "Every time you cast a spell, the one living within you will be re-energized and strengthened."

"What if he doesn't use magic?" Hermione asked.

Narcissa shrugged. It was a delicate, ladylike gesture, filled with elegance and poison. "If he can live like a squib for fifteen years – maybe twenty – then the curse will fade away."

Dolohov spoke through gritted teeth when he said, "How fortunate, then, that I have no plans to malign your family."

"Of course not," Narcissa said. She turned her back on him and reached her hand up to tuck a lock of Draco's hair behind one ear. "No one would be so foolish."

Well, maybe one person would.

"Traitor," came a hiss from the sidelines of the march and Hermione turned. This march was just one annoying complication after another and she had just about had it. What little sense of patience she had left disappeared when she saw the speaker. She'd assumed the slur had been directed at her or Draco. She'd practically gotten used to being hated by both sides. She let out a little laugh at the vanity of that. Not everything was about them, and Pansy Parkinson, chic in heels and a neat pink skirt, didn't care about her in the least. No, her manicured finger was pointed at Dolohov.

"Miss Parkinson." Narcissa sounded amused. "Shouldn't you be off writing your little fictions?"

Pansy's finger shook as she pointed it at the Death Eater. The wobble reminded Hermione of the way Draco's hands still trembled when he was stressed or tired, and she wondered if Pansy has suffered her own share of crucios that last year at Hogwarts. "You," Pansy said. "You are a Ministry man in name only."

Dolohov peered at her, then turned to Narcissa. "Am I supposed to know who that girl is?" he asked.

"She writes books," Narcissa said with contemptuous purse of her lips. "Not very good ones, but they sell well enough I suppose."

"Why is she pointing at me?" he asked.

"She's a bit of a shill for Yaxley," Draco supplied, earning him a glare of his own from Pansy. He shrugged at her. "It's true, Pans, and you know it."

"You're just jealous," she said. "You with your Mudblood wife and your failing family. You know I'm the wave of what's to come, and that -."

"I know you're deplorable," he said, cutting her off. He took a few steps toward her. "Pansy," he said, and his voice was low and urgent. "These people, you know they aren't good. How can you have forgotten what the Carrows did to us? Did to everyone? It's -."

"It's the fault of people like you," Pansy said. "People like the elite who only care about yourselves. People like me, ordinary people, are the real victims here. Mudbloods make the world dangerous, letting Muggles in, and protests like this just incite violence. We need civil discourse and -."

"I'm sorry," Draco said, and to Hermione's surprise he sounded as if he really were. "I'm so sorry, Pans."

"You should be sorry," she said. She pointed at Dolohov again. "I'm going to tell everyone what a traitor you are. Look for your name in the paper tomorrow. Owls… hundreds of owls coming to your house." She sounded frantic, almost to the point of hysteria, and spun on one of her stiletto heels before apparating away into nothing.

Dolohov didn't look pained by that threat. If anything, he had to be pleased at how the idiot girl he didn't know was going to make his switching sides absolutely clear to everyone. It couldn't have worked out better for him if he'd tried. That left a sour taste in Hermione's mouth. She preferred Narcissa's curse.

"Silver plate," Narcissa said. Hermione had no idea what that meant, and when she shook her head, confused, Narcissa smiled with wicked delight. "Some people are nothing but surface," she said. "Like cheap silverware, there is a bit of precious metal on the outside but rub at them a little and their real nature appears."

"My mother means Pansy is cheap," Draco said. He sounded tired. "False."

"It's far better to be honest iron than pretend to be something better than what you are," Narcissa said.

Ron gave her a disgusted look. "That might be the most classist thing I've ever heard anyone say."

"You thought I was some sort of egalitarian?" Narcissa asked. That was unanswerable, so they all fell silent as she fussed with Draco's hair again, patted Hermione on the arm, then said, "When this little problem has been taken care of, I will see you back at the Manor. I have been baking."

She stepped away into nothing else, the crack of apparition almost in audible, and Hermione was left staring at empty space.

"So that's your mother-in-law," Harry said. "Nice. Dinners must be fun."

Hermione thought about Molly Weasley, sending the extra girl off into danger. Harry didn't have any room to complain about other people's in-laws. Maybe Molly had left a tether attached to Draco's diamond bracelet, but she hadn't hesitated to protect her own and send the outsider away. Narcissa and Molly were not that different from one another and both were enough like her to make her a little uncomfortable. She didn't care for Harry's criticism.

She covered her annoyance with the whole thing by wiping her palms along the front of her trousers. The feel of the wool – better than anything she could have afforded before she married into this family – just irritated her more. "Well," she said. "I guess we're all going back to the Manor after this for tea and biscuits."

That turned out not to be the case. The rest of the march to the ministry went without incident. They waived their placards and shouted their slogans and the energy buoyed Hermione up. Dolohov was a nightmare, and Narcissa perpetually unreadable, but surely a group of people who were this right and had this much support could not possibly fail. Draco handed her a sign and she waved it at the sky with violent joy. They were right. They were just. They would win.

She believe that right until the moment the Aurors, arranged in a line outside the ministry, opened fire on the crowd of protesters.