A/N Hi guys. Sorry for the slow updates. Believe me, no one is more frustrated than I am with the delays. Thank you SO much to all of you who reviewed and I'm sorry I haven't had time to reply to you this time.

A couple of people asked why Dumbledore doesn't just move Dolohov to some secure Order hideout. I'm sure he would if he could but he's not in charge of Azkaban and its inhabitants. The Ministry might let Hermione visit and allow Dolohov his adapted cell but they're not just going to let the Order remove prisoners even if there's a very good reason for doing so.

I always like to update a fic on Hermione's birthday so I'm glad I was FINALLY able to get another chapter out of this one.

Antonin glanced out of the window as he felt the magic around his cell shift like it always did when it was being unlocked. The Ministry hadn't bothered to supply him with a clock and so he relied on the sunlight to determine the passing of the hours. It was too bright for it to be time for his evening meal and the only other reason his door was unlocked was to admit the mudblood. A thrill of anticipation swept through him but he didn't read too much into it: when your days were as isolated and uneventful as his, the chance to interact with anyone else - even if they be stubborn little Gryffindor bitches - was a notable and welcome break to the monotony.

That being said, he was rather intrigued about how this latest visit would go. The last time she had consciously visited him, things had quickly deteriorated to a new low between them (obviously discounting their first real encounter in the Ministry when she'd jinxed him and he'd retaliated by trying to kill her). And he was still sure, even after the many days he'd had to reflect on it, that the reason Granger had let herself fall so deeply under the curse's effects was because of the ultimatum he had given her: call herself a whore or forego his touch. She may have stubbornly refused either option last time but he wondered what the outcome of this visit would be.

The door opened and she walked in, lowering her hood like normal, but her gaze was less apprehensive than he was anticipating. The auror stepped in too, her expression souring as her eyes swept over him before she left the cell again.

They gazed at one another impassively for a few moments, each trying to suss the other out. In the end it was Antonin who spoke first. "You know what I need to hear," he said expectantly, rising from the armchair and motioning for her to begin. "I'll even go easy on you - I won't make you get on the floor and beg like I said I would," he sneered.

Her cheeks were already flushed from the curse but her mouth tightened at his words. "I have a counter-proposal," she stated calmly.

Antonin tried not to let his surprise show. "I see. And you think you have something to offer that I would want?"

She reached inside her cloak and withdrew a stoppered potions vial that contained a purple liquid with a slightly pearlescent sheen. He was pretty confident that he could identify the potion and he was once again a little taken aback by her thinking.

"Yes," she said, watching his expression closely. "I think I do."

"Enlighten me," he requested silkily.

She took a small breath and said, "I'll give you this Dreamless Sleep potion if we forget any demands made during my last visit here - my last conscious visit here," she corrected quickly and he smirked at her near slip-up. He certainly would have made her pay for that if she hadn't noticed her mistake - what self-respecting graduate of Slytherin house wouldn't?

"What makes you think that's even something I would want?" he asked, waving his hand towards the potion dismissively.

"You're in Azkaban," she stated simply, "the prison that you've been held in for almost all of your adult life where, until recently, you were forced to relive all of your worst memories. You might not be subjected to the Dementors anymore but I know everything about this place must haunt your dreams."

"Don't presume you know anything about what it's like in this hellhole, mudblood," he spat at her, the words she'd spoken hitting a little too close to home. She stood her ground though, clutching the vial against her chest as she watched him with her big brown eyes.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd managed to get a full night's sleep without experiencing the chilling nightmares brought about by the Dementors. Even in the few months he'd been freed from this shithole he'd still only been able to sleep for an hour or two before he woke up in terror. The only way he'd found to overcome it was to make sure he'd consumed an entire bottle of firewhiskey beforehand and even that was no guarantee of success. He wanted that fucking potion but he hated that Granger had been clever enough to think of it.

"Nice try but I'll pass," he sneered at her.

"But…" She faltered for the first time, her eyes widening and her face falling. He took some satisfaction from that.

"But what?" he mocked. "One potion? You can do better than that. What's your dignity worth to you?"

The angry spark returned to her eyes and her grip tightened on the vial. She pursed her lips together and then said, "One vial per month."

Antonin shook his head. "A large bottle of Dreamless Sleep per visit or you can forget it. I've gone years without that potion - I can take it or leave it."

She turned her gaze away from him as she deliberated over her choice and Antonin waited silently. "Fine," she agreed after a few moments, lifting her eyes back to his. "A large bottle of Dreamless Sleep potion every time I visit - and no more amendments to our agreement," she added on quickly. "I mean it, Dolohov, the games stop here." She was trying her best to sound firm and he was severely tempted to make a typical scathing comment but he managed to keep it in. If he was going to get Granger dancing to his tune, he had to start easing the hostilities. He'd shown her multiple times now that he had the upper hand, that she couldn't outsmart him. It was time to move things onwards - as long as he could keep his temper in check.

"No further changes," he reluctantly agreed, "but it doesn't get you out of having to tell me something too."

She didn't look surprised at this comment. "One bottle, one piece of information," she stated firmly. "I tell you something well-known. You can ask me questions about it, but I can decide whether I want to reply or not and, if I don't, you can't withhold your touch from me."

He couldn't prevent his sneer at her stipulations but, honestly, he was just irritated that she was being so thorough. "Have it your way, mudblood," he said scornfully, stepping forward to snatch the potion out of her grasp. "Let's get this over with - I've better things to do with my time than suffer your presence." He laid the vial carefully on his bed and then turned back to her.

Her gaze was sweeping over his room and, as he watched, a frown settled onto her face. Antonin was almost tempted to ask what was troubling her about what she saw but he found he really didn't care. Instead, he closed the distance between them and his close proximity broke whatever thoughts she was mulling over.

"It's been a long time since I've heard news of the outside world," he reminded her, a little bit of his frustration at being so uninformed leaking into his tone of voice. "I hope you've got something good for me."

She fiddled with the clasp of her cloak and muttered, "I doubt that our definitions of 'good' news are the same." He smirked at her, silently validating her words, as she took off the cloak and laid it on the back of the armchair in which she'd unknowingly spent over two hours twined around his body a week and a half ago. Her attire was less revealing than her previous two visits but there was still plenty of her smooth, lightly tanned skin on display and he found that his fingers were actually eager to touch her. Antonin knew he should be revolted - he hadn't forgotten that she was a disgusting mudblood - but he'd spent too long in his own company and he didn't see the point in hiding the truth from himself. He liked the feeling of power that came with touching his little zhar-ptitsa - he craved it. He had control over so little of his own life that his hold over her and the way she reacted to him was almost intoxicating.

"Karkaroff is dead."

He'd been so caught up in his anticipation that it took a moment for him to process her words. He'd never met Karkaroff - he'd never even heard of him until his escape from Azkaban - but he was glad that justice had been served to someone who had cowardly deserted the Dark Lord and his noble cause. "Good," he said shortly. "That's actually something we can both agree on."

Granger shrugged unenthusiastically. "I didn't like him but nor did I particularly wish him dead," she revealed.

Antonin had been internally sneering at her soft-heartedness as he closed the distance between them but he paused, holding his fingers a couple of inches away from her skin. She frowned, briefly glancing down to his stilled hands before returning her gaze to his face quizzically. "You met him?" he asked, wondering just how many Death Eaters she was acquainted with.

Unsurprisingly, she hesitated a moment before answering, "He spent most of my Fourth Year at Hogwarts. He was the Headmaster of Durmstrang School and some of his students were competing in a tournament at the castle that year."

He nodded and pressed his fingers to her forearms. She gasped softly and closed her eyes, drawing her bottom lip between her teeth and he wondered whether she was holding in a moan. He slowly ran his fingers up her arms but she tilted her forearms up slightly so that more of his hand made contact with her skin. He smirked slightly at her neediness and allowed her to get her relief from him.

After a few minutes of slowly moving his touch up and down the full length of her arms, he asked softly, "You only disliked Karkaroff because he was a Death Eater?"

She made a humming noise that he interpreted as a request to repeat his question. When he did, her eyes blinked open and she struggled to focus on him as she fought through the haze his fingers had created. "Is that not reason enough?" she countered, her face settling into a familiar suspicious frown.

"It sounded personal," he explained.

Her gaze was becoming ever more focused and it narrowed on him despite his fingers massaging into her flesh. "Why do you care?"

He stamped down his irritation with her antagonistic response. She was always so difficult but he knew that her caution was wise. "I am merely trying to pass the time," he lied sneeringly. "You might get some sort of pleasure from our encounters but I assure you it is not mutual."

She attempted to glare at him but he lifted his hands and slid them behind her neck so that he was touching her shoulders and upper back. She was unable to hold back the moan this time, closing her eyes at his touch, and Antonin smirked at his success. He couldn't deny that the sound of her moaning under his touch didn't have some sort of effect on him. For years, his libido had been non-existent in the presence of the Dementors but he had found a good fuck to be an excellent way to distract himself from his memories of Azkaban during his brief taste of freedom. He knew he couldn't take advantage of the young woman in front of him if he wanted to be conscious whenever she visited him so it helped that he was able to distance himself from her and the effect she had on his body thanks to her muddy blood.

"Karkaroff cheated," she said quietly a couple of minutes later. "He told Victor about the dragons."

Antonin frowned slightly at this confusing delayed response before he realised she was still talking about that damned tournament. He internally scoffed that her dislike had sprung from nothing more than a childish competition. The real world was going to crush her ideals very soon if the war turned out the way he hoped it did.

"And he didn't like me dating Victor," she added, though he wasn't particularly interested any more. "I thought it was because he suspected me of spying for Harry but if he was a Death Eater he wouldn't have liked me because I'm muggleborn anyway," she revealed slowly between sighs.

That was probably true - though Antonin knew that some of the Dark Lord's followers weren't overly driven to his cause because of Pureblood supremacy but were simply men and women who sought the power and influence the Dark Lord could offer them. Having never met Karkaroff and knowing little more about him that he was a traitor, Antonin didn't know what the man's motives had been.

"Whose side got him in the end: mine, yours or the Ministry?" he asked, watching her shiver as he traced his fingers along the back of her neck.

"The Ministry are my side," she said as she glared up at him under her eyelashes.

"If you say so," he responded with a short breath of laughter.

She closed her eyes again but there was a frown on her face as she admitted, "There was a Dark Mark above his shack so probably yours."

"Probably?" he repeated, pausing his fingers. "Only the Dark Lord's followers know the incantation to produce his Mark."

"If you say so," she mimicked, her eyes opening again to look at him with a hint of mockery.

He paused his ministrations. "Explain," he said, careful to keep his tone even so as not to piss her off like he normally did. She said nothing so he removed his hands completely and crossed them over his chest.

She let out an exasperated sigh and put her hands on her hips. "You can't withhold your touch just because I didn't answer your question - we agreed, remember?"

"I remember," he replied grudgingly but he still didn't feel particularly inclined to touch her.

Much to his surprise, she reached out and, after a moment's hesitation, grabbed his hands. He barely refrained from jerking at the sensation of her delicate fingers taking the lead for once as they disappeared under the sleeves of his robes. He pushed her hands away, disliking her being the dominant one and reluctantly resumed his previous attentions to her neck and shoulders. A change of tactic was called for if he wanted to know the answer to his question.

"I don't believe you," he told her after a few minutes. She hummed a questioning sound and he explained, "About the Dark Mark. Only his loyal subjects know the incantation."

"I know it," she sighed smugly and he stilled his hands in surprise. Whatever he'd been expecting her to say, it hadn't been that.

"You do not," he said firmly, his heart beating rapidly in his chest. "You couldn't possibly."

"I heard a Death Eater cast it. Morsmor-" she began to say but he quickly clamped a hand over her mouth in alarm. Her eyes flew open at once and she attempted to push him away as she stared at him fearfully.

"You only say that incantation when there has been death," he told her solemnly as she continued to scrabble at his hand. "To say it when there has been none only invites death to pay you a visit." He removed his hand, only at that moment realising that she had been struggling to breathe.

Granger sucked in huge lungfuls of air and glared at him. "Rubbish," she spat. "He's made you as scared of his made-up sign as he has of his made-up name."

"And as I told you before, you should be scared," he said lowly, fighting to keep his temper in check. "The next time you see the Dark Lord's mark in the sky with your own eyes and he's taken someone you love from you, I doubt you'll be so flippant."

She continued to glower at him as she got her breathing under control. "I don't think we should talk for the rest of this visit," she muttered.

"Agreed."

A/N It's shorter than I would want but the next scene I have in mind didn't fit well with this one at all - that's one of the reasons this chapter is delayed because I couldn't figure out how to make it work. Then I realised this scene would just have to be on its own as a sign of easing hostilities (finally!).

Please let me know what you think if you're still reading! Did Hermione do the right thing with her counter-offer?

Until next time,

Red