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⋆ ⊹˚₊* ❅ ₊ 𖢔 ꙳ ‧˚₊ 𐂂₊˚‧ ꙳ 𖢔 ₊ ❅ *₊˚⊹ ⋆

KIDNAPPED FOR CHRISTMAS

⋆ ⊹˚₊* ❅ ₊ 𖢔 ꙳ ‧˚₊ 𐂂₊˚‧ ꙳ 𖢔 ₊ ❅ *₊˚⊹ ⋆

“The clearest way into the universe is through a forest wilderness.”

– John Muir

⋆ ⊹˚₊* ❅ ₊ 𖢔 ꙳ ‧˚₊ 𐂂₊˚‧ ꙳ 𖢔 ₊ ❅ *₊˚⊹ ⋆

PART I: "And They Were Sore Afraid"

⋆ ⊹˚₊* ❅ ₊ 𖢔 ꙳ ‧˚₊ 𐂂₊˚‧ ꙳ 𖢔 ₊ ❅ *₊˚⊹ ⋆

December 18th – Evening

⋆ ⊹˚₊* ❅ ₊ 𖢔 ꙳ ‧˚₊ 𐂂₊˚‧ ꙳ 𖢔 ₊ ❅ *₊˚⊹ ⋆

"Are you going to toss a coin and make a wish?"

The water in the lobby fountain had been charmed into metallic iridescence for the holiday party, lulling Hermione into a glittery hypnosis before she heard the lilting voice of her dearest friend.

"I just might."

Her glass was empty. Her feet were sore. And her musings that night were melancholy.

But no matter what, she would always be happy to see Luna Lovegood.

"I'm can't imagine what a staunch creature like Hermione Granger would want for Christmas..."

Beaming, Hermione turned toward Luna, whose face demonstrated similar gratitude.

"...but would a hug be sufficient for the present moment?" the elfin witch asked, lifting her hands.

"Sufficient, yes, and moreover requested," she answered, beckoning Luna closer.

Luna skipped forward and wrapped her arms around Hermione, her unselfconscious hum of glee adding a joyful layer to the noise of clinking glasses, lubricated corporate conversations, and Yuletide tunes on stringed instruments which always characterized the yearly Ministry Gala.

"I work right across the hall from you, yet I feel like I haven't seen you in months," Hermione lamented while they squeezed each other, swaying back and forth as they usually did. "What are they making you do in there? Put on a pair of cherub wings and shoot the bloody arrows yourself?"

Luna and Hermione were both Unspeakables in the Department of Mysteries, which – whenever they recalled how badly their first joint visit to the DoM had gone – they deemed morosely humorous. They were not employed by the same division, however, and their respective security clearances demanded total secrecy, even from friends who were as good as family.  

Luna worked in the Love Room. This seemed fitting to Hermione. Or, at least, it seemed fitting based on what little about the division she was allowed to know.

"That sounds like it would be grand, actually," Luna replied, with a contemplative tilt of her head. "I think I'd rather like being a cherub. Alas, no wings have been distributed..."

Luna's fair eyebrows lifted in tandem.

"...yet."

"She's already an angel to me, though."

Two massive, muscular arms gripped Luna's waist from behind, lifting her dainty feet from the floor.

"Thorfinn!" the witch gasped, grinning and swinging her legs.

"I'm just trying to let you fly!" the golden-haired giant teased.

Hermione noticed a few swift, judgmental stares aimed in their direction, but Luna cared no more about the scorn of others as an adult than she had as a teenager. Once she was smoothly returned to earth, the blushing witch stretched on balletic tiptoes to give her hulking fiancé a quick kiss.

"Good to see you, Thorfinn," greeted Hermione, after he reached across the gap to shake her hand.

"You too, Hermione, as always," he replied, blasting her with a million-galleon smile.

It was strange for her to consider that, these days, she got along exceedingly well with the same wizard she once obliviated into a nosebleed which had lasted for three whole weeks.

Thorfinn was now a security officer for the Ministry. That was how he and Luna had met, actually – in the employee cafeteria, of all places. An accidental shove had knocked his licorice wand off his lunch tray. But when the candy had rolled beneath Luna's seat, he quickly realized he had found something much sweeter. Within the month, Luna used the arcane powers of the Love Room to confirm that they were, in fact, soulmates.  

(They liked to joke that, for wedding favors, they'd be handing out licorice.)

Thorfinn was dressed in his usual uniform tonight, black with Kelly green accents – representing safety – and his silver buttons glinted as he turned again toward his bride-to-be.

"I gotta go – I'm on the clock tonight – but you were much too pretty not to grab."

Luna's eyes sparkled like aquamarines as he leaned down to give her one more kiss.

"Taking you home in about an hour," he promised, his voice a yearning rumble. "Okay, lille måne?"

Luna nodded enthusiastically as he backed away from them, flashing her a final thumbs-up.

But Thorfinn made one other stop before returning to his post, slapping the shoulder of a certain tall, dark-haired comrade who stood by the open bar with with Kingsley, Percy, and Corban.

"Oh!" observed Luna. "I didn't know he was here."

Hermione had known he was there.

Because Antonin Dolohov was impossible for her to ignore.

When he was first assigned as her co-worker, Hermione believed her fascination was due to fear.

Hermione loved being an Unspeakable in the Space Room. She often told her friends that, with no pun intended – okay, perhaps a minuscule pun – it was a stellar blend of her Muggle scientific interests and her Wizarding academic strengths, testing the limits of time, light, and the cosmos through astrophysics and arithmancy. It was the perfect location for her talents and passions.

Which is why she was disturbed when, after her fourth successful year of employment, Kingsley said she would be working alongside the wizard who almost killed her when she was sixteen (in the Room of Prophecies, no less – only a few traumatic meters from the Space Room). But Kingsley had pleaded for patience, insisting the parolee's mind was an asset they needed. He'd promised her that, if the situation was untenable, he would transfer the Russian researcher in six months.

To her consternation, Dolohov turned out to be more brilliant than her boss had predicted and less bellicose than she had assumed. If anything, he was reserved. His English was still not foolproof, so he sometimes guarded his words, nodding or gesturing instead of speaking.

But he allowed his numbers free reign, confident in their excellence.

"Do you think so?" she would sometimes ask, questioning one of his equations.

"I know so," he would answer, his pitch deep and unequivocal.

The way he looked at Hermione in those moments, his gaze as audacious as his mouth was often hesitant, sent a tiny chill trickling down the back of her neck every time. His eyes – a vivid blue, like the model of Neptune which orbited their chalkboard – were inconveniently mesmeric.

It was not the sort of thing she wanted to notice, those eyes.

They seemed unfair, in truth. Just like the rest of him.

Dolohov was masked when he cursed her before, of course, and – by the time their harried duel was over in that blasted café – he was slathered in plaster, coffee grounds, and powdered sugar. So she hadn't realized until this year what the wizard really looked like.  

Hermione thought that kind of face belonged on someone else, someone who'd made better choices.  

He'd done nothing to deserve those cheekbones.

Her only petty consolation was that Thorfinn, during an inebriated hangout at her flat with Luna, had explained why Dolohov kept his hair a little shaggy, the curled ends often grazing the hard-earned flecks of silver in his beard. Supposedly, he was hiding a pair of somewhat overlarge ears. Then again, Hermione could empathize with self-consciousness about facial features that others considered too big, remembering her bucktoothed childhood with no fondness.

So, if she was honest with herself, it wasn't his distracting appearance that bothered her the most.

It was the fact that she enjoyed working with him.

The fact that they'd carved out a quiet rapport, coming to understand each other through minor changes in countenance – whole paragraphs conveyed with a raised eyebrow or a subtle half-smirk.

And the fact that, most of the time, she felt more at ease around him than she logically should.

He had now been an employee for a year, from solstice to solstice, double the time of his tacit probationary period. And when he rolled up his sleeves, filling their shared slate with innovative calculations...or when the two of them, on the precipice of epiphany, maneuvered in excitement around the glowing simulacra of asteroid belts and planets as one symbiotic academic organism...

Circe help me.

...she could no longer convince herself that the emotion he inspired in her was fear.

She just wasn't ready yet to examine what the hell it was instead.

Not this year, anyway, she thought.

As if her contemplations had called him, Dolohov swiveled his head to lock eyes with Hermione, his expression curious. Mortified at being caught, she gave him a quick, collegial wave, failing at nonchalance while that same old melting icicle seemed to drip down her neck.

Fuck.

Trying to banish the chill as well as the embarrassment, she tugged her velvet shawl more tightly around her shoulders and spun back toward Luna, who'd been briefly chatting with Susan Bones.

"Are you excited about going to Denmark with Thorfinn for Christmas?" Hermione inquired.

"Yes!" Luna affirmed, nodding with that same sense of flushed anticipation before her visage shifted, displaying sisterly concern. "But what about you? Where will you be spending this weekend?"

Luna was aware that Hermione's parents never regained their memories. "Monica and Wendell Wilkins" were safe and satisfied in Australia; over the last seven years, Hermione had attended a great deal of counseling to process the finality of her choice – to let their salvation be enough.

"Oh, I don't know," Hermione demurred, strolling toward the fountain and resting on its edge, the tile cold beneath her thighs. "I've got two different invites for the holidays, so...don't fret about me."

Hermione stared at the iridescent water as she heard the sound of Luna's shuffling slippers. She recalled how Muggle fountains often smelled like chlorine and, depending on the maintenance, a touch of mold. This one was enchanted to smell like peppermint, which she rather preferred.

"Except that...you don't actually want to go to either place."

As cruel as Hermione had once been to Luna, Luna was now the one woman in Hermione's whole life who could get away with saying just about anything to her. Even the truth.

"No," Hermione sighed. "I don't."

Certain aspects of the previous year had flattened Hermione like a nail in a tire. She appreciated the kindhearted welcome of her compatriots, and, under other circumstances, she would have mustered more cheer. But she didn't have the energy at this juncture for the chaos of the Burrow or the glitz of Malfoy Manor. She was also wary of offending one collective by favoring the other.

Especially Molly, she mused, dangling her hand in the water.

Luna had clearly intuited this much already.

There was another cloud hanging over Christmas, as well – something Hermione had struggled with in silence since turning twenty-five in September – but she flicked it from her mind as she would swat a housefly. She focused instead on physical sensation: her fingertips submerged in the cool liquid shimmer of the atrium fountain, and Luna's pale cheek as it came to rest on her bare shoulder.

"Then...what do you want, Hermione?"

From another mouth, the question would have been frustrated, accusatory. But Luna's tone was merely inquisitive, her demeanor as benevolent and nonjudgmental as ever.

Hermione chuckled, shaking her head as she drew her hand from the water with a flourish.

"All I want for Christmas is for some tall, good-smelling man to sweep me off my feet and whisk me away to a cabin in the middle of the woods with a big bathtub, where I won't have to make any major decisions, and I can read books to my heart's content in fuzzy socks and plaid pajamas."

Then they were both giggling, each of them a skosh more drunk than they had planned to be, collapsing into each other like toppled ladders – because this friendship was the only place Hermione could let herself be just a little ridiculous.

"That's a lovely wish," Luna effused.

Luna slipped her hand into her pocket (because of course her gown had pockets). Soon, she was pressing a coin into Hermione's wet palm – a single bronze knut, shining like the clanger of a bell.

"And I think it's worth the coin. Don't you?"

Hermione took a deep breath, closing her eyes and her fist simultaneously.

With a friend like this, after all we've lived through, she acknowledged, I guess I can't really ask for more.

Still, she gave the coin a vigorous launch, watching it splash near the statue – unaware that their entire exchange had been overheard by the sneaky ex-con mathematician standing near the bar.

Because there was no point in having big ears if a man didn't put them to good use.

⋆ ⊹˚₊* ❅ ₊ 𖢔 ꙳ ‧˚₊ 𐂂₊˚‧ ꙳ 𖢔 ₊ ❅ *₊˚⊹ ⋆

December 24th – Morning

⋆ ⊹˚₊* ❅ ₊ 𖢔 ꙳ ‧˚₊ 𐂂₊˚‧ ꙳ 𖢔 ₊ ❅ *₊˚⊹ ⋆

As her antique clock rang seven times, Hermione stood near the front window of her flat, tending to her oxalis triangularis. She had purchased the purple shamrock from Neville's nursery a year ago, despite his warnings that the plant (which preferred daily watering) could be a "needy little thing."

That's all right, she had mused, as she touched the triangular leaves. I suppose I can be, too.

The oxalis triangularis was the only other living occupant of the flat. She hadn't marshaled the gumption this week to put up an actual Christmas tree, but she'd decided last night on impulse to decorate the aubergine-colored shamrock pot with silver tinsel and twinkling metallic stars.

It looked rather wizardly now, which was right and proper.

But she expected the bedecking of the plant would conclude her holiday activities for the year.

She was wrong.

At the sound of the seventh chime, Hermione heard a knock at the door.

"Gracious!" she exhaled, repeating a habit she'd long ago absorbed from Minerva. "So early! Who – "

Her astonishment increased tenfold when she saw who was waiting at her doorstep.

"Dolohov!"

Her colleague inclined his head in apology, nonetheless keeping his cobalt eyes fixed on hers.

Here.

He's here.

At my home.

Hermione had a few seconds to wish she'd vacuumed all the fallen bits of tinsel from the carpet before Dolohov removed a small box from his inside pocket. It was only then that she noticed his Muggle clothing: dark slacks, a crisp shirt (the top two buttons unfastened), and a professorial tweed jacket with suede elbow patches.

"Forgive me, Ms. Granger, for the hour," he began, his accent somehow more prominent in the cold. "But I hold at present an enchanted item which...I believe...requires your immediate attention."

"Oh?"

Her eyebrows rose like tawny owl wings.

"I fear its interaction with your wards," he explained, gesturing toward the flat. "Would you, if not otherwise engaged, be so kind as to examine the item out here? I trust no other opinion."

Some incredibly stupid impulse made her want to hop down the stairs.

I trust no other opinion.

No declaration in the galaxy could have summoned her more swiftly.

He might as well have said "good girl."

It was ludicrous how easy she was to beguile. A white van scrawled with "FREE CANDY!" would never have enticed Hermione, but a dark-haired Slav with an undocumented relic who apparated all the way to her flat because he was desperate for her knowledge, and hers alone?

She didn't have a chance.

After grabbing her wand from the windowsill, she closed the door behind her, scampering toward him as he opened the lid of the box. She raised her stave to perform diagnostic spells, but her hand froze in the air when she realized what waited for her within, nestled in white silk.

It was a knut. A simple bronze knut, just like the one Luna had given her a week ago.

For some reason, the little coin glimmered, like it was...

"Is it...wet?"

If she'd had her morning coffee, she might not have been so idiotic.

If she'd not been compelled by forces she didn't yet comprehend, she might not have been so rash.

But, as she was both uncaffeinated and unaware, she reached out to touch the bloody thing.

It was wet.

Because, of course, it was the knut Luna had given her a week ago.

But Hermione didn't have time to ask why.

She felt a discomfiting yet familiar pull of magic near her belly button just as Dolohov stepped behind her, sweeping her into his arms.

"Hold on to me, milaya."

"Wait! Dolo – "

Hermione was forced to obey him, because suddenly all the world was howling wind and spinning colors. Her only certainties amidst the nauseating centrifuge were the clean scent of birch bark and the feel of tweed beneath her frantic fingertips.

When the twirling stopped, they came to rest in front of a wooden cabin. Hermione's shivering arms clung to Dolohov's neck as he held her close, carrying her toward the door. Though it was morning at home, now it seemed night again; warm, twinkling lights poured through the windows, and distant pines were silhouetted in the glow of a full December moon.

"Dolohov!" she hissed, her heart playing paradiddles like a snare drum. "What have you done?"

He laughed in a manner she'd never heard him laugh before – the dulcet chuckle vibrating from his chest into her own while he shouldered open the door and brought her over the threshold.

"I have whisked you away."

⋆ ⊹˚₊* ❅ ₊ 𖢔 ꙳ ‧˚₊ 𐂂₊˚‧ ꙳ 𖢔 ₊ ❅ *₊˚⊹ ⋆

PART II: "Fear Not, for Behold!"

⋆ ⊹˚₊* ❅ ₊ 𖢔 ꙳ ‧˚₊ 𐂂₊˚‧ ꙳ 𖢔 ₊ ❅ *₊˚⊹ ⋆

In America, December 23rd – Evening

⋆ ⊹˚₊* ❅ ₊ 𖢔 ꙳ ‧˚₊ 𐂂₊˚‧ ꙳ 𖢔 ₊ ❅ *₊˚⊹ ⋆

"You lied!"

"Ms. Granger, pozhaluysta – " ⁠♡

"You lied to me!" she repeated, crossing her arms as unbidden magic crackled through her curls. "It was all a bloody ruse! You said you had a magical item that required my immediate attention – "

"This much was no lie," he interrupted, raising his index finger. "It did require your attention."

" – so that you could fucking kidnap me!"

They stood in the living room of the cozy, clean cabin, decorated with a lofty Christmas tree, fragrant wreaths, and shining holiday bulbs draped from the old ceiling beams – all of which she would have appreciated more if not for her astonishment and wounded pride.

Eventually, she would realize that her reaction should have indicated what would later be revealed.

She was not terrified because Dolohov had stolen her.

She was wounded because Dolohov had tricked her.

In that moment, however, all she could do was stomp like an offended rabbit.

"That Portkey is illegal!" she chided, pointing to the black box he had just placed on the mantle. "Unregistered! Untimed! I don't even know how you created such a thing – "

"I have been tinkering on the spell since you told Miss Lovegood what you wanted for Christmas."

Hermione's jaw dropped damn near down to her tits, which were presently heaving in umbrage.

"You were spying on me!" she realized, her hands relocating to her hips as her cheeks grew pink. "At the Ministry gala last week, when you were over by the bar! You eavesdropping son of a – "

"Eto nechestno," * he countered, lifting his palms in failed amelioration. "Such observations can hardly be deemed spying when you spoke so liberally in a public place – "

"I have a life, Dolohov! I had plans for this weekend!" she pretended. "Look, no matter what I said to Luna, you can't just abduct a witch without telling her in advance! I have...things to take care of at home!"

"Such as..."

Dumbstruck, she dropped her hands, indignation leaking out of her frame like air from a balloon.

"Well...I...need to water my plant," she murmured.

"Your plant has been dealt with."

Hermione raised a dubious eyebrow.

"You do realize that, in your accent, that makes it sound like the plant's been murdered."

He tilted his head, his tone concerned.

"What would be the better vocabulary? I have striven to improve of late, but I – "

"That's not the point!" she interjected. "Dolohov, I don't even fucking know where we are!"

"America."

"Yes, but..." she whined, her hands flailing. "Where in America?"

The appearance of that infernal half-smirk was not in any way helpful.

"Mmmmm..." he teased, biting his bottom lip in faux consideration. "This I cannot divulge. You will deduce the answer soon enough, but…not tonight."

Nothing, not even a casual kidnapping, irritated Hermione like the obfuscation of knowledge.

"You unrepentant bastard! Why don't you at least have the decency to tell me where you've – "

"Because you look so beautiful when you have a puzzle to solve."

Hermione was stunned into muteness, blinking with undisguised confusion. Capitalizing on her befuddlement, Dolohov crept closer, his inquiry provoking reactions she was unprepared to host.

"Would you deny me that joy?"

Hermione's wild hair ceased its ensorcelled sizzle, relaxing into golden-brown placidity.

"...oh."

This was the first time Dolohov had made an overt move. She had realized her own wants, despising herself for their multifaceted, self-destructive imbecility. But she had not, until now, known of his.

"Is this your attempt at...courtship?" she stammered, her blush intensifying as she glared upward, his stupid six feet and two inches forcing her to crane her neck. "Why didn't you do something normal?"

His hooded eyes darkened, his voice artless and raw.

"Normality is insufficient for a witch like you."

She couldn't have marshaled a coherent response just then even if someone held a wand to her head.

"But my primary goal is not selfish," he soothed, closing the scant gap which had remained, now so near that she could smell birch trees again. "If you prefer, you may spend this entire weekend alone, in total repose, without setting eyes on me at all. I am happy to cook your meals and leave them at your bedroom door while you read without interruption. I only aim to make your wish come true."

"Dolohov..." she whispered, battling a surreal, magnetic pull which compelled her to embrace him.

I will not be hugging him, she maintained. We have never hugged before, and we will not start tonight.

I will not reward his mischief.

I will not!!!

"But you are no prisoner here," he continued, pointing at the black box on the mantle. "I have enchanted the Portkey to transport in both directions. It is, as you say, 'untimed'. So if you find yourself enraged beyond mediation, you may touch the coin whenever you wish to leave. Or..."

Then the merciless brute ever-so-gently took her hand in his own, pressing his thumb into her palm. Without exactly meaning to, Hermione made an overstimulated, staccato grunting noise.

"Hngh."

She had no choice but to avoid eye contact by staring at the pretty tree.

"...you may stay here for the weekend, read to your heart's content, sleep in your new plaid pajamas, take your luxurious baths, and perhaps enjoy a tranquil nature excursion or a dining reservation I have secured – "

"Dolohov, think about yourself for a bloody second!" she argued, tearing her hand away with more reluctance than she would have cared to admit. "Do you realize how this could look, given our pasts? The headlines? Death Eater Abducts Sworn Enemy! They could throw you back in Azkaban!!!"

He shrugged, the gesture so incongruous with his customary severity that she almost cackled.

"I could touch that coin and report you right now!" she said, baffled by his recklessness. "I could cast my Patronus and have half of Harry's department mustered within the hour, holidays or not!"

"You could. Yes. You could do either of these things," he agreed, his tone infuriatingly mild.

"And what makes you so sure I won't?"

"I have no guarantee that you will stay, Ms. Granger," he conceded. "But I am reasonably sure that, even if you go home tonight, you will not unleash the Aurors upon me."

"Why?" she challenged.

"Because I believe forces are at work which prevent us from causing each other life-altering harm."

She shook her head, unable – or perhaps unready – to understand.

"You did harm me," she reminded him, her inflection bewildered. "A decade ago."

"I said life-altering harm," he repeated, waving his hand in a dismissive motion. "I have theories."

"Dolohov! What theor – "

"Now is not the time for thaumaturgy."

After twelve months of being her co-worker, Dolohov was all too familiar with the manic curiosity her face now displayed, which was why he'd arrested her interrogation by grasping her shoulders. She was hyper-aware that his fingers were separated from her skin by just one flimsy layer of cotton. But he was, for now, looking into her eyes with care rather than cupidity, almost like a father – patient, yet firm – whose child wanted one more bedtime story.

"Such weighty discussions are best suited for another day," he said, delaying rather than denying. "You have endured a difficult Autumn, Ms. Granger. We both have. Tonight, you need rest."

He was right, damn him. They'd both been biting rubber at work since August, their project load increased exponentially after the sudden retirement of two senior Unspeakables in the Space Room.

"My only wish in orchestrating this surprise is to grant you the peace you desire. The peace you deserve," he corrected. "But if I have overstepped, then you are welcome to return to your flat, and we may proceed going forward as if this moment never happened. Ponimayesh?"

Dolohov had spoken more English over the last thirty minutes than Hermione had ever heard him utilize. But on rare occasions, during their lunch breaks, he had taught her some Russian phrases, too. This one, if she remembered correctly, was something like, "Do you understand?"  

She did. And she also didn't.

However, at that instant, Hermione lacked the energy to spiral; she was too addled by lingering Portkey dizziness and romantic inclinations she had long endeavored to ignore. Thus, she only nodded, aware that some tectonic segment of her mind had already shifted and surrendered.

"Before you consider departure," he ventured, "would you...like to see the rest of the cabin?"

Exasperated with her own lack of resistance more than anything else, she huffed and rolled her eyes.

"YesI'dliketoseetherestofthecabin," she mumbled.

⋆ ⊹˚₊* ❅ ₊ 𖢔 ꙳ ‧˚₊ 𐂂₊˚‧ ꙳ 𖢔 ₊ ❅ *₊˚⊹ ⋆

It was everything she could have ever wanted.

There was a bookshelf in the living room crammed with Muggle novels and travel memoirs, a stockpile to which Dolohov had added arithmancy treatises and astronomy dissertations.

There was a bath damn near as large as a tugboat, complete with brand new candles.

And there was a master bed far more comfortable than her own at home, the mattress wide and sumptuous, with a thick, fluffy white comforter that looked more like a cloud than a blanket.

The whole place smelled of pine and hearth smoke, the kind of scents she never wanted to forget.

It was like Dolohov had plucked a daydream straight from her skull.

"You're insane," she grumbled, as she retreated to the living room. "You're bloody insane."

"You approve, then."

"Of course I approve, you fucking madman," she replied with a near-delirious laugh. "It's perfect."

"Good," he deemed, pressing a sealed glass vial into her palm.

Thirty minutes later, having downed the Ministry-issued temporal adjustment potion Dolohov had the foresight to bring, Hermione continued to discover just how thorough he'd been in planning this getaway. He had not only packed clothes, guessing her sizes with decent accuracy, but also toiletries – even extras like lip balm, nail clippers, and basic but quite serviceable make-up.

Everything, she thought, as she slipped her feet into a pair of fuzzy socks. He thought of everything.

When she padded out into the living room again to say goodnight, he looked temptingly domestic. He hadn't changed into sleepwear yet, but he'd removed his jacket and rolled up his sleeves after lighting the fireplace, helping himself to what looked like a whiskey cocktail as he perused a book.

Hermione registered the lunacy of an intrusive thought – something along the lines of crawl into his lap! – before shaking herself free from such wanton delusions, convincing herself that she needed a day to process whatever this was, or wasn't, or shouldn't be, or might still become.

"Thank you...Antonin."

It was her first time saying his given name. Since she'd chosen to stay, she supposed she might as well start speaking to him with less formality.

The effect of her change in address was immediate. His eyes rocketed from the page in order to meet her own, the corners of his mouth tugging upward just slightly, betraying the barest bit of gratification.

"You are most welcome."

She felt a tiny pang of guilt as she beheld the blanket and pillow he'd arranged on the couch, wondering if she should transfigure the furniture into something else.

"Are you sure you'll be comfortable here tonight?" 

His facial muscles shifted in minuscule increments, coloring his countenance with a rueful tinge.

"I have...slept in much worse places, milaya."

She nodded, loath to imagine his lengthy tenure in such a hellhole.

How vehemently he must cherish every comfort these days.

"You've been so meticulous with...all of this," she praised, pointing backward with her thumb. "You packed for me just as well as I pack for myself, and that's saying something."

She knew she could be methodical to the point of annoying anyone within a ten-yard radius.

"I am somewhat familiar with the requirements of women," he replied, his pronunciation droll.

His Adam's apple shifted in his throat as he chuckled, but – for some unknown reason – Hermione didn't think that statement was particularly funny. In truth, that didn't strike her as humorous at all. 

"Really?" she drawled, crossing her arms.

A few loaded seconds passed in which Dolohov sat completely still, not so much as blinking.

"It's not like I'm jealous or anything," she remarked. "I don't care how many witches you've dated."

Do I?

"I have..." he spoke, his tone careful, as if she were a fawn stuck in a bramble. "Not...as you say...dated...any witches during the past year. Not...since I was assigned to the Space Room."

"I mean...it's none of my business, of course!" she spat, nonetheless relieved.

His dark eyebrows slowly rose in tandem.

"I'm merely impressed with your extensive taxonomy of feminine marginalia, obviously."

A muscle in his jaw twitched, as if it was taking Herculean strength not to smile.

"Oh, sweet Merlin!!!" she wailed, throwing up her hands. "Your face is very loud. Has anyone ever told you that?"

"...on occasion," he answered, closing his book.

"And now you're suddenly a chatterbox, too."

"Chatterbox," he repeated, each vowel with a divergent slant. "This word is new to me."

"Yes, well, your mouth has been locked down like a goblin vault for a whole year!" she accused. "I felt like I'd won a prize every time I needled you into talking to me at work for more than two minutes."

"...you did?" he prompted, his pitch rising.

"Yes! And now look at you! When I'm your hostage, you're replete with colloquy," she teased.

Hermione thought he would refute her hostage status – that he would laugh and remind her she could leave at any time – but he tilted his head, just as he had when she mentioned his accent.

"Does this...displease you?"

"Being your hostage?"

"No. It is apparent that being my hostage does not displease you."

She reared back in a pretense of affronted shock, but now it was she who struggled not to smile.

"You are rather bold!"

"Perhaps, but I was asking about the chatterboxing."

Hermione leaned against the bedroom door frame, trying to look more casual than she felt.

"No," she admitted, her voice softening. "I like...hearing you talk."

She could see the compliment, however anxiously given, as it landed in the flesh of his heart. The way it bloomed outward through his body, relaxing his muscles and conjuring damnable dimples in his salt-and-pepper beard.

"...spasibo," ⟡ he murmured.

There was a heartbeat, then another – an unsteady vibration in time – as they assessed each other across the room, when it seemed like he might come to her, or she might come to him. But she lost the name of action, pulling a stray curl behind her ear as her posture straightened.

"I suppose I'll go to bed. But...I just wanted to thank you. For everything," she pronounced, tugging her cotton pants. "Especially for these comfy pajamas. I love the forest green plaid."

"I chose in honor of Hogwarts, though we attended separately," he revealed. "House colors, you see."

"Oh! But...I was in Gryffindor."

There was something different about the quality of his laugh – something deeper, perhaps, and less polished – as he took a sip of whiskey, his eyes still locked on hers over the rim of the glass.

"You mistake me," he purred. "I wanted you in mine."

Hermione's jaw dropped for the second time in an hour.

"You!" she squeaked.

"Yes?"

"You...you are..."

"Yes, yes, yes, madman, unrepentant bastard, et cetera," he quoted.

"Whiskey makes you...makes you..." she faltered. "A flirtatious rapscallion, that's what."

"It is not so much the whiskey as it the woman, but you may blame the drink if you prefer." 

By which point, of course, her cheeks had grown red as holly berries.

"There will be no funny business tonight!"

"Ya ponimayu," 𖤝 he replied, a distinct cord of amusement twined into his voice.

"I will ward this door."

"I expected no less."

"If you try anything, I will hex your meddlesome ears."

His next statement wiped her brain of coherent function like a child shaking an Etch-A-Sketch.

"Ms. Granger, I will not enter that bedroom until you are begging me to do so."

Hermione blinked several times in rapid succession, forgetting how to word.

"I – you – "

"Go to sleep, milaya," he advised, reaching for his book. "Have sweet dreams."

She rolled her eyes, closed the bedroom door, and – because it was what she wanted to do, not because it was his directive – promptly toppled into her luscious bed and drifted into slumber.

⋆ ⊹˚₊* ❅ ₊ 𖢔 ꙳ ‧˚₊ 𐂂₊˚‧ ꙳ 𖢔 ₊ ❅ *₊˚⊹ ⋆

December 24th – Morning

⋆ ⊹˚₊* ❅ ₊ 𖢔 ꙳ ‧˚₊ 𐂂₊˚‧ ꙳ 𖢔 ₊ ❅ *₊˚⊹ ⋆

Hermione slept well.

Alarmingly well.

She had not felt this refreshed in years.

When she woke amidst her billowy cloud nest – stretching with a high-pitched whine – she smiled at the view from her window, a panorama of trees and blue skies above a carpet of pine needles.

She should not have been so content.

Hermione was the planner. Hermione had been the planner since she was eleven. She was not, as a rule, accustomed to logistical deference. She should have been itching for control and information.

However, she had apparently decided it was fine to accede any decisions regarding Christmas to her colleague, once her adversary – for whom she had developed a problematically gigantic crush.

Bizarre, she thought, but without much in the way of angst.

That very colleague left a tray outside her door with coffee and warm porridge, having recalled that she never liked a massive breakfast. Included with the food was a handwritten note.

AGENDAS FOR THE HOSTAGE

[Simplified as per the "no major decisions" clause of original request.]

Christmas Eve, Option 1:

Hostage is left to her own devices; she may read, nap, bathe, watch television, etc. without interruption or interaction. Meals will be cooked and provided based on previous observations of culinary preferences.

Christmas Eve, Option 2:

Hostage is escorted by kidnapper on a gentle nature walk through a nearby preserve (trail is flat – no elevation gain) and later accompanied to a five-star restaurant inside a historic railroad hotel, circa 1930.

The choice required careful consideration.

On the one hand, Option 1 sounded fantastic. It was likely what he expected her to select.

On the other hand, she was still dying to know where they actually were, and she guessed that Option 2 would reveal their location. The restaurant intrigued her, and – as she gazed out the window again, surprised at the brightness of the sunlight here, even in December – she considered how long it had been since she had gone on any kind of hike.

That was how she found herself outside, pacing alongside Antonin, breathing the crisp winter air.

"This has to be Colorado," she surmised.

"Nyet." ⊘

"What???"

"Keep guessing."

The gravel crunched beneath their feet as they walked the trail, which followed the edge of a winding gorge sliced deep into the earth.

"Is this Montana?"

"Nyet."

The water, somehow both a river and a reservoir, was totally frozen, though the temperature itself was not as cold as Hermione would have expected. In American terms, it was somewhere in the upper forties, calling for nothing more than hoodies, boots, and knitted hats.

"Are we in one of the Dakotas?"

"Nnnyyyyyyet," he sang, with too much enjoyment.

The gorge was bracketed on either side by thick battalions of pine trees, swaths of green and brown unbroken for miles, which was why the sign they passed – painted candy apple red – caught her eye.

COCONINO NATIONAL FOREST

BLUE RIDGE RESERVOIR

THE FISH IN THESE WATERS ARE MANAGED BY THE ARIZONA GAME AND FISH DEPARTMENT

She paused in her walk to process what she had just read.

"Arizona???"

"Ah, the sign has spoiled my fun," he complained, slowing so she could catch up with him again.

"I thought Arizona was mostly desert!"

"So did I, until I came here for a job."

She scrutinized him as they strolled, realizing she had never asked about how he occupied himself in the years between his release and his employment in the Space Room.

"What kind of work, if you don't mind me asking?"

"I do not mind at all. I was teaching at a wizarding college in the area."

That explains the tweed, she thought, recalling how American schools didn't fuss with robes.

"As you can imagine, I struggled to find a position in England once I was freed. But in America, there was a shortage of instructors for mathematics, arithmancy, quantum physics, and hard sciences. Administrators here could not afford to be so choosy."

He turned his head and winked, displaying his endearing eye crinkles.

"My publications later caught the eye of Kingsley, and that is what brought me back to Britain."

"Did you like living here?" she inquired.

"Very much. Especially whenever the snow came. I am surprised more has not fallen already."

A few random patches of snow did bedeck the landscape, but Hermione wondered what the trail would look like soon, blanketed completely in white.

"Speaking of the weather," Antonin prompted. "Are your adventuring clothes satisfactory?"

"They're wonderful," she answered, touching her warm hat. "Thank you. But I'm growing worried about how much money you've spent on this weekend, between the clothes and the cabin and – "

"Aannhh!" he corrected, the sound akin to a mechanical buzzer. "None of that."

"Well, anyway..." she demurred, stuffing her hands in her pockets. "I'm a big fan of the shirt."

Hermione had laughed when she'd unpacked the hiking clothes that morning. The tee she wore underneath her warm hoodie featured an illustration of Garfield and Odie opening presents at Christmas, with the words "PEACE, LOVE, LASAGNA" hanging above the cartoon tree.

"How did you know I loved Garfield comics as a child?"

Hermione had never told anyone, but the passing resemblance between Crookshanks and Garfield – equally grumpy cats – was part of why Crooks had drawn her eye in the pet shop on that fateful day at the start of her third year.

"Oh, I was unaware!" he answered, scratching his beard. "That was just good fortune. I purchased the shirt because the machine told me the cat was popular with Muggleborn children."

"The machine?"

He lifted his brows and curled his fingers, wiggling them in midair to mimic the act of typing.

"A computer?!" she giggled.

"Just so."

Hermione experienced a funny, fuzzy feeling when she imagined him squinting at the electronic screen, clicking the mouse and, possibly, muttering to himself as he researched Muggle comics.

"You...did an exemplary job," she praised, before hopping over a fallen limb. "Garfield had a show, as well. I only regret that children in the U.S.S.R. didn't have the chance to experience cartoon cats – "

"Oh, but we did! We had Leopold. He was a gentlemanly feline, always with the bow ties," he recalled, gesturing toward his own neck. "My babushka liked to watch the shows with me."

"Your...grandmother?"

"Yes," he confirmed, his inflection nostalgic. "I never knew my parents. It was she who raised me."

Yet another page of Antonin lore.

Hermione realized this was part of what he'd referenced the night before, when he mentioned a passing familiarity with the "requirements of women." She supposed it was also why a couple of her assigned toiletries had seemed, in a charming way, skewed toward slightly older witches.

Although I can always find uses for talcum powder and cold cream, she reasoned.

As the two of them strode through the woods in companionable silence for awhile, Hermione contemplated what was worse: to lose a mother and father, as she had done, or never to know them at all.

But another more practical question surfaced in her brain, supplanting the philosophical.

"Wait. You and your grandmother...who was presumably a witch...watched Muggle shows?"

"Yes," he said, nodding. "And listened to Muggle music. What was allowed in that time, anyway."

"Huh," she remarked, as a breeze played with her curls. "Interesting."

By some tacit agreement, Hermione and Antonin stopped walking once they reached a natural overlook, relishing the view. The trail was empty, the locals with their families for the holidays, and thus no sound could be heard but the wind as it blew through the pines across the gorge. She was hypnotized by the dance of the trees, each undulating at its own rhythm, almost conscious. But the ice below was still, such a dire blue that it was nearly black, only interrupted by an orbital break where some strong youth – maybe a baseball player – had launched a stone, testing the thickness.

"Can I ask you something else?" 

"My whole life is open to you, milaya."

There was something raw in his answer, something that addressed much more than a single question on a single day. She did not dare to look at him then, keeping her eyes fixed instead on the forest.

"If you engaged in Muggle culture as a child...what happened that made you hate Muggles later?"

Hermione discerned his intake of breath, but before he could speak, a loud noise came booming through the gorge. She gasped in shock, glancing around on instinct, because at first it almost seemed like a roar. But there was a distorted quality to the sound – a timbre more alien than animal.

"Fear not," he soothed, his calming hand alighting on her back. "It is the ice."

"How?" she asked, caught completely off guard. "I...I didn't even know it could do that."

"These are the sounds it makes as it expands and contracts, when it is deep enough."

She listened wide-eyed as the roaring continued, smiling at the new phenomenon, not even noticing at first that she had snuggled into his side while his hand slid down to rest over her hip.

It felt right.

So much for the hug ban, she thought, abandoning her stubbornness.

Antonin hummed in unfortunately adorable gratification as Hermione nudged her cheek against his shoulder, waiting until the symphony of the gorge had quieted before he answered her question.

"I never hated Muggleborns, milaya. I thought...well, I was wrong. Let that be stated for the record," he clarified, pulling her just a bit closer. "There was merely a time I considered whether it would be safer for everyone if our realms were kept more permanently separated. That was my error."

It was Hermione's turn to smirk.

"And, pray tell, Antonin..."

She took three steps back, watching his eyes widen as his dejected arm flopped against his jacket.

"...what is your opinion about keeping our realms separated now?"

He shook his head at her impishness, responding with a wolfish huff.

"I think it would be ill-advised."

"I see."

"The more cooperation between our worlds, the better."

"Indeed."

Seeing the way he stared at her then – a thousand desires implied in the sunlit gleam of his eyes – she had no doubt he was keen to demonstrate such "cooperation" on a base, physical level.

She could not deny that she was just as keen to let him.

But – as always when it came to Hermione Granger – there was more she needed to know.

"In all seriousness," she inquired, her tone scrubbed of its levity. "What changed your mind?"

His visage took on an expression she could not analyze. His eyes traveled up and down her form, but no longer with avarice. He looked at her now with something like pride.

"Antonin?"

And then, inhabiting his old mysterious silence, he simply turned and loped back toward the entrance to the trail, leaving Hermione to appraise the life she'd changed with nothing but survival.

⋆ ⊹˚₊* ❅ ₊ 𖢔 ꙳ ‧˚₊ 𐂂₊˚‧ ꙳ 𖢔 ₊ ❅ *₊˚⊹ ⋆

December 24th – Afternoon

⋆ ⊹˚₊* ❅ ₊ 𖢔 ꙳ ‧˚₊ 𐂂₊˚‧ ꙳ 𖢔 ₊ ❅ *₊˚⊹ ⋆

"Is that...a present?"

After returning from their walk, Hermione and Antonin had taken turns in the shower and settled in for a quiet afternoon before their date. Donning her pajamas once more, she'd peeked into the living room to see that he'd bought himself a set matching her own. He appeared even more domestic now, wearing his comfy plaids as he returned to reading on the couch. Most men looked good in forest green – it was irrefutable science – and Antonin appeared to be no exception.

But before she could withdraw to the bedroom, her eyes had been ensnared by a humble package wrapped in gold paper underneath the tree, the box rectangular and flat.

"Yes," Antonin answered, as he closed his book. "It is indeed a present."

"Is it...for me?"

"Yes."

"Antonin! You know you didn't have to get me anything," she said, kneeling before the tree. "I'm not sure what the Villainy 101 manual says, but I doubt you're supposed to spoil your hostage this much..."

"It was no catastrophic expense," he replied, leaning back into the cushions. "I wanted you to have a gift beneath the tree...though I confess that, for this, I solicited the advice of Thorfinn and Luna."

"Thorfinn and Luna know about this weekend?!?" she yelped.

"Well, yes, of course they know," he replied, his tone befuddled, as if this fact should have been obvious. "How else were they to take care of the purple shamrock in your absence?"

Hermione chewed on this information for a moment, her brows furrowed.

It makes sense, I suppose. Luna has a key to my flat. But...

"Aren't they in Denmark right now?"

"They took the shamrock with them. Luna said it would be a good sensory experience for the plant."

That...makes even more sense.

Hermione registered a warm frisson of appreciation for her friends as she untied the ribbon, now sitting guru-style on the floor. When the gift was revealed, her gratitude grew even more acute.

"They told you this was my favorite!!!" she deduced, hoisting the DVD with a grin.

Hermione had shared A Charlie Brown Christmas as a relic of her Muggle childhood with Luna and Thorfinn a couple of years ago, the three of them drinking peppermint hot chocolate as she blithely answered their questions about the Peanuts comics. Her tape had become obsolete, however, when her VHS player died soon afterward, doggedly unfixable by technologies mundane or magical.

"Antonin, this is...truly kind of you. All three of you," she amended. "It's an excellent gift."

She should have been angry, probably, that the three of them colluded on this madness. But the fact that Luna endorsed the plan made her heavily consider whether it might be a madness she needed.

"You are welcome to watch the show, if you like," Antonin offered, pointing to the television and DVD player near the tree. "I can yield the couch to you."

Hermione glanced back and forth between the DVD and her captor with puppy-dog eyes.

"Do you...want...to watch it with me?"

⋆ ⊹˚₊* ❅ ₊ 𖢔 ꙳ ‧˚₊ 𐂂₊˚‧ ꙳ 𖢔 ₊ ❅ *₊˚⊹ ⋆

A few minutes later, they were nestled on either end of the couch, eating buttered popcorn while long-suffering Charlie Brown grew more and more frustrated on the television screen.

"So...everyone is cruel to the bald child," Antonin noted, with a tone of paternal concern.

"Pretty much, yes."

"And this cruelty is the norm."

"...yes."

"And you say these comics were popular."

"Very."

He shook his head as he chewed a piece of popcorn, his countenance scrunched in disapproval.

"The West is strange.”

"I'm sure Leopold the cat would not have behaved in such a shameful fashion.”

"Never," he agreed, meeting her jibe with dread solemnity.

She opened her mouth to tease him again – a pastime she found addictive – but, on the screen, Linus had just requested a spotlight and shuffled with his blanket to center stage.

"This is my favorite part!" she whispered, leaning forward with childish glee.

"And Lo, the Angel of the Lord came upon them," Linus recited. "And the glory of the Lord shone round about them. And they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, 'Fear Not, for Behold! I bring you tidings of great joy which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day..."

"Was your family religious?" Antonin asked, intrigued by her attention to the scripture.

"Oh, no! Not even remotely. There’s just something about Linus that warms my heart. I think it might be his eternal faith that there are positive forces at work in the universe."

I suppose he and Luna are alike in that way, she thought.

Hermione was a woman of hard truths and unflinching logic. But she was drawn toward oppositional complements – toward people who believed, even when reason shouted otherwise.

"Linus is the same way about the Great Pumpkin, you know," she remarked. "He never loses faith."

"The Great Pumpkin?"

"It's from another holiday special. The Halloween one."

"There are a vast number of Muggle holiday cartoons, then?"

"Yes. Be glad you didn't buy A Garfield Christmas, because that one makes me cry."

"Noted," he drawled as Linus finished his biblical soliloquy.

They watched the remainder of the special in placid stillness.

Hermione wished she were here under saner circumstances. She was struck, not for the first time, by how unperturbed she felt in the older wizard's presence, despite his past crimes. She had no idea where this could realistically go, this unexpected harmony, but it was splendid to exist with someone like him in amiable, undemanding serenity.

Though she'd elected not to tell Luna when they sat by the fountain, another aspect of her holiday malaise was the burgeoning possibility that she might never meet her soulmate, if she even had one. She was happy for her coupled-up friends, but witnessing their happiness wasn't always easy. In truth, she'd been feeling increasingly superfluous – especially at Yuletide, when every mistletoe became a mockery. Christmas always put loneliness under a microscope.

Draco had Astoria, Harry had Ginny, George had Angelina, Percy had Oliver, and Thorfinn, of course, had Luna. Everybody seemed to have their person. But Hermione was nobody's person, on nobody's side, like some kind of curly-headed Ent.

She hated even thinking these thoughts.

This is not who my mother raised me to be.

She was supposed to be independent. She was supposed to be strong. She was supposed to be ruthlessly capable. She was supposed to need a man like a fish needed a bicycle.

But...maybe...sometimes...a fish just wants another fish.  

"Your lips are still, but your eyes speak jeremiads."

Antonin regarded her with a blend of inquisitiveness and worry.

Could he be my fish?

She tried to zap that intrusive with the mental equivalent of a cattle prod, but the thought lingered nonetheless as he rested his bearded chin against his knuckles.

"I was just...wondering..." she murmured, scrambling for a lie. "What Christmas was like in the U.S.S.R. when you were a child."

Antonin chuckled good-naturedly as he propped his long legs on the ottoman.

"I wish I had a better answer, but my memories are scant," he said, absently running his hand through his hair. "Christmas is not as emphasized in Russia as it is in other countries. You must remember that, for many years, festivals connected to the church were not permitted, so the cultural focus shifted to more secular celebrations. This is why, even now, New Year's Day is of much greater..."

He pursed his lips and rotated his hand a few times, searching for the right descriptor.

"...significance to us."

"Well, what are your New Year’s Day traditions, then?" she probed, genuinely curious.

"Ah!" he lamented. "This I cannot tell you."

"What?!" she objected. "Why not?!"

"It is a great secret."

Sneaking closer to her part of the couch, he dropped his voice to a seductive pitch.

"If you want to find out, I fear you have no choice but to spend New Year's Eve with me – bwaghghghfff!"

With zero hesitation, Hermione had grabbed one of the smaller couch pillows and thrown it at his face, the weapon bouncing harmlessly to the floor after impact. Antonin threw back his head in a delighted guffaw, his Azkaban tattoo momentarily visible beneath the collar of his pajama shirt.

Seeing it bothered her less than it should have.

"You really are an unrepentant bastard," accused Hermione, without much conviction.

"Well, you know what the English say about Slytherins. Give us an inch and we take a mile."

"I gave you nothing!" she ribbed, playfully wagging her finger. "You took the inch and the mile!"

"Just so," he replied, his blue eyes twinkling. "And yet the Portkey remains untouched."

Hermione lacked an adequate retort because, of course, he was correct.

She had no intention of touching that coin at all.

⋆ ⊹˚₊* ❅ ₊ 𖢔 ꙳ ‧˚₊ 𐂂₊˚‧ ꙳ 𖢔 ₊ ❅ *₊˚⊹ ⋆

December 24th – Evening

⋆ ⊹˚₊* ❅ ₊ 𖢔 ꙳ ‧˚₊ 𐂂₊˚‧ ꙳ 𖢔 ₊ ❅ *₊˚⊹ ⋆

Winslow, Arizona was a dot in the dust.  

Before Antonin apparated Hermione to La Posada for dinner, she had braced herself for a big, bustling city. But Winslow was unhurried – little more than a few friendly streets bathed in the beauty of a desert sunset. The biggest attraction of note was a statue commemorating The Eagles, a rock band her father had loved, and the song that immortalized the town.

The hotel was stunning. She was enchanted by the design – the terra cotta roofing and adobe walls a combination she never encountered in Britain – and by the holiday decorations, starry lanterns hanging from the ceiling and technicolor trees in every corner.

But Antonin seemed to have eyes only for Hermione.

When she'd sashayed out of the bedroom before they left, declaring she was ready to leave, her appearance rendered him close to apoplectic. It had taken a good ten seconds for him to reboot.

"You picked this dress!" she'd reminded him, blushing again. "You knew what you were doing!"

The gown was a show-stopper without being indecorous, the type of dress she would re-wear often. It was crafted from red jacquard floral fabric with a fitted sweetheart bodice and spaghetti straps. She'd been aware she looked more than decent, but she was still unprepared for his reaction.

"Yes, I picked the dress," he'd replied, abashed. "But...you just...always exceed my imaginings."

It was probably one of the nicest things any man had ever said to her.

If he hadn't already made the reservation, she might have taken him to bed right then.

But she was grateful to be sitting across from Antonin with a prickly pear margarita in her hand. The wizard looked distractingly sharp in his suit, all black but for a red pocket square that matched her dress. The food was nearly as delicious as her date, and their waiter, Richard, kept her in stitches with comical banter. He was a seven-foot-tall Arizona cryptid, humanoid in mannerisms and facial features, but completely covered in thick, reddish-brown fur.

"Don't worry," he'd assured them. "Health inspection score is framed on the wall, okay? The hair's charmed to stay in place while I'm at work, so you won't be nibbling any of me tonight."

At which point he'd leaned toward Antonin, wiggling his bushy eyebrows.

"Unless you want to."

Antonin, who'd been swallowing a sip of ice water, found himself coughing and turning crimson while Richard sauntered away with a musical cackle.

"How do you think Richard would be classified, technically?" asked Hermione, after they had shared a biscochito blackberry tart for dessert. "Cryptids are more Luna's area of expertise than mine."

"They call them Mogollon Monsters here," Antonin explained. "They're a particular genus of Sasquatch. I taught alongside one at the college, actually; his office was next door to mine."

"Do you miss it? Teaching, I mean."

He swirled the remnants of his Old Fashioned around in the glass, the cherries already consumed.

"The students, yes," he concluded. "The grading, no."

"What made you try it out as a career?"

"Well, my father had once been a professor..."

"Oh!!!"

"...of innumerable dark and unhallowed sorceries."

"...oh."

He laughed at the sudden lessening of enthusiasm, taking no offense.

"I do not mourn his absence overmuch, I will confess. By all accounts, he was a scourge of a wizard."

Hermione had heard stories from Ron, whispered underneath quilts in the naive nights before they mutually parted, about the apocalyptic mage who eliminated both of his uncles in a single blow.

"His power was...prodigious, I am told."

"I should hope so," Antonin replied, barking a morbid laugh. "He signed a bargain with Riddle years ago, seeking more power in exchange for his firstborn son. Once my babushka was no longer alive to protect me, the Dark Lord came to collect," he revealed, downing another portion of whiskey.

Hermione's eyes widened as Antonin turned to stare at a Hopi mural painted on the wall, his visage uncharacteristically cold. Even half-inebriated, she knew this wasn't the time to ask the questions his divulgence had spawned. But one truth emerged as integral, ringing clear as a bell in her brain.

He didn't choose to take the mark.

He was sold.

It was awful. It was unjust on a level that inflamed her Gryffindor sensibilities. And yet, within the wilderness of her mind, this disclosure seemed to cut a path through the thicket which divided their campsites, clearing the thorns and rendering greater progress possible.

"As for teaching, I would never model my father's malice, but I hoped I might have inherited his pedagogical skills. Especially since, unfortunately, I also inherited his face."

"If it helps," she babbled, shrugging her shoulders. "There is nothing unfortunate about your face."

Antonin stilled upon hearing this declaration, a flush creeping upward from his collar.

"Do you mean to imply..."

"Yes, yes, I'm saying you're handsome. Don't get cocky."

The fact that his resulting smile was so wholesome, as opposed to sexy or menacing, made her want to stomp over to his side of the table in her ruby high heels and squish him half to death.

"Fuck," she sighed, depositing her margarita glass on the coaster with a muted thunk. "Why am I so bloody comfortable with you? Why do I keep saying all these things and feeling all these things – "

"What things, milaya?" he prompted, his temporary gloom now evaporating.

"Happiness!" she hissed, her hands flat on the table cloth. "Contentment!"

He didn't even try to stifle the laughter which unfurled from his mouth, rich and abundant.

"Antonin, you had to have put some kind of hex on me."

"What makes you so certain of my magical duplicity?" he prompted, sporting a wicked grin.

She leaned forward, speaking in astounded whispers, as if her merriment was scandalous.

"Because, all day, I've been relaxed. Truthfully, I feel giddy."

"And this is...to you...an adverse outcome?"

"Less adverse than nonsensical," she deemed, only marginally kidding. "Why am I having such a good time? I'm a certified control freak, and – whether you chose to be or not – you're a stone cold killer."

"And yet, one witch evaded me," he purred, raising an irreverent eyebrow.

"Don't you dare use those murder attempts as an opportunity to flirt."

"The second time was not attempted murder," he corrected. "That was attempted kidnapping."

"Ah, now we come to the crux of it!" she taunted, shimmying her shoulders in a manner she knew would be enticing. "This entire event is revenge for when I thwarted the previous kidnapping."

"At last, you have deciphered me, milaya," he chuckled, leaning back in his chair.

"Why do you call me that?" she finally asked. "Is it some kind of...transmogrification of my name?"

"No, no," he replied, his tone almost insulted. "It is an endearment. It means…honey. Sweet one."

She took what she hoped would be a steadying breath before she swigged the last of her margarita.

"I think you might be the only man who would call me sweet," she confessed, her tone less jaunty now than honest. "I've been termed 'bright' and 'attentive', and also 'insufferable,' but never sweet."

Antonin executed a languorous, oddly alluring stretch, his hands linked behind his head. He, too, seemed relaxed. All except for his eyes, which slithered down her body with darkening hunger.

"Then other men are fools, awash in wasted chances. You are sweet."

"Do you think so?" she challenged, exactly as she always did in the Space Room.

Her spaghetti strap, like a paid actor, slipped down from her left shoulder as she bit her bottom lip.

"I know so."

It was his usual response, but not in his usual tone. He spoke like he needed to prove his theory, like if didn't hike up her skirt and taste her right now, onlookers be damned, he might just starve.

"You," she said, her voice a little breathless, "are officially not allowed to have whiskey around me."

Antonin shook his head with a rough chortle.

"You are innocent, milaya."

"Me???" she squeaked, touching her fingertips to her chest. "Innocent?"

That was another brand new adjective.

"Yes," he answered, his eyes narrowing. "You think that my behavior is due to the liquor..."

He tilted his head just slightly, something brazen in the gesture.

"...when the truth is that I want you all the time."

For a few heightened seconds, all other sounds in the restaurant – clinking silverware, laughing couples, and the tunes of Nat King Cole – were damped into nothingness, her ears overwhelmed by the heady throb of her own pulse. She was locked into the mechanisms of a body which proclaimed its long-neglected needs, her skin flushed, her thighs clenching around inundated knickers.

It was in that precise instant that Hermione knew she no longer cared what other people would say.

She wanted him, too.

She'd wanted him for a year now.

And she was done pretending otherwise.

"Would you like to go back to the – "

"Yes," he interjected. "I would."

Hermione didn't realize the severity of his haste until she watched him pull three crisp American hundred-dollar bills from his wallet, slapping them down on the tablecloth.

"We can wait five minutes for Richard to bring the check!" she offered, raising her palms.

But she laughed in jubilant anticipation when Antonin rose from his seat and grabbed her arm.

"No," he determined, while he escorted her briskly toward the door. "I do not believe we can."

⋆ ⊹˚₊* ❅ ₊ 𖢔 ꙳ ‧˚₊ 𐂂₊˚‧ ꙳ 𖢔 ₊ ❅ *₊˚⊹ ⋆

PART III: "I Bring You Tidings of Great Joy!"

⋆ ⊹˚₊* ❅ ₊ 𖢔 ꙳ ‧˚₊ 𐂂₊˚‧ ꙳ 𖢔 ₊ ❅ *₊˚⊹ ⋆

December 24th – Late Evening

⋆ ⊹˚₊* ❅ ₊ 𖢔 ꙳ ‧˚₊ 𐂂₊˚‧ ꙳ 𖢔 ₊ ❅ *₊˚⊹ ⋆

She kissed first, but he kissed harder.

Hermione gripped his lapels as soon as he slammed the cabin door, stretching on high heeled tiptoes and sealing her lips to his before he even had a chance to look surprised.

"Mmmmnnggghhh..."

She could taste that ragged groan, the flavor of his shattering restraint just as potent as the bourbon, and she exulted at the utterance – seeking no other revenge than desperation.

I want him annihilated, she realized, as he grasped at her curls. I want him wrecked for me.

Their mouths pushed and pulled, gave and demanded, their contact pendular as each asserted their accelerating passion. His nose pressed into her cheek, his beard flush against her skin, the feeling softer than expected but concrete enough to validate this tangible reality.

"Hermione – "

He had never breathed her given name until this moment – every accented syllable, tremulous with desire, consecrating her lips before he savored them again – and it had never sounded more sublime.

May he whisper no other woman's name ever again.

Tongues, tentative at first, grew brave as they delved into each other more, faster, deeper –

Yes.

Finally.

This.

Kissing him felt so perfect that – for once in her life – Hermione Granger had no questions.

Only conclusions.

"I should...have kissed you..." she exhaled, sneaking words between needs. "A hundred times already."

He released her tresses to seize her face – rough palms cupping her jaw, her freckles pinioned by his thumbs – with a gaze both dominant and destitute, eyes darker than the blue of roaring ice.

"And I should have stolen you months ago."

She gasped as the wizard collided with her again, hands descending to subsume her smaller frame into an urgent embrace she was thrilled to inhabit.

I wish you had.

She was lost in him now, intoxicated by something stronger than tequila. She wrapped her arms about his shoulders while he tilted his head back and forth at varying angles, his movements frantic as he searched for the position which would grant the most access to his hostage.

"Knew...you'd be...sweet..." he rasped, holding her ever tighter. "Milaya..."

He consumed Hermione with a fervor she could barely catalogue, his adoration commandeering every acre of her once-competent brain. All she could sense within the blessed chaos of that living room was the scent of birch, the tang of muddled cherries, and the bruising possession of his hold.

She felt coveted. Prized. Turned-on to the point of criticality, yes – but also protected.

It was more than she had thought a man could make her feel.

And it also wasn't enough.

"Mmmmnnnnnn...."

Her supplication was muffled by his ravenous mouth, but nonetheless impactful. Because their bodies were compressed like pages in a book, she could feel his primal response to her insistent whine.

Fuck.

It throbbed, waiting. Swollen beneath its prison of fabric.

Neglected.

She couldn't be held responsible.

He broke away with a blurted obscenity when she palmed his tremendous erection.

"Blyat!!!" 𑄝

"Please," she whimpered, heedless of pride, administering a squeeze of supplication. "Need – "

He reclaimed her mouth and gripped her thighs, maintaining their feverish kiss while hoisting her with a Cro-Magnon grunt. She clamped her legs around him, sighing with shameless relief as he carried her – with only a couple of hectic stumbles – to the bedroom.

Hermione knew she'd proven him right. In the end, she had begged.

But she couldn't seem to care.

"Wanted this...for longer..." he rasped, bumping into the door. "Than you know..."

She was wrenching off his jacket before her feet hit the floor, ambling out of her heels while eager hands made quick work of her zipper.

"Too many – fucking – buttons – " she snarled, throwing his stupid shirt against the wall with a thwack.

For the next sixty seconds, they tore away each other's clothes like hyperactive, sugar-addled children unwrapping Christmas presents, each of them the gift for which the other had yearned.

"Hermione..." he cautioned, pausing the ambiance of harried mania for a sliver of gentleness as he lowered her to the bed, her bare back against the down-filled comforter. "I told you the truth..."

His eyes stayed glued to her face as he tugged her toward the edge of the mattress.

"It has been...more than a year for me..." he reminded, spreading her legs wide. 

The sensation of his rough hands on her inner thighs was already enough to send her to an asylum.

"Antonin..." she whined, her chest rising and falling with near-panicked inhalations.

She could drown in his uncovered entirety, swimming through the scars that criss-crossed his abdominals, diving to follow the neat line of dark hair until she happily forgot how to breathe.

"That is to say...I may not have the most...what is the word..."

"Antonin!!!"

She thought "stamina" might have been the noun he needed, but she could not possibly give less of a fuck.

"It's all right," she whispered, nodding. "You'll have as many nights with me as you want."

She watched the benediction ripple across his countenance as his mind began to process her subtle implication.

"But...right now...just...take me," she begged. "I don't care if it's fast. I just care that it's you."

He looked healed and ignited at the same time – like he would save her just to ruin her himself.

"If you only knew how fiercely I have craved you, milaya."

He shook his head, half awed and half avid, as his eyes raked down her naked form.

"I have learned many new adjectives this year, but none can possibly – unngghhh!"

She'd grabbed his twitching shaft, hard, the protruding veins of his cock pulsing within her grip.

"Chert..." he rasped, his face reddening, his Adam's apple shifting in his throat as he panted. "Vozmi." 𖤐

"I said. Right. Now."

Antonin glowered at Hermione like he wasn't sure what to give her first: a spanking, or a wedding.

"Witch."

He pronounced the word as if it were a curse unto itself.

But before she could muster a spicy retort, he wrenched his girth from her hold and followed her orders, punishing her cunt with compliance.

"Fuck..." she moaned. "Fuck..."  

Her back arched off the comforter as he pushed forward in maddening increments, her only anchor to sanity the pressure of his hand as he held her down, fingernails digging scarlet crescents in the soft flesh of her hips.

"Besstrashnyy..." ᛝ he praised and damned through gritted teeth. "Stay...brave for me...milaya."

She'd told him to take, so he fucking took. He occupied and plundered every space within her quivering heat she never knew had so long been forsaken. No man but a menace could be dire enough to invade with such consummate totality – nor to need with such reckless abandon.

"Hermione..." 

His voice was uncouth, even bestial, as if her greedy command reduced his lofty intellect to naught but biological imperative. He was wracked with something like a shudder when he'd filled her as far as he could, stalling his hips while she fluttered around his onslaught.

She'd be addicted to this feeling, she knew. This vicious stretch, unholy and unmaking.

"So good..." she whimpered, split wide and subjugated. "Gods, Antonin, so...fucking...good..."

She meant it, too. She was done with building egos just to watch them stride away. Hermione spoke nothing but truth in the sheets – or, in this case, above them. And the reality was that, while he adjusted to what looked to be a lethal degree of compression, she was pondering all the spots in the Space Room where – during those late evening shifts – the two of them should have fucked already.

"...tight," was all that he could hiss, biting his bottom lip.

Merlin, she could subsist for weeks off the way he throbbed, just living on this cock, feasting on rigid abundance – needing no other purpose but to glean that thickening pulse, every thump of his heart through his body affirming, at the nucleus of her incarnate being, that they'd survived this long so they could feed each other.

"You...perfect...perfect..." he seethed, as if in agony. "Dusha moya..." ᰔᩚ

Halfway to the cosmos now herself, she blinked up at her former opponent – in all his broken, barely-tethered glory – and squeezed her inner muscles without clemency, writhing on his impalement.

"Gospodi!" ☦︎ he bellowed, far beyond the help of heaven.

She watched him fight the inclinations of his loins while she persisted in her devious affections, giggling at his tormented visage as he battled the male impulse to pump her full of immediate, viscous discipline.

"Ona..." he muttered under his breath, blinking with apparent difficulty."Ona...unichtozhit menya." ⤫

She doubted she had ever enjoyed anything else as much in her quarter century of life.

"You live to vanquish me," he rumbled, his control less than threadbare. "Don't you, milaya?"

As if grappling their way through the dark, his strong hands staggered forward, clasping hers.

"Conquer me forever, then."

His words strummed a chord on strings pulled taut over an emptiness she thought unreachable.

"Antonin..." she mewled, something stinging her throat. "I – oh!"

But then he fucked, genuinely fucked, thrusting with the same lack of mercy she'd just shown to him.

"Oh, gods – " 

It was the orison of a decimated nonbeliever, her only real deity the magician who – for the next few incendiary minutes – deigned to rock that mattress, her breasts bouncing lewdly with each sovereign slam of his hips.

"What if I just keep you, hmm?" he snapped, dark locks shaking back and forth.

"Please..."

"Little war prize?" he taunted, his rhythm unceasing as he interlaced their fingers. "Ghanima?" ⌖

"Please..."

"Blyat, do not...beg so prettily, milaya," he rasped, rutting even faster, a bead of sweat forming on his brow. "Dangerous. Makes me want to...bring you back to England with..."

His palms were pressed tight against hers, their life lines touching, twining, now and always.

"...a new name."

"Oh...oh...oh!!!"

Cock-scrambled as her brain might have been, she had just enough acumen to know she was going to cum.

"Yes, yes, fuck, Antonin – I'm – "

Her mouth dropped wide open in obscene capitulation to her approaching bliss, her capacity for speech on strike as rhapsodic tension sprouted and flowered from her center.

"Hermione..." he warned, his tone unsteady, his grip on her hands tightening as his thrusts grew erratic. "Dusha moya..."

"Don't stop!!!"

It was the last thing she screamed before her toes curled and her eyes closed, her hair glittering with an iridescent, accidental sheen of erotic attainment as her ecstasy crested – the wave crashing over the smooth shore of her body just as Antonin swelled to a point of physical crisis, his own pleasure inevitable.

"Gospodi!" he shouted again, his pitch ascending. "Da, milaya, voz'mi to, chto tebe nuzhno, tak, tak, tak – " ঌ

She was too far gone to see him finish, but she heard him, committing the splendor of his final, fragmented groan to permanent memory, and she felt him – the geyseric warmth of his spasmodic fruition extending the high of her own release, sanctifying their bond in ways she did not yet understand, but soon would.

He removed himself with care and lifted her ravished form, her limbs limp and lifeless, to the center of the bed. She heard him whispering paragraphs of devoted praise before he collapsed, his cheek snuggled into her chest.

"Chatterbox," she panted, still catching her breath as she draped her arms around his back.

"Hmmmm..."

His hum turned into a lazy chuckle as he weaponized her admission from the night before.

"Yes," he rumbled. "But you like it, witch."

⋆ ⊹˚₊* ❅ ₊ 𖢔 ꙳ ‧˚₊ 𐂂₊˚‧ ꙳ 𖢔 ₊ ❅ *₊˚⊹ ⋆

"I never apologized to you for this," he said, once his wits returned.

In the drowsy aftermath, they remained naked on the bed. As much as she loved her pajamas, she was learning that she loved their skin-to-skin contact more.

"For what?" she yawned, her eyes still closed from culmination.

His lips traversed the valley between her breasts, bestowing a lingering kiss on her faint scar.

"I was told during my last year in Azkaban, by the Mind Healer," he said, his recollection warming her old wound. "That an apology means nothing without a change in behavior."

Opening her eyes, she saw him propped on his side – cheek against his fist, elbow on the pillow.

"When I was given the job in the Space Room, I believed I had to earn the right to own my wrongs."

Hermione sat up, leaning back against the headboard and pulling her knees to her chest.

"I knew it would not be enough to apologize if...well, first of all, if I did not improve my English..."

She snickered when his dimples reappeared, his smile self-effacing rather than debonair.

"...but secondly, if I could not show you that change in behavior."

She nodded as she processed his remembrances, honored by his honesty - flesh and feelings exposed alike amidst a borrowed bed.

"From the first day I was your colleague...I yearned to be more than your colleague," he divulged, taking her hand. "I resolved, however, that I would aim to prove my redemption for a year. I did not wish to crowd you, nor to harangue you with hard memories."

He lifted her knuckles to her mouth, kissing them one at a time.

"It felt unethical to broach such regrets with you until I was a man whose words you could trust."

If she did not belong to him already, she would have melted then.

"The spell which nearly killed you was a thoughtless, automatic response to being silenced," he said, nestling one more kiss against her palm. "An indicator of the monstrous shadow self I allowed my loss of agency to spawn."

Antonin sat up slowly, his eye contact unbroken while he maneuvered his long limbs.

"These hands have wrought many sins, milaya."

His palms alighted on her bent knees.

"But I regret none more than the curse I used on you."

She would never forget the way he looked at her then, his brow heavy with kairos – as if every year since his parole had funneled him toward this candid juncture.

"With all that I am...and all that I yet hope to be...I am sorry."

Hermione was rendered speechless by the unwavering authenticity in his tone.

Somehow, she always knew Antonin was sorry. Though she never asked, she also never doubted. She hadn't known until this moment, though, that it was something she still needed to hear him say.

"Thank you," she finally managed to whisper. "For what it's worth...I do forgive you, Antonin."

He let out a colossal breath.

"It is worth...everything."

Hermione found herself struggling with a cataclysmic surge of affection. And this was why – despite promising herself a mere twenty-four hours ago that she would not be hugging him!!! – she launched herself at Antonin like an agitated lemur.

"Blyat!"

His shock morphed into laughter when she tackled him to the mattress, bombarding his nose and cheeks with kisses, each of which necessitated its own sound effect.

"Mwah! Mwah! Mwah! Mwah!"

Unburdened of their ghosts and exhilarated with endorphins, they rolled around on the bed until he pinned her wrists to the comforter, looming with amusement.

"You are silly after orgasms," he diagnosed. "I must provide them with some frequency, I think."

"Well...yes," she concurred, grinning beneath him. "But I'm actually not this silly with anyone else! That's what I've been trying to tell you. I'm far too comfortable with you, and I – "

She giggled as a preposterous idea popped into her mind.

"Wouldn't that be funny..." she mused. "Remember what I said at the restaurant? How you must have hexed me because I'm too relaxed? What if I feel safe around you because of your curse?" she posited, glancing at the scar. "What if your magic bonded us?"

The frivolity drained from his face.

"...Antonin?"

Though she valued information over intuition, Hermione could feel the gravity of what was coming, the air between them thick with potential like the hour before a summer storm.

"The curse is not the reason you feel safe with me."

His thumbs pressed the pulse points at her wrists as his words changed the rest of her life.

"But the reason you feel safe with me...is the same reason you survived."

It hit her then, all at once.

"Sweet Merlin. I – I – I'm your – "

"Yes."

"You! You mean – you're my – "

"Yes, dusha moya."

"I didn't even think I had one!" she yelped, her eyes wide as ornaments. "I'd given up on ever – "

"Luna ratified the bond in the Love Room a few days ago, if you wish to see the results."

He leaned down to nuzzle his nose back and forth against her own, his voice tender in a way that made her ache.

"But I confess," he rumbled, his lips grazing hers. "That it was...as you say...not news to me."

Amidst the dizzy euphoria of their ensuing kiss, she recalled something he had said the night before.

I believe forces are at work which prevent us from causing each other life-altering harm.

"They told me I was the only one to survive that curse because it was nonverbal," she whispered.

"No. That had no impact on the potency," he replied. "My father designed it to be silent. You were spared because of who you are to me, just as I was spared because of who I am to you."

"What do you mean?" she prompted, not in disbelief, but fascination. "When were you spared?"

"When you obliviated us, that night in the café. You cast the same spell on both of us. It worked on Thorfinn, as you know, due to his enduring complaints about the nosebleeds – "

"But the obliviation didn't work on you!" she effused, touching the side of his face. "Because..."

"I was yours," he rasped.

He nudged his cheek into her hand like an abandoned cat, longing to be owned.

"I was always yours, Hermione."

Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes.

This is why she had no walls with him, she realized. Because he was the wall.

Antonin was fated to be her fortress and protection, just as she was destined to be his.

I have a person. 

I have a fish.

I have a soulmate.

Hermione felt so buoyant, so light and so lifted, that it seemed as if the weight of his body on hers was all that currently prevented her from floating toward the ceiling.

"You are not disappointed?" he probed, wiping an overjoyed tear from her skin. "That it is me?"

"No," she responded, without an ounce of hesitation. "I never could be. I never will be."

There it was again – that painfully wholesome smile.

This time, because a table was no longer separating them, she did squish him.

"Wuuuggghhh," he intoned, as she smushed his bearded cheeks between her palms. "Such silliness – "

"Why didn't you tell me before?!" she squawked.

"Because!" he retorted, shaking dark curls out of his eyes.

He kissed her once, then again on impulse, then a third time when she grabbed the back of his head and brought his mouth to hers with imperious vigor, his low hum of satisfaction reverberating on her tongue.

"I wanted you to have the chance to choose me on your own," he growled, nipping her bottom lip.

Based on what she felt thickening between them, she had an inkling she'd be "choosing" him again fairly soon. Probably twice tomorrow, too.

But she did have additional questions. As was her milieu.

"How long have you known?" she asked, running her fingers through his dangling locks.

"I knew after the failed memory wipe," he said, tapping his forehead. "I confirmed our bond with my own spells, but I was forced to hide you, even from myself. I feared that the Dark Lord would discover and exploit our destinies. That he could use me to harm you."

While his narrative unfurled, she tugged strands of coffee-colored hair behind his ears, finally getting a good look at the features – large indeed, but cute – which his curls often obscured.

"My only choice was self-obliviation," he revealed, content with her ministrations. "I submerged your name so deep in my psyche that it took years to re-surface."

"When did you remember?" 

She drew him nearer, loath to ever let him go.

"My first day in the Space Room," he purred, eyes flitting to her lips. "I saw you standing at the chalkboard with stars in your hair, halfway through a theorem no one else could comprehend..."

The possessive ardor in his gaze was accentuated by the impatient twitch of his reinvigorated cock.

"...and I knew you were my wife."

She wasn't sure which one of them started it that time. She only knew, with a heady sense of fulfillment, that they were hopelessly enmeshed once more, her nails threshing his shoulder blades as his teeth made contact with her neck.

"Need you again," he rasped against her throat. "Hermione, pozhaluysta – "

"Take the mile," she demanded.

No other encouragement was needed.

She relished the noise he made in response – a guttural, primitive reaction she would have trusted from no other man – and closed her eyes as she felt his swollen tip at her entrance.

"I strive to be better for you, milaya. I always will," he promised. "But...sometimes..."

She cried out in ravaged elation as he drove himself inside with a single, uncompromising thrust.

"...I am...still selfish."

A year ago, he thought he had to earn the right to own his wrongs.

But, to Hermione, nothing about Antonin felt wrong.

"Ya tebya lyublyu," ∞ he whispered, rocking his hips and harvesting her shredded whimpers.

Even now, while he exhaled his fealty in his mother tongue, holding her wrists above her head – pinning her down so he could fuck her senseless like the little captive she was – he felt like home.

⋆ ⊹˚₊* ❅ ₊ 𖢔 ꙳ ‧˚₊ 𐂂₊˚‧ ꙳ 𖢔 ₊ ❅ *₊˚⊹ ⋆

December 25th – Afternoon

⋆ ⊹˚₊* ❅ ₊ 𖢔 ꙳ ‧˚₊ 𐂂₊˚‧ ꙳ 𖢔 ₊ ❅ *₊˚⊹ ⋆

"Look! It's snowing!"

Antonin glanced up from his book, chuckling as he spied the falling flakes through the window.

"So it is, milaya. Good," he deemed. "Winter has come in earnest."

Hermione had requested that they spend Christmas Day engaged in the "Option 1" activities he'd offered before, together instead of separately – an alteration which pleased Antonin to no end. They'd already shared a luxurious bath, wherein he pretended to be unamused as she sculpted him a bubble beard ("The silliness endures," he had grumbled). Now, they were cuddled on the couch, wearing their fuzzy socks and pajamas while they enjoyed their books in cooperative quiet.

As Hermione watched the earth fill up with white, she heaved a wistful sigh.

She knew they'd be returning to England as an official couple; it was not as if this feeling would end.

Still...

"Why such sadness, dusha moya?"

"Oh, I'm just...being a spoiled brat," she admitted. "I was wishing we had a little more time here."

Antonin tossed his head back, reveling in a theatrically wicked guffaw.

If the Villain 101 manual does exist, she thought, it definitely has instructions for that laugh.

"And what is so funny?" she prompted, closing her novel.

"I took the liberty of booking the cabin through the twenty-seventh, just in case you felt this way."

"Anto-niiiin!!!" 

This time, Hermione did heed the intrusives which tempted her yet again to crawl into Antonin's lap, finding the location rather agreeable.

"You planned the living daylights out of this, you know," she complimented, thanking him with a sweet kiss.

"I had intended to begin my courtship of you next month, regardless," he confided, his arms around her waist. "I entertained and rejected numerous ideas, worried no attempt was good enough. But when I overheard your chat with Luna, this idea quickly took root."

"And then you whisked me away," she sighed, now with happiness. 

"Just so," he said, planting kisses across her freckles. "Perhaps I should...steal you again...next December, hmm? It could become a new tradition."

Hermione deemed that notion quite appealing. Escaping from their duties at the Ministry, skipping holiday social traps, telling no one save their closest friends where they would go.

"I love that suggestion, Antonin. But...I need you to understand something."

She poked his chest as his eyes widened.

"I won't always want you to make all the decisions," she warned.

She wasn't just talking about vacations.

She needed the space to surrender, yes – but also the space to soar. 

Fortunately, he seemed aware of this.

"I know, milaya. There must be balance," he concurred. "There will be days when you will make all the decisions. There will be days you need me to make them. There will be days of compromise. Days of argument. Days, and nights, of reconciliation..."

He tipped forward, his promises a pleasant heat against her lips.

"...when I will drag you back to bed and make you scream for better reasons."

She giggled as strong arms enveloped her frame, pulling her closer.

"Remember the boy with the blanket?" he asked, glancing at the television. "You spoke of his faith, yes? He is a construct – only a figment, this Linus. But I understand such belief. My faith lies in magic, and in you, and in the power that combined us."

As he touched his forehead to hers, she felt the dreams that she had tried so hard to freeze begin to thaw.

"I have imagined our connection as a formula," he explained, somehow making numbers seem romantic. "The formula is sound. It can accommodate any variable. One constant will remain in all equations. Whether you make the choices or I make the choices, there is a fixed value which will never change."

"And what is the value?" she asked. "What could be such a constant?"

His answer, though spoken softly, sent a familiar chill trickling down the back of her neck.

"That I love you."

Hermione leaned backward just enough to gaze into his cobalt eyes.

"That I will always love you," he rasped.

She realized then that her previous characterization of Antonin's direct gaze had been erroneous.

It was not audacity with which he always looked at her.

It was certainty.

"Do you think so?" she asked in a sultry whisper, her hands sneaking beneath forest green cotton.

His voice was thick with gravel as his eyes closed, his head falling back against the leather.

"I know so."