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Chapter Text

Antonin had long since lost count of the years he had endured in that bleak, sunless prison. Time there was a thing without shape or meaning, measured only by the clink of chains and the slow erosion of hope. In the beginning, fury had kept him alive. Hatred burned like a furnace, each breath a vow of vengeance, each day a stubborn refusal to break. It was easy then to despise every reason he had been locked away — the faces of those who had locked him away and their cause.

His second imprisonment, coming so soon after the briefest taste of freedom, proved far more corrosive than the first. The old, blistering fury that had sustained him would not ignite again; it smouldered fitfully, then guttered out, leaving only a hollow ache. For twenty long years he sat on the cold stone floor of his cell, no longer harried by Dementors’ keening or the echo of his own screams. In the silence, memory sharpened instead of frayed. With nothing to drown out his thoughts, he was forced to turn them inward, to examine the choices that had led him here and the allegiance he had once embraced so blindly. Each recollection — once worn like a badge of conviction — now lay before him like evidence in a trial only he could conduct, and the verdict grew heavier with every passing year.

By the time his release finally came, the man who stepped off the prison boat bore little resemblance to the wiry fighter who had entered them in both this twenties and again in his forties. He was nearing sixty now, shoulders stooped, decades settled into his bones. Freedom felt thin and unfamiliar, like a suit cut for someone else. An Auror had been assigned to shadow his first months outside, a quiet but unmistakable reminder that society still watched his every breath.

They handed him a single key to a narrow, peeling flat in a tired block where the plaster flaked like old parchment. He could stay there for a year, no longer, before the world would expect him to stand entirely on his own. A job had already been arranged — cleaner at the Ministry, a position meant as much to keep him under watch as to help him earn his keep. The thought of walking those gleaming corridors with a mop in his hand filled him with a quiet dread, a humiliation more biting than any chain he had worn. Yet he said nothing. After so many years of silence, words came slow, and freedom, however fragile, was a thing he scarcely dared to test.

He lingered just inside the door and let his eyes travel over the flat that was now, at least for the next year, meant to be home. The space smelled faintly of damp and old smoke. The furniture was mismatched and heavily worn, every chair leg nicked, every surface dulled by years of other people’s lives.

He moved slowly from room to room as though learning the cadence of freedom itself. The sitting room held a sagging sofa whose fabric bore old stains like bruises. When he lowered himself onto it the cushions yielded at once, swallowing him into their soft, tired depths. For a moment he simply sat there, feeling the unfamiliar give beneath him, the quiet around him unbroken by the scrape of a guard’s boots.

The kitchen offered little beyond the barest provisions: a tin of tea, some bread, a small clutch of essentials to carry him until the job began. It would be enough. He opened the single cupboard and closed it again without a sound.

In the bathroom, the tarnished mirror threw back a face he barely recognised: gaunt cheeks, eyes shadowed and sharp, a stranger wearing the remnants of the man he had once been. Beneath it, the enamel tub was chipped and dulled, the shower head sitting above the tub. Two decades of prison filth clung like a second skin, and he longed to be rid of it.

He twisted the tap until the pipes shuddered and the water ran in a furious hiss. Steam billowed up to fog the glass, curling around him. He stripped, the coarse prison-issue fabric fraying and nearly disintegrating beneath his fingers. The air prickled against his bare skin, but he stepped into the scalding water without hesitation. The heat bit at first, hot enough to make him suck in a breath, but he welcomed the sting; after years of Azkaban’s endless chill, even pain was a luxury of the living.

He eased himself lower until the water lapped at his shoulders, his knees jutting above the surface like pale ridges. With the harsh bar of soap provided, he began to scrub — slow, methodical strokes over legs, stomach, arms, face, until the water grew cloudy with the grit of forgotten years. He worked the lather into his hair, tugging at knots and flakes of salt, and felt the prison air lift, fraction by fraction. His beard, now a wild thicket, caught the suds; he ran his fingers through it with a faint scowl. He would shave it off, all of it. The same with the hair that had grown coarse and unruly. When he earnt his first coins, he would sit in a barber’s chair and start fresh.

When the water finally cooled, he lingered a moment longer, reluctant to leave the cocoon of water. At last he stood, joints creaking in protest, and reached for the towel folded beneath the vanity. To his surprise it was new — plush and thick, a small, surprising kindness. He drew it tightly about his shoulders, savouring the softness against skin still pink from the bath, and padded into the bedroom in search of something to wear.

The chest of drawers offered more generosity than he had expected. Inside lay a neatly folded sets of clothes: soft trousers with a fleece lining and elastic hems to hold the warmth, a long-sleeved woollen shirt that smelled faintly of clean soap. Whoever had stocked these drawers understood what the first days of freedom demanded — warmth, and the comfort of being clothed in something that would be comfortable He slipped into the trousers, marvelling at the gentle give of the fabric, then pulled the shirt over his head.

At the back of the drawer he discovered a pair of thick, absurdly fluffy socks. They were the sort of thing he would once have dismissed as frivolous, but now he felt only a faint, grateful amusement. He tugged them on without hesitation, letting the softness cradle his feet, and for the first time in decades allowed himself the simple, almost childlike pleasure of being warm.

He crouched by the hearth and struck the match with slow, deliberate care, the sulphurous hiss startling in the quiet. Someone had left a neat stack of kindling and a small tin of matches beside the grate — practical, unmagical comforts. He coaxed the flame to life the Muggle way, feeding the twigs until the fire caught and began to build, its light flickering across the worn walls.

The room grew warmer by degrees, the first true heat he had felt outside the bath. He knew he would have to wait for the assigned Auror, who would arrive soon enough with the wand he had not touched in twenty years, its return spoiled by the inevitable monitoring charms and yet more forms to sign. Freedom, it seemed, came with paperwork and invisible shackles.

For now, though, there was only the crackle of burning wood and the soft hiss of sap. He settled onto the sagging sofa and let the fire’s glow seep into his bones. The rhythm of the flames — sharp pops, low sighs — lulled him almost against his will. Gradually his eyelids grew heavy, and for the first time in decades, warmth and silence wrapped around him without menace. In their embrace, he drifted toward a fragile, unaccustomed peace.

He started awake at the sudden, heavy knock — three sharp raps that reverberated through the flat like a spell breaking. Heart lurching, he pushed himself up from the sofa, the room still hazy with the warmth of the fire. Groggy but alert, he crossed the worn carpet in a few quick strides and unlatched the door.

A woman stood on the threshold, framed by the dim corridor light. She was of medium height, her hair pulled back into a ponytail that escaped into a cloud of curls. Dark brown eyes — steady, intelligent — met his without flinching. She looked to be in her forties, perhaps a little younger, her face marked less by age than by a quiet self-assurance.

She offered a polite, professional smile. “Good evening, Mr Dolohov. I’m the team lead overseeing the rehabilitation phase of your release. Hermione Granger.”

Her voice remained clear and caring, every syllable carrying the quiet authority of someone practised in treading the line between caution and compassion. She extended her hand, and he accepted it almost reflexively, her grip firm and warm before she released him and stepped gently into the flat.

Antonin stood aside, suddenly aware of how loosely the borrowed clothes hung on his frame, how the damp ends of his hair hung down his back. Under her steady gaze he felt both exposed and oddly scrutinised. The woman’s eyes travelled the room in a quick, unspoken assessment — the modest fire crackling in the grate, the sparse furnishings, the faint scent of soap still clinging to the air — before they settled on him once more.

“I’m glad to see you found the clothes and managed to coax a fire to life,” she said, the faintest trace of wry humour softening her professional tone. “I’ve walked into more than one flat to find someone looking even more lost than when they left Azkaban.” She inclined her head towards the small table by the hearth, the firelight catching a glint in her brown eyes. “Come, have a seat. We’ve quite a bit to go through.”

Her words carried no menace, yet he understood instinctively that this was a routine call. It was the first, deliberate step into the next chapter of his life, and she had come to ensure the page turned properly.

Hermione set her bag on the table and drew out a neat stack of folders, smoothing each one flat with practised hands. From its depths she then produced a long, slender wand box. The sight of it sent a sharp current through him; his palms grew damp, a faint tremor running down his fingers.

“Before I return your wand,” she began, her tone steady, “there are a few conditions we must review.” She lifted her gaze to meet his, making certain he heard every word. “Your wand will be under constant monitoring. If there is any hint of suspicious activity, Aurors are authorised to conduct random checks of your recent memories and to examine the wand itself in full. Do you understand?”

He held her eyes, the weight of the years and the sudden nearness of freedom colliding in his chest, and gave a short, tense nod.

“I need a verbal confirmation, Mr Dolohov,” she prompted, her voice firm but not rude.

“Yes,” he managed at last, the single syllable catching in his throat like a stone his russian lilt coming through heavier than normal.

“Perfect,” she said, a note of brisk approval in her voice. “There are no blanket restrictions on your spellwork. However—" she reached into one of the folders and drew out a single sheet of paper, the Ministry seal stamped in deep crimson at its top “—during your time in Azkaban, the list of prohibited spells has been revised and expanded. This is the current legislation.”

She laid the paper carefully on the table between them, the ink still crisp and dark. “It’s yours to keep and consult whenever you need to. I recommend you familiarise yourself with it sooner rather than later — some of these amendments are recent, and ignorance will not spare you from consequence.” Her gaze lingered on him for a heartbeat, making certain the gravity of her words settled into his mind.

“I understand,” he said quietly.

“Wonderful.” Hermione drew another sheet from the stack and slid it across the table, along with a plain Muggle pen. “Please sign here.”

The pen felt awkward and unbalanced in his hand. He bent over the page and traced his name in the old, looping strokes he had not used in decades. Without the scratch of a quill, the letters looked almost alien — like a relic from a life half-forgotten.

She nodded once, satisfied, then eased the wand box across the table towards him. “I will be your primary contact for the rehabilitation program,” she continued, her tone both professional and — just faintly — reassuring. “If you need support or have any questions, you come to me. The program lasts two years. For the first twelve months you are welcome to remain in this flat. It isn’t intended as a permanent home, and by this time next year the expectation is that you will be financially independent and either seeking or settled in a place of your own.”

Her dark eyes held his as she spoke, steady and without judgement. “You will receive a full salary from your position as a Ministry cleaner, and for the next two years the government will provide additional assistance to help you make the transition. The aim,” she added, a small thread of conviction in her voice, “is to ensure you have every chance to build a life outside Azkaban — one you choose for yourself.”

He inclined his head in a silent acknowledgement, the motion slow but certain.

“You will have an appointment with a Healer within the week,” Hermione continued, consulting one of the folders before looking back at him. “It’s a standard assessment to confirm you’re physically fit for the work you’ve been assigned. If they find any limitations, another position will be arranged so that you can still maintain employment.”

She paused just long enough to let the words settle, then added, “In addition, you are required to attend at least one session every fortnight for the next six months with a certified Mind Healer. How you use those sessions is entirely your choice, but I strongly recommend making the most of them. The Ministry covers the cost during this initial period; after that, if you decide you do need them, the expense will be yours alone. And it isn’t insignificant.”

Her tone softened a fraction. “Consider it an opportunity, not a burden. These sessions can be… surprisingly valuable, especially after what you’ve endured.”

Antonin let the words sink in. A Healer, a Mind Healer — years ago he would have scoffed at the idea of anyone prying into his thoughts. Yet something in the even cadence of her voice made the prospect seem less like intrusion and more like a quiet necessity.

“Furthermore,” Hermione continued, her tone still measured but carrying a note of firmness, “you are not permitted to initiate contact with former associates from your past affiliations. This is a standard safeguard — meant not as a punishment, but to give you the space to build something new without the pull of old loyalties.”

She rested her hands lightly on the folder before her. “Your flat is part of a larger complex that houses others who, like you, are in the process of reintegration. These residents have all shown a strong likelihood of rehabilitation. You’re welcome to socialise with them, and of course you may seek company beyond these walls as you settle back into society.”

Her expression softened slightly, though her words remained clear. “Since your incarceration, a few laws have changed. Sex work and the recreational use of certain regulated herbs have been legalised. You are permitted to engage in those activities, provided you do so responsibly. Should your participation ever create concerns — if it begins to interfere with your employment, your health, or your obligations — then the Ministry reserves the right to impose appropriate restrictions.”

She met his gaze steadily, ensuring the implications of both freedom and responsibility were fully understood. “These guidelines aren’t meant to confine you,” she added, her voice gentler now. 

Antonin absorbed her words in silence, the steady crackle of the fire filling the space between them. He could not decide whether the list of allowances or the quiet limits felt more surreal. In Azkaban, the world beyond had been frozen in his memory; now it seemed to have moved on without him, rewriting its rules while he sat behind stone.

He rested the wand across his knees, tracing a thumb along the familiar grain. The notion that old vices were now lawful — things once whispered about in back rooms now openly permitted — landed oddly. It was not temptation he felt so much as a disorienting sense that the world had learnt to be different without his notice.

Hermione closed the final folder and slipped it neatly back into her satchel. “That concludes everything for tonight,” she said at last. “Your first healer’s appointment will be confirmed by owl tomorrow. If anything feels unclear, or if you find yourself struggling, you have my contact details in this folder. Use them. That is what I am here for.”

She rose fluffing her hair back over her shoulder, and offered him a small, professional smile. “This is a beginning, Mr Dolohov. What you do with it is entirely up to you.”

Antonin stood as well, his wand still warm in his hand. For a moment he could only nod. There were no words that would not sound either hollow or defiant.

Hermione inclined her head, satisfied. “I’ll see myself out. Rest tonight — you have more than earnt it.”

When the door clicked shut behind her, the flat seemed larger, the firelight throwing restless patterns across the walls. Antonin remained standing, the wand balanced lightly between his fingers, and let the silence stretch. It was not the silence of Azkaban: no chill breath of Dementors, no endless echo of his own thoughts. This silence belonged to him, and for the first time in decades it felt almost like a promise.

He lay in the unfamiliar bed that night, the scent of freshly laundered sheets rising like something almost luxurious after decades of damp stone. The pillow cradled his head too softly, a comfort he could not quite trust. Sleep hovered at the edges of his mind but would not come; instead his thoughts circled back to the woman who, with quiet authority, had spent the evening placing the pieces of his life back into his hands.

Hermione Granger. The name stirred fragments of memory like dust caught in the light. Potter’s ally, always at the boy’s side. Bright, relentless, maddeningly sure of herself. He was certain he had flung a curse her way in the chaos of battle — perhaps more than once — though the exact moment blurred now, lost in the smoke and shouting. He tried to summon her as she had been then: the quick, decisive wand, the fierce set of her jaw. The image wavered, half-formed, and was replaced by the woman who had stood in his flat tonight: older, steadier, her voice carrying not triumph but something with more significance— conviction tempered by compassion.

He rolled onto his back and let his gaze settle on the blank darkness above, the ceiling a void that seemed to stretch beyond the narrow confines of the flat. The quiet pressed in — not the oppressive silence of Azkaban, but a living hush, full of small sounds he had almost forgotten: the faint tick of pipes, the distant hum of the city at rest.

Moving forward in this altered world would not come by instinct. Freedom would not simply hand him a place in it. He would have to carve one for himself, step by step, relearning the shape of ordinary life. The thought carried both a weight and a strange, cautious promise: the slow work of building something that, for the first time in decades, might truly belong to him.

Chapter Text

Antonin settled into the barber’s chair, the leather creaking softly beneath his weight, and met his own reflection in the broad wall mirror. The man staring back was full of sharp angles and sallow skin, the kind of face that made even him hesitate. The barber, a cheerful wizard with sleeves rolled past his elbows, circled him with a critical eye, wand twirling lightly between his fingers as he murmured about styles that might suit. Antonin barely listened. He cared only that the hollowed ghost in the mirror should look human again.

The first flick of the wand sent a gentle hum through the air and a soft fall of severed hair. Dark strands fell in loose coils to the floor, each one carrying away a piece of the years. Layer by layer the weight lifted. With every pass of the spell, the reflection grew less gaunt, less like the man Azkaban had tried extinguish.

When the barber finally tilted his chin and set to work on the beard, Antonin closed his eyes as the last bristles vanished under the keen charm of the razor. The clean skin beneath felt startlingly cool, almost tender. He opened his eyes to a face that, though lined and still tired, belonged unmistakably to the man he remembered. Two decades had not erased him after all.

He studied the result, noting how the sharper jaw and the steady, if weary, gaze made him look nearer to his true age — nearly sixty, which in wizarding years was barely the threshold of middle age. He would fill out again once regular meals and quiet nights became routine; already he could almost see the possibility of health returning.

For the first time in years he did not look like something to be feared. The thought was unsettling and oddly liberating. He gave the barber a brief nod of thanks and handed over his gold, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Perhaps Hermione Granger’s wry comment about the newly legalised pleasures of the world beyond Azkaban had not been entirely lost on him. He would not rush to test such freedoms — but it was strange, and not unpleasant, to know that he might.

It was nearly a month before Antonin felt anything that resembled equilibrium. The bone-deep fatigue that had dogged him since his release eased only gradually, worn away night after night by unbroken rest. The Healer had prescribed a carefully measured draught of Dreamless Sleep, and at first he had eyed the vial with open suspicion. Too many old friends, he knew, had slipped from relief into dependence, lulled by the promise of silence until they no longer wished to wake at all.

But the Healer, a brisk witch with a voice like calm water, had met his caution with reassurance. The dose was small, she explained, the addictive qualities long since refined away by improved potioncraft. It would not hold him captive; it would simply give his mind the stillness it needed to heal.

So, he drank. Each night the potion carried him into a dark, weightless slumber untouched by memory or fear, and each morning he rose a little less hollow. By the end of the month the aching weariness that had settled in his bones like a second prison had begun, at last, to loosen its grip.

His work offered little in the way of satisfaction, yet it demanded just enough of him to keep his hands occupied and his thoughts from circling too tightly. The physical labour — scrubbing the Ministry’s endless corridors, polishing banisters to gleam — soon built strength back into his frame. Muscles that had slackened in the long years of confinement firmed again, and with the regular meals he bought from the Leaky Cauldron, the gauntness began to soften.

Cooking remained a mystery he had neither the skill nor the patience to unravel, so he set aside the necessary coins for hot suppers and simple breakfasts. It was an expense he accepted without complaint; far better, he reasoned, to pay for a full plate than to waste his hard-earned wages on herbs or fleeting company. Even so, the arithmetic of freedom was unforgiving. Each week ended the same way: his pay-pouch light, his final knuts counted and re-counted, the margin between stability and want measured in the thin jingle of a nearly empty purse.

Another month slipped by, and still Antonin lived from one week’s pay to the next. The routine had settled into something almost mechanical: long hours of quiet, unremarkable work, a modest meal at the Leaky Cauldron, then back to the small flat whose walls absorbed his silence.

The other former prisoners in the building often lingered in the common hall or gathered on the front steps as dusk fell, their laughter carrying faintly through the corridor. He rarely joined them. Their camaraderie, born of shared histories he did not wish to revisit. Instead, he kept to his narrow circuit — work, supper, home — until the pattern itself became a kind of armour. He told himself it was enough: the steady rhythm of survival, free of chains and free of old loyalties, even if it left his evenings echoing with nothing but his own thoughts.

When Antonin arrived at the Ministry that morning, the usual low hum of the maintenance office had been replaced by sharp voices and the hurried scrape of chairs. His supervisor, normally unflappable, was pacing with a frazzled look Antonin had not seen before.

“One of the team’s quit without notice,” his supervisor called, spotting him the moment he stepped through the door. The man’s usual composure was fraying; his voice carried the clipped urgency of someone already an hour behind. “The entire Auror Division floor needs to be cleaned before the end of the day. We’re stretched thin.”

Antonin answered with a brief nod and rolled his trolley forward. He set about his preparations with the unhurried precision of habit: bottles of cleansing potions clinking softly as he arranged them in their compartments, mops and enchanted cloths sliding into their holders with a quiet click.

He began on the International Relations floor, where the standards were exacting. The work was not vast but it was relentless; dust settled in corners and the brass railings demanded repeated polish before they caught the lamplight in a proper shine. Even here, in a department devoted to diplomacy, the Ministry’s veneer had to be flawless.

Partway through the morning his supervisor reappeared, rubbing a hand across his brow. “Dolohov, change of plan. Can you move on to the DMLE instead? I checked this floor last night after you’d gone and it’ll hold for the day. The Auror offices are the real disaster — Merlin knows what they’ve done to it.”

The request held no hint of reproach, only weary practicality, but Antonin caught the faint irony all the same: a man once hunted by the very people whose mess he was now summoned to scrub away. He gave another silent nod, wheeled his trolley toward the lift, and set off for the floors where the Ministry’s enforcers worked and schemed, the clink of potion bottles marking each step.

He moved quietly along the corridors of the Auror offices, pushing his trolley with the practised discretion of someone who had learnt that invisibility was its own kind of safety. The level was a tangle of half-open doors and muffled voices, and he did his best to slip from room to room without drawing notice.

In an office that appeared empty, he set to work, emptying bins, vanishing crumbs of paper with a flick of a cleansing charm, coaxing the dust from the skirting boards until the air smelled faintly of polish and spell-smoke. He had just straightened when the door swung inward with a sudden bustle.

A woman stepped inside, juggling a stack of folders and a bag that slid precariously down her shoulder. She dropped her things onto the desk with a soft thud and, turning, startled at the sight of him.

“Oh — Merlin, I’m sorry,” she said quickly, hand to her chest. “I didn’t realise anyone was in here.”

Antonin straightened, wand still loosely in his grip, and inclined his head. Only then did recognition settle over him. Hermione Granger.

“Not a problem,” he said, his voice even, though surprise flickered through him. “I was just finishing up.”

Her brow furrowed in momentary confusion before her expression cleared. “Mr Dolohov,” she said, the faintest smile curving her mouth. “I barely recognised you. How are you doing? You look… well.”

The last word carried a note of quiet approval, as though she, too, recognised how far he had come since that first night in the flat.

“Thank you. I am doing well,” he said, keeping his tone even. The rules of his assignment discouraged lingering conversations while on duty — one reason he could finish his rounds so efficiently. Unlike some of the other cleaners, he was rarely delayed by the easy chatter of Ministry staff.

“I’m pleased to hear that.” Hermione leaned a hip against the desk, her bag sliding neatly to the floor. “Are you finding the work tolerable? I know cleaning isn’t the most inspiring start, but it’s better than being without work altogether.”

“It is sufficient,” he replied after a small pause. “It keeps my hands busy and food on the table. That is enough for now.”

“That’s wonderful.” Her eyes moved over him again, not in the brisk, assessing way she had studied him during their first meeting, but with a slower, more searching glance — as though she were quietly taking stock, perhaps even allowing herself a flicker of appreciation. He could not quite read the look.

“Thank you,” he said at last, clearing his throat. “I should continue. One of our team left without notice this morning, and we’re already behind.”

“Of course.” She straightened, the faintest smile returning. “It’s good to see you, Mr Dolohov.”

“Likewise, Ms Granger.”

Her smile deepened, a trace of warmth threading through her formality. “Please — call me Hermione.”

He inclined his head, the corner of his mouth lifting almost imperceptibly. “Antonin,” he countered.

Her eyes held his for a heartbeat. “Nice to see you, Antonin.”

“And you, Hermione,” he said, the simple exchange lingered even after he turned back to his work.

Chapter Text

Antonin sat in his customary corner of the Leaky Cauldron, the small table polished smooth by decades of elbows and spilled pints. His supper steamed before him — shepherd’s pie and a tankard of butterbeer — filling the air with the comforting scents of gravy and baked potatoes. It was Friday evening and the pub thrummed with a restless energy, the kind that came when the week’s work was set aside and something communal drew everyone’s attention.

Tonight it was Quidditch. The opening match of the season had the whole room alight with anticipation. Wizards and witches crowded near the bar, their voices rising in bursts of excitement. Over the hearth, a new contrivance gleamed: a wide, shallow basin of silver, its surface rippling like moonlit water. The device — half pensive, half looking-glass — caught and held scenes from the distant stadium. Players streaked across the sky in miniature, their robes snapping in a wind Antonin could almost feel.

He watched the images shimmer and shift, impressed despite himself. Quidditch had always been a game to follow by radio or in person; now the wizarding world had found a way to share the spectacle with those far from the stands. It was, he thought, quietly brilliant — proof that the world had not only moved on while he was gone but had grown inventive in ways he was only beginning to understand.

He ate in companionable silence, the clatter of cutlery and the rising tide of voices washing over him like an unfamiliar kind of music. When his plate was cleared, he lingered over a glass of firewhisky, letting the slow burn of the liquor settle warmly in his chest. Around him the pub grew steadily louder as the match unfolded in the silver basin above the hearth; laughter and shouts tangled with the commentator’s breathless calls.

Almost without realising it, he was drawn into the swell of excitement. The game quickened, the crowd pressed closer, and his quiet corner became part of the throng. A second firewhisky found its way into his hand, then a third, each one loosening the edges of his long-held restraint. Years of enforced sobriety had stripped him of any tolerance; the familiar heat of the drink now blurred his thoughts until they swam like the images on the pensive’s surface.

When the Harpies faltered and the Falcons seized the Quaffle, the room erupted. Antonin rose with the rest, a rough cheer escaping him before he could think better of it. Elbows jostled, mugs sloshed, and in the sudden crush someone bumped his shoulder hard enough to send him stumbling.

He caught himself, but not before colliding with a witch at his side. She gave a startled cry, her own drink tipping dangerously. Instinctively he reached out, his hand closing around her arm to keep her from falling.

She turned towards him, cheeks flushed from the heat of the crowd and the glow of firelight. Bright, intelligent eyes met his — eyes he knew.

Hermione Granger.

For a heartbeat Antonin simply stared, caught off guard, his hand still firm on her arm as the crowd roared around them. His rehabilitation officer blinked back at him, equal surprise widening her dark eyes.

“Mr Dolohov!” she exclaimed, the words half-lost beneath the cheer of the room.

“Antonin,” he corrected gently.

A startled laugh escaped her, light and unguarded — a sound like bells in a tower. He realised, with a faint tug of amusement, that he rather liked it.

“Hermione,” he said in reply, her name tasting unfamiliar and strangely pleasing on his tongue. He had yet to release her arm.

“You look well,” she offered, a smile flickering across her flushed face.

“You said that the last time we met,” he teased, a wry curve lifting the corner of his mouth.

“Yes, well… it’s hard not to notice,” she admitted, and then, as if suddenly aware of her own candour, she lifted a hand to her lips, eyes widening.

“The feeling is mutual,” he said quietly, his gaze slipping over her before he could check it.

She was nothing like the brisk, buttoned-up official he had glimpsed in the Ministry corridors. Tonight her hair tumbled loose in soft waves, her cheeks were bright with the heat of the crowded pub, and her shirt — open a button or two too far — offered the occasional, unstudied flash of a dark bra beneath. Paired with fitted jeans and short boots, she looked at once entirely ordinary and completely arresting, the careful formality of their previous meetings replaced by something warmer, more human.

Antonin felt the corners of his own mouth lift again, the noise of the Leaky Cauldron fading for a moment until there was only the pulse of her laugh and the unexpected awareness that the world, even after years lost to stone walls, could still surprise him.

“I think comments like that might get me fired, Antonin,” she said at last, a teasing note threaded through the caution. With a gentle twist she freed her arm from his grasp. “I’ll see you around.”

Before he could frame a reply she slipped into the press of patrons, weaving through the throng with easy familiarity. He followed her progress with his eyes until she reached a small knot of friends: a tall man with untidy black hair, and a pair of redheads whose family resemblance was impossible to miss.

From his spot he watched her gesture back toward him, a quick movement half-hidden by the shifting crowd. The red-haired woman turned first, catching sight of him and answering Hermione’s words with a conspiratorial grin. The man beside her leant in to murmur something that earned him a reproving glance.

Antonin felt a flicker of curiosity at the exchange, a quiet tug of wonder about what they might be saying. Yet he only lifted his glass and turned back to the swirling silver of the match. The cheers rose and fell like waves, and he let the noise reclaim him, carrying away the questions he chose, for now, to leave unasked.

Antonin was well and truly drunk, the sort of warm, heady haze that came when the night stretched far past reason. Many of the drinks had been pressed into his hand by cheering strangers, and with every glass the soft Russian lilt in his voice grew more pronounced. By the time the Falcons finally seized the Snitch — well into the early hours — the Leaky Cauldron had become a whirl of song and laughter.

He found himself beside Hermione once more, her cheeks flushed and eyes bright as she sang along with the wireless, her voice mingling with the jubilant chorus. The glow of firewhisky and victory wrapped the room in a giddy hum.

He would never know who moved first. One instant they were lost in the crowd’s roar; the next they had slipped into the shadow of a pillar, the din of celebration dimming to a low, distant surge.

Her breath met his in a quick, charged heartbeat and then they collided. The kiss came hard and sudden, the kind that steals thought and leaves only the rush of heat and the thundering of blood. For a moment the world contracted to the press of her mouth against his, the taste of firewhisky and something sweeter beneath it, the soft catch of her breath as his hand found the small of her back.

Hermione gasped against him, the sound half warning, half invitation. "We… we shouldn't —" she began, her words breaking against the frantic rhythm of their breathing, but even as she spoke her fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt, holding him there.

The warning dissolved between them, unfinished and unconvincing. Antonin felt the heat coil low in his belly, insistent and undeniable, as her shoulders pressed against the rough stone of the pillar. The cool surface pressed against her spine even as he closed the distance between them, his hips finding hers with a deliberate, unhurried pressure that made her breath hitch.

She tilted her head back, exposing the pale line of her throat, and he watched the rapid flutter of her pulse beneath the skin. Her eyes — dark and wide in the dim firelight — met his for a heartbeat, searching, questioning. Whatever she found there seemed to satisfy her, because her hands slid from his chest to his shoulders, pulling him closer rather than pushing him away.

"Antonin," she whispered, and the sound of his name on her lips — rough with want, edged with the same reckless abandon that had driven them into this shadowed corner — sent another surge of heat through him. He could feel the soft give of her body beneath his, the way she arched slightly into the pressure, her own need answering his in the language of touch and breath.

Around them the Leaky Cauldron roared on, oblivious, the celebration swelling to a crescendo that masked the quiet, desperate sounds they made against each other. But here, in this small pocket of shadow, there was only the two of them: the press of bodies, the shared heat, the unspoken acknowledgment that whatever line that should have been drawn had just been crossed — and neither of them was willing to step back.

"Take me home, Antonin," she gasped against his mouth, and the words sent a jolt through him — half desire, half sudden, sobering awareness.

His flat. The image rose unbidden: the worn furniture, the mismatched chairs, the faint smell of damp that never quite left no matter how many cleaning charms he cast. It was clean now, at least — he had made certain of that — but clean could not disguise the threadbare poverty of it, the way every surface spoke of a life barely begun again.

The thought made something twist uncomfortably in his chest. Pride, perhaps — or shame. He had faced Dementors and decades of stone without flinching, yet the prospect of her seeing how little he had managed to rebuild left him embarrassed.

But then she shifted against him, her fingers tightening in his shirt, and the feel of her — warm and real and wanting — drowned out every rational objection. The thought of letting her go, of watching her slip back into the crowd and out of this fragile, reckless moment, was unbearable. It ached more than pride, more than shame.

He made his choice.

Without a word he caught her hand and pulled her toward the dim mouth of the Leaky's back entrance, away from the noise and the light. The cool night air struck them, but Hermione only laughed — breathless and bright — and pressed herself against his side as he drew his wand.

The apparition took them in a lurch of compressed space and spinning darkness. When the world righted itself they stood on the narrow, poorly lit street where his building hunched against the night. The lamps flickered weakly, casting long shadows across the cracked paths.

He tugged her forward, his grip firm on her wrist, but they managed barely three strides before she pulled him to a halt. Her hands found his face and she kissed him again — fierce and hungry, more urgent. He kissed her back with equal fervour, his free hand sliding into her hair, and for a moment the street, the flat, the shame of it all dissolved into nothing but the heat of her against him.

They stumbled forward again, a halting, uneven progress punctuated by her sudden stops. Each time she would drag him back, rising on her toes to claim his mouth, her breath coming fast and ragged. He let her, despite the clawing impatience that urged him to simply haul her up the stairs and be done with it. There was something intoxicating in her urgency, in the way she refused to let him go even for the few steps it would take to reach his door.

By the time they reached the building's entrance, his heart was hammering and his resolve had frayed to a single, burning thread: get her inside, consequences be damned.

He guided her up the narrow stairs, their footsteps echoing in the close silence of the stairwell. At his door he fumbled with the key, his hands unsteady — whether from drink or desire he could not say. Hermione pressed against the door, her breath warm against his neck, her fingers tracing idle patterns along his spine that made concentration nearly impossible.

The key scraped against the lock once, twice, before finally sliding home. The door swung inward and they stumbled across the threshold together, the sudden privacy of the small flat wrapping around them like a drawn curtain. He kicked the door shut behind them and heard the lock click into place with a finality that seemed to echo through his bones.

They didn't waste a moment. Hermione's mouth found his again before the echo had faded, her kiss fierce and unrestrained now that walls stood between them and the world. His keys flew from his hand — a careless toss toward the table that missed entirely, clattering somewhere in the darkness — but he was already reaching for her, hands sliding beneath her thighs.

He lifted her with an ease that surprised them both, twenty years of Azkaban's weakness shed. She made a soft sound of approval as her legs wrapped around his waist, ankles locking at the small of his back, and the heat of her cunt pressed flush against him through the barrier of their clothes.

The sensation nearly undid him.

For so long his body had been a thing of deprivation — starved, cold, denied every comfort and pleasure. Now warmth flooded through him in a dizzying rush: the softness of her thighs beneath his palms, the weight of her in his arms, the exquisite pressure where their bodies met. When she shifted slightly, adjusting her position, the friction sent a bolt of raw need straight through him that made his grip on her tighten involuntarily.

"Antonin," she breathed against his mouth, and the sound of his name — wanting, urgent — shattered what little restraint he had managed to salvage.

He pressed her back against the door, the solid wood bearing her weight as his hands began their exploration. One slid up her side, thumb grazing the soft swell of her breast through her shirt, while the other remained firm on her thigh, holding her exactly where he needed her. She arched into his touch with a gasp that he swallowed with another kiss, deeper this time, tasting the firewhisky on her tongue.

Her fingers tangled in his hair, tugging hard enough to tilt his head back. She broke the kiss to trail her lips along his jaw, down the line of his throat, teeth grazing the sensitive skin there. Each touch sent fresh sparks of heat coursing through him, pooling low in his belly where desire had already gathered into something almost painful in its intensity.

When her hips rolled against him he groaned aloud, the sound rough and unrestrained. She did it again, slower this time, and he felt her smile against his neck.

"Bedroom?" she murmured, though her tone suggested she cared rather less about the destination than the journey.

He should agree. The bed was only a few strides away, and some distant, rational part of him insisted that taking her there would be the civilised thing to do. But Antonin was far from the civilised man he had been in his youth — Azkaban had stripped away such pretensions along with everything else, leaving only raw want and the hard-won knowledge that moments like these were neither promised nor guaranteed.

He carried her to the small table, lowering her onto its surface with a care that belied his urgency. She laughed as her back met the wood — that bright, bell-like sound that had caught his attention in the crowded pub — and the joy in it made something tighten in his chest even as his hands moved to the fastening of her jeans.

He worked the denim down her hips slowly, savouring each new inch of skin revealed. Her boots came next, dropped carelessly to the floor, and then the scrap of fabric beneath, until she lay before him flushed and wanting, the firelight painting her skin in shades of amber and gold.

For a moment he simply looked at her, committing the sight to memory: the rise and fall of her chest, the way her hair spilled across the scarred wood, the dark heat in her eyes as she watched him watching her. The evidence of her desire dripping down her slit, and the knowledge that she wanted this — wanted him — sent a fresh surge of need through him so fierce it bordered on pain.

His hands found her thighs, palms rough against the softness of her skin as he eased them further apart. She made a small sound of anticipation, her fingers curling against the table's edge. He pressed a kiss to the inside of her knee, then higher, trailing his mouth along the sensitive skin there while his thumbs traced idle circles that made her breath catch.

He knew his own desperation well enough to recognise its danger. If he took her now — buried himself in her warmth without preamble — it would be over too quickly, a rushed and graceless thing that would satisfy neither of them. But this, the slow worship of her body with his mouth and hands, the careful mapping of what made her gasp and arch and whisper his name — this he could sustain. This he could draw out until she trembled beneath him, until she begged for him in a voice gone hoarse with wanting.

If he was fortunate enough to hear such pleading, he would answer it. But for now he was content to take his time, to relearn the language of pleasure one kiss, one touch, one breathless sound at a time.

His hands moved with a kind of reverence, as though handling something sacred. He parted her slowly, tenderly, like the pages of a cherished text long hidden from view, every inch of exposed skin another line he needed to read with his mouth. When he finally lowered his lips and wrapped them around the delicate knot of nerves, he did not rush. He drew her in and sucked — gentle, then firmer — until the sharp gasp that broke from her lips filled the room like a spell rebounding off stone.

Her gasp still echoed faintly, but it was followed by something softer — a broken moan that curled in his ears like smoke. She trembled beneath his mouth, thighs twitching where his hands held her steady, fingers scrabbling for purchase against the worn edge of the table. He pressed a kiss just below the bundle of nerves, then returned, flicking his tongue in slow, circling motions that made her hips jerk and a whispered “oh — god” fall from her lips like something torn free.

He smiled against her, fleeting and almost disbelieving. Not really at her response, but at the fact that he was still capable of drawing it. That his mouth, his hands, his hunger — none of it had been ruined by time.

Hermione’s hand slid into his hair, fingers threading through the strands with something between command and supplication. When her grip tightened, he hummed low against her, the vibration making her cry out again, louder this time, her body arching off the table as if pulled by some invisible string.

He held her steady, coaxing her apart with his mouth and the slow, patient rhythm of his tongue — attentive, precise and unrelenting. Every tremor she gave him, every breathless curse, every plea she barely dared to voice, he absorbed like scripture.

When her thighs began to tremble in earnest and her hips rolled without rhythm, seeking more, he slid one hand upward, palm broad and grounding against her belly, anchoring her as her cries crested.

“Antonin—” she gasped, voice cracked open now, edged with disbelief, stripped of everything but raw need. “I — please — don’t stop —”

He didn’t. He couldn’t. Her plea was a thread wound through him, pulling tighter with every breath she offered. So he gave her everything — every ounce of patience, every hard-won lesson in restraint and tenderness, every flicker of care that prison had buried but not extinguished. He worshipped her with his mouth, his hands, with the quiet, unrelenting hunger of a man rediscovering what it meant to be wanted and to give without fear.

Her climax tore through her like lightning, sudden and shattering. She cried out, body arching from the table, thighs clamping around his shoulders as she broke against his mouth. The taste of her slick, salt and heat coated his tongue, ran down his chin — and still he didn’t pull away. Not when she was gasping, trembling, gripping the edge of the table like it was the only thing keeping her grounded. Not when she whispered his name like a litany.

He pushed her through it, mouth gentler now, coaxing every last tremor from her until her breath hitched into something helpless. She clutched at his shoulders, her voice thick and wrecked.

“Please,” she whispered again, and this time the word was shaped differently — fuller, needier, an ache blooming in her throat.

“Please, Antonin. I need you. I need you inside me.”

Her voice broke on the final word, breathless and trembling, the edges of desperation softened by absolute certainty. It was a command.

He rose in a rush, her slick still warm on his lips, her taste still clinging to his tongue. She lay sprawled before him, flushed and trembling, her chest heaving with the remnants of release, and when he looked at her — truly looked — he realised he would have dropped to his knees all over again if she asked.

He shoved down his trousers with a rough efficiency, fingers fumbling at the waistband as though his body had outrun his thoughts. His dick sprang free, hard and aching, flushed dark with want. He stepped forward and dragged her hips closer to the edge of the table, his hands spanning her waist.

He ran the length of himself along her soaked slit, dragging the swollen head through the heat of her folds — once, twice — and her answering moan made his knees nearly buckle. She was still slick from his mouth, wet and open, ready for him in a way that made something primal flicker behind his ribs.

When he finally pushed inside, it was slow and aching, the tight heat of her wrapping around him like a benediction. He groaned — a low, guttural sound that scraped up from somewhere deep — as he sank into her, inch by inch, until he was fully sheathed and shaking from the effort it took not to come too soon.

She clung to him as though she could fuse them together, thighs locked around his hips, her back arching, head thrown back, lips parted in a silent cry that was ecstasy and shock at the depth of him.

“Gods…” he breathed into the space between them, the word rough and reverent at once, as if he were praying rather than swearing.

Her eyes flew open, dark and blown wide. “Have you been with anyone?” she gasped, the words tumbling out between sharp breaths as his first deep thrust rocked through her.

He didn’t slow. He drove into her with unrelenting rhythm, each stroke deep, hard. Forehead pressed to hers, breath ragged, he groaned, “You’re the first. Since I got out… you’re the first.”

Her reaction was instant — a raw, keening sound that broke from her throat as her body clenched hard around him, the force of it nearly knocking the air from his lungs. She clutched at him, nails dragging down his back, her hips rising to meet each thrust with matching urgency.

“God — yes,” she panted, eyes fluttering shut as he slammed into her again, harder, deeper, chasing the edge they were both sprinting toward. There was no space left for words — just the slick slap of skin, the rasp of breath, and the sharp, sweet sting of desire unravelling them both.

She was close — he could feel it in every shake of her thighs, every broken moan she gave him. And he didn’t hold back. He fucked her like it meant something, like she was the only thing keeping him on the earth, to this new life he hadn’t dared to believe could feel like this.

He shifted his angle, gritting his teeth as he pistoned into her, hard and fast, hips slapping against the backs of her thighs with a rhythm that left no room for thought — only heat, only the press of her body around him and the slick slide of skin against skin.

Her head dropped back with a cry. “Antonin—fuck—don’t stop—”

“Not stopping,” he ground out, barely more than a growl. He was close — too close — but he wasn’t going over without her.

Then she broke.

Her whole body arched off the table, thighs squeezing around him, mouth falling open in a wordless moan as her climax tore through her. He felt her convulse around him, the pulsing drag of her walls so tight and wet it nearly undid him right there.

That was it.

He drove into her once, twice more, then let go with a groan torn straight from his chest, burying himself deep as he spilled inside her. His hips jerked helplessly through it, stars exploding behind his eyes as the world narrowed to the heat of her, the grip of her body, the echo of her name still trembling in the air.

They stayed like that for a long moment — tangled and breathless, his forehead resting in the curve of her neck, the only sound between them their staggered panting and the crackle of the fire.

Eventually, his legs threatened to give. He let out a broken laugh, pressing a kiss to her neck, her jaw, anywhere his mouth could reach without moving.

He pulled out slowly, carefully, both of them hissing at the overstimulation, and helped her sit up. She was still flushed, her shirt bunched under her arms, knickers halfway down one leg.

Antonin fumbled his way back into his trousers, hands unsteady. With a practised motion he reached into his pocket for his wand, murmuring a soft cleansing charm over her as she shifted, tugging her knickers back into place with small, distracted movements.

Before she could protest, he slid his arms around her hips and lifted her. She gave a soft sound of surprise that melted into a sigh, her body wrapping around him. Crossing the narrow room took only a few strides and he lowered them onto the sofa. She curled against him without hesitation, cheek pressed to his chest, her arm draped loosely across his stomach as though it belonged there. He felt the weight of her, the warmth of her breath through his shirt, the faint, unsteady beat of her heart syncing with his own.

The fire cracked softly, throwing gold across the walls, its flickering glow turning the worn flat into something almost gentle. Antonin stared at the flames, his fingers unconsciously tracing slow, aimless circles against the curve of her hip, and felt the strange, heady pull of a peace he didn’t trust but couldn’t turn away from.

Within moments her breathing deepened, steadied; she was asleep, her weight slackening in his arms. He let his eyes drift shut too, the last thing he saw the fire’s glow on her hair and the last thing he felt the steady rise and fall of her body against his — warm and alive

For the first time since Azkaban, he surrendered to sleep with someone beside him and without the help of a dreamless sleep potion.

Chapter Text

He woke with a sharp inhale, body tensing instinctively before memory softened the edges. The weight on his chest shifted — warm, familiar — and then moved.

Hermione.

She stretched against him like a cat in sunlight, bare thigh brushing his hip as she stirred. For a moment, he simply watched her, half-convinced the firelit haze of last night had been some fevered dream conjured by drink and desperate longing.

But then she blinked at him, eyes still heavy with sleep, and smiled.

“Good morning,” she murmured, her voice low and rough-edged, rasped by sleep and sex. She sounded… content. Which, all things considered, was more than he could have dared hope for.

He let out a breathy laugh. “Good morning,” he echoed, voice softer than he meant it to be. Then, with a sudden surge of something like boldness, he tugged her back down and kissed her.

She hummed softly into it, lips slow and warm against his, and for a heartbeat he thought she might stay — just a little longer.

But then she pulled away with a reluctant sigh, shifting upright and swinging her legs over the edge of the sofa. Her curls fell around her face as she stood, bare feet quiet against the floorboards.

Antonin propped himself on one elbow, watching as she padded across the room toward the table — toward the crumpled remnants of her clothes, her jeans still half inside-out where he’d stripped them from her.

He couldn’t stop himself from saying it, low and hoarse: “You’re not running away, are you?”

She paused at the table, fingers hesitating just above the denim puddled on the floor. The silence stretched for a breath too long before she glanced back at him, expression unreadable.

“I really should go,” she said, voice still husky with sleep. “I’ve got brunch with a friend. And I can’t exactly show up smelling like sex”

He nodded, slow and heavy. “I suppose not,” he murmured. He meant for it to sound casual, understanding — but the disappointment leaked through anyway, dull and unhidden.

She stepped into her jeans and tugged them up in brisk, practiced movements, as if doing it quickly would make it hurt less — for both of them.

“I had a great time,” she offered, glancing over at him again, smile small and tight. “But we can’t do this again. You know that, right? It’s against half a dozen policies and at least two actual laws. If anyone found out…”

Her voice trailed off. She didn’t need to finish the thought. He knew the stakes — for her, at least.

He sat up slowly, planting his feet on the floor, hands clasped between his knees. “Of course,” he said, quiet. “I understand.”

And he did. Truly. But understanding didn’t dull the sting.

Because the truth was, he hadn’t expected anything at all. Not when she first knocked on his door, not when she smiled at him in the Ministry corridor, not even when she kissed him like he was something worth breaking the rules for.

But now that he’d had a taste — of her warmth, her laughter, the way she looked at him like he wasn’t a shadow of who he’d been — the idea of going back to silence was more hollow than he wanted to admit.

She smoothed down her shirt, fingers pausing just long enough at the hem to betray the smallest flicker of hesitation.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly, her voice a careful thread of regret as she adjusted her shirt.

He managed a small, crooked smile. “Don’t be,” he murmured. He meant it — or at least wanted to — but the words felt thin in the air between them.

Even as he watched her gather her things, part of him hoped — bitterly, foolishly — that she might pause at the door. That she might look back. That she might change her mind.

She didn’t.

It wasn’t attachment, he told himself. He had known her only in a professional setting and, now, in one night of heat and passion. But the truth pressed in anyway: the comfort of another body had been a hunger he’d forgotten he had. Last night had filled that hollow in a way he hadn’t expected — a warmth deeper than the fire in the grate, something that seeped into his bones where even food and drink had never reached.

As the door clicked shut behind her, the flat seemed to shrink and echo all at once. He sat there, still feeling the ghost of her weight against his chest, the scent of her skin clinging to his shirt.

Maybe his coins would be better spent on women than on meals at the Leaky Cauldron, he thought with a grim, humourless twist of his mouth. After all, he felt fuller now than he had in any tavern.

Weeks blurred past in a muted rhythm of work and silence. Somewhere along the way Antonin stopped bothering with breakfast. The coins he saved he set aside carefully, one by one. By the end of the week they would buy him a woman — or, more truthfully, a fragment of one.

It was never the same. There was never enough money for real time, for the luxury of lingering. Each encounter felt clipped at the edges, a clock ticking loud in the background while soft hands tried to mimic closeness.

Yet still he went.

Not for the act itself, though his body responded like a starving man at a table. It was the warmth he craved — the brief weight of another body against his, the scent of skin and hair that wasn’t his own, the quiet moments after when their heat seeped into him before the parting came. Those few minutes felt like standing in sunlight after years underground.

But even that faded quickly. The coins left his pocket lighter, and the echo of touch dissolved long before the dawn.

He’d just finished buffing the brass plaque outside International Sports when he was told to move on — reassigned, this time back to the DMLE floor. A promotion of sorts, they said. Apparently, Robards had noticed how thoroughly he worked, how he kept to himself, how he never lingered. Antonin pushed the trolley down the corridor, potions rattling softly in their compartments, when a voice broke through the quiet.

“Antonin,” she said.

Hermione.

She was walking toward him with none other than Lucius Malfoy’s son beside her — tall, pale, and sharp as a wand-tip in his tailored robes.

Antonin inclined his head. “Hermione.”

Malfoy gave a polite nod, one of those tight, practiced movements that managed to look both respectful and condescending.

“Has someone else quit?” she asked, eyes flicking to his trolley.

“No,” he replied. “It seems Robards liked my work. I’ve been reassigned to this level permanently.”

Her face lit with something that might’ve been pride. “That’s wonderful.”

Antonin felt the flicker of something in his chest — not warmth exactly, but the shadow of it. He nodded, stepping back. “Yes, well. I should carry on.”

“Oh. Of course. I guess… I’ll be seeing you.”

She smiled again, softer this time, before turning to walk beside Malfoy down the corridor.

He didn’t mean to listen. Truly, he didn’t. But the sound of Malfoy’s voice carried though the hall.

“You should keep your distance, Granger.”

She stopped walking. “Mind your business, Malfoy. He’s doing everything right. He hasn’t missed a day. He’s integrating well. That was the point of all this, wasn’t it?”

Antonin froze, hands tightening on the handle of the trolley. The words felt like a balm and a blade all at once.

Malfoy didn’t let up. “He was still a Death Eater, Granger.”

“And so were you, Malfoy,” she snapped. “You’d do well to remember who fought for your freedom in the Wizengamot.”

Antonin couldn’t see her face, but her voice rang with quiet fury.

He turned his head back in time to catch Malfoy’s eyes. The younger man stared at him for a beat — unreadable, unblinking — then turned on his heel and followed after her.

Antonin stood motionless in the corridor, the quiet pressing in around him. The echo of her voice — sharp, unwavering in its defence — lingered in the air long after she and Malfoy had gone. It vibrated through him still, like the ghost of a spell cast not with a wand but with conviction.

She had stood up for him. Not behind closed doors, not in the language of reports or Ministry protocol — but in the open, without hesitation. Her words had cut through Malfoy’s disdain like a blade, and she had not looked back to see if Antonin had heard.

For a long moment, he remained where he was, trolley idle beneath his hands, wondering what it meant.

Was it just her nature — that dogged, infuriating sense of justice she was famous for? Or… did she like him?

The thought felt dangerous. Foolish.

And yet, he let himself believe it.

Not because he was deluded, or desperate — though perhaps he was a little of both — but because something in the way she had said his name, in the sharpness of her defence, had felt personal. Like more than duty. Like care.

Chapter Text

He was in the pub again — another night, another Quidditch match on the mirrored surface above the hearth, another few too many fingers of firewhisky warming him from the inside out. The place throbbed with familiar noise: shouts, clinking glasses, the low swell of the commentator’s voice echoing across the floorboards like thunder from a world far removed from his own.

He hadn’t meant to drink this much. Not again. But the pub was warm, and the flat was not. And here, among strangers and smoke, it was easy to forget the silence that waited for him at home.

And somehow — again — he found himself near her.

Hermione Granger.

She stood only a few paces away, laughing at something someone said, her cheeks flushed from drink and heat and perhaps the game. Her hair curled wild around her shoulders, her blouse too soft, too undone, for him to look at without memory stirring. She was radiant.

And he — a man who had spent decades with stone under his fingernails and cold in his bones — found himself drifting toward that heat like a moth to flame.

Again.

Before he quite knew how it happened, he was beside her again — his shoulder brushing hers, her scent cutting clean through the firewhisky haze. It was a mistake. A line crossed.

She had told him, firmly, that what had happened between them could never happen again. A one‑time lapse. An indulgence. A boundary that protected them both.

And yet, here they were.

Again.

This time there was no table, no flat, no pretence. Only the shadowed corner of a crowded pub, the noise of the Quidditch match a distant roar like surf in his ears. They had slipped away, into a pocket of darkness where the rules bent and blurred.

He was on his knees before her, the rough floor biting into them, her dress bunched up around her hips. Her thighs draped over his shoulders, the soft weight of them securing him to the ground. His hands held her steady as his mouth moved against her clit, tongue and lips working with a hunger he couldn’t disguise.

Her fingers tightened in his hair, not to pull him away but to hold him closer, to this moment, to the sheer impossibility of what they were doing. Her thighs trembled around his shoulders, breath hitching in gasps barely audible over the roar of the pub. But he felt every sound, every shudder. He drank from her like a man who knew hunger too well, who had only just remembered what it was to be full.

Each flick of his tongue, each hum against her sensitive clit, was a vow spoken without words: that he would give her everything she allowed him to touch.

It was reckless. It was wrong. But when her nails scraped through his hair and she began to break apart beneath him, Antonin thought he might never feel anything so right again.

“Take me home, Antonin,” she gasped, the plea torn from her throat like a secret she could no longer keep.

He didn’t hesitate.

He eased her trembling legs from his shoulders, helping her stand. She was breathless, unsteady, her dress rumpled and clinging to her thighs. He smoothed the fabric with careful hands, his touch gentler. Then, without another word, he took her wrist and led her out into the night, the cool air biting at their skin as the pub door swung shut behind them.

The apparition was swift — a single breath and then the cracked street was underfoot. She didn’t speak. She didn’t need to. Her fingers were still wrapped around his, her grip tighter than before.

Inside, he didn’t stop in the sitting room. This time he led her past the table where he’d made a ruin of her body, down the narrow hall, and into the room he’d barely dared imagine sharing with anyone.

They kissed in the doorway, teeth scraping and gasps escaping and when her hands fisted in his shirt, he lifted her easily. She laughed, breathless, her legs curling around him again as he carried her across the threshold and tossed her onto the bed.

She bounced once against the mattress, her hair fanning out in wild curls, eyes dark with hunger and something more dangerous — intent.

He was on her in an instant, catching her mouth in a kiss that was consuming. Her hands went straight to his shirt, fingers tugging at the fabric with single-minded purpose. But as she started to pull it over his head, he caught her wrist — not harshly, but enough to still her.

For the first time, he hesitated.

His chest rose and fell with shallow breaths, and though she could not yet see it, he felt the burn of it just beneath the fabric: the faded, twisted remnant of the mark on his forearm — the Dark Mark, now greyed with time but never truly gone. The brand of a man she should not trust. A man she should fear.

He pulled back slightly, the moment teetering.

Her eyes flicked up to meet his. Calm. Unflinching.

“I’ve seen them before,” she said simply, as though reading him — not just his thoughts, but everything beneath them.

He blinked. “Are you a Legilimens?” he asked, voice low, uneasy.

A ghost of a smile tugged at her mouth. “No. You’re just not as hard to read as you think you are.”

Then, after a pause, softer: “You’re not the first ex–Death Eater I’ve had in my bed.”

The words landed like a blow wrapped in velvet. His brow furrowed, the warmth between them cooling just enough for doubt to slip in. He frowned at her, searching her expression.

“Is that a pattern?” he asked, and the bitterness in his voice surprised even him. “Some kind of… penchant for sleeping with men who once wanted your kind dead? Who wore the Mark like a banner? Who threw curses you had to dodge to stay alive?”

She didn’t flinch. Her hand rose and found his face, fingers soft against his cheek, anchoring him before his own shame could drag him under.

“Time changes people,” she said calmly. “You’ve done the work to be better — and I see that. I’m not in the habit of judging people for who they were when they didn’t know how to be anything else.”

His throat tightened, the words lodging there. She looked at him like it was simple — like being there was something he deserved.

“You know who I am,” she continued, voice low. “If you wished me harm, we wouldn’t be here, would we?”

He exhaled slowly, tension bleeding from his shoulders. “I suppose not,” he said, the admission quieter than his doubt.

Her fingers traced the line of his jaw, teasing and purposeful. “Tell me, Antonin,” she murmured, tilting her head. “Would you have dropped to your knees and buried your face between my thighs if you still believed my kind should be dead?”

His breath caught — half laugh, half groan — and he felt the heat bloom in his chest, something twisted and fond. She had a way of disarming him, even when she was cutting him open.

“No,” he said, voice low and sure. “No, I wouldn’t have.”

“Good,” she murmured, mouth brushing his with a teasing heat, the edge of challenge still glinting behind her words. “Then shut up and fuck me.”

The kiss that followed was rough and biting. Clothes were shed in rushed, uneven movements — hands fumbling, mouths barely parting — until he had her beneath him, flushed and wild, her legs lifted and spread wide, knees nearly to her chest. Her heels dug into his shoulders as he lined himself up and pushed into her in one deep, hungry thrust.

She gasped, head tipping back, lips parted in a soundless cry as he filled her. Her body welcomed him with a slick heat that nearly made him lose control on the first stroke. He groaned, low and unrestrained, the feel of her around him a kind of madness.

“Merlin — you're good,” he rasped, voice raw with disbelief and reverence. “So good.”

She tightened around him at the words, her hands gripping his arms, her breath catching. He felt the flutter of her body in answer, the way she clenched at the praise like it fed her. He latched onto that, leant into it, bending low to murmur against her ear as he thrust.

“You feel perfect… You’re such a good little thing… Just like that.”

“Yes — yes, please —” she begged, her voice high and wrecked, fingers sliding down to clutch the sheets. The tension in her was rising fast, her body arching to meet each stroke.

He kept his pace steady, hard, building her slowly, drawing her toward the edge like it was the only gift he knew how to give. He watched her fall apart — the way her lips trembled, the flush rising on her chest, the glazed look in her eyes as she chased the rhythm of his body and the high of his praise.

When she began to pant, desperate and close, her voice broke again.

“Harder — please, Antonin, I need—”

And he gave it to her.

He shifted his angle his hands moving to her hips and thrust harder, deeper, claiming her with each snap of his hips, the bed creaking beneath them, the air thick with the heat of their shared desire.

He would give her everything she asked for — and more.

Her pleas unravelled him.

He shifted, bracing his weight on one forearm as he drove into her harder, deeper, the rhythm no longer patient but punishing. She took every thrust with gasping cries, legs trembling around his hips, her fingers dragging down his back like she needed to mark him — to prove to herself he was real and here and hers, if only for this moment.

Her body seized around him, a high, shuddering moan torn from her throat as she came — sudden and violent, her whole frame tightening beneath him. He felt it ripple through her, that desperate, exquisite clench, and it pulled him under with her.

His name broke from her lips in a near-sob, and it was all he needed.

He followed with a hoarse, guttural sound, buried deep as he spilled inside her, hips jerking in sharp, uneven thrusts. His vision blurred at the edges, every nerve alight, every part of him focused on the feel of her — soft and slick and burning around him.

It took a moment before he could move again. Before his breath steadied, and the roaring in his ears quieted.

Carefully, he withdrew, watching her flinch at the oversensitivity, then bent to kiss her hip — soft, apologetic. She was still catching her breath, her skin flushed, lips parted, chest rising and falling in quick, shallow waves.

He reached for his wand, murmuring the cleansing charm with a flick of his wrist. The warmth of it passed over both of them, the sweat and the mess vanishing, but the heat between them remained.

Antonin collapsed beside her, the mattress dipping beneath his weight. For a moment, neither of them spoke.

Then, slowly, instinctively, she turned toward him. He welcomed her without question, curling around her as she pressed into his chest, one leg sliding between his. He tucked his arm beneath her head, the other resting over her waist, holding her close.

Her breath ghosted across his collarbone, warm and unsteady, and her fingers played absently with the edge of the sheet, twisting the fabric as though it could anchor her there.

“You said we couldn’t do this again,” he whispered, voice low and rough in the quiet.

“I know,” she murmured. Her tone wasn’t cold. It wasn’t even firm. It was soft — regret threaded through admission.

He shifted slightly, brushing his nose against her hair. “Are you going to tell me the same thing tomorrow when you leave?”

She hesitated just long enough for him to feel it. “I’d rather not,” she said at last. “I’ve… quite enjoyed our time together.”

Something flickered in him at that, a small flare of hope he tried to smother. “So it would be all right for me to pursue you?” he asked, careful but direct.

“Oh, absolutely not,” she said, and though her voice was wry there was no mistaking the seriousness beneath it. “I’d lose my job. I could be dragged before a disciplinary board. Possibly even Azkaban for misconduct or corruption.”

He blinked down at her. “Misconduct?” he echoed, brow furrowing.

“I’m in a position of power, Antonin,” she said quietly. “You report to me. In the Ministry’s eyes, I could be coercing you. Shifting odds in your favour. Holding your freedom over your head in exchange for this.” She gestured vaguely between them, her expression tight. “Even if we both wanted it.”

For a moment, he simply stared at her — the witch who had stood in a corridor and defended him without hesitation — and then, unexpectedly, he laughed. Not mockery, but a low, incredulous sound that rumbled in his chest.

The idea of her holding his freedom over his head seemed absurd. And yet… he thought of the endless, frozen years in Azkaban, of the ache in his bones to escape it, and found himself conceding the point. Given how desperate he’d been to leave that place, maybe she wasn’t wrong.

He brushed his thumb over her knuckles, gently stilling the fidgeting she likely didn’t realise she was doing.

“Then what are we doing?” he asked, voice quiet — not accusatory, just... curious. Searching.

For a moment she said nothing, eyes fixed on where their hands rested together on the sheet. The silence wasn’t cold — just full. Full of everything they couldn’t name.

“Maybe,” she said at last, carefully, “we just… keep it between us.”

There was no seduction in her tone now. No game. Just logic wrapped in longing.

“Though,” she added, frowning slightly, “I probably can’t keep coming here. It’s too exposed. Someone could see me arrive, or leave, or—”

“You don’t like my place?” he teased, letting a trace of lightness slip into his tone to break the heaviness that threatened to settle.

She rolled her eyes, but her mouth twitched into the beginnings of a smile. “It’s not that.”

Then, more serious now, she said, “It’s that I can’t be caught here. Even staying the night is a risk. If someone from the Ministry saw me — leaving your flat at dawn or showing up late with your scent on my clothes — it would only take one whisper. One headline. I’d lose everything.”

Antonin’s smile faded — not with hurt, but with understanding.

Of course she was right.

She glanced up at him, thoughtful. “My place is much more secure. Protective enchantments, wards keyed to me. You could apparate directly inside — no one would see you come or go.”

He studied her expression, the careful ease in her voice, like she wasn’t entirely sure how he’d respond — whether he’d hear it as an invitation or just convenience.

“I’d like that,” he said simply. And he meant it.

She smiled at that — a small, private thing — and nestled closer, her hand sliding across his chest, her leg tangling with his.

“I won’t share you,” he murmured, the words quiet but certain, not possessive so much as honest. He wasn’t asking. He was naming the one thing he knew would undo him.

He felt her smile against his jaw, her lips brushing the stubble there.

“That’s fine,” she whispered. “I’ve not got anyone else.”

She tucked herself beneath his chin, her breath warm against his throat, and in the hush that followed, he closed his eyes.

Chapter Text

Their rendezvous did not stay confined to her home for long. The first time he arrived at her cottage, they barely made it past the threshold before she pulled him in and he took her — over the kitchen counter, pressed into the wall, bent over the sofa — until every surface had a memory of her cries and his name on it. He left just before dawn, sore and sated, just enough time to shower and show up to work as though his body didn’t still carry the imprint of her.

Soon he was fucking her in her office — the very place they were meant to pretend not to be close. She’d burst in, hair windblown, slammed the door behind her, and pulled him toward her desk like she was starved. He barely had time to protest before she was hiking her skirt up and whispering his name. He pressed her down over the polished wood, her head tipped back and lolling off the edge as he drove into her, hard and fast, until she bit down on her lip to keep from screaming.

He told her — more than once — that it was madness. That it would only take one person opening the door for everything to fall apart.

But she didn’t care.

It was as though she were addicted to it — to him — to the danger, the heat, the way he made her lose control. And though he told himself they should stop at least at work… he never could say no to her.

She began inviting him over every night she was free, and soon their encounters evolved into something far more intricate than just pleasure. What started as breathless praise murmured in the heat of climax — good girl, so fucking perfect — became something she seemed to crave more than the touch itself.

He noticed how she waited for it, the way her breath hitched when he praised her, how her eyes lit with desire when he told her she was incredible. She would sink to her knees and take him into her mouth choking on his cock, not just for the act itself, but for what she hoped would follow — his words, his approval, the sharp-edged softness of being told she was special.

They didn’t just fuck.

Somehow, in the quiet moments between the heat and hunger, something softer began to take root. She taught him to cook — simple things at first — and he discovered he could stretch his coins further than he’d ever managed before. But truthfully, he didn’t need to spend much at all. Most nights he was with her, and most mornings too. His gold slowly began to accumulate, a quiet symbol of stability he hadn’t dared hope for.

As the months passed, the lines between arrangement and relationship blurred. They spoke more — not just in the afterglow, but over tea, over meals, whilst she sat cross-legged on the counter or he dried dishes with a flick of his wand. Their conversations grew deeper. She didn’t flinch from the war. One evening, her voice low, she told him it had been his curse — flung in the chaos of the Department of Mysteries — that had left her with the scarring on her chest.

He had gone still, the blood draining from his face.

That night, he worshipped her.

He took his time, mouth and hands reverent, as though he could undo the damage with each breath, each kiss pressed to her skin. He murmured apologies into the hollow of her throat, into the scar itself, into every tremble he drew from her body.

By the end of it she was shaking, clinging to him, begging for a break — please, Antonin, I can’t take any more.

“Oh no!” she gasped suddenly, pulling back from him so abruptly that he nearly followed her— still buried inside her, dizzy from the way she'd been riding him, her body flushed and tits bouncing as she ground against him with such delicious, focused abandon.

His hands hovered at his sides, confused. “What’s wrong?” he asked, still sprawled on the sofa, cock hard and slick, his brain struggling to catch up.

She was already off him, hair wild and eyes wide, scanning the room in panic. “Almost every person I know is about to walk through that door,” she hissed, diving for his clothes on the floor. She gathered them in a rush and shoved them at his chest. “Go — go to my room. Now. They won’t go in there.”

For a breath, he didn’t move. Not out of defiance but stunned amusement. Moments ago, she’d had him gasping beneath her, nails raking down his chest, thighs tight around his hips as she moaned his name. And now — flushed and frantic, shoving his trousers into his arms like a criminal cleaning up a crime scene.

He clutched his garments and jogged silently down the hall, not bothering to dress. He’d wait for her. Like a prize at the end of a long day. She always did respond well to rewards.

Instead of sinking into her bed, he stood just beyond the slightly ajar door, listening. The slam of the front door followed by a sudden wave of voices floating through the house.

“Mia!” came the chorus, a cacophony of tones — some laced with amusement, others clearly scandalised.

“Is someone here?” a woman asked, suspicion sharp in her voice.

“No! They just left!” she said, far too quickly.

“Yeah, we can tell. Smells like dick in here,” came a man’s voice — brash, unmistakably smug.

Antonin’s lips twitched.

“Yes, well, you would know all about that, wouldn’t you, Ronald?” she shot back.

A pause followed, and then an eruption of laughter, nervous and chaotic. Antonin could picture her in the middle of it all — flushed, dishevelled, trying to pass off mid-coital chaos as a casual afternoon.

He stepped back into the room and leaned against her dresser, arms crossed, a smirk tugging at his mouth. Merlin help him, he liked this — her, this madness, the thrill of almost being caught.

He could hear the voices drifting through the house — laughter, teasing, the occasional pointed question aimed squarely at her. Her friends weren’t subtle.

“Who was it, Mia?”

“Mia, honestly, are you seeing someone?”

Each question was met with her clipped, amused deflection. “I’m a grown woman,” she said. “I’ve earnt the right to a bit of privacy.”

Antonin chuckled quietly from her bed, the warmth of the sheets clinging to his bare skin. He picked up the book she had left on the nightstand — some worn paperback, dog-eared and filled with margin notes. He skimmed the pages idly, though it was her voice he was really following — sharper now, with a particular tone he was coming to know: unbothered but firm.

“Mia, you can’t just keep a man secret,” someone chided. “You’re too old for that.”

He winced at the nickname — Mia. It sat strangely on his tongue, like an ill-fitting costume. Hermione, he thought. That was her name. And nowhere in it could he hear the softness of Mia. Hermione had sharp edges. Hermione had fire.

“I’m too old for complications,” she shot back smoothly. “And I like my privacy. I think I’m allowed to have someone over without filing a report about it.”

There was a pause — not quite awkward, but weighty enough that he imagined her friends exchanging looks, reading too much into her tone. He smiled at that. She was holding her own. Always did.

He set the book back on the nightstand and stretched out, hands clasped behind his head, listening. The muted rise and fall of voices drifted down the hall, carrying fragments of names and stories from a world he only knew from Hermione and the Prophet’s headlines. Hogwarts. Old friends. Quidditch scores. Scandals he’d never been invited to be part of.

What struck him wasn’t their gossip but her in it — the timbre of her voice when she wasn’t speaking to him. There was an edge of weary amusement there, a mild exasperation threaded through her replies, as if she were waiting for them to take the hint and go. It was a tone he hadn’t yet heard from her — sharper, drier, a little older. Not the witch who pulled him into shadowed corners, but the woman she became among people who knew her.

He closed his eyes, the sound of her mingling with their chatter like a low hum through the walls. Slowly, the laughter blurred, turning into a soft background murmur, the kind of domestic noise he’d almost forgotten existed.

His body eased, muscles softening as he settled into the bed — her bed — the scent of her skin clinging to the sheets. It was that scent, he told himself, that coaxed the dream. That subtle warmth, that trace of her lavender soap, threaded into the cotton beneath him.

In the dream, her mouth was everywhere — soft and wicked. Tongue tracing the planes of him no one had ever thought to worship. He moaned for her in sleep, desperate and unguarded.

But the dream didn’t fade. It sharpened. Deepened. The slick heat of her mouth was real, not imagined — and when he jolted awake, it was to the impossible sight of her lips wrapped around him.

“Solnyshko—” he gasped, the word spilling from him unbidden, as the back of her throat closed around him.

His hand flew to her hair, not to push her away entirely but to lift her, just enough to see her eyes. “What are you doing?” he asked, voice hoarse with disbelief.

She looked up at him, mouth already slick with intent, her smile sly. “Making up for our interruption,” she murmured, and before he could respond, her lips were around him again — warm, wet, and determined.

Antonin fell back against the pillows, his chest rising sharply with each breath as she took him deeper, setting a pace that made his toes curl and his hands fist in the sheets. She wasn’t rushed. She was purposeful — letting her tongue trace every sensitive nerve, trailing lower until her mouth left him and her hands took over, stroking him steadily.

And then she moved lower, her mouth leaving a trail of heat across his skin. Each kiss, each flick of her tongue, seemed less about teasing and more about mapping the parts of him no one had thought to touch. His hips jerked at the contact, involuntary, as though his body were caught between protest and plea.

Her hand never stopped moving, a steady rhythm anchoring him even as she whispered something low under her breath — a charm that skimmed his skin like a warm ripple. Then her tongue was there, brushing against his puckered hole, never expected to be touched, much less by someone who made it feel divine.

Antonin wasn’t a stranger to pleasure. He was sixty, hardly innocent, and not a man prone to modesty. But this, her mouth, fearless and intent, worked him open with a kind of skill he hadn’t expected — hadn’t even known existed. It shook something loose in him, something buried beneath years of control and silence. No one had ever wanted to give him this. No one had ever cared to learn what it might do to him.

And gods, it was doing something.

When he lifted his head, breath shallow, and caught her eyes flicking up in a silent question, he nodded — a small, sharp movement that said yes, said please, said don’t stop.

She returned to him with renewed purpose, tongue firmer now, bolder. The slick sound of her mouth working him filled the room, and he could feel her saliva trailing down, coating his skin in a way that felt unbearably obscene. Then he felt it — the gentle pressure of her finger teasing at his hole.

A groan tore out of him, low and guttural, his hips arching into her hand before he could stop himself. There was no dignity left in the way he moved — only shameless, unguarded desire. He pressed back against her touch, silently begging for more, the plea written in every tremor of his body every sound that escaped him.

She took her time. Her finger, slick with her own spit, circled and coaxed until his muscles loosened around her. The sensation was alien and perfect all at once — and then, slowly, she pushed deeper. When she found that hidden place inside him, pressing just hard enough to graze it, a sound ripped from his throat he hardly recognised. It wasn’t a moan; it was closer to a cry.

The pleasure was blinding.

Between the relentless pull of her hand on his cock and the rhythmic thrust of her finger buried inside him, Antonin’s grip on control crumbled. The sensations didn’t just layer — they collided, multiplied, folding over one another until his body could no longer keep pace with the pleasure coursing through it.

His world narrowed to the stretch and press of her fingers, the slick, filthy heat of her hand, the way his body betrayed him with every tremble and desperate thrust. And then —

She added a second finger.

The stretch made his breath hitch, his hips jerk, his mind white out in a burst of near-panic-turned-pleasure. She moved faster, confident now, stroking that spot inside him with surgical precision, and his orgasm surged through him like a dam breaking.

He didn’t come — he exploded, violently, helplessly, thick ropes painting his stomach, his chest, her hand, his thighs. The volume of it shocked him, his body emptying in wave after wave as her touch drove him mercilessly through it. The sounds that tore from his throat were not words, not moans — they were wrecked, broken things, primal and rough, as though she had dragged something buried out of him and brought it gasping into the light.

By the time she slowed her movements and began to ease out, Antonin was shaking, his limbs splayed and twitching in the aftermath. He had never in his life felt so utterly ruined — and never, not once, had he felt so thoroughly ready to steal her away so he would never be without her.

Chapter Text

They had showered — warm water washing away the mess of what they’d done, though not the tingling of his skin. She’d pulled him back to bed still damp, straddling him with that same focused hunger, riding him slowly until he was gasping her name again, his hands clutching her hips. It wasn’t frantic — it was drawn out, like she wanted to feel every inch of him, and he was more than willing to be used if it meant watching her come undone.

Now, in the quiet aftermath, her skin sticky with sweat and the faint scent of soap still clinging to her curls, she lay sprawled across his chest, her breath just beginning to even out.

He tucked his chin against the crown of her head, arms wrapped tightly around her spine, and let the truth slip free before he could stop it — soft, hoarse, stripped of all armour.

“I love you,” he whispered into her hair.

Not a grand declaration. Not even a question. Just a truth, laid bare between the beat of their hearts, hoping she would hear it and say it back.

Instead, she bolted.

One moment, her cheek was resting against his chest; the next, she had yanked herself away with such speed that she tumbled from the bed entirely, landing in a graceless heap on the floor. The thump of her body against the floor, the quick scramble of limbs, the wide, stricken look on her face — it all struck him harder than any curse he’d ever endured.

Panic radiated from her. Unspoken horror. And Antonin knew, in that hollow, ringing silence that followed, that he had ruined it.

They were done.

There was no need for her to speak. Her reaction had said it all — louder than any rejection could.

He couldn’t undo it, couldn’t pull the words back into his mouth and pretend they’d never existed. And truthfully — he wouldn’t have, even if he could.

He had spent too many years with nothing — no comfort, no softness, no truth. This second chance at a life, at feeling something real, had been everything to him.

But the look on her face — that plain, startled horror — told him exactly what he needed to know.

“You can’t,” she burst out, the words sharp with panic, almost a shriek.

He sat up slowly, the sheet falling to his lap, the lingering warmth of her body still imprinted on his skin. Strangely, he felt calm — too calm. Like the stillness that came just before the storm tore the roof off.

“Why not?” he asked, voice even, though he could feel anger splinter under the surface.

“That wasn’t the arrangement,” she snapped, already moving — snatching her dressing gown from the wardrobe with more force than necessary. She tugged it on, a silky thing the colour of dark wine, and the sight of her in it made his chest ache. He had loved seeing her in it. He had thought there would be mornings — dozens of them — where he’d wake to the whisper of that silk brushing against his skin.

He swallowed hard. “You mean the arrangement where I specifically asked if I could pursue you — and you said I could. Secretly.” His voice wasn’t raised, but the disbelief in it cut deeper than any shout. “That arrangement?”

She stilled, her silk gown half-tied, back turned to him as though that might shield her from the reality of his words.

“You never said it was just physical,” he continued, resentment blooming alongside the anger that was simmering. It had never felt like it was just sex. Not when they dreamt about the future. Not when she’d told him what kind of future she wanted, or when she laughed as he tried to cook for her. Not when she pressed her face into his neck at night and whispered how happy she was.

Still, she said nothing. So, he rose.

“The evenings I spent right here,” he said, stepping toward her, “listening to you talk about work, about your life — and letting myself imagine where I might fit inside it.” His voice grew firmer now, the calm cracking beneath a tide of heat. “Or when you search for me, in corridors, pulling me into dark corners because you ‘couldn’t wait’ — because you missed me too much to last the day without me.”

She turned then, her expression taut with tension, but he didn’t give her room to speak.

“Is that not the behaviour you’d expect from a partner?” His voice was no longer steady but frayed, every word pulled through his already damaged heart. “From someone who sees this — us — as more than a convenient secret behind closed doors?” The last word cracked, anger spilling out with a thread of disbelief.

“I didn’t ask for this,” she said finally, her voice sharp, defensive, like she was trying to build a wall between them faster than he could tear it down.

He stared at her, heart hammering, and the anger inside him snapped. The restraint he’d been holding onto, the careful quiet of his life since Azkaban — all of it slipped through his fingers.

“No,” he said, low and shaking. “You didn’t ask. You begged. Again and again. You came to me, you pulled me in, you opened the door. Don’t stand there and rewrite what this was.” He swallowed, the words coming faster now, jagged. “You told me you wanted it — you let me believe it was more. Am I supposed to be sorry for thinking it was something beyond a woman scratching an itch in secret?”

He hadn’t meant to sound cruel. It wasn’t cruelty that drove the words — it was hurt, naked and afraid, the kind of hurt that came from believing she’d wanted him, only to realise he’d been used.

He moved stiffly, gathering his clothes without looking at her. The silence in the room felt sharp, jagged.

“Antonin—” she started, her voice catching, reaching out with a hand that had only moments before soothed him.

“Don’t,” he said, and it came out more broken than he intended. He didn’t turn to face her, didn’t trust what might show on his face. His fingers clenched around his wand as he pulled his shirt over his head, the fabric sticking to skin still warm from her body.

His eyes flicked up once — just once — to meet hers.

There were a thousand things he could have said. A thousand versions of goodbye. But none of them would’ve made this hurt less.

So, he said nothing.

And then, without flourish, he twisted on his heel and disapparated.

Antonin was no stranger to the cold. It had been his companion through endless nights in Azkaban, the damp stone and silence wrapping around him like a second skin. It didn’t take long for him to settle back into it — the chill creeping into his bones was almost welcome. Familiar. Punishment worn like a coat.

Warmth, he realised, would never truly belong to him. He’d borrowed it for a time — in the curve of her smile, in the scent of lavender soap clinging to her skin, in the soft brown wildness of her hair that spilled like sunlight across her pillow — but it had never been his to keep. Of course not.

He had hurt too many. Taken too much. The universe, it seemed, had finally decided to balance the scales. And if this was what he was owed — this cold, this ache, this hollow space where she had once been — then so be it. He would bear it.

But gods, how he missed the warmth of her.

She had given him so much more than fleeting pleasure. Her presence had reordered his life in quiet, profound ways. He no longer squandered his meagre gold on greasy meals at the Leaky Cauldron — he cooked now, simple meals she had taught him to make while laughing at his clumsy knife skills. He ate at home. He kept a routine. And by the end of his first year out of Azkaban, he had saved enough to rent a small cottage tucked along the coast, as far from London — and from her — as he could go without crossing the Channel.

It was deliberate. Distance, he hoped, might dull the ache.

Because everything she had offered him — her patience, her discipline, her affection and sharp intelligence, her soft skin, had left its mark. She had made him better. Stronger. More capable of living a life that didn’t revolve around survival. But not even the clean air or quiet nights on the coast could replicate the warmth she had breathed into his bones.

And when he passed her in the halls of the Ministry — on rare days when their paths happened to cross — it almost felt like she could offer it again. A look, a smile, a pause in her step that made his heart lurch with painful hope. But he kept his eyes down, both hands on the trolley, pretending not to notice. Pretending he hadn’t known what it was to feel her against him.

Because pretending was easier than hoping, and far safer than retracing the well-worn path back to her door.

Time moved on, and with it, the ache dulled — never fully gone, but manageable in the quiet way old wounds become. Having a home that no longer tasted of her helped. The bed didn’t carry her scent, the kitchen table didn’t remind him of her taste every time he sat at it. He built something of his own, slowly, with effort. A space where he wasn’t reliant on borrowed comfort or the presence of another to feel anything.

He read — muggle books mostly — on subjects he’d never had the care or freedom to explore before. Botany. Philosophy. Woodwork. He tried to reconnect with the world, to ground himself in the simplicity of the earth and the rituals of quiet living. He cooked. He walked. He did his best to coax the fire back to life from within.

But it never lasted. Within weeks, the spark would fade. The mornings would stretch too long and too grey, and the sheets on his bed would pin him in place. Sometimes, when the silence grew too loud, he searched for warmth at the bottom of a bottle — knowing full well it would burn out just as quickly.

He couldn’t understand why it clung to him so fiercely. Months had passed, and yet the loss still pressed against his ribs every moment of the day. It gnawed at him more deeply than Azkaban ever had, deeper even than the deaths of friends and comrades who’d given themselves to a cause he no longer believed in.

What he’d had with her hadn’t been built on years or trust; it had been a flicker, a stolen stretch of time with a woman he had tried to kill as a child. And yet somehow, that brief, impossible warmth had carried something vital inside it. When she left, she hadn’t just taken herself — she’d taken the small, stubborn pilot light that had been keeping him alive.

Now, no matter how he tried, he couldn’t coax the spark to catch. The fuel was there — habit, routine, the hollow motions of life — but the flame refused him. Everything inside felt dampened, heavy with soot. He moved through his days like a man wading through smoke, eyes stinging, lungs full of the memory of heat. Just the aftertaste of something once burning. The smell of a doused flame lingered in his chest, acrid and clinging, reminding him of everything he’d ever wanted.

He’d been invited to the Leaky for Christmas drinks — a modest gathering to mark the end of another year. His second Christmas out of Azkaban. This one, though marginally brighter than the last, still carried the feel of absence. Last year, he hadn’t even acknowledged the holiday. No tree. No gifts. No company. Just the silence of his flat and the ghosts of too many Decembers past.

This year, he had at least made acquaintances — colleagues who nodded when he passed, who called him by name rather than by his position. That was something, wasn’t it? Enough to make him accept the invitation, to sit at their table like he belonged, even if some part of him still braced for the day he’d be asked to leave.

And perhaps, if he was being honest, it was also the firewhisky that called to him — the promise of heat in his belly and a temporary hush in his mind. A quieting of the ache he carried with him, tucked beneath his ribs, hidden away.

He drank and chatted easily enough — Quidditch scores, Ministry gossip, complaints about the new rota system. The maintenance crew were loud, good-humoured, and content to let him drift on the edges of their camaraderie without question. It was the closest thing to belonging he’d felt in years.

He rose to fetch another firewhisky, the warmth already loosening the edges of the world around him, making it soft and golden and just detached enough to be tolerable.

He didn’t see her until he walked right into her.

The impact was slight — the brush of her arm, the sudden inhale of lavender — but it knocked the air from his lungs.

Her hair was wild around her shoulders, curls tumbling like he loved. Her blouse gaped open at the collar, a flush blooming high on her cheeks, and her eyes—

Gods, her eyes found him and widened, slowly dragging over him like she was drinking him in.

“Antonin,” she breathed, and it was like no time had passed at all.

He caught the scent of firewhisky on her breath — or perhaps it was his own — and for a moment he couldn’t tell which of them was more surprised.

“Herm— Miss Granger,” he corrected himself stiffly, the need for distance reasserting itself just before her name could settle on his tongue.

She blinked, as if struck by it, and he felt the air thicken between them — that familiar, dangerous current stirring beneath her alcohol-flushed cheeks and the open line of her throat. A single misstep would tip it one way or the other: fire or ash.

“How have you been?” she asked, voice careful, measured.

He scoffed before he could stop himself — the sound sharp and bitter, surprising even him. “Don’t pretend,” he muttered. “You’ve read my file. It’s your job to know how I’ve been.”

He turned to leave. The idea of standing here — public, exposed, performing civility while his chest ached with the desire to apparate her home and devour her — was unbearable. He couldn’t do it. Not again. Not out in the open.

But her fingers curled around his arm, small and warm. “Antonin, please—” she said, soft but urgent.

The sound of her voice, the way it cracked on his name — it broke something open in him. He groaned low in his throat, spun on his heel, and backed her against the nearest pillar. The cold surface met his hands as he caged her in without quite touching.

“Don’t you dare,” he said, voice rough as gravel. “Don’t you dare beg for my attention now. Not after you—”

But his words were cut off. She had fisted his shirt in both hands and pulled him down to her. Her mouth crashed into his with the same fire he remembered — reckless, urgent, as though she couldn’t help herself.

He kissed her back before he could stop himself, his body moving on instinct. His hips pressed forward, pinning her against the pillar, grinding against her like he could press the months apart out of existence. His hands found her waist, gripping hard enough to feel her pulse through his palms.

She tore her lips from his, panting, her breath hot against his cheek. Her mouth was already reddened, her eyes wide and wet. “I’m sorry,” she gasped. “I’m so sorry. I never should have—”

He silenced her with another kiss, swallowing her words before they could cut him open further. He didn’t want her apologies. He didn’t want explanations. He wanted the fire — the spark she’d taken with her— to catch again, even if it burnt him alive.

His tongue slid into her mouth, tasting salt, whisky, and the faint sweetness of her breath. He shouldn’t be doing this, he knew. Every part of him knew. But he was only a man, a man that was still so deeply in love with her he would take whatever she offered.

Her fingers fisted his shirt again, knuckles white with urgency, pulling him closer until her lips grazed the sharp edge of his jaw. Her breath was warm and tremulous against his skin.

“Take me home, Antonin,” she whispered.

The same words. The same request, murmured into the shadows of a dozen nights before. Every time, whispered like a secret —he was a secret. A hidden indulgence, tucked behind dark corners and unspoken rules.

And now, it echoed again. Familiar. Intimate. Cruel.

Because he knew what home would mean. It would mean her skin against his sheets, her scent in every breath, her laugh caught between the cracks of his floorboards. It would mean seeing her teacup in the sink and her hair on his pillow — and knowing it would all disappear by morning.

He stayed still.

A beat passed. Then another.

Something in his eyes must have given him away. The hesitation. The ache. The quiet devastation he hadn’t bothered to mask.

Her fingers loosened. Slowly, she released his shirt. But instead of stepping away, she brought her hands to his face, palms warm against the stubble of his cheeks. She tilted his head down, made him meet her gaze.

And in the low thrum of the pub, in the fragile space between one breath and the next, she said the words he had longed for.

“I love you.”

His heart stuttered in his chest. He didn’t speak. Couldn’t.

Because what if it wasn’t real? What if it was the drink talking — a warm, blurry delusion he’d fallen into before? What if it was loneliness she mistook for longing, guilt mistaken for love?

But before he could retreat into that fear, she rushed forward, voice breathless, shaking.

“I should have told you that day,” she said, eyes locked to his. “I shouldn’t have freaked out. You were right — about all of it.”

He blinked, stunned by the honesty in her voice.

“We were already together,” she continued, the words tumbling out like they’d been rehearsed in her head a hundred times, “and I was just as in love with you then as I am now. And I was scared.”

She swallowed, her voice cracking just slightly.

“It’s been months, and I still can’t stop thinking about you. About your laugh. Your terrible humour. The way it felt when we cooked together or fell asleep with your hands on me. I still find your things around the cottage — your socks, the book you left by the stove, that stupid spoon you always bent whilst stirring too hard — and I can’t bring myself to throw them away.”

Her voice trembled as she reached for him again.

“Come home with me, Antonin. Please.”

She didn’t bother to soften it — didn’t mask the desperation in her voice. He felt it in his ribs, in the place where hope had long ago curled up and gone cold.

“Mia!?”

The stupid nickname cut through the moment like a blade. Antonin turned instinctively, his body tense, jaw clenched.

Potter.

Of course it was him — standing just a few steps away, dishevelled from drink but still alert, his green eyes narrowing as he clocked the scene.

“This guy bothering you?” he asked, with the thinly veiled righteousness of a man who always assumed he was protecting someone.

Antonin straightened to his full height, his gaze flicking to Hermione, waiting — not for permission, but for confirmation. Of who he was. Of what they were.

Hermione stepped around him, placing herself between the two men. Her hand didn’t touch him. Her body didn’t lean into his.

“Harry, it’s fine,” she said quickly, too quickly. “We were just… talking.”

Talking.

Of course.

Antonin let out a quiet breath, the taste of it bitter. Potter, for his part, stood taller too now, visibly assessing him — sizing him up with that brand of quiet, contained suspicion that came easily to Aurors. To men who saw the world in black and white, good and evil.

But Antonin didn’t care about Harry fucking Potter.

Not really.

What gutted him was the realisation already unfurling inside him — that Hermione was about to deny it. That she would smooth things over for her friend’s sake. That she would pretend this meant nothing, just as she had before. And maybe it would be for Potter’s benefit. Maybe it would be for her job.

But the reason didn’t matter.

What mattered was that she had just told him she loved him — and couldn’t say it again with someone else watching.

It would’ve been easier if she hadn’t said it at all.

Because now, even as the words still echoed inside him, warm and electric and terrifying, he could already feel them beginning to peel away from his skin.

And that, he thought bitterly, was heartbreak’s cruellest trick — to make you believe the fire had come back, only to leave you colder than before.

Chapter Text

Antonin didn’t wait for her to look back at him.

He turned. His body moved before thought could intervene — instinct, hurt, and the sharp edge of self-preservation driving him forward. He’d lived half his life in coldness; he would not stand here and let her douse him again. Not after she’d told him she loved him only to shrink beneath someone else’s gaze.

He’d made it two steps when her hand caught his arm.

“Antonin, wait—”

He turned back, reluctantly, too tired to hide the hurt etched into his features. He was tired — tired of feeling like it was all for nothing, that she had disrupted his life for not other reason than because she could.

She faced him, chest rising with each breath, and behind her, Potter hovered — suspicious and protective.

“I—” she began, but he didn’t let her waver.

“Say it,” he said, voice hoarse, quiet. “If you meant it. Say it now. Say it in front of him.”

Her lips parted, but no words came. Her eyes were wide — startled, uncertain — and Antonin felt the floor shift beneath him. He knew this script, he was stupid for believing her at all. The words she’d whispered against his throat meant nothing. Not in the open. Not when someone else might hear them.

His mouth twisted.

“You said you love me,” he said, louder now — not just for her, but for Potter, for anyone close enough to listen. Let them hear. “But when someone else is watching… you shrink. You retreat. You can’t admit it.”

His voice dropped, brittle as frost. “I can’t do it again. I won’t.”

Potter shifted beside her, clearly out of his depth, but ready to insert himself if the moment turned. Antonin didn’t care. His attention was only on her — on whether she’d flinch again, or face him with the same courage she claimed to have.

And then, she turned to Harry. Her jaw tightened. Her fist curled and unclenched at her sides. There was fear in her — but there was resolve, too.

“Harry,” she said, voice steadying, “this is Antonin. The man I told you about.”

Potter blinked. “The one you —?”

“Yes,” she cut in clear and unwavering. “The man I love.”

Antonin didn’t move. Couldn’t. The ache in his chest threatened to crack wide open. He stood rooted, breath shallow, uncertain if what he’d just heard was real or some cruel echo of his own longing. For a heartbeat, he simply stared at her, unsure how to believe that she’d said it at all.

Potter blinked. “A Death Eater?” he asked, his voice edged with disbelief — not loud, but cutting all the same.

Antonin let out a quiet, bitter huff, shaking his head. Of course. That label would follow him long after the rest of him had turned to dust. He had made peace with the fact that it was a shadow he would carry forever — a mistake so colossal it had calcified into his very name.

But Hermione spoke before he could. “He’s as much a Death Eater as Malfoy is,” she said firmly. “Or Theo. You know that.”

There was steel in her voice now, protective and sharp. It startled Antonin more than it did Harry.

Harry raised a brow. “You certainly have a type.”

Hermione bristled, a flush rising on her cheeks. “Can we not do this right now, Harry?”

There was a long pause, and then Potter exhaled, dragging a hand through his already-messy hair — a habitual gesture that betrayed his discomfort.

“Sure,” he said finally, voice low. “Whatever.”

Then, to Antonin’s surprise, Potter stepped forward. His hand extended — stiff, perhaps, but offered all the same.

Hermione gave Antonin a look, a soft nudge with her eyes — trust me.

After a moment, Antonin reached out and took the hand. The grip was brief. Firm. Civil.

“Have a good night,” Potter said quietly, already turning back into the crowd, leaving them standing in the half-darkened spot by the pillar.

Antonin watched him go, the sounds of the pub swallowing him bit by bit. The warmth of bodies and clinking glasses and holiday cheer felt impossibly distant now — a world apart from the quiet, aching moment he found himself in. He turned his gaze back to the woman beside him.

Hermione was looking up at him, her eyes wide and earnest, the light catching in the brown like it always had — as if she were made to reflect the firelight.

“You told him about me?” Antonin asked, his voice low, still not quite trusting the reality around him.

Her lips lifted in a sad little smile. “I was a bit of a mess after you left that day,” she admitted. “I couldn’t stop thinking about what I’d done. About how easily I let you walk away, and how I hurt you.” She hesitated, her gaze dropping for a moment. “I ended up on Harry’s sofa with a bottle of wine and a lot of regret. He told me it was my own bloody fault. That I was too old to be playing games like that — and that if I really wanted something lasting, I’d have to be willing to make sacrifices.”

Antonin didn’t speak, but she stepped closer, wrapping her arms slowly around his middle. Her cheek rested briefly against his chest. He brought his arms up around her after a beat, pulling her in, letting himself hold her like he had dreamt of doing every night since he left.

“So,” he murmured, voice a little rough, “you sacrificed your pride?”

She shook her head gently against him before drawing back just enough to look into his face.

“No,” she said. “I sacrificed my position on the rehabilitation program.”

He stared at her, not understanding at first.

“I stepped down,” she said quietly, though her voice didn’t waver. “I’m no longer leading the program. I took a post in International Relations — something entirely separate. Away from the DMLE.”

Antonin blinked, stunned. The words landed heavily, as if the ground beneath him had shifted. He hadn’t expected that — not even as a distant possibility.

“Why?” he asked, his voice low and uncertain. “Why would you do that?”

She looked up at him then, eyes clear despite the rawness in them, her chin lifted in that stubborn, familiar way. “Because if I was ever going to prove that I loved you it couldn’t just be in words. It had to be something tangible.”

She hesitated, then pressed on. “Part of the reason I insisted we stay a secret was because of my role. The scrutiny. The conflict of interest. I was protecting my position… even if it meant hurting you in the process.”

A faint tremble passed through her. “But if there’s no position to protect, then there’s no reason to hide. No barrier. No excuse. Just… the truth of how I feel.”

She drew in a breath, softer now. “And if there was even the smallest chance you might want me back — I had to clear the path. I had to make sure there was nothing in the way. So, you’d know. So, you’d believe me.”

He didn’t respond right away. His eyes searched hers, dark and unreadable, as though trying to peel back the layers of her truth with his will alone. Looking for a crack, a flicker, any sign she might be deceiving him.

But he wouldn’t have known. That was the cruellest part — he was still so hopelessly drawn to her, so starved for the sound of her voice and the heat of her attention, that even if she were lying, even if it was all carefully chosen words designed to get him back, they were the very ones he needed. The very ones he wanted to believe.

Her arm tightened around him.

“Let me take you home, Antonin,” she whispered. “Let me show you how much I love you.”

They’d barely stumbled through the floo before her mouth found his, urgent and insistent, hands already tugging at his coat, fumbling with buttons as though she couldn’t bear another moment with him clothed. He let her strip him — didn’t resist — only kissed her harder, deeper, as his shirt was pulled from his shoulders and his trousers dropped to the floor. Her dress followed in one smooth motion, pooling at her feet.

When he finally stepped back to look at her — properly look at her — the breath caught in his throat. Her stockings clung tightly to her thighs, the dark lace stark against her skin, and her knickers were little more than suggestion — sheer, delicate and wholly indecent. He groaned aloud, his restraint already fraying at the edges.

She was breathtaking. Glorious. For a woman in her forties, she was nothing short of a fucking miracle — curves and confidence and pure fucking desire. There was no hesitation in her; no shame, no coyness. Just the fire that she stoked to burn hot and long into the night.

He gathered her into his arms, as if afraid she might vanish if he held her too loosely. His mouth found the curve of her neck, lips dragging over the soft skin there, tasting the perfect saltiness of her skin. One hand cradled the back of her thigh, the other pressed her cunt against the hard length of him, holding her there — teasing, tormenting. She gasped, her fingers threading into his hair and tugging just enough to make him groan against her throat.

“Merlin, I missed this,” he murmured, voice rough with longing. “Missed you.” He kissed the hollow of her collarbone, then lower, letting the words press into her skin. “Solnyshko… my sun. You are the sun.”

And he meant it — not as some lover’s flourish, but as the confession of a man who had spent too many years frozen over. Her warmth, her laughter, her body beneath his hands — it thawed him. Yes, he’d been burnt before. Yes, he would be again. But he would gladly blister for the heat she gave him. She lit him from within in a way that no amount of firewhisky or women could.

Slowly, carefully, he lowered himself to his knees, guiding her gently down to the rug before the fire. The flames danced across her skin, casting flickers of gold and shadow across the soft swell of her stomach, the peaks of her nipples, the parted invitation of her thighs. She was radiant in the firelight —curves and colour — and he could do nothing but bask in the heat.

He kissed his way down her body with slow intent, letting his mouth map every inch, rediscovering sacred ground. His lips closed around one nipple, tongue circling, savouring, while his free hand rose to tease the other — a gentle pluck, a roll between thumb and forefinger, coaxing a soft gasp from her lips. She arched beneath him like an instrument made for pleasure, and he played her like a man who knew every string, every note — patient, practiced, hungry for the music only she could make.

She was already trembling beneath his touch, already reaching for more, and as he kissed down the line of her ribs — each press of his lips a vow — his fingers slipped beneath the barrier between them, he pushed the knickers aside easily, his fingertips finding her soaked and ready.

Two fingers slid into her with no resistance, swallowed by heat and want. She clenched around him immediately, her breath hitching at the intrusion, and he groaned low in his throat at the feel of her — wet, willing, welcoming.

“Beautiful,” he murmured against her skin, his voice barely a breath. Not just the way she looked, spread before him in firelight, but the way she responded — like her body had been waiting for this, for him, all along.

His fingers worked inside her with steady, easy rhythm — the kind that built on top of itself. Each thrust drew a new sound from her lips, a new shiver from her body, and when his thumb found her clit, the motion turned purposeful. Slow circles. Pressure just right. Again and again.

Her hips lifted off the rug, chasing his hand, her body arching into every touch as though she could fuse herself to the pleasure he was giving her. Her breath came in broken gasps, the sounds of it tangled with the crackle of the fire. He watched her — the way her chest heaved, the flush spreading down her throat, the exquisite desperation in her movements — and felt her tightening around his fingers, pulling him deeper each time he withdrew.

“That’s it,” he murmured, dragging his thumb over her again, harder this time. “Take it, solnyshko.”

Her moan answered him, loud, unrestrained, as her hips rose once more to meet his touch.

He watched her writhe beneath him, the firelight licking at her skin, turning her into something divine — a creature of flame and light and desire. His fingers stayed deep inside her, the pads of them stroking with precision, his thumb never letting up its relentless circles. Her body knew him. Remembered him. Wanted him.

“Keep your hands where they are,” he said quietly, voice low and commanding. “Don’t move.”

She froze, eyes flying open to meet his. Wide, dark, hungry — and obedient. Her fingers gripped her hair tighter, knuckles pale with restraint.

“Good girl,” he murmured, and felt her clench around his fingers in response.

His thumb slowed, just slightly, teasing her in perpetuality. She whimpered, hips twitching up.

“Stay still,” he warned again, leaning down so his breath kissed her ear. “You don’t come until I say.”

A desperate sound caught in her throat. Her body trembled beneath the strain, so close she could taste it. He thrust his fingers deeper, curling them with a knowing touch that sent another wave crashing through her.

“You said you wanted to show me,” he murmured against her jaw. “How much you love me. So show me how well you can listen.”

She nodded — fast, frantic — her hands still fisted in the rug, her thighs trembling. He could see the war behind her eyes, the burning need held at bay by sheer will.

“Antonin,” she gasped, breath ragged.

He withdrew his fingers slowly, savouring the whimper that escaped her, then leant back to admire the wetness coating them before slipping them into his mouth tasting her.

“You're doing so well for me, solnyshko,” he said softly. “Now let me reward you for finally admitting you couldn’t live without my cock or my mouth on your cunt.”

And with that, he lowered his mouth between her legs, tongue replacing his fingers, determined to undo her completely — but only when she’d earnt it.

She was trembling under his mouth. Antonin could feel the way her thighs pressed in, in the desperate rise of her hips, in the breathless sounds falling from her lips that she was trying — and failing — to swallow down.

He hadn’t told her she could come yet.

He flattened his tongue against her, dragging it slow, firm, up through her folds, letting the tip of it tease her clit before pulling away again — a torment. He knew exactly what he was doing. And she was being so good for him, hips trembling, every muscle tight as a bowstring.

“Good girl,” he murmured against her. “Just like that.”

Her whimper hit him square in the chest. Gods, she was beautiful like this — holding herself back for him, every inch of her aching to come undone.

His hand moved up to her belly, holding her down, feeling how tight her muscles were pulled as he returned to her with a firmer, more focused rhythm. He licked her again, then again — each pass bringing her closer than the last — and pressed his fingers back inside her dragging over the opposite side of her clit.

She jerked.

Her breath faltered — a sharp, broken sound — and then her whole body locked beneath his hands, trembling violently.

It hit without warning.

Her orgasm tore through her like lightning, sudden and wild, her back bowing, a cry escaping her throat before she could even think to swallow it down. Her palms slammed against the rug as if bracing herself against the force of it, but there was no stopping it — the wave had her completely.

Antonin froze for the briefest heartbeat, stunned by the sheer beauty of it — the loss of control, the helpless surrender. And then he groaned, low and rough, the sound swallowed against her skin as he returned his mouth to her, sucking her clit through the shudders of her climax. Her whole body convulsed, muscles tight, breath breaking into jagged pieces, and then his name tore from her lips.

He held her there, steadying her, one hand still working slow, coaxing strokes inside her, the other grounding her against the rising tremors. He watched her as she came apart, the way her chest rose and fell in desperate rhythm, the flicker of firelight painting her skin gold.

When the last tremor left her, she collapsed against the floor, utterly spent. Her breath came in ragged pulls, her chest rising and falling in uneven waves, and for a long, quiet moment, he simply watched her. She was the most exquisite thing he'd ever seen.

Her gaze finally found his, unfocused and dazed, pupils blown wide with pleasure, lips parted as though she might still be catching the echo of her own cry. She looked like she’d been wrecked by a storm — and he had been the one to summon it.

“I… I couldn’t stop,” she whispered, the words fragile and hoarse. There was guilt in it, a tremble of hesitation, like she thought she’d broken some rule.

He smiled, slow and wolfish, his hands still cradling her hips like she might drift away if he let go.

“I don’t mind,” he murmured, voice low and rough with affection and hunger. “I like you like this.”

He crawled up her body in a smooth, predatory glide, pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses along the path of her ribs, the curve of her breast, her collarbone. When he reached her mouth, he hovered just above it, his breath mingling with hers, his lips brushing hers in the barest tease of a kiss.

“But,” he said softly, “you did come without permission, solnyshko.”

Her breath hitched. He felt the way her body tightened beneath his.

“You’ll face the consequences like a good girl… yes?” he asked, voice hoarse.

She nodded, eyes wide, lips trembling into a smile.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, Antonin.”

He rewarded her with a kiss that was hard and claiming, his tongue sweeping into her mouth like he owned it. When he pulled back, her lips were kiss-bitten and wet, her breath uneven.

He moved without ceremony, his forearms sliding beneath her knees and curling upward, folding her effortlessly into him. Her back lifted from the floor, resting now on her shoulder blades as he angled her perfectly — open, bared, his to take.

He sank into her in a single, punishing thrust — deep and sure, a groan tearing from his throat as he filled her to the hilt. She cried out from the sheer shock of how quickly, how completely he claimed her.

“Fuck, solnyshko,” he rasped, eyes squeezing shut for a heartbeat.

She tightened around him instinctively, drawing another low, feral sound from his chest. But he didn’t move yet. Not properly. He just held there — buried inside her, her legs trembling against his shoulders — and watched the flush bloom across her chest, the wonder in her expression as her fingers scrambled for purchase against the rug.

“Look at me,” he murmured.

She did. Her gaze met his, and in it was everything: regret, longing, surrender, and that aching thread of devotion that made him feel like a man again, not just a shadow in someone else’s world.

He rolled his hips slowly, once, and her mouth fell open with a soft gasp. Her walls clenched around him, fluttering with sensitivity, and he nearly lost his composure right then and there.

But then he found his rhythm.

He pulled back and slammed into her with force, the sound of their bodies colliding echoing over the crackle of the fire. Again. And again. A punishing, relentless pace that made her cry out with each thrust. His knees dug into the rug beneath them, friction burning and ignored, every nerve in his body tuned only to the way she gripped him, the way she trembled and moaned beneath his hands.

“Is this what you wanted?” he growled through gritted teeth, his hands gripping her hips tight, sure his fingers would leave marks for the morning. “You want it, don’t you?”

She whimpered, unable to speak.

“Say it,” he demanded, slamming into her again with enough force to knock the breath from her lungs. “Say you want my come. I thought you were going to be a good girl?”

Her head lolled back, lips parted in a moan, her hands clutching at the rug but finding nothing to secure her only his hands on her hips and his arms looped under her knees.

“I want it,” she gasped, voice breaking. “I want your come — please, Antonin. Please.”

He gritted his teeth, the sight of her so wrecked and desperate for him striking something deep and primal.

“You’ll get it,” he growled, driving into her with brutal purpose. “By the end of tonight, you’ll be dripping with it — so full of me you’ll feel it for days.”

Her cry fractured at the edges — overwhelmed, undone — and pumped harder the slap of his balls against her arse echoing around them.

“You’ll be carrying my child, solnyshko,” he whispered, demanding and possessive all at once. “And everyone will know you’re mine.”

Every thrust drove him closer to the edge, but it wasn’t just the friction or the sound of her breaking beneath him; it was what she meant. It was the fact that he was here again, her body wrapped around his.

He dropped her legs and buried his face against her throat, tasting sweat and skin and the salt of her breath. Each movement came harder now, shorter, less controlled. The rhythm that had been command turned to desperation, the line between dominance and devotion blurring until he could no longer tell where one ended and the other began.

“Look at me,” he rasped. She did — and that was all it took.

The world went white behind his eyes as he came, the sound torn from his chest raw and unrestrained. Her body arched into his as he painted her insides with his come, her cunt drawing every last drop out of him. He stayed buried inside her, every muscle taut, his hands clutching at her hips as though he could hold the moment still — stop it from slipping into memory.

When it was over, he stayed pressed against her, both of them shaking, their breath mingling in the warm air between them. Slowly, the fire crackled back into focus, the sound grounding him, reminding him that this was real — that she was real.

He kissed the hollow of her throat, softer now. “My sun,” he murmured, the words fragile, reverent.

She made a low sound in response, half hum, half sigh, the kind that came from somewhere deep and content. He shifted beside her, guiding her with him as he lay back. The movement drew a soft sound from her as he slipped free, his come spilling between them, warm against her skin. She didn’t seem to care — didn’t even reach for her wand.

Instead, she curled into him, fitting perfectly against his side, her leg draped over his, her breath steadying against his chest. The fire popped and settled, casting them both in the kind of golden light that made everything feel softer, quieter..

Antonin lay there for a long time, his hand tracing idle circles along her spine, feeling her warmth seep into him. He’d spent years learning to survive without warmth — convinced he’d never feel it again. But here, with her in his arms and the glow of the fire flickering over her skin, he could feel it returning.

That small, stubborn flame inside him — the one she had taken with her when she couldn’t admit what they were — was burning again. Steady. Bright.

His pilot light.

His solnyshko.