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The room in which he stood was mostly silent and mostly empty, although he was not worried about being seen, being noticed. He was capable of things others were not, and disappearing without a trace was one of them. No one would see him. No one would notice him. He had found that wizards were selfish creatures, were self-absorbed beyond belief. In truth, he thought the entire war was stupid, both sides consumed by their version of what was right and what was just, and he didn’t care about any of that, but when they were still young men, Tom had saved him once from being splintered by an ash stake.
Years before, Tom, in his own obsession with the superiority of wizards, had mistaken the thin piece of wood held to Antonin’s chest for a wand, believed Antonin a disarmed wizard, and, for reasons still unknown, saved him from death. Antonin Dolohov was, if nothing else, loyal, and he had dedicated himself to serving Tom, to becoming a Death Eater. He, smartly, had kept himself disguised as just a wizard; it was easy because he had once been a just wizard, before he was changed, before he was turned. In his transformation, he’d kept much of the power he had as a wizard. There were some forms of magic he could no longer perform, while others had been heightened; mostly, though, he was a vampire—felt like one, fed like one, and fucked like one, but because wizards were often unable to see outside of themselves, outside of their own greatness, no one saw Antonin as anything other than a wizard. His life with Tom was easy and comfortable until the second war began, but still, there was his sense of loyalty that kept him tied to Tom.
Yet, sometimes loyalty is beyond control, beyond one’s scope of reasoning, beyond one’s will, even. Loyalty, however, he realized, was not the same as devotion. Devotion was not just beyond one’s control; it was uncontrollable. And as he looked down at the young woman, her breath slow—almost unnoticeable, he felt the tug of a curse, felt the burn of an old magic coursing through him. If he had had a working heart, he would have sworn he felt it stutter, felt it skip a beat or two, for just a moment, as he shed his loyalty to Tom, as a new allegiance made itself known.
When the magic from the curse he’d accidentally thrown at her travelled from the tips of his cool fingertips, through his dry veins, and to his unbeating heart, he felt without an ounce of uncertainty nothing but absolute devotion to Hermione Granger.
He touched the tender flesh, could feel her pulse, slow and steady, where a scar would one day form, felt his desire to drain her of life, to make her his in eternal damnation beginning to spill from him, and, for this, he knew he had to flee, had to get as far away from her as possible.
***
Hermione stands admiring the wrought iron gate before her. She is certain it isn’t locked, feels sure that she could just press her hand against the metal to push it open, leading her down a short stretch of pavement that led to the most stunning front porch she’d ever seen. If she is right, if he was really in here, then she hopes she gets at least a few moments sitting on the porch swing that hangs at the very end of the porch. Large trees—oak and magnolia, hang heavy and grand over the pathway, the porch, the home. They are beautiful. She knows there are beautiful trees and homes in London. Still, there is something about the way the heat and the humidity seem to hang on everything here. She thinks that if you could see the salt in the air—if it was colored and glittering—it would drape, like twinkling stringed lights against each limb of every tree, it would rest against the bushes and blooms that lined the pathway before her.
Dusk approaches its final fall into night, and long shadows hide much of the yard’s detail, much of the house’s, but as she stares, as she contemplates pushing on the gate, contemplates walking towards the house, contemplates turning around, she finds that her decision was never hers to begin with.
Suddenly, she notices him. She is certain that he wasn’t sitting on the steps when she arrived, or at least she thought he hadn’t been. With only a soft, hazy yellow lingering in the distance, his figure is shrouded in the darkness. In the very moment she notices him, she finds her fingers curled around the cool iron gate, feels her palm flat against it as she pushes, the hinges creaking as it opens.
He doesn’t move as she enters his yard, her steps slow and unsure. She still hasn’t realized she’s made the decision to approach him and is still questioning what she was doing here. Truthfully, she hadn’t intended to speak to him immediately; she just wanted to see where she thought he lived.
As she moves towards him, he speaks, cementing something inside her.
“Hello, Hermione,” his voice is soft and low. It, too, she feels, is coated in the heat, weighed down with the salty, humid air.
“You were expecting me?” she asks, pushing her hair back behind her ears.
“I’ve been expecting you for a long time.”
“You are not an easy man to find.”
“Yet, you found me.”
She is standing directly in front of him now, trying to make him out in the dying light, but she can barely see his face. Clearing her throat, she says, “I’d like to see you, can we—”
Before she can finish her sentence, a porch light comes on, a muted glow that immediately draws the attention of moths. Standing above him as he sits on the porch steps, she looks down at him; it is jarring how handsome he is, how he wears it so casually, as if it is normal, as it isn’t devastating to look at him.
“Thank you…”
He shrugs. “I forgot that others cannot see so easily,” he says as he brings his hands to his face, combs his fingers through his beard, clearly in thought.
He raises an eyebrow at her, “Why are you here? You are finally here, but why?”
“Because I need to be.”
“Needneedneed,” he mutters the word under his breath, almost mockingly, as if he doesn’t like the word need with all its implications.
“But also because I want to be,” she says finally and certainly. She does want to be here.
Even at this admission, he doesn’t respond, so she speaks again this time in an effort to prompt him, “I think you know why I’m here, Antonin…”
“Do I? Let’s assume I don’t. Enlighten me, Hermione. Why are you here?”
In one smooth motion, she moves to the steps and sits down beside him. She doesn’t care how close she is to him. This man she doesn’t know, this man who almost killed her, this man who cursed her with something she couldn’t understand; she has finally, after years of searching, found him. He is finally in front of her, and he is not a mirage, not a hallucination, not a dream: He’s real. Before she loses her nerve, she unbuttons her summer sweater; despite the lightweight material, the cream color is soaked at the pits of her arms, and the air hitting her chest is a reprieve, a blissful moment. Her throat dry, she rests her hand against her chest, the tank top beneath her sweater damp against her hand, and she whispers, “This…”
***
Antonin has only been sort of expecting her. More than anything, he’s longed for her to find him one day; he knew she was brilliant, analytical, and persistent, and that gave him hope that she would figure it all out. And here she is.. She has found him, yet she hasn’t made it clear if she knows what he is. Part of him feels sure that she must know, that there is no way she had spent so much time tracking him down to not figure it all out. There were clues along the way, subtle clues to the towns he’d been in, the temporary homes and meals he had. But the other part of him is worried, worried that, while she is here, she is still under the impression that he is just a wizard, and once she realizes that he is not that, she’ll be scared and angry, disgusted and forced to flee from him.
This worry does not stop him from watching her with rapt attention as she unbuttons her sweater; he feels his mouth go dry with want, his thirst for her almost unmanageable.
Her unpainted nails graze against her skin, and he can no longer control himself, can no longer not be touching her. Antonin doesn’t even register Hermione’s soft gasp, an almost moan, when he reaches out and touches her, pressing two fingers to her chest, to her scar that was purpled and sunken in at the top of her sternum. He would be lying if he said he hadn't wondered what the scar looked like beneath the top of her blouses and sweaters, how far it spread out, how the curse must have spread—like a dropped glass, shattered in sharp shards—across her breasts and her ribs, perhaps stretching down towards her navel. So many times he’s thought about it. So often he has thought of her. Unhealthy. Maddening. So much so that he has tried to do all her can to force her from his mind. He sought out women who looked nothing like her anytime he had to give in to the whims of his wants, aiming to find relief and pleasure far from her.
He knew, however, that she’d never leave his mind. Even if she hadn’t found him, she’d always be there. They were bound together by his idiotic magic and by his idiotic remedy. Many times over the past half-decade, he’s imagined how much easier everything would have been if he’d just let her die, if he hadn’t given her a piece of himself.
But, looking at her now, he knows that he would have never let that happen, could never have lived with himself if he had not saved her from him. This, of course, leads him to the idyllic realization that he has been bound to Hermione Granger long before he cursed her in the Department of Mysteries, long before he healed her, and long before she sat beside him on his porch steps, revealing the scar he’d given her.
They are bound because she is his vtoraya polovinka.
His soul mate: his, his, his, his, his.
She’d been his before either of them blessed the world, and she’d be his for all of eternity, whether she stood alongside him or whether she deteriorated and decayed with flowers into the soil.
He toys with this idea, as his fingers linger on her scar. The skin is smooth and velvety, and he can feel her heart’s beat beneath it, making him all too aware of her fragility, her preciousness. Touching her, he half expects her to fall apart, as if the scar he has given her is an intricate stitch in a seam that has been barely holding her together. But Hermione doesn’t fall apart. She remains there, sitting next to him. Suddenly, he is aware of everything else: the sweat on her skin, the way both her knees are pressed together and pressed against him, the way her chest rises and falls; her breath is slow and steady and calm, yet carries a heaviness that only comes from breathing in the humid summer air.
He presses his fingers harder against her skin, notes her breath, and looks for changes. No change. No sharp intake of shock or disapproval or of pain or even of enjoyment. It remains slow and steady and calm. Almost, he thinks, as if she is used to his touch. Moving away from her breath, he focuses on her pulse, on the thing he is trying hardest not to think about. Her pulse, too, is steady. Her heart beats meticulously and loyally in her chest; it sickens him and arouses him to think of stopping that beat, of draining the blood from her, of changing her, of making her truly his.
With his fingers still pressed to her scar, he whispers, "I am not a good man. I'm sorry for this." He taps the scar now, indicating just what he's sorry for. "I'm not, never have been, good."
In a tone that matches his, she says, "But you are not a man, are you?”
Relief spreads through him. There’s an understanding in her words, in her eyes, in the way she has leaned into his touch, the way she is not moving away from him but towards him. She, he realizes, has been moving towards him since he left, every move she ever made in his direction in one way or another. Not willing to be too cocky, to be too self-assured, he says, "Yet you are letting me touch you."
"We are all many things before we reach the end, however the end looks or whenever the end is. I am not scared of you, Antonin. I have never been scared of you.”
“Don’t you think you should be?”
“Maybe. Probably. But I’m not. I’ve never met you until now, but I know you so well it feels like.”
“You know that I have done horrific things,” he says as his fingers are still pressed to her scar, moving slowly—exceedingly slow—down the length of it.
At this, she sighs and says, “So have I.”
He shakes his head; he cannot believe that she would ever do anything not purposefully and perfectly.
“Impossible.”
She brings her hand up to rest on his, pressing his palm fully against her chest. He wonders what she thinks of his skin, which is cool, like stone hidden in the deepest of caves, stone that’s never seen the light of day. He can feel her words reverberate through her chest as she speaks, feel the vibration of them move through his palm.
“It isn’t impossible, Antonin. I have killed. I have maimed. I have been cruel and spiteful. I have been arrogant and prideful. We…” she pauses, biting her bottom lip, looking down at her lap, contemplating what to say, and although, as she admitted, they barely know one another, although they only know one another from the curse he threw at her, from the magic he used to heal her, he knows he loves her in this moment.
Here, she is so vulnerable, searching the depths of her mind for the right words, the right sentiment; he could easily take her now, grab her, snap her bones, force himself inside her—cock and teeth and all, but he could not, could never, because she is his. When he takes her, he will be slow and tender, gentle and calm; he will suppress every dark desire he has to ensure he can protect her from himself until she is strong enough to take him.
Finally, she looks back up at him, and he can see a faint golden rim of color at the center of her irises before she speaks again.
“We are all so much before we die. We are all so vulnerable, and we do so much to protect that vulnerability. Even you. A stake of ash. I could have this hidden anywhere on my body. I could easily conjure it with magic. I could hold it in my hand and shove it through your unbeating, empty heart, could I not?” At this, she removes her hand from where it rests against his and presses to his chest, to the area above where his silent heart lies.
“You were so vulnerable for so many years, and Lord Voldemort would have slaughtered you if he’d known what you truly are. Look, we all do what we have to do to survive. But, what perplexes me, Antonin, what keeps me up at night, is not what you are, it is not what you could do to me, but what you have done to me in hiding from me.”
He feels relief and comfort in her words until she speaks her last statement. If she knows, if she understands, then how could she question what he has done, how far he has run?
“There are many reasons. To begin, you were needed. If I had not left, the magic would have led you to me the very next day; you, barely healed, at sixteen. You would not have been able to resist the pull, the draw, so fresh, so raw. The boy needed you, did he not? Without you, he would not have succeeded. I had to ensure he won. I had to ensure you were there. And, secondly, I hid from you to ensure that, if you ever found me—which you have, which I cannot express how grateful I am for—you found me because of a desire to, because you wanted to.”
She lets out a low sigh, repeating her earlier sentiment, “You were so hard to find…”
Antonin shrugs, allowing a smirk to form on his lips, to hopefully move the conversation over, “Layers of magic upon layers of magic upon layers of magic, yes.”
To his relief, she smiles, a small smile, but a smile. “It was maddening!”
Another smirk, cockier, bigger. “Yet here you are.”
Her teeth find their way to her lip again as she grins, “Here I am.”
“The scar is not what has led you here. It’s what healed the curse that caused the scar. It’s just…old magic.”
“Old magic that has zero research, nothing at the library, nothing in any—”
He cuts her off with a laugh, not a harsh laugh, but a laugh. “Some magic, svetlyachok, cannot be found in a library. Some magic is not recorded in books.” He taps his fingers up and down her scar, “This magic is not easily duplicated. It is hidden in the darkest of all nights. Yet it is so very simple. The magic I used to heal you bound us together. It asked me to give you a part of me; I have no blood to give, so I gave you some of my magic. In many ways, it was foolish, and in every way it was selfish. Without it, you would have died. I would have killed you. And, it…it wasn’t about the killing; I had killed before—the innocent, the undeserving. It was about killing you. For so long, my life had been nothing but the night, and there you were. You were a svetlyachok, the smallest, yet most significant, spec of light, glowing, glowing, glowing…”
“Svetlyachok?” she asks, and he realizes that he has never thought of her in anything other than the Russian word.
He nods in understanding, and the porch light goes out, bathing them in darkness. Out here, in rurality, it is extraordinarily dark. There is no hum from a nearby city, no faint light from others' houses. It is just the darkness.
Antonin leans in to her, smells the way her sweat has mixed with her perfume, and breathes her in before resting his fingers against her chin. Slowly, he guides her head to the left, to the area of his yard where the azalea bushes press against the fence.
In her ear, he whispers, “Watch closely.”
And for several moments, it is just them staring silently into a pool of darkness; he listens to her heartbeat, her breathing, and finally a soft gasp of “Oh!” as there are several flickers of small, glowing orbs in the darkness. He hears her whisper, “Fireflies.”
He nods and whispers back, “You. That is you. Svetlyachok. Firefly. You were that. You are that. I had to save you. It left you with your scar, with a bond to me. It was very selfish, so I hid. I hid and I hoped.”
“Hoped for what?”
“For you to find me. Sitting here. In the night. Waiting for your soft glow in the distance.”
***
They sit outside for a long time, the air barely cooling, and finally she admits that she cannot stand the heat any longer, and he leads her inside. They sit at his kitchen table, and she mocks the gesture.
“Isn’t this silly?”
He furrows her brow, “What do you mean?”
“A kitchen. You’re a vampire. What could you possibly even have in your refrigerator?” She ends this question with a laugh, and it is the first time she feels nervous. She doesn’t want to offend him; she’s done so much reading and research on vampires, and this is nothing—he is nothing—like she expected. She thought, admittedly, that he would have taken her by now, changed her; that she would have awoken three days later at dusk thirsty for some random person’s blood. Instead, they have just talked.
“I keep things in there. I have to keep up appearances sometimes…even living out here. Would you like something to drink? I have Coke. I have water. Maybe milk, but it might be expired.” He winks at her as he says this, and she laughs.
“No, I’m ok…I was just curious.”
“Is this what you expected, Hermione?”
She looks down, fingers the wood grain in the table, “No, not really.”
“What did you expect then?”
She explains to him exactly what she thought would happen, explains that she never thought they’d be having this conversation, that there would have been no conversation about it at all.
As she explains, Antonin shakes his head over and over and over, and Hermione is filled with a mix of relief and fear.
“I want to be a vampire. I want to be with you.”
“You will. One day. If you want to.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you not want me?”
He lets out a bark of a laugh, “Don’t be silly. Of course I do. Of course, I want to share this life with you. But it is a life without the day, a life with just the night. I want you to be ready to part with it when the time comes. I will not force it upon you.”
“What do we do then? How does this work? Will I just return when I’m ready or—”
“No, God, no. You are not leaving. You cannot go now. You just got here.”
“But how can you…resist…?” she gestures vaguely to her neck.
“I have practiced patience for a long, long time, Hermione.”
He sits down at the table, seated next to her, not across from her, and he leans in, “I want to get to know you as a human first. I want to continue to see you flush when I touch you. I want to leave small bruises on your neck and thighs when I make love to you—yes, I can even control myself then—I want to listen to your heart beating as you sleep. There is so much time for everything else. I want to take this time now to see you for who you are right now.”
“But you will change me?” she needed to know that he would, that this wasn’t some ploy, some ruse that he would not decide suddenly that for her sake he couldn’t change her.
“After a year, Hermione, I will do whatever you wish me to do. If after a year of experiencing this life, of seeing what one must do to survive, of being with me, if you want me to change you, then I will.”
She presses her lips together and nods, relief washing over her, a sense of satisfaction after years of yearning, “Maybe we should draw up a contract.”
“You don’t trust me?” he asks, laughing, a smile spreading across his face, illuminating the deep blue color of his eyes, with crinkles in the corners. She is struck by how devastatingly handsome he is.
“Well, you are a vampire…and a former Death Eater…” she grins at him, as he shakes his head, rolling his eyes.
“Come with me,” he says, standing up from the kitchen table and offering her his hand.
“Are we going back into the heat?” she inquires as he leads her, not to the front porch this time, but the back.
“You’ll get used to it…or so I’m told,” he says with a hint of humor.
They move through the back porch and into the backyard, where he leads her to a hammock, “Sit with me?” he asks.
Hermione joins him on the hammock, slipping off her sandals and pressing her bare feet into the cool grass. It’s astonishing how cool the grass is despite the way the heat presses against it, and it remains cool. Their bodies are touching—shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, thigh to thigh. The night is quiet, and she can only hear her own breathing.
“I made you a promise,” he begins, taking her hand in his, holding the back of her hand to his mouth, speaking against it, “when I gave you some of my magic; I admitted earlier that it was selfish to save you in such a way, but as much as it binds you to me, it binds me to you. Look at the stars…”
She looks first at him, his head tilted back eying the night’s sky, and she, then, follows suit, looks up.
“Most of these stars are dead, you know? Yet their light is still here, still promising us something, still giving hope, still guiding us. In this sense, I am like these stars. I am not alive, not like you are alive, yet I am still here; I will not break my promise to you. I will not deceive you. I may be dead, but my light has not gone out, will never go out when it comes to you.”
Hermione squeezes his hand and says nothing, sits comfortably next to him, next to the man who almost killed her but also saved her, next to the man who will one day drain her of life, will drink all of the blood in her body, who will make her immortal and powerful, who will ensure that her light lingers on long after her heart has stopped beating.