Chapter Text
Antonin Dolohov, cloaked in black, face hidden behind a grotesque silver mask, skirts around an interminably tall shelf of prophecies. They vary in size, all glowing an eerie blue-white that casts the room in an aspect of cold.
On the other side of the shelf stands the girl.
Brown hair, curled and frizzing, falls down her back and shrouds her shoulders. Her heart hammers in her chest and her eyes are wide, all of her senses occupied with fear. Fear for her friends, fear for her safety, fear for the world around her. But she holds her wand with confidence and a steady hand, and as a curse flies toward her from further down the aisle, she blocks it deftly with a shield charm. The curse ricochets and shatters a handful of prophecies on the shelf beside her.
He darts from his position behind the shelf to the other side, arcing around her position the way a celestial body orbits around a sun. There is something about her that draws him, though he cannot name it. Were the room silent and still, he would feel it; the faint rise of his magic, the even fainter response of hers. She is not yet old enough, and the room is cacophonous.
Lucius Malfoy snarls a command from his left, voice distantly insisting he come close for new orders. Antonin frowns, long disenchanted by the blond’s ambitions. He obeys only to avoid later entanglement and leaves the girl.
***
She is small and fast. Darting past one of Arthur Weasley’s children, she tosses another shield charm up just in time to block a curse from hitting the boy.
“Thanks, ‘Mione,” the boy calls, a breathless smile fleeting across his freckled face.
Kill the Mudblood, if you can. Lucius had ordered it of him only minutes prior, saying her loss would cripple the Potter boy’s attempts at thwarting the Dark Lord. The boy will mourn the loss of the filthy bint, and we’ll have our opening.
She’s valuable to Potter, but she isn’t pureblooded like his other companions. It’s the logical option. Potter’s befriended the misfits of pureblood society, the Weasleys and Longbottoms that refused to align themselves with the future. Killing one of them could cause trouble.
But no one will bat an eye over the girl.
There’s an opening. He steps out, wand up, and she spots him.
He hesitates.
“Silencio!” she shouts, her wand moving adeptly through the air. Antonin attempts to cast his curse and fails, startled by the complete lack of sound. It’s frustrating; his body has done everything it was supposed to, and his gruff baritone should have resounded with the spell. But this little girl, staring him down with war in her eyes, has plucked the spell from his tongue.
With a determined scowl and a wave of his hand, he casts again. Silently.
The curse strikes her squarely in the chest. She halts, releases a startled oh, and crumples.
His throat burns with a silent scream as the effect of his spell echoes inside his ribcage. Falling to his knees, he squeezes his eyes shut, clutching at himself. It tears through him, causing damage he knows all too well. He designed this curse himself, he knows exactly what is happening inside of him. Knows the myriad ways in which death has just been invited to feast upon his organs.
It must have rebounded.
But that’s not right. It hasn’t rebounded at all. He slams to the ground, face against the cold tile, and sees that she is dead on the floor.
“Hermione!” there is a shout from another boy, the pudgy one with the round face. Longbottom. Antonin rolls to his back, lolling his head to the side to keep an eye on the scene. The boy kneels low, pressing his fingers to Hermione’s neck and face. Frantically scrabbling to check her for signs of life, tears well in the boy’s eyes until he finds proof.
A disbelieving laugh escapes him. He gathers her up in his arms and struggles to his feet.
Antonin closes his eyes with a groan.
They should both be dead. And yet he endures, as does the girl. And suddenly, he understands.
He conjures an image in his mind’s eye. A cottage, warm fire crackling in the grate, dough rising in a covered wooden bowl set upon the hearth. He remembers his grandmother, age-spotted hands smoothing his thick hair back from his face, telling him stories of souls that twined together, reaching across continents, calling to one another. Not many have them, Antoshka. Oh, to have such luck.
As he rubs a fist against his chest, pressing helplessly at the pain blooming within, he wonders if it is luck at all.