A/N: Written for the DEE First Day of Christmas Prompts. I can't wait for the screams. Happy Christmas!

xx-Kitten.

Baby, It's Cold Outside

By Kittenshift17

The snow was coming down heavily and the chill of the evening had grown decidedly unfriendly. Hermione Granger peeked through the curtains of the small cabin just inside the woods at the edge of the sleepy wizarding village of Mordredsfield, noting that a blizzard looked to be brewing.

"It's getting cold out there," a low, Russian accented voice came from across the room where a wizard was seated in an armchair by the fire.

"I should get going," Hermione nodded, turning her head and peering across the warmly lit cabin at Antonin Dolohov.

"What's your hurry?" Dolohov wanted to know, his lips twitching toward a smile amid the dark beard lining his jaw.

"I need to be getting home," Hermione offered the ex-Death Eater quietly.

She'd been sent by for a routine check-up for the wizard by St Mungo's. It was part of her cross-training as a Medi-Witch with Auror privileges that the hospital and the Ministry simply loved taking advantage of. They knew she wasn't particularly fond of Dolohov, but after Azkaban's destruction during the war, and the resulting need for a better means of containing their criminals without torturing them in a cold, lifeless prison far away amid in the middle of the North Sea, someone had to check in on the inmates over Christmas.

Isolation to certain areas of their world, and the suppression of their magic meant that most of the Death Eaters were harmless and lonely on Christmas, so Hermione didn't take his hint about staying longer to heart. She'd been sent by to ensure he was in good health, and to ascertain if the suppression cuffs she'd helped design to keep him from accessing his magic were still in good working order.

"To your empty flat, and your empty bed, with only your cat for company?" Antonin asked, his accented voice lilting with the faintest hints of scorn.

Hermione immediately regretted having lobbied to get the inmates access to the Daily Prophet, which had reported extensively on her love-life in the gossip column over the years. Dolohov was intimately aware of the fact that she hadn't been on a decent date in over a year, and hadn't been laid in almost three years. And by the glint in his dark eyes as his hands caressed the mug of hot chocolate he'd fixed for both of them, Hermione got the feeling he wouldn't be opposed to amending that record.

"Well, the alternative is to stay here, which would be disastrous," Hermione retorted.

"Disastrous is not a word that has ever applied to an evening spent in my bed, solnyshka," Dolohov smirked.

"Oh, please," Hermione rolled her eyes. "You haven't been shagged in even longer than I have."

"How would you know?" he asked.

"Because the Ministry keep track of your location at all times, and monitor your house for visitors. You have no Floo connection. Other than you and I, no one else has crossed the threshold of this property since you moved in seven years ago, Antonin," Hermione smirked.

"You think I don't know my way around such wards?" he raised his eyebrows. "I was a Curse Breaker before Azkaban and the Dark Lord came along, mishka. I broke the curses tracking my location years ago. I might not bring my indiscretions home, but believe me, there has been more than one in the past seven years."

Hermione doubted it.

"Who might dare to let you have your way with them, Dolohov?"

"Ty budesh' skoro," he retorted sinfully in his mother-tongue, though he knew she didn't speak a lick of the language or understand it at all. Setting aside his mug of hot chocolate beside the cup he'd fixed for her, he leaned forward in his seat to rest his elbows on his knees regarding her with an unadulterated hunger so profound, it made her tingle.

Hermione narrowed her eyes on him slightly, not at all trusting that expression. She would be lying to say she was unaware of his infatuation with her. When he wasn't confined to his cabin, he tended to stalk her, just a little. Nothing so imposing or frightening as breaking into her home, of course. But there'd been many a day she'd been shopping in Diagon Alley, or browsing the archives of the British Wizarding Library and he would show up beside her and strike up a conversation.

"I need to get going," she murmured. "Without access to your Floo, I don't fancy the walk in the snow to reach the Apparation point outside the wards around your cabin. Especially with a blizzard on the way."

"Or you could stay," he said, just before the wind outside picked up momentum, buffeting the windows with driving snow and making Hermione shiver despite being indoors and safe from the weather.

"Stay?" she raised her eyebrows. "Is the ex-Death Eater interested in my company this Christmas?"

Dolohov smirked at her daring, always watching her with those dark eyes fixed upon her like she was a most intriguing creature of prey that he planned on devouring.

"What if I am?" he wanted to know. "Gets awfully lonely in the cabin all by myself, you know? And it is Christmas."

"If you begin quoting the depression and suicide rates for this time of year that they published in yesterday's Prophet, I might hex you, Antonin," Hermione warned him.

"I could use a good hex," he smirked "The effect of these cuffs cuts me off from my magic. It's been too long since I felt the sting of magic in my veins."

"You're twisted," Hermione informed him.

"That surprises you?"

Hermione sighed. No, it didn't surprise her. She couldn't bear the thought of living without access to her magic, but the alternative for him was prison. He couldn't be trusted when fully able to access his own power and they both knew it.

"Come here, Mishka," he said softly when she hesitated by the door, watching the storm outside grow wilder. "It's too cold outside to leave. Take off your coat, have a drink, and stay with me."

Hermione bit her lip.

"I should go," she reiterated, watching him stand and cross the room when she didn't move to obey him.

"Stay," he insisted quietly, invading her personal space and reaching for her coat, peeling it carefully from her shoulders.

Hermione knew she should leave. He obviously had more than quiet companionship and reading on his mind, and she could hardly trust herself when he looked at her like that. For seven years, she'd been routinely coming by to check on him, as per Ministry mandate, and during those seven years their relationship had evolved from one of bitter enemies to, dare she say, friends. He was prickly, and rude, and he cussed at her in his mother-tongue more than was decent when she undid whatever steps he frequently took to tamper with his suppression cuff.

He was more than intrigued with her, and had been since she'd been a teenager and had survived his curse at the Ministry. Worse, she'd developed something of an affection for him, too. He might be surly and rude, and a downright wretch responsible for pain her loved ones suffered. He might be a murderer, too. But he was also charming, and funny, and he had a wit as quick as her own. She'd been shocked to learn he'd been in Ravenclaw at Hogwarts, and she'd been impressed when he'd debated with her academically about every topic she threw at him.

She fancied him, if she was being completely honest.

And when faced with the choice of returning to her empty flat and her lonely bed, or staying in his company under the ruse of avoiding the storm, her resolve to ignore her feelings wavered. He slipped her coat from her body and his lips twitched smugly when he stepped around her, intent on hanging it by the door. Hermione crossed the room to the second chair by the fire, collecting the hot chocolate he'd made for her and lowering herself into the little-used seat. Hermione knew for a fact that the only witch who'd ever sat in the chair was herself, and as she didn't tend to stay very long on any of her visits, or encourage chit-chat and relaxation when she was supposed to be keeping things professional, it felt almost brand new.

Antonin crossed the room slowly, dressed as he was in only muggle jeans, warm socks, and a long-sleeved black shirt. Hermione loathed that her eyes tracked his movement as he lowered himself back into his own well-used armchair.

"So," he said, doing his best to keep from smiling as though he'd won a prize because she'd chosen to stay, even if only for a little while.

"So?" Hermione asked, sipping her hot chocolate and sighing contentedly as the sweet flavor spread across her tongue, the warmth of it trickling through her and making her feel cozy and snug as she didn't ever remember feeling in his presence before.

"Read any good books lately?" Antonin asked conversationally.

"I might've done," she said, smiling behind her mug.

"Anything I'd enjoy?"

"I doubt it," she said. "You do, after all, have such twisted tastes."

"My tastes run toward bookish, curly-haired witches who don't know when to mind their tongues, actually," he replied. "Though I grant, you are rather twisted, aren't you Granger?"

Hermione's cheeks flushed pink as his bald statement of his interest in her.

"Just because I elected to stay and wait out the storm does not mean you can say such things to me, Dolohov," Hermione informed him primly.

"Oh, please," he rolled his eyes. "You stayed knowing I have every intention of seducing you, pchelka. And this storm is predicted to last right through Christmas."

"If you think I'm spending Christmas drinking eggnog and shagging you, forget it!" Hermione said, though she couldn't entirely hold back her laugh at his entirely predatory and smug grin at the idea that the weather might cooperate enough to trap her with him over Christmas.

"You're right," he nodded. "Who needs eggnog, anyway?"

Hermione rolled her eyes at him, but she couldn't hide her smile. Incorrigible, that's what he was.

"Don't you think that if I'd planned on shagging you, I'd have done so before now?" Hermione asked him. "I've been coming to call on you the for past seven years of your sentence. There've been plenty of opportunities."

"Thought you might, once or twice, you know?" he said, sipping his own hot chocolate and regarding her over the rim of his mug.

"Was that sometime during the days when we snarled at each other because you're a wretched Death Eater and I'm an uppity little mudblood?" Hermione challenged.

"No," he smirked. "Though it would've been explosive, if we had."

"When, then?" she asked. "I'm certain I've never given you call to think you might be able to talk your way into my knickers."

"I've seen the way you look at me when you examine me, mishka," Antonin disagreed. "There's more than professional and thorough health-checks in those gazes you trail over my bare torso."

"You mean when I critically examine the numerous scars littering your flesh, and assess the amount of visibility of your ribs on display, to ensure you are in good health and have been keeping yourself properly fed?" she suggested. "Or when I am ascertaining if you are prone to self-harm as a result of your isolation and questionable mental stability?"

"Questionable?" he smirked, wickedly amused by her attempts to deny that, on more than one occasion, she'd found herself admiring his physique.

"Oh, my apologies," she said, smirking in returning. "I meant to say your fractured mental stability."

"Woman, I'll fracture your mental stability when I crawl between those creamy thighs and eat you out until you scream," he threatened.

"You're right," she sniffed. "Being assaulted by you would be cause for screaming."

"Too bad no one would hear you during this blizzard, isn't it?" he said, his eyes flashing in that sinister way that belied his dark past.

"You are not as formidable as you think, Antonin," Hermione informed him. "And let's not forget that unlike you, I have full access to my magic and could easily keep you off me should you be so inclined as to practice some of your less savory habits from the past."

"You imagine I would ever force myself on you?" he asked. "On any witch?"

He looked genuinely offended and the suggestion and Hermione paused, realizing she'd crossed a line. She's read his file, and knew that he'd never been convicted of rape, but she had always assumed he'd just killed his victims afterward, and so never been reported for it. She supposed the very belief ought to have been all she needed to excuse herself from his presence and to forget her intrigue with him, but she didn't seem able to shake the feelings.

"Let's get one thing straight, Granger," Dolohov said, setting down his mug of hot chocolate once more and leaning forward, glaring at her darkly. "I would never stoop so low as to force myself on a woman. I might've murdered, tortured, kidnapped, and interrogated people, but I'm no rapist. And if you truly think so little of me as to believe I am, then I'd rather not keep your company, after all."

Hermione pursed her lips, looking away.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I meant no offence."

"Yeah? Well you fucking caused some just the same, didn't you?" Dolohov growled, scowling into the fireplace.

She watched the vein in his temple throb with his apparent anger, but she felt little remorse. Perhaps he wasn't a rapist, but he'd openly confessed to being a murderer, among other things. Hermione realized as she watched him that it was in her best interests to leave. She was in no real danger from him, right then. He had no magic, she had her wand, and he hadn't threatened or harmed her at all in the entire time she'd been calling on him, every month for the past seven years to routinely monitor his health and his lack of access to his magic thanks to the cuff she'd helped design.

But she needed to leave. She was in danger of falling for him if she let herself do something so foolish as to stay, or to allow him to seduce her. She'd already pushed the parameters of their relationship more than was proper and the last thing she wanted to do was complicate things and make a mess of things. After all, he might be living freely, despite routine visits from the MLE, but he was still a criminal. Worse, he was a criminal who'd robbed Gideon and Fabian Prewett of their lives. He was the one who'd murdered Remus. She was a fool to even consider the notion of being on friendly terms with him, let alone to be fantasizing about shagging him.

What did she expect? That she might eventually bring him along to Sunday lunch at the Burrow every week? Yeah, that would go over well. Harry might've moved past some of his prejudice where people like Malfoy were concerned, but the man responsible for the death of three of their immediate loved ones would not be welcome in their vicinity.

Pursing her lips, Hermione set down her half-drunk mug of hot chocolate and rose to her feet. Dolohov looked over, still glaring, and he voiced no objection as she made for the door. Just as she was digging inside her bag for her hat and her gloves, Hermione spotted the Christmas present she'd brought with her, intending to give it to him. Fishing it out, she glanced over at him to see that he was furiously glaring into the fireplace once more, obviously in no mood to talk to her and too angry to think about trying to stop her from leaving.

Carefully, Hermione crossed the kitchen and set the gift down beneath the small Christmas tree he'd erected in the corner of the room. She left it there and made for the door, picking up her coat and pulling it on. When her hand was on the doorknob, preparing to twist it open, his much larger hand pressed to the back of the door by her face, preventing her departure.

"Is that present for me?" he asked gruffly, his accent thick with his anger and his confusion at her actions.

"Move your hand, Dolohov," Hermione sighed, feeling that he was standing directly behind her. She didn't dare turn to face him. She might do something terribly foolish, like snog him, if she were to find herself looking up at him from well within his personal space. And snogging would not be conducive to forgetting her interest in the wretched Death Eater.

"You can't leave," he protested quietly. "It's blowing a gale out there, Hermione."

She trembled at the sound of her given name sliding off his tongue.

"I'll take my chances," she said quietly. "I can't stay."

"Why not? You were keen on staying until I snapped at you."

Hermione sighed, turning to face him and meeting his gaze boldly from much closer than she could ever recall doing.

"If I stay, we'll do something foolish," she told him baldly. "And it will only result in making my next visit next month extremely awkward."

"You think I'd let you go and not return until next month?" he challenged, raising one eyebrow.

"Damn it, Antonin! Nothing can come of this. Don't you see that?" Hermione said. "It's Christmas, and we're both lonely, and it might very well be a pleasurable, if temporary, balm. But there isn't a future here."

He frowned at her.

"Why not?" he asked. "I've got nothing but time."

"Because you're a murderer, Dolohov," Hermione hissed. "And I might've had the chance to get to know you in spite of the horrible things you've done, but what of my friends and family? You know, Molly Weasley? You murdered her brothers. What about Teddy and Andromeda? You murdered Teddy's parents. Do you ever see yourself being pleasantly invited to the Burrow for Sunday lunch alongside me when you've done such things to hurt the people I love? You almost killed me when I was a teenager. None of my friends will let that go."

He gritted his teeth.

"And if I stay… if I think about snogging you or shagging you, then I'll probably end up falling for you. And then what? All my friends are getting married and having children. I'm at that age where my biological clock is ticking, too, and yet I'm alone. If you offer to alleviate that loneliness, I'll probably take you up on it and then everything else in my life will turn to ruin because of your past. Don't you see that? I can't stay."

She made to turn around once more, intending to leave before she could do something terrible, like cry, and before her resolve could crumble.

He blocked her escape, his hands boxing her in on either side against the door.

"No one ever said I'd want to go to Sunday lunch, Granger," he murmured. "I prefer my solitude."

"Then I should leave you to it," Hermione tried to reason.

"I prefer my solitude when you're a part of it," he admitted very quietly. "I don't stalk you for nothing, pchelka."

Hermione breathed out slowly, sighing.

"You need to stop stalking me," she told him quietly. "There is no future for us."

"There could be," he said quietly. "None of your friends ever come to call on you. They don't even know how to get to your flat. What's to stop you from moving in with me?"

"Oh, I don't know," she snapped. "Maybe my career? I'd be sacked if I started shagging you, Dolohov. I'm supposed to act as Medi-Witch and Auror in your company. I don't think either of those professions call for having me suck you cock."

"Who would know?" he asked. "Your supervisors don't know where you live, either. And I wasn't kidding about altering the wards on this place to record who comes and goes. I disabled them a long time ago."

Hermione searched his face.

"Why me?" she asked. "You've spent most of your life viciously loathing muggle-borns. Why do you want me?"

His lips twisted into a strange cross between a smile and a sneer.

"You challenge me," he said. "No witch ever has, before you. You survived my curse and you come in here with your bossiness and your cleverness and all those curls. And you sass me without fear of my temper, even though you've seen it fly."

"I'm still muggleborn," she said. "My parents are still muggles."

"Your parents are gone," he said. "All your friends are getting married and having kids? They barely make time for you, now. You put in a weekly appearance at the Burrow and that's the extent of it. You said your biological clock is ticking? You're almost thirty, mishka. Who else are you going to find who actually challenges you? And don't deny that I do. You light up when I debate magical theory with you and don't have to look at you in befuddlement when you use big words. Where else are you going to get that?"

"With someone who isn't as likely to kill me, as kiss me?" Hermione suggested bitterly.

"I'd never kill you," he frowned at her.

Hermione raised her eyebrows at him before lifting the hem of her jumper and revealing her midriff to his gaze, showing him the starburst of purple scarring that marred her chest right between her ribs. The remnants of his terrible curse that had almost killed her years ago.

"That was almost fifteen years ago, solnyshka," Antonin sighed. "You've spent plenty of time alone in my company, even when I hated you, and I never laid another unfriendly finger on you."

"And I'm to believe that you would be rational and calm and completely understanding at all times?" she asked. "I've witnessed your temper, Dolohov. You could snap and kill me, suppressed magic or not."

"You're afraid of me?" he frowned.

Hermione sighed again, shaking her head before lowering her forehead to rest it against the middle of his chest, trying to think clearly. There was no way this could work. She needed to leave.

"There's no future here," she said.

"There's no future with anyone else, either," he told her quietly. "You're looking at this all wrong, Hermione. You're worried about what your friends will think? Do they consult you before they start seeing someone? Did Potter and Weasley ask your opinion before getting married? And even if they did, does it matter? They've got lives outside of you, now. When are you going to make a life for yourself that doesn't revolve around picking up after those two tossers?"

"I don't pick up after them," she frowned.

Antonin settled his hands on her shoulders and Hermione heard him chuckle.

"Pchelka, you were doing their homework at twelve. You're the only reason the pair of fools made it through the war, and you've been running after them since. You're who they call on when they need help with something, but where are they when you need help? Where are they when you cry yourself to sleep at night? Where are they when you've got a big exam, or an important presentation or an important meeting? You think them having kids is going to mean they've got more time to give you when they already give so little?"

"You think anyone will make time for me if I run off with a murderer responsible for killing their family and friends?" Hermione retorted.

"The lives I took from those boys were taken in self-defense, Granger. The Prewett boys both came at me, wands blazing with the Killing Curse. Lupin was flinging the Killing Curse and some other unfriendly spells at me, too, before I killed him. I regret taking their lives, not that it makes a lot of difference. Doesn't bring them back, or undo what's been done. But I would be dead if I hadn't killed them."

"Maybe you should be," Hermione whispered.

"Maybe I should," he said, surprising her when he didn't sound angry. "But I was quicker with my wand."

"Even if you hadn't killed them, you still joined Voldemort," Hermione said. "You served him."

"I joined him when I was a teenager," Dolohov argued. "And it's a lifelong commitment. No one who tried to recant their membership lived, Granger. Yes, I joined willingly when the Dark Lord was still whispering about righting the wrongs of the wizarding world. Back when we were still in hiding from the muggles and persecuted for our magic. I joined wanting to improve things for myself and my fellow wizards when the Dark Lord still spoke of granting us wizards power again. It might've turned ugly and become about persecuting muggles and crushing them underfoot, but in the beginning, it was supposed to be a fight for equality in a world that was wholly biased against wizarding kind, preventing us from being who we are as a race for fear of the muggles hunting us again. And I've seen the way you go in to bat for those within our world who are downtrodden and treated like dirt, mishka. If you'd been alive when the Dark Lord first started gathering followers, your arm would bear the same mark as mine."

Hermione sighed, hating the fact that his hands felt so warm upon her shoulders, and loathing the fact that the smell of his cologne was making her forget the rest of her arguments.

"How it began is irrelevant to how it ended, Antonin," Hermione said softly. "You killed people. You tortured them. You kidnapped people and held them hostage, tormenting them like a cat with a terrified mouse. You followed a man bent on overthrowing the government of our world and you did terrible things in his name. How am I supposed to ask any of my friends to look past all that when all of them are those who fought against you and your Dark Lord? How do I go to Harry and tell him not to worry about me if I run off with you, when you willingly followed the man who slaughtered his parents? How do I ever look Molly Weasley in the eye again if I shag you when you're the reason her brothers are dead?"

"How do you get out from under their influence enough to make a life for yourself when none of the other wizards you know have showed an interest in you beyond claiming whatever fame it will scrounge up for them when they sell the story to the Daily Prophet?" Antonin argued quietly. "How are you ever going to find happiness if you focus all your energy of people who can't accept that I could make you happy?"

"How could you possibly make me happy, Dolohov?" Hermione scoffed without lifting her forehead from where it rested against his chest.

"By debating magical theory with you," he said quietly, his lips by her ear as his hands slowly slid down her back, his arms curling around her until he held her snugly in his warm embrace. "By talking about things other than the Quidditch box-scores. By letting you nag me to be better, even when I don't want to be a better man. By stripping you out of those stiff and uncomfortable robes you wear everyday and making you remember that you're an incredibly desirable woman."

Hermione felt like she might cry at the fact that he genuinely seemed interested in building something with her. She wondered how much of it was the truth and how much was just holiday induced loneliness.

"Come on, baby," Antonin murmured in her ear when he'd wrapped her into his arms, pressing her to his chest and holding her tight. "It's cold outside. Stay with me for Christmas. If I can make you happy, stay indefinitely. If I can't, well, after the holidays are over I won't stalk you again and I won't let the line of professionalism between us blur ever again. How about that?"

Hermione's resolve crumbled. Nodding her head, she curled her arms around his waist, hugging him tight.

"Fine," she murmured in return, lifting her face to meet his gaze, her lips tingling with anticipation for his kiss. "But you should know, I knitted you a Christmas sweater, for your gift."

Antonin's lips twitched.

"I'll let you peel me out of it whenever you like, pchelka," he promised huskily before leaning down and stealing a kiss from her lips.