Her first lesson with Antonin had been cruel. Even he would admit that he didn't have the stomach for making the terrified, starving, broken witch suffer in his kitchen for two days straight. Though there had been a few times in the course of her broom cupboard captivity that a house-elf snapped into the space to provide her with a meager meal, she was mostly forgotten. Augustus didn't dare open the door to slip food inside for fear that his offering would be considered a betrayal to his master. The fear that one of his comrades would be able to slip inside the space to assault the woman he swore to himself to protect was also not an attractive prospect. When Hermione stood in front of the table laden with delicious food and was denied, she had rarely felt so helpless. If she hadn't cried out most of her tears inside her cupboard, she might have embarrassed herself in front of her new teacher by sobbing on the floor of his kitchen.