Her husband stopped speaking to down the rest of his glass of fire whiskey. Whatever he was thinking about was upsetting. Hermione wasn't sure she even wanted to imagine what their master was capable of. In her first year, he resorted to drinking the blood of slain unicorns to stay alive. She knew for a fact that part of Walden Macnair's duties before he met his sticky end in her basement several years earlier was to seek out and kill the unicorns that lived in the Forbidden Forest. Many of those who knew the terrible secret were afraid that he'd been successful in eradicating them completely from the forest. She was pleased to be told in the strictest of confidence a year or two after Macnair mysteriously vanished without a trace that Hagrid had seen some foals in the forest. Though their relationship was a bit strained and not nearly as warm as it had been when she was a child, the gamekeeper still made a point to remain friendly after all those years. She suspected strongly that he knew he needed an ally within the Inner Circle and sought her out due to a sense of nostalgia. In thanks for his cheerful presence when she was a frightened girl terrified that her best friends would never forgive her, she did all she could to keep the half-giant protected.