I can still remember the way my mother's hands felt buttoning up the row of buttons that closed the back of my wedding dress. For a woman who had barely touched me my entire life, her hands were tender and confident. Maybe it was just that she had been waiting for this day since I was born, All the planning had been for this day, when I would save our family from ruin and make a strong eternal alliance. As she squeezed my shoulders, with what was intended motherly love, I shuddered ever so slightly. Her maid gathered up my train and my mother took me firmly by the elbow and steered me through the doors of the sitting room and stopped at the closed doors to the great hall. My father already stood there and my mother looped my arm through his waiting one. On cue the doors opened and the small quartet began the wedding march. The few guests stood and the tall dark haired man at the alter stood unmoving and unsmiling. The walk was short and anticlimactic ending with my father handing me off. As requested there was no ornamentation in the service.
"Do you, Jocelyne Orianne Spencer, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part," the justice of the peace said his deep monotone ringing on the stone walls and floors.
"I do," I said without wanting to hear myself.
"I now pronounce you man and wife. You may now kiss the bride," and with that Rodolphus Lestrange bent down to kiss me, his hands resting on the side of my blooming belly. Where he knew a child that was not his was growing inside of me.