With just three days remaining before her wedding, Hermione asked Professor McGonagall to meet with her and Draco after classes finished for the day. McGonagall asked them to report somewhere outside her office, a room adjoining the Great Hall but two stories above the main floor. The staircase that once made the room accessible by walking had been blasted away in a lively conflict during the time of King Henry VIII and, thanks to the spite of both of the scrapping sides, it had never been rebuilt.
The door to the forgotten room had been in plain sight the whole time Hermione and Draco had been at Hogwarts, but they, along with all the other students, including the makers of Harry's map, had dismissed it as a high window kept shuttered, for whatever reason. It was not a window, but the doorway to the abandoned Hogwarts chapel.
After all the blasting and hexing and arguing over who got to use the chapel and how, the governors of Hogwarts finally decided worship ought to be a family matter, and sent students home during religious holidays, no more chapel.
It was for the best.
"But of course there's still a chapel in this building," Hermione said as she and Draco rose toward it, balanced in tandem on a broom. "What self-respecting castle in this country doesn't have a chapel, even a dusty, forgotten one?"
"Maybe it's where the Friar goes when he's not in the kitchen admiring the food or in the corridor admiring his portrait," Draco said, happy to distract his very nervous broom passenger, hoping she'd loosen her choke-hold on him.
She looked down as the floor dropped away beneath her feet. "Honestly, how are we going to get Mum and Dad up here without all sorts of grumbling and fussing?"
Draco laughed a little darkly. "Levitating into the chapel will be the least of their worries at their schoolgirl daughter's wedding, yeah? Really, your parents seem to take all the wizarding stuff in stride quite admirably. Maybe you could stop babying them."
She scoffed. "That's rich, Draco, you counselling me on how to manage my Muggles."
He smirked, waving his wand at the shuttered door to open it, Hermione gripping him more tightly than ever as he steered the broom one-handed. "See, it's all true," he said, "what you keep trying to tell people about me having changed since I was twelve years old. I'm happy to give Muggles credit where it's due."
"Maybe you're right," Hermione said, happy to have the floor beneath her feet again. "I've got to stop trying to shelter them - just give up on this ceremony being anything like a normal Granger family wedding."
McGonagall had not yet arrived, leaving the pair of them to dismount the broom and stand alone together in the stained-glass sunbeams burning through the ancient chapel windows. The place was as old as anything in the castle, but unlike the abandoned married quarters on the seventh floor, it was not dusty or musty. In the far corner of the space was a rack of votive candles, all lit somehow. In the centre, near the front, was an altar not unlike the ones at the churches they went to with their parents on Christmas and Easter. The stone walls and floor were marked with memorial plaques and busts of the witches and wizards buried there, all of them from before the sixteenth century.
Maybe it was all the graves, all the people who were not jolly, helpful ghosts but just ordinarily dead, that made Hermione look at Draco so intently as he said in a quiet, serious tone, "Here we are."
Hermione stepped to the wall, running her fingers over the name of one of the patrons entombed there. "Yes. The realness of it is different up here," she said. "Old, permanent."
He clasped her in his arms, lifting her onto her toes. "The incantation you're writing, Hermione, don't put the words 'til death parts us' in it. Promise me you won't. I can't bear that bit."
She smiled into the front of his robes, arms around his waist. "That's at the very end. I haven't got that far yet."
"Leave it out," he insisted, rocking them back and forth on his feet. "Because we won't part at death. We'll come back here as ghosts, dressed in our wedding clothes, whatever they turn out to be. And all the students will know us, and call us the Bride and Groom - "
"No, no, it will have to be a name with alliteration, so we match the others - "
He was nodding. "Right then, the Lachrymose Lovers, or something."
"Perfect," she said, laughing softly against his chest. He looked down at her, and she could tell he was about to say it, but she wanted to be the one to say it first this time. "I love you, Draco."
He didn't repeat it, but his smile softened and his eyes closed, his head tipping downward, toward her face. She rose a little higher on her toes and brought their mouths together. After two years, kissing each other was always nice, but it wasn't always like this. This wasn't a greeting or a parting, not a sweet vote of confidence or luck. It was a soulful kiss, where she opened up to him, taking him in, being taken. He joined himself to her with gentle possessiveness, filling her up, his hands pressing her closer, finding the back of her head, the curve of her waist, her hand pressed against his chest, his heartbeat, while the fingers of her other hand traced his jawline as it worked the kiss - perfect again.
"No trouble finding it, I see," Professor McGonagall said, the fireplace Floo still flashing green behind her when they opened their eyes. "Well done."
They broke apart, flushed but not from blushing, not apologizing, not anymore. It was indeed getting real.
Still, Hermione wasn't ready to pose her questions about consummation yet, and she began their meeting by showing McGonagall the sketches Draco had been making, practicing drawing the inscription.
McGonagall looked at the drawings down the length of her arm. "Well, it is difficult for me to say whether this is sufficient, since I have yet to see what's left of the mark on Mr. Malfoy's arm. And you cannot conjure it before the ceremony without risking disaster, so I cannot ask to see it. One question however: do you indeed intend to write the word 'faith' in English?"
"I hadn't considered anything else," Hermione said, cautiously. "The word 'hope' on Draco's arm was in English, after all."
"Yes, but think, Miss Granger. If you wrote faith in French…"
"Foi," Draco said.
Hermione gasped. "Foi, with an old-fashioned alternate spelling of f-o-y, as in Malfoy."
"Yes," McGonagall nodded. "It's rather fitting, but it is, of course, up to the both of you."
"Yes, do it," Hermione said, squeezing Draco's hand. "Do it in French, for your family."
"They don't deserve it, Hermione - "
"They didn't," she agreed. "But your mother - after yesterday - they do."
Draco accepted it, and sat in a pew, revising his sketches.
Once he was occupied, Hermione had the courage to ask Professor McGonagall about the role of consummation in the rite.
She seemed startled that Hermione would have worried about it. "What are you thinking, my child? Private - it shall all be very private of course. At the time when the ceremony nears its end, you may trust the headmaster to use his privileges of apparation within the castle to spirit you both away to your chambers, quite alone. The rest of us will remain here to watch over Mr. Potter."
Draco's face jerked up from his sketch, wincing at the thought of Harry having any connection to their wedding night. McGonagall patted him on the back. "Come now, Mr. Malfoy, it's not all bad."
"Harry won't be able to sense - anything - about us - will he?" Hermione asked.
Professor McGonagall pursed her lips. "Mr. Potter's corporeal connection is to Voldemort, not to either of you directly. He should be properly insulated."
"Should be," Draco repeated.
McGonagall patted him again. "I assure you, Mr. Malfoy, Potter will not be on your mind when the time comes." She turned her attention to Hermione. "Is that all?"
"One more thing for now," Hermione said, squirming more than ever.
"Out with it, Miss Granger. What is it? More on contraception?"
"No," she hurried. "It sounds silly, shallow, perhaps. But we've had some discussion about how we should dress for the ceremony."
Draco's posture straightened. "What's shallow about that?"
McGonagall stifled a smile. "Well, wherever possible, we ought to emulate the original Mitrian methods. So I advise you to pay particular attention to Professor Snape's illuminated version of the manuscript - the one with all the pictures - and dress after that fashion."
"After the fashion of the tenth century?" Draco nearly wailed. "In huge, stiff, undyed linen smocks with ropes for belts?"
Hermione was fighting to stifle a smile as well. "Oh come now, Draco," she said, taking his arm. "We'll have another look at the manuscript. I'm sure it's not as bad as all that. And isn't it better than me asking you to be married in your quidditch uniform? Isn't it?"
Draco groaned and tugged at his hair but said, "Fine, fine. Whatever we need to do to make it work. So - homespun sacks it is. My mother won't be there, so there won't be any society page photographers anyway. "
"Yes, no press. Very few guests at all," McGonagall confirmed. "Aside from some of your most trusted friends, hardly anyone from outside the Order will know about the ceremony until it has been successfully completed. The safety of yourselves, Mr. Potter, and Madam Malfoy all depend on it."
Tim and Ann Granger were ready to venture out of their quarters on the seventh floor of Hogwarts castle, ready to find their daughter and make another attempt at making sense of her life in the wizarding world. They stepped out of their room and into the corridor, lightly bickering about what to do and where to find her.
"Where is that cat when we need him?" Tim said, pulling back the edge of a tapestry to check for Crookshanks.
Ann had no patience for it. "We don't need a cat, we need a responsible adult, even if we have to settle for a wizard. We need to do what my sister does when she's at her kids' school. We need to find the headmaster and demand some answers."
Tim hung back as Ann strode toward the top of the staircase. "Darling," he began, "I feel I'd like to spend a little more time getting our bearings before we approach the head. They treat us like children because we haven't any magic, so the more informed we are, the more likely they are to respect us as adults when we come calling."
Ann shook her head. "Timothy, they treat us like children because we act like children - all timid and cowed by their power. Listen to me. I spent an entire day among them at that haunted house of Draco Malfoy's. I handled that Bellatrix character by stepping forward to meet her as an equal. That's how it's done."
Tim couldn't argue. Her success at Malfoy Manor spoke for itself. But that didn't mean he would concede everything to her. "Darling, we may get optimum results if we each pursue our own way. You go downstairs and inquire about the headmaster, and I'll start from here. There's clearly more going on in this wedding debacle than they've told us. We've got to figure out what's being withheld from us."
Ann gave a brisk nod. "Independent reconnaissance. Excellent, darling. I'll meet you downstairs by suppertime."
Alone in the empty corridor, Tim looked left and then right, falling into the habit he'd developed as a dentist faced with people who could not engage in conversation with him of talking aloud to himself. "Where can I find out what's been kept hidden from us?" he said a second time. "What no one's told us about Draco Malfoy - where can I find it?" he said a third time.
The empty corridor was suddenly noisy, rumbling with a sound like stones grinding against one another, as if a part of the castle was fighting to stand up and walk away. It put Tim in mind of the sound of the brick wall giving way to let them into that Diagon Alley neighbourhood where they buy Hermione's school things every year. He walked toward the sound, but saw nothing but a closed door in the wall opposite a rather hideous tapestry.
"May as well begin in here," he muttered to himself.
With only a slight push, the heavy-looking door gave way beneath his hands, opening up to a room stacked with ramshackle furniture, crockery, glassware, books, and all manner of bits and bobs. This must be the school's attic. It might be a good idea to search a place like this - if he had any idea what it was he was looking for.
Most of the large furniture in the room was covered in white dust-cloths, except for one piece draped in wine-coloured velvet. It stood out from the rest, and not knowing what else to do, Tim approached it, like a bumble bee attracted to a vivid colour. He tugged on one corner until the cloth slipped to the ground in front of him. He bent to gather it up, to put it back. But whoever had draped it over the ornate but otherwise unremarkable cabinet beneath it must have been exceptionally tall to reach to the top of it - or else, they'd been using one of those sticks, those wands. He laughed at himself. Of course they'd been using a wand.
Tim rolled the velvet over in his arms as best he could before laying it at the base of the cabinet. As he leaned forward to drop it, he heard something from behind its door - a fluttering and scratching. Something was caught inside of it. He turned the handle and stood back as something small and frantic flew out at his head.
He yelled in surprise, before laughing at himself. "Ruddy bird," he said, closing the door. Enough of creeping around in the attic, spooking himself.
Tim left the room and descended the stairs, hoping to find a familiar face - Minerva McGonagall, the dreamy red-headed Weasley boy, Crookshanks - anyone who could give him a clue to how to protect his family from a situation everyone swore was dangerous, but no one would explain properly.
He was all the way to the second floor when he finally spied someone he knew. Unfortunately, it was that odd black-haired chemistry teacher who made Hermione so nervous. Snape, he was called, and he was walking at the speed of a run toward the room where the Grangers and Draco Malfoy had met with Professor McGonagall the day before.
Tim changed direction, following Snape. His hand was raised, trying to catch Snape's eye, to slow him down to have a quick word. But Snape was too single-minded to notice, waving a hand to open the door to the room, passing through it and slamming it closed behind himself without so much as a glance in Tim's direction.
Tim stood in front of the door still vibrating with the slam and did what anyone so far out of his depth would have done. He settled in to eavesdrop.
There was a meeting going on in McGonagall's study. About half a dozen adult voices, men and women, were gathered inside to argue about Hermione's wedding.
"There are three nights left before the stars are right enough to even attempt the ritual," a man with an insistent but weary voice was saying. "I don't believe he'll let those days pass by peacefully. There's going to be some kind of attack before then."
"How can we tell whether he knows the wedding is coming at all?" another man asked, a familiar voice, perhaps Arthur Weasley.
"The wedding is no matter to him," Snape answered. "His impatience and murderous rage exist independently of any other plans. He is already acting on it. Madam Malfoy has borne the worst of it thus far."
"My dear Aunt Narcissa? What's happened to her?" a young woman asked.
"Sectumsempra," Snape answered. "Cast as a punishment after she freed Dr. Granger. I arrived barely in time. She will recover from that curse. But she may not survive another."
Tim felt sick. He couldn't tell exactly what had happened to Ann's friend Cissa, but the gasps from the crowd behind the door were amply ominous.
"Draco must have been beside himself," the first man said.
"Yes, he was," Snape agreed. "I have ordered him to remain in the castle, his desire for vengeance and rescue notwithstanding. The sentry Aurors have been instructed not to let him leave. But if he is called by the Dark Mark, he will not be able to resist answering. At the very least, the Aurors will go with him - but probably to their doom."
Someone scoffed. "Dark Lord indeed - he's more like a cross infant with a toothache," another familiar voice said, probably Molly Weasley. "He needs distracting - another toy to smash, to keep him away from the kids until they've finished their ritual."
The first man heaved a great sigh. "Well, I wouldn't send anyone marching up to Malfoy Manor looking for trouble these days, not even as a decoy. What's another strategic location of theirs we could approach, Arthur?"
"Borgin and Burkes, in London," he said. "Everywhere else has been raided or abandoned while the Death Eaters make the manor their stronghold."
"That's a mistake," the young woman said. "For centuries, that house has been enchanted to be loyal to the Malfoys. If You-know-who keeps slicing Narcissa up, the house itself is going to turn on him."
"He considers the house's qualities mere trifles," Snape said. "Inconveniences."
"And that's exactly where he's wrong," the young woman finished.
"Tell them what else we know about the junk shop, Arthur," Molly nudged him.
"Well, according to Harry, Borgin and Burkes is stocked with a full-sized vanishing cabinet. Been there for years. Just the one."
Even through the heavy door, Tim heard Minerva McGonagall clear her throat. Professor Snape was humming. "Yes," he said. "Its sister is well-known to us…"
Tim listened as Snape told the others about the vanishing cabinet hidden in an enchanted room on the seventh floor. He learned that it made a magical passageway to this Borgin and Burkes store that was strategically important to the baddies - the ones who'd taken Ann, cut up her friend, and did it all trying to get at Hermione.
"Draco Malfoy is repairing a vanishing cabinet right under this roof," Arthur was marveling. "Why that sneaky little - "
"Arthur, hush. He's just a boy," Molly scolded.
In the corridor, Tim grumbled something about Draco being very nearly a married man.
"Is the cabinet operational?" the first man said.
Snape was suddenly, inordinately sarcastic. "Oh, I don't know, Remus. Does the castle look like it's crawling with Death Eaters?"
Minerva was taking over. "We assume it is not, Remus. However, we do know it could transport inanimate objects since before our Christmas holidays. And it is possible that Borgin has made progress toward transporting living creatures from his end since then. But it has not been tested. The risk is too great with students in the school."
Snape had recovered his composure. "The Dark Lord has given Draco the end of term as a deadline for completing the repairs. But as his injury has advanced, it's become clear to me that the Dark Lord will not be able to go that long without lashing out. As you have rightly observed, there is no more time."
"We'll need to evacuate Narcissa then," the man named Remus said. "Now that Lucius has left her all caught up in his nightmare, we can't just leave her there."
Lucius, Tim thought, that must be Hermione's father-in-law, the one in prison. Good gracious, what had he done?
"She won't come," Snape said. "Narcissa fears her leaving would cause the Dark Lord to call Draco in her place. And she may not be wrong."
There was a pause before Remus spoke again. "I'm sorry, Severus."
"You needn't be."
"Well, what do we do?" the young woman said. "I've been patrolling that corridor on the seventh floor all year, hoping to catch Draco at something, but until he confessed to Severus, we learned nothing about any vanishing cabinets. If we can't even find the thing, how can we use it to distract You-know-who?"
"Draco would take you to it, wouldn't he Severus? He trusts you," Molly said.
Snape hummed again. "We had an unfortunate misunderstanding this morning. The trust between us is not what it once was. But perhaps he will tell Minerva."
"I shall ask Draco," she agreed. "And then we must find some use for the cabinet delectable enough to distract the Death Eaters from their pursuit of Miss Granger. I don't yet know what such a thing would be."
There was a moment of silence as they all searched their own imaginations. Unseen, Tim was thinking along with them, his heart beginning to race, his stomach churning and rolling. If the baddies couldn't get to Hermione, maybe they would be content to chase the closest thing to her...
The young woman broke the silence. "Well, if we can't think of anything, we could simply send something - anything - through the cabinet from our end to pique their interest. But the cabinet will need to be bolted shut and guarded after that. Day and night Auror surveillance. Can't destroy it quite yet or - " she made a ripping sound with her mouth, "they'll do Aunt Narcissa in, quick as you please."
"Tonks, dear," Molly scolded her, clucking her tongue.
"Right," Remus was saying with a clap of his hands, "so going forward…"
Tim darted away before they summed up the meeting and went their separate ways. Dinner was beginning and Ann was lingering outside the Great Hall, waiting for him to go in and sit with her. He snagged her hand as he fled from McGonagall's office, tugging her toward the staircase instead.
"Tim, darling, what is it? We'll miss Hermione if we go now."
Tim was almost too breathless to speak. "They're planning something," he whispered to her. "They're going to provoke that monster man to distract him from the - from the events of this coming Sunday."
Ann pulled back against his grip. "Well then we ought to let them. It's their business, after all."
He shook his head. "It's not, Ann. Come along, please."
She huffed and shrugged but followed him up the stairs.
He spoke over his shoulder to her as they went. "They're all out fighting to save our daughter while we stay cooped up in here like a pair of delicate canaries. But it's our responsibility. And I daresay no one can do it better than we can. Perhaps we're small and insignificant enough to succeed in leading the baddies on a merry chase, like field mice disappearing into a hedge."
Ann's face blanched. "Decoys. You want us to leave here and turn ourselves into decoys."
He shook his head. "No, not us, just me. You stay here with Hermione, and let the wizards know I left on my own and wasn't kidnapped, keep them from ruining my plans."
Ann cradled her husband's face in her palms. "What plans, Tim? You're a dentist, darling. A brilliant one, but this talk is madness. We're safe here. Hermione is too. There's nothing more for us to do."
He started up the stairs again, her hand in his. "There is, Ann. I heard them. The wizarding people, they're looking for a distraction but can't think of anything compelling enough that won't put Narcissa Malfoy's life in danger - or anyone else's, for that matter."
Ann's eyes grew wide. "Cissa?"
"Yes. But if the distraction is just me, on the run in London, in a society I know better than they do, taunting the baddies to come and catch me to ransom for Hermione, I might actually stand a chance of keeping them occupied until Sunday night."
Ann made a scared, strangled sound as she climbed behind him. "But Tim, you don't know them like I do. They rounded me up so easily that morning - "
"That was only because you were caught unawares," he said. "It won't be like that this time. They won't be ambushing me in the garden without warning. It will be me who's leading them along."
"Tim, please don't do this," Ann said. "At least, don't do it alone."
"I have to. I can't risk you, I need you here, and the wizards are too paternalistic to let me even try to help. But I am going to," he said. "I'll let them chase me for our Hermione, and your Cissa, and even for that son-in-law of ours. His father is rubbish. The boy needs us too, the poor blighter."
Ann shook her head, staggering up the last of the seven flights of stairs. "Even if I agreed to all of it, there is no way you could do it, Tim. We don't apparate, we've no car here, and if you try to walk off these school grounds you could roam around the Scottish highlands for days before getting back to civilization."
Tim hushed her, taking her in his arms, the pair of them panting together at the very top of the staircase. Tim stooped to kiss her forehead. "I've just about got that sorted too. Now, I don't know how to explain this, or even if it will work, but I think I can show you. You must come with me to try something."
She held tightly to his waist, her feet rooted to the floor. "Try what, Tim? Honestly."
"Into this room, here. Come with me, Ann, to try some magic for our little girl."