A/N: Keep reading, my bestest readers. Remember that this story has a guaranteed happy ending! Thank you for all your comments and kindness.
The old shop had been closed for hours, the lights extinguished, the layer of dust settled back into place, everything silent save the delicate metal click of a handle turning and a clasp opening. A foot clad in a quiet-soled trainer stepped out of a wood and metal cabinet and onto the planks of the creaky floor. The clasp clicked again as the door to the cabinet was eased closed.
The trainers tiptoed quickly and lightly across the floor, each board moaning beneath them, before coming to a stop at the glass door leading outside. It was locked from the inside with an oversized padlock. Doctor of Dental Surgery, Tim Granger, was expert in working with tiny metal hooks and probes in small spaces and would have the lock picked open in seconds - if only it had a keyhole. No doubt, it wanted opening with a wand and a spell.
Ruddy wizards.
Tim stood sweating in the dark shop. He had to find some way out, and fast. If what he overheard in Hogwarts that afternoon was right, this was the second most dangerous place in all of Britain for him at this moment. And this wasn't just Britain, this was wizarding Britain - disorienting, incomprehensible, completely mad. If he stayed here, Tim knew he wouldn't last a day. This whole insane plan depended on him drawing the Death Eaters out of their element and into his - the Muggle world where they would be lost and confused, their clothing and manners drawing attention and alarm, while Tim himself would be adept and anonymous. He just had to escape.
Even non-magical people have figured out how to make glass nearly impossible to shatter by hand. Still, the shop's glass front door seemed like the surest route out. But he'd need something strong that he could swing to break through it.
Lit only by the luminous white of the street light outside, the shop was clearly full of weapons and clubs. Tim was reaching for one - a mace with a massive iron head - when he stopped. He'd been in this neighbourhood before - this Diagon Alley - and of course he'd never been able to relax here. This shop, however, felt exceptionally tense and wrong - cursed - as if every object in it had a tiny, evil intelligence about it that wished him harm. Tim stooped to take up the rug he had been standing on, wrapped it around his hand, and only then lifted the mace from its place on the rack.
He might have just imagined the faraway echo of a shriek as the mace came free in his hand. It was heavier than it looked. Luckily, Tim worked with his hands all day, and he was able to grip the shaft through the rug and heft it over his shoulder.
It wasn't a wand Tim had waved, but the padlock truly did shriek, preserving itself from a good smashing by clanging open when the shadow of the mace fell over it. Evil intelligences are often cowardly ones as well.
Ruddy wizards.
The padlock had made enough noise to rouse shuffling footsteps on the floor above Tim's head. Someone was trying to call out but falling into a fit of coughing instead. Tim nudged the padlock from the door and hopped out of its way as it seemed to aim itself at his feet as it fell to the floor. He leaned the mace against the wall and let himself outside into the cold night air, carefully closing the door behind him before darting down the lane.
Tim Granger was gone by the time Borgin found his way down the stairs, conjuring all the lights to full brightness, scanning the aisles and counters of his shop with his own specially modified secrecy sensor. He stayed up almost until the morning came, searching everywhere but finding no inventory missing, no traces of any outside magic. Confirmed: since he closed up shop that evening, no other wizard had been inside it.
At the front door, the lock was on the floor and a mace was out of the rack, but nothing else had been moved. Must have been a ghost, he reasoned. Spectral static, mischief that flared to life and played itself out just as quickly. Nothing but a bother.
Whatever had happened, the most precious piece in the shop, young Master Malfoy's vanishing cabinet, was still pristine. If the Greyback creature came to check on it, he would find it well cared for, and leave old Borgin in peace. And this was Borgin's chief concern. He folded up his secrecy sensor, and went back to bed.
Out in Knockturn Alley, Tim Granger ducked from doorway to doorway, moving toward the brighter streetlights which he hoped would be Diagon Alley itself. If he could get there, he could get to that pub Arthur always insisted on drinking at - that Leaky Cauldron with the brick wall that opened up on the rest of London.
After six trips in and out of here, Tim remembered which brick in the wall to press to open it up. What he didn't remember was that the pub would be closed this early in the morning. There was nothing in the small courtyard outside of it but a dustbin, and nothing to do but hop inside it and wait for signs of activity inside the pub as the day dawned. For the first time in his life, Dr. Timothy Granger caught a few hours of exhausted sleep in a dustbin before making good his escape into Muggle London.
Professor Dumbledore descended from the spiral staircase into the third floor corridor, all set for his breakfast, hoping the prunes would be freshly stewed, when he met Ann Granger pacing in front of the gargoyle.
"Dr. Granger," he greeted her, warm and twinkling. "Yes, I had heard you were in the castle. Delighted to have you here. Elated to see you safe and sound."
"To be sure," she said, quick to move past pleasantries. "Professor, I must speak to you in private and at once."
For a moment, he kept perfectly motionless before he began to nod. "I see."
"You may as well call the others," she said as he led her past the gargoyle. "Minerva and Snape and whoever else is working at keeping Hermione and Draco safe until Sunday."
Dumbledore turned to face her. "Something has happened."
"Yes."
His eyes drifted upward, fixed on the empty air above them, over the tops of his half-moon spectacles. "Dr. Granger," he said, a rumble replacing the twinkle, "will your husband be joining us this morning?"
She gave her head one decisive shake. "He will not."
"I see," he said again, reaching into his pocket to press his thumb against a large dull coin.
Minutes later, everyone Ann had asked for, with the addition of a young woman in an Auror's uniform introduced to her simply as Tonks, and a man named Remus with a ghastly scar like claw-marks across his face, were all seated in Dumbledore's office as Ann explained how Tim had made himself into a decoy to lead the Death Eaters away from Draco and Hermione, stealing out of the school in the dead of night through a cabinet he found in a place Ann was calling the attic.
The entire room was dumbfounded. None of the plans any of them had thought of to distract the Dark Lord from the threat of the matrimonial charm had included sending his legions chasing off after a helpless, solitary Muggle, even if he was the father of one of the bravest, most clever, most skilled students the school has seen in years.
Minerva figured out where to begin before anyone else. "Dr. Granger, I hate to be indelicate, but are you quite sure your husband survived the passage through the vanishing cabinet?"
"Oh yes," Ann said, still not grasping how dangerous his use of it had been. "Tim used a phone box to leave a message on the answer phone at home early this morning, once he made it back to London. I used the school's Muggle-born Student Phone - the one Hermione uses to call us - to check it."
Tonks and Remus exchanged horrified looks. "The cabinet works?"
"Of course it does. A live bird flew out of it when Tim first discovered it," Ann said, "so he assumed things came and went from it as they pleased."
Dumbledore was nodding gravely. "He took a great risk, which, thank the stars, was answered with great luck."
Tonks sprang to her feet, her blue hair fading to a dull brown. "There's no way they could have failed to notice the cabinet is operational. Is there?" She seemed to be asking Remus but before he could answer she said, "No, they're not that stupid - oh, maybe they are. It's just Borgin watching the thing, after all. Or maybe it only works in one direction, from here to there. Or else - excuse me Professor." Tonks raced back toward the spiral staircase, leaving to secure the cabinet, whether the Death Eaters understood what it could now do or not.
Remus stood up as if to follow her, but Dumbledore waved him back into his chair.
"Impressive," Dumbledore said, "that Dr. Granger found his way not only out of Hogwarts, then out of Borgin and Burkes, and finally out of Diagon Alley to a phone box. And all before Tom Riddle even knows to look for him. Two more nights remain before the matrimonial charm can be cast. I wish I could tell whether Dr. Granger will be able to sustain the chase once Tom knows there is a chase to be had."
"Shall we send someone from the Order to tail him? Protect him from arm's length?" Remus asked. "If only Padfoot was here - "
"He would lead them directly to Dr. Granger," Snape finished. "There's nothing inconspicuous about a massive black hound in the city."
"Right of course, Severus. No, any help from us would negate Dr. Granger's greatest advantage," Dumbledore said, "which is to be, if you'll pardon me Ann, unremarkable. In his own element, Tim is hard to detect, especially for Tom Riddle and his friends. Muggle detection and management have never been part of Riddle's plans. He is willing to mow them down when they wander into his line of fire, but as for strategic attacks on them - he considers such concerns beneath him. Ann was far more clever and resourceful than he imagined. And it is for precisely that reason that she is free and sitting here with us now."
"And he still won't have learned to stop underestimating us?" Ann asked.
Dumbledore chuckled, but sadly. "No lesson could teach him what the prejudices of his wicked mind will not let him perceive. This is the root of much of the tragedy in our world, Dr. Ann. But today, it benefits us."
"So we have only two choices then?" Remus resumed. "Either we retrieve Dr. Granger ourselves, or we let him run?"
"I'd prefer it if we didn't talk about my husband as if he were a naughty puppy," Ann said.
Dumbledore bowed in her direction. "Of course not, Dr. Granger. Forgive us."
"Indeed, Madam Doctor," Remus said. "I myself tend to prickle at comparisons of humans to canines. Please excuse me."
Ann nodded. "Of course."
"If," Snape interjected, "we restrain ourselves from interfering, then Dr. Granger's plan can only be effective if the Dark Lord knows to give chase. And in that case, I ought to visit Malfoy Manor to alert him. Don't you agree, Professor?"
"What do you think, Dr. Granger?" Dumbledore asked Ann.
She nodded. "Yes. It's what Tim wants."
"I leave it to you, Severus," Dumbledore said. "Tell him only that Dr. Granger has left the castle for London."
"And what shall we tell Miss Granger?" McGonagall asked. "We can see now where her admirable, though impulsive bravery comes from. She is a credit to both of you, Dr. Granger. But I'm afraid her energies need to be directed at the matrimonial charm at this moment, rather than at flying off to rescue her father, which she will be naturally inclined to do."
"Oh no, she musn't do that," Ann agreed. "I've stayed behind here to make excuses for Tim. He was cross about the wedding when last Hermione spoke with him. I could tell her he only got more so and has gone off to clear his head somewhere and she shouldn't expect to see him until Sunday. She'll be unhappy but she won't panic."
"Tell her he's with me," Remus said. "I live away from Hogwarts, the full moon is weeks away, and I should hope that Hermione trusts me by now."
Ann nodded. "Cooling off with Remus Lupin, no full moon - however you like it."
Minerva smoothed her skirts. "I wasn't going to bother fussing over the small details of a wedding but perhaps we ought to, Dr. Granger, to keep Hermione occupied. Draco as well."
Ann frowned. "What do you mean, Minerva? Dress, flowers, seating plan, all of that nonsense?"
She nodded. "If you can manage it, under the circumstances."
Ann sighed. "Oh, go on then."
"Well planned, everyone," Dumbledore said. "You may all go about your assignments. And Remus, do see if Nymphadora requires any assistance. I hear no explosions so I assume all is well for now."
Ann kept her seat as the rest stood to leave, her adrenaline rush finally flagging, her heart rate slowing a little for the first time since Tim dragged her up the stairs to the Room of Hidden Things the night before. The slowing brought with it a wave of exhaustion.
She lifted her head to find Dumbledore twinkling at her again. "Dr. Granger," he said, "while I cannot send a visible guard to accompany your husband, the trust I have over Hogwarts's student extends to their immediate families and allows me - well, special insight into how your husband fares." He leaned over his desk. "I cannot be with him, but neither can I be kept from him. Take some solace in that, if you can."
She smiled wanly at him, forcing herself to stand. "Thank you, Professor. I'm off to meet my daughter."
When Snape stepped through the front doors of Malfoy Manor, late in the afternoon, Narcissa was not in her usual place, seated at the grand piano at the bottom of the staircase, as he hoped she would be. There was no sign of life in the entrance of the house but Peter Pettigrew mincing toward him.
"The master has not yet begun receiving supplicants today," Pettrigrew was saying.
Snape nodded. "Very well. I will see to Madam Malfoy's injuries until my Lord calls."
"Yes, this way - "
"I know my way, Wormtail. Now get out of it."
Upstairs, Snape's steps slowed as he moved toward the door of Narcissa's bed chamber. Surely someone would have sent word if she'd taken ill again. All must be well. Yes, there could be no need for his colour to be so high, his breath so shallow as he rapped on the door.
It opened for him but he didn't advance inside until he heard Narcissa call out an invitation. "Yes, I'm here."
She sat at her vanity, brushing her hair, wearing a satin dressing gown that exposed the scar healing on her decolletage. "Severus," she said, watching him in her mirror as he entered the room. Her look of surprise curved into a smile. "It can't be Sunday already? No, it is not. But how can that be true after you stormed out of here just a day ago swearing not to return until Sunday?"
The door closed itself behind him. "I have not come to play, Madam Malfoy."
"You couldn't stay away but it's still Madam Malfoy, is it?" she smirked.
It was the prettiest smirk he had seen in ages but Snape's frown deepened anyway. "I have come to inform the Dark Lord that the situation at Hogwarts has changed."
All playful coyness disappeared from Narcissa's demeanor. "Draco - "
"Is quite safe," Snape finished. "But we have learned that Miss Granger's father, who until last night had been within the protection of the castle, has left."
"Left?" she echoed. "Ann's husband - why would he - ?"
Her scar throbbed painfully, and she raised a hand to it, her shoulders heaving as her breath laboured. She looked like she might faint, and without stopping to deliberate on the wisdom of it, Snape strode across the floor, reaching out as if to hold her upright.
She held him back with the tips of her fingers pressed against his chest. "Ann's husband - isn't it marvelous, Severus? This is what a father is meant to be. He's thrown himself out into the void, into the hands of the darkest power known to any of us at this time, and all in order to protect his child, regardless of how hopeless it is." She raised her face to look into Snape's, her features twisting into a snarl, swearing. "Lucius, bloody useless pureblood Lucius Malfoy - a father who has thrown his son to the Dark Lord while he saves his own life. Lucius Malfoy, disgraced, oh yes, but alive in prison while Ann's Muggle husband risks everything for their Mudblood daughter."
"Hush, Cissa," Snape said, gripping her upper arms in each of his hands. "There is nothing to be gained by such ugly talk. Whatever kind of man Lucius may be, he is the only husband you have and it does not bear speaking this way."
As he spoke, Naricssa raised her fingertips from his chest to touch his lips as he formed the words, his voice growing quieter, the words coming more slowly as he struggled to attend to anything but their pressure against his mouth. He was surrendering to her again, as he had the night he stayed in her bed, keeping her warm and safe through the night. He let her touch him, let her look at him, her feelings completely unguarded.
He told himself he was only serving himself, and the Order, and Draco as he collected this moment to show the Dark Lord in the occulmency he knew he would need when Wormtail called him in to see him, minutes from now. To collect the moment, to deepen his memory, he indulged in reveling in the sensation of her ethereally smooth and soft fingers against his lips, the sound of her breath as her shoulders rose and fell, the sight of the glistening sheen over her eyes as she fought her tears, the smell of narcissus perfume mingled with an earthy undertone that he now recognized as the scent of her skin. If he spoke a single word, he would taste her fingers...
He turned his face away. "You don't care for me," he said. "You don't want another husband, you want a bodyguard - the cold, courtly love of a knight who will die for you but never touch you. And you have it already, Narcissa. I have already made the vow."
She reached into the narrow space left between them, taking his wrist as she had that gloomy day in Spinner's End when he pledged his life for her child's. This time, she lifted his hand to press the pads of his fingertips against her closed mouth, drawing him in to touch her, even after he'd told her he never would. Light as a breath, he traced the bow of her lip, usually painted red, now left pink and natural beneath his touch.
But when he spoke, he said, "Lucius is not gone. He may yet return to this house, the Dark Lord's useful idiot once again."
"And I his idiot consort," she said, dropping her hand away from Snape's face.
"His saving grace," Snape corrected, withdrawing his fingers from her lips.
She bowed her head. "No more grace. He is lost."
Snape sighed, his breath ragged. "Not to Draco. And if I were anything to you other than a knight-protector, Draco would never forgive me."
The doorknob was rattling, metal on metal as Peter Pettigrew tried to open it to call Snape to the Dark Lord.
To enter into an audience with the Dark Lord was to step into a furious onslaught of legilimency. Snape was braced for it as he came into the manor's drawing room, prepared to misdirect with images of Narcissa Malfoy's growing reliance on him.
The Dark Lord cackled at the sight of it. "Ah, yes, Severus. My act of discipline toward Madam Malfoy was an opportunity for you, was it not? You tended her injuries, and like a wounded animal, she will now follow you anywhere. Most interesting. What do you say, Wormtail, shall we bring Lucius back from Azkaban and see how this plays out?"
"As my Lord wishes," Pettigrew simpered.
"What, you don't think it would be amusing, Severus?" the Dark Lord marveled. Snape was so like him, in so many ways, that he had always assumed Snape, like himself had never loved anyone either. It had to be true, after what Snape had told him about the prophecy and Lily Evans's son.
"I'm afraid I have come on a matter of some urgency, my Lord," Snape said. "I must defer the pleasure of toying with the Malfoys for another time."
"Very well," the Dark Lord conceded. "But come here, Wormtail. Collect this memory. I may have use for it later. Severus, if we may."
"Certainly, my Lord." Snape bent toward Wormtail as he raised his wand and drew the memory of Narcissa's touch out of Snape's mind and into a tiny glass vial.
Straightening up, Snape continued. "You see, the Mudblood girl who cast the love charm that has been troubling my Lord, her ignorant Muggle father left the safety of Hogwarts last night. He is at large, alone, and completely unprotected. If we can get to him before the Order recovers him, he may be useful."
The Dark Lord was laughing again. "Excellent, Severus. Excellent news. Yes, we will hunt him. We have been without sport for so long. I think I may send Bella herself. She has a gift for such things. Oh yes, the vendetta will be personal, still smarting as she is from the Mudblood's mother's escape. Fetch her, Wormtail."
When he was gone, Snape knelt beside the Dark Lord's armchair, unwinding the bandages from his damaged hand. The withering injury had progressed halfway to his elbow and though he still hissed and winced as Snape treated it, his spirits were high. "A matter of hours, Severus - hours! And then we shall ransom the captured father for the Granger witch, spill her blood on these hearth stones, and I shall be free of this nuisance."
The wound was a great deal more than a nuisance. Anyone who had seen the Dark Lord since he marked Draco Malfoy last autumn knew it. But Snape only nodded his head and said, "Of course, my Lord. This trifling matter will not even be remembered a day from now."
He huffed. "It will be remembered by young Master Malfoy. And it will remind him to finish the repair of my cabinet or lose his mother as well." He watched Snape as he spoke the threat, eyes keen to see if Severus recoiled at the mention of more violence toward Madam Malfoy.
Snape did not flinch at all.
"They're trying to distract us," Hermione said, tossing a parchment onto the top of her favourite library table. "There is simply no need for a seating plan at a wedding with so few guests. Practical women like Mum and McGonagall know this, but they're busying us with it anyway. Honestly, everyone there will be from the Order except for Pansy and a few teachers."
Draco had taken the guest list and was reading it himself, his eyebrows raised high. "Not the crowd of wedding guests I once imagined for himself, I must say."
She sighed heavily enough to blow her hair away from her face. "I'm sorry, darling. It's worse for you, isn't it?"
He grinned at her, leaning over the arm of his chair, into her space. "Not at all," he said as he kissed her. "I never dreamed I'd get married without my parents, and that is regrettable. But it's the only thing that is."
She kissed the end of his nose. "That may be exactly what they're trying to distract us from - the fact that out of our four parents, only one will be there with us."
"Still no word from your dad?"
"No, nothing," she said. "They say he's off with Remus, so he can sulk somewhere safe. It's not like him, though."
Draco shook his head. "Safe with a werewolf. More of that storied Order of the Phoenix logic."
"You be quiet about the Order."
"You make me."
Hermione was about to tackle Draco when a familiar voice cleared its throat, somehow making itself heard through Draco's passageway spell which had always worked so well to keep them uninterrupted in the library.
"None of your passageway spells, Mr. Malfoy," the voice was calling.
He reversed it and the speaker appeared in front of them. "Sorry, Madam Pince."
She wagged her finger at them. "The headmaster warned me to watch out for anything inappropriate going on between the two of you in my library. I thought he was mistaken and I must say, Miss Granger, I am disappointed in you."
Hermione's face was crimson. "Sorry, Madam Pince. We were only going over some lists for Professor McGonagall."
She tutted. "Then you have nothing to hide and no need for concealment spells."
They fled into the corridor, embarrassed but laughing. "Where are we supposed to work now?" Hermione moaned.
Draco broke into a wide smile. "Let's go upstairs and see how the clean-up of our married quarters is coming along."
But when they arrived on the seventh floor, the door to their quarters was locked with a bolt marked with the seal of Dumbledore himself. Draco pulled on the handle before kicking the door.
"Our room is wearing a chastity belt," he said. "Can you believe that? Dumbledore doesn't trust me. The purity clause expires in two days but he doesn't think I can last that long. He's making sure I don't lure you in there and…" He bent his head to growl loudly and wetly against her neck.
She screamed and shoved, laughing and ordering him to stop.
"Fine, I've stopped," he said. "And Dumbledore may be right about me after all. Let's head back to where there's plenty of people for a bit."
"Wait," she said, peering further down the corridor. "That doorway there. It's the Room of Requirement. Why is it visible right now? What do we require?"
He blanched, letting go of her. "The cabinet. Hermione, go find your mother. Keep her safe. I have to check on the cabinet."
She grabbed his hand. "Well, you're not checking it alone."
"Hermione - "
"I'm not being romantic, Draco. Just practical. Don't be a Harry, going off on your own. If anything's gone wrong and you can't get away, I'll need to let everyone else know."
They crept down the corridor, listening for signs of activity - perhaps a scuffle. He pushed on the door and peeked inside. The room seemed empty but for one tiny bird flitting from rafter to rafter above their heads. He stepped inside.
"Someone's taken the dust cover off of it," he whispered back at her. "It's standing out in the open."
She stepped inside behind him, her wand drawn, following as he approached the bared cabinet. He was close enough to touch it when she heard him laugh.
"Well," he said, "I don't know what to make of it, but I'm caught."
She leaned around him to see. Like the door to their married quarters, the vanishing cabinet was locked with a bolt, a nearly identical bolt also bearing the seal of Dumbledore himself.