Ann Granger stepped outside, into her front garden, to get the morning paper. The winter sun hadn't quite finished rising, but the day was warm enough that she came out dressed only in her house slippers, pajamas, and her fluffiest dressing gown. As she stood up from fetching the paper, she saw that she was no longer alone on her quiet street. Two large, ugly women in long, full dresses were advancing soundlessly up the walk.
Ann pulled her glasses down over her eyes and saw that the ugly faces were actually masks, hard and shining like armour. She jumped. But then she saw the short, ornate sticks held in each of her visitor's hands.
"Oh, you're Hermione's people," she called out. "Yes, I see you've got the - well, the wands and everything."
The lead visitor waved a wand toward the mask and it vanished, revealing the pale, blunt-featured face of a man about Ann's age.
"Oh, there you," Ann said. "How do you do? Is everything quite alright? Your lot doesn't usually turn up like this."
The man attempted a smile but it was altogether unpleasant. "It's Mrs. Granger, is it?"
"Dr. Granger, actually," Ann said, standing straighter as uneasiness finally came over her. She was about to turn her head to call inside the house for Tim. But the man in wizard robes was coming closer, a cold, menacing darkness radiating from him.
Ann decided. She reached behind herself, took hold of the doorknob, and shut Tim safely inside.
She lifted her chin. "If you have a message to deliver, please do. Otherwise, I will return to my morning affairs."
Don't come out, Tim. Don't come out.
Without another word, Corban Yaxley stupefied Ann Granger, catching her body in the crook of one arm as it fell, sneering, disgusted at how easy it was to stun a Muggle. The masked Death Eater behind him summoned two brooms. Yaxley mounted his, bending Ann over it like a sack of laundry.
"There's another one inside," the man behind the mask said.
Yaxley snarled. "Well, I don't have any more time for this. It's almost full daylight, I'm expected in the Minister's office in two hours, and we've still got to fly out to Wiltshire. This shouldn't have been made my problem - "
"You would question the Dark Lord's commands?"
"Oh, shut it, Carrow," he hissed. "And it's ridiculous that he won't let us apparate with them. Yes, they're unworthy of it but - "
Amycus Carrow stood as tall as he could, still looking up at Yaxley as he bellowed from behind his mask. "How dare you?"
"Enough, Carrow. There's no one here for you to kiss up to, and I am not impressed. If you're really that keen on being a faithful servant, go inside and round up this one's husband yourself."
With that, Yaxley kicked off the Granger family's lawn and into the air.
Carrow was quick to follow.
On the first morning of her engagement, Hermione awakened early, already smiling to herself. She rolled onto her back and held her left hand in front of her face, seeing her new ring in daylight for the first time. The shiny white metal gleamed like a mirror, not a scratch on it. Though the ring was in pristine condition, there was something about it that made it look old all the same.
The stone set into the metal, she was not surprised to observe, was an emerald, vivid green, the clearest one she had ever seen. She didn't mind the Slytherin house colours. It was a sign that she and Draco belonged to each other, though it did give her an impulse to knit him a long, red scarf. She laughed to herself as she rolled onto her side and pulled her hand into her chest.
Parvati sat up in her own bed, unbraiding her hair. "What're you giggling about?"
Hermione sighed. "Nothing."
Parvati was standing, jamming her feet into her slippers. "Having a private gloat over keeping your thing with Draco Malfoy to yourselves for so long? Because you weren't actually fooling anyone, Hermione."
"I know. Thanks for putting up with me," she said. "Where are you off to, so early?"
"Well, quidditch practice is on, and Dean Thomas is single now, isn't he? So off I go." Parvati grinned, flipping her hair as she zipped into the bathroom. "Give my love to Draco."
Hermione looked down at her ring. For all her love of getting and spreading news, Parvati didn't seem to have noticed it. Maybe no one else would. Or maybe everyone else would, and she should take it off before they did. They hadn't talked about how they'd handle the information, and maybe it should be kept a secret for - who knows how long.
No, she would leave it. For all she knew, a barrage of curses might rain down on anyone but a Malfoy who tried to remove the ring, and she was not a Malfoy yet. Ridiculous thought. She laughed at herself and pulled her blanket over her head.
Draco was limping only slightly when she saw him coming late to breakfast in the Great Hall. He had been too proud to let himself be levitated up the hill to the castle last night, but by the time they arrived inside he was in enough pain that Hermione led him to Snape's office for a potion to relieve the ache rather than back to the Slytherin dungeon.
She had snogged him soundly, noisily, dangerously up against the wall at the top of Snape's stairwell until his wounded legs started to give out, before letting him go, but she was still disappointed that their final parting for the night had been in front of Snape himself. It made for an anticlimactic end to their evening, but it did give Draco a chance to tell Snape what they'd decided.
Now, from the threshold of the Great Hall, Draco spotted Hermione already sitting at the Gryffindor table, between Harry and Ron. Without a trace of a sneer, he smiled and walked toward them.
"No," Harry groaned at the sight of him. "No, no, he's not - oh no."
Hermione hushed him.
"Oh, it's like that now, is it?" said Ron, in a tone much brighter than Harry's. He stood up from the table himself and strode toward the Slytherin side of the room. He was just filling the spot reserved for Draco, beside Pansy, as Draco sat down in Ron's vacated seat.
"Good morning, darling," Draco said into Hermione's ear, somewhere between a whisper and a kiss.
She laughed and raised a hand to his cheek.
Harry faked a loud retching sound.
"Where's your Weasley girl this morning, Potter?" Draco said.
Unfortunately, the remark sounded to Harry like a taunt over no longer being required at the quidditch practice that had occupied Ginny long enough to make her late for breakfast. He stood up, angry.
Hermione snagged his sleeve. "Harry, he doesn't mean it like that. I haven't told him you're not on the team anymore."
Draco cringed at himself. He swore. "Sorry, Potter."
Stunned at the apology and at how genuinely unhappy Draco looked with himself, Harry didn't know what to say next.
Hermione was tugging on his arm. "Do sit down, Harry. We've got a lot to discuss."
He sighed as if in pain but sat beside her, eyeing her quizzically as her left hand stayed gripped to his arm. He looked down at it. Harry swore. "What have you got on your hand, Hermione? No, don't tell me. Is that…?"
She rolled the ring on her finger as he gawked at it. "Yes. We've decided."
He sat back. "Well then, it's like the Friar said yesterday: I've got no joy in it, so leave me out of it." Harry was stepping over the bench to leave.
"Harry, no. It's not that simple."
"Sure it is. Congratulations and good luck."
Ann Granger opened her eyes to find herself looking at the most extraordinary ceiling overhead. It was finished in white plaster but sculpted like rolling surf, moving and surging, figures like ships and sea creatures pitching and leaping through and across it.
Still lying on her back, she raised a hand to her face to rub her eyes. As she did, someone nearby gasped, and Ann's view of the ceiling was cut off by a small, pale face, wild grey eyes looking into hers. Ann lifted a finger to poke the face in its cheek, testing whether it was another mask. The cheek was warm and soft, and as Ann focused on its wild grey eyes, they smiled.
"There you are!" the woman with the face said. "Oh, I'm so glad. I wasn't sure Renneverate would work on a Muggle."
Ann sat up from where she'd been lying on a rather sumptuous bed, holding herself across her waist. Her entire middle was sore, as if she'd been hanging by it.
"I don't know a thing about Muggles," the woman went on, twisting the ends of her white blond hair together, as if she wanted to braid them but no longer knew how. "There has certainly never been a Muggle inside this house before today. I must say it's tolerating you rather well."
The woman backed herself into a corner of the room, touching the walls as if to show them to Ann. "You can see the house, can't you? It doesn't look to you like we're hanging over an empty field or some such thing, does it?"
Ann took in a painful breath, her voice hoarse. "I can see we're in a house."
The woman looked inordinately relieved to hear it, rushing out of the corner and back to the bed. "Well, let's hope the house doesn't lash out at you. That's the last thing we need, what with HIM lurking around downstairs."
Ann shook her head, clearing her throat. "Pardon me, Madam. Where is this place and who are you?"
The woman turned in a circle, light on her feet, like a dancer in her dirty brocade dress. "I'm Cissa," she said. "And this is my manor-house. It's been in my husband's family for centuries. But you will not find him at home today." Her arms fell to her sides, her chin quivering, as if she were suddenly on the verge of tears.
Ann's mind was working, evaluating her situation, biting back her body's urge to panic. She was hurt, but not badly. She had clearly been taken away by some of Hermione's magical people from their front garden, but Tim seemed to have been spared. The men who took her did not seem friendly, but this woman certainly was. She claimed to be the mistress of the house Ann had been taken to, but she seemed more like a captive herself - more of a Bertha Rochester than a Jane Eyre. Ann needed to know more.
"Cissa, is it? Yes, Cissa, dear," Ann began, "do you know why I've been brought here?"
The woman's face stayed pale as ever, but a darkness overshadowed it all the same. "HE must have wanted you."
Ann frowned. "He? The man lurking downstairs?"
"Yes."
"And he is not your husband?"
Cissa shuddered. "No, never."
Ann stepped closer to her. "Are you in danger here? Is he cruel to you?" Ann left unspoken the question of whether he meant to be cruel to her. It seemed implied.
Cissa covered her face with her hands, her shoulders shaking. "Cruel! Yesterday - with my boy - oh - CRUCIATUS."
She was weeping now - wailing. Ann closed an arm around her. "There, there," Ann called over her crying. "Whoever he is, whatever he wants, we're together now. We'll help each other get through - "
The door to the bedchamber slammed open, scuffing the wooden rail fixed to the wall to receive exactly that kind of impact, as if people had been bursting dramatically through doors here for a very long time. Another mad-looking woman had come into the room, dark-haired and screaming at the first one. "Cissie, will you shut up? I can hear you squawking from the entrance hall."
Cissa snarled at her. "Get out, Bella! You stood there and you did nothing - your own nephew - just a boy - and under an Unforgivable - "
"Oh, he's undamaged. And stop babying him, Cissie. He's nearly of age, and it was just to his legs," the woman snarled in return, remorseless about - whatever had happened to the nephew.
Ann stepped between them, speaking in a calm but warm voice. "Really, I think you had better leave, Madam," she dared say to Bellatrix Lestrange. "At least until Cissa has calmed down."
Bellatrix was drawing herself up to a dueling posture, reaching for her wand to teach the insolent Muggle how to grovel to her betters.
But then Ann said, "I'll see to her. You needn't trouble yourself. I'm here with her now."
There it was: the key to Bellatrix's freedom from serving as Narcissa's nursemaid. She tossed her head. "Yes, that's right, Muggle. Consider yourself her the lady-in-waiting to a once great witch of an ancient and noble family, and blessed to be so."
"I do, I do," Ann said, nodding and walking toward the most dangerous witch in Britain as if she was nothing more frightening than an overwrought dental patient, herding her out of the room as she went. "You can leave us to it. I'm sure you've got important business with HIM."
"That I have," Bellatrix snapped, and she slammed out of the room as violently as she'd come in.
"Your own nephew!" Cissa screamed after her.
Ann shook her head. "You heard her, Cissa. He's alright. It was terrible, I'm sure, but he must be strong and he's alright now."
Cissa wiped her nose on her sleeve. "You're very kind. They shouldn't have tossed you in here like they did. All they told me is that you're Muggle scum. I don't even know your name."
"I'm Ann," she said. "You're right that I'm not a magic person. But my daughter is. That must have something to do with why I'm here, but I cannot imagine what."
She was thinking out loud more than talking to Cissa. Clearly, she had been brought to a dangerous place by dangerous people. The magic here felt different than Hermione's. It was malevolent and explosive.
Ann knew these people considered normal folk beneath them. Hermione tried not to take on such notions herself, but her parents felt it anyway, particularly in her refusal to discuss the politics and problems of her magical society, as if it was too sophisticated or frightening for them. What Ann wouldn't give to know something about all of that now that she seemed to have been hauled into the thick of it. Hermione must be involved in something Ann's kidnappers were desperate to frustrate. Wasn't that Harry Potter friend of hers special is some way - some notorious way?
"You have a child of your own?" Cissa was asking.
Ann blinked. "Yes. A girl. Seventeen."
Cissa squeezed her hand in both of hers, patting it, and rocking back and forth, like they had suddenly come to understand each other.
There was at least one thing Ann did understand. If she was going to figure out what was happening in this house, if she was going to survive here, she would need some magic on her side. She would need the help and allegiance of the poor, magical wretch clinging to her hand. Before that could happen, there would be much to do.
"Cissa, my dear," she began, "let's draw you a bath."
Harry had reached the foot of the marble staircase when Hermione and Malfoy caught up to him. Hermione was still imploring him to listen to more talk about marrying Malfoy when Ron joined them, dragging Pansy along.
"Oh, what's this?" Harry interrupted Hermione, waving at Ron and Pansy. "Shall I go grab Ginny? Make it a proper sextet?"
Ron took an angry step closer to him. "Not if you know what's good for you."
"Ronald, it just means a group of six," Hermione said.
Pansy rolled her eyes. "He knows what it means."
Malfoy was fed up. "Look, Potter, I won't bother you with details about our feelings for one another, but you should know that he found out yesterday that the thing on my arm lets him hurt Hermione. Now that he knows, we don't have any more time for experiments or research. To keep her safe, we need to concentrate on perfecting the best solution we have. We need to do it."
"You're going to do it?" Ron stammered.
"Ultimately, yes," Hermione said. "Your Fat Friar told us to get married."
"Muffliato," Harry said, glaring at a pair of passing second years who had the audacity to use the stairs.
Ron was shaking his head, as if he'd been punched. "That sly old git. We never would have sent you to the Friar if we'd known - "
"Of course we would have," Pansy said. "Quit being so territorial and dense, Weasley. Respect her choice."
Ron turned to her. "But it's Malfoy."
Pansy hushed him, shaking her head. "Remember all of this for the first time my parents call you a blood-traitor to your face."
Hermione had resumed. "The matrimonial ritual will affect you, Harry, like when it hurt your head to see our charm activated in the hospital. The Friar was wrong about leaving you out of it. That's not possible."
Harry groaned, scrubbing his face with his hands. She was always right.
"But the good news is, it will hurt You-know-who worse, and while he's vulnerable and the connection between all of us is active, we may be able to attack him, weaken him, buy you and Dumbledore more time for what you have to do."
Harry sat down on the bottom step, his head in his hands. He'd cooperate - of course he would. Being the Chosen One forced so many of his choices. He would do it. But he would hate it.
A voice was calling from across the Entrance Hall, coming in fuzzy through the Muffliato spell before Harry ended it.
It was Professor McGonagall, walking quickly, waving toward them. "Miss Granger," she said. "In my office, at once."