Tim Granger spent rush hours underground, on the crowded platforms where the trains came and went through the low, stuffy, narrow tubes beneath the city. Underground, there was no way to be spotted by anyone searching for him from the air. That eliminated one of the dark wizards' known advantages. They had come by air when they came for Ann.

He was particularly drawn to platforms with transit employees in fluorescent vests and megaphones. If they announced, "Plenty of room in the rear cars..." then he moved to the crowded front cars. If they said, "Another train will be arriving within three minutes. There is no need to injure yourselves…" he was sure to cram himself through the doors anyway.

While he was on the run, Tim Granger couldn't go near his surgery, but he was still a dentist, accustomed to keeping close company with the moist, foul-smelling parts of people of all kinds. The press of humans in the tubes hardly fazed him at all. He relied on the dark wizards being as repulsed by non-magical people as everyone said they were, and flung himself as deeply as he could into the midst of his fellow Londoners.

The nights would be the more dangerous, when the crowds thinned, making the tubes more like dead ends with long lines of sight, places to be trapped in rather than refuges. Once the skies darkened enough to hide the wizards' movements overhead, they could appear out of anywhere without warning. And the night also brought with it Tim's own fatigue. He had slept less than two hours the previous night, and he'd passed them inside the Leaky Cauldron's dustbin.

He thought about disguising himself, but did the dark wizards even know what he looked like? Who, exactly, would they be searching for? How could they know which of the thousands of average-sized Englishman with short, tufty brown hair was their man?

He didn't know the answers to these questions but he did know the answers to every question on the quiz playing out in the busy pub where he had eaten supper. The rest of the patrons were now mid-way through their quiz night. Tim had said nothing, though it was exquisitely painful for him to do so. It felt like those times back in school when his teachers would tell him he needed to give the other children a chance and refused to call on him anymore. Why hadn't he and Ann gone to quiz nights before? When all of this was over -

Yes, when all of this was over - this situation where the best case scenario was for everything to go back to normal except that their darling, promising warrior princess scholar would be married to a sixteen year old boy.

Tim sighed so loud and long into the untouched half pint of lager he'd ordered an hour before that the barman asked if he was alright. He hadn't been drinking, wanting to stay alert. But constant vigilance was exhausting, and he reckoned he might actually last longer if he relaxed a bit.

He drained his glass with a "Cheers, mate," and set off to get lost in the evening crowds of the theatre district.

By the time the last of the Friday night rush hour was over, Bellatrix Lestrange, along with Corban Yaxley and Amycus Carrow, had met in London, in the car park behind the Granger Dental Surgery.

Yaxley had just come off a long week at the ministry and was quite cross. "Even a bloody Muggle won't have been stupid enough to run off and hide in a building with his name writ large in the front window," he sneered.

"He might be," Bellatrix spat back at him. "He was stupid enough to leave Hogwarts in the first place, wasn't he?"

"I'm not sure he was," Yaxley muttered. "I think we may be on a fool's errand."

Carrow was speaking up, shrill as ever. "You would call our Dark Lord a fool!"

"Oh, don't start with that again, Carrow," Yaxley said. "Who was it who gave us this lead? It was that slimy Snape, wasn't it? Dumbledore's pet toad? We do nothing to honor our Lord's cause by trotting off like cattle incapable of critical reasoning. We ought to be guarding him from a toad like Snape."

"You would criticize - "

"Shut up!" Bella snapped at the pair of them. "We have been sent, and we will obey. How long can it take? Of course the Muggle beast isn't here. But his most precious goodies are all inside, right where he left them. Might be some clues for how to roust him out. Or there might not be. Either way there's this lovely plate glass."

She whipped her wand and the entire front window exploded into the street. She knew to shield herself from the blast but Carrow barely got his shield spell up in time and Yaxley was so late in raising his that he was left bleeding from his scalp in two places.

"Stars take you, Bellatrix Lestrange," he hollered at her.

She was already through the smashed window and inside the surgery, dumping out trays of sterilized instruments, grinding glass vials beneath her heel, throwing over the dental chairs with a flick of her wand, snapping off knobs, venting pressurized gases into the office air.

Yaxley followed her as soon as his head wounds were sorted, finding her laughing uncontrollably in the tiny room where the bottles of gas were stored. She was sitting on the floor, slumped against a door, hysterical.

"What have you done?" Yaxley demanded, lifting his cloak to cover his face, warding off the hiss of nitrous oxide. "You've let out some kind of Muggle medicine and drugged yourself."

Bellatrix screamed with laughter, slapping at Yaxley's legs. He grabbed her by the ankles and dragged her into the waiting room, where fresh air was blowing through the gaping hole where the glass had been.

"Lookit," she said as he dragged her along, raking her fingers through the dental instruments she'd strewn on the floor. "Look at all the tiny metal wands this Muggle keeps. Useless, every one. It would be sad if it weren't so funny."

Yaxley sat her up against the wall, Carrow gawking at them from behind the reception desk. "Listen, you," Yaxley said. "You know the directive. We are not yet at the point where we can openly flout the Statute on Secrecy. It will come soon, but not yet. And so - Bellatrix, listen - "

She was able to focus her eyes on him now, but not quite able to listen. "Look at you, Corban Yaxley, with your long yellow hair. Aren't you ashamed to be done up like a cheap knockoff of Lucius bloody Malfoy?"

"Madam Lestrange," he said, nearly shouting. "In the name of the Dark Lord, I implore you to listen."

Her sneer collapsed into a pout.

Yaxley went on. "We cannot go rampaging through Muggle London like a pack of wild animals. We are, after all, the more civilized beings. Restraint, Madam Lestrange. Until we have made off with the Muggle, we must show restraint. The Dark Lord only promised you free rein with the Muggle after he is conveyed back to the manor intact."

The gas wore off quickly, and Bellatrix was moving to stand, shaking the dust and debris out of her skirts. In the distance, a siren had begun to wail. Someone had reported the break-in at the surgery to the Muggle Aurors.

"We must go," Carrow said. "Where shall we go?"

"Back to their shabby little house," Yaxley said, "to break in gently, and look for something to lead us along."

Hermione had not wanted wedding attendants, and she told her mother and Professor McGonagall precisely that. "It's not that kind of wedding, Mum. It's an ancient rite from the tenth century. It would only call for bridesmaids if there was a maypole involved."

Ann and McGonagall had accepted her outright refusal to make a seating plan, but they would not relent on the question of bridesmaids and groomsmen, reasoning that, since Harry had to be involved anyway, they may as well make it less strange for everyone if they organizing him into a proper wedding party along with the few other young people who had any idea the ceremony was happening. In addition to Harry, this meant Ron, Ginny, and Pansy.

"It's still odd, though," Hermione complained to Draco on their way to meet their attendants in the restricted section of the library. "I feel like - like all these ridiculous wedding details are a smokescreen hiding something we're missing, but I can't think of what. The only thing that's missing is Dad, and that's sad but not - suspicious. Is it?"

Draco raised his eyebrows as he held open the library door for her. "I don't know. Your parents have never deliberately deceived you, have they?"

Hermione smirked. "Do wizards not have Father Christmas?"

Ron, Pansy, and Ginny were seated at the table in the restricted section, the Mitrian texts pulled off the shelves and spread open on the table. Pansy was already frowning at the clothing the people in the illustrations were wearing while Ron and Ginny were droning on about quidditch. Hermione sat down to interrupt all of it with an equally inane conversation about flowers and dresses.

"Clearly, the flower of choice has to be narcissus," Pansy said. "It's a tribute to Madam Malfoy, which will be extremely touching since she won't be there in person."

Ginny whistled. "Wow, they really do train up Slytherin girls to be the perfect wives. Listen to Parkinson, she's got her mother-in-law manners sorted already."

Pansy faked a smile. "Yes, well, we can't all be lucky enough to be dating an orphan."

The Weasley siblings howled and even Draco himself winced.

"No, Pansy love, no," Ron said, squashing her cheeks and kissing her.

"Sorry, old habits," she said, taking his arm and resting her head penitently on his shoulder. "At least I didn't say it in front of Harry."

"Where is Harry?" Hermione asked.

"Another urgent Chosen One meeting with Dumbledore," Ginny said, somehow nonplussed.

Ron was shaking his head. "I can't believe it's Harry and me who'll be standing up with Draco Malfoy at his wedding - no offense, Malfoy."

"It's fine," Malfoy said.

"It isn't ideal," Hermione said, "but it's too soon to risk trusting Draco's friends with news of the matrimonial charm. All of their dads are Death Eaters."

Draco shifted in his seat. "As is your father-in-law, darling."

Pansy saw he was no longer fine. She coughed and said, "So that's flowers. We'll have narcissus. Now choose a colour."

Hermione blinked. "A colour for what?"

"For everything," Ginny said.

Hermione blinked again. "Well, since narcissus flowers are white, let's stick with that."

There was a roar as everyone began protesting at once that she couldn't choose white.

"Think, Hermione. If Parkinson and I are standing up with you wearing white dresses, it's going to look like a triple wedding," Ginny explained.

"What's wrong with that, Gin?" Ron smirked. "Harry's been keen on joining the family since his first Christmas at Hogwarts. That's a long enough engagement. And, I don't know Pansy, I can think of worse things than finishing up school in a room of our own up on the seventh floor."

Ginny swatted at him but he didn't even notice, inadvertently moving out of her way as he grabbed at Pansy who was muttering, "What are you like, Ronald."

"How are the married quarters coming along anyway?" Ginny asked as she gave up landing a hit on Ron. "Nice and cozy?"

"Oh, they're keeping it under wraps until the wedding day," Hermione said, blushing slightly, not willing to admit they were no longer trusted to go there.

Draco was laughing at her, nuzzling his face into her hair. "Something like that."

But the longer he thought about the seventh floor, the more uneasy he became. They needed to end this ludicrous meeting and find Snape to ask about the bolt on the vanishing cabinet. He hadn't been in his office when they went rushing down after discovering the cabinet had been tampered with, but he might be back by now. Or maybe he had gone because some new, awful thing had happened to Draco's mother at the manor.

He shifted in his chair again. "Let's just pick a different colour and be done with it, yeah?" he prodded.

"Easy," Ron said. "The other colour in a narcissus flower is yellow, isn't it?"

"Yes, but I won't have yellow," Hermione frowned. "It doesn't suit Draco. And he's the real beauty in the family."

Ron shuddered openly, but Pansy and Ginny made no arguments.

"Alright, then I'll pick," Draco said.

The Weasleys looked at each other across the table and said in unison, "Green."

"No, not green. It's a shade of blue: periwinkle, like the brightest blue of the sky at sunrise. I always wanted it as part of our wedding."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Oh alright, Draco. I'll pester McGonagall about alter the dress for the wedding."

Pansy jumped in her seat. "What dress? I thought we had to wear these medieval smocks."

Hermione sighed. "McGonagall said that would be best but the most important thing in casting the charm is our states of mind when it's done. So the happier everyone is, the better. And if you all think you're pretty, you'll be happier. Our collective happiness - it's vital to this magic, and I think that might be a reason why my dad may stay away."

Ginny patted her on the back. "He'll come around, Hermione."

Ron was thinking. "If you can convince McGonagall that the girls don't need to dress like ancient nuns, we'll look all the more like prats if we're done up like monks. Can't we just wear our dress robes?"

"No," everyone said, remembering Ron at the Yule Ball.

"Well, maybe," Draco added. "If you can stomach borrowing some from me."

Ron shuddered again but Pansy elbowed him, saying, "Come on, Ron. It's better than a hairshirt."

Draco was standing up. "Bring Potter and meet me in the quidditch changing rooms tomorrow and we'll sort it out," he said to Ron. Then he turned and took Hermione's hand. "I still need to meet Professor Snape, darling. Sorry I can't stay."

"Oh - " she said, flustered as he kissed her hand and stepped over the rope to leave them.

"You'll be alright without him for a bit," Ron said. "You completely ignored each other for the first two years you were together. An hour or two apart ought to be easy now."

Ginny was laughing. "That's rich, Ron, you giving advice against being too clingy - "

Draco lost track of their voices as he left the library. He had emerged in the corridor, and was turning hard toward the Entrance Hall and the staircase to Snape's dungeon study when a hand grabbed his robes.

"Oi, Draco. Have a word with old cousin Tonks."

Draco spun around, startled, faced with his Aunt Andromeda's grown Auror of a daughter. He tried to remember if he'd ever actually spoken to his first and only cousin, this Nymphadora Tonks, before in his life.

"Hello," was all he said.

"We need to talk about the - the object, in the Room of Hidden Things. You know which one I mean."

His face blanched. "I suppose I do."

She leaned into him, looking nothing like his graceful, elegant mother but striking a somehow familiar chord in him all the same. She was not altogether unlike Aunt Bella, only without the pretentious wickedness. She said, "Just so you know, the headmaster has locked it up tight. And I've got Aurors watching it day and night. So you'd best not tamper with it any more. It's out of your hands."

"Your Aurors aren't very good then," he said. "I had a look at it earlier today and saw the lock for myself."

She nodded. "Yes, I was watching you. We let you see it. And then it was decided we'd better explain."

"What have you explained?" he said. As he said it, he wondered at his tone. All of his initial stiffness toward his cousin was gone. His emotions unfurled themselves for her, even though they were unpleasant. He spoke to her with feeling but without fear. Was this what it was like to speak to a sibling? He went on. "You needn't lock it down. I couldn't mend it. It doesn't work. And if it did work, your locks could never hold them back."

She took a step closer, close enough for him to see the bright pink roots of her hair. "It does work, Draco. We know for a fact that it does, but we're not sure if they know. They - you know who."

He staggered away from her. "How?" he said. "How could you know unless someone's used it? Used it and then lived to tell?"

She waited as the import of what he'd just said struck him. "Draco," she went on. "No matter what, they must never know."

He was nodding, sweat slicked across his forehead. "If they find out it can work and I haven't told them, they'll kill Mother."

He took one more panicked step away from her, toward the way out of the school.

"Stop, Draco." He felt her tugging on his robes but there must have been a spell involved in it, some kind of Auror trick that made it impossible for him to jerk away. "Snape is there, at the manor with Aunt Narcissa. She's as safe as she can be. You trust him. You know that. And remember, the sentries at the school gate - they've been ordered not to let you out."

He nodded. "You can let me go. I promise I'll wait for Snape here in the castle."

Almost an hour passed before Hermione found him sitting on the floor at the top of Snape's staircase. She stepped up to him, her hand extended, as if to offer to help him to standing.

She looked down the stairwell, to the locked door. "He may not come back until morning," she said.

Draco looked up, hooked his index finger through hers, but made no attempt to stand. "You've spoken with my cousin?"

"Yes."

"Even if he's not coming, will you sit here with me anyway?"

"Of course I will," she said, bending to sit next to him.

But he caught hold of her and pulled her into his lap, his face in the crook of her neck. "You're the only thing that's good," he said against her skin.

She smoothed his hair. "Do you remember the first time this year you were called to answer your Dark Mark, and you came back here after being terrorized and threatened? You knew what you needed to heal yourself that day. Do you remember?"

He sighed. "I needed you to tell me you loved me."

"And I do, Draco," she said. "I love you. It may not always work the way it did that first day, but it will always be true."

She tucked her face into his shoulder, turning to kiss him slowly and sweetly on the neck. She felt him shiver in response, his hold on her tightening, shifting her upward, bringing her to where he could kiss her. And they would sit there, in a quiet but public space, snogging like the teenagers they were. Two more nights remained before they let it all go, taking on adult married life willingly but so early.

Tim Granger moved from queue to queue, from one theatre to another in Piccadilly Circus, as if he was waiting to buy tickets to a show. In truth, he was only hiding in the crowds. It worked for now, but whether there were still people out and about or not, in a few hours he would have to find somewhere to spend the night. He needed rest to go through the same invisible-man routine tomorrow with the Saturday crowds. He had done his dental training through the British Armed Forces, and had once been a fit, strong young man who could march all day. But that was twenty years ago now.

He swayed on his feet in the queue, all but asleep where he stood. He jolted awake when he heard someone say, "Will you look at that. The Sweeney Todd show must be coming back."

Tim raised his head, looking out over the pavement to three people, a woman and two men dressed in Gothic looking, quasi-Victorian clothing. They were poring over a theatre magazine as if it was a street map, even though it was an outdated edition, like one from the top of the pile by the garden door at home, the pile he and Ann kept forgetting to bring to the recycler.

Real theatre people would take no notice of such a thing.

He sank deeper into the queue, but not so far that he couldn't watch the trio strolling across the pavement, glaring at the crowds. As he watched, the man with the long, pale ponytail reached out and stopped someone passing close by them. The smaller man held up a square of paper while the three of them compared the man's face to the image on the paper. From the back, Tim noticed, the average-sized Englishman with short, tufty brown hair, looked an awful lot like him.

Ruddy wizards.