Once the sun rose, Tim Granger drove from beneath the hawthorn tree where he'd sheltered for the night to a village he could see in the distance. He came along country lanes, through brown winter fields, following the high church spires. Ann had said the dark wizards had taken her to Wiltshire, so he hadn't fled west. Hogwarts was to the north, so he hadn't gone in that direction. Instead, he'd come east. He must be somewhere in Kent by now, and he reckoned he'd better stop or he'd run the chase off white cliffs and into the sea.

He checked his watch. It was 10:00, still a little over twenty-four hours until Hermione and the tall, pale boy cast the spell they promised would strike a blow at the darkest of the dark wizards. That's what they had all said - Hermione and the boy, their teachers, the ghost in the corridor, and Ann herself. If he couldn't believe in Ann, what else was there?

There was the need to eat, to visit a toilet, to procure a new toothbrush. So Tim drove slowly into the village, parked his car, and wandered as far away from it as he could. Eventually, he found himself inside the historic church that had led him there, making his five quid donation to the preservation society, and sitting in the empty choir. When anyone asked, he was a church music aficionado touring the countryside, hoping to hear their organist practice.

Yes, yes, go ahead and send for old Marjorie to play for him. No, no, she needn't hurry.

"He's scarpered," Bellatrix Lestrange said, hurling an heirloom vase from Ann Granger's curio cabinet out the kitchen window to smash it to bits on the empty parking pad in the garden.

"This is his twisted idea of virtue," Carrow clucked. "Trying to lure us away from the Muggle hordes so they won't be hurt, even though it makes him and his daughter more vulnerable. Shameful miscarriage of family loyalty."

"Yet we still don't have him," said Yaxley, trying to bar Bellatrix's way as she approached the window with a large china platter.

Carrow was pulling a metal contraption from his satchel, twisting the pieces of it together.

"Will you put that away," Yaxley snapped. "Secrecy sensors detect magical traces. What use is it when we're hunting a Muggle?"

Even as he said it, the scope lit up in Carrow's hands.

"Well, of course it's going to detect magic in the house where the mudblood daughter has been living all these years," Yaxley said. "Shut it down and let's be off. Disillusionment yourselves and we'll canvas the countryside by air."

Carrow grimaced. "Searching for a silver Muggle car by air? It's a needle in a haystack."

"Then go back to Malfoy Manor and tell the Dark Lord you give up," Yaxley said. "Off you go."

"Shut up, both of you," Bellatrix said. "What we need is a rat to track him down - a nose to follow the Muggle's stench from here to wherever he's hiding. And I know the very one."

Yaxley sneered. "You mean Pettigrew? Honestly, as if this party isn't mad enough already."

"The Dark Lord grows tired of him," Bellatrix went on. "Why, just the other night he was saying he'd like to replace Wormtail with a prettier, stupider servant, maybe even luscious Lucius himself."

"Spare us your demented family gossip," Yaxley said, though Carrow was leaning in to hear it. "Come along, Carrow. We'll be having a drink in Knockturn Alley, waiting for you to return with Wormtail, Bellatrix. Go quickly before the Dark Lord awakens for the day."

Snape sat behind his desk reading the incantation Hermione had written for the casting of her matrimonial charm, and looking over the sketches Draco had drawn of the inscription.

"The Friar says the Latin grammar is good," she said. "What I need from you, sir, is an opinion on the incantation's content."

"And what I need from you, Miss Granger," he said, "is to keep quiet until I've finished reading."

Draco's face twitched. "Did you not sleep well last night, sir?" It was more of a challenge than a question.

Snape lowered the parchment to look at Draco across his desk. "I did not."

"That's a shame, sir," he answered.

Snape raised the parchment. "Isn't it."

"Professor Snape, my mother - "

"Is completely recovered from her hexing, regrets she will not be at liberty to attend tomorrow, and recommends you give the present matters your full attention and not be distracted by ANYTHING else," he said.

Draco sat in grim silence as Snape examined their spells.

When he had finished, Snape sighed loudly, dropping the parchment on his desk. "I suppose we cannot hope for any better. Yes, Miss Granger, that means I believe it will do."

She nodded, gathering up her work, anxious to leave.

"Not, so fast," Snape said. "The inscription to be drawn on your arm is of sufficient complexity that I fear Draco may allow himself to be rushed in its execution, what with a crowd of wedding guests watching. Therefore, I recommend you complete most of the inscription before the ceremony. Here."

"Today?" Hermione stammered.

"It can be no later," Snape snarled. "Leave the word 'foi' unwritten until the ceremony - that and the scratch from the half-kneazle. Complete the rest at your leisure today. You won't be disturbed here in my study. I will leave you."

Snape and Hermione were standing, but Draco kept his seat. "Sir, what's happened? Something's changed. Something's wrong. No one will tell us what."

Snape leaned across his desk, as he usually did when he meant to be forceful, but today it seemed more like he was holding himself upright, battling his own weariness. "Young Master Malfoy, I have many matters to attend to besides yours, as does every other professor assisting with your matrimonial charm. Each of those matters is difficult and dangerous and not to be discussed with even the best of my students."

There was affection in the last line, so clear and unmasked that Hermione was taken aback by it, blinking and staring between Draco and the teacher she'd never understood him choosing as his favourite.

"Draco please," Snape continued, "take care of yourself and leave me to my own," he paused, unable to find the right word, "affairs."

"Let me help, sir," Draco said. "I want to help. We both do. So does Potter, and even Weasley. Let us - "

"You are helping," Snape said. "However, you must concentrate on the tasks you've been assigned. You still have much to prepare. Now, until tomorrow..."

Without any spinning or swooping, Snape retreated to his private quarters, through a passage at the back of the study. Draco watched him leave, his eyes still fixed on the door after Snape closed it and disappeared from view.

Hermione tugged at his sleeve.

He looked down at her, startled, shocked to find himself paying so little attention to her.

"Thinking of home?" she asked.

He shook his head. "No, this is home," he said, clamping his arms around her in a tight embrace, kissing her forehead. "You are home. And are you ready to receive your matching inscription?"

She nodded, swallowing hard.

He bent to look into her eyes. "Are you alright? Are you - crying?"

She nodded again, not able to speak.

"You're not scared are you? The inscription doesn't hurt, just tingles, like any good magic," he said.

She cleared her throat. "I'm scared for your mother. And I'm scared for the danger all of this might pose for Harry. And the longer I go without seeing him, the more scared I feel for my father too. But I'm not scared of this, Draco. Mark me. Mark me forever or my heart will break."

He crushed her into the front of his jumper, her tears falling now. He held her until her shaking stopped and she loosened her grip on him. She was pulling away from him to take her seat at the table, pushing the sleeve of her left arm up past her elbow.

He drew his wand, holding away from its handle, near its end, like a stylus. He traced over the lines of his best sketch one more time, and then turned to Hermione's bare arm, smoothing her skin with his palm, turning her wrist back and forth, watching the light from the low dungeon window move across her flesh.

"It's such a small area," he said.

"Yes, I think I had an easier time drawing yours," she said. "Sorry."

"That is not what I meant," he tutted, bending to begin with a gentle kiss, smoothing the skin with his lips and cheek, as he'd done with the palm of his hand.

"Alright," he said, straightening up. "Let's begin."

He worked with slow care, stopping to light the lamps when it began to grow dark, taking care to illuminate every line and wand-stroke. The mark was smaller than the one she'd given him - a smaller hand and heart, the centre left blank for him to inscribe the word "faith" in French on it tomorrow, as the Order and her mother watched.

When he finished, the mark was barely visible on her arm, carved in thin white lines that faded more and more as they watched them. "The spell's not finished," she said. "So it won't glow like yours does. Not yet."

He kissed her arm again and the lines disappeared completely. "I broke it," he joked.

She drew her arm out of his grasp, lowering her sleeve. "You did not. But I do have some questions to ask McGonagall about it at dinner tonight. Like, when does the charm sever You-know-who from us? When will Harry be able to see if we can hurt him? Will it be as soon as you finish the inscription and say the incantation at the ceremony? Or will it not be finished until - you know - at consummation?"

Draco cringed. "Oh, that's awkward. Imagine Potter and Dumbledore up in the chapel, waiting for fireworks to attack the Dark Lord while we're off…" He shuddered. "They'd know exactly how long it takes…"

"Or maybe," she said, "all of the ceremony just sets the charm in place, and then we have to activate it later, when everything is ready. That's how it's always worked with your charm. Nothing happened until it was finished and we called it forth."

Draco let out a sigh, relieved. "Let's hope so."

Ann Granger, Professor McGonagall, and the rest of the wedding party were all assembled in McGonagall's study, seated around a dinner table when Draco and Hermione arrived. There was a seat for Professor Snape, but he hadn't yet filled it.

Once conversation began flowing, Hermione was able to lean close to McGonagall to ask her when the matrimonial charm would be activated. While she was careful to explain that she was not an expert on such things, McGonagall agreed that the charm being activated sometime after all the casting ceremonies were finished was most likely how things would unfold.

When they were finished whispering, Ann turned Hermione's attention to her. "You'll stay with me in my quarters tonight," she said. "Think of it as a hen night."

Hermione tried to smile. "So this means dad won't be back."

Ann's face blanched. "He'll come tomorrow. That Remus won't let anything keep him away. Trust in that, darling."

Hermione might have pressed for more, but Professor McGonagall had clapped her hands and risen from her seat at the head of the table. "Ladies and gentleman," she addressed them, "the ceremonies will end tomorrow with - a dance."

Harry grabbed his own stomach and groaned.

"No need for any of that, Mr. Potter. We are here to help. Everybody up." The chairs and table scraped across the floor, scooting themselves out of the way to clear a space for dancing as a small music box on McGonagall's desk was transformed into a large phono-blast, the very one she had used to train all of Gryffindor house to dance in the days leading up to the Yule Ball.

"I believe there's no need to assign partners," she said. "And there is no need to look terrified, Mr. Weasley. Your partner is quite accomplished."

Pansy dropped an elegant curtsy in thanks.

Ron jumped back, gawking at her. "What was that?"

"Quiet, Ron, and follow me."

"But," he sputtered, "in dancing I'm meant to lead. Even I know that much - "

"There's no time for your macho nonsense," Pansy said, settling her right hand against his flank. "The count will be 1-2-3, 1-2-3…"

"Yes, that's right. Oh, chin up, Potter," McGonagall said. "Take Miss Weasley by the waist and it will all come back to you. It's like flying a broom."

"If only," Harry moaned. "So it's a normal waltz? No switching arms? No lift?"

McGonagall was raising her wand to start the music. "No lifting unless, of course, the music moves you to do so."

Ginny had spent hours practicing with Neville before the Yule Ball, but that was over two years ago now. It meant that, as the music started, she and Harry stepped hard into each other. He was apologizing as she pulled him back up into a proper dancing posture. "Stop, Harry. It was all my fault. Now off we go."

Ron was managing to follow Pansy around, but he couldn't stop looking over his shoulder as he walked backward before her.

"Quick peeking and just trust me," she laughed at him.

"But how can you see where we're going with me stood in front of you?" he protested.

"That is none of your concern. Just move…"

In the centre of it all, drifting seamlessly together were Draco and Hermione. They no longer practiced dancing regularly, but they did keep it up enough for them to look as natural and relaxed as partners with such disparate heights could.

"A dance - well, this is a pleasant development in all the tedious wedding plans," Draco said, pulling her close and turning across the floor.

She grinned up at him. "Isn't it?"

He glanced at Ann Granger as she watched them with a look of surprised amusement. She hadn't seen Hermione dance in public since those awful tap and ballet recitals from when she was in primary school. It had turned out rather nice. And what business did a boy Draco's age have moving so elegantly?

"Do you want to know what else?" Draco was saying.

Nothing was funny but Hermione was laughing, delighted to see Draco unreservedly happy for the first time in days. "What?"

"I do believe the music, as Professor McGonagall says, moves me to try a lift. What do you say?"

She nodded. "I'm not sure my mother's heart can bear it, but let's give it a try."

They waited for the music to swell and Hermione sprung upward as Draco caught her under her arms and lifted her over his head.

The whole room called out, all of the women cheering while Ron and Harry groaned and protested.

"This, Malfoy," Ron said, pointing at him without letting go of Pansy's hand as she drove him backwards. "This, more than any of your snark, is why none of the other blokes like you."

Ginny commandeered the leading position again and spun round the floor with Harry. "You want me to lift you, Potter? I think I could manage it."

"Oh, I know you could," he said.

But Professor McGonagall had engaged her wand and stopped the music already. "Well, all of that seems to be well enough in order," she said. "Oh, Professor Dumbledore. There you are."

"Yes," he said, waltzing himself into the room. "I do apologize for my lateness."

"No need, Albus. No need." She bustled off to make sure he found something to eat, leaving the students to themselves again.

Hermione caught Harry, nodding toward the headmaster. "What has Dumbledore told you, in terms of a plan to attack You-know-who?"

He shifted from foot to foot. "As usual, not much. The ceremony is in the morning and he told me we'd meet after sundown to activate the charm but that's all I know."

"It's more than we've been told," Hermione said.

"So ridiculous," Draco was beginning to fume. "They tell us next to nothing, as if it's better that way."

"I didn't think Dumbledore would be here tonight," Harry said. "Frankly, I'm worried about him. Don't let the dancing fool you. He's less lively than he once was."

"Well, Harry," Hermione said, "he is one hundred and fifty years old, or something like that."

"Yeah, but it never seemed to matter until this year. And look at his hand. He keeps it tucked up in his sleeve most of the time but you can see he's wounded, and it's spreading, getting worse." They watched Dumbledore from across the room, looking carefree as he spooned dessert into his mouth.

"I wonder," Draco began. "I wonder if he's late because he's been upstairs, in the Room of Hidden Things, personally guarding the cabinet."

Harry frowned. "Why would he need to do that? It's not like it works."

Draco swallowed.

Harry's eyes widened behind his glasses. "It works?"

"They're fairly sure it does. That's what Tonks says," Draco told him. "Someone's used it. They wouldn't tell me who or why, but someone used it to leave the castle this week. I think it might be Snape. He's been staying out all night for days, and he's not likely to alarm anyone if he's found lurking around Borgin and Burkes in London - "

Draco's voice trailed off as Hermione's hand closed, claw-like over his arm. Hearing it all said together, in one continuous story, something new had struck her. She was shaking her head, her face twisted in pain. "No," she said. "No - Draco. I think I know who left through the cabinet. It would have been someone with no other way to get to London from here. I can't bear to think of it, but it explains so much. It wasn't Snape. Oh my stars, Draco - Harry. It must have been my dad."

The manor seemed empty when Snape arrived. House elves darted about, frantic and terrified, but there didn't seem to be any humans. Perhaps the Dark Lord had slaughtered them all. In the entrance hall, at the foot of the grand staircase, Snaped ordered one of the elves to stop, questioning him about the whereabouts of the witches and wizards. They were alive, but gone for now. Except for the mistress. She was upstairs.

Snape looked down the corridor toward the drawing room, then up the stairs, toward Narcissa Malfoy's chambers.

He told the elf, "Let him know I've come. I'll be along in a moment."

As he raised his hand to knock, Narcissa opened the door to her room, pulling him inside by the front of his waistcoat. "Severus, thank the stars. They've left me alone with him. He's enraged and about to start calling people. Oh, what if he calls Draco? We've got to do something."

"We will," he said, leaning on the door, holding it closed. "But first, I must tell you." He paused, swallowing, looking down into her face. "He has taken it. The Dark Lord - he has taken my memory of your face, as I held you in my arms last time. He took it as a weapon against your family."

He watched something like terror break over her face. And just as quickly, he watched it pass, flaming into something else. She was rushing toward him, pushing his back against the door, closing her arms around his torso beneath his robes, rising onto her toes, speaking close enough to his face for him to feel her breath on his lips. "Then we've nothing more to lose," she said.

He shut his eyes, shaking his head even as his hands gripped her sides as she held herself close to him, his fingers filling the spaces between her ribs. "Cissa, no."

"Ask yourself, Severus, why this house lets you in, why the floorboards don't collapse beneath your feet as you stand here embracing the master's wife?"

"Cissa, please - "

"The house protects and preserves the family - its future, which is its heir. Its foremost loyalty is to our Draco. And you are Draco's protector, not his father. His father has betrayed and abandoned him to the venom of the monster downstairs. Even the old bones of this house know it."

"Stop," Snape said, turning his face to keep his mouth from touching hers when he spoke. "You must stop talking of Draco. Your son is not what brings me here."

Her eyes widened, her breath catching. "What is it that brings you here? Severus?"

His profile was turned to her, his eyes still closed. His hands could have pushed her away, but they didn't.

She leaned closer, pressing her lips against his cheek.

His breath hissed out of him, as he turned his cheek away, out of her reach. He spoke. "Do not come to me because of this house."

She leaned forward again, kissing the taut flesh of his opposite cheek.

With his eyes still clenched shut, he said, "Do not come to me because of your son."

He turned his cheek away again, his face now held directly in front of her. She rose higher on her toes, to kiss the end of his nose. He opened his eyes, and said, "Do not come to me out of gratitude for saving your life."

He saw her nod as she leaned in again to kiss his chin. "Do not," he said, "come to me out of your loneliness."

She spoke in a whisper. "For what shall I come to you, Severus?"

His voice was raspy, low. "Come to me only out of love."

She kissed his mouth. It was sweet, almost chaste, but not at all chaste. Her pink lips embraced his decidedly but gently, soft and dewy, only slightly broken open.

In the years after his break with Lily Evan, before her death and his life of self denial, Snape had been with women - hard, ambitious women looking to ingratiate themselves to a high ranking Death Eater. They hadn't loved him. No one who had ever touched him like this had loved him. Against Narcissa, his heart felt as big as his entire chest, and still he pressed his back into the door, taking only what Narcissa freely offered. He kept still, holding back the storm inside him, the floods and thunder that had wanted this for every moment he could remember.

A crash sounded from the rooms beneath them. Narcissa was backing away, still looking into his face - the glistening eyes so blue they were grey. Maybe he had expected her to look different after they stepped over this line. She didn't. She looked the same - like Lucius Malfoy, like Lucius's own soul, like Lucius's wife.

"The Dark Lord," Snape said. "He can't be kept waiting any longer."

She withdrew her arms from inside his robes, nodding. "Yes, of course."

On their way to the Grackle and Chisel, the best pub in Knockturn Alley, Yaxley and Carrow thought it good to stop in at Borgin and Burkes. If it turned out they couldn't find the Muggle today, even with the help of Peter Pettigrew's rat nose, at least they could bring the Dark Lord news on how his vanishing cabinet was coming along.

Old Borgin cringed at the sight of them coming through his front door. He raised his hands, stepping out from behind his counter as if surrendering himself.

"It was a ghost!" he said. "It must have been a ghost. No one can apparate in or out of here and it's locked up tight after hours. A ghost! Not the cabinet at all."

Yaxley sneered. "What's he on about?"

"Haven't the faintest," Carrow replied.

Borgin lowered his hands. "Yes, it's nothing, sirs, nothing." He was fighting his face to smile for them. "We was just a bit spooked lately, by some spectral activity, here in the shop. Bound to happen every now and then, what with all the curses down here - "

"Cabinet," Yaxley interrupted. "What's this about our Lord's cabinet? Has it been tampered with?"

"No, no," Borgin rushed to say. "That's what I was saying. I checked it - double-checked it with my own secrecy sensors. First thing I did. And there was no sign of anything. No magic at all. Must have been ghosts. Certainly ghosts."

Carrow and Yaxley turned to face one another. "No trace of magic," Carrow said.

"Ghosts," Borgins insisted.

"Or," Yaxley grinned, "Muggles."