AN: Love hearing your predictions! Keep them coming! If you need a one-line recap, Hermione's father is acting as a decoy, distracting the Death Eaters from her wedding to Draco which is happening TODAY (pretty much)
Tim Granger drove, lurching on one flat tyre, lumbering down a deserted country lane. The car rattled and shook, unable to gather much speed, difficult to steer, but Tim drove on, hoping that every second the dark wizards wasted chasing him was another moment Hermione had to do her work, to protect her mother, to fight off the most evil wizard of them all.
Shapes and colours darted alongside him as he urged the car onward, the wizards keeping up somehow, as if they were flying. Their faces streaked through his vision, firing lights and hurling objects against the glass and metal. The chase went on and on until one of them mustered a blast forceful enough to shatter the back window in a hail of green glass pebbles before lighting the rear upholstery on fire.
Tim slashed the wand he'd stolen from the one they called Wormtail toward the gap in the back window, but the fit of focused rage and fear and love that had made him able to fling sparks out of the wand earlier that night had passed. He was exhausted, beaten, and needed to escape his ruined, flaming car.
He stomped on the brake, the wheels locking, sending him spinning in a full circle, the wizards swooping out of the way until the car came to a halt. It had barely stopped moving when he shouldered through the driver's door, pitching Wormtail's wand as far as he could into the dark fields - gone.
As the wand passed out of view, the witch snagged him by the throat, crushing his trachea in the crook of her elbow, the tip of her wand mashed against his head as if to impale him through his temple.
"Got you," she hissed wetly into his ear.
She straightened up, holding her wand aloft, beginning to turn on the spot in the maneuvre Tim recognized as the one Minerva McGonagall had used days before for side-along apparition. He braced himself for the sickening squeezing and spinning, but the large wizard was shouting at the witch, catching her by her cloak.
"Our Lord forbids Muggles to be apparated. You know that. We deliver him by broom," he said, taking Tim by the arm and tugging him toward himself.
"Muggle!" the witch screeched, yanking Tim back in her direction. "Muggle, is he? You saw what he did back there. He's a filthy mudblood, to be sure, but a Muggle? "
"That was nothing but a fluke, like one of their magician's tricks, simple fireworks meant to shock and disorient, not magic."
The witch pressed her mouth to Tim's ear again, screaming into it. "Are you a magician, lovey? Are you? Rabbits in your hat? Cards up your sleeve? That you? Then how'd you get to London? In the cabinet? How did you work it?"
Tim couldn't answer while her arm clamped his jaws together.
"Speak up!"
"I don't know," he said through his teeth. "It just did. You're the ruddy wizards, why don't you tell me?"
"How dare you!"
Wormtail was catching up to the wrecked car, stumbling against Bellatrix, tipping her off balance and interrupting her next attack on Tim.
She shoved Wormtail off and sent him slumping over the bonnet of the car as he laboured for breath. "My wand," he gasped. "My wand is lost? No, it can't be lost."
The large wizard scoffed. "Your wand? It's no loss at all, you incompetent disgrace to the race of wizard - "
Ratty eyes bulged in the firelight. "Listen here Yaxley, you great stodgy git, I've been a self-taught animagus since I was a lad at school. I'd like to see either of you try to - "
"Shut up. Wormtail!" Yaxley spat. "We return to the manor by broom, as ordered by our Lord."
The witch was furious, jumping and kicking in protest even as she held onto Tim's throat.
"Discipline!" Yaxley hollered at her. "Show the Dark Lord your discipline, Bellatrix. Only witches and wizards are worthy to travel by apparation. But so we don't have to wrestle this violent beast balanced on a broomstick all the way back to Wiltshire - Stupefy!"
Tim was hit, falling at the witch's feet on the frozen ground, abrading his forehead on the gravel, bleeding into his open eye, unable to move.
"You idiot!" she raged. "How do we question him about the cabinet if he's out cold?"
Yaxley was ignoring her, conjuring a broom, hefting Tim's body and draping him by his waist over the handle. The witch and Wormtail were mounting brooms themselves, all of them kicking off into the sky, the growing light of dawn rising behind them in the east as they flew toward the Dark Lord in the west.
Ann Granger had set the alarm clock in her room for 4am, but Hermione was awake before then, standing in the corridor outside, facing the now empty seventh floor wall where the door to the Room of Hidden Things had been visible to her for most of the year. She pressed her palm to the stones, holding it there until a thin, white hand covered hers and pulled it back toward her body.
"Draco," she said, leaning against his front. He laced his fingers together across her stomach, and bent over her shoulder to press his cheek against hers. "It feels selfish, doesn't it?" she said. "Staying here, getting married, while our parents are out there, fighting for all of our lives."
He hummed. "Kids are entitled to their parents' protection. That's the ideal, until we get to a generation like ours, on the verge of war. Doesn't mean our parents won't try."
"I abhor their trying," she said. "My parents' idea of trying and your parents' too. They're awful at it and they need to stop. If I could just slip away and find Dad - "
"Lupin will find him," Draco said. "Everyone has a role in this, and bringing back your dad can't be yours. We have to trust the others."
"What about your mother? Did you feel much comfort from what Snape said about not coming back here without her?"
Draco blew his breath into her hair. "I felt something when he said it, alright. I wouldn't call it comfort. But I have no choice but to trust him to help her, don't I?" He straightened his arms, turning her to face him. "We have to believe that the matrimonial charm is our best hope - the best thing we can offer everyone else, better than crashing into rescues other people are willing and able to do in our place. This - this charm is something that can be finished by no one but us."
She was nodding but not looking at him.
"Hermione," he said, waiting for her eyes to meet his. "Whatever happens today, whatever we do, you and I need to stay together and finish this."
Down the corridor, the door to Ann's room was opening. "Hermione, darling, get away from Draco before the wedding. You're not supposed to see him, or doesn't he know?"
Hermione shrugged at Draco's bewildered expression. "Sorry. Old Muggle superstition. I have to go."
She was pulling away, even as he protested, his hands reaching after her.
"Go to the chapel, Draco," she said. "By now, Harry and Ron will be waiting." Her mother swept her back inside as he stood alone and watched her leave, lost.
Draco had gone by the time Ginny and Pansy joined the Granger women to dress together in Ann's quarters. The pale, dawn-coloured blue he'd chosen for their dresses suited both of them well, despite their very different complexions, and each of them was as satisfied with their looks as bridesmaids can ever be.
The dress Hermione had kept stashed in her dormitory since the Yule Ball, the one Draco had borrowed from his mother for her to wear when they danced together, was finally making its grand appearance before a crowd as their wedding dress. In order to accommodate the inscription on Hermione's arm, the sleeves had been altered, their seams slit open from wrist to elbow so her forearms could be bared.
"You had this exquisite gown hidden in your room for two years and never wore it anywhere?" Pansy marveled, circling Hermione, smoothing the skirts with a kind of reverence. "It's a Friedrich Martineau original, you know that, don't you? Madam Malfoy has been a patron of his since he began designing. She has an impeccable eye for gowns."
Ann shook her head, smiling. "Dear Cissa," she said. "She does love to lounge around in something comfy."
Hermione smiled, remembering what her roommates had done when they spotted the gown in her post. "Yes, Lavender and Parvati dug up a Witch Weekly article about it. When I found out the dress was famous, that's when I knew I couldn't wear it to a school dance."
Pansy clucked her tongue. "Still, Draco must have been devastated."
Hermione turned to look at - yes, at her friend Pansy Parkinson. "You know him well," she said. "But I did wear it for him in private, at our final dance lesson."
Ginny snorted. "Did you get much dancing done?"
Hermione laughed again. "No, actually."
Ann was the only one of them who had any idea what to do with Hermione's hair, and as she tucked and coiled and rolled it, Hermione lifted her left arm, straining to see any sign of the inscription partially set in her skin. It would stay hidden until Draco's breath called it forth.
The bridal party dressed upstairs while, in the back of the Hogwarts chapel, behind a screen, Draco, Ron, and Harry were putting on black wizards' dress robes that Ann would find much too much like vampire costumes. Draco was using his wand to press sharp creases into Ron's lapels when Fred and George Weasley came rollicking in to join them.
"Oi, Draco," George said, "look here. Watch carefully now." He swooped and flicked his wand, repeating a low, breathy spell that ended in a small flash of pink sparks as Fred looked on proudly.
"What was that?" Ron demanded, alarmed.
"Ah yes, little Ronnie. Time you learned. We've heard what you've been up to, skulking around in the dungeons. You'd better pay close attention too. Let's see it again, George," Fred said. The twins repeated the spell again, in unison this time.
Bill Weasley threw the screen's curtains open. "What did I just hear? What in bloody hell is going on back here?"
Arthur Weasley's head poked through the screen as well. "Bit early to be casting contraception charms, don't you think boys?"
"Never too early," Fred said, throwing his arm around Bill.
"But often too late, isn't that right Dad?" George said, elbowing his father in the ribs.
"I cannot imagine how either of you would know," Bill said, flinging the screen closed and heading back to his fiancee seated in the chapel pews.
As always, Arthur ignored the twins' teasing, well past immune to it by now. "Did you catch that, Draco?" he said. "Rather important to know, actually, a good contraception spell."
Draco's face was pink as he nodded. "Yes, sir."
"Right," Arthur said, retreating.
"You got a good look at it too, didn't you Ronnie?" Fred drawled.
"You and your Slytherin minx - " George was saying.
Ron swore, throwing both of the tattered trainers he'd worn to the chapel that morning at them.
Harry took each of the twins by the arm. "Thanks for the tips," he was saying, leading them out. "We'll be ready soon."
Ron was gathering up his shoes. "Sorry, Draco mate. This is their idea of looking out for you and Hermione. She's like a kid sister to them. And you - since they know your own dad can't be - well - "
Draco was nodding, managing something like a smile. "Right. I know."
Outside the screen, Professor McGonagall cleared her throat. Harry stepped out to speak with her and when he came back, he was holding an uncharacteristically docile Crookshanks. At the sight of the kneazle-cat, Draco's nervousness softened a little. Harry held him as Draco petted his head, Crookshanks tipping his neck to be scratched under his chin.
"Look at him loving you up," Ron said. "I've never seen him like that before. Nothing like a bloodthirsty predator at all."
Draco wasn't sure whether Ron was speaking to the cat, or him.
McGonagall cued the music and the boys jumped.
"Deep breath," Harry said to Draco. "Like when they let the snitch out."
The boys walked the aisle through the middle of the chapel and stood by the altar where Professor Dumbledore and the Fat Friar were waiting.
The music changed slightly and Pansy and Ginny appeared at the back of the chapel, coming forward to stand at the altar opposite the boys. Ann and Hermione came last.
It was still early enough, dark enough in the chapel, for it to be lit with candles. The hundreds of tiny flames reflected in the crystals magically woven into the fabric of Hermione's dress. Her hair was soft and loose, pulled up over one ear in a glittering clip Pansy had given her, the rest of it spilling over her shoulders, down her back.
Fairy-like, she walked toward Draco, eyeing him almost shyly as she advanced. His bride - the words made him feel old but so young, scared but so sure. He waited as she came to him, and for the first time that morning, he noticed the scent of narcissus in the room. Without his parents at his wedding, he felt alone, but also, as he looked at Hermione, complete.
Ann let her go, joining their hands before taking her seat behind them.
Dumbledore raised a hand and the music stopped. "Friends and loved ones," he said, "we meet to solemnize a promise made in hope, resolved here today in faith. These people, though so very young, have a power unmatched by their adversaries. It is love, that most ancient of magics. And we celebrate it now, with a hope for better days for all of us."
He looked out over the crowd - Ann Granger, Weasleys of all kinds, Professors McGonagall, Slughorn, Flitwick, Sprout, Madams Pomfrey and Hooch, most of the Hogwarts faculty, all of the Order but Remus, and last of all Auror Nymphadora Tonks, Draco's only kin to attend.
"Draco Lucius Malfoy," Dumbledore said in a low, officious voice, "take your wand in your right hand to inscribe the matrimonial charm after the manner of the most holy and eternal brotherhood of the Mitrians onto the living flesh of Hermione Jean Granger, if she wills it."
Hermione spoke. "I will."
Dumbledore nodded. "So be it."
Draco held his wand like a stylus, a familiar grip by now. Before he touched Hermione's bared flesh with it, he breathed on her arm and the lines he had written there the previous day flared to life, blue and burning. He spoke the words of the incantation Hermione had written, articulating carefully, picking his way through the dense and difficult Latin. As he spoke, he closed a line he had left incomplete yesterday, and began to write the French word for faith in the centre of the heart.
Before long, the room seemed to vibrate with magic, a barely audible hum, quiet enough that everyone seated in the chapel could hear Draco's voice resonating with it. Crookshanks purred in Harry's arms. And Hermione waited, her arm outstretched on the altar as Draco worked, her right hand held against her heart as it raced within her chest.
The "F" and the "o" of the word "Foi" were in place. Hermione thought Draco was sitting back, pausing for breath, examining his work from a different angle before completing the final letter. But instead of sitting back, he fell, collapsing not as if exhausted, but as if he'd been wounded. Without the sound of his voice speaking the incantation, the room went silent. Crookshanks trilled a question. Dumbledore laid a hand on Draco's shoulder, trying to keep him from sinking all the way onto his back. Draco's fingers opened, contorting into the shapes of claws, his wand clattering to the stone floor.
His right hand tore at the sleeve over his left forearm. Hermione fell to her knees beside him as he grit his teeth and fought to speak.
"Not now," he said. "Not now, please - no - "
She had seen him like this before. So had Ron, Pansy, and Harry. She looked up into their faces, horrified as she strained to hold Draco in her arms while he writhed at the foot of the altar.
"It's the Mark," she said. "He's calling. He's calling now."
Dumbledore stood up straight, speaking a name never before uttered in this hallowed space. "Voldemort."
Not long before Draco Malfoy collapsed at his wedding ceremony, Corban Yaxley came strutting into the drawing room of Malfoy Manor, Tim Granger's nearly revived body slung over his shoulder, Bellatrix Lestranger capering all around them in triumph, Peter Pettigrew scuttling back into his place behind the Dark Lord's chair.
The manor was not as they had left it - haunted and empty. As soon as Pettigrew sent word through the galleon in his pocket that they were flying back from Kent with the Muggle, the Dark Lord had commenced calling his servants - all of them, including the ones kept at Azkaban. Without resistance from dementors, he found he could orchestrate jail breaks at will, and he willed it today.
News of the Dark Lord's injury had leaked throughout the Death Eater ranks, shaking their confidence in him, fomenting discontent among them. There were whispers of dissension and defection. Even though Amycus Carrow had told him earlier that there was reason to believe the vanishing cabinet in Knockturn Alley might be operational, the Dark Lord had chosen to handle this business with the Mudblood's love charm first, securing the full confidence and allegiance from his followers before undertaking anything so bold as an attack on Hogwarts itself.
And so today, before dawn came with the sunlight that aggravated him so terribly of late, the Dark Lord had assembled his forces to witness the slaughter of the Mudblood witch responsible for the spell at the root of the rumors. In minutes, the Death Eaters would see for themselves that no enemy could elude the Dark Lord, and no magic could diminish him.
From Azkaban, Nott and Crabbe were there, free for the first time since the disaster at the Department of Mysteries. And most illustrious of all those liberated from the jail in the night was Lucius Malfoy, standing like a terrified stranger in his ancestral home, thin and faded, one hand closed over his wife's shoulder as she stood motionless at his side.
Next to the Dark Lord's chair stood Severus Snape, grave and exuding an anger to rival the Dark Lord's own. When Yaxley threw Tim Granger's sore, shivering body to the floor at the Dark Lord's feet, Tim looked up through the haze of blood and dirt on his face, into the iciness of Snape's glare.
"It's you," Tim said.
"Yes, Muggle scum," the Dark Lord gloated. "Your mongrel spawn's trusted teacher stands at my side and does my bidding. As soon as we learned you were coming, he sent word to her, baiting your daughter to come rescue you. At this moment, she is on her way from the north. Is she not, Severus?"
"She is my Lord. Coming by broom. She should be nearly here, arriving alone, as instructed, ever the star student."
The monster chuckled. "Very good. Yes, she has left the safety of that decrepit school and come for you, father dear. You may trust you will live long enough to see her cut in pieces on these very hearthstones."
He was laughing louder now, the rest of the Death Eaters joining in, awkwardly as if this was a scene out of a James Bond parody none of them would have seen.
"Her headmaster will never let her come," Tim coughed. "It's useless. Just kill me." He waved an arm at the wizards and witches lining the room. "They'll all be very impressed with that, I'm sure."
"Shut up," the Dark Lord said.
Tim doubled over in pain, caught in a spasm, some kind of curse, unseen and unspoken but sent out from the sickly, reptilian man in the armchair - their Dark Lord.
"Though," the reptile went on, "you ought to show better manners and greet your hosts properly, Granger. Allow me. Standing there, unmasked but for all of that ridiculous hair, is Mr. Lucius Malfoy. And next to him, his Madam Malfoy, a particular friend of your wife's, I believe."
Tim couldn't keep from raising his head to see them. Malfoy, an aged and wasted version of Draco, sneered down at him. His wife acknowledged Tim with a small, stony bow.
The Dark Lord tutted. "So uncouth, Granger. That's no way to introduce oneself. Get up." On the word "up," he launched a kick into Tim's stomach, not with magic but with his cold bony foot.
Snape seized Tim's arm and hoisted him to his feet, marching him to stand in front of a large, leaded window, where the assembled ranks could better see him. Outside the glass, not too far distant, a wolf howled.
"Yes, stand aside, Muggle," the Dark Lord said. "There is one more member of our ranks who has not yet been summoned, and without him, our gathering will be underwhelming indeed. He may be a comfort to you, Granger, standing at your side, joining in your cries as your daughter dies."
The Bellatrix witch was laughing at that, not a forced laugh, like the others', but with genuinely wicked glee.
"Look, Bella can hardly wait to be reunited with her nephew. Let's call him now, shall we?" With the tip of his wand, the Dark Lord pushed back the hem of his sleeve, baring the original, the darkest of Dark Marks burnt into his arm by his own hand. "You shall have the honour, Lucius," he said. "Come press your finger to your Lord's mark, and summon for us your son."
He thought he heard his father. It couldn't be true, but Draco imagined he heard his father's voice among the hundred that seemed to be calling his name. His father, along with Dumbledore, Potter, Pansy, McGonagall, and above them all, Hermione. The pain radiating from his Dark Mark, now consuming his entire body, was such that he couldn't see anything, only light moving over him. But he could still hear them.
They held his body to the floor as he thrashed, as he sucked in breath after breath but could never seem to get enough to scream out. In his mind, he saw the door of the chapel, opening two storeys above the floor of the Great Hall. If he could get free of the hands that held him, and find the door, he could throw himself down. He'd be free of them, able to run outside the school grounds and end the pain by answering the call. Even if he didn't survive the fall from the door, and smashed his skull against the stones of the floor below instead, at least the pain would end as he died there.
Whatever happened, the burning could not go on.
Dumbledore loomed over him, chanting in a mix of Latin and something older as the ghost at his shoulder echoed his words. Hermione watched them expectantly, hopefully, but whatever the headmaster was trying to do, it didn't seem to be working.
"He's not tiring," Harry said, struggling to keep Draco's right arm pinned to the ground. "He's getting stronger."
Hermione tried to catch Draco's face between her hands. "Draco, don't go," she said. "You made me promise we'd stay together today. You have to finish this."
He said nothing, but fought on.
"Draco, please - "
Pansy had recovered his wand and was handing it to Hermione. "Here, he needs this to finish," she said.
"Keep his wand away," Harry snapped. "He'll kill us all."
"Hold his arm still, Ron," Hermione said. "The left one. Pull up his sleeve and hold it for me."
The left, everyone knew, was the one with the mark on it, the one Ron had never been able to look at without revulsion. He gulped in a huge breath and laid his hands on it now. Fred and George were at his shoulder, helping to strip back the layers of clothing keeping the mark hidden, aghast, muttering under their breath as it came into sight.
Hermione closed her hand over the mark and Draco's spine straightened, as if he having a seizure.
"Draco Malfoy," she called to him, Dumbledore still chanting in the background. "You will stay with me and finish the spell. You do not go to them. You stay with me."
She bent her head and kissed the spot where she'd cast the first part of their charm, his part, the one torn open by the Dark Lord, left sticking to him. As she kissed it, broken blue lights flamed, glowing not only through his skin but out of it, licking over the surface of his arm, curling over the hands that held him, taking strength and care from them.
At his right side, Harry let go of Draco's arm as if thrown off it, his hand pressed hard against the scar on his own head.
Draco's spine relaxed, his chest heaving but no longer thrashing, his hands relaxing out of their claw-like poses. Now free, his right hand stopped lashing out, coming to rest gently against Hermione's face.
She spoke his name, caressing his hand as it cradled her. "Draco? Is it fading?"
The burning in the Dark Mark was indeed subsiding. Draco made a sound, not quite a word. His eyelids fluttered, slowing into a blink before he opened his eyes to see Hermione at his head, Dumbledore and the Friar behind her shoulders, Harry sitting on the floor beside him, Ron and the Weasley twins holding down his left arm. Pansy stood next to the Weasleys, clutching Draco's wand. Tonks and Ginny sat on each of his legs, Arthur Weasley lying on his stomach across Draco's feet, with what seemed like all the other wedding guests crowding behind them.
"Sorry," was what Draco said first.
"Let him up," Dumbledore said. "We may not have much time. It's best we continue without further apology, explanation, or delay. Resume your places, everyone."
Harry staggered to his feet, scooping up Crookshanks from where he'd been waiting on top of the altar. Hermione laid her arm on it again, reaching out to smooth Draco's hair as he took his wand from Pansy with a shaky hand.
"The incantation, Mr. Malfoy," Dumbledore prompted as he was about to begin again.
Draco closed his eyes. The incantation - it was gone. His mind was still reeling and though he remembered the words of the incantation, he couldn't be sure of every delicate conjugation. He opened his eyes, looking pleadingly across the altar to Hermione, exhausted, terrified, and so sorry. He didn't need to tell her he'd forgotten.
She had not. She spoke the next line, slowly and carefully, exactly where he'd left off. He repeated it back to her. They said it together, their voices overlapping, line by line as he drew the last of the inscription, and dotted the "i."
The wedding guests let out a collective sigh of immense relief as Draco set his wand aside and turned to take Crookshanks from Harry. The hum of magic had returned to the room as he and Hermione had spoken the incantation. It fell into a rhythm with the purring of the kneazle-cat. Draco bowed his face into Crookshanks's fur for a moment, pausing to take in the mounting energy, gathering strength from it. He pressed on the pad of Crookshanks's paw to expose a claw, and with the tiniest scratch, a line of fresh, red blood stood out of Hermione's arm.
His part finished, Crookshanks sprung free from Draco's arms, trotting away.
Harry's colour was rising, his scarred forehead breaking out in sweat. Ginny took his hand. Ron held him by the elbow, and even Dumbledore edged closer to him, all of them knowing he was about to be called on, again, to suffer for his connection to Voldemort.
He and Voldemort would meet again today. Not now - this ceremony was for casting the charm, not the weaponizing of it. That would come later, after the rising of the sun, after the rest of Draco and Hermione's bond was sealed in private. They would seek their enemy out together, when he was weakest. All of that was coming, but what was about to happen here, as the charm was set, would hurt Harry all the same. But it would also hurt Voldemort, wherever he was, whatever he was doing.
Draco held Hermione's arm in his hand, bowing toward it over the altar to consecrate their matrimonial charm with a kiss.