SIXTEEN
(Saturday)

Tonks looked herself full in the face. "We're not going to mention this to anyone else, are we?"

She grinned back. "I wont tell if you don't." Then she turned the little silver hourglass and disappeared.

Snape and Madam Bones looked up at her when she returned to the latter's office. "Any incidents?"

Tonks flopped into a chair. "I might've overdid it a bit on my first go. Ended up stranded about a thousand years back, had a torrid affair with Salazar Slytherin – hope you don't mind, Sarkypants – but it all worked out in the end and what matters is I've got a right lovely wedding dress."

Snape looked over to Madam Bones. "She finds this sort of thing amusing."

"I am truly going to regret not being able to attend your wedding," Madam Bones said. "Though I fear it is unavoidable now. We will have our work cut out for us here tonight."

"We could switch places," Tonks suggested hopefully.

"Absolutely not."

"Please?"

"Time may be unlimited on your end of things, Ms. Tonks, but it's not on mine. Please give your fiance the Time-Turner so he can do whatever he does in those dungeons of his. The others should be arriving any moment now."

Tonks slid the chain over her neck and gave it to Snape with her best whimsical smile. "If you happen to run into ol' Sally, do be sure to give 'em a kiss for me."

#

The Ministry of Magic was empty at two o'clock in the morning, save for a lone janitor who appeared to be chasing a blue parrot about with a broom. Snape assiduously avoided the bizarre pair and skirted out through the Muggle entrance under the cover of a disillusionment charm.

Once he'd found his way into the clammy night air of Muggle London, he Apparated back to Hogwarts and slipped back into the dungeon and into his workroom. The solution – or at least the clues leading to it – had to be here somewhere. He just had to work it out. And then produce it. In a little under sixteen hours. Without waking himself and tearing a hole in the fabric of reality. Well, at least there was no one actively dying on his worktable this time.

It took Snape two hours to completely revolutionize several theoretical aspects of potions-making. Under normal circumstances, this would be cause for celebration and possibly overtures to a prominent textbook manufacturer. As it was, however, he was wishing he'd given himself a bit more time to work with. Nineteen years ought to have just about covered it...

One could, he found, bind several key elements of the Garrotting Gas by introducing another gaseous potion into the same space. Unfortunately, while the resulting fumes may no longer have been Garrotting Gas, in most of his early experiments, they were still evidently quite lethal to crickets. He rather doubted Muggles would fare any better.

It did not actually surprise him when Dumbledore finally made his appearance, though the Headmaster's comical duck slippers did cause one of his eyebrows to twitch. "What can I do for you at this early hour, Headmaster?"

Dumbledore made a show of nosing about for sweets, though he knew full well that Snape kept only cockroach clusters for that very reason. Eventually he took a seat at one of the laboratory tables. "I found myself staring out the window of my tower, pondering a particularly knotty dilemma, when I espied several house elves apparently gamboling across the grounds in the light of the full moon. As this is not habitually their practice, I confess I followed them here. I am curious what Hogwarts' crickets might have done to so offend you."

Snape regarded Dumbledore steadily. There were some questions, he felt, that were simply too inane to require any answer. Strictly speaking, it wasn't even a question.

"I hardly expected to find you, of all people, suffering from jitters on the eve of your wedding, Severus."

"I'm not. I'm fast asleep in my bed."

"Remus mentioned that he had stopped by earlier."

"And I threw him out shortly thereafter. Given our past, I found the idea of him throwing me a stag party to be in phenomenally bad taste. Is there anything else, Headmaster?"

Dumbledore's blue eyes did not twinkle. Even his duck slippers managed to look somehow crestfallen. "Forgive my interruption. I can see you are quite busy."

Snape felt his mouth press into a thin line as he watched the Headmaster rise to leave. How long had it been since the last time one of them wasn't punishing the other for something? And was he really the sort of person who turned down the aid of the wizard who discovered the twelve uses of dragon blood just because he was still sulking over something that wasn't even that important? "Wait. What do you know about the neutralization of airborne potions?"

The Headmaster's answering smile was pure boyish delight.

#

The problem was, Tonks decided, that this was the sort of thing that rendered Aurors almost entirely useless. They could practice bubble-headed and dispersal charms until they stopped turning blue in the face, but that wouldn't do much to save the Muggles the gas was aimed at. Until they had the location of where the attack would take place or at least where it was being stored, they might as well have been training for the next inter-mural Quidditch tournament.

Interrogating Avery further did not help. She'd tried it. So had Kingsley. And Mad-Eye Moody. And Madam Bones. And nearly everyone else in the Department, up to and including Myra Pepys from accounting, who just happened to have stopped in to get a little work done on the weekend. Tonks had been rooting for Pepys; she'd felt Avery might have been tickled enough to have risen to the bait. Alas, it was not to be.

"You are no longer an Auror, Auror Tonks," Madam Bones reminded her for the fourth time, although this time she was putting some feeling other than mild exasperation into it. "And as your fiance has scarpered off with the only Time-Turner I know to be left in existence, I fear if you do not leave this office post haste, you will be late for your own wedding."

Ah, that had been bothering her. "How did Snape even know you would have a Time-Turner? I thought they were all destroyed."

"Indeed, it was reported in the Prophet, so it must be true. Our entire supply of precious, irreplaceable Time-Turners were stored together on the same glass shelf where all the devices could be rendered simultaneously unusable by the first person who bumped into the shelf. Apparently your Professor Snape was of the opinion that it was somewhat outside the realm of possibility that everyone in the Ministry was a complete numbwit. I'm honored he identified me as the lone non-numbwit of the bunch and extrapolated appropriately. Your wedding, Tonks."

"Oh, bugger my wedding," Tonks said, taking full advantage of the fact that she was no longer technically subject to discipline for language. "This is important."

Amelia Bones pointed a finger toward the lift. "As is that. The Ministry is counting on you. Go. Now. Preferably before I have you hogtied and delivered to your ceremony with a gift tag and a flouncy white ribbon on your head, but that is entirely your choice." It occurred to Tonks that Madam Bones might actually carry out her threat. There was certainly a rather sinister glint to her monocle.

"Aha! There you are!" It should never be said that Ernestine Hibbins did not take her duties as Maid of Honor seriously, even if she was bloody well aware that the entire point of the wedding was to be an utter travesty. She had even arranged something of a hen party the previous night, which was the source of more than one Auror nursing a hangover. "Your mother sent me to fetch you and the other ladies."

Tonks groaned. She'd forgotten about the fact that her other two bridesmaids were Aurors. "I was just leaving, but Invidia and Luxuria won't be able to attend. We'll just have to pick up replacements on the way."

Invidia Jones hastily embraced Tonks. "I wish I could be there with you today."

Tonks grinned. "Quick, wanna trade?"

"TONKS! OUT!"

Jones winced at the bellowing, then grinned as she shook her head.

"Right, then." With one last regretful glance at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Tonks pivoted, stumbled slightly, righted herself, and walked in the direction of the lifts.

Then she turned again. "Oi, Pepys! Wanna be a bridesmaid?"

#

"Psst! Sarkypants!"

Snape looked up briefly from the incredibly temperamental brew in his cauldron to see a figure draped in a sheet. Unless Hogwarts was letting in a much lower class of spirit, he rather supposed it was his fiancee's attempt at not being seen by her groom on her wedding day. He returned his gaze to his work. He could practically feel Dumbledore smiling at him in benign condescension. "You spent over an hour in my company earlier this morning."

She hovered in the doorway at the edge of his vision. "I know that. My new junior bridesmaid is a menace. Oh, hello Professor Dumbledore. Didn't see you there. Love the slippers. If anyone asks, I'm not here."

"Neither are we, I am led to believe," Dumbledore answered.

"Is this menacing junior bridesmaid present?" Snape inquired.

"No."

"Then why don't you remove the blasted sheet?"

"Mostly because it's pretty much all I'm wearing."

Snape concentrated on his stirring: three times anticlockwise, once clockwise. "Why are you here?"

"I need a calming draught."

Snape took a deep breath. "You seem no more antic than usual."

"It's not for me, you arse; it's for Pepys."

"Who the bloody hell is Pepys?"

"My other replacement bridesmaid. She's in hysterics."

There were any number of questions that Snape considered asking, such as: "Why do you have replacement bridesmaids?" Or: "Why is said bridesmaid in hysterics?" Or even: "Couldn't you have sent someone else to get the damned draught?" Instead, he muttered an imprecation that he rather hoped Dumbledore didn't overhear. "Pale blue potion on the third shelf to the right when you enter my office. Your other right. Do not break anything."

"Aren't you supposed to be getting dressed for the wedding?" Tonks called from his office.

"I am. I believe the Muggles refer to this as 'multitasking.' When you find me out there, remind me to hand you the Time-Turner."

"Where do I find you?"

Snape shrugged. "It hasn't happened for me yet."

"Right then. Cheers." He heard the faint swish of her sheet as she walked back to the door and then closed it behind her.

"You know, Severus, a drop or two of calming draught might not be amiss for you," Dumbledore suggested. "This potion is rather sensitive to the mood of its brewer, after all."

Snape laughed once. It was short and it had sharp edges, but it was definitely a laugh. "Brew faster, old man."

#

Tonks put her hands on her hips, or at least on several yards of satin bustle that more or less approximated hips. "You do realize that this is not, in fact, an actual, serious wedding?"

Luna Lovegood looked horrified at the thought of ignoring tradition. She also looked horrifying in Invidia Jones' dress, but then so had Jones. In that, Tonks supposed, her junior bridesmaid could not fault her adherence to tradition.

"Oh bloody well fine," she said. "My groom is old. This dirigible gown is new." She felt the thin silver chain about her neck. "As I will be carted off to Azkaban if I don't return this, we can definitely consider it borrowed. And as for blue..." She pointed up at her artfully arranged tresses and concentrated. "That just about covers it, I think."

"And a sickle in your shoe," Luna reminded her in a sing-song voice.

Tonks briefly entertained the thought of locking her press-ganged bridesmaid into the nearest cupboard for the duration of the ceremony. Why had Luna Lovegood of all people been the first woman they'd encountered? "I don't have any sickles. I have - accio cloak! - two knuts."

"It will have to do." Ernestine Hibbins said, laying a restraining hand on Luna's arm. For her part, Myra Pepys just snored faintly.

"And technically, I suppose these are Snape's knuts," Tonks said.

Hibbins laughed. "All the more fitting, I say! Let's march!"

#

And so it was that, as the strains of Beethoven's Fifth playing on a ghostly harpsichord filtered through the air, Severus Snape stood at the altar watching his future careen towards him like a zeppelin piloted by a drunkard. The bride wore white satin in a curiously Muggle design that made her look like an exotic pudding. Given her eye-wateringly blue hair and flamingo-shaped hat, he hazarded it would be a very exotic confection indeed.

She was preceded by three bridesmaids in salmon and olive gowns. Ms. Higgins, he noted briefly, was grinning like a madwoman. Luna Lovegood smiled mistily and the third woman appeared to be sleepwalking. The mysterious Ms. Pepys, he supposed.

Nor were his own groomsmen any more presentable. Remus Lupin could look disreputable in any attire, but the canary yellow robes did him no favors whatsoever. Snape was particularly proud of that touch. As for Filius Flitwick and Rubeus Hagrid, the less said of the mismatched pair, the better. All in all, he congratulated himself that they were all wholly unsuitable.

As Tonks took her place by his side, he got a closer look at her bouquet. Larkspur and oleander. He had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. He found himself feeling almost giddy – a certain sign he had inhaled to much of the potions fumes.

Snape permitted his mind to wander as Dumbledore began to speak about marriage bringing people together. The man could drone on for interminable lengths when he had a captive audience. Eventually Snape muddled his way through vows full of nauseating words such as "cherish" and "honor" and "forever," then managed to exchange rings with Tonks.

"You may kiss the bride," Dumbledore finally instructed.

Snape was not entirely certain he had heard him properly. "What, now?"

"It is traditional, Severus."

Snape spared a dubious glance at the crowd crammed inside the great hall.

Tonks elbowed him about as surreptitiously as one could hope to expect from her. "Have you never been to a wedding before?"

"Why would I have ever attended a wedding?"

"Just shut up and kiss me you great git." She reached up, grabbed him by one ear, and brought his face down to plant a kiss on him. He heard the crowd cheer.

And then it happened.

His arm burned.