BREAKING THE ICE

'This year's going to be different,' Hermione said.

One last wave, and the Hogwarts Express had vanished from their sight. She took Severus's arm. 'Don't you think so? Now that they're both away for the first time, it's going to be awfully quiet.'

Severus squeezed her hand. 'Awful isn't quite the word that comes to mind. Peaceful, yes. Silent, oh yes. Maybe…'

'Maybe a bit dull?'

'I don't think so. Do you?'

'Honestly, I've no idea. The question did pop into my mind every now and again, but there never really was time to think about it. Or talk it over with you. I always used to tell myself that we'd cross the bridge when we'd come to it.'

'A very wise attitude, my dear, especially since we don't even know if there's going to be a bridge. I, for one, tend to think of it as a well-deserved reward. Just imagine – we come home from work, and we'll actually have time to prepare dinner together. A real dinner, and we can listen to music while we cook, and talk, and have a glass of wine…'

Hermione cocked her head the better to look at her husband's smiling face. 'You seem to have given the matter a lot of thought, my darling.'

They'd almost reached the exit of Charing Cross station, and Severus steered them into a corner where they were less likely to be jostled by passers-by. 'Hermione, you know how much I love our children. I also know and appreciate your part in their upbringing – you could have made it to Head of Department a lot earlier, if you hadn't stayed home for four years. But… How shall I put this? I've had to change my lifestyle so radically… Sometimes, just sometimes I wish that there had been a, well a middle path. Don't get me wrong, I've never regretted a single moment of the last thirteen years, but…'

'You don't need to justify it.' She reached up to put a hand on his cheek. 'It's perfectly natural, and I'm sure our life won't be dull. For example'- she withdrew her hand and smiled up at him – 'we could go home now, change into respectable wizarding clothes and then head for Diagon Alley. Maybe you'll treat me to an enormous ice cream at Fortescue's, and then we could just wander around Flourish & Blotts as long as we want to, buy some books – what do you think?'

'I love you,' he simply said, and kissed her hand.


Lucius and Narcissa, who had activated the portkey back to Malfoy Manor the moment Scorpius was safely installed in a compartment with two other Slytherins, were having a cup of coffee on the terrace. Breakfast had been a rather hectic affair, with Scorpius dashing in and out of the room in search of misplaced or forgotten belongings, and recruiting his grandparents to help him.

Narcissa sighed and put down her cup. 'It's a disgrace. He's their son, for heaven's sake! They would have had to tolerate each other's presence for one hour – why are they being so stubborn?'

With obvious reluctance, Lucius tore himself from his contemplation of the park and turned to look at his wife. 'Narcissa, dear, I understand your distress, but, as you well know, I cannot answer that question. You talked to Draco, and so did I – well, I tried to. I'm sure Pansy might have come round, had he shown the slightest inclination to compromise. But Draco is… We both know how he is, and who is to be blamed.'

'He is over thirty, Lucius. At that age, blaming it all on one's parents is a sign of immaturity, much as I hate to say it. He's cold, he is utterly unhappy, he is unable to hold on to a relationship, even with his son, poor boy, and he does nothing, nothing to get a grip on himself. He just wallows in his… his Weltschmerz, making everybody unhappy. I, for one, refuse to blame it all on you.'

'Your loyalty does you credit, my dear. But even so, you can't deny-'

'I am not denying anything. What I am saying is – look, Lucius ,we have been over this so often. You almost destroyed this family. Those two years…' She closed her eyes. 'They were hell, and I will never be able to forget them. Of course you were to blame for that. Heaven knows how many times I cursed you and wished you'd pay for it all with your life. And so, I suppose, did Draco.'

'He hates me. Believe me, I know.'

'You think he hates you?' Narcissa smiled and shook her head. 'That's where you're wrong, dear. He may blame you, but he hates himself. For having been weak, for having let you down, but also for not having stood up to you; it's a complete mess of contradictory impulses. He ought to try to think it all through. But he can't or won't. He is like a black vortex, Lucius, turning around himself, pulling everything down and suffocating it. If only he were able to stop spinning for a while…' She bit her lip and blinked away tears. 'At least Scorpius had a good time,' she said, in a visible effort to steer the conversation away from a painful subject.

Lucius gave her a grateful smile. 'He certainly did. Pity he had too much of the iced pumpkin juice the other day, or we could have squeezed in that last ice cream at Fortescue's.'

'That doesn't mean we can't have it now,' Narcissa said. 'I have an appointment for a fitting at three p.m. at Alphonse's, so you could treat me to a sinfully large ice cream first, and then we might go down to Borgin & Burke's, what do you think?'

'Would you like that?'

'Oh, I certainly would. You lost so much weight playing Quidditch with Scorpius, you could do with some whipped cream and chocolate sauce yourself.'

'I prefer eating them off you, dearest.'

Narcissa got up and went over to plant a kiss on his cheek. 'Everything has its time, my love.'


Florean Fortescue's ice cream parlour had not changed much over the last fifty years. Like the owner of the Leaky Cauldron, Mr Fortescue was less interested in new customers than in offering a reassuringly unchanged environment to his regulars. Since the establishment never lacked customers, this business strategy obviously worked.

For older habitués, who wanted to savour Fortescue's delightful compositions in dignified solitude away from hoi polloi, the ice cream parlour offered a private room. Only a select few were allowed into this inner sanctum of sundaes, and not one of them was under thirty. Had the owner of the establishment ever been indiscreet enough to allow outsiders a glimpse at this handpicked and thus quite small crowd, the criteria for admission would have become obvious immediately: a distinguished pedigree and/or money. Or, if Fortescue was feeling really generous, fame, but not of the fleeting kind the Weird Sisters, to name but one example, were enjoying.

It was the latter that had gained Hermione and Severus admission to the private room. It wasn't that they had particularly sought it; the legendary Fortescue himself had offered them asylum there a few years ago, when the couple had stopped by for an after-work sundae, and Severus had looked particularly harassed by the ruckus made by all the toddlers.

It was a nice room with dark wainscoting and a ceiling of the same wood, of modest proportions and with only five tables. Large windows in the back wall allowed the guests to look – without being seen of course – at the busy crowds in Prodig Alley, a road running parallel to Diagon Alley and home to the London branches of foreign banks, hotels, a few luxury boutiques and head offices of renowned companies such as Firestorm Brooms Ltd.

There were two fireplaces on opposite walls, one for incoming and one for outgoing calls, the black-and-white chequered floor was covered in thick carpets, and the tables and chairs were charmed to change their shapes according to the customers' needs. (Otherwise, Alphonsina Bulstrode would've had to bring or conjure her own chair, in order to house her ample bottom.)

For Severus and Hermione, a chair had obligingly transformed into a two-seated sofa, and the table had separated itself into two small side tables – Severus always had trouble folding his long legs to fit under a table.

Hermione had ordered an enormous composition of fruit, vanilla ice cream, whipped cream and that special sauce that went so well with fruit and vanilla, but the composition of which had hitherto been eluding even Severus's expert nose and palate. Severus was enjoying an equally large portion of chocolate ice cream with chocolate chips and chocolate sauce. The whipped cream had been politely but firmly declined.

'I think,' Hermione was just saying, 'that Olvenskjold's essay on the application of Arithmancy in chaos theory ought to – oh. Oh, my.'

Severus looked up from his scientific exploration of the distribution of chocolate chips in ice cream and went pale. He put down his spoon, dabbed his lips with the napkin, and slowly rose from the couch.

The couple that had just entered the room was looking no less petrified than the two residents.

There was a long silence, interrupted only by the squeak of cloth on leather, when Hermione, too, stood next to her husband. The sound of a pin dropping would not only have been clearly audible, it would probably have made the four people jump.

Severus cleared his throat. 'Lucius, Narcissa. It is… a pleasure.' The pause was minuscule, but definitely there. 'Would you care to sit with us?'

Hermione saw the knuckles on Lucius's right hand go white for a moment, when he tightened his grip on his cane. 'With pleasure,' he replied and offeredd Narcissa his arm.

While the Malfoys made their way across the room, the two chairs next to Severus and Hermione merged into a sofa exactly identical to the one they had been occupying. The table next to them scuttled over and split into two side tables. Despite herself, Hermione felt her lips curl into a smile. Tall men with long legs…

The men shook hands, and so did the ladies. The ladies' hands were formally kissed by the men. Then they sat down, Lucius opposite Severus and Narcissa opposite Hermione. A demure waiter asked whether Sir and Madam desired the usual and was sent on his way with a nod.

Hermione, who'd been craving ice cream since she'd got up that morning, was very much disinclined to just sit there and stare at it. The coupes were under cooling charms, so the ice didn't melt, but she was beginning to feel like Tantalus, because the aroma of fruit and vanilla was tickling her nose and making her mouth water. It is, however, a well-known fact that, if one tries discreetly to eat a spoonful of ice cream in absolute silence, one inevitably slurps. Or, if fate is feeling particularly frisky, one slurps and drops a cherry one one's lap, from where it rolls slowly down, leaving a sticky trail. It's worse if one tries actually to catch the cherry in a misguided effort to save the situation, because then the spoon usually splatters one's clothes with melted ice cream before clattering noisily to the floor.

So Hermione decided to break the silence, even though the Slytherin training her husband had bestowed on her made her aware of this being a sign of weakness and surrender. But she wanted a particular strawberry, and she wanted it now.

Usually, family was a good topic to break the ice. Though with the Malfoys… But then she knew that the couple was famously fond of their grandson Scorpius.

'We saw Scorpius on the Hogwarts Express today,' she finally said. 'Did he visit you during the holidays?'

Narcissa nodded appreciation at the gambit. 'Yes, he did. In fact, he stayed with us for the whole duration. I trust your own children are well?'

The hot potato had been caught but quickly thrown back at her. 'Yes, they are. Hugo, our younger son, is starting his first year. But he resisted his sister's taunts remarkably well – I'm sure Severus played a part in that.'

'I could hardly let my son go off to Hogwarts, believing that they cut off a finger at the Sorting, and if you scream, you go to Hufflepuff.'

Lucius snorted. 'Some things just don't change, do they?'

The Malfoys' ice creams appeared on their side tables – chocolate with chocolate sauce and chocolate chips for Lucius, vanilla with fruit and whipped cream for Narcissa.

Severus smiled. 'No, they don't. Are you still so fond of chocolate, Lucius?'

'Narcissa's admonitions are the only bastion keeping greed at bay. She tells me I'm prone to running to fat.'

'You're lucky to have that argument,' Hermione said to Narcissa. 'I can only tell Severus that he's going to spoil his teeth. But then he invented Splendidents, and so I'm quite powerless.'

'That was yours?' Lucius sat up a little straighter and leaned forward. 'I had no idea.'

'Well, we haven't exactly been communicating,' Severus retorted dryly.

'No. Indeed we haven't.' A muscle in Lucius's jaw twitched. Then he raised his head and looked directly at Severus. 'How have you been?'

'I was lucky enough to have a guardian angel,' Severus said simply.

'So was I. Although,' he added with venom, 'she couldn't save me from Azkaban.'

'Nobody could have,' Hermione remarked quietly. 'They wanted to show people an example. Even if you hadn't been guilty at all and able to prove it, I doubt whether you would've had a chance.'

'So much for a new order.' Lucius's voice was dripping with bitterness.

'The start was all wrong,' Hermione agreeed. 'The way they handled it… It wasn't about justice, and not even about vengeance. I could've understood vengeance, although I'd hardly have accepted it.'

'That would have been of pretty little consequence to them,' Narcissa said. 'If I remember correctly, nobody asked your opinion on the matter, nor Mr Potter's.'

Hermione shook her head. 'It was all I could do to force my way into court, when Severus was tried. The judge could hardly ignore me and Harry, especially since we had Rita Skeeter in tow.'

'You went to jail for three months,' Severus said disapprovingly.

'Yes, well, people have made greater sacrifices for their convictions.' She smiled at him and patted his thigh. 'Even if they were the wrong convictions – I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to come out quite like that.'

Lucius gave her a rather forced smile. 'How you were able to reach so high a position at the ministry with so little tact is beyond me.'

'I'm usually better at it.'

'You can hardly imagine the comfort that gives me.' Lucius ate a spoonful of chocolate sauce. 'And you, Severus? What have you been doing with your life?'

Severus glared, scooped up a large dollop of chocolate sauce and seemed to relax after he'd swallowed it. 'After the trial I had to return to St. Mungo's for almost six months. Then Hermione told me she wanted to marry me, so we got married. We didn't see much of each other during the first three or so years, because I was constantly out of the country – it was impossible to get a job here, so I had to work for foreign companies. When Hugo was born, we had saved enough money for me to start my own company.' He took another spoonful of ice cream. 'That would be the abridged version.'

'The longest speech I've ever heard from you,' Lucius said.

'You might find me rather changed.'

'I could say the same.'

'Could you indeed?'

Lucius chuckled. 'You'd be surprised, I daresay. McGonagall has even allowed me back into the board of governors.'

'New brooms for the Slytherin Quidditch team?' Hermione asked lightly.

'Nowadays, one has to do better. A substantial trust fund, which pays for the needs of Muggle-born students. The fact that I was the one to submit the proposal seems to have decided in my favour. But…' He briefly closed his eyes. 'I am fed up with penitence. I spent five years in prison, where I lost what had remained of my dignity. I lost' – he swallowed and looked away – 'I lost my son.'

'You still have more,' Severus said after a while, 'than many of the victims. So do I. Once you understand that…' He shrugged. 'I don't know what to say, Lucius. Not really. Besides, coming from me – I'm afraid you wouldn't want to listen.'

Lucius raked a hand through his hair, which still didn't show a trace of grey or white. 'We were friends once, Severus.'

'Yes, we were. And we chose different paths, and we both paid dearly for our choices. I betrayed you, all of you, because…' He fell silent and looked at his hands. 'That, too, was penitence, in a way. For one youthful error.'

Hermione and Narcissa exchanged a look of complicity.

Narcissa put a hand on Lucius's shoulder. 'You are being maudlin, dearest.'

'I'm not,' he started heatedly. Her grip became slightly firmer. 'Yes, I… I seem to be a little out of sorts. I beg your pardon,' he added, bowing stiffly to Hermione.

'I thought you'd had enough of penitence?'

'I didn't mean it,' Lucius retorted, with a hint of the old Malfoy smile.

Narcissa rose from the sofa. 'Lucius, dear, I think it is time to go.' She extended her hand to Hermione, who took it without hesitation. 'We come here about twice a month. Usually on Wednesdays.'

Feeling the minuscule tightening of Narcissa's fingers around hers, Hermione gave her an imperceptible wink. 'I told Severus that we have to come here more often. He is way too thin, and my cooking doesn't seem to fatten him up. Ice cream would be good for him.'

'Your cooking is terrible,' Severus muttered, before he turned towards Lucius. 'It was good to talk to you again. Maybe…'

Lucius nodded. 'Maybe.' He kissed Hermione's hand and stepped back, so that Severus could do the same with Narcissa's.

Arm in arm, the blond couple left the room. When they were half out of the door, Narcissa looked back and gave Hermione a brief nod. Hermione returned the gesture, unnoticed by Severus. Yes, said the nods, their timing had been immaculate. A short first encounter – what would come of it remained to be seen. But the first step had been taken.