Once they were finished with business, Severus escorted Elizabeth, Theo and Draco back to Hogwarts.
"A word, if you would, my dear," said Severus, quietly, as they achieved the summit of the steps to the front doors.
"Not today, love," answered Elizabeth on a yawn with a stretch but in a tight voice for those who understood the subtleties of it. "I really am quite exhausted." She passed through the doors ahead of him and made her way up to the head girl's rooms. She could hear his swift footsteps behind her but she did not care and would not stop.
"I have done nothing," he hissed, grabbing her by the arm and pushing her against the wall. "to deserve this treatment."
"Severus, I do not even have the strength to examine that claim," Elizabeth said in a bored, tired voice. She pulled away from him and moved away in a controlled stagger, an arm slung loosely across her stomach. Severus set his jaw and stalked away: he had wasted enough time on trying to make this relationship work today, he had marking and other duties to attend to now.
"Crooks' hanks," yawned Elizabeth, standing before Hermione's portrait guard. The picture swung inward to reveal Hermione and Remus on one sofa with Harry and Ginny on the opposite one and Ron, Neville and Luna sat on the floor, all were laughing. The Slytherin queen turned to leave, the happy easiness between Hermione and Remus had cut her to the heart but the Head Girl had spotted her.
"Liz!" she called with a happiness that pained her friend. Elizabeth turned, a smile forced onto her lips.
"I am sorry, I did not realise you had company. I'll just go." She turned back to the portrait-hole for the second time.
"Come on, Liz. What did you want to talk to me about?" asked Hermione, who had gotten to her feet and stepped away from her lover, towards her friend.
"It's fine, 'Mione," replied the Slytherin with a smile that barely creased the corners of her eyes and did little to disguise the dead, tired look in them. "It doesn't matter. It can wait."
"No, it can't," asserted Hermione, firmly. She seemed to consider reaching out to the older girl but evidently thought it unwise. "Come and talk; they won't judge you."
"I can't! They're your friends; they can never accept me. Don't worry, I know I've done too much damage to be accepted here. Look, I'll–"
"Are you two coming to sit down?" called Ginny, cleanly cutting off another of the young queen's self-denying comments. Resigned to the fact that she would be accepted into the Gryffindor circle, Elizabeth allowed Hermione to propel her onto the hearth rug. As she settled herself down, the newly-engaged woman was overpowered by memories of the previous night. She could hardly believe that so little time had passed, her day had been so full. She was startled from drowning in her reflections by a timid arm being slipped around her neck. Elizabeth's haunted pupils turned from her thoughts to the visage of Neville Longbottom and pulled the corners of her mouth up with them.
"What's wrong with her?" Ron asked Hermione, regarding the new arrival warily.
"Why don't you ask her, Ronald?" answered Hermione snappishly, she was worried about her friend but had told only her boyfriend about the night before.
"Hermione," said Remus Lupin quietly, laying his hand repressively on the young woman's arm. "Elizabeth, what has happened?" The woman, and he had to concede that she was more of a woman even than his own Hermione, looked up at him with those haunted eyes.
"The only thing that hasn't happened is Mar- Voldemort returning. Everyone else came back to torment me today," she added bitterly, glancing down at the patch of threadbare rug beside Neville's right knee.
"What were you about to call him?" asked Harry, curiously, leaning forward but without removing his arm from around his girlfriend.
"Marvolo. He preferred it to Tom and one way of creating an appearance of intimacy is to use a name that no-one else uses," she explained in a cold, detached manner that only worried Hermione further.
"Who was tormenting you?" prompted Remus, gently. Elizabeth looked up at him and gave him an inquisitive glare, masked with a sardonic half-smile. Suddenly, the exhaustion she had been withholding for weeks swept through, removing all of her barriers. She was safe here. She could talk here. So, she did.
"Let's see," she began with a bitter edge as sharp as Gryffindor's sword lining her voice. "The day, that is the period of twenty-four hours, began with Severus returning from patrol and discovering that I am pregnant." Ginny gasped but smiled, the boys all shifted uncomfortably and Remus and Hermione kept encouraging and supportive looks on their faces but it was Luna who reached across, gently laid her hand on Elizabeth's arm and smiled:
"That's wonderful news. I am sorry." The Slytherin queen looked at her, tears welling in her eyes and then pressed on.
"After leaving, I came here and Minerva and Hermione put me to bed." – unsurprisingly, the younger Gryffindors all turned surprised looks on the head girl – "When I woke up later that morning, I went for a shower. I had to cut it short, someone was knocking on the door. I thought it was Hermione but it was Severus." Another round of shock and surprise, except that now Hermione left the comfort of the couch to kneel in front of her friend and take her hands. "He... he tried..." Elizabeth shook back her tears and shoved the lump to beneath her voice box. "He was acting like he thought Marvolo had. I... somehow, managed to push him off. He left me and I... got myself ready for breakfast."
"Oh, no," gasped Hermione. "I thought you would want some solitude, so I stayed in Ginny's dorm. I am so sorry. I should have stayed." Elizabeth shook her head.
"He would have come anyway. Besides, Draco took good care of me." The boatload all stiffened at the name of the young Mister Malfoy.
'I don't believe this!
'Why not?
'They have a problem with Draco, who was barely a Death Eater, but they'll let His concubine ramble on to them about her problems! That is insane!'
"As we were leaving for Hogsmeade–"
"Yeah, we saw," Harry informed her with a nod.
"All of it?" He nodded again. "Very well. After that, the three of us went to Malfoy Manor." She smiled, a beautiful, nostalgic smile. That home housed so many wonderful moments for her. "We found that Severus had already arrived."
"That must have been hard," said Remus softly, laying a hand on her shoulder, despite the continued presence of Neville's protective arm.
"Yeah, well, I was the one who had Lucius invite him, so I had to deal with it." The woman could not resist the urge to smirk and slip a sensuous tone into her voice upon saying the elder Malfoy's name, despite her general melancholia. "We did, of course, argue – without speaking. I then went to change into some clean clothes, as I hadn't brought any with me here, and he caught me on my way back down the stairs. He apologised and we became betrothed." Elizabeth turned her head to the right, away from Neville but Luna saw the tears that slid out of the corner of her eye.
"Don't you love him?" asked the Ravenclaw.
"I don't know!" moaned the Slytherin queen, her head tipping back as she rose vertically from the mess of supportive good guys. She stepped through them and paced to the portrait hole.
"Oh, Liz," sighed Hermione, turning to watch her friend. Remus touched her lightly on the shoulder and then got up. He walked up behind Elizabeth and wrapped his arms across her chest from behind. At first, Elizabeth stiffened and almost threw him off but then she recognised his scent.
"Remus..." she groaned, laying her head back against his shoulder.
"I know, Beth," he soothed, gently rubbing her arm with his thumb. "You're in love with him, it will just take you a bit longer but Severus loves you. For all his faults, and Lord alone knows I've seen them more than most, he loves you."
"I know," she sighed, a hand running through her hair. "That's why I can't do this to him."
"I hear that Fudge has a new scheme afoot," said Remus, pointedly, as he turned her around to face him. Elizabeth smiled, Remus always had the gentlest way of telling her he was right.
"Yes. You and Hermione really must hurry."
"Actually," said the younger woman in question, jumping to her feet and coming to reclaim her boyfriend. "If you and Severus are also looking to get married soon..."
"Oh, no," groaned Harry as Ginny turned shining eyes on the group by the door.
"A triple wedding?" suggested the youngest Weasley.
"Well," said Hermione in her most pragmatic voice. "If we all want to marry here, it would make sense to do it all at once."
"Severus would love that," laughed Elizabeth. The three brides-to-be then sat down to plan the ceremony, reception and guest list with Luna, while Harry and Ron started a chess tournament and Neville and Remus began discussing plants and their medicinal properties. When Ron's stomach called them to the Great Hall, Elizabeth sat back from the reams of scrap paper that the four girls had covered and grinned. "I'll tell you what, Hermione, this should at least get us out of organising the Halloween Masque Ball."
EG
The crowd that was the eight from the head girl's rooms made their way slowly but noisily through the corridors and down the stairs, despite Ron's attempts to hurry them along. As they capered down the marble staircase, Elizabeth spotted a familiar dark head surrounded by four lighter ones and a blonde one. She moved herself strategically behind Ron and Neville, the tallest members of the crowd, and kept her face averted.
"I really don't know why you are making such a fuss," said the tall blonde in the voice of a bored aristocrat. "It was obvious after the fighting ended that Master Malfoy would never take you to wife. He's undoubtedly going to choose a nice little Gryffindor or Hufflepuff." The girl gave a wheezing laugh that turned into a cough.
"I would watch that, if I were you, Adelaide. It sounds like a curse," hissed the brunette standing closest to the blonde.
"Honestly, Anna!" exclaimed the brunette's frustrated older, darker sister. Elizabeth made very sure that the Gryffindor group obscured her, none of those ladies would want to see her. All of them, except perhaps Pansy, would crowd around her, seeking her favour and assistance but they, none of them, actually cared for her. They thought her an upstart social-climber with some distasteful contacts that would disgrace a more respectable girl. Luna, Elizabeth and Remus split off from the main group just inside the Great Hall, after making their goodbyes to Hermione at respective levels of warmth and intimacy. Luna left the two comrades at the foot of the Ravenclaw table to join her classmates. Remus and Elizabeth made it to the far wall and walked towards the top table in companionable silence and arm in arm. They had barely reached the head of the table when Elizabeth spotted her fiancé. She winced at the memory of how she had treated him when they returned from Lucius' manor.
'I was exhausted.
'True but that was no reason for behaving like that.
'He's probably furious at me!
'Remember to thank God for Remus.
'I can only hope.' Her defence instructor had dragged her along with him but then sat between Professors Flitwick and Sinstra, leaving her to walk the last ten feet alone. She felt like a kid on her way to confess and be punished for breaking some precious ornament. Despite herself, and hours of Lucius' deportment classes, Elizabeth's shoulders hunched and her head bowed. She stopped her slow, reluctant tread when she was on a level with the back of the empty chair to Severus' right. In a moment of absolute apprehension, she allowed her left incisors to claim her top lip.
"Severus," she murmured in order to attract his attention, although it probably only reached his elbow as her head was dipped so low. Because her eyes were so lowered, she also failed to notice if he reacted. "I am so, so sorry for how I acted earlier. Also, I should have told you I was pregnant and I'm sorry I didn't. I was being completely unreasonable... on both occasions." His hand reached out to her. He gently took her hand and pulled her towards him. Just as when she was seven and had cracked her mother's favourite photograph frame, because she had been trying to work out how to open it, Elizabeth found that confessing meant she did not get punished. Severus pulled her onto his lap and wrapped his arms around her protectively. He then kissed her on the side of her neck.
"I love you," he murmured. "Why can't you accept that and be happy?"
"Because I'm a masochist? Because I only feel comfortable if something's going wrong?" she suggested, laying her head back against his shoulder.
"Well, you had better learn to be comfortable with it. I'm marrying you in November."
"Uh, yeah," Elizabeth said shiftily, trying to pull away from him. "About that, Sev." He was worried now, he never liked anything she prefaced with that despicable abbreviation of his equally disgusting name. "I was at Hermione's earlier, once we got back. And, well, she had a whole group of her friends there. We got chatting about the day and I told them we were engaged and so... Well, Ginny suggested that as Harry, Hermione and you all insist on getting married here how about we have a combined wedding so that the Hall only has to be converted once."
"That sounds like an excellent idea, Miss Havisham," smiled the headmistress with that inherent twinkle in her eyes. The former head of Gryffindor had evidently only just arrived and her first act of the evening was to infuriate her previous Quidditch rival. The Slytherins exchanged glances and silently swore to force baby-sitting on the Scotswoman.
A/N: I really hope you guys have liked this chapter; it's my favourite so far.
I think the next chapter will probably be the triple wedding and then we can head into the murky depths of not-so-blissful marriage. If you haven't already guessed, this is not a fairy tale, Elizabeth's problems are not going to vanish just because she says 'I do'.