A Dish Served Cold

Chapter 21 – Weddings

The Bloody Baron drifted along behind Hermione like a particularly gruesome balloon. Despite the low-key manner in which he had been behaving himself, Hermione was still rather uneasy around the Slytherin ghost. The silvered blood that liberally coated him and his morose demeanor combined to keep him off her ten most popular list.

Severus had been right about Malfoy, though; she saw Crabbe scurrying away down a corridor as she exited her chambers. No doubt, he was off to report her movements to Draco. The blond Slytherin had been strangely silent of late, even Harry and Ron hadn’t anything to report, something which made Severus and by extension, Hermione, very nervous.

However, she had other fish to fry tonight.

She went first to the Gryffindor Common Room. She was still a Gryffindor and therefore entitled to be there, but a distinct chill entered the air as she stepped in past the Fat Lady, leaving the Baron to wait for her outside. Harry looked up and smiled at her, but some of the other Gryffindors edged away as though Hermione had contracted something contagious or there was something about her that made them nervous.
It occurred to her that there might be something to that. After all, they were all of them vulnerable to sudden matrimony and she was a living representative of just how bad that could get.

She smiled wanly at Harry, remembering that she was supposed to be the abused spouse of a wantonly cruel Slytherin and suppressed a more genial expression.

“’Mione!” Ron called out in surprise as he clopped down the stairs from the boys’ dorms.

“Hi Ron, hi Harry.” She made sure that her voice was softer than usual and a trifle hesitant. She watched Lavender and Parvati wince from near the window and felt an inward satisfaction at her successful acting job.

“I am so glad you’re here, ‘Mione, I am stumped on Flitwick’s parchment.” Ron was either oblivious to the pathetic heroine act or trying to pretend nothing was wrong. Either way it was annoying.

“I was looking for Neville… and my … sister-in-law.” The hesitation wasn’t altogether feigned. It was still a really weird idea that she had a sister-in-law, let alone that Neville would soon be an in-law as well. Actually, the idea that Severus had a sister her age was already pretty bizarre.

“Oh, they are probably in the Greenhouses. Helena is as buggy about plants as Neville is.” Ron sounded disgusted, but Harry smiled a little.

“They get along really well.” Harry’s words were obviously an attempt to reassure her about their friend’s impending marriage and she nodded back at him, happy for Neville. She felt her face falling as a genuine desire to have more in common with Severus washed over her.

Harry twitched as he realized the impact his words had had on Hermione and she shrugged silently at him, trying to convey her resignation to the situation without words.

“I’ll look for them in the Greenhouses then,” she answered Ron at last. Leaving the Common Room was odd; she felt for the first time as though she were escaping from an unpleasant place. For so many years the Common Room had been her heart’s second home, the place were she had felt safest and happiest, beside her parent’s house.

Now she had nowhere that she felt comfortable. She was married and living with her husband, but she could hardly call Salazar Slytherin’s little bordello home. Would she feel this way for the rest of her life, adrift and alone?

Remus sat beside Ginny in the Registrar’s Office waiting room with a feeling of bemusement. It was just so surreal. Molly and Arthur stood nearby, Arthur pacing and Molly wringing her hands. Percy and Tonks sat beside each other, both turned away from the other; their bodies scooted as far apart as possible in the narrow chairs.

It was just another Ministry office, like all the others, wood paneling on every wall, muted carpeting and memos darting by overhead. He studied a swirl in the wood paneling across from where he sat and wondered if the entire world had gone mad, or if it was just him.

Beside him Ginny was wearing a simple white gown and clutching a bouquet of flowers. The dress had been Molly’s when she had married Arthur, and Remus imagined that this civil service was far from Molly’s dreams for her youngest child. Ginny was pale and her hands were clenched around the flowers with more force than she probably realized.

“Lupin and Weasley?” a bored-looking clerk called out and feeling like a marionette with an inept puppeteer pulling the strings, Remus jerked to his feet and went forward. Ginny lurched along beside him and he wondered suddenly whether his death would someday come as a relief to her or if she would grieve for him.

He hated the whole world right then.

Ginny stood before the judge and parroted back the words, feeling as though she were miles away from her body and watching it all happen from outside herself. She vaguely heard her mother sniffling and the sound was irritating; it scratched at her surface detachment and threatened to make her feel something. She was determined to be at least as brave as Hermione had been, but it was so hard.

Professor Lupin stood beside her and his scent was strong and alien, there was something primal in it that made her flush, but it was also a little scary. He was a werewolf and she had been raised all her life in a society that feared and reviled his kind. For all his gentleness and the kindness with which he had always treated her, in the back of her mind she was imagining the next full moon and the horror that he would become.

There was no evidence that werewolves bred true; at least she knew that her children would be ordinary witches and wizards, but that did nothing to stop her feelings of fear and anxiety. Her brothers had tormented her with tales of young girls torn apart by werewolves from her earliest childhood.

She felt the ribbon wrapping around her hand binding her to Remus Lupin and had to fight to suppress a shudder.

She was so very frightened.

Tonks waited beside Percy and wished that the ground would open up and swallow her. A glance at his face and she knew that he felt much the same. For all the bravado of his offer he was no doubt wishing himself elsewhere right then.

She wondered if he was thinking about Penelope.

He probably was. After all, she was everything that Tonks wasn’t – graceful, pretty and gentle. Tonks was rough and tumble – more tumble than anything else, if the truth were told. She was dressed in a simple blue dress and had morphed her hair into plain dark ringlets which had been caught up by her mother into some of the few family heirlooms that she had kept: a pair of jet-studded black hair combs. She felt like a great gawk dressed in her borrowed finery.

What must he think of her?

Percy was watching Remus as he stood before the desk reciting his vows. It was more like a funeral than a wedding and Percy felt a pang of pity for the other man.

His sister was going to lead Remus a merry dance, no doubt about it. For all her subdued demeanor right now, Percy knew that her mischievous nature would reassert itself pretty quickly and she would soon be practicing the skills that she had learned at their mother’s feet.

Tonks looked white as a sheet, Percy noted from the corner of his eye. He had been surprised to get the acceptance letter back so soon. She had sworn that she would wait until the last minute but she had given in long before that. Her parents were sitting in hard wooden chairs some distance away, looking like they had been reprieved from execution. Percy suspected that they had persuaded her to marry him quickly before Malfoy could figure out a way to stop them.

Remus and Ginny stepped out of the room with wooden faces and Percy gathered himself together. He rose and extended a hand to Tonks.

“Tonks and Weasley.” Gary Magicsmith, the rat-faced little clerk, called out. Percy knew him well and they nodded at each other as he escorted Tonks into the office. Gary shot him a sympathetic look, since he had known of Percy’s attachment to Penelope and Percy felt a little more charitable towards the other man.

He had always thought Gary was a trifle inefficient, but that moment of human compassion changed Percy’s opinion of him.

He stood straight before the judge who nodded to him as well. He knew Judge Truesight well; his own work brought him here often. It was funny, he hadn’t thought as he signed letters for other couples that he too would be here caught up in this law. Tonks was shaking beside him and he tucked her arm in his own, concerned that she might faint.

He was surprised at how fragile she seemed at that moment. She was normally so brash and tough, yet right then she looked as though a stiff breeze could shatter her.

He repeated his vows and exchanged rings with Tonks with the necessary gravity that the moment required. Her own voice was faint and he continued to support her through the ceremony.

As the ribbons faded into their skin, she turned huge dark eyes on him and he felt a stirring of something protective at the sight of her fear and misery. He made the kiss light and gentle, feeling somehow that he needed to shield her as much as possible from what was coming.

It occurred to him as she turned away that she was very pretty. But it was a distant thought overshadowed by a thousand other musings. His father’s grave face wiped away even the memory of that moment as he turned to start his new life.

Hermione had been searching for quite some time and was getting irritated.

“Where are they?” she muttered. A soft wheezing drew her attention to the Bloody Baron and she realized that he was chuckling. It was a dammed eerie sound. “What?” she asked, making herself feel anger rather than fear.

“Two young people, soon to be married,” he sighed out and Hermione blushed.

“Yes, well, I had thought of that. I am making as much noise as I can.” Her voice came out rather gruff, as she tried to hide her embarrassment. She wasn’t even sure that the blush was warranted; they were talking about Neville after all.

“I remember the feelings well.” Hermione wasn’t sure she had heard the Baron’s words correctly. She whipped around to stare at him, but the Baron had turned nearly transparent and was giving her a fierce glare. She clamped her jaw shut on the questions that began to bubble up in her mind; the Baron did not look like he would welcome anything that she might ask.

“We have searched everywhere.” Hermione returned the subject to Helena and Neville.

“Not everywhere.” The Baron’s grim tones made Hermione shiver, but she followed him as he veered away from the Greenhouses and headed out across the lawns.

They took a meandering pathway that led back around the herb beds and through the vegetable gardens. They stopped at a simple stone hut, with a thatched roof and the Baron paused.

“What is this place?” Hermione eyed the rundown building askance.

“Tool shed.” It was amazing how much meaning the Baron could put into so few words.

Hermione cleared her throat loudly.

“I don’t know, I have looked everywhere for Neville. I’ll head back towards the Greenhouses and look there again.” Making sure that even a goat in heat could hear her she walked very slowly away from the shed. The Baron’s approving expression amused her no end. She was certainly learning a lot being married to a Slytherin.

Five minutes later a rather flushed Neville came pelting after her with a sweet-faced girl in tow behind him.

“Hermione!” he called out. She turned and smiled at them.

Hey, Neville.” She hugged her friend and then and turned to offer her hand to her sister-in-law. “You must be Helena.”

The girl smiled shyly at her and took her hand. She had very fine fingers and yet her grip was firm and unhesitating.

“It’s so good to meet you.” The way she said it made Hermione believe that she really meant it. Helena nodded at the Baron who bowed lightly to them, while Neville sidled away from the Slytherin ghost.

“Funny, you don’t look like a Snape,” Hermione joked and Helena chortled.

“Thank Merlin!” she laughed back at Hermione and the smile was infectious. Hermione had a suspicion that she could easily be friends with the other girl, but she could also feel that there were undercurrents to her as well. She really was a Snape, Hermione mused; there was always more to that family than met the eyes.

“I wanted to tell you that I would be happy to stand with you at your wedding.” Helena’s smile widened and she grabbed Hermione’s hands in her own.

“I knew it! He’s not all bad!” There was a moment’s confusion and then Hermione found herself staring at the jubilant redhead with wide eyes and mouth. “He smacked me down hard in the hallway, but he didn’t really shred me the way Father would have, so I knew he wasn’t evil, but I wasn’t sure just how much was an act.” The bright eyes and happy smile told Hermione a lot about Helena’s thought process and she sighed.

“It’s less of an act than you think, Helena.” Hermione didn’t want her new sister-in-law to have any illusions about her older brother. Instantly Helena sobered and gave Hermione a long measuring look.

“I know our father, Hermione, so I doubt he’ll ever be canonized.” Hermione choked a little at the image of Saint Severus, patron saint of Potions Masters and the Baron shuddered a little behind her.

“Probably not.”

“Still, if you knew our father, you’d have a totally different perspective.”

“I’ve met your Grandmother Snape, that was bad enough.” Hermione rolled her eyes as the prim and repressive Sabine came to mind. Helena stared at her. “What?”

“I thought my Grandmother Snape was dead.” There was a wistful tone there and Hermione sighed.

“She was at my wedding, a pureblood snob who turned her nose up at me.” There was more sadness than anger there now; she was growing accustomed to being thought of as a second-class citizen by narrow-minded bigots.

“Ah, well that doesn’t surprise me.” Helena shifted again to stolid practicality and Hermione wondered if all the Snapes were so darn mercurial. Was she doomed to spend her whole life trying to keep up with the rapidly shifting moods of her new family?

“She’s in Hogsmeade right now,” Hermione offered and saw the wistful look cross Helena’s face again.

“It’s no matter. I have gotten along fine without her so far,” Helena shrugged, with one eyebrow arched and Hermione could see the family resemblance in her then. It wasn’t her face and features really; it was in her mannerisms and attitudes.

Thinking about her own marriage, Hermione guessed that Neville was in for more than he was bargaining for. She found herself smiling as they walked back to the school together.

Apparently not all of her new family was going to be terrible.