A Dish Served Cold

Chapter 7 – Family

Lucius Malfoy settled back in his cell and flipped the pages of his newspaper with a deft flick of the wrist. Despite one’s environment it was always important to maintain the proper air of control and elegance.

The cell had been bare stone walls and a simple cot when he had arrived but money allowed one greater … freedoms. He had seen to it that his money had bought him comfort. The bed was still simple but the Egyptian cotton sheets and velvet duvet cover were plush and inviting. The walls were hung with tapestries and portraits of his family and the floor was made warm and inviting by the addition of rich carpets.

Anyone looking in from the outside, such as the warden or that fool Fudge, would see only a barren cell but Lucius Malfoy would always see to it that he was surrounded by the best.

An owl entered the window and Lucius graciously accepted his mail with a small smile. A treat was laid out on the ledge and the owl helped himself as Lucius opened the letter.

“Mr. Malfoy,
Granger chose Snape over your son as you expected. The second letter was sent as ordered. All should be ready by the next meeting.
Trevesco

Lucius smiled and folded the letter away. Good minions were worth their weight in gold.

Hermione woke from a vague series of dreams where she was trapped in the dungeons and unable to find a way out. No need to be Freud to figure that dream out, she thought wryly to herself as she rose. Getting dressed was an awkward process while Parvati and Lavender stared at her. They had been utterly silent since dinner, which was nearly miraculous for those two.

“Hermione?” Lavender whispered as Hermione headed to the bathroom.

“You poor dear.” Parvati wiped a tear as Hermione turned to look at them.

“What?” Hermione was a little exasperated. The two girls were acting like she was going to be dead in a week rather than married.

“Are you all right?” Lavender whispered again as though any tone louder than that would shatter Hermione’s delicate nerves.

“I am fine.” She grit her teeth and answered civilly, hoping that her escape to the bathroom would preserve her sanity. She was wrong; the two girls followed her in and stood looking at her with expressions better suited to velvet paintings of puppies and orphans.

“You are so brave,” Parvati said with a catch in her throat.

“So very brave,” Lavender echoed with tear-filled eyes.

Hermione looked at them for a long moment and decided to begin practicing her Slytherin manners.

“Knowing that I have friends like you gives me strength,” she lied through her teeth and plastered on a brave smile. The two girls burst into tears and fled the room leaving Hermione in blissful solitude. Hmm, maybe honesty wasn’t the best policy after all, she thought with amusement, and took her morning shower in happy silence.

Emma Granger looked up at her husband from across her breakfast plate and contemplated his bent head with a happy smile. Twenty years of marriage and a child had destroyed the affection between many couples, she knew, but it had only made her love her husband more and more.
He was no longer the placard-carrying radical he had been as a young man, heart afire with the injustices of the world. The studious and rather shy boy he had been at school was also gone. The man before her, slightly balding with a crease between his brows as he read the Times, was a wholly different being and yet elements of all his past selves were there to be seen by loving eyes.

She herself was no longer the flower power hippie girl she had been at eighteen, ready to take on the establishment and challenge the system. She was the establishment now, she knew; a respectable dentist in a middle-class suburb. Her eighteen-year-old self would be appalled and yet, Emma was content.

She knew that she still supported causes, still voted her conscience and still cared about all the issues she had cared about as a girl. She was just no longer quite as blind as she had been, thinking that if one part of the system was wrong then the whole system was and that only by pulling it all down could her utopian dream be re-built from the ashes.

Emma was drawn from her musings by a tap at the window. She turned and a huge smile curved her lips upwards. It was an owl. She jumped up and went to open the window with a little thrill of delight. The owl hopped in and once more Emma touched a world were magic was real and all things were possible.

“Who’s it from?” George asked with studied nonchalance, pretending that he wasn’t as thrilled and charmed by the owl as she was.
Emma took the letter from the owl’s proffered leg and provided the messenger with his reward. The gray head tilted, the big yellow eyes blinked, and he accepted the treat from her fingers very gently. She watched him fly away with a small smile as she held the letter.

“Well, don’t keep me in suspense,” George chuckled at her fascination with the winged postman. With a rueful grin Emma turned the letter over and smiled.

“It’s from Hermione,” she replied and tore it open eagerly. Hermione’s letters were always so full of strange and wondrous things. Emma and George had accepted Hermione’s magical abilities easily when she was a child, never telling her it was all made up or scolding her for things she could clearly not control.

Their own childhood desires to be magical themselves had somehow come out in their daughter and the discovery of a whole world of magic, like something out of the fantasy books they had read as children, had been a delightful surprise. Even the dark things that Hermione told them about, the dangers and the evil, seemed remote and almost unreal to them, like reading a novel.

Emma sat down at the table and prepared herself for some new marvel, like the talking portraits or the Thestrals.

“Dear Mum and Dad,” she read out. “I have some rather unexpected news to give you. You remember how I was telling you about that Marriage law and how the Professors were working to have it repealed? Well, we haven’t been able to get our counter-arguments to the Ministry’s Board of Appeals yet and in the meantime the law’s age of requirement has been dropped to sixteen.” Emma’s voice trailed off and her brown eyes met her husband’s blue with shock written on both their faces. “Because of this I got a stack of offers the other day and I had to choose someone to marry.” Emma knew her voice had gone rather hoarse as she read; her horror and dismay making it difficult to get the words out.

“Good God,” George muttered.

“I want you to remember that my fiancé had no say in this either. His father put his name in without consulting him. When it came down to it, there were a lot of circumstances for me to consider before I made my choice. Remember how I told you about the Death Eaters? Well I was offered for by some of their sons so I had to choose someone strong enough to protect me from the rejected suitors as well as someone whom I could trust to not make my life miserable.” Emma looked up at her husband again feeling as though her candy floss dream of the magical world was being destroyed in her heart.

“Anyway, I chose to marry Professor Snape. You remember me telling you about him, how he teaches Potions and I know he hasn’t always been kind to me, but he has been surprisingly decent about all this. He and his father don’t speak anymore and he was equally as horrified by the offer as I was by the change in the law. He has promised that I can continue my education and that he will support me in whatever I want to do with my life so I hope that I can find happiness in that.”

“I will find this father and take him apart with my bare hands,” George growled and Emma found herself in complete agreement.

“I don’t expect that I will ever love my husband as you and Dad love each other, but as I said, he has been really nice, well, for him anyway, about it all and I think we will rub along together tolerably well. Just please don’t blame him for this. He was white as a sheet when he heard the news and I gave him no choice really when I chose him. It could have been much worse; I could have been forced to marry the Malfoy wart or one of his big ugly toadies, which would have made me more than merely miserable, it could have been fatal.” Emma froze in consternation and tears began to prick her eyes. How could she have been so blind to the dangers? How could she have been so blithe in her assumptions? George took the letter from her and finished reading it.

“So really, he is saving my life as well as doing something repugnant to him personally, out of kindness to me. I have no illusions that this will ever be anything but an arrangement, but as I said, he is being kind, in his own snarky way, and that as hard as this is for me, it’s equally hard on him. He is 38, a teacher and a Slytherin; I am 17, a student and a Gryffindor, not a match made in heaven really. So please, please, please be nice to him because I am going to be married to him for a hundred years or more and I don’t want him to hate my family or anything.” George paused and wiped his hand across his face with a gesture that seemed suddenly old and tired. When did he get old? Emma’s thoughts chased each other around in circles. “Love always, Hermione”

“Half the time she sounds thirty years old and the other half she sounds eleven,” Emma sighed out and tried to shake herself free of the guilt and horror that were overwhelming her.

“What the hell is this Ministry doing? What can they be thinking?” George pounded his fist onto the table and Emma saw in his eyes the young man he had been. She drew strength from his anger and nodded.

“I’ll call the women in my Muggle mothers support group,” she said with decision.

“I’ll put a floo call in to our case worker at the Ministry,” George nodded. They rose from the table and the fires of their youthful fervor were burning once more.

“We’ll organize a protest,” Emma muttered as she headed to the telephone.

“Let them see we are not voiceless,” George agreed and the two of them moved as one, all of their attention bent on their new crusade.

Severus Snape leaned back in the chair and stared at the creamy arches above him. He had always liked Minerva’s sitting room. The tartan plaid furniture was warm and comfortable, the whitewashed stone was bright and cheerful and the tea was always excellent.

“How are ye doin’ today?” Minerva’s brogue was always thicker when she was upset.

“Better, but still unhappy about the situation. She is a sensible child, but she is still only a child. You know, if it weren’t happening to me, I would think the whole idea completely ludicrous,” he answered her with complete honesty. Minerva and he never lied to each other; it was an unspoken agreement that this sitting room was as sacrosanct as a Muggle Priest’s confessional.

“I understand. I am apprehensive about this marriage as well.” She had a pensive tone and her brogue had dropped away. It made Severus wriggle uncomfortably in his chair, Minerva pensive was always a sign that he had missed something.

“I have no intention of traumatizing her any more than she has already been, if at all possible,” he retorted without heat.

“I am far less concerned about her than I am about you, Severus.” His head came up and he looked at his oldest and dearest friend with some shock. “Oh for Merlin’s sake, Severus. She IS a sensible girl as ye said; she will do everything in her power ta make the best of a bad situation. Ye are the one who has ta waltz into the next Death Eater meetin’ and give valid reasons why ye can nae bring her in ta be a party favor.” Minerva snapped out and Severus nodded in understanding, the abrupt thickening of her brogue told him how very concerned she was.

“Honestly, the fact that she is one of Potter’s friends stands her in good stead here. Her loyalty to him is well known and the simple excuse that I cannot ’allow her to see where my true loyalties lie’ will suffice to keep her safe for some time.” Severus waved an airy hand. “Beyond that, she is muggle-born; the training required of her and the dangers of moving in pureblood circles without that training should carry us through at least another year.”

“And after tha’”? Minerva raised an eyebrow at him and he shrugged.

“If we are still fighting this war in another year I will deal with it then.” He released the future to deal with itself.

Minerva nodded and then poured him another cup of tea.

“Have ye thought through the wedding?” She asked next and Severus gave her a lopsided grin.

“I was hoping you’d call Fire for me, I could always tell the Dork Lord it was the Headmaster’s idea.” Minerva got a wicked gleam in her eye as his nickname for his supposed lord and master slipped out.

“Ye know tha’ I would be honored.” Minerva answered and the two collogues changed the subject to school matters. After all, in the end, what was there to say really?