Chapter Text
Harry plucks at the dress that’s been foisted upon her, rubs its soft fabric between her fingers. A stray thread snags on her chipped thumbnail, and she adjusts the folds of the skirt to hide it; Mrs Weasley would try to fix it, otherwise. All told, the dress is rather pretty, in a girlish sort of way. On someone else, she might even like it.
The skirt — silk and chiffon — is pale yellow, with white and yellow flowers sewn along the hem like jewels. The bodice is even paler, and it clings, flat against her soft belly, cupping her breasts. The fabric strains when she breathes, and a line of finicky little buttons is fastened along her spine, forcing it straight. There are no sleeves to cover the rest of her, no straps. Only a robe that spills off her shoulders and drags across the floor when she walks.
“I still don’t see why I have to wear a dress,” she mutters, glaring down at the soft flats her feet have been forced into. If only they would pinch her, maybe then she’d have an excuse not to wear them.
Mrs Weasley tuts as she pins a gauzy veil into her hair, which has been tamed for once in her life into a braided crown. Once this is over, Harry is going to shave it all off. “It’s tradition, love,” Mrs Weasley says.
And Harry knows it won’t help anything, but she asks anyway, “Will Voldemort be wearing a dress?”
Mrs Weasley’s hands pause. “Surely not,” she says, then takes Harry by the shoulders, spins her to look into the mirror set against the wall. Her lips press together. Tears gather in her eyes. “Look at that,” she says, voice thick. “You look…”
Harry sniffs, scowls. “I look like a doll.”
“Oh, Harry.” Mrs Weasley’s hands squeeze, just a little. “I wish…”
“It’s fine,” Harry says briskly, hoping to avoid more tears. The weeks leading up to the ceremony have been full of people crying at her, and she’s no better at handling it now than she was the first time.
And anyway, it is fine.
Because the girl in the mirror isn’t her. The girl is a bride, a sacrifice, but not Harry.
Harry is a bird. A cloud. A distant star.
Mrs Weasley’s voice gathers her into her body again. “You must promise me, my girl, that you will keep yourself safe.” Harry scoffs, scuffs the toes of her soft shoe against the stone floor and hopes it tears. Mrs Weasley holds her tighter, insistent. “I mean it, Harry. Look at me.” She does, and it spears right through her. “As best as you can, you must live.”
And suddenly, it’s Harry’s eyes that are burning. Entirely sick of herself, and sick of everything else, too, she swipes the back of her hand across her eyes, then nods.
It’s hardly the promise Mrs Weasley wants from her, but it’s the best she’s going to get.
Hearing what she doesn’t say, Mrs Weasley ducks her head, takes a deep breath. When she looks up again, her eyes are bright. “Well, then,” she says, and if the cheer in her voice rings false, so what. There’s nothing to be done about it. Mrs Weasley offers her hand, and Harry takes it, lets herself be led toward the bench beside the single door leading into the hall. There are no other doors, no windows. No one wanted to risk an escape. “Come, my dear. We still have some time, and there are things you must know if you are to be wed.”
A knock on the door takes Mrs Weasley away from her, and then it’s just Harry, alone in her little cell. She stays where she’s seated on the bench, clenching and unclenching her hands in her skirt as she watches the charmed candles bob in place near the ceiling. Even that quickly becomes too much, and she looks to the floor instead as the world threatens to spin out from under her.
The minutes drag on, and she feels every inch of herself. Her palms are clammy. She shivers, a cold sweat breaking out across her skin.
Meanwhile, her stomach is full of knots, hot and squirming.
She presses her shoulders back against the wall, flinches from the cold scrape of stone, then presses harder. By the time the door opens again, she’s gone back to watching the candles, timing her breaths to their movement through the air.
Slowly, she looks to the doorway, finds it empty. The hall beyond it is silent.
Right. It’s time.
Breathing fast and hard again, her heart beating like a drum in her chest, Harry rises from the bench. Lifts her heavy feet and puts them one in front of the other, until she’s standing at the threshold. Daylight awaits in the wedding hall, a shock after the dimly lit chamber behind her. The southern wall is almost entirely made up of windows, and the light pours in unobstructed, shimmering off the marble floor.
It’s wrong, she thinks nonsensically before attempting to smother it and the feeling that inspired it for good measure. Still, the thought persists. It should be dark.
Her lips tremble, her eyes begin to burn, and she pinches her wrist, twists her thumbnail into her skin until the threat of tears subsides. Head clear again, she lifts her chin and marches into the wedding hall.
A circle of heads turns to watch her entrance. Witnesses, neutral and otherwise. Like a child seeking comfort, Harry looks for Mr and Mrs Weasley first. Mrs Weasley attempts a wobbly smile when Harry catches her eye, clutching a handkerchief to her chest. Mr Weasley just looks back at her, knuckles white where he holds his wife’s arm. Lupin and Professor McGonagall stand sentinel beside them, disapproval clear across their faces. It wouldn’t surprise her if they’d been cursed silent; just last night, their voices rose through the floorboards of 12 Grimmauld Place well into the morning, loud enough to recognize even if she couldn’t quite make out the words.
Across the loose circle of observers, Snape radiates malice, his dark eyes glittering as he watches her approach. The Malfoys — sans their son, thank Merlin — and another Death Eater she only vaguely recognizes avoid her gaze entirely, staring flatly ahead.
And there, at the center of it all, Lord Voldemort waits.
She’s taller than Harry remembers, dressed in robes so black they threaten to eat all the light in the room. Her pale, serpentine face is set in stone, but her red eyes are like fire, hungry and alive. They’ve been watching her since she stepped into the hall, and maybe even before, penetrating that dark chamber where Harry waited, the thick walls charmed to prevent escape unable to hide her from Voldemort's intent gaze.
She isn’t wearing any shoes.
“This way, Miss Potter,” Minister Fudge — who only barely clung to office in the wake of Voldemort’s reveal, saved by the sudden offer of ceasefire just days after the calls for his resignation started flooding in — says from just beyond the circle. He reaches out like he means to touch her, to guide her the rest of the way, and Harry realizes abruptly that she’s stopped walking. She steps quickly out of reach, leaving his hand to flutter uselessly back to his side.
Professor Dumbledore reaches for her next, and this time she doesn’t shy away. Here, finally, is someone who understands, who’s burdened her with neither apology nor tears. Someone who won’t let her flee, who would be able to stop her if she tried. She puts her hand in his warm, sure grip, and walks forward at his side.
They pass through the observers, and she doesn’t look at them. She can’t bear it, not when she’s so close to the end.
When they reach the line of runes set into the floor, Dumbledore releases her, and some small, childish part of her threatens to keep hold, to drag him forward into the circle with her.
But she lets go.
She walks the rest of the way alone, and it’s easy. Three steps, that’s all. Just three. In the end, Lord Voldemort is close enough that Harry has to look up to meet her gaze. From this distance, Harry can see the beat of her pulse in her throat, the subtle flare of her slit nostrils as she scents the air, breathing her in. It would be nothing at all, to reach out and touch her. It would be hell.
But Lord Voldemort has touched her before. She survived it then, and she’ll survive it now.
Professor Dumbledore speaks the words to begin the ceremony, and she feels more than hears them. Lets them wash over her, pass through her, until finally, the words she’s been waiting for: “…and let man and wife clasp hands, and by their word be bound.”
Voldemort moves first, reaching her long, spidery hands, one above the other, into the space between them. You can still run, Hermione’s voice whispers in the back of her mind. It’s not too late. But it is too late. One last moment, one last breath, as herself; she takes it slowly, really feels it — the press of her ribs against confining silk, the rush of her blood from her scalp to her toes, bounding free from her chest.
Voldemort’s hands are cold.
They arrange themselves as directed, and Harry hears herself repeat the vows as though from far away. Watches from outside her body as their words take shape, ribbons of fire binding her to Lord Voldemort from wrist to wrist.
Voldemort’s gaze doesn’t stray from her even once, and as the last vow sinks into their skin, Harry looks up to meet it.
If this is her fate, so be it. She’ll look it in the eye.