"Really, Malfoy," he could see a face to the voice. Hair that was redder than Aideen's. Eyes that were blue and freckles. Loads and loads of freckles. Weasley.
"Leave him be, Ron," he heard another voice. Potter. Potter.
"Her-My-Oh-Nee," a child. This was a child's voice.
"Do not give him to Hermione," his godfather. Clearly.
"Don't worry, Severus," Granger. Granger laughing. And he could still only see Weasley's face. Which wasn't very attractive. "He will be good, won't you, Ted? Hello Noel."
"Mister Miner," his godfather.
"Mister Snape, Hermione," a strange voice.
"Seriously," Weasley's mouth was moving so he assumed it was him speaking. "Malfoy. Really. You should get in gear. Either you run away or you don't and snap out of it. I know there are Muggles coming and Harry's boyfriend is a Muggle so you shouldn't apparate, even if he knows about magic but I think I could shift their attention away for a moment if you want to get away."
His head snapped up completely. "How dare you?" he glowered.
And Weasley — Weasley — had the audacity to grin. "I only wanted you to snap out of that," he smirked. "My brother Bill had the same thing before he got married. We had to shock him into getting a move on but he did and he's happy and they're expecting their second child. So..." Weasley shrugged. "I bet Harry wouldn't mind if you came to Grimmauld Place if you don't act like an arse. But Hermione says you're not quite the arse anymore. I reserve my judgement."
"Don't you never shut up?" Malfoy hissed.
"Not likely. Not until you have the ring on your finger or have run away."
"You make me want to run away," he grumbled.
"But you won't because you want to get married, Malfoy," Weasley grinned and stood up, his hand hovering in the air as if he wanted to help him up. He couldn't possibly want to help him up. A Weasley. Imagine that. But his tactic had obviously worked and he had got hold of his thoughts again. He loved Aideen. Aideen was his family. She was the woman he wanted to have a family with and that was why he was doing it. They already lived together, nothing would change. They would share a bed. But since they already shared a life, it wouldn't be too hard. He could do it. Nobody set rules how a husband should be. He would love her, he would honour her and he would cherish her. And all the rest, he was sure she would tell him what she wanted, what she expected. He could do it.
Weasley still had his hand hovering there and without thinking, he grasped it, let himself be pulled up at the moment a few of Aideen's relatives arrived. Her father, her brother, some of her cousins. He couldn't let them see how he had felt mere minutes ago and he nodded at Weasley who still grinned like a loon, then nodded at his godfather and as dignified as he could with Severus on his heels, he entered the church.
.
While Aideen looked rather nice standing there, he had a better view of Hermione who looked gorgeous. Dignified. Beautiful. Mature. Not like a girl at all. She looked like a woman who knew how to sit, how to smile, how to be entirely enticing. But he could let his eyes wander. It was a bit impolite, he knew, not to pay his full attention to the happy couple and the clergyman up there but it was simple to look once in a while. Minerva McGonagall in a long dress that had last been worn sometimes in the 1950ies, possibly. Poppy Pomfrey wearing the same style. Neville Longbottom and the girl he remembered as Hannah Abbott next to him in a tux and a shift dress. The entire Weasley clan — some better dressed than others. Luna Lovegood who had abandoned her radish-earrings for the Muggle variety sitting amongst them. The only sea of blonde now that the eldest' and his wife were missing.
He had to admit to himself that he wasn't paying any attention to the ceremony as soon as his eyes fell on Hermione. Each time. He hadn't expected this. He couldn't explain it. She had been...at first...the one whom he thought he could like, could imagine being with but now, now, that he had got to know her, got to know her entire being, most of her moods, had fought with her, had made up again, had even listened to her when it had come to that bloody bench in that bloody cellar and had put it where she had suggested, he knew that she had him. Completely.
He had lied to Draco before. He wasn't beginning to fall in love with her. With that person smiling so beautifully up at him, he was in love. With the person who had thanked him with her eyes and her lips when he had said that the watch was their gift. And it was. Without Hermione, he couldn't have ever thought of it. He couldn't help that he always wanted to know that she was well and where she was. He couldn't help it. And if he could imagine that Draco felt the same way. That he always wanted to know she was okay, especially after that incident with Andromeda Tonks. It was her fault. All her fault. She had grabbed his heart, had pushed herself into it, and had seemed to make permanent room in it. She lived in it now and he felt absolutely no remorse by seeing all those witches and wizards in bad Muggle clothing. He felt no remorse. He felt nothing. Those were people from a former life, barely remembered in this life now. All those who hadn't stood by him. All those who hadn't spoken up for him. Or maybe they had, maybe they hadn't been heard. All those that hadn't trusted him. All those that had doubted Dumbledore. He didn't care anymore. His life was another now. He liked having his wand close by and he revelled in the fact that he could apparate and disapparate, that he could brew potions but to go back to all those witches and wizards? See that stern look of McGonagall's every day? Remembering every day that she had tried to kill him? No. Definitely not. He had been made an outcast of that world and he liked remaining that outcast. He had never fit in anywhere. In his, albeit odd, family, he belonged, he fit. Draco accepted him without doubt, Aideen in a way, admired him and Hermione...Hermione. She had, in a way, left the Wizarding World as well. She was studying a typical Muggle art. Yes, she had plans to reform the Wizarding World with her knowledge but she had chosen a Muggle way. She had turned away from her former teachers (all but him, it seemed) and had barely greeted them at all.
Strange.
Strange how they had all fought to keep the Wizarding World the way it was, and then turning their backs to it.
Strange.
He only noticed by everyone getting up that the ceremony was over, that Aideen and Draco were married, had been married, that Aideen proudly carried herself and the name of Malfoy. That she looked quite pretty in her grandmother's wedding dress but he did notice that Hermione smiled for him, for only him and that she waited for him to lent her his arm. He didn't care that everyone seemed to have more eyes for him and her together, walking down the aisle behind the couple. He didn't care. Not about them.
100. Semantics
Semantics is the study of the meaning of words, phrases and sentences. In semantic analysis, there is always an attempt to focus on what the words conventionally mean, rather than on what a speaker might want the words to mean on a particular occasion. This technical approach to meaning emphasizes the objective and the general. It avoids the subjective and the local. Linguistic semantics deals with the conventional meaning conveyed by the use of words and sentences of a language.
(Yule, 1985)
And suddenly, Lucius Malfoy stood there. She hadn't noticed him not being inside but apparently, he hadn't been. He stood a few feet away, observing the procession out of the small church, absolutely no expression visible on his face. Hermione could see how he watched Draco kissing Aideen and smiling and her laughing and giggling and clutching her new husband's arm, looking absolutely lovely in her grandmother's dress. She, at the same time, tugged on Severus's arm and nodded her head towards Malfoy, standing there, looking a little lost but astonishingly...Muggle in what looked like an expensive pinstripe suit.
"Was he in church?" she asked in a whisper.
He shook his head. "I haven't seen him in there," he answered.
"Hm,"she mumbled and was dragged away for pictures but she kept her eyes on the father of the groom. He didn't look like he belonged and if his face hadn't been so obviously neutral, she thought he should have looked sad. Not outraged at all. Just...as if what he saw didn't mean anything to him.
She took her heart in her hands and as she looked at her...Severus, he rolled his eyes. "Just tell them," he whispered as if he could read her mind, while he kept his own neutral expression on his own face. One picture of him would be great, the thought interrupted her other thoughts, where he was smiling. She'd keep that forever. Definitely. She shook her self.
"Are you using...you know what?" she whispered back, a glance at Aideen's Muggle aunt next to her. Severus smirked and nudged her towards the happy couple, posing for pictures (Muggle pictures). She rolled her own eyes but made her way through the entire wedding party towards Draco and Aideen, then decided against talking to them and swam back through the crowd and slipped away, towards Malfoy. He should be on the photos, no matter if he looked like he didn't belong. One day, all of them would regret it if he wasn't — he would, they would. She strode, as quickly and as inconspicuously towards the lonesome man standing there and in a Muggle suit, and without the cane, he looked a hell of a lot less intimidating.
"Hello," she said politely.
He only nodded his head in reply but said nothing, didn't even spare her more than a glance, still looked at his son and his new daughter-in-law.
"You should be on the photos as well," she said quietly. "And congratulate them."
"You should, Lucius," she felt a large hand on her shoulder and felt her...Severus's warmth on her back. She didn't turn around to look at him but Lucius looked rather...surprised, especially as his absence had not gone quite as unnoticed as hers had and too many pairs of eyes were on them now, even that of the happy couple. She didn't want to turn away from Lucius but she just had to look at Draco. His expression was more surprised than shocked, more curious than scared but she could tell that this particular picture — the flash just having gone off again — would most definitely not go on their mantel. It might go on hers, however, she bit back a wholly unsuitable grin. She understood his feelings — but it looked too divine to see him with his mouth hanging open like this and his eyebrows almost touching his hairline.
She wasn't sure when he began walking or if he was dragged forwards by Aideen. She wasn't sure whether he knew what he was doing but it wasn't far to where Malfoy was standing and it seemed Severus was holding his breath also.
"Father," Draco said. "I don't believe you have met my wife yet. Officially. This is Aideen Malfoy," he continued defiantly.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Missus Malfoy," Malfoy said and his voice sounded...strange.
She bent over to Severus and pushed herself up on her tiptoes. "Is he under something?"
He shook his head. "I don't think so," his warm breath tickled her neck and he seemed to sniff, or smell or...she wasn't sure what but h bent even closer and he could feel his lips against the shell of her ear for barely a second. She couldn't remember what she wanted to say. Or anything. He had touched her in a rather...intimate...way in front of all these people. With a camera nearby — even if it wasn't pointed towards them.
"It's lovely that you could come," Aideen beamed proudly. "It was a rather nice service, don't you think?" she asked innocently and wrapped her arm around Draco, rubbing her cheek against his shoulder.
"Yes," Malfoy lied.
"But why don't you stand over there with us? You have to be on the pictures!" she sounded too girlish for Hermione's taste. Too excited. But maybe that happened when you got married. And she actually disentangled herself from her snuggle with her new husband and grasped Malfoy's hand, pulling him towards her party. Took his hand! Malfoy's hand. Lucius Malfoy's hand.
"I'll have to cut that arm off," Draco muttered darkly. "Having been touched by something so...dirty."
He walked away, tried on a smile which didn't look quite as sincere as it has a few minutes ago but as Severus made no move to go back, she remained by his side as well.
"Do you think he will spoil it?" she asked, looking straight ahead and watching, with great interest, how Aideen put him next to her so that Potter was behind him, the Weasleys behind him, all the witches and wizards in fact, behind him.
"If he had wanted to spoil it, I don't think anything could have kept him from being in that church," he replied, staring as well.
"Why wasn't he?"
"Who knows? Maybe making an effort not to spoil it or maybe his...faith... kept him from going in. I don't know. Shall we go ahead to the reception-thing?"
"No more pictures?" she grinned up at him as he scowled. An adorable scowl and so predictable.
He took her hand, and pulled her, much like Aideen had pulled Malfoy, in the next Alley and around the corner, checked that nobody saw them and apparated with her.
.
He stood up and tried to hide his scowl.
He had seen Skeeter buzzing around in her Animagus form. He had seen the photographer disguised as a Muggle and seemingly unnoticed by all the other guests. He had even managed to get a decent Muggle camera. And it seemed quite likely now that Hermione had noticed her as well, and if he remembered correctly, she had been the one to reveal that bloody person as an unregistered animagus, and that explained, quite well, why she kept a respectable distance and why she hadn't even taken his hand. He didn't care — he took her hand as he stood and while he didn't quite smile at her, he shot her a brief, benevolent glance.
So — his picture would most certainly be in a newspaper in the Wizarding World in the morning. He found himself that he didn't mind at all. He had no dealings with the Wizarding World anymore. He hadn't even said one word to any of the wizards or witches present — apart from Draco or Hermione. McGonagall had tried to fight her way through to him. A few of the Weasleys had but the food had just been there in time and he could sit peacefully between Aideen and Hermione and eat. He would have to think of something after the toasts and speeches and whatnot. Maybe he could make Hermione dance all the time and threaten her with...well, she would have to sleep at home if she let someone cut in. Well. Maybe not. Maybe that was more of a punishment for him. He would think of something better. After he had to give this damn speech. He had something prepared but...with Skeeter buzzing around and probably registering everything in that minute brain of hers, he would have to keep up appearances.
