A/N: Thanks for the reviews! I'll get around to answering them pretty soon, I swear!
Where Elizabeth Stood
Chapter 5-Going to Be Fine
Hermione woke up early the next day and just stared about the room as though hoping to divine inspiration from its contents. She knew logically that the earth would go on turning, the sun would continue its daily trek across the sky, and in that she was certain that tomorrow on the whole would be no different than today. She also knew that this was the time for a pep talk, since once the wedding chaos began she probably wouldn't get an opportunity.
So, sitting up in bed with the bedclothes up to her neck, she wondered how she was going to make it through the day-or rather, how she was going to make it through the rest of her life. In less than five hours, she would walk down the aisle toward Harry-and then step aside so that his bride could stand in her place. That was where Elizabeth stood.
But the morning had brought with it a fresh sense of hope. The future was not definite; the bleak picture she had painted of the death of the trio did not have to be so if she worked against it. And, she conceded to herself, even if the future failed, they would always have the past, and that past was dear enough to sustain her through the worst. It was as though the tears she had cried while falling asleep the previous night had cleansed her, hardened her resolve, and returned her to her state of steadfastness.
With that renewed determination, she threw off her blankets, hastily piled her hair in a messy knot on top of her head and grabbed the garment bag holding her bridesmaids dress, her woefully stocked make-up kit, and the silken slippers that had been exactly dyed to match her navy blue dress. She left the house quickly, not daring to look into the drawing room and be reminded of the previous night's almost-mistake.
She judged by the lack of stirring in the house that neither of her housemates were awake, which elicited feelings she couldn't quite identify within herself. She knew that the next time she saw Harry and Ron would be at the wedding and that once they walked down the aisle nothing would be quite the same, but she didn't know how she felt about it. In a sense, it was the end of an era, but that didn't necessarily have to be bad.
She arrived at the enormous hotel room Mrs. Prinsen had booked for the bridal party's preparations just in time to witness the beginnings of total chaos. From the few words of sense she could glean from the scene, it seemed that Elizabeth's sister Anne had left her dress on the plane and had only just noticed. Hermione did her best to calm the mother of the bride, who was quickly approaching a state of hysterics only broken so that she could scold her older daughter for her carelessness in not noticing sooner (as it was her wedding after all and Mrs. Prinsen could not be forced to make sure everything was always absolutely perfect) and surveyed the room. Why Elizabeth had chosen a hotel to be married in was unknown to her, but at least she had picked one that was not overly decorated.
Walking purposefully to the window, she yanked down one of the drapes and commanded Anne Prinsen to stand still while she transfigured a dress that matched her own. When she had finished, no one outside of the room could have identified which bridesmaids' dresses was the original. Thusly, peace was restored to the bridal suite.
The next few hours passed relatively uneventfully and Hermione couldn't help but shoot worried glances at Elizabeth every now and then. The bride had not said much that morning and while she had been all smiles when Hermione had arrived to bring order to her own family, she had been growing steadily taciturn and just stared blankly at the progress the hairdresser made in the mirror. None of the bridal party seemed to have noticed, least of all Elizabeth's mother and sister, who Hermione could tell were very close and seemed to be more concerned with each other than the nerves of the bride. For the first time, Hermione really understood Elizabeth's return to England.
Hermione quitted the room briefly to stuff herself into her dress and shoes. When she came back, she noticed that Elizabeth was no longer sitting in front of the hairdressing station. Rather than alarming the Prinsens, Hermione asked the hairdresser if he knew where the bride had gone, but he only shrugged.
Without pausing to think, she quickly dashed out of the room again and began to search. She thought of nothing, especially not the look on Harry's face if he learned that the bride had disappeared. She checked the corridor on which the hotel room was situated and then proceeded to the lifts, looking into each doorway as she passed. She rounded the corner, trying to figure out which direction to take in the elevator, and saw her.
Elizabeth, in her elegant and old-fashioned but tasteful wedding dress, stood silhouetted against the large paneled windows that looked out of the side of the building, gazing with quiet reflection at the tiny moving people on the pavement below.
At first Hermione did not think that Elizabeth had heard her, but then the red head spoke softly to the glass. "I'm sorry, I just had to get out of that room. This dress is so stifling, and my mother, well you saw her."
She turned and her black eyes, filled only with a fraction of their usual warmth, met Hermione's brown ones. She smiled a little sadly and said, "Oh Hermione, you look lovely. Navy looks very well on you, I noticed during that one Christmas."
Hermione muttered her thanks, but her mind was reeling. This quiet, pensive Elizabeth was not one she knew; she supposed this was how Elizabeth coped with nerves.
She placed a comforting hand on the younger witch's shoulder and said gently, "You're going to be fine."
Elizabeth gave a wan smile in reply and Hermione noticed that she had gone so pale that her black eyes stood out even more. "You look beautiful, Elizabeth. Just imagine Harry's face when you walk down the aisle," she said reassuringly, though the words were cutting into her heart.
"I would do anything for him," Elizabeth said suddenly. Her eyes bore into Hermione's with a fierceness that frightened her. "I love him, and I will make him happy."
So would I, thought Hermione, her hand flying once more to her neck. She would go to hell and back for him-she had. She understood in the witch's words a promise to his best friend and the woman who for much of his life had been the most important. In half an hour, she would relinquish this role and have to trust in the woman now before to keep her promise. "I know you will," she answered quietly, and she believed it.
Elizabeth had been following the movement of Hermione's hand at her neck. Neither witch could deny the importance of what had just transpired, but Elizabeth had a wedding to look forward to, and Hermione realized that the source of her anguish all morning had been related to Hermione's position as Harry's best female friend. It seemed that things had already begun to change irrevocably, but Hermione felt the strength to take it all in stride.
"Should we go back before my mother sends out a search party?" Elizabeth joked, linking arms with Hermione and heading back toward the bridal suite without waiting for an answer. Hermione couldn't admit that Elizabeth's mother hadn't even noticed her daughter's absence; at any rate, she suspected Elizabeth had somehow known that anyway. Just before they entered the room, Elizabeth turned toward her and remarked, "That necklace is perfect, by the way. Is it a sapphire?"
Hermione frowned, thinking that Elizabeth should have recognized a piece of jewelry she had picked out herself. "Yeah," she replied slowly, "it's my birthstone."
Elizabeth emitted a little laugh, fully returned to her natural good spirits. "And here I thought September was topaz! I suppose I'm useless, aren't I?" She skipped into the room and wandered over to where her mother was arranging baby's breath in Anne's bronze hair, leaving a confused Hermione in the doorway.
But the brunette had no time to dwell on this paradox, as in the next moment she was being whisked to the foyer of the room where the wedding was to actually take place. There she met up with Ron and Neville, Harry's groomsmen, looking rather dashing in their newly tailored dress robes.
The Prinsens gathered in the corner and Elizabeth grinned in that harried way that daughters with overbearing and unappreciative mothers do. Hermione joined the pair of wizards, her relief at being out of the bridal suite bedlam at war with her anxiety for the event about to begin.
"How you holding up?" Ron asked seriously after Neville complimented her looks and then stepped away to give the pair some privacy.
Hermione shrugged. "About as well as can be expected. You look nice, by the way."
"Thanks," he said with a smile. "So do you."
She smiled and forced herself to keep from asking the one thing she wanted to know.
"Harry's fine, Hermione. A little nervous-I think he threw up once in the bin in our room-but fine otherwise," Ron said.
Hermione laughed at Ron's attempt to comfort her. "Really know how to paint a picture, don't you, Ron?"
They stood in silence as the wedding coordinator Elizabeth hired for the actual wedding day buzzed around putting the party in order. She fussed with Hermione's hair, which was already become frizzy again after the hairdresser declined her advice to use more Sleekeasy's, and steered her and Ron to their place just in front of Elizabeth and her father.
"I think you're making a mistake," came Ron's hissing voice in her ear.
Immediately Hermione looked back to make sure Elizabeth hadn't heard, but the bride was talking quietly with her father with an attentive expression on her face. She crossed her arms, facing Ron and looking him square in the face. The barrage of emotions beating on her for the last few months had exhausted her, and the last thing she wanted to discuss were the choices that had brought her there. She let out a sarcastic laugh, taking care to keep her voice low, and said, "Oh really, Ron, and what do you suggest I do? Run down the aisle and confess in front of the entire reception?"
"Well, why not?" he replied indignantly. "You've fancied him for ages, how can you just sit there and just let him go?"
The entrance music started and the flower girl, Bill and Fleur's Victoire, wandered down the aisle throwing fistfuls of flower petals onto the red carpet to the delight of the assembly.
Hermione felt the beginnings of tears poke at her eyes. "I'm not letting him go, Ron. He's going to be happy," she said quietly, still mindful of Harry's bride standing behind her.
Neville and Anne began their slow march. Hermione and Ron stepped forward, awaiting their turn, and Hermione felt Ron grip her arm consolingly.
"If you won't tell him, Hermione, I will," said Ron with determination.
"No you won't, Ronald Bilius Weasley, if you still favor the notion of fathering children," was Hermione's instant reply. "It's too late."
A beat later and the Best Man and Maid of Honor rounded to the corner and stepped through the doors into the wedding hall. She immediately caught sight of the Weasleys-particularly Ginny, who shot her an encouraging if not pitying smile- Luna's long blond hair, and her parents who gave her a little wave when she saw them, but her eyes inevitably roamed to the end of the aisle.
When she saw Harry, her breath actually caught in her throat. She had imagined this very moment hundreds of times, but never had she walked down the aisle toward the man she loved with the full knowledge that she would have to step aside at the end of it.
Harry was gazing at his best friends with a true grin, a rarity for Harry Potter. Before she could stumble or succumb to the grief that had only just seemed to really hit her, she whispered, "Ron, I don't know if I can do this."
He didn't reply, but she sensed that he had taken on a bit more of her weight. She knew that she would never lose the friendship of Harry or Ron, and Ron's shouldering of her weight-emotional or physical-seemed to reinforce that. Suddenly she could breathe easier.
When she reached the groom, she waited a few feet back while Ron embraced him and then moved to his side. Hermione stepped forward into his open arms and inhaled deeply, allowing herself one last moment to enjoy him before backing away to join Anne on the other side of the altar. She kept her eyes fixed on Harry, not caring what it looked like to anyone else, until the music changed and the congregation rose and turned their heads to where Elizabeth stood in the doorway.
Appreciative oohs and aahs accompanied Elizabeth's journey down the aisle. Hermione noticed that Harry was transfixed by the sight of his bride, and her smile was only for him. This, more than anything else, had ensured Hermione that she was doing the right thing, even if it was killing her inside. She looked past Harry to Ron, whose eyes softened in sympathy.
After the assembled guests settled down back into their chairs, the wizard performing the ceremony began to speak. The words blurred in her ears, a jumble of meaningless noise that made her head ache. Images floated lazily through her vision-memories of good times at Hogwarts mostly and all involving Harry. Finally, she let herself think of her birthday gift from him and the fact that Elizabeth really not had any input on the purchase after all. She knew without any hesitation that she loved him and only him, that she only would love him. How many people could say that at the age of twenty-three? Could she really spend the rest of her life not knowing if he had felt the same?
Could she really be the one to ruin his happiest day by stopping the wedding?
She was recalled from her reverie by the sight of everyone staring at her with expectant looks. "The ring!" Ron was mouthing, and with a blush and apology, she handed over Harry's wedding band so that Elizabeth could fulfill her fantasy of placing it on Harry's finger.
Hermione could feel the anticipation of the next words building in the room. This was it, her very last moment. After this, there would be no looking back, no lamenting her fate, for she had charted her own course.
"If anyone has just cause as to why this man and woman should not be wed, speak now or forever hold your peace."
The words were on her. If she could force them past the block in her throat, she would declare herself to Harry then and there, and not care who witnessed. She looked at Harry, his expression of intense concentration, then Ron who had pursed his lips so tightly that they were white, then Ginny who was literally dancing on the spot as though deciding whether or not to speak, and then finally to Neville, who Hermione suspected knew more about the situation than he let on.
"I object."
The words hung heavily in the silence, followed by gasps from the guests. But it was not Hermione who had spoken.
A/N: Mwahahahaha! But who spoke those weighty words???
Sorry for the short chapter, but obviously I had to stop it here. To make up for it, the next one will be at least twice as long, I promise!