Disclaimers: Dark themes, police state ideas, mention of spousal abuse (including rape) on and off-screen, death of minor characters, graphic imagery and violence, frank sex discussion, copious bad language, bashing the fucking Weasley's and Dumbledore, liberties taken with mythical history and the HP real-life timeline.
***
Harry reached across Hermione, met her eyes over the rim of her teacup, exchanged a sweet, loving look with her a moment, then took and another slice of toast from the rack to her left, which he then proceeded to butter carefully. Well, to call it a tea cup would be something of an inaccuracy, when in fact it was actually one of baby Alison's plastic beakers that Hermione was drinking from.
In fact, it was what they were all drinking from ... one cup at a time. ... because it was the only thing they had left for the job.
This was a fact only further emphasised by Sally, who was walking around the populated, but awkwardly silent, Breakfast Parlour, scooping up fragments of china that had been missed on the earlier sweep-up attempt, which had been the first tackling of this mammoth task, that was dealing with the absolute carnage that Harry and Hermione's wedding night love-making had wrought on the entire Palace.
It was all Harry could do not to burst out laughing. He had a reputation to uphold, after all. So he tried his best to pout and frown as always, but inside he was being tickled to death. And it didn't help that Hermione, sat so invasively close on his left hand side, was in exactly the same state as he. She was locked in a death struggle with a fit of giggles herself. Harry could feel them inside her, as potently as if they were actually in his own chest, which only made his own chaffing mirth ten times worse.
So Hermione sat in silence, burying her giggling lips in as much tea as she could stand, pointedly avoiding making eye contact with anyone, while Harry fought hard to pretend that ... despite the glaring evidence all around them ... everything was just the same as it always had been. It was a game everyone else was playing, and Harry was just in that sort of mood to join in.
But it was so damned hard!
For a start, some of the house-elves were nosily erecting a scaffold along one wall of the Breakfast Parlour, to begin replacing the missing parts of the ceiling, which had been swept into a neat little mountain nearby. They were whistling a cheery little tune, and clanking merrily away, as they attached struts and rivets and brackets to the steel frame. There were torturous screeches as wooden beams were slid roughly into place, and every now and then a playful elf would push another from the scaffold, and belly laugh as his victim bounced away off the scorched and singed carpet like a rubber ball.
And the assorted witches and wizards at the large breakfast table ignored all of it, as if they couldn't hear any of the racket happening just a few feet away from them.
Then there were the witches and wizards themselves. Harry was sat opposite Susan Bones, who was tousled and sleep-mussed and kept flashing nervous little glances at Cassie, sat at the other end of the table. Both of them deliberately evaded looking in the direction of Neville, who was sat with Enola on Hermione's other side, but he regularly flicked his humour-filled eyes their way, trying to catch them off-guard, then grinning madly every time he managed it.
As for Enola, herself, she had clearly been fucked to within an inch of her life by the looks of her. That was obvious from her dreamy expression and curiously curly hair, as she'd usually prefer to die before she displayed that to the world in a state other than the immaculate straight lines she favoured. Plus the fact that she had actually been limping when she and Neville entered the Breakfast Parlour that morning, which told its own story.
After all, Harry hadn't seen her in such a state since the day after her own wedding.
And he was thrilled for her. Harry knew how deep Enola's love for Neville went. He'd felt it in ritual with her, not that he'd have needed magic to work it out. It was obvious in every nuance of her behaviour. But her emotional depth was matched in intensity by her physical attraction to him. And Enola Longbottom was nothing if not a physically passionate girl. And it had been months since Neville had been able to be intimate with her. The loss was causing her borderline depression, and Harry hated seeing it, and being unable to help.
But now, it seemed, his wild plan had worked and he actually had. And Enola looked bright and vibrant for the change. Harry knew Neville would eventually ask him the awkward questions, look for answers and a repeat prescription to his previous dysfunction. Harry would have to chat with Enola, devise a strategy. He could always point to the runes, say it was Potter family magic ... part of a secret he could only share with Hermione, the only other properly recognised member of the family. He could say his Dad had struggled with the same thing and had suggested the solution.
Only later, when Harry was actually saw his father, that would be an awkward lie to explain away. But that would be an afternoon delight for the future. So, for now, he just wanted to have fun playing this little game at breakfast.
And the best player at the table had now decided to deal herself in.
"It was such a shame that you didn't have a big party in the daytime for your wedding, Lady Hermione," said little Celesca, ruefully picking at a plate of scrambled eggs she was sharing with Luna. "I was so looking forward to one, but it was past my bedtime by the time the ceremony was finished in the night and Mummy said I had to go to sleep."
"I'm sorry, honey," Hermione cooed. "Maybe you and I can have a little party of our own instead this afternoon? Would you like that?"
"Ooh yes, can we? We can have cake, and jelly, and ice-cream, and biscuits," Celesca began in a sing-song voice. But then she stopped, and her face curled into a cross little frown as she looked over at Luna. "But, wait ... I had better ask Mummy first ... just in case she wants to be really cruel to me again."
"I haven't been cruel to you," Luna argued, colouring slightly as the others turned to look questioningly at her. "When was I cruel?"
"Last night, when you made me go to bed after the wedding."
"That wasn't cruel, Celesca," Luna told her gently, relaxing with a smile. "That was me being a good Mummy. It was very late and your were so tired that I had to carry you to bed in the end."
"It was very cruel," Celesca insisted, narrowing her eyes, adoringly cute and cross all at once. "It was mean of you, I think, because everyone else had little parties of their own after the big one and, Mummy, you were very unfair to me, I think, because you wouldn't let me go to any of those, either."
"People had other parties?" Hermione queried, cocking a bemused look at Luna, who sagely widened her eyes and subtly shook her head, desperate to implore Hermione not to encourage where Celesca was going with this, but she helplessly misread the expression. It was a fatal mistake.
"Oh yes," Celesca returned, sweetly. "And everyone else seemed to be having so much fun. They were doing funny dances and banging around and making a lot of noise and things like that. But I just had to sit with Mummy and Nanny Ciss and play Exploding Snap until I was tired enough for bed, which didn't seem like half as much fun as the others were having."
"It does sound like some of the other parties were better," Hermione agreed, winking at Luna, who closed her eyes in pity at what Hermione was blindly bringing down upon herself.
"I bet they were," Celesca nodded, vigorously. "But, what I don't get ... and maybe you can explain this to me, Lady Hermione, because Mummy wouldn't tell me when I asked her earlier ... was why everyone decided to take all of their clothes off for it?"
Hermione spat her tea back into her beaker as a bolt of shocked laughter broke through her restraint. At the other end of the table, Cassie snorted out a guffaw, and Harry just focused on chewing his toast as fast as he could ... sure he might crack a rib as he strained against his own giggles.
"D-did they, sweetheart?" Hermione replied with, Harry thought admiringly, remarkable composure. "How strange."
"They did, every single one of them," Celesca confirmed with a confused little frown. "Why do you think that was, Lady Hermione? What were they doing that for?"
"I ... I really don't know, honey," Hermione backtracked desperately. She looked to Harry for support, but he just turned away, sure that his jaw had broken from the effort of trying to keep it shut.
"Oh. That's a shame. I thought you might know, you see, because I saw ... with my special magic in my mind ... that you were doing a funny dance with no clothes on, too ... with Mister Harry ... and that he didn't have any clothes on, either. So I thought you must know all about it. Only me and Mummy and Nanny Ciss didn't have a party with not clothes on, you know, so we must be the only ones who don't know how to have one like that."
"Yes, that's probably it," Hermione agreed, weakly.
"Not only that, though," Celesca ploughed on relentlessly. "But I think some people thought it was Halloween already, you know. But, as I was telling Miss Myfanwy earlier, that isn't till next month. I think, being stuck in here, people forget what date it is sometimes."
"And ... er ... what makes you think that they thought it was Halloween?" asked Harry, deeply curious despite the war he was losing against his aching lungs.
"Well, it was all that screaming," Celesca explained patiently. Hermione made an explosive sound with her nose, and grabbed Harry's hand under the table, practically crushing his fingers with her vibrating death grip. They couldn't hold out much longer. "I don't know if they were scaring each other on purpose or what, but it must have been terribly frightening.
"And Miss Enola does a very good zombie impression too, don't you, Miss Enola? Can you do it for me now, because I'm sure Lady Hermione would like to see it? You know the one ...'urghhh urggghh urghhh' ... you must remember it, as you were doing it for ages last night ... and it's really very scary."
"Yes, yes it is," Neville agreed, nodding solemnly, as Enola glowed crimson next to him and shrunk away from the raft of attention that flew towards her.
Harry purposely knocked his fork to the floor, so he could quietly die under the table as he ducked down to retrieve it. He wondered vaguely who would find his corpse ... and what Tom Riddle would think when he found out that Harry had been killed by a little girl making him laugh himself to death. He pushed his whole fist into his mouth and rocked crazily as he tried to keep his giggles as muffled as possible.
"So, why didn't you have a bigger party, Lady Hermione?" Celesca was pressing on back at the table. "I thought that's what you were supposed to do when you got married. Didn't you like your wedding very much, or something, and didn't want to celebrate it that long? I thought it was all very pretty, really, if you ask me."
"So did I, sweetie," said Hermione, stupidly thinking that the worst was over, as she tugged Harry back up to his seat. "But Harry and I just wanted to have a little party of our own, as it was our first night as husband and wife. It was a time we just wanted to spend with just the two of us."
"Oh, I see. That's nice, isn't it?" Celesca chirped, sweetly. "I bet Mister Harry probably still got you a present though, didn't he? He thinks such pretty things about you, Lady Hermione, did you know? And, as it was your wedding day, I'm sure he gave you something really special last night, didn't you, Mister Harry?"
Hermione spat the mouthful of cold tea she'd just chanced to sip right down the front of her dress in her unexpected shock.
"Yes, I did," Harry replied piously, grinning at Neville, who was red in the face trying not to erupt with laughter. "I gave her something very special, Miss Lovegood."
"Was it big?" asked Celesca, curiously. Hermione had gone purple trying to bite down on her own laughter, but she still managed to kick Harry's shins under the table, as punishment for where he was grinning so smugly at her. "I think you're the kind of person who likes to give big things."
"I do, you're quite right," Harry confirmed, smirking brilliantly. "And this thing I gave to Lady Hermione was huge."
"It really was," Hermione confirmed, somewhat wistfully, causing Enola to grin broadly at her.
"But it's what you do with it that counts," Neville added, frowning slightly as he watched his and Harry's wife have a full-on conversation with just their eyes.
"And what's that?" asked Celesca, fascinated.
"Yeah, Nev," asked Harry, calmly swivelling to face Neville. "Tell us what that is, again, wont you?"
"You make girls happy with it," Neville countered smoothly. Harry acknowledged the skill with a brief nod.
"Oh. That's nice," said Celesca. "Do you think I can get one then, seeing as I'm a girl, too?"
"No!" Hermione, Enola and Luna cried in animated chorus.
Celesca frowned. "Well, that seems very unfair, if you ask me," she said haughtily. "Especially if all the other girls get one. Maybe I can just borrow yours, Lady Hermione. You can't have liked it, because Mummy told me all the broken windows were your fault. I don't think you'd have smashed windows if you were happy, would you? Maybe you broke yours. I'll think I'd better come up later and have go on it, see if it still works. If not, I'll take it away for you. I think that would be best."
Harry had lost the ability to breathe. He couldn't take much more.
"No, sweetie, it's fine," said Hermione gently. "Mister Harry has put it away already. And that's where it will be staying if he doesn't grow up."
Sorry, Min. Harry thought. Bizarrely, Hermione seemed to hear him, as she narrowed her eyes teasingly in his direction. They were twinkling with humour, though, so he knew he was still on safe ground with her. But that was a very odd few seconds that passed between them.
"How about we have a proper party later then" Harry offered to Celesca, as much to pacify his wife as anything. "I'm sure you can help with the decorations and things. We have a big gazebo somewhere around here, so why don't we put it up outside and have a big garden party in the sun?"
"Oooh, can we, Mister Harry?" Celesca cried excitedly, easily redirected. "Will you let me, help, Mummy? I wont be any trouble, honest."
"Of course, sweetie," said Luna, smiling, glad that the cringe-fest was finally over. "Why don't we go and find Rhian, see if any of the house-elves can be spared to help."
"Okay, but I don't think they will be," said Celesca, seriously. "That earthquake last night practically broke the house in half, you know ... it's going to take ages to clean up all the mess ..."