“You want them, don’t you?” she said knowingly. Emma blushed.

“I love shoes,” she said with a little half-smile, but even she couldn’t ignore her own tone of melancholy. “I really love shoes.” She turned them over and the price tag glared back at her. “I love shoes too much,” she sighed, going to put them back, but Narcissa took them from her and looked at them for a long time before saying quietly, “I have a pair similar to this. They’re silver, not white, but they are lovely. Some vintage designer I can’t recall. Since I had Draco, I can’t squeeze my feet into them, but…” She looked critically down at Emma’s feet. “I think they might fit you.”

Emma’s mouth fell open. “You’d really –?”

“You may as well have them.” Narcissa waved off Emma’s thanks, and looked over her shoulder at Snape, who was standing with his arms folded, leaning against a wall, his expression stony. “Emma, I do know you two are on a budget. But I can’t help but think you should have a wedding day to remember.”

Emma shrugged as if she didn’t care, but she felt a twinge of longing as she spied the ‘Vivienne Westwood’ label on a nearby handbag. “Like he says… it’s not a normal situation.” She was still surprised Snape had told the Malfoys the truth.

“Which is why you should make it as normal as possible. But anyway – the shoes. I should think you’ll love them – which means you’ll have another three hundred Galleons to spend on your wedding dress.” She grinned in a very un-Narcissa style and leapt to her feet.

“I’ve thought of something you’ll be very happy about,” she told Severus, after sending Emma off to look at the dresses. He scowled at her, as though he couldn’t possibly be happy about anything she had thought of. “Don’t do the face. I’m going to give Emma a pair of shoes – so now you’ve saved yourself three hundred Galleons.”

“I heard.” Her face fell. “Which means I also heard the part where I’ll be spending the aforementioned three hundred Galleons on a dress.” She smiled sheepishly.

“That dress, maybe,” she said, nodding towards Emma, who was gazing, enraptured, at a gown that she was holding up against herself in front of a floor-length mirror. Narcissa walked over and fingered the material. “Excellent quality. Beautiful, too.” It was what her son might have called ‘puffy’, but, unlike Draco, Narcissa had taste, and could see the effort that had gone into that silhouette. With Emma’s tiny waist, it would suit her, she was sure.

“It’s huge; it’ll hide my massive legs,” Emma said, staring at her reflection. Narcissa scoffed.

“Or perhaps emphasise your perfect waist and your huge chest.” Emma flushed.

“You think I’ll have to have it altered?”

“Darling, every wedding gown needs altering. And yes, you will – you’ll pop out otherwise.” Like so many of her listeners often did, Emma looked shocked at the very un-Narcissa statement.

"Do you want to try this on, Miss?” The shop assistant, Miss Twilfitt, a young, bony woman with blonde hair in a mass of messy curls on top of her head, had hurried over to help.

“Oh, I don’t know… I think it’s probably a bit out of my price range.”

“It’s 28,000, Miss,” Miss Twilfitt said with a slightly confused expression. Narcissa heard Emma take a sharp breath.

“Try it on, Emma,” she said encouragingly. “Just to see if the style suits you.” After a pause, during which Emma shuffled her feet and looked longingly at the dress, Narcissa made an impatient noise and shoved her into the changing room. Miss Twilfitt followed to offer help as Narcissa returned to Severus.

“I’ve had another brilliant idea, Severus.”

He groaned. “Another one?”

“I’m going to leave early, maybe about ten.”

He brightened considerably.

“That is a brilliant idea.”

“It’s to give you and Emma the chance to get to know one another,” Narcissa continued, ignoring him. “You should take her out to dinner, or for a drink somewhere.” He scowled. “Now, Severus, really – you’ve got years of living with her to come; you must have something to talk about. Do you want all those mornings you wake up next to her to be awkward?”

He blanched, she supposed at the thought of sleeping with one of his students, before saying sharply, “It doesn’t matter if we never talk at all. The only thing that matters is that Emma is safe. As I keep telling you, this is the only way I can ensure her safety.”

Narcissa stared at him.

“Why do you care so much, Severus?”

He shifted his weight, seemingly discomforted. “She’s one of my Slytherins. They’d kill her if they knew –” he glanced at the curtain behind which Miss Twilfitt was helping Emma into her dress and lowered his voice, “– if they knew what she was.”

“Would you have done it for any of the others?” Narcissa asked abruptly. “Pansy Parkinson, for instance?”

She could have laughed aloud to see the look of disgust that flashed across his features.

“She’s pureblood,” he said at once.

“That’s irrelevant. What if she wasn’t? Would you have proposed to her?”

It took him a long time to respond, because he was too busy fidgeting and clearing his throat, but eventually he said, “No. The girl drives me mad; I couldn’t live with her.”

“So that’s a reason to condemn her to death, is it?”

“Says the wife of Lucius Malfoy!” Severus cried incredulously.

“I think,” Narcissa said quietly, shooting a wary glance at the changing room, “that you care more for Emma than you say you do. Perhaps, even, more than you think you do.”

Severus stared at her for a very long time. For the first time since he had told her of his engagement, Narcissa saw fear in his eyes. Before the words, “God, what have I done? I’m not ready for marriage,” fell out of his mouth, Narcissa was already pulling him towards her into her embrace, rubbing her hands up and down his arms in an effort to comfort him. Just as she pulled away, she heard the curtain being whipped aside. They both turned.

Emma stepped out to stand before them, looking shy and overly modest in the extravagant dress. She was wearing a black bra and they could see the straps, but because the dress was so perfect, for the moment, it didn’t matter. As Narcissa had expected, it would have to be taken in, but all the same, it was most definitely the dress. Narcissa smiled. “It’s just right, Emma; you look beautiful.” She turned her head to see what Severus thought, and nearly snorted with laughter. He was gazing, enraptured, his mouth very slightly open, and his hands, she saw, were quivering. She nudged him.

He coughed. “It’s nice,” he said weakly. Narcissa scowled and whacked him on the arm.

“Thanks,” Emma said shyly.

“Do you think you’ll be taking this?” asked Miss Twilfitt. Emma went red.

“Oh, I don’t think so – I just wanted to see how it looked –”

To Narcissa’s surprise, Severus left her and went over to Emma, looking at both of their reflections in the mirror. Emma looked too.

They looked, Emma noticed, rather good together. Yes, he was probably about two feet taller than her, and she was in a wedding dress and he in his headmaster’s robes, but strangely, all of a sudden, the wedding photos in her mind’s eye didn’t seem to look so bad anymore. To her amazement, he slid an arm around her waist, feeling the smooth, satin material.

“We’ll take it,” he said quietly, and Miss Twilfitt nearly clapped her hands in glee. Emma’s jaw dropped.

“I – you – we can’t afford this,” she spluttered.

He smiled down at her, a real smile this time, the second she had seen from him that day. Yet again, it made her smile back. Her old feelings for him came washing over her just like they had in Gringotts, but the excitement was gone this time, replaced by a warm, calm contentment. “You know there’s a Muggle tradition,” she whispered, “where the groom’s not supposed to see the bride in her wedding dress. They say it’s bad luck.”

He didn’t smile this time, but looked seriously into her eyes. “I would have thought,” he said slowly, as though testing her, “that being married to me would be enough bad luck to last a lifetime.”

Emma swallowed carefully.

“I don’t think it’ll be that bad,” she said quietly, “being married to you.”

Whatever he was going to say next, she didn’t get to hear, because Miss Twilfitt made an embarrassingly drippy noise like a horse whinnying and said, “Oh, how sweet, Narcissa! The groom always falls in love all over again when he sees his fiancée in the dress.”

To Emma’s chagrin – what? So you want the romantic thing with him, do you? – Snape started at the store assistant’s words and let go of her waist, stepping back, his customary cold expression returning.

“You know that ridiculous Muggle tradition, don’t you?” Miss Twilfitt said loudly, making Emma want to punch her. “They say it’s bad luck if the groom sees the bride in the wedding dress before the ceremony. How silly!”

Emma and Snape exchanged an amused look.

“No way,” said Emma, suppressing a smile. “That’s crazy.”