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Harry shows up to the ministry office in the most muggle clothes she can come up with, stolen from the deepest recesses of her mother's and Uncle Sirius's closets and adjusted to fit her with sizing charms. She doesn't exactly feel comfortable in them, but she'd stood in her bedroom staring at the mirror and imagined herself wearing wedding dress robes and it had felt so viscerally wrong she'd had to go retch in the bathroom.
A second look at her closet had offered her three options: Alley wear, Archie's old AIM uniforms, and brewing robes. Out of those choices, her brewing robes were the least terrible, but there was something about the thought that still left her on edge. It would be too much, too close, to every interaction they'd ever had before, and that was wrong. This wasn't just… casual. She wasn't just meeting him at the ministry so they could go brew potions afterwards. This wasn't on their terms, and she wouldn't allow it to feel like it, not even a little bit.
So she'd found something entirely different. Archie had initially suggested it as a prank; but she'd been too angry and too full of spite towards Riddle and every stuffed-up member of his party who had put her in this situation to be talked down once the idea had been put into her head. Topping off the entire disaster was a pair of aggressively hot pink brewing boots she'd rescued from a bargain bin in Diagon, which weren't muggle, but were definitely bright enough to make the ministry clerk's eyes bleed regardless.
The man winces noticeably when he sees her. It doesn't really make her feel better, but the sense of cool spite she feels watching him avert his eyes at least gives her a feeling to cling to other than the churning in her stomach. Caelum is dressed in fashionable robes, but he manages to destroy any sense of old pureblood dignity equally well with the way he wears them, hands buried deep in his sleeves and posture dripping insouciance.
Harry can imagine, from an outside perspective, that it might even make them look like a united front.
The thought leaves twisted threads of conflicting emotions writhing around in her chest. It's comforting, on some level, even if she doesn't want it to be. She can't trust that what he's doing is meant as support, or any sort of defiance against their current situation, much less that it will last once they walk out of here, but it could be and the possibility taunts her. She knows Caelum cares. It wouldn't even be the first time he'd done something to piss off the pureblood establishment in order to stand by her.
It doesn't change the fact that he's still here. It doesn't change the fact that he's always played with that line, been regretful, been better, but also afraid.
It's the exact same choice she'd made, to stay and let this happen, but just seeing him here, ready and willing and compliant, still makes her want to crawl out of her skin.
The clerk shoves the marriage license at him first, ignoring Harry entirely, and when the document is finally passed to her, his name is already scarred across the line at the bottom in familiar slanted handwriting. There's a 'to' breaking it in the middle, and then the line extends further to the right, blank.
Marriage certificate, she reads again, eyes roving over the page in circles. Caelum Lestrange.
That blank line, so perfectly innocuous and yet so ugly. That might as well already have her name on it, written in invisible ink.
Harry looks at the parchment just long enough to scrawl her signature down for real before looking away, not wanting the completed picture to sink into her brain.
"Congratulations," the clerk says blandly.
Caelum's hand reaches out and threads around her wrist. It's the first time he's touched her since they both arrived here, and she can't decide if it's reassuring or suffocating.
"Come on," he murmurs, too quiet for anyone but her to hear. "Let's go."
She lets him lead her out of the clerk's office. There are no words between them as they walk down the cramped, empty hallway and step into the lift, and with her swimming head Harry can't interpret the silence. There's something wrong with it, she thinks, but his grip on her wrist stays gentle. She thinks he'd carry her out of here, if she needed it.
From the corner of her eye, she glimpses the side of his face, just a flash of dark curls dripping over a pale cheek.
He'd been such a good best friend.
The thought comes out of nowhere, and her throat closes up like it's afraid to let her breathe. It's a hysterical realization, that she really does love Caelum Lestrange, but not like this.
She forces her mouth open, feeling its dryness like parched desert dirt. "If it had to be anyone… I'm glad it was you."
She doesn't really mean it, and it comes out in her tone, sounding monotone and hollow in a way that could be equally attributed to exhaustion or insincerity. She doesn't try to read his reaction. Doesn't even know what she wants it to be—if she really thinks sweet words will make any difference, or if it would be better if he saw right through her.
The lift comes to a stop, and he closes his eyes with a barely perceptible shake of his head. "You won't be."
"I can handle your parents."
He turns to face her more directly, eying her for a moment with an unreadable expression on his face as the lift's doors finish sliding open before stepping out into the Atrium. Harry has to break into a half-run to keep up with him as he strides towards the nearest open fireplace.
If she knew him less well, she'd say he looked focused, a man confident in his place with somewhere to be. Only the tightness in his shoulders betrays his true anxiousness to be away from here.
He still freezes a few feet away from the floo, a subtle shudder running through his body.
She almost reaches out to grab his hand, the way he had taken hers before, but something stops her, the memory of careful fingers brushing against her pulse-point feeling almost too warm. She can't remember him ever holding her hand like that, before. Not until today. Not until after.
It hadn't been a romantic gesture, but a part of her is afraid that if they keep doing it, it will start to feel like one, and that—holding hands like it's sweet with her husband the ministry chose for her—leaves her nauseated.
She only has a second to hesitate over it before he recovers himself, and the chance is gone.
"Dartmoor Castle," he says.
And they both step through.