Friends with benefits

Oh God.  The banter?  That had been Selwyn's means of avoiding this.  The part where he actually asked her help.  It was so embarrassing.  He was an elite level procrastinator; he could procrastinate by doing things that looked superficially productive.

"Okay, so here's the thing," he said as he busied himself by pushing food around his plate.  Who knew her "hash" would come in so handy?

"I need to get married," he said deliberately, without looking up.  "For, you know, having children reasons.  And I don't know anyone to get married to."

He smiled as he glanced up.

"Except Shylock, and, um, he doesn't fit the requirements."

Dom had always had an imagination, but never been great with narrative. She could come up with ridiculously preposterous situations with no likelihood for actually happening, but she could not piece together clues based on previous experience to concoct the most logical explanation.

So maybe it was less of a problem with narrative and more of a problem with reality.

So she was completely blind sided by his... not-question. His predicament. First off, she didn't understand the logic - why kids anyway? Second off, why her?

Oh no.

"Not sure I'd fit those requirements either."

Yes, perfect, casual way to get that out of the way.

It should have knocked the smile right off his face. He should have been shocked and appalled. And he was shocked, which was why he started giggling.

"Not you!" he exclaimed, nose wrinkling in disgust. "No offence, that would be weird. Even more weird than this whole set-up already is, I mean."

"I just..." he cut himself off with a sigh. "I always thought this was going to be so straightforward. Purebloods do it all the time. I'd get hooked up with some witch who wants money and a title, we have a couple of sprogs and a perfectly civil working relationship. And if she wanted a lover on the side, then that's fine with me. Hell, he could even have his own room."

"Witches like that are a lot harder to find than people make it sound," he added.

His laughter was music to her ears, the melodic reassurance that her life had not become acquainted by another suitor - that was so 2025. She relaxed and matched him with a laugh of her own, tinged with the appropriate amount of relief.

His explanation elicited another laugh. "Oh yes! I mean, what woman hasn't dreamed about her sham of a marriage?" She shook her head. "I mean, sure, I'm no highbrow lady but I do know times are a-changing. Women can gold dig, but they can also gold-dig for love too." She crinkled her nose in thought - she really was out of her depth.

"Do you really... want children? Raising them in a loveless marriage doesn't exactly sound ideal."

Selwyn remained silent.

Nobody had ever asked that question before. Oh, he knew the answer, the words were right there on the tip of his tongue, if he cared to say them. But nobody ever asked, because everybody he’d ever explained this to instinctively understood.

And, well, Dominique wasn’t stupid, but she went ahead and asked anyway.

“I dunno,” he floundered. “What I want doesn’t really matter.”

“Besides,” he continued briskly, “it wouldn’t be loveless. I love Shylock and the only reason we’re not engaged right now is because of this. I’m not going to give him up just because I need an heir.”

Best to get that straight, because chances were that was exactly what Dom thought. She could be awfully naive about some things.

Dom squinted at him. Maybe she was still just... dumb and overly optimistic, but she felt like she had grown up a bit over the years and maybe had some wisdom yet in her. Selwyn was certainly clever but if he couldn't see that there were bigger issues than a lack of available pureblooded women, then maybe he wasn't as clever as she remembered.

"I think it matters," she said, obstinately sticking to her guns. "And I think it'd matter to your kids. And I think nowadays it matters to your partner, too. Who actually wants to be with someone who doesn't want to be with them? If you're looking for someone who is going to be content in a loveless marriage just because they'll enjoy your money, you're looking for a cartoon villain... or a secondary character in a Jane Austen novel."

Selwyn ran his fingers though his hair.  It didn't help much.  It had just been cut and there was nothing to catch onto, which kinda defeated the purpose.

"Will you stop saying 'loveless' like that? I came here because I thought you'd get it.  You're part veela too, you know it's not that simple."

"I don't know," he said slowly, "that I wouldn't fall in love with the girl when I met her."

It felt like he was telling a deep, dark secret.  Something he'd never told anyone before, though he knew that hardly mattered.  People, especially people he'd dated (even if it was when they were barely teenagers) must have noticed that he fell in love the way other people drank cups of coffee.

"But I wouldn't want to," he went on.  "With Adrienne, everything was such a mess.  I loved her.  I still love her.  But you can't bring children into a relationship like that.  I'd much rather have a platonic relationship with someone who wants some security than a passionate romance that's as unstable as ours was."

"And that doesn't mean it would be loveless.  I'm not looking to settle down with someone I don't care for at all.  It just means it would be a different kind of love."

Dom heaved a shrug and leaned back, magnificently 'unladylike' as one of the Delacour aunts would surely put it. "I've always been bad at everything. I guess being a veela was no different."

In truth, she sometimes wondered if she had not been an illegitimate child, as the only real evidence that she was a veela was the paleness to her skin and the stubborn platinum tone of her hair. Considering it now, she wondered if it had been the veela charm that had attracted all the men she had dated. She certainly hadn't been Nico's type and he had loved her way, especially considering how much of a train wreck that relationship would have been.

Oh Merlin, what if-

No. Her veela appeal was something she had never really seen work. Too many professors had happily failed her, too many men give her that 'what have I done' look, too many employers let her go without caring to hear her protests. If she had uncontrollable veela charm, she would own the Leaky, not work bar.

"You won't be able to stop it, falling in love. It'll happen or it won't." She paused. She wasn't helping him, was she? She let out a sigh. "Okay. So you need a woman who wants to get married, have kids, but will let you continue to see Shylock and hopefully won't fall in love with you. And you came to me because..." She paused. "Wait. Are you asking me to set you up?"

Selwyn was quiet for a minute.  What was it with all the women in his life being so self critical?

"Your name's on The Registry too," he said.  "Any wizard could say you made him do something, and The Ministry would use that as evidence."

"That's what I meant.  It's not the magic, it's..." Selwyn waved his hands to indicate the world at large, "everything."

Dominique talked herself through his reasoning.  Selwyn wasn't stupid enough to believe he could stop himself falling in love, but he could still hope it wouldn't happen.  He could certainly hope it wouldn't happen the irrational way it had with Addie.  

He shrugged uncomfortably when she got to the point.  

"Well, I was going to when I came here," he said, "but that was when I thought you'd have fun doing it."

Dom shrugged, feeling uncomfortable with the implication, knowing it was a real problem but not very willing to really deal with it. "And then they'd meet me and realize I couldn't manipulate my way out of a paper bag."

Maybe it wouldn't matter though. That was scary. She had never really thought about her veela side. Maybe it was time.

She pondered the proposal, quirking her lips. "I'd have fun if I knew you'd have fun. I don't want to be an accomplice to an unhappy relationship. But if you this is what you really want, I could help."