Tie The Knot

There is no better blood than that of the Malfoy family, diluted by this painful law or not. Pansy had believed that growing up. As a child her parents would rave about their friends the Malfoys. Pansy, in turn, grew to love visits to Malfoy Manor to get to play with Draco - the elite of all pure blood children, at that time anyway. She was the lady, he was the knight. That had always been her fairytale, a fairy tale that had persisted throughout her school life. During their time at Hogwarts Pansy had been beyond infatuated with her fellow Slytherin. Had he accepted her instead of Astroria perhaps she would have a different person today. Chances are Pansy wouldn't have been a cheater, an intoxicating woman who was once described as 'poison sugar'.

The silence of the room after Draco's statement was different for perhaps each person. Isadora looked on the brink of tears that she was being sold, Alexander had a curious gaze glazed across his eyes, her own husband merely stared silently at Malfoy - as did Astoria. For Pansy she wasn't silent because she was dissatisfied with Draco's refusal but because she was reminiscing, thinking back to the days when she would have happily allowed Draco have his way at the mere idea that she got to please him. How times had changed.

To Pansy's left a smile curled into Theodore's cheek. 'It's nice to see that you're finally putting a decent price on your daughter.' The statement in itself seemed harsh, considering said daughter was within two meters from him. Pansy on the other hand eyed Isadora.

Draco hadn't lied. Isadora was pure for she was a Malfoy and despite the Malfoy's loss of wealth over the past two decades the family still held a place in Pansy's heart. After all, it was her fairy tale. Perhaps this way, having Isadora marry her son would bring her closer to Draco. Who knows, if Astoria was out of the picture then she could easily trick Draco into bed. Before her would be a man in his late forties, no wife, nobody to please him then, as she always had, Pansy would be there to comfort him in his time of need.

What would people say? Pansy Parkinson-Nott elopes with daughter-in-law's Father. How incestuous. But weren't all pure blood families heavily dependent on incest? It wouldn't be her who was the incestuous one it would be Alexander for marrying his, in Pansy's dreams, sister-in-law.

'How about Draco and I talk in private?' Pansy finally said in a calm yet controlling voice, her eyes still not moving away from Isadora.

'Pansy, I hardly think-'

'Perhaps you could show Astoria our Hungarian Hide hanging in the piano room.' Pansy interrupted, although her question was rhetorical and Theodore knew his place. Unsure what his wife was planning he raised from the table and began to shuffle towards the door - a little embarrassed at how little power he had in his own home.

'Alexander,' Pansy then said, inclining her head towards her son. 'How about you get yourself more acquainted with Astoria, a nice stroll around the gardens could dry her tears out.'

Harsh. Alexander thought, leering from his Mother to Isadora. She did have a point though, Isadora was clearly a sensitive one - more sensitive than he was. Then again, had he been treated like a piece of meet at the market up for trade perhaps he would be a little upset.

Giving her a reassuring smile he pulled his chair out from the table, returning it neatly to his spot, then took the basket of strawberries and headed out of the door. There was no need to see if she would follow, she was a pure blooded child and when an adult said something you did something. Simple.

Astoria Malfoy was most unaccustomed to being ordered around but flounced off regardless, hurrying out of the hall, painting a false eagerness across her face whilst her interest was truly piqued by seeing the hide of a dragon. Draco meanwhile shifted awkwardly in his seat, passing a look that warned Isadora not to argue with Pansy’s command. The young woman did not require it, however, as she had risen somewhat abruptly and disjointedly. She dropped down her napkin, taking her shawl from the back of the chair instead, and curled it around herself, striding, listening to the clamour of her shoes on the tiles until it changed into the drifting whisper of grass underfoot.

The sun had set the sky alight in a clamour of orange, scarlet, a faint slither of blue and encroaching greys and blacks. She stood in the full glow of it, the light drifting across her iridescent skin. She rubbed her hands across her upper arms, her ears rehearing the crudeness of Theodore and the passing verbal gesture of Pansy which only served to make her want to cry all the more but for the sake of herself she sobered and kept her peace, tucking the shawl further around her as a slight chill rustled through the trees. Her hair lifted from her shoulders, tickling at her cheeks, and she felt it slide around her, ebbing with the ocean current of air, dancing to the beginnings of the moon forming above.

“I’m not strolling,” she snapped, her hand coming up to scrub away a stray, mutinous tear that had threatened to fall.

The fear that had always been riddled within her was that one day she would marry and that when she did it would not be of her own accord. Both aspects of that fear had been played out thus far. Moreover, she was afraid that she would not be able to conduct her life the way she wanted to. She didn’t want to pass away her youth, frittering away money like her mother had done. She didn’t want to wake up in her mid-forties, either, and try to make a go of having a career. She wanted to be a career woman. She didn’t want the marriage, the children or the endless parties that the aristocracy of the Wizarding world demanded Purebloods be privy to. She was loath to deal with it. She always had been. She would have rather married a Mudblood than deal with it. But alas, no such luck.

“I can’t bear to do something as aimless as that,” she amended, screwing her arms together over her chest.

This was not supposed to be her fate, was it? This house, these gardens, this man? Pleasant though it all was, she didn’t want it. Need it. Desire it. It wasn’t what she had hoped for in coming to dinner. It wasn’t ever what she’d considered and envisioned for herself. She was doomed, wasn’t she?

Alexander led Isadora along a corridor and out onto a raised stone are at the back of the house. The view was rather spectacular. There was a black, iron-twisted framework at the edge of the platform, ivy creeping surreptitiously around a few. To the left and right were stone steps that descended down to yellow brick work that found it's way further into the gardens.

Isadora was the first to speak, when they had moved across onto the grass. So she didn't want to stroll, well they could take a look at the bush of dirigible plumbs, that'd pass the time. However there was something in Isadora's behavior that would reject doing 'something as aimless as that.'

'You don't seem happy about our parents plans.' Alexander finally said, looking around for things to do. They could hardly stand in the middle of the grass - that would be aimless. Noticing the swing bench Anastasia loved most Alexander soon began to walk that way, not really telling Miss Malfoy that was where he was heading. Hopefully she would follow.


Meanwhile Pansy was instructing their house elf to postpone the starters for fifteen minutes. Hopefully it wouldn't take that long and if it did, well, she could always order the elf to keep them warm whilst her and Draco continued to talk.

Walking towards the high windows that overlooked onto the gardens Pansy examined her view. Alexander and Isadora were making their way to a bench. Theodore had now escorted Astoria into the grounds but seemed to be following a path in the opposite direction of the children, a wise move giving them time alone.

'You see this, Draco?' Pansy called behind her with a sigh. 'I didn't want all of this.' Why she was talking about her feelings in all of this Pansy didn't know, but being away from Theodore's silly interruptions would help her talk to Draco one on one like the old friends they had once been.

The Malfoys had been separated and with them the Notts also. Draco rose from where he had been seated, fiddling absently with his cufflinks. He picked up his glass of wine and took a sip carefully, studying Pansy coolly. When she spoke, some of the irritable resolve abated from within Draco and the glass grew slack in his grasp, forcing him to sit it back down on the table top. For just a moment, she was that girl again simpering over his injured arm. He missed that, he realised. He missed being the ringleader. He missed having her. Then suddenly, she was there again, breathless and just as pretty she had been when they were younger.

“I can’t take you away from it,” he told her, flinching a little with the realisation that he actually couldn’t. He stepped around the table, Draco moved behind Pansy, sliding his hand across her back. “Are you so unhappy, Pans?”  He asked gently, watching as her hair lifted and danced a little in the faint breeze blowing in through the French doors. She wasn’t so pug faced, so unpleasant, though he had always looked at her through rose-tinted glasses. When his parents had presented him with the Greengrasses, declaring that one of their daughters would be a better match, he had felt truly helpless but gone along with the marriage and everything that then entailed.

For who, though? Certainly not himself. If Pansy was unhappy, he was miserable.

Meanwhile, Isadora turned a little, watching hesitantly as Alexander retreated to the bench. Two figures moving further up the garden took the shame of Astoria and Theodore but she elected to ignore them, elected to ignore them all, for she bent down a little and unstrapped her shoes from her feet, society and correctness be damned. She picked them up, holding them loosely in her grasp, and closed her eyes at the lapping feel of the dewy grass against her feet and ankles. Only then did she move to the bench, to gently sit down beside Alexander.

“No,” she said finally, setting her back and shoes down beside her, swinging her feet a little. “I’m not happy,” she admitted, as though it wasn’t already obvious and needed to be clarified somehow. “But it’s not because of you it’s because it wasn’t my choice. I’m sure you’ll be very pleasant and all of the rest of it but I had never really considered my worth to be measured in money and a house. I want to be wanted for me rather than because it is what my parents and yours willed. But that’s impractical and ridiculous, isn’t it?”

She sighed, placing her hands down either side of her, curling her fingers around the bench seat. She didn’t want him to think that somehow it was something he had done wrong. He was as much a victim in this as she was but she was also acutely aware of the fact that she was quite possibly letting him down too. She couldn’t have him thinking that she was some sort of sentimental brat – even if she was. She didn’t think she could deal with the added rejection of him begging his mother to find someone else. No, she’d go through with this. She had to.

“I mean, what about you? Surely you had your own plans? This isn’t really the best graduation present in the world.” She smiled wryly. “Or maybe it is. I don’t know.” And then, absurdly, she lifted her head and laughed a little, shaking her hair out around her. “Just think, it’ll be the wedding of the summer. All and sundry Purebloods will be in attendance.”

His hand slithered across her back, causing her to sink into it, anything to feel more close to Draco. It reminded her of the Yule Ball during their fourth year. Draco had asked her to the dance and, not long into the evening, did they kiss. Even started dating for a short time. Back then she was happy. That year was the year she was introduced to Rita Skeeter, inspired to become a journalist herself. Oh how much fun her and Draco had telling stories to the infamous writer. Yes. She was happy then, happy being on top of the social ladder with Draco Malfoy. But to Draco's question, was she happy now?

'Content.' She replied, her brown eyes falling into his grey. For a moment it made her want to give it all up. Give up her children, give up her career and elope with Draco as they should have done all those years before. Then, her eyes caught sight of Alexander and Isadora. Isadora should be her child, and Alexander Draco's. The two children should be brother and sister not set for marriage and the meal, having Isadora being bought by the Notts, only reminded her of that.

'I have a reasonably high pure blood status, a strong career and three pure blood children.' Reasonably high pure blood status. She was Parkinson-Nott, the name Nott alone hadn't been strong enough back when she married Theodore, had it been Draco then Pansy would most certainly have left Parkinson at the alter.

'I have a husband who insists on sex every night of the week - not that I give it him.' She added in a snide tone watching as he was now leading Astoria to the fountain.

Pansy turned back to Draco and smiled, a genuine smile. Her and traced down his arm and fell into his. Her eyes were alive and right now, in this very moment, Pansy was escaping to into her dreams. To stare out onto a large garden with Draco had been something she'd envisioned. To see her two children talking happily on the bench whilst Theodore and Astoria, both Nott's, were walking round in envy at what the two Malfoys had.

CRACK. The elf had appeared, his presence bringing Pansy back from her fantasy. 'Would you like the food yet Madame?' He squeaked in a low bow.

'No.' Pansy replied. 'Not yet.' They still needed to discuss the offer.


Alexander studied Isadora. She was hard to read, maybe because she was so introverted and cut off - or at least that is how he had always seen her. Perhaps with her friends the Ravenclaw was different? He would soon be finding out when the two took each others hand in marriage. If Isadora didn't find her boldness and stand up for what she believed him.

Although Malfoy hadn't mean't to offend Alexander he was slightly disarmed. Marrying Isadora would be a honor, it would give him the ability to uphold pure blood tradition, she was smart and had the looks to boot. Granted she was a bit too polite for his likening but he could deal with that. It wasn't something to cause him to have an affair, unlike his Mother.

'I had plans,' Alexander began, 'But that was before the marriage law came into effect. It may not be ideal but it would allow us to uphold pure blood tradition and-' Now the more charismatic side coming to surface, 'You're not the worst graduation present. Your intelligent, beautiful, ambitious. You're worth more than your parents think.'

Alexander had been careful what to say there. He could have promoted her beauty first, granted that is what he saw whenever he first looked at her, but Isadora was a Ravenclaw. Maybe complimenting her intelligence, followed by her ambition would be a quicker way to steal her heart. It wasn't an ideal situation but his parents seemed to have solved the ongoing worry in his head: Would he be going to Azkaban? Isadora Malfoy was the solution, the perfect solution. He could hardly allow her to remain unhappy.

Draco sighed heavily, beginning to stroke his fingers gently across the Pansy’s skin through her dress. His silver eyes watched through the windows as twilight began to fall and the lamps in the garden began to flicker into light. The children then were illuminated and an unsteady feeling settled in his stomach at the sight of them. They were going to be married. He’d pay a dowry, ensure a dower for her, sign off a home or two and he’d be docked a daughter. From Scorpius he’d gain another, albeit he knew he’d rarely see her and due to her blood status there was part of him that hardly minded that fact and he still yet has his youngest. All the same, and despite the poor relationship he had with his children, he could muster some regret. He’d miss her – and he rued the fact that she was to become a Nott, even if there was Pansy in that boy somewhere. It didn’t make it better.

“Cheeky bastard,” Draco commented, his lips curling at the thought of Theodore being denied by his wife. Draco, at that thought, immediately considered that had he been married to Pansy she wouldn’t say no to him – in fact, the shoe would be on the other foot and he’d be the one to play reluctant, only to give in. He washed that away though, his fingers stilling briefly before resuming their action, knowing that if he pursued that line of thought much further than was sensible then he’d end up disappearing with her, hoping that the other two couples would be happy enough in each other’s company for an hour or so to allow them the privacy they needed to play out that little fantasy.

Draco cleared his throat, eyeing the Elf as it disappeared into thin air once more. He turned a little, his other hand falling to Pansy’s opposing hip, his fingers splaying across her there. He sighed a little, drinking her in again, watching the way little tendrils of hair threatened to sprout and fall from the clips she had it in. He knew at that moment that he couldn’t go home when the weariness of his daughter would demand them to do so. He doubted he’d come back but he couldn’t feign civility with Astoria or with his parents with whom they were currently staying whilst one of the houses in Italy were being cleaned out for one last stay before being sold on. It would probably be a room in the Leaky Cauldron in the end.

“Is the dowry enough?” He asked her softly, lifting his hand from her hip to curl a stray lock of dark hair behind her ear. “Honestly, I don’t think I can give any more. All I can offer is me, thereafter. Or Francesca if you have any extended members of family in need of a wife.”

In the open air, as the lights bled into life, Isadora felt the first chills that would whisper summer away into autumn within a few months’ time. Want it, she did not, but she felt somewhat reassured by the event of the changing seasons. It felt as though somehow, while her life began to spiral, her left hand weighed down by rings of responsibility, the world would still keep on turning regardless of whatever happened or whatever it was the Pureblood elite got up to. With the passing moments she didn’t quite find herself warming to the idea of the marriage but she could feel her anger towards it cooling and she felt a little bit more open to it, albeit still bearing her reservations.

Her own eyes, so much like her father’s, slid to Alexander, her lips arching into a wry smile of disbelief. She shook her head, feeling her hair slide from her shoulders to her back, and laughed a little bit, the sound cool and clear in the still sizzling, stifling air that kept them warm despite the breeze. She lifted her hands into her lap and then pushed them behind her, settling them around the other edge of the seat. She looked at him pointedly, her eyebrows rising into tall arches of pale blonde before turning her head away again, laughter bubbling through her.

“Oh, you’re full of it, aren’t you?” She teased, surveying the gardens, watching as the birds flitted between the fountains and bushes. “I’m in trouble. I might forget you’re just being charming and might start to actually believe it.” She smiled a little, bringing a hand to his arm. “I’m kidding but, thank you all the same. You’re being abominably kind for no good reason. I would be, well, I suppose I am, dreadfully unhappy with it. But then, I’m sure we can make it work and I hope…” she took a breath, splaying her fingers out a little, feeling the softness of the fabric. “I hope maybe that’s true,” she said, in reference to her parents.

Isadora took her hand back and twisted round, eying her father and Pansy through the window before lifting her eyes off to look at her mother and Theodore who were traipsing around the low bushes trimmed to perfection. She shook her head a little before turning back to Alexander, sitting, facing him properly. She played idly with a little bit of lint on her dress, tossing it across the surface of it before flicking it finally away into the grass. Then she looked at him, her face screwing up in humorous disbelief. Isadora had always been the one for details, after all. She revelled in them and was persistent in ensuring they were observed. It was part of the reason why she was so good at making potions.

“I hope they’re going to let us know about the logistics of this or whether they’re going to shove you in a suit, me in a dress and plop us in front of an altar,” she commented dryly. “I mean, for goodness sake, where are we even going to live if they’re so set on this wedding. I’m … I’m still at Hogwarts and I’m certainly not – no matter what the Ministry says and no offense but still – going to start throwing out little heirs any time soon so I for one would be very interested to see what these adults have in mind.”

And whether or not they were adequate and reliable enough to plan their future, let alone make it.

Honestly, I don’t think I can give any more. All I can offer is me. All I can offer is me. All I can offer is me. Offer me.

For a moment the words reverberated around Pansy's head. Was she hearing him correctly? Was he offering himself to her? Could this be Pansy's moment to finally fulfill her goal, accomplish Draco Malfoy? Even if it was secret affair it would be better than nothing, heck it could even be fun - she always was one for sneaking around.

The reporter observed him for a moment, her eyes wide and a smile curling around her lips. The dowry was enough, more than enough but if Pansy lied, said it wasn't perhaps she could gain Draco Malfoy. Be united with him the way they should have been all those years ago. But is that what she wanted? Him to amuse her in exchange for the daughter?

'The dowry is more than enough.' Pansy replied, stepping away from Malfoy and beginning to pace. The ghost of Draco's hand still playing with her hair in her mind. 'I want you. I want you, and me, to go away together. Let people talk for all I care. Please, Draco.' Pansy concluded, standing half a meter away her eyes staring adoringly into his grey.


For a moment Alexander had thought he'd won her over, none the less he certainly admired her sense of humor. She'd matured alright, created a character for herself and that was to be admired. Truth be told, sitting with her now in the gardens Alexander felt reasonable comfortable with his parents decision. She seemed polite, bluntly honest in a tongue in cheek wry kind of attractive way that made any guy smirk affectionately.

'It's true.' He told her after observing her and reverting his eyes towards Theodore and Astroia who were now making their way back to the manor. The dark eyes traced to a window where the dining chamber were. There was his Mother, his beautifully sly B**** of a Mother and... Draco Malfoy with a hand on her hip whilst the other traced through her hair.

His cheeks flushed, he wasn't listening to what Isadora was saying all that was running through his mind was the imagine of her strewn across a bed, Draco behind her with his aged fingers tracing her body, his cracked lips lightly leading their way down to-

'Dad!' Alexander called out across the gardens. He didn't know what had come over him all he knew was that Theodore and Astoria could not walk into the manor and find their other halves more interested in each other. Really the son had no obligation to Pansy, he could let her get caught but he had other intentions.

This had happened before. He knew she was one for affair as he had walked in on her with a family friend in the South of France on a holiday. The outcome: He saw her differently, it had matured him as a person, enhanced his cunning and provided him with a lump sum of galleons once a month into his Gringotts bank not to spill the beans. For this Alexander felt he needed to protect his Mother, even though he already was covering her tracks.

Theodore looked over and began to change course making his way to Isadora and he. Soon, his heartbeat began to relax.

'Isadora has some questions, Father.' He said calmly once the adults had reached their bench. He hadn't listened entirely to his wife-to-be but was sure she'd been blabbering on asking him questions that he wouldn't know the answer to.

His eyes quickly flicked to the dining room windows. Pansy had moved away from Draco. She needed to be careful. What he had just seen would call for another, wonderful, conversation with her.

He’d been joking, he told himself. Pansy’s words rushed over him like a wave of warm water. He glanced out into the garden, noted the way Astoria bobbed over to the children, glad to be with Theodore. She certainly looked better humoured than she ever was with him, so much so that she might yet be civil towards her daughter but Draco wasn’t holding out hope for it. He swallowed, trying to ascertain whether he could go – whether he would go. Times had changed. He’d changed. Pansy had changed. She wasn’t even remotely insufferable anymore. She was Pansy. He enjoyed being with her. But what she was asking was impossible, wasn’t it?

“I can’t,” he muttered. “I don’t know how… how am I going to explain it to my children? How is this going to look in the press when the incorrigible gossips at Witch Weekly find out because they will find out, Pans.” He tossed his fingers through the front of his thinning blonde hair. “And I can’t afford the divorce.”

That was what it came down to. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to go. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to run away and breathe for five minutes. It was that he didn’t know what Astoria would do and he didn’t know what the papers would do and outside of that he was loath to think what his father would do when Lucius found out. He didn’t want the speculation about what was behind them betrothing Isadora and Alexander. Then, if Astoria did decide to divorce him, he’d be wiped out clean and he’d have nothing left. That would be it. No, he couldn’t do it – as much as it probably killed him.

When Astoria and Theodore found them, Isadora’s smile slid gently from her face and she looked about herself, pulling her shawl a little tighter around herself, trying to ignore the way Astoria hung off of Theodore’s arm like the simpering gnat she was. Embarrassment was what Isadora had been desperate to avoid whilst they had dinner and thus far she had avoided nothing. She would have rather had a meal of her own, picking out from what the House Elves offered her in her grandparents’ home in the south of France. She was loath to be here. She didn’t want to converse with her mother, either.

“What is it?” Astoria asked, her eyes wide and staring at Theodore though the question was directed to her daughter.

Isadora weighed her questions. Astoria would probably only have the temper for one. She pressed her lips together and lifted her gaze to her mother whose face was beginning to bear exasperation on it. Careful to try and avoid the disaster of it, Isadora opened her mouth and articulated the best one she could think of.

“When?” she asked. “When will the wedding be – and where will we live?”

Astoria inspected her nails disinterestedly but to her credit eventually replied. It seemed as though this was the last thing on her mind. She was beyond ambivalent towards her daughter now and she was mostly glad that the girl was going to be off of her hands – though that would just leave Franceca to boss around which would prove to be a nightmare, she was sure.

“Sometime before September I don’t doubt,” she replied airily. “And with that nice neat dowry we’re giving I am sure Alexander can afford to buy a cottage in Hogsmeade.”

Isadora deflated, dropping her gaze to her hands. This was it then.

'I understand.' Pansy said, taking a step back from Draco and looking out of the window. It seemed she wouldn't be getting her happy ending after all, there was still Scorpius whom she could claim for herself but right now she wanted to get out of the house, find someone and dish some atom bomb sized dirt on them to make herself feel better. Pansy was a woman, a woman who had just opened up about her feelings, shown all her vulnerability and been shot down in one fast blow. Draco Malfoy would rue the day he turned her down again.

Thankfully this time it was only a conversation between the two of them and not a 'Sorry Pans I'm getting married to Astoria' in front of her friends. That was how she had found out the two would be marrying, it was those words in which she had found out that she'd lost the love of her life.

'We best get this dinner moving.' She told him coldly before leaving out of the dining room.


Meanwhile in the evening light Alexander had successfully deterred his Father from walking in an intimate moment. Granted there wasn't anything as sexual as he had once witnessed but it wouldn't have boded well. Would he have still be allowed to marry Isadora? Astoria might have wanted to treasure her daughter, keep her away from the son of Pansy Parkinson-Nott. Then what would he do? Be forced to marry a mud blood by the Ministry. No. Alexander couldn't be having that.

Isadora asked a question about accommodation. A valid question seeing as he and Isadora would be required to produce two children in the next two years, something that Alexander hoped would be scraped by the time he and Isadora were to conceive. Right now the only goal on the Slytherins mind was to work his way up the Ministry ladder as swiftly as possible and a child wouldn't help him. Sure he could leave Isadora to raise the baby whilst he went out to work, in fact that is exactly what he'd do, but being bound to a child or two was still not on his to-do-list.

A cottage in Hogsmede. How low did Astoria think that he was? And she was okay with her daughter living outside of Hogwarts, away from her friends and a whole arson of library books at her disposal. No. That wouldn't be happening, he wouldn't object now but he would make sure Isadora stayed in school and he stayed in the Nott manor - he would get to see her in the holidays?

'Theodore.' This time it was Pansy who said the name as she appeared across the garden at one of the back doors. 'Dinner is served.' And with that her husband returned to the house to be seated.

'You can stay at Hogwarts.' Alexander muttered into the blonde's ear as she they too made their way back to the house.

That night was inevitably going to set two Malfoys to nursing glasses of whisky topped up just shy from the rim. The picture was almost set, Draco was sat in his study and around midnight the door would open and in would tiptoe his daughter clad in one of the t-shirts that belonged to her brother that he would suppose she’d stolen. She’d take the stopper from the decanter, say nothing to him, and pour herself a glass before dumping herself into the arm chair before his desk. They’d say nothing, most probably, but inevitably they were stew over their own problems. It would probably be Draco who would retreat to bed first. He’d pop a kiss on her head, rub her arm in an awkward attempt to show some affection and he’d leave her with the decanter and her thoughts. For, both would be coaxing themselves in the wake of their own reflective missed opportunities.

They were similar in the fact that they felt they were owed something. They both felt as though they were due their happy ending and both harboured some very naïve thoughts about those happy endings. Draco could be credited with a little more realism but he would mull over the options that had been laid out before him. He would consider whether he had been right to say no to Pansy. He could have ensured his own happiness and given Isadora a choice in who she wanted to be with but he didn’t. He ducked out from making that choice and he bound her to someone who wasn’t really so much of a friend anymore and instead more of a stranger than a blank face in the street despite the fact that she should know him possibly better than anyone. A childhood together, Malfoys with Notts, meant nothing now.

Dinner was a welcome distraction to both and Draco moved back to his place as the party outside began to move in. Isadora however, took a moment, even if it was only mental, to turn over the exchange. She didn’t know whether she was supposed to feel happy about being able to stay at Hogwarts at not but as she tucked her shawl around her and gathered up her bag once more she found that no, she didn’t appreciate being able to stay at Hogwarts at all. In fact, she felt utterly rejected, somewhat mirroring Pansy’s feelings on the matter that had taken place inside. She steeled herself though, cleared her throat and donned her shoes once more before striding up to the house, breezing back inside, ignoring the lingering feeling of Alexander’s hot breath at her ear.

“Do you like the gardens, Isadora?” Draco asked formally. She looked up, not realising she’d been lingering by the back of her chair. He quirked an eyebrow at her and she managed to lift a smile to her lips, for his benefit more than hers. Isadora nodded once and tugged her chair out, sitting herself down and dropping her shawl off of her shoulders. Draco, too, took a seat after pulling out a chair for Astoria and he took his gaze over to Pansy once he was seated, wondering if he could take back his words then and now, at the dinner table. A steady look from Astoria, the most lucid of the night thus far, told him that he couldn’t.

The House Elves brought out the food – a stunning first course that made Draco realise how hungry he actually was. Once the food was set down the wine followed and he helped turn over the flutes on his side of the table, directing the House Elves in their endeavour to fill the glasses without spilling any of it. When they scooted around to Isadora she looked up and took her glass off of the table, halting the Elves as they manage to get the step ladder ready. The Elf looked at her curiously and extended a hand, snatching the glass out of her hand just in case she was going to take it away again and once it was filled she gave a small smile and set it down on the table once more, continuing her meal without a further word.

“I think pink roses would be the perfect flower,” Astoria offered, breaking the silence that had elapsed over them all. “That could be the colour scheme – pale pink and white. What do you think, Pansy?”

Isadora bristled. Not, what did she think? Not, Isadora do you want pink roses? Not, Isadora do you even like roses? No, it was a question posted to the paternal side and Isadora was given a stiff reality check at that moment. This was not her wedding, she was informed. No, this was a statement of society and it was everyone else’s wedding. People would be invite that she had never met before. Once the banns had been read out they’d probably have a polo match or something asinine and then they’d probably shove Francesca and the other Nott girls into bridesmaid dresses without asking Isadora if she wanted them, without asking Cesca if she wanted to be one.

“And obviously,” Astoria went on brightly, echoing Isadora’s internal satire. “Francesca, Anastasia and Allyson will be bridesmaids. Their dresses can be pink.”

Isadora snorted in wry amusement as she lifted her glass to her lips. Draco, across the table, arched an eyebrow, a half-smirk skirting across his features as he looked as his daughter. He shook his head, reaching for his also, and looked at his wife out of the corner of his eye as Isadora returned her glass to the table and took her cutlery back into her grasp.

“We should replace the end of season ball with the wedding,” Astoria exclaimed, lightning clearly having struck her brain. Isadora lifted her gaze, looking at her mother wearily. “Then, given that it’ll be the most popular event, people will talk about it all winter and come the start of the next social season. It’ll be perfect. I could talk to Augustus and convince him to let us take the Rookwood grounds – only there could we fit everyone after all.”

Isadora stabbed a vegetable with a little more force than intended and split it, sending it flying across the table. Draco snatched it off of the table top immediately, throwing his napkin down on it and tugging the pair beneath the table. He winked at her and she managed a small, grateful smile, both chose to ignore Astoria’s withering look. With any luck, it wouldn’t just be the men who shrugged on a suit and turned up, Isadora would just be shove into a dress, have her smile painted on and she’d only have to speak a few times. Then she’d be married. Bloody fantastic.