The Boy Who Lived

Appeasing the Ancestors

She watched as Harry unabashedly kissed her son and she remembered the days when it had been like that between her and Lucius, in the days before he'd been swayed by that ghastly man and his awful prejudices that had preyed on Lucius's weaknesses and insecurities and his pride. She sighed, wishing she'd been able to do more to stop him going down that dreadful path and for drawing her and Draco down with him. Mind you, Lucius always did have an inexplicable hatred for Harry that she never understood. At least Draco was out of all that now and she couldn't remember seeing him this happy for so long. She just wished she'd known he was gay and then she wouldn't have tried pushing a marriage on him and causing that unnecessary rift between them. Still, the future was bright and she didn't need to worry about Draco's future; he was going to be marrying one of the wealthiest and probably most magically-powerful young men in Britain as well as the most honourable...

'We must get them to finalise the guest list,' whispered Dromeda in her ear. 'Without numbers, we can't finalise the other plans.'

'I believe Harry is quite adamant with the list now, he refuses to invite any Sacred Twenty-Eight families he doesn't know, or the extended families of those he does. He wants to keep the list to those he considers direct family, his and Draco's close friends, their work colleagues, and a few of the close professors and staff from Hogwarts whom he grew up amongst.'

'It breaks all etiquette,' sighed Dromeda.

'Do you really think anyone is going to speak out against him?' said Narcissa.

'What does Draco think?'

'He'd have even fewer. He is equally obstinate that anyone even vaguely associated with the Dark Lord should not step foot near the Hall.'

'I admire them. In many ways, it may change the ways things are, going forward. People may follow their lead.'

'And when Hermione and Pansy publish their research on Ancestral Magic, it will change things again. It will cause quite a stir amongst those who still want to believe that the Dark Lord was right.'

'I imagine there will be a lot of red faces.'

'Indeed,' mused Narcissa with a satisfied smile. 'Now, what do we think to Hebe's Welsh library that she was telling us about and her scholarship idea?'

The two women wandered away from the young men who were still wrapped up in one another, completely forgetting they were in company. They made their way down to the Dragon Room, ducking past Sterling's and Ralston's suits of armour as they crossed the black and white hall. The missing parts of Ralston's armour had been found and reassembled and the two suits stood each side of the doors out to the stableyard. It was just one had to be careful because the occasionally liked to bar the way with their lances and they could drop them very quickly if one wasn't paying attention. Between them and Henry Potter's bust, sometimes moving around the Hall was a bit like running the gauntlet.

'Do you have any ideas about running the residential aspect?' asked Dromeda.

'Well, first of all, we would have to run it for the estate, Draco and Harry are far too busy, but it would be something to keep us occupied once we've finished sorting everything out and we could do it together. I'm already getting a taste for it through the Romanian Dragon Reserve and their researcher.'

The library was finished and Harry had extended Hebe's employment because the many journals and diaries belonging to his ancestors needed special cataloguing. After the first visit from a researcher from the Ministry and a request from Theo to carry out some studies there, there had been more special requests come through from Madame Tweazle to send a couple Ministry workers to the library for specialist research. Now, the Romanian Dragon Reserve also wanted to send a Researcher to study William Potter's journals after Charlie had mentioned the journals to someone there. Narcissa was managing the details with Hebe. The Researcher was to be their first temporary resident for two weeks.