"Ahh, we got our babies back!!" Melissa shouted, running over and grabbing Harry to hug as soon as he and Draco entered the common room.
"Melissa, give him some space." Draco said, seeing how Harry jumped when Melissa practically threw herself at him.
"What? You want a hug instead?" Melissa asked, smiling almost maliciously at him as she rested her chin on the top of Harry's head.
"No, no!" Draco said, almost sounding scared and trying to sidle past her with his arms raised in a feeble attempt to keep her away from him.
Unfortunately for Draco, or maybe he just didn't want to admit it was fortunate, Melissa grabbed him with her right arm, Harry still firmly hugged in her left, and pulled Draco into the hug. The two boys almost struck each other's heads, and Draco just sighed, not that he tried to struggle out of the hug. Harry grabbed Draco in a hug too, after a moment, hugging both Draco and Melissa too.
"Now, how about we go to Ven's room and catch up? I want to know all about what happened while you were away." Melissa said, letting both boys go and pushing them through the common room with her hands in the middle of their backs.
"We need to go unpack in our room first!" Draco argued.
"Yeah right, the house elves will have been told to unpack your things the way they were before you left. You might need to neaten things up, but you can do that later." Melissa said, continuing to push them both to Ven's room, where she removed her hands from their backs and booped Draco on the nose.
"Our boys are back!" Ven cheered when the three of them walked into their room, a bottle of fire whiskey on the bedside table beside them.
"Are you drunk?" Draco asked, tilting his head a little with vague judgement in his tone.
"They're a little tipsy, we're celebrating, but I don't like alcohol. Melissa's drunk a bit too." Rose said with a slightly embarrassed smile as Melissa and Ven were a little loud, Ven also pulling Harry into a hug.
"What are you celebrating?" Draco asked, climbing onto the bed with the others.
"You both coming back, of course." Melissa cheered, raising another drink in the air.
"Well, yes, that, but also because Melissa finally confessed to Ven, she's now dating both of us, so we're celebrating the relationship." Rose said, with a light chuckle. "Want a drink? The ones over here are non-alcoholic."
"What if I want the fire whiskey?" Draco asked with a slightly mischievous smile as he eyes the bottle of fire whiskey and the third, unused glass on the table with it.
"Yeah, no, you're way too young for that. You can have butterbeer if you want, though." Rose said, flicking her wand at the glass Draco was eyeing to make it become an ornamental glass lily. "Harry? Do you want anything?"
'Apple juice, please.' Harry signed, chewing his lip a little, and Draco having to translate for him.
"Sure, Draco?" Rose asked, turning to the aforementioned, blond boy.
"Butterbeer." Draco answered simply.
"Butterbeer what?" Rose asked, eyebrows raised with an unimpressed expression that annoyed Draco.
"Butterbeer PLEASE." Draco said, a little sarcastically.
"Good enough, I'll be back soon, try to stop them from drinking please." Rose said, crawling off the bed and smacking a wrinkle out of her robes and leaving the room.
"Are you two okay? We saw the news about what happened at..." Ven started, trailing off as they forgot their words.
"King Arthur's." Melissa finished for them. "Weird that woman called it that given she was so obsessed with magic and blood, seeing how Arthur was either a muggle or a halfblood, there are several different versions of the story. Apparently his father actually killed his mother's previous husband and had actually slept with her even before she became a widow and she loved her husband. Apparently Arthur slept with the sister that was born from that, which is kind of awkward, but at least he didn't know it was his sister, but still. Where was I going with this?"
"It's odd the school was called-"
"Oh right, so you would think she would call it after the pureblood incarnation of magic Merlin, but she didn't. You know, there are some people who don't actually believe that Merlin had parents and just think that he was brought to life by Magic, and Magic alone. There are muggle stories where he was actually a demon who had been at least mostly purified by converting to Christianity." Melissa rambled.
"Okay... Uh... Is there anything else you want to tell us?" Draco asked, looking at Melissa with wide eyes and tilting his head back.
Melissa was playing with Harry's hair, but Harry didn't seem to mind, in fact he seemed to like it. What Melissa and Ven didn't notice, though, was Harry grabbing the bottle of fire whiskey and shoving it under the bed to stop them from drinking any more.
"Oh, Changelings don't really exist and were just the way people used to explain nurodivergency, but there have been a few cases of fae transforming to look like humans and adopting a large number of nurodivergent children, or having them of their own. Fae normally like relationships with brewers rather than spell casters, and there's only been one cast in the entirety of history of a fae having a relationship other than parental with a muggle. Elves don't really like people much, but they are also more willing to spend time with human children that are different to typical human children, like nurodivergent children or mute, deaf, disabled, blind, or generally socially exiled children. Sometimes they move away from the children as they grow up, but normally they tend to remain friends with people they like." Melissa rambled on.
"Okay, if I ever have any questions about muggle myths, magical history, or inter magical species relationships I will ask you." Draco said with a nod, trying to make her shut up politely.
"There's actually heavy debate about the species differentiation of fae, elves and other human-like creatures, as a lot of them can produce fertile offspring with humans, even muggles, which would normally have them classified as the same species as humans, but they're also incredibly different, to the extent people might call you crazy for calling them the same species. Of course, someone could argue that the definition of magical creature species should be different, but that doesn't help because then where do we draw the lines? Species classification is stupid anyway because it doesn't mean anything in nature and things can evolve to be able to produce fertile offspring just as easily as they evolve to make non-fertile offspring." Melissa explained, her eyes lighting up slightly.
"Sorry about Mel," Ven said, significantly more loudly than necessary, "she kinda turns into a Ravenclaw when she drinks."