A/N: Chapter Four! I really have to say, this one was one of my favorites to write! Please enjoy! And up next: Franck!
XOXO,
HS
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, The Father of the Bride, or Party City.
.......
"Really? It went well?"
I clamped my teeth on my tongue and pasted on an arrogant expression. "It couldn't have gone better."
We were outside on the stone terrace tonight for dinner, looking out on the Manor's back lawn and gardens. It would have been a decent night if Bryan hadn't been invited. Potter and Weasley had also joined, because nothing could have made dinner worse than Bryan and he was already coming. I also got the impression that the only reason they were there at all was that they must've been hounding Hermione about Bryan, and she was no-one's messenger.
Annie breathed a sigh of relief. "I'm so glad. You never know what could happen at those kinds of things, you know?"
Ron nodded. "First time I met Gabrielle's parents, I was so nervous, they probably thought I was a huge idiot."
"You are an idiot," Harry said blandly.
"Out of the two of us, you're not the one with the law degree, now are you?" Ron shot back. "Bloody broom jock..."
I jokingly clapped my hands over Scorpius' ears. "Language."
"I have to say, I am sort of surprised it went as well as it did," Harry said slowly.
"Why?" I brushed off. "They're rich, we're rich."
"He's got a point, you know," Ron told Harry. "They probably get along swimmingly. Miss Annie doesn't have a thing to worry about."
Annie beamed at him, and he winked. Ignoring his suspicious word choice, I sat down at my place at the wide round dining table.
"Now I finally feel like the wedding's officially happening!" Annie declared happily.
"Of course it is," I scoffed affectionately.
For now.
The French back doors opened, and Hermione breezed outside—Perdita levitated juicy steaks, fat white scallops, and ripe yellow corn in front of them.
"Looks wonderful, Perdita," Annie complimented.
"Yes, thank you," I murmured. Perdita bowed and popped away, knowing the plan to make herself scarce tonight.
Hermione looked a little tense, and I bristled. "What's wrong? Are you alright?"
"I'm fine, Draco." She bent and kissed me, but hesitated just enough to alarm me.
"Hermione," I warned. If something had upset her, I wanted to know about it.
"Bryan's mum called, with the names of her immediate family," Hermione murmured, handing me a folded piece of lined yellow parchment.
I frowned, reached inside my lapel pocket, and put on my reading glasses. I unfolded the paper—then unfolded it again. I gave Hermione a flat look.
"Is this a joke?"
She made a slight face. "Not only is it not a joke, but eight of them are from Copenhagen."
"Very well," I dismissed, understanding what she was trying to tactfully say—the list was entirely made up of Muggles. And a concerning amount of them. At least forty immediate members. I wasn't concerned with the expense of flying them here; I hadn't realistically expected not to pay for every aspect of this wedding either way, and I was no cheapskate. My worry was the million little things that could go wrong inviting that many Muggles to a high-profile Wizarding wedding. But Hermione understood that we would talk about it later.
"Well, if there's one thing Malfoy's good at, it's signing a fat cheque, am I right?" Harry grinned at me, and not for the first time that night, I violently squashed the feeling that the Wonder Twins knew about what had happened in Beverly Hills.
The terrace doors swung open. It was Bryan. "Hi everybody...Sorry, I'm late!"
Everyone greeted him with varying levels of enthusiasm. Bryan jogged over to the table, kissed Annie on the lips, and presented a bottle of wine to Hermione. "Here you are..."
"Oh!" Hermione exclaimed softly. She smiled brilliantly at him. "Thank you!"
Bryan blushed. "Selv tak. It's 'you're welcome,' in Danish."
Hermione and Annie both laughed musically. Scorpius and I shared a skeptical look. He suspected that Bryan had a small crush on Hermione, and now I had to admit that perhaps he was right. Well, that was too damned bad. He couldn't have the both of them. I made no secret of my possessive streak.
"Please, Bryan, sit down. These are our very dear family friends, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley," Hermione introduced.
"Nice to meet you, Bryan," Harry smiled.
"Pleasure, mate," Ron nodded.
"Nice to meet you too!" Bryan grinned and shook both of their hands before he sat. "This all looks great! I hear you're a wiz at the barbeque, Dad."
My mouth went dry with rage, and Harry and Ron stilled. But before I could think of anything to say, besides the fact that I had barbecued exactly none of the food prepared, Hermione cleanly cut in, addressing Annie.
"Your grandparents called to give you their congratulations, and to tell you that they certainly will be home for the wedding."
"Narcissa and...Lucius, right?" Bryan checked.
"Yes, darling," Hermione said to Bryan. "They're thrilled to meet you."
I shared a glance of dark amusement with Harry and Ron at the idea of anyone except my mother or Hermione calling my father by his given name so casually, let alone being 'thrilled' to meet...well, anybody. I made a mental note for the future to tell Bryan that my father preferred to be addressed by his first name only.
"What is old Lucy up to these days, huh?" Ron asked. "Is he still swimming in money?"
Last I had heard from him, he was in Vail, Colorado, and I hoped he was still enjoying it within an inch of his rich bloody life. Not that I cared, particularly, with what or how my father chose to entertain himself and Mother, just as long as Hermione hadn't had his ear any time recently. The second we got back in the car after what happened at Bryan's parents' house, she had threatened to tell him what an absolute jerk I was being about this wedding business. The official story was that I had gotten lost and fallen into the pool after the dogs cornered me, leaving the MacKenzies to find the soggy chequebook themselves and wonder how it had grown legs and decided to go for a dip. I admit that Hermione had hit her target, though; the very last person I wanted finding out about my slight embarrassment was Lucius Malfoy. For now, I'd bide my time. But Ron's seemingly innocuous question sounded too much like a taunt...because it was.
Ron's face—stuffed with steak and scallops simultaneously—was wide with a close-lipped, knowing smirk.
She had told them. Of course.
While Annie was happily telling Ron all about her grandparents' vacation in America, I jerked my wrist under the table and my wand slid out from inside my jacket sleeve. I mentally aimed while still looking down and continuing to navigate my fork around my plate with my left hand. Being ambidextrous, this would luckily not alert anyone. The stinging hex connected squarely with Ron's solar plexus and he choked.
His palm slapped down onto the table and everybody jumped.
"Easy, Ron!" Harry patted his friend's back unhelpfully as he spluttered and wheezed. Annie jumped up to fetch some more ice water—it wasn't like we could summon Perdita for some with Bryan sitting right there. Bryan was halfway out of his seat as if he wasn't sure what to do. Scorpius ignored the scene entirely, helping himself to what looked to be his seventh scallop.
I also continued to eat, unbothered—as long as he was coughing, I knew he could breathe—and eventually, he was able to force enough air into his lungs to power a breathy 'screw you' in my direction that nobody else, luckily, seemed to catch. Annie returned with the water.
"Drink some water, Ron," Hermione encouraged, somewhat suspiciously. Ron's disgusting appetite hadn't lessened over the years though, so this event wasn't wholly shocking.
I gracefully swallowed my own bite and turned my gaze to Bryan.
"Have you two given any thought as to what kind of wedding you would like?"
Bryan looked automatically to Annie, clearly taken off guard by my direct address of him, having not talked to him without absolutely having to before.
"Well, we've talked about it..." Annie started.
"Yes?" Hermione hummed, sounding pleased that I had willingly carried the conversation in this particular direction. "And what do you think? Big, small?"
"Well, I'm not sure how big I want it to be yet," Annie said, talking mostly to Bryan.
"That's perfectly alright, we still have plenty of time to figure that out," Hermione soothed. "Any ideas about the venue, darling?"
"Right," Annie smiled, then bit her lip. "Um, I was thinking I might like to have my wedding...well, here."
Hermione gasped softly—the kind of gasp that threatened happy tears.
"Here?" I asked quietly.
"Yeah," Annie agreed. She smiled cautiously at me.
I considered it—a private event with limited press, myself and Hermione at the helm of a tastefully large affair for our only daughter. Realistically, I knew it would metamorphosize into the Wizarding wedding of the century, being who we were, but for the first time since I found out about their relationship, I didn't completely hate the idea.
.......
Not long after dinner, Ron and Harry found themselves in the shadows of the doorway to the Sitting Room, watching Bryan.
Scorpius had gone to bed and Annie was in the ballroom with Draco and Hermione analyzing the potential ceremony space, so he was temporarily by himself, examining the artwork on the walls.
"Wow," he muttered as he examined a small oil painting adjacent to the roaring fireplace. He reached up to touch the gilded frame, then seemed to think the better of it. Harry thought that that was probably wise, given this was Malfoy Manor and it was best to just keep your hands to yourself unless you were a Malfoy.
They had both come to agree with Hermione's assessment of Bryan during dinner. He was straight-forward, easy-going, and clearly devoted to Annie. But, like Draco, they also weren't sure how much they liked him.
They glanced at each other and stepped forward.
"Hell of a house, isn't it?"
Bryan snapped around, startled, but relaxed when he saw it was just them. He laughed. "Yeah! They've got a lot of incredible artwork! I minored in Art History. They've got some really great pieces. This whole place is incredible, actually."
"It is," Ron agreed, and he was actually being sincere. "I'm a real estate attorney, and buyers ask me all the time if the Malfoys would ever consider selling."
"Oh, I don't think Annie's family is going to give it up anytime soon. They seem...very attached," Bryan mused wryly—then backtracked. "No offense, of course!"
"None taken," Harry assured. "They would have pry this place out of Malfoy's cold, slimy, dead fingers."
Bryan grinned. "Don't get me wrong, Mr. Malfoy can be scary...But, I, uh, I like him. He's hardworking. I respect him."
Intrigued by this information, Harry and Ron shared a look over their respective glasses of Ogden's.
Bryan had turned to face the fireplace. His neck was craned back in order to appreciate the family portrait hanging above the wide stone mantel.
The backdrop was a muted forest green; Draco stood in the center, tall and severe in his customary navy-pinstriped suit. Hermione, as elegant as ever and wearing a heather purple sheath dress, sat in a carved wooden chair in front of Draco. Scorpius, probably no older than four, stood to her right, hair gelled and his little hand resting on her knee. Annie stood behind Scorpius with her hands on his shoulders, arguably the most colorful part of the entire painting in pale sea-foam green with a matching headband. To Draco's left, Lucius, in a forbidding black suit and his blonde hair loose on his shoulders. One hand rested on his snakehead cane and the other on Hermione's shoulder. Narcissa, in a pretty shade of mauve, had linked her arm through Lucius' left, her manicured free hand atop his own on his cane. It was a striking painting—Harry had been forced to admit a long time ago that they really did make a beautiful family.
"The guy in black, that's Annie's grandfather, right? He's kind of...spooky," Bryan commented with a small smile.
Ron coughed, purpling slightly at Bryan's description of Lucius.
"Mean as a snake," Harry said cheerfully, mostly to Ron. "Only likes his family."
"I suppose they're going to have to redo the portrait once I marry Annie, huh?"
Ron suddenly understood why Malfoy didn't like him—that statement could easily be mistranslated into presumptuousness. But he decided the confidence was ultimately a good thing. Bryan was going to need as much as he could get to survive being a part of the Malfoy family.
"Probably," Harry said, and Ron silently agreed this was the ideal segue into the conversation they had intended to have with Bryan the entire time.
This was an old dance. Ron shifted casually to Bryan's other side, while Harry pretended to keep appreciating the portrait. Lucius sneered down at him, frozen because of Bryan's presence.
Harry opened his mouth to begin, but Bryan stopped him.
"Look, I know what this is about. Mr. Malfoy pretty much already gave me the speech," he said. "He made himself very clear that if I were to ever hurt Annie, that the proper authorities would never find my human remains."
Harry was genuinely surprised. According to the expression on Ron's face, so was he. They had both discussed at length whether or not Draco had threatened Bryan already—but a straightforward approach wasn't really Draco's style.
"He didn't say it. More like he's been saying it with his eyes ever since I met him," Bryan clarified. This was, indeed, far more believable. He continued. "Sending a vanguard seems a bit excessive, though, doesn't it?"
At first, Harry thought Draco wasn't giving Bryan enough credit, but now he realized that Draco was most certainly giving him just the amount of credit he deserved—Bryan was nice, but he was smart. Slytherin smart. Even more surprising, Bryan's faltering way of speaking had all but vanished, and Harry concluded that that must have been the effect of being in Draco's vicinity. Hermione had told them that Draco thought Bryan didn't realize how dangerous he was, but clearly, they had all been wrong—he had sensed the threat, alright. He knew that Draco was powerful, and he stayed in spite of it: for Annie.
And Bryan clearly did not appreciate their doubts.
"Perhaps that wasn't what our speech was even about."
"Wasn't it?" Bryan asked plainly.
"No, it was," Harry disagreed. "It certainly saves us some effort."
Ron nodded. He sipped at his whiskey. "You're right, Bryan, the last man on the planet that needs a vanguard to do his dirty work is Draco Malfoy. He used to, but not now. He...grew out of that. We just wanted to prepare you, mate."
"For what, exactly? I don't know about you, but it's a little late to have thoughts of backing out," Bryan said flatly, looking more than a little unimpressed.
"And that's what we like to hear," Harry reassured Bryan sincerely. "But this family, well, they're really old and very serious. They're kind of like royalty. It wouldn't be fair of us if we didn't warn you, you see?"
"Yes, Annie's talked to me about it," Bryan said shortly.
"Well, alright, then," Ron said, not unpleasantly.
And though they hadn't needed to rehearse it, Harry took over. "Listen, mate. If you marry Annie, she may take your name, but she's not becoming a MacKenzie—you're becoming a Malfoy. Make sure that you act like it. Or I can guarantee you that you'll never be in any painting at all, let alone the family portrait."
Bryan nodded. "I understand."
Harry automatically dropped his antipathy.
"Now that that's over with, I think you're a shoo-in," Harry jerked a thumb in the direction of the big portrait. "If you ask me, they need some more brunettes up there. You know, for contrast."
Brian smirked carefully. "Thanks. Now, how did you meet Draco? Hermione said you were friends in school, is that right?"
"Yes, well, I wouldn't quite say...friends..." Harry said slowly—because behind Bryan, Ron had gone ashen. He squinted slightly at Ron. His eyes were motioning frantically to the fireplace.
Harry allowed himself one very quick glance sideways—
To see Dean Thomas' panicked face in the green flames directly behind Bryan's feet.
Damn! Dean owned Scrivenshaft's parchment supplier and had offered a generous Friends and Family discount for the wedding invitations, and Hermione had said she was expecting a Floo call from him, but he didn't know she meant bloody tonight!
Harry could see Ron making frantic shooing-away motions at Dean. To Harry's horror, Bryan seemed to notice his suddenly-odd expression, and he twisted around to look at the fireplace, too.
"What are you looking at?" he asked.
Harry had the Obliviate ready, but luckily Dean was gone. He exhaled.
"Nothing," Harry brushed off. "Sorry, I zoned out. Er...Reminiscing."
Bryan shook his head. "I just...I could have sworn..."
"What?"
"I could have sworn, well..." And Bryan visibly hesitated. "That I saw the flames turned green. Just briefly."
The Sitting Room went silent for a long moment. Then—
"What?" Ron chuckled loudly, even though Harry saw that his eyes weren't laughing at all. "Mate, I think you had a little too much of that Danish wine if you're seeing green flames!"
His joke broke the tension and Bryan's shoulders seemed to loosen.
"I know, I know, I sound crazy. I almost didn't say," Bryan laughed. "But I could have sworn..."
"I'm sure you did," Harry agreed.
Ron and Harry steered Bryan away from the Sitting Room. But Bryan looked back reluctantly several times, clearly warring with his own intelligence and what he was sure he saw.