A Marriage of Convenience
written by: albe-chan
DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fiction and I do NOT own Harry Potter or any of the characters mentioned, and any coincidence with real life is purely coincidental. This work may contain MATURE THEMES, such as coarse language, mature subject matter (mentions of sex, nudity, etc.), and/or violence. Please, if you are not over the age of 18, or of majority in your country, DO NOT READ THIS! You have been warned!
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Even though I should probably be working on the two dozen or so other unfinished fictions I have on the go, I'm in the mood to start something new, so here we go! NextGen AU-ness ahead! 'I won't just conform, no matter how you shake my core...' Cheers!
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Lily Potter waved her fan lazily as her eyes scoured the crowded ballroom for the one person she'd come to dance with. It was only her fifth official outing after making her curtsy to the Queen and entering into London's ton, and although it wasn't quite her Season debut, there were still many people present she hadn't gotten formal introductions to at Lady Parmeter's ball. Lily, however, didn't care a jot about the nameless faces she hadn't formally met yet, save one. She'd met the man she searched for before, but that had been going on four years ago, when she was only fifteen. Now all she wanted was a formal introduction to him, and for him to ask her to marry him.
Unlike several other young ladies her age, Lily wasn't convinced she was in love with the gentleman she sought. In fact, she was steadfastly certain she wouldn't ever be in love, and definitely not with the man who she hoped might one day be her husband. She knew the chances of finding a love match, on top of everything else she wanted from a marriage, would be almost impossible, and she wasn't naive or foolish enough to dream of it, despite her age.
Lily had grown up rather fast, both her parents dying in a horrible carriage accident when she was ten. She'd been brought up, after that, by her stuffy Aunt Hermione and Uncle Ronald, both of whom were the highly respectable, highly religious, and thoroughly, awfully dull sort. Her older brother Albus, who had just reached his majority as the Earl of Hastings by this point, had been deemed unsuitable by her Aunt and Uncle to care for her, and so her relatives had taken her into their own home, forcing her to leave the estate she'd grown up at, and the governess she'd adored. Upon her arrival at her new home, Lily had been put under the care of Madam Drear, who was stern-faced and terrifying to ten year old Lily, and who had made it her life's mission to ensure the young lady 'lived up to her name'. And her new governess had seen to it by sheer force of will that Lily would become a genteel, thoroughly proper, and utterly complete lady accomplished at needlepoint, drawing, reading and reciting passages from her Bible, playing the pianoforte, and everything else the older woman deemed suitable hobbies.
From that day, no longer did Lily run about outside, making wildflower wreaths or simply lying in tall grass watching the clouds, or on rainy days, running around the house playing pirate captains or just spending hours voraciously reading any book she could get her hands on. From almost the moment her parents had died, Lily had been stripped of her freedoms, forced literally kicking and screaming at times to become a dull, lifeless doll of a lady without thought, opinion, or temper. For the first several years, Lily had rebelled, doing her utmost to make life as miserable for Madam Drear as she herself felt, being caged and tamed. And in fact she had come close, on several occasions, to having her governess abandon her, but then her Aunt and Uncle would offer the middle-aged woman a pay rise, and she would be bought into buckling down yet again to taming her charge.
Finally, at sixteen, Lily had found a means to end the entrapment, in realizing that she could marry into a place where she could have her own household, and her own life, and at last be free to do as she pleased. Of course there would be her husband, a faceless person who only figured into her plans as the vessel to transport her from her own personal hell, but as far as she had been made aware, all he would want her for was the odd occasion when he might want to sire children. Madam Drear had made it crystal clear that marital relations were neither to be enjoyed, or partaken in for any other reason than the initial consummation and then only to beget heirs, and that she would only be expected to lay there silently enduring the discomfort and be gifted with children. Lily, having little exposure to the outside world save from a carriage or church pew or the odd visit with her Aunt Hermione's stuffy friends, figured she could handle that.
After she had come to her realization, Lily had striven to embody Madam Drear's ideal vision of a young lady, and by her eighteenth birthday, she'd managed to convince the stout, grey woman she was ready to debut into Society. Alas, her Aunt and Uncle did not feel she was ready, though Lily rather suspected it was because they'd been away from London so long she knew they hadn't a clue how to sponsor or guide her, and had made her wait an entire extra year in the school room. Now, however, Lily, with her Aunt and Uncle's blessing and under the watchful eye of Madam Drear, who was now her companion of sorts, had been sent to London, to live in her brother's house there and be sponsored by her almost-ancient spinster Aunt Penelope, for her debut and the following Season.
Lily, at her first ever ton event, had been horribly nervous, feeling starkly noticeable with her bright red hair and the new, very womanly gowns she'd been instructed to purchase. However, having her brother as her escort had calmed her, and he introduced her to several other young ladies making their debuts. After that first night, Lily had realized the gowns she had thought so revealing were rather modest in comparison with the majority she'd seen, and she'd been very aware that there were several gentlemen who greeted her brother with friendly familiarity he purposely did not introduce her to.
Despite being entirely green, Lily was perceptive enough to know that those gentlemen were probably what she'd heard referred to in hushed, scandalized tones as rakehells, and although she wasn't entirely sure what it meant, she imagined being handsome was a requirement, as many of them were decidedly good looking. This night, however, the young redhead was on a mission after hearing a conversation between her older brother and his very good friend the previous evening.
She'd stayed home from an evening at the theater, telling her brother she had a headache, but in reality having been forbidden after Madam Drear had heard what play they planned seeing, claiming it was 'unsuitable for a respectable young lady', as so many things were. She'd snuck down to the library when she heard her brother come home, planning to tell him she rather had wanted to go and why she'd lied, but before she opened the door there came the voice of another gentleman. Afraid but curious, she had listened at the door as Albus and his good friend Scorpius Malfoy, the Duke of Remington, had talked candidly.
"Come now, Scorpius, you act as though you have had a death sentence put over you. Is it really so terrible to consider settling down?"
"I may as well have," drawled a deep voice in return. "I have no need of a wife, and no desire to settle down."
Albus had laughed. "Well, my friend, it shall be a sad day when they take you to gallows, then. I fear the other gentlemen may try to cast me in your role of being the most notorious of the scandalous."
"What I need," the Duke had replied, sounding as though he were speaking of dreams, "is a woman who is content to sit in the country, leave me to my wiles here in London, and be attractive enough to bed so that my mother will cease in demanding I procreate before she dies."
Lily, whose heart had been almost beating out of her chest, had snuck back upstairs at that point, lying awake in her bed until long into the night, wondering how in the world she was going to get him to marry her. She never heard her older brother's response.
"I feel damn sorry for whoever that woman ends up being," he drawled. Malfoy had raised a brow at him. "You want a business arrangement, and all women want is romance."
Scorpius had then grinned and drank some of his brandy. "Have faith, friend, I have no doubt there are countless fathers and mothers out there who wouldn't mind seeing their daughter a Duchess."
Lily's fan snapped closed as she spotted the tall, leanly muscled blond across the room. She smoothed invisible wrinkles from her favourite dress, one that showed a hint of cleavage, and was the perfect shade of blue to enhance her dark red hair, and glanced across to where her brother stood, only a few feet away, talking politely to the older sister of one of Lily's tentative new friends. She could only assume Malfoy wasn't the best of company, because when she had asked Albus at breakfast if he thought Lord Remington was in London, as she'd had a brief acquaintance with him so very many years ago and she wouldn't mind meeting him, her brother had given her a stern, quelling look and told her vaguely he would look into it.
She looked back at Malfoy, and felt her cheeks go pink when she noticed he was staring at her. She gave him a slow smile, opened her fan with a flick of her wrist, and wafted air over herself as she forced her lungs to keep functioning. He was definitely better looking than when she'd last seen him, although whether that was because he'd gotten better with age, or because at fifteen she just hadn't been fully able to appreciate him, she wasn't sure. Even from a distance, she could see his bright, quick silver eyes, the way his blond hair shimmered in the candlelight, and his wide-shouldered, narrow-waisted, and perfectly muscled physique, even under his clothes.
Turning away, Lily moved to put a hand on Albus's arm, trying not to look too pleased. "Oh, Albus, what a funny coincidence," she said as he turned to her, "do you remember how I was asking about the Duke of Remington?" Instantly her brother's green eyes hardened, along with his mouth. "I believe I just saw him, just there," Lily continued airily, and directed her brother's eyes toward where she'd seen Malfoy. As the redhead turned with him, she sucked in a breath as the tall blond loomed before her, his magnetic gaze capturing her own.
"I do believe my eyes are deceiving me," he said in his deep, velvety voice, then flicked his gaze to Albus and half-smiled. "Certainly this lovely creature cannot be your sister, Potter."
Lily could tell her brother wasn't pleased, but proper social protocol dictated she now be formally introduced. "Indeed," he replied coldly. "Does it not make you feel positively ancient to know my little sister is now nineteen?" He turned to Lily, "Lily, may I present Scorpius Malfoy, the Duke of Remington? Malfoy, my sister, Miss Lily Potter."
The blond made her a little bow and Lily curtsied respectfully. "I remember you from meeting you only very briefly some years ago," she said politely. "Though I almost didn't recognize you, truthfully, as you are so positively ancient now."
Malfoy smiled down at her, silver eyes flitting down her lithe frame and back up, as though regarding her in a new light. "Although I am certain to be disappointed, I cannot help but ask if you have a partner in the next set of dances?" he asked, and Lily had to take a couple deep breaths to maintain her composure. She silent thanked all her lucky stars and God and Lady Parmeter for throwing the ball, along with whatever else she could think of, that for once Fate seemed to be on her side.
She looked over at her brother, whose eyebrows had drawn together. "Alas, Albus has promised me I can show off my dancing skills with him."
"Come now, Potter," Scorpius said, taking Lily's hand and laying it on his sleeve boldly, "if your sister is a skilled dancer she requires a skilled partner to show her off to her best advantage. Besides, I do believe you owe me a favour." And without waiting for her brother to say anything, the tall blond lead her out onto the dance floor.
"I do hope Albus is not angry with me," Lily murmured as they waited for the music to begin.
"I doubt very much he will be angry with you, Miss Potter." He leaned down and added in a much quieter voice, "He very probably will be furious at me though."
"Why?" she whispered. Just then the music started up, and they began dancing.
It was several minutes before Malfoy replied, but he grinned wickedly as he murmured, "Because you are his little sister and I am going to ask you if you will marry me."
Shock rendered Lily numb for several moments, and she could hardly concentrate on the dance steps. "Why would you want to marry me, sir?" she asked at last, even though her heart was pounding and a very large part of her wanted to simply shout yes. "You do not even know me."
His smile was dazzling. "I would say because you are beautiful, but I fear you already know that, and I would also say because I love you, though I doubt you would believe that."
Somehow, Lily found herself smiling in return. "And so the truth, then?"
"If you prefer," he said, looking bored, but his gaze was calculating. The dance broke them apart for some time, and Lily tried to tell herself she had to be level-headed and calm, and if he told her the truth, she would say yes to him. If not...well she didn't know. It was difficult to reign in her excitement.
At last they came back together, but nothing else was forthcoming and Lily had lost her nerve a little. And then the dance was over, and Scorpius merely lead her over to a bench inside an alcove. "Are you certain you want to hear the truth, Miss Potter?" he asked, looking very serious. He was sitting a perfectly respectable distance away, but Lily could feel a warmth emanating from him that made the little bench feel far too small for them both. "I ask out of respect that you are only nineteen, and a debutante, but also because you are Albus's sister. It is not a particularly happy truth."
She swallowed, trying valiantly to tamp down the awareness of him, and nodded. "If you are making a serious offer," she said as evenly as possible, even though she felt slightly dizzy and oddly excited, "then I would know the real reason you would do so."
His mouth curved upward on one side. "I ask you because I need to get married so that my mother does not follow through on her plan to not only cut me from her will, which would be no hardship, but bar me permanent access to my childhood home, my estate in the country, by willing it to a distant cousin. I would continue to draw income from the estate and the surrounding land, but that is not my main concern. Trivial though it may seem, I am rather attached to the place, and I am loathe to abandon it for good." He looked at her and she felt her heart beating out of control, but her mind was oddly clear. "If I am not married at the least, or preferably with an heir in the nursery, by the time I am thirty one, I will lose Malfoy Manor."
"You have not yet told me why you are asking me specifically," she said. She needed to hear him say, again, that she would be free to live her life in the country once more, as she'd longed to do for so many years. To be free of always sitting properly as a lady would, able to go running amok in the outdoors or whiling away the hours with a book, to be free without care, and also free of the judging eyes of Society she had experienced only briefly and loathed. To be free to do as she pleased without interference and judgement.
He arched a brow at her. "You are attractive enough that sex with you would be enjoyable and young enough that you should be able to produce me an heir or two."
The redhead had blushed horribly at the mention of sex, and even more profusely of the talk of enjoying it, although she supposed that was yet another way how men differed vastly from women, if they were meant to enjoy such things. "Should I be inclined to accept, I would have you know now," she said firmly, trying not to feel mortified but still unable to fully look him in the eye, "that if I should have children, I would have them raised away from London and under my own supervision."
Her gaze focused on his full blown smile now. "And if you should somehow be delayed in that end or simply not be able to bear children? Would you then still be content to remain in the country alone?" His tone was laced with incredulity.
Her hazel eyes met his mocking silver ones, and a shiver went down her spine. "Yes." Both his brows went up.
"Forgive me," he said, looking almost comically shocked, and she couldn't fully smother the smile. "Was that yes to the question, or the conversational topic?"
"Both." She took a deep breath. "And since I can see that I have shocked you, I am going to walk back over to my brother now, and if you decide you are serious, you may call upon me at Hastings House tomorrow morning. Goodnight." She stood up gracefully and made her way to the other side of the dance floor to where Albus Potter was probably planning the methodical dismemberment of Malfoy. Her smile lasted all the way home and even though Albus asked her many times why she was grinning so foolishly, she could only shake her head.
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Scorpius Malfoy frowned as he walked into White's early the next morning, feeling a bizarre combination of joy and dread. Joy, that after only a few hours of concerted effort, he had stumbled upon a woman who seemed more than eager to wed him and allow him to live his life in the swing of the ton while she stayed far away at Malfoy Manor, and dread that said woman happened to be the much younger sister to one of his best friends. A best friend he knew would oppose such an arrangement.
"Ah, so you did dare show your face after all," Albus Potter said just as Scorpius had settled into a chair near him with his morning paper.
"Dare?" he repeated, grinning and raising a brow.
"Yes. Do you think I am foolish enough to not realize what you are trying to do?" Albus voice was deadly quiet, and when Scorpius met his eyes they were like frosty emeralds.
"And what, pray tell, am I doing, Potter?"
"I saw you talking last night with my sister. I will only say once that should you try anything, and I do mean anything Malfoy, to put even the slightest blight on her good reputation, I will cheerfully swing for murdering you."
Scorpius grinned wider. "Does that include offering for her?"
Albus glared. "If I thought you were serious I would slap a glove in your face."
"Pity you do not appear to have gloves, Potter." He schooled his features into seriousness. "Did your sister tell you what we conversed about last evening?"
"She said only that you might be calling in the morning," Albus admitted grudgingly.
Scorpius smothered the laugh that rumbled up. Lily Potter was proving to be quite thoroughly entertaining, and he wasn't even sure in the cold light of morning if he was seriously considering marrying her. Certainly he had been shocked to the core last night when she'd told him yes she would marry him, and even more shocked when she'd admitted she would rather spend her life in the country away from London, raising his children and running his household or simply doing whatever it was women filled their spare time with. Of course then she had abruptly left him, but the niggling voice in his head that often acted his conscience told him her acquiescence was most probably because of her greenness. He doubted, once she got a taste of Society, she'd still be willing to live in exile, children or not. And yet, he was sorely tempted to simply take her at her word, marry the girl, and carry on with life, consequences be damned.
"Interesting," he murmured and Albus's brows threatened to become a single entity.
"What in the bloody hell is going on, Malfoy?" the dark-haired man snarled.
Scorpius looked at his friend and affected a shrug. "I asked your sister to marry me," he said quietly, half expecting Albus to jump out of his seat and try throttling him by his necktie.
Albus laughed darkly. "Let me guess, she told you in short order she was not the least bit interested?"
The blond raised a brow again and forced another shrug. "Not at all," he replied, sounding bored, and looked back at his paper. "She accepted with little hesitation." He felt, rather than saw, Albus become perfectly still. "Fear not, Potter, I have not filled your little sister's head with false notions of romance, either," he drawled. "She demanded the truth from me after I asked her, and I gave it. And then she said yes." When Albus didn't respond, he looked up, fearing the worst.
The green-eyed gentleman looked shell-shocked. "No."
The blond smiled slowly in return. "Indeed, she agreed. Should I make an offer to you formally now, or do you think it more appropriate to-?"
"I am saying no," Albus replied, lips barely moving.
"I do not think it is really your decision," he replied, once more arching a brow. He shook out his newspaper. "I would merely speak to you before proposing in earnest to maintain the necessary social proprieties."
"I will not allow it. You can count on it being a frigid day in Hell indeed that you wed my sister."
"Were you not the one, only two days ago, telling me it might not be so bad to settle down?" Scorpius murmured.
"Not with my sister!" Albus hissed. "She has lead a very sheltered life, Malfoy, and I will not allow you to-"
"Potter," Scorpius cut across him, his tone now positively dripping condescension, "I have already told you she has been made aware of my expectations, and since she appears to be comfortable, perhaps even eager for such an arrangement, I wonder if you think her stupid." He glared across at the furious other gentleman. "Or perhaps you think she has somehow been mistreated at the hands of your relatives if she wishes so badly to be married and away before the Season is over?" Albus matched the blond, glare for glare for a long moment, but he felt his anger dissipating quickly as his friend's words penetrated.
He was positive Lily was no fool, and he'd spent enough time with her to know she wasn't stupid, but neither was she that awful mixture of giggly, romantic youth that most girls her age seemed to embody. Lily was serious, and level-headed, and almost cold except for the rare burst of humour or wit. He thought back to the times he'd visited her before she was out in Society. She had always appeared the very picture of propriety, as his Aunt and Uncle had wished, though rather tamed from how he recalled her before their parents had died. As a child, she'd been cheeky and outgoing and possessed of a fiery temper to rival her red hair. After the accident, though Albus wasn't sure as he'd spent most of his time in London, or at various events in the country or by the seaside in summer, she had seemed to shrink in personality, even as she'd grown into a woman. Then he'd simply thought she was maturing. Now...
And now Albus really did wonder if perhaps there had been something more, something deeper he had missed in his infrequent visits to his younger sister. Had she been mistreated? He doubted it, knowing his Aunt and Uncle weren't cruel, but perhaps that governess of hers, a stout, spinster-ish woman who'd been a longtime friend of their Aunt's, had crushed her lively spirit. He felt suddenly guilty that he had not been there more, had not fought harder to have her with him through those formative years.
He frowned at Scorpius, disliking that he was being diverted from his anger at the blond. They had been friends a long time, and Albus knew Scorpius was the sort who had little qualms with drinking, gambling, and womanizing to excess, and oftentimes did things that were borderline unsavoury if the lure was tempting enough, but he was a good person, through and through. He just wasn't at all the sort of man he wanted for his sister. "I think I must have a talk with Lily," the green-eyed man said at last, rising from his chair.
"See you later," Scorpius said pointedly as the dark-haired gentleman exited the club, feeling distinctly nettled. He was aware that his offer of marriage to Lily, which was only the slightest in jest, for he had meant every word he'd said, would now be expected. Part of him hoped she would turn it down in the light of morning. She certainly met all the requirements he'd set for the wife he didn't really want, but it bothered him, now that he'd said the words, that Lily had so readily accepted what Albus had correctly termed a business arrangement. Hell, she had negotiated her terms even. What had made her so unique in wanting nothing of being a member of the ton? What sort of woman actually wanted the life he had in mind for his wife?
He forced the thoughts from his head, shook out his paper once more and slumped a little in his chair. Despite his best efforts, Lily kept creeping back in. The vibrant hazel colour of her eyes, as though they couldn't quite decide to be brown or green, her willowy, well-endowed body that was obvious even under the layers of her very modest gown, and especially the way she'd smiled after she'd said that one word, "Yes." He had a feeling she was using him, somehow, some way, to her own ends, but for the life of him he couldn't figure it out.
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