Chapter 2 – Dinner

Three days after Harry and Fred's funeral, Draco flooed the Weasley's to ask if it was alright to come for dinner that evening. Mrs. Weasley was delighted that he was really accepting her offer and told him to arrive sometime between five and six o'clock that evening. He was feeling guilty that he had always teased the Weasley's about not having any money all through school so he specifically chose a pair of robes that couldn't be considered pompous or ostentatious unless you considered the fact that he was the first person to wear these robes. They were simple, plain black robes since he was still in necessary mourning for his father and he suspected the Weasley's similarly would be in mourning. Actually, for that matter, he suspected that most of Wizarding Britain was in mourning and probably a fair number of muggles as well.

Draco's next worry was what to bring. He had always been taught to bring something to give to the host when invited somewhere but he had to admit that he didn't know the Weasley's well enough to think of a good gift. He didn't want to bring a bottle of wine because there were far too many people to appreciate it properly and he didn't think it would look appropriate to bring along a case of wine. He thought about asking the house elves to prepare a dish that he could bring over, but scratched that idea off as well. He had heard that the Weasley matriarch was an excellent cook and bringing along a dish might give her the idea that he did not trust her cooking.

Flowers! Draco thought suddenly. There, he could get a beautiful arrangement of flowers that all of them could enjoy and it shouldn't appear to ostentatious. He was only too aware of how much he had belittled the Weasley's for their lack of money while they were in school and he was desperate for someone, anyone to see that he had changed drastically.

Having made up his mind at last, Draco stopped pacing his room and began walking downstairs to the drawing room to inform his mother of his plans for the evening. It was about a five minute walk from his room, since the manor was so large, and he was very grateful for that as it gave him a chance to prepare what he was going to say to her. He hadn't mentioned seeing the Weasleys to her yet and really wasn't sure what her reaction would be. He knew that she would be more than happy to see his Aunt Andy, regardless of her blood status, solely on the fact that she was family. They were only very, very distantly related to the Prewetts and the Weasleys, not nearly close enough to be considered family, and they were still blood traitors.

Draco stopped in surprised as he approached the drawing room, hearing two women's voices and tinkling laughter. Narcissa was very reserved and formal whenever she had visitors; this sounded absolutely nothing like her typical tea parties. Knitting his brow in confusion, he resumed walking to determine what was going on, trying to walk softly on the marble floors in his particularly noisy shoes. His face brightened as he reached the drawing room and saw his mother and his aunt sitting on the floor giggling madly. It was such a relief seeing Narcissa happy and enjoying life again and he suspected that since he had met Aunt Andy at the Weasley's she might help soften her sister if she showed any concerns about him associating with them.

"Good afternoon, Mother," Draco said warmly. "And Aunt Andy! It's a pleasure to see you here again!"

The two women giggled again. "Good afternoon Draco," smiled Narcissa. "I'm afraid you missed tea with us again, will you be at dinner? There's something we'd like to discuss with you." Both she and her sister smiled up at him from where they were seated on the floor.

Draco's face fell. He hated denying his mother anything, particularly lately, but he had already promised the Weasleys that he'd be at the Burrow within the hour. "I'm very sorry Mother," he said regretfully. "I already have a dinner engagement that I'm afraid I can't back out of."

Narcissa brightened even more at hearing this. "Ooh, and which young lady will you be seeing tonight?" Her eyes were sparkling and Andromeda looked up at him expectantly. Draco barely succeeded in not rolling his eyes in front of the two ladies. His mother had been pestering him for the past year about the fact that he had yet to have a serious girlfriend. Apparently she was quite desperate for grandchildren and had forgotten that her son was still seventeen: far too young he thought to be settling down. He didn't even like any of the Slytherin girls around his age and had never paid much attention to girls from the other houses. He suspected that he was going to have to go abroad for a few years to find a wife.

"I'll be eating with the Weasley family this evening," Draco said smoothly, grateful that his nerves did not show in his voice. Narcissa's eyes widened at this statement, but she fortunately did not look angry or upset with him. Andromeda's face lit up with a warm, broad smile. "That, actually, was my purpose of coming to see you. I'll be leaving soon and didn't want you to worry about where I was all evening."

"I wasn't aware that you were even speaking to the Weasley's," Narcissa said in surprise.

Andromeda thankfully cut in, saving Draco the trouble. "Actually Cissy, I met Draco at Fred and Harry's funeral. I'm rather thankful that he made it out unscathed, Molly looked like she might have broken some of his ribs." Both women began laughing.

"Ooh, Molly Prewett," gasped Narcissa between her laughs. "She never was one to let her feelings go unnoticed, now was she? Tell me, Draco, what on Earth did you say to her?"

Draco began shifting on his feet uncomfortably. He was quite surprised at his mother's behavior, he had been expecting her to be somewhat upset and cold towards him after discovering he would be consorting with blood traitors for the evening. "I offered the family my condolences after the service," he said softly. He really had changed, before he would have expected to be glorified for such an act taken at his own initiative, but now he felt that his mother and aunt were intruding on something deeply personal.

Andromeda chuckled. "That would certainly do it."

Narcissa nodded in agreement, still laughing to herself. "Well then dear, have fun with the Weasleys this evening. I suppose our discussion can hold off till breakfast."

************

Draco apparated to Diagon Alley after saying his goodbyes to his mother and aunt. He rushed quickly through the crowded street; he had not expected his conversation with his mother to take quite that long and he still needed to pick up some flowers before apparating to the Burrow. He noted that there were indeed many more witches and wizards wearing somber black robes in the street than typically seen in May. He finally found the tiny florist shop at the far end of Diagon Alley and opened the door, hearing the tinkle of a bell as he did so.

His first thought was despair and disgust. Nearly all the flowers in the shop were charmed black, presumably since so many people were in mourning. Draco hated black flowers and while he and the Weasleys were undoubtedly still in mourning for their fallen relatives, he could not bring himself to remind them all of that tonight. Sighing, he walked to the back of the shop where he had spotted a peek of color.

Stepping into the glorious color of the hidden flowers in the back, one arrangement caught his eye straightaway and reminded him instantly of the Weasleys. It was a decently large arrangement of large red roses and small yellow lilies. To anchor the vivid flowers, sprigs of baby's breath and large, deep green ivy leaves were interspersed throughout the arrangement. He immediately picked it up and paid for it, leaving the store behind him. Stepping out into the crowded street once more, he took a deep breath and apparated to the Burrow.

************

Draco arrived at the Burrow with a faint popping noise. He frowned, looking at the sky and noticed that while it had been sunny in London, it looked as if it might rain at any moment here. He quickly set off towards the house and knocked on the door.

Moments later, a girl with a long mane of brilliantly red hair opened the door. "Hello," began Draco uncertainly, "my name is Draco Malfoy, I'm supposed to come here for dinner this evening."

"Ginny Weasley," the girl stated before grabbing his hand and pumping it enthusiastically. "You were a prat at school but it seems that you've certainly grown up. Come on in." She turned around into the house and he followed her in amazement. Ginny! I was right!he crowed to himself, grinning widely. Now, I've got four names down, hopefully I won't make too much of a fool of myself.

He found himself being led into a small kitchen where Mrs. Weasley was facing away from him, directing her wand at various piles of vegetables. Moments later, knives had come flying out of a drawer and began expertly peeling and chopping the vegetable piles at an alarming rate.

"Turnips, carrots, potatoes," she muttered. "Yes, that should be enough… Now the roast needs another round of peppering before it finishes…"

"Mum," Ginny began. "Draco Malfoy arrived."

She whirled around facing the two of them. Draco smiled uncertainly and held out the flowers he had just picked up. "Here, er, I got these for you…" His voice was cut off quite suddenly as Mrs. Weasley engulfed him in another one of her hugs. Ginny smiled at him tentatively over her mother's head; it appeared that she was desperately trying not to laugh as her mother crushed him.

"Oh, thank you, m'dear, that's very sweet of you." She smiled, wiping a tear out of her eye and floated the flower arrangement onto the kitchen table. "Dinner will be done soon enough, Ginny could you show him out to the parlor?" She smiled broadly at the two of them before hurrying back to the counter and busying herself with the now chopped piles of vegetables.

Ginny turned and faced a door which she held open for Draco. "You know," he said as he attempted to hold the door open for her, "gentlemen are the ones who should be opening doors for ladies, not the other way around."

She snorted. "You must not know my brothers then," she said with a toss of her hair. "I'd like to see them do that, even once. Besides," she said, smirking at him, "you don't exactly know where you're going, now do you?"

Draco had the grace to cast his eyes towards the floor. "No, I suppose I don't." He followed her through another doorway into a room which, at first glance, appeared to be hosting a redhead convention. Mr. Weasley sprang up as soon as he saw Ginny and Draco enter the room.

"Ah, Draco so glad you could join us!" he exclaimed, running over and pumping his hand in the same manner Ginny had earlier. "Now, let me introduce you to everyone. That one over in the corner is my eldest son, Bill." One of the shorter, stockier Weasleys with a heavily scarred face grinned and waved. "Sitting next to him is his wife, Fleur." A woman he vaguely recognized from the Triwizard Tournament who had to be part Veela waved at him, gently placing one of her pale, slender hands on top of Bill's large, scarred hand. "Next is Percy," a lanky redhead with horn-rimmed glasses nodded solemnly at him; Draco thought he had been a prefect when he was at Hogwarts. "Then we have George, whom I believe you spoke to earlier in the week…" His voice drifted off a bit, clearly not wanting to discuss the funeral. The redhead missing an ear nodded stiffly. "Next are Ron and his girlfriend, Hermione, who I believe you know from school." Two of Potter's friends looked up at him and Draco's eyebrows shot up. He had known they were friends, but dating? Maybe Potter's death had affected them deeply and they ran to each other for comfort. "Finally, we have Ginny, whom you met earlier." Ginny was clearly nowhere near as tall as her brothers, but she definitely had the same stocky frame as Bill and George. "There," said Mr. Weasley rubbing his hands together, "now that introductions have been done, please do take a seat."

Glancing around the room cautiously, Draco desperately tried to not let his concern shine through his features. Most of the furniture seemed overburdened by Weasley's as it was, and even if it hadn't been, it was very clearly old and worn. He finally spotted a spindly wooden chair near the door, seized it, and sat down. Ginny leapt up and squeezed onto a loveseat with Ron and Hermione.

"So, Draco," said Mr. Weasley trying to engage them all in conversation, "have you decided what you'll be doing now that you've completed school?"

Draco shifted nervously in his chair, hearing it squeak dangerously as he did so. "Well…" he began uncertainly, "I actually hadn't put much thought into it. I've spent the past year trying to keep my family safe and not much else."

Mr. Weasley chuckled. "Well, you certainly have more reasons than most to be uncertain about your future, but don't hesitate to ask us anything. Bill and Fleur are curse breakers for Gringotts, Percy works for the Ministry, George and Ron are entrepreneurs, and Hermione couldn't make up her mind and is training in law enforcement and healing." He chuckled. "If you really feel like going on the wild side, you could always write my other son, Charlie: he's a dragon keeper over at the reservation in Romania."

Draco tried to contain his amazement. There seemed to be so much more freedom for this family than the ones he had grown up with. Husbands were expected to become Death Eaters, possibly with various charity projects on the side that they only cared about for the substantial government influence that accompanied them. The wives were expected to do nothing more than either join the Death Eaters if they were particularly feisty, or sit at home raising an heir and hosting tea parties. He had privately thought this was an incredibly boring way to go through life, but until the past week, he hadn't dreamed of a way to escape that same fate. He looked around, all of them, with the exception of Ron, actually looked at him interestedly to see if he was going to ask them any questions.

"Er," he said nervously, "thank you very much for the offer. I really haven't had a chance…" He was abruptly interrupted by Mrs. Weasley announcing dinner was ready. He jumped up and held the door open as the rest of the Weasley's bounded out of the room towards the kitchen. Ginny and Hermione were the last ones to leave so he smirked at Ginny, who responded by sticking her tongue out at him. He entered the kitchen to find Mrs. Weasley barking orders at her children.

"George, you set the plates out on the table, Ron, you do the silverware. I do NOT want to see anymore knives stuck in the ceiling. Fleur and Hermione, if you two dears could put the food on the table… thank you dears."

The rest of them squished together at the table while a pile of plates went flying past in two straight lines, landing neatly in front of everyone. The silverware soon followed, the only mishap being a fork that tried to embed itself in Percy's arm. Mrs. Weasley scolded Ron and applied a healing charm to Percy's arm while Hermione and Fleur floated all the dishes onto the table. Draco was amazed at how everyone obeyed Mrs. Weasley, then realized that she was the one who had finally managed to kill his aunt Bella. While she was so warm and friendly, she was clearly a powerful witch. He made a mental note to never end up on her bad side.

Mr. Weasley had begun slicing up the roast as soon as it landed gently on the table and bowls of roasted potatoes, turnips, and carrots were being passed around. After getting decent sized portions of everything on his plate, Draco very carefully took a bite of the roast. He was amazed, it was better than anything the house elves at Hogwarts or Malfoy Manor had ever managed to make. Swallowing, he glanced up the table and said, "This is delicious Mrs. Weasley."

She turned pink and started smiling, while everyone else at the table laughed as much as they could with full mouths.

************

Everyone finished dinner in relative silence: no one was trying to be rude, but the food was so good they just kept eating till they were all full. As everyone finished, their plate would fly off the table and into the sink, where a sponge would jump up and to clean it off. After everyone was finished, Mrs. Weasley pointed her wand at the remaining dishes: the food vanished from sight and then those dishes flew into the sink. Draco followed the procession of people back to the parlor, wondering what would happen next. Everyone had returned to their original seats and the wireless had been turned on. Draco gingerly sat back on the spindly chair, hoping that he hadn't eaten so much at dinner that it would collapse under him. When he realized that wasn't the case, he turned his attention to what the wireless was saying.

"AAAANNND MCCORMACK BLOCKS WEATHERBY'S ATTEMPT!"

With all that had been going on for the past year, Draco had completely forgotten that Quidditch was still going on. "What game is this?" he whispered, leaning towards George.

"Chudley Cannons vs. Pride of Portree," George whispered back. "You a Cannons fan?"

"No, I usually follow the Falcons. Can't say that I've had much of a chance recently…"

"Oh, not to worry, Gin's a Harpies fan, for whatever reason. Falcons are third in the league right now, if you're curious; Harpies are in the lead right now and the Prides are just behind them. Gin won't let us forget that, so you might now want to mention it." George leaned back in his seat smirking.

Draco leaned back in his seat and felt himself relaxing for the first time in a long while. While he probably would have never chosen to listen to this particular game, as anyone with half a brain knew that the Prides would win, it was still very comforting to sit back lazily in his chair, shut his eyes, and imagined the game being played out on the pitch. The Weasley's weren't really talking to each other, but rather shouting at the wireless as if the players would be able to hear them. Well, most of the Weasley's at any rate; Mrs. Weasley was knitting something maroon and lumpy and Hermione had her head buried in a book. He had nearly drifted off to sleep, but was awakened when he felt George roughly jostling his shoulder.

"Do you want some dessert dear? That there is treacle tart, those are jam tarts, and those are custard creams."

Draco eyed the plate warily. He didn't care for treacle tart and the custard creams looked suspiciously like Canary Creams. He carefully selected two jam tarts and passed the tray onto George, who took a custard cream and treacle tart before passing it on. He breathed a tiny sigh of relief and bit into a jam tart. Different flavors swirled around his tongue: one moment it was grape jam, the next it was blackberry, then raspberry… He leaned back in his chair and sighed contentedly as he took another bite.

About a minute after Draco had finished his first jam tart and was longingly contemplating the second, he started noticing odd looks being thrown his way.

Ginny began gasping for air. "Oh Malfoy!" She doubled over, tears of mirth streaming out her eyes.

"GEORGE!" shrieked Mrs. Weasley. "You do NOT test products on unsuspecting guests!"

"But Mum…" George started to argue.

"GEORGE WEASLEY!" bellowed Mrs. Weasley as everyone began shrinking into their seats. "YOU FIX HIM RIGHT NOW OR I'LL CURSE YOU INTO NEXT WEEK!"

Draco cleared his throat. "Erm, what exactly is the matter? I feel perfectly fine…"

Mrs. Weasley looked at him kindly. "Draco dear," she began, "the bathroom is on the second floor, third door on your left. I'll have found a way to set you to rights by the time you return." After she finished speaking to him, she turned back to the gentleman on his right, fixing him in a glowering stare. Draco gulped and leapt up to go to the bathroom as she directed. She was quite a formidable witch.

************

Draco had laughed appreciatively after dashing into the bathroom and catching a glance of himself in the mirror. Nothing about him had really changed, only the color of his hair. It was no longer fine, white-blond locks, but thick Weasley-red curls. While he would never have purposefully changed the color of his hair, he certainly could appreciate George's joke: he really hadn't been joking about that at the funeral. Giving himself a second glance in the mirror, he determined that he, unlike many unfortunate others who tried, could actually pull off red hair if he so desired.

He had tried a simple charm to get his hair to go back to its natural, blond state, but it refused to stick. He assumed that George had assumed that would be nearly anyone's first reaction and had designed it to resist such spells. Chuckling to himself, he walked back downstairs, hoping that Mrs. Weasley had finished scolding George.

When he re-entered the parlor, he was pleased that Mrs. Weasley seemed to have finished scolding George, but her shouts seemed to have been replaced by glaring at him if he so much as blinked. Seeing Draco come in, she looked rather pointedly at George, who twisted to face him.

"Look Malfoy, er, I'm really sorry about giving you a joke sweet…" he began.

Draco laughed. "Oh, it's nothing, don't worry about it. I think it's rather brilliant actually, does it give everyone Weasley hair or is there something more to it?"

George brightened seeing his reaction. "Yes, yes, you're right. It's called a Founders Tart, anyone who eats it will have Fred and I's dashing hair coloring for half an hour or so."

"And the flavoring? Where the hell did that come from, if I might ask. It was incredible!"

"Oh, that." George uncharacteristically blushed. "We decided to include all of our favorite jam tart flavors. We nicked Mum's recipes for that part…"

Mrs. Weasley turned scarlet and leapt to her feet. "YOU WHAT?! HOW DARE YOU GO AROUND SELLING MY RECIPES!" Mr. Weasley jumped to his feet, taking advantage of the deep breath his wife was taking in order to continue her tirade.

"Draco," was all he said, ushering him out of the parlor. Once they were in the hall and the door was shut, he smiled tentatively. "I'm really sorry about your hair, George has always been a prankster and I'm afraid it's too late to try knocking some sense into him, as much as Molly may try. This is only going to get uglier, I figure I should show you out before your eardrums are blasted to smithereens."

Draco gratefully followed the older wizard to the cloak rack. It was certainly a bit awe inspiring to see Mrs. Weasley go after one of her own brood quite like that. He turned around to face Mr. Weasley again.

"Thank you very much, sir, for allowing me to come this evening. If you ever wish to stop by my home for dinner, just give me a floo." Smiling at each other, Draco twisted on the spot, disappearing into the cool night air with a crack.