Disclaimer: I own none of this Harry Potter stuff, anything you recognize from the books or the movies is not mine. I can only claim the spell, the club, and Tric (and her family).
AN: None of this is Betaed, I'm the only one who's edited it so sorry for any mistakes.
Chapter 9: Marrying With Love
"It just doesn't make sense."
"Pansy, we've established that."
"But Draco's gay!"
"Well maybe he was really bi."
"But he was in love with –" Blaise's hand cut her off.
"We've already established that the Draco we were friends with was gay. We've also established that Tric seems to be living with Mark. We've also established that Mark implied he was gay or at least bi. We've also established that Tric has tried to feed us false information before. Therefore you need to calm down Pansy."
"Blaise is right. If we look at this logically we'll be able to pick out the grains of truth that are currently smothered in a mass of lies," claimed Hermione.
"Obviously she's Draco's close friend who shares his flat. He helped her out when she ran away from home, and is currently funding the majority of her University education. This leads us to the conclusion that he sees her as a sort of younger sister and she was teasing him about either an ex or his lack of exes." Ron rattled off to his stunned audience. "Really, just think about how you tease your mates and then how you would tease your date and compare them. Obviously they're just good friends right now." Rolling his eyes huffily Ron slumped back in his seat.
"So, if she's not telling us the truth, shouldn't we try to find out how close they really are? She seems to know more than she's telling us. Maybe she might tell more to someone else, someone who she didn't recognize," Harry offered the others.
"Yes, and I'm still curious as to how she's known him for over three years. It's hard to fit in meeting British Muggles when you're in France. And we know Draco was there." Although still mostly stuck on the small details Pansy did make an excellent point every once in a while.
After much debate it was decided that Lee Jordan, (possibly) Neville, and the twins' girl friends would make the best visible plants in the club itself due to them being more unknown to Draco and thus less likely to be recognized. Everyone agreed that none of the Weasleys could go due to their highly identifiable hair. Tric had already recognized Blaise, Pansy, and Harry so Hermione probably had been noticed too. While the group was debating whether or not they should actually introduce new people to the case Ron reminded Harry and Hermione that they had tricked Malfoy with polyjuice potion before so it would probably work again. With this idea they didn't even have to become people they knew; they could just stop by a hairdresser and summon any snippets they wanted to be completely random Muggles.
"So while some of us polyjuice into strangers and Hermione follows Tric with the invisibility cloak, should a couple of us look into the 'summer with the fiancé' angle as well?" Blaise interjected his idea into the discussion before they could decide who would be going undercover to the club with Hermione.
"I'd suggest at least Pansy. She's met the girl before, been to that area of France before, and she'll know any important things about Pureblood arranged marriages," supplied Hermione.
"Well then Harry should be the other one to go, after all he is our resident Malfoy investigator," Ron advised.
Going at the case from multiple routes made everyone feel that much more like they were making progress so everyone was quick to agree with the two pronged attack. Pansy and Harry decided to settle any previous business and make arrangements to travel to France within the next four days. The club going group had it easier since they only needed a few hours to collect the necessary hairs and, between both Harry and Blaise's contacts, could possibly have the polyjuice by tomorrow. Everyone left for his or her respective home feeling extraordinarily hopeful; for the first time in over two years progress was being made towards finding Draco Malfoy.
By the time the pledged four days were up Harry had managed to unearth everything about Evonne Florette, Draco's abandoned fiancé, and her family's contact with the Malfoys before Draco disappeared. Pansy had arranged for an international portkey to take them to her family's French estate. She also managed to acquire invitations to all the upcoming social events planned in the French Pureblood society. Using Harry's information and Pansy's contacts they hoped to meet with the French witch shortly. Indeed after a bit of discreet owling around and some slight chitchat at a dance (they called it a ball but who actually held those nowadays) they managed to convince Evonne to meet with them.
They arrived at a modestly sized home in the wizarding residential section of Paris and were shown into the sitting room, where Evonne and her husband sat, by a house elf wearing a blue pillowcase. Around three weeks after Draco's letter to The Daily Prophet Evonne had married a wizard from a rather poor Pureblood family whom she had gone to school with. This speedy recovery made Harry and co. incredibly suspicious. When they introduced themselves and asked her about her former engagement to Draco Malfoy Evonne turned to her husband before answering.
"Je pensais qu ils seraient être ici il ya des années. Il cachait bien," she murmured.
Although Harry might not have been fluent in French Pansy had had the foresight to cast a translation charm on him, she of course already spoke it due to both the years of vacationing and her high-class education. They both caught her words and understood them: "I thought that they would be here years ago. He hid it well." Turning back to her two guests she continued her tale in English.
"Because you are who you are and for the reasons you gave I can tell you all I know. You are lucky, I can only tell our story to you two, Blaise Zabini, or Severus Snape, and only if you asked me for the right reasons. This is of course for my own protection as well you understand. When Draco left me he cast a complex memory charm on all of us who knew the truth that would save us even from the most powerful of truth serums." Taking a sip from her teacup the elf had provided she continued.
"Draco came to my family and proposed our engagement just before your sixth year at Hogwarts. Of course he asked my parents to approach his father about it as if it was their idea to join our families. He knew his father so well, he told my parents just what to say and he could provide almost word for word his father's response in advance. This way he made sure that we were engaged while Lucius thought it was mainly his own dealings that arranged our match. Of course at the beginning of this process Draco chose my family because we were a high standing Pureblood family that was mostly neutral in the war, being from France we were not quite as directly involved as you English were. He knew his father would approve of our union because it would cast their family in a better light than marrying into another family that outright supported the Dark Arts could have done while still maintaining the blood purity of the Malfoy line. Draco chose me because my parents were more likely to let me choose who I wanted to marry out of love and would never force me into marriage with a stranger." These revelations were at odds with what they knew. Had Draco actually wanted to marry her before he left, and if he had why did he leave so abruptly? How could she have found a new fiancé so quickly if she had loved Draco? Pansy and Harry barely had time to exchange confused looks at the new knowledge before Evonne plowed on in her story.
"We were never going to actually marry. My parents and I knew this from the start. I was allowed to discreetly date who I wanted to while we pretended to be happily engaged. Draco wanted this protection from an actual arranged marriage while he was in school. He planned to run away from home to America as soon as he graduated. Such a controlling family the Malfoys were. My parents and I agreed to help him escape his father's schemes. It was all we could do; he was so desperate he offered to compensate us for our time at any price we wished to request. Of course we refused his payment and helped him for free. He still managed to gift me with many expensive items as thanks while we were falsely engaged. We had such fun pretending."
"Can you tell us how much time he really spent over here the summer after sixth year?" Harry interrupted her reminiscing.
"Nearly the entire summer. Why do you ask?"
"We have reason to believe he made friends with at least one British Muggle that summer and we wondered how he managed that while supposedly here in France."
"Well he brought a girl with him. She spent most of the time polyjuiced as me while I polyjuiced my boyfriend as Draco." Here she glanced lovingly at her husband who smiled back at her. "We were careful not to be seen in two places at once, but that way we could spend time with who we really wanted to. I don't know that Patricia, the girl he brought, was a Muggle. I assume she was Muggleborn because she knew a lot about magic but still got excited about the smallest things. Like when she met the house elves, she questioned one of them almost to tears. Draco took her to all the tourist sites both Muggle and magical so I think it was her first visit here."
"Could you describe her?" asked Pansy as she leaned forward.
"Certainly, she was rather short, definitely no taller than 5'2" at most. Dark hair, it was brown but looked almost black in most lights, and she had lovely hazel eyes. I admired how they changed color in different lights. And, although this was three years ago so she most likely has changed, her clothing was always quite scandalous. Most of it was black but she wore skirts that covered barely halfway down her thighs and shirts with the neck far too low. In my opinion she dressed like a common prostitute, but Draco claimed she was his friend. They did stay in separate rooms, and she did dress properly when they went out in public so it could be excused." Evonne wrinkled her nose a little at the memory of Patricia's clothing style.
"They never did more than hold hands and kiss once or twice when she was posing as me but they were thinking of moving in together when Draco left home. She gave us the impression that her parents didn't really care what she did or where she went. I assumed they were Muggles who were uncomfortable with her magic."
"Did she ever give you a last name?" Harry eagerly asked.
"Hmmm…possiably Hill or Hall or something along those lines. It was a boring English name that started with an 'H' and wasn't very long." They questioned Evonne for a few more minutes, trying to ensure that they got the entire story and didn't miss any important information Draco had left behind. After establishing that she hadn't known anything further about his plans to become a Muggle and had been just as shocked as the rest of the world to hear of it they decided she'd told them everything helpful she knew.
"Thank you for taking the time to recall all this for us. If you can remember any other useful details that Draco mentioned please owl us right away," Pansy told Evonne as they left.
AN: Uh, I've been kinda hinting that Draco's gay the whole time. I think I was originally going to have him and Harry end up together but he could be bi, someone suggested he should end up with Tric so vote/review and tell me what you guys think should happen, feel free to suggest other partners for him if you want. The main flow of the story is however already decided, sorry.
(Harry was clearly not actually interested in girls in the books until in the sixth book out of the blue he was all over Ginny when he never even really noticed her or any other girls before. I always thought it made sense that he was actually gay. And Ginny looks way too much like his mother did for it not to be some creepy psychological reason he went with her.)
