Chapter 21
A/N: Thank you so so much to AlaskanAppaloosa, who has gone above and beyond in every way to be an amazing beta. I love you girl!
Thank you for the reviews! They breathe life into me! You comment and I inevitably want to keep writing more! The feedback loop is incredible.
Molly came back into the house, grumbling under her breath about how did she manage to raise such a moronic child? Hermione smirked when her ears caught the strain of her muttering, but she schooled her expression when Molly turned to her with another smile. "Are you hungry, dear?" Molly shook her head at her own question, "That was silly. Of course you are. Look at how skinny you are. Come on, luv. Dinner's ready."
At that, the entire crew minus Ron headed into the kitchen, where the dining table was set with all sorts of treats. Roast beef, mash and gravy, green beans swimming in butter, Yorkshire puddings, and homemade stuffing bedecked the table. The smell had permeated the entire house, but when you passed the threshold of the kitchen it all but punched you in the face. Hermione's mouth watered and she was surprised by the grinding hunger in her stomach. Everyone sat down at the table, and Ron shuffled back in, his face still bruised and swollen. A dark part of Hermione's soul smiled at the fact that no one would heal him. He sat in the empty chair and stared at the plate in front of him, but a close look at his face showed that he was still angry.
Hermione was determined not to pay him any mind, leaning her head on Charlie's shoulder while everyone else got settled. Wizards had no equivalent to the muggle tradition of saying grace, but Arthur said a quick word about how lovely it was to be expanding the family. Ron snorted and one of the twins kicked him under the table. Harry was giving Ron the kind of look you gave scum on your shoe. Sirius was trading looks with the other twin that sent chills up Hermione's spine. Nothing good could come of looks like that between one of the Weasley twins and a Marauder. She almost felt bad for Ron. It passed quickly.
Dinner was more disorganized than Hermione was used to, but filled with lots of laughter and love. Charlie made her plate for her, only because he had longer arms to reach all the food that his siblings were fighting over. Why they had to fight over it was a mystery, as Molly had made enough food to feed an army, and it was not like it was running out anytime soon. It was nice to not have to explain her new taste in food to anyone though. It was just accepted that she wanted a very rare piece of meat, mash with a lot of meat gravy, and just a little bit of everything else. There were no comments about how weird it was that her piece was nearly rare, and in fact she wasn't the only one with a nearly blue piece of roast. Arthur, it seemed, had just gone with a slightly warmed piece rather than it be any sort of cooked food.
Eventually the conversation turned to the dracken lifestyle and specifically how men growing up dracken prepared for it. Because drackens were scented early in life, the young men took steps to assure their future financial success.
"I was always small for my age, so I resigned myself quite early in my life to the fact that I wouldn't attract a dracken mate. I still did all the preparation steps as other young dracken men, but it was with the knowledge that I would probably pass most of that onto my children who would get dracken mates." At Hermione's curious look, Arthur continued. "You must understand Hermione, you are a rarity. Most dracken submissives choose their mates on two criteria. Wealth, and physical beauty. I knew I didn't have the physical beauty part, but there was no reason that I couldn't have the wealth part down. Early in my life I started to save, making clever investments, setting aside every knut for the future."
Hermione kept her eyes clearly on her plate, trying not to look around at the ramshackle house around them. Arthur must have caught her self-restraint though, because he chuckled. "Yes. It seemed unlikely, yes? But each of my children will and do have a sizable inheritance, as well as the skills to multiply that money. Dracken families are not small. Even when we marry humans, we tend towards large families." A grin around the table confirmed just how much everyone loved this aspect of dracken life.
"Charlie gained access to that inheritance the minute his mating bond to you was made, and Bill gained his when he was married to Fleur. The others will gain their inheritances when they choose to settle down with their life mates. Molly and I have chosen to live a lifestyle more conducive to saving for our children. We are happy with our choices. They never lacked for anything they needed, but frivolity was not necessary." Thinking back, this was very much true. The Weasleys never lacked for textbooks or clothing. It wasn't always in style or brand new, but they were always warm and cared for. Hermione thought this was very practical and thoughtful of the Weasley parents, and her respect for them went up even more.
"Can I… ask a question?" Hermione tentatively queried, to a resounding 'of course' from everyone at the table.
"How…" Hermione took a deep steadying breath before she finished her sentence. "How does the multiple mate thing work? Like, do we divvy up days of the week? Who pays for what? What about the children? What if one man has a bunch of children and the others don't? What are the rules here?"
Amusement rippled over the table, and Harry's slight blush let be known that he had had similar thoughts, but wasn't brave enough to voice them. Molly and Arthur shared an amused look before Arthur turned to Hermione and said, "We had a feeling you would want to know. After dinner we will sit down and have a good chat about it."
With that conversation turned to more mundane things, how Ginny's new job playing professional Quidditch was going, how Bill and Fleur were adjusting to working together at Gringotts, and how Ron was doing in auror training. Ron's news was the only bad news, in that he wasn't doing well at the training. Hermione tried to contain the petty and slightly bitter side of herself that reveled in his failure, but mostly failed.
Throughout the meal, Molly kept putting bits of food on Hermione's plate with murmurs of how skinny she was, and eventually Hermione started subtly passing it onto Charlie's plate in turn. Arthur shared a smile with her when he caught her, but shrugged at his wife. Hermione just shook her head in exasperation, but Molly eventually slowed down, and Hermione was able to clear her plate.
After dinner, the others slowly drifted off across the house. Ron seemed to want to stick around, but a glare from Charlie had him moving on. Harry and Sirius however, remained, clearly interested in the conversation Arthur and Molly had promised.
Once the dining room was cleared, Arthur spoke. "Ok Hermione. Molly and I have talked, and we know you have a lot of questions. We are going to ask that for tonight, you choose your top three. We will answer those as thoroughly as we can." An amused smile passed over his face as he continued, "I suspect the kinds of questions you have will take extensive answers."
Hermione just gave a cheeky smile in response, because there was no point in denying the obvious. She took a moment to think before she asked her first question. "How do things work with multiple mates?"
Arthur laughed at the broad question, while Molly just gave an indulgent smile.
Charlie slung his arm across Hermione's shoulder, slowly pressing her into his chest. She leaned back and relaxed into him, sighing gently at the comforting touch. Molly beamed at the movement, while Arthur started to speak. "How 'things work' with multiple mates is very individual to each mating. My parents were a triad, and so I can tell you how they did things, and how my fathers prepared me for the potential of having multiple mates myself."
"That would be incredible." Hermione said, "So far everything I've learned has just been the 'here's what you need to survive the next few days' kind of information."
"That does make sense, my dear." Molly said, "You did have a rather traumatic couple of days, and drackens are notoriously closed-lipped with information about their kind."
Hermione nodded exasperatedly as Arthur continued. "How finances work with multiple mates is often divvied directly down the middle, or in portions as it were. Sometimes there is one particular mate who is much better off financially than the others, and they sometimes take on more of the financial burden. As most submissives stay home and care for the children, how a submissive's financial contributions are handled in a home is even more unknown." Hermione nodded, conjuring a piece of parchment and a ballpoint pen with a wave of her wand, taking notes.
"As for how things work sexually, that's very individual. If the mates are bisexual, there may be sexual contact in large groups, or things may be much more individual, with each mate only interacting with a submissive one-on-one except during heats. That is something that will probably have to be worked out within your mating, just like every couple. There are no 'norms' and no one would dare ask you about it."
Hermione studiously wrote down every word he said, adding her own notes. "That's a relief to know. What about children?"
"All mates will treat all the children as if they were their own, and usually parenting is done in conjunction with all mates."
"That's wonderful, it's nice to know that there won't be problems with who's parenting whose kids. Is there any way to know how many mates I will have?"
Arthur was already shaking his head before she was finished speaking. "No. There is a theory that the number of mates has to do with magical power, but no one has ever been able to accurately measure magical reserves. There are also rare cases where a submissive chose two mates who were already soul mates for each other, in the place of one mate."
Hermione left a note on her paper to do research into the magic of soul mates and how that affected mating bonds. "Ok. Last question. Is there anything you feel that I should know? Anything that dracken children are told that maybe I wouldn't know, but is essential to surviving in this world?"
Arthur took a moment to think before answering, "No. Just remember that how you work out your mateship doesn't have be like anyone else's. It just has to work for you and your mates. Don't try to live up to any 'dracken ideal'. Just do what works for you and you guys will be fine. Harry, Sirius, do either of you have any questions?"
Hermione had been so invested in her note-taking that she had nearly forgotten her dear friends were there. Both answered to the negative, with Harry adding a note that if he had any pressing questions, he could ask Neville. Molly nodded appreciatively, "That's a good boy from a good dracken family, he'll be an invaluable resource to you, Hermione." Hermione refrained from telling Molly and Arthur about her familial connection to Neville, mostly because she wasn't sure how Neville would feel about it, and the others seemed to take their cues from her.
"Thank you so much Arthur, Molly. I so appreciate you taking the time to speak to me."
Molly walked over and dragged Hermione up off Charlie's shoulder to give her a hug. "Psh, my girl. You're family. Of course we will answer your questions, and we will do our very best to make sure you are safe and cared for." Hermione snuggled into Molly for a moment as the boys and Arthur slowly drifted into the living room where the others had started a game of exploding snap. Seeing that Fred and George were playing, Hermione sat out, having learned her lesson long before. The twins cheated, and when Sirius joined the game, it was cheating on top of cheating and soon no one knew which way was up. Laughter drifted easily through the room, and Hermione was struck, as she always was when she was at the Weasleys, that this is what home must feel like.