Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy had spent much of Pansy's wedding arguing. They'd argued about what to wear, about whether Harry could introduce Draco to his parents with the implication that they were a thing. They'd argued about the girls Draco had to meet to find a wife and they'd argued about the flowers in the centerpieces. While Pansy and Theo were posing for photographs in the gardens, Harry had stalked off to see his parents, fuming that Draco was being an utter prat. Draco, in turn, stalked to the full bar set up on the veranda, asked for fire whiskey, and downed half the tumbler before he acknowledged the girl next to him.

"Rough day?" she asked.

He sighed and put on his manners. The girl looked vaguely familiar but half the women at the wedding had opted to dress in black and she was no exception and in the sea of black clad socialites the only thing about her that really struck him was that she seemed to be dressed like she was on display.

He had a terrible feeling he knew who she was being displayed for.

"My partner is upset I won't go make nice with his parents," Draco muttered. "And he's right, but we agreed this would be a good place to find a… anyway, it's hard to, uh…"

"Look for a wife?" she asked.

"When you're dancing with another man and chatting up his parents, right," Draco said. He held his hand out. "Malfoy. Draco Malfoy."

She dimpled at him as she took his hand. "I know," she said. "We've met multiple times. 'Toria Greengrass."

Draco had the quick feeling that he'd bungled this entirely and quickly kissed the back of her hand. "I'm sorry," he said. "I've been quite rude and - "

"They didn't tell me you were gay," she said. She took a sip from her wine glass and allowed him to guide her away from the bar and the curious barkeep and toward a somewhat more private table where he held a chair out for her. "That does change things."

"You were told to charm me,I take it," Draco said. The news wasn't surprising but was dreary nonetheless. A wedding filled with girls eager to woo him into a marriage sure to make them unhappy.

"Oh, yes," Toria said. She grinned at him and looked a lot less like a debutante on the make than an urchin about to suggest a prank. "You're rich and powerful and there's the wee matter of you being very close to certain people." She waved over a passing caterer and took the entire tray of bacon wrapped asparagus from the woman's hands and set it on the table between herself and Draco. "I love these."

"Sorry about being gay," Draco offered as she popped a starter into her mouth.

"Oh, don't be sorry," she said around asparagus. "Taken too. It's great. We can dance and sit here in this tete-a-tete and my parents will think I tried and be happy - though after Daphne's little mistake they don't have a lot of room to complain. And she's never shuts up about it. 'Riddle is a monster, Toria. They're all monsters. You need to join the Order. Ron's so nice.'"

Draco snorted at that

"Right?" Toria asked him. She ate another one of her asparagus and licked her fingers before she said, "Better a monster than as much of a bore as she's become. I mean, she's my sister, and I love her, but she doesn't know when to stop."

Draco watched the girl eat with unalloyed delight. She managed to make what were technically horrid manners into a charming wink and nod at convention and he noticed that for all she made a show of eating with her hands, she didn't get a speck of grease on her dress. She waved cheerily at an older matron who smiled back at her. Astoria Greengrass embraced life with such joy she delighted everyone who saw her. Draco suspected she could work a room so skillfully no one realized they were being nudged in the direction she wanted them to go because they were just so happy to let some of her own sparkle rub off on them.

"Toria," he asked slowly, "Do you just dislike the idea of me, or - "

"I don't want to get married at all," she said. "Not to anyone." She looked suddenly uncomfortable. "I'm not a very... I'm not a physical person and my mother has made it clear that a husband would have, uh, expectations she called them, and - "

"I'm gay," Draco said, cautious optimism starting to grow. "I assure you, I wouldn't have any expectations of the sort. If you could…just once, to get an heir, and then… assuming…"

She set down her starter and looked at him. "I don't want to be stuck in some drafty manor with your parents and a baby while you - "

"How do you feel about politics?" he asked her. "How would you feel about the Ministry?"

Astoria Greengrass beamed at him as if he were the best present she'd ever been offered. "I'm Head Girl," she said. "I love politics."

. . . . . . . . . .

Harry Potter smiled at his parents. His mother kissed his cheek and his father studied him. "We thought we'd see you every day at the Ministry," his mother said. "I can't quite get used to my boy being all grown up and off… what are you off doing, exactly?"

James was even less subtle. "Dumbledore tells me Tom Riddle is up to his eyes in Dark magic. Tell me you aren't messed up with that filth."

Harry, who'd held a toddler's heart in his hands and mused that with the power this kind of sacrifice gave them no one would have been able to land a curse on Hermione, Harry, who'd casually condemned a girl he'd grown up with to death once it was clear she was a spy, Harry, who'd polished his skill at deception at the hands of a man who'd offered him eternal life just so long as he wasn't squeamish, grinned easily at his father. "I wouldn't put too much faith in Dumbledore," he said. "I think he might miss a little of the glory days of being the man who defeated Grindelwald."

"That wasn't an answer,"James Potter said, his eyes narrowing.

Harry turned his guileless smile up a watt. "We've seen some nasty things on our travels, I admit," he said, as though confessing something, "but nothing quite as bad as Aunt Petunia."

James let out a reluctant chuckle at that. "If there was ever a Dark witch, it would be that one," he said.

"Good thing she's a Muggle," Harry said. "She'd mandate perfect lawns for everyone, or off with your head."

James laughed, threw an arm around Harry's shoulder, and said, "What's he like, this Theo friend of yours? Good guy?"

Harry thought of the way he and Theo had slowly tortured a man to death for hurting Hermione. "The best," he said. "I'd trust him with my life."

. . . . . . . . . .

Drusilla Black walked up to the bar and ordered her drink, flashing a practiced smile at the man next to her. She didn't recall seeing a photograph of this one on her notes for this party. He was tall with arms that spoke of manual labor and eyes that promised he knew how to do other things to do with his hands as well. "Nice wedding," she said.

He nodded. "It's always good to see the right sorts of people get married," he said.

Drusilla sighed internally. Naturally, the one man she'd met who appealed to her was probably just some worthless second cousin once removed no one cared about. She let her eyes slide up and down his frame and pictured for a brief, delightful moment what he'd be like in bed. Not a polite lover, this one, she suspected. She could barely keep from licking her lips at the prospect of throwing herself against his will to see how long it took him to use the force in those arms. She took a sip of the cocktail the bar tender handed her. Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter were crossed right off her cultivation list, she hadn't even seen anyone who looked like the pudgy Neville Longbottom, Greg Goyle was clearly an idiot, and it was rude to seduce a groom at his own wedding.

Not that she hadn't done it before. Drusilla was what many people called an 'early bloomer.'

She hadn't even gotten a chance to speak to Tom Riddle. When he wasn't on the dance floor with his wife he was buried in conversations with politicians and venerated members of the elite. This whole event was her worst social failure in over three years and now she'd finally found an attractive man who pushed all her buttons and who had appropriate opinions and he wasn't on her list.

"It is," she said. "She was a beautiful bride."

"Yes," he said. "The foxglove in the bouquet was a nice choice."

He sounded amused and Drusilla sighed again. He recognized flowers which meant he was probably a gardener. She was hot for a bloody gardener. Life really wasn't fair. She supposed she could bed him and then obliviate him afterward. She really deserved some kind of happy ending to this failure of a day.

As she was contemplating whether she'd get caught a dumpy ginger haired girl in an unfortunate dress with ragged nails crept up to Drusilla's mystery gardener. "Do you think we should dance?" the girl asked, her voice almost quivering.

"Where did you find that dress?" Drusilla asked her. The girl smiled tremulously and began to answer but before she could do more than stammer out a gratified word of thanks Drusilla added, "Because I do want to make sure I never go to that establishment. It's not often a floral managed to clash with itself." She took another sip of her drink and said to the man, "Is this your date?"

"She is," the man said. His eyes traced over what looked like a hand-crocheted shawl. "She is," he said again, and he sounded depressed by that.

"Funny," Drusilla said. "I would have expected something different." Her plans to drag the man into an unused room and do things with him that were illegal in some countries evaporated. Anyone who wanted a woman this pathetic - this cringingly submissive - was not her type, hard arms and dangerous eyes notwithstanding. She turned back to the barkeep; a lesser woman would have sagged in disappointment but Drusilla Callidora Cygnia Alpharda Black never sagged.

"What do you want, Ginevra?" the man asked. "I was having a conversation. Why don't you go and talk to your mum or something?"

"You could get clothing tips," Drusilla offered. "Dressing like someone's mum appears to be your style." She was running the name Ginevra through her mind. "Ginevra Weasley, is it?" she asked. "All the endless brothers?"

The girl's eyes flashed for a moment before the shuttered again. "I think I will go talk to my mum, if that's okay with you. I didn't realize she was here."

He waved a hand holding a glass of golden whiskey toward a clump of uncomfortable guests hovering near a cheese table. "Last I saw her, she was over there."

"You don't have a formal wedding without inviting representatives from all the families in the Sacred Twenty-Eight," Drusilla said. "Even the ones who smell up the place." She took a sip. "I'd expect anyone to know that, even you."

"Just remember," he said to the girl who'd dropped her beaten puppy look to scowl at Drusilla for a moment before putting what appeared to be a mask back on. "I can always find you, Gin. I'll always come for you. I never want to let you go."

"You're always so romantic," she said tightly before walking off.

The man sighed again. "Maybe that'll keep her out of my hair for a bit." Drusilla made an inquiring sound and he said, "It's hard to explain." He held a hand out. "Neville Longbottom."

Drusilla felt her lips turn up in an involuntary smile. Apparently her photographs had been woefully, wonderfully out of date. When she went to take his hand he deftly snagged her fingers and placed a kiss in her palm

A kiss that started at inappropriate and continued on from there.

Dark magic almost flowed out of his touch and she could feel herself melting.

This wedding had just gotten much, much better.

"Drusilla Black," she said.

. . . . . . . . . .

Molly Weasley stood at the edge of the crowd. She'd been scanning the assembled luminaries for Ginny since she'd arrived and the girl had been late to appear and then hadn't left the side of Luna Lovegood or some heavy-set young man Molly didn't recognize. She'd looked wan, despite bright laughter, and like she hadn't been eating well. Molly watched her during the interminable ceremony, filled with archaic vows no sensible person would agree to, and she'd watched her during this cocktail hour and felt herself become more and more concerned. When her only daughter tentatively approached Neville Longbottom at the bar it was all Molly could do to restrain herself from cursing the boy on the spot. She couldn't even hear what he said but Ginny cringed back from him like a kicked dog.

Molly remembered a neighbor when she was a child had kicked his dog. The thing had whimpered and flinched and tried to get approval right up until the day it tried to rip the bastard's throat out.

Neville turned away from Ginny and tipped his head toward the black clad girl at his side - Sirius' niece Molly suspected - and Ginny almost ran across the lawn to her mother.

Molly grabbed the girl and held her as tightly as she could. "Are they hurting you?" she demanded, followed by, "Come home."

"I can't," Ginny whispered. "They'd follow me, they'd come get me."

Molly looked at her daughter, then looked out over the lawn. Thoros Nott had been born into wealth and had used it on his only son's wedding. Tables lit with fairy lights and weighed down with crystal sparkled and women in black robes that cost more than most witches earned in a month circulated. A quarter of musicians played some kind of occasional music Molly was sure was just the thing but which left her cold. Ron, his ginger hair an untidy beacon, caught her eye and, when she jerked her head, excused himself from his girlfriend's side and made his way back to his mother.

"Take Ginny home," Molly ordered, her voice low.

"Mum," Ginny said, her voice just as soft, "I can't. They'll find me, they'll hurt me, and you, and - "

"The Burrow is under a fidelius charm," Molly said.

Ginny's eyes widened and she almost sagged at that news. "They can't - "

"They can't," her mother said. "Though I have some words to share with that Albus Dumbledore when next I see him. Sending a child in to infiltrate… he ought to be ashamed." She kept one hand tightly on Ginny's wrist and the other on the handle of her dressy bag. It wasn't a great bag, certainly hadn't come from the boutiques or designers every other woman's clutch did, but it held her wand, her lipstick, and a bottle of Peruvian Darkness Powder she wouldn't hesitate to use to create a diversion if necessary.

Ron's eyes were on Hermione as she danced with her husband, the ringleader of the opposing side. "I miss her," he said.

"You shouldn't," Ginny said. "Take me home." She let out a shaky breath. "Please."

. . . . . . . . . .

"My Lord," Neville said.

Tom looked away from his conversation with a Ministry official. "Neville?" he asked. The look on Neville's face caused him to excuse himself from the man he'd been talking to with a brief apology and move into a private nook where Neville, Drusilla Black on his heels, followed.

"She's gone," Neville said.

Tom looked at the man sharply then across the crowd. None of the Weasley's were present. Draco and Harry sat at a table with a girl in black who couldn't be old enough to have graduated from Hogwarts but who appeared to be the solution to their bridal problem. Luna danced with herself, twirling in a circle waving her arms around while Greg and Vincent chatted with their respective parents. Theo and Pansy also danced, so wrapped up in one another he probably would have had to summon them through the Mark to get their attention. Hermione, caught by his growing flare of rage, appeared as if from nowhere.

Ginny, however, was gone.

"You were supposed to be watching her," Tom said in a low voice.

"I can only offer my apologies, Lord," Neville said. "I suggested she speak to her mother but warned her I would find her no matter where she went. I thought it would be enough. It was not. The mistake is mine."

Tom looked at the girl behind him. "Miss Black," he said, half an acknowledgment, half a question. She dropped a quick curtsey that managed to imply she'd sunk to the ground without making a spectacle of herself and if he hadn't been on the verge of succumbing to the fury that threatened to consume him he would have been impressed. "You can do more than apologize," Tom said to the man who stood before him, head bowed. "You can suffer."

He looked up at Nott Manor. There would be a room somewhere enough out of the way no one would stumble upon the locked door while looking for a place to have a private tryst. "Come," he said. He looked at the girl, not possibly old enough herself to have finished school. "You as well," he said. "See what happens to people who disappoint me."

. . . . . . . . .

A/N - Thank you, as always, for reading this dark tale of people who are dreadful. For various reasons it will probably be two weeks before I am able to update again.