Prompt: "Orion being protective over his wife"
The end-of-summer gathering, a party given by the Flints at their London house in Knightsbridge in early September each year, marked the traditional end of the summer season for the wizards and witches of the esteemed Sacred Twenty-Eight families. It marked the end of the warm, sunny months of socialising; eating, drinking and making merry, as well as a few good matches, if fortunes (and chequebooks) were favourable. As the last chance to indulge in the merriment of summer before the winter drew in, it was the social event no one would miss for any good reason.
As as such, Walburga Black was not going to let a little thing like being seven months pregnant keep her away.
"For the last time, Orion, I am perfectly well" Walburga insisted with a frustrated sigh as she inspected herself one final time in the drawing room mirror. She tucked a stray lock of her into her chignon and smoothed her beaded gown over her pregnant stomach. "I am expecting, not ill"
Orion fastened the silver clasps of his cloak, shooting a disapproving glare across at his wife as she strode, as gracefully as she could with a protruding baby bump, across the room to join him by the fire.
"Really, Walburga, you are seven months along, now" said Orion, reaching for a handful of Floo powder. "Do you not think it best if you began to slow down now that things are… progressing? Take some rest, save your strength for when the time comes"
"Not at all" his wife replied with her head held high as she took up her own fistful of Floo powder. "I have time enough to gather my strength for when the time comes, not that you yourself have much understanding of what such a task requires, I'm sure"
Orion felt himself flush red at her words. He looked away, staring into the waiting hearth.
"And besides" Walburga continued, her grey eyes glinting triumphantly as she stepped forwards into the fireplace, one hand resting atop her stomach. "I haven't missed the Flints' end-of-summer bash once since I came out. I'm hardly about to start now"
Orion gritted his teeth silently as he stepped into the fireplace beside his wife. He knew better than to force the matter. It never did well to challenge Walburga on an issue on which she was already so firm in her decision right before an outing. The outcome would only result in her being in a foul, stubborn mood for the remainder of the evening.
As the couple stepped out of the fireplace at the Flint household, Orion was quick to notice the way his wife seemed to sway for a moment as she walked beside him.
He instinctively reached out an arm to steady her, only to find himself swatted away impatiently.
"Are you sure you are quite well?" he asked, uncertainly.
"For goodness sake, I am fine" Walburga sighed, forcing herself to continue determinedly onward, out of the deserted entrance hall and towards the hum of the voices of the many already-arrived guests in the ballroom.
Orion quickly caught up with his wife - she was not hard to outrun in her current, very pregnant state.
"I'm not convinced this is a good idea, Walburga" he said quietly. They were almost within earshot of their fellow guests. "I really feel it would be better for you to return home and rest"
"For the last time, Orion, I am fine. I am pregnant, not an invalid"
Orion's flush at her very blunt reference to what he preferred to describe as her "condition" was not missed by his wife.
"I am perfectly capable of attending a party" Walburga snapped, seizing the moment of her husband's awkwardness to snatch back the arm he had taken from her, freeing herself from his grasp. "I would prefer if we didn't discuss the matter again this evening"
And with that, the entrance to the party was upon them at last, and their bickering was forced to cease.
Orion could neither truly relax, nor pay attention to the conversations he was dragged into. He swilled the whiskey in his glass - his first and only glass, the same one he had been given when they first arrived and which he was still hesitantly sipping almost an hour later.
Walburga had ploughed onward through the crowds valiantly, abandoning him to the group of young men that made up his social circle, most of them former housemates and fellow heirs to their names and estates, to take her place firmly in the centre of the flock of fellow young ladies who would spend the evening gushing over the size of her growing bump, clamouring for details of the preparations for the approaching new arrival and generally making her glow with smug pride as she strategically held her swollen stomach.
She was carrying the next heir to the House of Black. She had good reason to show off and she very well knew it.
And yet, Orion could clearly see, even from the other side of the room, the tell-tale signs that his wife was perhaps not as well as she would have him believe.
The occasional, discreet wince, which she masked by taking a strategic sip of her elderflower cordial, which always corresponded with a tensing of the arm that clung to her bump.
The way she seemed to close her eyes for just a moment longer than necessary, an action she indulged in during the rare seconds that no one was looking directly at her, as though scrounging for the merest chance of rest.
"I said, what say you on the matter, Orion?"
Orion was snapped back to reality, his eyes wrenching themselves out of their hypnotic-like stare at his wife to turn to a bemused-looking Abraxas Malfoy.
"Sorry?" he asked, to be met with a chuckle from the silver-haired newly-appointed head of the Malfoy family.
"Merlin's beard man, have you not heard a word I said?" asked Malfoy, taking a swig from his own glass - his third (or was it fourth?). "Got cloth in your ears, old boy?"
Orion forced himself to smirk in feigned bemusement. He couldn't, in truth, give two jots about the proposed new restrictions on nogtail-hunting seasons, nor how they would affect the Malfoys' income from their annual organised hunts.
He was far more concerned by the fact that his wife had somehow managed to slip away from the cluster of women to head for a quiet, secluded corner of the room.
"I tell you, it's absolute tripe" Malfoy continued to moan, seemingly unaware of Orion's lack of interest or contribution to the conversation. "What business has the Ministry regarding when a man may hunt on his own-"
"Excuse me" Orion cut him off bluntly, abandoning his glass on the nearest side table as he marched through the crowds of party guests towards his wife, who now leaned on one arm against the wall of the shadowy corner she had hidden herself in.
Her face was flushed pink, her eyes screwed shut, her breathing deep.
"Walburga"
Orion grasped his wife by the shoulder, turning her slightly to inspect her fully.
"Don't fuss, Orion, I'm fine" his wife tried to insist, her weary voice suggesting that her words, no matter how firm, were a lie. "I just had a slight- dizzy spell"
"You are not fine" Orion hissed, his grey eyes glinting with urgency as he took in her now-paled complexion, a dramatic difference from her sudden flush mere moments earlier. "You are tired. I knew attending this party was a bad idea. I told you-"
"I say, is everything alright?"
The couple turned their heads to the direction of the interrupter to find the concerned face of Imelda Flint, aged dowager of the Flint family and the host of the night's gathering.
Her kindly, blue eyes flitted from husband to wife, her sincere concern evident.
"Quite alright" Walburga rushed to reply, her voice rather breathless in her urgency to secure the first response over her husband. "I just had a slight turn, that is all"
No sooner had Imelda Flint's face begin to relax in relief than Orion had seized a hold of his wife by the waist and had begun to steer her, firmly, out of the corner.
"No, everything is not quite alright" he said, firmly. "Mrs Flint, thank you kindly for your hospitality but I'm afraid we must be leaving now. My wife is incapacitated. She requires rest"
He did not wait to hear the concerned response from the elderly witch, nor did he pay any mind to the turned-heads of their fellow guests as they made their way through the room, out the doors and across the entrance hall to the fireplace from which they had emerged barely an hour before.
To Orion's somewhat surprise, Walburga did not resist him as he guided her to the fireplace with one arm firmly fixed across her lower back. She remained silently furious for the duration of the journey home, unleashing her irritation only once they were safely arrived back in at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place.
"What on Earth did you think you were playing at?" she snapped at her husband, glaring at him with her fists clenched in irritation. "I was perfectly fine, Orion. There was no need to cause such a scene"
"There was every need" Orion seethed, his quiet anger simmering low in his voice. "You were white as a sheet and you looked barely able to stand. You are with child and you are tired, Walburga. Are you so stubborn that you will not take rest for the good of our child, if not for yourself?"
Walburga folded her arms, stubbornly. In her current condition, they rested atop her very pregnant stomach - the root of their argument.
"Well then" she said, her head tilted to one side coyly, her voice surprisingly cool. "If you are so certain that I was in no state to go out this evening, perhaps you ought to have piped up and insisted I stay home in the first place"
Orion paused, taken aback by his wife's words. This was not the inflammatory retort he had expected his wife to respond with, the likes of which he was so used to.
And anyway, he had insisted. Had he not?
"Very well" he said, calmly. He took a firm step closer to his wife to stand directly before her, as close as he could get with her swollen middle in the way, glaring down at her with what he hoped was a- dominating, expression.
"If it is authority you wish for, then that is precisely what I shall give you. You will not undertake any more engagements for the remainder of your term. You are to stay home and rest in peace and quiet, and conserve your energy for when your time comes. Of this, I insist. Is that clear?"
In the tense moment of silence that followed, Orion rather expected his stubborn wife to spit back some venomous argument against his command. But to his surprise, he received only a rather satisfied smirk in response.
"Perfectly" Walburga replied.
Her entire demeanour seemed to relax a little. Her tense, defensive stance melted away as she turned her back on her husband and made her way towards the door which would lead her out into the main hall and towards the staircase.
"If you will excuse me, I think I will retire for the night. To rest. Goodnight"
"Goodnight" Orion replied, blankly, as he watched his wife sweep from the drawing room with as much grace as one seven months pregnant could manage.
As she left the drawing room and tuned towards the staircase, Orion watched her reflection in the strategically-placed mirror just opposite the ajar door, catching enough of a glimpse to see his wife give up her pretence of wellness at last. Walburga hunched over slightly as she held the banister of the stairs, one arm reaching around herself to rub soothingly at her lower back.
Alone at last, Orion collapsed down onto the drawing room sofa and sighed, exasperated.
His wife's temper and stubbornness had always been family-famous, but her fiery flames had flared evermore violently since they'd discovered her condition.
Still, Orion thought to himself hopefully as he rubbed his sore head, perhaps motherhood would yet quell her tiresome wilfulness.