Black Truth

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Preparations

The teapot whistled, breaking Remus Lupin out of his train of thought. Without setting down the newspaper clipping he was reading, he stood and walked the short length of the kitchen to the stove, took the kettle off the small flame and set it on the counter absently.

His eyes turned back to the headline of the article and the stated author below. Hermione Granger. Returning to the table with a cup of tea, Lupin set the article next to two others. Hermione's article had appeared the day before in the Prophet. An article by Ronald Weasley had appeared in the Quibbler. And one, sent to him by Mrs. Weasley, authored by Ginny Weasley had appeared in Witch Weekly. All three articles were on the same topic: Harry Potter's engagement to Draco Malfoy. Lupin had to smile lightly at the skill behind the three writers. They had obviously collaborated and split all the facts evenly between the three articles so that each one would present new details.

But it was the topic that was puzzling Lupin. The last he knew, Draco Malfoy and Harry were not on the best of terms to put things lightly. And he doubted that Hermione, Ron, and Ginny were writing falsities about Harry. Of course, one had to wonder why the three were writing about Harry at all. But then he remembered Albus had mentioned some rather strange articles had appeared about Harry in the Prophet a while ago. Maybe this was to make sure that if things had to be printed they weren't detrimental to Harry.

There was a scratching at the window which caused Lupin to look up from the articles. Two owls were seated there, waiting to be let inside. One he recognized as Hedwig, the other he did not know. It was a proud-looking eagle owl, whose feathers were so dark they were almost black. Lupin crossed to the window and opened it, letting the two owls fly in.

The eagle owl dropped its letter on the table and left, but Hedwig remained on the table, watching Lupin.

Lupin took Harry's letter from her, opened it, and began to read.

Dear Professor Lupin,
As you've probably already seen what Hermione, Ron, or Ginny have written about me, I won't bother to repeat what they've said because it's true. I'm engaged to Draco Malfoy and the wedding is set for a few weeks after school. But in the tradition of wizarding weddings, since there's no way that Draco would agree to a muggle one, I have to be accompanied by my closest male guardian. I was wondering if you wouldn't mind being my familial guardian now that Sirius is dead, but as Draco has already sent his own letter to you I'm a little late in asking but I figured I should ask anyway. Please send your reply back with Hedwig.
Harry

Lupin reached across the table to where his own quills and parchment sat and scrawled:

Dear Harry,
I would be honored to be your familial guardian.
Remus Lupin

As Hedwig soared off towards Hogwarts, Lupin reached for the letter that was, as Harry stated, bearing the Malfoy crest.

Dear Professor Lupin,
In following with tradition, I have instructed Gringotts to place the amount listed below in your vault in honor of the upcoming marriage between myself and Harry Potter. I look forward to seeing you at the wedding.
Draco Lucius Malfoy

Lupin looked at the number listed after the scripted name and blinked. That was a lot of Galleons.

As the weeks passed, more teachers started to begin their lectures with "because exams are coming up in a few weeks" or "in order to prepare you for your exams". The amount of homework that Harry received was almost doubled as "review" assignments were added to the regular homework. And Harry still had to deal with the comments about the wedding coming from different classmates.

Of course, they continued to remind him that it was he who had to buy both his and Draco's robes for the wedding. The coloring of the robes was standard. Both he and Draco would have to wear the colors that represented their families, with a white band on the sleeve to signify that the robes were for a wedding. But Harry hadn't known there were so many styles of these "official robes" until a rather large book of designs had been forced on him by a group of bashful Ravenclaw girls.

"How am I supposed to choose?" Harry grumbled to Ron. "I can't even see the difference between these two!"

Hermione peered over his shoulder and pointed to the collar of the robes. "This set has lace and the other doesn't."

"And that makes a difference?" Harry moaned.

"Just pick one and be done with it, mate," Ron advised, continuing to scribble on his Transfiguration essay.

"He is not going to 'just pick one', Ronald Weasley." Hermione's tone took on the quality of Mrs. Weasley's as she berated Ron. She turned to Harry. "Narrow it down to the few that you like and then try to pick only one."

Harry sighed and turned back to the book.

"Oh, and Harry?" Harry looked up. "When you and Malfoy have figured out the invitation list, we want to publish it."

"You want to what!"

"Publish the guest list. Well, invitation list, but anyone who gets an invitation will be going."

"But why?"

"So that we can kick out all reporters during the actual ceremony," Ron explained. "If we give them all the details of who will be there and so on before the ceremony we can keep out all reporters for the real thing because there won't be anything left to say."

"I guess," Harry's head was back in the book. "But we haven't even thought of who to invite yet."

"You haven't, but I bet Malfoy has," Ron muttered.

"Hey, what do you think of this one?" Harry asked, turning the book so his friends could see the design and completely ignoring Ron's muttering.

The style was for long, three layered robes. The innermost layer was a white dress shirt and black dress trousers. The second layer was a full length inner robe in the familial colors, with long tapered sleeves. The third layer was a simple, yet elegant, black outer robe that looked rather cape-like.

"I think they'd look lovely, Harry," Hermione said, looking from the design to Harry as if she was picturing him wearing it.

"The outer layer looks kinda like what Malfoy's dad used to wear," Ron observed.

"Yeah, I thought Draco might like that."

"What are you going to do about your familial colors?" Hermione asked.

"I wrote to Lupin about that, asking what my family's colors were. And apparently the Potter bloodline was too recent a bloodline to have a tradition as old as family colors. But since Sirius was my godfather, he suggested I use the Black family colors. So I'll be wearing green and bronze to my wedding."

"What's Malfoy wearing?"

"Purple and gold."

When Harry returned from sending Hedwig off to Madam Malkin with the design, colors, and measurements for his and Draco's wedding robes he found Draco sprawled out on the sofa in their rooms looking down at a scroll of parchment. As Harry entered, he added another line at the bottom of the scroll and looked up.

"What'cha up to?" Harry asked, dropping his books on the armchair next to the sofa.

"Guest list. Do you think we should include all of our teachers or just the heads of our houses?"

Harry blinked, getting a sudden image of Trelawney at his wedding and hoping fervently that her "inner eye" would tell her that the day of his wedding was not a good day for her to leave her tower. "All of them I guess."

Draco nodded and went back to scribbling names.

"Who else do you have on there?" Harry asked, leaning over Draco's shoulder to see.

"Just the Slytherins I want to invite. I didn't get to your people yet."

Harry grinned. "I guess I should write those then."

Draco handed Harry the scroll. "Yes you should."

As Harry read through those Draco had written, he noted that the only Slytherins that were on the parchment were those who had backed Draco when it was revealed that he was a Veriae and when it was revealed that he was engaged to Harry. Harry noted that Snape was not on the list.

"What about Snape?"

"He's my closest familial relative. He doesn't get an invitation, so to speak, since he's part of the ceremony."

Harry frowned in the middle of writing down Ron's name. "Speaking of relatives, who are you going to dance with?"

"I haven't decided what to do about that yet."

"I won't allow Death Eaters at my wedding."

Draco snorted. "My godfather is a Death Eater."

"You know what I mean. Ones that actually want me dead."

Draco laughed. "I'm certain there are some days when my godfather really does want you dead, Harry."

"On those days the feeling is mutual and you're avoiding the question," Harry replied as he finished adding Mr. and Mrs. Weasley to the list after Fred, George, Bill, Charlie, and Ginny. He thought for a moment about whether to invite Percy or not and then decided against it. The ties between Percy and the rest of the Weasley family were strained at best now, and he didn't want to aggravate that.

"On my father's side of the family, I have no other relatives since he was an only child and his father was an only child before him. I won't ask Narcissa, and I won't ask Belatrix."

"What about Tonks?"

"Who?"

"Nymphadora Tonks."

Draco frowned thoughtfully. "I think I remember my mother spoke of her once, something about being a disgrace to the family."

"Her mothermarried a muggle."

"That would explain it. But if she's related to my mother she's the only other female relative I've got."

"I'll write to her about it if you want," Harry offered, adding the names of those in the DA to the list before handing it back to Draco.

"Sure." Draco scanned down the list of names as Harry made a mental note to ask Tonks to look as Malfoyish as she could to the wedding.

"You put a House Elf on here?" Draco looked up incredulously from where he read Dobby's name.

Harry shrugged.

Harry realized that the invitations had been sent out when Dobby appeared on top of his Potions assignments, clutching the letter and howling.

"Mister Harry Potter sir! Dobby is so honored to be asked to your wedding like a wizard sir!"

"Um... it's no problem Dobby," Harry tried to soothe the House Elf. The door to his and Draco's bedroom opened and Draco leaned against the doorway in obvious amusement as the House Elf continued to tell Harry how wonderful he was to send a House Elf an invitation. Harry looked up at him with a pleading expression, but Draco shook his head.

"You got yourself into it, you get yourself out," he spoke under Dobby's hysterical words.

Harry debated about when to tell Draco about the Dursleys. He realized that he would have to spend enough time with them to renew the protection that they unwittingly gave him for his last summer with them. He was under no illusion that he would be let back into their house once he graduated Hogwarts, not that he would have gone back anyway, but for one more summer he needed that protection. Because of his Veriae bond to Draco, he would either be pulled to where Draco was at night or Draco would be pulled to where he was. That meant Draco would have to spend those same few weeks at the Dursleys with him.

Of course, neither the Dursleys nor Draco would like that. Draco would hate them immediately because the Dursleys were as muggle as you can get, and then because of how they would treat him for being a magical creature, which was certainly worse than being a wizard For their part, the Dursleys would hate Draco because he was a magical creature pure and simple. But then, if they found out that Draco was his fiancé… well, that was definitely not normal to the Dursleys.

"You're too quiet. You must be thinking," Draco commented from where he was finishing up his Ancient Runes essay before bed.

"I'm thinking about the summer."

"What about the summer?"

"Well, you know how I lived with muggles? I'll have to go back there for the few weeks before the wedding."

"No."

Harry sighed. "Yes I do. There's some protection ward that they give me because we're related by blood, or that's what Dumbledore said. So I have to go back there each summer to renew it, at least until I finish Hogwarts."

"You do realize that I will have to be there for those few weeks as well."

"Yes," Harry replied miserably.

"I won't like it."

"They won't either."

It wasn't until after Draco had already fallen asleep that Harry realized Draco had said "I won't like it" and not "I won't go".

Ron seemed to wilt in his chair as McGonagall neared the Gryffindor table with a stack of parchments, while opposite him Hermione seemed to glow with excitement.

Harry muttered "thanks" when she handed him his exam schedule. Ron was refusing to look at his or act like it existed. Hermione was poring over hers, like a First Year on the first day of school. Harry looked down at his with trepidation as he piled more breakfast on his plate.

The week of exams was broken into three exam blocks per day. The morning block, the afternoon block, and the astronomy block since those exams had to be done at night. Monday, Harry had Potions in the morning session and Divination in the afternoon session. Tuesday was Care of Magical Creatures in the morning, and Transfiguration in the afternoon. Wednesday Harry only had his Astronomy exam in the night block. Thursday was History of Magic in the morning and Herbology in the afternoon. And Friday was Charms in the morning and Defense Against the Dark Arts in the afternoon block.

Ron looked over Harry's shoulder to see what his first exam was and nodded sagely. "Potions first. It's the end of the world as you know it." He raised his pumpkin juice in salute. "Good luck with that."