Shoving the doors aside and hearing them completely block out the music as they closed behind her served to anger Aaliyah even more - of course they were magically sound-proofed, the Malfoys really thought of everything!

'Is there anything this giant, exploding with riches, mansion, doesn't have?' she thought bitterly.

She heard the doors opening again behind her, the blair of music rushing through for a few seconds until the doors closed again and the hallway returned to silence.

It was Rose, but Aaliyah walked briskly away without looking at her, opening the door to a nearby room for privacy - she didn't want just anyone listening in on them.

The room was typically lavish, with lush cream carpet, a circle of couches and wall to wall of bookshelves.

"Aaliyah, what is up with you? Sam was just checking in on me-"

She rolled her eyes, "Yeah right." She chewed her lip nervously and sighed, "He obviously saw me freaking out.."

Rose frowned, "He didn't mean to draw attention to it. You know, this night is supposed to be about Sam. He didn't die, he's back in Britain, people are happy and enjoying themselves. What's wrong?"

"I don't know!" she replied looking down at the ground and trying to control the tears that threatened to spill out.

"You act like you were literally born into this whole crowd Rose. I don't think you realise that most of us, don't fit in like that, don't have family like that, or have houses like this - I mean this manor is ridiculous! You're all celebrities and whether you know it or not, you act like it. Those people out there are Britain's highest end clique of the magical world and you've all known each other forever! You have all this history together and I am not a part of any of it!"

Aaliyah twirled the ends of her dreads anxiously out of habit and re-arranged them over her shoulders.

"We didn't ask to be celebrities Aaliyah, none of this was chosen. Don't you think I'd rather be normal instead of tabloids always lurking ready to ask me for a quote on my mother's latest governmental policy? So yeah, we might be a little over-protected, but we don't know who could be out there trying to take advantage of us."

Rose rubbed her temples and tried to de-escalate from the terse and defensive way she was feeling. She walked over and grabbed Aaliyah by the hand gently. Their eyes met and Aaliyah could see that they were warm and kind with understanding.

"I'm sorry you're feeling like you're not a part of things - we're a pretty rowdy bunch, most of us are family, it's a lot, I get it. And you're right, this manner is way over the top, which is why we constantly give Sam shit for it. Plus we always hit him up for money, Mum's swindled the Malfoys out of thousands of galleons for her charity work."

She smiled and leaned closer to Aaliyah, "Intimacy takes time. I'm talking like at least 6 months until you can remember everyone's names. Just give a chance, please?"

They looked deeply into each other's eyes, and Rose marvelled at the beautiful contours of Aaliyah's face, her brown skin glowing in the lamplight from the hallways.

Rose waited with baited breath, hoping that she'd done enough for now to allay her fears.

Finally, the corners of Aaliyah's mouth tugged upwards and she pulled Rose slowly forward by the front of her deep blue, shimmery dress robes and gently kissed her lips.

It might have been hard and overwhelming inside the ballroom, but in this room together Aaliyah found her ruddy red curls and deep blue eyes, as usual, to be irresistible, and she lost all sense of time, place or thought as she wrapped herself up in Rose.

.

.

Al smirked, "Well look mate, this is what you've chosen to get involved with, this like open relationship thing, I mean I prefer the simple life - one person keeps me plenty busy."

Sam had been debriefing with Al and Adam about how Aaliyah had run out of the ballroom, Rose close on her tail.

"Oh because you've had sooo much experience, Al! You've barely dated anyone."

"Hey, I'm busy, I'm a professional athlete!"

"Yeah, which means you should be drowning in dates, everybody loves an athlete," Adam piped up.

"Athlete, schmathlete, you're the son of Harry Potter. You'll never struggle to find someone interested in you-"

"Which is exactly the problem, why do you think James ended up with a muggle born who had no idea who he was - being wanted because of your father's fame isn't exactly romantic."

"Look, come up with all the excuses you like, you're just afraid of putting yourself out there," Sam shook his head in faux disappointment.

"Says the guy who literally Obliviated my cousin over a romantic spat-"

"Hey, relevance!"

Al sniggered, "You're right, I just like bringing that up, now that I bloody can! God that secret weighed on me for way too long."

Adam looked back and forth between them about four times before yelling "Wait, what?!"

.

.

Bee and Greg's heads snapped up at the raucous sounds coming from Adam, Al and Sam who were sitting a few tables over from them.

"What do you think's going on there?" Greg asked, eyebrows furrowed.

Bee smirked knowingly, "Oh I think I have a fair idea."

"Well don't just leave me in the dark, dish!"

"Unfortunately it's not my story to tell, you'll have to catch up with Sam and Rose to get the goss."

"This is outrageous. I might have to start talking work-troubles to motivate you..."

"NO! It's like the one thing we're good at, keeping work at work! It's quite miraculous really."

"It probably helps that we've been friends since we were 11, I mean, we have so much else to talk about! Like gossip between our mutual friends who mysteriously started dating again after 7 years and a few months locked up in a quarantine ward!"

"Merlin Greg just drop it," but one corner of her mouth found itself unable to maintain seriousness, turning itself into a half-smile against her will.

"You always do that when you're trying not to laugh, you smile kind of crooked and I know you're about to crack up."

"Oh shut up," but Greg was right. A few moments was all she had in her and she let out a guffaw.

Deciding to relent and chase up the details with Adam and Al later, Greg changed the topic to something slightly more serious, "So how's stuff going with your parents? Are they still all 'woe is me' that their daughter is almost 25 and shock horror, still unmarried."

"Yeah, the pressure is getting intense, it's like they can't talk about anything else, but I absolutely cannot let them choose a husband for me, they'll get someone who's way too religious, who's probably not even a wizard seeing as there's no statute of secrecy in Bangladesh, it's going to be an utter disaster, I mean what if I have a muggle kid, how will I manage my life torn between two worlds?"

Bee paused to take a breath from the stream of distressed panic garbling its way out of her throat. She could literally feel her temperature rising with the thought of this constant war with her parents that was peppered through every letter, every visit home, every floo conversation and every piece of contact she had with her parents.

"That sounds… tough. It can't be all bad though, can't you tell them your requirements for a husband?

Bee scoffed so hard, she started choking on her own spit…

"Yeah right Greg, as if they'd ever listen to me - they're my parents, they think they know what's best for me. You wouldn't understand, my parents are so lovely and hospitable when any of my friends come to visit, you never see this side of them. Plus your parents couldn't care less what you do, it's not like you know how to navigate this stuff."

"Exactly, they're lovely to me, and they wouldn't want me to think badly of them… which means I kind of have some outsider sway. What if I could offer my help."

Bee could see the cogs were turning in Greg's mind, the way it did when he was figuring out a particularly difficult potion or when he'd finally found a solution to a complex chemical problem with their ingredients.

"What are you thinking right now," she said suspiciously, narrowing her eyes at his idea-stricken face.

"I could help them find someone for you! No one spends more time with you than me, we work together, we've been friends for years, I know you back to front. I could find the perfect guy for you that fits all your parents standards but isn't a total mismatch with what you want, and your parents will be way too polite to refuse my help."

"Gregory Baddock, this is worse than your idea for a new kind of veritaserum with Lobalug venom, please drop this."

"Oh trust you to bring up the Lobalug venom argument to distract me - I'm not so daft as that, even though it was objectively a clear answer-"

"Look, Hugo's band is starting up again."

The music soon filled the hall so that hearing each other was too difficult. Bee breathed a sigh of relief that that was the end of that conversation... or so Bee thought.