Chapter 10 Looking Forward
When Amelia came through the floo, she saw Molly laid on the floor, Amelia checked and was thankful to find that she had only been stunned. Making her way to the stairs Amelia saw Dumbledore going up the stairs and slowly pointed her wand.
"Stupefy." Unfortunately, Dumbledore must have heard her coming and moved out of the way just in time.
Their eyes met in a staring contest, waiting for the other to blink and show weakness. Both drew there wands and a duel broke out, curses were sent flying, neither let themselves think of anything else, nor did they notice the floo activating and Tom stepping through.
As he had entered unnoticed Tom decided to keep it that way and kept to the shadows until he was in the perfect position to aim at Dumbledore. Raising his wand, he cast a wordless experiamus and Dumbledore went flying down the stairs. The shock and confusion of what had just happened caused Amelia to scream until she saw her Tom emerging from the shadows. Together they cast powerful binding charm on Dumbledore and Tom apparated him to Malfoy Manor, he had questions to answer.
Amelia went through the rooms and found all the Weasley's that were upstairs and took the stunning spell off Molly, and made sure everyone got through the floo to Malfoy Manor before putting up her own wards on the burrow and apparating to check on Harry, Sirius, Remus and Hermionie at Grimauld's place. It turned out everyone was fine; they all went to Malfoy Manor more on Amelia's side now that they had seen some of the ruthlessness of Albus Dumbledore.
Three months passed and everyone grew closer, almost all of the members of the order had decided to trust Amelia and although they wouldn't fight against their old friends, but they would not stand in their way. In the three months Pacis Tutela had been all but forgotten until, Patrick suggested that if they wanted to get anywhere then they would need to start working as soon as possible. Amelia would work on getting the ministry on side, Lewis would work on getting the support of some of the Hogwarts staff, Mark would search through the libraries for any information that might be useful, Patrick would try to get the support of members of the general wizarding community and Tom would work on the pure blood communities around the world.
A month after they had started they decided to hold a lunch meeting to discuss their progress. The ministry was surprisingly responsive to the idea of Pacis Tutela, possibly because most were jus sick of Fudge, so they began the process of passing a law to put the heirs of Pacis Tutela in power. So Amelia had managed to get Sirius' name cleared and he was now enjoying his freedom, living in a small cottage in the country. Lewis had a harder time as McGonagall wasn't letting him into the grounds and as she was, the headmistress Severus could only sneak him in through the "not so secret" entrances. Mark was having the time of his life and found mounds of information. Patrick had found that the wizarding community was very receptive of them and what they stood for. Tom however was having more complicated problems.
"They are willing to accept us, but only if each member is married to a powerful witch or wizard." There was a silence, as much as the world tried to deny it everyone knew that the purebloods were an essential part of the world wizarding society and without their support, Pacis Tutela would fail.
"But that's ridiculous! You can't rush love." Amelia felt that it was her position to bring up this point although she knew that Tom was likely to propose to her.
"But we don't have a choice." Patrick said with a sigh, everyone knew that this was the truth. All that was left was to decide whom they each would marry and Amelia knew who she would want to marry and she knew that Tom had the same thing on his mind. The meeting was temporarily dismissed whilst people thought about their futures and Amelia couldn't help but wonder where Tom was disappearing to.
At four, Amelia headed down to the dining room for the second part of the meeting when Tom stopped her and pulled her to the side. Amelia had a feeling she knew what was coming but her breath still caught in her throat when she saw Tom going down onto one knee a pull out a velvet box. When he opened the box, Amelia saw the most beautiful and most Slytherin ring she had ever seen. It was silver with a giant Emerald surrounded by small diamonds.
Amelia whispered a barely audible yes and Tom slid the ring onto her finger. Standing again tom wrapped his arms around Amelia and there lips met in a passionate kiss. There had been little time for these moments due to all the work they had been doing but that just made them all the more special.
When they finally arrived at the meeting, they were met by a round of applause. Lewis decided that he would ask Sophie Lionheart a pureblood Gryffindor who had been in the year below him whilst he was at school. Patrick had decided to ask Luna Lovegood as the two had lots in common and could always make each other laugh. Mark however was still undecided and there was no guarantee that Luna and Sophie would say yes.
"Lewis, Patrick ask the girls as soon as possible. Amelia can you enrol the help of molly Weasley and Cissy in the match making department?" Amelia said she would and it was decided that they would call everyone for a group meeting.
The meeting went better than expected and everyone got involved in preparations, Molly and Cissy worked together to find suitable girls for Mark to meet, Lucius and Sirius gave Patrick and Lewis wooing tips, although Lewis claimed not to need them and Hermionie, Amelia and Ginny gathered as much stuff on weddings as possible. The three of them were sat in the library staring with the basic ideas; Hermionie with a book entitled planning the perfect wedding and had several lists in front of her.
"Ok we have lists of all the decisions that need to be made, lets see with we can get any of this done now. Size?"
"It will probably have to be quite large although I'd rather it didn't go to big, but I guess that's unavoidable."
"And who may I ask are we inviting?" Tom was sat in one of the chairs reading a book letting Amelia have her way with the wedding, but he would stop anything he thought to be ridiculous.
"Well lets see there's Harry, Sirius, Remus, Hermionie, Arthur, Molly, Charlie, Bill, Percy, Fred, George, Ron, Ginny, Neville, Lucius, Cissy, Draco, Cassandra, Lewis, Patrick, Mark and date, Luna and her father, that Sophie Lionheart, Mad Eye, Severus, Dung, Hagrid, Minerva although I doubt she'll come, Kingsley, Tonks, Wormtail, Lavender Brown, Katie Bell, Colin and Dennis Creevy, we could have Colin take the wedding photos, anyway there's also Bella, any other Death eaters who need to be there, we may as well invite the press as they'll show up anyway and I know I've forgotten some of the obvious people but I think you get the idea." Amelia looked over at Tom and saw that he had already retreated back into his books.
"Well I got all those names down, ready for later so we want a large wedding, season." Amelia paused for thought and at just that moment Cissy and Molly came in.
"We're off to Diagon Alley, do you girls need anything?"
"No thank you came the chorus." But there was something else Amelia wanted to ask but she didn't want to intrude, but she really wanted to ask
"MumdoyouthinkdadwouldmindifIgotmarriedonthegrounds." Before Amelia knew anything, she had a weeping woman hugging her.
"Cissy what are you doing to the poor girl."
"Cissy, you understood that." Molly seemed as confused as anyone else in the room.
"I don't care what she said she called me mum." There was a silence as Amelia realised what she had actually said, she had never called Lucius or Cissy, mum or dad before, but for some reason it now sounded right.
"Cissy why are you strangling the poor girl." Lucius looked genuinely worried, which was no surprise, as Cissy was holding onto her very tight.
"Oh I figured it out." Hermionie had a look on her face as though she had just solved a thousand year old puzzle.
"She said; Mum do you think dad,"
"You called me dad." Amelia had to laugh, she could not remember ever seeing Lucius look so excited and nodded as much as she could within Cissy grasp only to feel even more restrained when Lucius came and wrapped his arms around her asking Hermionie what the rest of the sentence had been
"Would mind if I got married on the grounds." Cissy squealed and both Lucius and Cissy squeezed Amelia tighter although Amelia couldn't believe it was possible, Lucius said yes but it was a good 5 minutes before Cissy let go of her and 15 minutes after that when Lucius did.
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I apologise if there are any spelling errors but I only made the most basic checks and I'm sorry if I've forgotten anyone important on the wedding list, it's hard to think of them all when you want to (I almost forgot Neville).