Chapter 4
Two years at Grimmauld Place. Cooking and sewing, watching and listening, growing from the last vestiges of boyhood into what was unmistakably a man. Aunt Andromeda had grown lax in monitoring Draco, and the servants had grown fond of Draco’s willingness to help. So Angie once again let Draco visit Teddy, if only to bring him milk before nap time and read him picture books before putting him to sleep. For his second birthday, Draco had purchased him a book with the tale of the green dragon and begged Angie to give it to Teddy. All of Andromeda’s friends had thought it so kind of the nursemaid and a sign of her devotion to her charge. Draco didn’t mind, he had learned to be thankful of what truly mattered, as his mother always told him he must be. Angie had made sure Draco was the one who read the book to Teddy, and Draco read it as many times as Teddy wanted.
By now, the clothes they’d been allowed to bring had worn out and Draco did his best to make new dresses for his mother and suitable outfits for himself. His mother never complained that they were left to dress like peasants. Not that you could ever mistake her for a peasant. Even in undyed cotton she held herself with the grace of a duchess and portrayed only impeccable manners.
Still. Andromeda eyed her family members from head to feet. “The Baron Lovegood deigned to invite you to this dinner, and that’s the best you could manage?”
Draco and Narcissa stood in their best clothes. Draco wore the suit trousers purchased for Teddy’s first birthday, which he had been able to adjust far enough that they almost fit. He wore his only white shirt, and a secondhand waistcoat he’d traded off one of the other servants. Narcissa’s dress was simple, but with flair in the bodice and sleeves from where Draco had repurposed parts of other dresses.
Narcissa smiled tranquilly. “Cousin Lovegood will not mind our humble appearance,” she assured.
Andromeda scowled. Draco suspected she was more angry at his mother acknowledging their familial ties. “It’s about showing respect. Surely there is something in the attic that would be suitable, for you. Go find it before the next visit.” Narcissa was always graceful in these moments. Draco barely managed to maintain a straight face while wondering how he’d allowed his life to devolve into discussions of clothes.
Of course, Xenophilius Lovegood paid no mind to how they were dressed. He himself wore workmen’s breeches and muddy boots and claimed he’d been out early feeding the fae folk who lived in his woods. He insisted they call him “Xeno” every time Andromeda referred to him as “Baron Lovegood”. He grinned when Narcissa called him cousin and kissed her on the cheek.
The drawing room was unlike any Draco had seen. An entire wall was lined with desks, each covered in glass tubes connecting round containers to metal beakers and bottles with long neck flasks that gathered condensation. Concoctions simmered over gas burners, and various materials were stored in jars, sacks and cupboards with tiny drawers.
“Father’s an alchemist,” Luna Lovegrove explained, popping up at Draco’s elbow without him realizing she had joined the party. He startled at her appearance but she didn’t mind. Peering up at Draco, she remarked, “You got tall.”
Draco laughed to hear so obvious a statement. The first of his laughs caused by anyone but Teddy since the war had ended.
He looked at Luna then, at her thick white hair and rosy cheeks. She dressed more peculiar than him, in men’s trousers and a silk blouse with frills. “You look well,” he remarked, a statement as obvious as hers.
“Being released from a dungeon does wonders for your health,” Luna said in a sing-song voice.
Xeno saw the pair together and said something saccharine like, “It’s so good to be together with family!”
Then Luna looped her arm in Draco’s and tugged him along, calling to the older family that they were off to do something more diverting. Draco suspected she was wary of her father’s sentimentally, too. In Luna style, her next words were a non sequitur, “I still like those minced meat hand pies, though. Although my father can’t get the recipe quite right.”
“Don’t you have a cook?” Draco asked. Luna shrugged, as if that was truly an unknowable question. Draco remembered the pies in question. He’d smuggled them from his own dinner plate down to the dungeons to share with the young girl he once played with under the table at family parties. “Kreacher does something similar. I bet I could make one for you.”
It was a disaster, but also the best time Draco had in months with another person who could string sentences together. Luna insisted they eat the pies, although they were burnt and under seasoned and spoiled their appetite for dinner. Only Luna was right, dinner wasn’t any better.
“Come visit us and I’ll make the pies right,” Draco promised.
Luna’s eyes hardened for a moment and she stared at him too long. For the first time Draco was physically aware that they’d last seen each other with bars between them, and Luna being on the bad side of the bars. Draco could only stare back now, unrepentant for who he was and the side he had chosen, wondering if she would be the sort to slip those on the bad side small treats so they didn’t starve in their imprisonment.
Luna turned around then, reaching back behind her to open a drawer. She pulled out a stack of envelopes and thumbed through them until she found the one in question and held it out to Draco. “You should come,” she said.
Draco’s mouth fell open when he pulled out the embellished invitation. “No,” he said.
Luna shrugged. “Take it anyway, I’ll tell them I lost mine and they’ll give me another.”
Something heavy began to fill Draco’s stomach as his fingers traced the words on the card. “You know the planners, then?” he asked.
Luna patted his shoulders. “Let’s go to dinner,” she said so gently that Draco knew in his bones that she was trying to be kind. The sort of kindness that was a lie.
Draco looked up at his distant cousin and knew that she was not only invited to the most prestigious, selective event of the season, but likely she was on the even more elusive planning committee, so secretive that most did not know it even existed. Draco knew, because his parents had each been on the committee. His aunts and uncles had been on the committee. You could only join the committee when someone stepped off and personally selected you to inherit the role. He was raised with fairy tail stories of love matches made at the ball and how he would one day lead it all.
Only he never would. The invite in his hand was a charity gift from a girl who was meant to die in his cellar dungeon, but now had such power in court that she was one of the chosen few planning the Equinox Ball.
“No, thank you,” Draco said this time. He put the invitation down on the kitchen counter.
Luna sighed, disappointed. She took his arm in hers again and this time led him back to their parents to sit through a dinner only Xeno seemed to enjoy.
At home that night, Draco took off his nicest clothes and gently laid them out so he could clean them the next day. It was then he noticed something in the pocket of his coat. There, folded in half, was the beautiful invitation card to the Fall Equinox Ball.