Under the Stars

The Treehouse

Several days after the party Narcissa watched Draco and Harry wandering between a number of the huge ancient trees in the parkland near the lake. She watched, intrigued, there was a considerable amount of pointing upwards into the canopies and some very animated discussions. This continued for several days.

On the Saturday, Harry turned up at the Manor with Ron, Neville, Blaise, and Theo. The six boys set up camp between two large oak trees that were fairly close together. A huge scroll was unravelled, discussions ensued, inspections were made. Then they all disappeared off, only to return sometime later with bundles of planks and wood and large round posts like Muggle telegraph poles, which all had to be re-sized after it had been shrunk down for transporting. And Blaise carried several strings of lights.

It was also around then that Arthur, George, and Bill turned up and the whole rigmarole started again. It seemed Arthur took charge, setting up teams.

Although Narcissa was intrigued, she stayed away, mostly restricting herself to the veranda and tending to her pot plants. Though, mid-morning, she made homemade lemonade and took a jug and stack of glasses down towards the activities. She was met by Blaise who politely took the tray and thanked her and made it perfectly clear that she couldn't come any closer.

Occasionally she heard snippets of conversations drift her way, like:

'We should try not to attach it to the trees but build it around the trunks and branches.'

'You're making life harder, Arthur.'

'But it means the tree can continue to grow without damaging the integral structure.'

Or

'Why can't we use magic?'

'Because I don't trust they'll stay as permanent transfigurations.'

'Anyway, I want to build it the Muggle way.'  (That was her son, surprisingly.)

And

'Why aren't you helping, Blaise?'

'Because I'm too pretty to do anything other than hang the lights when you're ready for them... Let me focus on the interior design and things...'

Occasionally there would be a lot of bad language but she pretended not to hear her son swear like an old fishwife.

She ignored the fact that Blaise was wandering around the Manor with a notepad.

She cooked a considerable amount of bacon and mushrooms for lunch and buttered a lot of rolls and, once more, took a tray down to the activities. Once again, Blaise met her and politely took the tray. A little later, she watched Draco and Neville levitate the huge oak dining table out from the other side of the Manor. It was the table that the Dark Lord had liked to use for his meetings. It was taken across the lawn and a suitable spot was found in the dappled shade of the trees near the little beach. Bill did some complex spell over the table and, with two long benches on either side, they all settled down to eat their sandwiches and drink more homemade lemonade, and the large scroll was unfurled again and Arthur, who seemed to keep a pencil behind his ear at all times, was scribbling on it and pointing and getting very excited about something.

'Draco-darling,' she called to him as she took them down some sorbets. 'What, exactly, are your plans for that table?'

'Oh, I think it can live outdoors now,' he said casually. 'Harry and I decided it's a far nicer use for it to be out here and getting used in a way he would have hated.'

She supposed, as she watched the party of men sitting round, eating and laughing and talking over each other, that Harry and her son were right. The Dark Lord would have hated it. Lucius too; he would have been horrified. That made her lips twitch in suppressed delight. Especially when Blaise and Neville disappeared off and when they came back, they lined the table with jars of flowers from the gardens in a fashion similar to how the table had been at the Weasleys.