The Marriage Decree

Chapter 21: Snitches

Draco climbs out of bed, placing the snitch in his pocket. He casts a few spells to smooth his hair down, since it's sticking up in odds ways at the back, and to iron his clothes out. He finds his cardigan, pulls it on then makes his way down the stairs where he finds everybody else sat in the living room waiting for him.

"Are you ready, Draco?" Sarah asks him. "Yeah, let me just pull my boots on." He tells them as he grabs them from next to Chris's chair.

Once they're all ready, the leave through the front door and Draco realises that they're going to be driving to David's house for the barbeque.

"Do we have to go in the car?" He asks Hermione as they wait for her dad to lock the front door.

"Unless you want to walk the three miles, then yes, we do." She tells him, still sounding annoyed.

Reluctantly, he climbs into the backseat of Chris's car with Hermione and they set off. He grips onto the door handle and the edge of his seat until they pull up outside David's house, where there are already three cars parked up outside.

"Great, Louise is here," Sarah grumbles sarcastically as they climb out. "And I bet she brought Darren with her as well." She adds as they walk up the path to David's front door and knock.

David answers the door with relief on his face.

"You're late, Sarah." He stares wide-eyed at her as though trying to tell her something as they enter the house.

"Sarah!" A high pitched squeal comes from behind David who stands straight with a forced smile on his face.

A small, blonde woman pushes past David and pulls Sarah into a hug then moves onto Chris, who's pulling an equally as forced smile as David. She then turns to face Hermione.

"Ah, my favourite niece." She says before pulling her into a hug.

"Louise, you can't say that. How do you think Sophie's going to feel?" David frowns as he asks her.

"Oh yes, I forgot about Sophie. Where is she anyway?" She wonders.

"Probably in her room reading still. I'll call her down in a few minutes." He tells her.

"Oh, and who's this?" Louise turns to face Draco.

He's heard a lot about her in the past couple of days. Very little of it good, so he follows in his father-in-law's steps, pulls a fake smile and holds his hand out.

"I'm Draco, Hermione's fiancé." He tells her expecting her to shake his hand but instead she ignores it, turning to face Hermione instead.

"You got yourself a man. A gorgeous man at that." She says as she checks him out. "Shame about that scar." She shrugs making him flatten his hair down over his scar.

"You don't need to sound so shocked." Hermione scoffs, offended.

"I'm just saying, you've always been a nerdy little swot haven't you. If you'd gone to Fieldstone Secondary you'd have never gotten a boyfriend. Sophie reminds me a lot of you." She says, turning on David. "You shouldn't let her read so much. She'll just end up getting bullied at Fieldstone." She shrugs, turning back to Hermione. "It's a shame you didn't go to Fieldstones, we could have hung out together. You'd only have been two years below me." She winks at Draco who feels uncomfortable.

"Babe, where are you? These kids of yours are just staring at me." A gruff voice shouts from the living room.

"Never have kids Hermione." She sighs as she starts to leave. "And I want to hear everything about you two later." She calls behind her as she walks off.