Planned Liars • Draco Malfoy

Chapter #7

"Good morning Mira!" I called happily as I entered my office on the next day. I couldn't help glancing at the ring on my finger almost every ten seconds. The after-engagement shock was still strong for me.

"Oh, good morning, Miss Mullen," she said, a bit taken aback by my cheerful voice. I think she's already got used to the fact I wasn't the most positive person alive.

"Aurora Mullen this early in the office and happy and enthusiastic at this time in the morning," I heard a voice coming from the corridor and Shane stepped in. "I smell something fishy," he added, leaning himself against the wall with crossed arms.

"Well, I have something to be happy about," I replied, grinning at him.

"Shock me. What could it possibly be? Someone you hate broke a leg or something?"

"Even better," I replied, sitting down on the chair by my desk and Shane raised an eyebrow.

"Someone you hate actually died? I have to be right on this one."

"Very funny, Stagridge," I snapped at him, picking up my quill and a bottle of ink.

"So what is it? Shall Miss Mullen tell me?"

"You can as well call me Mrs. Malfoy from now on," I laughed, dropping the bomb.

Shane's mouth fell agape and Mira looked up from her papers.

"Wait - does that mean what I think it means?" he said, bewildered and I raised my hand to show him the ring. His bewildered expression didn't change.

"You can already feel invited to my wedding, Shane," I added with a smile.

There was a few seconds' silence and then Mira squeaked with delight.

"Congratulations!" she called, then sprang up to her feet from her desk and ran up to me, then hugged me tightly even though I was sitting.

"Oh, um, yeah," I said awkwardly, unsure what to do. Then I gently pushed her away. Shane was still standing there with his mouth agape, as though processing everything I had just said while Mira came back to her desk. Right after that, there was a knock on the door and Hermione stepped in.

"I've just spoken to Draco, cong..."

"Did I hear my name?" Draco entered the office right behind her and I became even happier at the sight of him.

"Ron, come here, come here!" Hermione called through the open door as Draco walked up to me.

"Is it true?" Shane asked him in the meantime and Draco looked at me with his grey eyes narrowed.

"You ruined what I wanted to see."

"I couldn't help it," I defended myself as I stood up to face him.

"What's that, Hermione?" came Ron's voice as he entered the office as well.

"Aurora and Draco just got engaged," Hermione explained and Ron stared at her with a clear So what? look on his face.

"I'll leave you guys to it," Shane said quickly and left the office in a rush as though it was on fire. Draco laughed at it shamelessly.

"You two seem sketchy, to be honest," Ron spoke finally, indicating Draco and me.

"Ronald!" Hermione called, but he ignored her.

"Charming as ever," said Draco, rolling his eyes. "Weasley, we aren't at Hogwarts anymore, we're not laughing at your Quidditch skills and basically every other skill..."

"Haha, very funny. I mean you're sketchy, because I've never even seen you two kiss or something, and then out of nowhere, engaged," said Ron.

"I only agreed to marry him because his parents are rich, what do you think?" I said jokingly, hugging Draco from the side. He winced a little as he didn't really like when I did it in front of other people, so I stepped back and crossed my arms.

"Well, we don't need to show ourselves to everyone in the world, unlike somebody," Draco hissed, glaring at Ron.

"Oh, seriously," said Hermione impatiently, "you two can't even be in the same room for five minutes without insulting each other."

"I'm not going to like him, Hermione," Ron muttered.

"Same goes for you, gingerhead," Draco replied.

Ron left the office huffing and puffing, and Hermione turned to us.

"I'd better go after him. But congratulations anyways, Aurora," she smiled and then left as well. Then Draco turned to me.

"We're meeting my parents on Sunday for dinner," he told me, surprising me.

"Oh," I said, my smile fading. "Already?" I asked, even though it was just Wednesday.

I wasn't entirely sure if I wanted to meet Lucius already. He wasn't exactly elated by the fact Harry, the Weasleys and (especially) Hermione and I were on rather good terms now and acted a bit distant towards me. Draco didn't say anything, but I knew his father must have told him to reconsider proposing to me.

Narcissa, on the other hand, didn't really care as long as Draco was happy. And well, at least to me, he seemed so.

"You're afraid of my father," he said as more of a statement than a question. Every day I couldn't help being surprised at how well he knew me.

"Well, you know, he wasn't exactly delighted the last time we met," I said truthfully.

Draco glanced at Mira, as if checking if she was listening, then looked back at me.

"We'll talk about this later. But don't worry about anything. I'm not changing my mind and you know how stubborn I can be."

I couldn't believe he admitted it, but all the same it made me laugh a bit.

"I know this too well," I said as he walked up to the door.

I had lots of work during the next days and it took my mind off this entire dinner thing, although Draco kept assuring me it would be alright and that his father couldn't do anything about it.

On Friday Shane and I had to do some work at St Mungo's where a bunch of wizards lost their memories due to a Memory Charm that rebounded. He was still asking me if Draco and I were kidding about that engagement thing, that's how shocked he was.

When I entered the office after leaving St Mungo's, Mira told me there had been somebody who wanted to see me and asked to be contacted the moment I got back. I became curious, but on the other hand I suspected Draco might be playing with me as usually. Mira sent a quick owl to the person and after less than half an hour we heard knocking on the door.

"Oh, that should be her," said Mira.

"You didn't tell me it was a woman," I said, surprised, abandoning my thoughts about Draco. "Come in!"

The door opened and my mouth fell agape as I dropped the quill I had been holding.

"Mother?"