Inheritance - The Courting

Chapter 14

Hadrian POV

The rest of the night goes by without any problems. There is of course more dancing and more talking with my suitors. But at 4 in the morning, it finally ends. 

Of course, my dad wanted to talk about who to eliminate from the courting before I could go to bed. Only five of them were left by the end of the elimination for this round. This included my two favorites so far, of course; Draco and Charlie.

They are the two biggest contenders so far, but all could change with the next challenge. It's technically the last challenge, as you cannot prepare yourself for the soul magic bit. 

In this challenge, all five of them will set up a date, preferably at their house. This way I can truly experience with who I have an actual connection and who is just a nice person to be around. It will also allow me to see their living conditions, so that I can fully see how my life with them would be. 

The planning is to do three dates in the first week and two in the second week. The courters will have one week to prepare their date, and it will be exactly a week. That means that the first person to get a date with me will be receiving their letter today and the second person will get theirs two days later et cetera. 

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The first date

The first date is with Dean Collins. He used to be one of my top contenders, but he has been lacking a little bit the last few weeks. However with his date, he completely regained himself. He truly spared no expenses, even though I don't care that much for riches. 

His house is a penthouse in London. It's quite spacious and let's in a lot of natural light. It's modern, but somehow still has a cozy feeling. For the actual date he picked me up at my Riddle Manor around lunch time.

After that we got lunch at a way too fancy restaurant. The food was delicious though. We then went shopping for a bit, which I absolutely did not mind. I got a very nice set of candles and a beautiful blue dress. 

Then we went to get ice cream at Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Palour. I got green apple flavour, as it has always been my favorite flavor. He then took me to see the new Marvel film, because he somehow found out I like Marvel. 

And last but not least, he took me out for dinner. We went to a new place in Diagon Alley called The Tavern. I ordered a steak and it was one of the best stakes I had ever had. 

After dinner, he brought me home.

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The Third Date

The third date was with Charlie Weasley. He also picked me up at Riddle Manor, but a little later then Collins had done, around 3. 

He took me to his home, which was a cottage by the beach. The cottage had a lot of plants surrounding it. A dog came running towards us out of nowhere, and it turned out that it was Charlie's dog. It was a border collie and she was very gentle. She didn't jump on me when she reached us and she just slowly came over to sniff my hand.

For our date we had a picknick at the beach. All the food that Charlie had made was home-made and absolutely delicious. We had sandwiches and little pastries and he even made his own strawberry lemonade with strawberries from his little garden. 

At the end of our date we watched the sunset and then he brought me home.

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The fourth date

The fourth date was with Mathew Hawkins. Just like all the others before me, he picked me up at riddle manor at 3.

First of all, he took me swimming. That was the first sign that he hadn't looked into my creatures all that well. This is because as a neko, which is obviously a cat hybrid, I don't really like water all that much. At least not deep water. I don't mind my bathtub, however I also don't really find it comfortable.

After the swimming, which was mostly him trying to get me to go into the water by splashing me, he took me out for dinner at a pub. And I mean like a football and beer kind of pub. Now there is nothing wrong with football or beer, but the pub was filled with friends of his who all smelled so bad.

He also introduced me to them as his mate, as if I was already his. At that point Neville appeared out of nowhere to take me home, as I was clearly uncomfortable and he was clearly trying to pressure me into choosing him to be my mate.

That night I cried myself to sleep out of sheer shock and out of the trauma that the day had brought up. 

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The fifth date

The fifth date was with Draco Malfoy of course. And as he should, he also picked me up at Riddle Manor at 12. He told my father and my dad that he would drop me off later in the night. 

He took me to his Manor for lunch, which he made himself. It consisted of all kinds of little snacks so that you could chose what you liked. Then his family came over for a bit and we all played games. It was surprising how nice the Malfoy family actually was, as I had only ever seen them as the cold people they pretended to be.

Bellatrix was very nice as well and she wasn't as crazy as she seemed at first. Was she completely sane though? Absolutely not.

After Draco's family left, we made a pie together. It was an apple pie with apples from the apple tree in his garden. Around 8 we ate dinner. We had hamburgers with fries and the pie as dessert.

Draco then took me to the local wizard fair. We had so much fun and he won one of those big bears for me and I won one of them for him. We watched the sunset in the ferris wheel.

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After I had been on all five dates, my parents sat me down on the couch, where I am right now. "So Hadrian, what did you think of your dates?" my father asked me. 

"Well I had three amazing dates, one date that went just okay and one that was absolutely horrible." I tell them. My dad mentions for me to continue. "The three amazing dates were with Dean Collins, Charlie Weasley and Draco Malfoy. The date that went just okay was with Jay Norris. And lastly the horrible date was with Mathew Hawkins.".

My parents both nod and my dad says: "So Had, who do you want to let through to the fifth challenge? It's entirely up to you and you should go with your feelings. It's also okay if you don't want anyone to continue.".

"I want the three of my amazing dates to continue." I say.