Touch the Sky

Chapter 4. Pecking

By the time the Zabinis had arrived and sipped mead with them in a pleasant blue sitting room, dusk had fallen. Draco put down his glass with a sigh. "Excellent brew as always, Severus," he said. "But now I'm afraid we'll have to eschew civilisation for a bit and hark back to our ancestral roots again. Are we ready to return outdoors?"

"Of course," Blaise said. "Nothing wrong with a spot of ritual, you know. Even if this one has got rather attenuated and confused in these parlous times."

Still, Ginny found it easy enough to get into the spirit of things as they danced and sang around the fire, which seemed to be fed more by wood than actual bones. The elves laid out a lavish feast that they ate in a pavilion next to a reflecting pool lit by floating candles. Around the table sat wicker baskets heaped with sun-yellow calendula blooms that Lily and Teresa had harvested with golden sickles.

"Thus vanishes our housing problem," Severus said in an undertone when Teresa placed one in front of them.

"What do you mean?" Harry asked.

Light dawned on Ginny. "They have to be virgins to cut calendula on Midsummer's Eve," she said, remembering tales from her childhood. "She and Jamie aren't sleeping together."

"Well, that's a relief on several fronts," Harry said, going back to his roast quail.

After the meal they gathered back in the house, this time in one of the larger drawing rooms, for a stirrup cup and farewells. The adults were served May wine, the children white grape juice, both from pressings of fruit grown in the Malfoy conservatories. They toasted their hosts, and were toasted in return.

Ginny bent her head to breathe in the sweet scent of the woodruff flavoring her wine, so she didn't notice Jamie stepping to the center of the room till he spoke.

"Tessa and I have an announcement," he said. He extended a hand and she rose from the sofa where she'd been seated between her parents and joined him, smiling. "I've asked her to marry me, and in a fit of temporary insanity, she said yes!"

Beaming, Ginny rose to embrace them, Harry beside her. Severus, she dimly noted, was hanging back. Lily and Albus, obviously in the know, grinned at James, and the Malfoys smiled politely.

The Zabinis, though on their feet as well, were solemn-faced, however. Jamie spoke over Teresa's head to Blaise. "I apologize for not speaking to you first, sir. I fully intended to meet with you before she came to visit at the end of the week, and I was going to propose formally when she was with us afterwards, but somehow the spirit of Midsummer seemed to come over us, and I just went ahead." His voice became more uncertain as he went on, speaking to Blaise's grim face.

"I wish you had consulted me beforehand, James," he said, "I might have saved you both some pain. As it is, I am forced to spoil this lovely evening and create a public scene by telling you that this match is not possible."

There was a stunned silence, broken after a moment by Teresa's cry of "Mama!"

Helena slowly shook her head at the plea. "I am sorry, ma fille. Papa is correct, you cannot marry James Potter."

At a soft word from Astoria, the house elves collected the wine glasses as everyone sank back into their seats. Teresa took a side chair, and James perched on its arm, hand on her shoulder. Severus scooped Lily onto his knee, Albus squeezed between Harry and Ginny, Scorpius sat on a footstool near his parents, and everyone looked at Blaise and Helena.

"I assure you," Blaise said earnestly, "this is no reflection on you personally, James. You are an exemplary young man, and we had been proud and happy at the friendship between you and our daughter. But it can go no further. I sincerely regret our not having made that clear sooner. You are both so young, we thought of you as mere schoolmates. We had not realized the relationship had progressed to this point." At that he looked reproachfully at Teresa, who gave him back a defiant glare undercut by her trembling lip.

"Is it because of my family situation, because of my parents?" Jamie asked anxiously.

Blaise looked down his long nose, lips pursed, shaking his head. "Of which of your parents do you suppose I disapprove?" he said. "The one who's the slayer of Voldemort and hero of the wizarding world? Or the one who's the brilliant, talented daughter of one of the oldest, most distinguished families in the wizarding world? Or perhaps the one who is my own mentor and idolised professor, the greatest potions master since Salazar Slytherin himself, whose bravery and integrity are unrivaled in the wizarding world or any other? Which?"

Jamie flushed and ducked his head. "I know all that," he muttered. "I just didn't know if you--that is, some people think it's weird that I have three parents. I should have known you wouldn't be so conventional, sir."

Blaise relented with a small smile. "Indeed. As a man whose mother had seven husbands--though not, I concede, all at once--I would hardly be in a position to take such a provincial attitude."

"Then perhaps you would enlighten us as to the cause of your disapproval, and save us the embarrassment of further speculation," Severus said. His tone was smooth and civil, but everyone in the room could sense the underlying heat. It warmed Ginny's heart. He's defending his chick, she realised.

Now it was Blaise's turn to look discomfited. He twisted his fingers around each other in his lap for a moment, glanced sideways at his wife, then blurted, "James is an exemplary young man, as I have said. But Helena and I feel strongly that mixed marriages are ill-advised. He is simply--not one of us."

There was another silence. Then, "You mean because he's white?" Harry said.

They all turned to stare at him. After all these years in the wizarding world, Ginny thought fondly, he still takes the wrong end of the wand.

Blaise, dark brow furrowed, said, "What earthly significance could that have? You have green eyes; your wife's are brown. Do you really suppose you are different in any meaningful way because of that?"

"Of course I don't. But then--? Oh, I see," Harry said, voice going low and steely, "it's me, isn't it? It's because my mum was Muggleborn."

Now Helena drew herself up in offense. "It's nothing of the sort," she said.

Beside her, Blaise shoved his left sleeve up above his elbow with something like a snarl on his usually civilised face. "I was never a Death Eater," he snapped, displaying his unmarked forearm. "I mean no offense to any in this house," he nodded at Draco, who nodded back, looking bemused. "But why would you suppose I have not outgrown nonsensical Pureblood prejudice, after fifteen years of teaching and encountering brilliant Muggleborns and Halfbloods? Because I am Slytherin, perhaps? I should think the spouse of Severus Snape would know better."

"I'm sorry, Blaise, I apologize," Harry said. "I do know better than that about you, or I thought I did. But in that case--what is it?"

The misunderstandings seemed to have burned away Blaise's self-consciousness. With aplomb and a hint of hauteur, he announced, "We are Catholics."