Harry Potter - Series Fan Fiction ❯ Betrothed ❯ Chapter 11 ( Chapter 11 )

Harry and Draco sat in Dumbledore's office on the same chairs at the end of September when they found out Lullia would be joining them. Instead of green scenery to look at the window now appeared white with fresh snow falling down to the ground. The forest surrounding the castle now looked out of place in the white wonderland. Harry had already been up and was on leaning on his knees in anguish waiting for Dumbledore to say something besides offering them tea. He and Draco had accepted and had barely drunk any.

 

Harry had just walked into the common room when Hermione, running almost, came up to him and grabbed his arm. She was up early too for being on a Saturday. Hermione was barely up before eight in the morning. She gripped the Prophet in her hands. She was flushed, concern was written all over her face, as she pulled Harry towards the fireplace.

 

“Hermione?”

 

She looked back at him and held and opened it up to him. “Harry you guys now have a much bigger problem than before.”

 

Harry, stunned, stared at the front page with his mouth opened. The three faces now stared back at him. He took the paper from her hands and sat down on the couch. Hermione grabbed his shoulder in case he fell. “How could this happen?”

 

“I have no idea. I got mine right before all the owls returned to the owlary. I saw some stop in mid air and fly towards it. I'm guessing Dumbledore saw and is trying to keep the Prophet away from its readers.” She paused as Harry simply stared at it. “I hope no one else is up. I was going to wake Ron-”

 

“NO DON'T!” he snapped. Hermione looked up at him in shock. “I'm sorry, Hermione. I didn't mean to, but this is…”

 

She nodded. “I know. That's why you need to go talk to Dumbledore right now. I already went to Celina and she said that Lullia doesn't want any kind of visitors today. Not even me or you.”

 

Harry now took a sip of tea and glanced over at Draco. He sat calmly rubbing only one small part of his head while chewing on his lip. A copy of the Prophet laid across his lap with the front page folded so that only one and half faces stared up at him. Harry was about to crack underneath this pressure, but never with Draco around. How can he stay SO CALM at a time like this?!

 

As if Draco could hear his thoughts he looked over at him. Concern and anger was in his gray eyes and the side of his mouth twitched. Waking up to this wasn't the best way in the world. In fact, Draco wished that he never woke up to this.

 

Draco had been dreaming. He had been laying down on the floor staring out a window with a nice view of a spring tree. It was in full pink bloom. He slowly blinked a few times and closed his eyes to drift. He slightly remembered feeling tired and something was hurting, but he didn't know what. When the dream was about to change (since he remembered seeing his room back home) he was shaken awake.

 

He was curled up into a ball like so many times before, opened an eye and looked up. Zack stood above him, dead white with concern and fear written all his face. Draco slowly blinked and sat up looking at the clock: it was eight in the morning. He had forgotten that Zack got up early on the weekends to do God only knows what. Blaise had muttered something that Zack liked to take walks before anyone could get up and make noise.

 

Zack was the unique, mysterious Slytherin one

 

Draco rubbed his face. “What is it?” he muttered.

 

Zack put a finger up to his lips and pulled Draco out of bed. He stumbled and ran into the nightstand. He glared at Zack, ripping the covers off of his bed, wrapped them around him and followed Zack out into the common room. No one besides him and Zack were even close to consciousness.

 

“What?” He flopped onto the couch not noticing the black owl standing on the arm of the couch. He probably wasn't functional himself right now.

 

Zack jumped fearing that Draco would smash it. The owl then turned its head towards Draco's white hair, curious. It wanted to peck at the snow white hair.

 

Nope, he wasn't going to notice that an owl wanted to drill its peek into his head.

 

Zack turned, grabbed the copy of the Prophet, and held it in front of Draco's face. Draco's face went white as he sat up and ripped the paper from Zack's fingers. Zack's owl then flapped its wings and disappeared going up to the shoot towards the surface. Zack's eyes followed his owl's strange behavior.

 

“I'm pretty sure Dumbledore now knows,” said Zack. “August never does that. I'm sorry Draco.”

 

“How in the hell did they find out?” he demanded opening the paper. Rita's picture was in the far upper corner, smiling and blowing out kisses. He was briefly glancing over the article.

 

“I have no idea,” said Zack. “I saw that and freaked out myself.”

 

Harry and Draco now looked at Dumbledore wanting answers. No one really knew on what to say to one another. Dumbledore knew that at least fifty students had already gotten their paper and they would read and reread the top news story over and over again. Lullia had come and went in tears. Before she left he had told her not to worry and that if she needed a few days off then she'd be excused. She simply shook her head and walked out, head down, ashamed.

 

“She already knows, right?” asked Draco.

 

Dumbledore nodded. “Sadly yes. She came to me this morning in tears. I tried to stop as many owls as I could, but some did get through. I know this will be difficult for all three of you, and luckily winter break is in a week. Hopefully this will die down over the break.”

 

“Professor, is Lullia alright?” asked Harry cutting in. He was still leaning on his knees.

 

“She's not seeing anyone nor leaving her room, so hopefully yes. Celina reports to me to every hour or so informing me of her situation. She's gotten better than this morning and I do believe if you visit her then it'll make her feel much better.”

 

 

 

 

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Lullia was sitting on the windowsill in the other room. This room had a better view of the iced covered lake than her own. Her head rested up against the cool glass as she stared off into nothing. She knew this probably wasn't the best thing to do, but what else could she do besides hide?

 

She didn't want to leave her safe place.

 

This was horrible. She heavily sighed seeing Celina appear then disappear once again from an empty painting. Checking up once again. It's not like I'm going to commit suicide or anything! GOD! Lullia didn't dare to read her parents letters, but she did have enough guts to read the newspaper. This Skeeter girl had done a lovely job screwing up the situation than it already was. It sounded like Lullia was a lion trying to pick a deer to eat.

 

She shivered, hopped down, and got into the unused bed. The newspaper laid there facing upward with a few rips in it. She wanted to rip it up, but knew that wouldn't solve anything anyway. She pulled on a few thin blankets up to her neck and somewhat curled up into a ball. She wrapped her arms around her head hugging herself almost.

 

“Um, Lullia,” said Celina's sweet voice.

 

Lullia sat up on an elbow and looked up at her. She was so glad that her room didn't have a frame where Celina could just pop in and check up on her. “Yes?”

 

“Harry Plotter and that rude blond boy are here to see you.”

 

Harry and Draco? “Send them away. I'd rather not see them.”

 

“They said that Dumbledore wants to check up on you.”

 

“Send them away,” she said again and Celina was gone. She didn't return for several minutes then came back again, jaw set. “That blond boy is SO RUDE! I cannot believe that you're actually friends with him!”

 

Oh, God, what did Draco do now? She was now on her back as she gazed up at Celina with her hair spread out. “What did he do or say now?”

 

“He called me an idiot for listening to you and being an lifeless object_ARH! I HATE THAT BOY! He's tempted to rip off my frame and that Plogger kid agreed to him!”

 

Oh shit, she muttered. She had stopped listening to Celina as she jumped up off of the bed, grabbed the paper and went towards the portrait door. The portrait door swung open (apparently Draco's threats had worked) and Draco marched in with Harry, shocked, following behind him. Draco quickly looked over Lullia and relief spread throughout his face with another emotion. Harry caught up to them.

 

“Lullia how are you doing?” asked Harry.

 

She shrugged. “I really don't know anymore. I'm so sorry guys. If I would've known…” She dropped the paper onto the table before the couch and sat down, ashamed.

 

“It's not your fault,” said Draco. “I take it you've read the full article?”

 

She nodded and looked at Harry. “Have you read the full article?”

 

Harry shook his head; Draco rolled his eyes at this. “SORRY. I only read the first few words of the thing! The title and our pictures do give it away.”

 

“Yes, and if you had read it you'd know that someone copied our Marcus letters or sent them in without us noticing, Potter.” Harry's face dropped. “Yes, a fellow Gryffindor went bad and a fellow Slytherin went through my stuff. Potter, close your mouth. You look like an idiot.”

 

Harry shook his head, unbelievable. Who would do this? “How did they know? How could they know!”

 

“They most likely heard someone talking,” muttered Lullia. “It's no one fault really. This was bound to happen.”

 

Draco narrowed his eyes at her. “That's it? Just a simple “this was bound to happen” attitude? That's bullshit and you know it! Someone talked and they leaked it to Miss Bitcha Skeeter.”

 

Harry now glared at him. “Malfoy back off,” he demanded. “Snapping at Lullia won't solve this problem!”

 

Draco and Harry now glared at each other. Death stares going back and forth. “I'm not snapping Potter. I'm bringing her back to reality! It's not like we talked about this freely between passing periods. Wake up! One of our friends had to of told!”

 

Harry shook his head. “I don't believe that for one minute! None of my friends would've told!” he snapped back.

 

“Are you saying that mine did? Because only one knows from the entire Slytherin table! How many damn Gryffindors know, HUH?!”

 

Harry now bit his own tongue. He had told a lot of his friends about the betrothed situation. Hell basically his second family and best girlfriend, but that was it! No one outside of the Weasleys or Hermione knew! Plus how would they know where he kept the Marcus letter. Sure it was in his trunk, but c'mon, that was a million to one shot compared being hidden in an underwear drawer or underneath a pillow.

 

“Oh-don't try to blame this on me Malfoy-”

 

Lullia, frowning, stood up and hissed, “WILL YOU STOP! This isn't helping. It's already published! We can only hope and pray that not too many people received this and that the ones that did always throw theirs away. Besides getting into a pissing fight about which friend told won't help either. It probably wasn't a friend, but a House mate (whatever you call it). So just shut up and calm down!”

 

They looked over at Lullia then at each other. Still glaring at each other they sat on opposite sides of Lullia. Harry looked down at the Daily Prophet with Draco, Lullia and his own photo staring back up at him. Draco wasn't doing much in his photo besides shifting back and forth on the street somewhere in front of antique jewelry store. His father was barely in the background making a business sale of some sort. Lullia's picture was her getting her picture taken for something as she dressed in very fine clothing, smiled her million dollar smile, and her eyes even lit up the black, white, and gray photo. She didn't move around that much except for looking over her shoulder and smiling off at someone. And then there was the famous Harry Potter, the boy who lived. In this picture he was riding his broomstick at a Quidditch match. Surprisingly enough, the photo was very good and you could actually see his entire face.

 

Harry sighed and reread the dreadful headline: POTTER VS. MALFOY: WHO'S GOING TO WIN?

 

“How bad is it?” he muttered.

 

“Bad,” muttered Draco. Lullia simply shrugged and looked up at Draco.

 

Harry started to read Rita Skeeter's article.

 

 

POTTER VS. MALFOY: WHO'S GOING TO WIN?

 

Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy have been known to compete overtime-whether for Quidditch, school, or in this case, a girl. Not just any girl from down the street or at a local pub, but from a great family, Lullia Marcus, daughter of the famous Edan and Rose Marcus. Draco Malfoy is the son of Luis and Narcissa Malfoy, a very rich, pureblooded family. And the last is the Boy Who Lived, Harry Potter, son of the deceased James and Lilly Potter, who also stopped He Who Must Not Be Named.

 

Now according to my sources Mr. Potter and Miss Marcus were first betrothed at birth. Yes, an outdated arranged marriage, but we won't be judging them on anything. Once You Know Who died, it was thought to believed that Mr. Potter had also died with his parents, so the Marcus family decided to betroth young Mr. Malfoy, the second best, and Miss Marcus having no idea what would happen in the very near future.

 

Lullia Marcus who is considered very pretty is now having an adventure at Hogwarts enjoying her time with Mr. Potter and Mr. Malfoy before she picks one to wed. She shares classes and meals with them, as she's force to choose. Who will she choose? The first day at the new school she sat very close and personal with Mr. Malfoy while with Mr. Potter they shared a brief, but passionate kiss. Such a tricky lady. Playing games, aren't we?

 

Both boys have very good credentials for this marriage opportunity. The question is, what is she really looking for? Love, more money, fame, or just a good time at Hogwarts. Let's think about the two candidates for just one moment. Let's start with Mr. Harry Potter. Let's be perfectly honest, whoever does marry Mr. Potter will become somewhat famous since they did marry the Boy Who Lived. Mr. Potter is a young, very good Quidditch player who could either come out as even more famous by playing Quidditch or something entirely different. He could also end up in the gutter. Miss Marcus might not be as famous as Potter, but marrying him will sure make her as famous as him. Now for the second choice, Mr. Draco Malfoy is an heir to a very large estate household with the highest respect for magic, and education, and who also stays out of the spotlight unlike his grandparents and parents. Now let's be honest about Mr. Malfoy, whoever marries him won't even have to think about working for the next hundred to two hundred years. Also, I'll remind everyone, that this Malfoy is always sick and looks sick all the time, so he might not be able to say `I do' at seventeen. Otherwise he's a very bright young wizard. Now does Lullia's family need that extra money to survive? No one is sure on that note.

 

Who will she choose? It's not everyday you get to decide from fame or money to marry into. But of course like I've stated before Miss Marcus doesn't really need either now does she? So her question will be: What does she want more of?

 

 

 

Harry stopped reading and folded it back up. This was bad. Really bad.

 

“Later on in the article she uses direct quotes from my mother,” said Draco. “Luckily my father uses Disappearing Ink or else he'd be censured throughout the entire thing.”

 

“Who would've done this to us?” muttered Harry, thinking. He KNEW no one in his group of friends do anything like that.

 

“Doesn't matter,” said Lullia. “My father will find out for us since that's who he is. He knows that I would never tell, but you two he's not quite sure of. He'll probably threaten Rita Skeeter with her life and she'll tell. Trust me.”

 

“So what now?” asked Harry.

 

“We wait and see how much more popular we become,” answered Lullia resting up against the couch.

 

 

 

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Hey everyone! I would really like it if someone just put a good or bad comment on this because if its bad then I'll change it or something, but if its good I'll keep going with it. Anything will do. Trust me. Well ANYWAYS I hope you all like it where this is going. I wonder how the rest of the day will be for them. Hm. Keep reading!!