Harry rolled his eyes. "So, who else doesn't have a match, or are my options really between just Rabastan and Thorfinn?"
Draco frowned consideringly. "Blaise doesn't have a match, but he's outside of the sacred twenty-eight."
"What, why doesn't Blaise have a match?" Harry asked, this news shocked him a little as he hadn't known. "I've been glaring at him for sleeping with that Ravenclaw."
Draco snorted in amusement. "I know, it has been quite amusing to see you chastising him for so much as looking at another person when he isn't betrothed like the rest of us, but luckily, he sees the funny side of it too. His mother, however, never wanted to limit him in such a way. She wants him to choose his own match."
"Really?" Harry asked in total surprise.
"She was matched by her parents and it was a very bad match. Her husband was cruel and abusive and she had no way to get out of the marriage. She worried constantly about him hurting Blaise as well, she saw no other option. She killed him and covered it up and now she can't trust any man and often gets frightened and ends up killing them too as she's paranoid that they'll kill her and Blaise if she doesn't do so first. She doesn't want that life for Blaise, so she's letting him choose his own spouse, though she has stipulated that they must be pureblooded."
Harry nodded, still a little shell shocked at what he had learnt. It seemed he owed Blaise an apology for glaring and nagging him about going off with his Ravenclaw conquest.
"Amycus Carrow doesn't have a match either, but you really don't want to be matched to him, Harry. He makes Bellatrix look sane and I think he's having a sexual relationship with his own sister, Alecto. They're both odd and very touchy around one another and at one of the social gatherings a few years ago, Alecto got very drunk and kissed her brother full on the mouth. They tried to play it off and laugh it away, but I seriously think that something is going on there between them. Lucan Selwyn is looking for a new spouse too, but he's over seventy years old and already has four children, but, unfortunately for him, they're all girls and all ugly, so he hasn't been able to match them to anyone, even Goyle's family turned one of them down and Selwyn gave them a choice of which one they wanted. He's looking for a new spouse now so that he can try and get a son or, at the very least, a better-looking daughter that he can match up to get heirs to his line. The Selwyn's will be extant only in the female line if he dies without a legitimate male heir. It's every pureblood lord's nightmare to know that you are the last male of your line and you run the risk of making your own name and house extinct." "So, really, those are my only options?" Harry grimaced in distaste.
"Well, you remember Marcus Flint, don't you? He's just thrown his fiancée out on her arse. They were engaged and about to be married in April, I think. Anyway, he caught her in bed with a foreign pureblood who had come to see him on work-related business. The wizard was staying at his manor for the week because Marcus still needed to be at work at the time, so he opened his home to this wizard, let him eat his food, trusted him around his fiancée and he just happened to come home really early one afternoon and he caught them in the act. He beat the wizard almost to death with his fists, then he cursed him to never be able to close his mouth and threw him out of his manor. Then Marcus kept his would-be wife locked up for four days. No one knows what he did to her, but she came out unharmed with no signs of any magical abuse, but Marcus is very happy and she bursts into tears if she so much as sees his picture. As for the wizard, I believe that the healers are still trying to find a counter curse for the one that Marcus cast, the man can't eat or drink anything, has trouble sleeping and breathing and he can't talk. He's getting weaker by the day and father thinks that that is Marcus' real revenge. That man gets to die a slow, painful death knowing that the healers can't help him and that the one person who could perhaps help him, Marcus, isn't going to."
"I'm not sure whether his fiancée deserved whatever he did or not because I'm not entirely sure what he did to her. But if I caught Rabastan in bed with anyone while we were engaged I would not be happy either. It's why I get so angry with Daphne and her ridiculous behaviour and why I was unhappy with Blaise."
"Then Marcus is another potential match for you. He's protective more than he's possessive and he has his own manor house. He actually bought it himself with his own money instead of it being a wedding gift from his parents."
"Really? He was so thick that he had to repeat a year, how did he get his own manor house?"
"He had to repeat a year because he failed in most of his core subjects in his final exams. He is incredibly proficient in Runes, however. As you know, Runes are very difficult to master and jobs that use Runes are very high paying. Marcus was so skilful and talented in Runes that when he surpassed the NEWT level curriculum in his fifth year, he gained the attention of specialists. He was so focused on Runes, that everything else fell to the wayside, so he inevitably failed his last year, but when he actually did graduate a year later, he already had a job waiting for him when he got out and it wasn't an entry-level job either. He went straight in as a specialist and he's been climbing the promotion ranks since." "Wow. He's only been out of Hogwarts for what, a year and a half?"
"Exactly, and he already has his own manor and the title of special consultant. Not to mention he's on a very, very large salary."
Harry laughed. "I think I need to apologise to him for thinking that he was as stupid as Crabbe and Goyle for all these years."
"He does lack a certain amount of intelligence and he is quite stupid when it comes to anything other than Runes, so I doubt any apology is needed. You'll see him at the Parkinson's winter gala tonight."
"Wait, what? What winter fucking gala?" Harry demanded.
Draco rolled his eyes. "This is a season of celebration, Harry. The Parkinson's are hosting the winter gala this year and we are hosting the New Year's Eve party. Father managed to beat the other lords back and claim this honour over everyone else because of you. All the other lords are very curious about you and I think that they worried that if they didn't give father hosting privileges this year then he would stop you from going and they wouldn't get to sate their curiosities by meeting you."
Harry flumped back onto his bed. "Seriously? Two parties in what, a week? Plus Christmas is tomorrow as well."
Draco moved to sit next to him and smirked. "It won't be so bad. The Parkinson's were given hosting privileges before Pansy lost her betrothal match. Usually, such an embarrassment would have the family being completely overlooked for such an honour. It's going to be hilarious to watch them overcompensate tonight for the humiliation while they proposition every wizard who doesn't already have a match to take on Pansy for a wife." "You're very sadistic." Harry told his brother, who grinned at him and pushed him to sit up.
"It's all a part of the culture that I've grown up in. Social standing is everything in these circles, Harry." Draco told him as he summoned a comb from the bathroom and started doing his hair for him. "Nothing comes before our family."
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