And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make

Vena looked up at the Mannor, it was amazing. Though at the same time not a place that she would have liked to live at. But then Vena didn't really need much more then was really needed. "It's..wow," She said looking around the garden. It really was quite nice, a bit excessive maybe, but beautiful. She smiled semi amused as a peacock walked past. "Peacocks?" She asked with a raised eyebrow. "Don't most people generally have dogs for pets? Peacocks?" She laughed quietly. Feeling suddenly nervous at being at the place where Scor had spent the beginning of his life.

Scorpius blushed. Leave it to Vena to tease the place instead of being stopped in her tracks by it. He was sure, then, more than he ever had been, that he had picked the one unique girl in the world. "They're a tradition. I nearly had my eyes pecked out several times as a child. Eris has been trying to convince the family to get rid of them and just cast illusions of them." Sticking out his hand, he brushed a corporeal feather and grinned. "She's not winning, I see." Pulling Vena along behind him, he stepped out of the clover patch and onto the granite walkway that led towards the ornate double doors that served as the guest entrance. "We should ring the bell. I mean, she'll already know we're here, with the wards and all, but it's polite." He stepped up and smiled faintly again as he saw that they had never replaced the old silver bell that was magically tied to the one inside. It was another one of Eris's peeves that they didn't have a Muggle-type doorbell, but if there was one thing the Malfoys would never give on, it was that everything here would be strictly magical. He rang the bell twice and waited quietly at the door, trying hard not to think too much about what could go wrong.

"Peacocks," Vena muttered again shaking her head in disbelief. She followed Scor up the path and towards the doors of the Manor, she decided she had mixed thoughts about the place. She liked it but at the same time she didn't, it was just too grand but then it was Malfoy Manor and it would be weird if it wasn't grand. Scor rung the door bell ad the two of them waited for someone to open the door. That someone would hopefully be Eris, as if it was somehow other then Eris there would probably be disaster before they walked through the doors.

Scor relaxed immediately as he heard a clicking sound that was obviously coming from the foyer and closer to them. Clicking meant high heels which meant it was Eris or Astoria, and either of those would be much easier to deal with than Draco. The door flung itself open in a flurry of magic and there under a halo of platinum hair was his sister. "Eris, thank Merlin. Is he here?" he asked reflexively.

Eris made a noncommital noise and shrugged, unable to look away from Vena. "You brought her here?" she asked incredulously. If this were their school days, Scor would think she was being mean, but now it made much more sense as the Manor was not exactly a safe place for a Riddle. Cautiously, she clicked backwards a few steps and pushed the door further open. "You better get inside."

Nodding, Scor took the lead and walked in past his sister, not surprised to see that the foyer was decorated as it always had been, the same boring stuffy old Pureblood symbols and standards. "How about the tea room?" he asked quickly, knowing that they would be safer in the east wing where Draco never wandered. Eris raised a finger to her lips and shook her head in agreement, leading them through the entrance room and to the stairs. They took them two at a time and Scor wondered if Vena was getting a proper look at her surroundings when they were moving so fast. Finally, they reached the tea room at the end of the first hall on the second floor. "So he is here," Scor said as they closed the door behind them. There was plastic on the furniture covered by a thin layer of dust. Apparently even the house elves didn't come here anymore.

"Of course he is, where else would he be? He's done in the second wine cellar, I think. It's nice to see you, Vena." Eris smiled and plopped down on one of the lacy couches, making a loud squeak on the plastic.

Vena watched as Scor and Eris talked, by the way Eris acted it was obvious that Draco was somewhere in the house. But the place was so large you could stand on one side, shout as loud as possible and someone on the other side wouldn't be able to hear it at all. She and Scor followed Eris through the house, Vena glancing around her every few feet, taking in the surrondings. She wondered if she'd think any different of the place if they hadn't just been at Hogwarts, Hogwarts was so amazing it made anything and everything look simplier.

They entered the tea room, and Vena glanced about it. The furniture was covered in plastic and dust. The three of them sat down, Vena sitting cross legged on one of the chairs. She smiled slightly, at the mention of Draco being in a wine cellar. "Hello Eris," She said nodding at the girl. The two were on much better terms then they had been years ago and could actually hold a civil conversation now. "Nice to see you too. How have you been?"

Eris shrugged. "It's been as good as it gets around here. Father stays out of the way, mostly. Aunt Pansy has been over a lot," she mentioned, shaking her head. "I've been out of the house, mostly. You're lucky you caught me here, normally I'd be out."

"With James?" Scor asked hopefully. Scor had watched Eris change over the past few years during their frequent meetings, and he truly believed that it was due to James's presence.

Eris's whole face changed when her boyfriend's name was mentioned, opening up and seeming much more natural. "Of course. We even spend time with his family. I never knew that people could love their parents like that, Scor. They're so normal."

Smiling sadly, Scor nodded. Family was another thing that he still hadn't had a chance to truly understand. But soon, Vena would be his family, and that triggered him towards what their visit was actually for. "We've got some news for you," he noted hesitantly, wondering if Vena would prefer to tell. He knew that girls were supposedly more excited about weddings and such. He glanced over at his fiancee expectantly.

"Oh?" Eris asked, perking up. She crossed her legs and leaned forward, one sharp elbow resting on her knee. That was one thing that would never change; Eris was sharp and angular like all Malfoys, no matter how much her personality had softened.

Vena didn't say anything as Scor inquired about whether his sister was with James. Vena hardly even remembered James that much anymore, she'd never payed attention to him through school and hadn't seen him since they'd left. So that wasn't really that surprising.

It was weird, talking about families. That was one thing Vena and Scor had in common, in a way neither of them had had a true family. Sure Scor had people he had called Mother and Father, they had been blood relatives, but not really family. But in a way, that's how the Malfoy family seemed to roll. Well before the current genorations of Malfoys, who were so different to their predecessors.

Vena caught the look that Scor gave her, and smiled at him. She supposed she could break the news, and in a way she wanted to anyway. Though, she just had no idea how to say it. With others they had mostly just noticed the ring. Vena was somewhat surprised Eris hadn't noticed it yet, it was a giant give a way.

"Well," She said running her hand through her hair. (the one without the ring on it) she smiled again, glancing sideways at Scor. In the end she decided that just saying it straight out was the best way. And less time consuming. "We're getting married."

Scor watched carefully for his sister's reactions. For all the changes she had made, she still showed signs of her early training, the ways of the Purebloods. She blinked once, hard, and her breath came even and very slowly. "Oh," she uttered, glancing to Vena's hand and blinking once more at the size and beauty of it. She looked up into her brother's face and there, the image snapped. Her face broke open with a smile that conveyed a sincere congratulations. "I'm so glad you came to tell me! There has to be a wedding shower, and those parties that they always give before the wedding, and-"

Scor laughed at his sister's sudden feminine outburst. It was apparently another effect of James's presence that she had been converted over from simply fussy to full-on girly. He expected that she would now squeal at the same mice that they used to feed to their pet snake when they were small. "I hadn't thought of any of that," he admitted, shrugging. "I guess you were the right person to come to."

"Of course I am. Who better to design than the ultimate fashion diva?" she asked, gesturing to her elegant outfit and heels that she had been wearing around the house. Her glance shifted to Vena. "Do you have colors picked out yet? Or a dress? What about a location?"

Vena was somewhat amused at Eris' outburst at the before wedding bits and peices, like Scor she hadn't even thought about that. She was too busy thinking about the actual wedding itself, and working out what they needed to do. "We have a location," Vena said with a nod as Eris' gaze turned to her and she was asked a bunch of questions. "Which was where we just were as we were making sure that it was fine. We're going to have it at Hogwarts," She shrugged slightly. "It's fitting. But I havn't actually thought of colours or a dress yet." She tried to picture how she wanted the dress in her mind, but failed. Though she did want the dress a colour that wasn't white. Maybe a dark green or something like that.

Scor smiled at Vena's ability to dodge all of the questions except for the one she had an answer for. Eris, however, frowned. "What a random place to get married," she muttered. "I could have gotten you into the Grosvenor or the Great Northern. Or you could have gotten married right here in the garden like we had pl...." She trailed off in realization. "Oh. Come to think of it, a lot of people would love to be married at Hogwarts," she quickly said, covering her earlier disdain. Shaking his head, Scor wondered if Eris would ever lose all of her aristocratic taste. He didn't want to be married at some hotel, and he certainly wouldn't be getting married on Malfoy property.

"Hogwarts is really the only place that we thought fit us." He paused and remembered the conversation they'd just been having, which had faded the moment they'd found themselves on the Manor's grounds. "Also....do you still know Leonard? The one with the Pools?"

Eris nodded placidly. "Of course. Father hates that I associate with 'radicals' but it's worth it. He has excellent hair potions and he made me that Undetectable Bracelet that I used when I first started leaving the house to see James." She lifted her arm to show the jewelry that remained, although the charm had been removed when she no longer cared about being undetectable. She froze mid-motion, though, as the door of the tea room was flung open.

Scor silently cursed the floors on the upper halls that kept sound from echoing. Their voices, though, traveling through the air and the uncharmed door, were perfectly audible, and Draco Malfoy had followed the sound right to the source.

"What," he asked, brow furrowed slightly, "is this?"

Vena rolled her eyes slightly at Eris, going on about places where they could be married. She wasn't going to get married at some place she had never been before. And Hogwarts was fitting, Vena and Scor had already dicussed that. She listened rather boredly at Eris talked about the hair or whatever it was product and showed them her bracelet.

Vena tensed at Eris froze and the door was flung open, thought she relaxed herself and turned to face the door. She looked at Draco for a breif moment and then turned back to Scor and Eris who still looked frozen in place. Vena wondered what was going to happen next, if Draco was going to have some sort of fit over it or try and get whatever message he had across calmly.

Eris dropped her arm and attempted to smile at her father. "Nothing, Father. Just a small get-together. We were just going to go out," she said, gesturing at her dressy outfit as supposed proof. She wasn't very convincing as she'd never been too good at lying to him, but he was a little unsteady on his feet, hopefully meaning that there was enough wine in his system for him to believe.

Scor, whose back was to the door, cursed himself for ignoring lessons on glamour charms. It would have been so convenient to be able to change his hair and face for a moment, just to get them out safely. Vena, he wouldn't recognize, as she didn't share Tom's looks at all. As it was, though, he couldn't avoid facing his ex-father. He stood and turned, face set in the cold, haughty mask that he had observed and learned throughout childhood. "Yes, we were just going. We know the difference between welcome and unwelcome."

Draco blinked, hard, and then began to laugh. The arm that had still been wrapped out of sight behind the door's frame fell into the room, holding a bottle of Andalusia's finest, no doubt at least 50 years old. "This," he said as clearly as he could, "is a dream. How dreadful." He hiccuped and his glazed eyes slipped from his former son and heir to Vena, tense and silent. "And that...is not one of my children." He shrugged and traipsed into the room. He seemed to have exhausted the last dregs of his sobriety in his words of greeting, because now his gait was reckless.

"Maybe...maybe we should go," Eris noted, watching as her father made a fool of himself.

Vena raised an eyebrow at Draco as he entered the room in a rather careless manner, nearly stumbling and falling a few times. It wasn't what one would say the best first impression of Draco Malfoy, but considering what he was like when he wasn't drunk it was probably in some ways a better way to see him. Though Vena would have liked to see what he was like when he was sober, just to try and see what it would have been like growing up around him and to see what his reaction to her would be like if he actually realized that it was her.

But Vena thought that this Draco that was stumbling around the room was slightly pathetic. Or well. More then slightly. She was actually somewhat amused at it though. "alright," She said with an amused smile glancing back at Scor and Eris. She shrugged at Eris as she said that maybe they should go. "I guess so, we've done what we came here to do." Absent mindedly she twisted the ring around her finger before she noticed what she was doing. Which was odd, as she generally spun her wand about her hand.

Scor, mildly entranced by the man who used to be his father in a state that he'd never seen him before, felt rather unsatisfied. He had come here to see his sister over a happy announcement, and rather than even come in with enough dignity to disapprove, he enters stage left with a belly full of wine. Disgusted, Scor stood and walked across the room, wand in hand. "Siccus," he muttered, rapping his father in the head with the wand quite a bit harder than was required. Draco stumbled back into the wall and began to cough up a purple smoke. With the last few tendrils, his eyes became bright and sharp and he focused immediately on the man before him.

"What are you doing in my house?" he asked, gesturing to the room. "This is Malfoy property, and I see no reason why I would give you permission to just traipse in."

Scor snorted. "You would've let anyone in with the amount of alcohol you've had today. And in case you had forgotten, your daughter is a Malfoy." He nodded his head in the general direction of the girls before he realized that a glance towards Eris was also a glance towards Vena.

"Oh my," Draco muttered to himself, sounding for the world exactly like his father, Lucius. "What do we have here?" Sneering, he took Scorpius's chair and locked his gaze onto Vena. His sneer bled into an icy smile and he extended a hand to shake hers. "Miss Riddle, I presume?"

Vena smirked somewhat at Draco, "Mr. Malfoy," She said her tone showing a slight hint of disconcern for who the man was. Though whether that was acting or what she was actually thinking Vena had no clue. Though she didn't care who he was, this would probably be the only time Vena would ever see him so all in all it didn't really matter. She shook his hand, and then both their hands dropped the two of them looking at each other. Vena wondered what Scor and Eris were thinking, they'd probably be waiting for the encounter to burst into flames.

Draco's lip curled in distaste as he observed his son's girlfriend. "To what do I owe this....pleasure?" he asked, the sarcasm dripping from his words.

Eris's eyes bulged at the question, and she let only her eyes wander to Scor, trying to signal him that he should stop the encounter before anything too dangerous was said. Scorpius, though, shrugged at her, as if to say that they should let things play out as they would.

"We came to visit your daughter," Vena told him indicating with that fact that that it really was none of his business. Though Vena could just tell that he would demand to know, Draco seemed to type to want to know everything about everything. "Family business," She said with a careless shrug making a slight jab at the fact that Scor had disowned himself from the family, but still considered himself family with Eris, just not anyone else in it. She was somewhat amused at Scor's shrug at Eris, telling her that they might as well see how it turns out, Eris however looked like letting them was a stupid and disastrous idea.

Draco's ice-sharp eyes flicked towards his daughter with contempt. "That's funny. I seem to be under the impression that my wife and myself are my daughter's only immediate family." He let his eyes fall once again on Vena. "Certainly, we've never bred any brunettes in the Malfoy line."

Scor smirked and decided that even if he was going to let this go naturally, he could still put his two cents in. "Eris has more family than you know," he noted, disgusted with the way his former father refused to turn and look at him while he spoke. Eris herself seemed to resign herself to weathering through this situation. She let her eyes flutter closed and sank deeper into the couch cushion, not willing to risk her own safety by getting involved.

Draco lifted one pale eyebrow at the girl. "What business do you have with my family, exactly?"

Vena smirked at him, pondering whether to tell him or not. It was none of his business, but then again his reaction would probably be quite amusing, as Draco didn't seem the type who would take it very well, if he was anything like how he had been when they were at school. Threatening to ship Scor off to Durmstrang if he continued hanging out with her. "I'll give you three guesses," She said purposely running her left hand through her hair, showing the ring on her finger. "And the first two don't count." She smirked at him, waiting to see if he got it.

Scor brought his palm slowly to his forehead, wary of doing it too fast. He had learned all too well that no matter how frustrated he was, it was not worth the pain of smacking himself in the face. He loved Vena, he really did, but sometimes the things she said and did just begged for trouble. He had expected a confrontation, but nothing on the scale of dealing with their engagement in front of Draco.

The patriarch of the Malfoy family pressed his lips together tightly, looking as if he was trying for all the world to keep his jaw from dropping. He took a moment to recover from the glitter of emerald he'd seen on the ring finger of this unworthy girl. "Congratulations," he said finally, with a bitter tone to his voice. "It must be so exciting, the prospect of marrying a man with no money, no name, and no family. Positively thrilling." His face was hard but he looked a bit green, as if somewhere, deep down, the thought was making him sick.

Vena looked at him with an eyebrow raised. "As foolish as it may seem to you Mr. Malfoy, I plan of marrying for love not money and power. Besides, In case you haven't noticed I neither have money nor family. And anyway, as I doubt you've forgotten the reason you no longer have a son is because of me." She looked at him, her eyes darkening. "I fell in love with him, not his money." Vena looked at Draco, he probably found the reason of marrying for love and not power impossible to comprehend, but he needed to realise that money and power weren't everything, though she somehow doubted he ever would.

Scor was caught between being bursting with pride that this fierce girl loved him so much and being absolutely mortified to watch this conversation. He supposed that it had certainly been the right thing to do, after all, to leave his family, since this would have been a regular occurrence had he tried to stay with Vena and still be a Malfoy. The things his fiancee said made sense to him, but of course his cold ex-father wouldn't understand the concept.

Draco caught his breath and paused for a second, as if he was fighting himself over what to say. He flexed his right hand reflexively, as if he wished were holding a bottle there to console him. "Despite what you may believe, you impertinent young little thing, a Malfoy does understand love. We do learn, however, that those older and wiser than us usually know better. The two of you may be dashing to the altar now, but you will never even be the same kind of person. You've nothing in common. He was raised in palaces in Paris and castles in Spain; he will come back to us, someday. He is not, and will never be, like you." Standing, he stuck out his hand again. "I'll be amused to see how long it takes, and how much trouble you find on the way." His eyes were drawn to the door as he waited for Vena to shake his hand goodbye.

"We'll see about that Mr. Malfoy," Vena said eyebrow raised looking at him. Thinking that he was one of the most idiotic people Vena had ever met. He didn't seem to grasp the concept that just because he son had been a Malfoy, didn't mean that he was a Malfoy and would never love. "And I'll, be amused to see just how long you wait until figuring out that this won't backfire in our faces." She fought the urge to twirl her wand about in her hand. "Just because he was your son doesn't mean he's you." She held out her hand and shook his courteously. "Pleasure to meet you Mr. Malfoy," She said her tone full of sarcasm.

"And a delight meeting you as well," Draco drawled. Standing, he swept from the room, pausing at the door. "Don't think you'll get them through the wards again, daugter." With that he disappeared down the hallway.

Despite the warning, Eris's whole body visibly relaxed as her father left the room. "Did we really have to do that, Scorpius? He's pleasant when he's drunk, at least."

Scor shrugged and took a seat again. "I figured he deserved to know, somehow. Wouldn't you say so, Vena?"

Vena sat back down once Draco had left the room. "I personally found that somewhat amusing," She said, twirling her wand about in her hand. Most of the time she no longer noticed that she did it, it had became a reflex habit. She nodded slightly at Scor. "And yes he should know, I am actually somewhat glad we bumped into him. I wanted to see what he was like and how he would react around me." She shrugged lightly.