~ Wizard Sweets ~
(Savory)

Walburga could have opted out of the family Christmas party this year with impunity. Instead she has chosen to attend. Were her other option for holiday socialization not an invitation to dinner at Malfoy Manor, she would have avoided the party as well and consequences be damned. However, she was certain that the Malfoy matriarch was shopping for a new wife for Abraxas, and Walburga did not fancy spending the next sixteen years of her life being Mrs. Malfoy in name only while her only true function in the marriage would be as a surrogate mother to Lucius. And who knew what her situation would be like once the boy was of age and out of the house... Abraxas was - and very likely still is - very much in love with his wife. Walburga doesn't fancy spending the rest of her life as his unwanted and unloved second wife, with no children of her own to raise.

She quickly tires of her female relatives subtly inquiring about her love life and not-so-subtly inquiring about her recent weight gain (which is due entirely to her recent intense affair with Honeyduke's Finest Chocolate, and certainly not due to a pregnancy, as she has not been with anyone in that manner since before her late husband passed away.)

She slips away from the party to her father's private study, where she has a clandestine meeting with the other love of her life - a romance novel. After only half an hour of peacefully enjoying her book, she is interrupted.

Orion's expression is stormy as he enters the room but clears once he catches sight of her.

"I thought I'd find you here," he says.

"Was someone looking for me?" she asks with a frown.

"Just me," he replies, the beginnings of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

She sighs and sets the book aside.

"And what do you want?"

Undeterred by her grumpy attitude, he approaches the chair upon which she is perched.

"Merry Christmas," he says, producing a small gift-wrapped box from somewhere in the folds of his dress robes.

"I didn't get you anything."

Her words elicit a dry chuckle from him.

"I know something you can give me," he says, as she opens her present.

Inside the box is a single blood-flavored lollipop, which reminds her of their first-

He leans down and kisses her before she can finish the thought.

~9/9~

A/N: And that concludes this particular saga.