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"What's her name again?" Dad asks.
He's wearing his favourite floral apron, which is speckled with patches of flour.
Honestly he's never looked less like a Slytherin in his life.
From where she sits at the kitchen table Marlene watches her Dad wave his wand over the top of the pie he's been making for the last half an hour.
"I thought we weren't supposed to be using our wands?" Rory grumbles, over the top of the pile contraband books in his arms.
Things that Muggles must not see.
"Nancy. She's a lovely Muggle Model called Nancy, Pa." Denis corrects Dad for what feels like the tenth time that evening.
"So, why do I think he name is Sandy, I've never met a Sandy." Dad replies.
Marlene watches as a spell emanates from the tip of his wand and turns the pie crust from pale to golden brown, and the kitchen is filled with the smell of cooked pastry.
Marlene can't wait for a time when she can do real magic outside of school.
"Not Sandy, it's Nancy, Dad." Denis corrects him again.
"Where do you want these?" Rory asks, the pile of books in his hands having grown since the last time Marlene looked at him.
"Yes, I know I was just,"
Dad doesn't get to finish his sentence because the pile of books that had looked so precarious in her brother Rory's grasp, suddenly topples to the floor sending up a cloud of dust.
"Help your brother, please."
Marlene had been rather hoping to sit at the table invisible and not be asked to move or help, but Dad's hound-dog entreaty makes her feel guilty.
She stirs her limbs pulling herself up and out of the kitchen chair, to walk listlessly towards Rory, who is already on his knees collecting up the family tomes.
She's just on the point of bending down to pick up one of the books when the inglenook fireplace suddenly bursts into life with a flash of emerald green.
Mum appears a moment later brushing down her travelling cloak.
"Hello darling, how were things at work?"
"I sent Rita off to write an article on Elphias Doge's collection of unicorn horns, so expect that on page 110 of tomorrow's Daily Prophet."
Dad steps forward to take Mum's cloak, and Marlene quickly looks away because she knows that her parents are about to kiss, because that's what they always do upon seeing each other.
At their advanced age Marlene thinks they should have more restraint.
"Break up you two." Denis chuckles.
Marlene judges thar it's safe to look back at her parents now, and she turns back to watch Mum biting into one of Dad's perfectly hand chopped carrots.
"What time is Sandy getting here?" Mum asks mid crunch.
"Her name's actually Nancy, and any minute now."
"Why do I think she's called Sandy?" Mum frowns.
Nancy Smythe let's her boyfriend Alfie McKinnon lead her up the garden path towards his parents home.
The house looks as if it was a farm at one point, and the garden at the front is overgrown, but the odd thing that strikes Nancy is how much she doesn't want to look at it.
How her eye keeps moving from the building she knows is standing right in front of her.
She's never known anything like it, and yet, and yet it doesn't surprise her, it's just another thing that is a little bit off about her boyfriend.
"Don't be nervous, I know they're going to love you."
Alfie tells her and she hopes he'll follow it up with, as much as I do, but he doesn't.
She doesn't want to be the one to crack, but after eight months she's started to wonder if he'll ever say it.
Technically they've been going out for eight months, but in reality due to her busy schedule and whatever Alfie does, they've only consistently been in the same room for about 3 of those months.
The question of what Alfie does for a living has also started to bother her.
She knows its something sporting related, but whenever she presses him the nature of said sport, it changes.
She's started to wonder if Alfie is in fact a drug dealer, she's reached this conclusion because she'd met him at one of his brother Denis wonderful parties in London, and as everyone knows Denis' parties are filled with the most glorious drugs that make you see the most wonderful things.
Alfie is slightly against the stereotype of your usual drug dealer, for instance he's not a middle aged woman passing around bags of cocaine under the guise of a tupperware party, but still...
The door opens and they're greeted by the sight of what Nancy assumes to be Alfie's younger sister and his Father, who is wearing an identical apron to the one her Mother has at home.
She's struck immediately by the family resemblance between Alfie, his Father and his sister, they all have the same dark eyes and dark hair.
"Lovely to meet you Sandy, I'm Derek."
Sandy? Who on Earth is Sandy?
Nancy sees the dark glance that Alfie's sister gives their Father.
"Dad," She hears the tone in Alfie's voice.
", this is Nancy," There's a pointed edge to the way he says her name.
"Yes, no, no, yes I know that, Nancy of course. Such a lovely name, so much nicer than Sandy."
The young girl's glare darkens as she practically growls at her Father to "let them come in Dad".
"Of course, of course."
Derek steps out of the way and Nancy makes her way over the threshold into Alfie's family home.
She glances at him for reasurance and he beams back at her with that far too handsome smile of his.
If he ever gets fed up of drug dealing, Nancy's sure that her agent would jump at the chance to have him as a client.
"I'm Marlene." Alfie's sister says at her elbow.
"That's a lovely name."
Nancy responds back in what feels like a slightly patronising way because she's never sure how to talk to children.
Marlene doesn't seem to notice, but stares up into her face with, what she takes to be an adoring smile.
She hears the door close behind her and assumes it must be Alfie, but when she turns to look he's still standing next to her.
She sees Derek slide what seems to be a large stick up the right sleeve of his jumper.
"I,"
"Alright Nance, still hanging around with this prat I see."
Denis appears and sweeps her literally up into his arms.
He smells like the inside of a pub, of stale citrate and beer.
As he hugs her she finds it hard to believe that this ebullient young man is engaged to the decidedly odd Petronella Fife-Gibson.
What a small world it is that so many years after Petronella had left primary school under 'mysterious circumstances' that she should meet her so many years later at an utterly random flat party.
It was generally considered by the entire female body of Polidori's School for Girls that Petronella was either a kleptomaniac, with things always disappearing around her, or a pyromaniac, or both.
As Denis lowers her to the ground she wonders if he knows about his fiancé odd past.
She also hopes that given Petronella's checkered past she never finds out about those twenty minutes she spent with Denis in a cupboard one evening.
For that matter she hopes Denis hasn't mentioned anything to Alifie.
Without meaning to she blushes as she says "it's nice to see you".
"This is my Mum and my other brother, Rory."
Alfie says as he tugs her gently back to his side and away from Denis, who gives her a cheeky wink.
She's still smiling when she turns to see Alfie's Mother and brother.
Alfie gets his wonderful bone structure from his Mother, who is still attractive for her age, if slightly oddly dressed, wearing a long black cloak in the height of the summer.
Nancy recognises the bespectacled, miserable looking boy next to her, she'd walked in on him and a shorter blonde boy frantically kissing in Denis' bathroom, and unsure of what else to do she'd apologised and simply turned off the light and closed the door.
Working in the fashion industry she's no stranger to homosexuality, but she had been surprised by how young both boys had been.
If he recalls the moment it doesn't show.
"Nancy," Alfie's Mum makes a point of not calling her Sandy.
", Alfie has told us so much about you."
Nancy finds herself being embraced by another Mckinnon, this time Alfie's Mother.
"Call me Kate." She says in a soft Irish lilt.
"Who wants an aperitif before dinner, I'm on cocktail duty." Denis says with another cheeky wink.
With Kate's arm around her neck, Nancy feels herself begin to settle into a night with The McKinnons.