"Yeah," Ben agreed wearily. "There is that. At least they're not the 'try to kill you, then end up in Azkaban and kill themselves' type of parents. They're more the 'use our connections to make your life a living hell' types. You know," he said sarcastically, "A la Canada."

He supposed Art did have a bit of a point, though. Between her parents and her fiancee, there had been several possible candidates for wealthy purebloods poised to go absolutely batshit insane. He very well could have ended up dead or maimed, or Melody could have. This, at least, was survivable. Most likely.

"Hey," he said, abruptly shifting the subject. "I need you to tell me what you know about preventing pregnancies."

Even without the context of what had happened in the past two months, Ben thought it probably went without saying that the last thing either of them needed at the moment was a baby. And while he hadn't been with Melody in that sense since their wedding night, he didn't really expect that to go on indefinitely.

Or maybe he did? He wasn't sure — he certainly had no immediate plans to proposition her with sex.

Well, at the very least, it would be keeping up appearances on the whole madly in love thing.