Dinner hadn´t even started yet, and people were already giving him suspicious glances and raised eyebrows. Wonderful.

Not that Gwydion minded the occasional suspicious glance, nor a raised eyebrow now and then. He was used to them, even expected them at times. They were preferable to fake smiles and false compliments, after all.

"Oh do shut up, Gwyn. Keep up your cheek & I'll make you eat in damp cellars.”

Which was one of the things he loved about Gabie. Hypocrisy and Gabie didn´t mix well, and she wasn´t afraid to give as good as she got. Gwydion made a gesture as if zipping his mouth shut (an awfully muggle thing to do, he realized belatedly), then made to throw away the key, and, stopping midway through the motion, seemed to reconsider; he took Gabie´s hand into his own and mimicked putting the fictitious key on the palm of her hand, finally closing her fingers around it.

The wide grin on his lips – pressed closely together – indicated that he was enjoying himself. And he was; he was well aware that the two other men would roll their eyes at his clowning about (if not openly, then inwardly), but he had decided that he didn´t care. Kabir he wasn´t sure about, though the man´s expression had been very guarded when looking at Gwydion just now, but Vlad had made up his mind about him and wouldn´t be convinced to cut him some slack, no matter to what lengths Gwydion went to prove that he was a decent chap. Their definitions of a decent chap were just too far apart: Gwydion´s went along the lines of Live and Let Live, while Vlad´s probably included tailored shoes, monogrammed cufflinks and a mahogany desk in your own office at the Ministry for Magic. And, most notably, a clear record with said Ministry. No, hell would freeze over before Gwyn nearly resembled Vlad´s idea of a perfect son-in-law.

And of course, that wasn´t an issue at the moment, anyway. Marriage wasn´t on Gwydion´s agenda for the next, say, ten years or so. One could always change his mind, he supposed, but it was unlikely that Gabie would want to give up her Ministry job to follow him around the world, or that she would be satisfied to be stuck in one place while he came and went as he pleased, staying away for months on end sometimes. In any case, such thoughts were rather dangerous considering that he hadn´t even had a proper date with Gabie yet ever since his return… unless one considered this dinner with her father and friend a date. Which Gwydion did not.

Following Gabie to the festively set table, Gwydion waited to be assigned a seat and, when they were all seated, turned to Kabir with a friendly smile. He´d rather make conversation with the unknown quantity that was Kabir Ahmed than be forced to endure Vlad´s idea of dinner talk with the-tramp-my-daughter-brought-home.

“So, Mr. Ahmed, what do you say about all this Runespoor business? I have to admit, I´ve been away for quite a while, haven´t caught up on all the news yet… apparently they´re smuggled in alive, right? I wonder how they do it…”

All he was trying to do was to make some light conversation, really. Gwydion had no idea that he might be confirming all of Kabir´s suspicions by his random choice of topic.