This is very nearly too late! I wrote for Max (complicatedness) and my prompt was, "worst Christmas ever".
Initial beta by Haz, but the last 500 words or so are not beta read at all. Sorry!
xXx
Really, she should have expected Christmas to be a right disaster. Her vacation at the end of August had been horrible, after all. Well, some of it anyway.
But with her family as large and, well, nosy as they were, she really should have expected it regardless.
xXx
It all started out with a box of chocolates.
They seemed innocuous enough. They arrived at her flat in a silver box, a green bow on the top. There was no card, of course. She hadn't expected there to be one. She knew who sent them.
She sat on her sofa, trying to guess the flavours before she bit into each one. More often than not, she was pleasantly surprised.
"Mint creme?" she murmured to herself. She was about to take a bite when there was a rather loud knock at her door. Sighing, she dropped the box to the sofa as she stood, and walked to the door. She pulled it open, biting into her chocolate as she did so.
As if expecting mint and getting chili pepper wasn't surprising enough, she also got a surprise visit from Harry.
Yay.
"Oh. . . Harry, what are you doing here?"
It wasn't as if they'd broken up on bad terms; the fire has just burnt out. Him popping up at her door out of nowhere was very unexpected.
"Returning your Wireless. . . You didn't know I was coming, did you?"
She groaned. Of course. Mum.
"Let me guess, my mother is trying to set us up again?" She opened the door farther to let him in, and then closed it behind him.
She finished off her spicy chocolate as she walked towards her kitchen, headed for the cupboards.
"What else?"
What else indeed.
"Ginny. . . Who bought you those chocolates?"
"No one did. I bought them myself," the lie sat uncomfortably on her tongue.
"But aren't these expensive?"
As much as she was loathe to admit it, he had a point. She'd never spend half that on chocolate for her mum, let alone herself.
"If you must know, Harry, I'm in the middle of a particularly bad period and I wanted some bloody chocolate!"
If that didn't shut him up, she didn't know what would.
xXx
Of course, she should have known it would make it back to her mother.
If she had to hear another word about "staying comfortable and dry" during her "special time" from her mother, she might have to skip the holidays entirely.
And if she heard one more word on her "wasteful spending habits" from anyone, she might just snap.
xXx
The morning of Christmas Eve was blustery and cold. Armed with an arsenal of presents, she made her way along the path to her parent's house.
Her oldest niece met her just before the door. Victoire was the oldest at eleven, and the mirror image of her mother.
She was also incredibly and annoyingly perceptive.
"Were you naughty, Auntie? Did someone give you a spank?"
Ginny let out an inhuman squeak and, in her haste to wipe the rest of the flour handprints he'd left on her bum, she managed to spill her presents across the snow.
By the time she got back inside, the little witch had told most of the house about her floury bottom.
Gods, she'd never hear the end of it.
xXx
Of course, her mother was the first to demand she tell whose hands had "lecherously smacked her bum."
It was bad enough that she had eight children under the age of eleven clambering all over her, demanding to open their presents and giggling about buttprints. But dealing with her mother was a whole other story.
"Christmas couldn't end soon enough."
xXx
She made it halfway through supper without answering a single question about the handprints when Angelina innocently asked her if she was still seeing the "hot blond from her beach trip".
Half the table screamed as Ron spat a mouthful of pumpkin juice over them..
"Angelina!" she couldn't help the hiss that escaped her throat.
Chaos, of course, ensued.
xXx
Unfortunately, most of the children were put to bed before the adults began to give Ginny the questioning she really should have gotten several months prior when she came back from her trip.
"Ginevra Molly Weasley, I did not raise you to be some . . . scarlet woman!"
"Mum!"
Ginny wanted to scream in frustration. Her mother seemed to be under the impression that she was a whore, her brothers seemed to think the whole situation was hilarious (sans Ron, who seemed to be reverting to the "overly protective brother" role he'd adopted at Hogwarts.), and her sister in laws were torn between indifference and sympathetic winces. Her father seemed to be taking everything in quiet stride.
"He's the one who gave you five galleons worth of chocolates, isn't he?" Ron asked, biscuit crumbs flying from his mouth like shrapnel.
And, she had to admit, she was frustrated with herself. It was her bloody idea to keep her boyfriend a secret until after the holidays so she could hole up in his flat in London while her family got used to the idea.
"Is he married? Is that why you didn't tell us about him?"
She wasn't expecting the question and certainly wasn't expecting Bill to ask it. She made to respond when she was interrupted.
"He's not married."
Ginny couldn't help the surprise from verbally making itself known when her father answered for her.
"You know about... Draco?"
xXx
Once the explosion of who exactly Ginny was dating began to die down, her father began to explain.
"Couple weeks back now, I had to duck up to let International Relations know a wizard from Hungary was cursing muggle public bathrooms to throw up their contents and that we'd need to do some correspondence with their ministry to sort everything out. I was sent to young Mr. Malfoy's office, where I found my lovely young daughter sitting on his desk waiting for him to take lunch."
"I remember that day! The bathrooms at Parliament-" Ginny started.
Her father continued, "After that, I started attending more of those fancy meetings at the Ministry, just trying to figure the two of you out. Didn't take terribly long, both of you were fairly obvious. Especially when Malfoy got nervous and confessed everything in my office last Friday."
The entire lot of them were silent, Ginny included. But it didn't last very long before someone opened their mouth.
"And you're fine with her and Malfoy?" Ron asked. Ginny reached for her wand, entirely prepared to blast him with a bat bogey or two.
"Ginny's a bit stubborn, Ronniekins. Good luck, now that she knows you're against it." George interrupted.
xXx
The following morning was full of noise. Breakfast was loud, excited voices screaming for to open gifts. Her brothers' children greedily opened their presents immediately after, the crunch of wrapping paper echoing throughout the room.
Given the looks she kept getting, she suspected it would be louder if her father didn't warn her mother off.
It wasn't necessarily an uncomfortable Christmas morning; she'd expected it to be hellish after the events of last night.
But for the most part, she just missed Draco.
xXx
After lunch, she headed out. Though the festivities would continue through to Boxing Day, she needed a break.
Her father assured her that he would make excuses for her, and for that she was incredibly grateful.
-
Draco was waiting for her by the time she reached his flat. He didn't look at all surprised to see her, and she wondered if Ron had left for a while the night before to confront him.
"I told them about us last night. Certainly not the way I had intended to. But they know. My father was already okay with it-thank you for that surprise by the by." Ginny said softly, looking up at his face.
He smirked.
"Why do you think I asked you to teach me to make breakfast yesterday?"
"You set me up to tell them early, didn't you?" She accused him. He didn't look fazed.
"It was your father's idea."
Before she could even think, let alone say anything, he kissed her soundly.
It didn't take long before the tumbled into his bedroom, kissing fiercely and wanting for more.
xXx
So maybe it wasn't the worst Christmas ever after all.