Disclaimer: All things Harry Potter do not belong to me, nor am I getting filthy rich off them.
Warnings: A bit of blood?
Of Fools and Kings and Frozen Things
He brushed her blazing red hair over one shoulder, his breath moist against her ear. "This has been passed down to generations of Malfoy wives on their wedding day," he breathed.
His hands on either side of her neck, she felt a slight weight settle below her collarbone.
Ginny stared numbly at her reflection in the mirror of their honeymoon suite as his hands came to a rest on her bare shoulders. She looked washed out, pale, still trapped in her white gown.
The dainty pendant sparkled from her décolletage, looking for all the world like it had been made for her dress, with its intricate floral beading. Or rather, she supposed her dress had been made for the pendant if he had been intending to give it to her all along. It was no wonder Narcissa had been so pushy during the designing process.
At first glance, the pendant looked simple enough. A small rose the size of a galleon, simply cut from some clear gem or glad, hung from a thin silver chain.
At second glance, it looked anything but. The chain alone shone too brightly to be mere silver. No, platinum might be more fitting for a Malfoy antique. The links too fine, twisted intricately together, to have been forged by human hands.
She raised her left hand, running a finger down the threadlike chain, watching as it shifted on her skin.
His silk fine hair brushed her jaw as he bent his head to kiss the place where her neck and shoulder met.
"Goblin made," he remarked idly as he watched her hand travel lower to the pendant itself, eyes greedily drinking in the view this angle provided him.
"A variety of spells forged into it too." His hands started their own journey from her shoulders.
"Detections charms for most poisons." They slowly slid down her shoulder blades.
"A shield against minor hexes." They brushed the side of her charmeuse clad breasts.
"A tracking charm." They came to a stop at her waist.
"Ah, but the pendant." His grip on her waist tightened. "That's the real masterpiece."
Her finger hung over the pendant, hesitant to touch it. It was as if it had been smoothly and flawlessly carved from a single block of ice. Some of the petal edges looked sharp enough to cut. Cold and sharp, like the Malfoys.
Cold sharp beauty, cold sharp tongues, cold sharp hearts. It was a fitting heirloom.
"It was cut from a single diamond," his eyes caught hers in their reflection. "Mined by the dwarf kings of centuries ago in what is now the Siberian tundra."
With a quick motion he grasped her left hand in his and savagely pressed their entwined fingers against the rose.
Ginny sucked in a startled breath and held back a wince at the sharp pain radiating from her fingers. The petals sliced their soft skin easily.
Draco only held their hands to the rose for a moment before drawing them away. The crimson edged petals looked almost obscene, the blood too hot, too alive for something so frigidly beautiful.
"Look," he murmured almost reverently as their hands hovered inches from the rose.
She looked. The blood was spreading across the petals now, and as it spread she could see the rose was not as smooth as it had first appeared.
Their mingled blood ran down thin lines running in a maze over the surface of the icy flower.
"Runes," Draco supplied. The cuts on their fingers were still bleeding freely, staining the starched white cuff of his dress robes. A rivulet of blood was inching its way down Ginny's freckled arm to a sheer lacy sleeve.
She had never taken Ancient Runes at Hogwarts and doubted she would have been able to make out the miniscule writing even if she had.
"For what?" she rasped out, her whisper dry and cracked.
"For a Malfoy wife."
Her stomach clenched. That told her nothing and yet so much.
"See how it drinks out blood?" And it was. The red was gradually fading, soaked up by the hard gem, leaving behind a sickly glow of magic in the minute runes.
"It's tasted us now."
Her bloody fingers throbbed in his grip.
"A charm for fidelity." He pressed his body closer, the polished buttons of his robe jutting uncomfortably into her back.
"A charm for fertility." The bottom half of her sleeve was soaked in red.
"A charm for honesty." She thought she'd loved him. She was a fool.
"A charm to bind your life to mine." Fingers still tightly intertwined, he lowered their left arms, allowing their blood to drip to the floor.
Shuddering, he hissed into her ear, "You're mine, Ginny Weasley."