"I'm going to marry you, no matter what my father says."
The words ricocheted through her mind like a gunshot. How many years ago had it been? She shook her head; it didn't matter. It didn't matter that all those years ago she had stood in exactly the same place that her daughter now stood, behind the suit of armor next to the stairs outside the Great Hall at Hogwarts, and it didn't matter that the boy standing in front of her daughter was a doppelganger for the one who had said those very words to her. The circumstances of her proposal had been quite different; the Great Hall and most of the castle had been in shambles, she had just lost her brother and two best friends, not to mention she'd almost been killed herself, and the adrenaline of battle was and details of the still charging through her and her lover. It was understandable, she told herself at the time, that she would need some time to consider his offer. When she had gone to him a month later at Malfoy Manor, she didn't expect his mother to be the one waiting for her there.
"Haven't you caused him enough heartache for one lifetime?"
She couldn't help but be taken aback by the older woman's sneer. She'd only asked for time to mourn, to say goodbye to those she lost, and to make sure this was the decision that was truly right for her. She had let that sneer and the ice in those eyes get to her, and she turned and left Malfoy Manor with heaviness in her heart. Perhaps indeed it was the right thing for her to do, letting him go. The last thing she'd ever wanted to do was hurt him.
The very next week, the Daily Prophet had a full page announcement of his engagement to Astoria Greengrass, and details of their upcoming spring nuptials. She noted cattily that he had not given Astoria his grandmother's ring that he had offered her; instead, Ginny was quite sure that this ring was new, something straight out of some jeweler's in Paris or Milan. By no choice of her own, Ginny went to the wedding; she got rip-roaringly drunk, and that was the night that she finally accepted Harry Potter's proposal.
June fifth, two thousand, right before Ginny was to turn nineteen, on a day which she was sure her husband had no idea held any prior significance to her, Ginny Weasley married The Boy Who Lived in quite too large of a wedding for her taste. All the objections she'd had about a small family affair were overruled, and she was sure that at least three-quarters of Wizarding Britain was there. She had stepped out of the tent where the party was being held and into the orchard where she had spent so much time playing as a child when he approached her. She could hear the noise of the party in the background, but she was sure that the two of them were quite alone in the night air.
"Happy birthday." It was the only thing she could think to say to him.
"A kiss for the bride?" His voice was unreadable, but the finger that tipped her chin up was uncharacteristically shaky. He kissed her, and it was the very same as when he had first done it when she was sixteen. The bittersweet tone and the tears running down her cheeks were the only difference; she kept her eyes closed for a moment after the kiss ended, savoring, and when she opened them again, he was gone.
The ring... it was indeed the same ring that Draco had offered Ginny that Scorpius was holding out to Lily, and Ginny wondered briefly how he'd gotten it. She looked around and for the first time noticed that she was not the only one who was witnessing this exchange. There, across the hall, stood Draco Malfoy, his eyes uncharacteristically soft and a small smile on his lips, his eyes on her now. Ginny gave him the same sad smile back; she loved her children, and she wouldn't trade them for the world, but a part of her couldn't help but wonder what would have happened if she would have given the answer that she knew was about to leap to her daughter's lips any second. She could not blame or resent her daughter, or even his son. The two of them were doing what Ginny had been scared to do all those years ago. They would have an uphill battle, especially when Harry found out about it, but they were going to do something beautiful. Lily and Scorpius were putting their faith in love carrying them through, no matter what.