The table was a mass of ginger hair and noise. Hermione, Harry, Fleur, Teddy, and a growing Angelina stood out among the crowd. Teddy and Victoire shrieked while chasing each other on tiny toy broomsticks. Ginny sat with Charlie who was listening slightly disgusted to Angelina tell Hermione how large her stomach had yet to grow. He took a large gulp of butterbeer and smiled shiftily at Ginny.
Ginny herself drained her glass of the last few gulps of wine. She had to say something now while her family was all present (not Percy maybe, but when was he ever around anyways). That was how the rest had done it...
Ginny took a deep breath and placed a steadying hand on the table. Her mother had just stood and waved her wand above all their heads. The dishes neatly lifted themselves and started to float toward the sink.
"Mum, dad, I have a little announcement."
"What is it, dear?" her mother said, barely looking up.
"Well," Ginny began slowly, "I've been assigned." She placed a bejeweled hand conspicuously on the table. Mr. Weasley looked up suddenly from the paper he was reading. Mrs. Weasley nearly dropped her wand.
" You- you what?"
"I'm engaged. To be married. By order of the Ministry, under that new ridiculous law. I received the letter last week." Ginny looked down at her hands. Harry looked away.
Stillness engulfed the table. Bill, who was sitting opposite Ginny, extended his open palm.
"May I?" he inquired. Ginny placed her left fingers delicately on his palm.
"Oh, my," Bill gasped. "This stone is gorgeous." he pulled Ginny's hand closer to his own face to examine the ring to the best of his ability.
"The detail is exquisite and beautiful; look at this subtle job he's done here, goblin-made, unbreakable; it's quite a ring. We shant know its true power however until the ring can be removed. That only happens the day of the wedding."
"She can't take off her own engagement ring?"
Voices shouted up the table "That's absurd!"
"Violent cur-"
"I doubt this is as rash an act as it seems." Bill said calmly and the noise was subdued so he kept speaking to his audience. "The enchantments found on rings are rarely violent in nature. This one simply does not permit the intended wearer to remove it until it is replaced by its pair, which I would presume is a wedding ring."
Ginny nodded, "This is what I believe."
"And who, may I asked has placed this irremovable ring on my only daughters finger?" Mr. Weasley inquired soundly.
"That would be me."
A slightly unfriendly voice had entered the Burrow. It was cold yet clean, and intriguing. It was Draco, in formal deep green robes with black underlays. The only people in the small dining room that didn't jump at the noise were Angelina, Fleur, and Charlie, who seemed more or less unaware of the nature of the interruption. The rest nearly jumped out of their chairs. Certainly the men had drawn their wands and were now circling around the young blond boy who had placed his wand on the coffee table nearest the door that he had entered uninvited, the wand quite out of reach now.
Harry was the first to speak. His wand pointed right at Draco's statuesque figure, Harry spat, "What are you doing here, Malfoy? How did you get in? This house is barred against those with the Dark Mark," he said the last phrase with an extra jab of contempt.
"If you can call it a-" Draco paused briefly before carrying on more eloquently. "For your first question, Potter, I will need you to scamper, for it is only something I may answer privately with ." Draco nodded courteously at Arthur. "
"Anything you can say in front of me, you can say in front of my family, Malfoy," Arthur stated stiffly. He had lowered his wand and the rest followed his lead. Draco straightened up.
"Fine. I am here," he extended a hand toward Ginny, "to request your daughters hand in marriage, for that is what the Ministry has ordered us to do. Though it seems that she has already taken it upon herself to announce it." Draco looked seethingly at Ginny.
Mr. Weasley broke their heated stare. "If you are already engaged then why bother asking for her hand?"
Draco looked stiffly at him. "I was raised to do things proper. Now if you don't mind, I'd like to have a word with my," he coughed, "finance."
Ron raised his wand furiously and growled. "You're not going to have anything to do with her!"
Ginny sighed gravely, "Ron, please," she stood. "I'll talk to him." She was going to regret this.
She closed the door to the sitting room quietly.
"I only said anything because I want them to be with this, this thing we're going through with!"
Draco slumped into a worn arm chair, once again displaying a side reserved for only Ginny.
"We're not going through with something, we're being forced into something." He sighed deeply. "Why do you want them part of it anyways?" he sneered unpleasantly. " You're going to be mine soon besides."
" I shall never be yours, Malfoy."
Ginny was close to tears. She'd wanted her father to give her away, for Hermione and Fleur and Luna to be her bridesmaids. With Malfoy's attitude, none of this felt anywhere near possible.
" You're not going to be their family, darling, you'll be mine." Malfoy had stood and was now holding a tearful Ginny's face. He said this quite sadistically and Ginny snarled away. She turned quickly to leave him and ran headlong into her wilting father.
Arthur seemed more rather ragged than usually standing in the same room as the clean cut, freshly robed Malfoy. He wrapped his aged arms around his clearly distressed daughter and faced the younger man with the same emotions that he had faced the man's father. Distrust. Disgust.
"Excuse me, but why exactly must you marry Ginny? People have gotten around this law before."
"However, she is engaged to me, whom the Ministry does not look kindly upon. My family and I have already proposed several alternatives and have faced the Wizengamot, to no avail." Draco coughed again. "It would seem that they believe the marriage to a member of the Order would be a suitable punishment for my taking of the Dark Mark."
Arthur looked, discouraged, at Ginny's head which was facing her suitor. He was quite resolved to keep Ginny out of Malfoy's "punishment" and was already listing his connections in his head, starting with Kingsley Shacklebolt.
"Well I would like to try talking to my own lot, if you don't mind, before giving up my daughter."
"Thank you, Dad," Ginny whispered into his chest, still in his safe embrace.
Draco was not so comfortable as she. Since the Ministry had failed to excuse their coupling, he had seen Ginny as his own. Now, as she was wrapped in the arms of her father, he could see his future wife slipping in between his fingers like sand. As much as he hated the girl's family and her friends, he had seen from the few moments they had had that he could quite enjoy the life that had been arranged for him. It was one he had never acknowledged was possible, a happy, quiet life with a wife and children he loved. And now, seeing the elder Weasley cherishing it, Draco wanted that even more.
There was a yell from the kitchen. Ron burst in suddenly through the door behind his father. Harry was close behind.
"What is this all about," Ron sputtered angrily.
Arthur sighed and let go of Ginny, muttering to himself, "Kingsley, Aberforth, yes, Emelia Prewett, maybe, er…"
Ginny was rather teary eyed but determined not to look that way. If this was punishment for a Death Eater, well then she would act as the Order member she was and deliver that punishment to Malfoy. And, it seemed, her cause seemed hopeless anyways.
Draco, sobered slightly from the love the eldest Weasley had spewed, straightened his robes and brushed past Ginny, Ron, Harry, and the rest to retrieve his wand from the coffee table he had placed it upon his entrance. He was still rather angry. Ginny had pronounced their proposal before he himself had had the chance to even ask for her hand. A bad omen, it was, for her to be so bold. Now he seemed a fool, his dramatic arrival unnecessary. He looked across the room to where Ginny was standing at the threshold of the kitchen, Ron's copious nose prodding for information.
"I shall owl," he said quietly to her. His demanding voice was unneeded; the room had silenced after Mr. Weasley had left the house, supposedly to head to the Ministry at that moment. The missus was still collapsed in her seat breathing heavily, Angelina, Fleur and Hermione trying to comfort her. Bill had been standing behind Harry trying to hear the past conversation through the door and Charlie had rushed the small children upstairs.
At Draco's statement Ron had rushed towards him, wand once again raised.
"My- my sister-"
But Draco had raised his own wand to meet Ron's.
"Careful, Weasley," he said snidely, "if you attempt to attack me, I shall not take kindly." He scanned the room quickly, seeing the many Weasleys and hating his old school mate all the more. Ron backed away slightly as Hermione's hand slipped onto his shoulder. "There's nothing we can do right now," she whispered to him. "Let him go…"
Ron lowered his wand and Draco mirrored him. He stepped back, gave a curt nod to Ginny, still in the background, and swept his robes out the door with him.
The kitchen remained quiet. Ginny was ready to burst into tears at the sight of her mother and quickly sat at a chair pulled into the table.
Even though they couldn't agree on their nuptuals, both Ginny and Draco decided that moving in together as soon as possible was the best idea. This was never really discussed, but just a mutual understanding. Harry and Ron lived at the Burrow for the time being, and although Hermione was there as well, her warming company was not worth their constant rudeness.
Draco had not been living in his parent's mansion and had not desire to be there. Fortunately, the Malfoy's had several locations to their name and Draco had a favorite. It was a small mansion that hadn't been used in years and had the lightest feeling of all the family's properties. There was an overgrown garden that was the home of a family of fairies that sparkled in the moonlight and a hearth the size of a dining table.
Here was where Draco was planning to woo the youngest Weasley, in a place they could be comfortable together, raise children together. For that was the intention of the Minestry order: that wizards and witches mate with other wizards and witches so the magic would not die out as more and more married Muggles and produced Muggles and Squibs. It had not been enforced large scale; only certain wizards were to be paired at first. And Draco, being the son of such a dedicated Death Eater, was one of the first targeted.
At least he would have pureblood children.