Night of the Yule Ball
"Ginny! Come on, we're going to be late!"
"Coming!" the youngest Weasley bustled down the stairs, green dress swirling about. "Ok," she said, straightening her skirt, "ready to go! I'm sorry for keeping you, Hermione."
"It's ok, let's go," Hermione Granger shrugged it off, opting instead to hook Ginny's arm with hers and bustling both of them out the portrait hole.
At the entrance to the Great Hall, Hermione broke off from Ginny to get ready for the opening dance.
The Great Hall was dressed up in a beautiful winter-esque theme, complete with icicles, a Christmas tree, and huge glass chandeliers.
The whole Hogwarts student body turned to the great double doors as they were slowly opened to reveal the four Triwizard contestants and their dates for the first dance. Ginny smiled as she spotted a very nervous Hermione on the arm of one Viktor Krum.
As the first chords were played, the quartet started their dance. All couples spun and swirled in synch to the music and each other. Hermione miraculously didn't trip on her own skirts or anyone else's and finished the song with a curt curtsey and a relieved smile.
The Weird Sisters took the stage and students rushed onto the dance floor as the tell tale guitar rift started. Ginny was swept up into the crowd and found herself smushed between Neville Longbottom and Vincent Crabbe.
"Ginny!"
"Hermione! Help me!"
Hermione laughed at Ginny's predicament, but she finally helped Ginny out with some assistance from Viktor.
"Thanks," Ginny grinned breathlessly. "Now, let's party!"
A very out of breath and sweaty Ginny finally emerged from the equally sweaty mass of teenagers two hours later. Somewhere in said mass, Viktor and Hermione were still dancing their hearts out.
Ginny wiped some sweat from her brow as she looked around for a place to get some fresh air. Her eyes landed on a small alcove. The click of her heals followed her out onto the alcove's balcony where suddenly the sound was lost to the gusting wind.
Her arms wound themselves around her body as she looked up towards the stars.
"Beautiful, aren't they?"
Ginny turned her head to her left and saw a tall black boy was now sharing the balcony with her.
"What?" she asked.
Dark, mocha eyes turned on her chocolate brown ones, and Ginevra Weasley froze as her heart sped up.
"The stars, don't you think they're beautiful?"
1 year later
Tap… Tap… Tap…
Ginny shot up in her bed and looked toward the window in front of her desk at her home, the Burrow.
Tap a pebble went against the glass.
Ginny silently scrambled out of her bed and crept to the window. Cautiously, she opened it and thanked Merlin for her Quidditch skills when she deftly caught a pebble flying at her face.
Sticking her head out the window, Ginny hissed to the star speckled, black sky, "Blaise?"
Whoosh. "Hey, baby," Blaise Zabini said as he floated before her on his broomstick.
"Don't call me that." Ginny tucked a loose strand of red hair behind her ear. "What are you doing here?"
"Can't I see my girlfriend?"
"Yes, but not here, my brothers could see you! Besides, it's Easter Break, shouldn't you be at home?"
"Yes, but I wanted to see you."
Ginny cracked a smile, but it disappeared instantly when she heard footsteps.
"I'll meet you in the garden, ok?" Blaise shot her a confused look. "Just look for the hedge with overgrown weeds and pond."
Blaise immediately flew off as Ginny scrambled back under the covers.
Molly Weasley cracked open her only daughter's bedroom door, wand drawn. She had sworn she had heard noises from Ginny's room, but the only thing out of place was the open window with its curtains billowing in the cool breeze. Molly shut it quietly and turned to place a tender kiss on Ginny's forehead. She closed the door with a soft click and shuffled back up to the fourth floor.
Ginny leaped up out of bed when the creaking of stairs ended and a faint door slam resounded off the walls. She shoved her bare feet in some socks and grabbed some shoes and a random coat from her closet. Sock-clad feet inched along down the stairs, avoiding the creaky ones as best as they could.
At the back door, Ginny shoved the shoes she had onto her feet and her arms through the coat sleeves. She unlocked the door and stepped out into the starry night.
Blaise looked out from the overgrown weeds towards the unconventional house and the approaching figure from it.
"Blaise?" the figure whispered quietly, its voice carried by the wind.
"Ginny? I'm over here!" Blaise stepped out from the underbrush and strode over to the redhead in a trench coat and rain boots.
"Have I ever told you that you look cute in Harpy pajamas, a coat two sizes too big, and virtually destroyed boots?" Blaise asked, wrapping his arm around Ginny and leading her back in the garden.
"No, and I think I'd rather stick to my regular clothing, no matter how much you think it suits me." Ginny replied cheekily, to which Blaise merely grinned.
The conversations lulled as they neared the small pond. Blaise laid out his riding cloak for them so they could gaze up at the sky.
"Beautiful, aren't they?" Blaise mumbled almost inaudibly.
"What did you-"
"Ginny?"
"Dad?" Ginny gasped as Blaise turned to face Arthur Weasley.
"Ginny, what are you doing?"
Ginny's brain tried to come up with a plausible lie, but there was no explaining the presence of Blaise Zabini lying next to her.
"I see. Who are you young man?"
"Blaise Zabini."
Arthur's middle-aged face, lit by the glow from his wand, hardened and cooled into a mask of loathing. "I know you're type. You're lucky I'm the one who found you and not one of my sons. Who knows what they would have done to you. I'm telling you now, boy, stay away from Ginny." Then his cold, dispassionate eyes turned on his only daughter. "Come on, Ginevra. You have a lot of explaining to do." Arthur took Ginny's small, freckled hand in his large one and led her firmly back into the Burrow.
Blaise watched as one by one, the lights turned on in the lopsided house.
"Ginevra Weasley!" Arthur thundered at his daughter, efficiently waking up the whole Weasley clan floor by floor.
"Arthur! What are you doing?" cried Molly Weasley, willing sleep away.
"Reprimanding our daughter! What does it look like I'm doing?"
"What? Why?" Molly stalked over to them as her sons came clamoring down the stairs.
"I caught her with a boy."
Molly turned to her daughter, a mix of both disappointment and excitement in her eyes.
"Don't get too excited, Molly. This boy was none other than Blaise Zabini."
Molly blinked once and when she reopened her eyes, shock, disappointment, and worry, but most of all anger, were written in them.
"What?" Molly all but screamed at Ginny, but continued on without pause. "How could you do such a thing? A Zabini? Do you know who a Zabini is, Ginny? No, I don't think so as you're traipsing about with one! Why, I never thought such a thing was possible!"
"Wait, what?" Ron Weasley, second youngest, shouted at his mother in shock.
"You're sister," Molly said, "is hanging around Blaise Zabini."
There was a brief, pregnant pause before all the boys started shouting simultaneously.
Ginny looked around at her family. Arthur was seething and brooding in his favorite armchair, oblivious to the scene around him. Molly and her brothers were shouting at each other out of anger, not directed at each other, but at Blaise. Dad was right, Ginny thought, if any of the boys had seen Blaise, they would have killed him on sight, no questions asked.
Rather than wait for her family to notice her, Ginny snuck out the door and onto the back stoop. She plopped down, head in hands.
Whoosh…. Ginny looked up at the familiar sound, and saw a dark figure on a broom.
"Blaise!" she stage whispered. The figured paused and flew gracefully down to her.
Dark, mocha met chocolate in a heated gaze. Ginny pleaded with him to stay, but he remained quiet and unwavering.
He cupped her face, with a small, sad smile and departed. Ginny's eyes followed him until he was a dot becoming steadily smaller. As Ginny walked back into the Burrow and the endless reprimands of her family, she thought of Blaise's departing words, "This love is difficult, but it's real. Don't be afraid, we'll make it out of this mess. After all, it's a love story," and she smiled a smile of hope.
1 year later
Ginny was out on a Hogsmeade weekend with Hermione getting ready for Christmas when Blaise Zabini approached the two girls just outside of town as they were getting into a carriage.
One look at the black boy sent Ginny's heart into overdrive and her mind whirling with memories. Over the past year, Blaise never met up with Ginny again. He actually went out of his way to avoid her. Ginny knew that he was just trying to avoid certain death from the hands of her brothers, but she couldn't help but doubt him.
Couldn't they still meet in secret?
Yes.
Then why did Blaise go out of his way to stay away from Ginny?
Ginny had never thought Blaise to be a coward. She had always found him to be defiant of authority. Especially when he was told he couldn't do something. Blaise was independent and brazen and sometimes arrogant, but he wasn't one to back down from a challenge.
Then what made her so different?
That's why, when Blaise approached the carriage, Ginny willed her heart to slow down and the memories back into that little safe she made for them.
"Ginny." It was then that Hermione finally saw the tall, lean Slytherin boy staring at Ginny.
"What do you want, Zabini?" Hermione asked, weary and annoyed.
"Nothing from you, Granger, it's Ginny I'm looking to see."
Hermione was about to protest, but Ginny cut in. "Fine, but make it fast, Zabini."Blaise blinked and his eyes revealed a slight confused and questioning glint, but it disappeared in a second.
"Alright, let's talk a bit away from Granger." Ginny shrugged and followed Blaise as he walked down two carriages.
Ginny gathered her wits about her and finally said, "What do you want, Zabini?"
Blaise ignored her question. "Again with the Zabini?" So, he did notice.
"Does it matter? What do you want?"
"Yes. Do you- Will you- Erm, I mean to say, Ginny, do you- do you still have feelings for me?"
That's the million dollar question, Ginny thought to herself. She gazed up at the stars above her, refocusing on Blaise after a few beats of silence. She grasped his cloak sleeve and pulled him behind the carriage so Hermione wouldn't see.
Taking a deep breath, Ginny voiced her thoughts in one gust of air, "How dare you! How dare you ask me that! It's been a year, and all I have to show for that year of our relationship is questions! Why have you stopped talking to me? Why have you stopped dropping by my window? Why have you stopped asking me to meet with you? Why have you forgotten about me? Why have you forgotten about us?" Ginny eyes cried desperately to his. "So, to answer your question, yes, I do still have feelings for your sorry arse."
Whatever Ginny expected, it wasn't Blaise smiling at her adoringly. She definitely didn't expect Blaise to get down on one knee, still with that silly smile plastered on his face.
"Ginny," he said, smile stretching, "will you marry me?"
Ginny's mouth gaped.
"I love you, Ginevra Weasley. I did all those things to show your family that I wasn't using you. I wanted to show them that I wasn't what they thought I was. I wanted to show them I could be good to you, that I could be a gentleman.
"I talked to your dad and he finally gave me his blessing. It took a whole year, but he finally gave it to me. But, after all this, I think one year is a faire trade for the rest of our lives, don't you think?
"So, Ginevra Weasley, would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?" His mocha eyes twinkled with mirthful hope.
Ginny's chocolate eyes were alight with the same joyful anticipation as she answered, "Yes."