DRACO AND GINNY

A magical twist on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

Chapter One: The Ball

He sat under a tree overlooking the shrieking shack holding a dozen roses in his hand. As he sat, he slowly picked all the petals off the flowers until there were none left. He let the bunch of stems fall out of his hand. He buried his face in his hands. Why did this have to happen to him? Why did he have to love a girl who wouldn't love him back?

Draco Malfoy was an attractive young man of 17 years old. He could get almost any girl to fall for him by just smiling. But with miss Pansy Parkinson it was different. She had promised herself to the church. She was to become a nun as soon as she finished school. Why me? Why?

The Malfoy family was pureblooded, extremely rich and powerful, and very dark. Draco didn't feel that he fit in with his family, and spent most of the time out of the house with friends, or by himself. Unlike his father, he wanted to fall in love and live happily ever after.

"Oi! Draco! What are you doing? I've been looking all over for you! Have you been sitting here all day? You're a mess! Draco you're such a girl, now get up and stop thinking about Pansy!" Blaise Zambini, Draco's best friend came running up. Draco simply looked at Blaise, then back down at the destroyed roses. "Oh come on! You can't sit here forever! Come on, I'll buy you a drink. Ok, I'll buy you 10, just get up and stop thinking about her!" Draco sighed. He held up his hand for Blaise to help him up.

"I'll never forget about her. I love her." Blaise rolled his eyes.

"Come on, lets go get something to drink." He half pulled Draco, who was still looking back at the ruined roses, toward Hogsmeade. Draco pulled his hand back from Blaise. I can walk by myself thank you very much. A second later he tripped over something and fell right on his face.

"Oh I is so sorry sir! Begging your pardon! I is not paying attention sir, I is looking at this sir!" A small house elf held up a piece of parchment for Draco and Blaise to look at. Blaise took the parchment while Draco stood up and dusted himself off. Blaise laughed when he saw what was written on the list. Draco took it from him. It was a list of guests to be invited to the Weasley's Costume Ball being held on Friday. The Weasley family was the Malfoy's greatest enemy. They were also pureblooded, very rich, and pretty powerful. As Draco skimmed through the list one of the names caught his attention: Mr. and Mrs. Parkinson and their daughter Pansy.

"Where did you get this?" Draco asked the elf.

"My master is sending me to invite all the people, but I is not being able to read sir!" Draco looked at the parchment, then at Blaise who had a grin on his face, and back to the elf.

"We'll help you find all the people!" Blaise said to the little elf who beamed with delight. Blaise took the list from Draco and read it out loud, adding himself, Draco, and a few friends to the end. The elf thanked them both and hurried away. "There you go. Now you can go try and win miss Pansy's heart at the ball while I, and all your other friends have fun crashing the Weasel's ball!" Draco thought about it for a minute.

"Yeah, alright. I'll go. But I'm leaving if Pansy isn't there."

"Sure, ok. Well, hopefully you'll find some other slut to follow you around for a few days." The two boys then walked off to the bar discussing their evil plan.

Young Ginevra (Ginny) Weasley was beautiful, smart, and at the moment very annoyed. The 15 year old girl was sitting on the edge of her bed in a bathrobe while about five stylists or whatever they were messed with her face, hair, fingers, and toes. It was all for some stupid ball her mother was having. She didn't dislike all the balls that her family held, but she knew that this one would be the ball where her mother would find her a husband. She didn't want to get married! She was only 15 years old for crying out loud! She still had 3 years left at Hogwarts, and after that she wanted to get a job. Not a job as a housewife, but a real job like an auror.

"Ouch!" Someone tugged at her hair. The door of her room opened suddenly and her mother came in and posed in her costume for the ball while all of the people working on Ginny stoped working to praise Mrs. Weasley on how gorgeous she was, how young and beautiful she was, blah, blah, blah.

"Ginevra! I need to talk to you about something important!" Ginny waited for her mother to start talking. The woman looked around. "Nymphadora!" A younger woman came rushing into Ginny's room from the bathroom. Ginny smiled. Nymphadora or Tonks as Ginny called her, had been more of a mother to her than her actual mother. Tonks had been Ginny's wet nurse when she was a baby, and had been living in the mansion with the family for a long time.

"Yes miss?" Tonks looked at Mrs. Weasley. Mrs. Weasley looked at Ginny.

"Ginny. Dean Thomas has requested your hand in marriage! Isn't this wonderful? He is rich, charming, handsome, and expect you to say yes." Ginny gaped at her mother. She grimaced as her hair was yanked again.

"I will talk to him at the ball, but do not expect me to marry him!" Mrs. Weasley didn't seem to know quite what to say. Eventually she found words.

"Fine, but I want you married this year!" She stormed out of the room, and Ginny groaned.

"Tonks! What am I going to do?" Tonks looked down at Ginny.

"Well, he does sound alright. Just give him a chance alright?" Ginny sighed.

"Alright fine. I'll dance with him a couple times or something." Ginny's hair was now dry, straight, and up in a half ponytail held together with gold pins. Her makeup was done, her finger and toe nails painted, and all that was left was her costume. She thanked the stylists and walked into her closet. She felt a little happier when she saw her costume. She had chosen to be a greek goddess. The robe was, of course, custom made by a designer. It was gorgeous. It was spaghetti strap, and it was very low cut which made Ginny a little uncomfortable, but she loved it anyway. It was ivory in color, and had gold stitching. It was floor length and had diamonds hand sewn scattered all over the dress to make it sparkle. Ginny slipped into the gown and took a look at herself in the mirror. She was happy with what she saw, and with one last look she went downstairs to wait for the ball to start.