Sorry about the appalling wait – I've been mucho busy lately – it's exam season at college. Anyway, here's a quick interlude. Hope good things come from it.

&

One Something That I've Really Go to Tell You

"I've got sand in places I didn't know I had," Draco moaned, dropping onto a checked blanket next to Ginny. She smirked.

"Don't be such a baby, Drac."

"Easy for you to say," he muttered, shifting uncomfortably. "You look good salty and sea-swept…"

And she did too. Her pale skin had affected a golden tint, and the copper-coloured bathing suit she was wearing appeared to have been tailored to fit every gorgeous curve. While Ginny pottered around in a lemon yellow rucksack, Draco watched her, lounging in a secluded part of a little-visited beach.

"Love you," he mumbled.

She looked up, dazed, and then beamed.

"Love you, too," she said brightly, returning to rummaging around in the bag. "Even if you are a soppy git."

Draco waited until she'd zipped the bag up and was in the process of slipping the soft ivy green jumper she'd pulled from it over her head before he pouched, rugby-tackling her over into the sand.

"Draco!"

"Ginny…" he grinned, as she huffed at him, trying to wriggle free. This might not have been the wisest idea, he thought, as she was pinned aggressively beneath him and any move she made was like setting his whole body aflame.

"You do know how to vex me, Malfoy," she growled indignantly, but she was cut off by his mouth, as Draco leaned down and tasted salt and sun cream. Ginny's hands automatically slipped up and palmed his back, sliding smoothly up and down his spine, and coming to rest firmly on his black swimming shorts, pulling him firmly against her.

"Yet," he muttered softly, kissing her briefly, but intently. "You don't… appear… at all irritated…"

She chuckled against his mouth.

"I don't know… that thing you're poking me in the belly with certainly isn't improving my mood…"

"Oh?" he said, pulling away and looking at her indignantly.

"No," she murmured. "It's very frustrating."

He smirked. "Good. Then by the time we get home, you'll be in a thoroughly foul mood."

Ginny's eyes glinted worryingly. He frowned.

"What?"

Biting her lip, she rolled him onto his back, missing the blanket. He felt sharp dune grass slicing into his back, but Ginny's warmth resting snugly over the bulge in his shorts distracted him.

"I'm not having you play me up all the way home," she said resolutely.

Draco moved his hand slowly up her thigh, feeling the tingle that enveloped him. She shifted uncomfortably over him, her eyes very dark in the bright sunlight. "Oh, no?"

Ginny pushed gently forward and ground herself against him, and he tried not to gasp.

"No."

Draco brought his hands up to either side of her head and dragged her down to him, smothering her mouth in hot, languid kisses that made her forget entirely about trying to get the upper hand – as he'd been sure she was trying to do – and crush herself self down onto him.

"Good."

Within a few minutes of Ginny softly worshipping his mouth, she made to roll off him, pulling him with her to cover her body with his. He stopped her, clutching at her thighs and securing her above him. She shot him a weird look tinged with amusement, and ground down again, making him buck against her. She giggled softly.

"What're you laughing at?" he grinned, slipping his thumb underneath the damp, grainy seat of her bikini bottoms and pressing against her mound.

"N-nothing," she gasped. "Apparently…"

"No, no," Draco continued, curling his thumb back and feeling her damp walls tense around him. Ginny's eyes closed, involuntarily, it seemed, and she surged against him, tightening and releasing.

"Out here?" she muttered breathily. "Really? What if someone—"

Draco slid his thumb wetly over her clitoris, and sensed that her resolve was weakening when she shivered violently. He couldn't help but laugh, and watch the curve of her neck as her head fell back, her curtain of russet hair shaking down her back.

"You were saying…?"

Ginny glared at him. "Nothing. Didn't say a w-word…"

Draco felt Ginny wriggling and rubbing against his thumb, moving with increasing desperation. Damp with the yielding moisture from her centre, Draco pulled his thumb from her, and she moaned softly, barely audibly, as though she'd tried not too. Within seconds, she'd tugged his shorts clear from his waist, and he'd wrestled hers away. He clutched at her sides beneath the green jumper she was wearing, which was tickling his belly and the tops of his thighs, and lifted her cleanly onto him. She bit down on her lip hard.

"You know you can scream if you want to, right?" he said cockily, until she moved, and he found it hard to form a clear thought as her own weight drove her down onto him and he was caught in her to the hilt. He wanted to move, to buck. To roll her over and thrust into her without a second's thought. He didn't, but Merlin, he wanted to.

The sky was very blue. Azure blue, and warm, and blue. And cut open every time a white seagull drifted over head, flitting over up-currents of still warmer air. Everything smelt very salty.

"You've got sand in your hair," Draco mumbled against Ginny's shoulder.

"Got sand in my everywhere," she replied softly, smiling. She shifted underneath him and he raised his head from her shoulder to kiss her soundly before settling back over her. She sighed. Not her usual, soft, contented kind of a sigh. It was long and drawn-out, and… fretful?

Draco watched her eyes follow the curve of the dune glass swinging around them, and then as she shifted to gaze out towards the wide, open expanse of water. He couldn't imagine what she was thinking. Maybe about how some of the sailing boats out there had sails of a bright, bed-sheet white, while others had sails that were Satsuma orange, others, navy blue. He moved as gently as he could to curl around behind her and watch over her freckled shoulder. His attention fell on her pink skin. Her jumper was long gone.

"You're burning."

"I know." She shuffled onto her back and looked at him, her pupils tiny in the sun.

"Draco, there's something that I've really got to tell you."

He'd been a bit worried when she hadn't seemed bothered about sunburn – she was usually so vigilant. Now he was terrified. He tried not to let it show.

"Hmm?"

She sighed again, almost as if impatient with herself.

"Now, don't freak out."

He gulped. "Could you not think of anything you could say which would be more likely to freak me out, Ginevra? C'mon, Ginny, spit it out."

She blinked up at him, frowning through the sun.

"There's the slightest… there's a small chance…" She clutched his hand suddenly, and he realised that his heart was racing. It was pounding as though he had a marching band running around in his chest, but it was so uneven that he thought maybe they were all amateurs with no sense of rhythm at their very first practice session.

"Gin, whatever it is, it's okay. Really," he assured her – and himself as well – as he squeezed her hand. "Love you, remember?"

"Draco, I think I might be pregnant."

Somewhere in the distance, a seagull squawked loudly, and one of the sailing boats' sails cracked in a breeze.

"Oh."

&

Draco made Ginny cover up, slipping one of his T-shirt's over her head as she watched him intently. She didn't say anything at all, just watched him. He supposed she was trying to make out what he thought of the situation. He took her hand and led her up the beach with their bags, sitting her down in a small wooden café that smelt of hardened layers of paint and of warm, greasy ovens mingled with the outside. He set down two cups of tea, and she couldn't help but laugh.

"Thank you. Now I feel like my mother's here."

Draco smiled, and tucked some of her hair behind her ear.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Haven't taken a test, if that's what you mean. Been feeling a bit… odd the last few days though. And I… Well I missed a—"

"How long ago?"

"Fortnight, near enough."

He nodded. "Right."

There was no one else the café except the owner, and Draco could faintly detect the scent of tobacco coming from the back entrance, where he was sure the owner had gone for a cigarette. He thought dimly that Ginny's arse was probably sore, sitting on her hard wooden bench. He sat forward, and his plastic garden chair creaked.

"Draco, I'm not asking anything of you," she said quietly. "Even if I am pregnant… And I suppose I might not be… Well, I don't want you to feel like you have to do anything, like you have to stay—"

"What?"

She shrugged. "Well… I just mean, if this is all too fast. If you feel like I'm—"

"Ginny," Draco said quickly, latching onto her hands across the table, and leaning so far over that his collar fell into his mug, "there's no way in this world or the wizarding one that I would ever, ever leave you, all right? Just remember that."

She looked utterly lost.

"Ginny, do you want to go home? We can talk about it there."

Slowly, she nodded. But he thought maybe that she was doing that more for his benefit than for hers. Maybe she thought he needed to be somewhere familiar. Somewhere simple, and warm and cosy. But he'd already half-formed a plan in his head.

&

Ginny opened her eyes, and saw stars. Hundreds upon hundreds of bright, diamond-hard stars, and felt a warm breeze over her face. Had she fallen asleep? It took her a moment to remember that she was meant to be at home by now.

"You're awake."

She sat up gently, and found she was in the back of Draco's convertible under a blanket, his coat rolled under her head.

"Where are we?"

A knowing smile played on the corner of Draco's mouth, but he only held out his hand.

He led her through an area of woodland, between thickets of aromatic foxglove plants and rhododendrons, and under an archway around which a rose bush had curled itself. An intricate iron-sided wooden bridge flowed gently over a steam riddled with floating insects and met the edge of a wide, soft meadow full of long grass and flowers. A squat, white cottage with blue window frames and guttering beneath several disjointed thatched roofs slept soundly in the middle of the field.

"I found this house a long time ago," Draco told her. "It used to have people working for mother living in it, but they left when mum and dad were killed in the Final Battle. I never thought much of it myself: the guttering needs sorting, and I'm pretty sure that there's a ghost in the cellar. And don't even get me started on the gnome infestation. But there's something I've known about this house for as long as I've known I wanted you. This is your house, Ginny. I don't know how I know, but this is your house. It'll never be anyone else's."

Ginny's fingers felt numb.

"And as much as it'll pain me to have to fix the guttering and get in one of your Dumbledore lot to get rid of that ghost, and the fact that I'll have to roll my sleeves up and lob half the country's gnome popular into the woods, I'll do it all Ginny. And I'll do anything, anything else that'll make you happy, and make you feel safe. That includes," he added, grinning at her, "asking you to marry me again, if it turns out that you are pregnant. Despite the mind-numbing fear that you'll say no, again.

"I know you're terrified. I know you feel like you're in the middle of something so unknown, more unknown that anything you've ever had to think about before… But Gin as long as I'm here you're never going to have to deal with it on your own."

Draco had known Ginny for more than three years, and longer, if you counted being enemies. He had never seen her cry before.

They stayed in the cottage that night. Ginny was apparently too tired to do anything but curl up in Draco's lap and slip into a tumultuous sleep, but he himself was wide awake, and playing idly with her neck. He stared for a very long time at her belly, but it didn't look any different. He couldn't remember her holding onto him with quite so much determination as she did that night, and it was a job to pry himself free in the morning and set about making a laborious breakfast of toast and cereal, marmalade, eggs and bacon, sausage, coffee and orange juice. By the time Ginny woke up, showered, changed into one of Draco's clean shirts and a pair of cut-off shorts, she was much more like herself again. He could tell by the fact that her appetite was spectacular.

"First thing's first," she said through a mouthful of toast. "Pregnancy potion."

"I'll do it," Draco replied immediately. "I'm the one who didn't fail potions."

"What… with all that was going on our last year it was a wonder I passed anything," Ginny said defensively. "Professor Snape had it in for me anyway."

"You could have got any one of the teachers to do exactly whatever you wanted them to do and you know it."

Ginny smirked smugly. "Hmph."

"Alright," Draco said after a moment. "After that. What then?"

She shrugged. "Doesn't that depend on the answer?"

Draco nodded half-hearted, and sipped his coffee.

"If it's positive," she said slowly. "I'll need to go to the Burrow. Tell everyone. I have to do it face-to-face. And you'll have to talk to dad."

"Your dad! About what?"

"About how you intend to support his youngest child and only daughter and her illegitimate offspring…"

Draco snorted. "That's rich coming from—"

Ginny scolded him with a fiery look of annoyance.

"You can't say your mother wasn't… productive."

As soon as he'd said it, Draco feared for his life. Ginny glowered at him for a long time before finally shrugging again.

"Man has a point. And anyway," she added, swallowing carefully and looking directly at him. "Our baby wouldn't be illegitimate."

"We're not married."

"Nobody cares about that nowadays. We'd love her… him. That's enough."

"Are you actively seeking out excuses not to marry me?"

&

The potion, they were both appalled to discover, would take twenty-four hours to mature. Draco set up a cauldron in the kitchen and Ginny watched as he intricately assembled the ingredients, adding them precisely into the cauldron and then lowering the fire below it to a soft flicker, enough that the rose pink watery liquid in it bubbles only very slightly. The kitchen with drenched in this pink light, and the bucking flames, and what with heat enveloping the room and the sunlight outside, it was sweltering.

"C'mon," Draco said, swiping a hand over his brow. "I'll show you the roof."

There was a flat, cool terracotta terrace cut into the trace, it turned out, on one of the upper levels. Draco led Ginny by the hand through narrow, white-washed corridors and passageways, and around winding, twisting staircases, breaking trails in the dust. Eventually a glass-panelled door opened out onto a tiled ledge ringed by railings and tiny, pink flowers.

"This house is unreal," Ginny muttered, awed, as she spread herself out in the middle of the roof and shut her eyes against the sun. Draco, hands in his pockets, leant on one of the railings.

"Too unreal?"

Ginny's eye broke open.

"No. I love it. It's perfect."

"It's old."

Ginny chuckled. "It's. Perfect. Stop finding fault." She sighed, heavily. "You know we can't live here?"

Draco swivelled so fast he nearly thought he was going to topple over the railing. "Pardon?"

"I can't accept a house from you. And don't try and argue. You know how stubborn I am, and I've been thinking about it since yesterday. Don't need all this stuff just to know you love me. I know it every time you look at me."

Draco turned slowly, wrapping his fingers around the metal bars. The horizon ran a ring around them, the miles upon miles of lush green woodland, pale cherry blossom, and thick, darker shrub land encircled them. Under the sun a wide river ran, the glare shooting into Draco's eyes. Ginny's tiny hands were round his waist.

"Too many things inside your head, not enough outside of it."

"Take the house," he muttered firmly. Her hands moved further, and she squeezed him tighter.

"You know perfectly well I can't. I've never just been given a house Drac, never just had things handed to me. I don't see why I should start. Just because you've got more money than me, doesn't mean I should."

She saw a muscle in Draco's jaw tighten, and knew he was angry before he'd had the chance to turn again to face her in frustration. She didn't know what she'd said that was so unreasonable.

"Not. About. Money," he ground out. "It's the house. It's your house. It's not mine," he said sharply, gesturing madly around him. "Without you this place is nothing to me. This house is you." More aggressively than he'd intended, he grabbed her hand. "I'll show you."

Again he led her, but only until the next floor down, when he released her and told her to look. Frowning, he stalked down up the stairs, leaving Ginny feeling numb.

She hadn't seen Draco that frustrated with her before. Perhaps she should listen. Humour him if nothing else. Her mind kept dragging her back to the child that may or may not be inside her, tiny and defenceless and barely formed. If she really was pregnant, did she think she could live in that tiny flat forever?

Ginny found herself in the bedroom. A wide, bright room, with soft curtains that bellowed in the breeze and made her think of the Burrow. The floorboards were warm under her bare soles, smooth from time. They creaked comfortably as she roamed into the bathroom, felt the towels wandered out again and explored the top floor, then the one below, the one under that, the kitchen, the pantry, the cellar…

When she allowed herself to relax, she felt warm inside and out. Her toes knew the reaction of the floorboards before she trod them, the smell of a room before she entered it, and each scent did different things to her. The kitchen smelt of family, of old age, of the potion which was permeating the room, and it made her feel sleepy.

The pantry smelt of yeast and salt, of sex and wine. The cellar felt damp on her skin, and cool, and she had to run from it, but a faint essence of fear made her heart pound. There was study – old books and learning saturated the room, and the bedroom made her think of Draco, reading a newspaper and drinking tea.

&

Comments, as always, more than gratefully received.