However You Wish
Chapter 2
When Draco escorted Pansy back to Malfoy Manor, Narcissa was waiting for them in the foyer.
"Pansy dear, would you join me for tea?" the matriarch invited Pansy with an extended hand.
"Mother I have bought you a gift," Draco handed over a pile of books, wrapped in brown paper and string. Narcissa took the gift with a smile.
"You shouldn't have. What did you get me?"
"Only the most delicious stories Mrs. Malfoy. You will enjoy them so much," Pansy interrupted and Draco watched the two women walk away to the orangery. The breast pocket of his robes was filled with his own gift from the author herself.
Going to his room, he settled into his armchair by his personal fireplace before taking the book out of his pocket and stared at the cover. It's swirling calligraphy title catching his eye. To Muggle into a Wizard's Heart. A wizard holding his wand in one hand, had another one wrapped around a woman in a state of dishevelled undress.
Opening the front cover, he ran his finger over the message scrawled in beautiful cursive.
"To Draco,
Love is indiscriminate.
Rose De Bois."
Flipping open the book to a random page, he started to read before his eyes widened in shock and excitement. The words sprung up at him in a bold and unabashed fashion. Snapping the book shut, he threw in a handful of Floo powder into the fireplace before sticking his head in it.
He shouted into the fire, "Zabini. Get your flaccid prick over here now!"
Still shocked over what he had seen, he poured himself a quick glass of firewhisky. Blaise had just stepped out of his fireplace when he poured himself a second glass.
"Did you know that witches read these kind of books?" he asked his friend, brandishing the book.
Blaise didn't look surprised.
"Didn't you know that women enjoy porn too?" he asked, amused at his friend.
"But the kind of things that's in them. Like…" Draco flipped through the pages until he found a page to highlight his point.
He read out loud, "With a casual flick of his wrist, the fastenings of her gown came undone. She gasped as the wizard's mouth latched onto her nipple. A delicious burning scorched her down to her..."
Downing his second glass of firewhisky he turned to Blaise.
"Pansy reads this kind of… smut! Oh Merlin…" A mortifying sense of realisation hit Draco like an icy shower. "I just gifted all those books to my mother," he confessed, earning him a snickering laugh from his friend.
"Maybe your mother will feel inspired with your father later on," Blaise said through his uncontrollable laughing. "Besides I did wonder where Pansy got all her suggestions from."
Draco wondered what his friend meant about Pansy.
"What's going on between Pansy and you?" he asked. Blaise abruptly stopped laughing and gave a nonchalant shrug.
"We have a temporary arrangement," Blaise explained before excusing himself to go to the bathroom.
It gave Draco some time to read another excerpt of the book. Perhaps he might understand what Miss Rose de Bois enjoys from reading her dirty little stories.
His bedroom door flung open before Blaise rushed in and hurriedly locking the door and silencing the room in the process. Draco took in his friend's panicked appearance.
"You look like you've seen a basilisk."
Blaise pulled him up by the shoulders from his chair.
"If you still want any autonomy over your fate, you need to leave now. Go somewhere where your parents can't find you," his friend warned.
"What are you talking about?"
Perhaps Blaise has been confounded into a paranoid state. Pulling a memory from his dark temple, Blaise quickly deposited it into a conjured vial.
"No time to explain. Leave now! Don't tell me or anyone where you're hiding."
Shoving the vial into the blond's hands, his onyx eyes glinted wide with terror. It threw a cold chill down Draco's back. He thought Blaise was joking with him, but it had become clear that the situation was truly grave. Danger was afoot in the Manor once more.
Draco waved his wand and pulled a few personal items into a messenger bag. Taking a last look at his terrified friend, Draco threw in a handful of floo powder and left Malfoy Manor.
Through a combination of Floo and Apparition to different points, Draco found himself at the Ministry of Magic. He headed towards the only office he knew he could trust. A Ministry employee watched him head for the Minister's door and tried to stop him in his tracks.
"Sir, do you have an appointment with the Minister?"
Draco ignored the employee and barged into the office regardless.
"Shacklebolt, you need to help me," he begged. His wand held tightly in his hand.
Shacklebolt calmly dismissed his staff before offering Draco a drink.
"Mr Malfoy, what brings you to my office today?" he asked, handing him a glass of water.
Draco answered, "I believe I'm in danger and I seek your help."
Kingsley raising an eyebrow in response.
"And what kind of danger do you perceive yourself to be in Mr Malfoy? To be frank, I didn't expect you would turn to the Ministry or me for help."
Draco thought about the Minister's question. What kind of trouble was he in? He only had Blaise's memory in his bag.
"If we can have access to a pensieve, I can show you the only evidence I have," Draco offered and the Ministry mulled over it for a while.
The man strode over to a large cabinet and opened it to reveal a small pensieve bowl. Draco dropped his friend's memory into it and both himself and the Minister fell into the past.
They landed in one of the hallways in Malfoy Manor. Turning around, Draco got his bearings. He pointed towards Blaise Zabini as he walked down the long corridor, finally stopping at a partially closed door.
The former Auror waved to Draco to follow his friend and they too leant closer to the door to eavesdrop.
"You should have seen him Mr. Malfoy," Pansy's voice whined. "He was practically panting like a dog at the upshot nobody in front of the entire bookshop. Nobody knows about her background. I'm concerned that if Draco isn't careful, he can be tempted to stray from good Pureblood values."
They heard her sniff in an over the top cry.
"That's alright Miss Parkinson. Lucius and I appreciate your frankness and knowing a girl like you, with a good head on her shoulders, is looking out for our son," Narcissa replied.
"I'm sorry for being so blunt, but it's only because I care about him and this family. Who I see like my very own," Pansy purred in a way that made Draco feel sick.
"Speaking of family Miss Parkinson, we have wanted to have a meeting with your parents. To start a conversation on bringing our families closer with a joyful union between Draco and yourself," suggested his father. Draco felt sick to his stomach.
"I have always wanted a winter wedding," Pansy confessed. "However what if Draco wants to… delay such a happy occasion."
Delay? Draco thought. More like outright object!
"I'm sure with your charms and our encouragement, Draco would come round to the union," Narcissa encouraged.
"Indeed, or I will imperius the boy to the altar if I have to," Lucius added garnering a giggle from Pansy.
Before the Minister and Draco heard any more of the conversation, they were pulled out of the memory.
Draco stared at the pensieve in deep thought. He couldn't believe what was being discussed between the three of them. Marriage. A marriage between himself and Pansy Parkinson. They might as well tie a noose around his neck. There was so much more he wanted to do with his adult life. Aspirations. But if his parents had their way, those aspirations will never happen.
"Mr. Malfoy," the deep baritone voice of the Minister addressed him. "In light of the information we have heard, do you consent to a marriage between yourself and Miss Parkinson?"
A heart-sinking sense of disappointment and sadness swept over Draco. His own parents signing his life away in a marriage, like sacrificing a pawn to win. They didn't care about what he wanted, his own choice.
Draco answered quietly, "no. I don't."
Kingsley nodded in understanding before casting a patronus. The silver lynx sprinted out of the room carrying his message.
"Can I offer you a seat while we wait for two trusted Aurors come?" The Minister gestured to the chairs at the desk and Draco sat down.
The door knocked and opened and Draco looked at the two Aurors who walked in with dismay.
"Not them," he objected. "Any other Auror in the Ministry, but not them."
Propping her broom against the wall after a gruelling day of Quidditch training, Ginny looked around Grimmauld Place. No longer was it an old dilapidated place, but more of a shell of what it had once been. Swaths of wallpaper stripped off, floorboards exposed and furniture covered in dust cloths. If Ginny felt tired already, she felt completely exhausted at the thought of all the refurbishment that still needed to be done.
After she changed out of her Quidditch gear and placed dinner in the oven, Ginny began stripping more wallpaper from the hallway when the front door opened and closed. Harry came home and wrapped his arms around her in a tight loving hug.
"What's for dinner tonight?" he asked, dropping kisses against her neck.
"I've put a cottage pie in the oven. It should be ready in half an hour." Her heart fluttered in delight. She would never tire of him showing her affection.
"Let me help you get some of this off before dinner," he offered, unbuttoning his Auror robes.
"Or you can set the table and shower. As much as I love you, you need it." Thank goodness she wasn't prone to swooning as Harry's shirt was pulled over his head and he smiled so sweetly at her before walking away.
Ginny managed to get a few feet of wallpaper off the wall by the time Harry had set the table, showered, dressed and called her from the kitchen for dinner.
Serving herself a hearty portion of food, she took a good look at the love of her life. His messy hair fell over his eyes in an adorable way but he looked exhausted after the day.
"Anything interesting happened at work today?"
He gave a heavy sigh, "I should tell you now since we go to the Burrow on Sundays, but Draco Malfoy is under Ron and my protection there."
Thankfully she was without food or wine in her mouth, or she would have spat it out.
"Did you say Draco Malfoy is under Auror protection? At the Burrow?" she asked, checking that she heard Harry correctly.
"Apparently his family is forcing him to marry against his will." Harry continued to eat dinner as if it was all part of a day's work.
"Does he have cold feet or does he not love this girl?" she asked, Harry shrugging in response.
"I didn't want to delve further into Malfoy's love life."
"Well if he loved her, he should just take the leap of faith and marry her," she said before spearing some peas with her fork in frustration.
"Two people in love don't have to get married," Harry said.
Ginny glared at her boyfriend. He was going to bring up that same issue again. It has nothing to do with Draco Malfoy.
"Well maybe people in committed relationships want to publicly declare their love for each other in front of their friends and family," she said with gritted teeth and shoved more mash in her mouth.
Harry sighed, his hand reached over to hold hers. His emerald eyes pierced through her very soul. "Ginny. I love you. I'll never love another woman the way I love you. All I need in the world, more than air or water itself, is your love. Do you love me?"
The gentleness of his voice weighed heavily on her heart.
She replied softly, "Of course I do."
"We know we love each other. Do we need to prove it to the rest of the world? Like Rita Skeeter writing about our wedding."
The thought of having the horrid journalist anywhere near her wedding sounded positively awful. Harry lifted her hand to his lips to place a tender kiss.
"Let's not talk about marriage yet," he released her hand to continue eating. "Otherwise we might be hounded about when we'll be having children next."
She smiled at Harry, a plaster to cover up the pang of yearning in her heart.
A/N: Thank you for the lovely messages. I hope you'll stick around to follow Harry/Ginny as much as the eventual Draco/Hermione relationship. Just as there are Rosalind and Orlando, there was Celia and Oliver. This is probably the closest part of my story to As You Like It. Most of the story doesn't follow the play too closely but I'll do my best to make it a fun romp.
Please share your thoughts on the story so far.