Ginny Weasley looked at herself in the mirror of the ladies' bathroom at the wedding reception centre, and breathed a little sigh of relief. Even though it had been the worst week in her life, at least it hadn't shown. Her bridesmaid's dress complemented her pale skin, and her eyes were bright - too bright even considering that she had not slept more than two hours over the past few days.
She shrugged her shoulders and grimaced as she made her way out to see the bridal couple off.
"Oh No!" She thought, and her face fell as her eyes alit on the smirking face of Draco Malfoy. "That's all I need."
"Well, Malfoy? Nothing better to do than hang round the ladies' bathroom?"
"Just thought I'd let you know, weasel, that the bride is about to throw the bouquet - she's waiting for her favourite bridesmaid. Mind you." He added with a laugh. "No point you getting the bouquet. You haven't even got a boyfriend."
With that he lounged off with that insolent chuckle that had never failed to rouse her to anger at Hogwarts.
"Hogwarts." She sighed. Four years since she left, and yet almost a lifetime. The memories came back, head girl, highest marks ever in herbology, starting up her own herb and potion supply business, the great wizard war with the narrow defeat of the death eaters. And yet, here she was twenty-two, single, never had a boyfriend, depressed as all hell, and the only man she ever really felt anything for was getting married to someone else. Sheesh.
"GINNY! Are you coming or not?" It was Molly Weasley, her mother.
"Yes mother!" Ginny hurried to the reception room just as the married couple were about to leave.
"About time you were here." Teased Hermione. "I was going to throw the bouquet without you. Harry was fast losing patience." She looked slyly at her new husband, turned her back and threw the bouquet.
Her throw was rather inept as it turned out, missing the gaggle of single women by a mile and headed for the side wall where Draco Malfoy was lounging. Suddenly, with the reflexes of years of quidditch, he swatted the bouquet hard - straight at Ginny who caught it in stunned surprise.
Hermione and Harry laughed. "OK Ginny, you're next to be married!" With that the, new Mr and Mrs Potter headed out to the bridal broomsticks and off to their honeymoon, leaving the rest of the guests to finish off the reception food and drink.
In a subdued mood, Ginny returned to the Weasleys' table. The mood there was bad. Now that the newlyweds had left, there was no need to keep up the false gaiety. Ginny sat next to her father and put her arms around him. "It'll turn out right somehow father. We'll manage."
Her father shook his head slowly. "It's all my fault. Your mother warned me over and over again about putting charms on muggle artefacts, but I thought I could get away with it forever and now I've lost my job when the Ministry found out. I just hope that I can find something soon." He sighed despondently. "And of course, the minute they knew I'd lost my job at the Ministry, the goblins were straight onto me about repaying the loans."
"The loans?" Said Ginny, aghast. "What loans?"
"Well." Faltered her father. "What with seven of you to put through Hogwarts, and the job paying so little, and getting no pay during the war with Voldemort." I really am in debt to Gringotts up to my neck. And what the goblins do to people that don't pay" He shuddered.
Fred and George piped up. "Well, we can sell our business for something. We'll have to start again, but"
"And I can sell mine too." Added Ginny firmly. "After all, if the debt was to put us through Hogwarts, it's only fair that we help pay it back."
Arthur Weasley shook his head. "You know full well that after the war, your businesses are so run down they can scarcely support you, let alone pay off a goblin loan. Even if you all sold up, I'd be finished in six months anyway, and you'll be down the drain too." They were all silent at that.
Molly was the first to speak. "Well." She sighed. "Surely something will turn up. I think we should be off. Let's go home."
"As long as it still is ours." Mumbled Mr Weasley.
Ginny shook her head, fighting back the tears. "Look, I'll join you a little later, I'd like to talk some more with some of my old school friends. You lot go on."
With that she watched as they went to the fireplace, got out the floo powder and headed off to the burrow.
She slowly walked toward the group of other women grouped around the cake.
"Hi Weazel." Came the drawl. "So you did get the bouquet after all. Too bad you weren't the bride eh? Weren't you just itching to scratch her eyes out?"
"Oh, do drop dead, you irritating prat." Retorted Ginny. "As if I don't have any other problems."
"Well, and so you do, don't you." Came the smirking response. "Too bad about your dad losing his job, and the goblins at Gringotts have some rather nasty ways of getting their loans back too, I hear."
Ginny turned in a mixture of surprise, mortification and anger. "How did you know about that? Who told you?"
Draco Malfoy carefully examined his fingernails and then looked her up and down in a way that strangely unsettled her. "Oh, our family has a finger in a lot of pies. We get all sorts of information if we are interested."
Ginny snorted. "And since when have you been interested in the Weasleys?"
Draco looked at her and licked his lips. "The Weasleys, never. But one particular Weasley, I have had a case of the hots for since the last five years Virginia. Can you think whom I might be talking about, or do you share the usual Gryffindor denseness?"
Ginny curled her lips. "I don't think Ron shares your ardour, ferret."
"Oh very witty Virginia, but let me get to the point. Your father is ruined and so are you and your brothers. Do you know what the goblins do to people who can't pay?"
Ginny nodded her head and muttered, "As if you'd care Malfoy".
"Quite right Weasel, I don't give a toss what the goblins will do to your mother and father and that precious Burrow of yours."
"But you care what happens to them, don't you Virginia? You care a lot." The silken voice almost hissed.
Ginny nodded her head. "Yes." She whispered.
"Well, I have some good news. You, Virginia Weasel, can save them."
"And how might that be?" She answered dully.
"Tut tut. Gryffindor slowness again." He gloated.
Ginny tossed her head and made as if to move around him. With a speed that belied his deceptive langour, he grabbed her by the arm.
"Not so hasty if you please. It's quite easy to explain. In about an hour or so, Harry Potter and Mrs Potter will be enjoying themselves in the way that newlyweds traditionally enjoy themselves on their wedding night. But for some obscure reason, I think I too should like to enjoy myself like that. Trouble is, whereas Harry has Hermy, I don't have anyone. Bit of a problem, don't you think?"
Ginny was not liking the direction of this conversation at all. "Well, I am sure your hand will understand, and not refuse you, Malfoy, or if you are really desperate, Pansy Parkinson would fall over herself to oblige you."
"Oh, that Weasley wit. So now where is that 'Weasley will' to help others Virginia? I thought that perhaps to help your father and mother out of a serious hole, you might help me." Draco pulled a face of mock concern that made Virginia itch to slap it. "I mean Weasel, I'm not quite sure why you want to avoid me. It's not as if I am repulsive. But the added inducement of keeping your father out of the hands of the goblins should surely carry some weight with you. You won't have to do anything that Hermy won't be doing with Harry you know, and you'll be paid." Malfoy put on his best trademark smirk.
Ginny looked aghast. "You meando it...with youfor money?"
Draco put on a spurious expression of distaste. "My dear Weasel, I prefer to think of it as me helping you and your family out with a serious problem, for which you show me a certain amount of, well, ahem, gratitude. You know, you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours - in the Malfoy Manor Jacuzzi of course."
He paused for effect. "Let me put it to you so that even the dullest of Gryffindors could understand. It's either the goblins for your father, or 'you and me babe'. Or... you could marry me." He added almost nonchalantly.
Ginny looked at him with disbelief.
"Malfoy, why on earth would you want to marry me?" She managed to choke out.
"Well, how about 'I love you' as a reason?" Drawled Malfoy.
"As if!" She snorted. "Pull the other one Malfoy. You wouldn't know what love was if it came up and slapped you on the face."
A look of almost hurt flickered across his face for an instant. It was gone so fast, replaced by the Malfoy smirk that Ginny dismissed it as her imagination playing tricks with her.
"Alright then." He said with a sneer. "Try this for a reason. The Malfoys are one of the highest ranking wizarding families in the world. Our bloodline goes back thousands of years. We have only bred with pureblood wizards of the best types. But it comes to a point where you can only interbreed so much before recessive genes pop up. So I need to marry someone who is of a pureblood wizarding family, and who will enable me to produce children to keep the Malfoy line strong."
He looked at her with a calculating eye before continuing. "While your family is so far below mine, I shouldn't even be talking to you, nonetheless, the Weasleys do have two things that I need. You are purebloods, and you breed like rabbits. Is that a reason that you would believe of me Virginia? Like I say, I am willing to overlook your lousy family connections and marry you."
Virginia was appalled. Over many years she had been insulted, but this was beyond belief. "Marry you? When you seem to think of me as some sort of sow pushing out piglets? You are so ugh.....!" She cried in anger. "I tell you this, Malfoy. I had not known you for more than a day when I had decided that you were the last man on earth I would ever marry."
"Ah well," he sighed. "Then, it's back to the goblins for your father, or you for me Weasel. But hurry up, I haven't got all day." He sounded rather impatient.
"I can't believe you Malfoy. How low can anyone get?"
"Well, that's fortunate for you isn't it Weasel."
"You are taking advantage of our family's situation to satisfy some animal urge, and you just sit there smirking. How can anyone think like that?"
"Well." He shrugged. "It seems rather logical to me."
"Slytherin logic!" She huffed.
Draco inclined his head with a little smile. "As you wish. I see no problem with a concept that has me sacrificing some money to gain the, ahem, pleasure of your company, albeit on a temporary basis. I see that the pleasure I would get out of getting very very close to you Virginia, as far outweighing the loss of money. If that is Slytherin logic, so be it. On the other hand, you have to wrestle with the idea of keeping your virtue, but seeing your family and your precious Burrow going down to the Goblins, or on the other hand compromising that virtue, but saving your family. What does Gryffindor logic say in such cases?"
Draco stood before her with his two hands outstretched, palms upward, as if weighing something. He looked at his left hand and then his right. "On the one hand, Virginia's virtue, on the other hand your family's happiness. That is entirely your choice Virginia, and I am curious to know what that choice will be. You said I wouldn't know what love was if it slapped me in the face. Well, do you know what love is, and do you love your family enough to make a sacrifice? And how big a sacrifice? It's not as if I am that repulsive. But yes, Virginia, it is Slytherin logic. I want you, and I am prepared to do what it takes to have you."
Ginny stood transfixed by his speech. Her brain whirled with thought and doubt. She hardly knew what to do.
"Anyway, you know where to find me." And with a smirk, a shrug of his shoulders and a slight 'pop', he disaparated.
Ginny frowned at the spot where he had been sitting. It suddenly occurred to her that Malfoy's presence at the wedding had puzzled her. Why had Harry and Hermione invited him? And even more strangely, why had he been one of the groomsmen?
Draco had been a prat at school she thought. Except for his last two years when he had changed strangely. She bit her lip in concentration trying to picture him, and then, ever so slowly, it came back to her.
It was on the Hogwarts Express on the way home at the end of her fourth year. They had been in the corridor of the train when it suddenly lurched, flinging her and Malfoy together, tangling legs and arms. She remembered her feeling of embarrassment as he had grabbed her on the way down, as it was perfectly obvious from the look on his face that he realised she was not wearing underclothes. And she knew that he could easily work out that it was because she had only a couple of sets of them, almost threadbare since the Weasleys were so poor and buying overgarments was such a struggle, that underwear was even more thin and tattered still.
She just knew that Malfoy was going to announce to the whole train that Weasel couldn't afford underwear, she just knew it. And yet, when he got up, he helped her as well, and looked at her as if in a daze. It was almost as if he had received a hit over the head in the fall on the floor of the carriage. They finally separated in embarrassment, and she had hurried off, leaving him to stare at her retreating back. When she left the train and passed the Slytherins, she cringed in fear, expecting their taunts about her not being able to afford underwear, and yet there was nothing, Malfoy had said nothing. Most odd.
After the holidays and into her fifth year, she noticed a change in Malfoy from the beginning. He was standing with Harry Potter outside the gargoyle leading to Dumbledore's office. He had grown, and yet there was more. His taunting and snide remarks seemed to have vanished. Instead, he appeared withdrawn and aloof, he abandoned his two goon friends, Crabbe and Goyle, and threw himself into his studies, surfacing only to play hard Quidditch. He went about his business quietly and coolly, saying little and appearing like a gray handsome ghost, except that every now and then, Ginny would catch him looking at her with an unfathomable expression. He, like Harry was now a little too large for a seeker in Quidditch, and took up chasing instead, and his rivalry with Harry, too had changed. It seemed that they now were testing each other, and working together as older wolf cubs are wont to do as they prepare to enter the pack as adult males, and with Ron and Hermione as well. Draco and the others were not friends in any sense of the word, but they pushed each other hard at everything they did, almost as if Voldemort were after them personally.
The games of childhood had turned serious Ginny reflected. And good that they had. Since it was only by the merest margin that Voldemort had been defeated finally a year or two later. Those hard years of training had only just been enough. And Malfoy had defied his father to take the side of light. Ginny wondered what had caused his change.
She shook her head at the tangent her mind had taken, after all, the Draco that had just propositioned her seemed to be the bad Draco of old. She walked over to the fire, and took out some floo powder.
She paused for a long time slowly shaking her head. That seemed so long ago. The old sarcastic and unpleasant Malfoy had reappeared, and he had her right where he wanted her. He knew just what buttons to push, and he pushed them without compunction to get what he wanted. She shivered and headed slowly for the fireplace. She knew what she had to do.
"Malfoy Manor!" She called as she dusted the floo powder.