Disclaimer: Everything belongs to J.K. Rowling. And I am not she. I would also like to say that I am, in fact, a D/G shipper, and know the glory that is D/G.

A Romantic (& Really Ridiculous) Rhapsody

Chapter One: Rhapsody in Red

It was only after she hexed him that Draco discovered he loved her. Yes, he mocked her family's poverty and Muggle-loving attitudes. Yes, her red hair did clash rather embarrassingly with his own silky white locks. And yes, she did have six brothers who would be more than happy to beat him into a bloody, barely recognizable pulp.

It was a risk he was willing to take.

Even as he struggled in discomfort with the maddeningly painful hex, he could not stop himself from waxing poetic on her glorious red hair ("like red, red wine"), her fair skin ("as pure as a swan's plumage"), and her petite face ("like an adorable heart-shaped Valentine"). It must be admitted that this last comparison unsettled him slightly—after all, hadn't he humiliated her on Valentine's Day? As Draco searched his memory for images of this adorable creature in her first-year, he felt a fiery ("like her hair," he thought sadly) arrow stab his heart, for the recipient of her ridiculous (but endearingly childish) Valentine was none other than Harry Snotter—er, Potter.

But that was four years ago, after all, Draco reassured himself. Surely her feelings for Potter fled long ago like a dove to its roost ("she is like a dove," Draco rhapsodized) at the break of day? Had not his own feelings undergone remarkable alteration within the past four minutes, taking him from the most violent hatred to passionate adoration in a mere two-hundred forty seconds?

She must be wildly in love with him by this time!

Glad to have settled the matter so satisfactorily, Draco succumbed to the pleasures of being under one of her hexes, and reveled in the pain that she caused him, pain that he would willingly suffer for her sake. For was this not a trial of his love? Had she not subjected him to this annoying ordeal for the mere sake of ascertaining the depth of his affection? After all, she had chosen him to hex. Out of all the people she could have hexed, he had been chosen by her.

She obviously adored him. He was certain.

And to think of her, her face, her hair, her voice, her eyes—was almost more than Draco's throbbing heart could bear. The tone of her voice when she hexed him—wasn't there a soft and caressing note under the obvious frustration she felt at having to hex someone she adored (for the sake of appearances, surely)? And her soft brown eyes gazed almost pityingly down at him as he writhed uncomfortably on the floor. And pity would give way to love, assuming it had not already done so…

Draco was sure of it.

And yet, after Ginny returned from her ordeal in the Department of Mysteries, Draco was sure she had yet to recognize the greatest mystery of all: love.

Draco's mind leapt from delightfully tantalizing thought to delightfully tantalizing thought, all centering around the inevitable moment when he would announce his Grand Passion to a bashful and blushing, but delighted, Ginny. He would approach her, his white-blonde head bowed respectfully to her irreproachable maiden virginity, and, with hands folded penitently, he would speak words of love, words of such hypnotic power that she would succumb almost immediately to his supplication and beg him to take her now, now, even as they stood together in the Astronomy Tower during the furious winter's rages.  She would then swoon at her own brazenness, of course, and he would catch her in strong, unyielding arms, and hold her to his impassioned breast while refusing her tempting offer. He wrote hackneyed, saccharine compositions idolizing his beloved, and thought them masterpieces of poetic rapture. Draco dreamed of the moment when he would catch Ginny, the Princess, standing on the balcony of her Gryffindor Tower and—

But even Draco's mind could go no further than this, for such was the purity of his love for the adorable Ginny Weasley.

He finished the rest of the year at Hogwarts in a love-induced haze, while fighting to keep his normal icy façade intact, for he could not bear to speak the words of love, the words that would win Ginny Weasley's soul from her breast, just yet.

A/N: Please read and review, keeping in mind that this was intended to be a parody. Thank you!