I want to thank those who reviewed – this is just going to be a short piece, detailing, as you may have guessed, the events of a single day.  Hopefully you'll continue to enjoy it (I can certainly only hope), and hopefully I'll be inspired to continue my other story.

Just to reiterate what I stated in the previous chapter: I do not own Harry Potter, or any of the characters detailed therein, and beware, because this story does contain SLASH.

That aside, please read, and review to let me know what you think.

Those dark eyes were now directing a concerted glare in Harry's direction.  Harry would have quailed at the sight, were it not for the fact that after seven years of classes and three years of fighting side-by-side, there was very little Snape could do that would actually scare him anymore.

Snape apparently realised that fact, because he rolled his eyes, even darker than usual against the unusual pallor of his skin.

"It is none of your business why I am ill, Potter."

"I beg to differ, Professor Snape.  If I am the one having to babysit you –"

"Babysit!"

Snape's voice conveyed his absolute disgust at that assessment of the situation.  Harry ignored him, rolling along inorexably.

"- then I expect some co-operation.  For the work that I am clearly going to put into this day – a day, moreover, that should have been a pleasant, happy occasion – the least you can do is give the real reason you are so ill."

Snape opened his mouth, and then snapped it shut at Harry's next words.

"And I will not be fooled by weird and wonderful stories about hours of firewhisky with Hagrid and Dumbledore.  I know they are far more capable of holding their liquor than you," Snape glared "- and thus it might make a plausible story despite the fact that they will no doubt show up at the ceremony without the slightest sign of any ill-effects.  However, I happen to know for a fact exactly where they were until after midnight last night, because BOTH of them were over having dinner with me."

Snape visibly deflated.  He had apparently not considered the possibility that he might need a back-up reason to explain away his state.

There was silence.

It stretched uncomfortably.

Snape had not been a Death Eater and a double agent for so many years without learning the value of not breaking under silence.  Even so, sweat broke out on his forehead.

Harry stood there, waiting.  He knew Snape would not break easily, but he would break.

Harry would make certain of that.

And so he stood, the very picture of amused urbanity, and waited.

And waited.

Eventually Snape turned away from Harry, breaking up their staring contest.

"Itwasapotion."

Harry leaned forward.

"Sorry, what was that?  Could you speak up, please, sir?"

Snape flushed red, cursing himself for giving in to the brat.

"It was a potion, I said, Potter.  Are you going deaf?  It's a little early for the onset of old age, surely?"

Harry smiled.

"Oooh, good one.  You completely turned that back on me.  And if I were an easily flustered man," here Harry directed an amused glance at the embarrassed potions master, "it might just have worked.  Instead, I will simply ask the obvious question – what exactly WAS this potion?"

Snape was silent.  That question was not one he was prepared to answer.

Harry's smile turned predatory, and he leaned in for the kill.

_.~*~._.~*~._.~*~._

Ginny, alone in her childhood bedroom for the last time as an unmarried woman, flopped on the sagging bed, and curled her fingers into the worn yellow cotton spread, feeling slightly queasy and hugely apprehensive.

Jumping up immediately, she tried to peer over he shoulder at the back of her robes, checking for the most minute of wrinkles in the expensive green silk.  Breathing a sigh of relief to find the dress relatively unscathed, she essayed a small smoothing charm just to make certain.

Standing now, she began to pace, walking off her nervous energy as she spoke to herself.

"Get a grip on yourself, Ginny!  It's Draco!  You'll marry him, and live happily ever after – as long as you can get through this day."

She cocked her head to the side.

"But what if I DON'T make it through the day?  What if I trip and strangle myself on my wedding robes, or disgruntled escaped Death Eaters crash the ceremony and Avada Kedavra me?  Or Draco?"

Head straight once more, Ginny rolled her eyes.

"Don't be ridiculous!  Nothing will happen.  You're getting married, and you will live happily ever after."

Head back again, Ginny looked like an inquisitive sparrow as she ventured a further concern.

"Happily ever after?  How can I be certain of that?"

Head dead centre again, Ginny shook herself, staring in the slightly clouded mirror that had served her for eighteen years before she moved out of the Burrow.

"I'm cracked.  Talking to myself –" at that, Ginny clapped her hand over her mouth, eyes widening in comic horror.

She kept looking at herself, and her image calmed visibly.  She removed her hand, carefully, and smiled at herself.  Her smile was radiant, her eyes certain.

She had no reason to worry.

As she turned away from the mirror, it emitted a gusty sigh of relief.  Tension always made it feel like cracking – although generally not literally.

Of course, few people would voluntarily retain a demented mirror, so cracking mentally was probably a precursor to cracking literally.  The mirror, a rosy, apple-cheeked woman with a surprisingly nervous disposition, was very aware of her mortality.  It wouldn't do to offend or upset the viewers.

A timid knock sounded at the door, and a rather uncertain-looking Hermione Granger poked her head around the jamb.  She appeared somewhat puzzled to see a radiant Ginny, her smile wide, teeth white, and skin sparkling, standing in the middle of the room clothed in her wedding robes.

"I thought I heard voices."

Ginny flushed.

_.~*~._.~*~._.~*~._

Draco was calm.  He was cool.  He was collected.

He was absolutely certain about what he was about to do, and he couldn't be happier about it.

Draco could still picture the first time he ever remembered seeing Virginia Weasley, over a cauldron full of mostly second-hand books in Flourish and Blotts on Diagon Alley.  He had been twelve, she eleven, and they had been enemies at first sight, although certainly to a lesser degree than had been the case with the relationship between him and her brother, or him and Harry Potter.

But she had a huge crush on Harry, and the one thing that she had perhaps learned best from her family was the importance of loyalty, the need to protect your own.  And every offensive comment he made about Ron, about Hermione, every insult and indignity he had thrown at Harry, had only served to create a deeper chasm between Draco and the girl he had always known, somewhere deep in his psyche, that he wanted.

Loyalty was perhaps the most important lesson Molly Weasley had taught her children, and it was what Draco wanted his red-headed offspring to learn from the cradle.

Unlike him, they would know they were loved, know they were supported, unconditionally.

Draco did not consider himself a sentimental man, but he did have his standards.

He would not accept anything less than full commitment.  Not to his wife, not to his future children – and there would be many, if the legendary Weasley fertility matched with his Slytherin determination to achieve his ends had anything to do with the situation.

He already had a head start with the child even now resting in his fiancee's womb, undetected as of yet by anyone other than himself.  Even Ginny thought her slight indisposition was nerves, and hadn't considered the alternatives.  Draco, on the other hand, had been hoping for this child for years.

He had intended to use his first child to blackmail Ginny into marrying him.  She had been careful about birth control, but no potion was foolproof, and she was taking such a long time to decide to accept the proposal he had proffered and left hanging within the first month of their relationship, that Draco had been prepared to act in a way she would have considered dishonourable.

Draco did not like to wait, especially when it came to something this pivotal.  He had not been prepared to hang around waiting for Ginny to say yes, and if necessary would have utilised every trick at his disposal to ensure she made the right decision.  He was ruthless like that.

He was also overwhelmingly glad that he had not had to go to such lengths.  Ginny loved him, and she wanted to marry him, and they would be together forever.

Draco had no time for doubt, or fear, and he would not falter.

He had everything he had ever wanted.

He had Ginny.