Ginny looked in the mirror and adjusted the crown of flowers on her red head. The mirror remarked "You look perfectly lovely dear, stop fidgeting and get out there."
Ginny smiled her thanks at the mirror and turned as the door opened and Arthur looked in. "Ready Ginny?" he asked.
"Yes, Dad." She said and walked over to take his arm. Her fleeting thought was that she was finally fulfilling her destiny.
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Draco shifted from foot to foot nervously, as he surveyed the people in the vast sea of folding chairs in the back garden of the Weasley burrow. It still amazed him that his mother had given in without a fight to Molly when she insisted that the wedding be held in the backyard. When he questioned her about it later, Narcissa had said, almost conspiringly "You have no idea how insistent Molly can be. In school she was practically a bully. Besides, I think we've made the garden acceptable." And indeed they had. Narcissa had spent galleons upon galleons to get just the right plants and decorations for the wedding. Beautiful flowers and green grass abounded. And Hermione had released Crookshanks in the yard a week ago. There was not a gnome in sight.
"Ready mate?" Bill said, clapping a hand on Draco's shoulder. Draco had asked Bill to be his best man and Ginny had insisted Hermione be matron of honor. They both reasoned that without the two of them, Ginny and Draco might still be miserably apart.
"Ready." Draco said, smiling. They took their place at the top of the walkway between the center rows of chairs, just under a trellis of roses, charmed to send their aroma across the yard. The wedding march began to play and moments later Ginny and Arthur appeared from the back door of the cottage.
Draco caught sight of Ginny and sucked in his breath sharply. She was beautiful. In a dress of simple white with a wreath of flowers in her glorious red hair, he knew there wasn't another man on earth as lucky as he was. 'Mine' he thought. He heard the gurgle of a baby and glanced quickly at where Carina was nestled in Molly's arms, amid a sea of pink blanket. 'They're mine, and by all the Gods, so help me, I'll never, never, lose them again.'
Ginny smiled sweetly up at him as Arthur placed her hand in Draco's. Draco felt a foolish grin spread across his face. 'Malfoys do not grin' he thought, then grinned even wider.
Albus Dumbledore cleared his throat and Draco and Ginny shifted their attention to him as the ceremony began.
Later, as they danced, Draco asked his red haired wife, "Happy love?"
Ginny hugged him closer as she said, "How could I not be?"
Things had changed dramatically in the two weeks that had followed Carina's birth. Both Ginny and Draco had undergone that magical transformation of immaturity to adulthood. Finally it had sunk in to both of their heads that the time for pridefulness had past and it was time to be adults and raise their child and love one another. There would be no more months of not speaking and being apart. They had made their mistakes and worked through them, they had knocked down all the walls that had been built before them, they had tackled every obstacle, and passed every test the Gods had thrown at them with flying colors.
Draco released Ginny and only smiled at her when she looked at him questioningly. He made his way towards the band where the singer relinquished the microphone to him and with his eyes on Ginny only, he began to sing.
There's a bar on my head
There's a cross for my bed
There's my heart in my hand
There's my stick in the sand
Here where the world starts spinning round
take a ride and you'll feel what you've never found
Here when the stars start fading out
you hear the angels laughing without a sound
Welcome to the beautiful…
She sits here… far away
in my breast, in my grace
She's the best… the best of me
She my love, she's my queen…talking to me
And when your world starts spinning down
take a ride and you'll feel what you never found
When the stars start fading out
You hear the angels laughing without a sound
Welcome to the beautiful
I met myself just today
Came alive in my grave
And I'm the best, the best of me
For you my love… for you I'll be
When the world starts slowing down
Take a ride and you'll feel what you never found
And as the stars are fading out
I hear the angels laughing without a sound
Welcome to the beautiful…the beautiful…
When Draco left the stage and gathered Ginny into his arms, all around the people who loved them knew that the love they witnessed would be one that lasted a lifetime.