Ginny hated weddings. She really, really detested them; the bride, radiant in her gown, the groom, flushed with happiness, the family, congratulating themselves.
The sheer cliché and idealism of it all sickened her. If it was a hasty marriage, they'd say that it was because they couldn't wait, but everyone knew that the gown was probably hiding an especially rounded tummy. If the bride was slightly late, it was because she was having second thoughts about it.
But then she attended Ron and Hermione's wedding, and it was that little bit away from perfection. And then Ginny realized that she'd only ever hated weddings because she thought she'd never had one, that it was only jealousy that made her look at them so critically.
And so Ginny made a Decision (it had capitalized itself in her brain). She would clean up her act, stop indulging in one-night stands and dead-end relationships, and find herself a decent man with which to enter the holy state of matrimony.
Right. Now all she had to do was end her current dead-end relationship, then she'd be all set to start her life as a reformed woman. Although, she didn't really want to end it... No. As much as she enjoyed Draco Malfoy, their relationship could go no-where but back to square one, so she might as well hasten the process and spare them both a bit of heartache. The very fact that she liked him enough not to want to leave him proved that she had to.
Draco sighed as he Apparated home. He'd had an extremely long, tiring day; his Auror caseload had been large as of late, and his father had just threatened to disown him. Again. For the fourth time this week, and it was only Friday. Still, his tirades were extremely exhausting to deal with, and all Draco wanted to do was stretch out on his bed and decompose for the weekend.
When he arrived in the living room of his flat (a penthouse, really; a gift from his parents when he turned 21, the tradition age for young Malfoys to be booted from the family home), warm, appetizing smells wafting from the kitchen, he suddenly felt much better.
"Mmm, Weasley, knew you couldn't keep away from me long. Glad you decided to make dinner; can't stand the house-elf's cooking any longer."
He loosened his tie as he walked into the kitchen and brushed a kiss to the back of her neck.
When she turned around to grin at him, the world seemed a cheerier place. After she shooed him away, he showered, before joining her at the dinner table.
They chatted lightly as they ate; banter making the food more enjoyable.
After dinner, they adjourned to the bedroom for more relaxing activities.Half an hour later, he woke up on top of her, still buried inside her. When she felt him stir, she opened her eyes and smiled sleepily up at him.
"Got two to your one."
"Annoying chit," he grumbled, before rolling off her, tugging the sheets away in the process. They had a brief, playful tussle for them, before they called a truce (Ginny got the larger portion; she cheated by slipping her hand between his legs and squeezing slightly).
"You're lucky that I'm so knackered from today that I don't need to have another go because of that," he muttered, briefly cupping himself in apology.
"Huh," she replied noncommittally.
They lay there for a while, before she broke the comfortable silence.
"I think perhaps that's the last go we'll ever have, Draco."
He knew this was not in jest; she only ever used his first name during sex, or when she was utterly serious.
"Why?" He winced when he heard his voice. It was imperious and demanding, and he knew it would set her on her guard. He was proven right when he saw her eyes flash ire, before she controlled her irritation.
"We aren't going anywhere, Draco. This," she gestured at the both of them, "is not going anywhere. I think perhaps it'll be better for the both of us if this doesn't happen again."
"So this was a goodbye fuck?" She flinched slightly at the anger in his voice, but he didn't care. She was leaving him, damn it!
"Yes, it was. I thought you deserved that, at least, and an explanation. I don't see what you have to be so worked up about. We both knew this was temporary, until we found other people, and it's not like you want to spend the rest of your life shagging a Weasley, anyway."
She got up and started gathering her clothes, and his heart clenched, irrationally, in fear at the thought that she was really going to leave and never come back.
"Why do you have to be a relationship that's bloody going somewhere, damn it? The very essence of romance is uncertainty, not some boring old geezer walking down the aisle in rented robes! Besides, don't tell me you want someone like Potter?"
Fully dressed now, she leant over him and brushed a kiss over his forehead, before murmuring in his ear.
"You see, Draco, women shag guys like you, but they get together permanently with guys like Harry."
There was a pop of air as she Disapparated, and Draco swore, his mind going to the engagement ring he'd bought for her a few days before, secreted in his trouser pocket waiting for him to gather the courage to ask her.
Ginny muttered under her breath as she flung open the doors of her wardrobe and examined her robes.
Bryan, a nice if slightly bovine wizard from work, had invited her to dinner and a play, and she had agreed.
It had been a week since she'd left Malfoy, and she'd gone on dates every night since then. All of her dates had struck her as boring and with nothing to say for themselves, and she hoped Bryan would be different.
He wasn't. Ginny watched, entranced, as he chewed his salad. He really did look so much like a co...
"So," he mumbled around his mouthful, interrupting "how's your family?"
She sighed, as she looks down at her food, unwilling to watch him chew his cud. Draco might have had his shortcomings, but he was always unfailingly polite, always well mannered. He hadn't ever had disarranged robes, let alone talked with his mouth full.
They finished the dinner and paid, Bryan meticulously counting his change as they left the restaurant. She found herself thinking that Draco would never do something so crass, and besides, he had tabs at all the best restaurants, but quickly banished the thought. She was on a date with Bryan, not Draco, and she shouldn't be thinking about him at all.
They made their way to the theatre where the play was showing. They were walking through the foyer of the theatre when a sudden flurry among the attendants caught Ginny's eye. When she looked closer, she saw that all of them were falling over themselves to attend to Draco Malfoy.
She froze, then quickly turned and walked away, dragging Bryan along with her. But he'd already seen her, so she was arrested by the sound of his voice calling her name.
"Why, hello, Weasley. What brings you here this fine night?"
She rearranged her features into an expression that could have passed for a smile under extremely bad light, and turned back around to answer him.
"Oh, hello Malfoy. We didn't see you."
He had, she noticed, an extremely pretty girl hanging off his arm. Ginny didn't like the look of her.
"Oh, I see you've noticed my companion for this evening. Delia, meet Ginevra Weasley. Weasley, Delia."
Used as she was to his subtle maneuvering, she caught the undertones in his introduction. So, he thought this Delia was of higher rank than her, did he? Well, he could just go to hell!
"Hello Delia," she smiled pleasantly at the other girl, "This is Bryan. We have to be off. Nice to see you two."
She whisked Bryan away, leaving Draco gazing in irritation after her. He was sure that she'd caught that barb, but she hadn't taken the bait! And who on earth was that loser whose arm she was on? Draco didn't like him.
Draco scowled as he surveyed the lower stalls through his opera glass. He could see the red of her hair very distinctly in the crowd, and he didn't like the way she was clinging onto that oaf's arm and whispering into his ear. He was willing to bet that she was doing it just to make him jealous.
Ginny fumed. She wasn't used to the press of bodies in the lower stalls after being with Draco for so long, and Bryan was being thick and trying to engage her in conversation about the chandelier, of all things.
"You can see by the way the light reflects off the crystals on top that this..."
She smiled and nodded, and allowed him to go on while she thought about Draco.
Much as she knew that he hadn't thought very much of her, she was still slightly hurt at the speed with which he had replaced her. And what stung especially was that the girl had been the epitome of Draco's type, as if his subconscious had made him gratefully go back to what he really wanted after his extraordinary foray.
She shook thoughts of him from her mind, and turned her attention back to Bryan, deftly switching the topic of conversation to work so that the evening would not be an entirely wasted one. The murmur of the crowd around them was so loud that she kept having to say things directly in his ear in order to be audible.
Bryan sent her home. Ginny stood on the doorstep of her flat and smiled at him, wishing he would just go away. He finally finished his speech about what a nice evening it had been, and how he would like to see her again, and leaned in to kiss her.
'Draco kisses so much better,' she thought to herself, letting him press his lips against hers. She suddenly realized that this past week, all she'd been doing was comparing her dates to Draco and finding them wanting, and was so horrified by this that she jerked away and muttered a goodbye before disappearing into her flat.
She sighed as she sank into her bathtub, glass of wine in hand. It had been an incredibly long day, and things were further complicated by this latest development.
Ginny lay there in the bathtub until the water turned tepid, thinking things through. And she realized that perhaps the kind of electrifying chemistry she'd had with Draco only existed with people like him, people that you couldn't get enough of, in relationships that were doomed from the start. Perhaps relationships that lasted had to be staid, not as exciting.
Well, that was what she'd settle for, she thought, ignoring the voice at the back of her head that wailed that that's not what she wanted, what she wanted was Draco.
Perhaps she finally ought to go see Hermione about those blind dates she kept bugging her about.
The next time she saw Hermione was that weekend, at one of the lunches Molly kept insisting she hold for her children.
Hermione jumped at the chance to pair Ginny up with someone.
"Oh, there's this guy I know you'll just love. His name's Jack Atwoods. Heard of him?"
When Ginny shook her head, Hermione started gushing about him. Apparently he was one of the Academy's top trainee Aurors, and he was dashing and nice to boot.
"And," she whispered, leaning in confidentially, "he broke up with his girlfriend not a month ago, because he caught her shagging another man."
Ron, overhearing this, had snorted.
"And not just any other man, baby sister mine, but Malfoy!" he crowed, leaning over his wife's shoulder.
Ginny flinched before she could stop herself. Draco really was taking advantage of his newly single state, wasn't he? Or perhaps it'd happened before she'd left him. Either way, she was not going to give a damn.
"Owl me about that date, Hermione," she said, before going into the kitchen and helping Molly with the dishes.
As she left, she heard Hermione berating Ron. "We don't know that for sure, Ron! You shouldn't go around spreading rumors like that."
She took out her best robe and gently shook out. It had been ages since she'd worn it; she'd last had it on when she was Malfoy's escort to one of his company functions, where they could be sure that no one who knew them both would be.
Hermione had arranged tonight, with Jack Atwoods. He was bringing her to Zenith, a new bar. Tonight was the opening night, and the party was by-invitation only; apparently everyone who was anyone was going to be there, and Ginny was determined to look her best. For Atwood, of course; it definitely had nothing to do with her certainty that Malfoy would be there.
She did her best with her unruly hair, managing finally to twist it into a sleek chignon at the base of her neck before the doorbell rang.
Grabbing her wand-purse, she ran to open the door, heels clacking satisfyingly.
Jack Atwoods was every bit as delectable as Hermione had said. Hazel eyes grinned down at her, matching his brown hair, and his tall, broad frame took up her doorway.
"Ginevra Weasley," she stuck out a hand for him to shake, enjoying the small flutter in her tummy caused by his grin, "But all my friends call me Ginny."
"Jack Atwoods," he bent down and brushed a kiss to the back of her hand, "And I do believe my friends call me Jack."
She grinned in relief; finally, someone who had a sense of humor! And not just when it was sharp and biting and directed at other people, too.
"Shall we?" He offered an arm, which she took, and they stroll off down the boulevard.
"I thought we might walk there; it's a cool night and we might as well get to know each other better." She watched his nose crinkle as he smiled, and thought to herself how adorable it looked.
They chatted and laughed about inconsequential things as they made the way there.
"You know, I've never actually been on one of these blind date things. But Hermione kept at me until I agreed. She couldn't seem to stop telling me about how perfect her sister-in-law was for me."
She smiled, embarrassed.
"I haven't either, actually. But I just ended a relationship, so I thought, well, what could I lose. But she seemed to enjoy singing your praises as well."
They both laughed a bit at Hermione's matchmaking efforts.
"I must say, though, that what she said about your looks certainly wasn't an exaggeration," he said gallantly, stopping and gently running a finger down the side of her face.
He leaned down to kiss her, and it was almost everything she'd been trying to find (she tried hard to convince herself that this wasn't merely because he wasn't Draco).
Jack was just the sort of guy she always thought she'd fall for, the sort that she would be falling for, right now, if she weren't already head over heels for Draco. But she reminded herself that certain compromises had to be made, sometimes, and that her mind could just shut up and enjoy the night.
They made it there just in time to be fashionably late; they'd kept stopping for kisses along the way.
They shared one last kiss before they stepped out of the shadows beside the bar into the brightly lit entrance, and she was gratified to see that his eyes were slightly glazed and his hair was mussed.
She reached up and smoothed it back into place, and he arranged the collar of her robes where his mouth had traveled.
They shared a small, secret smile before they walked into the bar, her hand on his arm.
When they stepped into the room, everyone turned to look at them, and Ginny knew what a sight they must make; both their mouths were red and wet, and she was sure she had a mark somewhere on her neck.
Draco turned around as he heard the door swing open, only to be greeted by the sight of Ginny, his Ginny, hanging off someone else's arm, looking thoroughly kissed. He forced the muscles in his shoulders to relax. 'But doesn't she know that she's not allowed to look kissed, whether thoroughly or otherwise, unless I had something to do with it?' his mind protested, before he shushed it with another sip of his champagne.
His date for the night was Delia, again. She was engaged to Blaise Zabini, still his best friend, and she had kindly agreed to keep him company at what he had described as 'a bit of a bore, really', Blaise being out of town.
But he hadn't known that the Weaslette would be there; if he had, he'd have come alone, perhaps try to win her over.
Oh well. A man could but try, couldn't he?
Maybe it was time to reclaim what was his. He just hoped that now she realized that that's what she was.
"You'd better watch out for Jack there, Ms Weasley," one of Jack's grinning colleagues cautioned, speaking loudly over the music that several couples were just now beginning to dance to, "He might look innocent but under that angel's exterior…"
She laughed as Jack elbowed him, returning with her drink.
"Not spreading tales about me, Michael?"
"Oh, would I do that?"
"Would you?"
They grinned good-naturedly at each other, and Ginny basked in the warmth of the friendship around her. She'd never seen Malfoy with his friends; somehow they'd never got around to introducing each other to their friends.
'Speak of the devil,' she thought as she heard someone behind her ask her for a dance. Of course, she'd know that drawling voice anywhere.
"Malfoy," she said coolly as she turned around. He bowed and extended an arm. Still unused to not being with him, she took it immediately, and cursed herself when she saw his expression flicker before he schooled it back into polite blankness.
"Malfoy!" Jack greeted him from behind her, "Didn't know you'd be here!"
"Yeah, I was actually thinking of staying at home and mooching around my empty flat, but then I thought I'd mooch around here instead." Ginny looked up at him, surprised by the friendly overtones in his voice.
"Here with Delia again, I suppose," when Draco nodded, Jack grinned. "Why, you old dog, you!"
"Who are you here with?" Draco cut in, not wanting to discuss Delia.
Jack and Ginny smiled across at each other, and Draco looked momentarily surprised.
"Going out, are you?" Ginny was surprised at how cold his voice sounded, suddenly, but Jack appeared not to notice it.
"You could say that," he grinned, and for one fleeting moment Ginny felt like slugging him when she saw the look that crossed Draco's face.
"Well, I have to steal your date for one dance, I'm afraid," Draco barely missed a beat, "Old school-mates; lots of catching up to do."
He whisked her off, and Ginny suddenly found herself in the middle of the dance floor. She could only thank her stars that it was the kind of happy rock music where you wouldn't look odd if you just stood there swaying; she wasn't all that good at dancing. Especially not compared to Draco, who looked like he was dancing when he walked.
He noticed her watching him, and bit back the urge to ask her if she'd missed him that much.
"Weasley. How have you been?" He resisted the urge to bend down and kiss her, and instead stepped nearer, closing the distance between them.
"Oh, I've been alright," she answered carefully, not wanting to admit that she'd missed him, that she wanted desperately, against all better judgment, to get back together, "And how have you been doing, Malfoy?"
"Terribly," he admitted, frankness evident in his voice, "I've been doing terribly. I've missed you, Ginny, even if you haven't missed me."
She looked up from where her eyes had been trained, unwittingly, on his hips, startled, and stared at him.
"Look, Ginny," he ran a hand through his hair, annoyed by the few minutes of silent staring he'd just been treated to, "If a real relationship is what you want, a relationship that will go somewhere, then I'd be all too happy to oblige."
He pulled her hips flush against his, and she breathed in the familiar scent of his cologne and was torn between pushing him away and clutching him closer. He leant down to whisper in her ear.
"Marry me, Weasley."
This time she pushed him away, hands trembling a bit.
"Don't fucking play with me, Draco," she spat, then stalked out of the door, leaving Jack behind still chatting to his friends.
She was halfway across the road opposite when she heard someone running up after her.
"You forgot your coat, Weasley."
She snatched it from him and continued walking.
"I wasn't joking, you know. About wanting to marry you, I mean."
When there was no reply, he strode in front of her and stopped her, taking hold of her shoulders. He knelt on the pavement, only the faintest expression of distaste crossing his face, and took out the ring.
"Weaslette, will you marry me?"
She gasped when she saw it. Even in the dimness of the streetlight, she could see the diamonds and emeralds glittering at her. Her lip quivered as she answered him.
"Draco, you shouldn't do this just because you want to get back into my pants. You shouldn't feel obligated to ask me to marry you. I'll sleep with you, if you want, but not for something like this."
He scowled as he glared up at her.
"I've already said Weasley, I wasn't joking! I do want you to marry me. I bought it before," his voice cracked slightly, "before you left me."
She gazed down at him. He stared back, nervous but trying desperately not to show it.
She sighed and pulled him up.
"Get on your feet, Draco. We have a wedding to arrange."
Somehow, he couldn't help the undignified beam that broke out on his face.
At the wedding, she met his friends, and he met hers, and everyone, even their family (she was, after all, a Pureblood from two ancient bloodlines, so his family couldn't object, and all she'd had to do was to blackmail the twins into talking, or rather forcing, the family round.)
And the wedding was everything she'd known it would be.
A/N Leave a review if it impacted you in any way, or made an impression? The NC/17 version is at http: