AUTHOR'S NOTE: Is this font major funkadelic or am I just high again? Damn hallucinogens...so craftily concealed in energy drinks. Boy, knock back a dozen or six of those and it really starts to hit ya, don't it? And did you know strawberries are aphrodisiacs? Chocolate-covered strawberries are a bad idea in any circumstance. Where the hell is this one-sided conversation going? I make a lousy conversationalist, that's for sure. SHUT UP! Okay, so here is chapter...whatever the hell chapter this is. Sorry it took so long. Parental issues...apparently they can't live with each other anymore, or something. Can you say divorce? See, I can't, it's just something about the tongue and the word, they just don't mix very well and...shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up...I decided this is more interesting than homework, so goodbye to good college dreams. Ejoy.

DISCLAIMER: Not mine if it belongs to J. K. Rowling. Come on guys, we've been over this.

Mistaken Liasions

Chapter 8: Acceptance is a Bitch

Draco's eyes were a lovely icy blue, almost silver in some points and flecked with sea foam green. They were cold and beautiful and arctic and brutal, which was kind of appropriate because so was he. Ginny's eyes, in contrast, were sinfully rich matrimony of coffee and chocolate that melted and scorched in an overly dramatic trashy romance novel kind of way; almost amber around the pupil, practically burning with warmth and depth. They too, were gorgeous, and the one thing Ginny herself would agree to being termed 'lovely'. Blaise's eyes were sparkling orbs of sapphire and dusk, merging from hazy depths to a shining clarity. It was his eyes that had lead him through the other half of the knickers in Hogwarts.

One would assume the plain silver wedding band on Ginny's left ring finger would have incinerated under the intense stares of the three pairs of astounding eyes that suddenly latched onto its seemingly unassuming form at Blaise's inquiry.

It didn't however, and in the absence of explosions and crackling melt-downs, the only sound that reigned in the utterly dead silence of the kitchen was the sound of Draco's body hitting the floor with a lifeless thud as the events of the previous night came back to him.

Ginny glanced down at the inert body of her newly established husband and nearly vomited. She fumbled as she wrenched the ring off her finger and flung it out the window. Or she would have, had Lei Chang's damned owl not flown through the window at that moment. Ginny watched in growing morbid fascination as the owl plummeted into her kitchen sink, the imprint of her ring making a round 'o' right above one swelling little beady eye. Ginny was somewhat soothed…if only it had been Malfoy flying though that window…

For once Blaise welcomed the arrival of Lei's damn owl. Not so much the summonings of sex-on-demand that it carried, but at least the damned bird bought Blaise some reprieve from the 'Weaselfoy' tension-mounting situation that had developed like a bacterial fungus in the kitchen.

"Well, would you look at that!" Blaise exclaimed somewhat dramatically, holding out his parchment paper in apparent shock an arm's length away. "Lei needs me for something…utterly…strategically…staggeringly…important…yeah. Well, must dash, toodles!" with that and a pop, he was gone, leaving Ginny alone in the kitchen with an unconscious owl and an unconscious husband. She only wished she could toss Draco out the window…

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Blaise was in hysterics by the time he'd made his way down to fifth floor Editing. Inner hysterics, of course, as it simply wouldn't do to let the crazy, muttering mice-loving janitorial German witch in Copying know that he was slightly more imbalanced mentally than she was. It could shatter his fragile ego, which was so decidedly fragile now that the woman of his dreams was married to his best friend.

Damn.

All throughout Lei's presentation on her new cover page ideas Blaise was fidgeting, tapping his dull nails on the desk, tapping the feather of his quill on the desk, tapping his head on the desk repeatedly at a severe rate and with brutal force…

Lei trailed off mid-sentence at the sight of one of her best copy-editors trying to break the desk with his forehead. "Zabini? Are we having problems?" she asked, arching a tweezer-massacred eyebrow over the rim of her glasses. Blaise glanced up, chin sliding off the table as he disappeared behind his hands.

Lei frowned, blood red lips twisting down. "Is there something you'd like to share with the team?" she asked in a user-friendly kind of peppy voice. Blaise's eyes appeared glaring between his fingers. "This is not an Alcoholics Anonymous session!" he shouted indignantly, remembering the hellish ordeal that had been one of Draco's lesser of brilliant ideas. "I'm not sharing my life and problems with a bunch of cracked-up photo journalist editors with no sense of humour!"

Lei's pencil snapped and the corners of her lips performed an Olympic-style ten-point dive into a disapproving frown of the deepest calibre that only women can accomplish. "I think someone needs a little time to think about his actions." She said, pushing her hair out of her face with brutal force.

"I am not two fucking years old, you bloody ignorant bitch! You can't make me go stand in the fucking corner!"

"Zabini, you're on suspension for two weeks. If you can't pull your arse together, I'll have no choice but to let you go, am I understood?" she said, grinding her teeth. Blaise scoffed and shot back from the table, his chair falling over as he stood suddenly, face twisted with the effort of not pulling his wand from his pocket and Avada-ing the hell out of her arse on the spot.

"Oh I understand perfectly." He said, gathering his things, aware of the astonished stares of his co-workers. "See you in two weeks, feck-heads!" he said, slamming the door open and disappearing from the office with several different hand gestures, all extremely rude depending on what country it was from.

The art of linguistics…

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When Blaise got back to his apartment, the lights were dim and the door locked. Slightly afraid of just what he might find in an apartment that now housed newlyweds, he tiptoed through the doors. He severely hoped no honeymoon activities were in progress. Gingerly dropping his robes he peered into the kitchen: empty.

He stuck his head out cautiously. "Hello?" he called tentatively. For one moment packed with absolute stark-horror, Blaise imagined that the groan that came from his bedroom was one of ecstasy. While convincing his stomach to return to his body, Blaise calmed himself with the comforting knowledge that a loud thunk and another groan of most definitely not ecstasy followed.

Within a few moments, a dishevelled Draco Malfoy came slinking out of Blaise's room, rubbing a red stop on his head. He leered through one bleary eye before grumbling. "Morning, Zabini." He growled, heading into the kitchen, utterly unsure of how he had ever gotten entangled in the sheets in Blaise's bed when the last thing he remembered was throwing up and a lot of pancakes…

Blaise flung himself into one of the dining room seats, more than a tad moody. "Try afternoon. It's almost supper time, Malfoy." Blaise was astonished to hear how grouchy he was and to know internally that it had absolutely nothing to do with being dismissed for two weeks.

There was a pounding, dull ache in his chest that made him feel like he needed to take a really deep breath. But he couldn't. Blaise glanced around as Draco tried to retrace his steps. "Where's Ginny?" he asked, her name panging and tightening the hold that was currently disallowing his blood to flow through his veins and was instead making it pound repeatedly in his head and chest.

Draco looked up just then, a look of comprehension and horror dawning over his scowling features. He looked down at his hand where a cheap silver ring was lovingly encircling his dreaded 'marriage finger'. He didn't really need that finger…he always had thought it was useless…

Blaise cleared his throat, bringing Draco's eyes back to him and his hand away from the butcher's knife. Draco's mouth fell open. "I-I'm…" he paused, looking otherworldly and out of it. "I'm married." He breathed, a small quirk forming on his lips.

Blaise's world came crashing down at his feet. "Yeah, I guess you are."

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Hermione sighed, rereading the fifth draft for her latest magical law proposal. It looked decent…but that bastard of a copy-editor of hers always found something wrong. She was just about to scratch out another sentence when someone knocked on her door.

Sticking her quill back in its inkpot, she brushed off her hands and made her way through her sizeable apartment to answer the front door. Heaven forbid Ron should ever do it…

Hermione was quite astonished to see her sister-in-law on her doorstep. "Ginny!" she exclaimed, ushering the young woman in. "How have you been? I haven't seen you in ages, oh and tell that smarmy flatmate of yours that the next time he tells me his old house elf could write better laws than I can, I'll personally come down and…" but she trailed off as tears welled up in Ginny's eyes and threatened to spill over.

"Ginny, what…?" Hermione was cut short as Ginny shoved her left hand in front of her face. "I'm married!" she burst out in a sob. She immediately lapsed into a series of tearful outbursts that Hermione had difficultly following.

Shushing her and alternately rubbing her back while she lead the distraught woman over to the couch, Hermione pulled her wand from her pocket and closed the door behind her. Another flick and a pot of tea was on the stove while Ginny cried her heart out.

Several cups of tea later, Ginny was curled up in a ball, her head in Hermione's lap as the older witch stroked her red hair comfortingly. For once, Hermione was having difficulty taking in information.

"So…you're married…to Malfoy?" she asked, somewhat hoarsely. A vision of her fist flying out to meet his ferrety face popped up in her mind and she cringed at how much her husband loved that incident…and loved to bring it up repeatedly at family functions. Ginny sniffled and nodded. "I don't know how…I just remember having a lot of drinks and Rythmi saying something about an Irish wedding legend and then the next thing I knew, I woke up in bed next to a Malfoy." She let out a weary sob.

Hermione turned a contemplative face down to Ginny's. "So, what are you going to do about it?" she asked. Ginny shrugged, a tear streaking her face. "There's not so much I can do." Hermione's eyes widened. "Nothing you can do? Ginny, divorce him! I'm sure he's not overly thrilled about his arrangement, I mean the Weasleys and the Malfoys have never gotten along."

Ginny scoffed. "I'm not a Weasley, I'm a Malfoy now. Besides, divorce isn't as easy in the magical world as it is in the Muggle one. There hasn't been a case of divorce in the magical community since that woman who accidentally married Snape. And even then, her life was ruined." She sniffled again, swiping at her eyes with a semi-obliterated tissue.

"I don't think it would have been any better with Snape…actually, I think her life was spared a great deal of painstaking torment. Ew, Snape…" Hermione shuddered before turning her attention back to her distraught sister-in-law.

"I just never imagined it would be like this, you know? I always imagined falling head over heels with some bloke or other. A wedding in the back yard at the Burrow. The twins spiking the champagne. Dad stomping on my feet in the father-daughter dance. Mom in tears, Ron stonily shaking hands with the groom, no matter who he was, Bill and Charlie and Percy all coming down to wish me away into a fairytale life." Seeming to snap out of her reverie, Ginny shook her head.

"Obviously I overestimated things, but still…I wanted some kind of happy beginning. Something. " And with that, she blew her nose and terminated her eighteenth tissue.