6/20/21
Author's Note: As the title suggests, this is the first part of the June chapter. The chapter was getting way too long and out of hand, so splitting it into two chapters seemed like a good way to go. Part two will be posted when I finish it. Even though I've already updated for June, I still intend to post the second part by the end of the month! Also, chapters 8 and 9 will deviate from my normal pattern of alternating POVs every month. Since there was such a time gap between Remembrance Day and summer solstice, it seemed more appropriate to add more POVs rather than having to wait so long to find out what Ginny thinks about everything that has happened since May. Her POV will show up in chapter 9 and then continue into July's chapter 10.
Holidating
by idreamofdraco
Summer Solstice 2006 (Part 1)
It had been two weeks since she'd last heard from Draco, and Pansy had had enough. She swept into his London flat (he didn't know she'd made a copy of his key, though considering how often she let herself in, surely he was intelligent enough to suspect it) on a Tuesday afternoon, expecting to see Draco abed, buried under sweets wrappers, mouth painted with melted chocolate, fingers sticky from sugary things.
It wouldn't have been the first time she found him in such a state. The last time she'd stumbled upon him in a sugar coma depression had been after he'd moved out of Malfoy Manor. Pansy had come to his flat to see how the moving process was going and had discovered the flat still empty of furniture, his luggage still unpacked, and Draco sleeping on a pallet of blankets on the floor of the study surrounded by pastries and candy and cake and even syrupy drippings of unknown origin.
Draco had always loved sweets. Lucius Malfoy despised them. It didn't surprise Pansy in the least that Draco's first act of rebellion after leaving Malfoy Manor was to make himself sick on chocolate frogs and pumpkin pasties and licorice wands and more butterbeer than a gaggle of Hogwarts third-years could consume in an entire Hogsmeade weekend.
What Pansy found when she entered Draco's flat two weeks after the Remembrance Day gala she'd cautioned him about attending was much worse than she expected. In fact, it was the worst scene she could have walked into.
After wandering the flat searching for him, she finally located him in the kitchen of all places, standing at the island in the middle of the room cutting up veg for what looked like a salad. A SALAD. Draco Malfoy consuming a salad? Pansy's brain exploded.
"What are you doing?" she bellowed.
Draco jumped, his knife nearly separating a finger from the rest of his hand. He glared at her. "Making lunch."
"But it's green!"
"Yes. Salads are typically green."
"But... but… why?" Pansy spluttered, her confusion sounding more like a whinge.
Draco waved the knife airily before resuming slicing up some carrots into uneven slivers. "If I remember correctly, the color is caused by a metal called barium—"
Pansy marched into the room and snatched the knife out of Draco's hand. "No, not why is the salad green, you skrewt! Why are you making one?"
"Because I'm hungry." The pointed look he gave her made Pansy's hands itch to draw her wand and hex him. Fine. So he was going to be difficult about this, then?
She pulled a nearly two week old copy of Witch Weekly that she'd found in the study out of her pocket and threw it down on the table, on top of Draco's haphazardly sliced carrots. "Is this why you're suddenly trying to eat healthy?"
The magazine's spine was broken in enough that it stayed open to a certain page. The photograph at the top of the article showed a birds-eye view of a couple, the man on his knee raising a ring box into the air, the woman standing with her hands covering her mouth. It was a little grainy due to the photo being taken in the dark, but clearly some kind of night vision camera had been used to capture the image instead of a flash.
On the opposite page was another photo, this one of a woman's back toward the camera and Draco in front of her, his expression bitingly cold.
The title read, "HARRY POTTER AND THE SLOPPY SECONDS." Pansy hadn't bothered to read the entire article, but she'd skimmed enough to get the gist. Rita Skeeter had caught Potter's proposal to Chang and then she ran into Ginny and Draco exchanging some tense words. Pansy knew better than to take Skeeter's quotes at face value, so here she was confronting Draco to find out the truth.
Draco clenched the edge of the counter, his knuckles going white.
"Did you and Ginny have a fight?" she asked. She wished she was capable of being gentle, because then maybe Draco would respond better. But, no, she was as blunt as ever.
He picked up the magazine and threw it in the direction of the rubbish bin. He missed by a mile, pages flapping in the wind. "We decided it was best not to holidate anymore."
Pansy crossed her arms while still wielding the knife she'd taken from him. "Why would you do that?"
He added his shoddy carrots to his salad bowl and then grabbed a new knife and moved on to slicing a cucumber. Wasn't there enough green in this salad already? Pansy's alarm faded to a simmering worry.
He shrugged, but his whole body tensed.
"Use your words, darling. I can't help you if you don't speak."
"There's nothing you can do," he said, his knife skills becoming more ferocious and more sloppy. "It sounded so easy when she suggested it. We hate each other. Our families hate each other. It would be amusing to bring each other as dates to events. That's all it was supposed to be. Amusing."
"So what happened?"
Clearly Draco did want to talk about this, because to her surprise, he answered. He didn't look up from his cucumber, which he was mangling more by the second, but he opened up to her.
"She accused me of laughing at her behind her back, using her to entertain you with holidating stories about how desperate and pathetic she is."
Pansy frowned. "Why would she think that?"
Now Draco looked up, his expression shut up tight like a house in the middle of the night, every door and window secured, no light escaping through any crack, silent except for midnight sounds. He put the knife down, maybe finally giving up on depriving himself of his comfort food.
"She said you told her that I told you everything about our agreement. On St. Patrick's Day. Whatever you said to her made her believe that I had made her a laughingstock."
His gaze darted to the Witch Weekly issue on the ground in the corner of the kitchen. Pansy read that quick look all too well. Ginny had been a laughingstock in the press for months now. Ever since the Prophet found out about Potter dating Chang. Ever since Ginny began performing badly in matches. Once she began to believe that Draco, too, had been laughing at her, she must have been devastated.
What Draco revealed devastated Pansy as well. When she'd cornered Ginny at the pub, she hadn't meant to make her feel like her life was a trivial anecdote that Draco shared with Pansy for her entertainment. Pansy had interrogated her because she wanted to know what Ginny thought of Draco, wanted to see if Ginny had realized what Pansy had known for years now, if she saw Draco for who he was now or for the boy he'd been during and before the war.
She gulped and pressed her hands together, wringing her fingers nervously.
"Draco, I fucked this up. I'm sorry. But I can fix it."
He shook his head, jaw clenched tight until he spoke. "I don't think it should be fixed. Why would I be frie—I mean. Why would I want to holidate someone who thinks the worst of me without a reason?"
It was a good question, a reasonable reaction to being so misjudged by someone he'd been spending time with for five months. And normally Pansy would agree with him. For her, holidating was a casual social interaction, one with no strings attached, no expectations. But Pansy had been best friends with Draco for too many years and knew him too well. He wasn't capable of keeping people at bay. He was too isolated and too lonely and that made him too susceptible to people. That's why Astoria using him to get to his money had hurt him so badly, and one of the reasons he moved out of Malfoy Manor, whether he realized it or not. His parents had changed since the war, and they could no longer give him what he needed in terms of attention or care.
Yes, Draco had told Pansy all about his holidates with Ginny, but not because he thought Ginny was a joke. He talked about her the same way he talked about a new book he was reading, curious, interested, excited to learn more, but defensive just in case Pansy teased him about his enthusiasm. He tempered himself, attempted to censor his stories, as if she couldn't read him as well as she could read her own reflection. As if she wouldn't notice which parts of the dates he skipped over or spoke about vaguely. As if Pansy hadn't been present on his St. Patrick's Day holidate and hadn't seen the way Draco had danced and laughed—all because of Ginny. Maybe a few too many St. Patrick's Day specials, too… but mostly Ginny.
There was a huge part of Pansy that rejected the idea of romance because she knew one day her parents would wear her down and convince her to marry, and she had little hope of having a romance of her own. But Draco was infatuated, whether he would admit it or not, whether he realized it or not, and Pansy had ruined whatever chance he had at pursuing that infatuation by poking her nose into his business with all the delicacy of a troll in a tea shop. Buried deep in her jaded soul was a tiny nugget of romanticism that was wasted on herself. She'd dig it out and use it on Draco, to fix what she had damaged, to give him a chance at succeeding where Pansy couldn't.
She moved his hands away from the cutting board, scooped up the sliced and intact cucumber, and tossed it all into the salad bowl with the carrots and—was that spinach? Then she took the entire bowl and disposed of it in the rubbish bin.
"What are you doing?" Draco said with an exasperated sigh.
"Answering your cry for help." She went to the icebox and removed half a chocolate cake. Luckily, Draco wasn't depressed enough to throw out his sweets and could still be counted on to store them everywhere in his kitchen.
"You know I do eat real food, right?"
"Shhhhhhh. Just eat some cake so I'll be satisfied that you aren't broken. Then I'll take you out and treat you to a proper lunch."
She held her breath as he retrieved a fork and scooped some cake into his mouth. Then she released it as the tension in his shoulders automatically eased. The magic of chocolate cake.
"Happy now?" he asked with a roll of his eyes.
No. Pansy wouldn't be happy until she fixed her mistake. She would not rest until Draco and Ginny were holidates again.
But he didn't need to know that.
"Happy as pie," she said with a sweet smile.
It had been a month and a half since Draco walked away from Ginny, but it felt like he saw her more often than he did when they were holidates. She was constantly in the Prophet because of Quidditch and in Witch Weekly because of her social life. Draco might have started subscribing to the magazine just to get an in-color glimpse of her every now and then. Purely for the ego boost that someone besides himself was the favored target for negative press these days. Not because he was concerned by her increasingly haggard appearance and desperate for any glimpse of her. Of course.
In the beginning, after their argument and Potter's engagement, there had been a few articles analyzing the messy love square Rita Skeeter claimed to have discovered between Draco, Ginny, Potter, and Chang. But since he and Ginny had not been seen together in public since then (and Draco hadn't been seen in public at all), Rita had run out of steam on that story and had moved on to harassing Ginny alone. The reprieve from the scrutiny and speculation had been a relief to Draco, but Ginny, of course, hadn't been so lucky.
He stared at this week's Witch Weekly with an agitated frown. The photograph next to the article was one of Ginny leaving the Quidditch pitch in Holyhead after a match against the Chudley Cannons. The Harpies had been losing in the first half but managed to turn the match around once Ginny was substituted with a second-string Chaser. They wouldn't have won at all if she'd stayed in the game. At least, that's what sports writer Lee Jordan had alleged in the Prophet, and what Rita claimed in her gossip-filled rubbish in Witch Weekly.
The photograph showed Ginny shoving through a crowd of booing Harpies fans waiting for the team at an exit, her face stricken. There were dark circles under her eyes and deep-set wrinkles of exhaustion on her forehead. She stared down at the ground, trying to get far enough away from the pitch to Apparate home, but she glanced up just as someone snapped her photo, forever capturing her desolate expression.
A pang filled his chest to see her so worn down. He rubbed his sternum to soothe it, but he was afraid it would take more than that to ease his worry.
The reason for his worry was confusing since he was also still angry at her. He didn't want to feel sympathy for her when she'd been so callous with him. That kiss at the Remembrance Day gala was seared into his skin, replaying in his memory over and over again, whether he wanted to think about it or not. And then right after that moment, the revelation that Ginny's actions were inspired by her feelings for Potter had deflated him, made him feel foolish.
He was still mortified that he'd believed for a single moment that the attraction he felt for her had been mutual, when she'd only used him to feel better about Potter's engagement. She was the one who'd said she wasn't interested in including sex in their arrangement. If she'd really needed a distraction, she could have waited until their holidate was over and hunted for someone else to release her frustration on. Instead, Draco had been convenient, and he felt as used and discarded as a paper napkin after dinner.
He looked at the Witch Weekly photograph again. Even though he was angry, he still sought out news about her, even from tabloids that skewed her image to look as pathetic as possible while making Potter look successful and happy in comparison. He still drank in her face, searching for signs of…. He wasn't actually sure what he searched for. What he found instead were images of her spiraling, looking wan and tired and sad. Week after week, looking worse and worse.
It made his heart pang again. What a ridiculous piece of flesh. Didn't his heart know how Ginny had used him? Hurt him?
That was the crux of his frustration, wasn't it? Feelings had become involved, and she'd crushed his. This holidating situation had started out as something fun and amusing, a solution to each of their problems, but it had turned into something Draco could look forward to. Something for which he could get out of bed in the morning. And that wasn't any way to live, was it? He couldn't live for Ginny Weasley and her monthly holidates. He couldn't sit around waiting between holidays to hear from her and receive an invitation to the next event. It was more than he'd been doing before he'd sold that obnoxious Christmas robe to her, but it wasn't enough to live a life.
He closed the magazine and let it drop onto the floor beside his favorite armchair, then he slouched down into the chair, trying to get comfortable. The heat from the flames in the hearth warmed his feet, and he imagined that heat enveloping his whole body, keeping him cozy and safe. He almost always kept a fire going in his study, even in the middle of summer. The warmth kept his dark thoughts away.
He didn't have long to dwell on any dark thoughts before Pansy burst through the door, chest heaving as if she'd run a distance to his flat. That didn't seem likely, so he figured she was just being dramatic.
"I have a solution!" she proclaimed.
"To what?"
"You moping and missing Ginny."
He sat up in outrage. "I am not—!"
"It's okay," she said as she threw herself onto the loveseat across from him. "You don't have to pretend with me."
"I am not moping," he insisted.
"But you do miss Ginny," she replied with a knowing glint in her eye. "Like I said, it's okay. I found your stack of Witch Weeklys next to your bed. If you aren't looking at them and pining for Ginny, I'd really rather not know what you're doing with them instead."
Draco spluttered until he realized Pansy was baiting him. He scowled at her and instead of explaining himself, he asked, "What were you doing in my bedroom?"
"I check in there periodically for signs of a sugar coma depression." She said this as if it made any sense. Draco decided not to pursue the topic, which was good because Pansy wasn't going to let him. "I think you should attend a summer solstice festival."
"What?"
"Specifically the one held in a tiny village called Ottery St. Catchpole. Ever heard of it?"
"No, should I—"
Pansy leaned forward with piercing scrutiny. "The Weasleys live there. At least, the parents do."
Draco grit his teeth together. As much as he wanted to leave Pansy hanging, under that kind of declaration, he couldn't stay silent for long.
"Why would I go to a summer solstice festival in Ottery St. Catchpole?"
A grin flashed across Pansy's face. "Because I have it on good authority that Ginny will be there."
There were so many things Draco could have said to that, such as, "So?" And also, "Who cares?" And maybe even, "I wouldn't be caught dead within 50 miles of Ottery St. Catchpole, thank you very much."
Instead he said, "Whose?"
"Whose what?"
He replied through tightly clenched teeth, his patience worn so thin Pansy should have been able to see right through it. "Whose authority?"
"Ohhh," Pansy said as if relieved he hadn't asked a different question. "Luna Lovegood's."
Draco put his face in his hands and sighed. He rubbed his eyes as if the gesture would erase everything that had happened since Pansy arrived. Then he sat up and leveled his best glare at her, urging her with his stare to make sense. "Please explain yourself before I kick you out."
"You wouldn't."
"I literally can't when you have a key and can let yourself back in."
She frowned and said with noticeable disappointment, "I'd really hoped you didn't know about the key."
"I didn't until you just confirmed it."
"Fucking dammit."
Draco's lips lifted in a smile at successfully giving her a taste of her own nonsense.
Pansy was a good sport about it though and began speaking as if she had been waiting for this moment since her arrival.
"As you know, I attended a Muggle-themed party last night."
Draco did know. He had been forced to endure Pansy practicing her Muggle accent for at least two weeks in preparation of the event. For days on end it had been non-stop "microwave" this and "Wi-Fi" that. Somehow, she'd managed to get her hands on a mobile phone she didn't know how to use, which didn't stop her from pulling it out in the middle of a conversation, pressing some buttons randomly, and then holding it up to her mouth to say, "Miss Parkinson cannot come to the cellular phone right now. Please send an electronic owl to her Blackberry and she will consider your message thoughtfully."
"I don't think that's how it works," Draco had said the first time she'd demonstrated her lack of experience with the Muggle technology.
"Beeeeeeeeeep," had been Pansy's response.
Appeased by Draco's nod of acknowledgment, Pansy continued. "Well, I met Luna Lovegood at this party. She was wearing the most darling Muggle earrings. I believe she said she made them herself out of lug nuts, though they didn't look remotely edible. When the topic of conversation moved to summer solstice plans, she mentioned that her village throws a small solstice festival every summer. And who all should attend this little festival but her neighbors the Weasleys! She informed me that Ginny did indeed plan to attend this year, and I knew I had to tell you right away."
"So you waited until the next evening to mention it?"
Pansy waved her hand. "Right away after the party and after I woke up and after I took a hangover cure. I came as soon as I could."
Draco only just managed to refrain from rolling his eyes. Instead he grunted in assent. He sat back in his chair and gripped the arms lightly. "And what does Ginny's solstice plans have to do with me?"
Pansy scowled at him as if he was being difficult on purpose. "I told you I would fix my mistake. Ginny got the wrong idea about you because I got too excited. This is how it gets fixed. You have to go to the festival and talk to her."
"I see. So you made the mistake, and I'm the one who has to fix it."
She opened her mouth to give an undoubtedly smart reply, and then she bit her lip, her expression turning uncertain. "Hmm. It does sound like that, doesn't it? I suppose I'll just have to go with you and explain everything to her myself."
A part of Draco wanted her to explain it to him first. He still didn't know what Pansy had said to send Ginny spiraling into self-doubt. Maybe part of him didn't want to know. After all, Pansy had sent Draco away to fetch drinks before she'd attempted to draw Ginny into that conversation. What if Pansy had said something embarrassing about him?
He laced his hands over his stomach, settling in for an argument. "I told you before, I don't want to fix this."
"No, you said you didn't think it should be fixed. There's a difference. You do want to fix it, but you don't know if it's worth it because what if she hurts you again?"
"Who said anything about being hurt?" he snapped.
All of her earlier inanity disappeared instantly. Her attention narrowed on Draco, growing serious. "Oh, please. Don't act like I don't know you better than anyone. You miss her. Maybe you won't admit it, but I know you do. It was a simple misunderstanding between me, someone Ginny doesn't know or trust, and Ginny, who has been bombarded by negative press for several months. I tried to pry into her private business, business she had no idea you'd told me anything about. Why would she trust me or my intentions? And why are you holding a grudge against someone who is just trying to protect her private self from the public eye? Don't you do the same, holing yourself up in your overheated study with your books, avoiding people like the plague? If I didn't barge into your flat multiple times a week, you'd never speak to another living soul. Isn't that true?"
Draco wanted to deny it. Not just deny it, but resort to his first instinct and tell her how stupid she was for thinking such weak, romantic thoughts about him. For pitying him. For seeing something in him that he didn't want anyone to see. He wanted to tear her apart verbally like he might have done without hesitation when they were children, when she or any of his other friends had annoyed him. That was why he didn't have friends anymore, by the way. None except for her, who kept coming back to his flat no matter how mean or anti-social Draco was. She found something worthwhile in his flat, worthwhile enough that she had a key secretly made so she could keep coming even when he tried to turn her away.
As she'd said to him once, Draco wasn't the only friend who would let her kill some time with them while she avoided her parents, but Draco couldn't say the same. He only had her. She kept returning to him anyway, maybe because Draco had no one else to rely on. Just Pansy and Ginny, who could have been his friend if he'd just shown her a little compassion, some patience. If only he'd tried to understand her, rather than lash out when he felt slighted.
"Don't think you have to admit anything to me. You don't have to say it out loud for me to know it's true," Pansy went on. "So we're going to go to this festival, and I'm going to apologize to Ginny, and then you're going to ask her to be your holidate again. Nod so I know you understand."
Draco didn't nod. He was still pondering what Pansy had said about Ginny protecting herself. The thing was, Ginny had been vulnerable with him from the beginning. She'd admitted to Draco—of all people, Draco!—that she and Potter had broken up well before the press had officially found out about it. She'd told him how hard it was for her to move on when she couldn't get any space from Potter, both because her mum wouldn't give up on the idea of them getting back together and because Potter refused to give up her family as his own. She had been open and honest with him since Boxing Day, sharing her private self with a person she had no reason to trust. Draco had asked her to trust him, to confide in him, and she had. Maybe she'd been desperate when she'd decided to put her trust in him, but the result was the same whether she'd been driven by desperation or not.
So when Pansy had approached her with details of their arrangement that Ginny had only shared with Draco, it was no wonder she had jumped to conclusions. Especially a month after Potter began dating again, after the tabloids began scrutinizing Ginny's social engagements and Quidditch performances for gossip fodder to fuel sales. She would have been defensive about any information about herself leaking to vulture-like reporters like Rita Skeeter. Pansy questioning Ginny about holidating Draco must have made her doubt herself, especially when she had no control over the narrative being spun around her dead relationship with Potter.
"Draco." Pansy was sitting before him on the ottoman now, snapping her fingers in his face. "Draco, are you there?"
"Yes," he hissed as he swatted her hand away. "Urgh, bothersome woman."
She grinned as if he'd complimented her. "We're going to the Ottery St. Catchpole summer solstice festival, right? I won't let you say no."
He shook his head, but only to clear his thoughts. It had taken nearly two months, but he understood now why Ginny had acted the way she had at the Remembrance Day gala. Why she'd kissed him. He couldn't let it happen again. Ginny was hurting too much to realize how badly the collateral damage of her pain would hurt him in return, and, like Ginny, Draco had to protect himself.
He would go to the festival. He'd convince her to holidate him again. And then… no matter how much Draco wanted her, no matter how many times his heart made that echoing pang in her presence, he would not let her use him again. Instead, he'd show her what she could have with him, if only she'd give up on her dreams of Potter. Draco would give her an incentive to move on.
And the next time she kissed him, he'd know it was for no other reason than because she wanted him, too.
"Well?" Impatience made Pansy's tone sharp.
"We can't show up uninvited," Draco said finally. "But I know just who to ask for an invitation."
George stared into the ingredient cabinet with growing dismay. His stores were dwindling to dangerous levels that soon would not sustain current sales of existing products, let alone the development of new products. Anxiety crept up his throat, choking him. His heart pounded as he evaluated what was left and mentally calculated what he could do with such limited supplies. He had enough to get him through the summer solstice, maybe even all the way to the wedding. But after the wedding?
He took a deep breath for relief and found none. Instead, his chest tightened as if he'd wasted the air just like he'd wasted the money and ideas Fred had left behind for George to use.
Once upon a time, Fred had been the business mind behind Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. After Fred's death, George had done the best he could to balance the books and keep track of inventory and track down reasonably priced supplies without sacrificing quality in his twin's absence. Every time George looked at a list of numbers, his mind would wander to other thoughts inspired by his dreams of new products that Fred wasn't around to help turn into reality. So George did it all by himself, and he was failing at everything. How he had managed to keep the shop running for eight years after Fred's death was a mystery and also a joke, but he thought it had something to do with Verity. She mostly managed the front of the shop but George had caught her frowning at the inventory on occasion. If he had been a better manager, he would have questioned her about what she was doing, but instead he'd turned a blind eye. He just didn't have enough eyes to look at all the things. Things had gotten better, but not enough to turn the shop's trajectory around.
He closed the closet door and leaned his forehead against it with a sigh. The tight feeling in his chest grew tighter even as he tried to breathe through the pain. It felt like the air bypassed his lungs altogether. There was no relief in the action, no relief anywhere.
Even though Verity tried to help him, she didn't understand just how dire his situation was. With their wedding less than a month away, he was afraid to tell her in case she changed her mind about shackling herself to someone who could make a great thing like Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes fail. Guilt ate him up like the Lethifold Charlie used to tell Fred and George stories about to scare them when they were children—strangling and devouring him all at once.
The candle sitting on the windowsill whooshed to life, it's flickering flame green.
"Georgie! You have a visitor down here!" The flame emitted Verity's voice and then turned orange and went out.
He straightened his posture and his robes. A quick glance at his workbench assured him that his current experiments were stable and unlikely to explode while he was downstairs—knock on wood, which he did. Then he descended the stairs to the shop to see who had come for a visit. He avoided looking around at the tables and shelves, which held less and less stock as his supplies diminished, a reminder that he was already losing his and Fred's dream. So he didn't notice Draco Malfoy talking to Verity at the register until George was right behind him.
"Malfoy?" he said in confusion.
Malfoy turned, his expression somewhat grim but then lifting into an indulgent smile. "It's Draco, remember? Pansy insisted, no more last names."
"Right, right," George replied, remembering the strange ensemble with whom he'd celebrated St. Patrick's Day a few months ago. He plastered a grin on his face like he always did, hiding the burning anxiety behind his affable nature. No one ever questioned him when he was making people laugh. No one took a second look when he was smiling. "What can I do for you?"
Draco opened his mouth. Closed it. Pressed his lips together like he didn't know what to say.
George's smile stretched thin. "Is this about my dear baby sister?" When Draco didn't respond, George continued. "I saw the cute little write-up Rita Skeeter did about your supposed breakup and Harry's engagement. Of course I know better than to believe everything she writes, but there seemed to be some truth to it when Ginny refused to talk about what happened."
"Oh no. Did you have a fight?" Verity asked, looking genuinely sad for Ginny's ex-holidate.
"I need to talk to her," Draco replied, looking between the two of them. His posture was stiff and defensive. "There was a misunderstanding."
There was always a misunderstanding when feelings got hurt, and George had seen Ginny a couple times in person since the Remembrance Day gala—and multiple times in the Prophet. Feelings had been trampled. "What kind of misunderstanding are we talking about?"
"I think that's for me to discuss with your sister, not you."
George nodded. Exactly what he expected Draco to say. "So what are you doing here? Why not go to her?"
"I want to. I plan to. That is—" Draco sighed in exasperation. George sure hoped he was exasperated with himself and not George. "I'd like an invitation to the summer solstice festival in Ottery St. Catchpole. For me and Pansy."
"Oh, how fun!" Verity said.
George's patient smile faltered for just a moment. "It's not a private event. Anyone is free to join in."
Draco shook his head before George even finished speaking, clearly anticipating that answer. "No, I can't just show up to your family's annual celebration without warning. I need to speak to Ginny, but I won't go if I'll only make her uncomfortable. I don't want to ruin her holiday."
"Why ask me? Why not our parents?"
Draco glanced over at Verity, whose eyes widened as she pointed to herself and gasped, "Me?" Surprised to be included and delighted by it, as always. George would think her reaction was sad if it wasn't so damn cute.
"On St. Patrick's Day, Verity said we were almost like friends. I…." Malfoy swallowed, his throat working convulsively. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and grimaced as though in pain.
George tilted his head so that his good ear, the one that wasn't just a hole in his head, was pointed at the deeply uncomfortable man. "Yesss...?"
Grinding his teeth together so that the words came out muffled, Draco said, "I suppose I could use a friend."
Verity gasped again, her hands flying up to her mouth as she looked at him with watery eyes. "That's so sweet."
Draco's cheeks flushed violently pink, but he didn't back down from George's gaze, challenging him to tease Draco for what really had been quite a sweet, sad confession. It made George a bit uncomfortable how much he was reminded of Verity in that moment. He shuddered. Ugh. He never wanted to think of his fiancee while looking at Draco Malfoy again.
"What did you and Ginny fight about?" George asked, his tone firm but pleasant. "If you want my blessing, you'll have to tell me." There was no way in hell he would approve of Draco attending his family's summer solstice festival if Draco had hurt Ginny. Ginny hadn't been forthcoming with the details of that Rita Skeeter article, or any of those that followed it, so George was already biased in her favor.
Draco stared at him with a considering expression, his reluctance obvious. Like he was actually contemplating giving up on his mission because he didn't want to tell George what had really happened. Finally, he nodded once, slowly, decision made.
"She kissed me."
"Pardon?" George said at the same time Verity slapped her hands on the counter and shrieked, "She did what?" Some of the customers browsing at the back of the shop looked over at the register in alarm.
Draco's chin lifted, his voice lowering now that they had an attentive audience of strangers. "She saw Potter proposing to his girlfriend, and then she kissed me." He didn't give any further explanation; he looked sick just having admitted that much.
George and Verity shared a look, and he saw comprehension dawning on her face at the same time he realized what had happened, too. Draco hadn't hurt Ginny. Harry had, and then she'd turned right around and hurt Draco back with a kiss she didn't mean. Which must mean that Draco had meant it, if he'd been capable of being hurt.
George's brain hurt on top of all the other hurt floating around.
"What was the misunderstanding about?" Verity asked. Before Draco could answer, a customer came up to the counter to pay.
George pulled Draco away for some privacy. "Okay," he said. "I suppose you can come to the festival as our guest. We'll be selling WWW products and putting on the fireworks show at the end of the night. Come say hello when you arrive."
Draco looked around the shop, a single eyebrow arched skeptically, and George wondered if he was seeing the empty spaces where stock was missing or the way the merchandise was spread out to make the shelves and tables look more full. The thought made his face heat, the idea that Draco Malfoy could see where George was lacking, that Draco might think him inferior for some reason. It shouldn't matter. He had never cared about a Malfoy's opinion before, not like Ron and his dad had. But this was a man who made money in his sleep, without having to lift a finger, who had probably never labored a day in his life. Those kinds of people had a tendency to judge the lives of simple folk who struggled every day to make ends meet, and standing inside his failing shop, George couldn't stand the thought of being viewed as lesser.
So he smiled harder. "Will that be all?"
He'd hoped the dismissal was clear in his voice. The urge to protect himself, protect Verity, protect his dream from Draco's scrutiny was too strong to deny.
But it seemed Draco had already seen enough, because he looked at George with a serious expression and said, "This place. I could help you."
George snorted, but his heart raced. "What? You want to sweep the floors or something? How's your customer service?"
"No, you know what I mean. I have money. You could use it."
Turning to the closest display table and rearranging the things on it allowed George to hide his expression. What he'd felt upstairs before Draco's arrival had been anxiety. What he felt now was panic. He shook his head without thinking, rejecting the idea of a Malfoy getting his hands on his shop—his and Verity's future, Fred's legacy—even as a part of him tried to reason with himself. There would be no future if George ran the shop into the ground, and then what would happen to Fred's legacy?
"Don't be ridiculous, Malfoy," George said to a package of Edible Dark Marks. He coughed out a laugh and quickly put it back down before reaching for the next closest item, a box of Ton-Tongue Toffees. That's how he felt right now, like his tongue was too big for his mouth. Death by asphyxiation imminent.
He turned around with his smile firmly in place and said, "Thank you for stopping by. It was good to see you."
"Liar," Draco said, but he smiled as if he meant it. Then he left the shop, the bell above the door still chiming after he'd Apparated away.
Verity came up beside George and peered out the front window. "Awww. I didn't get to say goodbye."
"Don't worry, we'll see him soon," he said brightly. Maybe too brightly, because she looked up at him with worry despite his attempt to reassure her.
Soon. Something was sure to change soon. George felt it coming and it filled him with dread.
Author's Note: Draco says barium makes his salad green because he kind of remembers Verity talking to him about the science behind Wildfire Whizbangs on St. Patrick's Day, and barium is what makes fireworks green, so he thinks barium is what makes everything green.
The photograph of the Harry/Cho proposal was a birds-eye view because Rita scaled the nearest memorial wall and took a picture from above like a stalker.
Please imagine Pansy pronouncing microwave like "meecro-wah-vay" and Wi-Fi like "wee-fee." Thank you.
Lastly, if you're looking for a community of like-minded Draco/Ginny fans, join us on the Draco x Ginny discord! We're hosting the first Draco/Ginny Fic Fest, which is now underway. If you are looking for an opportunity to give writing a Draco/Ginny story a try, check out the #draco-ginny-fic-fest channel on the discord! Prompt claiming is open now, and stories are due on August 16th! Or if you're just interested in reading, then keep an eye out for new stories to be posted on AO3 in August! Message me if you'd like a link to join the discord!