Chapter 11

"I'm so glad you could make it on such short notice," Ginny said, grinning broadly as the blonde witch approached them.

"Not a problem, not a problem, especially considering the circumstances," her mother-in-law beamed at her. "The two of us will have to put our heads together more often to wiggle around that ridiculous set of rules."

"Just what was that spell?" Draco demanded.

"Simply the fidelity spell the Ministry neglected to place on you during your wedding ceremony," Narcissa replied airily. "I certainly wouldn't want to discover my only son fathered grandchildren I could never meet. Speaking of which, I hear from Mabby that I might be expecting grandchildren soon?"

Ginny grew dangerously pale and swayed on the spot at these words while Draco pinched the bridge of his nose with a force typically associated with severe nosebleeds. Ginny was the first to regain her composure, although her face was still a rather sickening shade of white. "We'll find out soon enough," she said as strongly as she could.

Draco looked up wearily, though his eyes betrayed just how angry he was. "We do need to talk about that, Mother, so let's head up to the suite." He offered Narcissa his arm, before looking at Ginny, whom he quickly offered a steadying arm around her waist instead.

Once they had made their way up to the suite, they quickly sat down. "What was the meaning of that?" Draco hissed. "You had no right, no right whatsoever, to put us in such a compromising situation! Did you even know what allergies Ginny has? She actually has an allergy to one of the ingredients you put in that potion!"

"Oh dear, are you quite alright?" Narcissa asked Ginny.

"Does she look alright to you?"

"Well, she appeared fine when you arrived – "

"It's more of a sensitivity than an allergy, Draco," Ginny finally spoke up, her voice dull.

"That's not the point!" he snapped.

"He's right, darling, I didn't think, I could have seriously hurt you – "

"You did seriously hurt us! With that fertility charm on us added to the legendary Prewett fertility, there's a tremendous chance that Ginny's pregnant right now!" Ginny closed her eyes and resisted the overwhelming urge to bury her face in her hands at that statement. "We had no intentions of having a baby this soon!"

"I'll do the test," Ginny said suddenly.

"What?" Draco snapped at her, clearly not happy about the interruption.

"I'll do the test," she repeated, a little more strongly. "Right now."

"I thought that you couldn't do it so soon," he asked, confused.

"It frequently creates false negatives this early," she admitted. "But from what you've been saying, what chance is there that I'm not pregnant?" Not waiting for a response, she pulled out her wand, made a complicated swish, then tapped her abdomen. Golden smoke erupted from the tip.

Narcissa quickly crossed the room, kneeling next to Ginny, whose mouth was set in a thin, quivering line. "Congratulations, darling. I would say that I am sorry, but I really can't be seeing this." Narcissa gave her a quick hug, pecked Draco on the cheek and quietly left the room.

"I'm going to bed," Ginny announced faintly, rising from her chair, trembling like a leaf in a windstorm.

The door to the bedroom closed with a soft click and shortly thereafter, Draco heard sobbing. Still dazed, he walked over to the door, opening it quietly.

Ginny was curled up on her side on top of the heavy covers of the large bed. Draco sat down next to her hesitantly placing a hand on her shoulder. She jerked in surprise, clearly not having heard him come in, then rolled over to face him.

"Please," she choked out, her eyes shining. "Please hold me," she finally whispered after a few more moments.

Draco numbly kicked off his shoes before climbing onto the bed. After staring at his wife for a minute or so, he finally snaked one arm under her neck and placed the other over her midsection. Despite the early hour, they drifted off to sleep.

Draco woke to find the room considerably darker and cooler. An elf had clearly been there earlier, thoughtfully lighting two gas sconces above the mantle. Squinting, he was able to just make out the time on the timepiece above the mantle: it was just past twelve. He winced as he pulled his arm out from under Ginny's neck; it had fallen asleep sometime earlier and was now full of pins and needles. Rubbing some life back into it, he blearily looked around the room, finally noting that his wand, while missing from the nightstand, was poking into his side. Horrified, he pulled it out of his robes, breathing a sigh of relief when he found it intact.

As he made to get out of bed, his feet hit the cold floor and he let out a yelp. Quickly glancing at the other side of the bed, he desperately hoped that he had not woken Ginny, but it appeared that luck was not on his side as she began to stir and cracked one eye open.

"What time is it?" she asked, her voice still thick with sleep.

"Around twelve," he responded. "Go back to sleep."

"Are you mad?" she asked him, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. "I fell asleep in my robes!"

She climbed out of bed, not even wincing when her feet hit the cold floor and rummaged around in a wardrobe till she found a long, flowing, white robe. Draco thought it looked rather reminiscent of the curtains in Newport, but quickly dismissed that idea as being ridiculous. Turning around, she gave him a rather pointed look, so he walked into the sitting room and ordered a pot of tea, hoping the hot beverage would lull him back to sleep.

The elf who brought the tea service was clearly more clever than Draco gave him credit because the tea delivered was missing its familiar bite. As he sipped the decaffeinated tea, Ginny walked into the room, wearing a billowing white nightgown.

"Decaf?" she asked, frowning.

"I think so," Draco replied. "It certainly tastes like it."

Lifting the teapot, she poured the tea into a paper thin china cup. Taking a delicate sip, she sighed in contentment.

"Thank you," she said softly, swirling the tea in her cup, watching the few scarce tea leaves float about.

"What for?" he asked, nonplussed.

"For holding me earlier," she replied, staring at him oddly. "I'm sorry I broke down like that."

"We're in this together, whether we like it or not," he said firmly. "Besides," he said, his eyes twinkling, "there's a separate volume of the Malfoy Code of Conduct called 'The Proper Care and Keeping of Wives'. I'm afraid you can't read it though."

"Urgh," she grimaced. "Do they happen to have a proper outline on how exactly every moment of your life should play out?"

"Oh yes," he said, his eyes twinkling in mirth. "They consulted a Seer to See the futures of all their unborn offspring."

Ginny closed her eyes, a pained expression coming over her face. "I still can't believe we're going to be parents," she whispered.

"I hate my mother right now," Draco admitted. "She had absolutely no right to do that to us. I had planned on us starting to try to have children once we had been married for two years."

"Nice of you to include me in that planning," Ginny said somewhat nastily.

"When were you planning on it then?" he asked, baffled.

"It wasn't in my plans! I wanted to have a nice, long Quidditch career then start a robe business! I figured that if I met some nice wizard and things worked out then I might have children, but that was in a far off, distant future!"

Ginny burst into tears again, clearly distressed. Draco got up again and put his arms around her.

"I just want to go to sleep and pretend this was all a bad dream," she sobbed into his shoulder.

"Come on then, let's go to bed," he suggested. When she didn't move, just curled up in her chair crying inconsolably, he picked her up, staggering slightly from her weight and carried her to the bedroom, placing her on the bed. Making sure that she was facing away from him, he got up and changed into his own nightclothes. He crawled into bed next to her and the two drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

The next morning Draco was awakened by a beep that was gradually increasing in volume and a light that was growing brighter by the second. He finally spied Ginny's wand on the nightstand emitting the light and groaned.

"Ginny, your wand."

She didn't do anything, simply grabbed onto him and snuggled closer.

"Ginny," he tried again, louder so that he could be heard over the beeping. "Your wand is beeping." She didn't move. Finally, as the beeping grew to such a volume that he was sure his ears would be ringing for days to come, Ginny groaned and reached over, flicking her wand viciously. The beeping stopped, although the light remained.

"'Morning," she said groggily. "What's on the schedule for today?"

Draco frowned, not remembering either. He grabbed his wand from the nightstand and lazily pointed it towards the sitting room. A flattened piece of parchment came zooming through the crack under the door and into his hands.

"Ah, let's see… everything's been pushed off a day, so since today's Wednesday we shall be going to the Forbidden Palace. Do you still want to go?"

"Of course I do, don't be silly," she mumbled, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Yawning and stretching, she gracefully got out of bed and began to rummage around in the wardrobe. She retreated to the bathroom, which Draco took as an invitation to get dressed in the bedroom. He carefully selected grey robes that matched his eyes before heading off to the dining room to see what the elves had brought them for breakfast.

Ginny grumbled as she washed up in the large, sparkling bathroom. She really did not care for how old fashioned her new in-laws were and how she was now forced to select her most traditional robes. At least the robes she selected for today were somewhat interesting: they consisted of a cream under-robe that was fastened with a very light blue sash nearly a foot tall, but was not tight enough to reveal any sort of feminine shape. A dark green outer robe with beautiful brocade along the edges completed the ensemble. It had fastenings to close it completely in colder weather, but Ginny left it open to allow the blue and cream to show through.

She walked into the dining room to discover Draco already seated and eating an omelet. A particularly small house-elf was waiting at the table and scraped its nose across the floor when she walked into the room.

"What will the mistress have in her omelet?" it squeaked in a very high pitched voice. Although Ginny was not particularly familiar with house-elves, she guessed that this could only be a juvenile house-elf.

"Peppers, tomatoes, and mushrooms, please," she responded, ignoring the snort from Draco. He clearly still found it amusing that she was polite to house-elves. The elf deftly created her omelet and handed it to her, before bowing once more and disappearing from the room with a nearly inaudible pop.

"What time are we leaving for the Forbidden Palace?" Ginny asked.

"Shortly after lunch," Draco replied. "I was thinking, I'm sure there are some lovely fabric shops around here, would you like to visit them before we leave?"

"I'd love to," Ginny said in surprise.

"Good," he said smugly, leaving Ginny mystified.

After they had finished breakfast, the two headed to the crowded street outside their hotel. After fighting through the crowds for about twenty minutes, they finally found the fabric shop the concierge had directed them towards. Ginny smiled in delight as she took in the sight around her.

"Oh, this is wonderful," she said, resisting the urge to hug Draco, knowing full well that he would not approve of such affections in public. She quickly became enamored with the world-renowned silks in the front of the store and the shop-owner, knowing a potential customer, was quick to come to her aid.

In the end, she selected so many fabrics that Draco had no doubt she could fill a small trunk with them all. There were heavy silks in nearly every color imaginable: bright reds, dark blues, emerald greens, light greys, and inky blacks. Then there were the lightest possible silks in the sweetest of pastels: lavenders, peaches, pinks, mint greens, creams, and a blue so pale it was nearly white. He could only imagine the plans Ginny had for all of them and supposed that by the time she was finished using them all both his and her entire families would have entirely new wardrobes.

After arranging them all to be shipped to their hotel, they headed off for their tour of the Forbidden Palace. Ginny stopped at the breathtaking sight of the front of the palace.

"Oh my goodness," she breathed. "Just look at the size of that place!"

Draco had to agree. "Another translation calls it the Forbidden City," he remarked. "I think that is the more accurate description."

They fought through the throngs of people, both Muggle and Magical, and finally reached the intimidating front steps. "Isn't there a separate entrance we could use so we don't have to be surrounded by such filth?" Draco groused. "I'm sure there'd be less people."

Ginny frowned, wanting to reprimand him for his prejudices, but thanks to the ever lovely Code, she found she literally did not have the strength to open her jaw to voice her thoughts in such a public place. "Shh, don't say such things in a mixed crowd," Ginny finally managed to get out diplomatically.

Eventually they made it up the steps and into the main museum. Draco was in awe of the enormous throne on display. He read the description in horror. "Someone actually tried to throw this away?"

"Evidently," Ginny said, squinting at the text. "You just like it because of the dragons, don't you?" she teased.

They moved on, eventually making their way to a cauldron Ginny especially wanted to see. "Muggles have no idea of its significance," she quietly confided in Draco. "Not only is it a bronze cauldron, which as I'm sure you know means it's especially powerful in brewing medicinal potions, the inscriptions on it heighten the magical properties of whatever is brewed in it. Supposedly the Chinese Healers brew advanced potions such as Wolfsbane in it in the dead of night to increase their potency. Because of it, the werewolves here barely transform at all during full moons."

Finally, five hours later, the museum was closing and they were forced to leave. "I didn't expect we'd stay that long," Draco remarked.

"Well, it certainly is a fascinating treasure trove," Ginny said. "I still cannot believe that the Wizarding government has so little power here that they cannot remove their own treasures. There's at least enough in there to start up their own museum."

They rounded the corner to their hotel. "Hopefully tomorrow is less eventful than the past few days have been," Draco said as they climbed the stairs to their room.

"Knowing your mother, I very much doubt that," Ginny laughed.

Author's Note:

Phew, I can't believe I got this chapter done so quickly, although it's certainly far from my favorite. Hopefully I can keep this up!

In other news, I have one more location picked out for the honeymoon, meaning I need one more. I'm all ears to any suggestions you might have.

In terms of Ginny finding out she was pregnant so quickly, I'm going with her finding out at the absolutely earliest possible time and that magic helps them find out more quickly. I'm really no expert at all on pregnancy or pregnancy tests.

The descriptions of the throne and the cauldron can be found at the following links (take out all the spaces!):

http : / / www .dpm .org .cn / shtml / 500/ / 109318 .html

http : / / www .dpm .org .cn / shtml/ 50/ / 109323 .html

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed it!