Chapter 14
Ginny stood in the middle of the parlor with her hands on her hips. Draco had just left for work, leaving her alone in their new house. To say that his unflattering assessment of the house was accurate was the understatement of the century. The house-elves had grown slack in their duties over the years, leaving the place dank, dusty, and doxy ridden. While there were no house-elf heads mounted on the walls, there were a number of animal heads instead. The whole place strongly reminded Ginny of the miserable two weeks she had spent at 12 Grimmauld Place during the war.
"Let's see, what shall I do first?" she muttered to herself. She paced up and down the length of the parlor for a few moments. "Aha! The sitting room!" The sitting room was where she suspected that she and Draco would spend much of their spare time. It was considerably less formal than the parlor, whose whole purpose she suspected was to receive the Minister of Magic.
The sitting room, nonetheless, was in positively miserable condition. The curtains were heavy and had holes where the doxies had chewed through and the sofas were moth eaten. It seemed to have been last redone in the early nineteenth century, so she very much so doubted that the furniture would be particularly comfortable even if it had been properly maintained. Not trusting the house-elves, she rolled up her sleeves, summoned some cleaning supplies and began to scrub.
Draco arrived home and wrinkled his nose at the smell. He hoped that Ginny completed her renovations sooner rather than later, but he had hoped that she had managed to whip the house-elves back into shape – preferably quite literally. Unfortunately, she did not seem to be the type to punish house-elves in such a fashion and he highly doubted that he'd hear the end of it if he tried such measures.
"Ginny?" he called out, after searching for her for several minutes. Much to his surprise, she came out of a door just up ahead a few moments later.
"Yes?" she asked wearily, raising a shaking hand to brush some sweat off her forehead.
"What in the name of Merlin are you doing?" he asked, his eyebrows shooting up into his hairline.
"Cleaning," she said simply.
"There are three house-elves here! Why the hell were you cleaning?"
"Because I don't trust them," she snapped. "Have you seen this place? It's positively filthy!"
He pinched the bridge of his nose. "They're lazy because they've been lacking direction for so long. Do you want me to ask Mother to come over tomorrow and help with them?"
She began to cry at this. "I suppose," she sniffled.
"Now, what do you say we head out to dinner?"
Ginny really began crying at this. "I – I – I'm sorry," she sobbed. "It's just that – that I'm filthy, I'm tired, and I haven't eaten all day."
"Then go up and take a shower?"
"The pipes are all rusted out!"
He sighed. He really should have remembered that. After watching a tiny trickle of brown water come through the spigot that morning he had snuck back into his old rooms at the Manor to shower. "How about we quickly visit the Manor so you can shower?"
She glared at him. "In case you've forgotten, your father and I are not on the very best of terms."
"I managed to avoid seeing him this morning, I just Apparated straight into my old rooms. You'll have to Side-Along Apparate with me, of course, but we can get in there without anyone noticing."
"If you say so," she said doubtfully, wiping away the last of her tears. "Let me just grab some clean clothes."
As soon as they popped into the Manor, Draco wasted no time in showing Ginny to his bathroom. It was the most magnificent bathroom she had ever seen and she wished she could spend all evening in there scrubbing away the grime of the Lodge, but she was still wary of being caught unawares by Draco's father. After she hurried into the bathroom and he heard the sound of water running, Draco snuck out of his rooms and began searching for his mother. After a few minutes, he found her in her sitting room.
"Hello, Mother," he said in greeting.
"Draco! What a pleasant surprise!" she exclaimed, hurrying over to give him a hug. "Now, what are you doing here?"
"It's about Ginny," he said.
"What's wrong with her? Is she alright?"
"She's having a few troubles with the house-elves at the Lodge. To say they've let the place run down is an understatement."
Narcissa scowled at this information, but just as she was about to speak the door clicked open.
"Ah, Draco, there you are! I thought I felt someone come through the wards. Tell me, did you bring that little blood traitor brat with you?"
"Where Ginny is is no concern of yours, Father," he grit out.
Lucius cackled at this. "Ah, so she is here then!"
"If you must know, the Lodge is completely unsuitable for human habitation right now. I simply came over to ask Mother to help whip the house-elves back into shape. If they don't start behaving soon, I shall be forced to – ah – replace them."
"I'm sure we'll get them to behave in no time," Narcissa scowled. She had visited her crazy Aunt Walburga's house on more than one occasion and the mounted house-elf heads on the wall terrified her as a child and disgusted her as a teenager. While she was certainly not above punishing wayward house-elves, killing them was another matter entirely.
"Well, if you are not, I am certainly happy to help you dispose of them," Lucius offered graciously. "Of course, I'm sure that those impoverished blood traitors no nothing about the proper care and discipline of house-elves."
"Ginny's more concerned with how lazy they've become. She no longer trusts them to do their job adequately, but I'm sure with Mother's help they'll be back to their old selves in no time at all."
Ginny carefully walked into Draco's bedroom, toweling her hair dry before drying it. She had wanted to ask him about the dress code for dinner, she had forgotten to ask him before they had left and in the interest of saving time, she had grabbed a fistful of robes as she was flying out the door. She was horrified to find him missing, even after carefully checking the bedroom, sitting room, and even the large closet. Finally she decided to attend to her hair and makeup after nicking a dressing robe from the overly large closet.
After what seemed ages, but was really only a few minutes, Ginny heard a loud pop in the bedroom. Cracking the door open, she saw Draco wearily running his hands over his face.
"You can come out, you know," he told her. As she came out, he took in his dressing robe trailing behind her and looked at her in amazement. "Why aren't you dressed yet?"
Ginny blushed. "I wasn't sure of where we're going," she admitted. "And I know that since you're so particular about what robes I wear, I assumed I should consult with you first." She rolled her eyes before reaching into the pocket of the dressing robe, pulling out two shrunken robes and enlarging them. The first was a pair of fairly simple every day robes and the second was a set of fancier dress robes with a matching cloak.
"Go with the dress robes," he told her. "You'd look like a commoner in those other ones where we're going."
Mumbling something about picky, arrogant husbands, Ginny walked back into the bathroom and changed into the dress robes. She returned back to the bedroom a few minutes later, tucking the other shrunken robes to an interior pocket in her cloak.
"Shall we?" Draco smirked, proffering his right arm. She grasped it and he spun, sucking them off into the unknown.
The restaurant they arrived at had quite a long line to get in, but as soon as the maitre d' noticed them, he quickly greeted them and ushered them off to a small room in the rear of the building. Ginny smiled as she sank down into one of the plush dining chairs. The room held a cozy table for two and one entire wall was a magical window with beautiful garden scenery.
"Better?" Draco asked, thankful that her tears seem to have abated.
"Much," she said, a broad smile still gracing her features.
"I've been thinking," he said, then paused as a waiter came in to take their drink orders.
"I've been thinking," he repeated after the door clicked shut behind the waiter. "What do you say to moving to a hotel, temporarily of course, until the Lodge renovations are complete?"
Ginny frowned. "Wouldn't it simply be easier to move to one of your other properties for a few weeks? I imagine a hotel stay of that length would be quite expensive."
Draco smirked at her. "You're a Malfoy now," he explained, causing her to scowl at him. "You'll soon learn not to worry about such trivial things as expenses. Besides, it's far preferable than needing to take an International Portkey twice a day, which, I might add, is considerably more expensive than a hotel bill."
Ginny smiled. "That sounds lovely."
The waiter then arrived again to take their dinner orders. After ordering two salads, and lobster bisque (which Draco had taken a liking to while they were in Newport) Ginny raised her eyebrows as Draco opened his mouth to order yet more food. "Excuse us for a moment," she told the waiter, who quickly left the room.
"Exactly how much food are you planning on ordering?" she asked.
"Salad, soup, entrée, and then desert later on," he said in surprise. "Is there something wrong with that?"
"Yes! It's too much food!"
"Fine, you can skip a course," he grumbled. He snapped his fingers loudly and the waiter rushed back in.
"I'll have the house salad, lobster bisque, and the salmon with dill sauce." He snapped his menu shut and handed it to the waiter.
"I'll have the caesar salad and lobster bisque, please." Ginny likewise handed her menu to the waiter and he hurriedly left the room.
"So," Ginny began, swirling her seltzer water around in her champagne flute. "Where exactly will we be staying? The Leaky Cauldron?"
Draco scowled. "Certainly not," he scoffed. "We'll be staying at the Golden Foal."
"I've never heard of that particular hotel, is it here in Diagon Alley?"
"Oh yes, just about a block away."
After dinner they walked down to the Golden Foal to get an idea of where they'd be living the next few weeks. Ginny insisted on getting a suite with a kitchen, claiming that all the rich restaurant food would not only sit poorly if eaten all the time, but that she would lose her Quidditch toned figure in no time at all. Draco thoughtfully reminded her that, according to Fleur, she would be losing her figure rather soon anyways, but frantically began backtracking when her lower lip started wobbling. In the end, they procured a lovely two bedroom suite with an office, kitchen, sitting room, dining room, and two spacious bathrooms. It even had a small rooftop terrace where Ginny could hold teas and luncheons, as Draco assured her she'd need to start doing soon to help the family business. Draco also insisted on spending quite a bit of time (and money) on getting the wards in their room specifically tuned to them so that they could Apparate in and out at will. He claimed that it would be worth it considering that it was likely to be an extended stay.
"I'm not sure why you insisted on all this space," Ginny said as she sank down on the luxuriously soft bed. After their first disastrous week of their honeymoon they had taken to sharing a bed out of convenience. They had tried going to separate rooms in Greece, but Draco secretly missed the late night cuddles and Ginny claimed that she needed additional body warmth in the cool evenings.
"We don't know how long we'll be here and it's quite possible I'll need to entertain clients," he said, staring at the dining room thoughtfully.
"I hope your mother is able to talk some sense into those house-elves tomorrow," Ginny frowned. "You should have someone check up on the house-elves," she muttered under her breath.
"Actually, I was thinking of having a two year rotation where we'd visit all the properties for at least one week to make sure the elves stay in tip-top condition."
"That's not a bad idea," Ginny mused.
Draco smirked. "Of course it's not, I came up with it."
She rolled her eyes. "Oh, of course."
"At any rate, I'm running back to the Lodge now to grab our trunks. Everything you need is still in yours, right?"
"Yes," Ginny confirmed. "Thank you."
He disappeared from the room with a loud pop! leaving her all alone. She had to admit in some respects he was rather sweet. He had poked fun at her not Apparating a few times – but it was done in fun. He had graciously offered her his arm any time they needed to go someplace and never made any remarks at how tightly and nervously she gripped it.
Another loud pop! broke through her thoughts. "Worth every knut to get the wards here specifically tuned to us," Draco proclaimed, pulling two shrunken trunks out of his pocket. "I wish we could've done that at the Lotus Suites, such a nuisance climbing all those stairs every day."
Ginny walked over to the two miniature trunks, enlarged them and removed the featherlight charm. "I certainly won't mind living here for a few weeks," she said, rummaging through her trunk for a nightgown.
"It's tolerable," Draco said, sniffing the contents of his trunk. He had neglected to close it in his haste that morning and it had picked up the moldy smell of the Lodge. "Er – Ginny? Do you know any good freshening charms?"
She stopped her trek to the bathroom and turned to look at him. "I'm not freshening the entire contents of you trunk," she said firmly.
"But – "
"No buts. Give me a night robe and I'll freshen that for you." He scowled at her, but dug around and handed her a night robe. "Oh, alright, hand me whatever you're going to wear tomorrow as well." She carefully ran her wand over the robes for several minutes before handing them back. "Does that meet your standards?"
Draco carefully sniffed the robes and smelled… nothing. "Very good," he pronounced before walking off to the bathroom.
"Excuse me?" Ginny's voice came from behind him.
He turned around. "You did a very good job, and yes, it meets my standards," he said, nonplussed.
"And that's all you have to say?"
"Yes?"
Ginny huffed and stalked off to the other bathroom to complete her evening ablutions. "Don't expect me to freshen any more robes for you!" she called out.
"I was going to send them out to be laundered tomorrow, anyways!" He was quite confused, he told her she had done a good job, what more did she want?
Ginny went to bed in a huff. Hadn't the man ever heard of a simple thank you? She curled up on the far side of the bed and then grew quite annoyed when morning came and, as usual, the two of them were snuggled together in the center of the bed. She tried shifting out of Draco's grasp but much to her dismay he simply gripped her waist tighter and buried his face in her shoulder. Suddenly, a wave of nausea overcame her and she began wrenching at his arm, desperate to get to the bathroom.
"Ow! Where are you going?" Draco demanded groggily. He soon had his answer she began retching loudly in the nearby bathroom. Groaning, he got up and called one of the hotel house-elves to bring them tea and dry toast. Ginny came out into the dining room moments before the food arrived and upon seeing it, she promptly turned green and ran back into the bathroom. Draco called the house-elf back to remove the toast and resigned himself to eating breakfast in his office that morning.
A few minutes later, Ginny wearily emerged from the bathroom a second time. She gave Draco a small smile as she noticed that the toast was no longer on the table. He poured her a cup of tea, which she took with shaky hands and carefully sipped from.
"I'm going to ask Mum about what to do about the morning sickness," Draco snorted at this, "when I Floo her today. Don't you snort, mister, you aren't the one emptying your guts out every time you see food till mid-afternoon!"
Draco decided to ignore her last comment. "What time are you Flooing your mum?"
"Right after you leave. Your mother is meeting me at the Lodge at nine, correct?"
"Correct. Well, I suppose I'm off, so you best Floo your mum. Good luck today!" He disappeared from the room with a loud pop! leaving her quite alone.
After sipping her tea for a few more minutes and checking that her face had regained some color, she took a deep breath, threw some Floo powder in the flames and called out "The Burrow!"
Her head began spinning rapidly in the green flames and but stopped just as she was beginning to feel nauseous again. "Mum!" she called out.
"Oh, Ginny, dear! No, no, don't you talk to me from there, where are you Flooing from?"
"Room 428 at the Golden Foal in Diagon Alley."
"Alright, now get out of that grate, I'm coming through!"
Ginny quickly stood back and sure enough, her mother appeared in swirling green flames moments later. "Ginny, dear, I thought you said you were in a hotel room."
Ginny laughed. "Well, we are," she confirmed. "Given the condition of the house that we're staying in we're probably going to be here awhile and Draco might need to entertain business clients. It's a bit grand though, isn't it?"
"Certainly more than I'd ever need but it's lovely," she assured her daughter. "Now, how have you been?"
"It's a long story," Ginny grimaced.
"Well, we've got all the time in the world."
"No, actually, we don't, I have to meet with Mrs. Malfoy at – er – our house in about an hour."
"Why's that?"
"The house is in horrible condition because it hasn't been lived in in years and the house-elves have gotten to be quite lazy. She's coming over to help me get them back into shape."
"You didn't think your old Mum could do that?"
"Well – you don't exactly have house-elves at the Burrow."
Molly patted her hand. "No worries, dear, I had two house-elves growing up!"
Ginny was shocked. Her mother seldom talked about her family. She knew that she had been very close to her twin brothers, who died in the first war, and that much of her family had disowned her when she married into the Weasley family.
"You had two house-elves?" Ginny asked carefully, hoping to glean some more information about the Prewett family from her mother.
"Oh, yes! One of them, Squinty, was very sweet. After I was disowned, she taught me a few tricks around the kitchen and some useful cleaning tips. Poor thing had to shut her hands in the oven after she did so."
"And you let her do that?" Ginny asked in horror.
"Well, she wasn't my house-elf anymore at that point so I couldn't order her not to. I found out from Fabian after the fact."
"Oh," Ginny said faintly, picturing a poor elf with heavily bandaged hands.
"But at any rate, I can certainly help you get those house-elves back into shape! You're meeting up at nine, I gather?"
"Yes," Ginny nodded. "Anyways, I had a question for you."
"What is it?"
"Well – you see – I'm pregnant."
"Congratulations!" Molly hugged her daughter fiercely then noticed that she didn't seem excited about it. "I'm guessing this was unexpected?"
"Quite," she said, giving her mother an extremely abbreviated tale of her honeymoon, sidestepping the whole issue of how exactly she had become pregnant.
"So what was your question?" her mother inquired after she had finished her tale.
"It's the morning sickness."
"Ah. Nothing but time can take care of that, I'm afraid."
Ginny's face fell in disappointment. "Nothing?"
"Well, there are some potions, but they're not entirely safe for the growing babe, so they're only used in the most extreme of circumstances. How bad has yours been?"
"Pretty bad," Ginny groaned. "I can't even look at food till two or three in the afternoon. After that I'm fine."
"Oh, that's nothing! With the twins I was sick morning, noon, and night for the whole eight months! Had to learn to keep eating regardless of how I was feeling! Have you tried peppermint tea or mints in the mornings?"
"No, actually I haven't," Ginny said thoughtfully. "I've just been drinking tea with a bit of milk."
"You've been drinking what? Merlin, didn't they teach you anything at all in those healing classes you had to take?"
"Those were over five years ago, Mum! I remember all the important stuff like mending bones and the like!"
Molly and Ginny Flooed to the Lodge just before nine and found Narcissa already waiting for them.
"I've tried calling for them and they aren't responding," she informed them, disgusted. "Either they've perished or we have quite a lot more work to do here than I thought."
After a bit of nosing around, the three women managed to locate the kitchen, which was somewhat cleaner, although still filthy, than the rest of the house. There were three house-elves drinking what appeared to be butterbeer around a large fire. One of them raised his bottle to them in greeting before staring back into the fire.
"Oh dear Merlin," Molly whispered.
Narcissa whipped out her wand and suddenly the butterbeer shot out of all three bottles and down the drain in the dirty sink. Another wave of the wand vanished the small chairs they had been sitting on.
"You," she pointed at one elf, "and you," she pointed at another, "and you" she pointed at the elf who had greeted them. "What do you have to say for yourselves?"
"We have no master," one elf said sullenly.
"Yes you do," Narcissa snapped irritably. "I was your Mistress until a few days ago when this young lady," she touched Ginny's elbow, "became your new Mistress."
"Blinky hadn't heard of any Master or Mistress coming to the Lodge," another elf chimed in.
"They've the best enunciation I've ever heard from elves," Molly whispered to Narcissa.
"They're old Black family elves, always a little feisty and quite intelligent," Narcissa whispered back. "Apparently it's all gotten to their head in the past few years."
"So you're Blinky," Molly said kindly to the second elf that spoke. "And you are…?"
"Sippy," grumbled another elf, growling at the bottom of its butterbeer bottle.
"And that leaves you… What are you called?"
"Lobby."
"Now, Blinky, Sippy, and Lobby, why is it that you lounge around all day drinking instead of cleaning?"
"Because there is no Master to clean for!" Sippy cried out. "What is the point if the Master is not there to appreciate one's work?"
"Alright," Molly said, quite pleased that her plan was working. "So your old Mistress is claiming that this young lady is your new Mistress… does that not please you?"
"Never seen either one before," grumbled Lobby.
"Oh dear," Narcissa murmured. "It looks like Lucius is going to have to hand over ownership directly to Draco and he certainly won't allow them to acknowledge Ginny as their Mistress."
"Can't you just… swap them for another set of house elves at your home?" Molly suggested. "The elves there would listen to you."
Ginny waited with baited breath for Narcissa's answer.
"Yes – yes – I think that could work," she said thoughtfully, a small frown marring her forehead. "You, elves!"
They had returned to sitting around the fire with fresh butterbeers.
Narcissa huffed in annoyance and called out, "TIPPY!"
An immaculately clean house-elf wrapped in a crisp sheet popped into view. "Yes, Mistress?" it squeaked from a deep bow.
"I am releasing you from my service to the service of Draco and Ginevra Malfoy," Narcissa stated, causing a shudder to course through the elf's small body.
"Of course," the elf said, bowing to Ginny. "How may Tippy serve her new Mistress?"
Finally, mid-afternoon, Ginny left Tippy to her cleaning. She had made sure to extract a promise that the little house-elf would get at least seven hours of rest that night. The three other elves had been moved to Malfoy Manor and she shuddered to think of what exactly her in-laws would do to them. The two of them had managed to scrub the sitting room and kitchen clean. She was beginning to wonder if it would be more practical to simply call in the renovators now and let them simply strip the grim away with all the old décor.
Ginny became quite grateful that Narcissa had connected the fireplace to the Floo network while they were on their honeymoon. It had been disconnected some years ago when Lucius became swamped at work and did not wish to be bothered with work related issues on the scarce weekend he managed to get away. He, unlike Ginny, had no qualms about Apparating and used that method of transport whenever he felt like coming over.
After getting back to the suite at the Golden Foal, Ginny wearily climbed into the shower to scrub all the grime off from the long days work. After she was done, she began looking through the directory left in the room to begin the search for renovators. Soon enough, her search was interrupted by a loud pop.
"Did you manage to get the house-elves working?" Draco asked as he flung his cloak into a nearby chair.
"No," Ginny scowled, looking up from the directory. "We did find them, but they even refused to acknowledge your mother, so we sent them to the Manor and traded them for an elf named Tippy. She's been reassigned, I think permanently, to us."
"Ah, yes, Tippy's a good elf," Draco said, sounding pleased. "Did she make much progress today?"
"We made some progress today. The sitting room and kitchen have been cleaned, although neither is still in very good shape. What do you say that we call in the renovators now and simply have them deal with the mess?"
Draco looked surprised. "Why didn't we think of doing that in the first place?"
"Well, I was hoping there was something worth salvaging under all the grime, but clearly there's nothing."
Two months. Two months was how long it had taken to completely gut the lodge and remodel the interior. Ginny had even called in gardeners to create beautiful, lush gardens on the grounds. The initial estimates for the time to remodel the place were six months, but they quickly offered the renovators double the amount of money. More workers were hired and Ginny and Draco now stood in their new home.
Ginny, much to her dismay, was already sporting a noticeable bulge in her abdomen. To her great surprise, Draco quickly became very fond of it, kissing it every day when he woke up, when he got home from work – really at any chance he got. She was not terribly fond of this because she was still queasy much of the day and did not appreciate having her stomach touched, but nothing could persuade him to stop.
She groaned in annoyance as once again she felt a large pair of hands snake around her, caressing her belly. She swatted them away, but they stubbornly remained where they were.
"You did a good job," Draco announced, taking in the formal parlor. In the remodel, Ginny had separated the formal sections of the Lodge from the family section. It had taken some time, but she had finally found someone capable of erecting wards around separate sections of the house. The family section, for instance, was tuned such that anyone of Weasley or Malfoy blood was automatically allowed in, although they still needed to be received by either Draco or Ginny before they could wander freely. They had also been set such that they could easily be reconfigured by Ginny or Draco to allow other individuals in as well. Those who had not been tuned in could not even see the entryways that led to the private portion of the Lodge.
Ginny snorted. "I didn't do much, I just bossed people around," she retorted.
"That's all you should be doing," Draco grumbled. She had begun talk of starting to create a robe line that could be marketed at Madam Malkin's, Twilfit and Tattings, or Gladrags, which annoyed Draco to no end. There hadn't been a Malfoy wife in centuries that had worked and he didn't feel like being the one to break that record.
"Come on, let me show you the rest of the house," Ginny said excitedly, finally pushing his hands off her abdomen. He quickly followed her, eager to see the rest of the place.
Author's Note:
And there's that chapter! Thank you all for your kind reviews. I hope you enjoyed this chapter!
Anyways, I've got two possibilities for the next chapter: right before the baby is born or right after the baby is born. Let me know which one you want.