A/N: Geez. These are getting longer and longer. I kinda liked this one, too.

Prompt #29: 8/6/17

1137 words, according to Google docs.

Malfoys never celebrated birthdays. Draco was sure that rule was written down somewhere in the large Malfoy Decorum he suspected was hidden deep in the library - he just had to find it. Draco's father thought birthday parties frivolous and a waste of time, while his mother never bothered to remember birthdays at all. As a consequence, he thought they were things to be scorned, too.

Which was why, when all the Weasleys and Potter jumped out of a darkened Burrow on June 5th, 2003 madly waving Happy Birthday banners and releasing balloons, Draco panicked.

"Happy Birthday Draco!" Ginny shouted, raining confetti down from the sky on her broom. She touched down lightly in front of her shocked boyfriend, smiling up at him and dropping her broom. She waited expectantly, but all Draco could do was sputter on like a broken record.

"I - well - um…" Her brows creased in concern and she stepped closer, putting a hand on his forehead.

"Are you alright, Draco?"

He fled.

Draco was a creature of obsessive habit and tradition - he absolutely hated it when things didn't go exactly as planned. He had planned to have a nice, quiet dinner with the Weasleys, cuddle a bit with Ginny, and hopefully

It didn't help that he'd completely forgotten about his birthday, anyway. How had the Weasleys figured it out? He had made sure that not one, not even Ginny, was sure about the date of his birthday.

His feet pounded across the Burrow's lawn - he thanked Merlin he had taken up the habit of running every morning - and as soon as he was outside the wards, he apparated to the first place he could think of.

The light inside Luna's flat was warm and inviting, and he collapsed in a heap on her wooden floor.

"Draco?" she called from the kitchen, glass clinking softly as she set down dishes. "Is that you?" He looked up at the willowy blonde.

"Yeah." He pushed himself up until he was sitting on the carpet, legs crossed and eyes closed. He heard her entering the room.

"They still threw you a birthday party?" she asked sympathetically, drying her hands on a washcloth. "Did you tell them not to?"

"Well...not exactly." He heard his friend sigh.

"If you didn't tell Ginny or her family, how do you expect them not to? You know Molly Weasley - she loves mothering people. Especially you." He heard her sit down next to him, the floor creaking.

"I wasn't thinking," he croaked, the weight of what he had done suddenly crashing down on him. "Oh Merlin, Luna, what have I done?" He buried his head in his knees.

"What have you done?"

"I ran away from all of them," he groaned, not lifting his head. "Ginny must feel terrible - and Molly - " He broke off. "She'll stuff my face silly," he said pitifully. "After ditching her and her cake she'll stuff me 'til I burst."

"You talk as if it's too late to go back, Draco." Her voice was amused.

"Isn't it?"

"Not at all." She smiled as he lifted his head, disbelief etched in every feature. "Do you really think Ginny would turn her back on you just because you ran away from your own birthday party?"

"Well - I always assumed - "

"Never assume things about Ginny," Luna said gravely, sticking her washcloth into her pocket. "That's what Harry did all too often - and look where he ended up." She stood up.

"Wait, Luna." He stood as well, running his hand through his hair distractedly. "You think I could go back?"

"Sure," she replied, walking towards the kitchen again. "Just apparate - the wards are down today."

"What?"

She had disappeared.

Knowing Luna would not come back until she had sufficient reason to, he toyed with his wand, his mind not quite made up yet. Would Ginny understand? She always did - and yet…

He cursed his Malfoy caution. Of course she would. Why wouldn't she? He apparated, appearing right outside the Burrow's wards a moment later. Peering through two trees, he saw Ginny, standing alone in the center of the front yard, staring at the sky. He squinted. She was tense, he could tell - standing ramrod straight with her feet set shoulder-width apart. Squaring his shoulders, he stepped out, feeling the familiar tingle of the protective charms woven around the house.

"Gin?"

"Draco?" He approached her cautiously but there was no reason to - she ran towards him and tackled him in a hug, burying her face in his sweater. "I'm so sorry," she murmured into his chest. "I completely forgot about that - you told me once that you hated birthdays - I forgot. I'm so sorry!" Her last words ended in a partial sob and Draco suppressed a relieved sigh - she wasn't angry at him.

"Ginny, it's fine. I forgot to tell your mother - it's not your fault for not remembering." He gently pushed her chin up, wiping a stray tear from the corner of her eye.

"You're not mad at me?" she asked in a small voice. He blinked.

"Mad at you? I was the one that ran out on you!" Ginny let out a shaky laugh.

"Thank Merlin - I thought you were going to blow up at me once you came back."

"I would never, Gin." He brushed a kiss across her nose and she smiled, flicking a piece of confetti out of his hair before kissing him back, hard.

"Mum hasn't given up yet, you know," she said conversationally, tugging him towards her home. "She's going to feed you double the cake, now that you ran off first." Although her face wasn't turned towards him, he knew she was grinning.

"How will I ever keep my figure?" he asked in a high falsetto, casting a hand dramatically over his forehead.

"Prat. You have no reason to worry about your figure." She finally tossed him a teasing glance over her shoulder. "However, if you keep feeding me at the rate you're going now, you'll be marrying a fat, pudgy Ginny Weasley soon."

"Of all the horrors," he returned dryly. But as they approached the sideways house, he gulped. A very formidable, very determined Molly Weasley stood in the doorway, a spoon in one hand and an empty plate in the other.

"Draco Malfoy, you will come in at once and eat your cake," she told the blond sternly, ushering them inside and shutting the door behind them. "Running indeed, why, I should make you eat cake for the next month!"

Ginny snickered behind her palm.

"Have fun, Draco darling."

"Oh, don't think you're getting off scotch free, either, Ginerva Weasley." Ginny froze mid-laugh. It was Draco's turn to smirk.

"You're stuck with me, Red."

Molly pushed them together into the kitchen, brandishing her spoon and issuing dire threats to anyone who crossed her path.