Disclaimer: Harry Potter and his friends and enemies and surroundings belong to J.K. Rowling.
Author's note: Thank Cherry-Black for suggesting this pairing - I wouldn't have written it otherwise.
Chapter 13: Ginny and Draco
Ginny Weasley giggled as she pressed herself low behind the garbage bin between two shops in the Diagon Alley where Draco Malfoy was already waiting for her.
"She won't notice me gone for so many minutes I can't even count that far!" she giggled, poking her companion in his arm gently. She had heard Bill use this expression now and then, and she tried to make it sound as gloating as her older brother did, but in this case it was probably quite true.
"Where is she, then?" the small boy asked, crouching down next to her, careful not to wrinkle his fine dark grey clothes too much.
"At the second hand robe shop, trying to find dress robes for Percy," Ginny said, giggling again. "And no one noticed me slipping outside. They'll think I've got lost in all those clothes there. Where's your dad?"
"He went on some grown-up business to the Knockturn Alley, and said that I was too young to go with him. He asked the maid at the ice cream parlour to look after me, but then some of your brothers got there and caught all her attention." He giggled, too, in answer to the girl; a thing he would never have done in any other company.
"Was Ronny with them?" she asked.
"Yes," he replied.
"And he got ice cream?" Ginny sounded disappointed and sad.
"It seemed so, yes," he answered carefully, poking her slightly to get her mind off sweets.
"Good, then," she smiled her childish grin which showed so well that one of her front teeth was missing. "Then I can tell Mum that he did, and he'll get in trouble because he should be punished."
"What did he do?" Draco asked, looking anxious.
"He took away that stone you gave me the last time we met, the one that looked like Dumbledore if you looked at it from the right angle," she pouted but then lit up again. "But Bill was at home at that time and so he came for rescue and told Mum."
"Did you get it back?" he asked.
"Yeah, I have it here in my pocket," Ginny said, shuffling around in one of the tiny pockets of her faded and torn robes. "Here it is," she announced triumphantly, the little stone lying flat on her palm now.
Next few minutes the two spent examining the stone, and then having him strut around on the lid of the garbage bin which was by mutual consent named Hogwarts. Ginny couldn't wait to get there herself, and neither could Draco, she knew. They had discussed the topic to all ends on their secret meetings there behind the bin. But they still had to wait — not too much, though, Ginny was nearly seven now, and had to wait for only four more years. And Draco would be even luckier — he only had three to go.
"Do you have any ink in your pocket?" she suddenly asked.
"Some blue one, yes," he said. "Why do you ask?"
"We should paint Dumbledore blue," she explained, "because Fred and George will be starting next year, and they promised to do that when they got there. So by the time we go, Dumbledore will be blue."
"But I don't like blue. Blue's a Ravenclaw colour," he said, pouting. "I like green much better than blue. And I have no green ink."
"And I like green, too. But then… Draco, I don't like red!" she suddenly yelped, grabbing hold of his arm. "But if I don't like red, does that mean I can't be a Gryffindor?" she asked, tears ready to spring into her eyes if there should be any reason for it, however small.
"But you like green. So you could be in Slytherin with me," Draco reasoned in a hushing older-brotherly voice.
"But I don't want to be in Slytherin!" She was crying now in earnest, her little chin shaking and her cheeks wet with tears. "I want to be in Gryffindor, because Bill is in Gryffindor! And Bill said Gryffindor is good, and Slytherin is bad!"
Suddenly she stopped crying, blinking her eyes in confusion a couple of times. She swallowed, and then turned to face Draco.
"Bill said that Slytherin is bad. And you want to be in Slytherin. Are you bad, then?" Her eyes were wide in fear and disbelief.
"You've known me for a long time now, Ginny," Draco said, caressing her flyaway red hair. "Do you think I'm bad?"
"No," she said with certainty. "But that would mean… That would mean that Bill's wrong, and that can't be. Bill's never wrong. Bill would never lie to me," she said, awe and pride beaming from her every feature when discussing her eldest brother. "But Bill also said that the Slytherins thought that the Gryffindors were bad. Draco, do you think I'm bad?"
"No!" he answered, his eyes wide, and then smiled. "I will never think that Gryffindors are bad if you are a Gryffindor. And I'll tell the other Slytherins, too, that you are not bad." He put as much serenity and severity into his voice as he could muster, trying to make it sound the way his father's voice sounded when he was talking business with those other big men that sometimes came into the Manor. And thinking of father gave him another idea.
"We could have Dumbledore," he gestured towards the stone, "assign us one of the suites at Hogwarts, so we wouldn't even have to live in separate parts of the castle," he said, proud of himself for having had the idea.
"But Bill said that everyone had to sleep with their House in a secluded part of the school where the others couldn't come," she sounded hesitative.
"But I heard my Father say," Draco said importantly, "that if the students were married then they would be given an apartment for only themselves, and they wouldn't be forced into separate dormitories."
"But we're not married," Ginny pointed out the obvious flaw in his plan.
"But I went with Father to this wedding of this important wizard he likes to talk business to, and I remember how they did it."
"You do?" Ginny was exited now. "I've never been to a wedding. How do they do it?"
"I'll show you," he said. "First we need some parchment." He started shuffling through his pockets, but Ginny was quicker.
"I've got some. It's a bit wrinkled, though." There was worry in her eyes. "Will this work?" Quickly the garbage bin lid named Hogwarts was turned into a desk, and a sharp-pointed twig they found on the ground was decided to be suitable instead of a quill. Draco gently uncorked the ink bottle that they fortunately hadn't wasted on Dumbledore.
"Sure," he smiled. "Now, how exactly did they write it?" He wrinkled his nose, trying to remember. "Something along the lines of 'With this contract I' then the name, in this case Draco Regulus Malfoy," he wrote it down in the spidery scrawl that he called his legible handwriting, the tip of his tongue visible between his teeth. He read over what he had written already with a victorious smile on his lips, and then continued, voicing the words as he wrote them, "confess and affirm my undying love for Ginevra… What's your middle name?"
"Molly, after my mum," she said silently, as if not to disturb his important line of thought.
"Thanks. —Molly Weasley, and endorse her as my one and only wife for all eternity." He ended the paragraph with his elaborate signature, and then handed it over to Ginny. "Now you write the same, only replace our names, and say 'husband' instead of 'wife'," he instructed.
"And then?" Ginny asked, writing already.
"Then we have to get three grownups to touch their wands to it and say 'I confirm the legality of this act', and then we'll be married," he said.
"Great!" Ginny chirped, signing her own name to the bottom of the parchment, and studying it with half-closed eyes. "But who will we get? Bill?"
"I don't know… Maybe they have to be older," he said doubtfully.
"Bill is old," Ginny insisted.
"We can ask, then. Let's go, they might still be at the ice cream parlour."
And the two took off, running. The cloud of red hair was clearly visible quite a long way from where the Weasley boys were sitting.
"Bill! Bill! Bill!" Ginny shouted, running to him, Draco hot on her heels.
"What, Gin?" Bill asked, strutting down to the street to meet her, and catching her in an embrace to slow her down. "Oh, you've found a friend. Hello, I'm Bill," he said, extending his arm to Draco who was standing just behind Ginny, looking just as exited and wrinkled, and just as out of breath.
"No time for that!" Ginny scolded him, hitting his hand away playfully, and holding out their precious scrap of parchment. "Put your wand on that and say 'I confirm the legality of this act'," she instructed firmly, Draco nodding eagerly behind her back to urge him forward.
"Well, before confirming it, may I read it?" Bill asked in amusement.
"No," was the answer from two mouths at the same time.
"But then I can't do it," Bill said, suppressing a laugh.
"Please! Please-please-please-please-please!" Ginny said, and though Draco didn't say a word he looked just as pleading.
Bill chuckled. With a quick Seeker-worthy movement he snatched the parchment away and hoisted so high up that the two children couldn't reach it. He gave it a quick glance, and then his eyes rounded up.
"Is this—? What have you—?" He took a couple of calming breaths, then looked down at the evidently disappointed faces below. He forced himself look stern instead of worried and frightened, reminding himself that he was still dealing with seven or eight years old kids. "Has anyone already pointed their wands to it to say those words?"
The children shook their heads.
Bill sighed in relief.
"Please," Ginny said silently. "Otherwise Draco'll be bad at Hogwarts."
Bill looked down at the dark brown round eyes of his sister, and the just as round but cloudy grey ones of Draco. He didn't know what to say. Fortunately for him, salvation came running down the street with a plastic bag dangling to one arm.
Bill felt his nerves ease in a moment, and couldn't help but yell in happiness, "Mum!"
Author's note (again): REVIEW!