Disclaimer: I do not own anything from the amazing world of Harry Potter!
Chapter 21: Pansy's Advice
Ginny and Hallie both aperated to Hogsmeade. They were supposed to meet Luna at one of the cafes that lined the street. They made their way through the sparse crowd of people around them and into the designated meeting place.
Luna was already there at a table far in the back but she wasn't alone. Sitting across from her with their back turned to the door was another woman with shoulder length black hair. As the pair approached the table it became clear to Ginny who the woman was, Pansy Parkinson.
"You're here!" Luna said joyfully, standing to hug both of her friends. "Ladies I would also like you to meet, or rather re-meet I suppose for you Ginny, Ms. Pansy Parkinson."
Pansy stood and greeted the women. "It's so nice to see you again Ginny. It really has been quite a long time. And you of course must be Hallie."
The other two greeted her and then the entire quartet sat down at the table.
"I'm sorry but how do you know my name?" Hallie inquired.
Pansy chuckled, "Oh love, I know so much more about you then know."
Hallie looked at her inquisitively. "You care to elaborate on that."
Luna stopped them short. "Oh no, we have things to do today dear ones. First we order food then we talk about boys."
Suddenly the pieces fell into place for Ginny and she groaned loudly and seriously considered banging her head down on the table. "Really?"
"And she gets it." Pansy laughed. She really was enjoying this process already.
"Well I'm still lost." Hallie chimed in.
"Pansy grew up with Blaise... and Draco... and Theo." Ginny said despondently.
"Ooooh! Uggggh..."
"Aren't they so smart?" Luna asked in a tone so sweet that the sarcasm almost got lost.
Right at that moment the waiter approached the table to take their orders and the group continued with everyday small talk piloted by Luna until the food arrived a few minutes later.
"Alright now we can begin. So dear ones I invited Pansy to join us this afternoon so that she can share some of her wonderful insight into the minds of our favourite Slytherins for both of you just as she once did for me."
"What sort of advice?" Ginny asked sceptically.
"The kind that will help you both fix your unwanted relationships with your Slytherins."
"I don't know if I want that advice." Hallie chimed in.
"Oh but you are going to get it anyway." Pansy insisted. "Luna is right, I have been forced together with those three my entire life. No one knows them better than I do, not even each other. They all talked to me at least on a weekly basis and I am kept up to date on their lives. That used to be so that I could keep tabs on them when they were single and stupid but now it is just a routine because they are my best friends. I don't advertise this much but I am a bit of a seer in that I can just sense things about people. You both are confused but right on the verge of accepting that you definitely have feelings for these men. I know how all three of them work and I know that you are both wary of the type of advice I might give you but trust me when I say that this knowledge will help you out in the long run."
"It helped me." Luna added.
"Wait," Ginny interrupted. "When were you ever having problems with Blaise?"
"Back around the time we hit our two year mark and I almost broke up with him too. Had Pansy not been visiting we probably would not be getting married right now."
"What did he do?"
"Oh you know how Blaise is, he is a complete pain in the arse. He is annoying as anything and has more sarcasm than twenty people need."
"But I told her that that was the best way Blaise knew how to express himself and if she actually listened to the words of what he said and the message behind them you could find out how he truly felt about a subject. I gave her a tool to see behind the well rehearsed apathy."
"And she said that it was all his mother's fault!"
"Well not exactly, I'm pretty sure I said it was a coping mechanism of the pureblood lifestyle in which he was raised."
"Exactly," Luna beamed. "It was all his mother's fault. She broke him and since I got a defective model of my true love I get to spend the rest of her life making it a little more miserable."
All three of the other women couldn't help but giggle at the sentiment. Sweet and caring Luna Lovegood had never in her life found a person she truly disliked to the point of going out of her was to do something unkind until she had met her future mother in law. Her revenge plot was so out of character that it was hysterical.
"So back to you two. Mrs. Malfoy I believe I would like to start with you. Overall I feel like you have been doing a good job at re-establishing a relationship with your former flame. You both seem to be discovering the new versions of each other that will help you move on, especially lately if Draco owls do any justice to your lives. I am confident that you will be able to figure him out Ginny."
"You though," Pansy said turning on Hallie. "For you I have entirely different instructions."
"I know, I know, I have to tell him how I feel."
"No not at all actually. You, dear one, do not yet know how you actually feel. You do not have all the facts you need in order to make an educated decision on what exactly you want to do about your future, especially regarding Theo."
"I'm confused."
"Let me put it more simply for both of you. Hallie, you are on the verge of losing Theo. He has never taken kindly to rejection and if you don't do something soon he will be gone and this time it will be forever. You need to talk to him whether you want to or not and ask him about his past and what part you played in it.
You on the other hand," she said turning to Ginny. "You have used up your quota of delving into the past. You and Draco both need to forget about what happened before and focus on the now. You are both very different people now then you were before and it is not fair to either of you to be constantly compared to your younger, less worldly selves. Move on and get to know the man that you are currently married to not the boy that you loved back then because they are no longer the same person."
The end of her speech was greeted by silence. Both Ginny and Hallie were uncomfortably contemplating
Pansy on the other hand chuckled as yet another thought popped into her head. "Bet you liked it better when I was Pansy the Pug-face and you were the Weaselette, eh Ginny?"
Ginny could do nothing but snort. She decided that it was better to focus her attentions on her salad and not make a comment.
After lunch the women exited the cage and meandered through Hogsmeade as they window shopped their way down the streeey. Finally they made it to the dress shop. Ginny would never understand why it was that women had to buy a new gown for every single event while men could have two or three sets of dress robes and could wear them for every occasion. The Malfoy rule of never wearing the same gown to more than one event just seemed excessive but Salvia and Narcissa insisted so Ginny obliged.
It was a miracle that they actually made it into the store though because just before they went inside Ginny threw what could only be described as a hissy fit.
"You can't make me go in there."
"Oh Gin," Luna said soothingly. "Don't look at this as a punishment. We're girls, shopping is fun. Remember? You like shopping!"
"No, no I don't." Ginny insisted crossing her arms over her chest. "Not anymore. Being a Malfoy killed all the fun."
Pansy made a noise that sound distinctly like a snort. "Oh sweetheart, you've only been a Malfoy for a few months. You now understand why I boycotted all this crap after 20 years of this."
"You are not helping your case for me staying with the bugger are you?"
"I cannot tell a lie about this part of the lifestyle."
Eventually though the group was able to convince to venture inside and thank goodness no one was disappointed by the trip. As usual after trying on a few different styles each all four women found exactly the gown that suited them best.
Despite her protests, Ginny insisted on following through with Narcissa's request that the Malfoys once again pay for Hallie's gown. She tried on a few different options before this time choosing an amazing gold charmeus gown with sparkling beading that detailed the collar and the dropped waist with an entirely open back.
Luna happily perused the store and yet again only needed to try on one gown to make her decision. It was a silver gown with a bodice entirely bejeweled in tiny crystals. The empire waist then gave way to light shimmering waves of material that fell all the way to the ground. Luna happily added it to the Zabini tab and threw in a matching crystal bracelet in silent protest against her mother in law who still didn't approve of her marriage to Blaise.
Pansy, despite having grown up in this world of glamour, was not used to having to dress up for such formal events ever since her escape from society. Really the only event she ever went to anymore was the Malfoy Christmas Eve Ball. She therefore was almost entirely at a loss for what to wear and required all three women to help her find the perfect gown and after a few tries found the perfect gown. It was a strapless midnight blue gown with a unique spread out neckline and a rosette adorning the waist.
Ginny though, was of course the most difficult to dress. She tried on four different gowns before the owner of the salon insisted on fitting her into an emerald green gown that was ruched at various different points with the same sweetheart neckline that always seemed to flatter her the most. This dress seemed to put all the others she had worn to shame as her red hair reflected off the green. It was perfect and Draco was going to drop dead when he saw her.
Later, after all their chores to get ready for the ball were complete, the four women separated off into pairs to head home. Hallie went back to the Manor with Ginny to fetch one of Ginny's sweaters that she wanted to borrow and Pansy and Luna headed off in the opposite direction, meandering down the main street of Hogsmeade towards the long distance apperation point that Pansy would use to get home.
As they walked their conversation almost immediately steered its way back to the women whom they had just parted with.
"So is that actually how you feel about what Hallie and Ginny should do?" Luna asked Pansy almost as soon as Ginny and Hallie had disapperated. "Because I know when you gave me advice it was twisted ever so slightly because you knew I wouldn't actually follow what you said."
Pansy laughed. "Oh Looney, you caught me at least with Hallie. I might have exaggerated the rate at which Theo will give up on her. She just genuinely doesn't understand all that he has gone through in his life and why he had to do what he did. She really does need to talk to him and I hope that my exaggeration might spur her in the right direction more quickly than letting her find out on her own would. I wrote to Theo all through the years he was on the run and not once did he mention a girl until he met her. And I know that even though they only had one night together she touched something inside of him and he has never been able to let her go. He has traveled all over the world and yet the girl he always came back to was Hallie. It sounds crazy but I could tell just by meeting her today that she is as amazing as he has always painted her. I see why he is so in love. They are perfect for each other."
"So really you just think this is a waiting game to see how long until Hallie works up the nerve to talk to him?"
"Pretty much. She will get there, we all just have to wait. Now Ginny on the other hand, with her I think for the very first time I gave someone my full and honest opinion and I still know that it won't be enough."
Luna looked at her quizzically. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that no matter what I do or say to either of them there is only one possible outcome for this relationship. She is going to completely disregard everything I said and continue to dwell on what happened all those years ago; they both will. In fact, I feel that they will eventually find a way to mend their relationship and be together but then they are going to beat to death their memories and preconceived notions of each other to the point that the process will find some way to drive a wedge so far between them that everything they have built up will crumble apart."
Luna was silent for a moment. She knew Pansy was right. Draco and Ginny would both behave in exactly the manner she described. Luna herself could already see the beginning stages of this process and had witnessed firsthand how Ginny head dealt with most of it. "Do you think they will be able to fix it?"
Pansy smiled sadly, "I don't know. I hope so. If they do one thing is definitely for sure, they will never be apart again."
Not long after the two friends said their goodbyes and both apperated back to their homes.
When Luna arrived at the flat she shared with Blaise she let herself in and hung up her coat in closet just inside the door. It had been a stressful afternoon dealing with all of Hallie and Ginny's drama and on top of that she had enough of her own on mind. She needed to have a serious talk with Blaise, which was no small feat but she had an announcement that she had to make.
Once her coat was secure she then found that she was pleasantly surprised by a wonderful smell greeting her nostrils.
She decided to explore further as she made her way through living room towards the door to the kitchen which was uncharacteristically shut.
She swung open the door and was greeted with site of a shirtless Blaise wearing only a pair of jeans and what appeared to be her frilly pink cooking apron that had belonged to her mother. She began to giggle which caused her fiancé to turn around with a big grin on his face.
"You're home!" he said gleefully brandishing his stirring spoon.
The site of him from the front was even better than she ever could have imagined. The frilly pink apron barely covered a third of his well tanned, muscular chest and it was about four inches to short to do anything actually helpful. Overall he just looked ridiculous and Luna's giggle turned to all out laughter while Blaise just continued to grin.
"Care to kiss the cook?" he asked slyly, wiggling his eyebrows.
After a moment Luna was able to begin to compose herself. "What are you doing? And which houseelf did you have to bribe to accomplish this?" she choked.
"I'm making you dinner my love and there are no houseelves involved, just me and a muggle cookbook doing it the muggle way just for you. We have a starting salad and for an entrée orange glazed roast chicken with scalloped potatoes and fresh green beans."
"And what's for desert? You?"
A sly smirk slid across his face. "Maybe. You'll just have to wait and see now won't you."
Luna couldn't help but roll her eyes. Of course Blaise would respond like that. "Alright well I'm going to go change and then we can eat."
After a few minutes Luna emerged into the dining room from the bedroom in a tank top and pajama shorts. She had considered playing along with Blaise's theme and putting on something closer to lingerie but in all honesty she was not up to feeling sexy and just wanted to be comfortable.
By this time the table was immaculately set and there were lit candles adorning it. Both plates of food were laid out and it looked and smelled perfect. It was so beautiful that is brought tears to her eyes. Blaise had really out done himself this time.
Blaise silently came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. "I love you." He whispered into her ear.
She spun around and threw her arms around his neck. She buried her face into his chest as the tears came spilling out now.
"What is it love?" Blaise asked. His voice held a touch of distress at his fiancé's reaction. This was supposed to be a happy, romantic night and he could not fathom what could upset her like this.
"I don't know." She sniffled. "Nothing, everything… nothing."
His eyebrows knitted together slightly. All this was very confusing. "Well if you don't tell me what is wrong then I can't fix it."
Luna's head shot up and Blaise was shocked to see that the tears that now adorned her face and his body were not tears of sadness but obvious tears of joy.
"There is nothing wrong love!" she insisted. "This is amazing. There is nothing to fix…" she paused and took a deep breath. She was going to wait till after dinner but she supposed now was as good a time as any to let Blaise in on the wonderful secret she had been keeping for the last few days. "In fact… everything is perfect, beyond perfect. I think the tears are just a part of the baby hormones."
Blaise froze, his face completely shocked. "Baby?" he whispered down at his fiancé.
Luna nodded and whispered, "I'm pregnant Blaise."
With those three words Blaise completely transformed. All traces of shock was gone from him as he tightened his grip around Luna's waist and spun her around in the air.
"I'm going to be a father." He yelled out to anyone and everyone who could hear him while Luna laughed.
Blaise's reaction was better than the best she could have hoped for. His joy and excitement radiated off of him as he practically bounced with excitement.
"This is the best news I've ever gotten." He insisted as he finally loosened his grip and placed her back on her feet. He bent down and captured her lips for a kiss that was full of all the emotions that were coursing through him and when it finally broke he whispered, "I love you." for the second time that evening.
"I'm so glad you're happy." Luna said as more tears sprung to her eyes. "I was kind of worried you wouldn't be excited about it."
"How could you even think that?" He laughed. "This is the best thing that has ever happened to be, right behind meeting you of course. I can't wait to tell everyone." He laughed and kissed her again, "We're going to have a baby!"
Finally the couple decided to sit down to the dinner that they had all but forgotten about in the excitement.
They ate with silly grins both more in love and happy with their lives than they ever could have possibly imagined on their first, forced walk all those years ago in Hogsmeade. On that day neither one of them would have ever guessed that they would be able to be in the same room together without flinging insults at one another not to mention to have come this far.
Blaise took her hand into his and placed a kiss in the middle of her palm. "What are you thinking about beautiful?"
"You, us, our family… our friends."
Blaise sighed. "Ginny and Draco or Hallie and Theo?"
Luna giggled. "Am I that transparent?"
"No I just know you better than anyone and I know who you spent all day with and since Pansy is the advice giver I just figured that you are trying yet again to fix our friends."
Luna laughed. "It really does seem like a semi-futile effort at this point doesn't it. I just cant give up on them. I want our friends to all be as happy as we are. No one deserves it more than them, especially Ginny and Draco. They have both been through so much both as individuals and as a couple."
"Do you think that they are a couple again? I mean beyond their fake marriage?"
"I don't know if they are right this moment, but from how uncomfortable Ginny was today I would say they are well on their way."
The days between the dress fitting and ball flew by and before anyone knew it, it was just two days before Christmas Eve and the latest elegant Malfoy soiree.
That night Draco and Ginny had drawn the short stick and were required to go the annual Ministry of Magic's Holiday Fundraiser.
Unfortunately for Draco, just as the couple was preparing to leave Ginny got an owl from the hospital begging her to come in for an emergency case that they needed her expertise on. And so Draco ended up attending the event stag and lost count of how many times he said the words "Oh, she got called in to the hospital at the last minute" in response to all the inquiries as to his wife's whereabouts
Ginny quietly slipped through the bathroom sometime around one in the morning and let herself into Draco's bedroom. She felt terrible about being forced to bail out on him so suddenly, especially at something as boring as a Ministry event.
She expected him to already be fast asleep. It was pretty late and Draco had a tendency to lose consciousness if he was allowed to lay down in a bed for five minutes without being forced to carry on a conversation.
Much to her surprise he was not asleep but instead he was laying the opposite way on the bed totally engrossed in a book, so much so that he did not even notice her come in.
She smiled; he seemed so calm and almost serene, like a beautiful blond angel as he lay there waiting for her to come back. As she looked at him she was struck by a flash of memory from not too long before she had left and despite her best efforts to follow Pansy's advice her mind got the best of her as she was carried away by memory…
Ginny slowly walked down the corridor deep within the dungeons. Only about half the size of the rest of the dungeons, its dimensions should have been oppressive but Ginny had always found the walk down this passage to be strangely calming. It probably had something to do with the people waiting for her on the other side of the stone wall that she was fast approaching.
When she did finally approach the wall she muttered the password and quickly slipped through the large door that appeared before her. She found herself in the entrance way of a massive slightly grandiose room. The whole thing was lavishly decorated in silver and a deep green with large handcrafted wooden furniture in a beautiful mahogany wood.
Ginny had no interest in the room's décor though, she had seen it before and she would see it again. No, she was much interested more in the boy that was sprawled casually across the large bed in the middle of the room, laying on his stomach and flipping through a textbook.
It had been over a year since that perfect day in Hogsmeade and every single day with Draco was better than the last. Ginny still couldn't believe it but she was completely sure that she was the luckiest girl in the world.
She stopped for a moment in the entrance way just to look at the enigma that was her beau. Normally the hard and cold Malfoy, the Slytherin Prince to those who didn't actually know him, including Ginny when outside the confines of these walls. Inside this room though, he transformed into the sweet, carefree Draco that very few were acquainted with.
This was the Draco that Ginny found herself so far in love with after her three semesters and a summer of love letters, this beautiful boy who currently was so relaxed in his faded jeans and a black tee-shirt, hair falling in his eyes, no smirk but the hint of a real smile. This boy who wasn't perfect, who got grumpy when he was tired, who chewed on the tips of his quills when he concentrated just like he was just then. His imperfections made him perfect in Ginny's eyes.
She sighed and stepped into the room, "Why hello Mr. Head Boy."
Instantly his head popped up and a huge beautiful smile lit up his face so bright that Ginny couldn't help but smile right back.
"Why hello gorgeous, so glad you could finally join us." Draco said.
"Yeah because it has been so long since you've seen her."
Ginny wasn't surprised when she heard Blaise's detached drawl. His light tenor voice and ability to seem like nothing in the world fazed him made him in the eyes of most one of the most easy going Slytherins in the whole school, not that anyone tried to test the theory by pissing him off. People tended to just have a genuine respect for the elusive boy that few people got to know. If you were one of the fortunate few who was able to really get to know him then you discovered that Blaise was really a big teddy bear who had become more and more of a nerd every year and was smart enough to be a rival to Hermione's highest honor's status.
Most importantly though what most didn't know but many were beginning to discover if they paid attention was that Blaise had a major soft spot that came from a most unlikely and eccentric source, the bubbly, blond Ravenclaw Luna Lovegood. Despite their many years of complete animosity Blaise and Luna had finally learned to accept each other due to having to spend many afternoons in each other's forced company. Both of them dutifully endured the company of the other in order to hide their best friends' secret love and had fallen head over heels in love with each other as well.
Ginny laughed at their friend's sarcasm. "Hey! It has been at least 8 hours."
"You saw him at dinner less than an hour ago." He retorted.
Draco slid of his bed and walked over to stand behind Ginny. He slowly slipped his arms around her waist and rested his chin on her shoulder. "Just ignore him love. He's just testy because my girlfriend is here and his isn't." he twisted his head and gently kissed Ginny's long white neck.
Blaise snorted with mirth. "You have so got him whipped."
"What? And you're not?" giggled a light airy voice from the entrance to the room.
All three heads spun to watch the tiny blond girl trip gracefully over to them. She danced over to the couch and plopped down in Blaise's lap.
"Hi love." Blaise's face broke into a giant grin and he pulled his girlfriend into a long snog.
"Look who's whipped now." Draco whispered into Ginny's ear.
She giggled and Blaise flicked him off.
And so began another normal evening of the quartet.
"Hi," Draco said quietly, gently shaking her from her reverie. "How did it go?"
She smiled at him. "The patient should have a full recovery. How did the benefit for whatever go?"
He yawned and laughed. "It was fine. I showed up, looked pretty, took pictures, explained why I was stag for the evening, which of course made the upper crust of society just love you all the more. You know, the usual."
Now it was Ginny's turn to laugh. "Well I'm glad you behaved yourself."
"Of course." He said evilly as he flashed her his trademark grin.
She giggled at him. "There is no of course with you. You were let out without supervision, I half expected to you make a pass at the Minster's wife and get caught snogging two women at once in the public loo."
"How little you think of me." Draco sniffed. He pretended to be miffed by her less than kind assessment of her even though he knew that four months ago it would have been a valid option for him.
"No love, how well I know you." She said as bent down to slip off the god forsaken heels she had been in all night.
"Come here, let me help you with that." Draco offered as he saw the exhaustion that radiated from her body. He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed as Ginny gratefully extended her legs to him one by one so she could be free of the cursed beasts.
Once that was over she lightly pushed on his chest so he would move over and both of them stretched out on the bed. "I'm just going to sit here for five minutes."Ginny insisted.
All Draco did was snort as he threw an arm around her and pulled her in close.
"Drae," Ginny began. She knew this was not a good idea she was far too tired to fight off sleep for very long and his warm, strong form felt so good. She didn't want to move but she was still fully dressed. "Ugh, let go I need to get up."
"Make me." He mumbled from where he was snuggled down into his pillow.
"Careful Malfoy, with behavior like this people might begin to get the idea that you like me."
"I don't like you. You are just comfy so shush."
"I'm fully dressed. I need to change." She was seriously whining now even though she was fully aware that he had already more than won the battle. Sleep had begun to overtake her and it seemed as if she would be spending yet another night in Draco's room.
"You'll be fine I promise."
"Jerk." she mumbled.
She could feel more than hear the chuckle reverberate through his chest. The last thing she was really conscious of was the soft feeling of him lips pressing against her forehead as she drifted off to sleep.
Draco watched Ginny as she slept.
He wasn't quite sure what had come over him but whatever it was had been happening more and more frequently. He found that he liked having Ginny around. In fact more and more he found himself attempting to intentionally create moments like this. It helped him to feel closer to her, to hold her and pretend like she was in his life to stay. At some points he felt that he would even forget about the girl from the potion if it meant that he never had to let go of the woman in his arms. It would be easy, in fact when the little weaselette was around he almost forgot that his mystery woman existed.
But inevitably, just like now, he would remember that Ginny was not his to keep. She was only on loan to him, purchased by his grandfather and paid to tame his wild ways. And the worst part was that she was performing her job flawlessly just as Ginny did everything and without even really trying. If he were honest with himself he would be forced to admit that in a lot of ways he had just stopped fighting her altogether.
Every day he became more attached to the little firecracker who flitted around his house and throughout his life spreading light and passion wherever she went. Draco had not felt this alive since the last time she had been a part of his life.
He wasn't sure if he would be able to let her go when the time came but he knew if Ginny wanted to leave he would let her and force himself to completely and entirely forget her. When she left this time, Ginny Weasley would no longer exist to him because, despite trying to deny it with his entire existence, if he allowed her to remain any sort of presence in his life he wouldn't survive the pain of losing her this time.
See I told you it was only going to be a couple days! Yay for a new chapter!
Alrighty I hope this makes everyone happy! It has a great scene with the friends and then a fun D/G scene that is both cute and emotionally revealing. I really like this one. What do you all think?
Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter!
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