Fest Fic: A Strange Bun in the Oven, PG
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hp_bunintheovenTitle: A Strange Bun in the Oven (In which Draco Malfoy drinks a lot of coffee and Ginny Weasley figures out what she wants.)
Author/Artist:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sw33tch3rrypi3
Pairing(s): Draco/Ginny
Prompt: #H26
Summary: Ginny is a baker with a crush, but Draco appears to have himself a happy family.
Word Count: 2,681
Rating: PG
Warnings/Contains: None
Notes: A million thanks to my amazing beta J, as always. xx
Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
When Ginny Weasley’s father asked her what she wanted to do with her life one spring day in 1998, she couldn’t help but think it was strange that it was the first time she could ever remember anyone doing so. Everyone had simply assumed that she would be happy to marry Harry and become her mother. Hell, even she had presumed that would be her path, which had saved her from giving the future any real thought. Suddenly, with the war behind her and millions of options before her, she hadn’t been so certain.
Five years later, she now owned the only specialty bakery in Diagon Alley. It was in a cute little lavender-painted brick building with big, sunny windows where she could display cakes and pies. One thing she did share with her mother was a love of baking, and spending her days behind the counter of Le Pain and Glory never felt like work.
Of course, starting her own business and keeping it running had taken a lot of hard work, as well as a lot of time, which meant her social life was nearly non-existent. She and Harry had never gotten back together, but still saw each other as friends when they could, and she also spent time with Hermione and Luna as often as possible. Her brothers, of course, were unavoidable—usually to her displeasure. But there was no one special in her life, and as Ginny pulled a batch of muffins from one of her ovens on a bright Tuesday morning in March, she told herself that she was just fine with that. She knew that she was picky, after all. She didn’t want the comfortable-but-tedious path she’d been walking with Harry. She wanted someone who challenged her, someone she cared for and lusted after. She yearned for someone fascinating and exciting, someone like…
“Morning, Weasley. I hope those are lemon poppyseed.”
Ginny looked up from transferring the muffins to a cooling rack and gave Draco Malfoy something she once would never have thought possible—a smile. “Of course, but they’re piping hot. Coffee while you wait?”
He nodded. “Got an earlier start than usual today. Pansy woke me at the arsecrack of dawn and then I couldn’t get back to sleep,” he said distractedly, eyes darting over the abandoned copy of The Daily Prophet someone had left on her counter.
The coffee she was pouring into one of the shop’s homey clay mugs sloshed slightly as the redhead flinched, as she always did when Draco mentioned Pansy. The first time he had ever stepped into her demesne, Ginny had wanted to toss him out on his posh rear end. But to her surprise, he hadn’t looked around and criticized everything in sight. In fact, he had only looked tired and resigned as he had carefully counted out knuts for a small cup of tea. He had spoken to her quietly and civilly, and through the window she had watched him walk away from her shop, ignoring insults—and sometimes literal garbage—being thrown at him.
In the four years since, he had become her most regular customer. At first, he had only been able to afford a cup of tea, which she had upgraded to a large with room on the house after a couple of weeks. He’d pulled himself up by his bootstraps, though, starting with a grunt position at the Ministry, working hard and making everyone see past his last name. Eventually he had switched to rich, dark coffee and then added a muffin in the morning, and now that he held a high position in Magical Games and Sports he sometimes stopped by for another cup and a pastry at lunchtime.
Ginny admired the hell out of him and, somewhere in the interim, had developed a humdinger of a crush. They traded small talk; not that they were best friends or privy to intimate details of each other’s lives, but she knew enough to recognize that adult Draco, while still dry-witted with a tendency for snark, was far removed from his childhood and someone she would actually like to get to know better. Except…Pansy Parkinson.
Draco didn’t mention her constantly, which Ginny was grateful for. The beautiful, sophisticated brunette came in sometimes with her friend, Astoria Greengrass, for chai lattes. Each time she popped up, it was a rude reminder to Ginny that Draco Malfoy had been spoken for long before she thought of him as anything other than a slimy ferret.
Ginny handed Draco his mug and a handful of creamers with a forced smile, fighting a shiver as the backs of her fingers brushed his palm the way she always did. “I haven’t seen Pansy in a few weeks,” she said, striving for a casual tone as she turned to collect a saucer for his muffin. “She seemed rather fond of the raspberry tartlets for a while. Is everything okay?”
He leaned on the counter, crossed one foot over the opposite ankle and languorously used his wand to add cream to his coffee. “Oh, she’s right as rain. She just doesn’t like to go out so much now that we’re having the unseasonably warm weather and she can’t hide her belly with big robes anymore.” He made a stirring motion with his wand, sending the coffee swirling inside his mug. “She doesn’t want to deal with all of the attention that our baby will get, understandably.”
“Baby?” Ginny asked stupidly, turning. She felt lightheaded, like she’d taken a bludger to the stomach, and she dropped into the chair she kept behind the counter for slow times. Okay, so maybe she had entertained brief little fantasies of Draco and Pansy finally breaking up. Maybe because he realized that he was irresistibly attracted to redheads. Or something. Shut up, it was her fantasy. She hadn’t realized, however, how much it had become a secret wish. “I didn’t know,” she said softly. “Congratulations?”
Draco chuckled and finished taking a sip from his mug. “I’ll pass them along, thanks. Not many people do know, circumstances and all.” Ginny could only imagine what their families and friends were saying about a baby conceived outside of marriage. He tipped his head, watching her nod and wipe her already-clean hands on her apron, and his eyes seemed to soften. “So what’s on the schedule for today?”
Ginny managed a smile; he asked every day, and she was always touched that he actually seemed to care. Or did a fair job of pretending. “Bread this morning, and then that gender reveal cake for Harper and his wife.”
He grimaced. “Pansy was invited to that shower, I think. I hope she doesn’t get any ideas about doing a cake like that.”
Ginny ignored the little pang caused by his words and laughed. “Draco Malfoy, don’t you dare try to keep business from me!”
He grinned and drained his coffee, then checked his wristwatch as he returned his cup to the counter. “Damn, I’d better take that muffin to go.”
She jumped up and grabbed one of her decorated white bags. “Of course! I’m so sorry, I should have given it to you a few minutes ago.” She dropped two of his favorite muffins into the bag and folded over the top as he waved off her words.
“We both got distracted, I think,” he said quietly as she handed over the muffins. Ginny flushed, telling herself that Draco was not giving her an intense look, and she was being a ninny. He was distracted because he was going to be a father, for goodness’ sake!
“If you happen to come by during lunch, I’ll box up some of those tartlets for you to take to Pansy,” she said. He thanked her and reached out to tap her affectionately on the underside of the chin, as he did every morning. Ginny managed to keep her smile in place until he was out the door, and then she dropped it with a sigh.
XOXO
Draco did come back at lunchtime, but Ginny was caught unawares by the fact that he had Pansy with him. They came through the Floo, something she allowed only a handful of customers to do, and the brunette did, indeed, look uncomfortable as she waddled to one of the small tables and allowed Draco to help her into a chair.
Ginny poured a cup of coffee and a tall glass of fresh lemonade and levitated them, along with Draco’s cream, over to the table. “What a nice surprise,” she said brightly, holding in a cringe as the blond gave her a strange look. Okay then, too exuberant. She toned it down a little. “You haven’t visited in a bit,” she said to Pansy, setting the glass of lemonade in front of the woman.
Pansy gave her a grateful smile; she was actually quite pretty without the “I saw something nasty in the woodshed” expression she’d worn in school. “I feel disgusting,” she said in a slightly whinging tone. “But Draco owled that you were going to have those divine raspberry things today and offered to bring me through the Floo, and I was just so bored with Astoria at work.”
Ginny nodded sympathetically as Draco settled into the other chair at the table and she turned to fetch Pansy’s tartlets. “Draco, what will it be today?” she asked over her shoulder as she plated several of the pastries.
He didn’t answer right away and Ginny turned, her heart lurching in her chest. He was looking up at her with amused eyes, a finger to his lips in a “shhh” signal as he bent with his ear pressed to Pansy’s protruding belly. After a few quiet seconds he sat back up and grinned. “I think he tried to punch me in the jaw. Going to be pugilist, that one.”
Pansy sniffed. “She will be able to protect herself.”
As Ginny rounded the counter to place Pansy’s tartlets on the table, Draco caught her eyes again. “I think it’s a boy. I think Pans does, too, but she claims her ‘intuition’ says it’s a girl. More like she just wants a girl,” he laughed softly.
Picking up a tartlet, Pansy pursed her lips. “I can’t imagine having a boy. I don’t even know what to do with the…the dangly whositwhatsits,” she shrugged before taking a bite with a happy little hum.
Ginny couldn’t help thinking, maybe a bit maliciously, that Pansy apparently knew at least one thing to do with dangly whosiwhatsits by the looks of her. She turned her attention to Draco. Friendly. “I still have some of the lemon muffins left. I also have some chocolate chip pound cake, a nice Victoria, or some of those little spice cookies.”
“I’ll have a slice of the Victoria sponge, cheers,” Draco smiled, settling back in his seat.
She turned quickly to get his cake, cursing the fact that when he smiled at her like that, she felt like the only woman in the world. She wondered if he and Pansy would get married. Then she wondered if she’d be asked to make the cake.
XOXO
The next day did nothing to dispel the familiarity of a moody English spring, and the pale grey sky was drizzling when Draco arrived. He’d come through the front door, wiping his wingtips on her welcome mat and dispelling his umbrella charm as he greeted her. Ginny waved, unable to avoid recalling his visit the day before, how he had rubbed Pansy’s lower back and feet, listened to and felt the movements of his child in her belly. Curiously, watching her mother had never made Ginny yearn for a family of her own, yet one day of watching Draco Malfoy prepare for fatherhood had made her certain that she wanted at least one child at some point. She hoped it would be with someone like him. While it might once have surprised her to think so, he would be a good father.
She told him so as she filled his cup, and he smiled in gratitude and gently squeezed her wrist. “Believe it or not, I learned a lot of it from my own father,” he said, looking away to deal with his coffee. “What you saw…That wasn’t always who he was. It isn’t who he is now, with all of the darkness out of his eyes. He loves me. He…he isn’t perfect,” Draco say haltingly, pausing in his actions as if thinking. “I hope that as a father I take the good things from him and leave the rest. I’ve learned enough from my own mistakes without making his.”
Ginny smiled softly, glad he wasn’t looking at her because she suspected she was doing a shite job in that moment of hiding her feelings. “I think that’s the goal of every new generation of parents,” she said quietly.
He did look at her then, but whatever he saw made him smile, chasing the furrow from his brow. “Well, I do think Father will be a good grandparent. He often talks of having a grandson. I think he and Mother both will be good grandparents, actually, since they’ll be able to coddle and coo and then hand the baby back without the worry of feedings and nappies.” He lifted his mug with one hand and lightly gripped the fingers of the hand she was resting on the counter with the other.
Ginny swallowed, trying to ignore his hold and make light conversation. “And what if the baby is a girl? Will Lucius be as pleased?”
“I’d imagine he’ll be wrapped around her little finger, especially if she has beautiful brown eyes.”
Ginny laughed breathily and played with the rubbish left from his creamers with her free hand. “That’s unlikely, since Pansy’s eyes are blue.”
Draco’s lips twisted, and he released her hand. “I suppose that’s true in this instance, though I highly doubt my parents will have any interest in seeing Pansy’s baby. The contract is very clear about the parentage.”
She blinked, jolting straight in surprise. “Your parents won’t want to see your baby?”
He shrugged. “To be fair, I likely won’t see the baby much once it’s born. Astoria will be able to take leave from her job and spend a lot more time with Pansy.”
“Astoria?” Ginny frowned. “What does Astoria have to do with anything?”
Draco looked confused, and then his face seem to clear and he laughed the most honest laugh she thought she’d ever heard from him. “Weasley, do you think Pansy and I are in a relationship?”
She tried not to look at him as if he were stupid. Really, she did. “You’re having a baby.”
“Technically, Pansy and Astoria are having a baby,” he said calmly, though the corner of his mouth still twitched. “I donated the…well, you know,” he made a vague hand motion and Ginny noticed that a dull flush was spreading across his cheekbones. She giggled.
“The you know?” she asked, raising her brows. Suddenly, she actually heard his words. “Wait, Pansy and Astoria?”
“Pansy and Astoria,” he confirmed, nodding. “They’ve been married two years, though they agreed to keep it off the registers in exchange for their parents not interfering.”
“And now they want to have a family, and you helped them,” Ginny said, her eyes roving over his face.
Draco grimaced, realizing for the first time how it might sound to someone else. “Is that weird?”
“Actually,” Ginny said without thinking, “I think I just fell in love with you a little more.”
Draco watched her eyes go wide and her face go red as she brought her hands up to cover her mouth. He pushed his mug to the side with a soft laugh and reached for her hands. “Just a little? After all this time? Shall we try for all the way?”
It wasn’t the most elegant kiss of all time, since neither could seem to stop smiling, but it didn’t matter at all as the world suddenly became a little brighter, and Ginny could finally, definitively answer that question.
Author/Artist:
sw33tch3rrypi3Pairing(s): Draco/Ginny
Prompt: #H26
Summary: Ginny is a baker with a crush, but Draco appears to have himself a happy family.
Word Count: 2,681
Rating: PG
Warnings/Contains: None
Notes: A million thanks to my amazing beta J, as always. xx
Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
When Ginny Weasley’s father asked her what she wanted to do with her life one spring day in 1998, she couldn’t help but think it was strange that it was the first time she could ever remember anyone doing so. Everyone had simply assumed that she would be happy to marry Harry and become her mother. Hell, even she had presumed that would be her path, which had saved her from giving the future any real thought. Suddenly, with the war behind her and millions of options before her, she hadn’t been so certain.
Five years later, she now owned the only specialty bakery in Diagon Alley. It was in a cute little lavender-painted brick building with big, sunny windows where she could display cakes and pies. One thing she did share with her mother was a love of baking, and spending her days behind the counter of Le Pain and Glory never felt like work.
Of course, starting her own business and keeping it running had taken a lot of hard work, as well as a lot of time, which meant her social life was nearly non-existent. She and Harry had never gotten back together, but still saw each other as friends when they could, and she also spent time with Hermione and Luna as often as possible. Her brothers, of course, were unavoidable—usually to her displeasure. But there was no one special in her life, and as Ginny pulled a batch of muffins from one of her ovens on a bright Tuesday morning in March, she told herself that she was just fine with that. She knew that she was picky, after all. She didn’t want the comfortable-but-tedious path she’d been walking with Harry. She wanted someone who challenged her, someone she cared for and lusted after. She yearned for someone fascinating and exciting, someone like…
“Morning, Weasley. I hope those are lemon poppyseed.”
Ginny looked up from transferring the muffins to a cooling rack and gave Draco Malfoy something she once would never have thought possible—a smile. “Of course, but they’re piping hot. Coffee while you wait?”
He nodded. “Got an earlier start than usual today. Pansy woke me at the arsecrack of dawn and then I couldn’t get back to sleep,” he said distractedly, eyes darting over the abandoned copy of The Daily Prophet someone had left on her counter.
The coffee she was pouring into one of the shop’s homey clay mugs sloshed slightly as the redhead flinched, as she always did when Draco mentioned Pansy. The first time he had ever stepped into her demesne, Ginny had wanted to toss him out on his posh rear end. But to her surprise, he hadn’t looked around and criticized everything in sight. In fact, he had only looked tired and resigned as he had carefully counted out knuts for a small cup of tea. He had spoken to her quietly and civilly, and through the window she had watched him walk away from her shop, ignoring insults—and sometimes literal garbage—being thrown at him.
In the four years since, he had become her most regular customer. At first, he had only been able to afford a cup of tea, which she had upgraded to a large with room on the house after a couple of weeks. He’d pulled himself up by his bootstraps, though, starting with a grunt position at the Ministry, working hard and making everyone see past his last name. Eventually he had switched to rich, dark coffee and then added a muffin in the morning, and now that he held a high position in Magical Games and Sports he sometimes stopped by for another cup and a pastry at lunchtime.
Ginny admired the hell out of him and, somewhere in the interim, had developed a humdinger of a crush. They traded small talk; not that they were best friends or privy to intimate details of each other’s lives, but she knew enough to recognize that adult Draco, while still dry-witted with a tendency for snark, was far removed from his childhood and someone she would actually like to get to know better. Except…Pansy Parkinson.
Draco didn’t mention her constantly, which Ginny was grateful for. The beautiful, sophisticated brunette came in sometimes with her friend, Astoria Greengrass, for chai lattes. Each time she popped up, it was a rude reminder to Ginny that Draco Malfoy had been spoken for long before she thought of him as anything other than a slimy ferret.
Ginny handed Draco his mug and a handful of creamers with a forced smile, fighting a shiver as the backs of her fingers brushed his palm the way she always did. “I haven’t seen Pansy in a few weeks,” she said, striving for a casual tone as she turned to collect a saucer for his muffin. “She seemed rather fond of the raspberry tartlets for a while. Is everything okay?”
He leaned on the counter, crossed one foot over the opposite ankle and languorously used his wand to add cream to his coffee. “Oh, she’s right as rain. She just doesn’t like to go out so much now that we’re having the unseasonably warm weather and she can’t hide her belly with big robes anymore.” He made a stirring motion with his wand, sending the coffee swirling inside his mug. “She doesn’t want to deal with all of the attention that our baby will get, understandably.”
“Baby?” Ginny asked stupidly, turning. She felt lightheaded, like she’d taken a bludger to the stomach, and she dropped into the chair she kept behind the counter for slow times. Okay, so maybe she had entertained brief little fantasies of Draco and Pansy finally breaking up. Maybe because he realized that he was irresistibly attracted to redheads. Or something. Shut up, it was her fantasy. She hadn’t realized, however, how much it had become a secret wish. “I didn’t know,” she said softly. “Congratulations?”
Draco chuckled and finished taking a sip from his mug. “I’ll pass them along, thanks. Not many people do know, circumstances and all.” Ginny could only imagine what their families and friends were saying about a baby conceived outside of marriage. He tipped his head, watching her nod and wipe her already-clean hands on her apron, and his eyes seemed to soften. “So what’s on the schedule for today?”
Ginny managed a smile; he asked every day, and she was always touched that he actually seemed to care. Or did a fair job of pretending. “Bread this morning, and then that gender reveal cake for Harper and his wife.”
He grimaced. “Pansy was invited to that shower, I think. I hope she doesn’t get any ideas about doing a cake like that.”
Ginny ignored the little pang caused by his words and laughed. “Draco Malfoy, don’t you dare try to keep business from me!”
He grinned and drained his coffee, then checked his wristwatch as he returned his cup to the counter. “Damn, I’d better take that muffin to go.”
She jumped up and grabbed one of her decorated white bags. “Of course! I’m so sorry, I should have given it to you a few minutes ago.” She dropped two of his favorite muffins into the bag and folded over the top as he waved off her words.
“We both got distracted, I think,” he said quietly as she handed over the muffins. Ginny flushed, telling herself that Draco was not giving her an intense look, and she was being a ninny. He was distracted because he was going to be a father, for goodness’ sake!
“If you happen to come by during lunch, I’ll box up some of those tartlets for you to take to Pansy,” she said. He thanked her and reached out to tap her affectionately on the underside of the chin, as he did every morning. Ginny managed to keep her smile in place until he was out the door, and then she dropped it with a sigh.
Draco did come back at lunchtime, but Ginny was caught unawares by the fact that he had Pansy with him. They came through the Floo, something she allowed only a handful of customers to do, and the brunette did, indeed, look uncomfortable as she waddled to one of the small tables and allowed Draco to help her into a chair.
Ginny poured a cup of coffee and a tall glass of fresh lemonade and levitated them, along with Draco’s cream, over to the table. “What a nice surprise,” she said brightly, holding in a cringe as the blond gave her a strange look. Okay then, too exuberant. She toned it down a little. “You haven’t visited in a bit,” she said to Pansy, setting the glass of lemonade in front of the woman.
Pansy gave her a grateful smile; she was actually quite pretty without the “I saw something nasty in the woodshed” expression she’d worn in school. “I feel disgusting,” she said in a slightly whinging tone. “But Draco owled that you were going to have those divine raspberry things today and offered to bring me through the Floo, and I was just so bored with Astoria at work.”
Ginny nodded sympathetically as Draco settled into the other chair at the table and she turned to fetch Pansy’s tartlets. “Draco, what will it be today?” she asked over her shoulder as she plated several of the pastries.
He didn’t answer right away and Ginny turned, her heart lurching in her chest. He was looking up at her with amused eyes, a finger to his lips in a “shhh” signal as he bent with his ear pressed to Pansy’s protruding belly. After a few quiet seconds he sat back up and grinned. “I think he tried to punch me in the jaw. Going to be pugilist, that one.”
Pansy sniffed. “She will be able to protect herself.”
As Ginny rounded the counter to place Pansy’s tartlets on the table, Draco caught her eyes again. “I think it’s a boy. I think Pans does, too, but she claims her ‘intuition’ says it’s a girl. More like she just wants a girl,” he laughed softly.
Picking up a tartlet, Pansy pursed her lips. “I can’t imagine having a boy. I don’t even know what to do with the…the dangly whositwhatsits,” she shrugged before taking a bite with a happy little hum.
Ginny couldn’t help thinking, maybe a bit maliciously, that Pansy apparently knew at least one thing to do with dangly whosiwhatsits by the looks of her. She turned her attention to Draco. Friendly. “I still have some of the lemon muffins left. I also have some chocolate chip pound cake, a nice Victoria, or some of those little spice cookies.”
“I’ll have a slice of the Victoria sponge, cheers,” Draco smiled, settling back in his seat.
She turned quickly to get his cake, cursing the fact that when he smiled at her like that, she felt like the only woman in the world. She wondered if he and Pansy would get married. Then she wondered if she’d be asked to make the cake.
The next day did nothing to dispel the familiarity of a moody English spring, and the pale grey sky was drizzling when Draco arrived. He’d come through the front door, wiping his wingtips on her welcome mat and dispelling his umbrella charm as he greeted her. Ginny waved, unable to avoid recalling his visit the day before, how he had rubbed Pansy’s lower back and feet, listened to and felt the movements of his child in her belly. Curiously, watching her mother had never made Ginny yearn for a family of her own, yet one day of watching Draco Malfoy prepare for fatherhood had made her certain that she wanted at least one child at some point. She hoped it would be with someone like him. While it might once have surprised her to think so, he would be a good father.
She told him so as she filled his cup, and he smiled in gratitude and gently squeezed her wrist. “Believe it or not, I learned a lot of it from my own father,” he said, looking away to deal with his coffee. “What you saw…That wasn’t always who he was. It isn’t who he is now, with all of the darkness out of his eyes. He loves me. He…he isn’t perfect,” Draco say haltingly, pausing in his actions as if thinking. “I hope that as a father I take the good things from him and leave the rest. I’ve learned enough from my own mistakes without making his.”
Ginny smiled softly, glad he wasn’t looking at her because she suspected she was doing a shite job in that moment of hiding her feelings. “I think that’s the goal of every new generation of parents,” she said quietly.
He did look at her then, but whatever he saw made him smile, chasing the furrow from his brow. “Well, I do think Father will be a good grandparent. He often talks of having a grandson. I think he and Mother both will be good grandparents, actually, since they’ll be able to coddle and coo and then hand the baby back without the worry of feedings and nappies.” He lifted his mug with one hand and lightly gripped the fingers of the hand she was resting on the counter with the other.
Ginny swallowed, trying to ignore his hold and make light conversation. “And what if the baby is a girl? Will Lucius be as pleased?”
“I’d imagine he’ll be wrapped around her little finger, especially if she has beautiful brown eyes.”
Ginny laughed breathily and played with the rubbish left from his creamers with her free hand. “That’s unlikely, since Pansy’s eyes are blue.”
Draco’s lips twisted, and he released her hand. “I suppose that’s true in this instance, though I highly doubt my parents will have any interest in seeing Pansy’s baby. The contract is very clear about the parentage.”
She blinked, jolting straight in surprise. “Your parents won’t want to see your baby?”
He shrugged. “To be fair, I likely won’t see the baby much once it’s born. Astoria will be able to take leave from her job and spend a lot more time with Pansy.”
“Astoria?” Ginny frowned. “What does Astoria have to do with anything?”
Draco looked confused, and then his face seem to clear and he laughed the most honest laugh she thought she’d ever heard from him. “Weasley, do you think Pansy and I are in a relationship?”
She tried not to look at him as if he were stupid. Really, she did. “You’re having a baby.”
“Technically, Pansy and Astoria are having a baby,” he said calmly, though the corner of his mouth still twitched. “I donated the…well, you know,” he made a vague hand motion and Ginny noticed that a dull flush was spreading across his cheekbones. She giggled.
“The you know?” she asked, raising her brows. Suddenly, she actually heard his words. “Wait, Pansy and Astoria?”
“Pansy and Astoria,” he confirmed, nodding. “They’ve been married two years, though they agreed to keep it off the registers in exchange for their parents not interfering.”
“And now they want to have a family, and you helped them,” Ginny said, her eyes roving over his face.
Draco grimaced, realizing for the first time how it might sound to someone else. “Is that weird?”
“Actually,” Ginny said without thinking, “I think I just fell in love with you a little more.”
Draco watched her eyes go wide and her face go red as she brought her hands up to cover her mouth. He pushed his mug to the side with a soft laugh and reached for her hands. “Just a little? After all this time? Shall we try for all the way?”
It wasn’t the most elegant kiss of all time, since neither could seem to stop smiling, but it didn’t matter at all as the world suddenly became a little brighter, and Ginny could finally, definitively answer that question.
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Date: 2017-04-04 09:23 pm (UTC)I started suspecting Pansy and Astoria when Ginny mentioned that the two of them spent time together, but I wasn't sure until it was confirmed because it really sounded like Draco and Pansy were together, lol :-D
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Date: 2017-04-13 09:20 pm (UTC)I'm glad you enjoyed it! xx
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Date: 2017-04-04 11:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-04-13 09:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-04-05 12:23 pm (UTC)Loved it! Loved it! Loved it!
Just the right amount of sweet, pining, oblivious romance. I liked the way you were able to show Ginny's slow appreciation for the changes in Draco with such a short story. His treatment of Pansy was too cute. I loved the way he was subtly showing Ginny he liked her. Very Slytherin.
Thank you!!!!
When I prompted, I was imagining a story along the lines of Dirty Dancing where they think Johnny is the father of Penny's baby but was just a good friend.
This was so much better!
*squishes*
no subject
Date: 2017-04-13 09:23 pm (UTC)It will be more thoroughly Brit-picked before I post elsewhere; with computer issues and vacation, I was pressed for time on this one and one or two things unfortunately slipped through. :( I am very blessed that my amazing beta,
*squishes back*
no subject
Date: 2017-04-06 01:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-04-13 09:24 pm (UTC)Thank you! xx
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Date: 2017-04-10 02:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-04-13 09:24 pm (UTC)