The only reason they had done so was because Ron and Fred and George and Percy were all sick, and they didn’t want her to get sick too. They had said she would be the only child at the party, and that she would be bored. But she was willing to take that chance. Besides, she was almost six. She was a big girl now.
And she could never be bored when she got to wear such pretty robes. Wearing robes like a grown-up! She held her head up proudly as they entered the room, and was delighted to see several people smile at her.
“Oh great, not the Malfoys.” Her father didn’t sound too happy.
“Arthur, you knew everyone would be here. Oh sweet Merlin, they’ve brought that son of theirs too.”
Son? thought Ginny. And here they said I’d be the only child here! No, she wouldn’t be bored at all.
“Now Ginny,” her mother led her a little ways into the room. “You see that boy over there?” She pointed to a young blonde boy, wearing a very, very pretty pair of robes. His parents, who were wearing even prettier robes, were showing him to people. “You are not to talk to him, you understand?”
“Yes, mummy.” She decided immediately to say hi to him as soon as she could.
At first this seemed impossible, for her mother took her hand and would not let go, as the three of them wandered the room, and soon Ginny was bored after all. Well, that’s mum’s fault! If she’d just let me go...
Finally she wiggled her hand free of her mother’s grip and started pushing her way through the room to where she’d last seen the boy and his parents.
Somehow she found herself sitting under a large table, and she heard a voice say, “Oh no, Arthur Weasley has not brought one of his brats with him.” Ginny bristled. She was not a brat!
“Now Draco,” the robe bottoms near her looked like those of the boy and his father. “Did you see that girl go under the table? You are not to talk to her, you understand?”
“Yes, father.” His robe bottoms stayed there while his fathers’ moved away. Then he peered under the table. She smiled as him, and he ducked under and sat down next to her. “My father doesn’t want me to talk to you.”
“My mum doesn’t want me to talk to you, either. Do you have any idea why?”
“Nope. Do you?”
“Nope. But parents are pretty stupid anyway.” They smiled at each other again. “What’s your name?”
“Draco. Yours?”
“Ginny. Well, Ginevra, really, but only mum calls me that, and only when she’s mad at me.”
“Ginevra. That’s a pretty name.”
“Draco’s kind of pretty too.”
“Well, I’m sick of hearing it!” Draco made a fist and hit the floor. “I’m sick of these parties, where father and mother make me stand up and say hello all the time, and let them brag about me, like I was one of mum’s necklaces!”
“You’ve been to a lot of these parties? Lucky! Mum and dad never take me to them. I only got to go to this one because my brothers are all sick.”
“I’m not lucky. These parties really are no fun. And Draco is a boring name. I’d much rather be call Draconius. That’s much prettier.”
“It is.” Ginny agreed. “Parents are stupid.”
“Yes they are.” They both sighed.
“I think I want to annoy my mum and dad.” Ginny then said. “Any ideas?”
“Let me think here.” They both thought for some time, then Draco said, “I know! Let’s get married!”
“Married?”
“Yes, that makes parents really angry, when you marry someone they don’t like. My mum talks about this sister she has, called Andromeda, who married someone their parents really didn’t like, and I heard my grandfather rant about it once, and he looked so funny!” He stood up as much as he could, then squatted and marched back in forth in front of her. “And this Aunt of yours, Master Draco, was a very great fool and was in foolerydom!” He spoke in very deep voice, and Ginny erupted into peals of laughter. “So, how do we get married?”
“Well, first I need a bridal headdress.” Ginny felt very excited. She remembered several months ago she, her parents, and Ron had visited their neighbors, the Lovegoods, and their daughter, Luna, had insisted on playing bride with the two of them, but all her brothers insisted she couldn’t marry them, so she had never been able to play bride with a groom. Now at last she had one!
“How are we going to get one?”
“Someone’s necklace will do. We’ll have to steal it!”
“Okay.” They crawled to the edge of the table and looked out on all the people.
But Ginny had forgotten how tall everyone was. “How are we to know who’s wearing a necklace and who isn’t?”
“My mum’s wearing a necklace. Stay here. I’ll get it.”
Ginny stayed under the table for a long time. She was just deciding to forget it and go find her parents when Draco returned, and clutched in his hands was the most beautiful necklace Ginny had ever seen. It had to have a thousand tiny jewels in it, and they were linked together with gold. “Hope you like it. I really had to beg for it. I think threatening to throw a temper tantrum did it.”
“Oh, Draco, Draconius, it’s beautiful!” She reached out, but she wondered if her hands were too dirty to touch it.
He lifted it up and placed it on her head. She stood perfectly still, terrified that it would fall off.
“Now we need someone to marry us.” He said. “I don’t think anyone at this party will.”
Ginny had already thought of that. “If we can find a statue or something somewhere, that will work.” When Luna had played bride with Ron, they had used a statue Mrs. Lovegood had owned.
“Where can we find one here?”
This was a question neither of them could think of an answer to, so they sat down despondent, until suddenly Ginny said, “We can make one!”
“Out of what?”
“The hat-stand in the room where mum, dad, and I came in and left our cloaks. We’ll take all the hats off it except one, and it’ll work!”
“We’ll have to get across the room first. Give me the necklace, we’ll hide it. We can’t let our parents spot us. Grandfather told me if he’d caught Aunt Andromeda before she was married, he wouldn’t have let her do it.”
Ginny found it hard to part with the beautiful necklace, which Draco put in his pocket. Carefully they emerged from under the table. Draco’s parents were in one corner, talking with another pair of people; Ginny’s were nowhere in sight.
“Let’s go.” They crept along the wall opposite to Draco’s parents, Ginny praying her parents didn’t come into sight, or wouldn’t be in the other room. But when they came into the other room, they found it empty.
They hurried to the hat-stand. It was covered with hats, which they pulled off and piled up next to it. “Which one should he wear?”
“This one.” Ginny pulled out a silver hat with a piece of dark blue cloth protruding from the tip. The hat-stand was tall, but Draco jumped up twice and on the second jump was able to put the hat onto it’s top. The necklace fell out of his pocket and clattered onto the floor.
Ginny dove to pick it up. “Oh please, say it’s not broken!” She looked it over, and discovered to her great relief that it wasn’t. She placed it back on her head, and very carefully walked to the other side of the room. “Do you know how to do this?” She asked.
He shook his head. “Do you?”
“I know exactly what to do. Don’t worry. Just stand there.” And she walked towards Draco, now confident that the necklace would not fall off her head, singing, “Duh-dunt-duh-duuuh! Duh-dunt-duh-duuuuuuuh!”
"What’s that you’re singing?”
“I don’t know, but I think it’s usually sung as weddings. Duh-dunt-duh-duuuh! Duh-dunt-duh-duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh!” On the last “duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh” she reached Draco, and taking his hand turned to face the hat-stand. He faced it likewise.
“Ladies and gentlement,” she said in as deep a voice as she could manage, “We are gathered here today to celebrate the union of two faithful souls, Draconius and Ginevra.” This seemed an appropriate time to use her real name, and besides, he had said he thought it pretty. “Typically the hat-stand would say that,” she whispered to Draco, “but it can’t talk, so..." She returned to her deep voice, "Do you, Draconius Malfoy, take Ginevra Weasley as your wife, into your heart and soul, to share with her all the years that fate will give to both of you?" Then her own voice, "Now you say, ‘I, Draconius, do take you, Ginevra, into my heart and soul, and where you go I will follow.’”
Draco did, and Ginny repeated the question with the appropriate words changed, and said, “And I, Ginevra, do take you, Draconius, into my heart and soul, and where you go I will follow.” Then in the deep voice again, “I have heard your vows spoken, then I declare you bonded for life.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes, that’s it. Now you kiss me.”
“Kiss you?” He looked grossed out.
Ron had been too grossed out to kiss Luna, Ginny recalled, and Luna had been sad because that meant they weren’t really married. “You have to kiss me, or we aren’t married. That’s the way it is.”
“Oh, all right.” Ginny closed her eyes, and felt his lips touch hers. She giggled, “That tickles!”
“It does!” He giggled too.
Then they heard Ginny’s mother’s voice, “GINNY! GINNY! GINEVRA MOLLY WEASLEY, WHERE ARE YOU!”
Suddenly Ginny realized she would be in for a spanking, and probably a hard one if she was discovered playing with the boy she’d been told not to talk to. So she said to Draco, “You know, Draconius, maybe we should keep our marriage a secret? Like Romeo and Juliet?”
“Who are Romeo and Juliet?”
“I’m not sure. Dad says they got married in secret and then killed themselves.”
“I don’t want to kill myself!”
“Neither do I, but let’s keep our marriage a secret anyway." She heard her mother’s voice again, and hastily gave Draco his mother’s necklace and hurried into the other room.
It had been a number of years since Ginny had thought of their wedding, when Luna started dating Harry, and told Ron with her usual seriousness that it was a good thing they hadn’t kissed, because then with her in love with Harry and him in love with Hermione they would have to go through the messy process of getting a divorce. She had realized then, that if one was to play by those rules, that meant she and Draco Malfoy were still married.
It was several days after this when the five of them had chanced to run into him, Pansy Parkinson, and Crabbe and Goyle. For once he had looked like he was going to leave them alone, mostly because he and she were walking very close with their hands all bound up, and also smirking in a way that indicated that they were deliberately acting sickeningly sweet for the express purpose of annoying other people.
Before she could stop herself, she burst out, “Adultery!”
Everyone looked at her in confusion. One look at the group of Slytherins and she knew her husband, like she herself, had forgotten. “Really, Master Malfoy, have you no shame? Parading your mistress right in front of your wife?”
“What are you talking about?” Ron demanded. Malfoy remained silent, stunned, and she couldn’t tell whether or not he remembered.
She decided to jog his memory. She had never heard him called by his beloved nickname so she could only assume he had abandoned it. “Well, my dear Draconius, I suppose I shall see you around.”
His jaw dropped. He remembered now, all right. She took off, laughing her head off. She'd tell her friends the story later, and she hoped they saw the humor in the whole thing too.