Wedding Plans
For the rest of the day Ginny stayed in her room, curled up on the bed with her two best friends beside her, trying to comfort her. Both Hermione and Luna had now read the letter, and after both declaring that Draco Malfoy was the biggest git alive, decided now was the perfect time for ice-cream and reminiscing about the good times at school. They were trying very hard to distract Ginny from thinking about Draco, but were mostly unsuccessful. It didn't help that almost every good memory of the past three years of Ginny's life had Draco Malfoy at the centre. Ginny couldn't stop thinking about all the good times they had had together at Hogwarts, especially the first six months of their relationship, when they hadn't told anyone they were dating. After that first kiss in the corridor in front of an amazed Lavender and Parvati, they didn't speak to each other for weeks. In fact, Draco later told her that he had found out her timetable and had avoided anywhere that she was likely to be for weeks. Whenever they did meet by chance they would avoid each other's eye and hurry off.
Finally, on one such occasion when Ginny was on her way to the kitchen for a midnight snack and bumped into Draco along the way, he pinned her to the wall and ranted at her for half an hour about how he hadn't been thinking about her at all for the last three weeks and how dare she stand there looking that good and distract him from his rant? How dare she! It wasn't fair that she did that to him when he was trying so hard to forget her or be mad at her or at the very least insult her! Ginny had just stood there, staring at him, not really knowing what to say. A Malfoy, thinking about a Weasley like that? Unbelievable! In the end she just grabbed him and kissed him roughly, not caring that he was a high-and-mighty Malfoy, while she was just a poor, common Weasley. Draco, after the shock wore off, kissed her back just as passionately, also seeming to forget her lowly status. They were interrupted but Mrs Norris meowing loudly at their feet. After Draco gave the cat a hearty kick and sent it running of for Filch, he grabbed Ginny's hand and they made a run for it. He opened the first door he found and pushed Ginny inside and quickly followed, locking it behind him. They were in a dusty old closet, as Ginny pointed out acidly, making a face at the dust and cobwebs. Draco just shrugged. "Deal with it" he had said, then sat down on the floor with his back against the door, eyes on Ginny. After trying to persuade him to move out the way for what seemed like hours, Ginny gave up and sat down next to him, scowling. They had spent hours in there, talking first about general things, but soon came on to more personal topics like their families. They got to know each other extremely well in those two hours in the closet, both physically and mentally. Draco finally let Ginny out after half an hour of passionate kisses, and she crept back to bad, dusty and exhausted. She wondered for weeks afterwards why Draco had never even asked her to sleep with him while in the closet, but when she asked him a few weeks later, he just looked at her. "I wouldn't have taken you for a whore Weasley." he had said and walked away, leaving Ginny with a new opinion of the fabled womaniser of Hogwarts.
In the next few months they formed a steady relationship, trying very hard to keep it secret. Unfortunately, it didn't quite turn out as planned, and Ron found out and went mad. But they had struggled on through the storm that they created when people found out about their relationship, and Ginny had unlocked a whole new side of Draco Malfoy that no one had ever seen before. They had lasted for years to everyone's amazement, and had grown more in love every day. And now Draco was willing to let that go? To forget it all? He was going to throw it all away as though it had never happened. Ginny brought herself back to the present with tears flowing down her cheeks, her two best friends looking at her with lost eyes, not knowing what to do to make her feel better. Ginny offered them a shaky smile and decided to try harder to forget.
Luna decided it was time for a new tactic, this time something that Malfoy wasn't part of. "Guess what?" she said excitedly, eyes loosing their dreamy quality and sparkled. Ginny and Hermione looked at her expectantly. Luna let the suspense build up a bit, until Ginny hit her with a pillow, then said "We've decided on a date!" It worked perfectly. Ginny gave an excited shriek and she and Hermione badgered Luna for all the details. Finally Luna relented. "Oh ok! We've decided that we want to get married quite soon, and Ronald thought that it would be nice for a Christmas wedding. So it will be Christmas Eve I think." she said.
Ginny hugged her friend hard and smiled at her as Hermione said congratulations. "You two will be so happy together! I'm so happy for you! Have you told mum yet?" she asked.
Luna smiled vaguely. "Not yet, I thought you two should be the first to know, as you will be standing with me on the day. I think Ronald said something about not telling your mother until nearer the time."
Hermione snorted. "He's just trying to chicken out." she said. Ginny agreed, her mother believed in doing things the proper way, and she had expected Ron and Luna to be engaged for at least two years before thinking of actually getting married. She wouldn't be surprised if Ron was planning on leaving it until a week before the wedding before telling Molly, when it was too late to change their plans. Ginny decided she needed to have words with her brother before long.
They spent the rest of the afternoon talking about the wedding, looking through magazines for dress ideas. There was so much to arrange - Luna's dress, bridesmaids' dresses for Ginny and Hermione, Ron's suit, Harry's suit (he would of course be best man), locations for both the wedding and reception, guest invitations, florists to contact, photographers to arrange, and because it was set to be a high profile wedding with the likes of Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore attending, there was also the issue of security.
But they couldn't start to arrange anything before Molly Weasley was told about the early wedding. Luna and Ron told Mrs Weasley about the wedding by the end of July, and she took it surprisingly well, with only a few objections. But Ron took her aside and quietly told his mother the reasoning behind getting married so soon. With the war between the free wizarding world and Voldemort escalating, Ron knew that he may not have two years to wait to get married. In his line of work he was facing Dark Wizards almost daily, and not always coming out of a fight unhurt. He wanted to marry Luna before anything happened to him, he wanted to die a married man. Molly cried at this, knowing it to be the truth. She had asked Ron, Harry and Hermione countless times to give up their jobs as Dark Wizards Hunters and pursue a safer career, but all three were set on stopping Voldemort and his followers. Molly Weasley now accepted that, and accepted Ron's choice to get married at Christmas.
The next few moths flew by in a whirl of wedding related activity for Ginny. She was kept extremely busy either her task of organising the wedding reception, or her studies for becoming a Healer. Her exam was set to take place on the 15th January next year, which seemed much too soon, she still had so much to do before then! So summer and autumn came and went, and she gradually thought less and less about Draco Malfoy, although she still dreamt about him, but even those dreams were coming less often, and were easier to bear.
By November, Ginny felt she was almost completely over Draco Malfoy, who was now just a blurry presence at the outskirts of her life. She heard his name without feeling such overwhelming loss, and she awoke from dreams of him without tears running down her cheeks. But her heart still missed a beat when she saw his face in the prophet, usually on the front page. She always read the reports carefully, absorbing every horrific detail of the things he had supposedly done. But it didn't make her cry any more, and she finally convinced herself to stop believing that he would one day walk through her door and carry her away into the sunset.
At the start of December Ginny, Hermione and Mrs Weasley accompanied Luna trying on her dress for the wedding. Luna was going to have a traditional wedding dress - wizard style. She had seen it in Scarlet's Dress Robes, a trendy shop in Hogsmeade. The dress was floor length and beautiful. It had an ivory embroidered silk bodice, fully silk lined and boned, with intricate beading in emerald green along the top. The bottom of the dress was a wrap over A' line skirt with an embroidered insert from the left hip, the beading on it also in emerald green.
Luna stepped out of the fitting room to the collective sigh of admiration from Ginny, Hermione, Mrs Weasley and Scarlet herself. "Oh Miss Lovegood you look absolutely gorgeous!" she gushed, fluttering about making minor adjustments to the dress with her wand. Luna's doubtful eyes met Ginny's and Ginny smiled. "Luna you really do look beautiful! Ron won't take his eyes off you for the whole day! In fact, I don't think any man will!" she said. Luna beamed back at her.