A/N: Ok, a D/G story for real this time. This takes place about 9 months before "Lessons." It's also un-beta'd so any mistakes are my own. The quote "I'm some place I don't know where I am" comes from one of the Simpsons Halloween episodes where Homer is trapped in the 3D realm. "If you see towels, you're lost in the linen closet again!"
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Ginny stared up at Malfoy Manor with some amount of trepidation. The last time she had been here had been in the final days of the War. As a member of the Order she had gone with a team to act as a diversion so another team could infiltrate and raid the house. She hadn't known it at the time, but her future husband had given them critical information, albeit reluctantly, that made the raid a success.
Now, she was married to that informant and six months pregnant with their first child. How times had changed. "Draco, we don't have to move here you know," Ginny murmured softly taking his hand and looking up at him. They stood just at the end of the long walkway that cut off from the drive and curved across the expanse of lawn toward the front door of the house. "We could stay in our townhouse."
Draco squeezed her hand to let her know that he heard, but made no comment. She knew where his mind was and that mind had been fixed and would remain fixed. Draco's stubbornness would put a mule's to shame.
Ginny sighed and let him lead her up the walk to the silent sprawling mansion. "I want to turn the entire upper floor into a large apartment," Draco said releasing the security and stasis wards around the house and opening the door. He ushered her in with a gentle hand at the small of her back. "And leave the bottom floor for more formal occasions and guests."
The all marble foyer itself was as large as the Burrow and Ginny felt dwarfed by the sheer size. "I like the sound of that," she replied, quirking a grin up at him. "It'll make this place feel a bit cozier."
Draco nodded and grinned down at her. "That's the plan."
"How long will that take?"
He let out a deep sigh. "A year. At least."
"Why so long?" Ginny asked, looking up at him, surprised.
"Well, I figure it'll take about a month or two for us to fight over what we want, have lots of make up sex, compromise, and be stubborn about," Draco explained. "By then the baby will be born and I highly doubt we'll want to be interviewing contractors, so that'll be another month maybe two perhaps. After that we'll actually need to find one, that'll take some time and since I have a feeling we'll be extremely specific about what we will and won't want, it'll take a few months for the contractors to complete the work."
Ginny nodded with a grin. That sounded about right actually.
"I'm going to do a check of all the rooms and see how the stasis charms are holding up," Draco said turning to her, his hand unconsciously falling on her slightly protruding stomach.
"Ok. I think I'll wander around a bit," Ginny nodded, eyeing the main set of stairs that lead off from the foyer.
Draco grinned and leaned down to give her lips a soft kiss. "Stick to the main hallway and don't get lost!" he called over his shoulder as he walked away.
"Famous last words, I just know it," Ginny muttered to herself.
She watched Draco disappear down the corridor and into one of the parlor rooms before heading upstairs. The paintings eyed her warily and some even gasped. "A Weasley!" one of Lucius and Narcissa on their wedding day scowled down at her.
Ginny cocked a haughty eyebrow she unconsciously learned from Draco. "That's Malfoy actually."
"Well!" Narcissa huffed. "I'm going to have a word with my son about this." She turned and marched out of her portrait leaving Lucius to scowl at her.
A low appreciative whistle echoed down the hallway as Ginny walked past. She stopped in front of a younger Draco, probably painted for his seventeenth birthday. "Hello, Weasley," painting Draco flirted leaning against his frame with a handsome smirk. "So when're you going to get a portrait around here?"
Ginny rolled her eyes but couldn't help grinning. "Keep dreaming, ferret."
"You wound me," smiled painting Draco, dramatically clapping a hand over his heart.
Ginny laughed and kept walking down the hallway. Door after door offered ample opportunities to satiate her curiosity and she finally gave in when she found one door that didn't have a snake for a handle. This room was a dusty old bedroom with another door that led to another set of suites. All the rooms seemed to be connected somehow and so caught up was she in examining the old furniture and paintings that she was quickly lost from the main hallway. "Bugger," she muttered, opening a door and stepping out into a side hallway that led to a spiraling staircase. "Who the hell builds a house like this anyway?"
"Ginny?"
It was faint, but she could hear him. "Draco?" she shouted back.
There was a pause. "Ginny? Where are you?"
"I'm some place I don't know where I am!" she shouted back.
"That doesn't help you know! Come toward my voice!"
Ginny eyed the stone staircase in front of her warily. It didn't sound like Draco was coming from that direction anyway. She closed the door and headed back to the room she was just in. "Marco!"
"Ginny!"
"Marco!"
"Who?!"
"It's a Muggle -" she started shouting then shook her head. "Nevermind," she muttered opening doors and running through rooms that never seemed to stay the same.
"Ginny!"
His voice was much closer this time. She opened one last door and there he was and there was the main hallway too. "Oh thank Merlin," she murmured, running into his arms, relief pouring through her.
"I told you to stick to the main corridor," he murmured in her hair, wrapping her arms around her. "The Manor was charmed to shift and change to trap intruders. It probably remembers you from last time."
Ginny rolled her eyes and smacked his arm. "You could've told me that!"
"I told you to stay in the main corridor!"
"But you didn't say why!"
"You've been in this house before; I thought that should've been obvious."
"If I remember correctly, you disabled the wards to prevent that so the last time I was here the house didn't move, thank you very much!"
Draco ran an agitated hand through his hair and she could tell that she'd won or at least he thought he was letting her think she'd won. "I'm finished so we can go now," he muttered.
Ginny crossed her arms and huffed. "Well if you're going to be like that, I'll just run off with your painting!"
"I'll treat you the way you should be treated, principessa," painting Draco smirked earning him a glare from the real Draco.
"Eyes off or else there's a gallon of turpentine with your name on it," Draco retorted, taking Ginny's hand and leading her back downstairs.
"If you ever get tired of him, you know where to find me!" painting Draco called after them.
"Not him too!" painting Narcissa wailed.
"Did you have a good talk with your mother?" Ginny asked sweetly with a mischievous grin while Draco locked up the Manor and they headed back down the drive to the apparition point.
Draco shuddered. "If you could call it that."
They were half way down drive walking hand in hand when Draco spoke up. "So tell me, who is this Marco and will I have to kill him?"
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