Her eyes moved from the ring to the broom and back to Draco's face. His face was blank except for the small, eager flicker in his eyes. If she hadn't known him so well, she might have missed the flash of hope.
"I don't know," she started as she fingered the ring. "I don't think it's right to be engaged while I'm still married. Isn't it too soon?"
"No, it's not too soon!" Draco huffed as he stood from the couch. His face hardened as he looked at her. "I've waited far too long to wait any longer. You've broken me repeatedly, and this is the last straw."
His words stung her in all the right places. She played with the ring when she removed it from the box. Carefully, she slipped it onto her finger. "It's beautiful," she whispered.
"That's why I picked it," Draco stated coolly.
Ginny quivered as she twirled it around her finger and nodded. He was kissing her in a split second, pushing her hard into the couch. It felt like their hearts were exploding in rhythm at the chance to finally be shared by the right people.
They were rushing down the hall, neither one remembering how they got there, only what they were feeling at that precise moment. It was like a carefully composed orchestra with each person feeling emotions and passions flowing through them.
Then the spell was broken as Ginny stopped and turned to run into the bathroom.
Draco stood stunned as she slammed the door in his face, and moments later he could hear her retching. A shudder went through his body. "Ginny?" he asked, placing his ear against the door. He heard her drop to the floor with a thud, and her sobs coming through the door.
Slowly, he cracked the door open to stick his head in, and wrinkled his nose. "Not to be rude, but that's disgusting," he said, trying to bring some humor into the situation. It didn't work as planned.
She lifted her head from where it had been resting on her arms, draped over her knees. Tears spilled down her cheeks in embarrassment and disgust. Seeing Draco keeping himself out of the room except for his head, she cried harder, letting herself fall over into a fetal position.
"Are you sick?" he asked quietly, only to receive an incredulous look as an answer.
"No, I enjoy lying on my bathroom floor," Ginny bit out, hugging her knees closer to her.
Draco took a deep breath of hallway air and plunged into the bathroom. He went over and flushed the toilet before closing the lid and perching on it. "Thanks," he said quietly.
She looked at him, confused, through tear-stained eyes, looking as though if he said the wrong thing she'd break out into fresh tears.
"For not retching in my mouth," he said, looking at her with a twinkle in his eye.
Ginny let a bubbly chuckle out at his statement; she was lucky that they had been right by the bathroom. "I feel better now," she squeaked.
Draco nodded as he stood and flushed the toilet once more before reaching down to pick Ginny up. He looked to see her raising a questioning eyebrow at him.
"Many Slytherin girls threw up a lot, whether for the sake of their looks or unwanted pregnancy. You learn to flush twice, once for the chunks, second for the remains," he quipped as he carried her to the bed. When he looked back at her face she was greener. "Are you going to throw up again?"
"I'm not bulimic," she said very quietly.
"I should hope not," he answered as he put her in bed, and tucked the cover in around her. "The thought never crossed my mind."
She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the pillow, letting the coolness of the fabric calm her. "What if it's the other one?" Ginny said even more quietly, making Draco have to lean in to understand her.
"Other one, what?"
Her eyes snapped open to see his true confusion. "Pregnancy."
"But I thought you couldn't? You said you were infertile," he said as if to justify the reasoning.
Ginny looked down to pick at the quilt, memories rushing through her mind. "I said there's a chance I'm infertile. My mid-witch said that Harry and I could probably never have children, except for a miracle," she confessed. "We never asked who couldn't have the children, I guess." Her eyes slipped quickly up to his face to assess his expression, but looked down just as fast.
Draco looked at her oddly, trying to understand the words spilling from her mouth. "You and Potter couldn't have children."
She shook her head, and looked back up at him before repeating herself. "She never went into details about why we couldn't have children."
"So she could have meant that it was Potter's blanks that were making your womb barren?"
"It's a definite possibility."
A smile crept across his face. "How could we find out?"
Ginny pointed at the bookcase in the corner of her room. "There's a book over there for household healing spells."
Draco walked over and scanned the shelves before finding the book she was talking about. He flipped to the index to look up pregnancy, and then turned to the page. It was a simple charm that couldn't easily be mucked up. He walked back over to the bed and picked up his wand to wave it over her stomach with a flourish of his arm, while stating the charm clearly. A shot of silver sparks hovered over belly, before turning to a pink color.
"Pregnant," he said.
They looked at each other for a few minutes while the news sunk in. It hadn't been her that couldn't have children; it had been the savior of the Wizarding world. Broad grins swept over their faces as they embraced.
*******
The wedding was simple but elegant, since it had been done quickly after Ginny's divorce was final. She was four months pregnant as she walked down the aisle to the man she couldn't take her eyes off of. His white-blond hair shone prominently against his tailored black dress robes as he watched her with yearning eyes. She couldn't believe that it was all really happening. She was marrying the man she dreamt of for years, and carrying his child too. Her eyes sparkled as she kissed her dad before being let go to walk up to Draco.
She remembered the night they told her parents the news of their engagement and that they were to be grandparents, again. Her father had hidden the smile that broke onto his face by pulling the newspaper up higher, but she knew what was running through his mind. It was common knowledge that if a Weasley marriage was to prosper, they were usually expecting a child before their marriage was formally bound.
Everything seemed to be a blur to them after that. They did the binding spell that would keep them together for the rest of their lives, and danced delicately at their reception. There were only a few complications that were quickly snuffed by a boy named Blaise, and a brother named George. Harry and Hermione had decided to show their faces at the reception, but once Harry saw Ginny's pregnant belly he threw a gigantic hissy fit.
Hexes were thrown around until George finally did a leg-bond to Harry and Blaise helped drag him out of the garden. They kept their mouths shut to Hermione about where they had put Harry.
"We'll show you if you want," Blaise said, with a smirk crossing his features.
George moved to stand next to Blaise with a smirk on his face too. "Oh yes, we'll just need to leg-bond you, and we'll be there in a jiffy."
"No, no that's all right," Hermione stuttered as she backed away from the mischievous pranksters. The memory of threatening letters was still fresh in her mind. "He'll show up at some point." She wasn't too confident about her last statement when the two boys starting cackling as they walked away from her.
Before they were aware of it, Draco and Ginny were being sent off on their honeymoon to the south of France. Draco had arranged for them to stay at a resort instead of at one of the manors his family owned. He wanted Ginny to be pampered and as comfortable as possible in a foreign country. His luck had never been too good and he didn't want to take a chance of losing his child before they met.
Their bags were already placed in their room when they arrived. They decided to order room service instead of going to the dining room to eat so they could be on their own. They looked deeply into each other's eyes for the entire meal, and when they were finished they were already stripping before they knew it.
Draco gently placed his hand on his wife's protruding belly. His wife. He looked up at her with a smile gracing his face and captured her lips in a passionate kiss, and they made love until their bodies couldn't take it anymore. With sweat dripping from their skin, they moved into each other's comforting embrace and slept.
**********
He was six pounds, four ounces with eyes as blue as the clear sky, and hair as orange as a, well, orange. Draco held his son in his arms as he walked away from his slumbering wife. Their family was waiting in the hall to see the newest addition. The Malfoys tried hard to hide the cringe that tickled their faces at the very light orange hair matting the newborn's head. The Weasleys cooed over how perfect he was with his nose so much like his father's and his chin as strong as his mother's.
The sun shone through the windows onto the large family crowded around the aristocrat father. Strong hands patted his back, congratulating the fact that he had managed to get even a barren woman pregnant - now a family joke amongst them. Draco looked around at everyone standing in the hallway and felt a warmth he normally saved only for Ginny, but as he looked at his new son and the people around him, he felt it then.
Back in the hospital room with his sleepy wife, they argued about names, but none seemed to fit the boy in his arms. He wished to carry on the Black tradition with a name of a constellation or star, but Ginny didn't think any fit.
Her brown eyes flitted up to Draco's face as the perfect name dawned in her mind. "The perfect name to match the chin so much like his uncle's: Fred."
Draco didn't hide the fact that the name wasn't one he would choose for an upper class child. "Fred? That's a bit common."
Ginny sat up straighter in the bed as she planted a scowl on her face, and moved to take the child from his father.
"It fit Fred fine, but our son needs something nobler," Draco clarified as he eyed his son lovingly. He had to remember that his wife was still hormonal and he wanted to see his child. "How about Cetus?" he tried to joke.
Her scowl was still firmly in place. "Cetus the fetus."
"Hercules?" Draco tried again.
Her eyebrow twitched a little at his joke.
A smile was creeping across his face. "Reticulum."
Ginny couldn't help as her eyes lit up. "Be serious now," she quickly quipped.
"All right, I'm being serious now. You ready? I think I have the perfect one," Draco stated as he sat on the edge of the bed facing his family.
"All right, go on."
"Telescopium!"
Ginny started laughing as she put her finger on her son's nose and quietly whispered. "That sound good, Tele?"
"All right, in all seriousness. How about Leo? Leo Fred Malfoy," Draco tried, a crease pushing in between his eyebrows in hope.
She picked up her head to look adoringly at her husband. "I love it," she said as she looked back down at her son. "You will be named Leo, my beautiful baby."
Ginny felt in awe of the fact that she was happy in her marriage. After years of thinking she would never have a genuine smile grace her face again, she was ecstatic. With her son in her arms and her husband perched on the bed, her heart was bursting. She reached out her spare hand to hold her husband's.
"I'm glad you came back to me, Ginny," Draco said with a sparkle in his eyes.
"I'd never dream of leaving you again."