The Dove's Ribbon

Post-Hogwarts

Ginny left Hogwarts and went to Medical School.... She just graduated and has returned to Hogwarts to fill in for Madame Pince, who went away for some reason... I don't know....

Draco returned to Hogwarts to become the new Potions master (it always was his best subject...) after Snape was murdered at the hands of Voldermort....

Draco and Ginny have been dating for a year and a half and were friends before that.... since this is a one-shot, I don't have to go through thinking of how.... yay... lol

Standing on the steps that had led to her home for much of her teen years, Ginny looked up at the foreboding castle that housed Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. The days of being a student had come and gone, now she was returning a full-fledged witch and a doctor to boot. Professor Dumbledore had asked her to return since Madame Pomfrey was on leave for at least the remainder of the year. Ginny jumped at the chance to see her alma-matter and her boyfriend, who was supposed to be meeting her at some point in time on the steps.

Ginny felt someone approaching her from behind and assumed that it was, of course, her counterpart. She turned and planted a kiss on the person's mouth but was quickly surprised. She felt the makings of a beard, a beard that Draco Malfoy better not have grown. She opened her eyes to find she had kissed Dumbledore, who was utterly shocked and Draco was equally amused standing behind him.

"Miss Weasley, it's nice to see you too. Maybe a little nicer for you then me," Dumbledore said with a hint of humor in his voice. The blush on Ginny's cheeks had turned her face to a red darker then her hair.

"I am so sorry, Professor. I thought it was," Ginny trailed off hopelessly.

"Mister Malfoy, I assume," supplied Dumbledore, finishing for her. The familiar knowing twinkle in his blue eyes helped Ginny's heart beat slow.

"No matter. I was just on my way out, Miss Weasley. I have asked Mister Malfoy to show you to your room. If you could come to my office after dinner tonight, that would be wonderful. The password is phoenix. I'll see you then."

"I'll be there. Bye, Professor," Ginny replied, though barely managing to get it out because she felt so awkward. After Dumbledore walked away, Ginny turned to Draco, glaring at his smile.

"You know, there's no use glaring at me. You kissed another man, I should be the one glaring," Draco joked. How he enjoyed turning things like this around on Ginny, especially since stuff like this never happened to her. She always wore a facade of perfection, keeping herself out of compromising situations.

"Just show me to my room," Ginny said, crossing her arms over her chest and tapping her foot impatiently.

"What? No tear-latent kisses and hugs?" Draco asked with mock anguish. Looking at her unamused face, Draco proceeded to make his amends. Ginny relented and Draco put his arm around her shoulders, leading her to her room.

After saying the password ('Glace fondue') they walked up the spiral staircase to her rooms. Ginny's breathe hitched when she walked into the room.

It adorned her favorite colours, silver and gold. The room she was presently standing in was decorated with big, black, leather couches. There was a fire going to combat the chilling affects of the snow outside. She walked into a room off to the side, which turned out to be her bedroom. There was a huge bed with her trunk at the end. There was a fire place in this room too. There was another set of doors which turned out to be Ginny's closet. The house-elves had already unpacked her things and hung them up. Crossing the main room she saw the huge bathroom with doors on the opposing end. Draco came up behind and answered her question as to where the doors led.

"Amour pur," he muttered. The doors swung open revealing a room decorated in green and silver.

"We share the bathroom. I assumed that would be okay with you?"

"Yes, okay. Whatever you say," she answered absent-mindedly. She was still staring around at the sparkling bathroom. After she had returned from her reverie, Draco told her he had some chores to do around his classroom and left her. Ginny grabbed a book that was sitting on the table in the main room and picked it up. A torn piece of parchment fell out and on it swirly, silver message appeared. "We are sure you will find this useful for someone."

Then it vanished just as quickly as it had first appeared. She opened the book and jumped nearly ten feet in the air when it started talking, but it wasn't just talking to her, it was insulting her. A book! Insulting her!

"I can see you are flirting with intelligence but getting the cold shoulder," it said, paused and then continued. "Looks aren't everything; in your case, they aren't anything." Colour rose to Ginny's cheeks as she slammed the books shut, muttering something alone the lines of 'stupid book,' while walking into her bedroom and swiftly falling asleep.

"Oy! Wake up!" Draco said with a shove.

"What? What?! Where's the fire?" Ginny almost yelled, sitting up with a start. It took a while for everything to come into play, but finally it clicked. "Who did you push me, Draco?! I would've been perfectly happy you tapping my feet or something."

"I tried that. I tried that along with jumping on the bed and yelling in your ear. Nothing worked. Would you have preferred I let you sleep through dinner?" Draco asked. Ginny's answer was involuntarily supplied by her stomach growling. She hate the smug look that appeared on his face.

She went through the few spells she used to do her make up and hair, put on unruffled clothes and they walked hand-in-hand down to the Great Hall. The tables were pushed together due the diminished number of students. Draco and Ginny had let each other's hand go before the could be seen by the occupants of the Hall. They walked through the large oak doors and Ginny took in the sight of Hogwarts at Christmas once again.

"Ah, I love being here for Christmas. The mistletoe, the pine smell of the trees," she breathe in the air before continuing, "and the house-elves dangling from the ceiling," she finished absently. Her eyebrows crinkled to down, making her look like a little kid trying to think of the answer to 2 + 2. "House-elves dangling from the ceiling?" Ginny repeated questioningly, looking up to Draco for an answer.

"Probably some prankster, pulling off an illusion stunt. Granger is supposedly coming back sometime this break to talk to Dumbledore about Homeland Security."

"Oh," was the only thing she could think to say. She didn't want to let out a laugh since Hermione was never really rude to her. The sat down and ate and talked, and were still talking an hour and a half later after every one had left, when some house-elves came out of the kitchen and asked the couple if they would mind leaving so they could clean up. They said of course they'd go and both stood up. Ginny had completely forgotten she was supposed to talk to Dumbledore and began to run out of the Hall, leaving Draco confused behind her. She forcefully pushed the door open and heard a thud but was ready to ignore when something caught her eye. Someone was sprawled out on the floor. That someone was Dumbledore.

"Oh my! Professor! What happened?" Ginny asked rushing to his side.

"I am afraid you broke my nose when you flew out of the door," he said with a smile on his face despite the blood flowing from his nose freely.

"Oh no!" she gasped, her left hand flying to her mouth in embarrassment, her right reaching into her pocket for her wand. "I am such a ninny! You must regret ever having asking me here!"

"No, no child. At least it was the nurse who broke my nose. Now you can fix it and I won't have to walk all the way to the Infirmary," he soothed good-heartedly. He smiled and Ginny stopped shaking long enough to say the spell to fix his nose. "Thank you, now I do believe we had a meeting?" They walked to his office and talked about her duties and such for an hour. Ginny left the office feeling much more comfortable with Dumbledore, almost completely forgetting about her earlier mishaps. Almost.

Ginny walked in the bathroom and hopped in the shower without ever taking in her surroundings. She rinsed herself off quickly, thinking that tomorrow she'd take a bath or something early morning before Draco was up. She slipped out of the shower and wrapped the towel around her. Walking into her bedroom, Draco was sitting by the warm fire place in an overstuffed arm chair wearing his silk Slytherin-green boxers. He took in Ginny's attire and gave her a devilish grin causing Ginny to blush.

"You look lovely, honey," he said seductively. "Care for a drink?"

"Stop it, Draco. You know I won't. And you also know I don't drink. Now don't look while I change into my pajamas." Not trusting him at all, she left the towel on as she pulled her oversized Puddlemere United jersey over her head. She walked over the chair he was sitting in and they snogged for a while, finally falling asleep in each others arms, sitting in that chair, neither of them noticing what night is was, Christmas Eve.

When Ginny awoke, she was sleeping in her humongous bed, alone. She looked around, refusing to leave the warm comfort of her blankets.

"Happy Christmas, Gin," Draco said, his arms full with a silver platter.

"Happy Christmas? I completely forgot! Happy Christmas, Draco! What's that you've got in your arms?" Ginny rambled.

"Breakfast in bed for you, milady," Draco said with bow.

"You didn't! That is so sweet! Thank you, Draco!" she said, pulling his head down into a kiss.

"I'll have to do this more often," Draco responded, grinning at his girlfriend's cherubic face. Ginny slid over and flipped the covers over, motioning for him to get into the bed. "This is your breakfast in bed, Gin," he told her.

"You don't think I want you looking at me while I eat. Besides, I know you want some," she informed him, smiling broadly.

"Well, it did smell quite delicious when I was making it, if I do say so myself."

"You made it? I refuse to eat it, then. I don't want to get food poisoning!" she jested.

"Okay, you caught me. I watched Dobby and Winky make it," he responded.

"Well then, that's better." Draco climbed into bed with her and tried to open the platter's lid. Ginny heard a weird noise and saw Draco nursing his bleeding finger. "What happened?" she questioned.

"That bloody lid bit me!" Draco answered.

"The lid?" Ginny choked out, racked with laughter. Looking at Draco's mirthless face, she quickly shut her mouth. "Here, let me see it," Ginny instructed. Draco stuck out his hand while Ginny conjured some gauze to clean the wound. Draco winced and the antiseptic did its job. "Oh, sorry," Ginny soothed, blowing on the cut. She took out her wand and healed it quickly.

"I am not touching that lid," Draco told Ginny.

"I'll do it," Ginny said. The lid growled, but she pet the back of it and it quieted down. She eased the lid off and placed it on the ground.

"How did you do that?" Draco demanded.

"Don't you remember Care of Magical Creatures? That book Hagrid assigned. Applied knowledge, I guess," Ginny answer cutting her pancakes. They ate leisurely. When Ginny was done, she excused herself to take a longer shower then the previous night. When she came out, she saw Draco had fallen asleep. He looked so peaceful sleeping. She walked back into the bathroom, looked in the mirror and almost fainted dead away. Mentally shaking herself, she took in her hair. Her no longer red hair but now bleach blonde hair.

"Dracoooo," she mumbled silently under her breath. She finished her tasks of making herself look respectable when she noticed something; a bottle of red nail polish. She glanced at draco to make sure he was still sleeping and a devilish glint appeared in her eyes. She preformed a numbing spell on him so he wouldn't fell anything out of the ordinary and opened the red nail. Payback was a beach.....

"GINNY! My nails, they have blood all over them! Come here," Draco yelled frantically. Ginny calmly walked into the room, smirking his smirk.

"It's nail polish darling," she said.

"I like your hair," he commented. "Is that what the nail polish is about?" His question was answered by Ginny's darkened face. "Sorry about that, love."

"Right, well, we're even. Let's open presents. You've been sleeping for ever!"

Many presents and smiles later, they came upon the gifts from each other. First, Ginny gave him a book. She gave him the book.

"Go on. Open it!" she urged. He opened the book and his widened with shock as it talked. He listened closely to the words.

"You have the perfect defense against muggers - your face!" Ginny burst out laughing as Draco shut the book.

"Hilarious," he said morosely.

"You gotta love it, but no, really, here's your real present," Ginny said, calming down. It was wrapped it silver silk with a dark green ribbon tying it at the top. Draco untied the ribbon and found a glass globe on a stand. He looked at Ginny, his eyes asking the questions.

"It's a snow-globe. I know you aren't big on muggle things, but I love these. I went to a little town outside of muggle London and blew the glass for you. Look inside there," she pointed inside of the glass, "that's you and that's me. Remember last year when we spent Christmas at your manor with your mum?" Draco's mind registered the familiar scene, his eyes showing understanding. Ginny placed her hand over his around the base of the snow-globe. They turned it over and Draco watched the snow fall in the globe in sync with the snow falling outside.

"It's beautiful, Gin," he said, gently kissing her lips, "It's the best present I've ever gotten. Now open your present." There was box tied with a silver and gold ribbon. As she untied the ribbon a dove flew out of the box, landing on Ginny's knee. She looked closer at the ribbon tied around the dove's neck and noticed a ring. Draco took the ring off the ribbon and looked Ginny in the eye.

"Virginia Anne Weasley, will you marry me?" Ginny looked at him with tears in her eyes, snaked her arms around his neck, kissed him and nodded, unable to speak.