Finishing Touches

CHAPTER 13

Ginny wanted a small wedding and Draco wanted a grand, formal affair. They compromised by only inviting Ginny's family, Hermione, Harry, and the Healers to the wedding, and everyone they knew to the reception. The reception lasted well into the night, with sparkling champagne toasts every few minutes. As the guests left, each one reminded Ginny that this was the best time they had since You-Know-Who's return.

"And I'll expect not to hear one word of you mistreating her," Mad Eye growled at Draco as he left.

As she said good night to Fred and George and Angelina, she noticed a bit of soot on George's forehead. "Tried to get into my bedroom?" Ginny asked him.

"Where did you learn those jinxes?" he demanded.

She laughed. "I had Hermione do it. I knew it would be just too tempting for you to if we didn't guard the Honeymoon suite."

"Good thing," Angelina interjected. "They had lots of naughty tricks planned."

Ginny's mother sniffled slightly, and her father still looked bewildered, and after lots of hugs and kisses, all the guests were gone.

The instant they were alone, Draco began tugging at the strings of her dress. "Let's go upstairs."

They stood in the dim candle light of their room, facing each other.

"Are you nervous?" he asked quietly.

Ginny nodded. "A bit." She leaned forward and carefully undid the buttons on his shirt. His side was bandaged, as it always was, and always would be, but tonight that wasn't Ginny's concern. It had been nearly a year since they had decided to go for a swim in the prefects tub at Hogwarts, nearly a year since she had seen him without a shirt, and she was struck again by the delicious smoothness of his chest. Draco slowly turned her around and unlaced the back of her dress.

"I love you," he whispered into her ear, letting his lips graze her ear and then slip down to her neck. "I do."

"Love you too," Ginny whispered back, her heart banging against her chest and she undid his trousers.

"Don't be scared," his voice echoed in her ear, as he gently pushed her down on their enormous bed. "I'll take care of you."

Ginny tried to relax beneath him, her feelings conflicting between nervous fright and the desire of wanting him so badly. Carefully he eased her out of her white dress and lowered her to the bed.

"You are the best thing that's ever happened to me," he whispered, punctuating each word with a kiss, starting at her neck and moving to her bared chest. He let his hands explore her body, stroking her.

She gasped as the tingling filled her stomach and thighs, her hands fumbling to remove his shirt and trousers.

Slowly, carefully he guided himself inside of her, pausing when she flinch, and giving her several minutes to adjust. Then he gently rose up, and pressed himself back down. It didn't last very long, and for Ginny it was a bit painful, but she was happy.

And when the day finally came that Draco could no longer out battle his curse, her friends, her family, their children, and their grandchildren came to help Ginny lay Draco to his final earthly resting place. They tried to comfort her, to remind her that he had lived much longer than he had been expected to, and she was still young after all, only 63 and able to still enjoy the many years that lay before her, but it was no good. After three weeks of waking alone, sleeping alone, eating breakfast with her extended family, but no Draco, she could stand it no longer.

"Would you wait for me though? If I went first and you lived to be two hundred. Would you want to wait that long?"

She couldn't forget his words, the words he'd spoken all those years ago.

"Yes. You can't go before me though. I'd be right behind you."

So after her son - dear Merlin, he looked exactly like his father when Draco was 27 - had gone to bed, and her daughter and grandchildren had Flooed home, Ginny settled in her library, a glass of wine laced with Hemlock in hand. She arranged an assortment of roses in a Chinese vase, picking three from the many bouquets that had been at Draco's funeral, one white, one red, and one yellow, and then looked above the mantel at the portrait her and Draco done shortly after their wedding, and took a sip.

She felt no icy chill and saw no beam of light as the Hemlock took affect. Instead, there was a slow change in atmosphere of the room and she began to feel better. She noticed a vase sitting beside the grand piano, a vase her son had broken when he was two. Now where did that come from?

Draco was sitting on the seat across from her, smiling. "I've been waiting."

"Here I am," she whispered.