Sweet Bondage

Chapter 16: Bizarre Twists

You could hear a pin drop.

Ginny's little announcement was met with stunned disbelief as her parents and brothers all gaped at her, then at the boy standing in front of her, looking at them all with curious brown eyes. Ginny knew Philippe didn't understand what was going on, but with the way matters were progressing, maybe it was better that he continue to be left in the dark.

Bill had reeled back in startled disbelief at his sister's calm announcement; he was having a difficult time adjusting his emotions, from the near blind rage that came over him at seeing his former lover appear in the middle of his home, to confusion at being calmly informed he fathered the little boy looking up at them innocently.

"What the fuck are you trying to pull here, Gin?" he demanded harshly, after he had gathered enough of his scattered wits.

"Bill!"

He ignored his mother's censorious voice as he glared down at his sister; he had a lot more to worry about than his language around young, impressionable ears. He didn't miss the fact that only a minute ago, Fleur had been clutching at the boy protectively, keeping him turned away from them, and he had assumed that the boy was hers, from one of her other lovers, maybe. To be told that he was that lover was a tasteless joke and he wanted his sister to explain herself.

Ginny looked up at her brother, her hands on the boy's shoulders steady. "I'm not trying to pull anything, Bill. This is Philippe, your son. Don't you have anything to say to him?"

Bill refused to look at the boy; his eyes swung to Fleur, who was wringing her hands anxiously, her lips quivering, her eyes fixed on her son worriedly. He met his sister's eyes again, a sneer on his lips. "Who told you that? Fleur Delacour? Or should I say, Whore Delacour?"

More than one person sucked in a horrified breath; none of them had ever heard Bill talk that way, and they were extremely surprised at the depth of hate he was displaying for the half-Veela standing a few feet away from him.

Ginny's face tightened; she loved her brother, he was her favorite among all her brothers, but she was not above hexing him to make him see with his eyes this time and not with his heart. She knew that part of him had yet to heal, and he would not be able to cope with the truth if he let his emotions guide his actions.

In the background, she heard her mother ushering the children out of the living room, not wanting them to hear what promised to be a difficult confrontation.

"Stop acting like such a jerk and open your eyes, Bill. Look at him!" Ginny urged, moving Philippe slightly forward.

Bill, again, refused to do so; instead, he fixed his eyes on Fleur and lashed out at her with every angry, hurtful word he had been storing up for years. "What's the matter, Fleur, couldn't get the bastard who knocked you up to marry you? Or did he also find out your body was a free-for-all and had serious doubts about your son's paternity?" He spared Philippe a fleeting glance at the exact same time when the boy had turned his head to look up at his mother. "Now you suddenly turn up, wanting me to believe I whelped your bastard? Tsk, tsk, did you really think you could make a fool of me twice?"

Ginny closed her eyes in angry disbelief; Bill was so unbelievably stubborn! Though his words were not meant for her, she felt its intensity hit her like a ton of bricks. Didn't he think he would not only be hurting Fleur with his thoughtless remarks, he was also making his sister bleed as well? Did he forget that she was in the exact same position, and would feel crushed should Draco react towards his children the way Bill did to his? Granted, the possibility had never really occurred to her before what with all the preexisting evidence of the twins paternity pointing to none other, but there was no certainty where Draco was concerned. After all, he gave new meaning to the word pigheaded, and though she had prepared herself already for the probability of having to keep him away from Luke and Nicole, it would still be a terrible blow if he denied fathering her children.

"Go. To. Hell. Bill Weasley."

Ginny opened her eyes when she felt Philippe being pulled from her, and saw that Fleur had taken her son back into the safety of her arms. There were tears in the half-Veela's eyes, tears she no longer bothered trying to keep at bay.

"I don't care what you think of me, but don't you ever say anything derogatory about my son," she hissed furiously, her eyes spitting fire. "I can take whatever you throw at me, but I will not let you hurt him. I never said he was yours," she said haughtily, "it was your sister who assumed he was." She glanced briefly at Ginny before looking back at Bill. Her chin rose. "I don't need you, we don't need anyone. And don't you ever come anywhere near me, or my son." With her hands clasped firmly on Philippe's shoulder, she steered him towards the door, intending to walk out of there with as much of her dignity intact.

Ginny couldn't do anything as the mother and son prepared to walk out; she knew if they did, her family would never see them again. Fleur had probably thought it all right not to be too careful with their outings, considering that Bill knew nothing of Philippe, hell, none of the Weasleys knew anything about the boy, and that even if he did see the both of them, he would never believe that the beautiful boy was his. Now, Fleur wouldn't be too complacent in the future.

Ginny was torn over what to do to remedy the situation when Bill promptly made everything worse. Seeing his ex-lover walking out as though he had gravely wronged her, he closed the distance between them and grabbed her left arm roughly, his large hands tightening around the fragile limb, making her cry out in mingled surprise and pain as he jerked her back, making her lose her hold on her son.

Pandemonium broke out. Ginny heard the cry of dismay from her father and brothers, who had all remained quiet up to that point, as they saw what Bill had done. But they were stopped short when little fists started flying at Bill, as Philippe did all he could to defend his mother from the brute that was obviously hurting her. He was loudly demanding Bill let his mother go, his young face looking fiercely aggressive. The slew of French spouting from his mouth made Ginny's mind reel in frank disbelief.

And she could not prevent her jaw from hanging open in surprise at the boy's tenacity when he clung to his father's right leg, punching with all his might at any body part his little limbs could reach.

Bill had ceased his manhandling of Fleur, too caught off guard by the boy stuck to his leg like a damn leech, ineffectually trying to inflect harm on his leg, his fair head down as he tried to take a chunk out of his denim clad thigh. If he wasn't so furious with his mother, and by extension him, and if he was still thinking straight, he would have felt remarkably proud of the boy's spirit. As it was, he only felt irritated at his interference.

He tried shaking him off his leg despite Fleur's cry of outrage. It was all he could do, trying to keep the assault from two directions now, as Fleur had also started beating on him with her fists. His family wasn't lifting a finger to help him, either deliberately, or else they were also rendered immobile with shock at the way matters had progressed. He was getting pretty tired by all that was going on, and he wanted to end the farce now.

He flung Fleur away, uncaring if he hurt her, ignoring his sister's cry of dismay, then peeled Philippe from his leg, hoisted him up without difficulty and shook him. The boy had his eyes closed and his head bent as he struggled against his hold. "Stop it! I order you to stop it right now!" Bill demanded in a loud and no-nonsense voice.

The dam finally broke; as Philippe hung several feet off the ground, a sob tore through his lips as he pitifully asked Bill why he was hurting his mother, his eyes now open and fixed at the brute who made his mother cry. He was shaking badly, his face showing how very afraid he was as he called for his mother.

Bill could understand him perfectly well; he had learnt French, and several other languages, during the course of his job as curse-breaker. His surprise came from an entirely different source; with the boy not a foot away from his face, he could now see why Ginny had thought the boy was his.

Because he was.

He could deny it all he want, could shout the injustice of it all atop the tallest peaks, but he could not deny the eyes looking back at him were his own. They were wet with tears as he kept calling for his mother, his small voice painfully young and heartbroken. The sound of such pain from one so young was not pleasant, and all he could do was stand there and stare, at his son, and listen to him as he told him he hated him, his father.

Arms suddenly feeling inordinately heavy, Bill slowly let the boy, Philippe, down, who immediately ran to his mother and buried his face in her skirts. He felt cold all over, cold and empty, and it was then he realized just how beastly he had acted. He felt disconnected as he met his father's eyes and saw the clear disapproval there. For once, Fred and George could not say anything, faced with the strange behavior of their previously kind and gentlemanly brother, and Percy was half out of his seat, ostensibly about to intervene before things progressed too far out of hand.

He didn't need to look at Ginny to know what she thought of him in that moment and he couldn't blame her; he thought ten times worse of himself, and was at a loss as to how to get back on solid footing. More importantly, how was he to proceed from here?

He looked back at Fleur and his son, his son, and was jolted at the sight of them; Fleur was now on her knees, her arms around Philippe, comforting him as best she could. Philippe had his arms around his mother's neck, his body trembling as he cried. The sight was enough to melt the heart of the most hardened criminal; it did far worse to Bill. He did that to them; he had made his son afraid of him and what he might do to them, and the realization was like a vice wrapped around his heart, slowly starting to squeeze. Relentlessly.

"How could you, Bill?" Ginny broke the silence, and he flinched at the condemnation in her voice.

He turned to look at her, a world of hurt reflected in his eyes, and he couldn't find the words to defend his actions. What defense could he possibly come up with that would explain away the past few minutes?

He started to open his mouth, wanting to say something, anything, just to ease the weight on his shoulders, when Molly Weasley came back from tucking the twins away. He knew he was in trouble when his mother took note of the tension that had descended in the living room, and that was before she saw Fleur and Philippe's state.

"What just happened here?" Molly Weasley demanded, fixing Bill a hard look as she advanced on Fleur and Philippe.

Nobody said anything; none of them wanted to provoke Molly's wrath, and they all knew how touchy she was when it came to children, even ones that were not her own. She didn't know for a fact that the boy was her grandchild yet, but that didn't matter to Molly Weasley; she could never bear the sight of children crying, under any circumstance.

"Well?" she demanded, when her question went unanswered. She had reached Fleur and Philippe by that point, and promptly started rubbing the boy's back comfortingly. "There, there, everything's going to be all right, little one, don't cry now."

Ginny bit her lip; it was highly awkward, the situation they were all in, and she hoped that her mother would do something that would alleviate the strain of the whole fiasco. She, herself, had no idea how to proceed; all she knew was that she didn't want to give Fleur the chance to disappear on them. There was a lot she had to explain, starting from when she and Bill had broken up, and she had a feeling that Fleur would not be forthcoming about the whole thing if it were Bill doing the asking.

Likewise, Bill also had a lot of explaining to do, and the only way for the two of them to start spitting out what really happened more than six years ago was to exert just the right kind of pressure. And as they, Ginny and her brothers, plus her father, were all rather hesitant in asking either one of them to relive what promised to be a painful past, they hoped their mother (his wife, in Arthur's case) would do the honors for them. It was cowardly of them, yes, but they would take cowardice any time of the day; after all, it was better to go to battle with the right kind of ammunition, and Molly Weasley was a fully loaded, high-powered Uzi. It was too perfect a chance to pass up.

Bill was in a quandary; everything he believed to be true about Fleur was now in question. Philippe looked to be about six years old, and if his guess was right, then it meant that right around the time they broke up, she'd been pregnant with his son. Which meant that the succeeding months immediately following their break up, when he was cursing her name to the four winds, she had been carrying his child inside her. And the years he spent warming the beds of various other witches, she had been raising his son by her own, without his knowledge.

He was just a man, so he wasn't above hypocrisy at moments such as this; he wanted to be angry at Fleur at being denied the chance to see Philippe grow, but at the same time, the feeling of guilt that crept up at him was too disconcerting, and entirely surprising, that he had difficulty holding on to the anger he had harbored for years against her. At the same time that realization dawned on him, he also had to accept that he might have some difficulty getting back on his son's good graces. As far as Fleur was concerned, he couldn't care less what she did; what mattered to him now was getting to know his son and try to make up for the years he had been absent in his life.

"There, now, sweetie, it's okay," Molly cooed, breaking through Bill's inner reverie, stroking Philippe's hair comfortingly.

With his son in her arms, Fleur stood up; Philippe was now only sniffling, but he didn't seem to be inclined to let go of his mother anytime soon. Nor did he seem to care that his behavior had reverted back to one of a younger year; with the brute still around, he was never letting go of his mother.

"I think it's time we left," Fleur said quietly, speaking to Mrs. Weasley, grateful for her kindness. She whispered into Philippe's ear; the boy reluctantly turned his head and, in French, rapidly thanked his grandmother before returning to his previous position.

Molly Weasley blinked; she was rendered speechless. There was no doubt Philippe was Bill's son, making him the eldest Weasley grandchild, and it didn't take a genius to understand just what likely was going to happen if she let the boy's mother waltz him out of there.

The decision was not a hard one to make; she gently, but firmly, took hold of Fleur's arm. "You're distraught, you shouldn't go out in the state you're in." She shot Ginny a sharp look, one which her daughter understood right away and acknowledged with a slight nod, before starting up for the stairs. "We have plenty of rooms, I'm sure we can spare you one so you can rest properly. You're not thinking straight right now."

That was the absolute last thing Fleur wanted to do, spend more time in Bill's domain. It was bad enough that his sister had virtually kidnapped them, now his mother was trying to keep her and her son from escaping. Well, maybe only her son; she was sure that they didn't give a damn about her. They would probably have happily thrown her out by her ear if it were not for Philippe.

She tried to twist free from Mrs. Weasley's grip, but the older woman was surprisingly strong. "That's really very nice of you, Ma'am," she demurred, trying valiantly to break free, "but I think my son would rest better in our place."

"Nonsense," Mrs. Weasley dismissed as she doggedly dragged the unwilling woman to the stairs, following on her daughter's trails who had gone ahead to ensure that there was room the mother and son could use. "We're all family here." Her intonation brooked no argument and thankfully, Fleur bit her lip and didn't say anything in reply to that bald statement.

Fleur had no choice but to go with Bill's mother, she really only had two choices anyway: go with her willingly, or be dragged to wherever it was she intended taking her and her son to. Too much had already been said and done in front of Philippe, and though he couldn't understand their verbal argument, he was too smart a boy to fail to notice that there was something going on between his mother and the tall man who had hurt them.

In all the years she had spent virtually alone but for Philippe, she had tried to make sense out of what had happened between herself and Bill, why he seemed to hate her so much, and she always came up with the same answer: Nothing.

She had been infatuated with him ever since her seventh year, when she first laid eyes on him in Hogwarts, the year she and a number of her fellow classmates had come over to England to participate in the Triwizard tournament. He had been amused by her crush on him; he was several years older, a man of the world, but being a young woman who'd been given everything she ever wanted, it never occurred to her that he might be the first disappointment she was bound to experience. She was young, she was beautiful; why would any man refuse one such as she? But Bill did refuse her, and it stung.

After she graduated from Beauxbaton Academy, she had begged and cajoled her parents into letting her come back to England despite how dangerous the times were then, what with Voldemort and his supporters gaining grounds against the Ministry. Bill was in England, therefore, to England she would go. Working for Gringott's was a nuisance she had to endure, and she knew the reason she had given for coming back was totally ludicrous, but she didn't care; she had finagled Bill into assisting her, and that was all that mattered to her.

Convincing Bill that she was woman enough for him took a bit more time, though; not much, but considering she was half-Veela, resisting her charms should have been near impossible. She was beautiful enough, but there was any number of witches who were more beautiful than her, and older too. The only way she could compete is if she could somehow prove to Bill that her feelings for him were the real thing, and the only way her eighteen year old self thought of doing that was by seducing him.

It had been tricky, and she met far more resistance from the man concerned than she had expected. Who knew Bill Weasley had reservations initiating a young woman into the pleasures of the flesh? She had expected him to jump at the offer she'd made of her body, but either he was just not attracted to her (and she'd scoffed at the impossibility of that), or, he thought she was off-limits to him. So she took matters into her own hands and initiated 'Operation: Weasley Seduction'.

Looking back, it wasn't very smart of her, what she did. Getting Bill Weasley drunk enough to forget his scruples and bed her was not only foolish, but highly dangerous. There was no knowing when the next Death Eater attack would take place, and all those in the side of light needed all their wits with them.

Bill had lit into her after he had sobered up; he was furious with her for endangering their lives, but most of all, he had been concerned that, with his mind clouded with alcohol, he might have hurt her unknowingly in the process. Her assurances that she was unharmed did not ease his mind, especially when he saw the amount of blood stains on the sheets of her bed.

But it was worth it; being made love to by Bill Weasley was the most exhilarating experience she had ever felt in her life. At the same time, being examined if he had torn her beyond repair was the most embarrassing experience she had ever had to go through. But apart from seeing for himself that he had not ravaged her like an animal, there was nothing she could do but let him check that place where he had earlier been enthusiastically pushing in and out of like a man possessed. She'd felt satisfaction at the way Bill had lost his control once he saw her naked, and any discomfort she'd endured after that was well worth it. She'd told herself that his legendary control over his lust for her had at last snapped, and she was finally reaping its benefits. Surely, with lust already in place, love was not too far behind?

The months that followed were all she had ever dreamed of; sure, Bill hadn't made love to her until two weeks after their first time, but that proved to be a blessing as she'd needed that time to fully recover from the soreness between her legs. She hadn't been able to get out of bed the day after their interlude, and Bill had looked at her with an expression that clearly said 'serves you right' before taking off for work. But after day fourteen, she had happily welcomed him back into her arms, giving him as good as she got, her relative inexperience notwithstanding.

Their sex life had been great; Bill had a voracious appetite for sex, and she was only too happy to oblige him. He'd taught her everything he knew, and she had learned to experiment on her own, which resulted in the two of them trying to outdo each other in bed. He'd been rather trenchant about the need for protection; he was a Weasley, he'd said, and what Weasley's did best was reproduce. She had tried to tell him that she wouldn't mind the consequences of their sexual encounters, but he was so adamant about it that she had no choice but to do as he asked.

Often times, in the back of her mind, she had wondered why Bill was so against the idea of her getting pregnant. They were old enough to start a family, and what was even more important, she was eager to give him a child. She knew if she carried his child, there would be an even stronger tie that would bind them together. It never occurred to her that he might not want her to mother any of his children; he loved her, she believed with all her heart that after all the months they'd been together, after all the trials they had to go through, after everything that she had done to show him her feelings were for real, he finally felt for her what she felt for him.

That is, until she saw him kissing another woman, and not in a sisterly or friendly kind of way, either.

The other woman had been Heather Grant; she learned of her name some time later; a colleague of his, and one who had recently come back from Egypt where Bill had been previously assigned. Tall, brunette, with the most beautiful violet eyes she had ever seen in her life; everything suddenly fell into place. Apparently, she and Bill had been lovers in Egypt, and since Heather was now permanently back on English soil, she hoped to pick up where they left off. Bill, just as apparently, was only too eager to say yeah to that suggestion.

She tried to act normal, tried to pretend that she hadn't seen what she'd seen. Tried not to comment on Bill's increasing inattention on their relationship. She no longer worked in Gringott's, but it wasn't hard to find out about the two of them, every moment they got together, and what it was they inevitably did together. He came home to their little nook later and later; sometimes, he would floo her to tell her he would be staying out all night, working on a project. She would smile and make some lame remark about him working too hard, when she knew for a fact he was not really working on a project, but rather Heather.

She kept her council for months. Bill kept up appearances by continuing to have sex with her, but in the times he did, she couldn't help but think he was doing it to throw her off the scent. Adversely, she had twice been unable to keep from cringing when he touched her. He had looked oddly at her, both times, before setting his suspicions aside and doing his duty by fucking her brains out. She didn't know how he could stomach it, going to her after he'd been with Heather; conversely, she could not understand why she kept letting him do it.

She lived in her personal hell for four months; she had withdrawn into herself, refusing to meet with her friends, even her sister. When Bill's attention towards her significantly improved, she wasn't surprised; he and Heather had broken up, amenably, or so she'd been told. The old Bill came back with a vengeance, and she firmly told herself she could forgive his unfaithfulness. But when they were together in bed, she found out that no matter how hard she tried, she could not forget. Even after a year had passed, she was still haunted by the ghosts of his faithlessness.

She tried to bury those painful memories by creating new, happier ones, and she was successful, up to a point. He still wasn't inclined to move their relationship to the next level, and she had given up hoping that he would; if the day came, well and good, but if at the end he was going to finally end things between them, then it would just be another form of hurt she would have to cope with, just as she'd coped before.

All was as well as they could until one day, she slipped. They had been lucky that first time, had both sighed in relief when nothing came of that ill-thought of seduction. She didn't even realize her mistake until she was three months along, and when she did, she knew Bill would be furious with her, would not believe that she hadn't done it deliberately, to trap him.

She could not just confide in anybody, there was no assurance whoever it was she told of her condition wouldn't go running to him and gleefully tell him of her secret. So she called in Pierre.

Pierre Devereaux was, is, her best friend; she could trust him not to betray her confidence. That, and she'd always suspected he'd had a thing for her, but seeing she was over the moon for Bill, had decided to let his feelings fizzle out.

In Pierre's arms, she poured out all her fears, leaving nothing out. He had listened, understanding her need to vent. Later, after she'd quieted down, he had convinced her to visit a Medi-Witch, and after listening to her plead to come with her, only too gladly accompanied her. When she came back to the place she shared with the father of her then unborn baby, a boy she'd been told, she was greeted by the sight of Bill with a large suitcase at hand, and a terrible expression on his face. She could not understand half of what he'd accused her of, could not even remember what she said in her defense; what she was focused on was the fact that he was leaving. Even after he'd been gone, she still could not comprehend what exactly had happened. When the shock of his leaving finally registered, she broke down in their living room.

She didn't know how long she stayed on the floor, crying her heart out, but when Pierre found her later in that state, he had panicked and brought her right away to St. Mungo's. She would not tell him what happened, just asked him to gather her things from her flat and to bring them to her in St. Mungo's.

When she left St. Mungo's, she didn't once look back. Even Pierre didn't know where she was going. After she'd made him swear not to breathe a word of her condition to anyone, she just disapparated, never to be seen again by anyone who knew her in England.

At least, until a few minutes ago.

She paid closer attention to Mrs. Weasley as they came to an open door.

"There you go," Mrs. Weasley declared, after hauling the reluctant young woman past the door. Ginny was standing by the side of the bed, her eyes on Philippe, whose curiosity was peaked enough to raise his head from the side of his mother's neck to look around the unfamiliar room. He quickly spoke to his mother, anticipation in his eyes; Fleur merely shook her head.

Ginny bit her lip; it was better for Fleur to find out for herself that the answer to Philippe's question was yes. If she knew her mother at all, there was no way Molly Weasley would let the pair walk out of there, and a determined Molly Weasley was a force to be reckoned with.

"Here, let me take him. Your arms must be tiring."

In a blink, Philippe was plucked from Fleur's arms into Mrs. Weasley's, and Ginny fought the urge to laugh at the stunned look on the blonde's face. "You are a big boy, aren't you?" Mrs. Weasley mock complained as she juggled Philippe on her hips.

"Qui est-ce que tu?" Philippe asked as he tried to wriggle free from his grandmother's arms. Downstairs, he had regressed to an earlier age, in fear of his mother's safety; it was obvious that he had just remembered he wasn't a baby to be cuddled anymore.

Ginny intervened; Philippe's wish to be let down was apparent and loud as he quickly declared he wasn't a little boy. Just as apparent was her mother's wish to keep her eldest grandson in her arms, his wishes be damned, especially since she could not understand the words coming from his mouth.

"Umm, Mum, I think you'd better let Philippe go," she suggested helpfully, as a minor scuffle ensued between the two. "He's not going anywhere, and you're not exactly doing his pride any good by treating him like an infant."

Mrs. Weasley looked ready to veto her suggestion, but the wriggling body in her arms was getting harder and harder to hold on to. "Oh, all right," she conceded grudgingly, letting Philippe down, expecting him to run back to his mother. It was obvious he thought about doing just that, but the six-year-old curiosity in him won over the need for safety and familiarity. Unbidden, his feet carried him over to a shelf by a corner, stocked with all kinds of books, magical and non-magical pieces of literature arranged without any discerning order in mind.

"You put us in Bill's room?" Fleur asked incredulously, once she was slightly over the disjointed succession of events from the living room to the upstairs room. It may have been more than six years since she'd last been in Bill's room, but it was difficult to forget something that had been so much a part of your life.

Mrs. Weasley hadn't paid any attention to the room Ginny had readied for Fleur and her son. Now she did, and could not help throwing a dark look at her unrepentant daughter.

"What?" Ginny asked innocently. "Bill can bunk in with the twins, or he could sleep in the attic, let the ghoul jar some sense into him. And Philippe likes it here. See?" She motioned at the boy who was busily leafing through a huge, leather-bound book on the floor, his face alight with excitement. "He's comfortable here already. Trust me, I know these things," she finished smugly, grinning at her mother.

"You - you - "

"Ah, ah! Language, my dear," Ginny said airily, wagging a censorious finger at the sputtering Fleur while throwing sly looks at the engrossed little boy. "You wouldn't want Philippe unduly influenced by his mother's colorful vocabulary, would you?"

"He wouldn't understand a word if I cussed you in English," Fleur hissed heatedly, but nevertheless clamped her mouth shut reluctantly. She had always been careful around her son, and it irked her that Bill's sister could make her forget herself so.

"He looks so much like Bill," Mrs. Weasley suddenly said, amazed; she had knelt down behind the boy, gingerly touching his hair, his back, his arms, and Philippe would occasionally look up at her with a smile, forgetting that she was a stranger to him, a stranger with the same shade of hair as the bad man downstairs.

Ginny rolled her eyes. "That might be because, oh, I don't know, he's Bill's?"

Mrs. Weasley narrowed her eyes at her daughter again as she straightened up. "You know what I mean," she said, miffed. "I love Luke and Nicole, but you and I both know they take after their father more. Can you blame me if I get overwhelmed at the sight of the past staring me in the face?"

Fleur watched Bill's sister and mother volley words back and forth, seeming to have forgotten that she was in the room with them, which would have suited her better, had they been in a room in a house other than the Burrow. As it was, the way they were taking for granted the little fact that she and her son had been reluctantly brought there, grated on her.

"Excuse me!" she called out loudly, nodding in satisfaction when she got their attention. "This is all well and good, I appreciate how kind you've been, but would it be possible for me and my son to leave now?" Blank stares were the only answer she got. She tried again.

"While it makes me immensely grateful that you both are willing to accept my son as one of your own, at face value, what matters is Bill's opinion. And in case you didn't notice, he was rather loud at denying Philippe was his."

A snort. A pair of them. Trying to make mother and daughter see beyond what they wanted to see was like pulling teeth! And on top of that, her son looked to have retreated to a world all his own, where only books mattered, leaving her floundering like a fish out of water among his relatives.

"Nonsense! Bill didn't mean what he said back there," Mrs. Weasley said confidently. "You could see how surprised he was when he saw the boy up close. He was just angry, and shocked, and defensive -"

"Don't forget idiotic," Ginny put in her two cents worth. "And pigheaded. Always was pigheaded, our Bill," she said, nodding her head for emphasis.

"I don't care," Fleur stressed. "We don't want him in our life, not after all this time. It's far too late. I don't trust him, and believe me, he feels the same way about me. There's no going back for us, and I'm sorrier about that than you could ever possibly begin to comprehend."

Mrs. Weasley frowned. "Of course you shouldn't go back, why would you want to do a foolish thing like that? The best way for the two of you is to get past your differences, and go forward. Let the past stay there, and build on what your future could be now."

"Gaaah!" Fleur cried, exasperated. "It's not as simple as that, Mrs. Weasley! If it were, don't you think I wouldn't have tried to get back together with Bill? You don't know what happened with us, and I have worked long and hard to try and put all that what happened behind me for me to open up that can of worms again. I refuse to do it!"

"Nothing is impossible, my dear," Mrs. Weasley said calmly, "and you don't have to tell me all that happened. Just try to see that you won't be helping Philippe by depriving him of a father. Are you willing to let him grow up, believing that he was a mistake?" She took hold of the younger woman's hands and squeezed them reassuringly. "I am willing to listen to what you have to say, anything at all, that you might want to talk about." A loud crash shook the questionable foundation of the Burrow. "Just not now," Mrs. Weasley finished, as she watched her daughter's face pale, then flush, before she swept out of the room, loudly calling out Luke's name. "Why don't we leave Philippe here for a moment and try to see what the commotion was all about, hmm?" She didn't leave Fleur much choice as she grasped the half-Veela's left hand and ushered her out of Bill's room, to find out if Luke had successfully maimed himself this time.

They found themselves back in the living room, with Ginny looking down furiously at her son, several Aurors with wands drawn, fearing the noise to be a form of attack on their new Minister, further crowding the already crowded living room.

"What did you think you were doing?" Ginny asked, hands on hips, foot tapping impatiently, waiting for her grinning son to realize that he was seriously in trouble this time.

"Flying," Luke answered simply, his face showing his enjoyment. "Uncle Ron taught me."

"And did Uncle Ron tell you to crash your broom in the roof and take out a good portion out of it, as well? Did he tell you that was the best way to get your neck broken?"

He shook his head, still grinning. "I slid off. It was an accident."

Ginny closed her eyes in exasperation. There were times when she seriously questioned her sanity, and most of those times was whenever she was around her two offspring.

She counted to ten before trying a new tack. "What did I tell you about flying?" she asked, trying to keep her voice even; there were several people looking on, and it wouldn't do for her to kill her son in front of so many witnesses.

Luke thought for a second. "That I wasn't allowed to fly until I was ten," he recited from memory.

"And how old are you now?"

"Four."

"And what were you just doing?"

"Flying."

Ginny's temper was seriously on the edge of flying itself. "Why were you flying then, if you knew I specifically told you you couldn't until you were old enough?"

Luke blinked. His answer wasn't long in coming. "Because you got me a broom."

The five Aurors, plus her family and Fleur, waited for Ginny's answer to that innocently oblivious, and yet inflammatory, answer, and saw first hand how a red head battled with her instinct to throttle the boy before her. Then they watched as her previously red face turned pale, as she then started to march out of the house, her posture stiff.

"Where are you going?" Arthur Weasley couldn't help asking, as he watched his daughter march off like she was off to do battle.

"Quality Quidditch," was the terse reply.

They were all puzzled by the workings of Ginny's mind. For clarification, Percy voiced the most obvious of questions.

"Why?"

All of them didn't know how to take her reply.

"Unless I want the only daughter of the next Minister of Magic to be branded a shop lifter in the Wizarding world, I have to go pay for a broom!"

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The night was young when Ginny came back to the Burrow. It had taken a lot of fast talking on her part to convince the proprietor of Quality Quidditch that there was never any intention on her part to filch the broom; he was more than annoyed at the way they had just disappeared from his shop, taking with them such a priceless item. In the end, he had only let his irritation go when she said she was going to pay for the broom, plus all the training and safety gears appropriate for a four year old. It did not, in any way, indicate that she was giving in where Luke was concerned, but he was a sneaky boy, and she nor his countless relatives and nannies could not watch over him all of the time; it was better to ensure that there was a measure of safety when he was using that damned broom, rather than receive the bad news that her son had finally succeeded in attaining what he had promised to attain since the time he managed to crawl out of his crib: Break his neck.

The Burrow was quiet, the Aurors stationed at the perimeters doing their best to blend in with the environment. When she walked in the door, she didn't know what to expect after all the excitement of the afternoon.

The living room was blessedly empty, and the hole Luke had made of the ceiling had already been repaired. She didn't know where everybody had gone; for sure, her mother would be standing guard over Fleur and Philippe, but with the following day's activities looming over their heads, it was impossible to predict where each of her siblings would be off to.

Security was tight around each of them, and she knew how her brothers felt about being watched over like a bone thrown among a pack of starved hounds. As for herself, she had taken all the heightened security in stride; at least the Aurors were less conspicuous than the bodyguards she had been forced to employ in America. She understood the need for them, but the same couldn't be said for her brothers, grown men all who were used to looking after themselves. She wouldn't be at all surprised if one, if not all of them, had tried to shake off their security detail at least once; they wouldn't be Weasleys if the thought hadn't crossed their minds.

Spying a light in the kitchens, she went to check who it was, and was not at all surprised to find Bill, with a half-empty bottle of Ogden's finest in front of him, his elbows on the table, head cradled in his hands. He didn't look up when she entered, not even when she sat down across from him, shooting daggers with her eyes at him.

They stayed like that for several minutes, neither one breaking the uncomfortable silence. Ginny waited for Bill to start talking, not wanting to do or say anything that might keep him from letting out what it was that had driven him to drink; she knew what it was, of course, but how it came about was what she wanted to know. From the tortured look on his face, it wouldn't be long before he would be spilling his guts out.

Which was about two heartbeats later.

"I'd had the ring for some time, you know," Bill spoke softly, his eyes fixed on the glass before him. "I'd had it for about two months. She didn't know, of course, it was supposed to be a surprise. I saved for several months to be able to afford it; it was a diamond, one carat, nothing magical about it. She's always liked diamonds, said there was something about it that touched her. Not because it was expensive or anything like that; she told me she liked it because to her, a diamond was like life, how it has so many sides to it, so many unexpected depths. How precious it is no matter how tarnished it could get over time. She didn't believe that it was at all cold; she admired its hardness even, just like life, she said." He picked up the glass and downed its contents then refilled it again to the brim. He was already pissed; thankfully, Bill had always been a lucid drunk, something that never made any sense to his brothers. After all, what was the point of getting wasted if you were still possessed of all your logical mental faculties?

He took a deep breath, leaned back on his chair, his head tipped back, eyes staring at nothing. "I knew she'd been waiting for me to ask her to marry me, but I just kept holding back. I don't know why I was hesitating so much. I knew I wanted to marry her, it's what everybody expected we'd do eventually." He straightened and met Ginny's eyes. "Did you know I had an affair several months after we moved in together? Yes," he said emphatically, nodding his head, "I did. I, Bill Weasley, had an affair."

Ginny was having a difficult time keeping track of the sudden shift in topic; at the same time she was also have a hard time reconciling her brother's confession to the talk they'd had previously. Four years ago, he'd told her Fleur had cheated on him; now, he was telling her he was the one who'd had an affair? She suddenly felt as though her world had just tipped on it's axis, and she was balancing precariously over the side. That, and her jaw was still around the vicinity of the floor.

His eyes glazed, the effect of three-quarters of a bottle of firewhiskey clearly taking it's toll on him, Bill smiled at his sister's stunned face. "I know what you're thinking," he stated definitely. "I thought it too; no, I knew it. Or, at least I did. I don't know anymore." Another shot of potent whiskey went down his throat. "I don't really know if what I did with Heather could be considered cheating, though. I'd been with her before - before Fleur, I mean. We had a great time together, she was fun to be with, very accommodating," he said, trying to rationalize what he did so many years ago. "When she arrived from Egypt, we just started to get together, and before I knew it, I was sleeping with her too." He grinned, as though remembering a pleasant memory. "To be honest though, I was doing more than sleeping with her, if you know what I mean."

Ginny did know, unfortunately, and she wanted to slap the smirk off her brother's face; she knew it was the alcohol talking, but she just could not believe how arrogant he was, and how much of a bastard. She had always thought she knew him best out of all her brothers, but the way he was describing himself now made her question if she'd been walking around with blinders over her eyes when it came to the men she loved in her life; first, Draco, now Bill was proving to be just as much of a prick.

Bill kept on drinking, as though he was using the alcohol as a courage booster for what he was too cowardly to say while sober before. "It went on for months, four months, I think. I knew Fleur knew about it. The affair I mean; I could not help but notice a little clue here and there of her knowledge of it slipping from time to time. I waited for her to confront me about it, waited for her to threaten to leave me if I didn't stop seeing Heather. But she never said anything." He went back to cradling his head with his hands, messing his already messy red hair. "I told myself maybe she just didn't care, you know, that she saw us, me and her, as just temporary anyway, so why rock the boat when the sailing was only fleeting? I never did understand why she liked me so much; if it was just about the sex, she could have had it without going to so much trouble." He looked at his sister through his straggly hair.

"The first time I saw her, I wanted her so bad I couldn't even talk. All I could do was stand there and grin like an idiot. Afterwards, when I was far enough away to think, I wanted to bash my head against a wall for lusting after a school girl. A school girl! Can you begin to imagine what that felt like? I shuddered to imagine what my friends would have called me had they known I was leaning that way. So I did everything I could to make her believe that I wasn't attracted to her." He started rubbing his temples in slow motions. "Even after she'd graduated and came to work for Gringotts, I had a difficult time getting around my reservations about her age. Just because she no longer wore a uniform didn't make her any less of a school girl next to me. It was awful. Then to one day wake up and find her beside me in bed? That was one of the worst days of my life. And the best. I wanted to regret what happened, blamed her for the whole thing, but she felt too good for me to pass it all up. The damage had been done after all, why not just go for it? It couldn't hurt to try and take the edge off of my perpetual hard-on for her."

Ginny wanted to cover her ears; it was one thing to hear about her brother's problems in all its excruciating details, it was quite another to be hearing about his sex life. She was going to be scarred for life before the night was through, she had no doubt, but she wanted to help her brother despite her desire to also hurt him for running around behind Fleur's back.

"I knew she knew about Heather, I just didn't think she cared so little she'd screw me over with Devereaux! She knew how I felt about that snotty French prick, so of course she went to him!"

Ginny almost jumped out of her seat when Bill suddenly banged his fist on the table. The bottle of firewhiskey tipped over, spilling a few of its contents before she hurriedly picked it up and set it in front of her, away from her red-faced brother who looked fit to kill.

"Merlin, I almost lost it when I saw her pressed up to him like that. I didn't know what they were talking about, and I didn't wait around for them to start tearing their clothes off." A vein visibly throbbed at his temple, his jaw clenched. "When I came back, they were gone. I packed my bags. When she got back, she wanted to know where I was going, and when I told her I knew about her and Pierre, she had the temerity to say I was wrong. Wrong! Gods, if only that were true, if only I didn't know just what I was to her." His shoulders drooped, and his fisted hands loosed; wearily, he leaned forward until his head was lying on the table, his arms pillowing his forehead.

"I loved her so much," he said hoarsely, voice muffled, "I might have stayed despite what happened with her and Pierre; if there had been a chance that she saw a future with me, I might have forgiven her and let the whole thing go. I could forgive her one affair, just one, and only if she would be honest enough to admit that she'd been having one - she couldn't even give me that. I just couldn't stay and act as though it didn't matter, that her continuing to sleep with another man while she was with me wasn't tearing me apart. I didn't want it to come to a point where I might have hurt her, physically hurt her, and where my head was at then, I knew I wouldn't be able to control myself. I wanted to hate her, but I didn't want to give her cause to hate me, too."

Ginny looked at her brother's slumped form piteously, and spoke for the first time. "Maybe if you had stayed around for a little while, you might have found out something differently," she suggested quietly, and watched as his head rose and his eyes focused on her from behind the fringes of his red hair.

"Maybe it was all a misunderstanding; maybe the both of you were so sure you couldn't possibly love the other back that you both just let go." She smiled faintly at the intense look in her brother's eyes. "I won't presume to tell you what went wrong in your relationship, only you and Fleur knew what it was that caused you this much grief. But I do know something about being loved; or in my case, not being loved. No, no, it's okay, really," she hastily said when she saw understanding dawn in her brother's eyes. "It's just that, I hate to see such feelings go to waste just because of a misunderstanding. From what little Fleur has said, in the six years you've been apart, you two have never once tried to settle what it was that tore you apart. You do realize that half your problem can be easily overcome: Despite saying you hate Fleur, you still love her, you've probably never stopped loving her, and admitting that now would have won half the battle already."

She stood up, smoothing her hands down the front of her jeans. "I heard somewhere that it's almost next to impossible to change a man's feelings," she said quietly, her head down. "It's easy enough to make a woman fall for a man, despite her wishes otherwise, but I know for a fact that you can't just make a man love you simply because you want him to. It doesn't work that way." She met Bill's eyes, letting him see beyond her words. "Think about it, Bill, and try to decide now what you want to do before it's too late."

She turned around and started for the door, weary beyond belief. Bill's question stopped her in mid-stride.

"Isn't it? Too late, I mean," Bill asked, his tone laden with fear.

A smile touched her lips as she looked at her brother. "They're upstairs," she replied simply. She turned around and tilted her head to the side, considering her brother. "Talk to her, listen to her. And even if you do decide that you never want to have anything to do with her again, you just might be surprised at what you may find out."

"What if I won't like what I found out?"

"That's a risk you just have to take," she said sensibly. "You have to ask yourself if you're prepared to accept what happened in the past; that's the only way the two of you can go forward. Deal with the past first, fix whatever needs fixing, but don't for one minute think that you can just ignore it. The past will always haunt you, and if you don't resolve it now, it will rear its ugly head when you least expect it, and there's no telling whether that time around, you're going to be able to get past it ever again." She had reached the door before she stopped again and looked back at her brother.

"Think, Bill," she said quietly. "Look back and think. And when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

Bill watched the door swing shut behind his sister; he didn't know when it was Ginny had grown so wise, but she was right. He had to face up to the past, had to own up to his culpability on the matter of his relationship with Fleur was concerned, or rather, where it was that things had gotten so fucked up. He had wasted six years of his life, never knowing what it was he wanted to do with it. His mother had been constantly at his back of late, wanting to know when he was going to settle down and start a family. He was thirty-one years old, and he didn't even have a permanent girlfriend. He was never without a female companion, that was the least of his problems, but it had never occurred to him that the reason why he never saw any of his involvement with those women as anything beyond that in the bedroom, was because he was still haunted by the one woman who had single-handedly managed to capture his heart, and never bothered to return it.

He had been fighting it for longer than he cared to remember, had been saying it to anyone who bothered to listen, but deep inside, where it really counted, he knew he wasn't over Fleur, probably would never be over Fleur. He didn't know what possessed him to cheat on her, when he never felt anything stronger for Heather other than extreme fondness. Maybe he had been flattered to have two beautiful women by his side, he didn't really know. But more importantly, he didn't know how to explain it to Fleur should she ask him about it.

Then there was Fleur herself. That first month he had left her, he had been confused when he saw Pierre with another woman. He had wanted to come up to him and ask him what he was about, but had refrained at the last moment; it wasn't his problem anymore, and if Pierre had already dumped Fleur for another woman, it was nothing she didn't deserve for what she did to him. Fleur proved to be a bitch; karma was apparently a bigger bitch, and he'd thought no one deserved it better than Fleur Delacour.

That was what he told himself six years ago.

"Gods," Bill groaned feelingly, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes, "what am I going to do?" His question was asked of no one in particular; he was alone in the kitchens after all. But Ginny's words came back to him loud and clear: When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

What if he'd been wrong? What if what he'd believed in for all these years was all a figment of his own guilty mind? Did he really dare venture that way? And if it was proven that he'd been wrong, what could he possibly do to make up for everything he'd done all those years ago, and that afternoon? He had acted like a monster; even he wouldn't be so forgiving of himself.

He stood shakily on his feet, swaying slightly for a second before gaining his footing. "I need to sleep on this," he mumbled under his breath, slowly making for the door. He needed to talk to Fleur, but at his currently pissed condition, he was probably going to worsen his case rather than solve their problems of six years. When he was sober enough, nothing was going to stop him from confronting the past with the mother of his son. Until then though, he was better off sleeping off the effects of the firewhiskey.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Fleur had been fighting a silent battle with herself; she was currently in bed, in Bill's bed to be precise, while her son was with Ginny's twins. She had baulked at being separated from Philippe, but if Ginny was a stubborn witch, her daughter was a whole different species altogether. She didn't even know at which point she had agreed to let her son sleep in the four-year-olds rooms; all she could remember was listening to the little girl plead and looking at her peculiar, and familiar, gray eyes and before she knew it, she had agreed to let Philippe sleep one floor above hers. This family was dangerous to her equilibrium, she had felt it seven years before, and now it was even more glaring. And whoever heard of twenty-six-year-old witches going to bed at eight in the evening?

She was tired though, bone-tired, and when her back touched the unbelievably soft mattress, she was asleep within minutes.

Bill trudged heavily towards his room, keeping to the walls to support his inebriated state. It was a good thing his room was only on the second floor, and not way up to the fourth floor; if he had to navigate up another flight of stairs, he wasn't so sure he wouldn't wind up with a broken neck. Winding up dead would probably solve a lot of his problems, but it wasn't a choice he wanted to entertain. Yet.

He stumbled into his room, making enough noise to wake up the dead; it was early yet, so there was no need for him to worry about waking up anybody. His room was pitch dark, which was odd, considering he always left a light on inside his room, a little habit of his that drove his mother insane. But in his current state, the darkness was better; it was a reflection of his possible future, and his mood.

He started taking off his shirt, leaving it where it fell; he felt hot all over, and he had never appreciated sleeping in the buff more than he did now. He sat down heavily on the side of his bed and yanked off his boots one after another, dropping them with a loud thump on the wooden floor. He struggled next with his pants, having a problem with the catch, then the zipper, before he finally had the offending garment down and around his knees at the same time he lost his balance and landed heavily on his side. With a grunt and a muttered curse, he stood back up again rather ungracefully and kicked free of the loosened clothing. He cursed again when he faintly heard his wand hit the floor and roll somewhere. In his boxers, he debated whether he should look for his wand now, or try to locate it the following morning. The softness of the bed won hands down and in one move, he had divested himself of his last piece of clothing and slid under the covers, almost purring in gratification. Tomorrow was soon enough to try and face what would prove to be an uphill battle named Fleur and the past; for now, sleep was all that mattered.

Fleur was dreaming; she had had the same kind of dream off and on for the past six years, so wasn't really surprised at how explicit it was. It was always about making love to Bill, how good he felt when he was weighing her down on the bed, how small she felt when he was looming over her, how hot his body felt against her own. What she loved most about these dreams of hers was how wonderful it felt to once again feel Bill filling her body, how deliciously full he made her feel, how tight a fit they made together.

So when she once again dreamt that Bill was making love to her, she didn't think there was anything odd about it. The same wondrous feelings were filling her once again; when he settled on top of her, pressing her down on the bed, she smiled and eagerly opened her arms and her legs to welcome him. When he grabbed the backs of her knees and opened her thighs wider and higher, she arched her back to encourage him. When he kissed her and pressed his tongue past her lips, she met him with her own, showing a good accounting of herself in the way she battled with his talented tongue. What was not the norm, however, was the twinge of pain she felt when he plunged his cock in her. That was not supposed to feel that way.

She wanted to complain, especially when Bill started moving vigorously, but her mouth was otherwise occupied, and all she could do was moan against his mouth. Which he probably took to mean that she was liking what he was doing when he speeded up. That did not happen in her previous dreams as well. But no matter, it was getting better now anyway; the twinge of pain was gone, replaced by a tingling sensation that started at her toes, slowly traveled up her legs until it was all she could feel, right before she shattered completely. Bill, mercifully, followed shortly thereafter, a first for him; he was always a several-round type of man. She wasn't one to quibble though; this whole dream sequence was unusual halfway. When Bill slumped over her and apparently drifted off to sleep, still inside her, she smiled, wrapped her limbs around him and let dreamless sleep, once again, take over.

Bill felt unusually satisfied; he hadn't allowed himself to dream about Fleur in years. Well, he had staunchly refused naming the svelte, white-blonde haired woman that was a constant fixture of his nightly visions Fleur, at least. But the dream he had just had was too good to bother denying what had been staring him in the face for several years. The way the dream made him feel, oh, it was enough to keep a grin on his face for a week.

He turned on his side and snuggled closer against his pillow, his arms tightening around the soft material. He was bordering between that state of wakefulness and sleep, his body supremely relaxed, his mind idly wondering if his sister hadn't somehow mistakenly switched the twin's pillows with his own. He didn't usually like his pillows perfumed, especially when the smell reminded him so much of Fleur. But then again, after his dream, he was open to anything, and the pillow did feel extremely good. And since when did Gin start using such fragrance on Luke and Nicole's pillows anyway?

Before he could properly examine what it was he was currently holding on to as though his life depended on it, he was jarred awake by a loud screeching coming from what he was positive was the door, and then by another rather loud scream, this time unfortunately within the vicinity of his right ear.

"For the love of - would you please stop that god awful screaming? People are trying to sleep here!" he muttered, highly irritated, burrowing deeper on his bed, tightening his hold on his pillow.

Quiet reigned for all of two seconds before Bill was forced to full wakefulness by a rather violent whack to the head with a pillow.

"What the- !"

"Get up, you irresponsible yob!" Mrs. Weasley fairly screeched, brandishing the pillow over his son's head threateningly.

Bill could not believe how fiercely his mother was looking at him. "What's wrong, Mum?" He tried to sit up, letting go of his pillow, when said pillow suddenly bolted and threw him over the side of the bed. He landed on his elbows on the floor with a dull thud, buck naked.

"Awww, goddamnit!" he cursed loudly, nursing his elbow. "What - Fleur!?"

Molly Weasley and Fleur Delacour were treated to the show of William Weasley, eldest of the Weasley children, scrambling awkwardly to his feet, then as though recalling his naked state, making a mad dash for the bedcovers to cover his birthday suit.

"What were you doing in my bed?!" he growled, wrapping the sheets around his hips. Then his eyes widened when it finally occurred to him that Fleur was similarly inadequately dressed. "Why are you naked?!"

The missile Molly Weasley was holding started flying again, hitting Bill unerringly. "How. Could. You. Do. This. Again!" she screeched, launching the pillow left and right, Bill's attempts at evading failing magnificently.

"Aw, aw! MUM! Quit it already! I don't even know what happened!"

"Do you deny that you took advantage of this young lady again." Mrs. Weasley demanded, readying the pillow for another good walloping.

Bill glared at Fleur, who was looking at them both with round eyes. "Yes! I don't know what she was doing in my bed, but this is my room and THAT is my bed. If anything, you should ask her if she took advantage of me!"

Fleur gasped and Mrs. Weasley looked ready to let fly again. "Don't you lie to me, young man! I know Ginny told you to stay with the twins last night. I can't believe you would do this Bill!"

Bill sputtered. "I didn't do anything! And Ginny didn't tell me anything about staying away from my room last night - "

"Opps!"

Mother and son quickly looked to the doorway to see a sheepish looking Ginny, edging away slowly from the door.

"Just came to say we're taking off," she said quickly, turning on her heel just as soon as her last word was out, wanting to be somewhere else entirely before her mother decided to turn her formidable temper on her.

"SEE! See! She looks guilty as hell!" Bill pointed out, pointing at his sister's retreating back.

"GINEVRA MOLLY WEASLEY! Get back here this instant!"

That tone was not to be disobeyed; Ginny knew it, hell, even the gnomes out in the backyard knew it. Shuffling her feet, she peered over the side of the door, an innocent smile on her face.

"Yes, Mum?"

Molly Weasley's massive chest rose in indignation. "Did you, or did you not, tell your brother that Fleur was using his rooms for the moment?"

Not even four years of cinematic experience could keep the guilt from showing on her face. "I'm sorry. I didn't have the chance to tell him. When you asked me to talk to him, he wasn't where I left him, and I just assumed he left. I didn't think he'd go up to his room; it was only past eight then. Nobody in this house ever sleeps at eight."

Bill looked at his sister incredulously. "I was drunk, Gin! It was pure luck I even got to my room in one piece! I wasn't in any condition to go out anywhere!"

Ginny flinched. "I'm sorry, okay? And anyway, nothing could have possibly happened; you finished off a bottle of firewhiskey last night. That should be enough to knock out a Clydesdale, so really, Mum, there's nothing to worry about."

"They were NAKED in bed, Ginevra! I didn't give birth to seven children and still be ignorant as to what happens when a man and a woman are naked in bed together!"

"Heh, really?"

"GINEVRA!"

Ginny jumped; her mother looked like she wanted nothing more than to knock some sense into her with the pillow. Her brother, however, looked to be contemplating fratricide.

"Shalom?" Three people watched as Ginevra Weasley, mother of two, sprinted out of her older brother's room and disappeared to somewhere safe.

Mrs. Weasley took several deep breaths, trying to calm herself before facing her son again. This was a disaster in the making, she knew it, and it was the most inopportune time for it to happen.

"We will talk about this later. The two of you have picked the worst time to do this," she said evenly, her back to Bill. "Today only needed this. Your father needs your level-headedness today, Bill, and you will damn well act like the mature adult that you are. After the inaugural ball, I want you and Fleur to be here, at the Burrow, without fail, or there will be hell to pay. Do I make myself clear?" She looked over her shoulder at her son, who was boring a hole on the wooden slats of the floor. "Do I make myself clear?" she repeated, turning around and plunking her hands on her hips, her right still gripping the pillow.

"Yes, Mum," Bill replied quietly, ashamed at being put down like a naughty twelve-year old.

Mrs. Weasley nodded. "Good. Now get dressed. There's a lot of preparations to do before this evening's gala, and Mr. Smithers has already been asking for you." She transferred her gaze to the quiet woman standing with her back pressed to the wall, as though wishing she could blend in with the décor and be forgotten. "And I don't want to hear about you leaving again. God knows there might already be another Weasley in the works inside of you, and I don't want a repeat of what happened with Phillipe. When you're through being shocked, come to Ginny's room and I'll have a dress brought to you shortly." She marched to the door, just barely remembering to toss the pillow she was holding on the bed. She was past the door and had just disappeared out of sight when she did an abrupt about face. "Oh, and breakfast is ready in the kitchens. It's pancakes and eggs and bacon today. Do hurry up getting dressed before the food gets cold."

Bill and Fleur blinked, repeatedly, to try and get back on track; Fleur could not believe that Mrs. Weasley could act so tyrannical one minute, then maternal the next, while Bill just was plain thrown with all that had happened to him in less than twenty-four hours. At the same time, they looked up and looked at each other, remembering at the same time the predicament they were in, and Bill watched another female run out of his room like the very devil was after her. Appropriate, really, for if it turned out that something did happen last night, and she was enceinte once again, he could very likely act like the devil on her heels.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Why are you lurking out here? Aren't you supposed to be inside, doing the pretty with all your father's guest?"

Ginny glared at Colin; she'd thought she had been doing well, trying to remain inconspicuous, keeping to the shadows of the huge Ministry ballroom. It was at best difficult to hide, what with her hair coloring standing out like a beacon in the brightly lit room, she didn't need her friend practically pointing out an accusing finger at her, ensuring that the difficulty she was having in maintaining anonymity become a total impossibility.

"Will you keep your voice down! Sheesh, it's hard enough keeping a low profile without you practically slinging a billboard-sized placard around my neck." She glanced apprehensively around the crowded room before pulling Colin strategically in front of her.

Colin rolled his eyes. "Do I even have to ask why you're acting so paranoid?"

Ginny didn't even spare him a glance; there was already a thoughtful look on her face. "Maybe it's not wise for you to stand so close to me after all; if he sees you, he's sure to know that I'm with you."

"Aw, stop pushing me! What's wrong with you!" Colin glared at his best friend while fending off her attempts to push him away. "And who's He? Don't tell me you're still worrying about Draco?"

"Oh please! I'd take what Draco could do to me any day of the week compared to him."

Colin's brows rose, intrigued. "Really? Don't tell me you've already found somebody else."

Ginny frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"You're worried about a 'him' seeing you, and considering that you only act like this around really interesting men, and you haven't yet told me his name, I'm supposing he might be the one if he's already had your knickers in a twist."

"Ewww!" Ginny said in horror and disgust. "I can't believe what you just said! I'll probably have nightmares for a month, thank you very much!"

"What did I say?" Colin asked, truly perplexed.

"You just used the words interesting man, the one, and my knickers in conjunction with my brother! God, that is just so wrong in so many levels."

"How was I to know?" Colin said defensively. "If you had only come right out and told me who it was you were so touchy about, I probably wouldn't have jumped to conclusions and consigned you to an incestuous relationship."

"Stop saying it!" Ginny demanded, swatting at his arm furiously.

Colin started laughing; he couldn't help it. He welcomed the lightness of the moment, a sort of prelude to what later on could be constituted as the most difficult moment of her life. He wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth, and there was no doubt anyone hearing what had transpired just seconds ago would think that there was something seriously wrong with the two of them, that didn't matter so much as the here and now. And the here and now was Ginny feeling preoccupied with something else other than Draco Malfoy.

"Ok stop!" Colin said finally, catching both Ginny's hands. "Seriously though, why are you hiding from your brother, of all people? And incidentally, that brother would be?"

Ginny sobered right away and darted a nervous look left and right. "Bill, and if you only knew what I did, or failed to do, you wouldn't be laughing at me."

"Sounds serious," Colin commented. "What did you do? Set him up with somebody he couldn't stand?"

That was so close to the situation at hand that Ginny couldn't find the right words to explain. "I - "

"Ginevra."

Ginny froze; Colin was intrigued at the guilty look that dawned on his friend's face. She slowly turned to face her brother, unconsciously pressing up against Colin's front.

"Hullo, Bill."

"There's no place on earth you can hide from me, Ginevra Weasley. I will have my revenge." Bill's face was completely devoid of expression, but the threat in his tone was hard to miss.

Ginny cringed. "Look, Bill, I didn't mean to do it, really. I'm sorry Mum got so angry with you. I would never deliberately do anything you wouldn't want me to do."

"We'll see," Bill said mysteriously. "We'll see."

Ginny and Colin watched Bill's back as he walked away, his large frame made even larger by the dark suit he was wearing. He looked even more handsome than he usually was, even with the dispassionate scowl that appeared on his forehead just before he turned away.

"That was definitely frosty," Colin whispered in awe, throwing an uneasy look at Ginny, who looked like a small child who'd just been told there would be no Christmas for her that year. "What was that all about?"

Ginny pulled a face. "I, ah, accidentally, might have, you know, left the barn open and shoved the bull in?"

"What? What the hell does that mean?" Ginny started mumbling and he leaned closer to try and hear what she was saying. "Speak up, will you?"

"I made Bill sleep with Fleur last night!" Ginny hissed furiously.

"WHAT!"

"Shhh! Don't be so obvious!"

"ME?! What about you! Don't you think what you did seemed a bit more obvious?"

Ginny tapped her cheeks agitatedly, taking slow, deep breaths. "I didn't mean to do it," she said plaintively. "I just didn't have the chance to warn Bill that Fleur was going to be sleeping in his rooms last night, and that he should bunk in with Fred and George. The end result being, Mum woke them both up, bare-assed naked."

"Wow, Gin." Colin shook his head. "You're really in for it now; Bill would never just let this go. He hates Fleur, we all know that."

Ginny sighed. "That's just it. I know he doesn't really hate her, but because of what happened last night, I'm afraid that it may have jumped the gun a bit."

"What?" Colin snorted. "C'mon Gin, you yourself told me what Fleur did to him, and I'm quite sure that Bill would never let any woman get the better of him, even one as aesthetically perfect as Fleur Delacour. He hates her, just admit it."

Ginny threw him a dirty look. "I know what I told you, but more than anything else, I think I know that my brother would never just turn his back on his son, no matter his feelings for the mother of said son."

"Don't jump the gun again, Gin; they only had sex again last night, there's no way to know for sure she could get pregnant after only one encounter."

Ginny smiled and nodded at a passing guest before answering Colin. "Ok one, Bill's a Weasley, and a Weasley could impregnate even the Gobi desert. And two, I wasn't talking about any future Weasley he might have inadvertently cultivated last night." She ignored Colin's comment about her making Bill out to be a farmer; she took another deep breath. "I was talking about the son he already had, with her, six years ago."

"W-what!?"

Ginny nodded. "I discovered that little piece of news yesterday afternoon. Or I should say Nicky saw Philippe first, I made the connection later."

"You're positive? Is there a possibility that you could have been mistaken?" Colin was having hard time believing what he was hearing. Bill, a father?

"Yes, I have never been more sure in my entire life. That's why I know that Bill would move heaven and earth to try and resolve his quarrel with Fleur. But what with last night's fortuitous encounter, there might be a whole lot more awkwardness than there already is between them. And it's all my fault."

"There, there," Colin said, taking Ginny in his arms. "I'm sure Bill won't do something really painful to you. Awful, maybe, but not too painful."

"Gee, thanks Colin," Ginny said dryly, pulling out of his arms indignantly. "Now you've really made me feel a whole lot better. What would I do without a friend like you?"

Colin didn't miss her sarcasm and grinned playfully. "You know me, I'm always here for you, whenever you need me."

"With friends like you, who needs enemies?" Ginny muttered, earning her another of Colin's wide grins. "Why don't you go somewhere, you know, away from me? Before I decide to carve you out like a juicy, twenty-pound turkey."

"I'm gone," Colin said soothingly. "Oh, before I forget. Blaise was looking for you earlier, something about dress coordination or some such silly thing. He's here somewhere, and he looked good enough to eat. Yum!"

Ginny shook her head as she watched her best friend wade through the veritable sea of people that were her father's guests. She was used to such crushes, but that didn't mean she had to like it. One advantage of the gathering was the fact that very few people there knew about her other life in America, which saved her from having to engage in small talk with people she didn't have a thing in common with. Being the only daughter of the new Minister of Magic entailed that she be polite to all these people, but they were really not interested in her; at least, not yet. She only hoped the media coverage would be limited to only the ones in Britain; very few of them would know about Moira Welsh, and she would like to keep it that way. It was difficult enough having to explain later on about her two children, and she knew she would have to explain about them; it would be doubly hard to also have to try and justify her decision to live practically as a Muggle for four years, in another continent.

"There you are, cara." The owner of the deep voice that suddenly materialized behind her made Ginny turn around overly fast; her shoes caught on the hem of her dress. Fortunately, she fell into the strong arms of the man who startled her, who then helped her get back on her feet, but didn't let her go. She bit her lip to try and control her physical reaction to the contact, and forced a smile to her lips.

"Hello, Blaise."

Blaise Zabini was a sight to behold. It was the first she had seen him in a muggle suit; pureblood that he was, he didn't look too uncomfortable in the clothes covering his powerful build. And she said so.

"My, don't you look dapper! I can quite understand Colin saying you were a meal he wouldn't mind gouging himself with. Yum!" Ginny looked at him with such a lascivious leer that the tall Italian could not help blushing.

It was a night of many firsts for Blaise; it was the first time he had ever worn a muggle suit, the first time he had blushed, and the first time he would be proposing. But considering that tonight's inaugural ball of the new Minister of Magic was also going to come down in the history books as the first ever to be done entirely the muggle way, he felt slightly mollified, slightly being the operative word.

"I see you still have no problem sharpening your claws," he drawled lazily, sweeping down and planting a lingering kiss on her cheeks. She frowned up at him.

"What do you think you're doing?" She was completely thrown when Blaise laughed huskily.

"Oh darling, surely you can wait until we're alone later," Blaise admonished, dropping a fond kiss on her nose.

Ginny tried to wriggle free from his arms, but he wasn't letting go anytime soon. "What are you about?" she asked fiercely, willing her eyes to shoot daggers at him.

Blaise leaned closer and whispered by her ear. "Relax, cara, I'm only doing what I've been bidden to do. But I must say, I'm enjoying myself immensely." He grabbed her right hand and shoved a ring on her ring finger.

When Blaise released her, Ginny quickly glanced at her hand to see what kind of ring he had put on her finger, and was floored to see the huge diamond set on a platinum base winking up at her. It was sure to be very expensive, but she could not quite keep the grimace from appearing on her face; it might fetch enough galleons to purchase a small Mediterranean island, but it sure was ugly.

"Don't take that off," Blaise warned when she looked up at him with a question in her eyes. "And take that surprised look out of your face, we have company."

Ginny didn't even have enough time to blink before Blaise's arms came around her once again, and turned her around to face whoever it was that was coming their way. She didn't have a problem recognizing the bundle of fluff that was positively oozing with excitement as she dragged her companion with her; only a fool would forget one such as her, if only to try and avoid her. Her companion, however, was one she had steeled herself to face that night. He was Blaise's cousin, best friend and the father of her children. The father of her children who was currently engaged to a creature she would love to pitch into the black sea.

"Draco, it's so good to see you!" Ginny only managed not to cringe at Blaise's cheerful voice. "And who's this? Such a lovely creature."

Creature is just about right, Ginny thought cattily, fixing a smile to her lips, as she watched Dianne Winters smile flirtatiously up at Blaise, fluttering her lashes at him. It took all Ginny's efforts not to snort at the tiny woman; she was obviousness personified. And again, she marveled at her short stature, wondering if there was a short person somewhere in her family tree. And talk about being gaudily dressed; if her neckline was any lower, anybody could practically see right down to her toes.

Draco, however, wasn't listening to Blaise or his fiancé; his eyes were fixed on the way Blaise's arms were draped possessively around Ginny, and he couldn't help but recall what his father had told him a while ago. Obviously, Blaise being 'taken' with Ginny had progressed quite in his favor, if the rock on her finger was anything to go by. It was also difficult to ignore the way Ginny was standing so close to Blaise, practically leaning on him. He was fighting down the impulse to pull her away from the suave Italian, but only because he didn't want to make a scene with so many people present. But if Blaise's hand started wandering to places he had no right to wander, he would not be accountable for cutting said arm off.

Get off your high horse, Malfoy, you don't have a say where Ginny Weasley is concerned, Draco Jr. jeered. You lost that right the night you got yourself engaged to another woman.

Draco inwardly seethed; the voice in his head had the worst timing. He didn't want a reminder of his current civil status; he knew very well he was engaged. But he didn't care; he had no way of controlling his reaction to Ginny, and he wasn't completely averse to the way his body always reacted whenever she was near. He knew he ought to just let things be; after all, he had already decided that he wouldn't let his reaction to her cloud his judgment. But it was damn near impossible to deny the way his body always gravitated to hers. Even if he didn't want her, which was unlikely to happen anytime soon, he didn't want to see others pawing what was, essentially, his.

You are such a selfish bastard, you know that, right? If Ginny knew what you were thinking, she would hex your balls off and roast them over a bonfire. Hell, if there was a way for me to reach her, I would happily tell her what you thought of her so I could gleefully watch as she kicked your ass.

Draco tuned out Draco Jr., and concentrated on the way his cousin's left hand move slowly up and down the curve of Ginny's left hip. The implied intimacy was glaring, and he ground his teeth together. Hard.

"Are you okay, Drake?" Blaise asked, noticing the hostile look on the blonde's face. "You don't look very comfortable there. Anything paining you?"

The smile Draco gave his cousin was full of menace. "So. How come I never heard that you and Ginevra were engaged?"

Dianne gasped and immediately launched herself onto Ginny; Ginny didn't have the chance to react to Draco's question as she was inundated with a female that was as pesky as a puppy, or a child with ADD. Seriously, she needed to consider cutting down on her sugar consumption, if only to spare the rest of the human populace.

"You are the first one to know, actually," Blaise fabricated smoothly. "I asked her last night; fortunately, she said yes. Her family doesn't even know yet. We're hoping to share the happy news with them after this night's affair. It would be a double celebration of sorts; I'm only sorry my parents couldn't be here. I'm sure they would love my little Ginny." He smoothly extricated Ginny from Dianne, and gave her a resounding kiss on the lips.

The reprieve Ginny had gotten while Dianne was all over her had given her time to mask her shock. She didn't know where Blaise had gotten the idea to claim her as his fiancée, but she had a feeling she knew the answer already, and she didn't know whether to thank him, or shave his head off. The former, probably, but at the moment, she needed to play along with Blaise.

Draco's head was about to explode; he needed to get away from the two of them, fast. Quickly, he took Dianne's elbows and started to back off.

"Congratulations then. I'm sure you two will be very happy together. If you'll excuse us, I see my parents. Let's catch up later, Blaise. Your place."

"Not tonight, Drake, Ginny and I have some celebrating to do in private. I'm sure you know what I mean," Blaise drawled suggestively.

Draco gritted his teeth and nodded tersely. "I'll Floo you."

Ginny and Blaise watched as Draco practically dragged Dianne away. Blaise had yet to let go of her, and only did so when she pointedly pried his hand off her abdomen.

"What the hell was that all about?" she asked calmly, looking up at her 'fiancée'.

Blaise grinned down at her. "Your not-quite father-in-law suggested that little scene, my dear, and I have to say, it went quite well, don't you think? Draco was practically frothing in the mouth. I have to watch my back though; he's quite nifty with his hexes and I wouldn't want to end up with unattractive boils anywhere on my person. And Potter would probably relish seeing me with those boils, too, so I can't depend on him to watch my back."

Ginny shook her head. "You men are unbelievable. And did you have to really put a ring on my finger? What if I get asked what this means? We might me biting off more than we can chew."

"Don't worry, my dear; broken engagements are not unheard of. We just play this farce out until someone otherwise sees the light, or gets himself shackled. And the ring's Lucius', by the way, a family heirloom or something."

"No wonder it's so huge," Ginny said, examining the rock. And quite ugly, but she left that thought out entirely. "I don't like it, though; diamonds were never my style," she diplomatically said, instead.

Blaise tapped her nose playfully. "You're too nice for your own good, luv." He grinned at her, and if she were anybody else but Ginny Weasley, she would have probably already fainted. "It's ugly as hell, but you don't have to like it, you just have to wear it. Now that I've done my duty by you, I'm off. I have to go light a fire under Potter's arse."

Ginny laughed. "You have absolutely no regard for your safety, Blaise, darling. First, Draco; now, Harry? Is it your life long ambition to make me a widow even before we get to the altar?"

Blaise winked. "Life would be otherwise dull, darling. And I wouldn't mind dying tomorrow if I could get to share your bed tonight. No? Pity, then. I'll just have to strive to live another day 'til you do." He executed a bow before her, then turned and disappeared amongst the crowd.

Ginny sighed; that first meeting with Draco didn't go so bad. Sure, she didn't exactly say anything directly to him, or contribute to the short conversation with a word at all, but it went well as a whole. She only hoped the next time would go just as smoothly. The night was young, and Luke and Nicole had yet to make an appearance. Once they did, and Draco saw them, she only hoped he would keep his civility. Otherwise, all hell would break lose. There was no doubt about that.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Did we really have to come here tonight, Lucius," Narcissa asked worriedly, eyeing the crowd before them. "I haven't finished supervising the house elves on what to pack for when we move out of the Manor. If only you had told me a month in advance that you were planning to uproot us, then I might have had more time to prepare."

Lucius plucked two flutes of champagne from a passing waiter, and handed one to his wife. "It is imperative that we be here tonight, my dear," he said cryptically before taking a small sip of the bubbly. "And I have a feeling that you'll feel the same way in a few hours." Or minutes.

"I can't see why," Narcissa said quietly, nodding and smiling at people she knew. She tilted the glass to her lips and took a delicate sip of the champagne. "These people are not exactly our friends. In fact, I'm almost sure that they would happily see us with dementors on our backs, preferably in Azkaban." She raised a challenging brow at her husband. "Don't tell me that you've suddenly become chums with Arthur Weasley, and would be heartbroken if you missed this momentous turning point in his life?"

Lucius chuckled at his wife's quip. "Darling, your wit truly is amazing." His eyes glittered as he spied the gathering crowd. "No, Arthur and I can never be best friends, but you'd be surprised at what fate will hand you when you least expect it." He slipped an arm around Narcissa's waist and tipped his glass against her own. "Tonight, darling, you'll be the one who'll be tested."

Before Narcissa could ask what Lucius meant, she was interrupted by the clearing of a throat. She reluctantly moved out of her husband's arms, and turned to see her son.

"Draco, darling." She quickly tipped her face to receive a kiss from her son. "This is a surprise," she said, her brows arched questioningly. "This is the last event I would expect you of all people to attend. Don't tell me you've also made friends with the Weasleys? I've already asked your father the same, and as you know, he's as talkative as a clam when it comes to his associations."

Draco's lips curled up at the ends in disdain. "Hardly, mother, but it wouldn't do for me to offend the office of the Ministry of Magic by blatantly ignoring the inauguration of their new leader. After all, I'll be taking over for father very soon, and I need to maintain civility with all of them for the business' sake."

Narcissa nodded. "Of course, darling." Then she seemed to notice for the first time that woman who was clinging to her son's arms. "And who might this be?"

Draco made the introductions in a monotone voice. "Mother, I'd like to introduce you to my fiancée, Dianne Winters. Dianne, my mother, Mrs. Narcissa Black Malfoy."

"It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Mrs. Malfoy, I've heard so much about you, and couldn't wait to meet you. I must say, you don't look old enough to have a grown up son. I have been after Draco about meeting you, and Mr. Malfoy, of course, but there was never any time. He is ever so busy, and never finds enough time to just sit back and relax. How about you? I'm sure your husband must also be a very busy man. How do you find being the wife of such a powerful and influential man? Oh, I can't wait to sit down with you and talk about what it is you do when Mr. Malfoy is otherwise occupied. I must say, though - "

Lucius itched to curse Ms. Winters' lips shut. He had never had the misfortune to meet a person who talked incessantly, with absolutely no substance to her words. It was as though she had only learned the power of speech, and was taking every opportunity to exercise that newly gained prowess. He looked down his nose at her, and couldn't help but compare her to Ginevra Weasley; Ms. Dianne Winters came up way short on every aspect he could think of. He didn't know what his son could have possibly seen in such a chatterbox; the only thing she had over the mother of his grandchildren was the ability to talk without needing to come up for air, apparently.

He turned his eyes to his quiet son, and haughtily arched a brow in disdain.

Draco wanted to clap a hand over Dianne's mouth. The first few minutes that she had talked, his mother had been politely nodding her head, and benignly smiling down at his fiancé. After ten minutes of her nonstop monologue, it looked as though Narcissa Malfoy's renowned patience was about to snap.

" - and I do so love that gown you're wearing. Is that by Valentino, by any chance? Don't you think that he's simply the best designer in the world? I - "

"Dianne," Draco interrupted loudly, "I think I see a friend of yours waving at you. Chuck? Jack? Mack or something? He's over there."

Dianne frowned. "You mean Hugh? Hugh Chapman? Where?"

"He was there somewhere," Draco replied vaguely, and waved his arm across the room. "Why don't you try and find him?"

"Oh. Okay." She turned back and smiled at Narcissa. "I'll be right back, Narcissa - I can call you Narcissa, right? After all, we'll be family shortly. Great!" She didn't even wait for Narcissa to nod in acknowledgment. "I'll be back shortly. We still have lots to talk about." With that she walked away, her short legs surprisingly carrying her quickly away.

Narcissa turned horrified eyes at her husband, who soothingly patted her hand. "Don't worry my dear, she won't have a chance to harass you. After we move out of the Manor, you'll never have to spend even a minute in her presence." He sneered at his son. "I'm sure where we're going, you'll have an infinitely better time. I'm quite sure that the people where we're moving to are quite socially trained, even the wee ones."

Draco's smile was strained; his headache was getting worse and worse as the evening progressed. "I apologize, Mother. Dianne can be quite - enthusiastic, around new people she meets. And you being who you are, she was quite beyond herself with excitement."

"She didn't even say anything to you, Lucius," she remarked wonderingly. "Of course, considering she barely paused in her ranting, I'm surprised she even heard Draco." She gave her son a doubting look. "Are you sure you know what you're getting into, Draco?"

He gave a stiff nod. "Dianne's heart is in the right place, it's her mouth that she has no control over."

"I'll say," Lucius muttered under his breath; he smirked at his son when it appeared that he heard his starchy comment. Draco didn't look pleased that his father appeared to be making fun of his fiancée. Too bad for him, thought Lucius, satisfaction pouring out of his every pore.

"Why don't we move to another location, my dear, before Ms. Winters comes back. And look, it looks as though the ceremony is about to begin. I wouldn't miss this for the world." He nodded at Draco. "I'm sure you and your fiancée will do very well without our presence, Draco. If you'll excuse your mother and I?"

Draco watched as his parents moved closer to the raised platform that had been constructed at the very front of the room. He knew his father was a wily man, but he found it hard to understand how the Ministry could trust him with so few reservations. They should have been wary of him, he was a Malfoy, after all; that alone should have been enough to raise their hackles a bit. But no. They welcomed him with open arms.

He shook his head and decided to keep to the sidelines; it might be a necessity for him to be here, for a lot of different reasons, but that didn't mean that he had to mingle with all these people. And so, he propped a shoulder against a column, and watched the proceedings unfold before him.

He couldn't wait for the night to be over; he planned to spend at least two hours fucking Dianne before going to bed. If he didn't, he'd probably not be able to fall asleep for thinking of what Ginny and Blaise were doing together. He didn't really believe that Ginny could fall into another man's bed so easily after she'd been in his, even if that other man was Blaise, so he wasn't too worried about that. He was still undecided as to what he should do with his relationship with Dianne, and Ginny, too. Whether he should stick to his earlier decision and marry Dianne, or try and mend his fences with Ginny.

He shook his head and watched as the redheaded Weasleys slowly started filling up the stage. It was going to be a long night.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"It's time, Gin," Colin said quietly, squeezing Ginny's right hand. "What's this?" he asked, as he felt the ring Blaise had placed on her finger.

"Don't ask," Ginny answered simply. "Where are Luke and Nicole?"

"I had Allen inform Mary and Catherine to bring them in. They should be here - oh, there they are!"

Ginny turned to where Colin was pointing and a smile lit her face. There was no trace of the irritation she earlier felt for Luke as she watched her children being led by the hand by their respective nannies. She met them halfway, Colin behind her.

"There you two are. You ready?"

"I wanna go home and play with my broom," Luke declared, his nose in the air. "And I hate my clothes, I look like a penguin."

Colin swallowed a laugh as Ginny threw him a warning glare.

"You look really good, honey," Ginny praised, fixing his bow tie. "And besides, if you look, all the men are wearing the same clothes as you. See?"

Luke's nose didn't even come down a fraction. "We all look like penguins," he stated defiantly. "Big penguins, and small penguins. And I itch!"

Ginny sighed and straightened; she pointedly ignored Colin, who was now laughing delightedly behind her. "This'll only take a few minutes. After that, you can throw your suit into the fire like you did your other suits before." She turned her attention to her quiet daughter. "Oh, darling, you look absolutely divine."

Nicole smiled prettily. "Look at my shoes, Mommy! I picked them out myself."

"That's my girl," Ginny praised, giving her attention to the proffered foot. "Couldn't have picked a prettier one if I tried."

Nicole's smile turned up a notch. "Uncle Colin paid for it, of course."

"Of course," Ginny said smoothly. "Now we better get up behind your grandpa now. The ceremony's about to start." Colin and the two nannies helped her get the two on stage, with Luke's attention now sufficiently drawn to his gathered uncles on stage.

Ginny prayed some people would have enough sense to wait until the oath taking was over before making a scene. As she watched her son run to where his Uncle Ron was standing, she knew that it was finally time to face the music.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Don't tell me part of the necessity for you to be here is to stand at the very front of the platform?"

Lucius merely smiled at his wife's comment. There was no need for him to reply; as the oath taking was about to commence in a very few short minutes, he would let that be answer enough for him. He had already seen Luke and Nicole; very few had bothered to look in their direction, too occupied with the goings on onstage. But his eyes were fixed on his grandchildren, who were now slowly making their way up the stage. He chuckled when Luke run across the stage towards his uncle.

Narcissa looked at her husband, perplexed. "Lucius? What - ?" She looked to the stage to see what had so transfixed her husband, and gasped.

Lucius knew the instant Narcissa saw their grandchildren. He looked down at his wife, who clung to his arms as though without him, she would probably have already fallen to the floor on a crumpled heap. He waited for her to look up at him, not taking his eyes off her face, watching the varying emotions that were alternately appearing on her beautiful face.

It seemed a lifetime before she finally looked up at him; in truth, it was only about ten minutes.

"Did you - did you know about this?" Narcissa whispered hoarsely, her eyes shining with unshed tears.

Lucius nodded; no words were necessary to convey his answer to her question.

"How long?"

Lucius hesitated for only a fraction of a second. "Since the beginning."

Narcissa took a deep breath as she looked back at the scene on stage. Then her nails dug into her husband's fine suit.

"I will never forgive you for this, Lucius Malfoy," she whispered feelingly, her voice breaking, as a lone tear fell down her face.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"So Draco." Blaise sauntered over to where Draco was standing. "Good night so far?"

Draco took his eyes off the stage and fixed his best friend a hard stare. "What do you think?"

Blaise stood, blocking the stage from Draco's sight. "Oh mate, I always knew you were oblivious, I just never thought you would take that obliviousness so far as this. Your loss, my gain, however," he said, putting a sympathetic hand on Draco's shoulder.

Draco wanted to break his nose. "It's early yet, Blaise; don't be too sure yet."

Blaise shook his head. "You don't get it, mate. You sealed your fate a long time ago." Behind him, he could hear the oath taking start. Good. "I give you fair warning though: You have a chance to make things right tonight. Just one chance. My advice is: Don't waste it."

Draco frowned. "What the hell are you talking about, Blaise? Can you cut the crap and just get to the point? I have a powerful headache, and I'm not up to your usual cryptic self."

Blaise tilted his head to the side and smiled. "See for yourself." With a flourish, he moved aside, revealing the scene on stage, where the entire Weasley family was gathered.

Draco scanned the redheads upfront in a bored fashion; there was nothing new there he hadn't seen before. He was about to ask Blaise what he was referring to when he saw Ginny bend, and when she straightened, she had a little boy in her arms.

He wasn't too far away that he couldn't see the boy properly; that, and he had perfect vision. The boy was no more than four years old; he had white blond hair. He couldn't be sure what color eyes he had, but he would bet the entire contents of the Malfoy vaults that it would be gray.

Blond hair. Gray eyes.

He turned back to look at Blaise; Blaise was looking at him intensely, every muscle in his body tensed, prepared for an attack.

"Don't you think he looks just like you?" Blaise said quietly, not breaking eye contact with Draco. Which was probably a good thing he did, when the punch that connected against his jaw snapped his head back and made him stagger against the column where Draco was previously standing.

What do you know? Draco Malfoy was not civil enough to wait until after the oath taking ceremony to start acting up after all.

******

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth = Sir Arthur Conan Doyle