The Shotgun Bride

Chapter Two: Brothers

***

Twenty minutes later:

"Well, that didn't go so very badly," Ginny said.

"Yes, it did," Draco replied, holding the ice pack against his eye. Mr. Weasley had one mean left hook, as he had just learned firsthand. Mr. Weasley had launched into an attack immediately after Ginny had broken the news, which Draco thought could have been done a little more gently and with a lot more tact.

Mrs. Weasley had pulled her husband off him, but he was positive that she had hit him with the rolling pin on purpose. She had then fussed over him, and tried to get him to hold a piece of frozen meat against his face. He'd only stared at the pork chop in horror, and had managed to come up with some semi-coherent refusal. Ginny had gotten him the ice pack, which he had accepted gratefully.

Mr. Weasley had then put down the ultimatum. "I don't like you or your family one bit, but you will marry my daughter."

Draco, noticing the way the man's trigger finger kept twitching, nodded quickly. No sense arguing with an angry father. Marrying Ginny was a wonderful idea. As long as his parents never found out, that was. He considered the odds of no one telling his gossip monger of a mother about him getting married.

The odds weren't good.

"Alright then," Mr. Weasley had said. He had then turned to his daughter. "Your mother and I need to talk. You two go on out on the porch."

And so they had gone. And so they were on the porch, Draco holding an ice pack against his blackening eye. It hurt like the dickens, but he refused to show his pain to Ginny. She'd patronize him. And a Malfoy should never be patronized, especially by someone who would probably be a Malfoy within the next few months.

"So," Draco said conversationally, "Why are your parents letting us be alone together out here?"

"Well, there really isn't anymore damage to be done, now, is there," Ginny pointed out, resting her head on his shoulder and sighing contentedly. That hadn't gone nearly as horribly as she had imagined. Her mother had been remarkably civil so far, and her father hadn't castrated Draco.

"Yes, there is," Draco suddenly hissed. "Hide me!"

"What?"

Draco pointed out in the distance, at the long gravel driveway that connected the Weasley's home to the paved road. A pickup truck was bouncing along it, approaching quickly. Its bed was filled with redheads. "Your brothers are coming home!"

"But..." Ginny said. "They weren't supposed to get back from dumpster diving until five..."

Draco held out his wrist, and Ginny noted with great apprehension that the hands on his watch were pointed to five and twelve, respectively. Oh. Her brothers were almost home, and there was no way she could hide Draco from them as they were already within sight.

The truck full of redheads pulled up to the house and came to a screeching halt that indicated that Fred was driving. The Weasley herd of brothers bounded, climbed, and scampered out of the truck, and all stood in a crowd before the young couple.

"Why is that here?" Ron asked. Ron really wasn't very fond of the young Malfoy.

"I think we should get him away from our sister," Bill added, a dangerous glint in his eye. Bill was the sometimes violent brother. Bill had long hair, an earring, and was wearing a Harley Davidson t-shirt. He didn't have a Harley, but he liked to pretend his bicycle was one sometimes.

Percy pulled a hand nervously through his mullet. The other Weasleys began to clump into a 'flying V' formation, just a few feathers and bills away from being a full fledged flock.

Draco let out another 'eep' sound, and ducked behind Ginny. He hadn't seen that many red faces since the time he'd accidentally wandered into the girl's changing room at the local swimming pool.

"Honestly, they don't even know yet," Ginny told her newly acquired fiancé. "Stop being such a baby about it."

"Easy for you to say," Draco shot back. "They aren't looking at you like they want to kill you and use your skin as the lining of the litter box."

Ginny looked back at her brothers. Murderous looks flashed in every eye except Percy's. Percy was inspecting an aluminum can very closely.

"I think that this can might be a bit too thin," he commented to Charlie, the second oldest brother. Charlie smacked the can away, and hissed at his younger brother, "Stay on track! We're about to kill Malfoy for being on our porch."

"On our porch?" Ron said. "I'm killing him for being near Ginny."

The Weasley brothers let out a collective war cry, and advanced on the outnumbered Malfoy.

"Wait," George suddenly said, halting the advance. "Did Ginny just say something about us not
even knowing yet?"

Six brains were immediately focused on that concept. What could they possibly not know? Between the six of them, they had an expert in everything that could possibly matter- women, cars, alcoholic beverages, classic rock, various illegal activities, and then there was Percy, who excelled in brown-nosing and menial tasks. There was nothing they couldn't figure out!

Except perhaps what they wouldn't know concerning their only sister and that Malfoy brat.

"What could it possibly be?" Fred asked. Their minds were set into work, but no promising theories immediately emerged.

"Umm..." ventured Charlie. "Maybe Malfoy's here to work for us."

"No, that's silly," Bill argued. "He's probably here to beg out forgiveness for being such a slimy little worm."

"Maybe he wants to practice being a punching bag," Ron offered.

"That sounds like fun," Charlie agreed, and the other brothers nodded their agreement. They started their advance again.

Things might have gotten very bad indeed for young Mr. Malfoy had his future father-in-law not yelled at that moment. "Ginny, get in here and bring that hooligan with you! And if they're home, tell your brothers to stay out there for a minute"

"You heard him," Ginny told the six red haired brothers as she stood up gracefully and strolled inside while Draco leapt up and scampered into the house.