The Shotgun Bride

Chapter Eighteen: Honeymoon

Ginny looked at the hotel apprehensively. "Are you sure this is the right place?"

"Yeah," Draco said, pulling the car to a stop. "I think so, at least."

The glowing sign pronounced the place to be named the "Family Inn".

"You know you had better have booked a suite," Ginny said.

"Come on," Draco replied. They headed into the lobby, where Ginny stopped short at the sight of the woman behind the counter.

"Draco, she's a toad!" Ginny whispered, shocked.

"Wow," Draco said. "Do you think she's ever considered a job at the circus? It's uncanny."

"Hem, hem," pronounced the toad woman. "What are you two young 'uns doing in here without your parents?"

Ginny and Draco sputtered.

"She is not my sister," Draco managed to get out.

"You look alike," replied the toad woman, "and you're much too young to be here without parental supervision."

"We do not look alike!" ranted Draco. "My hair is yellow and her hair is red. I am tall and she is... less tall. I have perfect skin and she has cute little freckles."

"Yeah!" Ginny backed him up.

"That's nice, dearies," said the toad woman. "Now, where are your parents to register you?"

"We are not here with our parents," replied Ginny. "Our two completely different sets of parents, that is."

"They ought to be ashamed, letting two children out alone," said the toad woman. "I'm sure there's a rule somewhere that says I can't rent you a room without your parents here."

"We already called and have a room reserved," Draco snapped.

"Under what name?" asked the woman.

"Malfoy," replied Draco.

Ginny giggled, and whispered, "My name's Ginny Malfoy."

"It sure is," Draco replied, and leaned in to kiss her when they heard a loud, "Hem, hem."

"That is entirely inappropriate behavior with your sister, young man," said the toad woman stuffily.

"Look, lady," Draco began.

"My name is Dolores Umbridge," snapped the woman.

"Look, Dolores," Draco continued, nonplused. "She's my wife, not my sister. Our behavior is not inappropriate, we are old enough to get a frickin hotel room without parental supervision, and besides, you have no reason to be the moral police."

Dolores Umbridge tossed her head, jowls quivering. "Have you spoken to the Lord lately?"

Ginny coughed back the laughter that threatened to escape as her newly acquired husband said icily, "No, I have not, and I'd prefer it if I didn't have to hear about your conversations either."

Dolores turned an unattractive shade of red as she said, "I feel it is my duty to guide the misguided youths who come through here, looking for a weekend of sin, drink and debauchery."

"We aren't in need of guidance," Ginny spoke up. "We're sin-free, honest."

Dolores gave her a withering glare. "Then why are you at a hotel unchaperoned? I'm not stupid, dearie."

"We're married," Draco snapped. "Any debauchery we plan on having is completely in the clear."

"Like I haven't heard that one a thousand times," Dolores said.

*

"Wow," Ginny said as she stepped into their honeymoon suite. "Look! A bed!"

The bed had a red velvet bedspread, which matched the walls and furniture in various shades of pink and red. The honeymoon suite apparently weekended as a Valentine's suite.

"Want to try it out?" Draco asked.

Ginny said, "Sure."

They commenced making out on the bed, and just as Draco began to undress his new wife, there came a rapping at the hotel room door.

"Ignore it," Ginny said, tugging off her cute shoes impatiently.

"Already am," said Draco, who was busy untying her makeshift garter.

The rapping continued.

The couple continued to try to ignore it.

The rapping turned to banging, preventing the couple from doing the same.

"Who is it?" yelled Ginny.

"Maid service," replied a voice.

"We don't want any," Draco snapped, continuing his attempt to remove Ginny's bra with his teeth. Ginny sighed. He was hopeless at this at the best of times, and now he was trying to gnaw the damn thing off like an animal whose leg was caught in a trap.

"Damn it, why can't you ever manage to undo a bra? Quit chewing! This is my good one! It came from Victoria's Secret, you know," admonished Ginny.

"Can someone open the door?" the voice outside continued.

"No," replied Ginny. "Don't come back."

"I have to deliver this, though!" came the voice, insistent.

"We didn't order anything!" Draco called, pulling off his t-shirt. "We're busy! Leave!"

"I can't come back later! I get off in ten minutes, but that cow I work for won't let me leave until this is delivered!" wailed the voice on the other side of the door.

Ginny and Draco looked at each other and sighed. Draco stood, leaving Ginny splayed, half-dressed, on the bed. She didn't bother to move as she admired the view as her husband crossed the room and opened the door. She thought he had the sexiest back she'd ever seen, and the black dragon curling across his shoulder blade just emphasized it.

A young woman whose name tag identified her as "Marietta' stood on the other side of the door, dressed in a generic blue uniform and holding a handful of pamphlets. She seemed taken aback at the sight of a half-naked Draco Malfoy leaning against the doorframe and snapping, "This had better be good."

"Mrs. Umbridge insisted that I deliver these informational pamphlets," Marietta mumbled, obviously embarrassed about interrupting.

"Fine," Draco said, taking the pamphlets and moving to shut the door.

"Wait!" said Marietta, biting her lip nervously. "I'm supposed to give a stern, yet friendly speech about the dangers of immoral behavior."

"I feel lectured," Ginny said, tugging her bra strap back onto one shoulder. "Shoo."

"Um... you won't tell Mrs. Umbridge I skipped out?" Marietta asked nervously.

"Not a word," Draco promised.

"Bye, then!" Marietta fled. Draco slammed the door shut behind her, began to lock it, reconsidered, reopened the door, and placed the 'Do Not Disturb' sign on the outside door handle.

"Don't know how I forgot that in the first place," Draco said, then eyed his partially dressed wife, and said, "Oh, yeah."

**

They were interrupted by another knock on the door.

"Just ignore it," Ginny said testily. "We put up the sign."

"I know," Draco said, standing quickly. "I'm just going to go tell them that..."

He tugged on his worn jeans over boxers decorated with yellow duckies smiling menacingly with a waistband that read, "I rub my duckie," and hurried to the door as Ginny scowled.

"Who the hell do you think you are? Can't you read?" snapped Draco as he opened the door, only to be nearly bowled over by a voluptuous redhead wearing a long, dark overcoat and carrying a portable stereo. Before either Draco or Ginny could say a word, she had whipped off her overcoat, revealing a white nurse uniform. She sauntered across the room on her cherry red heels.

"My name," she said, in a purposely sultry voice, trailing a finger along Draco's bare chest, "is Candy Stripper." She pressed a button on the stereo, and Nine Inch Nail's "Get Down, Make Love" filled the hotel room.

Ginny gaped as Candy began to gyrate. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Candy ignored the girl in the bed as she started shedding her white dress to reveal a sparkly red and white bra, and continued to shimmy as she slithered completely out of the dress. Ginny was pulling out of her state of shock and was trying to find clothing. Draco, who by now had had the presence of mind to shut the door, for once wasn't even in the mood to admire a disrobing female. He just wanted to continue with consummating his marriage. Then he looked at the stripper again, as she swooped in close, preparing to do a move normally performed on a pole, and gasped, "Cindy Montague!"

Ginny, who had been working her way into clothing while mentally preparing to give the stripper the piece of her mind normally reserved for elderly drivers, looked up abruptly. "You know this whore?"

"I was wondering when you'd recognize me," said Cindy.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Draco said. Ginny, now clad in undies and Draco's t-shirt, crossed her arms and barely kept herself from asking the same question with her fist.

"I was hired, of course," Cindy said airily. "Is this a bad time?"

"No, it's a perfect time for a stripper," Ginny snapped. "I was lying there thinking, the only thing better than getting some right now would be to see another woman's fat ass!"

Cindy gasped, then said coyly, "Draco doesn't think my ass is fat, do you, sweetie?"

Ginny turned slowly to her husband, and looked at him expectantly.

Draco looked back and forth between the two women, and said, wisely, "I'm not your sweetie!"

Cindy pouted and said, "That's not what you used to say."

Ginny said with deceptive calm, "Really."

"Oh, yeah," said Cindy. "Me and Draco, we were real close in high school."

Ginny glanced at Draco, who shrugged helplessly. Ginny ploughed on with the questioning. "So why are you here?"

"I told you already! Vince and Greggy-boy called me up, and told me they had one hell of a gig lined up for me," Cindy replied.

"Crabbe and Goyle?" Ginny asked. "Those numbskulls hired a stripper? Now?"

"What's wrong with now?" Cindy asked. "I mean, you obviously aren't getting into it, but I bet Draco appreciates my moves."

"Will you stop asking me my opinion?" hissed Draco. "And it really is an inconvenient time. We're busy."

"Oh," Cindy said, looking at how disheveled they were. "Well, if you wanted some... company... all you had to do was ask."

Draco looked as though he wanted to consider it, then realized that Ginny would never let him have any fun ever again if he mentioned this, so he snapped, "Get out of here!"

Ginny, in the meantime, had been advancing on Cindy. "Look, you tart, I want you out of myhoneymooon suite before I'm forced to possibly break a nail while smashing your face!"

"Oh!" Cindy said, then turned to Draco. "Why the hell didn't you invite me to your wedding?" She put her hands on her mostly bare hips and glared.

"No one was invited to the wedding," said Draco.

"We eloped," Ginny said.

"And we were rather planning on avoiding people we knew for the next few days," Draco said pointedly.

"Especially mostly naked people," Ginny added.

"Well," Draco said.

Cindy looked back and forth between the couple, looking increasingly awkward.

Ginny glared, reached over, and smacked Draco upside the head. "Stop oogling!"

"I wasn't!"

"I know oogling when I see it, you idiot!"

"You certainly have been enough times," said Draco sullenly.

Ginny gasped. "Take that back!"

"I didn't say you ever did anything! You're hot! You get oogled! I oogled you!" Draco protested.

Ginny smiled. "You oogled me?"

"All the time," Draco replied. "Took me forever before I saw you without a band of brothers lurking around so I could do more than oogle."

"I didn't know you'd paid me any mind before that day you picked me up," Ginny replied.

"How could I manage to not?" said Draco. Ginny sighed happily, feeling wholly appreciated, then Draco continued talking. "I mean, your family is hardly low key, what with the florescent hair and all. You're hardly the quietest bunch in town, either. Plus, with what all you wear it's kind of impossible for anyone interested in women to ignore you."

"I can't believe you just said that!" Ginny said. Cindy slowly picked up her discarded dress, pulled on her overcoat, and gathered her stereo. She backed towards the door, saying, "I'll send you the bill."

"Send it to Crabbe and Goyle," Draco called.

"But that's not..."

Draco and Ginny glared.

"Okay, Crabbe and Goyle get the bill." With that, Cindy fled.

"You really think all that bad stuff about me?" Ginny asked, dejected. It wasn't too late for an annulment, she supposed, but then her baby wouldn't have a daddy, due to her brothers murdering him...

"I used to," Draco said honestly, before quickly amending himself. "Not now! Not anymore!"

Ginny sat down on the slightly rumpled bed, and clutched at the hem of her shirt. "You're just saying that."

"No! I'm not!" Draco said. He couldn't quite believe that he was sacrificing his pride so quickly. Malfoys traditionally never begged or pleaded, but he was already prepared to do both. "I was just saying what I said earlier that made you upset. That's not how I think of you anymore- you're completely separate from your idiotic brothers in my mind."

Ginny couldn't hold back a grin. "And the way I dress?"

"Nothing wrong with what I see," Draco replied immediately. "Though I might need closer inspection..."

"Why, Mr. Malfoy, are you propositioning me?" Ginny said coyly, batting her eyelashes.

"I believe I might be, Mrs. Malfoy," replied Draco, and they commenced to make good use of their honeymoon suite.

**

"If you want my body, and you think I'm sexy, come on sugar let me know!" warbled Draco from the shower the next morning. Ginny was settled in the middle of the bed, eating a bar of chocolate Draco had fetched her from the vending machine down the hall, and was staring in a slightly aghast manner at the bathroom door.

"Draco?" she said hesitantly.

"If you really need me just reach out and touch me, come on honey tell me so!" Draco's voice hit alarming notes, amplified by the shower stall. Ginny winced. She'd never known that he was a shower singer. Hell, she hadn't known that he sang at all- well, not that what he was currently doing could be classified as singing, as such.

Draco was now humming loudly, and abruptly switched songs. "Hey, hey, we're the Monkees!"

Ginny sighed, and crawled out of bed. She stood by the bathroom door, and yelled, "Draco!"

He stopped monkeying around long enough to yell, "What?"

"Are you by any chance killing cats in there?" Ginny asked.

"No," said Draco, sounding confused.

"Any illicit actions with cattle?"

"What? No!"

"Then what is that horrible sound?" Ginny snapped.

"You don't like my singing?" The hurt was evident in his voice.

"You know I love you," Ginny began, "but you can't sing. At all. In the least."

"I can so!" protested Draco. A few moments later, the water shut off. "No one's ever complained about my voice before, you know."

Ginny snorted. "Not to your face, anyway."

"I sing very well," Draco announced, opening the bathroom door with a puff of steam. His hair was still damp, and he was clad only in his boxers. "I don't care what you say."

"Fine then," Ginny said, fighting the urge to giggle. Maybe she could record him for back-up blackmail material. She then felt a familiar wave of nausea rising, and she shoved past her husband into the bathroom.

"Um, everything alright in there?" Draco asked, peering cautiously around the doorframe.

Ginny sat back on her heels, wiping at her mouth. "No, it isn't. I still can't believe you went and knocked me up. This sucks."

"Um, well," Draco said, knowing better than to bring up her role in it all.

She rinsed her mouth out, and continued. "I mean, can you imagine us with a baby?"

"It's going to be an experience," Draco said. "But babies are supposed to be cute, right? I mean, that's why people keep having them, right?"

"Well, they're cute unless they're crying, or need changed, or are spitting up. When they're asleep, mostly, in my experience," Ginny said.

"Maybe they're better when their actually yours," said Draco optimistically. "But we still have a while to get used to it all."

"Yeah," Ginny said. "Plus, we get to pick out a name!"

"Our boy needs a good name," Draco agreed.

"Boy?" Ginny asked.

"Our firstborn will be a boy, of course," Draco said confidently.

"It's going to be a pretty little girl that we get to dress up in frilly dresses with lots of ribbons," Ginny said.

"What do you want to bet?"

"I'm not betting on the sex of our baby with you," Ginny said tartly.

Draco raised his eyebrow.

"Okay, I name her when she turns out to be a girl," Ginny said quickly.

"Fine, I'll name our son," Draco replied. They couldn't help but to laugh together, and Draco said, "Come on. I know you wanted to play mini-golf today."

"Yay!" Ginny cheered, and crossed the room to get dressed. "Want to TP that toad woman's car on our way out?"

"Sounds like a plan," Draco said with a grin.

"Then, sundaes?"

"Of course," replied Draco. "What's a honeymoon without hot fudge?"