Written for the DG forum fic exchange, fall 2011. Finally posted after a long hiatus.

Ginevra Weasley, eighteen, out of school and working three part-time jobs until she got her acceptance letter from the Harpies (and it would be an acceptance letter, she was positive of that), was perched uncomfortably on a rickety chair, leaning it back on two legs, sucking on her quill, and staring at the ceiling.

It was a warm autumn day, so the one window of the apartment was open, letting the last light of the evening filter through orange leaves and dapple the papers scattered on the desk, the unmade bed, and Ginny herself, whose un-brushed and unruly hair, pulled back with a rubber band, was the same hue as the richest of the red autumn leaves.

With a great bustling, a bundle of white feathers zipped through the window and dropped a large, stiff envelope on the desk before upsetting an inkwell and flopping, exhausted, onto the desk.

The redhead shooed the owl off, muttering unprintable expletives, salvaged what she could of her fantasy Quidditch roster and snapped "Tergeo" at the desk before, curious, she lifted the envelope and held it to the light.

The address was written in a hand she did not recognize, elaborate, loopy cursive, the sort where the capital letters were altogether illegible and had to be guessed at from the rest of the word. The address was, unremarkably, hers, although she frowned a bit at the overly formal "Miss Ginevra Weasley."

Ginny gave in to her curiosity and ripped open the envelope without further ado. Inside was a stiff white card bearing the following inscription:

Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Weasley

request the pleasure of your company

at the marriage of their son

Charles Septimus

to

Miss Pansy Leah Parkinson

at the Burrow, Ottery St. Catchpole, Devon, England

on Sunday, the seventeenth of October, nineteen ninety nine

at three o'clock in the afternoon

a reception for all

R.S.V.P.

Ginny's mouth fell open and she blinked several times, trying to clear the haze which had surely descended on her vision and must be causing her to completely, unfathomably misread those elegant, engraved golden letters...

Nope. Still there.

Was it some kind of joke? That must be right, she decided, one hand unconsciously crumpling the sheet of parchment she had been so intent on just minutes before. It was probably George. Percy didn't have a sense of humor, and Charlie wouldn't use his own name, and it wasn't Bill's style, and Ron would be vomiting at the idea alone. Had to be George.

Briefly, she considered playing along with the joke, replying in the same vein. Say she'd bring, oh, Draco Malfoy as her date. Discarding that idea quickly, she instead reached for the Floo powder to ask her parents about it.

No. She'd had no need for a fire with the sun streaming through her west-facing window, and it would take too long to build one. Her parents weren't more than ten minutes away by bus anyhow.

Ginny fumbled in her purse of Muggle money and came up with some shillings and a battered pound coin. Enough.

As she waited at the bus stop, it began to rain. Ginny sighed, and pulled her jacket tighter.

"Ginny! That is no attitude to have!"

Years ago, Ginny might have quailed at the formidable image her mother presented, apron on, red hair flying and wooden spoon in hand. Now –well, she still quailed, but only inwardly. Outwardly, she could quite match her mother in temper. "Pansy Parkinson? Of all people, Pansy Parkinson? Why haven't I heard about this sooner?" A suspicion grew in her mind. "She isn't... like, pregnant, is she?" A fiery blush spread across Ginny's face, reddening her cheeks until her freckles were erased, but she didn't back down.

"No... no... I... Young lady, if you were a little younger...!" Molly Weasley was both outraged and embarrassed, flailing for words to express the her muddle of emotions. Not quite sure of where to put her hands, she settled for waving her spoon in the air once again, sending half-mixed bread dough flying across the room.

"Speaking of young, isn't she a bit young? Like, seven years younger than Charlie?"

"Seven and a half," her mother admitted reluctantly, "But they've been going out on the sly ever since Pansy finished school, sweetheart. Seems she has a bit of a hand with dragons. Charles is just head over heels in love."

Ginny made a face at that. "She wanted to kill Harry. I mean, not that I never want to kill Harry-" actually, she was feeling an odd solidarity with the older girl now - "but she tried to turn him over to You-Know-Who. And Charlie wants to marry her?"

"That will be quite enough. Yes, they are getting married. And you, young lady, will be helping out with the wedding."

Draco Malfoy, nineteen, employed in name only at the Ministry of Magic (he detested paperwork, so his father had simply provided him with half a dozen secretaries and a bundle of enchanted quills), was sitting quite properly on a heavy, carved wooden armchair, a lamp providing perfectly sufficient lighting, neat piles of envelopes and letters on his left, an inkwell and quill pen on his right, and looking extremely peeved.

Not only was he (he, Draco Malfoy, heir to the House of Malfoy) being forced into more paperwork, but he was also doing it with his mother hanging over his shoulder and fluttering about nervously whenever he paused to shake out his aching hand.

"I don't even like Pansy." It wasn't quite a whine, but it was the next thing to it. A very dignified whine, perhaps.

"Draco! The Parkinsons are friends of ours. Why, I knew Lilith when we were both schoolgirls." Narcissa turned her necklace chain about several times, nervously.

"I don't like Pansy and I don't like writing, and I absolutely detest addressing invitations. I'm done with this. I - " Draco, who had pushed back his chair and stood up forcefully, froze when he saw that his father had entered the room, and was looking at him with a raised eyebrow. The younger man's face fell, and rearranged itself into a pout (a very dignified pout, perhaps, but it was definitely a pout). "I'll be getting back to it."

"No, on the contrary." Lucius crossed the room, a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. "I have another job for you."

On the little table in the front hall of Malfoy Manor lay, neatly opened, read and refolded, a letter from Molly Weasley.

Two weeks later

Ginny was sulking in her old room when the doorbell rang. She pushed aside the dinner she'd been picking at and went to hang over the railing as her mother answered the door.

"Hello, dear, come on in," Mrs. Weasley was saying to an unknown person–Ginny craned her neck, but couldn't quite make out the identity of their visitor. "Hear, let me take your coat."

The coat, Ginny observed with distaste, was an atrocious and undoubtedly extortionately expensive affair trimmed with fur and lined with black silk.

Enough spying. Ginny dashed down the stairs, ratcheting off the walls like a rubber ball and making as much noise as a herd of elephants, as Charlie always said. (Or at least always had said, before he went insane and fell in love with a girl with a face like lumpy, half-risen bread dough and the personality of overcooked oatmeal.) "Hey!"

"Hello." The response was not quite cold, but definitely cautious and reserved. Ginny didn't recognize the voice, and so (reasonably enough) assumed that it was one of her more distant relatives; so she didn't bother stopping and hugged the stranger without a second look.

She realized that was a mistake first when the relative froze in place like a small, startled animal, and second when she found herself hugging a lean-framed young man, with soft, pale hair under her hands, and pulled back in horror to recognize –

Draco Malfoy.

Who was apparently too stunned to speak. Which left it up to Ginny.

"Right... I don't want you to take this the wrong way," she said very quickly, "but I totally did not realize who you were and that hug wasn't meant for you. It was meant for some obscure great-aunt who I was about to be introduced to, so could we please just pretend that I just hugged great-aunt Ursula or some such, and didn't just hug you, and then we could start over again and say hi normally? Please?"

There was a brief but sufficiently awkward silence.

"That sounds like a good plan to me."

"Right."

Mrs. Weasley herded the two of them off into a spare room, explaining that they were not coming out until they could "manage to play nicely together" and "you're going to help with this wedding like it or not, young lady, so the two of you can just work out a nice toast for Charlie and Pansy," and "keep a civil tongue in your head, and yes, you do have to give it at the wedding. Together. No, I really don't care. In!"

Before either of the young people quite knew what happened, they were in the rather dusty "sitting room" (the Weasleys never actually used it, but for some reason Mrs. Weasley was quite confident that part of being "nice people" was having a fancy room which was never used) and Mrs. Weasley was giving the door a good tug to close it (the warped frame meant it barely closed in the fall and not at all in the spring), and then there was the click that meant it was locked, and then they were alone.

Ginny sat on the piano bench because all the upholstered chairs had annoying dust-cover things on them.

Draco settled uncomfortably on the nearest chair and pointedly didn't look at her.

Ginny tried not to look at Draco either, she really did. But sitting in an empty room staring at a blank wall was boring, and staring at yellowed sheet music on a piano that she had long ago forgotten how to play wasn't much of an improvement, and she kept remembering how soft that hair had felt, and…

Giving up, she sneaked a glance at Draco out of the corner of her eye.

Draco, who had been sneaking glances at her for some time already, snapped to attention and directed his glare at the wall for a minute before slumping and beginning to toy with the half-melted wax fruit arranged on the rickety side table between them.

"We're stuck here, aren't we?" he broke the silence glumly.

"Never known Mum to give in on anything, so yes, we are." Ginny's tone wasn't quite as acerbic as she had intended.

"What have you been doing since... school?" The unsaid words hung in the air between them. The war. Voldemort. It was so much more than school they had gone through. Not together, exactly, but at least in close proximity.

"Not much. Quidditch. You?"

"Work. It's dull. Even this is an improvement."

"Oh?" Brown eyes glinted. "Hanging out with the weasel is an improvement?"

"No! Not what I meant!" Draco fumbled for some way to save his dignity. "I meant... y'know, being stuck in a stuffy room. And you're not the weasel anymore. I mean, you're not a pesty kid with hair that hurts my eyes. Not that it doesn't hurt my eyes, but..."

Score and point for me, Ginny thought, grinning.

"You're grinning like an idiot, Ginevra, what are you plotting?"

"None of your business."

"So you are plotting something."

"Just a toast. That is what we're supposed to be doing, isn't it?"

"Sure, sure you were coming up with a toast. Let's hear it, then."

Ginny shrugged. "I don't even know the proper format for these things. Do you?"

"Of course I do. What kind of upbringing do you think I had? Look, why don't you just let me write the stupid toast, and then we can get out of here and go about our nice separate lives?"

Ten minutes ago, Ginny would have liked nothing better. But now Draco had made it into a contest, and she would be darned if she'd let a Malfoy best her in anything, even something so stupid as toast writing. "No! Your toast would be awful. I'll come up with something."

"Go on, then."

"Let's see..." Ginny picked up a fake banana, lifted it in the air like a wineglass, and extemporized. "I would like to congratulate my dear older brother, Charles, on his marriage to that utter scumbag, the repulsive Pansy Parkinson..."

"If you can't settle down and be serious," put in Draco, "then we'll never get this done."

"Fine, why don't you give it a try then?"

"Very well," Draco snatched the banana from her hand, "I will."

He stood, toasted the air with the banana, coughed politely, and began.

"To Pansy of the Noble House of Parkinson: that this fine young lady, who has succeeded in the artful seduction of the vagabond dragon-tamer-"

He never got any further than that, for at that moment, an apple collided with his face at high velocity. "Damn! What was that for?" Draco exclaimed, sitting down and covering his face with his hands, peeking out between his fingers.

"Don't call my brother names!"

"What the hell is your problem, woman? You started it! I'm going to have a black eye! If I have a black eye for the wedding, you are so going to get it."

"Oh, I see. You're mad because I ruined your perfect looks. Excuse me."

Things might have gotten worse from that point, but fortunately enough, Ron chose that moment to poke his head in and announce–pointedly addressing only Ginny –that dinner was ready.

The atmosphere at the dinner table was strained, to say the least.

Mr. Weasley was making a heroic effort to be civil, and Draco put Mrs. Weasley at ease with a few well-turned compliments about her cooking. Ginny and Ron, on the other hand, were making no such effort, and after a few verbal (and one physical) smacks from Mrs. Weasley for provoking Draco, they spent the rest of dinner bickering between themselves.

After dinner, Draco engaged Mr. Weasley in a polite and rather abstracted discussion of the flaws of the educational system, tossing words like "prescriptivist," "vocational" and "Montessori" around with an air that quite petrified the older man. Ginny and Ron were roped into doing the cleanup and expressed their distaste for the task, Draco, and the world at large by banging the dishes about with rather more force than necessary.

"Can't Draco go home now?" Ginny whined, staggering under a dozen plates which teetered precariously, threatening to come crashing to the ground at any moment.

"Have you –" Mrs. Weasley broke off to snatch the forks away from Ron, who was attempting to throw them one at a time into the sink from across the kitchen, "–have you got a toast ready?"

"Well...not exactly...but…"

"Then finish it. Or Draco can stay the night, and you can finish it in the morning."

"He's going to what?" Ron was gaping like a goldfish that had just been informed that its lease has expired and it had three days to evacuate its bowl.

"Stay the night, dear. Don't drop the salad, I need the leftovers for a soup tomorrow." Mrs. Weasley relieved Ron of the object in question when it became clear that he was in no state to process her words. "Do I need to lock you two in the parlor again, or can you work in your old room without storming off or running to me to tattle every five minutes?"

Ginny could form no coherent reply to that (especially since most of the truthful ones sounded oddly like "no"), so she went off to get Draco and drag him upstairs.

Since she'd been living on her own for a full year now, Ginny's room was cleaner than she'd ever kept it. Other than that, it was still very much hers, from the walls (candy-cane striped, pink and white) to the posters (the ballerina ones her extended family had kept insisting on giving her covered up with full-length pictures of her favorite Quidditch players) to the furniture (pink and white, and covered, much to Ginny's disgust, with an effusion of roses) to the curtains (lacy white and tied back with pink satin bows).

Ordinarily, Ginny didn't mind the, er, color scheme. It was to be expected–her family hadn't had a girl for generations, and were, as a consequence, rather over-excited about the fact. And if she had overcompensated at times during her childhood (turning the expensive dolls from great-uncle Godfrey into impromptu Quidditch players had, in retrospect, been a poor idea), no one was very much the worse for it. But ushering Draco in was more than a bit humiliating, and she sat down on the pink quilt of her canopied bed with an outward defiance to match her inward trepidation.

"Hmm," was Draco's only comment as he seated himself on a tiny wooden stool, and the idea that maybe he wasn't a complete prat flickered briefly through Ginny's mind, to be replaced quickly with a number of more reasonable hypotheses, such as him considering her beneath his contempt, just wanting to finish the toast and get away, or being under the lingering influence of an Imperius curse.

"We need to work this out," Ginny announced with finality, "or Mum'll probably make you stay the night, and that would displace the incident with Millicent, the giant squid and a severely mispronounced spell on my list of Experiences Not To Repeat."

Draco struggled with words for a moment before he managed a simple, "Agreed."

"And since we're clearly not getting anywhere together, we can work separately for a bit."

"Brainstorm," Draco nodded. "Got paper? And quills?"

"Sure." Ginny poked about in her desk and found a pad of stationery (headed, of course, by a garland of roses), a quill and a fragment of purple crayon. She kept the quill for herself.

For a while, the two of them scribbled in silence, with much quill biting on Ginny's part. (The only reason Draco hadn't demanded the quill was that he'd noticed just how many tooth marks marred the shaft, and decided to leave well enough alone.) Ginny scribbled in quick bursts, while Draco wrote slowly and persistently in the same smooth hand with which he had addressed the invitations. Soon enough, Ginny was staring into space as Draco continued to slave away.

Growing impatient, Ginny reached over and nabbed Draco's paper. With equal alacrity, Draco yanked his hand back, as though afraid of contamination should their hands accidentally brush.

Ginny read aloud, "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers… Now is the winter of our discontent… Made glorious summer by this son of York." She turned to him, arching an eyebrow. "Really, Draco? What's next, 'to be or not to be'?"

"No," the blond growled, giving her the evil eye, "Next is 'friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.' Appropriate for a toast, no?"

"Can't you come up with anything that's not an utterly irrelevant Shakespeare quote? What winter of discontent?"

"I'm sure your ideas are so much better, then?" Draco lunged for the ink-stained paper that Ginny was hastily trying to conceal behind her back. "I see, Weasley." Holding the paper high–Ginny was jumping in the air trying to retrieve it–he began with mock solemnity, "'I am pleased to present to you on this happy day/A most charming couple, the bride like a sunlight ray/I wish that they always most happy be may'… You do realize that it doesn't have to rhyme, right? And–" he continued over her shrieks of indignation,"–that that's utterly ungrammatical? Besides the fact that it's simply the most pitiful excuse for poetry I've ever heard?"

Ginny tackled Draco.

The fight which ensued was quite impressive: Ginny was smaller than Draco, but she had no qualms whatsoever about attacking him, having grown up with six older brothers, while Draco was rather uncomfortable retaliating. At first, at least.

They rolled over on the floor several times, shaking the rooms below them and causing enough of a din for Percy to call out, "Oy! Quiet down in there!" before Draco screeched at an impressively high pitch and pulled away, saying, "No biting!"in a tone of voice which was more panicked than authoritative.

"Scared?" Ginny taunted, pulling into a defensive crouched position, her face flushed and hair flying. "Master Malfoy always had his thugs fight for him, can't take it himself?"

A snort. "You fight like a girl."

"You weren't saying that a moment ago."

"You bit me!"

"Wimp."

"Wench."

"Bigot."

"Illiterate."

"Who's illiterate?"

"You're illiterate."

"I don't see you writing this toast either!"

"At least I was coming up with Shakespeare and not some miserable excuse for a poem!"

"At least I can write my own poetry! And I know Shakespeare too!"

"Oh?" A sudden smirk. "Fie, fie, unknit that threatening unkind brow–"

"Ill met by moonlight, proud Draco."

"Twas told me you were rough, and coy, and sullen–"

Ginny wondered, suddenly, exactly how familiar with Shakespeare Draco was. Specifically, if he knew the context for the lines he was quoting. Ready to bring this particular game to a close, she offered, "Do as adversaries do in law, strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends."

"Fair enough," Draco acknowledged. Then, just as Ginny was starting to feel pleased with herself, "But we still have to come up with a toast."

"This is useless," Ginny groaned, throwing herself across the ottoman.

"Why don't we just sing 'Weasley is our King' and have done with it?" suggested Draco, with the air of one who proffers a reasonable solution to a long-standing and rather frivolous dispute.

"Because that's a beastly, stupid song that wasn't even funny when we were kids in school. Besides, Charlie was a Seeker, so it doesn't even apply."

"So you agree that it does apply to Ron, then?"

"No! No, I mean, our version does, yours doesn't!"

"So you sing yours. I bet you can't carry a tune –and anyhow, everyone will be so enthralled by my singing voice they won't hear a word of yours."

"Is that so?"

"Yes."

"Is not."

"Is."

"Put your money where your mouth is."

"I would, if you had any money to put up against it, Miss Weasley."

"Here we go again," Ginny groaned. "Neither of us can keep on topic for five minutes."

"I'm not sure that's my fault." Draco was unbearably smug.

"Forget it." Ginny snorted. "I'm not doing this."

"Go on, do your sulking. When you're done, we can get back to work."

"No, I mean it. I'm done. I'm my own woman. I don't have to write some stupid toast just because my mother tells me to."

"Oh?" Draco cocked an eyebrow.

"Yeah. Hey... I wonder..." Ginny walked over into the corner and started tapping her foot on the floorboards.

"What are you doing?"

"I used to..." Ginny squatted and started prying at a board. "Ah. Here."

"What have... you've got to be kidding me, Weasley!"

"We're back to 'Weasley' now? You'll have to be nicer than that if you want some of this."

"You were an awful kid. Awful, awful. I don't know how your parents managed you."

"I did have six brothers. I think that really explains both why I was such a handful, and how my parents managed."

"Do you have cups for this?"

"What? No, but Mum won't think anything of it if we help ourselves to a couple of mugs."

"Want me to run down and get them?"

"Yes, please."

"Sure thing."

Draco returned with two scuffed mugs and a corkscrew. Ginny, in the meantime, had pulled out her desk from the wall and moved the stool and ottoman next to it. "Do the honors?" she asked, offering the bottle to Draco.

Draco did.

The wine was rather cheap and lukewarm from sitting under the floorboards, but Ginny didn't know the difference and Draco didn't care.

Some hours later, when Molly Weasley had walked rather slowly up the creaky stairs and rattled the loose doorknob for a minute in an attempt to get it to open, she found Draco and Ginny sitting quite primly at the desk working assiduously on some paper. They smilingly assured her that they had reconciled their differences and really wanted to make sure the toast was perfect, and so they were just going to pull an all-nighter on this one, no trouble at all, thank you, goodbye.

"'s this really prudent?" Draco asked afterwards, with the least slur to his voice hinting that it might be a bit too late to ask. "I mean, we've got the wedding tomorrow."

"And? We'll be fine. It's just one bottle. One bottle divided by two people, divided by two mugs, divided by eight hours...and it wasn't even a whole bottle to start with. More like half. Or two-thirds."

"Really?" Draco squinted, trying to recall. "Could've sworn it was a whole bottle. Still. Maybe not. Mud in your eye."

"An' yours. Bottoms up. Hey, this toasting stuff is easy."

"Sure is. Way easy. Bet I could write that toast now."

"Betcha could. Say, why don' we?"

"Why not?"

They pulled out the papers, and ideas flowed as freely as wine, but of course they had to try out each new toast as they went along. One thing led to another, and soon the table was covered with ink stained papers (some of them had red ring-shaped stains as well, but no one particularly cared), and the bottle was mostly empty, and Draco, who couldn't hold his liquor very well under the best of circumstances, was snoring lightly, and Ginny really saw no reason not to join him.

When they woke up the next morning, Draco went to gargle with Ginny's mouthwash. Ginny could hear him and her brothers across the house: "Morning, Malfoy," "Bugger off, Weasley," "My, we're cheerful in the mornings," "Shut your trap." Her head hurt too much to think, let alone read, so she just crammed last night's notes in a manila envelope and tucked it into her purse. They could just read off them for the toast.

"Bill! Rise and shine!" Mrs. Weasley was rapping at her children's doors.

"Whenever," Bill said, "I hear you saying 'Rise and shine! Rise and shine!'–"

"Ginny! Rise and shine!" Rap, rap.

"–I think to myself–" Bill continued.

"–How lucky dead people are," Ginny finished for him. "Coming, Mum." And then, as she dragged herself off the couch where she had finally lost consciousness, she groaned,"Ow, my head. And I don't have any dress robes. Mum?"

Luckily, the elder Weasley had a little more foresight than her daughter and had procured a nice dress for her daughter as part of the wedding preparations. With much grumbling, Ginny locked herself in her room, ignored Draco's insistent banging at the door, and struggled with the perverse, slippery pink fabric of the gown.

"Let me in, Ginny! I need my shoes!"

"I'm changing," she called in response, and then belied her own words by opening the door while tugging the strap over her shoulder. "Here, zip me up, will you? Where did you get the suit?"

"Floo'd back to my own house," Draco replied, pulling so hard on the stubborn zipper that Ginny was afraid it might break. "Only took a–there," as it finally yielded. "Turn around."

Ginny obeyed without thinking, the full skirt swishing around her legs.

"You look nice. I mean. The dress looks nice... on you. Nice dress. Very nice," Draco commented. It had originally been intended to be both snarkier and more articulate, but somehow didn't quite work out.

"Um, thanks. I think Mum wants us to help with the refreshments."

The two of them were quickly laden with trays of various appealing appetizers, with detailed instructions as to where to put them and dire threats if they so much as thought about touching the hors d'oeuvres (This last didn't stop Draco from sneaking a few olives, but he was pretty sure Ginny didn't mean her threats to tell on him). Eventually, the guests started arriving, and both of them had to greet distant family members who wanted nothing more than to kiss and pinch cheeks and coo over how much they'd grown and Ginny was just a young lady now and they couldn't believe it and surely Draco would be getting married himself any day now.

It was some time before either of the teenagers could escape.

When they did, they scurried off to Ginny's room, pushed aside last night's wreckage, and sat down to chat a bit. After mutually complaining about annoying relatives and swapping a few anecdotes (Draco thought that Ginny stealing her brothers' brooms was hilarious, while Ginny was simultaneously horrified and delighted at some of the pranks Draco had played on his mother's prissy friends as a child), Draco suddenly paused in open-mouthed horror.

"What?" Ginny demanded.

"What do you mean?"

"Why do you look even more than usual like a staring idiot?"

"The toast!"

"What?"

"The toast," Draco hissed. "You have the toast?"

"Sure. It's in my purse. You want to take a last look at it before we give it?"

"Seems prudent." An exchange of papers, a pause. Then a highly poignant, "Shit."

"Language, Draco."

"Not the time, Ginny. Have you looked at this?"

"Of course. I wrote it."

"No, I mean since last night."

"Not really, no... oh. I see."

"Exactly."

"We can't use this, can we?" Ginny looked miserably over the incoherent, profanity-dotted pages, the words "BUTTERED TOAST" scrawled across the top in what must have made sense at the time as a title.

"No, we can't. Come up with something, quick!"

"What? Why me?"

"Because my head hurts!"

"Mine bloody well does too, Draco!"

"Well, find a quill, because we've got to come up with something."

Rummaging for a quill in her purse, Ginny replied miserably, "I don't think I can, Draco. I thought I could last night, but it must have just been the wine."

"Doesn't matter. Just start writing. Anything's better than this."

As it turned out, it wasn't just the wine. It seemed when the two of them weren't too busy bickering to actually do any work they worked quite well together. They threw ideas at each other, watched them bounce, and came up with something halfway presentable quickly enough.

Ginny tucked the papers into her purse. "If we run, we can make it to the ceremony."

"Right. Let's go."

The two of them jogged down the stairs and were going to dash out the door when Draco froze. "Oh, no."

"What?" Ginny demanded, panicking. The tone of Draco's exclamation suggested nothing less than nuclear cataclysm or the rebirth of Voldemort who had been defeated thoroughly two years before.

Draco, however, was staring into the hall mirror. "My hair!"

"What the..." Ginny was speechless. "Yes, Draco, it's a bird's nest. So's mine. This is my brother's wedding. I'm not going to miss it because of your fashion sense."

"I'm not fit to be seen in public!"

"I–"

A new voice. "There's time still."

The voice of reason was Luna, dressed in a floor-length sheath dress the most hideous shade of vermilion Ginny had ever seen and wielding a hairbrush whose color of green rivaled her dress in sheer painfulness to the eye.

"Sit down, both of you," she ordered and commenced brushing out Draco's hair with leisurely care. "You fell in love last night and stayed up till midnight trading your deepest secrets?"

"Not... exactly," grumbled Draco, squirming under the gentle strokes, at the same time as Ginny said, "No!" very loudly.

"No?" Luna tugged at a snarl. "In that case, you got drunk. Silly of you. Aren't you supposed to give a toast today?"

"Yes, but we've got it all ready. Really, Luna, the ceremony will have finished by the time you're done with him."

"No, you'll be just in time to hear the vows, I think." Her smile clearly said, "Don't ask me where I got that ridiculous assertion from, I really don't care if you believe me." (In Ginny's experience, when Luna gave that smile, it meant she was right.) "Here, Ginny, you brush your hair out while I finish Draco's up."

Ginny complied happily enough, but Draco twisted around in his seat and protested, "What do you mean, finish it up? It's fine! Perfect! You did a great job, now leave my hair alone."

Luna's face fell. "But you grew it out! And it's so soft. Isn't his hair soft, Ginny?"

"Very soft," Ginny agreed, grinning wickedly. "You should braid it. In lots of little braids. And put flowers in it."

"No flowers," Luna objected quite seriously. "That would look absurd."

Draco knew when he had more girls going at him than he could handle. Resigned, he turned back forward and let Luna's thin fingers dart through his hair and twist it into complex shapes, while Ginny tugged the hairbrush through her own matted hair.

"It's just too smooth," lamented Luna. "It all slips out. I can't do anything fun with it."

"Good," Draco growled, his face contorting not so much with the pain of his scalp as with terror of exactly what his hair was going to look like in five minutes. (This was the girl who considered shaving her eyebrows off and painting them back in bright purple a fashion statement.)

"Hairband? ... Thanks," Ginny pulled her hair back with the borrowed scrunchie. "There, I'm presentable. Draco?"

"Almost done," Luna replied, tugging a braid into place. Then she surveyed her handiwork for a moment, patted it, and said, "There you go. Hurry now." She herself slipped out, shutting the door softly behind her.

Draco gave Ginny a meaningful look, and raised an eyebrow. "Don't spare my feelings. How bad is it?"

"Hideous," Ginny replied maliciously. "Adorable. You'll be utterly humiliated. Let's go."

"No, really." Draco moved to block the door. "We're not going out of here until I know."

"It's... fine." Really, really good-looking didn't seem to be a viable opinion to voice, and Ginny suspected it might not be utterly unbiased, either.

"Whatever. Let's go," Draco whined.

From the back of the crowd, Ginny and Draco could just see Pansy smiling at Charlie as he vowed, "I, Charles Weasley, take you, Pansy Parkinson, to be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health–" a moment's hesitation, and Ginny knew instantly that her brother had forgotten the vows, and only had time to think oh no before he improvised, "–come hell or high water, till death do us part."

Draco looked like he was about to choke, whether from indignation or laughter Ginny was not quite sure. Pansy managed to look unflustered and repeated the vow with only the slightest inflection as she said, "in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part."

A few more ritual words, fireworks (some magical, some the kind with gunpowder), and Pansy and Charlie were kissing among cheers. Then they mingled with the crowd, and it was time for dinner.

The food was both good and plentiful, although the atmosphere was a bit strained, especially at the high table where all the Parkinsons and Weasleys (and the lone Malfoy) sat. Ron wasn't being terribly subtle about trying to pick a fight, and Mr. Parkinson's chair had had an enhanced Whoopee cushion on it, courtesy (presumably) of George. Pansy and Charlie were being deliberately oblivious, grinning like idiots and feeding each other cake.

Once the eating had slowed down and the small talk had started, Mr. Weasley stood and called for silence.

"Ginny, the groom's sister, and Draco, a friend of the bride, have a toast they'd like to propose. Everyone make sure you have something in your glass!"

A brief buzz, some clanking as wine and punch were poured, and then the pavilion was silent. Ginny's throat tightened. Time to make fools of ourselves, she thought, near panic.

Smoothly, Draco pushed back his chair and stood. Raising his glass, he waited a moment, ensuring all eyes were on him, before he began.

"To Charles Weasley, a Seeker, a dragon tamer, a man of extraordinary courage.

"May he find his new bride to be a prize worthy of seeking, a dragon with no need to be tamed, a goal for all his daring.

"May the union of fire and ice, of gold and silver, of cunning and courage, bring joy to the happy couple and to all of you who wish them joy."

Ginny's knees shook as she stood. Draco flashed her a reassuring grin and she found her voice.

"To Pansy Parkinson, a young woman of renown; strong when needed, gentle at heart, friend to beasts.

"She loves unicorns, but today she ceases to walk among them and turns to dragons. May she never regret it.

"May the union of fire and ice, of gold and silver, of cunning and courage, bring joy to the happy couple and to all of you who wish them joy."

Raising her glass, Ginny clinked it against Draco's, watching the red wine swirl around the sides.

"To Charlie and Pansy!" someone called back, and a cheer started as the newlyweds were toasted with every glass there.

The evening was long and eventful, with everything that a wedding should have. When the dancing started, Draco slipped off to wangle a dance with the bride, and Ginny sulked by the wall until he returned. They danced for hours – just so they could talk, of course; Draco mocked Ginny ("Honestly, Weasley, have you never danced before? Isn't that supposed to be part of a young lady's education?") and Ginny tripped Draco once, and they both laughed and grinned ike fools.

Then someone had to drag a chair out, and Charlie removed Pansy's garter, and all the unmarried men flocked to catch it. As soon as he threw it, they leapt and tackled each other, winding up in an uncivilized heap. Ginny watched the tussle with some amusement.

Eventually, Draco managed to extract himself, a gauzy article of feminine clothing clutched in his hand.

"You caught the garter?" Ginny demanded.

"Of course I caught the garter." A smirk. "Seeker, remember? Besides, Malfoys win at everything."

"You do realize that's supposed to mean you get married next? To whoever catches the bouquet?"

"I know." Damnable smirk.

Luna caught Ginny's elbow just then. "Come on, Pansy's throwing her bouquet."

"I'm not–" Ginny gave up, allowing her friend to manhandle her among the giggling girls. Somehow, she wound up at the very front of the pack, trying to avoid eye contact with Pansy. I will not catch it, I will not, I will not...

"Pansy!" Ginny squeaked, outraged. "You are not supposed to aim for the head!"

Pansy just grinned. She was a Slytherin, after all. Causing trouble was her forte.

And Ginny could only stare at the limp bouquet of white flowers in her hands, reeking of cloying perfume, an expression of utter horror on her face.

That is, until Draco came over, and distracted her attention quite effectively.

The other young people snickered for the first few minutes of the kiss. About four minutes in, a cheer started (no one was sure who started it, although suspicions were cast on Luna), and continued until Narcissa came over to see what was the matter.

"Draco!" Narcissa exclaimed, scandalized. "Draco! Miss Weasley!"

"Miss Malfoy," corrected some wit from the audience. (This one was definitely not Luna. It might have been Charlie, though).

"Draco!" she tried again, more shrilly.

Draco resolutely ignored her, as Ginny and he were still busy upstaging her big brother at his own wedding.

"Draco!" One last time.

It was the last time because Ginny chose that moment to remove one of her high-heeled shoes and fling it, with a Quidditch player's aim, at Narcissa's head.

At Ginny's own wedding, her new mother-in-law still hadn't forgiven her. Her father-in-law, on the other hand, thought his son had done quite well.

And no one gave a toast at their wedding.

Prompt: Farrha's Prompt #1
Basic premise: To the horror of all, Charlie and Pansy are getting married. Ginny and Draco must come together to write a toast... without ripping each others' throats out. Well, they can only try.
Must haves: A shoe flying at one of the guests at the wedding. Draco and Ginny caught in a compromising position by Narcissa. Banter! And lots of it!
No-no's: OOC.
Rating range: Whatever suits your fancy.
Bonus points: Luna trying to braid Draco's hair.