Disclaimer: I own nothing! It all belongs to the brilliant and wonderful J.K.R. who started it all.
"How much?" he asked.
"75 Galleons and 13 sickles, sir."
Harry Potter took a deep breath, he was doing this, he was really doing this. He grabbed a handful of gold and silver from the dark green pouch that was tied onto his waist and handed it to the shopkeeper. He looked at the item, it was perfect for her, maybe a bit more than he would have liked to spend, but still perfect.
The ring was beautifully shaped and cut, a heart shaped diamond was placed in the center of a highly polished gold band, and small circular diamonds surrounded it. They sparkled in a different way each time you looked at them. Just like she did. Harry smiled thinking of her, but was awoken from his daze by whispers at his side.
"He really loves her doesn't he, Ron? Just look at him," Ginny Weasley sighed, "I wish I had someone to love me that way, don't you?"
"Um, Gin...I do have someone," her brother replied rolling his eyes, "Women," he muttered under his breath.
"What was that?" Ginny asked raising an eyebrow, suddenly very attentive.
"Nothing Gin, nothing," he replied innocently.
"So, Harry, when's the big night?" she asked breaking off the conversation with her brother when she saw he had awoken from his trance.
"No idea, Ginny." he replied vaugely, still feeling lightheaded and eeriely warm. "But, I'll know when it comes, you know me, the hopeless romantic. I want it to be perfect for her. You guys know how overworked she is from that college and teaching at Hogwarts. But I respect that, so I'm not going to spring it on her right away, I mean, we have the rest of our lives don't we?"
Hermione Granger was attending college at the Stonehenge Academy for Advanced Witches and Wizards, and she was taking far too many courses than she needed to with her scholarship, but she insisted that it was nessecary. "Do you want me to get good grades or not, Harry? If I don't take all these courses, we won't have the life we want." she had told him. But he hadn't believed her for one second. They could have a great life, they sure had the jobs for one. Harry was the Chudley Cannons star seeker, and Hermione was the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, which seriously added to the already heavy workload she was carrying from the college. Hermione had taken over the job when she found out that the ninth professor in a row had quit. Harry hated when she went to the castle because he barely got to see her while she was there, so he tried to spend every waking moment with her during the summer. But that too was difficult because she took all of her courses for college then. All Harry knew was that he'd be glad when she was done at Stonehenge so he could finally spend some quality time with her.
"Hey, guys, I'm sorry about this, but I should be leaving. I don't like leaving Luna alone too long with her due any minute now," Ron said smiling slightly.
"Yeah," Harry nodded in agreement, "I should get going too. How about we meet up on Friday and I can tell you my plans for the proposal,".
"I thought that you were going to propose to her when you thought the time was-"
"And that time is soon, Ginny, my dear. Friday at my flat, ok?" Harry interrupted.
"Fine with me, how `bout you, Gin?"
"I'll see you there, I gues,." Ginny replied somewhat disappointed in his change of heart.
"Alright, then. See you guys later," Harry said. "And, don't forget, Ron!" he called over his shoulder as they watched him leave.
"Why does he always tell me not to forget? Does he ever tell you that?" Ron asked once Harry had gone.
"No. Because I wasn't the one who forgot his birthday!" Ginny told him starting to back away.
"One time!" He yelled, "One time!"
"Actually, it was three times!" she laughed as she ran down the street before her brother could catch her. "We're never going to let you live that one down, Ronald!"
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"Ooh, I'm never going to get these graded!" Hermione Granger exclaimed in the fire room of her living quarters, she put down the essays entitled "Recgonising Werewolf's: Ten Differences Between a Werewolf and a "Harmless" Wolf" and walked out to the balcony to pick up her favorite book A Walk to Remember. She loved the old book so much, even though it was written by a Muggle. Hermione smoothed her hand over the worn cover, traced the title with her fingertips lazily, and thumbed through the slowly yellowing pages. The book was so unhappy, yet it warmed her soul every time she read it, it was also quite unfair.
"Chapter Eighteen." she read aloud. But she didn't feel like reading the most depressing chapter in the book right now, so she turned her thoughts to her boyfriend, Harry Potter. She was constantly wondering when he was going to propose to her, they had been together for three years now, he should be asking her any time now, right?
"Maybe he doesn't want to propose to you!" said the little voice in the back of her head.
"Of course he wants to propose to me, I mean, he loves me right?" she asked the little voice aloud.
"If he doesn't I'll break his legs," someone whispered in her ear.
Hermione must have jumped three feet into the air. "Jesus Christ, Draco!" she screamed. "How the hell did you get in here?"
"Watch your language, Miss Granger," he said with a mischevious glint in his eye. "I have my own ways. You're not the only one who went sneaking around the castle at night when we were students here you know!"
"But I put a very advanced charm on my door!" Hermione exclaimed as she put her book down.
"Hermione, when being best friends with an absolutley brilliant witch like yourself, you learn some things," he grinned, "So, what's up with you and The-Boy-Who-You-Know-Who-Let-Live, is there trouble in paradise?"
"You know very well there isn't, and I would advise you not to read into it. You know that I hate associating with other professors about my personal life, especially with Dumbledore, he's always got that damn twinkle in his eye that makes you want to spill your soul to him,".
"But, I'm not a professor!" he said sounding very hurt. Hermione looked at him with a smirk on her face. "Ok, well I am, but that's not the point, I may be a professor but I'm still your very worried friend. You know you can tell me anything, Herm. I'll always be there for you, just forget all of the stupid, Mudblood comments I said to you when I was an immature little brat who didn't have his priorities straight and had no idea who really cared about him, and who's father-"
"Alright, Draco, stop degrading yourself, you're already pretty far down there on the self-esteem ladder. If you really want to know that badly I'll tell you I suppose, but don't you dare breathe a word of this to Harry or Ron!"
He looked as though Christmas had come in early. "So what's wrong?" he asked his mood immediatley changing from an arrogent child to a concerned adult.
"Well," she started, "Harry and I have been together for three years,".
"Right," he nodded.
"We're really, very happy in our relationship, but I can't help but wonder if he's going to propose to me. I know he loves me, but, I want to settle down. Get married and have a family, you know? I'm just not sure if he feels the same way as I do,".
"Herm, Harry really loves you, and I'm sure when the time is right, he'll ask you to marry him. But look at yourself! Now would not be the time to start a family with him, you're taking those very difficult courses at Stonehenge, teaching here at the castle, you're Head of Gryffindor House, the youngest Deputy Headmistress in two centuries, and you have the DA to keep yourself busy! You're just so stressed out right now that he's probably just thinking you have way too much to do right now and asking you to marry him would be a completely ludacris thought at this point and time. But mark my words, he will ask you to marry him. I'm positive he will, maybe not right now but it might be in a year or two, you'll just have to be patient with him. And if he doesn't ask you, like I said I'll break his legs," he stated simply without bothering to take a breath.
Hearing these words had knocked some sense into her, why had she even doubted Harry, of course she was stressed out and he was probably thinking the same thing. Draco reached down, gently wiped the tears off her face with his thumb and pulled her close to him. He was such a good friend to her and she had considered not telling him.
"I'm being silly," she murmered into his robes letting her tears flow freely. "Of course he wants to marry me,".
"You're not being silly," he said as he hugged her tighter to him, "That's a perfectly normal thing to think about. Here, I want you to have this." He pulled a small, black book out of his cloak and handed it to her. It had a worn cover and tattered, yellowing pages made up it's insides. The peeling golden letters on the front of it spelled out "Draco Lucius Malfoy" in loopy handwriting. "This thing got me through some of the hardest times in my life when I was feeling depressed. I was so depressed that I couldn't even bring myself to make fun of Scarhead or Weasel King."
"Wow, that's depressed," she looked up at him smiling through her tears. She opened up the book, inside were journal entries for the year 1997. She read one of them quickly, her smile fading slowly with each paragraph she read and realized suddenly how much pain he must have gone through during the Great Defeat. "Oh, Draco!" she exclaimed softly, "I never knew, I'm so sorry."
"Don't be," he said his eyes misting over slightly. He looked away and blinked a few times, when he turned back to her, they were the same storm cloud grey that they always were. "He deserved it. Anyway..." he trailed off changing the subject quickly, "Just wipe it clean with a spell and write down some of your thoughts. Sometimes it says encouraging things to you like, "Keep your chin up sweetheart!" or "If you believe in yourself no one can stop you!". It's really cheesey but it helps... I mean, it did for me," he finished solemnly.
"Thankyou so much, Draco, this is brilliant. I have a feeling it will really help me out," she told him.
"Anytime, I still owe you big time for all of the nasty things I did and said to you when we were students. By the way, did I ever tell you that I was sorry about that?"
"Yes! About a million times! And the answer is still going to be the same, forget about it I could never stay mad at you," she said laughing.
"Good," he smiled, "now, get some sleep! You have a big lesson tomorrow, isn't it on Werewolf's?"
She nodded.
"And, I do believe you were going to bring in our dear old friend Remus Lupin, correct?"
"Yes, I am. You need to get some sleep too, aren't you making the Draught of Fear tomorrow?"
"So I am," he said pulling his lesson plans out of his robes and looking through them.
"What else do you keep in there? I've never known someone to carry as many things around in their robes as you do!" she asked, very curious to sort his pockets and organize some things.
"As a very wise Muggle once said, and I use the term wise loosely... 'None of your beeswax!" he stuck out his tounge childishly and sprinted to the door before she could hex the living daylights out of him.
"Wait, Draco!" she called to him as he put his fingers on the door handle.
He turned to her, his pale blonde eyebrows raised.
"Thank you, again," she said sincereley. "I really mean it, you helped me out a lot,".
He smiled and nodded, showing that he understood and with a slight wave back to her, left without another word.
"She didn't say I couldn't tell Ginny," he said quietly to himself while walking to the statue of a one-eyed humpbacked witch. "Dissendium!" he whispered while tapping the hump with his wand. He had a slight difficulty getting his broad shoulders through the narrow hatch but managed to glide down the stone slide with ease after a well thought of charm. He held up his wand and muttered "Lumos!" and very slowly made his way below Honeyduke's. Draco strained his ears to hear if anyone was above him, but it seemed that he was alone. He made his way up the step ladder and Wingardium Leviosa'd the stone blocking his way upwards. Once in the cellar he moved the stone back and silently slipped past the consumers and workers and out the door onto the busy streets of Hogsmeade. "Ginny Weasley's apartment flat; London, England." he thought concertrating hard, and with a loud crack! like a gunshot dissappeared without a second glance from the passerby surrounding him.
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Ginny Weasley opened the door to her apartment flat in London, dropped her bag with a heavy thud, and slumped down onto her couch exhausted from a long day of work. She turned on her television and flipped through the channels lazily before decieding there was nothing good to watch on and instead of wasting away on the couch, to take a long relaxing bath to ease her thoughts, but more importantly her muscles. She walked to her master bath eager to soak in the large white tub and turned the faucuet the whole way towards the word hot, watching the steam rise steadily before her like thoughts swirling in a pensieve. While waiting for the correct water level she lit several beechwood and lavender candles with her wand and dropped some salts and oils in the tub and pulled out her wand once more to quickly mutter an incantation for white foam hoping that the combination of the three would finally clear her mind. Once the bath was full enough for her liking she slipped into it closing her eyes allowing herself to be fully submerged so that only the very tips of her flaming red hair could be seen inside the thick white foam. When Ginny had returned to the surface from her underwater paradise she saw that she was not the only one in the room. A considerably thin man with platinum blonde hair and somewhat broad shoulders had appeared and was sitting on her bathroom counter with his legs crossed and a look on his face that reminded her of a child who had just been told a secret. Only this child looked ready to burst at the seams with the precious information.
"Jesus Christ, Draco!" Ginny yelped, and jumped from the tub so that the only thing left covering her was the foam which was threatening to slide off her like melting butter. Realizing her present attire she looked at Draco who was supressing a fit of laughter with difficulty, gave another loud yelp and jumped back into the tub with a splash, her face red as the very roots of her hair.
"Hello, love. And how are you this evening?" he asked her as innocently as he could trying not to let a grin break over his face.
"I would be better if there wasn't a former Slytherin seeker sitting on my bathroom counter while I take a bath!" she said furiously.
"Now that's just hurtful, Gin-"
"How the hell did you get in here!?" she demanded almost shaking with rage still red in the face but with anger not embarrassment.
"Would you believe that's not the first time someone's asked me that tonight?" he said obviously unaffected by her sudden outburst. "Seriously though, Gin, you really oughta think about getting an Anti-Apparating charm put on your place, it's dead useful it is."
"Why are you in my bathroom when I'm practicly starkers?"
"Well actually you're not "practicly" starkers, you are, and I honestly don't have a problem with-"
"Just answer the freaking question, Draco, and don't try to play cute with me because I am not in the mood right now." she growled with her teeth bared.
Draco winced at the harshness in her tone, the Weasley temper was not to be tested, especially when dealing with a Weasley female.
"Well, I'm probably not supposed to tell you this.." he started.
"Do you mean to tell me that you came all this way just to tell me you don't think you should tell me about a secret someone told you?"
"Well..no, I suppose not," he said slowly picking his words carefully.
"Then just say it already! Geez, why can't you ever get a straight answer from a guy? Honestly it's like talking to a Centaur about something logical!" she exclaimed.
"Fine, I'll tell you," he said, letting the Devil sitting on his shoulder win the battle against the Angel.
Ginny's eyes shone with delight, she loved gossip.
"Well, Hermione told me she was worried about Harry," he confessed slowly.
"Why!? What's wrong with Harry!?" she said, hardly hiding the panic in her tone.
"Well, nothing really, I guess, but she's just worried that he won't propose to her,"
"Oh!" she exclaimed her eyes wide with terror. Ginny was horrible at keeping secrets. She quickly arranged her facial features back to their previous expression when seeing the look on Draco's face.
"You know something don't you?" he asked her, his brow raised ever so slightly.
"No, no I don't!" she said in an unnaturally high-pitched voice.
"Yes you do! What is it, Ginny? What do you know?"
"I told you I don't know any-"
She paused at the piercing stare directed towards her.
"Ginny! Tell me right now, or I might just have to use this Veritaserum." he said as he pulled a tiny vial of crystal clear fluid out of the pocket of his robes. Ginny eyed him carefully before revealing where she had been today and who she was with to the handsome blonde. When she had finished her story Draco's jaw dropped and he had a very blank stare which would have been comical if the situation had not been so serious. "Not good.." he said thickly, still staring at nothing. "Not good at all,".
"What's not good?" she asked with a slight quaver in her voice.
"I told Hermione that he probably wasn't going to propose this year because of all the work she had to do. Now, she probably doesn't want to get married to him now," he finished slowly.
"We have to fix this," Ginny stated simply,
"Oh, no! I'm not screwing this up any more than I already have," he protested.
"No, Draco, I mean we have to fix this, there are no if s, an s, or but s about it. Harry is going to propose to her in the next two weeks! He'd be heartbroken if Hermione said no!"
"Ha, hah, hah, hah, hah, hah, hah! You said butts!" he laughed childishly. "Sorry..I suppose you're-"
"YOU!" she screamed, her voice shaking with rage once more. Apparently his child-like remark had set her off again. "This is your fault! You filled her head with that nonsense and now you have to fix it! Change her mind, I don't care what you have to do, just change it! Or else, you'll have to face the wrath of Ginerva Molly Weasley!"
"Yes, ma'am." he mumbled meekly and started to prepare to apparate back to Hogsmeade.
"Wait, Draco!" she called.
He looked at Ginny who was still in the tub, but the white foam that was surrounding her was disappearing quickly.
Ginny felt him looking at her even though she had her eyes locked on the now crystal clear water. "Damn temporary bubble spell!" she said furiously and blushed crimson as she was frantically trying to cover herself up while Draco once again tried hard not to laugh.
"We're going to get together at Harry's flat on Friday probably around five-thirty or sixish." she said once she had done a satisfactory job covering herself up. "Would you like to come along with me?"
"Are you asking me on a date?" he said suprised at her sudden change of behaviour.
"No, forget I ever said it." she snapped, blushing even deeper.
"Gin, I would love to go with you as your date." he smiled at her inwardly sighing. He wondered when she was going to ask him out.
"Oh, great!" she exclaimed excitedly. "Pick me up around five then, alright?"
Draco nodded and winked at her. "It's a date." he grinned and apparated out of the flat with another loud crack!
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Ronald Weasley appeared in front of Number 12 Grimmuald Place with a faint pop, bursting at the seams with information, He hurried inside the old house with a quick rap where a door should be with his wand, and practically ran to his wife. Luna Lovegood-Weasley was sitting in the Drawing Room, the latest edition the the Quibbler lay open on her lap and her wand was tucked behind her left ear for safe-keeping. She looked up to see her husband bouncing on the balls of his feet with a huge grin plastered onto his face.
"Alright...what did you do?" she asked in a skeptical tone.
"Well it's not so much what I did, it's what Harry did," Ron explained to his wife.
"Well fine then, what did Harry do?"
"He hasn't exactly done it yet, but-"
"Ronald Weasley! Tell be right now! I won't have any skirting around the sibject, I want a direct answer!" she growled.
"HarrygonnaprosetHerm!" he said in a jumble.
"What!?"
"I said-"
"I heard what you said you loony! Ron, did you push him into doing this. He might not have been ready for it! If you did..." she glared at him and waved her wand threateningly.
"Oh, honey that's just your moodswings talking," Ron said as he waved his hand impatiently.
"I can assure you that it isn't," Luna growled.
Ron put his hand down.
"Oh, Ron, don't worry about it, I'm just so happy for Harry!" she said, her voice losing all harshness and returning to her normal, dreamlike state.
"So am-"
"But then again, what is Hermione says no!?" she said fearfully.
"She won't say-"
"She will say no! She's got too much going on right now to have to worry about a wedding! Oh, Ron!" Luna cried hyterically.
"Luna, don't cry!" Ron said not knowing what to do. He had only been around a crying woman once. After Ginny's boyfriend dumped her, he had tried to make her feel better but the result was him making it worse, and Ginny hexing him. He shuddered at the memory of having to walk around with an elephant trunk instead of a nose all day. "Honey, I'm sure Hermione will say yes, you're just being silly!" he said tenativley, as though she were going to explode at any moment.
And she did.
"I didn't ask for your opinion you prat!" She stormed out of the room with hot, angry tears streaming down her face.
Ron stood still as stone, gaping at what had just happened. Finally he shook his head slowly, smiling slightly. "PMS makes girls CRAZY!" he exclaimed as he walked upstairs to their bedroom, still marveling at how he managed to walk out of there with all of his body parts still normal and intact.
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Please R/R!! It's really easy just click the button below! Be sure to check out my other fanfiction 'Graduation Trip' which should be coming up on the site in a few days if the staff approves it.