Filius J. Flubberbuster stared bleakly through the wrought-iron gates that guarded the mansion before him, and groaned. He should have been home by now. Normally, by 5:42 on a Friday evening, he would have traded his boots for a pair of slippers and have been settling into his easy chair with a cup of tea. A cup of tea laced with Ogden’s Old Firewhisky, he thought longingly, and gripped the bars of the gate. And he might have been home too, except that just at 4:58that afternoon a baby had been born.

When the Curse-Minder had sounded in the office of Magical Curses and Contracts, where Filius was Senior Secretary, every head in the office had jerked up to watch the message board by the door. When the message about the baby’s birth had finished writing itself, Filius had looked around to find every single desk in the office suddenly empty. He had to give credit to the Juniors and Assistants: they weren’t stupid. None of them was about to stick around long enough to be assigned to this case.

He had sighed then, and turned his eyes determinedly away from the department clock, where the hand bearing his name was almost pointing to “Flooing Home.” He reached up and caught the roll of parchments that swooped through the door at that moment, and took his cloak from the peg on the wall. It looked like he was going to be the one to put his head into the serpent’s mouth tonight.

As he stood outside the gates of Malfoy Mansion, he thought about the parchment in his hand and what it contained. For all he dreaded the encounter ahead the professional part of him was intrigued by the mission. It was a rare curse, one that had not been called to account since the year 13 B.C.: The Curse of the Firstborn. He knew the words by heart; he had been reading them nervously, over and over to himself from the time he'd left the office this afternoon:

There were Standards spelled out as well, specific to these families:

Since the original Firstborn Daughter, Camille Malfoy, had been twenty-five years old when she had been murdered on her wedding day, the Standard specified that the Firstborn Daughter who would take her place must marry by the age of twenty-five.

The wedding must take place in the same venue as the aborted one had, over two hundred years ago; a Ceremony of Rings within the Sacred Stone Ring.

The marriage must last a year and a day, according to the standard by which the Wizarding world had, until a century ago, judged a marriage to be successful.

Lucius Malfoy was going to hate this.

There was nothing else for it, though. He held his wand tip to the small square panel set in the stone column to the right of the gate. “Ministry of Magic,” he said wearily.

A moment later the gates swung silently in and Filius started up the walk. In spite of his trepidation, he looked around himself appreciatively as he approached the mansion. The wide walk was bordered on both sides with boulders of glossy black obsidian and beyond them the deep, velvet green lawns rolled away to tiers of spruce forest. He skirted a fountain in the middle of the walk, an iron statue of the Medusa, which spouted water from the mouths of the snakes that were her hair. It was almost lovely, in a...sinister way.

He had ascended the wide, marble steps of the house and was reaching for the cobra-head shaped doorknocker when this door, too, swung open. He looked down into the bulging eyes of the house-elf who had opened the door.

“Ministry of Magic,” he told it.

The house-elf bowed low. “If Sir will follow me.”

Filius followed the little creature through the cavernous entrance hall and through a complicated series of plushy-carpeted corridors. He had never been completely at ease with the way the rich kept these--these slaves to do all their work for them. He supposed his objection to it hearkened back to his University days in the 1960's--Equality for the Masses, and all that rot. Those days were long over of course, but the creatures still made him feel guilty, bobbing about in those filthy rags they wore, saying, ‘yes Sir’ and ‘no Sir’, groveling and cringing. Filius always felt the absurd impulse to tip them for their services.

They stopped before a massive pair of walnut doors. The house-elf knocked twice before throwing his little shoulder against one of the doors and heaving it open. They stepped into a large study, furnished in purple velvet and deeply-burnished walnut paneling.

“Ministry of Magic to see Master,” announced the house-elf.

A man rose from his seat behind the desk. “Leave us, Dobby.”

“Very good, Master.” With a series of little, scraping bows, the house-elf backed his way out the door, pulling it closed behind him.

“Ministry of Magic, eh?” said the man behind the desk, in a not entirely friendly way. He stepped forward and offered his hand, which Filius shook. It was icy cold, the grip a little too hard, as though the man wanted to make it clear which one of them was going to be in control of this conversation.

“Lucius Malfoy, as I’m sure you are well aware, or else you wouldn't be here. And my wife, Narcissa.” He waved his hand to the right where a cool, regal-looking blonde was perched on a settee. A small child played with a toy broomstick on the carpet near her feet. The woman looked blankly at Filius--through him, really--before turning her attention back to the child. Lucius himself was a tall man, much taller than Filius, with sleek blond hair and chilly gray eyes. He peered down at the Ministry Official as though he were examining a particularly loathsome specimen of mold in a petri dish.

“Well, what can we do for you?” he said imperiously.

“Filius Flubberbuster, sir, Department of Magical Curses and Contracts.” Filius willed himself not to click his heels and bow.

Lucius’ gaze travelled slowly up and down him, and Filius was painfully conscious of his own thinning hair and bulging midriff. Before this wealthy, sophisticated man he felt clumsy and plebian and about twelve years old. Just do your job, he thought.

“I am here to inform you,” he began, a trifle too loudly, “that at 4:58 this afternoon Molly Weasley, wife of Arthur Weasley, gave birth to a baby girl.”

Lucius frowned, a faint furrow that appeared between his well-shaped eyebrows but hardly extended to mar the calm of his perfect face. After a pause, his frown gave way to a smile, and he allowed a low, indulgent chuckle. “A girl! Very funny, Flubberbuster. A good joke! But you won’t trip me up on that one.” He shook his finger playfully at Filius. “It is not possible that Arthur Weasley has fathered a girl.” Although he smiled, Lucius Malfoy did not look amused in the least. On the contrary, he looked quite dangerous.

He went on. “You are either joking or you are misinformed, Flubberbuster. Weasleys don’t have girls, you see.” He smiled as though he and Filius were sharing a private joke, laughing over someone else’s stupid mistake. “They don’t have girls any more than Malfoys have girls.”

Filius did not get the joke. “You--you say that, sir,” he stuttered, “as if it were a foregone conclusion.”

“Perhaps it...is,” said Lucius, slowly and succinctly, as though giving an obvious hint to a slightly dim child.

Filius was puzzled. “Certainly sir, girls are not common in either family, but I assure you that not only is it possible; it has happened.”

Lucius’ expression of amusement turned to one of anger. Filius forged ahead. “I am therefore obliged to deliver this to you--” he held out a roll of parchments, sealed and tied with the green Ministry of Magic ribbon. “It is the Curse Standard pertaining to Arthur Weasley’s daughter and your--” he glanced uneasily at the child playing on the carpet—“your son.”

Lucius’ voice grew deadly low and calm. “Narcissa,” he said, his eyes holding Filius’ in a way that Filius found frightening, “Narcissa, take Draco to the nursery.”

The woman did not argue. With a frightened glance at the Secretary, she scooped the child off the floor and, ignoring his screams of protest at being separated from his broomstick, hurried out of the study.

When they had gone, Lucius indicated the seat she had vacated on the settee. Filius sat, noting vaguely that the seat was not warm as a seat usually is when someone has been sitting there. As if there were no warmth at all in the woman…

Lucius settled himself behind his desk again, folding his hands carefully, ensuring that he was fully in control of himself before he spoke. When he did speak, his voice was chillingly quiet.

“You are speaking, I believe, of the Curse of the Firstborn.”

Filius nodded.

“I know all about the curse,” Malfoy continued. “And I am going to share a little secret with you, Flubberbuster.” He leaned forward. Unconsciously, Filius recoiled.

“I happen to know,” Lucius said, in a low voice,“ that the ancestors on both sides--Malfoy and Weasley--took great care to ensure that the Curse of the Firstborn would never become an...issue.” His voice hissed strangely over the word, and Filius shuddered.

Lucius lowered his voice still more, so that the Secretary had to strain to hear. “Do you think it is an accident that neither the Malfoys nor the Weasleys have borne a girl in over two hundred years? It is no accident! Our ancestors arranged it, you see, as a means of--er--circumventing the Curse. A Filial Charm, I believe it was. No girls in either family line, only boys. That’s what the Filial Charm does.”

Filius frowned. “But sir, Filial Charms are only ninety-nine percent effective.”

Lucius went on as though Filius had not spoken. “You’ll understand why then, in light of all provision against this very thing coming to pass, I must question whether--whether or not the brat is really Arthur’s. If she is not, of course, the Curse will not pertain to her. Or to us.” Lucius sat back, looking extremely smug.

Filius tried not to let his loathing for the man show in his face. Arthur and Molly Weasley were one of the most devoted couples he had ever known. He’d eat his own wand sideways if the baby wasn’t Arthur’s. He said none of this to Malfoy however, only stood and placed the roll of parchments on the man’s desk.

“It is your right, of course sir, to demand a full enquiry into the matter. If your investigation unearths foul play, the case will be taken up with the MLES. Otherwise, you can expect to hear from my department again when your son comes of age.” He went to the door, resisting the sudden, obsequious urge to knuckle his forelock at Malfoy. “I’ll find my own way out. Good day to you sir.”

It was not until he had hurried down the walk and was safely outside the iron gates that Filius felt he could breathe easily again. He pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his forehead. On the whole, he thought, it could have gone much worse.

At the end of the drive was an Apparition Port; Filius headed toward it. Somehow, he dreaded the next visit more than the last one. It was one thing to bring bad news to a slimy git like Lucius Malfoy, but quite another to bring it to a respected friend.

He stepped into the Port and pulled out his wand. Giving it a twist, he muttered, “St. Mungo’s Hospital, Birthing Centre.”

Ginny Weasley sat at the table in the kitchen of The Burrow with her parents. The little room, which always looked much too small when it was filled with her brothers seemed almost too big now, with just the three of them there. Her parents had asked her to come for dinner.

“Where is everyone?” she asked, helping herself to a Yorkshire pudding.

“We thought we’d be just the three of us tonight,” began Molly, a little too brightly. At her mother’s tone Ginny looked up.

“Why? What is it? What’s wrong--”

“Not wrong, Love,” her father interjected. “Just, your birthday’s coming soon…. Twenty-five years old! It’s a big milestone….”

“Dad,” Ginny said blankly. “I just had a birthday three weeks ago. Why the hurry to get me to my next one?”

Arthur floundered. “We thought it was time, that is, hadn‘t you better…?” He looked hopelessly at his wife.

Molly took a deep breath. There was no sense tiptoeing around the subject. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t talked about it plenty of times over the years, and Ginny was a big girl now. A responsible girl. An adult.

“The truth is, we’re wondering what you intend to do about Draco Malfoy.” She watched her daughter's face change, but steeled herself to remain impassive. In a family as large as hers she had learned she didn’t have the luxury of catering to one child's whims when there was another child who had real needs. A family looked out for one another; one sacrificed, when necessary, for the good of the whole unit. And right now there was more than one Weasley child's future at stake. She forged ahead. “You’re twenty-five next August, Ginny, and the Curse Standard says you have to marry him by the time you turn twenty-five. Isn’t it time to start thinking about it? Eleven months is more than enough time to plan a nice wedding.”

Ginny could feel the blood rush to her head, filling her ears with a dizzying roar, blackening the edges of her vision. Carefully, she put down her fork and took a couple of deep breaths. She heard herself say, “It’s not as though I don’t think about it every single day of my life, Mum.” She stared at a nick in the scrubbed table top, trying to focus while her vision cleared.

“Perhaps I should say it’s time to do something about it then,” her mother amended tartly.

Ginny reached over and began picking at the nick with her thumbnail, and said nothing.

“Ginny, you know we would never ask you to do something like this just for us--” began Arthur. “It’s just that, well, Bill…” He spread his hands helplessly.

They had told Ginny about the Curse when she was fourteen, when she’d come home from Hogwarts after her third year still carrying a rather obvious torch for Harry Potter. They’d thought it best she should be fully aware of how things stood before she’d started having boyfriends of her own.

She, as their firstborn daughter, was bound by a blood Curse to marry Draco, the firstborn son of Lucius Malfoy. And she would have to marry him by her twenty-fifth birthday or their firstborn child Bill would pay with his life.

She had handled the news remarkably well. But then, Bill was her favourite brother, and with the hero-worship of fourteen years old she had almost welcomed the chance to do something so big for him. And at that age, Arthur remembered, youth was forever. Twenty-five was something that pertained to old people. No girl, at the age of fourteen, seriously believed she would one day be twenty-five. That she would one day be married. It was easy to agree to something you essentially didn’t think would ever happen.

But all through her years at school and afterward, during the war, Ginny had been as good as her word. When her parents had broached the subject from time to time she had never wavered. At school, Draco Malfoy had been a miserable, mean-spirited creature; she had despised him thoroughly, and with good reason. His father was a known Death Eater who went down with Voldemort in the final battle. Weasleys and Malfoys had hated each other for centuries. In spite of it all, she had been staunch. She understood as well as her mother did what it meant to be part of a family. Before she turned twenty-five, she would marry him. She would marry him, as prescribed, in a Ceremony of Rings at the Sacred Stone Ring. She would do what it took to stay married to him for a year and a day and then, when the Curse was broken and Bill’s life was secured, she would end the marriage and get on with the rest of her life. She loathed the thought of it and dreaded the day it would happen, but with all Ginny's failings, she had never lacked for courage. She would do it.

She looked up at her father. “I know Dad. I know I have to face it. I keep thinking, just a little longer…I’ll do something about it next month…” She gave a shaky laugh. “Where’s a Time Turner when you need one?”

“It’s only for a year,” her mother said, trying to sound bracing but failing miserably.

“A year and a day,” Ginny corrected her with an ironic little smile. “But you’re right. I can do anything for a year, can’t I? It’s not the end of the world.” Privately, she wondered if that were true. A year married to that Son-of-a-Death-Eater Draco Malfoy might well be the end of the world for her. She shuddered.

“You’re still not to tell Bill,” she added. “Or any of the boys for that matter. They’d only get all heroic and come swooping down on some sort of Rescue Mission, trying to pull me out of it. The Curse Standard says if we’re not married a year and a day, it invalidates the whole marriage. Where would that leave Bill?”

They sat in silence for several minutes, pushing their food around on their plates. At last, Molly spoke in a choked voice. “Ginny, you can’t know how proud that makes us; you sacrificing to save your brother’s life….”

Ginny grimaced. "Please don't, Mum."

Arthur blew his nose. “If there’s anything we can do to make this easier for you…”

She looked up at him and with a sudden flash of anger said, “Dad, why was he never convicted as a Death Eater after the war?”

Her father looked up from his handkerchief in surprise, and gave her a long, appraising stare. When he answered her he spoke slowly, choosing his words. “I think, rather than ask why, the most important thing to remember is that he wasn’t convicted. In fact--”

“That doesn’t mean he wasn’t one!” Ginny interrupted him savagely. “He was a Slytherin! He used to brag at school that he would take the Dark Mark before he came of age. Lucius Malfoy was convicted and rotted away in Azkaban! Of course Draco was a Death Eater! With a father like that, how could he not be?”

“Ginny,” Arthur said quietly, “I think it's a mistake to judge a man by what his father was.”

She ignored him. “He just wants to watch his step around me. Let me find one hint—one!—of the Dark Arts being practiced in his house and I swear I’ll have him thrown in Azkaban so fast it’ll make his head spin.” She stabbed fiercely at a potato.

Arthur put his hand on hers. “I’m confident you won’t have to do that,” he said.

Ginny stood up. “Well I’m not confident of it. Not one bit. But I’ll be able to give you the full report, won’t I? Just as soon as the marriage is over. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a headache. I’m going home.”

Her parents exchanged anxious looks.

“Oh, quit worrying,” she snapped. “I’ll owl him before I go to bed.”

Sarah Park-Winston, Ginny’s roommate, was lolling on the sofa when Ginny stepped out of the fireplace at the flat they shared.

“You’re home!” Sarah exclaimed with a wide grin. “I wasn’t expecting you for ages yet. I was just about to stir myself and go for take-away. How do you feel about Chinese? Or aren’t you hungry? I suppose your mum’s fed you up already.…”

Ginny only scowled at her and made for the kitchen, where she waved her wand over the kettle and rummaged in the cupboard for the bottle of Wanamacher’s Aged Elderberry Spirits.

“Have you read Witch Weekly yet?” called Sarah from the front room. It didn’t seem to matter to her that Ginny was clearly seething. “There’s the best article about Quicksilver, you should read it.”

Ginny made a derisive noise which her roommate either didn’t hear or didn’t acknowledge.

She nattered on, unperturbed. “It says here,

“And both times,” Sarah continued, “they found his signature--” she paused, probably consulting the magazine article-- “it says,

“Isn’t that romantic?” She heaved a sigh. “I wish someone could get a photo of him.”

Ginny stuck her head out the kitchen doorway as the teakettle began to shriek, “Teatime! Teatime! Teatime!” She twitched her wand at it and the noise stopped.

“Sarah, you are possibly the only girl in Britain, over the age of fourteen, who actually believes in Quicksilver.”

Her roommate sat up. She waved the magazine at Ginny. “It’s all right here! They wouldn’t make something like this up.”

Ginny glared at her. “Oh no? Why are those stories never in the Daily Prophet then? If those things really happened, I think they would have found their way into the mainstream newspaper by now. Besides, Sarah, I’m a Ministry Auror. Don’t you think I’d know if this bloke were real?” Her red head disappeared into the kitchen briefly before she reappeared and made her way back into the front room, a cup of tea-and-elderberry in her hand.

“I told you,” she continued, “that Witch Weekly was going to the hobgoblins when that Lovegood chap took it over.”

“Why would you know,” Sarah reasoned with her, “just because you're an Auror? Aurors don’t bother themselves with Muggles who need rescuing, do they? Unless the Muggles are being tortured by Death Eaters that is, and we all know those days are over.” She made a face at Ginny and clutched the magazine protectively to her chest, watching as Ginny sipped her tea. Suddenly she frowned. Leaning forward, she sniffed suspiciously at the steam from the mug.

“Why are you drinking? Did something happen at your mum and dad’s?”

Ginny didn’t answer. Sarah knew about the curse. After sharing her flat for six years, there was little about Ginny she didn’t know--but how would she react to the news of Ginny was about to do--had to do?

“What?” Sarah prodded. She leaned forward, her voice urgent. “Are you pregnant?”

Ginny was startled. “No! How could I be pregnant?”

Her friend crossed her arms and gave her an appraising stare. “You tell me.”

Ginny rolled her eyes. “Great Morgana, Sarah! I’d have to be married for that, wouldn’t I?”

“Not necessarily. Muggles do it all the time.”

She snorted. “Do I look like a Muggle? No, I am not pregnant.”

Sarah raised her eyebrows. “Well, then?” She knew Ginny too well.

Ginny took a big swallow of her tea, nearly choking on the elderberry spirits she had laced it with. She gave Sarah her most level look. “I’m going to marry him.”

Sarah then demonstrated one of the qualities that made her such an invaluable friend. That was, she did not jump up and start waving her arms about. She merely narrowed her eyes at her best friend and said coolly, “Malfoy?”

Ginny gave her an arch look. “Who else?”

Sarah sat back and regarded Ginny. Then without a word she got up, went to the kitchen, and came back with two goblets and the entire bottle of elderberry spirits. She set it all on the coffee table between them. “All right, start talking,” she said, uncorking the bottle.

It was suddenly more than Ginny could do to hold back the tears.

*

Draco Malfoy sat before the fire in his library and read the letter in his hand for the tenth time since it had been delivered by a barn owl, twenty minutes earlier.

It was terse to the point of rudeness, but reading it he felt a weight he had not even known he was carrying lift from his mind. They had never mentioned the curse to one another, even when they had been at school together, and Draco had determined long ago that he would never ask her to marry him.

There had been a time when he would rather have died than to marry a Weasley. Those days might be over but old habits died hard, and he still had never been able to come to the point of begging her to save his life. He had preferred to go on hoping for a letter just like this, rather than to put himself at her mercy. She hated him. He had no doubt that, were it not for the sake of her eldest brother, he would be living out the final year of his life right now.

But it was all right. She was going to...well, he preferred to think of it as a temporary political alliance. That was it: she was going to ally with him, for a short time, to achieve an end necessary to them both. It was certainly not, by any stretch of the imagination, going to be a m--m-- He shuddered. He couldn't even say the word in his own mind. He read the letter one more time, whistling softly as he skimmed over the words. If the tone of it was any indication, living with her was going to make for one hell of an unpleasant year. But at least--and this was the point, after all--he would be alive at the end of it. He smiled grimly to himself as he picked up his quill to write his reply.

*

Friday night at 6:02 Draco was nursing a pint of Brunhilda’s Best Bitter at a table in The Blue Onion and silently fuming. She was late. What if she didn’t show? What if this was her idea of a joke, set up to have a laugh at him?

He had always been nasty to her, back at school; he had no trouble admitting that. Well, it wasn’t as though she hadn’t deserved it, asked for it, even. She had been an easy mark then: Potter’s little ginger-haired groupie who always looked at him, Draco, as though he were not fit to wipe her boots on. They had both secretly, silently known they would one day come to this. And yet she had always looked right through him, as though she found nothing worth looking twice at. She had always been too busy looking at Potter instead. And Draco had made her pay for it, in a hundred little ways, all those years at school. He had made sure that if he was going to have to marry her one day, then she would be just as miserable about it as he was.

The rub was that now she held his life in her hands. Perhaps she intended to make him suffer, to raise his hopes then stand him up? He was on the point of leaving when the door opened and she came in.

He hadn’t seen her since he’d left school nine years ago but he would have recognised that shocking Weasley hair anywhere. He allowed himself a quick, silent sigh that might have been relief, though he chose to think of it instead as resignation.

He watched her as she squinted against the dim light of the pub, searching for him. She was short. He couldn’t make out anything else about her shape, as she was wearing her work robes. For all he could tell she might, underneath them, be built like her mother. He buried his face in his stein and took a deep pull of his bitter.

He would have known, even without the gold MM embroidered on the shoulder of her robes, that she was a Ministry Auror. Business had been slow for the Aurors, since the war had put an end to the Death Eaters. He knew she was the only one to have been accepted into Auror training in the last five years. He knew that she specialised in Defensive Charm work, traveling around Europe, building wards and spells around secure areas. He knew she lived with a flatmate on the cheap side of London, that she dated one or two men sporadically, followed rugby as well as Quidditch, and that she was considered good at her job. He had done his homework on Ginny Weasley.

Her hair was pulled into an untidy knot at the back of her head. He couldn’t see her face clearly from that distance, but he noticed that several of the men at the bar had turned and were eyeing her appreciatively. One of them spoke to her, and Draco watched her shake her head as though annoyed by what the man had said.

He knew she had caught sight of him when she stilled so abruptly and completely that she might have been turned to stone. After a long moment she glanced at the door, and then back at him. The man at the bar said something to her again and put his hand on her arm. She spoke sharply to him and shrugged off his hand and that seemed to make up her mind for her. She made her way around the tables to where he sat, and automatically, spurred by good breeding and years of proper training, Draco stood.

“Malfoy.” Her tone was flat, betraying nothing of what she must have felt.

“Weasley,” he returned, just as evenly. “What are you drinking?”

She hesitated. “Red wine.” She slid onto the settle across the table from him and added, “Please.”

He pushed his way through the jostling crowd around the bar and examined the meagre wine list written up in chalk on the slate board above the bar. He had never heard of any of the choices, a mark, he thought irritably, of the low quality of the pub she had chosen. He ordered the most expensive merlot--which at four Sickles a goblet, couldn't have been all that good, and when the bartender brought it, he carried it back to the table and sat down.

He set it in front of her and she began immediately to fiddle with the stem while staring determinedly at the tabletop. He waited for her to speak but she said nothing.

She was the one who had called this meeting, he thought crossly. Was he supposed to do all the talking? The silence stretched out. She was determined to make it difficult for him, then. As if it weren’t insufferable enough, the thought of living with her for a year--legally married and all--now she was going to make him ask her for the privilege. Rebellion, and a regrettable streak of recklessness asserted itself: He would never ask her.

“Weasley,” he prodded. When she looked up, he was surprised to see that her eyes were bright with unshed tears. It wasn't what he had expected. He sighed. Crying women were a subject at which he’d never been very adept. Just now, it worried him.

“Weasley,” he repeated sharply, “can we please dispense with the waterworks and get down to the business at hand?”

She drew a deep breath and leaned in close to him across the table, invading his space, threatening him. When she spoke her voice was low and shook with intensity. “I want you to know, Malfoy, that if it were just my own life at stake here, and not my brother’s, I’d let you hang and I wouldn’t lose an hour’s sleep over it. Your miserable life means nothing to me. Nothing! I’m marrying you for Bill’s sake and only for Bill’s sake, do you understand me?” Her eyes flashed furious sparks at him as she spoke, and two spots of brilliant red had appeared in her otherwise pallid cheeks.

He made a motion as if swatting at an irksome fly. “Yes, yes Weasley,” he drawled, affecting an indifference he did not feel. “Of course! This is no great love affair; no one thinks anything different. Only, can we please get the details sorted out? I’m rather keen to go home.”

Her eyes widened, then narrowed again. She regarded him suspiciously, while he returned her scrutiny with a bland smile. Finally, she sat back and pulled a piece of parchment from the pocket of her robes. She slapped it onto the tabletop. “Fine. But before I agree to anything, I have a list of important points I want to be very clear on.”

He sat back and stretched out his legs, lacing his fingers together behind his head. “Right. Carry on.”

“First,” she held up one finger and consulted her list. “The Curse Standard says we have to live together--and I quote--‘as man and wife, a year and a day.’ It says nothing about sleeping together. I looked into it, and was told--on good authority--that ‘as man and wife’ only means that we have to live in the same house. So Point Number One is,” she consulted the parchment, “no sex. None.”

He sat up straight, revolted at the very idea. “Good god Weasley, I never even thought of such a thing!”

Her nostrils flared, and her eyes narrowed. “Good. Just so we understand each other. Point Number Two follows on that: I get my own bedroom.”

“Yes, naturally you’ll have your own bedroom,” he said with exaggerated patience. “I’m certainly not sharing mine with you.”

“Point Number Three.” He thought she almost expanded, like an indignant hen ruffling her feathers. “I’m not changing my name.”

He exploded at her then, and brought his fist crashing down onto the table top. “What the devil do I care what you do with your name, Weasley? Call yourself Smythe, Jones or--or Potter for all it matters to me! I thought you said your list was important. You're wasting my time!”

“Point. Number. Four,” with each word, she jabbed the parchment with her finger, and spoke through gritted teeth. “I'm going to be living--where?”

“Ah now we’re getting somewhere!” he said triumphantly. He lounged back and laced his fingers behind his head again. “I have a home in the Highlands of Scotland. The Cairngorms. We'll live there.” He smirked. “In separate bedrooms, of course.”

She seemed surprised to hear this. “Not at Malfoy Mansion?”

Draco felt the creeping bitterness that always accompanied the name of his family home, but he was careful to inject just the right amount of boredom into his voice. “No Weasley, I sold Malfoy Mansion after the war, haven’t lived there for years. My home is at Four Winds now.”

“Four Winds,” she said experimentally. “There's an Apparition Port nearby, I hope. I’ll need to get to work every day.”

“There is an Apparition Port built into the house.”

“Right in the house? That’s unusual.” She looked as though she didn't believe him.

“Well, the estate is rather remote, you see. I believe the next closest Port is five miles to the south, which can be very inconvenient in winter.” He wanted to add that she would be more than welcome to walk to it every day, if she wanted, especially in the winter, but he felt it would sound churlish.

“Oh.” She lapsed into silence and toyed with her wine glass. Now that she had finished her list of demands, the fight seemed to be ebbing out of her.

He watched her. Though the lighting was dim he could see the dusting of freckles across her cheeks. She also appeared to have an unfortunate bit of sunburn on her nose, which was beginning to peel. The effect was wholly inelegant and provincial. He reflected that it was a good thing he didn’t go out into society more often. It was going to be hard enough to explain her to the few people he did see. Perhaps he would be able to pretend she was a distant cousin, visiting him for…for a whole year...

She spoke again, in an odd, strangled tone. “So when…how soon should we…” She seemed unable to complete the sentence.

He had no desire to say it out loud either. “How soon would suit you?” he asked instead.

“The sooner the better, I suppose. Sooner begun is sooner done.”

“Agreed.” He didn't want to give her time to back out of it. He watched her covertly, while he pretended to stare into his beer. He let a length of silence pass, so it wouldn't sound as though it mattered too much to him. “When, then?”

“Day after tomorrow? Sunday? I don’t want my mother making a big hoo-ha out of it.”

“Fine,” he said, trying not to let his relief show in his voice. “Have your things ready to go by tomorrow night and I’ll arrange to have them sent on ahead to Four Winds.”

She nodded dully, not even questioning that he knew where she lived, or that he could manage to transport all her belongings to his home.

“I’ll take care of the rings,” he continued. “You just meet me at the circle. You can get there all right?”

She nodded again.

“What time suits you?”

“Whenever.”

“Four o’clock then.” He saw that she had begun to cry again, silently and in earnest, her tears spilling over and running down her cheeks.

“Weasley!” he said sharply, afraid she was about to change her mind. “This is not the end of the world.”

When she did not reply, he reached out and touched her chin, tipping her face roughly so she had to look at him.

“It is a year of our lives, do you hear me? A year. We can do anything for a year.” He thought she looked utterly defeated.

“We can do anything for a year,” she echoed hollowly. “Well, I guess we’ll just see about that, won’t we?”

They stood before the Druid in the middle of the sacred circle.

Draco had hardly slept the night before, wondering if she would show, if she would go through with the marriage in the end. By turns, he convinced himself that of course she would, she would do whatever it took to safeguard her eldest brother’s life. Then, he would suddenly remember how miserably he’d treated her and her friends at school all those years ago, and he’d experience a sudden hitch in his confidence….

But she was here now, and wearing a soft, blue robe that fitted to her curves nicely and revealed that she wasn’t, after all, shaped like her mother. Her hair fell in gold-red ringlets around her shoulders and she carried a single white calla lily. He was relieved to see that she had taken some trouble with her appearance and that she could summon at least a modicum of good taste when the situation warranted it. Beyond the circle, her parents hovered, needing to be comforted, adding the weight of their anxiety to everything else she had to think about right now. Draco despised their selfishness, and ignored them.

The Druid handed him the ring. She did not offer him her hand, so Draco reached out and took it. Her fingertips were icy cold, and he could actually feel them trembling. He held the ring over the tip of her fourth finger. She did not look at him, but gazed steadfastly at the silver circlet in his fingers.

"You are Earth," he recited automatically. Nothing. He moved the ring to the tip of her middle finger. "Wind," he said.

Every person was born bound to one of the four Elements, but these days, most people didn't bother to search out their Elemental roots. It was considered an outmoded magic, and the trend now was to look to tarot and Divination: to look to the future to discover one's destiny, instead of the past. One of the few ways to discover one's Element was like this, in the nearly obsolete Ceremony of the Rings. It was said that the Rings could tell a man more about himself than any Seer ever could, and the Rings never lied. Since his parents had told him of the Curse when he was nine years old, Draco had known he would be married in this way. He had been mildly curious about his Elemental Identity; today, he would find out what it was. Not that it would make any difference in his life. He was what he was. Knowing it wouldn't change anything. He moved the ring to Ginny’s first finger.

"Water." The ring did nothing. She had small hands, cool hands, and the slim fingers were tipped with tidy, oval, unpainted nails.

He moved the ring over the tip of her thumb. "Fire." The ring pulled itself from his fingers and settled itself around the base of Ginny’s thumb, adjusting itself to the size of her finger. For one moment it flashed with an intense, white glow before subsiding to its normal dull silver.

Draco noted this with interest. So…her ring was still white. Potter, apparently, hadn't gone all that far with her then, back in the days when they'd been an item. He felt a strange rush of satisfaction at this. This woman was his wife now--or she would be, in another minute--and Potter hadn't had her yet. Not in that way. Not, he told himself with a small shudder, that he wanted her. He only wondered, with some amusement, whom she'd been saving herself for. He made himself dismiss the thought. It mattered nothing to him. It was probably still Potter. Well, a year and a day from now he’d be welcome to her, and her ring--he could guarantee it--would still be white for him. But they would both always know that he, Draco, had married her first.

Ginny took his ring from the Druid and reached for his right hand. She held the ring over his fourth finger. Draco watched, curious. Her fingers still shook but her voice, when she spoke, did not.

"You are Earth." She waited a fraction of a second, then moved the ring to his third finger.

"Wind." The ring pulled itself from Ginny’s grasp and constricted around his middle finger, glowing a dull blue for just a moment. He was Wind then. He made a mental note to look that one up and see what it meant.

The Druid turned to a flat rock beside him, where four chalices stood waiting. He selected a small, gold one and handed it to Ginny. A larger, silver one, he handed to Draco. He left the crystal chalice and the wooden one where they stood, and turned to face them again.

"Drink," he intoned. "Take into yourselves each the essence of the other, and mingle body, soul and spirit."

He made a motion, and Draco lifted the Wind Chalice to Ginny. She drank from it, and her eyes flared wide with sudden surprise. As though someone had struck her, she staggered backward a step, and might have fallen if the Druid had not steadied her.

When she had recovered herself the Druid motioned toward her, and she lifted the Fire Chalice to Draco's mouth. It was sweet wine, and as he swallowed it Draco felt a flash of something white hot flare through him, from his mouth to his fingertips. The force of it took his breath away: the element of Fire.

"You may kiss your bride," the Druid was saying.

Draco saw the alarm etched on Ginny’s pale, freckled face. He let his eyes rake insolently over her slender body before turning deliberately away. "I think we’ll give it a miss."

The Druid was clearly puzzled, but he recovered himself and went on. "I declare that this day you are bound together by invisible cords in the visible union of marriage. May you live together in peace and prosperity, and may friendship and love abound to you both through the comfort of one another." He bowed respectfully and backed away from them.

Outside the circle, Molly and Arthur Weasley hesitated a moment, then came forward. Draco stepped back to the edge of the ring and crossed his arms, waiting for them to say their good-byes. Molly embraced her daughter, crushing the calla lily between them and Draco noticed that Ginny stood stiffly while her mother shook with sobs and her tears soaked the shoulder of the blue wedding robes. When she pulled away, she tried to cup Ginny’s face in her hands, but Ginny turned away from her.

"Don’t Mum. There’s no need; it’s not forever." Her face was pallid, but stony and Draco felt a flash of something like approval. She was doing what she had to do, and meeting it head-on without making room for sloppy sentiment or self-pity.

Arthur, too, hugged and kissed his daughter, though more quietly, and turned to give Draco a hard stare. Draco met his gaze without flinching, and when at last, Arthur nodded gravely at him, Draco nodded back. Arthur turned, and taking his wife’s elbow, made his way to the Muggle car park where the Apparition Port was.

He watched his new wife follow her parents with her eyes as they walked away, and when they were out of sight, he came over to her again. They stood alone in the circle, not touching.

"What just happened?" she asked him.

"I think we were just married."

"Tuh!" She looked up at him and rolled her eyes. "I meant that…that wind thing that blew through me."

"Well, a bit of our elements are supposed to go into each other, aren't they? I imagine that's what it was."

"Oh. So did you…what did it feel like, to you?" She flushed and looked away, as though the question embarrassed her.

It had felt like…like a forge. Like the kind of intense, frightening heat a silversmith used to melt down metal, and to purify it before molding it into an entirely different shape. But he couldn't very well say that to her, so he only told her brusquely, "It felt like fire, of course."

"The wine was so bitter." She touched her lips and shuddered, and Draco looked sharply at her. The wine he had drunk from her chalice had been sweet. But she was asking, "So, what do we do now?"

"Well," he adopted the lazy drawl that had always kept him so safe, so removed when he was uncomfortable, "our first order of business is to get you some new robes."

Immediately, she bristled. "I may not have as much money as you, Malfoy, but I’m not putting up with any of your poverty jokes. My robes are perfectly good enough--"

He interrupted her. "I’m only saying, Weasley,--if you’ll shut it long enough for me to finish a thought--that the robes you have aren’t going to be nearly warm enough for where you’re going to be living. The Highlands," he elaborated, at her perplexed look. "Remember? It’s a good deal colder there than it is in London." Ginny still looked wary.

"I have an excellent tailor in Edinburgh," he went on. "I’m only suggesting we stop there, before we go to Four Winds, and get you outfitted properly. Won’t do either of us any good to have you freezing to death before the year is out."

"It’s nearly five o’clock. Won’t his shop be closing soon?"

"He’s expecting us." He hoped she was not going to be tiresome and argue with every little thing he said.

Reluctantly, she said, "I suppose it makes sense."

He didn’t bother with more than a cursory nod. He really hadn't expected anything but her absolute acquiescence. "Let’s go." Silently, she followed him the short distance to the Apparition Port in the Muggle car park. Her parents had long gone. "Let’s get on with it, shall we?" He picked up her hand. She tried to jerk it away.

"Don’t flatter yourself that I’m taking liberties with you, Weasley," he said coolly. "It’s just that you don’t know where we’re going."

She stopped tugging. "Oh."

He pulled out his wand and gave it a twist. "Right. We’re off, then. Princes and Edward, Edinburgh."

He closed his eyes and felt the momentary, weightless sensation that was Apparition, then opened them and found that they were standing in the plain, square Apparition Port on the corner of Princes and Edward Streets, in Edinburgh.

"This way," he said, dropping her hand.

He led her through a side street or two until they came to a doorway with a plain wooden board nailed to it. On the board were burned the words, ‘No Trespassing’. Draco tapped the sign once with his wand and ‘No Trespassing’ was replaced with the words ‘Natty Toggs; Designs for Discriminating Wizards’ in an ornate, gold script.

An extremely tall, thin man spied them as they stepped into the shop.

"Malfoy!" he cried, seizing Draco’s hand and pumping it with great energy. "What a treat to see you here! First rate!" The man turned, beaming, to Ginny, his curly hair, severely in need of a cut, bobbing around his large spectacles.

"And who is this lovely? No wait, don’t tell me--she’s a cousin! No? Not a sister, because you don’t have a sister…A business partner then?"

Draco shook his head, the ghost of a wry smile playing about his lips. "This is my new wife, Natty. Meet Ms Ginny Weasley."

"It never is!" Natty cried. "You’ve gone and taken the plunge then, eh? Well she’s a singular beauty, she is. Well done, Malfoy!" He swung a lethal-looking pair of shears in a wild swoop as he made a ridiculously low bow. Then he seized Ginny’s hand and began to kiss it, with little, smacking kisses, all the way up her arm. When he had passed her elbow, Draco cleared his throat.

"That will do, Toggs. Don’t forget, she’s my wife." Ginny flushed at the insinuation.

"Then onto business, what?" Natty said cheerfully, dropping her hand. "You didn’t come in here just to show off your new bride, I’ll wager, though if you had it wouldn’t have been a waste of either of our time. How may I be of service to you this evening?"

Draco looked at Ginny but she seemed to have lost her powers of speech. "Ms Weasley is going to need some winter robes," he told the tailor.

"Excellent! Excellent!" Natty cried, as though his fondest wish in life was to supply Ms

Weasley with warm clothing.

"Mrs Selvedge!" he shouted, and at once a plump, middle-aged witch appeared from the back room. She wore a tape measure round her neck and when she saw Draco her face lit up with delight.

"Mr Malfoy!" she exclaimed warmly. "You’re too much a stranger around here! It’s been ages since we’ve seen you; we were beginning to worry you’d taken your business somewhere else. And who is this?" She turned to his new wife and they went through the introductions again before the kindly woman took Ginny by the hand and pulled her into the back room to be measured.

"Now," said Natty, rubbing his hands together with the air of a salesman who knows his customer only buys the very best. "What kind of robes did you have in mind for her?"

An hour and a half later they left the shop, Ginny wearing one of the new, heavy, travelling robes over her blue wedding robe, and looking distinctly exhausted. Toggs had promised to send the rest of the clothes on to Four Winds tomorrow.

"Are you hungry?" he asked her, as they walked back to the Apparition Port.

She shook her head. "Just tired."

"Home then," he said. They stepped into the Port and he picked up her hand again. This time she did not try to pull away.

He pulled out his wand and gave it a twist. "Four Winds," he said, and closed his eyes.