Fictious

8:28PM - Aboard the SS Fire & Ice

or, Why Draco/Ginny Is the Way To Go

First off, kudos to whoever named Draco-and-Ginny's ship "SS Fire & Ice". It sounds cool and it fits the pair perfectly; nothing like, say, "HMS Pumpkin Pie" or "Orange Crush".

Before I go on about how Draco and Ginny together would make a perfectly interesting match, I'll try to explain why one would want to pair either of these two with anyone in the first place. No... "pair" isn't the right term here; it's "ship", which is when one passionately supports a pairing. So, why should you ship Draco or Ginny?


Shipping Draco Malfoy
Considering books 1 to 5, an ordinary person wouldn't understand why someone would want to ship Draco, a character whose sole purpose seems to be to be an annoying, spoiled brat with a 2D personality, which means he wouldn't be interesting to read or write. But that has never mattered to the fans - oh, not at all: We are more than willing to add dimensions to a character's personality. In Draco's case, this has meant that he has been characterized as everything, from a rebel musician with an odd fixation for leather pants, to the resident Hogwarts sex god who has a sensitive side that really just wants to find true wub and another person who's read Hogwarts, A History.

And all this because Draco is Harry's schoolrival.

Because that's it, really; Draco's gotten all this attention because he's important, but not that important. We've seen a lot of him, but not all of him. Enough attention has been placed on him in the books that would make a fan interested on him, even before book 6.

In book 6, Draco stopped being a 2D character to become a complex one, one you'd really want to to explore. Poor kid has just been through a lot. Poor kid has just realised what he's gotten into, and he doesn't know what to do... Poor kid just needs a little bit of love.


Shipping Ginny Weasley
We've always known Ginny was a talkative one, but we only had Ron's word for it; throughout books 1 to 4, Ginny hardly said a word. So we all thought that well, she was shy, but once you got to know her, she would talk to you nonstop. That, coupled with her tragic incident with Tom Riddle, was all we knew about her, giving fanfiction writers a lot of blanks to fill at their pleasure - getting her off-character wasn't such a big problem.

Then came book 6, and with it the fact that Ginny is a popular girl who has more experience in romance than any of the Trio and is really excellent at the Bat-Bogey Hex [sidenote: what is up with that?]. She also seems to hate not having the same privileges as adults (getting angry when she has to leave the dining room when Sirius is about to talk about Order stuff in OotP; going on about how she didn't need Ron's approval to be with Harry).

Of course, the problem with Ginny is, she's pretty much taken. By the protagonist, no less. But that's the thing about fanon, isn't it? That you can do whatever you want with the characters. So if you feel that Ginny paired up with person other than Harry would be a lot more interesting and fun, you go ahead and do that. And there's your reason to ship Ginny - [if] you're not satisfied with how Harry/Ginny went in the books.


Opposites Attract
What would initially draw one to Draco/Ginny is the good ol' standard: opposites attract. In the HPverse, you can't get two characters more different to each other than these two. They're opposite in practically every level, including even their looks:

Ginny: red hair; chocolate-brown eyes; small for her age

Draco: white-blond hair; "cold" pale-gray eyes; tall; pale skin

Doesn't that make a lovely contrast?

Then there's their background:

Ginny: pure-blood; Gryffindor, from a family whose members typically end up in that house; in the Good Side; poor; from a large family

Draco: pure-blood; Slytherin, from a family whose members typically end up in that house; in the Dark Side; rich; an only child

I'd add the Malfoy-Weasley family feud too, but we don't know the nature of that feud, or even if it exists at all. It could be that it was started some generations back, that it was started by Draco's and Ginny's respective fathers, or that it is just a typical case of blood-traitors versus blood-purists.

Feud or no feud, Draco and Ginny still come from completely different backgrounds, which adds a nice "against all odds" touch to a possible romance between them. They are, however, both pure-bloods, meaning that, yes, Draco would stop to look twice at her; and they're both British, so no culture clash there.


The Glitch
Let's take a look at their personalities,

Ginny: tempered, though she can control herself; strong-willed, with a love for independence; a good liar; athletic; extraverted; talkative; a skilled witch

Draco: typically level-headed - he's lost his cool, but these occasions are rare, and he doesn't act on his emotions; determined, but not quite keen on making his own decisions¹; an Occlumens; athletic; extraverted; talkative; appears to do well in school

That's right. Draco and Ginny have - gasp - similarities, and so, the "opposites attract" principle doesn't fully apply to them.

And it doesn't stop with their personality traits, either. Both were nice, innocent kids once (well, excluding the 'nice' in Draco's case), but went through traumatic experiences that changed them. Both were used by Lord Voldemort. Both have had near-death experiences.

Does this make pairing less attractive? No; on the contrary, it makes it more interesting. These two are different enough that they compliment each other (especially with Ginny's sense of independence and Draco's lack of it), but similar enough that they can relate to each other.


A Blank Slate
Upon examination of the pair's history with each other, one will find that it practically doesn't exist. Here's what's happened between these two:

• Ginny stood up against Draco to defend Harry.
  
• Draco accused Ginny of being Harry's girlfriend.
  
• Draco shoves Harry's dislike of her valentine to Ginny's face.
  
• Draco may have taken Ginny's wand from her in Umbridge's office.
  
• "It's because of [Ginny] that Malfoy's stuck back in Umbridge's office with giant flying bogeys attacking him".
  
• Draco blinds Ginny, Ron, and Neville using Peruvian Darkness Powder.

...in other words, nothing much.

What they say about each other doesn't reveal much, either. Heck, we have a better idea of the relationship between Draco's father and Ginny than the one between her and Draco!

What does this mean, in terms of shipping them together? First, that we can make up a history between them without contradicting canon; and second, that, for them to get together, they wouldn't have to put aside many "past differences" at all - they wouldn't have to go back too much to start from point one.


In Short, people: Draco and Ginny are opposite enough to make a relationship between them interesting, and similar enough that it would work wonderfully; and not enough has happened between them that they would be "turned off" against each other.

And in even shorter: Draco/Ginny is the ultimate ship ♥


1. read the first part of the "Dragon of Bad Faith" essay by puritybrown, if you haven't already. Now.

9:30PM - Draco Goes Off-Character

As Draco Malfoy walked 'round an empty corridor, he saw something that touched his soft little, gentle heart:

A girl was sitting in the floor, leaning against the wall, arms draped around her legs, crying her eyes dry.

He noticed she had a Hufflepuff badge pinned to her robes and held a Pikachu plushie in her hands. These two things gave him a clue to what had happened; yet he felt he had to ask, as he put his arms around the girl...

"Why would such a pretty girlie as you cry here, all alone?"

All she did was wipe her tears away. "Here, take this," Draco said, giving her a handkerchief. "What happen'd?"

She blew her nose. "A girl... two boys... they - they called me... called me, 'Pokémon-loving Mudblood'!"

"No!"

"Yes, they did..."

"'Sup with that? 'Mudblood' is a pretty darn strong word. People can't just go 'round calling other people 'Mudblood'," Draco said scornfully.

The girl nodded in agreement. Malfoy glared at the wall opposite, saying:

"And what's wrong with liking Pokémon? Pokémon's awesome. Pokémon owns. Pokémon is one of my favourite things by the non-magical people, right after that Pam Anderson. Not that," he added, "she is a 'thing'. She is also a human being, with feelings and all that stuff. But a smart chick like you gets what I mean."

"Yeah."

He looked at her. "Was that all they did to you?"

She shook her head. The ninety-percent of Draco that was a sensitive boy prevented him from asking what they had done. Instead, he asked:

"Who were these peeps who abused of you? I'll beat the crap out of whoever they are with my bare hands; see if I don't."

"Well... the girl was a prefect... Parkinson, I think."

He liked that. If there was anyone he hated, it was that mean, clingy girl, Pansy Parkinson. This would-

"But don't do anything rash!" pleaded the girl, cutting off his thoughts. "Parkinson is a girl, and girls are made of porcelain. Besides," she continued, seeing that Draco was listening intently, "violence is never the answer."

He stared at her. "You're right, of course... violence is not the answer," he said slowly, and, just as slowly, he stood up, offering his hands to her. "I won't do anything rash. Now, c'mon, I'll escort you to Hufflepuff..."

And off they went, talking happily about Pokémon along the way.

    end!

I was looking for something in a notebook of mine when I found this. I had completely forgotten about it. No clue what I was thinking when I wrote this...

7:31PM - Unnecessary Details

November 14, 1996
I was walking towards the Hogwarts gate, feeling very moody, since I had wasted half the day on Quidditch practice, instead of going to Hogsmeade like a normal non - Gryffindor - Quidditch - Team - member, y'know... when something fell over me, knocking me over. Well, not exactly. More like someone ran into me. And knocked me over. And was over me for at least two seconds.

My first thought was: Ohhh, nice smell. Rubeus Cologne, I bet...
My second, far more reasonal: Wait... Malfoy! Draco! Slytherin! Ack!
Third: Hmmmm...
And before I could think anything more (two seconds, remember?), Malfoy got to a kneeling position, and glared at me.

He has grey eyes. I hadn't noticed before. I imagine it was because I've never been too near him... I've always thought his eyes were blue. Ruddy common eye colour.

Grey's uncommon, though... and it's nice.

Ahem.

So he glares at me and says, "Truly - you do know that when someone is in a hurry, you should move out of the way and let them pass, don't you? What, Weasley, hasn't anyone taught you manners?" or something as stupidly infuriating as that. Then he stands up and runs off.

So I was in the way? I was the one without manners...?! Excuse me, but who was running around carelessly?!? It wasn't me!

Honestly!

Anyway, never mind, 'cause it doesn't really matter - not an important event, just... unpleasant. And annoying. So all those details were completely unnecessary.

I'll just move on to something more important. Like what I did at Hogsmeade. I bought some sweets. Then headed back to Hogwarts, ate, and now I'm here writing on you.

Now that was something important.


This I came up with while thinking about D/G clichés and how much they annoyed me. I thought: "I would never have something like this happen in my fic [Mac]..." and imagined the drabble above. I thought it wasn't too bad, so I wrote it. Originally posted ages (almost 11 months) ago in amor_quies.

4:24PM - (Nobody Wants An) Out-Of-Order Wife

The oldest of the Malfoys, who lived somewhere in Great Britain, was a man with a rather cynical sense of humor. For instance, he married off his son to a woman named "Narcissa" because, Malfoy Sr. insisted, Lucius (for that was the name of the son) was a very narcissistic person. To be married to "Narcissa" would be more than fitting.

It was this cynism, perhaps, that moved him to add a clause to his will that set this as a condition on Lucius's family's inheritance: Lucius's only son, Draco, had to marry a Weasley, and for this he had a year; if the year passed and Draco hadn't managed to marry the Weasley, the Malfoys' fortune would be given away to one of the many Pro-Muggle projects that were in the making at the time.

By the time the attorney left Malfoy Manor, Lucius could barely stop himself from blasting the entire right wing of Malfoy Manor away. Indeed, his wife had to take away his wand and hide it. After he calmed down a little, "little" being the operating word here, he told his wife and son everything about the will, his tale not lacking a few insults directed to his old man. Narcissa and Draco couldn't believe it - such was their disbelief, they had to see the document with their own eyes to make sure Lucius wasn't playing with them (not that him joking about something like this would be likely). Narcissa was both surprised and horrified at Malfoy Sr.'s will, and her son was in the same state plus concerned, for he knew no Weasley would consent to marrying him.

"Ah, it doesn't matter," Lucius assured his son, "we'll curse the girl if needed, even if the curse will have a permanent effect on her." This concerned Draco even more, for if he wouldn't like having a Weasley for a wife, he would certainly hate having an affected by a curse Weasley for one. His mother supported him on this one, adding that what type of heir could someone affected by a curse produce? Eventually Lucius burst out: "Alright, you have six months to get engaged to this girl. If you haven't done it by then, I'll kidnap the girl and put her under Imperius for as long as it takes. I don't care if you have to suffer a forgetful wife for the rest of your life. Weasleys are horrid already anyway; you can't make them much worse." And with this, Draco set out to strategise. Or he would have, had he known where to start. He asked for advice, and his mother told him these wise words:

"Girls believe the man who truly loves them will do anything for them."

When the second semester of school started, Draco tried to get Ginny (for that was the name of the only Weasley female his age) somewhere alone with him, and, believe it or not, he managed it in under two days. He started to insult Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and the entire Weasley family in front of her (he was with Crabbe and Goyle, which was a lot like being alone). He watched as her expression slowly transformed into an angry one, then dismissed Crabbe and Goyle and asked her in a very nervous and worried voice if Ginny wanted him to stop insulting Harry, Hermione, and her family. She said he ought to get off their backs or else, although, in second thought, he could go on with Harry and Ron, for seeing them getting worked up was always funny, and maybe they would curse him (Draco) really badly one day, which would also be very funny. He agreed to do what she told him to do and joined Crabbe and Goyle at the Slytherin Common Room, where he gave them instructions to stop bothering Hermione and other Gryffindors. And from that day on, Draco didn't insult the Weasley family (except for the Ron part of it) and treated Hermione civilly.

As Valentine's Day approached, Draco wasn't nervous about not knowing what to do at all, for girls love flowers and chocolates and perhaps a sappy Valentine card and he knew that. Everybody did (know that). So he somehow trapped Ginny alone, gave her a chocolate box and a bouquet of roses with a sappy Valentine card inside it, and tried to look confused by his own acts. Ginny thanked him for the gifts and for doing what she had told him to do more than a month ago. Draco said "Anything for you" and made his facial expression turn into a confused one immediately after. This whole confused thing was part of his plan, as he figured a Malfoy had to be very confused to fall in love with a Weasley, which was what he was pretending to do. After the scene that was told two sentences ago, he left Ginny while mumbling "I have stuff to do."

During the following months, Draco did various things that made him look desperately in love with the youngest Weasley (Ginny). These things were as simple as obeying Ginny each time she told him to "Bug off" or as complex as having Goyle (or was it Crabbe?) successfully perform a hex that sent Ginny to the hospital wing for three days, seventy percent of which Draco spent at her bedside (fifty percent of the time he wasn't with her, he was running some errand for her). He also sent a rose to her every week (which eventually became every day), bought her stuff on their Hogsmeade visits, gave her a brand-new broom, told her some tips for surviving Potions class with Snape, gave her his (or rather, Parkinson's) History of Magic notes, sent her "I miss you" cards accompanied by sweets every day on Spring Break, and observed other small and not-so-small details. He even somehow managed to land himself and Ginny in the same detention, during which he did half of Ginny's job, much to her pleasure.

Right at the end of May, Draco gave the Weasley girl a serenade, complete with him singing and everything, on a rather deserted part of Hogsmeade. When the serenade ended, Ginny told Draco, not looking at his eyes but at his dyed-black hair (she had told him to dye it black the week before as a joke): "Why are you doing all these things for me? What is wrong with you, Malfoy?"

An "I thought you'd never ask!" expression flashed across Draco's face before he dismissed the musicians. When he did, he told Ginny that he "really liked" her (he couldn't bring himslef to saying he loved her). Ginny, in turn, told him that couldn't be possible, unless he had been hit on the head during Christmas Break. After some minutes debating, Draco told her about his grandfather's will but didn't tell her about his father's wish for cursing her, something he would later regret. Ginny got a rather angry look on her face and said: "Well, you could've told me earlier - would have saved you a lot of trouble. It isn't happening, it was never going to, and now much less since I know your intentions. I enjoyed your services, Malfoy, but I'll do just fine without them from now on, thanks." And she left, but not before Draco had a chance to shout to her back:

"Think about it, Weasley!"

If she ever thought about it, Draco couldn't tell, because the only occassion she spoke to him was to tell him to bleach his hair because he looked like a vampire with his dyed-black hair. Draco kept being civil toward Hermione and refraining to talk about the Weasley family, but this was out of habit more than anything else - all other courtesies he dropped.

And so the end of school came and went, without Draco being able to get engaged to Ginny. The six months expired soon after and Lucius did what he said he would: kidnap the Weasley girl and put her under the Imperius curse. He also put her in an enchanted room in the Manor, just in case. Sure enough, Ginny managed to free herself from the curse from time to time; the third of these times occured five days after she was kidnapped. This time, Draco got a chance to see her in her lucid state and convinced her to agree to marry him voluntarily, because he really didn't want to have an out-of-order wife. Before voluntarily signing the "I wasn't kidnapped, I only ran away, don't worry" letter she had written under the spell but had been strong enough to refuse to actually sign it, she asked him if she could divorce him later. Draco thought for a moment, then told her that she could, but only after twenty years or twelve children, whichever happened second. This saddened Ginny, and for a moment she hesitated about signing the letter, but Draco's begs touched her heart, and she signed it. When Lucius came back to the Manor and saw Ginny in her lucid state, he quickly put her under Imperius; yet when his son showed him the letter and explained what had happened, Lucius freed Ginny.

Three months later they married (not without opposition from the Weasley camp), yet they didn't consummate their marriage until later, for being pregnant while in school wasn't very wise (also, they didn't like each other much at that time). Then they had eight children, breaking the one-child-only tradition of the Malfoys (the point was to avoid the revelry of second children), learned to love each other, and lived happily (together) ever after.

The End


Normally, I try to have my fics be as true to canon as I can get them, and have them be at least somewhat polished, as far as the writing style is concerned. Not with this one. I wanted this to be a bit like the early literary folktales, which weren't all that spectacularly written. At least not the ones I like the most.

2:19PM - Cavities

"How 'bout this... and that... and, look - Hermione!"

Hermione put down the toy she was examining and walked over to Ron.

"What is it...?" She looked down at the basket Ron was carrying. "For Goodness' sake, Ron! You shouldn't eat so many sweets!" said Hermione with a gasp.

"Aw, c'mon, why not? Look," Ron raised his hand, which held what looked like a quill, "they've got Sugar Quills. I heard they're really excellent; you can suck them in class and the teachers will just - hey!" he pouted. "What are you doing? Picking those sweets took me a whole six minutes... Hermione..."

"I'm sorry, but this is just too much..." And she firmly placed five Chocolate Frogs with their fellows.

"Too much? Too..."

"Yes. Too much," Hermione scolded. "You really shouldn't be eating these many sweets - you'll get cavities."

"Cavities?"

"Cavities, a pitted area in the tooth caused by caries."

"Eh... must be a Muggle thing, I've never heard of it," Ron said, grabbing two Chocolate Frogs. Hermione took hold of his wrist.

"It's not just a Muggle thing. It happens to everyone: Muggles, Muggle-born people, Half-bloods, and pure-blooded people alike..."

"Well, it hasn't happened to me."

"Really, now?" Hermione finally released Ron's wrist. "Put the basket down." He obeyed. "Now, say 'ahhhhh'..."

"What for?"

"Lumos."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'll check if you have cavities. Say 'ahhhh'."

Ron gave her an odd look, yet still he said, "Ahhhhhhh..."

"Wider..." Hermione ordered, opening her own mouth wide.

"Er, ahhhhhhhhhh..."

Hermione placed her left hand in his jaw and with her right she directed her wand's beam of light on the insides of Ron's mouth. After a few seconds, she put away her hand from Ron's jaw and declared, "Well, all right... I wasn't able to see any cavities. But," she added when she saw the huge grin that was in Ron's face, "that doesn't mean you can just fill the basket with all the sweets you want. No..."

Ron felt compelled to complain. "But Hermione... what about Harry...? We should get him some sweets, shouldn't we? I mean, the poor fellow..."

"Of course," agreed Hermione.

"So, see, that's why I have to fill this basket with sweets... Right?" Hermione stared at him. Then she said, with a sigh:

"All right. Go ahead... But I'll get to pick too."

Ron grinned. "Sure."

And they went on having the time of their lives...

.The.End.