“I suppose we should get married, then,” Ginny suggested later that evening, as they pulled back the sheets in one of the guest rooms at Grimmauld Place they’d made their own.
Harry groaned. “Oh, the press will think it's a shotgun wedding.”
“A what?”
“A shotgun wedding,” he repeated. Ginny looked confused, and he realized it probably wasn’t a wizarding term. “It’s a muggle thing,” he clarified. “It’s, er… it’s when two people get married in a hurry because they’re pregnant.”
Ginny laughed and climbed into bed, pulling him down beside her. “Wizards don’t have those,” she explained.
“I gathered as much.”
“Why’s it called a shotgun wedding?” Ginny asked. “That’s a weapon, right? We’ve seen them on the telly, in that Christmas movie…”
“That was Die Hard,” said Harry, “it’s not a Christmas movie.”
Ginny scrunched her nose. “But it takes place at Christmas!”
Harry smiled, recalling a similar conversation with Ron. He let it slide, this time. “They call it a shotgun wedding because the father of the bride holds a gun to the groom’s head while she walks down the aisle.”
Ginny looked horrified. “Why?”
“Well – er – in a lot of religions it’s a sin to have a baby out of wedlock, I suppose.”
Ginny’s mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. Harry blinked. How had he got to talking about religion?
“Nevermind, don’t worry about it,” he said hastily. “It’s just a figure of speech.”
“I like it,” said Ginny, “I think we should put it on our wedding announcements.”
“Oh, that we’re going to send out after we elope?” he joked. Half-joked.
“Uh-huh.” Ginny laughed. “Oh, the boys will be so sorry they missed it once we put shot-gun in the name.”