The Scandalmongers

You have no idea how hard it is to live out a great romance. ~ Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor

A school for Scandal! tell me, I beseech you,
Needs there a school this modish art to teach you?
No need of lessons now, the knowing think;
We might as well be taught to eat and drink.
Caused by a dearth of scandal, should be vapours
Distress our fair ones – let them read the papers;
Their powerful mixtures such disorders hit;

Crave what you will – there's quantum sufficit.

So strong, so swift, the monster's there's no gagging:
Cut Scandal's head off, still the tongue is wagging,
Proud of your smiles once lavishly bestow'd,
Again our young Don Quixote takes the road;
To show his gratitude he draws his pen,
And seeks his hydra, Scandal, in his den.
For your applause all perils he would through –
He'll fight – that's write – a cavalliero true,
Till every drop of blood – that's ink – is spilt for you.
~ From David Garrick's Prologue to The School for Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, 1777

Prologue

And when we love our sin then we are damned indeed.
~ Graham Greene, The Power and the Glory

She crunched the newsprint into a ball in her hand, squeezing until her knuckles whitened and her pinky nail made a sharp indentation into her palm. Until she could no longer see the Daily Prophet's society headline and only a small corner of a photo peeking through the space between her forefinger and her thumb. She leaned back into her chair, keeping her breath and her nerves steady, and resisting every urge to scream in frustration or to throw her tea cup into the fireplace.

Though never comfortable with it, Ginny Weasley had grown used to press coverage. As a Chaser for the Wimbourne Wasps, she accepted it; as the fiancé of Harry Potter, she expected it.

But paparazzi and half-truths and rumours printed as facts – sometimes she had little patience for the media. Now days, very little indeed. Yet, she could not resist looking into Page Six every now and again, though it made her angry more often than not. The breathless anticipation for a wedding that would never be and supposed family feuds made her frown, though at the moment, such nonsense had very little to do with the real cause of her stress.

She tossed the paper towards the bin, resolutely ignoring the smooth unread page on the table beside her even as her eyes darted towards the smirking picture of father and son Malfoy shaking hands with the chairwoman of some charity or other. The Malfoys still smirked at her in the glow of the firelight. She would not pick up that page. She would not.

Ginny had not seen Draco for some weeks – beyond the occasional citations in the press for charitable drives or rumours that he had been seen with this or that witch. Training camp was still weeks away and he generally liked to spend the off-season secluded in some country estate or other, avoiding inevitable Quidditch or Death Eater questions. Long gone indeed was the attention-seeking Malfoy who exaggerated injuries at school and bandied about his father's name like a weapon. Oh, he could still be attention-seeking. Now days he was more likely to shun the press until it suited him and he had learned to play them masterfully. She envied him that even as she envied his secluded estates. She would love to escape paparazzi intrusions, but she did not have ancestral estates scattered across the kingdom and in France, well-equipped to repel persistent paparazzi. She had only her apartment and the Burrow – that not-quite impregnable fortress – and her mother who seemed able to wrangle even Rita Skeeter. She had hid there just last week, pleading a headache from the hit she had taken in the Cup final as an excuse to avoid the opening of the new children's wing at St. Mungo's Hospital.

If she were completely honest with herself (as she rarely was these days), she feared meeting Draco there far more than she feared trouble with the media. She did not know how to meet him anymore in hostile terms. Wasn't that strange?

To have Harry there beside her while she nearly vibrated with anxiety. She could not imagine any scenario in which the evening could pass peacefully. As oblivious as he could be at times, Harry would have to be a complete imbecile not to notice the sudden and visceral coldness between herself and Draco after months of … well … friendship.

She was ashamed of that piece of cowardice. Where had all of her Gryffindor bravery gone?

Ginny was, therefore, surprised when Draco's familiar eagle owl, Cesare, flew through her open bedroom window and landed neatly on her cluttered desk. He shook his feathers and dropped a thin missive. She stood to take the missive from the bird and offered him a treat, which he, as usual, scorned and flew away.

She eyed the parchment with apprehension and even more so the owl flying haughtily away. What had Draco been thinking to send his owl to her? After all the innuendo of recent months and both Luna and Harry knew his owl by now. What reason had they to correspond now? This she muttered to herself as she picked it up and broke the seal.

Come to Swynford immediately. There is a situation and I would rather not put anything to paper which may be intercepted. The Apparition wards still admit you. Do not travel by Floo. I've disconnected.

He did not sign his name.

Right.

This could not be good. Though she had also grown a little too used to Malfoy paranoia, she now understood it, and could be (and was too often) paranoid herself. Still, his usually elegant hand was jerky. Draco was always perfect in his appearance. To have inelegantly written a note – one could almost say sloppily – was akin to having uncombed hair. It simply was not done. This fact worried her more than his words. Something was wrong indeed.

A huge lump formed in her throat; the fear which had sprung over her now and again since Harry's latest injury and recovery caught up to her now. Had they been caught? Now when it had long been over, had they been caught?

She folded the parchment with only slightly shaking hands and tucked it into her trouser pocket as she glanced around for her wand.

Well then, she had to remind herself, she did not yet know what Draco meant – and he might mean anything. Sometimes, he was still prone to dramatics. Perhaps it was the team. Dear Merlin, let it be the team.

She quickly scribbled a vague note to Luna, whom she expected at any moment before grabbing the wand stuck in her chair's side.

She found him on the balcony of his rooms and not in his accustomed library. Pacing and raking a hand through his unusually messy hair. Not good at all.

He stopped at her, "Draco," and met her by the large open French doors. His eyes were tight and worried, his movements jerky, and he seemed so much older than he had only two months ago, when they had won the European Cup and had been so giddy and reckless. Now, he seemed more like the 17-year-old unsure of his part in the war.

She couldn't seem to move towards him, and stared dumbly, her fingertips aching right along with her chest. Please, she thought. She wanted to press her head against his chest to hear his heart beat, thump, thump, and steady hers to his rhythm. To be in sync. Again. But that had been their problem, had it not? They were too in sync and it was wrong. It was wrong.

"Gin," he breathed. At least he did not seem angry.

He pulled her into him and kissed her with a moan, settling his hands in the small of her back. She sighed and fluttered her eyes closed, hoping he could not feel the tear streaking down her cheek. God she needed him; it was so far past wanting. So, she indulged them both for a moment before pulling away.

"No," she insisted. "I can't – We are through, remember?" She could not forget any detail of their argument and their break. It ran through her mind daily. "We … decided." She crossed her arms protectively and moved several feet away. She could not trust herself so near to him, especially when he looked so vulnerable.

"You mean you decided."

She gaped at him, anger sparking and making her flush. "I said a break for now. You were the one that –"

He scoffed, drawing up and into himself, his eyes narrowed and so like his father at that moment that she might have gasped if she had not seen this before. She called it "becoming Malfoyish" to his annoyance, his default attitude in most frustrating situations. She had seen him thus at press and society events when his past was sometimes flung back at him. She had not often seen this side of him turned to herself since her school days.

"Because you are a fucking coward." She hated that tone too.

"I – I was worried about both our futures."

"Right. That is such a convenient excuse. Our futures – where have I heard that? Oh, right – every single time –"

"Draco, you were worried too, remember? When it was just a rumour that we might fancy one another?"

He ignored her. "I survived the Dark Lord and the Death Eater damage to my name. What makes you think that I can't survive Potter? Or that I even care what Potter and his band of Merry Men think about anything?"

"You should care – after everything, especially after us," she hissed. "Because he has power, Draco, more than we have. I have felt the world turn on me because of Harry before." He was so damn reckless and obstinate; he probably only summoned her to replay a fight which had been fought a dozen times in the past few months. Damn him.

He scoffed again, and turned away from her stiffly. "It always comes down to Scarhead."

"You know that's not it. If it were just us," she insisted, her tone just as harsh despite her words, "if it were just us, then I would choose you, over and over." Dear Merlin, she wanted to place her hands around his jaw and force him to look at her. Make him see this truth at least. There was no contest really. Instead, she explained, "Harry's injured right now. He just got out of St. Mungo's. He's part of my family. I can't just leave right now. That hasn't changed."

"Yes, it has," he sneered.

"No, it hasn't."

"Yes, it has, Ginevra." He moved past her to his unusually cluttered desk to retrieve a letter. When he handed it to her, he seemed slightly wary and vulnerable again. "Just read it, then I'll answer any questions."

She opened the slightly crumbled parchment and quickly scanned the too-neat handwriting. "Oh my God," she murmured and looked up at Draco briefly, who nodded in confirmation. She read it much slower another time, her hands visibly shaking. She must have gone white, she must have, because, dear Merlin above, she felt all the blood rush away from her face.

But somehow, her heart continued to beat, because the sound of it pounded in her ears mercilessly.

She could hardly digest the contents, hardly knew how to respond or act. "Do you know who sent this?" she asked, sitting down at the edge of his bed, suddenly weak.

"Not yet," he murmured. "My attorneys are working on a list of suspects – but with my past and my father's, it's a long list. I've hired a private investigator. I also have my own suspicions."

"Wh–who do you suspect?"

"Pansy, primarily."

"Oh, right, yes," she paused. "I think I'm going to be sick." She did look a little green, so he called for a house elf to bring a potion.

"When did you receive it?"

"Last evening. My attorneys have been working on it for the past 24 hours. I didn't want to tell you, but they haven't been able to stop publication." His voice softened, finally, like it did that day in the hospital nearly a year ago, when she had been concussed again. Just like that, as gentle as a Malfoy voice could be.

"You should have told me, Draco. I should have –" What, she thought, what should I have done? She didn't like the helplessness of his expression, which must mirror her own.

"I hoped to have put a stop to it. Apparently, not even Malfoys have enough galleons to fix this."

"How did this happen?" She glanced down at her shaking hands, because, it was too much to meet Draco's gaze after all. She still held the letter and flung it away as though it burnt her. So this was what ruin felt like. Real ruin. Not like the war when everything was out of her control and all the forces of evil were external. This, this was her own doing. Even if someone else – even then …

"I don't know that either," he conceded with a sigh. Deflated – and she decided that she hated that expression too. Deflate. It was an awful word. Yet, she felt it too. All the air - wooshed - right out her own body along with her blood. Deflated like Draco who seemed to have lost too much of the cockiness that she had begun to rely upon.

He explained, "I never noticed anything missing, Gin. I've been over the security spells, interrogated all the house elves and most of the footmen so far. The thing is, nothing is missing." He turned to a hidden cabinet, opening it with a spell and then opened a safe and took out a small packet of letters. He tossed them to her. "They're all there."

She untied the black satin ribbon holding the bundle together and went through the small packet. They were all there – every letter and note, salacious and otherwise, angtsy, worn. She opened a few and could not help smiling sadly at a few of their expressions. Written mostly when Draco had been sidelined with injury in the winter and a few naughty summons in the spring. These were the only times that they had been apart and she had felt his absence more keenly than she had ever felt Harry's absences over the years.

She could not make herself destroy any and left them to Draco's small safe when the season ended, and Harry had been injured, and she was afraid of discovery. She'd almost asked him to burn them all then, feeling the full weight of her guilt. As if destroying the evidence of her betrayal would make the hurt lessen. Yet, she could not make herself do it ultimately. Not when they had meant so much more than any correspondence had a right mean. And that was always the gist, right? Nothing between them was ever supposed to mean as much as it had.

"Which ones did they get?" she asked. "I think that they are all here." It made her even more ill to think of someone, perhaps especially Pansy, rifling through their intimate correspondence. It was more than an intrusion.

He sighed again and sat down next to her, picking through a few letters on her lap. "Nott thinks that the thief copied a few letters and returned the originals. I've been through the letters myself. I can't tell exactly, but these two seemed to have been folded back the wrong way." He pulled out two letters for her inspection.

… I am despondently in love with you as I have never been …

"Oh," she took them, reading over them again. "Oh." A letter to Draco and a letter from him. Their words left little doubt as to their real relationship. And they would be published for all the Wizarding World to see in the Tattler tomorrow morning.

"I'm still fighting it, Gin, but I had to tell you now – so that you could do any ... damage control."

She looked up at him then. "Damage control, yes that would be prudent, wouldn't it? Though I don't know how I could at this point." She paused, brushing her fingers over Draco's signature at the bottom of one page. She had loved him so much at the receipt of this letter, and had been ready to throw Harry over for him. But then, Harry had been attacked, and she had felt unable to spring this on him, and then her family had assumed ... She had been a coward, certainly – and everything that was happening now was her fault. And Draco's too. They'd brought ruin upon themselves. How could there ever be enough damage control for that?

All that and Draco still wanted her. She reached over, allowing letters to fall onto the floor and curled her arms around his chest, resting her chin on his shoulder. "So we're found out then," she murmured into his hair.

"Yes, we're found out," he echoed, returning her embrace and pressing her tightly to him. So tightly. It was always so wrong, and it felt wrong even when it felt natural. She kissed just below his ear and he sagged against her a little. Because, what did it matter now? When everyone was going to know, what was the point of pulling apart now? She just –

"Please," she whispered into his ear, "just please," and moved up to kiss him properly and share his breath. After all, he needed her too. She could feel it, the need, long before she had recognized it. She liked to think she could always feel it with him. Perhaps she always had. But when he kissed her back, none of this reasoning mattered. It was just them, against the world; and this scandal about to break apart their world made her truly realise that this was the way it had been for them, from the very beginning, all the way back to that bookshop.

Leave him alone.

Look Potter. You've got yourself a girlfriend.

All the way back to that very first meeting. Because without that moment, without Lucius Malfoy slipping the diary into her things and all that followed through the years, to her trade to the Wasps and their flying together and working together, Ginny would not be with him now.

She could never have loved Draco as she did now had she not hated him first.

He pulled back and looked at her with questioning eyes. She didn't know how to tell him all this yet. "I'm not being fickle, I promise," she said. "This is it, you and me."

"Are you sure …" he began, "because the papers."

"No!" Ginny pressed a harsh kiss against his lips. "Not ever because of that. Never." She swallowed. "I have been wrong to both you and … Harry, and I am sorry for that Draco."

Draco recoiled a little, clearly alarmed by her direction. He never liked sentimentality, and she could not help smiling a little at this. "But I am not … even if I could, I would never go back to Harry. You are it for me, Draco." She played with the hair at the nape of his neck, loving the silky texture. Merlin, she had missed him, but he had not said a word to her declaration.

"That is, I mean …"

He kissed her then, pushing her back onto the bed. "I'll send Weston for your things," he replied. "Stay here, we'll wait the scandal out here."

She pulled him down to her, swallowing her guilt, and concentrating on the feel of his weight, his knee pressed against her thigh. But she had grown too good at swallowing guilt and losing herself in Draco. That had to stop didn't it? She didn't have a choice. "I need to warn my parents and I need to see Harry. He deserves at least that much from me," she muttered.

Draco frowned, but nodded in understanding, and brushed his knuckles across her cheek. So earnest, yet still a little guarded. He murmured, "You're it for me too, Gin."

They were in this together, and even though she dreaded the morning, she was okay. Wasn't that strange?

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