A/N: Written for Inlovewithlaughing one shot a day challenge & xXKissingSinxX 100 prompts challenge.
Rumours
"I saw them in the library ….. they weren't studying books,' Lavender Brown said crossing her arms over her chest.
"Are you sure?" Katie Bell sat forward in her chair resting her arms on her knees.
"I'm sure," Lavender said.
"Spying on them, were you?" Dean Thomas plopped down in an empty arm chair and swung his feet up on the coffee table.
"I was doing no such thing," Lavender snapped. "And I also have it on good authority that they were enjoying detention in the potions lab way too much."
"How do you even know all of this?" Dean asked amazed.
"I have my ways," Lavender replied mysteriously.
"Spying," Dean said with a sharp nod of his head.
"I was not!"
"Snooping then, it's all the same."
"I was not spying and I was not snooping!" Lavender snapped angrily. "But I do know that Ginny Weasley is getting hot and heavy with Blaise Zabini all over Hogwarts!"
XxXx
Rumours are strange things. They can start out quite innocently, with one person simply mentioning something to another; but somehow the story grows, snowballs and becomes distorted and by the time its finished being told there is only a grain of truth left and sometimes not even that.
Ginny Weasley was about to discover just how quickly a rumour can grow.
Yes, it was true that she was involved in a relationship with Blaise Zabini. Perhaps relationship would be too strong a word for it; she liked him and she was attracted to him but they were strictly physical. He knew that and she knew that.
Ginny's heart belonged to someone else, it had always belonged to someone else.
Blaise knew she didn't love him just as she knew Blaise didn't love her. But he helped her scratch an itch and she helped keep him satisfied. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement whereby feelings didn't enter into it and no-one got hurt.
She was with him now, on the roof of the astronomy tower watching him writing. Blaise had a way with words, he had a hidden poet inside him that he hardly ever let out unless he was alone. But he let the poet out in front of her. Ginny understood that was Blaise' way of letting her know he trusted her, it was not his way of sharing himself with her. Blaise had no interest in sharing anything with her other than his body and Ginny felt the same way.
"What are you writing?"
"A poem."
"I figured that much out. What's it about?"
"You."
Ginny who was lying on her stomach lifted her weight onto her arms and pulled the Slytherin robes closer to her chest. "Me? What about me?"
Blaise grinned, his even white teeth flashing briefly at her. "Things I've discovered about you."
"Such as?"
"I'll let you read it when it's finished. Don't look so worried, it doesn't mention you by name and you know I wouldn't let anyone read it anyway. You're the only one who knows I even write poetry."
"You're not going all gooey on me are you?" she was laughing and Blaise stuck out his tongue.
"No way. I like things the way they are; and if you start becoming attached to me I'll be giving you the old heave-o."
Ginny laughed, rolling onto her back to stare up at the sky. "Will you be much longer with your poem?"
"It will take as long as it takes. Why?"
"It's nearly time to go back and I fancied another, how did you phrase it the other day, a roll in the hay?"
Blaise laughed easily. "It's a muggle expression."
"Did I get it right?"
"You did." He shut his little book returning it and the quill to his bag.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Go ahead."
"How come your friends with Malfoy, what with you being a half blood and everything?" It had always puzzled Ginny, Malfoy was such a pure blood fanatic.
"I'm not friends with Malfoy," Blaise said. "No-one is friends with Malfoy, he doesn't keep friends, he doesn't know how to treat people."
"You hang around with him."
"Survival. It's better to have Malfoy on side than not. His family is very influential." Blaise reached out to trace a line across her bare shoulder. "I'm in Slytherin remember, I know how to get by, how to play the game as it were."
"Doesn't it get tiresome, wearing a mask all the time?"
"It's necessary when you have Malfoy around, he can scent your weakness like a shark scents blood."
She rolled towards him, her hand sliding up his bare leg. Her eyes gleamed wickedly as her hand climbed higher. "I know your weaknesses too."
His eyes fluttered shut and he smiled. "I give you permission to exploit them."
XXXX
Have you ever walked up to a group of people who stopped talking as soon as they saw you? That's what happened to Ginny when she entered the Gryffindor common room a short while later. Expect that it wasn't a group of people, it was the whole room.
She frowned as the entire room turned to look at her. The silence was so profound Ginny was sure she would have heard a pin drop.
Her brother Ron suddenly detached himself from a group of boys in the corner and he came at her like a hound from hell. He didn't say anything but he grabbed her by the arm and steered her back out into the corridor. Hermione Granger quickly followed them.
"I don't believe you!" Ron hissed viciously as soon as the portrait swung shut behind them.
"What have I done?" Ginny asked bewildered. "Will somebody please tell me what's going on?"
Ron's face flamed red with anger. "From what I hear it's Blaise Zabini you're doing, all over the school."
"Ron," Hermione warned. "Don't lose your temper."
Ginny's began to get angry herself. "Excuse me?"
"What Ron is trying to say," Hermione stepped in as the voice of reason between what could potentially become two warring siblings. "Well, Lavender said she saw you and Blaise kissing in the library."
"Oh did she," Ginny folded her arms across her chest, a scowl crossing her face.
"Yes. And Colin Creevey said he saw you down by the Black Lake… you…. You weren't just kissing then," Hermione said awkwardly and Ron gave a strangled groan. "And when you had detention the other week with him, well, Lavender says that she knows you were… up to things in the dungeon, Zacharias Smith told her so, he um, he said you were…. You had nothing on."
"She said. He said. Who cares who said it? I just want to know if it's true!" Ron was in his sisters face now, his eyes snapping with anger.
Ginny gave a growl and pushed Ron out of her way. She stormed into the common room and climbed up on to the nearest chair. "Everyone! I have an announcement to make!"
The room fell silent, all Griffyndor's turning to look at her. Lavender Brown had a hungry look in her eyes, she would be the first to get the gossip and the first to send it on its rounds to her friends in other houses.
"Seeming as everyone has taken it upon themselves to discuss my private life as though its public property, I'll say that it's true that I was in the potions room with Blaise Zabini."
She heard Ron groan pitifully behind her.
"However, it's not true I had nothing on, I had the radio on; and you can keep your nose out of my life, Lavender and try getting a life of your own. If I hear you've been gossiping about me again I promise you that you'll regret it." She hopped off the chair and stalked up the winding stair case to her dormitory.
Ginny wasn't one for gossip, but she knew how it worked. People were always looking for new things to talk about and whilst her little threat to Lavender was hardly as juicy as her having sex with Blaise Zabini, people would still talk about it and just maybe it would deflect the attention away from her and Blaise.
Ginny flopped onto her bed and tucked her hands behind her head. She and Blaise were going to have to be careful from now on. Gazing up at the ceiling she smiled and wondered if anyone would remember that there wasn't a radio in the potions class.
She flushed. Sometimes, just sometimes, rumours didn't need exaggerating.