Unrolling the paper to be met with a frontpage article from Rita Skeeter, Michael rolls his eyes and tosses it aside. He can't hold in the frustrated sigh that has become an almost instinctive response to seeing, hearing, or reading anything to do with that woman. Apparently, being the ex-boyfriend of the Chosen One's girlfriend is a newsworthy matter. It feels like every time Ginny and Potter are seen together in public, Skeeter wants a quote from him about how heartbroken he is or how he's concerned that Ginny will leave Potter the way she left him.
Morag insists he brought it on himself. He wishes he could argue otherwise, but he really can't.
The first time Skeeter came to him, he was at the pub after a hard week at work. Well past drunk and all too happy to vent about schoolyard slights, he told her everything. About how the whole time they were dating, Ginny was obsessed with Harry Potter. About how it felt like she had one foot out the door from the start. About how she started dating Dean almost immediately after they broke up.
He neglected to mention how he'd been more focused on Quidditch than her at the time, or how he'd started dating Cho almost as quickly as she started dating Dean. Bitterness blinds, after all; it wasn't until he read the newspaper a few days later that he realised what he'd done.
But by then, it was too late.
Most of his old classmates don't care. Potter has forgiven him, saying that he understands how Skeeter manipulates and deceives, and while Ginny hasn't, she has agreed to be civil so as not to make the gossip worse. Still, the fallout has been bad. Half of the population blames him for trying to get between the couple, while the other half wants to hear more about how their heroes' lives are just as flawed as their own. Either way, it isn't pleasant for him – or for them.
But that isn't the worst of it; a few screening spells on his incoming mail were enough to shield him from most of the public backlash. No, the real issue is that Skeeter is like a shark; now that she has scented his weakness, tasted his blood, she refuses to give up the chase. Every time he walks down the street, he tenses up, worried that she'll appear out of nowhere to ambush him again.
He can only hope it will die down after Ginny and Potter's wedding.
Somehow, he doubts it.
A/N: Written for the Build a Zoo Challenge with the prompt 'Michael Corner'