Title: Interoffice Stereotypes
Author: Jmaria
Rating: Pg-13 to R
Spoilers: Set three years after AU book seven, cannon from OotP
Disclaimer: JK owns all, I am a broke college student. Correction: I own C. More Skeeter.
Summary: Here's the shovel, there's what you've got to muck through…
A/N: Because they are just made of awesome…

She wakes up on the Wrong Side or the Get-the-Hell-Out-of-My-Way Side of the Bed

"I'm going to strangle that little witch," Millicent gritted her teeth for the third time that morning. She squared her shoulders and marched forward purposefully.

Fred glanced over to her, truthfully trying to weigh and measure his words before he spoke. Saying something hastily and without any thought could get him injured and the bust lip and aching stomach were enough incentive to keep quiet for a bit longer.

Katie and Marcus had left over an hour ago, Marcus still disturbed by the fact that Millicent hadn't immediately gone to strangle the Skeeter witch. After throwing down the scandalous paper, she'd taken a deep breath and counted to five. Instead of marching out the doors and making her way to the Prophet headquarters, she demanded a quill and a sheaf of plain parchment.

Marcus had continued moaning about the countless owls and howlers that had arrived hourly for him, and demanded that she handle the situation. Millicent had punched him once in the shoulder before she handed Katie the parchment. Katie had scanned it once before nodding and forcefully pulling her very confused husband out of the shop. Which left Millicent and Fred relatively alone in the shop. She'd turned and faced him with a grim smile on her lips. She then turned the open sign over and busied herself with setting the shop to rights for their customers. Now, an hour later, Fred was still completely baffled at his employee's determined busywork.

Instead of looking for retribution from Celia Skeeter, here she was chasing after a four year old little witch who was determined to pull the carton of Ever-Bouncing Hogwarts castles to the ground. After giving the little girl's mother an aggravated glare that had the older witch scooping up her child and hastily making her way back out the shop doors, Millicent rounded the counter to face him again.

"Mil?" Fred said cautiously.

"What?" Her voice was strained, and even if he hated known the circumstances he could have told by her tone that not was all well with her.

"You don't have to stay and work. You can go home -"

"And get docked a day's pay?" Millicent held up a hand to stop him. "I can't afford it."

"I wouldn't dock you a day's pay," Fred snapped. "You more than deserve today off. You've got a lot on your plate today, your mother's worried about you, and Zabini -"

"And what, go home?" Millicent's eyes narrowed.

"Yes, go home. Straighten things out with your mother, Zabini, and set Skeeter straight."

"Set Skeeter and my mother straight?" Millicent scoffed. "You know nothing about this, so please, don't lecture me on what I ought to do."

Millicent stormed into the back room as a group of customers approached the counter to be rung up. Anger and humiliation warred for dominance in her mind. Fred wouldn't - no, he couldn't - understand what was going on and what she had to do to set it to rights. What did she expect? He'd been a Gyffindor, for Merlin's sake! She had to handle this her way, the Slytherin way.

"We weren't finished, Mil," Fred cried, bursting into the back room a minute later. Millicent spun around to face him, shocked at the tone he was taking with her.

"I'm not going home," Millicent snapped, pushing past him again. She blinked in surprise when she got to the sales floor. The half dozen customers that had been in there were gone and the open sign had been changed to 'be in half a 'mo'. Fred stood behind her, arms crossed determinedly. He wasn't giving up without an explanation from her. She crossed her arms just as defiantly. "You're not making me go home."

"Really?"

"You won't win. They won't win."

"What are you talking about? Taking a day off won't -"

"If I go home now, I'm essentially admitting my guilt!" Millicent cried. Fred felt his jaw sag.

"What?"

"If I go running home, my mother will automatically assume that everything she read and suspected is right, that her distorted version of the truth is spot on. It's better that I stay away from her for a few days until I sort this all out -"

"Why would your mother -"

"Not all families are as understanding and leap to defend their children as yours is, Weasley," Millicent said tiredly, the stress and hurt evident on her face.

"But you didn't do anything wrong," Fred argued.

"Not according to the Daily Prophet."

"It's the Prophet! They haven't said anything worth it's weight in the last ten years."

"Then why bother printing it? If it's in print, then it's just got to be true," Millicent argued.

"No it hasn't."

"Yes, and while you and I see that as a logic thought, my mother won't. So if I go home and tell my mother that they're lying about me and Blaise and Padma Patil, she'll assume I'm lying to mask the truth and embarrassment."

Millicent felt her eyes burning at the thought of her mother's accusatorial words and the conversation she would have to have with her mother eventually when everything settled down and Blaise was ready to move on with his life and stop helping her. She cursed her life and the circumstances that she'd had to deal with in the last four years. Fred watched as a bit of the mask slipped again, showing him what he was sure was just a fraction of the anguish she was feeling. At that same moment, he wanted nothing better than to rip Zabini, Skeeter, and Mrs. Bulstrode apart. Millicent didn't need this on her plate right now. She didn't need a suspicious mother, a cheating boyfriend, and a paparazzi circling her like vultures. He moved forward to comfort her when someone apparated into his shop.

Katie took one look at Millicent and pulled her into the hug Fred was planning on giving her. Millicent felt tears slowly run down her face when the shorter woman hugged her fiercely. Katie smiled at Fred's expression when she finally let go of Millicent, politely turning away from the younger woman so she could wipe away the tears. Katie turned the smile on her friend as she handed Millicent the things she'd requested.

"That's everything on your list, Mil," Katie said cheerfully. "I know you're hell-bent on staying away from Bulstrode Estate for the time being, so will you please reconsider coming and staying with me and Marcus?"

"What and fuel my mother and Skeeter's respective fires? I don't bloody think so."

"You're still coming to dinner tonight?"

"I shouldn't, but I suppose I have no choice." Millicent sighed.

"Good! Now, I shouldn't tell you this, but after I delivered your message to Blaise, Marcus insisted he go and hex Blaise's balls off for good measure." Fred grinned broadly at this. Maybe Flint wasn't a complete moron after all.

"What?" Millicent cried. "And you let him?"

"Like anyone's been able to ever get through Flint's very troll-like thick skull," a voice spat from the doorway.

The three of them turned to stare at a very bruised and slightly broken looking Blaise, who had an enraged Marcus practically breathing down his neck. Millicent leveled a glare at Marcus before turning a frosty one on Blaise. Before she could speak, Fred stepped around her, finger pointing back at the door Blaise had just come through.

"I'd kindly tell you to piss off from my shop, but I've thought it over so I'm telling you to get the fuck out of my shop."

Marcus, Katie and Millicent's jaws dropped slightly at the fierceness in Fred's words. Katie giggling hysterically at Blaise's face and Marcus even managed to give Fred an appreciative grin. Millicent straightened her shoulders and tried desperately to regain the look she'd learned best from her mother.

"I came to speak to Millicent, not you Weasley. So you can just -"

"You're not a welcome presence right now, Blaise." Millicent bit her cheek as she saw Blaise's face fall in disbelief. "If you'd been able to read my note without Marcus' moronic and troll-like actions, then you would have known that."

"I -"

"Marcus, take your wife home now, and I won't hex you into oblivion very much when I come to dine with you tonight," Millicent snapped.

"I happen to think that's an excellent plan. And we'll be leaving. Laters, Mil, Fred!" Katie chirped happily, tugging a sputtering Marcus out of the shop. Fred almost laughed at the little thumbs up sign his former housemate gave him. "Fred, could you leave us alone for a bit?"

Fred jerked his head back at the soft tone of Millicent's voice. She'd been so sharp and confident when she had snapped her orders at Marcus that the softness she'd used on him was a complete 360 degree turn. He almost protested, but it was the look in her eyes, that same tiredness he'd seen before that had him nodded silently in agreement. He fixed Blaise with another cold stare before heading back to his workroom.

"Fine, but any blood you spill or body parts you hex off better be cleaned up before I come back," Fred shot over his shoulder.

Millicent let the icy glare she'd been giving Blaise drop a bit as she handed him a tissue for his bleeding lip. She smiled as she glanced over her shoulder at the workroom. This Weasley really wasn't half bad after all.

"Mil, I never meant -"

"Blaise, I'm sorry Marcus beat you up."

Blaise nearly dropped the tissue. Millicent hated having to apologize for something he knew she had no control over. He'd been at her father's 'mock' trial where the vindictive judges had ordered her to apologize for her father's actions and the wrongdoings of her dead grandfather who'd died in the first few months of Voldemort's return. At Voldemort's commands to boot. He hated that the pain he'd seen in her eyes now was the same pain he'd seen then.

"This would be so much easier if you'd even bothered to read the bloody note I sent you. Stupid, interfering Marcus. How's Patil taking this?"

"What?"

"Tell me you haven't completely ruined all the hard work I've been laying down with her for you," Millicent groaned. "You are an utter idiot."

"I thought you were angry about this?"

"I'm not thrilled about being gossiped about, but you've only been completely obsessed with that stupid twig for the last year. This is close as you're going to get to a perfect out with our very superficial relationship." Millicent said quietly. All she was rewarded with was Blaise's blank stare.

"My being depicted as a cheating scum-bag is a perfect out how exactly?"

"Are you currently shagging Padma Patil? Are you currently shagging me? She knows it's a cockamamie story, you know it's a cockamamie story. I act all upset and push you away, she swoops in and comforts you, you get the girl you're lusting after."

"But our agreement? I promised I'd keep your mother off your back about getting married." Blaise's brain normally worked faster than this, damn Marcus once again for his well-intentioned but idiotic protective streak.

"So she believes you're a cheating scum-bag. It all works out."

"And I lose my best friend over a stupid vindictive article. Real win-win situation we've got ourselves into, Bulstrode."

"My mother will forget it once she gets over her initial shock and awe. She needs something new to bitch about, and she will love blaming it on my everlasting love for Marcus," Millicent rolled her eyes at Blaise's pained bark of laughter.

"You're going to stay with Flint and Bell until things blow over with your mother?" Blaise asked after a few moments of silence. His eyes tick behind her, and Millicent knows Fred has poked his head out to check on them. Millicent puts the icy stare back into action and does something she never thought she'd say in a tone like this to Blaise.

"No, I'll be staying here with Weasley where I'm appreciated."