Chapter 2: The Expose
... 5 months to D-Day...
Somehow she had always known, during the four months that passed, in a swirl of colour and activity, since that fateful night at Malfoy Manor, that it would come back to bite her in the backside. And yet there were many moments - when she soared with the success of her ventures – in which she thought perhaps they would get away with it.
And, frankly, she deserved it. And if she didn't, then the elves certainly did. She had dedicated years in general to increasing awareness of the mistreatment of creatures considered to be of lesser worth than wizards. She had dedicated over nine months in particular to her job within the Mistreatment of Magical Creatures department of the Ministry, and during that time she had positively slaved for little result. The problem, she knew, was that people didn't much care for fixing the problem; it caused too many issues they said. Of course, no one wanted to come right out and say they supported old wizarding families abusing their house-elves... but when it came right down to it they didn't want to do anything to resolve the problem either.
It had felt just like fourth year all over again, when Ron had mocked her for knitting hats and making badges. She was an idealist, that was true, but she rather thought it was better than being ignorant.
Hermione had done everything in those first nine months to arrange further funding for the department. She had personally written to all sorts of sympathetic parties in the hopes of some support. As it turned out, sympathy was actually just pity in disguise, and did not reflect a keenness to do anything helpful. As vexing as Malfoy's disparaging comments about her job had been, there had been a painful grain of truth to the words.
She supposed that was probably what had led her to accept the ludicrous offer. Actually it wasn't so much of an offer, given that he'd dragged her to his proverbial palace and refused to let her leave until she'd said yes anyway. That there had been a benefit in the whole arrangement for her was just incidental. But as much as she felt rather guilty about concealing the truth, the fact was that she was doing it for the better good.
Her friends had never taken an interest in her pursuits like that before, so really she had no need to tell them. Even if she weren't bound to silence from the vow that she had, in a moment of weakness, consented to, she wouldn't have told them anyway. She also had to remind herself that, though it was a fact she very much resented, this was the way of things. All around her people made underhand deals in the boys club that was the Ministry. That was how it had always been, and if she was going to make the necessary changes, she would have to participate in some of the more unsavoury aspects of parliament. She just had the benefit of knowing that Malfoy, reprobate and utterly untrustworthy individual that he was, could not use it against her publicly.
It had been so easy. That was the thing that struck Hermione most in the months that followed the tawdry agreement. She had announced to her department head that she had found a very generous philanthropist; a highly eccentric individual who was therefore determined to maintain secrecy. Of course, the Ministry weren't too fussed about that, as long as the money was coming in. It meant that they could allocate the meagre resources provided to her in another – and deemed by them to be more relevant – direction. They only tended to look into those kinds of dealings if it was likely to cause any additional trouble for them.
She rather thought she had learnt a lot about politics in that time. And despite how much it annoyed her to know that she had changed things for the better off the back of assistance from Malfoy, at least it was happening. For the elves, she thought.
Hermione worked herself hard for weeks, but with the success of her proposals, and the proof in the pudding so to speak, she had made a lot of head way. Her department had managed to rescue numerous unhappy elves and set up housing and welfare for them. She even had an assistant now. Not that the girl was very good at her job, rather useless actually, because Hermione constantly had to go over all of her work and redo it. Who would have thought employing people would be so difficult?
Even her social life had begun to improve. She'd had dinner with Anthony Goldstein of the International Magical Co-operation department on a couple of occasions, and to great success she thought. He had been a Ravenclaw in the same year as her at Hogwarts, but they never really had much interaction back then. She had worked fairly closely with him on establishing tentative bilateral agreements with foreign ministries.
He was quite good looking and a wonderful conversationalist. Although she didn't really want to put too much stock on the success of their dates, she rather hoped there was some potential there. After all, her dating repertoire since the fizzling of her romance with Ron after graduation had been a bit threadbare. It was one of the unfortunate repercussions of having a very heavy schedule and not a lot of room for new people, once one considered her extended family and the time they took up.
Whilst she tried to ignore the root cause of all the success her department was currently experiencing, she couldn't deny that the support of Malfoy's financing had really enabled her to push her agenda in the Ministry. It was an extremely exciting time for Hermione. So, given the cruelty of fate, it was only appropriate at this stage, when things were going so well, that the balloon would burst.
It happened, much to her horror, over breakfast and a cup of piping hot tea. Splashed across the front page of the Daily Prophet was a very large and suspect looking photograph of her and Draco Malfoy talking in private. They were huddled in a dark corner, at night, and his head was lowered toward her. The fact that they both kept looking around rather shiftily only made it look more suspicious.
Hermione knew exactly when it had been taken. They had met only twice since that night to discuss necessary financing. She had been so certain that no one had seen them.
In any case, whatever she thought of the photograph, it could be explained away. It was the headline and the accompanying story which had her spraying Ceylon all over the countertop.
Potter's Ally and Former Death Eater in Money Laundering Plot!
Her heart spluttered and then stopped as her voracious gaze pored over the contents of the article. It was so painfully incorrect in its facts, that it made her want to stalk into the paper's offices and wring the neck of its writer. That there was little substance to the allegations was really a moot point in Hermione's opinion, because somehow a small portion of the truth had been uncovered. Or at the very least had the potential to be uncovered, which given her vow, was rather the same thing. The article, a Rita Skeeter special, outlined a sordid tale of Hermione and Malfoy's collaboration to use the S.P.E.W project as a way to launder money under the nose of the Ministry.
It seemed utterly absurd to her that the woman still harboured such resentful feelings toward her after all these years. It was very likely that she had started tailing Hermione the minute word of her successful ventures had started to spread. That the woman and her photographer had stumbled across a covert meeting between Hermione and Malfoy was very unfortunate indeed.
The crux of the issue now, Hermione knew, was that she had no real way of defending the claim. After all, she had sworn under the Unbreakable Vow that she would not tell the truth of their transactions, and that she would do whatever in her power to conceal it. No good would come from hoping it would all die down either. Such a vocal accusation against a well-respected war hero and a ministry employee had the potential to warrant a fairly unsavoury investigation.
There seemed to her to be a bitter sort of irony in the fact that thanks to these claims Malfoy could end up in jail on an even worse charge than orchestrating an illegal poker tournament, and that she could potentially lose her job. This was precisely why people shouldn't agree to such arrangements, because there was always a backlash. Now why had she forgotten such a salient point?
As she sat there at her small kitchen counter, still staring at the ink smudged pages of her newspaper, she tried to get a handle on the situation. Despite Skeeter's notoriety for writing trashy articles with no substance, and the fact that her hatred of Hermione was well documented, she would still have to appease everyone, convince them of the falseness of the accusations.
Harry and Ron, all of her friends really, would have no trouble believing her to be innocent. They would, however, be very curious to know the contents of her meeting with Malfoy. She hadn't the slightest inclination of what she would tell them on that score.
That was the least of her worries though. Her major priority was to ensure that the Ministry felt no need to look too closely into the allegations. There would be a meeting of course; they couldn't be seen to completely ignore the whole thing, but she just had to convince them enough to guarantee there would be no inquiry. After all, she couldn't very well swear to tell the truth in a court room and uphold the constraints of the vow.
She thought of Malfoy and wondered just what was going through his mind at that very moment. An extensive string of colourful obscenities, no doubt.
After all, they were, to use one of Ron's most favoured sayings, completely screwed.
Now, before she could consider speaking to anyone, she was going to have to sit down with the person who had caused her life such upheaval, so that they could get their story straight. He, overindulged social-climber that he was, had no real job and therefore might be able to afford the stint in Azkaban that potentially lay ahead. She, on the other hand, had very important matters to see to.
It had been precisely seven hours and nine minutes since she had sent an owl to the Malfoy Manor. And she was still awaiting his arrival. This basically meant that she had been kept waiting seven hours and seven minutes longer than she would have thought the situation warranted.
Given his extremely delayed response to her missive, she had been cooped up in the house avoiding all possible contact with the outside world. Whilst it was a Saturday, and hence she had no need to venture into work, she knew for a fact that her friends were eager to hear from her. And frankly it looked suspicious for her to be in hibernation like this. Furthermore, she was innocent, of that particular crime in any case.
She had begun her day with some very deep breathing, extensive – albeit one-sided – conversations with Crookshanks about how best to handle the situation, and had followed all this up by taking copious notes. She now had 11 inches of parchment enumerating her thoughts on the matter, and how she perceived their chances were of the whole thing blowing over.
Lamentably, they weren't all that optimistic. After all, if she had learnt something about the wizarding community in her time, it was that when it came to a scandal, its members were like vultures picking at the carcass of a story until there was nothing left.
Oh, how she dreaded the thought of being that carcass.
Hermione paused in her pacing of the small living room in her flat. There wasn't a whole lot of space for walking, but she found that doing loops around the coffee table at the very least gave her some way to pass the time.
This accounted for her physical need to occupy herself. Mentally, she was just as busy. Her thoughts flew in a colourful sequence of visions, all of which involved the infliction of pain upon a person with an unnaturally shiny head. She had just reached a particularly satisfying mental image when she heard the distinctive sound of a pop outside her front door. Hermione raced to the small peep hole to ensure that it was actually him this time. She'd seen more than one reporter trying to gain entry to her building today.
She needn't have worried; the reflection of his face was blinding enough to convince her that Draco Malfoy had, finally, deigned to acknowledge her summons.
Quickly unbolting the door, she threw it open, feeling an electric current of rage skirting through her body directed purely at him. Her eyes were narrowed and he looked quite alarmed.
"Good grief… you look frightening. I do hope no children live in this building… I've heard about the latent effect traumatic experiences can have on them when they grow up."
"Are you quite finished?" She was in absolutely no mood to deal with his sparring. Although the sting from his childhood hatred of her and her kind had well and truly died, his continued need to bait her had not.
"Merlin, no. On this topic, I can assure you, I could go on for hours."
He shoved past her and she dead bolted the door, much to his bemusement. Wizards didn't use Muggle locks, which she supposed made sense given how entirely susceptible they were to magical manipulation. She used wards too of course, but she found the act of locking the door manually gave her a sense of security she couldn't deny.
It was very strange, she realised as she watched him, to see Draco Malfoy standing in her home. It felt entirely violated, especially given the way he was surveying the area.
"Granger… why do you have sofas in your entry hall?" He looked highly perturbed.
"It's my living room." She pointed to one of the aforementioned sofas so that he might get the hint and sit down. "Anyway you're not here to discuss my furniture arrangement."
"Living room?" He wandered out of the main room and down the narrow hall, prowling in a very unwelcome fashion. His voice called out from the vicinity of her bedroom. "You call this a house? I've seen broom closets bigger than this space and… fuck me! What is that?!"
The sound of hissing told her that what had caused his extreme alarm was in fact her cat, Crookshanks, who clearly didn't like his humble abode being insulted in quite that fashion.
She walked past him, he had backed himself in a corner with his wand held aloft, and reached out to scratch the feline's ears.
"Clever, Crookshanks." He purred contentedly, with one eye still open and fixed on Malfoy.
"You keep that thing as a pet?" He eyed the two of them before continuing, "I suppose there are some similarities… what with the abundance of-"
"Don't even say it, Malfoy. Or I'll hex off all your extremities!" She narrowed her eyes at him before stalking back into the living room, grateful that he actually followed.
"I'm beginning to sense a preoccupation of yours with my… extremities, to use your own description." He arched a brow and sat down on her squishy armchair.
"Shut up, Malfoy. You insulted my house, my cat and my appearance in one fell swoop. You deserve whatever is coming to you. And stop prodding my sofa, it's perfectly comfortable."
He muttered something, which she elected to ignore, for the sake of getting the conversation over with, and reached for her notes.
"You didn't really make discussion points, did you?"
She huffed, and shuffled them in order. She'd actually rewritten them twice, but she wouldn't tell him that. "If you hadn't kept me waiting, I wouldn't have needed to."
"I was… detained." The slightly lecherous quality of his expression, as he seemed to revel in the memory, told her just how he'd been detained. It was something she truly did not want to know. And, in fact, she harboured a deep suspicion that the reason for his delay was nothing of that sort. He was clearly trying to bait her again.
"Yes, well… you'll be detained in a whole other manner if we don't sort this out." Her tone was serious and, she noted, finally his expression seemed to match the situation.
Weariness descended over his brow as he surveyed the article spread before them. "On this point, I quite agree." He paused and said quite archly, "Though it is really your fault that Skeeter's gone to such lengths. Truly hates you, she does."
She narrowed her eyes. "If I recall, it was you who started her on the whole campaign in fourth year in the first place!"
He paused, and a fond sort of expression lit his features. "Quite true."
"You don't suppose she'll just… drop it, do you?" Her tone was hopeful, though she knew it was without cause.
"It depends on what she's got… if she thinks there's really a story then it could stretch out. We're fucked if there's any sort of inquiry about it. And given my history with the Ministry… that's a distinct possibility."
That was very true, indeed.
"Well given your insistence on using the Vow, we really have got our hands tied. You know, you could have just trusted me on this and we'd have got out of it okay."
He rolled his eyes at her tone of voice. "Why on earth would I trust the very person whose intention it was to put me in prison in the first place?"
She was loath to admit it, but that had been the reason she followed him that night. "Not the point! We'd made an agreement, and I'm infinitely more trustworthy than you."
"You're trustworthy to those who agree with you, not those you oppose. There's a difference, Granger. Contrary to what you clearly believe, you do not have everyone's best interests at heart."
"I'll have you know-"
"Look, my family has a history of funding Ministry projects. It goes back generations… so why should it be so hard to believe I'm doing the same?"
She paused. "Because it's me. Who will believe you want to help me achieve anything?"
He tapped his chin thoughtfully. "That's true… never could stand over-achievers."
She glared at him, because frankly such contributions were hardly helpful.
"Okay," she sighed. "We have no choice but to go with that line of argument anyway. Anything more detailed will only look like a cover up. We just say you're doing it to improve your standing after the war… which, by rights, you should be doing."
"In your eyes, Granger. The eyes of the Ministry. That doesn't count for everything in my world."
She opened her mouth to say something, but really didn't know what to say, and so left it.
"I'm going to talk to Harry tonight, and then I'll go into the Ministry tomorrow and try and sort this out. In the meantime, if you see reporters just go with that story."
"Do you always use that tone with your friends? I, unlike Weasley, am not an errant mule to be ordered around." He sneered at her and then left without another word.
She could only hope that their feeble story would be enough to save both their hides. She wasn't hopeful though, because anyone who knew their history would highly doubt he'd ever think to help her succeed in anything. And certainly nothing to do with house-elves.