The Scandalmongers

Chapter 1: Prologue

Too brief for our passions, too long for our peace,

Were those hours - can their joy or their bitterness cease?

~ Lord Byron

She had not seen Draco for some weeks - beyond the occassional citations in the press for charitable drives or rumours that he had been seen with this or that witch. He generally liked to spend the offseason secluded in some country estate or other, avoiding inevitable Quidditch or Death Eater questions. Not that she blamed him - she often wished that she could escape such intrusions so well - but she did not have ancestral estates scattered across the kingdom and in France, well-equipped to repell persistent paparazzi. She had only the Burrow, that not-quite almighty fortress, and her mother who seemed able to wrangle even Rita Skeeter. She hid there just last week, pleading a lingering headache from the hit she had taken during the Cup final as an excuse to avoid the opening of the new children's wing at St. Mungo's Hospital. She had not yet the constitution to withstand the scrutiny of reporters and fans looking for signs of soon-to-be wedded bliss with Harry, or even cracks in their armour as a couple.

She also feared that Draco would be there and she knew that she could not maintain her equilibrium in his presence, especially with Harry at her side. It would have been Harry's first appearance since his injury. She was a little ashamed by that piece of cowardice, but it could not be helped if she were to avoid temptation or a breakdown - and either scenario seemed equally likely to happen.

Neither had she spoken to Draco for days, not even by owl. They had not yet mended their last quarrel, though they had been unable to resist reproachful letters for some time. But, it had been days since his last communication, and she was also afraid that he figured that she was not worth the trouble.

She was, therefore, surprised when his familiar eagle owl flew through her open bedroom window and landed neatly on her cluttered desk. He shook his feathers and dropped a thin missive. She offered him a treat, which he, as usual, scorned and flew away.

She wondered at Draco using Caesar in this way. If anyone had seen him in her building, they may have recognised and guessed something. If Rita Skeeter were about, she would recognise the Malfoy eagle owl immediately, and the season was over. What reason had they to correspond now? Still, she could not help smiling at the darting lines of his handwriting even as she recognised that his reason for communication could not be good.

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.

He did not sign his name.

For a long moment, she stood in dumb shock, her heart beating in her throat. Only later did she truly note that he had not signed his name and wondered at his state of mind in writing the missive. The elegant hand was a little jerky and he must have worried about catching Harry in using the Floo. And feared who might be monitoring his own Floo connection. But, for the moment, she could not articulate her own fear at his apparent distrees. She only stuffed the parchment into her pocket and reached for her wand with shaking hands. She prayed briefly that she would not splinch herself, feeling a pang her assumption that she had a right to pray in this way.

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. 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 much older than he had only two weeks 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.

He pulled her into him and kissed her, settling his hands in the small of her back. She sighed and indulged them both for a moment before she pulled away and pushed at him.

"No," she insisted. "I can't do this. We are through, remember?" She crossed her arms and moved several feet away; she did not trust herself so near to him, especially when he looked so vulnerable. It was not good for either of them. "We decided."

He glared. "You mean you decided."

"No, we did - at least for now."

Her calm reply visibly annoyed him - or at least that "for now" - which had been a common cause for arguments between them lately. He stilled, 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 also hated that especially cold tone.

"I am not - 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 we come this close--"

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

He ignored her. "I survived Voldemort 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. Because he has power, Draco, more than we have. I have felt the world turn on me because of Harry before."

He scoffed. "It always comes down to Scarhead."

"You know that's not it. If it were just us, then I would choose you, over and over. 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."

"No, it hasn't."

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

She opened the still smooth parchment and quickly scanned the too-neat handwriting. "Oh my God," she murmurred and looked up at Draco briefly, who nodded in confirmation. She read it much slower another time, her hands visibly shaking. She had worried that something had happened when Draco summoned her so uncharacteristically, but she had never imagined - 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.

"Not yet," he murmurred. "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."

"Who - who do you suspect?"

"Pansy, primarily."

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

"When did you recieve it?" she asked.

"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."

"You should have told me, Draco. I should have - I don't know what I would have done."

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

"How did this happen?"

"I don't know that either," he conceded with a sigh. Indeed, he almost seemed to deflate, and she decided that she hated that expression. "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 small 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 a concussion 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 even Harry's mission in Siberia.

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.

"Which ones did they - or Pansy - get?" she asked. "I think that they are all here."

He sighed againt 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.

"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 Daily Prophet 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. How 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. She'd brought ruin on both herself and Draco. 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 murmurred into his hair.

"I didn't want it to happen this way."