PUNCH

Ginny Weasley had hit a boy (man, when she grew older) in the face many times before. But this was the first time she had hit someone who wasn’t her brother, and who hadn’t really provoked her. At least, he hadn’t done that in years.

She hadn’t meant to hit him. She was aiming for Michael Corner, her sorry excuse of an ex-boyfriend. They first went out in her fourth year, broke up by the end of the same year, and went back together six months later. The pattern repeated itself in that manner for most of her adult life, and now at twenty-four, she had broken up with him for the sixth time. She didn’t know what was wrong with her. Maybe she was just plain stupid, or lonely, or just in for a mutually destructive relationship. It was not the first time he had cheated on her, and she didn’t know why and how she had been putting up with it time and again. It wasn’t as if she lacked suitors. She never lacked suitors. But she kept going round in small circles, dating other men, but ending up with Michael again, and ending up getting hurt, and made to feel small, undesirable, vulnerable, worthless. It was the last straw, she told herself that day when she marched off to find him. She was going to give him a souvenir to remember her by, and she would be done with him.

He was at the Falmouth Falcons party, celebrating their latest win against the Ballycastle Bats. She got in the party easily. She was a Quidditch player herself, playing Seeker for the Holyhead Harpies, and everyone at the party recognised her, and thought it natural that she should be there. No one ever suspected that she was there to trash the party.

When she finally found him, drinking and flirting with a tall, leggy, blond bombshell by the punch bowl, she did not waste any time to appreciate the irony of the situation; she stalked towards them with all the confidence she could muster. She held her head high in her short, backless dark blue dress, picked up a cup of punch as she walked along, her expensive silver high heels clicking against the shiny reflective marble floor. She smiled sweetly to everyone who greeted her on the way, and took big gulps of her punch to build up her guts. When Michael saw her, he did not even suspect a thing. She smiled at him. He leaned towards her. She threw the rest of her punch at his face, flung the cup away, and drew her fist back. In that split second, she savoured the sight of the colour draining out of his face, and she swung her fist with all her might.

She did not expect him to duck and move away as quickly as he did, and when that happened, the next thing she knew, she had punched someone else, and that someone else happened to be none other than her brother’s old nemesis, Draco Malfoy.

His bad luck that he had been standing behind Michael and had turned his face at the most inappropriate time. Given his identity, Ginny was not entirely sorry for the mistake.

It all came out in The Daily Prophet the next day. But it did not come out quite the way it was supposed to. Instead of the glaring, status-compromising report on Michael’s cheating ways on one of England’s most successful female Seeker -- the report she had been wishing for, so that she could make sure she had trashed his reputation thoroughly -- there was a report on her punching Draco Malfoy at the Falmouth Falcons party because he had cheated on her.

Six years of being a high-profile Quidditch celebrity had sharpened her media awareness tremendously, and it did not take her long to realise how quickly one misreported story could spin off many other versions of similarly bizarre misinterpretations.

Sure enough, by noon, all tabloids in the Wizarding world, big and small, had run a story about her and Draco Malfoy. The history of the bad blood between their families was dug out, along with the fact that they had been schoolmates at Hogwarts. It did not help matters that Draco Malfoy was an attention whore and had his own archive of juicy celebrity news from which the reporters could work on. In short, there was more than enough information for reporters to spin their stories any other way, making up histories of her relationship with Draco Malfoy that were non-existent in reality.

That faithful day, she thought her fireplace might have exploded with all the floo calls from her friends and the press and most of all, her own family. It was a single event that demonstrated to her clearly just how big a family she had, and after she got tired of explaining herself to her father and mother and six brothers, she cut off the floo network entirely, and stayed home so that she could get thoroughly pissed and not care about the consequences. Damage control could wait, until later.

~*~

Her manager came over to her place at six o’clock that evening and let herself in.

“Ginny,” her manager had called and shook her when she found her dozing on the sofa. “Ginny, I need to talk to you now.”

“Sod off, Alicia,” Ginny replied drunkenly, turned and buried her face into the back of her sofa.

“Gin!” Alicia called again, pulling her upright. “Come on, we got shit to sort out!”

“Argh!”

“Sobrietus!”

“Alicia!” Ginny screamed and clutched her head. “Ow! Why do you do that for?”

“Sit up,” Alicia said and helped Ginny shift to a more comfortable position, leaning back against the sofa. In her usual efficient moves, Alicia went to the kitchen and made Ginny a warm cup of water with a dash of lemon. “Drink up,” she ordered. “Rehydrate.”

Ginny followed Alicia’s order obediently. She drank as Alicia brought a cool towel to wipe her face for her. Ginny suffered the big-sisterly action quietly, and after Alicia was satisfied that Ginny was completely sober, she sat down on the ottoman and smoothed down her work robes before she spoke.

“I see you already know how ridiculous things have become,” Alicia begun, jerking her chin at the magazines and newspapers spread out messily on Ginny’s coffee table.

“I know,” Ginny replied as she pressed the heels of her palms against her closed lids. “I’m sorry.”

“I guess that’s why you will always be a better Seeker than a Chaser,” Alicia said and paused to take a sip of water. “You were never very good at aiming.”

Ginny opened her eyes, and was glad that Alicia was not really angry with her.

“Maybe I should have asked you along for the ride,” Ginny replied. “You were the Gryffindor star Chaser, after all.”

“And I’m sure a Quaffle would do a more satisfying job than a fist,” Alicia said, leaning in and placing a comforting hand on Ginny’s shoulder. “You feeling okay?” she asked, concern evident in her eyes.

Ginny was touched. She placed her hand over Alicia’s and nodded. “I felt a lot better after the punch.”

“I’m afraid I can’t say the same for Draco Malfoy,” Alicia said, leaned back and folded her arms, a grim expression on her face. “But I see what you mean about the punch.”

They looked at each other for a few seconds. Alicia tried to keep her straight face and be serious about the topic, but Ginny could see the twitching at her jaw, and they ended up laughing and slapping their thighs.

“My god,” Alicia cried, wiping a tear. “I can’t believe you socked that bastard. I wanted to do that for ages!”

“It was an accident,” Ginny said, clutching her stomach.

“It was a good accident,” Alicia said.

“Am I going to get into trouble with the Association?” Ginny asked.

Alicia waved her hand carelessly as she spoke. “It’s a wild party, Gin. Someone always gets socked at those sorts of parties. Especially a Falmouth Falcons party.”

“So I’m not in any kind of trouble?” Ginny asked, heaving a sigh of relief.

“A warning letter at most, I expect,” Alicia answered. “The finer part of this episode we have to deal with is all these rubbish,” she said and gestured at the pile of tabloids, “and Draco Malfoy.”

“What about Draco Malfoy?” Ginny asked. “He didn’t die, did he?”

“Of course not, though I can count the many who wished he had,” Alicia answered. “I spoke to Marcus Flint today morning, that arsehole. He said Malfoy is going to bring on a lawsuit.”

“What?” Ginny whitened.

“I told him it wouldn’t be a good idea,” Alicia went on to say. “It would make Malfoy look rather pitiful, suing a young lady for punching a dude his size. I mean, look at you! You are so small, it would take three of you to make one Malfoy. How would that look for Malfoy, I asked him, if it comes out in the papers?”

“What did he say then?”

“Well, he agrees with me, I can tell,” Alicia replied. “It wouldn’t do Malfoy’s popularity any good to be suing a pretty and popular young lady like you. Laughable, really. You don’t look like you could hurt a fly, and given your consistent image as a good young lady from a good old Wizarding family, Malfoy wouldn’t stand a chance when it comes to winning the sympathy votes. I told Flint, it would be tonnes better if Malfoy just forget about it and come off being the perfect gentleman. Golden opportunity for publicity. A good chance to help Malfoy clean up his image as well.”

Ginny fell back to her sofa inelegantly, relief washing over her.

“I’m still waiting for Flint to get back to me,” Alicia continued as she reached down into her bag to retrieve her organiser. Ginny watched her quietly, admiring the way she could manage things step by step, bit by bit, in a calm logical manner that Ginny never could. “Meanwhile, we can worry ourselves with what I think is the most important aspect of this issue,” Alicia said as she opened her organiser to the page she was looking for. “I’ve already written a press release, but I want you to have a choice. Let it be, or correct them? If you ask me, either works. The latter will require more work, of course, but that’s what I’m here for,” she finished with a smile.

“Do I have to do anything like a press conference if I picked choice number two?” Ginny asked, biting the fingernail on her thumb.

“Well, you can’t escape that, I suppose,” Alicia said kindly. “But, it will resolve the matter once and for all.”

“And what are the chances that the story will just fade if we let it be?” Ginny asked again.

“It will fade eventually,” Alicia said as she peered at the tabloids on the table, “but I must admit I’m not sure how long it would take. It’s a big story, Ginny, and there haven’t been many big stories for a long time. The media is positively having a red-letter day. Two of England’s most popular Quidditch players caught up in a single story of torrid secret affairs, family rivalries, school sweethearts, forced separations, the modern Romeo and Juliet. Congratulation, Gin, I think you’ve single-handedly revive the tabloid circles with a single punch. Way to go.”

“But it’s not only my choice, is it?” Ginny asked. “What about Malfoy’s side?”

“He’s eager to set the record straight,” Alicia answered. “But he’ll need you for that. So it’s back to you. It’s a little embarrassing, this whole situation, and I know how hard it will be for you to speak about it to hordes of reporters, but if you concede, we are going to set up a date for you and Malfoy to sort things out, prepare what you two are going to say, and the likes. We figured it would be faster than having the two of us managers relaying the messages between you two. Besides, I need time to set up the conference, if we were to have one, and there’s a lot of coordination involved that I’ll need to work out with Flint, which means I’m going to spend as much time as you do with a similarly dastardly Slytherin prick, so don’t worry, you are not exactly alone in this.”

“Alicia,” Ginny said, touched, and reached over to hug her manager. “Have I told you lately just how much I adore you?”

“Just remember you owe me one, big time,” Alicia said and hugged Ginny back.

DRUNK
From boy to man, Draco Malfoy had had to deal with a lot of shit. There was the overbearing family history and the deatheater father, the vulgar mother, the Slytherin professor, his downward spiraling career, a reputation of self-destruction, and then, there were the many violent ex-lovers. But this beat the Draco Malfoy list-of-shit hands-down.

He was disfigured by a Weasley.

Watching himself in the mirror, the permanent scowl that was the trademark on his face, he tried in vain to hide the bruise with his new Vesace hat, shifting it here and there.

“Fancy a cup of tea with your favourite professor when you are done hiding the purple continent on your face?”

“Enough!” he cried, throwing the hat hard on the floor before driving his fist into the mirror, shattering it. The broken pieces barely touched the ground before a twinkling flash sent the glasses back into its form again.

The professor stood at the door, unaffected by the familiar episode of adolescent spectacle that was beginning to unfold before him.

“Fortunately,” another voice begun, “the house elves had the Reparo charm in every inch of this manor. Wizard knows if there will be anything left the way you go through with them.”

Draco turned to greet his visitor, but not before he gave a satisfying kick at the antique griffin statue, sending it flying across the room to its inevitable fate. Draco, with his eyes closed, relished in the crack as the griffin statue hit the wall and fell into pieces, rolling on the marble floor.

The sound of his boots hitting the marble flooring echoed the room as he made his way towards the door. A flash of light appeared from where the broken pieces of griffin landed, and Draco walked through the halo, knowing that the griffin statue would be back where it belonged even before he made himself out of the door. The wonders of old magic his family had preached for centuries protected the Malfoy estate from any harm that might befall them. The very same magic that laid the path of self-destruction that was to be a trade characteristic of father and son, and that would eventually land the old family in dishonour, leaving none but one to shoulder the weight of its aftermath.

“Useless things,” he murmured under his breath and chuckled, without humour, at the workings of old magic.

Flint stole a look at the professor, tall and still as revered, with new specks of gray in his hair, leaning against the massive mahogany door, unperturbed by the lack of anger management of the young Malfoy. Perhaps, he thought, there was a reason why Professor Snape was the custodial guardian of Draco Malfoy.

The professor, having felt his eyes on him, merely shifted his weight from the door frame before turning, a billow of his robes behind him, making the skinny man larger than he seemed. And with a click of his wooden cane, he moved with the grace fitting of a Slytherin master, coming face to face with his old student.

“Cup of tea for you too, Mr Flint?”

~*~

Living in the clutch of a cruel family history had its perks, Draco decided. The image of a tortured heir at the aftermath of the war drew sympathy almost by its own, and everyone fell over themselves trying to fix him, and that very often included the trouble he sowed.

Except this time, he did not actually go looking for trouble.

Snape was flipping through copies of The Prophet with distaste, clucking his tongue as he leafed through a few more publications methodically, tossing them into the fireplace.

“Your father,” the professor drawled, “would roll in his grave, if he had any. And your mother would be most,” he paused, quite lost for words. “And I supposed you must be glad your parents are very dead at this moment, to spare you from any parental agony.”

“If you don’t mind, professor,” Draco said, a tension evident in his voice, “I had enough sarcasm for one day.”

“I supposed living together for a few years doesn’t make you immune to it,” Flint laughed uneasily, resting his cup on the table, avoiding the two men’s steely glare.

“And before he send anymore glassware into the air, Mr Flint,” Snape said, sending a warning stare at Draco, who released his grip on his cup almost immediately. “Your proposal, if you please.”

“Of course,” Flint replied as he produced a leather-bound organizer. “This matter has to be cleared up at once. Alicia Spinnet is going to get Ginny Weasley to release an explanation for the assault at a press conference. And you, Draco, are going to meet Weasley to finalise what is to be released to the press.”

“And that’s it?” Draco exclaimed, jumping from his chair. “That’s it?” he repeated, agitated.

“Yes,” Flint replied. “That’s it,” he said in a firm tone.

“Where is the justice?” Draco cried.

Snape cluck his tongue in distaste at the dramatic display.

“Ginny Weasley will apologise to you publicly, and you will accept it, Draco,” he said. “It’s for the best.”

“For her best’s more like it!” he cried on his foot, pacing in front of the fireplace. “This is criminal. I can sue.”

Flint sighed. This was going to be harder than he thought.

~*~

Usually, alcohol had no place at a press conference. But Ginny found them anyway, along with a Draco who was nearing drunken stupor, under the table.

“Weasley,” Draco hissed and lunged himself at her with a bottle in his hand. Ginny backed away by instinct, her dislike for the Malfoy evident on her face.

“Malfoy,” she said curtly, still on her knees, staring at him.

“Don’t think I’m going to let you off on this one,” he spat, with mania in his eyes. The tense atmosphere was broken when he hiccupped and fell backwards, losing his balance, and leaned against the wooden support heavily.

Ginny rolled her eyes. She paused, as if entertaining a thought, before she shifted her weight and joined Draco under the table. The table cloth she was holding to fell back in place like a stage curtain closing the night’s play, and the two old schoolmates sat crouched in the darkened space, squashed together. It reminded Ginny of the times she played hide and seek with her older brothers in the kitchen at Ottery St. Catchpole.

She cleared her throat before she spoke.

“Look Malfoy,” she started. “I’m sorry, all right. Didn’t mean to hit you.”

Draco chuckled without humour and sniffed as he took a swig of his whisky. Even in the dimmed space, Ginny could make out the darkened part of his face, the discolouration that was the bruise she had inflicted, unintended. And against her will, she felt a pang of guilt.

“Can’t you just say something?” she cried, uneasy in the silence as it stretched on.

And he was about to say something when an unexpected hustle and bustle broke out. From the small gap between the hem of the table cloth and the wooden stage flooring, shadows of shuffling steps appeared, accompanied by loud voices and sounds of furniture dragged across the ground and put in place. He could make out a faltering voice that sounded like his manager, moving about the room, and he sank further in his position, glaring into the floor.

Ginny contemplated getting out from under the table, but found herself short of explanation for the awkward questions that might arise. Just as she thought that she should get out from under the table anyway, since being found with Draco Malfoy under a table at a press conference would undoubtedly draw more tedious questions than any, two figures stopped at where they were hidden and started speaking in curt tones.

“That is out of question,” the female voice said. It was Alicia. Ginny wanted very much to ask what was out of question but her childhood instinct took over and she remained where she was, eavedropping. Draco, who had been ignoring her existence since she spoke, lifted an eyebrow and observed her through a sideway glance.

“It is a eight million galleon deal,” the male voice said. It was Flint. Draco found himself leaning forward at the voice, a strand of his hair falling forward.

“Ginny doesn’t need the money,” Alicia said, irritated, folding her arms in front of her chest. “And I’m sure Mr Malfoy doesn’t need that kind of money either. I don’t understand …”

“It’s a good opportunity for them both,” Flint interrupted firmly, staring hard at Alicia. “It is not often for this big advertiser to look for spokeperson. And this could lead to more future deals.”

Alicia laughed uneasily and stared at Flint as if he was mad.

“What makes you think that they would be willing?” she said, her voice getting evidently louder. “You are asking for a miracle of this century that is not going to happen.”

“All right,” Flint replied, taking on a defence. “What can I say to make you agree that this is a good deal?”

“Nothing.”

“On the contrary …”

“Please!” Alicia said. “Stop it this moment,” she demanded, stabbing her finger about the air in his face. “This has absolutely nothing to do with my client and everything to do with yours. You want to clean up the image of your client with this opportunity, you are free to do whatever it takes to get the deal. But you are not going to take advantage of my client.”

“Oh, spare me the drama, you Griff,” Flint replied, not about to admit that Alicia was right about his agenda. “You know that this can’t be done without Ginny Weasley. They specifically asked for them. And if they are not going to do it, some other couples will.”

“Well, good heavens then, let them do it. Draco Malfoy and Ginny Weasley are not a couple!”

“Yes, they are not, but people think they are!” Flint shouted back and then reasoned more calmly. “Think of the commission, Spinnet.”

“Ginny Weasley is my friend,” she replied, grinding her teeth.

“And Draco is mine, too,” Flint said.

“And it is just so Slytherin to do your friend in for money,” she spat.

Flint ignored the comment and continued.

“You have to agree that the deal would do them no harm and only good. Think of the publicity,” he said, “and how it would turn all this mess around with just a flick of the wand.”

“It will make this mess messier more like it!” she said in a tone that suggested the discussion was closed. She turned, avoiding eye contact with Flint as she absent-mindedly rearranged the name tags on the table, shifting them about. A silence pursued as she moved along the length of the table and kicked something.

“Honestly, I don’t see how it’s so bad for them to act a couple in an advertisement,” Flint said. “Draco gets to clean up his image being paired with goody two shoes Ginny Weasley, and you can spare Ginny Weasley another heartbreak seeing pictures of Corner and his new blonde plastered all over town. Answer me honestly, Spinnet, would you rather them, or our clients benefiting from this publicity? I know the Gryffindor sensibility probably doesn’t allow it, but really, letting this eight million galleon deal to a dastardly ex-boyfriend is the last thing any decent Slytherin women would do.”

~*~

Draco had been an immature prat in the past. Now he was a slighter cleverer immature prat of the present.

That was to say, he knew a good point when he saw one.

It wasn’t that his reputation hadn’t been a mess since his birth that marked him a Malfoy. But it was substantially messier when he finally got to hold destiny in his own hands. It was his father’s prophecy came true. He couldn’t hold his life together when given a chance.

And when truth be told, the only thing that he did right for himself, he wagered, was becoming Seeker for the Falmouth Falcons.

Draco loved Quidditch. He always had. And when Professor Snape said that he had lost himself ever since the war, he had always counted on the game to convince himself that he hadn’t.

In short, Quidditch defined him. And he knew he was closed to losing it these days.

~*~

Ouch! Ginny thought.

Michael Corner and that bitch?

She rubbed her knee absent-mindedly before picking up a bottle and taking a swig herself. And another.

It didn’t take long before she found herself thinking that, sometimes, the Slytherins do make compelling propositions.

She wondered if she would have to kiss Draco Malfoy for this.

She hoped not.

~*~

Armed with his father’s sense of business acumen, Draco came to a painful conclusion.

He cleared his throat before he spoke.

“He had a point, you know,” he said, admiring the bottle in his hand, as if addressing no one in particular.

Ginny glanced at him suspiciously. She took another agitated swig, unaware that she had almost polished off an entire bottle of Firewhisky.

“Glaring at me doesn’t do anything to me, you know,” Draco said and took a calculated glance at her. “And I wasn’t the one who dumped you.”

Ginny shot him a deadly stare. If deadly stares came in physical forms, Draco was sure that he would be stabbed to death by now.

“Men,” she hissed at him. “You and Michael are just the same, don’t think I don’t know it.”

Draco smirked.

“Still,” he replied, “at least I didn’t mess with you.”

“Why,” she asked, her voice slightly slurred, but her vigilance no less pronounced, “do you want to do this?”

“Money runs out eventually, you know?”

“Even for you?” she asked in disbelief.

Draco nodded.

“Even for me.”

“It’s eight million galleons,” she said in a slightly dreamy voice.

“Four million galleons for you and me.”

“Better me than him, I suppose.”

“Better me than him.”

And in what Ginny thought would never have been possible in her life time, she raised her bottle to his, and with a clink, a deal was sealed.