Story: Dirty Tactics Up And Down The Aisle (A Draco Malfoy Love Story) Part 2...

You stared at the closed door as Gwyneth's footsteps echoed and faded away before sinking down onto your bed in silence. Moments later, the door was flung wide open and you flinched, half expecting Gwyneth to have changed her mind and come back to administer a well deserved slap.

Instead, Draco stood in the doorway, a grin on his face and an unopened bottle of firewhiskey in one hand. He cocked an eyebrow and smirked. "You look like you're about to throw up."

You stared at him, pale faced. He had no idea how close to the truth that was.
"Didn't you see her?" You murmurred, your voice hoarse and quiet. "You must have walked right past her..."

"No, I just went to get this from Zabini's room." He answered slowly, holding up the bottle as proof. Draco stared at you for a second before his face suddenly darkened in realisation. "See who exactly?"

You closed your eyes and turned your head, opening them again to find Malfoy's tie lying in the middle of your bedsheets. It seemed so insignificant but it had been all the proof that Gwyneth needed. "Your fiance."

Draco's fist clenched around the bottle neck, so tight he was lucky it didn't shatter in his hand. "Why would she-?"

"She knows." You lifted your gaze to meet his and in an instant he knew how serious everything had just become.

Draco didn't move. He simply stood in the doorway and allowed this news to sink in. "How?" He muttered gruffly.

"Well we haven't exactly been all that discreet." You blinked back tears, folding your arms and staring up at the ceiling as if hoping for some holy intervention. The worst part of it all was that you knew Gwyneth Menston was well within her rights to march in here and make you feel this way. Every little thing she'd said was true. You hadn't been able to fight back or put her in her place because you had no ammunition. You were the other woman.

Across from you, Draco's eyes narrowed as his lip began to curl. "That stupid little-"

Without warning, you crumpled. Your shoulders fell limp as you broke into sobs. Malfoy set the bottle down roughly on your desk and moved towards you but you hit him away.
"Don't you see?!" You screeched hysterically, jumping up from the bed and staring up at him. "She's not the one in the wrong. All she's done is play by the rules whilst we messed around behind her back." Your chest heaved as you ran your hands through your hair in desperation. "Oh God...I'm your mistress!!"

You spun round in panic and began pacing the room. Draco shook his head and grabbed hold of your shoulders roughly, staring into your frantic eyes with his own determined ones.
"You are not my mistress. You know how I feel about you and she is nothing-"

"So what?!" You shouted over him. "What do you think is going to happen Draco? Gwyneth and your parents are just going to change their minds and we can run off into the sunset for our own special happy ever after?!"

Malfoy's jaw line tightened in annoyance. "Well of course not but-"

"There are no buts!" You pulled yourself free of his grasp and stared across at him sadly. "She and her family have you cornered. You can sit here all night trying to figure a way out of this but we both know you won't find one. I should've just...I should've just stayed away."

"Guiseley please!" Draco held your arm as you made to walk past him but you looked back at him and shook your head, salty tears clinging to your eye-lashes. Without another word, he let his hand drop to his side and watched you run out the door.

He stood staring at your retreating figure in confusion. Had you just left him...again?
He shook his head. There had to be a way around this, some escape route. There had to be.

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You walked the hallways in silence, mind in turmoil and heart at a stand still. It was late Friday afternoon and classes had finished which meant most students had headed down to Hogsmeade or were taking advantage of the early summer heat out in the grounds. You paused by a window and stared out at them all lazing on the grass or play-fighting under the cover of a tree. Why was it no-one else ever seemed to have to deal with problems?

You turned away with a sigh. Your problems weren't exactly the normal teenage drama anymore though. Here you were, not even graduated high school and you were having an affair with an engaged man who you knew made life more complicated by just existing.

You squeezed you eyes shut tight and shook your head violently, your curls bouncing across your shoulders. This was not the way things were supposed to be.

You glanced out at the grounds again, your eyes landing on a girl, she couldn't be more than a fourth year. Her long blonde hair danced about her shoulders as she laughed and fell about with her friends, not a care in the world. You swallowed back the sudden lump in your throat with a frown. Where, along the line, had you gone from the same happy and confident girl you were watching to this shadow of a person you were now?

Where was the old Guiseley? The girl who knew what she wanted and how to get it. The girl who, when faced with a firmly locked door, would open herself a window...

You stepped back from the window and frowned. Why were you suddenly waving the white flag just because Gwyneth had said a few nasty words? Surely when something was this important it was insanity not to try and fight for it?
And yes, you thought as you turned on your heel and began pelting back up the stairs, there was probably nothing you could do but the one thing you could be sure of- you'd never be able to forgive yourself if you didn't try.

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"So what you're saying...." Mia paused and rubbed her chin in thought. "Is that if I were to conquer Spain with say...an army of Blastskrewits, I would technically have to be crowned their Queen?"

Seamus Finnigan considered for a moment. "I think so. Depends on what species of Blastskrewit-"

The door to the library burst open and you stumbled inside, cutting Seamus off mid-ramble. "What the hell are you doing in here?" You stared at Mia, panting for breath from your scavenger hunt around the castle.

Mia, who did not seemed remotely surprised to find you charging in with a look of mortal peril on your face, merely shrugged. "Well we were outside but then we realised that in our entire seven years here, neither of us had ever been to the library."

Seamus nodded in amazement beside her. "And of course we simply couldn't let this travesty go unresolved before graduation and so here we are."

"Of course..." You gave this information a moment to sink in and made a mental note to ask Mia when she had made the elective decision to start 'hanging out' with Finnigan. "Look, I need a word. Not with you Seamus so do me a favour and take a hike yeah?"

"Well, I have never been so insulted-"

"I very much doubt that." You arched an eyebrow and fixed him with a hard stare. "Now vaminos..."

You waited till he'd huffed some more and marched out the room before turning to Mia who was watching you with a very odd expression.
"What's gotten into you today?" She asked suspiciously.

You ignored her and leant forward across the table. "I need help."

Mia pursed her lips and looked you over, you'd been having an awful lot of mood swings lately, depressed for months before deliriouly happy and now...this.
"In what capacity exactly? I'm useless at plumbing."

You took a deep breath and held her gaze steady. "I'm in love with Malfoy and always have been. He feels the same. Gwyneth knows and is making my life hell. I need her gone." You stood up straight, watching as Mia processed this information with an ominously blank expression. "Now...can you help me?"

She stood up slowly and faced the window, arms folded and deep in silent thought. You held your breath and waited.

After a minute which seemed like hours she turned back to you with a grin.
"Well, I draw the line at murder but other than that...what do you have in mind?"

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The castle seemed dead. All students had long since retired to their dorms and everywhere was utterly silent...

"HOLY JESUS FRICKIN' CHRIST ON A UNICYCLE!!!!"
Out of the darkness, Mia came stumbling down a flight of stairs, wrestling with the torso of a suit of armour. You and Alex, hidden in the shadows of a nearby doorway, groaned noise-lessly in exasperation.

"Mia, were you actually listening when I said this had to be a stealth operation?" You muttered angrily, hauling her off the ground in annoyance.

"Look, I was seriously...you know, stealth-ing, until I met this guy." She dusted herself off with a scowl and gave the metal torso another kick for good measure. "I mean what the hell are they even there for anyway?"

Rolling your eyes, you turned back to Alex, freezing when a light flickered on further down the hallway. It was a fair few hours past curfew and if you were caught the whole 'final and desperate plan' would be stopped in its tracks.

A few seconds of immobile silence later and the light went out. Heaving a sigh of relief, you motioned for the other two to follow you down a slim corridor to your right before pausing behind a statue of a crippled horse.
It was fair to say you'd never been a fan of the castle's decor.

"Alright..." You whispered, turning to face your partners in crime. "Last chance to change your minds. I know neither of you are exactly happy about this."

Alex folded his arms and sighed. "Look I'm not going to pretend I'm thrilled that you're in love with Malfoy but...if it makes you happy then..." He shrugged and smiled.

You grinned. "I knew I always liked you Beecham. Mia?"

"I'm just glad to get the old Guiseley back. What's breaking into the Headmaster's office for that?"

You looked at them both, suddenly realising just how much you'd really missed this- missed them. Resisting the urge to clamp hug the pair of them, you started further down the hallway, motioning them to follow. The three of you crept alongside the walls, pausing every now and then for a distant light or an echo of a noise. Ten minutes later and you found yourselves staring up at giant golden phoenix.

Instinctively, you looked over at Mia. She'd been escorted to Dumbledore's office enough times to know every one of his passwords from the last three years.
She didn't dissapointed. "Sherbert twizzle sticks." She mumbled and as the huge wings began revolving towards you, she led the way up the dark and damp stairwell.

Pausing again as you faced the old wooden door- the final barrier, you allowed yourself one more chance to evaluate the situation.

If you stepped through this door then it meant you were officially fighting back. It meant that you had to accept the consequences of whatever may follow and that you really did have to admit that you, Guiseley Monroe, were in love with Draco Malfoy and that you genuinely wanted to be with him.

Without wasting another second, you grabbed the doorhandle and pushed.

The door swung open with a tantilizing creak. The contents of the room were shrouded in darkness, a small window at the back of the room revealing a clear midnight blue sky.

Alex, peering warily over your shoulder, quirked an eyebrow. "So where do we start?"

"There." You muttered, raising your glowing wand to cast light over a large set of wooden cabinets at the left of the headmaster's desk. "That's where Dumbledore had my birth certificate hidden, inside my school file."

"And what exactly are we looking for?" Mia asked, as you alohamora-ed the cabinet and pulled open the first draw of files.

"Anything that could convince the Malfoy's to not let their only son marry Menston. Or at least something to get her out of Hogwarts and give me some more time to figure out a better plan."

"So we need to find Gwyneth's dirty little secrets?" Mia grinned maliciously.

"Exactly." You nodded. "So start going through that next draw before Mrs Norris comes prowling."

The two of them set to work beside you, pulling out draw after draw and thumbing through the rows of files, checking each students name for the desired one.

You slammed the fifth draw shut in frustration. "I can't believe Dumbledore's never heard of alphabetical filing."

"Mia?" Alex looked up from the open file in his hand and arched an eyebrow. "It says here that you died at the age of 10...."

Mia, who wasn't even slightly surprised by this informaion, merely shrugged. "Oh yeah, I took a nap on a hospital bed. I was only there for about five minutes but they start declaring you this and that..."

Sharing a bemused exchange of glances with Alex you turned back to the cabinet and your fingers froze. There it was, three files back, the name written in tiny, swirling handwriting; Menston, Gwyneth.

With baited breath, you ripped it out of the drawer and span round, wrenching open the pages and scanning frantically across the first words that came into view.

Home address, parent's birthplaces, prior education, school grades...all irrelevant information.
You scraped back the desk chair and sat down, flicking on the table-top lamp as the other two stopped searching and clammered round your shoulder.

"What does it say?!" Mia hissed, peering down so closely that her mane of black frizz fell across the pages. Swatting her away in frustration you flicked to the Family History section and held your breath.

Row after row of useless facts flittered beneath your eyes. She was born in Nantes, sent to a private etiquette school on the Paris borders before attending Beauxbatons at eleven. Her parents were both respectable, clean living wizards who it seemed had never put a foot wrong in their entire lives. Her Beauxbatons report was gleaming, her grades sickeningly high in every subject without even the faintest trace of misbehaviour.
She was the perfect fiance.

By the time you reached the recent history of her second cousin's last known address you found yourself borderline suicidal.
"There has to be something!" You cried, tossing the useless file back down on the desk and jumping up from the chair. "Maybe there's a second file, one that's hidden because it's contents are so unimagineably scandalous?!"

"Guiseley..." Mia started softly. "Maybe it's just time to give up?"

"What?" You snapped. How could Mia think of giving up now? This was your very last chance.

"She's clean." Mia shrugged apologetically. "The Menstons just don't have any nasty skeletons in their closet."

You shook your head violently and faced the cabinet in determination. "Oh come on, everybody has a secret. Everybody."

"No...they don't." She stepped forward and put a tentative hand on your tense shoulder. "Look, maybe there's another way? You could go and talk to the Malfoys and try and explain-"

"Wait a minute." Alex interrupted Mia with a frown, picking up Gwyneth's discarded file.

"What is it?" You were by his side in an instant. "Did she kill somebody?"

"Not exactly. It's about her transfer to Hogwarts." He flipped a page and studied it closely. "It says here it was an exchange programme, allowing her to study here on the agreement that a replacement student be found to study back at Beauxbatons."

You stared at him blankly. "So what? That's not exactly a crime against humanity is it?"

"Without the exchange replacement, Gwyneth has no right to stay in Hogwarts. It says here no replacement has yet been found."

Mia peered over his other shoulder with an equally confused expression. "You mean they're going to have to kick her out of school?"

Alex nodded slowly. "It says the deadline for a volunteer to come forward is the twenty-first of May." He looked up eagerly. "What's the date today?"

"The nineteenth..." You muttered slowly.

"That's it then!" Mia beamed. "She'll have to leave in two days and you'll get your extra time. I mean it's not a solution but it's a start right?"

You sat down in Dumbledore's chair again slowly. "Well it's definely something..." You mumbled in thought. Trouble was, you had no idea what that something was.

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