Drarry One Shots

The Scoop (by Pansy Parkinson)

A/N I have unashamedly taken lyrics from a selection of Stereophonics songs, purely because I saw them headlining at a festival in August and they inspired this story. They were awesome!!! (Photo above is from the concert) 😊

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It was hard for me after the war. In part because there was a tendency to label anyone from Slytherin House as a Dark or Evil Witch or Wizard. Mostly because of my own-doing and my hideous faux-pas in trying to hand Harry Potter over to the Dark Lord before the Battle of Hogwarts had even begun. Word gets around and my reputation was like mud for a long time. Few understood how frightening the whole situation was and it was my belief in the middle of that maelstrom that it was ridiculous a boy my own age could defeat such a powerful dark wizard, especially without Albus Dumbledore's help. The fallout from that moment was that I went into hiding in the Muggle World. I hadn't cut myself off from my Magical friends, just the world they lived in; it was better that way. Besides, I wanted to distance myself from my parents and their beliefs as much as possible. We are now very much estranged.

In fact, my Grandmother took me under her wing and helped me more than anyone. She's helped me see the truth of what had happened over the previous few years. She highly disapproved of my father's preference for following the Dark Lord's ways. Don't get me wrong, she was an aristocrat through and through and believed in preserving her heritage and her money but she disagreed intensely with the hatred of Muggles, Muggleborns, and Half-bloods. She constantly lectured that we needed everyone in the Magical World; Purebloods couldn't continue to interbred at the rate they did because it damaged rather than enhanced our lineage. It was about our family name, not our blood. In fact, my Grandmother disapproved of her son's ways so much that she disinherited him. Meanwhile, I've had help from her and her contacts, of which she has a surprising number in a surprising number of places. With her aide, I was able to transfer to Muggle University and study English.

The one other person who stuck by me and truly helped was Draco Malfoy, perhaps because he also changed too in that time. He'd discarded his father's ways and opened up, becoming a Mindhealer with an outstanding reputation. The war taught people like him and me an awful lot, far more than any song from the Sorting Hat ever could, no matter how hard it tried. And yes, I learnt and fully accepted that Muggles were actually no different from Magical Beings; some were good, some were bad, some were downright evil, some were conservative, some were liberal, some were brave, or stupid, or virtuous, or attractive, or not... it was just life. And life was varied and interesting and made more so by the diversity of people we share this world with. I certainly came to accept that having Magic was a bit like having intelligence; not everyone had it but it didn't make them lesser or greater either way because sometimes it helped, sometimes it didn't. Besides, some people used it unscrupulously and self-servingly, others were self-sacrificing to a fault. I realised I had once fallen into that former category and I regretted who I'd been at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry when I realised I hadn't been the nicest of people. That didn't mean I wasn't still strong and determined in character, I just meant I dropped my prejudices and my sense of superiority over those less fortunate. Yes, my view on life changed considerably in those first few years after the war.

Grandmother Parkinson was exceptionally proud of me and my Muggle degree. After I'd graduated from London City University, I went into journalism and those early days were all free-lance writing. I found that the journalist pieces I wanted to write were not sensationalist pieces written to sell papers or bolster my reputation but, rather, investigative journalism. Unlike many of my contemporaries, I wanted to tell an unbiased reality and that meant research and interviews that weren't twisted to suit my narrative. I was only able to remain in London because grandmother bolstered my living costs as I scrapped by with a few meagre articles for the Muggle's Guardian newspaper and a couple of magazines as well as the occasional anonymous piece for the Daily Prophet. All of this is highly irrelevant beyond the fact that it was only my grandmother's money that afforded me some sort of life in those early days and it was that which led to the biggest break in my career some years later.