31 August 1889 — After Party at the Wimbourne Wasps Pitch

All of my friends say I should move on
She's just another girl, don't let her stick it to your heart so hard
And all of my friends say it wasn't meant to be
And it's a great big world, she's just another girl
I could be reeling them in left and right
Something's got a hold on me, tonight
Well maybe all of my friends should confront
The fact that I don't want another girl

Ben was always down for a Quidditch match whenever he was invited, and since he'd gotten a job that involved being able to bring free booze to anything he could claim was a business meeting, he tended to be invited a lot more often. He wasn't necessarily a Wimbourne Wasps fan himself, but the folks that he'd come along with were, and it turned out that one of his old Hogwarts mates and one of his former teammates from when he'd played second string for the Appleby Arrows. After they won the game by a competitive margin, his friends had decided to get in on the after-party, and Ben had gone along as well. He had started drinking at the start of the game, and given that he typically drank at a steady and rapid pace, he was already nowhere near sober. Seeing no reason to slow down for the after-party, Ben swung by the open bar (thank you, generous Quidditch team sponsor) and came away with a tall glass of quality whiskey. He left his card, too, since he'd noticed they weren't selling any Jewell products and thought vaguely he might be able to change that in the future (hello, more drunken Quidditch parties).

He was making the rounds and making conversation — and trying not to let on how jealous he was of these blokes who still had Quidditch careers, when his had been cut short — when she came into his field of view, from the corner of his eye. Two drinks ago, he might have just ignored her, pretending he didn't see. Ben two drinks ago was not the Ben of the moment, however, because what he did instead was make his excuses to the people he was talking to and then head straight for her.

"Melody," he said, altogether too cheerily considering how their last meeting had ended — and nevermind that he was using her first name. "What are you doing here? I didn't know you liked Quidditch."

  

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Quidditch was decidedly not amongst Melody's favorite passtimes. Quiet afternoons in the library, intellectual conversations over tea, hell - even the occasional garden party ranked well above the excitement of a quidditch match. This wasn't to say she hated the sport - she found it interesting enough to enjoy a match every now and then. Especially when faced with the option of yet another ball. There was only so much yanking into the tightest corset one could endure before going well and truly mad.

The match had ended in Charlotte's crush's favor - meaning they absolutely had to attend the afterparty. The seeker would want to celebrate his win with a beautiful woman on his arm, and Charlotte was determined that it would be her. Melody was rather convinced he'd be far too eager to boast about his win than notice her doe eyed friend, but who was she to stop her? If Charlotte wished to throw caution to the wind and chase after her dream of ruining her and her family's reputation, Melody would simply be there to say 'I told you so' in the end. She would know, it was what she had sought to do with Mr. Crouch years ago.

Melody. She had heard her first name on his lips so few times that it caught her more off guard than his presence at the party did. Merlin, hadn't they decided at their last run-in that this wasn't in the cards for them? He had far too many rumors swirling about him for her family to ever accept him, and she...well, she belonged to a world that would cast her aside if she were to misstep. Theirs was a story of past what-ifs, not one of what could be. Or, at least, that was what she had been repeatedly telling herself for the past month.

She truly was attempting to move on, too. Melody was convinced Mr. -- was going to ask to court her any day now, it was all a matter of timing. They'd been flirting at every gala and dancing together at every ball. He was a respectable - if not boring - man too. One her family would surely appreciate bringing into the fold. They would court, then marry, and finally she'd give him sons she had no desire to carry. Such was the life she was destined for.

"Mr. Crouch." She greeted warily, deciding firmly not to engage in his familiarity. "I like the sport well enough. A friend asked me along and then brought me here." Melody should be heading back to them, too. Charlotte and her chaperone would surely be wondering where she'd run off to - or who she'd run off with.

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"Good," Ben declared immediately, neither noticing nor caring that she wasn't returning the informality of his greeting. To be honest, he'd already forgotten that he'd used her first name at all — it hadn't been a conscious choice so much as an instinct. "That's good. I'm glad you're here. I didn't know when I'd see you again, after the last time," he explained. More accurately, he hadn't been sure if the two of them would ever talk again, given how brusque their last conversation had been — and if he'd been more sober tonight they might not have done so for a good long while. Maybe they never would have had another conversation at all.

"I didn't like how our last talk went," he said openly. He paused long enough to take a quick sip of his drink, perhaps steeling his courage before pressing on. "I didn't mean to say those things. I just got frustrated, with — with how you were talking to me, and all the things we weren't saying, and the whole — the whole thing, I guess. I wish we could talk like we used to. When we first met."

  

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Melody felt as though she'd been stunned as he spoke. Her muscles pulled taut, her expression froze into one of disbelief. Ben was well into his cups, there was no denying that, but every word he spoke was one she'd dreamt of hearing for two years. This was the conversation she had desperately wanted to have with him but couldn't due to their circumstances. They still really shouldn't have been speaking of their past relationship in such a crowded environment, but her panicked look around them showed that most people were decently distracted.

She frantically tried to think of the proper - no, not proper, proper would mean walking away from him again - the least incendiary reaction to have here. "Mr. Crouch." She repeated futilely. How could he not have meant the harsh words he'd spewed in reaction to her? She certainly had in the moment. Melody downed the glass of firewhiskey in her hand. Never before had she wished to be a Gryffindor as much as she did now. "I know. Me too." She said finally.

The warmth of the whiskey made her head swirl slightly. It was nothing she couldn't handle. Melody placed the empty glass on the table behind her, then suddenly wished she hadn't. Without it, she had nothing to fidget with.

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Well, this was certainly going much better than their last talk. Why hadn't they just started like this? Stupid etiquette and propriety made them pretend a degree of standoffishness that maybe they hadn't really felt.

Which wasn't to say everything was all sunshine and roses. There was a lot of baggage they'd have to work through if they wanted to get back to square one, both from Canada and the intervening two years.

"I didn't sleep with her," he blurted, in an attempt to address one of the bigger elephants in the room. "Whatever the tabloids said."

  

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She froze further in place. The idea that the papers exaggerating whatever happened between Ben and Bella had never crossed her mind. A father wouldn't go to the length that hers had over a stupid rumor printed in Witch Weekly, or so she had thought. More so than ever, Melody was well and truly confused.

"You didn't?" She repeated. Every piece of pent up anger she had towards him suddenly felt like a lie. So much hatred and bitterness all due to a false rumor. Except, it wasn't just that. He had allowed two years to go without ever reaching out to her. She had written letter after letter before finally deciding to move on with her life. Hell, she was even beginning to become convinced that someone might actually want to court her.

"Why did you ignore all my letters?" This still wasn't the place to be having this conversation, but Melody simply couldn't abandon him this time. She walked away once. Drunk or not, Melody wasn't making that mistake again.

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Ben simply shook his head at her question. Of course, any further digging on her part would complicate the answer significantly. He had made plans to meet up and get drunk with her on more than one occasion. They had made out in an alleyway. Ben definitely would have slept with her, if she'd been interested in going that far. But all of that was definitely better left unsaid.

Regarding the letters, however, he couldn't paint himself quite so innocently. "In Canada?" he asked; he didn't remember getting any letters from her recently and was sort of surprised she was bringing up unanswered mail from so long ago. "I mean. You couldn't have expected me to write to you from Canada."

  

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He hadn't slept with Bella. Melody still couldn't quite grasp the idea. "Then why did her father - " She cut herself off and shook her head in disbelief. The entire foundation upon which she'd built her pyre of hatred was fracturing. "Why didn't she attempt to dispute it? Why didn't you?" A correction was just as easy to print as the lie itself. Surely, someone had to have gone to the papers and gave them the correct story.

Ben didn't even think her letters worth returning? He was content to just let her believe none of it mattered - that she hadn't mattered. Melody was nearly about to throw away her future for him, and he couldn't be bothered to mail one letter from Canada. "I suppose not." She stated, obviously bothered by how flippant his response had been.

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Ben raised an eyebrow skeptically at her question. That was a naive point of view, he thought. A rumor, once said, couldn't be unsaid. A denial wouldn't have done him any good at all if people thought the original rumor wasn't particularly far- fetched. Maybe coming from a family in the Crouch's position, with relatively less money whose name and reputation was everything, had made him more sensitive to that truth — or maybe he'd just had a lot more practical experience with reputation- affecting rumors than she had.

"I had other things to worry about," he said dismissively. Things like whether Miss Scrimgeour was still alive or not, at first. Later, that had turned into how am I getting out of this one? as he sat in a Ministry interrogation cell wearing his brother's likeness. "And you may have forgotten, but I think she was busy running away from her father, who was insane."

And as for her letters— it wasn't a question of just opting not to write her. Did she really not see that? He'd just been thrown out of the country for talking with her. Writing her would have been playing with fire. "But we both know all about crazy families," he said with a touch of snark.

  

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She was beginning to feel foolish. Not only because this situation was making her feel like the love-struck teenager she had been, but because he was drunk. Somehow, in his confession of missing her, Melody had forgotten that. How much of what he was saying was fueled by the liquor he'd ingested? How much of it was true? He was the spider and she was the fly forever getting stuck on the web.

"He was insane, no one would deny that." Argus Scrimgeour had to be out of his right mind to attack his daughter as he had. Especially if nothing had happened between her and Ben. She quickly swiped another glass of firewhiskey off the passing waitress' tray. "The situation evidently was exaggerated beyond measure. You or she or even Argus Scrimgeour could've done anything differently to prevent that catastrophe." Distantly, she thought of Julius and Araminta. They were the souls she felt truly sorry for, caught in the crossfire of a situation gone wrong.

Melody took a sip of her whiskey and reminded herself once more of his drunken state. Had he been sober, she would've argued on her family's behalf, but what was the point? None of it would stick. "Crazy or not, we - I should've known better. Nothing good was ever going to come from us."

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"Woah, hey," Ben protested immediately. "It wasn't my fault. I never even met her father," he argued. He had gone through these arguments often in his head, because the truth was that he did feel guilty about the way everything had worked out with Miss Scrimgeour.

"Like, what— I'm just supposed to assume everyone's parents are going to fly off the damn handle any time they talk to a guy? Because normal families don't do that, Princess."

  

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"That's what you then, isn't it? Get girls to swoon over you and then remain blameless because their family reacted poorly?" It all made sense now. How could any of it be his fault? Of course it was the family's fault for being defensive of their daughters in a society that didn't think they were intelligent enough to function as independent beings! Melody could feel her face growing hot with frustration. "Nothing is ever your fault, is it Ben?"

She was just another girl in his head. That was why he hadn't deemed it necessary to respond to her letters. That was why he caused such destruction wherever he went. "Did you ever wonder if perhaps you should meet the girl's father? And you should go through the traditional routes of courtship? If only to prevent their families from doing insane things like blaming the girl for talking to you."

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Ben couldn't help but roll his eyes at that. Just mosey on over and have a little chit-chat with Argus Scrimgeour, huh? Because that would have helped matters. What was he supposed to say? Claiming his intentions were pure and honorable would have been a lie. Waltzing up and starting with 'hey, I think your daughter is fun to chat with when she's drinking' would not have assuaged anyone's concerns.

"Yeah, because I'm going to turn into the perfect gentleman and we're going to have a fairytale wedding," he said sarcastically. "And set up in a nice corner house in Wellingtonshire and a summer villa in Wales, right? That's definitely how this story ends. If only I'd thought to go meet her father."

He was narrating this as though he were talking about him and Miss Scrimgeour, but it was just as applicable or even more so talking about the two of them. They'd never had an option for that sort of ending — and in Ben's opinion, it would've been incredibly naive of her to think otherwise.

  

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Deep down, Melody knew two years ago that their relationship would never become anything more than flirting at parties and sometimes through letters. That belief was streghtened a year ago when he returned home from Canada and the silence continued. Now, Melody could scarcely believe she ever held out hope for them. He might've missed how they used to talk, but that was only because she was his missed opportunity.

Her father. Even in his crude depiction of a fairytale life Melody still wasn't featured. "One day, you're going to be alone with no inkling of how you got there." She spat. His looks would leave him. His charming smile would rot and scare even the most horrid looking woman. He would be lucky to flirt with a toad nevermind a lady. "And you'll deserve it." Melody added.

If only she could throw her drink in his face without causing a total spectacle.

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"Oh, come on, Princess," he said harshly. She was acting as though he'd broken some sort of unspoken promise, but he didn't feel he'd ever intimated that he could offer her anything. He hadn't lied about his position in life or his goals for his own future. She knew his position in society well enough. If she'd been hoping for a fairy tale, that was because she'd been walking around with her eyes closed.

"What did you want from me? What did you think was going to happen? You were going to move into my room at the club? Your father was going to let us live down the hall? We'd pitch a tent in the mountains and live on herbs and berries?" He was, perhaps, speaking a little too loudly for the setting, but he hadn't realized that.

  

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Fantastic. He was practically shouting about their past relationship. There was little chance she wouldn't be featured on the front page of Witch Weekly after this. "Lower your voice." She hissed with a quick glance to see what ears might've perked up. Merlin. He was going to ruin her life too.

"You're drunk and my friend will be missing me." There were too many good things happening for her right now to risk everything in a shouting match in a crowded room. "I'll be going."

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