Chapter 2: All in a Day's Work
"You aren't giving it to me." It was more of a statement than anything else. But then, she probably had the right to be angry. "I get the account, I settle their problems for a month, I rake in a few hundred thousand for the company and all you can tell me is 'Here take this one instead'?" Her voice had almost jumped another octave and was bordering on something out of the normal human hearing range.
"Look, don't get angry with me, Granger," the man on the other end snapped back, well, snappily, "I'm just relaying the message from my boss. If you don't like what you're hearing then take a number. I'm sure he'll see you in a week's time."
"You're telling me that I don't get promoted? After all that I'd put into that Jay Ticks account?" she shrieked into the envelope. Oh for God's sake, she moaned and nestled her head in her hands before randomly pulling at the few strands that had escaped from her ponytail. "Forget it, just forget it. I'll do the new account and maybe after that, Mr Harris would promote me. Thank Ian," she sighed, raking a hand through her hair. The envelope acknowledged her reply with a stern silence and disappeared with a poof.
Saying that Hermione Granger was tired was an understatement of the year. Her hair was turning into a nest for birds, tied up or not, her fingernails were bitten, toe polish scratched a faded pink, and even if she did get a fake tan from one of the shops, she would look like burnt raccoon.
Right now, Hermione Granger was feeling swamped. Her table looked like a sty and she could never find a quill when she needed one. As she surveyed the mounds of parchment in front of her, people back from an early lunch were filtering into the office.
She could hear Lavender Brown, yes, Miss Lavender Brown who had slept with her ex-boyfriend when they were still together (she would never forget the moaning coming from her mouth), talking about the new shoes that she wanted. "White espadrilles platforms from the boutique along Diagon Alley. They're absolutely beautiful with beige accents, but they're so terribly expensive." She smirked when she heard the office girl conversing with her partner. She could almost imagine Lavender Brown drool all over her legs if she one day paraded around in the purple with gold accent pair she had.
Hermione tapped the handle of her drawer with the tip of her wand and it popped open, revealing a stash of sweets that she was forced to keep and hide. Nobody knew of the box except maybe the cleaner, whom Hermione gave a few toffees to now and then when he came to neaten the stacks on her table. She was forced to hide it because they weren't allowed to eat at their desks, which, according to the boss, invited cockroaches and procrastination, both heavily unwanted. She was forced to keep it because Hermione, as much as she wanted to eat her lunch, could not. And a few wine gums and a bar of Mars would keep her going until it was time to go home.
Seeing that no one was at any of the other three desks in her room, she snuck a few lifesavers out of the tube and popped them into her mouth, chewing thoughtfully. She was not over the whole throw-another-project-at-Granger bit yet. Her hands clenched into tight fists and she was close to slam them on her table if not for the parchments that would fly if she did.
Instead, she swiped the papers on her table with such force, that it sent a whole stack flying towards the door. The rest of it flew up and fluttered in the still air before floating gently back down to the floor haphazardly. Yes, Hermione was tired, and right now under immense stress. Hermione slumped down on her now empty desk. If she took the job, she would go into another stressful cycle, and end up getting grey hair prematurely. If she decided to pair up with another consultant, she would probably get less than half of the actual pay, but get more time off. If she turned down the job, she would have lots of time off and no money to get new shoes. Decisions, decisions she groaned and rubbed her temples. And then something caught her eye.
Something shiny in a plastic casing with a memo stuck to it: Send by 14th. Wasn't today the twenty-fourth already? And what was it doing on her table, wasn't it Lavender's job to pass this to the courier? What the hell was it, anyway? Hermione stood up, rubbing her sore bottom and reached down to pick it up. Certification awarded to Jackson Bartlett Ticks and the rest of it followed. God, Jay said he got the certificate already when she called him up last week. That could only mean one thing: Jay had received a dud. And if anybody wanted to inspect the certificate for authenticity and found out, the company would lose millions, and she would get sued. She was going to get sued. Her company was going to get sued.
Hermione would have noticed the certificate if she had gotten it. Even with a messy table, she would have sent this for the courier to pick up. Hermione never missed a dateline and now she was going to get sued. She stumbled from her awkward position and walked towards the door. Just outside was Lavender Brown, still fawning over the espadrilles she would never get.
"Miss Brown, can I have a moment?" she asked, hoping that her voice didn't come out to strained. Lavender stared at her briefly and gave a pitying smile. "Could you give me a minute? We're in a middle of a conversation right now." God, she was insufferable. What kind of man was Ron to pick her instead of me, Hermione thought angrily. "Can I have a moment, please," Hermione repeated her question with a hint of steel in her voice. Lavender rolled her eyes at her work partner and crossed her arms in front of her ample chest. "Yes?"
Hermione pulled her to one side and held out the certificate in front of her, remembering to remove to memo. "Do you recognise this?" she asked Lavender. Lavender looked at the certificate and replied bluntly, "No. Do you want this mailed? I can always do it but you did not have to drag me out of the conversation to tell me about this. Hermione, you may hold a higher position than me, but we're the same age, treat me with some respect too…" Hermione zoned out from the conversation and stared at the certificate in her hand. Her mouth tasted of cardboard and all of a sudden, she felt nauseous. No more stress, her little voice in the back of her head said cheekily. No more paperwork, no more money, no more shoes, no more stress. No more money, no more shoes, no more stress.
"Hold this for me, I've got something to do," she eventually croaked out, breaking the mini tirade from Lavender. And as Lavender called out her name to no avail from behind, Hermione did the only thing she could think of.
She fled.
At the other end of London where most of the shops were, Draco Malfoy was doodling. Not doodling exactly because he wasn't using a pencil or a quill. Draco Malfoy, bored as he was whilst waiting for a person, found a squeeze bottle full of strawberry sauce. If Draco Malfoy were any other person, he would have squeezed a bit onto his finger, licked it, adored it just for a moment, and then put it back. But you see, Draco Malfoy wasn't like every other person, and he thought himself as the next Michelangelo, or someone along those lines, and had created a very, very, beautiful picture of a –
"Dog, a dog peeing on a patch of flowers. How creative, Draco," his best friend snorted. Best friend, Blaise Zabini, had found something else better to do than draw sticky red lines on the concrete floor, mainly smoking and reading the latest magazine from FHM. "Who are we waiting for this time?" Draco asked as he concentrated on getting the bees around the flowers correct.
"Somebody who's apparently running half an hour behind schedule," Blaise replied and took a drag from his cigarette. "It's a Patsy Dinger. She's from Hampshire. She was the one that set up the restaurant two streets down. After they got her, they started turning tables twice, and a waiting list of three months."
"How much are we paying her?"
"Three hundred quid an hour. About a hundred galleons."
"Why are we doing this again?"
"Because, if she does hold to her end of the bargain, we're going to have a very successful bar, restaurant thing whatever you call it."
"I happen to think this bar is doing very well, and so is the restaurant. And you made my bee look like a wasp with the blotch."
"Whatever the bee looks like, you've got to face the facts. We've been making a loss for more than half the year and if we don't get this sorted out, we'll be forced to close it down. I can't fire anymore chefs and we still need one more busboy for the restaurant."
Draco pulled a face and put down the squeeze bottle. He whipped out his wand and muttered a simple spell. In no time, he had three red lined bees with smiley faces dancing around in mid air. Smiling, he propped himself up with his palms and turned his face to the afternoon sun.
He stayed in the same position for another five minutes until his turned out elbows hurt. After that, he swirled his floating creations into a small thick red pool and directed it to the bin. "If Patsy Dinger doesn't come in the next two minutes I am going to fire her," Draco finally declared and looked triumphantly at his friend
"Well, you can't exactly do that because we haven't even started, and if she doesn't come the bar's going to go. You know that right?" Blaise sighed and flicked the remains of his cigarette stick into the bin too.
And just then, when Blaise thought that all hope was gone and Draco was thinking about lunch, they heard a knock on the door. Going through the kitchen doors to the main entrance, Blaise hastily tucked in his shirt and smoothened his jeans. "She's here, Draco. Be prepared to be wowed," he grinned and opened the door as Draco hurried to flatten his fly away hair.
With a large smile on Blaise's face, he saw an outline of a woman's silhouette as the warm sunlight streamed into the room. "Hell—" Blaise started and then stopped.
Hermione stood at the door, smiling gaily at them, yet her hair tousled and heels in her hand. "Yeah, I look like hell, I feel like hell. Sorry, but I really do need a drink, I'll pay," she laughed it off and sniffled before pulling out her wallet and handing over a galleon. "I need a coke with vodka please," she said.
When both men kept silent, she fished out another galleon. "I know you're not open but I did remember this was the place that my company, or should I say ex-company held their latest office party," she carried on and looked at the two men expectantly.
"I know you, you're the one who chewed off the boy's head and smoked in the high heels," Draco said looking at her from top to bottom while Blaise said bluntly, "What happened to your face?"
She called them closer with a finger and whispered in their faces. "I'm on the run from the authorities. If they find me I'm going to be sued and lose everything I have and have my reputation destroyed."
"You're a pussy," Blaise snorted and threw his head back and laughed.
"Say as you might, I did not do anything wrong. I think. As in, I never had that piece of paper on my desk and I find it when it's already over due and I shouldn't have been there either, it's not my fault that it was put on my desk," she rambled on defensively. When she saw both men staring at her curiously, she stopped. "All I'm saying is that I'm not the one who did it. And until I can prove that I'm innocent, I have to run away. And I can't exactly run away if the authorities know where I am, right?" she stated matter-of-factly, "But before that, I need a drink, got one?"
"You're not high on crack are you," Draco said uncertainly as he walked behind the bar and pulled out a bottle of Vodka. He then poured it into a small shot glass and handed it to Hermione. "Never been on ice, coke, seaweed, anything. Cross my heart," Hermione swore and held up her three fingers.
"Were you waiting for somebody?" Hermione turned to ask Blaise. "Yeah, consultant for this place."
"Is she coming then?"
"What do you think? Do you feel her ethereal presence in this room?"
"No, what's her name?"
"Patsy Dinger."
Blaise heard her snort loudly into her hand before she cleared her throat. "Something wrong with your throat there," he asked pleasantly enough, for a man whom hated waiting.
"No, no," she smiled back gaily, "just that she's rather famous of being selective with her clients. I take it that you called up and put in an appointment with her secretary?"
The two men nodded and she laughed. "Well, if you two have been waiting for her to come, she won't appear anytime soon, for say, the better part of your life? She chooses her client really carefully. Only those offering her lots of money among other incentives," she coughed again.
"Ah. So we're not really her type are we?" Blaise replied in a slightly defensive tone. "But," Hermione carried on, "I can help you."
"Makes us look better and spruce up our rotting bank accounts? I'm not so sure."
"You look fine by me. What I do mean is that I can do the job, of course, it would come under a few conditions."
"What is the matter with you?" Draco snapped and glared at her, "You come in here looking like a vagrant, and then you tell us riddles and now you want us to employ you?"
And that's when the ever so cautious Hermione Granger just could not take anymore of this nonsense and started bawling; tear leaking from her eyes as her nose sniffled violently.
"You're Hermione Granger? The Hermione Granger?"
"So?"
"I wouldn't actually expect the likes of you crying in front of the likes of us. And pouring out your terribly, horribly, extremely bad day. Especially to the likes of us."
"Yes, in fact most of it came out voluntarily, did it not Blaise?"
Hermione stared for a while looking at the two bartenders in front of her. No wonder they looked so familiar. "Right, I'll just pay and find a hole to bury myself in," she announced and laid down the coin. Picking up her heels and handbag she headed for the door.
"Oh, you don't really have to do such a thing, Granger. We were just joking," Blaise called out and stood up to block her exit. "Indeed," Draco agreed, "Besides, it's not as if we're going to hurt you right? It's been what, nine years?"
"Hatred doesn't change into affection so easily, Malfoy. Besides, I'm sure you have other matters at hand to attend to."
"Granger, do you remember the times after the war? When the Ministry sent all of the Dark Lord's supporters to Psychology lessons? The whole brainwashing thing with 'Dark Lord is evil and Dark Lord is bad' thing?"
"So what. It's not as if you can say his name still can you?"
"Look Granger, nine years doesn't change an entire seventeen years of drilling does it? So we can't say his name, but at least we admitted to be part of a psycho group of murderers. And hey, we didn't actually kill anybody right? I mean, injure and hurt, but not actually taking someone's life. I didn't kill Dumbledore did I?"
"Yeah, and Granger, you'll never ever stop being bushy haired beaver to us like we will be Ferret and evil company to you," Blaise said affectionately and turned her round. "You forgot to waterproof your mascara today, didn't you," he laughed and handed her a tissue.
"I know it's going to be hard to accept, but we would really like to extend our hand of friendship," Draco pledged, " and besides, you kissed me, didn't you?" he added cheekily.
Hermione glared hard at the tousled haired blond with the best set of teeth she had ever seen. It was difficult, but she managed. "Fine, let's start working alright? You know Dinger isn't coming so why not just use me as your consultant? I'll help you and I'll make the fees cheaper," Hermione said eventually.
"It's your call Granger."
"I suggest stripping the whole bar façade and creating a small café."
The other two looked at her as if she'd gone mad. Maybe it was their call instead.
Okay! Haven't uploaded one till now, and I'm sure many readers are angry but at least it still came (: Have fun and cheers!