A loud ringing interrupted a young woman's peaceful floating in grey clouds and brought her back to reality. Reality was not nearly as soft as those grey clouds. Brown eyes opened in annoyance and glared at the night stand next to her.

Her cell phone continued blaring the obnoxiously loud alarm, reminding her that it was time to get up, get ready, and get her ass to work. She silenced the alarm with a swipe of the finger, then stretched languorously like a cat, taking up the entire bed in the process.

"Hermione! Where did you put the bread?!" A confused voice called from the kitchen.

Hermione Granger sighed, the rush of air blowing curly brown locks out of her face. She did not want to get up just yet. Her roommate, Ginny, was forever unorganized and could not find anything unless it was spread out on the floor in front of her.

The brown haired young woman stood, a little off balance as all of the blood drained from her head, and headed for her bedroom door. She didn't know how Ginny managed to survive all these years if she couldn't even find food in a cupboard.

She opened the bedroom door. "Third cupboard on the right, Ginny," she called back. There was a sound of some rummaging and a soft "Ah ha!" once the hopeless red head had found the loaf of bread Hermione had purchased yesterday. Hermione closed the bedroom door and headed for the en suite bathroom to begin her morning ritual. Before she could make it there, she noticed her cell phone screen light up.

Hermione walked back over to the nightstand and picked up her phone. There was a text from Ron that said "talked 2 hairy, he will call u l8r". Hermione rolled her eyes and put the phone down without responding. She slipped into the bathroom and turned on the shower.

Waiting for the water to warm up, she frowned. Her, Ron Weasley, and Harry Potter had been the best of friends throughout high school and university. Her and Ron had started dating about two months ago after years of crushing on one another...and broken up shortly after. Ron's spelling skills left a lot to be desired, but that had not been the reason for their break up. He was very nice and very sweet, a welcome change from her creepy ex-boyfriend Victor Krum. He had been the perfect relationship after the nightmare with Krum, but not the man she needed for the rest of her life. Her and Krum's relationship had ended in police involvement; it hadn't been pretty. Ron Weasely had been kind, polite, patient...and boring. Hermione had ended it when she realized she was not sexually attracted to him, and while he had been devastated at first, they still remained close friends, along with Harry.

Ron's text was referring to a court date she had coming up, for which Harry was her defense lawyer. Apparently there was some update on the situation she needed to be informed of. Whatever it was, it would have to wait until after this weekend. Hermione stepped into the warm spray of the shower and began her day.

An hour later and she was walking quickly down the loud and bustling streets of New York, headed for work. She was grateful she had worn flats today – she had missed the subway and trying to walk the ten blocks from her apartment to work in heels always gave her blisters. She picked up the pace, walking as quickly as possible in a black pencil skirt. She hated being late.

Hermione breezed through the glass doors of the towering office building with five minutes to spare. Taking the elevators up to the tenth floor, she trotted down the wood-paneled hallway and turned right. Two glass doors stood before her bearing a non-descript blocky logo and the words "Internal Solutions". The office was specifically designed to give nothing away to an outsider.

Pushing through the doors, she hurried to her desk and started setting up for the day. She had made it with one minute to spare. She fired up her computer and put the headset for the phone on. Once she was settled into her chair, she opened the first of 60 emails she had received overnight.

"My husband and I tried out the Mantra last night and found that after 30 minutes, it still could not get me to come. I want a refund, now."

Ignoring the pushiness of the woman, Hermione cut and pasted the response from her 30 page document of canned responses into her reply. Specifically, that Internal Solutions, one of the top manufacturer's of dildos and vibrators in the United States, did not offer refunds.

Her mother just about had a stroke on the spot when Hermione had told her where she had accepted a position. She was almost a mirror image of Hermione's, only thirty years older, and her dark eyes had opened wide before closing in disbelief. Her father had been torn between congratulations for getting an excellent starting position right out of university, and admonishment for accepting a position at a sex-toy company. She had pointed out that they should have expected this when she had started studying sexology in university. They had since come to terms with her job, but they still wished for her to work somewhere a little...classier. Like where? She wondered. Internal Solutions was a very classy company.

She was working customer service involving responding to the public via the phone and email. She was one of three on the customer service team and had enjoyed her position at Internal Solutions for the past year. Hermione found that every day at work was different and usually quite entertaining, no matter how many bleeding penis's she received calls about. Is penis already plural? Penii? She mused.

"Hermione! Are you all packed yet?" A black haired, brown skinned young woman practically danced into Hermione's cubicle. Hermione finished answering the email before turning to her coworker and friend that was practically vibrating with excitement, no pun intended.

"Hey, Parvati," she greeted. "I just started last night; I haven't had a chance to finish all my laundry. What time do we fly out tomorrow?"

Parvati thought for a moment, her slender frame gracefully coming to a halt while she pondered. "Well, our flight leaves at 10 a.m," she considered for a moment, twining a long, black lock of hair around her finger. "So we should probably be at the airport for 9 a.m at the absolute latest. Going through security will take forever. I'm so excited!" She bounced up and down briefly before staring at Hermione with a maniac grin.

Hermione frowned slightly. She was NOT a morning person. "Okay. 9 a.m it is," she agreed reluctantly. "Make sure you let Fleur know too – we can all meet at the main entrance. And for goodness sake, calm down! I've never been to L.A before and you have, and you're more excited than I am!"

Parvati nodded. "I'll go tell Fleur right now!" She exclaimed, ignoring Hermione's insistence that she calm down. Parvati raced out of the cubicle and bolted down the corridor, too excited to contain herself.

Hermione's cubicle mate, a straw-blonde woman named Luna Lovegood in charge of product distribution, looked up dreamily from the salad she was eating. "L.A?" she asked mistily. "Why are you three going to L.A?"

"Um," Hermione faltered. Luna was so spacey sometimes. "The Oscars are happening this weekend...so Parvati, Fleur, Minerva, and I are all going to the after party. We're handing out samples to promote our products, remember? You organized all the samples and gift bags last week..."

The Oscars was a very big event for the company – the publicity would be huge. Hermione and Parvati, two of the three on the customer service team, were leaving for the weekend to attend the after party at the Oscars and personally hand out free products to celebrities. Fleur, the marketing manager, and Minerva, their head of public relations, were also coming along to make sure everything went smoothly and to do some networking.

Luna nodded and went back to gazing lovingly at her salad without responding. Hermione turned back to emails, wondering for the thousandth time what Luna was on.

VVVVVVV

Bright, flashing lights and the sounds of shutters snapping interrupted his train of thought. Dove grey eyes snapped to his left, a look of annoyance clear. The paparazzi ignored the silent threat and continued on taking as many pictures as possible.

How fucking interesting could eating a hamburger really be?! The young man thought in annoyance. Anytime he went out the cameras followed. He knew that this would happen when he decided to take the career path of an actor, but he really didn't expect to have every meal, every shopping trip, every public bathroom visit documented for the world to see. He briefly toyed with the idea of eating like he was in a burger-eating contest, but figured his publicist would probably yell at him about it. He decided not to give the poor man another heart attack. He had enough to deal with this week what with the break up and all.

"Draco! Draco over here! Draco! Hey!"

They were shouting at him, trying to get him to face the camera so they could get a clear shot. One good shot to sell to the highest bidder; probably some teen magazine like Lion Beat. Probably with some ridiculous headline like, "Draco Drowns Break-Up Misery with Comfort Food."

He was kind to his fans and didn't mind the pictures when it was a clear, public event he was attending for the sole purpose of being in the public eye. The occasional following during a shopping trip or fancy dinner hadn't bothered him either. Ever since the trailer release for his latest movie and the announcement of his split from Pansy Parkinson, however, things had gotten markedly more and more aggressive.

Like the guy at the urinal last week, he mused. Some moron paparazzi had decided to try and sneak a picture of his junk while next to him at the urinal. Fortunately for Draco, he hadn't been very sneaky about it and he had managed to zip up and hightail it out of there, dignity and modesty intact. The levels that they were sinking to were starting to become alarming.

The break up with Pansy had been a good idea, both personally and professionally. She was going downhill fast, the kind of celebrity-downhill-shaved-head-and-rehab that you don't recover from. She was no longer the person he had been attracted to and he didn't want to go down on that sinking ship with her.

He finished his lunch and left, sliding on his sunglasses as the paparazzi followed him on his walk back to his apartment. It was a gorgeous, sunny day in L.A and he had decided to walk rather than take his car. He was beginning to regret that decision once the shouting got more personal.

"Draco! How are you feeling after the break up? Did Pansy give you the ring back? Did she cheat on you? Did you on her? What rehab centre is she attending?"
"Where is the ring Draco? Did you pawn it? Did she?"
"Draco what about heroin found in her car? Was it hers, yours, both of yours? Are you attending rehab as well?"
"Draco!"

He put his head down and quickened his pace, annoyed with the questions. The ring was their biggest concern; Pansy was no longer wearing it and no pawn shop in town had reported anyone trying to sell it. And nor would they. Pansy had thrown the $500,000 ring down the drain when he had broken up with her. It was lost to the sewers of L.A, but he was not going to tell the public that. Pansy had enough stories ruining her image as it was without him revealing her drug-induced break up antics.

He was glad to be done with her. He was well known for being flirty with fans, coworkers, TV show hosts, pretty much anything with a pulse, though he had been very committed to Pansy. He had felt she understood him like no one else and they had been happy together for three years. He had even recently proposed. With her addiction, however, she had soon changed for the worse and he had no longer felt the connection he once had.

Now, however, he was a free man and was definitely on his way up. His latest film, an adaption from a very popular book series, had made him a heart throb from young women everywhere. Okay, so his fans were mostly high school girls. There were still a large chunk of women in their early 20s, his age, who had surely read the books. Or so he hoped. He desperately needed a good lay and was not going to risk the fan not being of legal age. That would probably cost him his career and a bunch of legal problems he really did not want.

Still, he really needed a good bedmate. Or at least a good flirter. Once he had gotten engaged he had been flirting less and less, ready to be with only one woman for the rest of his life. Now that it was over, his flirting ways came back in full force.

He brightened when he remembered the Oscars were this weekend. There were bound to be plenty of cute and young actresses to flirt with, not to mention producers, directors, script writers, the list goes on. Oh yes, this weekend was suddenly looking very promising indeed.