Just so I'm clear, this is a HP-centric fic, with Angel's season 5 as essentially a background. I don't intend to use the main events of season 5, though that may change in the future. So everybody knows up front: this will be a DracoxHermione fic, though in a very 'slowly but surely' kind of way. This first chapter is just setting up the story, so it's very introspective and slow, I do promise they won't all be like this. Anyway, if I haven't lost you yet, drop a review and let me know what you think!

Evil Incorporated

Prologue

Sitting in his father's study, Draco let the back of his head hit the leather of the overstuffed chair and recognized, not for the first time, how much he hated the parties. They had seemed nonstop the year after Voldemort was killed, and suddenly the 'right' social circles were no longer around those with the purest blood and the most gold, instead they recentered around those who had been closest to the battle, those who lost the most. Once, and only once, had the Malfoy family attempted to rejoin popular society, an arena they had once dominated with ease. It was at a gala for some post-war orphan charity, one of many charities to crop up in the aftermath of the war. The sheer silence that strangled the ballroom the moment he, his mother, and his father entered had been deafening. They had tried to make it work, no matter what the Diagon Alley tabloids would say afterwards. The three of them had practiced as a family, one big happy family, in the drawing room beforehand. Each knew what to say to this or that, how to react to almost any situation, how to practically bleed remorseful dignity from their bearing. But they had not practiced anything for the absolute disdain they received. At best, glared at, at worst, outright ignored, everywhere Draco had looked was an upturned nose. They suffered for nearly half an hour before his father led them to a side door so they could slip morosely into the night. Even when their name had fallen low under Voldemort, tied to his displeasure, the Malfoys had never suffered such an excruciatingly public humiliation.

Even a nonverbal approach hadn't worked; checks for outrageous amounts, whether they were cashed or not, were usually remarked upon in at least a few tabloids, under some insipid headline about how money wouldn't buy forgiveness. No one was exactly giving out forgiveness as far as Draco could see, even if it could be bought. The Death Eater trials had started up as soon as the new Ministry of Magic had the staff for it. Even though his father was still thin and sallow from his time under Voldemort, or perhaps even because of it, Lucius Malfoy was one of the first to be brought before the Wizengamut. Though the ever-Golden Trio kept stressing in their many public appearances that the way forward was through kindness and forgiveness and such drivel, anyone who was on the receiving end of the new Wizengamut knew the lot of them were just a bunch of vindictive buzzards, preying on already desiccated families like his own.

Then that bloody biography came out. A series of seven books, detailing every mundane detail of the Boy-Who-Lived, Voldemort, every encounter they shared, and everything anyone had ever said to either of them. Up to, including, and expounding upon in great detail, his own family's involvement. The release all but sealed his father's fate, if it hadn't already been so. But the books had another effect, rather unexpected in the Malfoy household. His mother, and his mother alone, received an invite to a small charity event for the mothers of the children who fought. Narcissa had nearly fainted from shock when she realized what it was. But after all, she'd saved Harry Potter from a second death, all for the sake of seeing her own son again, hadn't she? Apparently, she was worth society's attention, so long as she didn't bring her despicable husband and son along.

And so life had continued. After the near-psychotic amount of celebrations of the first year, things had died down long enough to turn into a frenzy again as the two-year mark approached. Draco's mother was gone almost constantly, making rounds at this or that social function, attempting to pull the Malfoy name out of the mud inch by inch. His father was missing even more of the time, if it was possible, between trial dates and board member meetings for his many investments. Travel time alone ensured long days for the man, the iron-wrought, rune-covered band he was forced to wear around his ankle ensured no magic-based travel.

As for Draco himself, his situation was nearly laughable in the strange limbo he found himself. While his situation was by no means as bad as his father's, who struggled daily to put his affairs in order before he was inevitably sent off to Azkaban, Draco longed to be able to go out at his mother's side. Years of tormenting the Golden Trio had finally come full circle and every embarrassing moment of his Hogwarts schooling career was published in black and white for the world to see. The time Mad-Eye turned him into a ferret, crying in the girl's bathroom, and best of all, having his life saved not once, but twice by the Boy-Who-Lived-to-be-a-Ponce… In addition to the sneers at his family name, Draco had to endure the taunting, mocking smirks thrown his way, smirks he had once thrown about so easily. Once upon a time, he'd dreamed of an easy but powerful job at the Ministry of Magic, of making a small fortune in his own right. He'd applied for increasingly lower-level positions at the Ministry only to receive rejection letters so quickly, he wondered if his owl even had time to land before they sent one back. He'd even given up and applied to a few placed in America, far flung offices his father's investments had ties to. He'd gotten a letter from one back, mysteriously postage-marked despite the fact that it had been sent by owl. Assuming it was another rejection, it lay in his room, yet to be opened.

Draco started suddenly at the sound of horse hooves clopping up to the front door. Draco flew up anxiously, long legs toppling a footstool he made no move to right. The leather chair behind him creaked, as though glad to be rid of the pressure Draco bore. A crack of Apparition sounded as a house elf, the only one they had left, moved to meet Draco's father at the door. It was already late, but Lucius would be in the study as soon as he got there, to continue discussing the family investments in hushed breathless tones, a father with no time left to a son who didn't have enough time to grasp it all.

Hermione woke with a start from a dream she couldn't remember. For a moment, she stretched languidly and marveled at the boredom of the weekend's day ahead of her. In the weeks after the war, Hermione had continued to wake up to an immediate sense of dread of what they day would bring. The true realization that it was all really over seemed to hit her the same time it hit everyone else. Every other night was a party somewhere: the Hog's Head, the Leaky Cauldron, the Weasley Burrow, there was always some place to go. After a while, Hermione began to accept that the celebrations were only a temporary distraction from the memories that haunted her as much as everyone else. The empty place at the Weasley dinner table, the silence when little Teddy asked for his papa, the mutinous looks on people's faces when asked not to take vengeance on Death Eaters' families. That was the worst of all, the knowledge that the celebrations hid something so sinister: the mob-mentality to collectively stamp out any remnants of Voldemort's regime.

Hermione had been to only one Death Eater trial, one day of the many multi-part trial of Lucius Malfoy. She'd been nervous walking into the chambers, unsure of how to feel about a man whose living room floor she'd been tortured on. Down on the courtroom floor, she could see him, sitting shakily in the straight backed chair, as though he would simply lose all energy and fall over at any moment. Narcissa and Draco had been in the seats behind him, with an awkward buffer of empty seats on either side. Narcissa's back was straight as a rod, eyes trained unmovingly on her husband's back. Draco was hunched over, hands on his knees, eyes flitting nervously around the room. His gaze had alighted on Hermione for just a moment then, almost unsure he saw her correctly, slid back a second later. His eyes had been sunken and haunted, as if it were he himself condemned in place of his father. The stare lingered for an endless heartbeat before returning to his father's back. Hermione left the courtroom soon after, and hadn't mustered the strength to return since. Even through the haze of memory, from the comfort of her own bed, his steel-gray eyes still pierced her.

Elphias Doge had finished Harry's biography soon after the series of trials had begun. At Hermione's suggestion, 90% of the profits went to the Post-War Reconstruction Fund which divied the money up into various causes, bust she still felt a pang of guilt at revealing so much of her peers' school years. Particularly Neville, who certainly had his share of embarrassing moments, though he was currently claiming he got plenty of female sympathy because of it. Some things had been left out of the published books, such as the locations of the Resurrection Stone and Elder Wand, some of the more intimate moments between her and Ron, and some of Harry's more emotional tirades. As much as they wanted the world to know the truth about what happened, before people started making up with own versions, some things were just too personal to share with the world.

For Hermione, it seemed almost a blessing they had decided to cut off the telling of the tale where they did; after the war ended, the trials of her own life were of a far more personal nature. The reunion with her parents had been more bitter than sweet after their reaction at her acting on their memories without consulting them first, or at least giving them the same option they had given Harry's aunt and uncle, to go into hiding. A tearful argument had ensued, with much consternation over abuse of power, being a 'real' family, and how, after only seven years, her parents barely knew her anymore, and afterwards their tentative relationship was left as a truce hanging by a thread. Three months later, the other shoe dropped and after receiving a letter from some friends they had made while in Australia, her parents had decided to move back permanently. Hermione, who had gotten a low-paying but fulfilling job in the Department of Regulation of Magical Creatures, officially moved into her own place and bid her parents a tear-filled farewell, full of things still unsaid.

While the Weasleys had filled in for her family more than she could have ever hoped for, it didn't take her long to realize she was being groomed to become a future Mrs. Weasley. Subsequently, it also didn't take her long to discover she was not a very good cook. It exasperated poor Molly to tears, but Hermione simply did not have the knack for it. A recipe she could follow to the letter, but when it came to judging by look, feel, and texture when something was simply 'done', she was lost. Unlike Molly, who seemed to have been born knowing how to cook and clean for a huge family, Hermione had grown up an only child, and more than happy to live on magically-instant noodles between writing department reports. Alternatively, life between her and Ron was, to put it succinctly, dull. Without the constant danger of wartime life to keep them on edge, passing days were content and uneventful. There wasn't much keeping them together, but there wasn't anything to pull them apart either. For the moment, things were bearable, and she didn't expect anything out of the ordinary to happen any time soon. So much so in fact, that she accidentally dismissed a postage-stamped envelope from a law office in Los Angeles, USA, for junk mail, and set it aside to get buried in old newspapers.