No good deed goes unpunished, Draco thought grimly.

It wasn't like he hadn't tried to do the occasional, rare good deed. In the aftermath of the Second War, Draco had been given plenty of time to sort out his priorities. Being held in an odd quasi-probationary period will do that to a man. He had realized that if he didn't want to be counting the marble blocks in the family manor for the rest of his life, the occasional good deed might do wonders.

So he dated Astoria for a while, regardless of the complete lack of spark. He had a duty to his family, she was well placed in the rapidly reshuffling system, so on and so forth. Unfortunately, catching Tori in between the sheets with a random bloke from a girls night out stopped Draco from any further good deeds in her direction.

Donating a large portion of the Malfoy fortune had an immediate positive effect-the masses and media loved it, and Draco managed to separate his reputation from that of his father (who fortunately had found a permanent vacation home well out of the country. Universal hatred does that to a person, as well as an outstanding arrest warrant.) What Draco did not realize was that his privacy was sacrificed along with the funds. Once his name had been thrown into the spotlight, he found it was devilishly tricky to push it back into the shadows.

While looking to replenish the funds donated, Draco took the largest risk yet-he became an entrepreneur. Despite Snape's godawful teaching (Slytherin be damned, Severus was a terrible teacher!) Draco had a passion for brewing research. He hoped to make his name with breakthroughs and advances. And that he did-unfortunately, the masses knew his beauty and personal health care line of products, and those were the ones that sold like hotcakes. No one seemed to care about his post-Cruciatus remedies, or creams that slowly restored eyesight.

And lately, Draco had his head against the desk for his latest attempt at a good deed. His old school chum, Greg Goyle, needed a job. For some reason, no one would hire a former child Death Eater without enough brain to use his muscle properly. So Draco gave Greg the position of Researcher's Assistant, paid the man enough to support a second-line professional Quidditch player, and set Greg running for tea and sending messages.

Greg was alright at the tea-he just had to push a shiny red button and the tea would come out all ready to go. If the message was written down, Greg could drop it into the mailbox. But it seemed that Greg could not, would not, was physically incapable of speaking with another human being and not royally botching it up. Draco worked around this most of the time, as Greg's red-button tea worked wonders on early mornings. But occasionally, Draco just wanted to smash his head against his desk.

The morning had started out fair enough-Greg brought the tea in, Draco met with the department heads for the weekly status report, and then retreated to his personal lab for the rest of the day. His day began to plummet when his latest hopeful breakthrough singed his eyebrows off. It got worse when a fellow researcher quipped at lunch that he could just use the Narcissa Hair Growth Gel. When his secretary Martha brought in the daily mail, the day was sealed.

Someone had finally managed to push through legislation mandating cauldron bottom thickness.

Draco had luckily escaped all lectures on cauldron bottoms in school, as he would have rather seen himself strangled by a Venomous Tentacula than spend time with the interested parties. But while making a fortune on potions, he had been forced to become educated on the various pollution restrictions, ingredient safety certification processes, employee practices, and equipment regulations. After about two hours of wading through paper, Draco hired a savvy lawyer to do the reading for him, and to update him when new laws were in progress. The law he held in his hand informed him that all cauldrons had to be at least 6.725 centimetres in thickness at all points of construction.(Rather, that's what Allen, his lawyer, had scrawled on the bottom of the sheets. The actual law was at least an inch-thick of paper, and held more legal jargon than Draco ever cared to know.)

For the home brewer, cauldron bottom thickness was hardly a concern. For a large production like Draco's, however, thickness had an effect. A thinner cauldron typically would heat faster, and some metals held heat differently based on magical composition. A thicker cauldron meant longer production time. A delay of even five seconds per product could add up to thousands in Galleon loss. Which was something Draco most emphatically did not want to see.

So Draco sent Greg to the Ministry to file a complaint. Draco might have been banking on the fact that, as a whole, the Ministry was comprised of bigger idiots that Greg could ever hope to be. So Draco wrote out word-for-word what he wanted Greg to say to the poor schmucks and sent him on his merry way.

When Greg came back a quivering, shaking mess, Draco's head met the desk. And then met the desk again. And then met the desk once more, just in case the first two forceful greetings didn't get the message across.

Draco asked, "What happened, Greg?"

Whimper. "Did you read the paper to the nice people at the Ministry"

Odd choke sound.

"Did they give you anything?"

Greg brightened, then rummaged though his pockets, pulling out a crumpled sheet of paper. Scanning it, Draco noted that it was a confirmation of complaint, and that the Ministry would review it and get back to them within 6-12 months. Lovely. He was about to put it on his desk and forget it for a moment when he noticed the signature. A very memorable signature. H J Granger. "Greg, did Hermione Granger speak with you?"

Gulp. "She was scarier than before."

Hmm. Draco had never thought of the Granger as particularly scary, but then he had an above-average intelligence. Greg didn't like anyone who used more than three syllables on a regular basis. No matter. Six months was not acceptable for the business, and that was if they even bothered to truly consider the damn law.

When you want a job right, you have to do it yourself.

Draco wondered when his life could be summarized by trite phrases.