This is a work of fan fiction. Hogwarts, its characters and world belong to J.K. Rowlings.
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There was no explaining it, but Hermione got out her phone and tried to explain it. "I'm going to be late, I am caught in traffic," she said, but Ms. Quince didn't much care for those who dally, and let her know there was no point coming to the interview.
Hermione heaved a sigh and was unhappy. After childhood, adulthood was supposed to be about being reasonable and what not. However, all that was true so far was that no one told her what to do with her days - there was not a schedule except that she kept trying to get into one. However, adults, it appeared, were simply big, overgrown children.
In grimmer moments, and this was one, Hermione wondered if the adults of Hogwarts would have appeared so childish if she'd only realized that adults are not so different from children.
Hermione let the cabbie know to just drop her "anywhere" -- she was no longer in a rush. So he pulled to the side, stopping beside the parked cars, where Hermione paid him, and portfolio in hand, got out. There wasn't a reason to arrive home fresh, and the walk would help her think.
There were jobs in the edges of the wizarding world, and jobs in the center of the wizarding world. The most central jobs - those involving the ministry - well, Hermione was beginning to think she might have to aim for one. The next layer out - jobs in reputable wizarding firms doing reputable wizarding things for people who could pay for such - there were not as many of those jobs as you might suspect. The next layer out - those who sort of existed on the margin between wizarding and muggle, using muggle inspiration to make things wizards would desire - that was where Hermione was recently trying to be hired.
She didn't hear the tick of her own shoes as she walked up a sidewalk on an old street in an old city lined by old buildings. The trees on this street were kept like flowers were kept on some of the other streets: carefully and as if they were temporary bloomers to be valued until they were done. The windows weren't dark, nor were they well lit. The establishments were not clearly labeled, and people who wandered up or down this street seldom paid attention, focusing on where they were headed rather than where they were. It was how this street had been for a long time. And Hermione, though witch, was not suspicious. She simply walked, miserable, back to her her flat, along a hard to find block.
A bit of clanging distracted her and she looked up from her funk. Though this street looked as modern as every other muggle street, she felt for a moment like it reminded her of Diagonal Alley. Something about the bricks seemed off, like she'd just barely glimpsed them as they stopped moving, or as if, if she'd blink, they'd rearrange while she wasn't looking. And the source of the clanging came out on the street.
The doors of the houses here were a few stairs above the street, and they also had basement doors, a few stairs below the street, but door was directly on the street, as if every builder had agreed that what was true outside the house was irrelevant to what was true inside the house. That or it was some sort of old nod to tradition and power. Hermione paused to watch the mechanisms of doors opening, like a minor engineering miracle, and a suited man being put out onto the stoop, five steps above street level.
"I will not be in touch, Henney," said a voice Hermione knew. "And tell whoever sent you that I said no -- and that I won't pursue illegal research." Draco Malfoy stepped out onto the porch with the suited man, and shouted -- "did you hear that? or would you like to bore me some more?" He was wearing slacks and a button down shirt, a tie, and an annoyed face. "So go," he said.
"Sir," started Henney, but the doors closed and if was possible, it seemed the bricks themselves got closer together as the house turned a deaf ear.
The man came down the steps, muttering and angry. "What street is this?" asked Hermione of the man who was walking toward her.
He looked at her as if she was insane, and said, "Get out of my way."
"Is someone there hiring?" she asked, pointing at the house that now looked positively abandoned, shuttered and dark.
The man stopped and glared. He was taller than Hermione, so he could look down, and glare more from that vantage, which he did.
"Girl, what do you want?" he asked.
Hermione noted his suit, his hair, his accent, his stance, his eyes. Up close, he was a wizard, for certain, trying to look like a muggle -- he was dressed as a muggle, but not effectively. He wore a regular suit like it would break him with its seams and fabric. His hair looked like it longed to be wild, but he'd oiled it down. His accent was one like the kids who came from deep in the magical neighborhood, and his stance was the version of aggression that was shifty. He looked like he'd fight if it gained him anything, and cower if it would gain him anything. His eyes looked Hermione over for what he could get.
Hermione tried to look empty and uninteresting with a certain slump, a certain lean, and a certain leaning lack of aggression of her own.
"I was looking for work," she said and then she asked again: "Is someone there hiring?"
Henney laughed.
"You don't look like much," he said nastily, his eyes showing an absence of caring about what he saw, "but maybe he'll give you a try. Draco Malfoy, that's the place," said Henney, pointing.
"What were you interviewing for?" she asked.
The man laughed.
"Head chemist. But maybe he'll hire you to do the chamber work. They're a traditional family, but they're kind, and don't kill the mud bloods. anymore." Henney walked off laughing.
Hermione didn't let herself react.
It was a lead.
When the day was over she could feel punched in the gut. For now, she had a job to demand.
She walked up the stairs, faintly unaware of how desperate she was, jabbed the bell, which alerted the people in the house to how desperate she was, and her identity, as this was the magic bell on a magic house on a magic street in an old city, and the current owner liked to experiment.
Draco came to the door, now wearing the jacket on the suit, and welcomed her in.
"Hermione Granger," he said smoothly. "I don't believe I made an appointment with you this afternoon."
"You are looking for a head chemist," she said, walking in, and ignoring the carpet underfoot, the dark wood of the floor around it, the wood panels up to a certain level, and the tastefully relentless wall paper that rose above, to a ceiling, which if she had looked, would have been pressed metal. A giant wooden chair/chest was there with an attached mirror, and hooks for jackets. Draco deftly relieved her of her jacket, hung it up, and ushered her into an office.
"You may have to excuse me for a few minutes while I attend to the appointments I did make," said the man as he offered her the chair in front of his desk, put her portfolio out on his desk, still zipped, and sat down behind his desk himself. He sat back. He looked at her, and knew what he was looking at: brains without a place in the world. She looked at him and simply wondered what had changed -- his hair was still white, his face was still pale, his chin was still pointy, but something had changed. Draco wasn't beaten anymore.
"Wizards need to integrate into the muggle world," said Draco, noting Hermione's shock. "Wow me," he then said.
Hermione's mouth went dry. She could barely begin to speak, so she opened her portfolio in order to at least have things to point at, to prompt her to speak.
Mid way through her presentation, Draco interrupted her for a scheduled appointment. "I'll take it across the hall," he said, waving her to stay where she was. "When I get back, I'm going to ask you what you would sell to a wizard that was magical, that would let them live with muggles effectively." He walked out, and the door closed behind him.
Hermione sat there in dumb shock. "I need a glass of water," she muttered to herself, and one appeared on Malfoy's desk.
"Thank you," she said, taking it, and drinking it.
"You're welcome," said the desk.
"You talk?" she asked.
"No, and you should be thinking about the question," it said, and it said no more.
Hermione looked out of the window and wondered. What would you sell a wizard to help them live with the muggles. And why was Malfoy trying to get wizards to live with muggles? Effectively? He said "effectively" -- and what did Malfoy mean by living with muggles "effectively."
Hermione pulled out a notebook, a pen, wrote words, and drew designs, and wrote more words, and drew charts, and wrote more words. "Magic desk" showed up a few times, as well as, "Why live with muggles?" and "What's a wizard?" She had a few useless ideas (a ring to make your clothes seem more muggleish, to be renewed every season as the fashions changed; a kit of standard muggle gadgets, spelled to help one learn to use them like a muggle would; a trained animal to watch and make sure muggles did not take things away) -- unimaginative ideas. She looked up to glare and drink her water again when she realized her interviewer had returned.
"The job is no longer available," he said.
"What?" she asked.
"Thank you for coming in," he said.
"I had ideas," Hermione said.
"Let me call you a cab," Draco said, picking up the phone and ordering a car service. "You live in the city?" he asked. Hermione nodded, and he made the arrangements. "You'll let the driver know where to drop you off."
"Is there another job?" she asked.
"At ferret enterprises?" he asked, sneering for once. The desk seemed to sigh in a disappointed way.
"Is there another job I could interview for?" Hermione asked.
"Leave me your resume and I'll consider it," he said. Which Hermione did. There is a certain unpolished reaction for job hunters who are not completely secure with the process - she pulled it out quickly as if that meant it was more honest. Malfoy took it all the same, and put it, now a single piece of paper on the desk -- nothing else there but a phone and her portfolio which he had zipped up for her.
"I can do magic," she said.
"Good to know," he said.
"I can do chemistry," she said.
"Your resume says that," he replied.
"I can do biology," she said.
"I would expect so," he replied.
"I need work," she said.
"I got that message," he said.
He stood, and she stood. They went into the hall. He held out her jacket, and she got into it. She shook his hand and thanked him for the interview. She went out on the stoop, walked down to the waiting car, and got in. She gave the address the address, and was driven home.
Hermione, the brain who needed work, found herself confused on one point: she was certain Draco had lied when he said the job was no longer available. She went in, and up, to her apartment, a fifth floor walk up, and put the stuff of interviews away. She got into her regular clothes, padded over to her kitchen area, and put a piece of pizza in her microwave to warm. The cheese bubbled. It took seconds, but while that happened, Hermione had a thought. She summoned, and using her job-hunting-skills, she poured through the news paper for that job. It wasn't under "Malfoy Enterprises." It wasn't under "chemist." It wasn't under "Muggle Research." It was, oddly enough, listed as "Research in Muggle Relations" which Hermine had never noticed. Her stomach remind her that she had not eaten, and she returned to her microwave and the now room temperature piece of pizza.
Hermione thought things about Draco, assuming he was doing the stuff of dark wizardry. She cleaned up, and looked at her agenda for tomorrow. It was an agenda she had spelled for herself, to help her think of what to do as she engaged in the job hunt.
"9 AM -- Send Draco Malfoy a thank you note and indicate you still want the job" was on her agenda, along with exercise advice and then, 10:30 AM, start for a ministry interview. That one was for a minor job in a dusty and forgotten office where she would get ahead best by doing nothing and keeping strangers from doing anything also.
"Are you kidding me?" she asked the agenda. But she had not spelled it to answer her verbally, but as no entries went way, it could be assumed that the agenda was not kidding.
Then it hit her and Hermione paused to wonder: why had Draco been using a construct to do interviews? That wasn't Draco at first, it was a copy. But the second time, it was Draco.
Then Hermione stopped that train of thought: "Draco is not my problem. Not having a job is my problem," she thought. "He can do anything he wants as long as it's legal."
The word "focus" appeared in her agenda.
"Rent," Hermione replied.
"Good thinking."
Practical concerns and curiosity -- they'd conflicted. Hermione knew she needed to do better than survive, but Draco didn't seem that significant.
"1:30 PM -- shower off the dust from the useless office for boredom job at the ministry."
"Fine, I'll try," she said.
The journal posted no more.