Title: The Bolshevik Bunker (1/?)
Author name: Die Bratwurste
Author e-mail: DieBratwurste@yahoo.com
Category: Humor/Action/Adventure
Keywords: Draco Hermione Post-Hogwarts Heist Casino
Rating: PG13
Spoilers: All books
Summary: Draco Malfoy is thoroughly, shamefully, and inescapably in hock. His only hope is Hermione Granger, CPA, and her sure-fire plan for the ultimate heist. The only problem? It's horrendously illegal. Supporting cast includes Gilderoy Lockhart, Birgit De Nijs, Eastern Siberian gnomes, some dancing Bolsheviks, and a few plastic gophers.
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. This was inspired by the Producers, which we also do not own. Ay, There's the Rub is from Shakespeare's Hamlet… it's not ours.
The Bolshevik Bunker 1:
Ay, There's the Rub!
Desperate times call for desperate measures so as Birgit, part time secretary and full time whore, sang out: "Sie has a visitor!"; Draco Malfoy glanced at his Audubon Society Singing Bird Clock ("A Different Songbird Every Hour!"), noted the time (five minutes to noon), and realized, with a sickening lurch, that he may have to get out of bed. Considering that he had a wallet containing nothing but dust mites, he knew that a few small sacrifices had to be made.
Scowling, Draco rolled over. "Does this visitor have an appointment?"
"Sie says sie does."
"Shit!" He shot out of his chair and across the kitchen, terrified that it might be yet another creditor. It was entirely too early in the morning to schmooze them out of confiscating the little property he had left. Birgit, parading around in nothing but red, black, and yellow colored panties, would not help matters much. "Get in the coat closet! Now!" He grabbed her arm so hard she squealed and forced her in with the moth-eaten cloaks.
"Herr Malfoy, Sie must be--"
Draco was not about to take orders from a whore. "Shut up, Birgit! Keep quiet in there!" He slammed the closet door closed and ran back into the kitchen, tossing the dirty dishes into the cabinet beneath the sink. He grabbed a lacy cravat from his bedroom and stuffed it down the front of his moldy burgundy bed-robe. He flopped down on the couch in a very Titanic, Kate Winslet pose and said in his deepest, manliest, sexiest voice, "Come in, darling."
He heard the sound of the door opening.
"What the hell are you doing, Malfoy?"
Hermione Granger, CPA, stood just inside the doorway, hands on her hips, staring at him over her horn-rimmed glasses with that 'Eww, it's a flea-ridden ferret' look of hers. "I don't even want to know."
"What are you doing here?" Draco snapped, yanking off the lacy cravat and stuffing it between the seat cushions.
"I'm from Gringotts," Hermione said, in a tone that sounded as if she may as well have been sent by God himself.
"You work for Gringotts?"
"No, I'm an undercover secret agent. Yes, Malfoy, I work for Gringotts."
"Erm," he said, "I guess they sent you to help me figure out my bank account."
"'Erm' is right," she said, raising an eyebrow. "I had a bit of trouble finding this…" she trailed off as took in the chintzy furniture, the bedraggled velvet curtains and the pet hermit crabs in the glass aquarium, "dwelling," she continued, taking a large breath, "since Gringotts listed your address as Malfoy Manor in Pittiford-on-the-Rocks, which this obviously is not. In fact, I had to get this address from the gnomes."
"Ah, the gnomes. They took control of the Manor temporarily, a small matter of some unpaid debts." He shrugged, as if having one's family Manor overrun by 600 angry Eastern Siberian gnomes was old news.
"Ah," Hermione said, "I see doing your books will be loads of fun."
"That's what they're here for," he said, oblivious to her sarcastic manner.
Hermione scowled and walked across the room. She picked up the only book in the entire flat, which was sitting the mantelpiece, a piece of plywood supported by two man-sized plastic gophers. "I'm making a huge leap here," Hermione quipped, "but I'm guessing that these are your accounts."
"Oh, yes," said Draco, still slightly taken aback by the fact Hermione Granger, the Hermione Granger, was under his roof and insulting his intelligence. But instead of expressing his disbelief, he said, "Have a seat," gesturing towards the couch.
Hermione looked at the sofa, which might have been orange at one point in time but was now a sad shade of puke brown. Sniffling distastefully, she replied, "I'll take the table instead, thanks." Without further ado, she slid into the plastic chair behind the rickety round table and flipped open his accounts, at the same time trying to ignore his presence.
"You know, Granger, this--" he made a sweeping gesture that encompassed the whole flat— "is not a Typical Malfoy Dwelling."
"Really?" Hermione's voice was dripping with sarcasm as she scribbled in the margins of Draco's book of accounts. "I had no idea."
Draco was so caught up in his own sorrowful soliloquy that he failed to notice her less-than-rapt attention. "Yes, Granger, you may find it hard to believe, seeing me now, in this"—he made another sweeping gesture, this time accentuating his moldy burgundy bed-robe—"deplorable state, but I, yes I, Draco Malfoy--"
Hermione gave an overly audible sigh of annoyance as she buried her nose in Draco's accounts.
"I used to be the King," Draco finished, complete with a dramatic vocal flourish.
This was entirely too much for Hermione to stomach. "King of what?" she scoffed, reading glasses slipping down her nose as she abruptly jerked her head out of the accounts.
Yet again, Draco failed to recognize her scorn, "The King—the King of Diagon Alley—Wizarding England, I was on top of the world--"
"Maybe my memory is lacking," Hermione quipped, crossing her arms across her besweatered chest, "but I fail to remember you being the ruler of anything."
"It's a figure of speech, Granger," Draco waved her off. "You should learn not to take things so literally." And without further ado he dove full force into his tale of woe. "I used to be the King!"
"We know," Hermione muttered under her breath.
At that moment, a crashing sound emanated from the direction of the coat closet, shortly followed by a high-pitched shriek, and Birgit tumbled out onto the brown living room carpet, looking sheepish. She clutched a very large half-eaten bratwurst in her left hand, which she had, amazingly, found in the coat closet.
"Not that again," Draco groaned. He wouldn't be surprised if she had hidden the sausage there herself.
Getting up from her seat, Hermione inched furtively towards the door. The sight of a busty woman sans brassiere holding a bratwurst was, understandably, more than a little disconcerting to her.
"No, no, sit down," Draco pulled her back to the chair. She glowered at him but sank into her seat.
"You," he pointed at Birgit, "go to the bedroom. I'll come get you later."
She scuttled away obediently while Hermione stared. "Who was that?"
"Oh, an old friend of the family. She worked for my father."
"What does she do now?"
"She does the same thing for me that she did for him."
Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Really."
"Yes," Draco began, before seeing the expression on her face and catching her meaning. "Ugh, no, not that!" he exclaimed. "She is…a secretary."
"Ahh, I see." Hermione didn't look convinced, but she returned to the accounts.
After watching her work for about a minute, scribbling with her right hand and making wand movements with her left, the bottom fell out of Draco's attention span and he went to the bedroom to change out of his bathrobe. Birgit sat on the bed, looking very guilty.
Draco gave her an annoyed look and snatched the bratwurst she had been hiding behind her back. She squeaked as he grabbed it, and pouted on the bed.
"What is it with you and bratwurst?" he wondered.
"My family invented bratwurst, I'll have you know," Birgit said proudly.
Draco scowled. "Your family isn't even from Germany."
"Yes we are!"
"You're Dutch."
She shrugged. "Close enough."
He rolled his eyes.
"We also invented sauerkraut," she persisted blithely.
"I give up."
Draco got dressed in the bathroom, and emerged wearing a gray lambswool sweater with holes under the arms and a pair of khakis. After dumping the robe on the floor of the bedroom closet and slipping on his brown loafers, he reemerged into the living room.
Hermione sat, arms folded and legs crossed, glaring at the now-closed book of accounts.
"Is there a problem?"
"No."
"Then why are you still sitting there?"
She raised her eyes slowly, giving him the same scowl she had previous reserved for his accounts. "Yes, there's a problem, and it's bigger than your ego, which is saying quite a bit."
"There's no need to get personal, four-eyes," he said coolly. "What's the problem?"
"You're over a million Galleons in debt."
He blinked. "A million?"
"A million," she assured him. "And, quite frankly, Malfoy, I don't see any way out of your situation, other than to declare bankruptcy."
"Malfoys don't declare bankruptcy," he informed her.
"Gee, Malfoy, in that case, I'd say your only option is to sit around and sip Mai Tais with your large plastic gophers and wait for the Gringotts goblins to haul you and your artificial rodents off to debtor's prison!" She paused. "You know, Malfoy," Hermione said sardonically, plucking her horn-rimmed glasses off of the bridge of her nose and turning her scathing gaze upon Draco, "You lost this money so quickly you should have filed an insurance claim. It's essentially a crime."
Instead of the offended expression Hermione was expecting, and arguably, hoping for, Draco's face broke into an enormous grin, and Hermione could have sworn that she saw the proverbial light bulb blaze up behind his head. "A claim!" Hermione braced herself for the worst.
"A claim?" Hermione echoed timorously.
"Yes, yes, a claim, that's what I said," Draco waved her off, so wrapped up in his miraculous epiphany that he was utterly oblivious to the outside world. "Don't you see, Granger, brilliant Granger—beautiful Granger! You've hit upon it, you genius, you!"
"Hit upon what?" Despite the compliments, Hermione couldn't help feeling anything but mildly alarmed.
"The way to save my ass!" Draco was ecstatic at this moment, his face filled with a light so heavenly that Hermione could almost hear Gabriel's trumpet, announcing the epiphany of the century.
"Oh wonderful…" Hermione said sarcastically, sounding rather like Christmas had been cancelled.
"It's so simple!" Draco exclaimed, looking like a small child on his birthday, "All we have to do is set up a business—"
Hermione raised an eyebrow. "We?"
"Well, of course," Draco said, eyeing her as if she was missing half a brain. "You've seen my books, I'm hopeless at anything with regards to business. You could do all that for me."
"Ah," Hermione said, biting her tongue as her fist clenched white-knuckled around the side of her horn-rimmed glasses. "So what would you do in this… operation, Malfoy?"
"Me?" Draco blinked at her, amazed that she didn't automatically know, "Public Relations of course. I can sell a product, Granger," he said, more than a small measure of patronizing pride in his tone.
"You just couldn't make it," Hermione muttered.
Draco raised an eyebrow, and remarked coolly. "You can make as many products you want, Granger, but if there's no one to sell them…" he trailed off, shrugging tragically.
"I could sell a product if I wanted to," Hermione said, a little sore at Draco's condescending attitude.
"But you're not exactly Wheaties material," Draco said, looking at her sadly.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Hermione snapped, eyebrows constricting into a W of anger.
"Well, no one is ever going to see your face on the front of a cereal box, Granger," Draco said, shrugging as if it couldn't be helped.
Hermione was utterly incensed. "Are you saying that there is something wrong with my face?"
"No," Draco said, his smirk utterly negating his answer's veracity. "You have a very… nice face. Just not that nice."
Hermione went red. "And you must think that you look much better."
"Well," Draco said without one single bit of ado, "yes. But as I was saying before you dragged off on irrelevant tangent—"
"I can't believe I'm hearing this!" Hermione leapt to her feet, slamming Draco's account book shut with a terrific clump. "You are the most selfish, chauvinistic, undeserving…" she floundered, searching for the appropriate word, "brat that I have ever met and I would rather die before I involve myself in any one of your schemes, harebrained or otherwise. I did not drag you down an irrelevant tangent, your entire existence is one irrelevant self-serving tangent and when you die, hopefully soon, no one, not one single person, will mourn your passing—in fact there will be celebrations—huge celebrations with dancing in the streets and free cake and government sponsored brass bands and I will laugh, laugh as I never have in my entire life, because you'll be dead! Ha! Ha! Ha!" She took a small pause in order to regain her breath, "So there!"
"Are you finished?" Draco said simply, as Hermione paused. She was nearly purple from screaming.
"Quite," Hermione affirmed, sliding into her chair and demurely folding her hands in front of her. "Carry on then."
"Alright," Draco said, and completely ignoring Hermione's momentary outburst, he pressed fearlessly onward. "This is the plan: We set up a business, and after a few weeks rob it bare, and then file the insurance claim! That way, would we not only have the stolen money, but several times that in insurance payments. Then, before the police put two and two together we can take our," he smirked cheekily, "several billion galleons and hightail off to Mexico, out the reach of the law, and into a life of luxury beyond our wildest imaginings!"
"Malfoy…" Hermione said, speaking slowly as if she was addressing a very small child. "There's a small problem with your brilliant plan."
"Well there are problems with any plan," Draco said, shrugging her off, "Admittedly, we have to get the capital to set up a business from somewhere, but that shouldn't be too hard…"
"That wasn't what I meant," Hermione said, glaring at Draco.
"It's not too hard to get insurance coverage," Draco said, "I don't see why that would worry you—"
"It's not," Hermione cut him off.
"Then what is it, Granger?" Draco snapped, utterly exasperated with her holier-than-thou attitude.
"It's illegal, Malfoy," Hermione replied, her voice dripping with palpable scorn. "You know illegal… as in against the law? Then again," she added sarcastically, "such irrelevant things like laws probably don't apply to Malfoys. They're only reserved for us poor mortals."
"Laws, Granger," Draco said simply, "are made to be broken."
"I can't even see how you can even begin to hope to get away with this," Hermione said, shaking her head at Draco's idiocy. "Firstly, you have to set up your business, and supposing, just supposing that you get a company on its feet, which is a long shot considering your past history," she gestured disdainfully at his books, "You have to have enough working capital inside the firm itself that you can steal it… and then somehow file a claim on the stolen money without tipping off the law. And then, to top it all off, I'm sure they wouldn't get suspicious at all when you randomly run off to Mexico with an extra four million Galleons in your back pocket."
"It's a springboard, Granger," Draco explained scornfully, making a diving motion with his arms. "It's open to improvement."
"Here is some improvement… how about earning the money honestly, Malfoy? One would think you've never had a moral scruple in your entire life," Hermione glanced at Draco. "Then again, you probably haven't."
"Morality," Draco said broadly, "is just a synonym for fear."
"I'm not scared!" Hermione protested, glowering at him. "I just don't want to go to jail!"
"See, you are afraid," Draco said, smirking at her.
"I am not!"
"You are too," Draco cut her retort off with one wave of his hand. "Besides, you're not going to jail, you're going to Mexico."
"No," Hermione said flatly, getting to her feet.
"No what?" Draco blinked at her, slightly taken aback.
"No, I am not going to jail," Hermione said, gracing him with an expression chipped of icy scorn. "Nor am I going to Mexico. I am going back to work. Mr. Malfoy, you have wasted enough of my precious time. Goodbye."
"What?" Draco was flabbergasted.
"And if any of your businesses go under," Hermione shot over shoulder, "I'll be sure to inform the proper authorities."
"I'll give you three percent of the profits!" Draco said, following her towards his door, trying to cut her escape short.
"Three percent is peanuts," Hermione scoffed.
"Five percent," Draco relinquished.
"At least seventy percent," Hermione said, shaking her head.
"Seventy percent?" Draco exploded, shaking his head with fury. "What makes you think you'd deserve seventy percent of the profits?"
"I'd actually be working my ass off while all you'd be doing is posing for Wheaties boxes, that's what!" Hermione quipped.
"You can't sell a product without—"
"Shut it," Hermione cut him off, reaching for the doorknob.
Seeing that his last chance was rapidly escaping Draco decided that he had to give a little ground of risk loosing the entire war. A Pyrric victory was always better than utter defeat. "Alright! You can have twenty percent!"
"Sixty-seven," Hermione shot back crossing her arms.
"Twenty-two."
"Sixty-six."
"Twenty-three."
"Sixty-five."
"Twenty-three point five."
"Sixty—ergh!" Hermione cut herself off, glowering at Draco, "I don't see why I'm even bothering to argue with you, Malfoy. "The answer is no, whether you offer me two percent or ninety-nine point nine nine!"
Draco was personally offended. "Why won't you even negotiate? I hope you know I'm giving you a once in a lifetime opportunity here, Granger."
"Because it's just wrong, Malfoy! Because—oh, forget it, I'm not even going to try to explain it to you. You wouldn't get it. I'm leaving."
She stormed out, slamming the door behind her.
Draco rolled his eyes and watched the door, counting to ten under his breath. Right on cue, Hermione opened the door again and stepped into the flat.
"Fine. Convince me."