'Looking round the room,
I can tell that you are the most beautiful girl in the room,
In the whole wide room.
And when you're in the street,
Depending on the street,
I bet you are definitely in the top three good-looking girls in the street,
Yeah, depending on the street.
You're so beautiful,
Like a tree, or a high-class prostitute.
You could be a part-time model
You'd probably have to keep your normal job too though.'
The Most Beautiful Girl (In The Room) - Flight Of The Conchords
Hermione stuck out her wand arm, and the bustling roar of an incoming bus almost deafened her. She hated Apparating, especially early in the morning, when the sun was still finding its way between banks of dull fog and cloud. Besides, nowadays she was finding it harder and harder to Apparate accurately. Last time she'd ended up nearly a mile away from her destination, a new shop in Diagon Alley where she worked part-time: Works of Wonder for Womenly Witches, or as her boyfriend liked to put it, 'naughty knicker shop'. It was a mess of products as frilly and alliterative as its name, and half of it was a ghastly shade of fleshy pink.
Her usual seat on the bus, a squashy, slightly stained armchair, was already occupied. She frowned in annoyance. Nobody sat in that chair. The driver, a fairly nice young man whom she'd mistakenly given detention at Hogwarts, had told her so specifically. The usurper looked completely out of place, as well, and was shifting around uncomfortably. Hermione seethed. Why not sit somewhere else and be comfortable, then?
An irritated Hermione threw herself ungraciously onto a long, patterned sofa a few seats away from the preferred armchair. It was not a sofa made for comfort, being similar in texture and softness to a brick wall. She cursed under her breath and directed a long glare from beneath her lashes at the cause of her pain.
He was staring into the distance, clearly oblivious to her muttered obscenities. Most of his face and hair was concealed beneath a smart, black hat, set at a rakish angle, and he was clad in a well-tailored robe - the kind that was made in little shops with Italian names and uneven wooden floors. And he was so clean! His pale hair was sleek, his nails were immaculately manicured, his shoes shined.
Hermione looked doubtfully at her own shoes, which were now several years old and looked it. They had been very stylish then, of course, plum-coloured slippers with heels small enough to be businesslike but tall enough to give her a little boost in height. Unfortunately, the rage now was all primary colours and frilly edging. Hermione couldn't see the fuss, to be honest, but perhaps that was because they reminded her of the knickers in Works of Wonder for Womenly Witches. Her hair wasn't particularly well-cared for either. But what could you do with a birds-nest crop of mousy hair? Except shave it off and start from scratch? And her nails - well, it had been a habit for as long as she could remember, and she'd tried to quit, but every time she got interested in something her fingers just flew to her mouth and she started nibbling - it wasn't her fault!
Her self-esteem now somewhere around her ankles, Hermione moved her attention to the other chairs nearby. She could feel bruises forming on her rear. The chair next to the sofa looked marginally more comfortable, being made of wood, and not fabric-turned-stone. She tried it. And it was softer, but so knobbly that it felt like she was being poked in all the wrong places. The next sofa was no more than a plank of wood on two bricks, and creaked so loudly and threateningly when she sat down on it that she didn't dare to stay on it long. The chair beside it was some modernistic stool - she gave that a miss after an inquisitive perch - and the next was a seat so horrifyingly curved and curled that she didn't even know where to sit, though she had a good try.
The stranger shifted a little, and stared at her curiously. Hermione raised an eyebrow mulishly, continuing to experiment with the chairs nearby. The bane of her current existence sighed loudly. Hermione ignored him. The sole problem with her life at this minute began tapping his polished shoe against the floor. Hermione turned her back on him. The obstacle between her and future success began to drum his buffed nails against the side of the chair. Hermione sat down as loudly as possible before letting out a long and luxurious sigh, followed by another muttered curse at the pain of sitting too quickly on bricks.
"Can you not just sit down?" the stranger complained, at last.
"No," Hermione snapped, before relenting slightly - he was so clean! - and adding, "sorry."
The stranger made a peculiar noise. Hermione guessed it was a strange mixture of snort, sigh and snarl, and diagnosed it correctly as an expression of frustration.
"Actually, I would have loved to be able to sit down immediately, except that some stranger is sitting in my chair," she said icily.
He laughed. "Where's your name on it?"
"Under the cushion," she said matter-of-factly.
He checked.
"Oh."
"Exactly." Hermione allowed herself a smug smile.
He bristled. "Well, that means nothing. I could write mine just as easily."
"True, but why bother?"
"Proves a point," he retorted, fishing in a miniscule pocket. Judging from the loud, jangling sounds it made, she guessed it had some charm which made it bigger on the inside, and despite herself, was slightly impressed.
After a minute, he produced a smart, sleek black quill, tipped in silver, and with a flourish, wrote his name beside hers. Larger than hers, too, by quite a lot. That was just rude, she decided, and produced her own quill, a brown affair, missing several tufts. Swish and flick, she thought, and her name was written on the side of the armchair in letters a foot tall and gleaming.
He snorted, and Vanished it.
Her mouth fell open, and she wrote it again angrily.
He Vanished it again.
She burnt it into the cloth, the singed material blackening around the letters.
He made a complicated movement with his fingers and it was gone.
She brought out her wand, vinewood, dragon heartstring, swishy, and in a few deft flicks, her name was now repeated ten times, twenty, fifty, hundreds of times all over the fabric in letters ornamental enough to make a kind of pattern. He nodded in acknowledgement of some interesting magic, and then proceeded to extract his own wand from the pocket, oak, unicorn hair, short, and in a fiddly motion proceeded to transform each individual letter into his name.
It was barely legible that small, especially from so far away. She made a similar motion, and each letter of his turned into a beautifully written 'H. Granger'.
He huffed. "You can't read that."
"Yes, you can," she replied, conjuring a magnifying glass and running it over the cloth to check. "You must be blind."
"Actually, I have magically improved vision."
"Means nothing."
"Gods, Granger, you haven't changed a bit, have you?" he said.
She paused, uncomprehendingly. Did she know him? He wasn't familiar in the slightest. She squinted, trying to read the inky letters beside her own, enscribed so neatly on the armchair.
"You don't remember me." A statement.
She delayed answering by Vanishing all the names from the armchair. "Of course I remember you, you're...that guy..."
He snorted. "A pitiful attempt at acting, Granger, you should be ashamed."
"No, I don't remember you. Should I?" she retorted, bristling.
"Considering you punched me in third year - I think so!" he replied neatly.
Oh, Gods.
"Malfoy."
"I see from your expression you're not happy to see me."
"Get out of my chair, you fancy git."
"No." He was smirking! The git, the stupid smarmy scum!
"Stop smirking and get out!"
"But I'm enjoying our little chat so much!" he replied mockingly.
She had no time for this. "Dammit, Malfoy, why are you always so difficult?"
"Because you, Granger, are always so obstinate."
"As are you!"
"On the contrary, I'm extremely flexible. For example..." He glanced outside. "I was supposed to get off nearly five stops ago."
Her incredulous expression was answer enough, but she added to it. "So why the hell didn't you?"
"Because you are so much fun to irritate, Granger."
She turned her back on him, her rump tingling from being sat on rough brick.
"Oh, Granger, come on, let's talk," he pleaded sweetly.
Hermione's jaw slackened, and she whipped around. "You expect me to talk to you just because you put on some sugary voice?"
Malfoy looked awfully pleased with himself.
She realised, and angrily rose, before turning neatly to her right, a loud crack sounding as she slid into the darkness of Apparition.
---
A/N: Not sure whether I'm going to continue with this or not - please review and tell me what you think. This takes place several long years after Hogwarts and the battle. Hermione is working as a Spell Historian (researching the origins of spells, enchantments, charms and other incantations) part-time, and not making a great deal of money, which is why she's also working in the naughty-knickers shop.
The title, if you're wondering, is a play on words. Vocation, invocation, ha ha ha. And the quote at the beginning is from an awesome and very funny song.