(A/N) Hi Everyone, I am constantly amazed to see the traffic on this little story rising every day, but I'd love to hear from you more. Please review, it helps with the motivation to write and lets me in on your thoughts. I endeavour to reply to everyone who allows it and is not a guest user :)
I hope you enjoy
Tuesday in the office was difficult, but manageable and as it turned out, Hermione was able to get through the rest of her working week with a modicum of her dignity intact. She would not let this one time occurrence dictate her emotions any longer. Once she had accepted that the heat and the strength of his hands were a tattoo on her hips, it was easier to push through the working day and to actually achieve her tasks. Hermione had found herself staying at her desk well past the time others had left and returning home late enough that it was acceptable to simply collapse on the sofa next to Andy with a cup of tea and switch off before going to bed.
Saturday morning created a new issue. Andy wanted to talk as they sat together at the dining table eating breakfast.
"This is delicious, Andy, where did you learn to cook?"
"I don't think you could ever say that I learned to cook. I just like to eat and I pick up little tid bits from here and there every now and then," she smiled at Hermione over the brim of her tea cup. "Hermione, I've been wanting to ask you about last weekend."
Hermione snapped her eyes up over her eggs. "What about last weekend?" She asked cautiously.
"Well, things took rather a sharp turn after I left you to dance with that guy. I thought I was doing a good thing, trying to help you move on... I mean, he was not someone I'd kick out of bed... But your reaction to him was not really what I expected. I guess you know him? Is he your ex? Ron?"
Hermione chuckled at the absurdity of Draco Malfoy being her ex boyfriend and wondered how Ron would react if anyone suggested that he and Draco were one and the same. Of course Andy could not have known any of this. "Uh, no. That was not Ron. I do know him, though. We went to boarding school together. We did not have an easy relationship."
"Oh. So he is an ex? Just not Ron."
"Er, no. What I mean is, he was a bit of a bully. He took special pleasure in taunting my friends and I specifically. We did not get along."
"Ooookay. That definitely explains why you wanted to get out of there so quickly, but it does not explain the sexy little conversation you had before he disappeared," Andy smirked and it reminded Hermione so strongly of Malfoy that she had to put down her knife and fork and reach for her cup of too hot tea.
"I'm not sure you can call it a 'sexy conversation'. I'm pretty sure that he was just trying to bait me, make me feel small in a place where it should be him who is out of his comfort zone. It was all probably just a rouse to make himself feel more powerful."
"I'm not sure why you think he would be out of his comfort zone in a club, but I can tell you that he was not feeling uncomfortable in the slightest. I may or may not have been watching him for a small amount of time. He was very self assured and it even seemed as though he owned the place. Literally, not metaphorically."
"That - that can't be possible," Hermione stammered. Malfoy owning a muggle club? Come off it. The Malfoy's hated anything to do with muggles, distancing themselves even more so after the war. As if staying out of sight would lead to being out of mind. Impossible.
"I'm just telling you what I saw," Andy began to clear the breakfast dishes from the table.
"No, no. Let me clean up. You did all of the cooking," Hermione insisted and even when Andy had left the living area to shower and dress, Hermione manually washed, dried and put the dishes away. She needed to think.
Malfoy had said to her that he did not intend to be seen. She in fact, had not seen him in several years, except for the occasional article in The Daily Prophet where he was seen attending some charity ball or another. Keeping up appearances and what not, she'd assumed. Hermione actually had no idea what he did with his day to day life and only now wondered what he did for work. Not that he needed to earn a living of course. After the war, Draco had distanced himself from his father and after Lucius had spent some time in Azkaban, Narcissa had filed for divorce, citing her statement in her trial that she never wanted to follow Voldemort and that her husband had been the one to choose that life for them. Before the Aurors could come calling, Draco and his mother had cleared their manor of all dark artefacts, curses and potions and handed it all and their lives over to the Ministry for inspection. Harry, Ron and Hermione had all been called in to testify in the trials of all three Malfoys and found only Lucius with no leg to stand on for forgiveness. As a result of their cooperation, Draco and Narcissa were allowed to continue on with their lives with nothing but a hefty fine and a cautionary tale to pass on through the generations. Still, what most would consider 'hefty', seemed to have little to no impact on the Malfoy vault in Gringotts.
Though he did not need money, Hermione knew that Draco Malfoy would require stimulation. He would not be able to simply sit on his hands and spend his inheritance. He was much too clever for that. So. How did he spend his days? Was it possible that he really could have invested in a muggle club? That he thought he could make money outside of the wizarding world and not be judged for it by old acquaintances because no one could possibly know it was happening? Is the muggle world somewhere he was actually comfortable as Andy had suggested? Or was it somewhere he could simply be busy and have a good time simultaneously? Hermione needed a plan and in order to plan, she needed information. How to research the muggle world, though? Andy chose this moment to reappear in the living area.
"Hey Andy, is there a public library around here?"
"Sure there is. The Westminster Reference Library. It's just a couple of bus stops away. I'm actually headed in the same direction for a lunch date. Should we go together? I can show you which stop to get off at?"
"Sounds great. I'll just have a quick shower. See you in ten!"
Hermione breathed in the scent of the library. She had missed this smell. Somehow a muggle library had smelt different to the Hogwarts library. Maybe it was paper instead of parchment, maybe its was magic and lack there of, maybe it was the difference between what was familiar and what had become familiar but what she knew for sure was that books were her power, her knowledge and her resting place. In this library that she had never stepped foot in before, she was at home. She made her way to one of the three study rooms, miraculously found herself an empty space at one of the computers, took one last lingering look at the books and clicked on the Internet icon. The Internet may be a fairly recent muggle invention, but she sure was happy to have it at her finger tips for this particular research mission. She selected a search engine and typed in 'The Fire Dragon Club, London, UK', found and clicked on it's website. Discarding the opening times, location, menus and DJ line up for the weekend, she found herself looking through the 'news' section of the website. Hermione scrolled through the text, scanning the information for anything that looked to be about an owner or a buyer or anything close to a business deal and suddenly there he was. Draco Malfoy's face smirked at her through the screen above the caption 'Young business tycoon Oliver Nott invests two million pounds to renovate The Fire Dragon in exchange for a 51% ownership stake. Welcome to The Dragon, Mr Nott, we're excited to have you on board!'
Oliver Nott? Seriously? Now he has a pseudonym, for Merlin's sake. What the heck is all this about? Exiting the website for The Fire Dragon, Hermione instead searched for Malfoy via his alias and came up with a condensed Wikipedia page. The long and the short of it was that Malfoy was investing a heck of a lot of money in several muggle enterprises. It was assumed that he was a trust fund kid spending his inheritance all over the place and some how managing to make a lot of money out of it at the end of the day. Hermione's finger itched over the button where it allowed you to add information to the Wikipedia page, so tempted to to send in "recently released from institutionalisation, recovering from delusions including that he has magical powers and attended a high school for witchcraft and wizardry" but stopped herself. The kick she would get out of it right now would probably come back to bite her on the ass in the short future. Instead, she selected the page for printing, put fifty pence in the copy machine and waited for the documents to slide out. Stomach rumbling, Hermione glanced at her watch. It was after two, no wonder she was hungry. It had been hours since breakfast, so gathering the papers, she headed to the nearest cafe she could find.
Once settled into a booth at a small coffee shop, sandwich and tea on the way, Hermione began to review the information she had gathered. It would seem that Malfoy was building himself a little muggle empire, outside of the eyes of the whole wizarding world. The real question was: why?
As if summoned by her thoughts, Draco Malfoy placed her sandwich and tea in front of her and slid into the booth on the other side of the table. "What have you got there, Granger?" he asked, making a grab for the documents she had just compiled. Hermione snatched the papers to her chest. "What are you doing here, Malfoy?"
"What am I doing here? What are you doing here? Or didn't you notice that this is another one of the establishments on your little list there?" He pointed to the papers that Hermione was still clutching to her chest. Caught, Hermione relinquished her hold on the documents and placed them face up on the table, the snicker on his face looking up at them from the top sheet.
"Actually, Mr Oliver Nott, I just happened into the first cafe I found after exiting the library. I was too hungry to even look at the name above the door. Sorry to disappoint."
"Disappoint? Why, Miss Hermione Granger, I don't believe you've ever disappointed anyone a day in your life. You've always been little miss perfect. Why stop now?"
"Does that smirk ever leave your face, Malfoy?"
"Very, very rarely. I'm the cat that's got the cream. I see that you are no longer wearing that god awful engagement ring. You and Weasleby break things off?"
Darkening a shade or two, Hermione was inclined to ignore his last comment. "I'm going to find out what you're up to Malfoy and then I am going to expose you."
"Oh, you plan to expose me, do you? I can help you with that if you like?" He started to shrug off his jacket.
Wishing that there was not a blush creeping up her neck, Hermione rolled her eyes and scoffed at his innuendo. "Please, Malfoy. Like I'd ever want that kind of exposure from you. I just want to know what you're up to,' Hermione bit into her sandwich and chewed slowly, as if her heart was not thundering away in her chest, threatening to break free of her.
Draco watched the way her mouth moved to the way her throat bobbed as she swallowed. He followed her hand with his eyes as she reached for her teacup. "What if I told you that I am not up to anything? That all I want is to try and create a quiet, happy life out of the eyes of the public?"
Hermione took another bite of her sandwich and sucked a little bit of mayonnaise off of her thumb. Draco glowered at her. Did she even know what she was doing? Just what she was getting herself into? The Hermione he knew from Hogwarts would have had no idea of the game she was playing with him. Now, the Hermione he saw swinging her hips on the dance floor last weekend - it was possible that she knew what she was doing. Maybe Hermione Granger was not so innocent after all. Maybe this could be more fun than he had anticipated.
"Then, Mr Nott. I would call complete and total bullshit."
Hermione abandoned her sandwich, rose from the table and left with out paying, which was the one thing of the entire encounter that she regretted.