The pub is loud, it's Wednesday night and unbeknownst to Draco until today, in muggle England it means Football night. It is full of men, young and old, catching up after work or amongst friends for a pint and the weekly fixtures on the Premiership calendar on large television sets dotted around the place. He should have checked beforehand, after all the muggle world is no longer a mystery to him, and he even enjoys their sports on occasion. But cricket and rugby are more his cup of tea, and the former's season was in the summer, while the latter's hasn't started yet.

Undeterred nonetheless Draco pushes through the groups of revellers and locates the bar. He doesn't want to order anything just yet but he finds the perfect spot to observe his old friend, Gregory Goyle, from afar. He had lost touch with him, the loss of their mutual friend Vincent Grabbe had left an imbalance between them that the trauma of war had further ripped apart. They had both been acquitted for being underaged at the time, but Draco could admit at least to himself that he had been relieved to find some distance from Gregory: as if keeping friends with him would have meant that Draco was still the little First Year bully he had once been. As he reads through his file, Draco feels a rising shame at turning his back on someone who had just lost his inseparable best friend in gruesome circumstances in the Room of Requirements. The fact that Grabbe had cast the fiendfyre himself and almost killed them all in the process felt almost inconsequential by now, as all that remained after all these years was the void where a good friend once stood.

Draco's business is pure word-of-mouth and, thus far, untraceable. And if there's one thing he's learned: when one orchestrates, coordinates, and otherwise messes with fate, it's best to fly low. Hence why he wanted to check on Greg from a distance first before making himself known to his old friend. Agreeing to a meeting in muggle London is also a test in itself: first to make sure he sifts the old bigot out and second to judge how far his potential new clients are willing to go to achieve their goals. So far so good. The added anonymity is a bonus for all parties as well.

Draco leaves his spot at the bar and reaches Gregory's table in a few strides. He claps him in the back gently and offers his hand for a shake: "Greg, it's been so long. How are you?"

Gregory turns around awkwardly, "Draco, mate!", then realises he turned the wrong way around and swivels the other way to finally reach the offered hand "Gripes sorry, I'm such a mess. Here, sit down. Want a drink? Shall I order you a drink? What would you like? Here, have mine, I've almost not touched it…" he makes to stand but Draco stops him with a gentle hand on his shoulder "I'm a little uncomfortable with this in case you couldn't tell." Greg adds sheepishly.

Draco smiles genuinely and beckons him to sit back down "Greg, relax, it's only me, You know me. Let's sit down and why don't you tell me about her."

Greg takes a shaky inhale "Let's see, what can I say? My company handles her accounting. I'm her accountant. Well, I'm one of them. I'm the junior man on the account."

Draco knows Gregory's accounting practice specialises in retail. "So does she know you're interested?"

Greg sputters "No."

"Alive?" Draco asks hopefully.

"I lent her a quill once." Greg answers with a dreamy look. "Look, I realise that I'm not her usual type. She's beautiful, feisty, kind and a survivor. Did you know that she built her business from the ground up after the war and is now the sole purveyor of magical pets in all of Magical Britain? Last week I even overheard Lavender talking about opening a franchise in..."

Draco frowns and thinks fast about the Magical Menagerie on Diagon Alley, and then it hits him: "Lavender, as in Lavender Brown? War veteran for the Order, Gryffindor extraordinaire, ex of one third of the Golden Trio Ronald Weasley, Lavender Brown? You're reaching for the moon, aren't you?"

Gregory quickly loses his dreamy look, he even raises his voice: "You don't think I tried talking myself out of this? I mean, you don't think I know how ridiculous this is? I know, okay? I just thought that maybe with your help...You know what? I'm really sorry I wasted your time." Gregory stands up and somewhat brings his voice under control "You know what it's like getting up every morning feeling hopeless? Feeling like the love of your life is never going to be with you? But at the same time, hoping that she still finds happiness...even if it's with another wizard?"

Draco looks at his old friend anew. The memory of a meek and easily led brute is quickly superseded by this strong, eloquent, self-sacrificing man, obviously desperately in love with a witch he considers too good for him. A little awed but definitely inspired by the challenge in front of him, Draco grabs Gregory's arm to sit him back down at the table.

"You are flat-out...out of your mind. You know that?" Draco chuckles, "That's good."

Gregory has lost his eloquence all of a sudden: "Is it?"

Draco leans forward conspiratorially "Have you ever heard of Michelangelo? Heard of the Sistine Chapel?" Greg shakes his head negatively, not even sure what a chapel actually does, let alone sixteen of them. Draco pauses for a second "Merlin? King Arthur?" Gregory nods slowly "Let's go pull that sword out of the stone!"

Hermione is sitting at the bar of the Leaky Cauldron. She doesn't often frequent the establishment, as she is too often recognised in the Wizarding world, but today she is meeting Luna for dinner and decided to wait for her here before heading out together in muggle London. The last time Luna had navigated central London on her own to meet up, she had ended up in Soho on Old Compton Street, and while Luna had had a blast getting lost in muggle clubs, Hermione had gone hungry and desperate to get her friend off the gin & tonics without single-handedly ruining the International Statute of Secrecy.

She's still in her work clothes, hair up in a bun and even had to keep her glasses on to stave off a headache. She has spent the week reworking her algorithm to no avail, the equation doesn't add up and she is always left with an invariant that is driving her mildly crazy. She could sense that the answer was in front of her, elegant and simple, as arithmancy can be - and yet by way of contradiction, currently unattainable.

Draco spotted Hermione the moment she walked in. Over the years he has only ever caught glimpses of her in the press, and it is the first time since the war that he sees her in the flesh. He is stunned. She is sipping her drink slowly with a far-off look in her eyes. It is easy to see that she is deep in thoughts, and she's tapping her fingers in a seemingly random manner on the counter. Draco observes her hand more closely, fixing his eyes on her delicate fingers dancing over the bar. She crosses her legs and readjusts herself on the bar stool and he gets lost in the long line of her legs ending in perfectly demure black kitten heels.

The waiter observes Draco with amusement: "She works at the Ministry you know. Comes in here once in a while."

Without looking over, Draco asks back "What's her drink?"

"Usually butterbeer. Tonight, Ogden's Old, neat." The waiter answers, casually pocketing the galleon left in tip.

Draco is about to approach her when someone sits down in the stool next to her and starts talking at her without preamble. The look on her face, coming down from her thoughts, would have been almost comical if it hadn't been quickly replaced by a deep frown, almost contemptuous, staring at the oblivious wizard. Draco can only imagine what the poor sod must be babbling on about to have lost her good will within less than two sentences. Strong in the belief that the accosting is unwelcome, he decides to make his move and inserts himself between the bar stools, facing Hermione.

"Sorry I'm late, honey. How was the meeting?" Draco smiles and looks at her meaningfully, egging her to play along.

Hermione is startled and quickly scans his face recognising him instantly. But she only detects playfulness in his eyes, nothing like the scorn she remembers from years ago and after a moment of uncertainty, decides to play along. "Well, there was a beginning, a middle, and an end." She leans over around Draco to say loudly to the man behind him. "Nice to meet you, Tim." Said Tim finally gets the hint and stands with a feeble "You, too." vacating the stool next to her.

Draco observes poor Timmy making his way across the room and turns to Hermione with a smile "On the one hand, it is very difficult for a wizard to even speak to someone as famous as you. But on the other hand, should that be your problem?"

Hermione smirks at him and answers with a twinkle in her eyes "So life's kind of hard all around."

"Not if you pay attention." He sits down and turns to her. "You're sending all the right signals: no earrings, heels under two inches, your hair is pulled back, wearing reading glasses with no book, drinking a firewhiskey which means you had a hell of a week and a butterbeer just wouldn't do it." Then he adds, pointing to his own brow "And if that wasn't clear enough...there's always the "fuck off" that you have stamped on your forehead."

Hermione bursts out in genuine peels of laughter and Draco is momentarily lost in the sound of her merriment, but he still manages to continue without missing a beat. "Who'd believe there's a wizard out there that can sit by a war hero he doesn't know and genuinely be interested in who she is, what she does, without his own agenda?"

The twinkle in Hermione's eyes has morphed into a brazier of mischief and interest: "I wouldn't even know what that would look like." But she adds, regaining a modicum of seriousness, "So what would a wizard like that say?"

Draco cannot help but pull on his cuffs to give his hands something to do. He may otherwise be compelled to reach out and touch the warmth of her. Her entire persona emits a gravitational pull he finds difficult to resist. He internally rejoices that he has at least managed to capture her attention: she is conversing with him and wants to know more, but if his job has taught him anything, it's that Gryffindors' interest can be fickle.

He also knows that considering their shared past, he needs to proceed with caution to completely overwrite the version of himself that may still live in her memory. So he decides to start at the beginning again, as if they were meeting for the first time: "He'd say, 'My name is Draco Malfoy and I'm a consultant.' But she wouldn't be interested in that because she'd be counting the seconds until he left."

Hermione leans forward playfully and replies without missing a beat "Thinking he was like every other wizard..."

"Which life experience has taught her, is a virtual certainty." responds Draco in the same tone "But then he'd ask her name and what she did for a living, and she might blow him off. Or she might say…" He leaves his voice in suspense, staring at her with the implication that he expects her to answer as if she were meeting him for the first time.

Hermione bites her lower lip in doubt. Draco cannot help but look at her mouth at the gesture, she doesn't mean anything by it other than mulling her internal dilemma as to whether to trust him or not. Whereas his mind is distracted with other, more basal, ideas. He checks himself quickly and raises his eyes back to hers discreetly enough that she is oblivious as to where his mind went. And at the open look she sees on his face, she deems him sincere enough to launch herself fully into the game he set out: "I'm Hermione Granger. I work at the Ministry". Now it's Hermione's turn to lean forward, once she's in, she's all in and wants to win the final argument they're not quite exactly having "And then he'd ask all these penetrating questions about her" she assumes, "because he was sincerely, if atypically, interested."

"No." Draco bluntly stops her.

"No?"

"He'd be interested." He lowers his voice and slows down. "But he'd see that there was no way he could possibly make her realise that he was for real."

Hermione nods along, conceding he's made a valid point but not wanting to forfeit all the same. "Well, he could be funny and charming and refreshingly original."

"Wouldn't help." Draco says with finality.

Hermione's smile falters a bit, but she says with mock regret in her voice "Don't you hate it when that happens?"

"Not really." Draco shakes his head "They'd both probably go on to lead the lives they were headed toward. My guess is they'd do just fine."

Draco stands and bows briefly at the waist. "It's a pleasure to have met you again, Hermione Granger." She was about to open her mouth to say something more but he walks away quickly, his stride and strong back giving her a sense of deja vu.

Confused and her head spinning from the encounter, she is interrupted by the barman placing a dram in front of her and saying "Ogden's Old, neat, compliment of the wizard who just left."

And then gets startled once more by Luna sitting down briskly in the bar stool next to her, grabbing the gifted drink and greeting her with "Oooh, is that for me?".