Disclaimer: Characters and settings are property of J.K. Rowling. What you don't recognize is mine. No copyright infringement is intended.

Summary: Hermione Granger had always been the brightest of the bright; the best of the best. A previous Head Girl at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Hermione had aspirations to become a Healer – the best there ever was. But things didn't turn out the way she wanted them to. Hermione becomes the "odd one out" of the magical world, solely because of her non-magical heritage. Now, Hermione, aged 22, is poor and desperate. After being kicked out of her job at the Goblin Liaison Office and getting thoroughly pissed, Hermione searches the classified section of the Daily Prophet for a new job. She finds one, but it isn't quite what she expected… Particularly when she finds out that her boss is her old school tormentor, Draco Malfoy. Now, Hermione has to work on projects that become increasingly difficult, deal with how her friends finally seem interested in her life again, and, most importantly, deal with the Draco Malfoy, her new boss… Does Hermione have what it takesto make it in a wizarding world where she's the odd one out?

X-X-X-X-X

"Granger, I'm glad you're here." Hermione glanced up – Malfoy had just entered her "lab." He began to pace, running his hands through his hair. His gray eyes were so frenzied and hectic that they almost appeared blue.

After he had paced for three minutes, she asked impatiently, "What the hell is wrong with you?"

He turned to her. "What do you know about Narcissa Malfoy? You know, my mother?"

"Well, I didn't think you meant the other Narcissa Malfoy," she replied dryly. He glowered, and she straightened a bit, making an attempt to appear serious. "I know she was admitted to St. Mungo's about five years ago, immediately following the defeat of the Dark Lord," she said quietly. "I know that you pulled some strings and managed to convince the Ministry that she was unhinged, and that she ought to go to St. Mungo's and not Azkaban with your father."

"Good, good," he said, and leaned over the table so that his nose was about an inch from her. "Well, being barking mad doesn't stop her from writing me now and then."

"And your point is…?"

"Your friend Patil just can't keep her damned mouth shut. Then again, I shouldn't expect any less from a Gryff-" He stopped, seeing her murderous look, and cleared his throat. "Look, the point is, she must have told a lot of people, for the people in the loony bin at St. Mungo's to know about it."

"Know about what?" Hermione demanded impatiently.

"Our little dinner date at the Whirling Dervish."

"It was lunch, actually…"

"Whatever!" He was waving his arms around furiously, anxiety etched into his face.

"And it wasn't a date…"

"Yes, well, you can tell Mother that."

"I will do no such thing. This is your problem; you deal with it." Malfoy looked ready to spit venom, and she sighed, rubbing her temples. "I suppose she's having a fit because she thinks you're dating a Mudblood, is that it?" Hermione tried to keep from groaning. Great, prejudice comes from all directions, even the loony bin at St. Mungo's…

"Right. So she's upped my wedding date."

Hermione's head snapped up and she stared at him. "Beg pardon?"

"My wedding, Granger."

She gave him a blank look. "I didn't know you were getting married."

"Well, see, that's the thing. Until the note arrived from my mother last night, neither did I." He rubbed his eyes. "And I expect even you read the Daily Prophet, and believe me, if the Wizarding World's most eligible bachelor was off the market, I imagine they'd print it."

Hermione coughed. "Harry is the Wizarding World's most eligible bachelor."

"He is not! I'm much better-looking."

"Tell that to all the girls who are carrying around in their pockets that picture of Harry coming out of the locker room wearing only a towel…"

"If people saw me in only a towel, they'd swoon."

"Doubtful. You're too pale for most people's taste." She smirked. "Is there something else you wanted to say? Like, good news?"

He ignored that, still insulted over the remark about his pallor. "In any case, Pansy and I are due to get married in seven months."

"Ooh, can I be a bridesmaid?"

Malfoy didn't laugh, although Hermione did. "Not funny, Granger. In any case, Mother sent me a blistering Howler about you, so watch out for your mail, and threats to your life." He smirked. "If anybody thinks that you're dating me, they might be forced to kill you. After all, killing one's girlfriend is the best way to get to date one."

"Bollocks. Look, Malfoy, I don't give a damn about your problems, because, frankly, I've got more than my own share."

"Like living in 'Chic Poor'?"

"Yeah, like that."

He cracked a smile, although it wasn't a very nice one. "Thanks for not being any help at all."

"You're welcome. What was the good news, by the way?"

"I found a vial of basilisk venom. It's in the icebox in the corner – has to be refrigerated. Don't drop it, because it will probably burn a hole straight through the floor."

"Ah."

"Have fun researching."

"I will once you've left." The door snapped shut behind him. She glanced at the icebox with some trepidation, and sighed. "Let the fun begin."

X-X-X-X-X

Two Months Later

Hermione sighed and leaned back in her chair. Two weeks ago, she'd finally become fully exasperated with her stool and transfigured it into a comfortable chair. It wasn't as useful when it came to brewing potions, but at least she had a comfortable place to sit.

Hermione looked at the six tiny cauldrons set up before her, three of which were empty. Going on Snape's notes, she'd continued to use his method. She'd ruled out quite a few ingredients, based on Snape's theory of the color of the potion. She only hoped he was right.

And if he was, it meant she was only one ingredient away from finishing. Of course, this was the original potion, and so it would be nearly impossible to manufacture (too expensive), particularly because of the basilisk venom. But it would be a very good starting point.

Now all she had to do was find the last ingredient. She couldn't afford to mess it up, either, because the three full cauldrons before had used up the last of her stock of basilisk poison.

I only need three drops of it, but it's so vitally important to the potion… I only hope I can find something to replace it with…

Hecate meowed loudly from where she had been asleep on one of the bookshelves. The kitten had grown in leaps and bounds, even over the relatively short period of two months. Crookshanks was becoming a bit old now, but Hecate made up for his laziness with her energy. It drove Hermione batty, trying to keep up with her new cat, but she loved her anyway. "What do you want now?" Aside from being constantly energetic, she was also very demanding, something that hadn't taken Hermione particularly long to discover (and dislike – or so she commented to Ginny in that one letter she'd written).

"Meow." Hecate was sitting on an open book on the bookshelf, mewing sleepily. With a sense of foreboding, Hermione went over to her cat and screeched so loudly that Hecate leaped off the shelf with a startled noise.

"Oh, no! That's Snape's book – he's going to be bloody furious! Oh, you stupid cat…" she moaned, quickly grabbing the book and looking it over for any marks. It appeared fine, but she glowered at her cat. "You do not touch this book," she said, slowly and clearly. "Understand?"

She looked back to the book. It had been immensely helpful in finding the other ingredients, and she had also managed to scribble down recipes of potions she could give Malfoy to manufacture in the future. Each one was as expensive as the Ignis Geluque Potion, however, but was better known. It wouldn't be quite as difficult to work on those, but for the moment, she was only concerned with one…

Hecate mewed indignantly as Hermione made a thorough check of the open pages, searching for marks. She stopped, suddenly, her eyes glued to one sentence, on page 763…

…And so Helga's nephew Donald shouted for help. "Aunte Helga! I have burned myself, and it hurts very much! Thou must help me!" And she replied, "You foolish boy. I am very busy treating arrow wounds, and thou hast come to me with a burne? And I am all out of Murtlap Essence… how am I to treat thy burne with no potion? I shall have to ask Godric for some more." "But Aunte Helga, I do not like thy potion! It makes me feel very colde all over, like ice…"

"Murtlap essence?" Hermione whispered, startled. "I never thought – hang on…" And an unbidden memory, from the fifth year, sprang into her mind…

"'Here,' she said anxiously, pushing a small bowl of yellow liquid toward him, 'soak your hand in that, it's a solution of strained and pickled Murtlap tentacles, it should help'…"

"I'm so stupid!" she thought, hitting her head. "It gives almost instant relief to injuries of all kinds – how did I not think of that?"

She yanked out her wand and snapped, "Incendio!" A flame burst out, alighting on her hand. She quickly removed the flame, blowing it out, and stared at her hand. Sure enough, there was a small burn – not quite so bad as the one Malfoy had given her, but bad enough. She raced into the storage room and started pushing jars out of the way, finally finding the one she wanted.

Without hesitation, she poured it all over her hand. It gave some much-needed relief, although it did nothing to heal the burn. Quickly, she grabbed the jar and ran back to her table, and added some to each of the cauldrons.

The one that had previously held the exact recipe – or what she thought was the exact recipe, anyway – turned pale blue.

"Yes! Yes, yes, yes!" she cried out, hopping up and down on the balls of her feet. "This is it, this is what I've been working for! Yes!" She grabbed Hecate and hugged the cat fiercely until she raked Hermione's arm with her claws. Hermione did not even notice.

"This is it! This is the one! I've done it, I've created one of the more obscure potions of the magical world!" Hermione was fully aware that she sounded like a manic scientist, but she didn't care.

Malfoy walked in just as Hermione was in the midst of her victory dance. His jaw dropped. At another time, Hermione might have found this funny. Instead, she grabbed his arms and started dancing in a circle. "I've done it!"

"I believe your next line is 'it lives, Igor,' or something to that effect," Malfoy muttered, yanking his hands back.

"It lives, Igor!"

Malfoy rolled his eyes. "Oh, that's witty, really. Now, tell me, Dr. Granger, what have you done?"

"I made it! I made the Ignis Geluque Potion!" Hermione seized Malfoy around the neck and hugged him fiercely. He gurgled, waving his arms about, trying to pull back, and Hermione jerked backwards, her cheeks flaming. "Um, sorry. I'm just… uh… happy."

Malfoy straightened his tie. "That's… good. Yes. Very good. But you still need to find a way to manufacture it more cheaply. The project is only half done."

"Way to ruin a great victory dance, Malfoy," Hermione replied, still grinning madly. "I'm really glad, though – I made it."

"Great. And now you want the day off, right? Because you've done it, and you figure that's it? Like, a reward?"

She gave him an insulted look. "Of course not. All that was the research part. Now comes the really difficult stuff. Here's where everything I ever learned in Potions kicks in." Malfoy was staring at her. "Anyway, I'd best get back to work." She looked calmed down from her high now. "I have a lot of work to do."

Malfoy gaped at her. "You don't want the afternoon off?"

"I didn't say that. I just know that you're too stingy to give it to me, so there's no point hoping."

Malfoy glowered. "I am not stingy! You get good pay, Granger!"

She paused. "Fair enough. But when it comes to breaks, I-"

"Get out."

"What?" She blinked in surprise.

"Get out!"

Now she gave him a furious glare. "I've only finished half the project. If you fire me, I'm taking all my research with me, and-"

"I said get out, not you're fired! Take the afternoon off! In fact, take tomorrow off, too! Hell, take the rest of the week off!"

She stared at him. "You're mental, you know?"

"I am not stingy!"

"And this is how you prove it, is it?"

"GO AWAY!"

Hermione grabbed her purse, Snape's book, her notes, and her cat, and then promptly left.

X-X-X-X-X

"Meow."

"Don't look at me like that," Hermione said crossly. Her fingers were itching to get back to her lab, but she had tried to go back in approximately ten minutes after walking out, and Malfoy had literally banished her from the premises. Hecate was staring at her. "Yes, I owe my success to you, because I never would have found it otherwise! There! Are you happy?"

"Meow."

Hecate was still staring accusingly at her. Crookshanks yawned and rolled over on his threadbare sleeping pillow. Hermione stared at it.

"You need a new pillow," she said decisively. Hecate had claimed one of Hermione's bed pillows as her own sleeping spot, but Hermione's pillows were falling apart, too. "I need a new pillow. Two, actually, because Hecate stole one." Crookshanks was now sleeping with his paws in the air.

Hermione looked at the cookie jar on the countertop. It was blue, with a picture of two unicorns playing under a rainbow. Really, it looked like something a child would have in their room. "I need a new cookie jar, too."

The cookie jar was what Hermione called her 'Magic Cookie Jar,' although there was really nothing magic about it – at least, there hadn't been, until Hermione put an expansion charm on it. It was really very childish, and didn't match the rest of her Spartan apartment, but she'd had it since she was a child, and could not part with it. For the time being, it served as her money safe – all her pay went into it, along with the thirty galleons Malfoy had given her that day in Diagon Alley. She suspected he'd forgotten about that, and wasn't going to remind him.

With those thirty galleons, there was a whopping total of about sixty-five galleons, give or take a few. Hermione grimaced – Ron made about twenty galleons a day, and Harry made at least a hundred and twenty. She didn't know how much Ginny made, but it was definitely more than what she did. Hermione sighed. Her pay was still better than it had been.

Grabbing her purse, Hermione entered the entire contents of the 'Magic Cookie Jar' into it. Really, her bag was yet another interesting thing about her. The bag had no magical properties whatsoever – it was big, though, and stuffed with everything from age-old receipts to candy bars and even a small can of Pepper Spray, although Hermione had, as of yet, never had a use for it. Her purse was the only part of her life that was not completely organized. Harry had, when they were still in touch, often jokingly called her a 'Magpie' with her purse as its 'nest,' implying that anything and everything went into it.

She sighed, and hefted the bag onto her shoulder, clutching it tightly. It was getting heavy, although that may have been the presence of all those galleons. Then again, it may have been the presence of the alarm clock.

She looked at Hecate and Crookshanks. "When I come back, it will be with enough things to give this place a completely new look." Then she strode decidedly out the door.

X-X-X-X-X

As it turned out, it did not give her flat a completely new look. All it did was make it a bit nicer. Hermione had bought four pillows – two large, cushy ones for Crookshanks and Hecate, and two down ones for herself – a nice rug to put under the semi-broken coffee table, a new clock (fire engine red, too), a comfy "Papa Sun" chair, a new purse, and two paintings: one of a quaint cottage by a stream, and another that somehow resembled the one Dobby had given Harry for Christmas back in their fifth year. Hermione referred to it as 'abstract.'

Hermione sighed, although Crookshanks and Hecate were now very content, and both purring loudly. Within moments, both were asleep. "Cats," she muttered, and looked at her new clock. Almost seven. Had she been gone that long? But it didn't matter. A few more months, and she would be the talk of the town... okay, maybe not, but still.

"Ha. Ha! I am so not chic poor!" she said cheerfully. Hecate woke up, too, and inspected the new chair. Without further ado, she abandoned her new pillow and leapt on it, curling up and sleeping at once.

"And it's barely seven, too! You know what this means, don't you?" She looked at Crookshanks, who was still snoring loudly. Hecate meowed, which she translated as 'What does it mean?' "I'm going out for a few celebratory drinks!" she replied cheerily. Don't wait up!" She gleefully picked up the new purse and strode out the door, intending to congratulate herself for some hard effort, a new style (okay not really, but she had a new clock and two paintings, anyway), finishing the potion, and, above all else, giving herself the much-needed boost to restart her life.

X-X-X-X-X

Five and a Half Hours Later…

"Tom, gimme another…"

Tom – at least, she thought it was Tom, but it was a bit difficult to see – sighed. "Did you get fired again, Hermione?"

"No!" She crossed her eyes and giggled. "Silly Tom. You know, it's sorta funny – you have the same Volim… Voled… Voldy-thing… you know, Tom the Bartender, and Tom Riddle? Say, Tom, just what is your last name?"

"Oh, God, what have you done to yourself?" Hermione whirled, but couldn't really make out the figure in front of her. "You're a wreck. How much have you drunk?"

"A lot," she slurred. "But I'm really happy. Reeeeaaaalllly happy. See?" She smiled drunkenly at him. The room was spinning, but she didn't notice. "M'smilin' and everything… ooh… come and have a drink with me, m'kay?" Without waiting for an answer, she grabbed his arm and tugged him onto the seat beside her. All the drinks had made her feel flirty and bold, which was a feeling she wasn't used to.

He sighed. "Fine, but just a few. Then we're going straight back to your apartment. You're going to have a helluva hangover tomorrow, you know."

"Oh, who cares, anyway?" She stood up, and promptly fell back into her seat. "The night is young, and the stars are ours if only we could reach them…" She slapped his shoulder, hard. "Let's have some fun, eh?"

He sighed again. "If you say so. But only for a little while. Past your bedtime, you know…"

X-X-X-X-X

"Mmph." Hermione sighed contentedly, wriggling a little. "Nice and cozy," she mumbled, snuggling closer to the arm that tightly held her. "Never want to get up..." Hang on a second, ARM THAT HELD HER!?

She looked down. "Okay. Definitely not MY arm. Besides, I don't think I can twist it at that angle. And something - someone is snoring like a chainsaw, and it is NOT Crookshanks..."

Bracing herself for whatever jackass she had brought home - she hoped it was nobody she knew, she'd NEVER live it down, and her head ached like a bitch - she turned.

Panic. Panic settled in, freaking her out. Oh my god oh my god oh my god. Nononono. This is not happening. She took several very deep breaths through her nose, breathing heavily. Don't panic. Don't panic. This is a dream. It has to be a dream. Above all else, DO NOT PANIC.

She opened her mouth and screamed.

Malfoy swore and fell out of bed, holding his head. Hermione grabbed at the sheets, quickly covering herself up and staring at him in panic and horror as the reality of what had happened began to sink in. Malfoy sat groggily on the floor beside her bed, not even bothering to cover his very naked self. He stared up at her, and swore again. "Oh, bloody hell. Is this is a bad dream? I mean, really, if it is, it isn't all that bad. Because there is nothing worse than that time I woke up thinking I had just slept with Crabbe and Goyle in a threesome. Now that was unpleasant. And I don't want to think about that. Is this a dream?"

"I wish it was," she gasped. "Oh, god - just - just get out. Just go, please."

He shook his head, making his disheveled pale hair even more disheveled. "You know, you really aren't all that bad, and neither am I, and really, I wouldn't mind having another go-"

"Out!"

"Can I at least have some coffee, first? Some nice, strong, black coffee is just what I need to get going in the morn-"

"Out!"

"Can I at least put my trousers on first? Because I'd hate to have to walk out in the... er... 'nuddy-pants' or whatever they're called, but you know, this would only back up that excuse I gave your landlady about you leaving your bra at my place-"

"Just get out!"

"All right, all right, don't get your knickers in a twist," he muttered with an insulted look, and then he grinned. "Although, granted, you aren't wearing any-"

"GET OUT!"

X-X-X-X-X

A/N: Oh my God, I'm so sorry. I had the worst case of writer's block, and… ick. It's been SO MANY months since I updated, and words cannot explain how apologetic I am. I've got exams coming up, though, so don't expect a lot of updates in the next two weeks. On the somewhat brighter side, I have vacation after that, which will hopefully give me more time to write. I'm really, really sorry.

Okay, so I know this kinda moved too fast – but I really don't like having two stories going at once. And I don't want this to be a long story. Besides, we're still a far cry from an actual dating relationship – I mean, yes, they slept together, but let's face it. They were both drunk (Hermione more so than Malfoy). And you know what they say, right? One step forward, two steps backward… or something like that.

And I just want to reiterate that this story has NOTHING to do with my Marauders one. Completely different. So none of those characters will be popping up here. Just FYI.

So, in the upcoming chapters: Hermione and Malfoy get all awkward around each other, Hermione eventually starts up her research again. She has to condone with a very interesting lecture from her landlady, Mrs. Jones, and she has to do some fast thinking, some fast explaining. And the dreaded Pansy Parkinson appears, too! She gets news from some of her up-until-now long-lost friends, and she even gets to know some of her long-lost non-friends-more-like-acquaintances! Whee! She has a heartfelt chat with the Weasley twins, and, gasp Oliver Wood and Charlie Weasley appear! Hmm, I wonder why? Hermione seems to be getting quite popular… There are lots of old faces upcoming, so stay tuned!

And thanks to all my reviewers – I love you all!

XOXO Peaches