The Checkout Chick
Chapter Two
So far the only person Hermione had encountered who went to Hogwarts was Draco Malfoy. This slightly surpised her as it was only two weeks until they all had to go back to school. She had thought the place would have been swarming with Hogwarts students.
The rest of the shift she had on the day she bumped into Malfoy had proved uneventful. She had served until her feet could no longer support her. Standing in the one position for three hours straight was severely painful. She used Essence of Murtlap to soothe her feet afterwards.
'Tomorrow it'll be different. You're going out with Ginny tomorrow. No hiding, no more hiding at home.' Hermione thought to herself angrily. She kept mentally slapping herself for agreeing to Ginny's nightclub proposition. Hermione and nightclub did not go together. It was like book and Ron or book and Harry. It was just...a no-no.
The sound of a phone ringing disrupted her. The witches and wizards who had built this shop had created a muggle phone system that allowed all the registers to have a phone they could use to call for things over the loud speaker, contact the service desk if they needed to and many other things. Hermione felt they were much more handier than anything the wizarding world could create.
She picked it up. "Hello?" Hermione answered as she fiddled with a pen in her hand. There were no customers in sight. It was late and most people were at home.
"Get back to work slacker." Dan said. Hermione looked to the Service Desk and saw Dan holding a phone to his ear. She poked her tongue at him. He looked about to see if anyone was looking then stuck up his middle finger in response and hung up the phone.
Hermione laughed. Dan was such a great person to work with. He could make anybody feel better after a hard day's work. Hermione guessed this was why he had been employed in the first place. Everybody thought working in a grocery store was an easy job but it was not. The amount of rude customers Hermione had come across amazed her.
"Excuse me? Are you going to serve me or will I just have to serve myself?" a person asked. Hermione snapped to attention without looking to see who they were.
She began scanning the items. "How are you?" she asked the standard question she had repeated a million times over. Chips, more chips, chocolate...
"Oh not too bad, unless you count the fact that I am being served by you. The Queen of all mudbloods." the person commented in a casual way.
Hermione had never looked up faster in her life. Her neck screamed out in protest with a crack but she ignored it. He was there yet again. Blonde hair, blue eyes, the hottest guy in their year as much as she hated to admit it. Draco Malfoy.
She let out a groan loud enough for him to hear. "You again is it? Thought you would have caught on yesterday that I didn't want you here." She scanned a few more items. Milk, cheese, yogurt...
"Well for your information, I don't take orders from anybody, least of all you." he sneered, leaning casually on the side of the bench where the conveyor belt ran.
"Oh really. Last time I saw, you took many orders from your father. Never heard you say no." she smirked, proud of her own insults. She had never known that she could come up with anything to fight Malfoy back with.
She looked up to find Malfoy glaring at her, his blue eyes flashing dangerously. She no longer looked calm but electric. She did not like it. It made him look much more evil. 'Evil little ferret.' she thought to herself.
"Listen here mudblood, I don't care how much you think you're better than me. The simple fact is that I AM better than you. The evidence is right here. I am the one with money buying things, you are the one slaving about trying to get money." Malfoy stated in a cocky fashion.
She ignored him. She placed the bags filled with his shopping onto a separate counter to her left. She turned to zap her least favourite food. Meat. She wrinkled her nose as she saw it. It was steak...but next to that was a whole chicken wrapped in plastic. It made her want to be sick. She hated animal slaughtering. It was a disgusting habit humans had and felt so angered by it. What gave anybody the right to kill innocent animals? It was just like making house elves slaves. It was wrong.
She tried as best as she could to pick it up without touching the part where the meat was. Although she knew it was wrapped she could not bare it. She used her fingers tips and slowly lifted up the steak and placed it into the bag. Next was the chicken. The chicken without the head. She could not put the chicken in with her fingertips.
Malfoy watched her with amusement. She was making a big fool out of herself. 'Scared of meat. Who would have thought the mudblood was scared of meat?' he thought with a laugh. He was smirking broadly. Her discomfort was childish.
When she still hesitated to pick it up and laughed, "It's pretty simple you know. You just put your hands on it." He grabbed her outstretched hands and placed it right on the chicken. Hermione's mouth dropped open in horror. Her insides were squirming. She was touching it! She was touching a headless chicken! "Pick it up..." he instructed her, forcing her to clasp her hand onto the chicken and lift it. It was all Malfoy's fault. He made her do this. But something stopped her from crying out. His soft palms were over her hands. They were so smooth. "Scan it and put it in the bag." he finished, having to lean over slightly so his hands could reach into the bag also. He let go and she let go. The chicken dropped into the bag.
Hermione glanced at her hands. She felt dirty. She felt so dirty! A chicken, a poor innocent chicken and she had just picked it up and sold it. The plastic wrap had protected her from actually touching the meat but still she felt as though she had.
She had never sold a chicken before. This happened to be her first one after a week of working and she felt cheated that it had to have been Malfoy that she had sold it to.
She looked up, Malfoy was smiling and shaking his head in disbelief at the same time. She was in the frame of mind of giving him a good lecture. One he would never forget. But the phone disrupted her again.
Hermione picked it up, her eyes firmly on Malfoy, her lips pursed angrily. He just continued to smirk at her. "Yes?" she snapped forcefully.
The person at the other end whistled, "Someone's in a bad mood."
Hermione smiled slightly, "Hi Dan. What do you want? I'm busy right now, serving someone."
Dan sniggered, "Well yeah I can see that. You can close up after you serve that customer. I'm going out for a pizza, wanna come?"
Hermione answered, "No, thanks. I have to go home. See you soon." She placed the phone back on the receiver.
She looked back at Malfoy who seemed to have lost some of happiness. "Man of the moment?" he asked, his tone was bitter.
Hermione raised an eyebrow, "You think Dan and I are going out?" Hermione gave a hollow laugh, "We're just friends. Although I'm sure that word you do not understand."
Malfoy glared at her, "Hurry up and get these things in bags. You have got to be the slowest checkout chick on the planet! I don't know how you got hired."
Hermione returned his glare and continued to scan his items. This time she went a little faster. She wanted him out of her sight. His presence both excited and annoyed her. She did not understand why, but him being there made her heart do back flips. She found their bickering funny and although it hurt to hear the mean things he said to her, it was always fun to give Malfoy back some of his own medicine.
"That comes to twenty five galleons and seven knuts." she said coldly.
He smirked at her, getting out his black wallet engraved with a silver snake. He opened it slowly. He had many cards but he took out one which was silver. It was while he did this that she noticed he had a photo. It was of a girl although she was too far away to see who it was. He snapped his wallet closed. Hermione sighed with disappointment. For some strange reason she had wanted so much to know who the picture Malfoy carried in his wallet was of.
"Any money out?" Hermione asked in the same cold tone she had used before.
"No." he answered, placing the card in the holder and pressing a few buttons. A receipt printed on a thin piece of parchment. She ripped it off and gave it to him.
"Have an unpleasant night." she said with a smirk.
He gave her a you-are-so-immature expression before snatching the receipt from her hands and saying back, "Right back at ya."
He collected his bags and walked off, sticking his nose into the air. Hermione could not resist her laughter. He was just so conceited and frustrating. She could not understand how he could have summed up the nerve to come back into that particular Grocery store.
'He knew I worked here. What would make him come back to the place I, his enemy, works. It's so stupid. It doesn't even make sense,' Hermione thought, rolling her eyes. She felt silly trying to figure out how Malfoy's mind worked.
One thing was for sure, he had seemed rather pleased when he had walked out of the shop. 'Something's up and I have to find out.' Hermione concluded.
A/N – This has got to be the weirdest story I have ever written. Well I'm having fun writing it. I hope you're having fun reading it. The hating meat part was a little bit of me I put into it. I absolutely hate picking it up and I really do only use my fingertips when I do. Do any of you work in a supermarket? Love to hear from you. Love always Draco4Hermione xox
P.S – This story is actually nearly finished on so if you want to read ahead go there. Of course it is entirely up to you. For information purposes this story will be 31 chapters long. At there are 30 currently posted. My pen name there is Sara4Harry. Or easier still, visit my website and click on the banner for The Checkout Chick in My Stories.