Hermione sighed as Gellert decided to, once again, change the song she had written into something that he was more "comfortable" with – namely heavy metal instead of the soft rock that she had intended it to be. The man was utterly infuriating, but he was the one that decided how much she got paid, so there wasn't much she could do to change that.

Besides, she had heard that there were some other performers that were much worse to work with – the Malfoys, for one. She had heard that the Malfoys even decided on the subject of the lyrics for any song their songwriter wrote, sometimes even deciding on their own lines! Hermione would never stand for something like that, and was almost grateful that Gellert was fine with whatever she wrote – as long as he could fiddle with the composition of the music, which wasn't really too much of her problem…

"Stop looking so annoyed. Your song was a hit," Gellert said, sprawling out on the couch beside her. "Again."

"You don't have to remind me!" Hermione said, wincing as she remembered the screams the song had received from the eager crowd. It was one of the few times that Gellert had wanted to perform the song before they officially released it – more to calm himself about it than anything else, Hermione thought but Gellert would never admit to such a thing, and would rather insist that he had utmost faith in anything that Hermione had produced.

"You don't have to have such an expression," Gellert mocked in a voice that was a bad imitation of Hermione's.

Hermione scowled at him in turn before relaxing slightly. Their post-performance banter was almost ritual by now, and Gellert knew exactly what to do to calm her down despite being one of the most annoying people she had ever had the misfortune of meeting. Hermione had punched him in the face the first time she had met him. Everything had gotten better from there, after they stopped Gellert's nose from bleeding.

"Besides," Gellert continued, "your expression is nowhere near as annoyed as it is usually. Have I finally converted you? Is dear Hermione Granger finally going to give up her lemonade and go for the alcohol? My, what have I done? The world will never be the same again!"

"You hadn't given me half a chance to even work up a speech about it this time. I hadn't even known that you were going to perform that one! I thought it was the other one that we'd finally managed to agree on!"

"If we can both agree about it, then there isn't a doubt that it's be a hit like the last one, and every other one that we had agreed on. This one was a foot in the door, and I needed to know whether or not it will be well received," Gellert informed her, yawning languishly.

"So you were worried!" Hermione yelled triumphantly. "I knew it!"

Gellert opened an eye to blink at the woman, "I said nothing of the sort. It would simply be better to know whether we can produce more of a similar kind of music sooner rather than later."

Hermione hated that Gellert's argument actually made sense. It usually did, which belied his usual lackadaisical attitude and behaviour, but Hermione wasn't going to admit that to the man – or his body may not be able to handle the burden of his over-inflated ego.

She'd hate to kill someone that she'd already invested so much time in. Even if it was by mistake… like Gellert misbalancing over a staircase or something…

Written for Quidditch Pitch: Gellert Grindelwald

Written for OTP AU Competition: Hermione/Gellert [Rockstar!AU]

Written for the Ultimate Hermione Competition: rare Hermione pairing: Hermione/Gellert