Muggle London had not been Astoria's first choice when it came to where she wanted to live. However, it was the closest place to the Ministry that she could manage without actually living within the Ministry, and to be fair, it was completely affordable. For her, at least. She knew many witches and wizards who lived extremely far from the Ministry and had to Apparate in order to get to work due to not being able to afford to live closer. The more Astoria worked in the Department of Mysteries, the more she became aware that silence was golden - literally.

The place she had chosen was lavish, in her mind. She cheated a little bit when it came to living in "Muggle London." The building was somewhat hidden. She knew many magical communities that did the same sort of thing, and she was glad hers was that way as well. It meant that all her neighbours were wizarding, and it definitely meant that all their units were soundproof much beyond a Muggle standard. On the outside, the building seemed like a store with some normal units above it. The woman who owned the store, bless her, had no idea that wizards were entering and exiting her store all the time. There was a hidden hallway that ran along the left-hand side of her shop that had anti-Muggle spells upon it. In fact, there was a separate door on the street that the tenants could go through.

Her flat itself was extremely nice. It was styled more like a bachelor unit, with no bedrooms. Instead, there was an area that was raised that her bed was on. She lived alone, had no friends or significant other, so what difference did it make if her bedroom was in plain view? She thought that it looked elegant. It was never like her bed was left unmade or anything of the sort. The floors were a dark hardwood, and there wasn't a single scratch to be found upon them. Her furniture was a little clinical looking, as she had gotten an interior designer to put it together. The one wall of her unit appeared to be a wall simply of windows. It had the same affect that the Ministry of Magic had on most of their windows: it was a false view. She could choose what she saw, but she always made it look like she was looking out at a busy city at night time, even if was the middle of the day.

Astoria's encounter with Draco Malfoy had been struck from her mind rather quickly, as the next day she headed to work, only to be bombarded by Mary when Astoria had decided to take a break and grab a coffee. While she stirred her beverage, she heard the familiar click-and-drag noise that Mary created when she walked anywhere. The woman always insisted on heels that were much too high for her, and she had never learned to walk properly in them. Astoria turned around with a bemused look on her face as she sipped her coffee. Her eyebrows were raised, but she didn't say a word. She wasn't about to make conversation if someone she didn't like wasn't going to initiate it.

The first thing Astoria noticed was Mary's wild hair in a bun. Her blouse was unbuttoned, showing a massive amount of cleavage. Her skirt was too short for any workplace. As much as Astoria wasn't planning on initiating conversation, the snort that escaped her was completely involuntary, and did not go unnoticed.

"What?" Mary demanded. She stopped in her tracks, folding her arms over her chest, which caused her cleavage to pop up even more.

"It's just..." Astoria didn't know how to finish her sentence. She could practically feel Mary's blood boiling. Perhaps it was because Astoria spent too much time alone, but she was actually enjoying the situation. "I didn't know that they allowed people to dress like that in a professional workplace."

Mary looked down at herself quickly. Her eyes then flew back to Astoria and responded with, "And what's wrong with what I'm wearing?"

"You look like a low-class prostitute," Astoria responded before she could control herself.

"Why you..." Mary began as she whipped out her wand. In all fairness, Astoria had no idea where Mary had retrieved her wand. There didn't look like there was room on her body at all for it. Astoria continued to drink her coffee, almost daring Mary to curse her. "How dare you say that? What I wear is none of your business! Why don't you go back to your basement and continue to do whatever it is you do that doesn't affect anyone but yourselves down there?"

"It might not affect you personally what we're doing down there, but it does help important people," Astoria replied, smoothly. She didn't know why she was getting such a thrill out of the situation. Could she be hurt? Sure, but if she was, Mary would no doubt lose her job in the very least.

Mary raised her wand, but just as she did, a third voice rang out within the room.

"EXPELLIARMUS!"

Mary's wand went flying from her hand, and when Mary moved, Astoria was able to see Hermione Granger standing there. Although older than Astoria, all Astoria could see when she looked at Hermione was the girl in Hogwarts with the poofy hair and big teeth. Although she no longer had large front teeth, and the fact that Hermione clearly now put the effort into styling her hair for work, Astoria still envisioned Hermione as being thirteen years old. She doubted that Hermione even knew who she was.

"What is going on here?" Hermione demanded. Her disarming had gone flawlessly, and she had been able to catch Mary's wand. The look in her eyes at Mary's outfit clearly showed that she, too, disapproved of Mary's outfit, but she kept her lips tightly together as if she feared that she would make a comment.

"Greengrass was saying that I look like a hooker," Mary replied, although her tone was much lower now. It was almost like she was embarrassed that she had raised her wand for such a situation.

"Well, what you're wearing is..." Hermione paused, clearly searching for words. "Is rather inappropriate. You," she turned her attention to Astoria. She glanced at Astoria's badge on her chest. "Shouldn't have said anything. If you were offended by what she wore, you should have laid an anonymous complaint. You may be an Unspeakable, but you're not Mary's superior." Astoria almost saw a glint in Hermione's eye as she finished with, "I am."

Astoria nearly snorted again, but managed to contain it this time. "May I go back to work?"

Although Hermione had nothing to do with Astoria, she felt it best to ask rather than to just leave the situation that was full of tension. Hermione merely nodded, but she did not seem finished with Mary. Astoria walked around them and left the room, not heading to where she worked but rather to front desk to lay a complaint, like she had been somewhat told. Astoria had been wrong about Mary... apparently she worked within the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. She supposed that Mary was wearing that outfit in order to try to seduce some half-breed.

By the end of her shift, Astoria still found the entire situation amusing, but she was so tired that even replaying it in her mind was difficult. She got paid a lot, but that also meant that the Ministry felt as if she should be at work about twice the time of a regular worker. When she walked through the door of her flat, she slipped off her heels as quickly as she could. She sat on her couch, leaned back and rubbed her tired feet with the promise to go and buy herself flat shoes for work. Who did she really have to impress? Half the time she worked by herself.

Just as she was working up the energy to go make herself something for dinner, however, her doorbell rang. In the few months that she had lived there, her doorbell had yet to ring a single time. In fact, the noise of it had initially frightened her. Regardless, she went over to the door and answered it: to see Draco Malfoy standing there, dripping wet. By the look on his face, he was just as surprised to see her as she was to see him.