Chapter 12

Hermione stood outside the non-descript building, one of Lucius Malfoy's many properties, in a section of London where wizarding businesses tended to be located. She was incredibly nervous about starting a new job. Everyone would know who she was and would expect great things of her. She was sure she could deliver on those great things, but it certainly did put a lot of stress on her.

She strode in and walked up to the reception desk. "Good morning, I'm Hermione Weasley and I start work today," she said brightly.

The receptionist looked down at a list on her desk before looking up at her. "You are expected. If you'll have a seat, Mr. Davies will be with you shortly."

Hermione tried not to look nervous as she waited on the hard and uncomfortable bench. She had to force herself not to tap her feet. The building was as non-descript on the inside as it was on the outside, so there was not much for her to look at. She knew that pulling out her notes and looking at them probably would not be a good idea. Of course, she could be waiting here a lot longer than she thought, but she did her best to be patient.

There was one other wizard waiting on the bench. She assumed he was also starting work. They shared nervous smiles. She introduced herself, and he mumbled a name that she could not understand. Deciding he was not interested in conversation, she resigned herself to waiting in silence. Not long after she arrived another wizard joined them. He likewise did not seem interested in conversation.

After only a few minutes of waiting, a grey-haired and slightly balding, middle-aged wizard walked out of the door on the left. "Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Malfoy Industries. I'm Mr. Davies, Head of Personnel and I'll be overseeing your orientation. It's a pleasure to have you all as new employees." He then shook each of their hands.

She rose and accepted his proffered hand. "A pleasure to be here," she replied.

"Good, good. Well, as I'm sure you can imagine, today will be your registration and orientation day. You will meet your coworkers, but I'm afraid that for the most part today won't be that interesting." He moved back a step. "If you'll follow me," he said and then led them back through door.

It didn't take long for Hermione to hate orientation day. First there was the obligatory welcome from the head of Potions' Research. Then there were all standard forms which she had expected to have to sign: the employee information sheet, the non-disclosure agreement, and of course the paperwork that dealt with who owned the rights to anything she developed on company time or based on company work. She had expected having to go through paperwork, but it made the ordeal no less tedious. Then she received her employee identification, complete with utterly unflattering picture, which was followed by a very dry presentation on the employee code of conduct and dress code. She tried not to look bored, but she could tell that those who were presenting them the information were not very enthused to be there. It reminded her of being in one of Professor Binns' lectures.

Finally it was time for them to get a tour of the facilities. That lasted about an hour with stops on the tour to introduce various people in the work groups to each of the new employees.

When they finished, they joined Mr. Davies back in the briefing room from that morning. "I hope that all of you are now familiar with how Malfoy Industries works. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to bring them up. Now, since the day is almost over, why don't all of you go home, and you can report to your work centers in the morning?"

While Hermione had hoped for a more productive first day, she realized that everything they had done had been for a reason. They were getting up when she heard a familiar voice address them from the door.

"I hope I'm not too late," said Lucius.

"Mr. Malfoy! What an unexpected surprise. You're just in time." Mr. Davies turned his attention to back to the new employees. "Everyone, as I'm sure you already know, this is Mr. Lucius Malfoy, president of the company. And you should be honored that he has come here to speak to you."

"That's hardly necessary, Mr. Davies. I value my employees and try to welcome as many of them as I can." He shifted his gaze to each of the new hires, though Hermione thought his gaze lingered a bit longer on her. "All of you are working for one of the best companies in the world. This company is what it is because we only hire the brightest witches and wizards. And I expect nothing short of excellence from my employees. Outstanding performance is valued and as such can be greatly rewarded." He paused a few moments for a dramatic flair. "Anything less than outstanding... Well, I prefer not to dwell on the negative. And I would think that there would be no need to mention it to any of you."

Another pause as he once again evaluated his new employees. He smiled broadly and said, "Welcome to Malfoy Industries, everyone." He then stopped and shook everyone's hand, welcoming them by name and engaging in brief chit chat. He saved Hermione for last, after the others had left.

"So wonderful to see you here. I hope that your assignment will suit your interests," he said as he held onto her hand from the handshake.

She tried not to blush from the attention he was showing her. "I'm sure that it will. I've actually been preparing for it."

He laughed softly. "Why am I not surprised? If you find that you would prefer to work elsewhere in the company, please speak up and I will see that you are transferred."

"I'm sure that won't be necessary," she replied softly, not wanting to get special treatment.

He then released her hand, gave her one last smile and strode out of the room with a swish of his robes that made Hermione's heart flutter. She watched through the window, and he glanced over his shoulder at her before moving out of sight. After a few seconds she realized she was mooning over her boss and forced those thoughts out of her mind before Mr. Davies noticed. After all, she was a married woman and had no business thinking of him as anything other than her boss, not matter how suave and debonair he was.

When she returned home, she found that Ron was already there, which was odd. "Ron? Is something wrong?" she asked, noticing that his hand was bandaged.

"I got hit by a stinging hex. I've been to St. Mungo's for treatment, but they sent me home for the rest of the day."

"I'm sorry to hear that," she replied sincerely. She knew that if he had already been treated, there was little that she could do. By morning he should be back to normal, but it was one of those rare hexes that couldn't just be magically reversed. "Is there anything you would like for dinner?"

"Whatever you were planning," he replied noncommittally.

She went to put her things away and change out of her work robes. When she returned, she noticed he was watching her. Rather than say something she left the ball in his court.

Finally after a very long and uncomfortable silence, he asked, "So, how did your first day of work go?"

She shrugged. "It was an orientation day. I'm working in a group of five, but I didn't recognize any of them. They are all quite a bit older than me, so we didn't go to school with any of them."

"Any idea what exactly you are going to be doing?" he asked curiously.

"Not at the moment, but you do realize that I won't really be able to talk about my work, don't you? It will all be proprietary."

"But you will tell me if you work on anything suspicious, won't you?" he asked provocatively.

She was immediately insulted that he would even think to ask her that question. "Ron! Honestly, if you think he's working on Dark Magic stuff, just raid his business and be done with it. I'm not going to be your spy trying to ferret out dirt." She set down a cooking pot on the stove more forcefully than she'd intended.

"Awfully defensive, aren't you?" he asked in a very professional tone, and to her it sounded as though he was doing his job and interrogating a suspect rather than talking to his wife.

"I'm not going to get into it with you again. We both know that you don't like the fact I chose to work for Malfoy Industries. Fine." She slammed down her cooking knife and turned to face him fully. "You'll just have to learn to live with it because I'm not planning on quitting any time soon. I think it's going to be a wonderful job, and I'm sick of these false accusations. By making them you insult me as much as you insult him. I would think that you would know that I would never work for a company of questionable legality. If you are going to insist on arguing this, you can fend for yourself for dinner. I'm not going to put up with it." She folded her arms and gave him a stern look.

He tried to look contrite. "Look, Hermione, I'm sorry. I just have a hard time trusting Malfoy, and Harry feels the same way. We just don't want to see you hurt or get in trouble with the law."

"If something illegal was going on, I think the Ministry would have figured it out by now. Ministry records show how heavily scrutinized his company is. I really doubt he could get away with anything even if he wanted to. So unless the Ministry opens an investigation and I'm called upon to testify, don't expect me to be telling you any dirt about anything going on at work, not that I expect there to be any. So just trust me."

"I really want to. Really," he replied apologetically, finally realizing he had crossed the line.

"Then do and drop this. I'm really sick of the topic." She lamented that if he put this much effort into their relationship, things would not be as rough between the two of them as they were.

He sighed. "I'll drop it."

She wasn't sure what to make of his statement, but he was saying the right words. Whether he meant them or not was a different matter. "Now, get some rest and I'll take care of dinner."

Normally she enjoyed cooking, but now that Ron had gotten her worked up, she really wasn't in the mood. But at least it got her into the other room so that they could both calm down. And to help her calm down, she decided to cook dinner without the use of magic other than to heat the stove. It seemed to make her feel better to use her hands to prepare food, probably because it was so close to Potions making.

Dinner and the rest of the evening were quiet and tense. While Hermione did not care for the tension, she relished the quiet. Perhaps she had finally gotten through to Ron. She hoped that in a few weeks, he would see how happy she was with her new job and that would permanently change his outlook.

Over the course of the next several weeks Hermione settled into her new routine. Her coworkers were pleasant to work with, and it hadn't taken them that long to get over the awe of working with one of the heroes of the war. While she had no formal Potions experience and had never really worked with others on the brewing of potions, since almost all of their Hogwarts work had been individually graded, she found that she had no problem working with them. They were all excellent brewers and more than willing to entertain her theories and answer her questions.

Their current main project was working on an elixir to treat dragon pox, one of the few diseases in the wizarding world that was generally fatal. While there was an older treatment, it was losing effectiveness for most afflicted. When she learned that was their project, she felt a pang in her heart. She knew that this was a project Malfoy Industries had taken on not because it was profitable, but because Lucius had lost Narcissa to that cruel disease.

She had spent the first week reviewing the research from the last three years. This team had only been working on the elixir for the last three months, and they were actually the third team to have been assigned this project – none of the others had had any success.

Knowing how bittersweet succeeding in brewing the elixir would be for Lucius, she vowed not to let him down.

Hermione and the rest of her team were experimenting with many different theories to treat Dragon Pox, but not one of them succeeded. It was frustrating for her to not have immediate success, but the other members of the team helped her accept the fact that this sort of thing did not come quickly. Harold Prince, the oldest member of the team, told them of how he once worked on a project for ten years before there was success. And the Dragon pox treatment was not the only project they were working on. Everyone in the Potions Division believed that it was good to work on more than one project at a time to keep your mind sharp and to keep you from getting tunnel vision.

She wanted to work late, but her fellow team members, kept pushing her to go home, admonishing her that work could be continued in the morning. It took her a while to adapt to that mindset, but she eventually did come to realize that one did not have to complete everything in one day, and in fact most of the time, that was virtually impossible.

As she finally adapted to that mindset, she found herself better able to relax. Even Ron was forced to admit that her change of career had been beneficial. She did not snap at him near as much, was not as stressed out when she returned home from work and of course it helped that he had not mentioned having a family.

She really did have everything in life that she wanted. She was successful and happy at work, and she was happy at home. Leaving the Ministry was one of the best decisions she could have made.

Of course, a part of her was just waiting on tenterhooks for Ron to say or do something that would ruin the peace they were enjoying. He so far had not really mentioned her job much since she started working for Malfoy Industries. Clearly he was heeding her warning.

One evening Hermione had stayed on a rare occasion to work late. She hadn't timed her steps well and figured she had to work about an hour late to get the potion to a state in which it would sit overnight.

She had the door to her laboratory open and could hear the rest of the building emptying out. That suited her perfectly well because she worked better without the interruptions that naturally came about when you had dozens of people working in the same building.

"Working late?" came Lucius' voice from the door.

She jumped, not having heard him walking down the hallway. "What? Oh, Lucius!" She straightened up and hooked loose locks of hair over her ears. "Yes, I didn't time things out well, and I couldn't leave this for the night yet."

He looked at what she was doing. "For the dragon pox elixir?" he asked curiously.

She shook her head. "No, this is for something else," she replied as she got back to work, knowing that some of the steps were time sensitive.

He waited until she paused in her work. "And how is that going?"

She sighed. "Not well, though I'm sure you've seen Harold's reports."

"I have, but I'm asking you for your opinion," he replied simply.

"Dragon pox is a very strange disease. It really does seem to repel all efforts to penetrate it. We've got a couple of new theories and are trying to work out how to implement them. But I don't really know how much progress we are making. I'm learning that wizarding diseases are very different from the ones that affect Muggles, and that makes treating them that much more difficult."

He smiled warmly at her. "I have every faith that you are giving it your best effort." He placed his hand on her shoulder to reassure her.

"So what brings you around here so late?" she asked curiously.

"I like to randomly visit my holdings. I just happened to decide to come here this evening," he replied casually.

"Wouldn't it be better to come during the day when people are working?"

"I find you can learn quite a bit about people by observing how they leave their workspaces. It also discourages people from trying something illicit after hours if they know there is a reasonable chance that I might show up. My unpredictability keeps my employees on their toes," he replied playfully.

She laughed softly. "I can see that it would. Interesting that no one ever informed me of that."

"I think that's one of their secrets. The more tenured employees like to see one of the newer ones shaking in their boots when I arrive. Most do find me quite a menacing figure," he said imperiously.

She arched an eyebrow at him. "Oh, really?" she asked skeptically.

"You have seen a side of me that very few people have witnessed. I am not harsh, but I do demand excellence and those who cannot provide it... Well, they tend not to work for me for very long, and being let go by Malfoy Industries is not something that looks good on your CV since it is well known that I hire only the best." He casually leaned against the table where she was working.

She looked into his eyes for moment, starting to lose herself in the grey that was far warmer than she remembered it being. When she realized what she was doing, she forced herself to look away and consult her notes. "I don't mean to be rude, but I really do have to get this potion to a stable point before I leave."

He straightened up and bowed his head slightly. "My apologies. I am not used to encountering someone here at this hour. I will let you return to your work."

"Thank you, Lucius. And if this didn't require so much attention, I would be happy to chat with you." She felt that she had to explain herself a little better as she did not want him upset with her.

"I am very glad to hear that, my dear. I will continue my tour." He flashed her one last playful smile before leaving.

Just like before, she found herself watching him leave the room. There was something about the way he made an exit that seemed almost unreal. The way the fine wool of his robes swished was almost hypnotic.

Shaking her head to clear the wool from her mind, she returned her attention to her potion and saw that it was starting to turn a rather unpleasant green and that she had to hurry to keep it from being ruined.

Once she had the potion stable, she changed out of her lab robes and headed for the exit. As she walked through the empty corridors, a part of her hoped that she would run into Lucius again. She wasn't sure why, but she just enjoyed talking with him. They always seemed to have such interesting and stimulating conversations – ones that did not involve someone like Mundungus Fletcher.

She was a little disappointed when she left the building without having seen Lucius. She knew that she should not be thinking that, but she couldn't help it.

When she returned home, Ron demanded, "Where have you been?"

She thought he sounded a little too adversarial considering she wasn't that late. "I mistimed a project and had to finish it before I could leave."

"For two hours?" he asked skeptically with his arms crossed.

"Yes, for two hours," she replied, though she had not realized it had really been that long.

"But you haven't had to work late before," said Ron suspiciously.

"No, not since I've started working for Malfoy Industries, I haven't. We have a lot going on in the lab, and I just didn't plan ahead properly. Even I make mistakes from time to time, Ron. It's something you are going to have to live with. And this is the first time I've worked late since I started, so what are you so upset about?" She really wanted to know what had caused this seemingly random outburst.

"You've been getting distant lately, and I was suspicious that you weren't home..."

What he left unsaid shocked her. "What? I've been distant lately?" It was her turn to be angry. "How can you possibly be implying that?" She could not believe what she had just heard. "How does one night working late translate into that?"

He ruffled his hair. "I don't know. It just seems like you aren't that interested in me anymore."

"Ron, I've just been thinking about work. I know that I don't bring work home, but I still can't help but think about it. I guess that's why I've been so distant. What we're working on is very complex and very confusing. The one project we are working on has been very difficult to crack, more so considering that several different groups have worked on it over the years without success. You know I don't like to fail."

"I know that, but you are always the one who pushed for conversation, but lately when I try to strike one up, you tend to ignore me."

She sighed. Her reason didn't have anything to do with work, but had everything to do with the fact that she just wasn't interested in what he wanted to talk about any more than he would want to discuss Potions. "Ron, neither one of us is really interested in the other's work, and we need to find things to talk about that aren't work related. I know you find some of your anecdotes humorous, but if you weren't there, they really aren't." She felt bad about telling him that, especially after he gave her a pained look. Reaching out she placed her hand on his arm. "I'm sorry I had to say that, but I thought you deserved the truth. And I know that you don't find any of my ramblings on potions or the other journals interesting."

"I'm sorry, Hermione. I didn't know you found them that bad," he replied, not hiding the hurt in his voice.

"They aren't that bad; it's just not something that interests me. We just need to find something that we both find interesting. Perhaps if you would read the Charms journal or something that would help with having something to discuss," she prompted. She had long tried to get him interested in the Charms journal since she knew that it did have information he would find useful for work.

He took a moment before replying to her. "I've been thinking that we should try to find time to get away."

"Oh, Ron, that's a wonderful idea, but I have to work there for six months before I'm eligible for vacation," she replied, not wanting to dash his hopes.

"It doesn't have to be a vacation; just a weekend getaway would be good. I think we are both getting far too wrapped up on work, and this would be good for us." He looked at her hopefully.

"That would be a good idea. Why don't you pick the weekend that works best for you. I'm sure that I can arrange to leave a few hours early to give us a little longer weekend."

"I was thinking about the upcoming holiday. That would give us three days away from London, away from family, away from everything." He rubbed her arms as he talked about his plan.

Even though the holiday was weekend after next and it would not give them long to plan, she thought it was a grand idea. "I think that would work out just fine," she replied cheerfully.

"Great! I've found a great little cottage in Ireland that I think you would like. Seamus actually recommended it to me," he admitted. "It's real charming with a great location out in the country that would give us plenty of space and isolation. I've actually already made the arrangements," he admitted sheepishly.

Normally Hermione would have preferred to be consulted ahead of time, but she knew that Ron was very proud of his weekend getaway, and she didn't want to ruin it for him. "Thank you, Ron. I look forward to it."

Now that Ron's fears were assuaged, the rest of the evening went a lot better. They enjoyed dinner and actually had a wonderful evening together in front of the fire. Hermione knew that the Canons game was being broadcast on the Wireless, but Ron had chosen not to listen to it. She felt a little guilty for indulging in her Lucius Malfoy fantasy earlier, but she reasoned that nothing had ever happened between them and that nothing would.

When Ron and Hermione arrived at the cottage, she instantly fell in love. It was perfectly quaint and the surroundings perfectly bucolic. There was even a flock of sheep in a nearby field, just making the whole atmosphere perfect. "Ron, it's lovely!" She wrapped her arms around him and gave him a kiss.

"Thanks, though as I said, I can't take full credit. Seamus is the one who knew about this," he replied sheepishly.

"Well, you thank him for me. And of course you had to have talked about a getaway with him, so it wasn't all Seamus," she said to try to boost his confidence. She wanted this to be the perfect weekend.

Entering the cottage, she found that it was exactly as she would have imagined it to look. Ron stood behind her and said, "There is a cook in the main house who'll send meals over if we don't want to cook since this is vacation. If we do want to cook, we can just let them know what we need through the chalkboard."

"Mmmm... I don't think I want to cook," she said. While she normally found it relaxing, there was something wonderful about having someone else do it while you were on vacation.

He chuckled. "That's what I thought you'd say. We just have to let them know what time we want our meals through the chalkboard and they'll arrive on the table."

"That's utterly brilliant," she replied. It was much like how the house-elves served meals at Hogwarts and an elegant way to provide food for guests without intruding on their privacy.

Hermione could not be more pleased with Ron actually making an effort to do something romantic and succeeding spectacularly. She began to think that she had finally gotten through to him, helped him understand that a successful relationship took effort by both parties. She looked forward to spending a wonderfully relaxing weekend with him.

She wrapped him in a warm embrace and gave him a very passionate kiss. "Now, where's the bedroom?" she asked deviously.