Taking Advantage

“Ouch,” thought Hermione after Anthony\'s dramatic exit.



Then, like the hard-working witch she was, she decided to put the unpleasantness behind her and get back to work. She had a definite deadline, after all. She worked for a half hour on the talking points (yeah, right, more likely the shouting points) of her conversation with Ron and Harry, before packing up her things. It was still an hour or so before the end of her typical work day, but she had things to do for the rest of the day, not to mention the rest of the week, and she had a ridiculous amount of vacation time coming to her.



Making her way to Mr. Bandyskate\'s office, Hermione prepared to ask the grumpy goblin for a couple of weeks off. He was unlikely to turn down his hardest worker, much less the future wife of one of his best customers, but she still dreaded the conversation. Mr. Bandyskate always acted as though the aroma of muggle-born witch irritated his sensitve goblin nose. She\'d never met a bigger blood-purity snob in the wizarding world, not even her future—gasp, try not to hyperventilate!--husband.



She had been forcing herself to think of Malfoy in those terms as frequently as possible over the last few hours. Judging from the way her trachea still tried to close every time the thought crossed her mind, she needed the practice before she had her talk with the boys. Her next self-assigned task was to attempt to think of Malfoy as Draco. Draco, Draco, Draco. Yeah, that was going to take some serious work to sound convincing.



The talk with Mr. Bandyskate went more easily than she had anticipated. She snorted as the thought occurred to her that eau de Malfoy money improved the smell of her muddy blood. Mr. Bandyskate had all but pushed her out the door to take care of her errands and assured her that she was welcome to take as much time as she needed off to make the arrangements and marry the delightful Mr. Malfoy.



“He\'s probably just hoping I\'ll turn into too much of a society witch to take over the task of breaking the curses on all of those Malfoy heirlooms Draco (success!) was forever having delivered to Bandyskate\'s department,” she thought. “You\'d think the pointy little goblin worked on commission.”



Speaking of commission, the first order of business was a trip to Madam Malkin\'s boutique. Hermione had absolutely nothing suitable to wear to a fancy restaurant other than the crimson silk robes she had worn the night before, and there was no way she was going to make her wardrobe\'s deficiency so glaringly obvious. She might not be the more fashion-obsessed witch in London, but a woman has to have a little pride.



Apparating into the store, Hermione was a bit surprised at the Madam\'s enthusiastic greeting. She\'d certainly bought her share of dress robes in the boutique over the years, but nothing to merit the VIP treatment she was getting today. After trying on a number of delectable robes, she finally settled on a simple hunter green pair. The sleeveless robes framed her collar bone in the front before skimming her curves to fall in fluttery waves to her feet. The detail that made the robes the night\'s big winner, however, was the plunging back. It fell away to the lowest possible spot that would still be decent in stuffy wizarding London society. Hermione knew that, however modestly she typically dressed, in these robes, no one would wonder what in the world Draco Malfoy was doing with the witch at his side who looked like nothing so much as a frumpy librarian.



Taking the robes to the front, Hermione dug into her pocket for her wand so that she could affix her wizarding signature to the receipt.



“You don\'t need to worry with that, dear,” Madam Malkin assured Hermione as she wrapped the robes in a lovely box. “I\'ll just charge it to the account your fiance set up for you this afternoon.”



“Ummm, no thank you,” Hermione responded, flustered and surprised yet again. “I\'ll just pay for it myself.”



“Suit yourself,” Madam Malkin replied, passing the receipt and box to Hermione. “Come back again with your bridemaids any time, and we\'ll get everything ready for your big day.”



“Thank you,” Hermione sputtered and hurried out to the street.