The Right Thing To Do

Chapter 28

Hermione wished she'd left The Wall up.

She'd finally gotten around to vanishing all the scribbled words just before Christmas, so her room was a blank slate again.

But she really would have appreciated a timeline right about now.

Draco had come into Cornerstone with the werewolf portfolio the first weekend of December, but before that, they hadn't spoken to each other in nearly two weeks – since the Marcus Flint incident.

Hermione frowned at her blank wall. Something must have shifted then. Something must have gone wrong if he had sacrificed his pride to come to her. He had freely admitted that he'd come to Cornerstone to ask her a favor.

Favors, she didn't mind giving. Manipulative publicity, she had a problem with.

Something tugged at her mind.... Something happened with Noelle and her father. And whatever it was, it happened before Draco asked Hermione to write to Quentin Margolis and before he'd started using her name to gather employees and clients.

Hermione bit the inside of her cheek. Draco had been very clear that she was not to write to Noelle....

So thirty minutes later, letter to Noelle off with an owl, she sat on the edge of her bed, kicked off her kitten heels and removed her jacket. Hermione dug into her bag to look through the portfolio Walter had drafted for her that day.

Walter was delightfully intuitive, Hermione had found. He'd knocked on her closed door that afternoon, finding her with her head in her hands, and had brought in every piece of fan mail and love letter she'd received thus far this week.

"Whenever my wife is having a bad week, I scramble together all the embarrassing poetry I wrote her at Hogwarts and all her N.E.W.T scores," he had said, shrugging.

Hermione had laughed. "Poetry?"

"Yes, during Professor Bins' class."

"Of course."

He had also brought in the Golden Snidget portfolio he'd been working on, and excused himself to let her read through her pile.

She had young business women writing to her for advice and thanking her for paving the way. She had war veterans penning letters of encouragement and praise. And one letter from a thirteen-year-old girl at Ilvermorny. She wanted Hermione's advice on a niffler she'd found in the trophy room that she wanted to keep as a pet. She also ended the letter with a request for Hermione's advice on how to respond to her classmates' teasing.

By the time she headed home for the day, Hermione had gotten a handle on her feelings about the situation.

She wasn't going to quit. That would be career suicide at this point, and she quite enjoyed what it was that she was doing at M.C.G. She enjoyed the possibilities. But she was going to let Draco know that she knew what was going on, and she didn't appreciate it.

And she would do it calmly.

She hoped.

~*~

By ten o'clock Thursday morning, she had worked herself up to speak with Draco. She would be direct and concise and honest.

She walked the floor to his office, and found the door closed. It was rarely closed, so he must have been in a meeting. As she approached to ask his assistant when she thought he'd be free, the door opened.

Pansy stepped out. Hermione blinked at her, confused. Pansy smiled.

"Hermione, dear!" She looked her up and down, assessing the outfit for today. "Wonderful, I was just coming to see you."