A/n - There's too many story ideas in my head and someone needs to take them off me! I just had to publish at least one chapter to this story, even if my others aren't finished. I love the idea of this one too much, and I just want to meddle around with Hermione and Draco as adults and with the War a few years behind them. Goddammit.

This story is based on the movie "The Proposal".

CHAPTER 1: LATTES AND LATE-TO-WORK DAYS

"Shit."

Hermione Granger quickly swung her legs over the side of her bed after she read the numbers on the clock face and stopped the incessant beeping. Usually, she would have been awake almost half an hour ago now and on her way out of the house to pick up a latte for her boss and herself from Starbucks, but today she was only just stepping out of her shower and hastily drying herself.

She checked the time again and cursed. He would be walking into his office in about five minutes now, and she would be dammed if she had to see his bloody smirk as he told her with too much pleasure and amusement that she was late. Hermione had only been late once before – and that was on her first day of employment. Right after that work day had ended, she swore to herself to do all things possible to make sure she never had to see that pleased grin on his pointy face again. So far, she had lived up to that promise that she had made, but today, stupidly, she had allowed herself to slip up.

Again and again, her boss had tried to cause her to be late by loading her up with various tasks the day or night before that just had to be done in the morning – mainly because she still had stuff to do the day or night previous. And he only cared enough to bury her with work because she suspected that he had made a promise to himself at her interview, when he had arrogantly replied to her remark by saying she might not able to serve someone without screwing up - and then (as he put it) "showed great generosity by hiring her then and there". He didn't even allow her to let the fact that he had hired her sink in before dismissing her from his office, telling her what latte he expected to have handed to him and when and that if she was late 3 times, she was fired. If she remembered correctly, he had then slammed the door in her face – but not before she caught a glance of his smug face.

She quickly put on her shoes, grabbed her wand, and made her way down the stairs of her apartment block. She checked the time once more and sighed irritably. If she knew the habits of her boss at all from the time she had been working for him, he was already at his office and would have gleefully noticed her absence as soon as he stepped out of the lift. Right now, as she burst through the doors of Starbucks, she thought, he was probably totalling up the minutes that she was late.

Smug bastard.

In the back of her mind, Hermione feared that her boss, the Draco Malfoy, ferret extraordinaire, had finally become powerful enough to cause everything in her life on this particular day to be a complete disaster. She knew that she was too late to try gain back any satisfaction of trying to arrive there before him, but she was planning at least not to be late by much. However, that clearly had been destroyed from the size of the line inside of the building.

The line, starting from the cash register at the desk and stretching all the way back to a little bit before the doors, was going to at least take half an hour to wait in – but she didn't have that sort of time. Usually, the queue never quite reached the length of this one, and even now, she couldn't think of a reason why so many people were up today at almost 9 o'clock in the morning. As far as she knew, there was nothing special about today.

Back to the task at hand. Would it be less painful to arrive without his latte or with his latte, but almost an hour late? She just didn't know.

"Hermione! Hey, Hermione Granger!" Someone called from the front of the queue. She vaguely recognised the voice and looked around the line of people to see whom it was that was calling her name. As soon as she saw who it was, she could've slapped herself on the head, if it were not that she was in public. He tilted his shaggy blond head for her to come down to the front desk, where he was actually standing behind, and handed her two cups.

Sometimes she questioned her boss's constant need to have the same flavoured latte from the same shop (which was coincidentally on the corner of the block she lived on; sometimes she thought he only hired her for that reason) every single day of work, but it was times like today that she was grateful.

"You probably need these," he said with a smile as they made an exchange: her money for the lifesaving lattes.

She placed a quick kiss on his cheek, said, "I owe you one, Nate" and ran back through the doors, as well as she could while cradling two cups to her chest and while in heels.

By some miracle, she had made it to the Apparation point down one of London's less dodgy alleyways, which she used every morning going to work and every evening on the way home, without tripping over and breaking her ankle or spilling the hot liquid down her. She was just ready to Apparate when he phone rang. Hermione made a distressed noise as she quickly levitated the two cups with her wand, before tucking it inside her skirt and searching for her phone in her bag. She didn't even need to check the ID to know who could possibly be calling her this early.

She answered the call and pressed the phone to her ear, a lie about just arriving outside the building on her lips, but he spoke first. "You're late," a drawling voice said. She could almost hear the smirk through the phone and she dug her fingernails into her hand to refrain from saying something snarky back to him that would delay her even longer. "How long has it been now? Oh, it looks like you're coming up to an hour – that's the latest you've ever been. If you're late again Granger, I'll hold true to my promise and fire you." There was a pause on his side of the line as she heard him speak to someone else briefly before returning his attention back to her. "You should hurry up; I've got a meeting in ten minutes and I need to see you before attending it."

"Don't let me keep you," she grumbled and he tutted quietly on the other side. She rolled her eyes. "I'm almost there, anyway. I'm just outside the building as we speak."

He chuckled. "You amuse me Granger, thinking that you can lie to me like that." She heard something fall on his end of the phone, as if he had thrown a stack of books onto the floor. She grimaced; it would seem like something he'd do, especially since there had been moments where she had walked into his office at the wrong time – and the books strewn across the floor, unfortunately, were the second thing for her to notice. Although, truth be told, she had only walked in on her boss having company in his office twice, before she learnt that it would be best to announce herself in case he was busy again. The other times books had been thrown on the floor the reason behind it had been a lot more innocent, such as when he was angry, needing room to kick his legs up onto his desk or for a seat on the windowsill on a nice day.

It gave her great relief to think that he was most likely not having sex whilst on the phone to her, especially since it must be a mood killer. Still, it was probably a plausible suggestion for Malfoy if he ever wanted to ruin her day even more, and he was terribly good at keeping up a facade and controlling his voice.

"I can actually see you-"

Wait.

"You're spying on me?" She whispered furiously down the phone, trying not to draw attention to herself by screeching.

He scoffed. "Please, Granger. I don't take time out of my day to watch where you go especially; I happen to do this for all my employees when they're late. I need to know that they're not lying in their own pool of blood in a ditch somewhere."

" Thoughtful," she commented dryly. Deep down, however, she wondered how Malfoy was able to see where she was, considering the alleyway that she was in was mostly blocked from view by tall banking buildings – and besides that, she was an hour away from him, if she walked. His own eyesight couldn't possibly be that wide range.

Draco purposely ignored her comment. "Anyway, I can see you standing in an alleyway with our lattes levitating, which you should probably do something about because a group of possible-Muggles are headed your way," he said quickly; but bored, as if he couldn't really care less if she broke the Secrecy Statute. Hermione quickly put her hand underneath the two cups and broke the levitation spell wandlessly just as a group of hung-over men brushed past her, stumbling slightly on their own two feet and shielding their faces from the sunlight. "Wandless," he commented, sounding impressed. However, if she ever brought it up to him, he'd deny it with his every fibre. "I don't know where you found the time to practice." He let the sentence hang for a moment, as if letting her catch onto the fact that he was implying something. She tapped her foot impatiently. It was as if he wouldn't acknowledge that she had a life before working for him sometimes. "But, anyhow, you're late and have roughly five minutes to meet me at my office."

She began to say that she would've been there already if his phone call hadn't wasted her time, but before she could even say anything, he had already hung up. Grumbling, she put her phone away, grabbed her wand and Apparated to the outside of the building.

At the point when one of the lattes spilled down the front of her shirt after someone pushed the door that she had just Apparated outside of open and knocked her, Hermione knew that any semblance of hope that today could improve was washed away in the spilled liquid. She angrily threw the wasted cup into the bin and brushed past the woman who was the cause of the accident, and into the building where she scourgified her shirt and used a Drying Charm.

Hermione had hoped to go through this job right up until the time she was either fired or quit without Draco Malfoy discovering how pathetic she was to order the same flavoured latte as him, in the extremely unfortunate case that one spilled. However, it wasn't to say that she didn't like his taste in latte – in fact, over the years, she had grown accustomed to it and it had just become a part of her daily routine. It was just that she wished that there wasn't a reason for her to order the same as him. Nevertheless, it seemed that another habit that she had once thought stupid had proved to be useful. Even if it did meant giving up her drink for him.

Once she exited the elevator onto the correct floor, everyone who was working in their offices or walking about the hall to take care of some errands, looked over to where she was standing, latest of them all in a coffee-stained shirt, holding the only thing that could possibly bring him back from whatever bad mood he was currently in.

They looked at her as if she was their saviour. Though she didn't admit it arrogantly as some people would, she believed that at times she was their saviour. Whenever he exited his office, whether he was in a good mood or bad (there was hardly a time when the two words weren't relatively synonymous), she made sure to fire a red spark to each of those inside their own to make sure that they weren't caught not working, as she knew that many of them tended to do.

Really, Hermione was rather impressed and curious as to how the company was still running when 80% of the time his workers were doing the minimum.

She'd be lying to herself if she didn't think that he didn't notice how quickly they turned back to what they were doing every time he so much as poked his head out his door. Yet, he never said anything to her or his workers about it – be it a thank you or a request for her to stop doing whatever she was doing.

The stares continued up until the time she walked through his door. She almost spilt the last latte as he barged past her to leave his office, but he had clearly thought through his rudeness, and grabbed the cup out of her hand before shouldering her out of the way. "Walk and talk Granger, you've made me late," he said as he sipped his drink. He pulled a disgusted face as he looked over his shoulder at her. "It's warm."

"Like you've told me multiple times as if I didn't know, Mr Malfoy, I was late," she drawled. "It obviously wasn't going to still be hot by the time I got here."

He didn't have to verbally reply to her, but she knew (even though she was behind him) that he rolled his eyes or mocked her under his breath. "Look, the meeting I'm going to now is about the marketing of the spring books and I'll be stuck there until..." He pulled out his silver pocket watch and checked the time. "Early afternoon, it looks like. Before I go in, I need to know that you've accomplished one little thing that I've asked of you and request that you do another."

They reached the elevator at the other end of the hall and he pressed the button to call it down. "Now, did you call that woman back that I asked you to do two days ago? Tell me you did Hermione Granger, your job depends on it."

The doors dinged and opened. Malfoy reached behind him and propelled Hermione forward into the elevator by his hand on her back, before following in after her, grinning at her disgruntled look. He waited silently for her to press the button to take him to his destination, without actually telling her what floor this meeting was taking place on. She huffed quietly and was about to press the button for level five, since that was where most of his meetings took place, but risked a glance at him before pushing it. He didn't even turn his head to look at her as he amusedly shook it. Hermione waited for him to say something, but when his only response to her waiting was an impatient noise, she, with thinly veiled restraint, hovered her finger over each of the levels and watched for his reaction, until she found the right one. She jabbed it angrily, it being the only thing that she could take her anger out on.

Malfoy waited for the lift to begin descending before speaking again. "Well, did you?"

For the second time that day, her fingernails bit into her hand to remind her about who she was talking to – it worked, barely. Of course, she could've answered him as they were getting into the elevator, but he had a thing about not talking until the doors were closed and they were moving. "Which one?" She asked politely.

He waved his hand about as he tried to recall whom exactly they were talking about. "You know the one. Merlin, what was her name again? The blonde one that had the big breasts and skinny legs – that one." He cupped the air in front of his chest, as if she needed to have some form of a visual representation to jog her memory. Truth be told, there had been several skinny blonde bimbos that had walked in and out of his office, requesting different things from him with the common aim of having a book published or at least their manuscript read – Hermione couldn't begin to picture which one he was on about. "If I remember correctly, you walked in on me fucking her on the desk once."

Ah, now that simple fact actually narrowed it down. The two times that she had accidentally walked in on a private moment, were with two relatively opposite girls – though, from what she had seen, she couldn't deny that there was the common factor of fairly large breasts and overall skinniness. She could remember with perfect clarity now – even if she didn't want to – the day it happened and how it happened, but most importantly the tall blonde that he was talking about. "She was French, right? I think her name was Marie."

He scoffed, seemingly ignoring her suggestion about what her name was. "Oh please," he said, taking another sip of his drink and looking over to her. This wasn't the first time where Hermione thought that the only time he used the word please – or knew how to use it – was when he was being condescending or was about to prove himself right. "She wasn't French. She was merely a resourceful witch who had heard about my interest in France and went out searching for some Charm in a book that happened to allow her to speak French. She clearly thought that it was a new and clever way to try and seduce me into getting her a publishing deal."

For someone who absolutely loved to be showered with attention, he didn't seem that impressed by the troubles the witch had seemed to go through to try to be different. Even if it was because she was attempting to manipulate him through sex.

"And how exactly did you discover this amazing ability of yours, where you can correctly discern the nationality of someone? Marie certainly sounded it – and spoke the language fluently."

" Honestly, I can't believe you fell for it, Granger. I thought you were smarter than that." He rolled his eyes dramatically as he prepared to launch into an explanation where he would outline the precise reason why he was correct about everything for the millionth time.

"Anyway, I had my suspicions from the beginning when she introduced herself to me as a French pureblood and I didn't recognise her name, because I of course, have met every fucking pureblood in France. Therefore, in the middle of throwing her on my desk I told her that she smelt like a wet Hippogriff." He smiled proudly at her, as if he was the most creative person in the world with the insult that he had conjured in his lust-crazed mind. However, she also knew that his smile was his indication that said, "This is going to get a whole lot better, Granger, so pay attention because this is the part where I knew I was spot on."

"What I can only assume would be a major turn-off to everyone, she, strangely, was only turned on more and replied with something about needing to rip my clothes off too." The doors opened then and he quickly walked out, with his long strides, and called something back to her about keeping up as she walked quicker behind him to make up for her shorter strides. "So, see? She'd say something in English and it'd come out French; she didn't even have to think about translating it. She "spoke" it but didn't understand it."

They rounded a corner of offices and it seemed that even people on this level, nine floors below him avoided him like the plague. He paid them no mind as they walked out their workplaces, only to see him, and turn around to go back inside.

"Where is your meeting?" She asked, looking around at all the occupied conference rooms and frowning. "You told me you were late."

He grinned mischievously at her and leant on the wall by, what she assumed, was the conference room where his meeting was supposed to take place. Currently, it seemed that those in there wouldn't be done for at least ten minutes more. "Yes, well, I lied. I just needed you to get here as soon as possible. You should take notes; maybe you'll finally learn when you're being deceived and how to deceive. It's been three years – I thought you would've got it by now. It's all too easy." He drank some more of his beloved drink and discarded it on the floor by his feet. Although he seemed to hate it when it was anything less than boiling, he seemed to be taking a long time to drink it all. "But you called Marie, then? And told her exactly what I wanted you to?"

She took out her phone and checked her call history. "Yes. I did it yesterday and passed on your message word for word. For someone who claims to not have been seduced by her, you certainly are giving her what she wanted."

" I wasn't seduced by her," he said defensively. "Besides, someone that airheaded won't have their manuscript in by the end of this week, and so won't have their release date. And even if she does, I only promised her 5,000 starting copies. It sounds like a lot to someone like her, but you and I both know that she won't get far with as little as that. Not that anyone would want to buy a book like the one she wants put out."

" Why did you even grant her that many copies? Why did you promise her that you'd do it in the first place?"

"Because Granger - not that you could possibly know anything about the joys of getting laid - accepting her request was very rewarding for me." He smiled slyly at her discomforting imaginings of him as her face reddened from embarrassment and possible anger from the dig at her love life. He winked at her for good measure and she rolled her eyes.

It was always fun to mess with her.

"And, for the record, if I wanted you to question me on my every move, I would ask for you to bore me with every single flaw that you seem to find in all my business deals. I am successful, pet, and that's because I make good business deals."

She glared at him. It wasn't the first time that he had addressed her under the term "pet", and it had been happening a lot more often ever since he realised that he called her "Granger" too much and too often. In a workplace, the term "Mudblood" was widely not accepted, especially since the owner of the whole book publishing company was indeed a Muggle-born and the Ministry was on a crackdown to seek out anyone who still used it. However, she strongly suspected that any of Malfoy's previous prejudices had been broken down piece by piece while he was within this job, since the company supported publishing for Muggles as long as there was nothing that could break the Secrecy Statute. From when he had begun, he had been instructed to learn how to use a phone (which he had taken great pride in flashing about at every available second since she started, as if needing to say yes, look how much I have changed from Hogwarts and how intelligent I am. I have managed to learn successfully how to operate a mobile phone. Look at how I'm using Muggle culture) and a computer, and was even required sometimes to speak to Muggles themselves.

In any case, calling her slave or anything along those lines wasn't entirely appropriate either, but, for some reason, pet was a fine way of addressing someone.

The people inside of the room that they were waiting outside of began to move and shuffle about in a manner that indicated that they were about to finish up whatever this particular meeting was about. He picked up his cup as those inside started to exit, and cradled it close to his chest as he waited for the last of them to come out.

"Like I said earlier, I need you to do something; and as I also said, this meeting won't be done until early afternoon. As you weren't in on time you probably don't know, since it wasn't you who informed me, but while my meeting is going on there is a staff meeting starting at 11, and I'll need you to attend it in my place," he stated. He huffed as if it was a major task as he made his way into the recently emptied room, taking a seat at the head of the table even though it wasn't his official conference. It wasn't uncommon for him to do things like this, Hermione knew, when he was the highest positioned employee in the room because no one would tell him to move. "Also, lucky for me I suppose, but the judgement on my ongoing trial is being made today so I need everything after I'm done with this to be cancelled. The trial has been happening for 5 years, I don't know how long it'll take to either clear my name or put me in Azkaban."

This was something that Hermione knew even before working for him, and so was something that she thought heavily about when applying for the part of his assistant. She almost wasn't going to accept his challenge because of it. If he was sent to Azkaban, then she would be out of a job once again and she'd have to start seeking out other places of employment that she had no interest in. This job was a whim; she was out of money at the time and bored doing nothing - this place paid nicely and was what she had some interest in. It wasn't any charity to help endangered magical creatures or a company that invented new ways to improve the lives of the Wizarding public, but what they did do was publish books.

Moreover, Malfoy had promised her when she began, as thanks for not leaving him with a useless temp, that he'd read her manuscript.

However, to her knowledge, that day had yet to happen, and she wasn't entirely prepared to be forced into leaving this job without her chance of being an author.

"Do you think it's gone well?" Hermione probed gently, trying to feel if she needed to start job searching as soon as he goes into his meeting.

He scoffed. "I work in a company that forces me into communicating with Muggles and using their technology. The boss is a Muggle-born," he said, with tired exaggeration. He pointed a finger at her suddenly, leaning forward in his chair. "You. I employed you, didn't I?"

She nodded once, deciding that he must've thought that his trial had been going well. After all, he did raise some good points; he had changed his lifestyle through work, so they could hardly accuse him of not evolving with the times. Other than that, he was being tried for his missions for the Death Eaters and attempted murder in the case of Albus Dumbledore. Of course, most people knew now that he was forced into doing such things and that he was underage in the beginning.

Others had been let off for less.

"Why," he said, slouching back into the high-backed chair, tapping his finger against his chin. "Do you not think I've done enough?"

There was a pause as Hermione thought about Draco's court case, in relation to what other things he had been accused of and what information they had in his defence. Draco called her out of her musings and gave her a hard look when he eyes focused back onto him.

"So, do you think I've done enough? Don't beat around the bush, Granger; I hired you because you're the only one who'd gladly tell me what I've done wrong, even when I don't want to hear it and it isn't necessary. Go on."

"Maybe there was more you could've done," she shrugged. "Anyone can fake that they're okay or enjoying their line of work. Anyone could have found a job that corresponds with Muggles."

Draco made a noise that sounded akin to a growl and dismissed her from the conference room. As she left, he called after her, saying, "Sometimes I wish I never hired you, Granger."