The Affairs of Wizards

Chapter Three

Muggle in Wizardland

To my great relief, travelling to work by Portkey did not have to form part of my daily routine. When my contract of employment arrived it was accompanied by a neat little gold signet ring which fitted the ring finger of my right hand perfectly. The covering letter explained that this was my passport to the Wizarding World. It was designed to counter the protection that hid the magical world from Muggles and as an ID to show the Magical Law Enforcement people if they wanted to know what a Muggle was doing wandering around in wizard territory. Its last, and most important, function was to allow me to actually find my place of work.

Don't laugh - I'm serious. Malfoy Manor was Unplottable, wizard jargon meaning that no-one could find the place unless the current Lord of the Manor allowed them to do so. Longbottom and Malfoy had wisely opted to leave the status quo unchanged. What better security for a top secret product than a manufacturing facility no-one could find? Hence the ring. The wizard version allowed Apparation (teleporting to you and me), the usual wizard method of getting around, to designated points in the Manor grounds. Mine allowed me through the front gate.

As a Muggle I was faced with a few problems that don't afflict wizards. The instantaneous nature of Apparation means they can live in Edinburgh and work in London. I, on the other hand, had to take travelling time into account. Since I was going to remain short of cash for a while I decided to stay at Mum and Dad's for now. My bank, delighted at the prospect of some money actually coming in to my account for a change, allowed me to consolidate my debts into one loan, with a bit left over to buy a second-hand car. It wasn't ideal but it would have to do.

***

I'm neurotic about being late. It's a trait that's cost me many hours hanging around in cold rehearsal rooms waiting for everyone else to turn up. I left ridiculously early on my first day to do the two-hour journey from Reading to Avebury. I was amazed by just how easy Malfoy Manor was to find if you knew it was there. I arrived at the front gate with half an hour to spare.

This was the first time it really struck me just how powerful magic was. Never mind self-clearing crockery - if you could get people to ignore a dirty great manor house with 17 acres of grounds; what else could you hide? No wonder the wizard community's return to the limelight after several centuries of self imposed isolation had taken careful media management.

As I pulled up at the wrought iron gates two figures emerged from the lodge building. In the lead was a wizard in bright red robes with a gold logo featuring a drawbridge on the right breast. Shambling behind him was a grey figure in red shorts carrying a club, which looked like something formed by a small child out of Playdough, only a lot larger and more intimidating. I didn't need to be told that this was a troll. I hoped fervently that I'd never encounter one on my own in the ladies' toilets, down a dark alley, or anywhere else for that matter. The wizard tapped politely on the car window, and I wound it down.

"Good morning Miss. Pass please?" He waved his wand over my outstretched right hand. A cloud of smoke billowed out of the ring and coalesced into a gently spinning figure - me, at the interview. "Vanessa Granger," a disembodied voice announced, "Marketing and Administration Manager. Cleared for access to all areas."

"Thank you, Miss Granger. Have a good day." He pointed his wand at the gate, which swung open, and I drove through.

There were two other cars parked at one side of the courtyard, so I pulled in next to one of them; a black Merc, which made my three year old Ford Ka look even more ridiculous by comparison. As I locked the car, and turned to climb the steps, a small figure appeared out of thin air with a soft pop.

"Miss Vanessa Granger is early! Ditzy is sorry, Ditzy wasn't expecting Miss so soon or Ditzy would have been here to welcome Miss." The little creature (what had Hermione said they were called? Oh yes, house elves) was wringing her hands in anguish, and looked as if she might burst in to tears at any moment.

"It's quite alright, Ditzy. It's not your fault. Don't worry about it."

"Oh, but Miss Vanessa Granger is too kind to Ditzy. Ditzy is glad that Miss Vanessa Granger is going to be Marketing and Administration Manager. Ditzy knew right away when Miss Vanessa Granger came to her interview that Miss Vanessa Granger was a kind person - "

"That's very nice of you, Ditzy," I interposed hastily, as she drew breath in preparation for another flood of gratitude. It seemed that house elves could give Uriah Heep lessons in obsequiousness. This might all be perfectly normal for your average wizard but it was making me feel distinctly uncomfortable. "Is there somewhere I can wait until Mr Longbottom arrives?"

"Oh Master Neville is being here already, Miss," Ditzy responded eagerly. I smiled inwardly. Neville Longbottom and I obviously had a neurosis in common. "Ditzy will take Miss Vanessa Granger to Master Neville straight away. Please follow me Miss."

According to Hermione, house-elves were horribly oppressed; forced to work long hours for no pay and dressed in rags. I have to say that anything less oppressed than Ditzy was hard to imagine. She chattered away nineteen to the dozen all the way to the main office, and I wondered if she ever shut up. It seemed not, as she kept up the running commentary all through my initial meeting with Neville Longbottom, and continued it while she ushered us into the Conference Room and served coffee and biscuits. When she disappeared with a snap of her fingers the silence was deafening.

"Quite a character, our Ditzy." Neville Longbottom smiled at me over the rim of his coffee cup. His Lancashire accent became broader when he was amused.

"Yes, she is." Then, to keep the conversational ball rolling, "Does she belong to the Manor?" House-elves were something of a bete noire of Hermione's. I had heard in detail about the cruelties meted out to them, including one family's method of dismissing house-elves too old and feeble to give service which gave a whole new meaning to the word redundancy. From what I knew of them, I couldn't imagine the Malfoys tolerating a garrulous house-elf for very long. Neville caught my meaning immediately.

"She used to work for my grandmother. Draco took her on here when Gran died." He tapped the plate of biscuits with his wand, and it sailed across to land by my elbow. "I live in a two-bedroom flat in Oxford. I don't have much call for a house-elf."

Especially not one who'd drive you crazy with her constant babble. "No, I suppose not."

For the next ten minutes we chatted about the traffic on the M4, the prospect of decent weather during the forthcoming bank holiday weekend, the proposed amendments to the law on the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts and Puddlemere United's chances of winning the UK Quidditch League Trophy for the fourth year running. My new subscription to the Daily Prophet proved invaluable for keeping up my end of the conversation. I was glad I'd taken Hermione's advice.

Neville finished his coffee and began to rummage in one of the unsteady piles of paper dotting our end of the conference table. "Let's get started, shall we? I've put some stuff together for you to have a look at - business plan, first year sales projections, that sort of thing." He abandoned the first pile and set to work on a second. "If I can find it, that is." He decided that pile was a dead loss and moved on to a third. "Had it only a moment ago." He delved into a fourth. "Merlin knows where it's got to."

"Is that it?" I asked, pointing to a neat buff folder sitting demurely on the opposite end of the table, well away from the chaos.

"Yes. How on earth did it get there? Never mind. Here." He handed me the folder. "Thought we'd have a look round the facility, introduce you to a few people, then I'll leave you to get to grips with that lot. I'll be around all day if you've got any questions." He clapped his hand to his forehead. "Of course! I forgot to tell you - memory like a sieve, I'm afraid - Draco sends his apologies. He's had to go to London for a meeting with some potential investors. He'll catch up with you tomorrow. Shall we go?"

I followed him through the door, making the appropriate regretful noises and thanking my lucky stars that at least I wouldn't have to deal with the Malfoy Problem on my first day.

***

We began with the raw material. Neville explained that one of the reasons they had fixed on the cold cure potion for their first product was that the ingredients were entirely plant based and everything they needed could be grown on site. They intended to stick to this strategy, as some of the more exotic potion ingredients were prohibitively expensive. It reduced their potential product range somewhat but as they intended to focus on selling a small number of highly lucrative items this was not a real problem.

We toured the Manor's extensive gardens, which had been re-planted with plants used in potion making. I gathered the aim was to make the company almost entirely self-sufficient within five years. To this end, even the ornamental flower beds and herbaceous borders had been pressed into service. I wondered what the long-dead lady of the manor who had originally planted them would have made of it all. From time to time we came across Magus staff working in the gardens, and Neville stopped to introduce us. I also caught more than one glimpse of pairs of red-robed security wizards, accompanied by the occasional club-toting troll.

If I hadn't already known, it would soon have become obvious that this side of things was Neville's baby and he was extremely proud of it. His voice became more animated, its Lancashire accent more pronounced, and his gestures more expansive. He was like a small boy showing off a favourite toy, and I found myself warming to him.

At the end of what had been the Manor's kitchen gardens we came to a row of six enormous glasshouses. Neville produced his wand, and tapped the door, which swung open. "This is where we grow the really important stuff." We passed from the bright cold of an English spring day into the dry heat of a Mediterranean summer. The great glasshouse was almost filled with a giant salt water pool in which row after row of greyish-green seaweed waved in the artificially created current. Neville fished into the pool, broke off a frond from one of the waving plants and handed it to me.

"Gillyweed. The active ingredient in the cold cure potion. Bloody expensive, because it's so difficult to get hold of. Nobody's managed to grow it in quantity outside its native environment before." I handled the stuff gingerly. It looked like bog standard seaweed to me, only a touch more slimy. There was a noise like a whip cracking, and one of the red-robed security wizards appeared in front of us.

"Morning Mr. Longbottom. Just making the rounds. Everything alright, sir?"

"Fine, thanks. I'm only showing a new member of staff around." The security wizard threw us a sketchy salute and disappeared again. I opened my mouth to ask a question, but Neville was already heading for the door. "Let's go and look at the factory floor next."

Was it my imagination, or did he sound rather nervous?

***

The manufacturing facility was situated in a building that had formerly been the Manor's stable block. The whole thing had been gutted, and the cavernous space was now full of giant cauldrons. On an enormous workbench, which ran down the centre of the room, enchanted knives were busy chopping ingredients. Chopped ingredients sailed across to measuring utensils, which in turn dumped their contents into a cauldron on some obviously predetermined schedule. Billowing steam was sucked away into the roof by a muggle-style ventilation system. Cauldrons full of completed potion rose and sailed through an opening on their way to the bottling plant next door. Support staff ran to and fro, fetching ingredients, cleaning utensils and setting up equipment. In the middle of it all stood the Magus potion-makers, each one of them covering three cauldrons at once and controlling this organised chaos with a flick of a wand. It was impressive.

Neville led me towards the end of the production line, where a thin, bespectacled young woman in her early twenties with a pale complexion and straggly blond hair had just completed one three-cauldron batch and was taking a well-earned rest while her assistant set everything up for the next one.

"Jocasta, this is Vanessa Granger, our new Marketing and Admin Manager. Vanessa, meet Jocasta Wellbeloved, one of the youngest potion masters in the business, and one of the best."

Jocasta Wellbeloved turned rather pink, and reached out to shake my outstretched hand. "Mr. Longbottom, you flatter me. Compared to most of the people here I'm a complete novice. Pleased to meet you Miss Granger."

"Vanessa, please." Jocasta turned even pinker, and muttered something about being "honoured". Potions whiz kid she might be, but she was obviously also a prime case of low self-esteem.

"Nonsense!" Neville replied, warmly, "ten NEWTS and top of the class in Potions at Hogwarts for seven years running is hardly a complete novice. You do yourself an injustice, Jocasta." Jocasta seemed about to expire with embarrassment under the pressure of Neville's well-meaning but rather clumsy attempt at confidence-boosting. I decided a quick change of subject was in order.

"Jocasta, as a Muggle I know absolutely nothing about potion making in general or what you're doing here in particular. I'd be very grateful if you could spare me some time to explain the manufacturing process."

"Oh, of course. I'd be delighted!" Jocasta managed. She looked as if going through the ins and outs of cold cure potion manufacture would be the high point of her day - poor kid.

"Neville! There you are. I've been looking all over for you." We turned, as the speaker hurried up to us. Physically, he could be summed up in three words - tall, dark and handsome. He exuded an air of overweening self-importance that made me take an instant dislike to him. "I need - "

"Adrian," Neville interrupted hastily, "let me introduce our new Marketing and Administration Manager. Vanessa Granger, meet Adrian Treadwell. Adrian's the site manager for our security consultants, Goyle Global."

"Miss Granger." Treadwell nodded, and shook my hand briefly, sparing me only a cursory glance. I felt weighed, measured, and found wanting. It did not take a genius to tell that this was one wizard who had no time at all for Muggles. Dismissing me, he turned back to Neville. "I really must talk to you urgently, Neville."

Neville sighed. "Sorry about this, Vanessa. I'm sure it won't take long. Tell you what - Jocasta could you take Vanessa to the canteen and get some lunch? I'll join you when I've finished here."

"I'd be happy to, "Jocasta replied eagerly, and looked at me. I nodded.

"Seems a good idea to me. You and I can talk potions." I smiled at Neville, and did my best to ignore Treadwell, who was shifting impatiently from foot to foot. "See you later."

As I followed Jocasta through the door that led from the manufacturing area to the bottling plant, I glanced back to see Neville and Adrian Treadwell deep in serious conversation. I spent the brief walk to the canteen trying to put Jocasta at her ease, while pondering why a supposedly undetectable manufacturing facility needed a phalanx of security guards under a full-time site manager. Something was definitely not right.

***

Once she got over her nerves, Jocasta turned out to be surprisingly good at making the "subtle art" of potion-making comprehensible to a layman. She was particularly adept at finding analogies that made the process easier to grasp, and, unlike many other people whose work is also their hobby, she knew where to avoid going into unnecessary detail. She was also, it became obvious, harbouring a serious crush on her boss, judging from the number of times she managed to work "Mr. Malfoy" into the conversation, and the way her face lit up when she said those two words. Not for the first time I found myself wondering just why plain insecure females like Jocasta invariably make themselves miserable by fixing on handsome but obnoxious types like Malfoy who are unlikely to give them the time of day, let alone fall in love with them. One of the truly unanswerable riddles of the Universe, I suppose.

Neville reappeared just as we were finishing lunch, carrying a tray, and plonked himself down at our table. "Everything alright?" he asked, proceeding to make short work of a ham sandwich.

"Fine," I assured him. "Jocasta's explained everything very clearly." Jocasta went pink again. "I think I've got to grips with the process now."

Neville grinned. "That's more than I ever did. I was useless at Potions. I must hold the Hogwarts all-time record for exploding cauldrons." He chuckled. "And here I am, joint owner of a potion-making business. My old Potions Professor is probably turning in his grave."

"I'm sure you weren't as bad as that, Mr. Longbottom," Jocasta interposed, loyally.

"Every bit," Neville assured her cheerfully, finishing off the sandwich and taking a gulp of coffee. "Fortunately, the manufacturing side of things is Draco's pigeon, and very good at it he is too." Jocasta's eyes shone at this endorsement of her hero.

"Oh he is. I was just telling Vanessa; the other day -" She broke off as a spotty teenager in a potions-assistant's uniform came rushing up to the table.

"Miss Wellbeloved, you've got to come, quick! Ernie Fangthorpe put too much nettle juice in, and it's all gone blue, Miss, and it's bubbling over everywhere."

"Alright Darren, I'm coming." Jocasta rose, hastily bidding us farewell, and rushed off, followed by the spotty youth. Neville watched them go, and turned to me with a rueful smile.

"It's always her they come running to when anything goes wrong. She's exceptionally talented. If only she could believe that herself." He finished his coffee, and stood up. "Ready?"

***

As we entered the main office a familiar voice called, "Longbottom, is that you?" My heart sank as Malfoy and another man entered the room through the door opposite. So much for lucky stars. "What have you been doing to Treadwell? He's more surly than usual, if that can be said to be possible."

"You're back early," Neville broke in with a not in front of the children look at Malfoy. "Good. You can go over the business plan with Vanessa. I promised to take a look at the new shipment of mimbulus mimbletonia sometime today." Then, as if noticing the other man for the first time, "Oh, hello Zabini."

"Hello Longbottom," the other responded. "And this, I take it is Miss Granger?" He moved towards me, holding out his hand. "Blaise Zabini, Miss Granger. Delighted to meet you."

"Zabini's our Company Secretary and corporate finance advisor," Malfoy put in, by way of explanation, as Blaise Zabini and I shook hands. He was maybe an inch shorter than Malfoy, and extremely good-looking, with the dark eyes, dark hair and olive skin that proclaimed his Mediterranean ancestry. As our eyes met it was obvious that he was sizing me up, and he liked what he saw. I was overwhelmed with a mixture of pleasure and embarrassment that I hadn't felt since I was fifteen. I hoped I wasn't blushing. Out of the corner of my eye I caught Malfoy regarding us both with cynical amusement, which bought me back to reality with a thud.

"Likewise, Mr. Zabini," I responded, in what I hoped was a tone of cool professionalism.

"Oh, Blaise, please." His rich baritone was extremely sexy. My stomach started doing flip flops and I mentally told it sternly to behave itself.

"Blaise. Please, call me Vanessa."

"Shall we adjourn to the Conference Room?" Malfoy enquired, in a tone that implied when you two have quite finished drooling over each other. "Zabini, perhaps you'd care to join us, if you haven't got to get back to the office yet. You can fill Miss Granger in on your side of things."

It seemed that Blaise Zabini was free this afternoon, and more than happy to join us. Neville left to inspect his plants, and the three of us settled at the conference table. For the next hour and a half Malfoy and Zabini took me on a whistle stop tour of Magus Healthcare Ltd - its structure, its financing, its strategy, and its future plans. They darted from one subject to another, frequently interrupting each other, and doubling back when I asked a question of one of them. I sat there scribbling notes furiously and tried to look intelligent as I struggled with this onslaught of information.

It was my first opportunity to gauge the nature of my likely working relationship with Draco Malfoy. It was as bad as I'd feared. Malfoy seemed far from reconciled to having me as an employee. He'd simply moved from outright hostility to a cool ceremonious politeness that just stopped short of being downright insulting. As the meeting progressed he took every opportunity to underscore the fact that I was a stranger in a world where he and Zabini were very much at home by embarking on a detailed explanation of every wizarding term that cropped up. I gritted my teeth, tried to remain calm, and made sure I let him know that his idiot's guide to the Wizarding World wasn't necessary, thank you very much, as I'd done my research thoroughly. Zabini caught on to what was going on pretty quickly, and I could sense his growing amusement as Malfoy and I jousted with each other. By the time that the meeting was over I felt as if I'd gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson. I retired to the room that had been assigned to me as an office to lick my wounds, and stared out of the window over the grounds, wondering if I should just jack it all in now.

"Well done." I turned, to see Blaise Zabini leaning against the doorframe, his dark eyes alive with laughter.

"Pardon?"

"Draco. You handled him extremely well in there."

I saw no point in trying to pretend I didn't know what he was talking about. Blaise Zabini struck me as far too shrewd to fall for that one, so I opted for frankness. "Thank you. He is somewhat ..." I sought in vain for a neutral term, and finally settled for, " ... difficult."

Zabini burst out laughing. "That, my dear, is putting it mildly. Seriously, though," he continued, sobering, "just carry on like that and you'll be fine. He's always like this with new people - it's his competitive streak. I've known Draco since he was eleven and I've seen it all before."

I felt somewhat reassured. Perhaps, after all, this was just Malfoy's normal behaviour, and nothing to do with my relationship to Hermione. "I hope you're right."

"Of course I am. It takes one to know one, as the saying goes." In reply to my questioning look, he amplified. "We're both Slytherins. We Slytherins have associates, competitors and enemies. Only very rarely do we have friends."

"So, what does it take to make friends with a Slytherin?"

"That," Zabini said, moving to stand beside me, "is a question which requires a very lengthy answer. Perhaps over dinner one evening?"

"I'd like that very much."

"Good. I'm away for the next three weeks, I'm afraid. Bulgaria. I'll owl you when I get back. Ciao, Vanessa." He left, closing the door behind him, and I sat down at the desk to look over my notes, trying to suppress a smile. A still small voice was saying something about not mixing business with pleasure, but I squashed it ruthlessly. Dammit, life at Magus had to have some compensations, and if one of them was Blaise Zabini you'd certainly not catch me complaining about it.

***

To say the next two weeks were hectic is an understatement. I'd been thrown in at the deep end with a vengeance. I hardly had time to breathe, let alone indulge in speculation about what Adrian Treadwell and his merry men were up to or what Neville might be trying to hide from me.

Six months is not long to organise a marketing campaign. In fact, six months is far too short to organise a marketing campaign. However, that is what I had to do, and what's more for a product that didn't even have a name as yet. Then there was the other part of my job, the bit I'd mercifully avoided thinking about until I stepped through the door on my first day - administration. What passed for admin systems at Magus were rudimentary in the extreme. Zabini's people at the Corporate Finance Department of Gringotts, the wizarding bank, took care of the accounting, but the rest of it had just grown like Topsy and was badly in need of a complete overhaul.

As I fought to get to grips with my job I gradually began to find out more about the contrasting characters of my two bosses. I didn't blame Ron for wondering what on earth had prompted their friendship. One the one hand you had Neville, gentle and generous to a fault, seeing the best in everyone, and doing his best to bring it out. On the other, Malfoy, acid-tongued and exacting, pushing his people to the limit, and making no concessions to weakness. A classic illustration of Theory Y management versus Theory X - my Human Resources lecturer would have had a field day.

By the end of week two I was beginning to feel I was getting somewhere. I'd drawn up an action plan, had several meetings with the advertising agency - a wizarding outfit run by yet another old school friend of Malfoy's called Pansy Parkinson - advertised for a Secretary/Receptionist, and scheduled interviews for the following week. Life began to take on something of a routine, and I congratulated myself on surviving the initial baptism of fire.

That was when things started to get really interesting.

***