Hermione was standing on the platform at King's Cross Station waiting for the Hogwarts Express to appear with her two kids on it. Her husband Ron was standing beside her and was in deep conversation with Harry. Ginny walked up beside Hermione and said, "Let's get out of here."

"Why?" Hermione asked.

"Because Malfoy and his bitch just arrived and if we are at the other end of the platform Harry and Ron can hex them and we don't have to feel obliged to stop them."

"Turn a blind eye, brilliant," Hermione said. She said it but didn't mean it, she never did, it was all a front and had been for 26 years.

"Exactly," Ginny said, "So let's go."

Hermione followed Ginny to the other end of the platform without a backwards glance. She knew if she saw him she would melt and she couldn't let that happen, not here with everyone she knew around her.

The steam engine at that moment rounded the corner and with a final groan came to a stop. The doors of the carriages were opened and the students started to push their way through the crowds to their families. Rose spotted Hermione and walked over to her. Ginny spotted her 3 kids exiting the train and she made her way over to them.

"Where's Hugo?" Hermione asked her daughter.

Rose didn't answer, she had a glazed look on her face like she was deep in thought or worrying over something. Hermione knew that look because it was exactly the same as what she did when she was lost in thought.

"Rose, where is your brother?" Hermione asked again.

Rose was looking over Hermione's shoulder at somebody. Hermione almost gasped out loud because she realized that the look on her daughters face wasn't distraction but something else, something much different, it was love. She glanced over her shoulder to see who her 17 year old daughter was looking at. The only person that was directly in her line of sight was the person she was hoping not to see, Draco Malfoy, his wife a tall blond woman who looked like she could be on the front of Witch Weekly and their son Scorpius who looked exactly like his father did at 17. Hermione's knees began to shake and her heart felt like it was going to shatter. She turned to her daughter and said, "Come on Rose we have to go meet your father."

Rose nodded and followed Hermione across the platform. They hadn't made it more than a few steps when somebody stepped into their path.

"Granger."

Hermione looked up into the cold grey eyes of Draco Malfoy. They eyes which she could somehow find warmth and comfort in, "Malfoy," she said equally as coolly. They had always talked like this, keeping up their fronts. Only the other could see through it. She saw Scorpius out of the corner of her eye and he was trying his best to not look at Rose. Rose on the other hand was trying to catch his eye.

"Well as much as I would love to stay and talk Malfoy I have a life that I have to get to. Goodbye," Hermione grabbed Rose's arm and marched her away from the whole Malfoy family.

"Mom we should go get a coffee," Rose suggested, "Just us two, we can meet Dad and Hugo at home."

Hermione knew that Rose wanted to talk and she always welcomed it because since Rose had gone off to school she had been talking less and less to her and more to her friends. Hermione went and told Ron that they did not need to wait for her and Rose to drive them home, they would just apparate seeing as Rose was now of age. He agreed and took Hugo and went through the barrier to the muggle part of the train station. Hermione turned to the trunk lying at her feet and promptly shrunk it so it would fit in her pocket. She placed it in her cloak pocket and almost wistfully felt around in her pockets but nothing was there besides the trunk. She couldn't help herself she turned for a final look at her old life. In it he would have looked up and smirked at her and then she would have felt a piece of parchment in her pocket.

"Mom," Rose said rather sharply breaking Hermione out of her daydream.

"Sorry, what were you saying?"

"Where are we going?"

"Leaky Caldron, I think I need something a bit stronger than coffee."

"Whatever you say."

With a turn they apparated to the Leaky Caldron.

xxx.:.x.:.xxx

"Hello Tom," Hermione said.

"Afternoon Mrs. Weasley."

"Hermione please Tom or if you must Granger but not Mrs. Weasley. To me it doesn't feel right being called something that I called Molly for years."

"If you say so Ms. Granger. What can I get you two ladies today?"

"A Firewhiskey and a Butterbeer please."

"Mom," Rose said shocked, she had never known her mother to drink anything stronger than Butterbeer.

Hermione walked to the most isolated corner of the pub and sat down in one of the rickety old chairs that had been there since she had gone through the pub on her first trip to Diagon Alley. Tom brought them their drinks on a tray and silently walked back to the bar. Hermione sat sipping her drink in silence. Ever sip burning on the way down but she welcomed it because it cleared her head. Rose also sat not saying a word. After a long period of only their steady breathing as background noise in the silent pub Rose said, "Dad's going to kill me."

Hermione nodded patiently when all she felt like doing was screaming. Instead of screaming she took a large gulp of the Firewhiskey.

"Uncle Harry's also going to be mad. I'm really sorry Mom."

"Well why don't you explain to me why everyone's going to be mad at you," Hermione prompted.

Rose shook her head and took another swallow of her Butterbeer. Hermione went back to her drink deciding that she would give her daughter all the time she needed.

Tears started to roll down Rose's face. Hermione handed her a napkin, she knew better than to try to comfort her teenage daughter out in public. Rose gladly excepted it.

"I've made a really bad mistake, and I…I need help," she sniffed.

"I always help you Rose, you just have to tell me what it is that I have to help you with," Hermione knew how hard it had been for her to ask for help when she was a teenager.

"I…I…Oh god I think I'm going to be sick."

"Just take a deep breath and calm down," Hermione suggested.

"Your telling me to calm down, I'm freaking out here," Rose hissed, "You can't tell me to be calm when you have no idea what I'm going through…"

Hermione thought she probably did but thought it was best to not tell her that.

"Fine, I'm sorry."

"You have no idea what I'm going through, Dad's going to kill me and all because I thought he loved me and then he just goes and leaves me hanging and says it was a mistake. You have no idea what that's like. I slept with him and he treats me like garbage the next day, he won't even look at me and now he always has a different gorgeous girl coming into his dorm in the Head's Tower every night. He parades them by me and intentionally doesn't silence his room. I'll bet anything that you don't know what that's like, you were the goody two shoes and nothing like this ever seemed to happen to you. Why me," Rose put her head down on the table and started to sob.

Hermione knew exactly what she was going through and she had a feeling it was happening to them by men of the same family.

"And you know what the worst part is?" she was on a roll now.

"What?" Hermione asked.

"We forgot to use the contraception charm."

Hermione only barely kept herself from gasping out loud. 'This is all I need right now,' she thought.

"Are you pregnant?" Hermione asked.

"I don't know," Rose moaned.

"Well did you miss your period?"

"I'm not due until the weekend and it was only 3 weeks ago."

Hermione couldn't image how Rose must have felt for the past three weeks. Being ignored was bad enough but having this burden weighing on her also must have just been crazy.

"Are you mad?" Rose asked.

Hermione was furious, she was furious that Scorpius could be so foolish but like father like son she thought and she was also furious that her daughter could be so stupid, "No I'm not mad," Hermione said.

"Don't tell Dad, please Mom, you can't tell him," Rose begged.

"You know I don't like lying to your father," Hermione said, then thinking of her long running affair she thought, 'Only if it involves the kids, I hate lying to him then because they are his kids, but if it's about me then I don't really have a problem.'

"I know Mom but please, just this once?"

"Fine I won't tell but you'll have to eventually."

"Thank you," Rose beamed.

Hermione was glad to see a smile on her daughters face.

"Mom I really thought I loved Scorpius. I still think I do even after all that he did. Is that so wrong?"

Hermione gave a small smile and said, "No it's fully acceptable. It happened to me and I still loved the person."

"Dad?" Rose asked.

"No before your Dad, it was at Hogwarts," not a complete lie.

"Will you tell me about it?" Rose asked.

"Maybe sometime, but not now."

"Why not?"

"Would you want your child to know that this happened to you? It might make it seem like it was acceptable to them."

"So you're not proud of it?"

"Yes and no. I wouldn't want you to do what I did, but in my case it was the only thing I could do. It wasn't the best thing but I felt it was the only. I'm not proud of it but it had to be done."

"You promise that you'll tell me someday?"

"It was a long time ago, Aunt Ginny doesn't even know about it."

"Please."

"Fine I guess I will someday but not now and I don't want you to think that because I did it, it was good. I don't want it to change the way you think of me either."

"I promise."

"Okay, well we better get going."

Hermione paid for their drinks and then they apparated home.

Little did Hermione know, her story wasn't going to be history.

Later that night at home she was putting her hand in her pocket to grab Rose's trunk when her hand brushed a piece of parchment. She handed Rose her trunk and enlarged it and then walked up to her bedroom. Once inside hers and Ron's bedroom she wrapped her hand around the parchment and pulled it out and read it

I'm not one bit sorry that it happened

I don't want to see your ugly face again

I told you that before on that night 8 years ago,

When we bumped into each other on the street in Downtown London.

No surprises.

Hermione smiled, to anybody that would have sounded like a threatening note but to her it was the opposite, it was a breath of fresh air on a very uneventful day. Notes like this one had been arriving since she was in her sixth year. The first one had confused and irritated her because she couldn't figure it out but 20 minutes later she had it figured out. She quickly read this message and translated it in her head. The real message in it was

I'm so sorry

I want to see you beautiful

8 pm

Downtown London flat

Surprise me

She used to receive a note just about every week but a year ago they had suddenly stopped coming. She had been devastated when months went by and no notes came, and no explanation whatsoever. Now she felt like a weight had been lifted off of her chest. She glanced at her watch and saw that it was almost 8:00. With a flick of her wand she changed a few things of her wardrobe, but nothing her husband would notice and then walked out of the bedroom.

"Ron," she called.

"What honey?" Ron called from the sitting room where he was doing something that involved Quidditch.

Hermione hated it when he called her honey, darling, sweetie or baby but she ignored it and said, "I just got an owl that they need me at work."

"But it's 8:00 at night."

"I know and I'm sorry. I promise I'll make it up to you later," she said with a mischievous little wink. She knew she wouldn't, by the time she got home she would have a 'very bad' headache that would cause her to have to go straight to bed. Most people would ask why she was still with him if that was the case but she could never leave him. She valued his friendship to much. It would put Harry and Ginny in an awful situation also and she didn't want that to happen. Also she wanted the kids to have a stable home. She knew she was the only one that wasn't happy with their lives but she just would grin and bear it.

Hermione turned and apparated to the Malfoy's downtown flat. She assumed that the rest of the Malfoy's would be back at their Manor.

"I thought you weren't coming baby," a voice called from the bedroom.

While Hermione hated Ron calling her those names she loved when Draco called her them, "No I was coming."

"So what happened at work this time?"

"Oh just they needed me," she said as she slowly removed her traveling cloak.

"Isn't it nice to have a demanding job?"

"I always though so."

Draco walked over to her and picked her up and started to kiss her.

xxx.:.x.:.xxx

a/n This was meant to be a one shot but I guess if I get a lot of positive reviews I could write more. ;)