Hello, next chapter for you, hope you like. Kind of a chapter that should have happened in Losing Sight, but it wasn't really relevant so I thought I'd put it in here. I think it's quite fun, well most of it. Shouldn't be too long before the next one.

Cheers

Sarah ;)

Chapter 2 – Explained in an Afternoon

Hermione and Ron apparated to the tree in Hermione's back garden. Ron checked the coast was clear before taking Hermione by the hand and leading her up the stepping-stones to the house.

As they walked up the path at the side of the house Hermione spotted the large silver BMW parked in front of the driveway.

'Oh good, they're already here!'

'Now now Hermione, don't be unkind!'

'If, Ronald, at the end of this afternoon you can look me in the eye and say you didn't once get annoyed by them and their questioning, because believe me, there will be questioning, then, and only then can you call me unkind, all right?'

Ron smiled.

'Yes Hermione. Now ring the doorbell.'

Hermione did as she was told and they waited for someone to open the door. Charles came to let them in looking slightly flustered, but he smiled when he saw Hermione and Ron on the doorstep.

They walked into the house and put their coats in the cloakroom, leaving their wands in their coats. It really was cloak weather but it was hardly the occasion to wear them.

'Ready to meet the extended family Ron?' Charles asked.

'Yes I am.'

'Good, because believe me they can't wait to meet you!'

'Er…I don't want to sound rude or anything, but why?'

Charles smiled, 'Well, as much as we told them about Hermione being a witch, I don't know if they really took in the magnitude of the situation. So both of you be prepared for a lot of questions this afternoon.'

'Oh good, just what I wanted, interrogation!' Hermione said, the sarcasm obvious.

'Hermione, be good,' Charles said with a smile.

'Don't worry dad, I will!'

The three of them went into the lounge and instantly the room went quiet. Jan remedied the situation.

'Hermione! Ron! You're here.'

Jan hugged her daughter and did the same with Ron. Ron's ears went slightly pink, but it went unnoticed by everyone, except Hermione. She smiled, laughing silently to herself.

'Sorry we're a little late everyone. We er…didn't quite get up on time, I'm sure you can figure out why!'

Hermione walked over to her Uncle Tony and he stood up to give her a hug hello.

'Lovely to see you Hermione.'

'You too Uncle Tony.' She walked to her aunt, 'you look well Aunty Christine.'

'Thank you Hermione.'

'Can I introduce you to my boyfriend Ron. Ron this is my Uncle Tony and Aunty Christine and…I would introduce you to Rachel but…'

'She's just upstairs on the phone, she shouldn't be long,' Tony said. He stood up and walked to Ron with an outstretched hand.

'Nice to meet you Ron.'

'Nice to meet you too,' Ron replied politely.

'What, no 'sir' Ron?' Charles asked, smiling. Jan and Hermione laughed.

'You're not going to let me forget that are you Charles?'

'No, sorry, I'm not.' He looked at Tony who was looking confused. 'When Hermione first introduced Ron to us he couldn't quite get out of the habit of calling me 'sir'. It was quite entertaining I must say!'

'If I could turn back time, that would be one thing I would change. Unfortunately, thanks to our friend Neville, that's no longer possible.'

Hermione giggled. Ron walked over to Christine and shook her hand. Hermione couldn't help but try and read Christine's expression as she looked at Ron, but Christine was well practiced in giving gracious smiles which gave nothing away. The party sat down, adults on the chairs and the sofa, Hermione and Ron next to each other on the floor. Gracious smiles were exchanged but no one really knew what to say. After an uncomfortable thirty seconds Tony broke the silence.

'So Hermione, you're a witch.'

Hermione and Ron laughed and the tension eased in the room.

'Yes I am Uncle Tony. I'm sorry I wasn't able to explain anything the last time I saw you, but there was a lot going on. I'm sure mum and dad did quite well in explaining everything.'

'Well, they explained some things, but not everything.'

'We weren't sure how much we could say Hermione. We didn't want to get you into trouble,' Jan said.

'Well, Hermione can't really do any wrong in the Ministry's eyes, so I don't think there'll be much of a problem,' Ron said, grinning.

Hermione looked at Ron, slightly exasperated at his attitude towards bending the law. She composed herself and turned away from Ron.

'As long as you don't tell the anyone anything we tell you then, I'll try and answer anything you ask.'

'Hermione who do you think would believe us?' Tony asked with a smile on his face.

'Good point,' Hermione said. 'Well what do you want to know? Oh, you do know Ron's a wizard don't you?'

'Yes, Charlie mentioned it.'

Ron looked confused but then realised Tony was talking about Hermione's dad.

'Oh!' he said quietly as he worked this out.

'What?' Hermione asked.

'Nothing, just the name 'Charlie' confused me.' He looked at Christine and Tony before continuing. 'One of my older brothers is called Charlie, and I've never heard Charles called that before, it confused me.'

'How many brothers do you have Ron?' Christine asked.

'Well, we're quite a big family. I have five brothers, all of them older than me, and a younger sister.'

'Wow, that is a big family, do you get to see them all?' Tony asked.

'Er…not all of them. You see, well, Bill – he's the oldest – he's a curse-breaker for the wizarding bank Gringott's. He gets sent all over the world to collect treasure for them, so we don't see him that often. Charlie, he er…he lives in Romania and works with dragons, so we only see him when he's got time off. We see Fred and George – they're twins – a lot, they own a joke shop in Diagon Alley…er…that's a wizarding street in London. So they're the only two we see on a regular basis.'

'Er, Ron…you forgot Percy,' Hermione said quietly.

'Oh Merlin! Well you can hardly blame me for forgetting the stupid-'

'Ron, focus!' Hermione said quickly, but with half a smile.

'Sorry. Percy works for the Ministry of Magic as Junior Assistant to the Minister. We don't see him a lot…he…er…he fell out with the family a few years ago…things are a bit better, but it's still a bit tense when we see him.'

'What about your sister Ron? What does she do?' Christine asked.

'Ginny's training to be a Healer with St. Mungo's, the wizard hospital in London.'

'Ah, that reminds me,' Tony said, 'I'm afraid Charlie wasn't that coherent when he tried to explain what you were training to be Hermione. I think he mentioned the word…Aurorer?'

Hermione smiled.

'Well I'm training to be an Auror. I suppose it's the equivalent of training to be in the police in the muggle world. The official line is 'dark wizard catcher' which actually sums it up quite well!'

'And what do you do Ron?' Christine asked.

Before Ron could answer Rachel came into the room, still looking at her mobile phone.

'Sorry about that, apparently there's a bit of a-' she finally looked up from her phone and spotted Hermione and Ron sat on the floor. 'Oh, hi Hermione.'

'Hello Rachel. Ron, this is Rachel. Rachel, Ron.'

'Pleased to meet you,' Rachel said sweetly.

Ron smiled, 'you too.'

'Ron, you were about to tell us what you do for a living,' prompted Christine.

'Well actually, at the minute I'm not doing anything. I'll start training as an Auror in July, I couldn't start at the same time as Hermione and Harry because…well…I was in St. Mungo's, for a couple of months.'

'Nothing serious I hope,' Tony said.

'Well, I suppose it wasn't, there was nothing physically wrong with me. I'd been hit by an everlasting sleep spell in the final battle and it was only because Hermione risked, well, a lot to find out how to counter the spell that I woke up.'

'Did you just say 'final battle'?' Rachel asked.

Subtle as ever Rachel, Hermione thought.

'Er…yes…yes I did,' Ron replied.

'Dare I ask?' Tony said with a smile sliding across his face.

'I think I'll let Hermione explain that one.'

…oooOOOooo…

It was a good half hour before Hermione had finished filling her extended family in on the recent past of the wizarding world, including the events of the last two years and her and Ron's involvement in it all. Needless to say there were three very shocked faces looking at both Ron and Hermione when she had finished.

Luckily for the witch and wizard they were granted a few minutes of peace while Jan served their buffet style lunch.

As they were sitting down around the large dining table Hermione yawned, so much so she thought she might have dislocated her jaw in the process.

'Tired Hermione?' Charles asked.

'A little.'

'That's disgraceful Hermione!' Ron said with a sly grin on his face.

Hermione raised her eyebrows, 'yes well, not all of us were able to take a 'Hangover Obliviator' were we Ron?'

Ron's smile slipped off his face, 'how did you-?'

'I suggest if you want to try and hide something from me, you find a better place to put any evidence than the kitchen bin. Harry is not impressed with you.'

'Wait,' Christine said from the other end of the table, 'do you two live together.'

Oh crap! Hermione thought.

'Forget that question, you have a 'Hangover Obliviator'?' Tony asked.

Ron laughed, 'yes, my brothers sell it in their shop, it's very popular but it takes them a long time to brew, so it's in limited supply.'

Which is why you did something, probably something rude to get it off them, Hermione thought to herself. She remembered Christine had asked a question, an interesting one at that.

'And yes, we do live together, with Harry and Ginny as well. The four of us share quite a large house,' Hermione answered.

'Four of us? Don't you mean three? Ginny doesn't live with us.'

Oh, well done Hermione! She turned to look at Ron.

'Yeah, you need to talk to Harry when we get back!' she said to him quietly.

Ron went slightly pink but managed to keep his slight emotions under control.

The rest of the meal was spent chatting amicably and to Rachel's relief some of the attention was back on her. Hermione was polite and asked her about her life at university and the house she shared with four of her friends.But very often Tony would ask Hermione and Ron another question about magic; he could barely keep his enthusiasm under control, especially when Ron started explaining the rules of Quidditch, and at that point Ron could barely keep his enthusiasm under control.

Whilst the men were talking sport, both wizard and muggle, Hermione thought she'd bring the conversation back to 'normal' with her mum, Christine and Rachel.

They chatted for a while, Hermione steering the conversation back to Rachel if it strayed to near to her or Ron. Every time it did she thought she saw Rachel wilt a little.

About ten minutes before Hermione and Ron were about to leave, Hermione thought she saw Rachel's eyes glisten and her blink tears away, after a look at her phone. Rachel made her apologies and left the lounge. Only Hermione seemed to notice.

'Back in a minute,' she said quietly to Ron.

She stood and left the room quickly but silently, running to the foot of the stairs. She saw Rachel's feet move out of sight when she reached the top. Before she followed her she retrieved her wand out of her jacket pocket. She made her way up the stairs and heard the bathroom door shut. She was walking towards the door when she heard a muffled sob come from the bathroom. She walked quietly to the door.

'Rach? Rachel it's Hermione. Open the door.'

'I'll be out in a minute,' Rachel replied, obviously trying to hide the fact that she was crying.

'Rachel it's obvious you're crying so open the door before I do it myself, you know I can!'

Hermione thought she heard Rachel give a reluctant chuckle, then saw the bathroom door open. Rachel appeared, her eyes red from crying.

'That must come in handy, being able to open locked doors.'

'Yeah it is, what's even more handy is being able to make them impenetrable so you really can hide away and cry. I did my fair share of that when Ron was in hospital.'

'That must have been hard.'

'It was. So what's upsetting you?'

'It's nothing.'

'Rachel, at least try and come up with something more original than that.'

Rachel smiled.

'Let's go in my room, that way we won't be disturbed.'

'Hermione really, it's-'

'Ah! No arguing.' She said with half a smile, 'come on.'

Rachel followed Hermione into her room, reluctantly it has to be said, but nonetheless she followed.

Hermione shut the door with her wand and locked it too. Rachel tried to hide her amazement.

'Rachel,' Hermione started,' I know we haven't always got on very well, personally I blame that on our mothers, trying to prove to one another that we're better than each other when really that's unbelievably unfair on us both, but never mind that. It's obvious you're upset and it would be wrong of me to not try and help in any way I can. So…are you going to tell me what's wrong?'

'You know, we should really do something about our mums you know. You're right, it's not fair.'

'Yeah, and are you going to tell your mum that?'

'Good point. I don't really know why I'm letting myself get this upset really, my boyf- well I don't know if you could call him my boyfriend, this lad I've been seeing, he thinks we shouldn't…anymore.'

'Oh, I'm sorry.'

'Don't be, I should have seen it coming, he was all over this other girl last night, if I'm honest he's a bit of a player.'

'Doesn't mean it hurts any less,' Hermione said quietly.

'No, that's true.'

'Do your mum and dad know?''

'No, they don't even know I was seeing anyone, thought I'd wait a while in case…well…in case something like this happened.'

'I'm really sorry Rachel. Not wishing to sound big headed, but I'm guessing having me and Ron fawn over each other all afternoon didn't help matters.'

Rachel smiled, 'not really, just showed me what I was missing. I can't help but be jealous of you Hermione.'

'I find that hard to believe.'

'Why?'

'What have you got to be jealous of? You're living the life you've wanted since you were small, you've got a huge group of friends, you're intelligent, and not wishing to sound weird, but you're as pretty as hell too.'

'Yeah, but you have Ron.'

Hermione fell silent.

'I suppose you think it's petty.' Rachel continued.

'Not at all. When Ron was unconscious, I didn't know what was going to happen. I saw Harry and Ginny – my best friends – together and I just wanted to cry. I was so jealous of them being able to just hold each other. Sometimes I just wanted to scream so loudly, but I couldn't, it wouldn't have been fair. It wasn't their fault.'

'Well you know exactly how I feel then.'

'Yes I do.' Hermione checked her watch. 'Rach, I'm really sorry, I'm gonna have to go.'

'That's okay. Thanks for taking the time to listen.'

'Look, as I said, I know we've never been that close, but if you ever want to talk, just give me a ring ok. I'll write my number down for you.'

Hermione found a notepad and biro and wrote the number down on a torn-off piece of paper. She handed it to Rachel.

'Thanks Hermione.'

'Anytime, oh but…if Ron answers the phone, don't worry if he seems a bit strange. He still finds the whole concept of a telephone fascinating. Just humour him.'

Rachel laughed, 'I will.'