Disclaimer:Bits and pieces of the plot are mine, but sadly none of the characters you about to read about are.

Chapter 3
A Day With Cho

Hermione was wearing a pitch black robe that Harry recognized instantly. The silver thread that stitched the auror crest shimmered magically, for it stopped anyone who had ill content for the ministry from wearing it. Hermione, to put it short, looked very professional.

"I-I didn't know you became an auror!" Harry exclaimed, hoping beyond hope that Hermione was a little less angry than she was the night before.

Hermione rolled her eyes and replied, "There's a lot you don't know about me. Like the fact that I've become an auror's apprentice, and not an actual auror for the time being. Or that I've been hurting inside just as much as you have since….Since it all happened. And a big thing you don't know about me is; I have to-"A look of horror slipped into Hermione's features at the thought of what she had almost let slip in her anger.

"What?" Harry asked quietly.

"I came by before I go to the Ministry to tell you Mrs. Weasley won't be able to come out here today, and to see the children before you cold-heartedly ship them off to some unknown family," Hermione stated, her eyes avoiding Harry's.

Stepping back from the door, Harry allowed Hermione to step into his house. With the remorse that he felt from the things he had said Harry worked enough courage to say, "I'm sorry, Hermione!" His voice was merely a whisper and at first Harry that his friend hadn't heard.

"We'll talk later, Harry. Right now I have a job to get to and a report of how these children are to give to Mrs. Weasley, but I can't do that because there's only child here."

"What?" Harry looked at the place where Liliana had been standing only a half-minute before. Frantically, his eyes wandered to all of the hiding places a girl of Liliana's age could be hiding. "Liliana!" he called out, but to no avail.

From somewhere on the second floor the two friends heard the sound of breaking glass and the thud of a heavy object hitting the hardwood floor. As Harry rushed up the stairs, leaving Hermione with Piero, all he could see in his mind's eye was his little niece sprawled out on the floor with blood pouring out of her head.

What he found instead was a brown headed little girl standing in the hall, pointing into one of the many extra rooms of the old house. Relief flooded Harry, but still he was worried at what he might find in the room. "Come on, then!" he said all too impatiently to Liliana.

The actual room was a sort of trophy room with a lot a glass display cabinets and a few shelves on the wall. The only thing that Liliana could do any real harm to had been inside an unlocked display case close to the ground, and as small children have a tendency to do, she found that one object.

The wooden base of a trophy for an unknown deed or service was on the floor, a few shards of the crystal that was once attached to it were jabbed into the polished material. The other broken pieces were scattered all over the floor, reflecting the morning light filtering in from the window. Tiny rainbows sprang up over everything in the room.

Several deep intakes of air calmed Harry a little, but he still felt anger at Liliana for running off like that. A sigh followed be a spell fixed the award and levitated it back up on a shelf that it didn't belong on. Without even looking at what the trophy was won for Harry pulled the door closed behind him as he walked out of the room.

"Why did you run off like that?" he asked the little girl, fighting to keep anger from extending its ugly fingers into his voice.

Liliana stared back; silence was her answer.

"Can't talk or something?"

Silence.

Harry turned around and clomped down the stairs, where he found Hermione playing with Piero. "He's so cute!" Hermione exclaimed, but the comment was clearly not directed at Harry. Hermione wasn't quite that over what Harry had said to her.

"Here's out little trouble maker!" Harry said, faking a jovial tone. "She was doing a little exploring upstairs, isn't that right Liliana?" He jumped the last two stairs and walked over to Piero. "At least he isn't giving me any trouble," Harry told himself quietly.

"Hey, there!" Hermione said to Liliana. She chose to ignore Harry completely and walked over to the girl beside him. "I'm Aunt Hermione!"

Harry would have spewed anything that had been in his mouth had there been any thing. "Aunt? Hermione,that would make you…"

Hermione impatiently finished, "Your sister, but I should say that you hardly deserve the title of being something even resembling a brother to me!" Harry's cheeks burned a very bright red.

"I need to go, Harry. I'll drop by after work," Hermione told him. "We'll talk about everything then." Hermione bent down and kissed Piero on the top of his head.

"Bye, Liliana!" Hermione waited for a reply, but hers was the same that Harry had gotten earlier. As she was heading out the door, Hermione said, "We'll talk about that too!"

An hour had already gone by since the arrival of Harry's niece and nephew and Harry was thoroughly tired of them. In just sixty minutes Liliana had knocked over three chairs in the kitchen, broken another trophy, ripped apart all the parchment she could find, and still hadn't spoken a single word. Piero, bless his little soul, had done nothing but whimper a little.

"Listen to me, please!" Harry pleaded with his three-year-old niece. "Stay still. When Hermione comes back I'll apologize and ask her to come with me to get you something to play with, but right now I just need you to be good." Liliana smiled as if she was going to comply, but Harry blinked once and when he opened his eyes she was gone again.

From behind him Harry heard a small whimper come from Piero, and that whimper was followed by a sniff, which was followed by a scream that turned into a full fledged wail. "What now?" Harry moaned exasperatedly. He slowly walked over to his baby nephew and gently picked him up from the bed he had been laying on. Careful to support the baby's head, Harry held him in his arms. Deep within Harry's heart a spark ignited, and he knew that this is what his father must have felt every time he had held Harry.

"Maybe this isn't so bad, Piero," Harry said with a sigh. "I might could get use to having you around." Piero stopped crying and smiled a warm toothless smile. "Let's go find your sister."

With a baby him his arms Harry maneuvered out of his bedroom and into the hallway. Liliana had to have gone downstairs because Harry had cast a barrier charm that wouldn't allow her to make it passed his bedroom. A similar spell protected the kitchen and front doors. "Liliana!" Harry bellowed down the stairs. "Please come here!" He didn't know why he was even yelling to her. For her entire stay there she had not uttered one word, nor had she responded at all to Harry's requests, yells, or demands.

In fact Liliana had obeyed Harry a small bit, for she was not getting into anything. Instead she was sitting beside the door to the kitchen with a bored expression on her face. At the sight of her uncle she smiled mischievously and tried to open the door to the kitchen. As soon as she came within hands reach of the door she was pushed backwards, though her feet never left the ground. It was more like magical ice skating with no ice.

"Glad to see you found something to entertain yourself with that won't hurt you," Harry breathed. He slumped down against the wall that Liliana had been sitting against, no doubt taking a break from running into his barrier, and looked down at the bundle in his arms. Piero was beginning to doze off; one of his little hands was gripping Harry's shirt.

"Are you hungry, Liliana? I guess you probably are." Liliana nodded her head, giving Harry the most response he had gotten from her all day. "Great then. I think we'll go somewhere to eat. It'll be kind of hard for me to cook and watch you two," Harry explained, but he knew that Liliana was no long listening; she had started running toward the kitchen door again.

Cho Chang's restaurant did not specialize in Oriental food, but it did have a sort of Chinese flare to it. The walls were painted a deep red, and pots filled with bamboo sat along the walls. Above the door to the kitchen was painted the animals of the Chinese zodiac.

Floo powder got Harry and his companions to the restaurant, and Cho got them to their seats.

"Who are the kids, Harry?" she asked her old friend.

"My niece and nephew," Harry told her, but at her confused look he added, "Please not now, Cho." He sighed and positioned the stroller that contained Piero so that it was sitting beside him.

"We can get him a highchair, Harry," Cho said with a grin. "Hey, Sandy? Could you get Harry a highchair?" Cho asked one of her waitresses. "But for the moment I'll take your order."

"I don't know what a baby drinks, and I have not a clue what Liliana wants because she refuses to talk to me, but I would like a butterbeer."

Cho smiled and took a small notepad out of her apron and tapped it with her wand. As she spoke the words appeared on the yellow paper, "One butterbeer and a….vanilla shake." Cho looked down at Pierro with a thoughtful expression as she flipped the notepad closed. "My aunt just had a baby and I've been babysitting it for a while. I should have a bottle left and some kind of potion that's supposed to be better for a baby than regular milk. Just hold on for a moment."

The waitress named Sandy brought Harry the highchair and helped him put Piero in it. "I'll get your drinks," she told him.

It was not long before Cho was back and sitting at the table with Harry, feeding Piero. "When are you going to tell me how all this happened?" she asked him while Piero sucked on his bottle. She watched Liliana slurping her milkshake and Harry sipping his butterbeer. "I'm very curious."

"I'll tell you over breakfast," said Harry, who was getting hungrier by the second.

"Oh, sorry. I forgot about your breakfast!" Cho removed the notepad from her apron once more and began taking their orders.

Harry picked the menu up from its little holder near the end of the table. "I want….The Bacon, Egg, and Toast Breakfast Plate. And I guess you'll just have to get Liliana whatever you think she'll eat."

"Alright, that's one B.E.T. Plate and a smiley face waffle for Liliana. How do you want your eggs?"

"Scrambled."

Cho rushed off to the kitchen, which allowed Harry to look around the café. There weren't many people in there that morning, but the people who were kept to themselves for the most part. It surprised Harry that there wasn't more people in there because Cho's café was located a mere block from Gringotts, and with Cho's Modern Café in dark green letters that flashed yellow every three seconds it was impossible to miss.

Two large windows flanked the carved wooden door, the name of the restaurant was also printed there, and through those windows the customers could watch shoppers rushing by. As Harry was looking through those windows he saw Draco Malfoy walking by.

The slimy weasel had paid a bribe to several ministry officials and claimed that he had been forced by his father, and then later the imperius curse, to accept the Dark Mark. Well, there was no way of proving otherwise. Professor McGonagall had stepped in and accused him for assisting in and plotting the murder of Albus Dumbledore. Sadly he said to have already been under the Lord Voldemort's control then. Since he had not actually killed Professor Dumbledore the ministry was forced to let him go.

Cho brought them their food, along with her own plate, and took her seat. Harry saw that Draco had stopped in front of the window as if he were waiting on someone.

"I'm starving!" exclaimed Cho suddenly, but she didn't tear into her food like Harry started doing. She picked up her own fork and knife and began to cut Liliana's waffle. The waffle was a work of art in itself. The whole face of the waffle was bathed in a thin layer of whip cream. Two chocolate covered cherries made the eyes of the face with a half banana smile.

"I should be doing that. It's not your responsibility, it's mine."

"Don't worry about it, Harry." With the Liliana placated and Piero playing around with the bottle Cho finally got a chance to say, "Now you have to explain to me how these two came about being with you. Harry? Harry?"

Harry and just barely seen a flash of fiery red hair and Draco Malfoy passing the windows. "If that was Ginny, I swear…." Harry muttered. He jumped to his feet and was halfway to the door when something hit the back of his head. A small half-eaten chocolate covered cherry bounced off of his head and fell to the tiled floor. He couldn't leave Piero and Liliana with Cho. Besides, it probably wasn't even Ginny, and if it was it wasn't Harry's business.

"Sorry, thought I saw something really strange," Harry told Cho. "So you want to know what happened. It all started with a letter……

The rest of that day, up until five o'clock, was spent in Cho's diner. Harry and Cho caught up on old times, and she showed him a few things about taking care of kids. When at last it was time for Harry to leave, he felt that he had done the right thing: going to Cho's restaurant.

Hermione was just coming out of the Ministry of Magic when Harry came running up to her. Liliana was attached to his hips and Piero was being pushed at an alarming speed in his stroller.

"I was trying to catch you before you got a chance to apparate," Harry grunted. Apparating was pretty much banned as a way of getting into the ministry after Harry's fifth year. "I have to tell you something! I saw Ginny with Draco in Diagon Alley." At about four thirty Harry saw Draco and his mysterious redhead returning from their earlier destination. The mystery woman had indeed been Ginny Weasley.