Disclaimer: I own nothing, it all belongs to JK. Rowling.

A/N: Hello everyone, this chapter is where it all opens up. The cat is out of the bag and when the shit starts to hit the fan. This has been a great experience writing this fic and I am still so thankful that people actually want to read it. So here it is. Thanks again to my wonderful beta, Grapette513 for all the help with the fic.

Love,

Gimi aka Jess

OoOoO

A week later and Hermione found herself sitting in her office that she shared with Blaise waiting on her lunch meeting. To be honest, she was a bit nervous. She wasn't expecting to walk into their office and for her secretary to let her know that Draco Malfoy had scheduled a meeting with her for lunch. Seeing as this was probably the conversation that she knew was coming, she had told Blaise when he came in.

Worried for his ex-wife, he was going to stay for their lunch, but Hermione gave him a hug and told him to go to lunch.

"You told me it was time to talk to him. I can't do that with you here." She pointed out.

"I know Love, but I worry. I don't want you to get hurt by what he might say." Blaise said with concern laced in his words.

Hermione smiled, "I can handle Draco Malfoy. You better watch it. You are showing more emotions Mr. Slytherin and your inner Hufflepuff is peaking through. Susan must be rubbing off on you." She teased, she had heard about the few dates her ex-husband had had with Susan Bones.

Blaise laughed, "I have no inner Hufflepuff. It's what happens being married to a sodding Gryffindor for twelve years."

Hermione scoffed lightly with a smile, "Please, you were always very in tune with emotions. It's how you won me over in the first place. I couldn't believe a snake could be so caring…so well…you know what I mean."

Blaise kissed her forehead and she sighed. That was her comfort for so many years. "I know what you mean. If you are sure you will be ok, I will go to lunch. But I will be back early."

Hermione hugged him tight and smiled. "Thank you Blaise, but go to lunch with Susan. Don't cut it short because of me. You deserve to come first for once in our lives. You have always put me and children first, but now it's your turn."

With one last squeeze he left the office and Hermione sat back at her desk, and looked at the pictures on her desk. Her family looked very different these days, but still she wouldn't change a thing. Her life with Blaise, their love and now friendship, but most of all their children. It all stemmed from what happened all those years ago. Going through it was the worst pain imaginable, but she would do it again if she had to. Picking up a photo of her and Cassie, she watched with a smile as the photo images made faces at each other, then up at her before laughing merrily. She could see so much of Draco in Cassie. The eyes, the pale skin, the blonde hair, they were all dead giveaways. But there were other things and traits she inherited from her father. The way she sneers when mad, the way her face gets sharper when she holds her head up, even her smile, these are all Draco. She does get her curls, her inquisitive nature, sense of right and wrong and her brains from her mother. Her mischievous nature comes from Blaise and her uncles. Hermione grinned at the thought of when her daughter had gotten into some hair potion and turned her brother's hair neon purple while he slept the year before. With purple hands, she adamantly insisted he did it himself and turned her hands purple because he was trying to get her in trouble. Blaise and Hermione had laughed about that for a , they both knew she had done it with help from her Uncle George.

Hermione was lucky that her friends had never left her, even though she had gotten pregnant in school. Harry and Ron never deserted her while she was pregnant. At first they were mad. Ron thought Blaise had imperiused her to marry him. That he had gotten her pregnant and was just using her. Then Cassie was born and obviously not Blaise's. Then they saw how much Blaise loved Hermione, loved her daughter and they slowly began to accept Blaise. The entire Weasley family loved her and by extension, Blaise. They figured out who the father was, hard not to. Not too many pale, blonde, grey eyed guys at Hogwarts.

Hermione was lost in her thoughts when there was a knock at her open door. Startled, she jumped slightly and blushed. Draco Malfoy was standing at her door with a bag that smelled like Pub food.

"Draco, come in." Hermione stood up and gestured to a chair in front of her desk.

"I hope you don't mind, but I picked up some food. Since this was during lunch, I figured we would need some." Draco said, a bit nervous. He hadn't been this close or alone with Hermione since they broke up at Hogwarts. It had been years, but he still marveled at how beautiful she was.

"No it's fine, thanks. I hadn't thought about what to get for lunch." Hermione mentioned. "You've saved me the trouble of having Blaise bring me back something."

"Where is Blaise?" Draco inquired. "I thought he'd want to be here while we met."

"Oh he did." Hermione agreed. "But I told him to go. He had a lunch date with Susan Bones. I didn't want him to miss it."

"Your husband had a date and you encouraged him to go?" Draco said incredulously as he started to unpack the bag of food. Setting out salad, plus fish and chips for them both.

Hermione laughed as he handed her the container of food. "Blaise isn't my husband. He's my ex husband and of course I did. I set him up. Mmm, I haven't had this in ages." She said as she opened the container and sniffed deeply, she can almost smell the grease.

"You set him up?" Draco asked surprised.. "It was your favorite," he added turning pink at the fact that he remembered what she liked to eat even after all this time.

"Yes, I think she's marvelous and Marco likes her. She's very pretty and a wonderful mum. She has a son, her husband just passed away last year." Hermione said as she took a bite of her food and moaned out of appreciation. The noise she made, brought Draco back to their days at school and he gulped as she addressed his previous statement, "It was my favorite, but it isn't something we eat very often. You just can't find good fish and chips in America." They sat there for a bit, just eating and talking about random bits of their lives. Not delving into the real reason for the meeting until they were done eating.

After they finished their lunches, Hermione looked up at Draco and waited. He was the one who wanted to visit after all.

"Hermione, why did you marry Blaise?"

"I loved him." She said simply. "He took care of me, you know. No one knew about our relationship, none of my friends. He was the only one and he found me after it happened. He found me at my worst moments in life and he never left me. He asked me to marry him about a week after we left Hogwarts. We had spent it with my family, and with his mother. We got married in the Zabini garden later that month. Just us, our parents and the officiant. We left for New York three days later."

Draco grimaced as she spoke. He knew it was true. He remembered seeing her at school after he broke it off. She was a wreck. She didn't eat in the Great Hall, instead always in her dorm. She only went to the library and classes, no where else. Draco had known she took it , he took it bad. But he had to do it for his family, for her.

"Hermione, why did you name her Cassiopeia?"

"You know why Draco." Hermione responded. "You know why I would name my daughter that. You know, so don't play dumb. Blaise told me to tell you, but you were getting married. You weren't talking to me at all. So, there was no point. I did end up writing you a letter, after we left Hogwarts. I did think you should have known that you were going to be a father. Hell, I wrote you about fifteen letters, and I got them all back. I got them all back along with a letter saying to stop writing you, that you never loved me and don't care what I had to say in my letters. You never opened them and didn't want them. That you were marrying Astoria, the girl that you loved.

At this Draco scoffed. "What are you talking about? I never received any letters! But didn't you think that information like this deserved a face to face discussion? Love? No pureblood loves their betrothed. I've never loved Astoria. I loathe her. The only good thing that came out of the woman is Scorpius."

"Yes, I did." Hermione yelled. Twelve years of pent up anger and hurt showing for the first time since Cassie's birth. She shot a silencing charm at her door. "I was planning on telling you when you came back to school after Easter, but you had other plans. You broke me Draco, you shattered my soul, my heart, my everything! The only reason I was still eating, and wasn't drinking myself into a stupor was because of Cassie. Because I knew I was pregnant. Gods, I just came out of a war. I was miraculously, still standing and fell in love. I thought I had finally found what it was like to be happy and I was pregnant with your baby."

Tears started flowing down her face at the memories that flooded her mind. Draco paled at the sight. "I was so excited to see you that night and then you came at me like the complete asshole we all know you are. You didn't have the courage to just tell me what was going on. No! You had to break me completely, just kill the Mudblood by twisting the knife a tad deeper into her heart. You don't know how much I just wanted to give up. I had been fighting for years just to be recognized as a witch. I fucking stood by you when you were the one who pushed me down into the mud the furthest. I fucking loved you with everything that was in me! And you bloody well broke me. You might as well pitched me off the Astronomy Tower, for as low as I felt. The only bright spot was Blaise, he knew what I was going through. He knew I loved you. He knew you dumped me and he still stood by me. Blaise and I moved to New York and never looked back."

"I couldn't tell." Draco mumbled.

"What?" Hermione spat back at him.

Draco groaned. "I couldn't tell you! I couldn't tell you what was going on. I couldn't let you down easy. I couldn't just run off with you, which is what I wanted to do. I was dying inside too, you know! I wanted to say no. I wanted to tell them I was in love with you and I wanted to marry you! I even went to see my father in Azkaban to tell him no. I told him that I loved you and would not be marrying Astoria and do you know what he told me? He told me that there were still a lot of Death Eaters free who do not take kindly to muddying the bloodlines. He told me that they would rather the Malfoy line die than to allow a mudblood, the famous Mudblood no less, dirty the line. He was going to have you killed Hermione! I couldn't let that happen. He was going to have me killed. Knowing my crazy father, they would have made me watch as they tortured and raped you." Draco took a deep breath and looked at Hermione, trying to will her to understand his position.

He got up, pacing back and forth before he continued. "He would let them kill me or else let me live with the memories of your gruesome death if I did not get rid of you. I could not let that happen. I would rather you hate me for leaving you then what they would have done to you. I know you. I know you would have stood by me if I told you this because you are stubborn and brave, but I couldn't do it. So yes, I broke up with you in the worst way possible! Yes I knew it would break you, but that doesn't mean it didn't break me too! Then you disappear, even Potter didn't know what happened. He and I were still on speaking terms, but it was just civil really. I couldn't ask him much about you without drawing suspicion."

Hermione processed his words. His father had threatened her life, his life too. That's why he broke up with her. It's why he married Astoria. He was protecting her. She couldn't even argue the point that she would have left him peacefully because they both knew that was a load of hippogriff dung. She would have yelled and screamed that she could take care of herself. She would have been stubborn. Looking back now that would have been a horrible idea since she was pregnant at the time.

"We were never meant to be." She sighed. Draco just stared at her blankly. "What?"

Choosing not to answer he said. "What does Blaise think of Cassie not being his?"

"Cassie is his. He was there while I was pregnant. He was there while I gave birth. He was there when she fell the four feet and broke her wrist because the girl thinks herself a brilliant flyer at the age of four. Cassie loves her Papa. Cassie had a hard time of it. When she found out that Blaise wasn't her biological father. But she was only about four when she really started to notice that she didn't look like her brother or her Papa. It hurt to watch her go through that. But, she is a true daddy's girl. They have a wonderful relationship."

"Stop!" Draco shouted. He couldn't take it anymore. He couldn't hide the jealousy that his daughter was a daddy's girl. Not because Blaise was Cassie's father. Blaise was, at one time, his closest friend. But at the fact that he was not there for his daughter. His daughter, he thought with sense of pride. He had always wanted a daughter, but the thought of having to touch Astoria again turned his stomach so much that they were never intimate unless alcohol was involved.

"I'm sorry, I just can't listen to this, I think I knew from the time I saw her that she was mine, but knowing for sure. I am still wrapping my head around it and hearing about how she loves Blaise. I just can't do it. Hermione, I lost twelve years with her."

"There is nothing I can do about that. I tried to tell you. You didn't want to hear from me."

Hermione reminded him of something the had, until now, forgotten. "Speaking of, what letters? I never got any letters? I never heard from Blaise or you since school."

Hermione sighed and called out. "Peekey!" A loud Crack filled the air and a little house elf dressed in a little sun dress appeared.

"Yes Missus, Ma-am?" The elf squeaked. Draco chuckled at the thought of Hermione 'Save the Elves' Granger having a house elf.

Hermione narrowed her eyes at Draco, "Peekey, can you please go home. In my study desk, the bottom left drawer, there is a box. Please bring me the box. Thank you."

"Yes Missus, Ma-am." And with another Crack! She was gone, but returned quickly with a small box. Hermione smiled and the elf disapparated. Opening the box, Hermione stuck her arm in and began to search. She had an extension charm on the box because her arm was gone up to the elbow in a box that was clearly only about three inches deep. Finding what she was looking for, Draco heard a distinct crash come from the box.

Cursing under her breath, she pulled out a handful of letters and handed them to Draco. "They all came back to me with this."

She handed him another letter addressed to her. From, what had looked like, from him. Sitting back in the chair. He opened that letter first. In his hands, he read a letter stating that he had never loved her, to stop writing. That he was to marry the love of his life and a pureblood." Draco scoffed at that part, he knew where this letter came from and it wasn't from him.

He looked up at Hermione, she looked drained from their talk. He did feel bad for dredging up the past, for making her feel those emotions again. If he was completely honest, those were the same feelings he's been suppressing himself and bringing them back was draining for himself. "Can I take these with me?"

Hermione nodded. "They were meant for you and don't worry. There are no professions of love in them." Draco felt a stab in his heart as he put the letters in his coat pocket.

With a tight smile, he nodded at her. "Can we meet another time to finish this conversation? This was a lot to process in a lunch hour." Hermione nodded and Draco went to open the door.

Sitting at the secretary's desk was Blaise. He must finished his lunch and was waiting for the okay to come back into the office. Draco looked at his former friend, Blaise stood up with a look of concern. He looked past Draco at Hermione, "Is everything okay?" Blaise asked.

Draco, looking his friend in the eye answered. "Yes, everything is fine. Blaise, I-" Draco lost the words he wanted to express. Too many emotions were brought up in such a short amount of time that he just wasn't sure what he wanted to say. Instead he looked back at Hermione and gave her a resigned smile. "I'll owl you when we can talk more." He gave his old friend a nod and left.

Blaise walked over to Hermione and held out his arms as he sat on the edge of her desk. Hermione smiled, stood and hugged him tightly. He began to stroke her hair, like he always did when she needed comfort. She could feel herself relax. The tension of the meeting left her body as her ex-husband and best friend soothed her soul. Just like he always did.