Hey, I am sorry for the delay, but my friends had their Italian GCSE writing, and, as I am the only Italian they know, I had to spend ages helping them to write and correct the drafts, so this meant that all my time was spent running through things that they should have learnt ages ago – hence all my writing was in Italian and not of much use to you guys. So I hope that this is worth the wait and you guys will drop a little review.

Four weeks pass as the blissful beginning of our relationship develops into something even more amazing.

I feel like it is prudent to point out that I have never had an extended committed relationship – and I would bet my last penny on the fact that Draco Malfoy probably has never had one either – so the fact that we are lying here in his bed (for the fourth night in a row) without having so much as a finger creep into my knickers leaves my quite impressed with his self control.

I asked him after our second date why he hadn't tried to push our relationship further than it had gone that one night – I received a vague response for my trouble and decided to drop it. The closer we get before taking it to the next step means that it will be just that much better.

Over the last week, I had started inching my way back into the plans for the sanctuary... he just left them lying around... with blank post its and a pen... and rubbish ideas... so I just had to change them! It was my duty to everyone involved.

I think he left them out there with purpose, I think he was stumped and too full of pride to ask for help – knowing Draco it is quite possible that his inflated ego wouldn't allow him to ask me for any sort of help whatsoever.

We lie together now, in the middle of the sea of sheets, huddling close for warmth – I'm not kidding when I say that he lives like a snowman, I had to remind him at one point that the rest of us need some form of heat to keep the blood pumping through our veins because we are not all cold blooded!

His fingertips run soft circles on my stomach, tracing the dip of my hip bones on either side and then circling around my belly button, all the while with my top hitched up around my ribs. His hands are warm, boiling, no chance of a trace of Goosebumps in their wake. "Draco?" I ask, pressing my hand to his head, using the back of my palm to feel his temperature, "Are you alright, you are really warm?"

"Perfect," He smiles, nuzzling his head into the valley between my breasts and breathing in deeply with a soft sigh, "Tell me something else about you." I push my worry aside for now, even though the trail of his heated fingertips along my skin has me worrying about a fever.

This had been sort of a game every night we spent together; a game to help us get to know the trivial things about ourselves. At the beginning it had been embarrassing to tell him the odd little things about myself, and then he started calling them cute, so it doesn't really bother me anymore. "I'm rubbish at spelling,"

"That's a stupid one," He tells me, shaking his head and breathing out slightly – the flush of air ripples over my chest and makes e crave the touch of his lips – "Do you really think that I haven't realised that for myself, considering that you spelt 'hippogriff' wrong on those post its you keep dropping about the place." I stop running my fingers through his hair and slap his forehead slightly, "Really, Granger? One P, one F and two G's. Not to mention that you spelt 'hysterical' wrong when you were trying to insult me... that one backfired didn't it!" he laughs, "Think of something else."

"You are going to think I am weird!" I say. Grabbing my hips, he rolls us over so I am lying on top of him; I flop my head against his neck and mumble something.

"Speak up, Granger." While I have stopped calling him by his surname he seems to have held onto that little bit of our past. It has honestly begun to grow on me.

Peeking to the side, his grey eyes meet mine and he smiles, "I used to pretend I had a purple dragon named Monty, and I used to introduce him to everyone I met until I was eleven, he used to have a special seat at the table and I used to make him all this special food," I tell him, "And when I was lonely I had all these conversations with him and pretend he was talking back. I think it was because I didn't have very many friends as a child."

He laughs playfully, spinning us over again and pressing his lips into mine gently, "I think it is cute."

"Your turn." I say, pulling away from him and settling us back down into the soft embrace of the twisted sheets, "It has to be something good!"

He pulls a pillow over his face and I struggle with him until I am able to see his cheeks tingeing pink, "I slept with a stuffed snake until I was thirteen, I had to threaten all the boys in my dorm not to tell anyone!"Burying his head under his pillow I begin to howl with laughter, giggling to myself as he slips into a mortified silence – one of those deathly silenced which I should have realise was a trap – before I feel his hands on my hips and I am pushed off of the bed and dumped easily onto the floor with a loud thump. He regains some composure and then continues, "The only reason I stopped sleeping with the toy was because my father told me that if I had such a desire for a pet snake he would buy me one, and I was too scared to tell him I was afraid of snakes."

Scrunching up his nose he flops onto his back and pulls a pillow over his face. "What was its name?" I ask, trying to hold back my giggles – this is better than the time he told me that he had pissed off Pansy Parkinson and had to run starkers through the packed common room.

Trying to pretend he has no recollection of telling me this titbit of information, he asks, "Whose name?" but this just makes it worse and I struggle to retail my giggles.

"Your snake's?" I can't hold it in anymore.

"Noodle."

"HA!" I gasp, "Sorry." Holding my hand up to try and pacify him, I gulp in some air and swallow. "You know, the only reason it is so funny is because it is you!" I smile, "Draco 'I'm a dickhead' Malfoy had a teddy bear until he was thirteen."

"It was a snake, not a teddy bear." I continue to laugh, "Fine," he sulks, "I'm going to sleep downstairs."

"Don't forget Noodle, you might have a bad dream." I can't help it. He is usually so controlled and composed that something like this seems hilarious. "Sorry, Draco I am sorry!" I scramble after him as he gets out of bed, grabs a pillow and stomps out of the room. "Come on, I was joking." I sigh, and then gasp in shock as he slams the door behind him before I can follow.

I slump back down on the bed, feeling like a reprimanded child and run my fingers through my hair.

Until he crawls back into bed – sometime between two and three in the morning – I can't sleep. The bed is too cold and then too clammy and then too stifling. As soon as I feel his arms fall around my waist, I grip onto him and sigh. "I'm sorry."

"You owe me something else." He tells me, smiling into my hair, "Another secret."

I gulp, holding my breath slightly and then spilling out y biggest secret. Until now, we had steered clear of sexual history, or lack thereof, but I feel like now, in the dark shadows of the night, I shouldn't refrain from telling him anymore. "I'm still a virgin."

"I'm glad."

"You don't sound surprised,"

"I'm not." He curls back into me, pulling my hand to his face and pressing his lips into my wrist and he takes a deep breath. I fall asleep with a content smile on my face.

As the dawn of the next morning arrives, I find the bed cold and empty as I wake. Draco is nowhere to be seen and the note taped to the door tells me why.

Meeting this morning; had to leave early.

You looked too happy to wake – I hope you were dreaming of me.

Xx

I sigh, getting up and walking over to my clothes. I pull my jumper and skirt on and then jump through the floo and land back in my own living room to make myself something to eat.

With the arrival of lunchtime, came Sirius Black, sauntering through the floo and smiling brightly. Over the last few weeks, the life drawn from him seemed to have been shuffled back in. "Good day, darling." He kisses my cheek gently and then makes himself at home in front of the TV – feet up and munching on a bag of crisps.

I smile tentatively to myself – everything over the last few weeks seems to have been shoved into some kind of order. An order that work and has everyone smiling... well everyone but Ginny, but that is a story for later. I just left me wondering how long it was all going to last. Like the quiet before a storm.

"How is everything going Sirius?" I ask, dropping lightly onto the sofa next to him and wriggling to find some comfort in the lumpy cushions.

"Everything is going perfectly," He smiles, still looking at the TV and watching as a team of sweaty men shove a football around between them. I don't think he understands the game, but I find that Sirius rarely understands anything Muggle.

The only reason he learned how to use the toaster was because I was so scared he would burn down the apartment after he dropped butter in it and set the whole thing alight. I was so shocked that I just stood there and watched the fire until Sirius snapped out of it and diffused the blaze by shooting a jet of water out of his wand. The only thing he had to say was, "I think this thing is broken." And then he walked back to the couch and left me with a drowned, smoky kitchen.

I nod, "When are we going to meet her?" really all I wanted to know was when I was going to meet her, but Sirius just shrugged noncommittally and continued to watch the TV. "When is the baby due?"

For some reason, Wizarding pregnancies last two months less that Muggle pregnancies. Assuming that she was already a month or so along when she confided in Sirius, and he didn't tell me until a month or so after that – and what with the time that has passed since then, it can't be that long.

Harry and Sofia are only a month away from their due date now, "Two months today." He tells me, and I nod to myself. "Would you like to meet her, Hermione?" He asks suddenly, "I think you two would get along well,"

"I would like to meet her very much, Sirius," I say, smiling and picking at some thread on the side of a throw pillow.

Nodding, he smiles as well. "Soon then." He tells me, gripping onto my hand lightly and then dropping it as he turns back to the TV.

We watch the little black box together – in silence – for three hours until it is time to go to the Weasley's for dinner. I click the off button on the remote, ignore the pout of displeasure that Sirius throws my way and hold the pot of green powder out for him to take.

Sauntering over at his leisure – and to my great annoyance – Sirius pulls on a zip up jumper and takes a handful of green powder before jumping into the fire place and sliding through the flames and into the burrow.

I follow quickly, receiving a warm round of welcomes and a big hug from Teddy as he rushes forwards. I have to grab him before he reaches the flames though, it seems that he doesn't really see the danger yet.

"How is my favourite little boy?" I ask, holding onto him tightly as I tickle his stomach with one of my fingers. He descends into fits of cut little giggles and his hair changes from blue to pink to green and then back again. "You are getting big now." I smile and hitch him higher on my hip.

"Yep, I a big boy now." He smiles, and I carry him into the dining room before settling him into a high chair and finding a seat of my own.

Harry and Sofia sit at the far end. Sofia waves at me from her seat – the effort of standing up to greet me obviously too much as she presses a hand to her stomach and shuffles uncomfortably in her seat. Ron moves behind me, placing a hand on my waist and pressing a kiss into my cheek. The woman sitting next to his vacant seat glares at me.

Suddenly Ginny's idea of a getaway a few weeks ago is starting to feel like a missed opportunity. "Hey Ron," I smile, hugging his tightly and then backing up to say hello to Ginny. "How are you?" I ask quietly as she takes hold of my hand and drags me out of the room.

"You said she that she would be gone by now," She hisses, her face almost matching her hair.

Shrugging I look back into the room to make sure that no one is listening to us, "How was I supposed to know that the one girl Ron really does like happens to be the biggest monster in existence." I shrug, "Anyway, it is not like she is just attacking you anymore. We all hate her now." I remind her.

Fleur Weasley saunters into the corridor where we are standing, "Living ro'om." She says, shuffling us along and then shutting the door behind us.

After the first few years of painful arguing between Ginny, Fleur and I, we decided that it would be easier if we all just got along, and there when the Bitch Queen – AKA; Ron's new girlfriend Jenifer – arrived, we just got that much closer.

When I met Jenifer for the first time two weeks ago, I thought that Ginny had to be over exaggerating. I was so wrong.

She cornered me ten minutes after I made it through the floo. She started with a nice cover – I, obviously delusional, decided that she was a nice person – by the end of the conversation she had ripped a hole through just about everything (my clothes, my hair, my job, my past relationships with Ron...everything!) and I was left almost in tears as Ginny and Sirius pulled me into a big group hug, and Ginny said a very cold, "Serves you right because I did tell you she was a cow."

Fleur had to be held back by a disgruntled Bill Weasley as Jenifer looked down her nose and muttered something about Fleur's hair. Considering Fleur is a quarter Veela, I don't think Jenifer can talk much. "She just called me fat!" Fleur hisses in her strong French accent. "Fat! I am like a model compared to zat... zat troll!" Modesty is not one of Fluer's finer points, but is see her point. And considering that she really is a very nice person, her lack of modesty can be overlooked.

"She has to go!" Ginny says.

"You zink we shood keel her?" Fleur's voice thickens as ideas run through her mind, her accent falling through every word she speaks. Over the years the accent has become less notable, unless she is distressed or thinking very, very hard. She was obviously very offended when she was called fat!

I start shaking my head, laughing along to myself until Ginny says, "Do you think we would get away with it?" a slight smile playing across her lips.

"Both of you shut up!" I reprimand, stopping any ideas from formulating. Neither would ever carry out the plans, but I am sure that envisioning someone dying is step one of the ladder to insanity.

Both Fleur and Ginny start laughing, "Stop ruining our fun, Hermione." Ginny admonishes. "We would never hurt her... physically."

"I so glad that you two managed to bond." I tell them, opening the door to the living room and making my way to the kitchen as I hear their peals of laughter behind me. "Let me help with that," I say, taking hold of one of the many trays and taking it into the dining room just as Fleur and Ginny enter.

I watch as Ginny makes her way past Jenifer, making a face at her back and causing the rest of the table to laugh, though she quickly moves on as Ron and Jenifer spin round to see what the rest of the table finds to amusing.

We all take a seat and have to watch as Ron and Jenifer make moony faces at each other. "Hermione don't you think you should start looking for another job soon," Jenifer spins quickly and stabs me with a question. Though she is far from done.

The rest of the table sits in silence, collecting ammunition to use against her, and George rests and hand on my thigh and gives it a squeeze as we all know what is coming. "I just think that it is so lazy that you haven't even tried to find somewhere else to work. I have a friend who needs a cleaner, I could give her your details." She sighs, picking through her potatoes, muttering, "I don't know why Draco Malfoy would even hire you-"under her breath.

Before she can continue, Ginny jumps in. No doubt she is trying to help, but all it does is provide the Queen of Hell with more fuel for her fire, "Draco and Hermione are actually dating now."

It was hard to tell the Weasley's at first, but Draco told me that if he managed to tell his parents than I should be able to tell Harry and Ron. And where there is Harry and Ron, there is a bunch of Weasley's that are never too far away.

All in all, they took it rather well considering that they had never been very friendly. Sirius and Ginny were a God send; keeping everything under control and breaking the ice.

"Wasn't he supposed to be coming round tonight, Hermione?" true to form Draco Malfoy had probably decided to be fashionably late. There was one spare chair at the table, I note now, after completely forgetting that Draco was supposed to be coming. And the chair is right next to Jenifer – mostly because no one but Ron wants to be so close to the firing zone.

All of a sudden there are foot falls in the living room and Draco opens the door to where we are all sitting. I had warned him about the new girlfriend and – after taking in all the red hair and the faces he knows from our past – sends a glare my way as he realises that the only seat open is next to her. "Weasley's," he nods, "Potter's." He makes his way over to me after being pulled into a hug by Molly, he presses a kiss to the hollow under my ear and then whispers, "You couldn't have saved me a seat next to you?"

"Last come, worst company!" I laugh, turning my head to wink slightly and then pushing him away to take the seat opposite me and next to Jenifer.

"So, as I was saying," Jenifer, not liking the way that the attention – no matter how negative it might be – has been pulled from her, continues, "You really should try and find a new job, it's so lazy of you to not even bother." Draco's eyes widen as she turns on him, "I don't know why you would even want her," she says, her voice lower now, "So boring-"

"I don't think you want to finish that sentence." Draco says his voice calm and deadly. Jenifer looks abashed, not knowing how to feel now that someone has obviously turned on her. "And for the record, I think you should keep any comments to yourself."

"Excuse me!" Jenifer rises from her seat, the rest of us can hardly contain our expressions of glee and suppress the urge to shout 'fight, fight, fight.'

"You are excused." Draco says, pilling his plate with potatoes and then deciding to ignore her as he turns to look at Harry and Sofia instead, jokingly muttering about how he can hardly handle one Harry Potter let alone two.

The tension diffuses. Ron sits oblivious – I have to say that he has always been a little dense about some things, but there is no way that he is this deluded. Maybe she is really nice to him. Who knows?

Eventually we all move to the living room. Sirius and Draco sit playing a game of Wizard Chess in the corner, both concentrating immensely and sporting identical masks of concentration. Ron and Jenifer disappeared a while ago, to the immense relief of the rest of us, and the atmosphere in the room is much calmer. Harry and Fred play a game of exploding snap that has the room clouding with smoke – and Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes product that is immensely annoying – and the rest of us sit on the floor of the living room; munching on a Carrot cake Mrs. Weasley made and listening to some music.

A catchy song by the Weird Sisters comes onto the radio and George pulls me to my feet as Bill and Fleur join us in the centre of the living room; dancing. We spin around, the rest of the room laughing and joining in as we all smile.

A sudden flash shows Mrs. Weasley with a camera and we all smile and laugh as the moment is recorded.

For once, I think as Draco moves behind me to take me from George's arms – as George decides that Tonks really should be joining in – everything seems to be going perfectly.

But really how long can it last? I think to myself, but instead of dwelling like I usually do, I push it to the side and enjoy the moment as Fred decides that this is the best time to try singing.

I hope that you like it. I don't know how you will take to Jenifer, but I really need a stirring character to mess everything up – for we can't have a good story without a little mess in the middle.

Please review :)