A/N sorry for the delay in updating - I just needed to get my head round some things in the further development of this story.

thanks a lot for the reviews and special thanks to KayDee-DesignerExtraordinare to getting me back on track

"Petrificus Totalis"

There was a soft -thud- and then stunned silence.

Hermione and Ginny looked at Draco, who in turned looked at Harry being busy gently piling cushions under Ron's head while shifting him fully onto the couch.

"Sorry, mate, but it's better this way, before you do something you will regret later on."

"Harry... What did you just do?" Ginny's voice was trembling.

"Preventing any more bloodshed. I have seen enough of that for a lifetime."

There was a long pause, a silence filled with uneasiness.

Harry, finally finished with Ron, came over. He looked at Draco with a guarded expression.

"I don't know, if she has ever told you, how much she has been crying because of you, but should I ever again see her cry because of you, ferret, it will have been the last thing you have ever done!"

There was no malice in his words. It sounded more like a gentle reminded from a parent to not get involved with the wrong crowd. Though all present knew, that he mend it. Should Draco make Hermione cry, he would have Harry to deal with.

"Harry, you don't need..." Hermione started.

"It's okay. He is just looking out for you. Something I couldn't really do in the past, but what I will have to do from now on."

Ginny went over and hugged Harry. Looking at Hermione and her chosen one. It seemed all so utterly unreal. Here was a Slytherin, son of a proclaimed Death Eater, standing in their common room.

"What will you two do now?" She asked.

Hermione leant against her husband and frowned. She had had not time to think of what they would be doing now. There had never really been a time, when she had been making plans for after the war. There had never been enough... of anything really for far too long.

"I don't know." She finally answered.

She looked at Draco, seeing him lost in his own thoughts.

"Draco?"

"Hm?"

"What are we going to do now?"

"Your friends now know about us. I don't care to tell any of the other Slytherins really. They are not going to be part of our life. Not, if I can help it!"

"Are we going to see your mother?"

He thought about that one.

"I already told her. I don't want to go back to the Manor..."

"We can stay at my parents house."

"I thought, they are in Australia?"

"They are. The house is officially mine. I wanted to make sure, they had a home to come back to."

He brushed his lips over her hair. He felt drained, exhausted, tired.

"Do you want me in your home?"

She was wondering, where that had come from. Why was he suddenly doubting her again?

"Draco?"

He looked at her.

Ginny pulled Harry towards the portrait hole. Before they left she cast a silencing spell around her friends standing in the middle of the common room.

"Ginny? What was that all about?" Harry asked as they were walking along the corridor.

"Draco has to face up to his past, to all the things he has done and said. I just think, he would prefer to do that in private."

"What about Ron?"

"Muffliato."

"Oh."

"Draco?"

"Hermione, you want me to come to your house. Your home."

"Of course. It will be your home as well."

"In the Muggle world..."

She looked at him. What was he getting at?

"In the Muggle world...?" She prompted.

"I have never been in the Muggle world before..."

She opened her mouth to say something, but closed it again.

A moment later she asked carefully. "You have never been outside our own world?"

He shook his head.

"I grew up being told every day, that Muggles were beneath me. They were not worth me bothering with them. I have no idea what is going on in the world you grew up in."

"And King's Cross? That is also part of the Muggle world."

"My father always apparated us directly onto the platform."

She hugged him tightly.

"You have protected my in the wizarding world. Now I am going to protect you in the Muggle world."

She felt him tenderly rubbing her back, his breath was rustling through her hair.

"Do you mind, if we stay in the Leaky Cauldron for a bit?" He whispered.

She held onto him, wondering if he was ready yet to face up to the wizarding world as her husband and face the Muggle world all at once. Maybe not yet.

"You lead, I follow." She replied.

She could feel him chuckle. He leant back a bit, looking at her.

"You don't know, where I might lead you..." He waggled his eyebrows at her suggestively.

She tickled him for a moment, him trying to avoid her knowing fingers.

"You remember, I can look after myself..." She grinned at him.

"Oh, I remember." He laughed.

"If you feel more comfortable in the Leaky Cauldron, we will they stay there..."

She nearly added an endearment that had just popped into her head, but bit her lip and swallowed it. She wasn't sure, if he would be ready for that yet.

"Draco?"

"Hermione?"

"Shall we go and tell all the people in the Great Hall? That way news of us will get around a lot faster. Though I would prefer to tell Mr. and Mrs. Weasley in person. They have always been very kind to me. They were like my wizard parents of late."

"Of course."

He leant down and gently kissed her. Nothing hasty or demanding, just tender and loving.

"I would have died without you, Precious." He whispered against her lips.

"I have never given up on you, Draco. You were my hope through all my tears."

He ran his thumbs over her cheeks.

"There seemed to have been many..."

She tried to avoid his gaze, but his fingers held her chin.

"Have there?" It was a bare murmur.

She nodded.

"I am sorry."

She kissed him.

"Don't be. It probably kept me sane in the most insane times. And made me want you to live, to come for me, to be with you."

"I love you."

She closed her eyes and lay her head against his chest.

"I love you, too."

It was a long while later, that she finally turned to leave the Griffindor common room and face the people in the Great Hall. Him holding onto her hand, tagging along.

When Hermione was nearly through the portrait hole she turned around and muttered.

"Finite Incantatum."

Draco looked at her.

"I don't want Ron to lie there frozen for the rest of the day."

He looked at her.

"Even, if he may deserve it."

"You Griffindors are too generous."

"You Slytherins are too vindictive."

"Just remember that, when I have you all to myself..." He promised in a husky voice.