A/N: Yes, here's another chapter I've been sitting on since this summer. I'm so glad you guys liked the last one. This holiday at the Grangers was great to write! I've got most of the pieces written already, so I can probably piece them together pretty quickly. Thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far! I hope you continue to enjoy this story!!!

Disclaimer: None of them are mine.

*********************************************

Hermione trudged down the stairs and into the kitchen where her mother was sitting at the table reading a magazine. Cheese lasagna could be smelt wafting its way through the downstairs as it baked in the oven, and Hermione noticed for the first time since she'd arrived home that she was hungry.

Mrs. Linda Granger had always fancied herself to be a modern woman, and she'd always prided herself on the close relationship that she shared with her only child. She had always been able to read Hermione like a book, and when she saw her daughter walk rather glumly into the room and take a bottle of water from the refrigerator, she looked up from the magazine and said, "What's up?"

Hermione shrugged and settled herself in a kitchen chair across from her mother. "Oh, nothing. Except I think Daddy's probably killing Harry and Ron right about now."

Mrs. Granger raised a curious eyebrow. "What happened?"

"Long story," Hermione sighed. "I'm sure you'll hear all about it from Daddy soon enough."

Her mother chuckled softly. "So, are you glad to be on holiday?"

"I suppose so. It's put a lot of things into perspective for me."

"Oh, yeah? Like what?"

Hermione scowled slightly. "Like the fact that I hate both of my best friends."

"What happened?"

"Nothing; they're just prats." Hermione looked up at her mother seriously. "Mum, please don't show them anymore photo albums!"

"Why not?"

"Because they'll just tease me!"

"Oh, why would they do that?" Mrs. Granger looked back down at her magazine, dismissing her daughter's silly claim.

"Because that's just how they are!" Hermione protested immediately. "They've had an absolute field day with that one album."

"Hermione, you were an adorable child. What could they have to tease you over?"

"Oh, yes," Hermione said sarcastically. "I'm sure I was an adorable child dressed in nothing but a t-shirt and Winnie the Pooh knickers."

"I love that picture!" Mrs. Granger looked up with a bright expression. "Is it in that album upstairs?"

"Mum!"

Mrs. Granger chuckled. "They're you're best friends," she said simply. "It's their job to tease you."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "The worst thing is that I don't even have any hope of retaliation. I'm sure there are no pictures of Harry growing up, and Ron said that everyone was sick of babies by the time he came along, so there aren't even that many of him."

"How many siblings does he have again?"

"Six." Hermione grinned slightly. "Well, seven soon."

"And there's only one girl?"

Hermione nodded. "Yeah. He's got five brothers, then him, and then Ginny. And then the new baby whenever it decides to show its face."

Mrs. Granger sighed. "She's a better woman than I am. I can't even imagine raising eight children; I had enough trouble with one."

"You got off easy. I was a perfect child," Hermione said matter-of-factly. "You should meet his whole family. There's no pattern to them or anything- they're all crazy different."

"Really?"

"Mmmhmm." Hermione nodded, remembering the previous summer when she'd finally met the whole Weasley clan. "Bill's the oldest, but he works in Egypt as a curse-breaker for the Gringotts goblins. He was Head Boy at Hogwarts, but he's not your typical idea of one. He's got really long hair and an earring, and Mrs. Weasley is always nagging at him to cut it off and take the ring out of ear. He actually looks really cool, though. And then Charlie is the second oldest, and he actually trains dragons in Romania."

"Real dragons?"

Hermione smiled, knowing her parents still had trouble sometimes with believing in all of the things she'd come to know as the norm. Hermione nodded. "Yep. He was a Quidditch star at Hogwarts, and he could have played professional, but he turned everyone down for the dragons. And then there's Percy, who is by far the best behaved and most boring member of the family. He was Head Boy, too, and now he works for the Ministry. But no one's really heard from him in a few months, so we're not sure what's going on." Hermione paused before rolling her eyes. "And then there's Fred and George..."

"The twins, right?"

"Right. They are the biggest pair of troublemakers that Hogwarts has ever seen, and all they do is sit around and think up recipes to make people turn into various birds and amphibians. They're Seventh Years right now, and they keep saying they're going to open a joke shop, but that might now happen if Mrs. Weasley gets her way."

"They sound like a handful."

"They are. And then there's Ginny. She's always had this mad crush on Harry, so she used to be really quiet and shy whenever she was around us. But then last year she started opening up more, and now she's just like Fred and George. They've taken her under their wings and are turning her into a Queen Prankster. Mrs. Weasley is losing her mind."

Mrs. Granger laughed. "Well, I can imagine. But where does Ron fall in all of this?"

Hermione thought about that question for a moment before raising a shoulder slightly. "I dunno. I guess sort of in the middle. I mean, he's on the Quidditch team now, but that's now how he's made his name at Hogwarts or anything like Charlie did. And he's definitely not Prefect material- much less Head Boy," she rolled her eyes at the mere thought. "And he's really funny, but he doesn't spend a whole lot of time on pranks like the twins and Ginny." She looked up and took a sip of her water. "He's just Ron, I guess."

Smiling, Mrs. Granger nodded. "Does his mother know if this one is a boy or a girl yet?"

"No, they don't do that in the wizarding world. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Ron says it's going to be a boy, and so do the twins. Ginny is convinced it's a girl, though." She grinned. "I hope it's a girl."

"Have they got any names picked out?"

"Not that I know of. Ron and Harry and Ginny and I made a list awhile ago, but it was all girls names, and it was just for fun really."

For some reason, her mother found this amusing. "Ron and Harry actually sat with you girls and made a list of baby names?"

Hermione nodded. "Yeah, but, of course, Ron made fun of every name I picked out. He said they all sounded like grandmum names."

Stifling a smile, Mrs. Granger said, "He teases you a lot, doesn't he?"

"All the time," she said ruefully. "But he's very protective over me if anyone else teases me."

The stifled smile turned into a rather knowing smile, and Mrs. Granger nodded slightly.

Hermione raised an eyebrow suspiciously. "Why are you looking like that?"

"Nothing, dear," she said briskly before changing the subject. "How are your grades?"

"Good," Hermione said, taking a long sip of water. "We take the O.W.L.s in June."

"The O.W.L.s?"

"Ordinary Wizarding Levels," Hermione explained quickly. "They help with our placing for Sixth and Seventh years. That's when we get to start taking the Advanced Placement courses if we want to."

"You will, of course?"

Hermione nodded. "Oh, I'm sure."

"What about your friends? Will they take the AP courses, too?"

Hermione shrugged. "I dunno. Probably not. They're both smart, but they don't apply themselves."

"Why not?"

"Because they're typical boys," she answered simply. "They'd rather play Quidditch than study, and they'd rather sleep during lectures than take notes. If they'd just put more effort into their works, their grades would be really good. Ron's probably smarter than Harry, but his grades aren't as good. But all the teachers are being really lenient with Harry this year because of everything that happened last year." She paused for a moment and added, "Well, most of the teachers anyway," thinking that Snape would rather cut off his own arm and eat it than cut Harry Potter any sort of slack.

"Well, boys will be boys," her mother said wistfully.

Hermione suddenly remembered something and looked up. "Did I tell you I got into a fight?"

Mrs. Granger instantly gave up on the magazine and stared wide-eyed at her daughter. "Excuse me?"

Hermione nodded slightly. "Well, two fights really. But I didn't hit anybody in the second one."

"What happened?" This was most definitely not typical of Hermione, and Linda Granger was quite curious to see what had caused the turnaround in her only child.

"Well, the first one was with Draco Malfoy."

"You got into a fight with a boy?" This was already too absurd to believe.

Hermione nodded. "Yeah, he didn't really hit me back or anything. I just sort of attacked him."

"Hermione!"

"He deserved it!" she defended quickly.

:"Who is he?"

Without hesitation, Hermione said, "A spoiled, snobby, rich little bastard with a big mouth."

Her mother's eyes widened slightly at the use of language, but she just allowed her daughter to continue.

"He's in Slytherin, and his parents are Death Eaters."

"Death Eaters?"

"Dark wizards," Hermione clarified. "Followers of Voldemort." Having grown up in the Muggle world, the name didn't terrify her as much as it did some of the purebloods. "Anyway, he thinks he's better than everyone, and he was just running his mouth one day like he always does. He was taunting Ron because that's his favorite thing to do- the Weasleys and the Malfoys have always hated each other. And he was calling him poor and saying all sorts of stuff, and then he said something really mean about Mrs. Weasley, and I just lost it. So, I just sort of jumped on him and started beating him up." She shrugged as if this was all normal behavior for her.

Mrs. Granger shook her head slightly. "And then what happened?"

"Ron and Harry pulled me off of him and told me to stop because I was going to get in trouble, so I did. But then Malfoy got up and said something bad about me, and Ron hit him. And then they started fighting, and that's when it got pretty bad. They were both pretty bloodied up."

"What did he say about you?"

Hermione frowned and then answered. "He called me an 'ugly little Mudblood bitch' to be exact."

Mrs. Granger gasped slightly. While she couldn't quite put the whole thing together, she did understand two of those words completely and did not, in any way, appreciate having them connected with her daughter. "What's a Mudblood?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "It's the most offensive thing you can call a Muggle-born witch or wizard. It means like dirty blood or something," she said, quoting Ron from their Second Year. "It's really stupid, but Malfoy has been brainwashed to think he's superior to everyone else in the world just because his parents are probably cousins or something."

It was obvious that her mother was trying very hard to look worried while biting back a smile at her daughter's latest analogy. "Well, what happened with the fight?"

"Oh!" She scowled slightly. "Professor Snape came up and dragged Ron off of Malfoy. And remember how I told you he hated the three of us?" Her mother nodded. "Well, his favorite student just happens to be Draco Malfoy, so it was doubly bad for Ron and me."

"Did you get in trouble?"

"Well, we got a hundred house points taken off for Gryffindor, so that was pretty bad. But we didn't really get in any other trouble besides that." She paused for a second. "Well, not at school anyway. Mrs. Weasley found out and blessed us out pretty badly. She threatened us with our lives if she got anymore owls."

"She must think of you as one of her own."

Hermione nodded. "Yeah. Well, I'm at her house as much as any of her real children, aren't I? She's always been just like a second mother to me, and she's the closest thing to a mother that Harry has at all. So, yeah, I reckon we're just like honorary Weasleys or something."

Mrs. Granger looked pleased. "Well, I'm glad she yelled at you. You can't just go around getting into fights. It's a wonder you weren't expelled."

Hermione flushed a little and looked down at the table. "I know."

"Well, what happened with the other fight?"

"Oh, it wasn't really a fight. It was just these girls who kept pestering Ron and Harry about taking them to the Halloween Ball. And the boys were being too nice to turn them down, so I basically told them they were wasting their time. And then one of them called me a Mudblood, and then I called her a Slytherin reject. And then she just decided to break my nose with one punch."

"Are you okay?" her mother gasped.

She nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine. Our nurse healed it up quickly."

Mrs. Granger nodded slowly and then said, "Do people call you that a lot?"

"What? A Mudblood?" Her mother nodded. "I guess so. Malfoy does. The Slytherins do. But most of them are purebloods, and it doesn't really help that I'm Harry Potter's best friend because they all hate him."

"Well, isn't Ron a pureblood? And Harry, too? They don't think like that, do they?"

Hermione shook her head. "Oh, no. But the Weasleys are a different type of pureblood than the Malfoys. They don't hate Muggles like the Malfoys and the other Slytherins do. And Harry's mum was Muggle-born like me, but his dad was a pureblood. But like I said, the Weasleys aren't the same as the Malfoys, and neither were the Potters. So, it's a completely different story. The Malfoys just hate Muggles and everything having to do with them, so they think that anyone with Muggle blood in them must be inferior and contaminated or something." She shrugged. "But I don't care because they probably really are inbred and can't help it."

Her mother tried to look disapproving but did not succeed. Chuckling softly, she said, "Well, it's good that you have friends who will stand up for you. They seem like nice boys."

"They..." Hermione suddenly remembered that she was supposed to be angry with them. "That's because you don't know them. They're not nice; they're prats. And I hate them both."

Mrs. Granger laughed but went right on. "And they're cute, too."

Hermione groaned and rolled her eyes, knowing fully well where this conversation was headed.

"What?" her mother questioned innocently. "You don't think they're cute?"

Hermione shrugged. "Sure. Whatever." She knew better than to even try and answer any other way.

"Harry has lovely eyes," her mother went on. "Don't you agree?"

Hermione shrugged again. "I guess."

"He's turning out to be very cute."

"He's Harry!" Hermione finally exclaimed, not knowing any other way to get the point across. "I just can't make myself think of him like that."

"Well, you used to be quite taken with him," her mother pointed out through a grin.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "When I was eleven!"

Her mother smiled knowingly and posed the next question. "Well, what about Ron? He's quite handsome, too."

"Mum!" she said desperately, flushing furiously.

Mrs. Granger laughed and nodded. "You fancy him, don't you?"

Hermione's mouth dropped open. "I do not!" she exclaimed at once. "That's..." Crazy? Interesting? Lovely? True? "I don't even know what that is, but it's not true!"

Mrs. Granger held up her hands in defeat. "Alright, alright. Whatever you say, Hermione."

Hermione glared at the woman across from her for a long moment.

Finally, Mrs. Granger stood up and shut the magazine. "Why don't you go make sure that your father hasn't killed the boys, and I'll finish dinner up."

Hermione was still sputtering on about something as she sent another contemptuous look at her mother. Rolling her eyes, she trudged up the back stairs, her face burning the whole time.

***********************************************************

Ron and Harry followed Hermione's father down the hall to the stairs, down the stairs, and down another hall to what was obviously an office of some sort. They glanced at each nervously before entering the office through the door that Mr. Granger was holding open for them.

"Have a seat, boys," he said coolly as he walked around to sit behind a desk covered in paperwork and a laptop.

Harry and Ron timidly took their places in the two chairs that sat opposite of the desk and sat in silence waiting for the older man to start the conversation.

Or the killing- whichever he was planning.

Mr. Granger reached into a drawer of his desk and pulled out a package of cigarettes. He removed one and lit it before holding the package up in offering to the two boys. "Smoke?" he asked calmly.

Harry and Ron both shook their heads and muttered. "No, thanks."

"You don't smoke?" Mr. Granger questioned. Before waiting for an answer, he said, "Good. It's a horrid habit- stains your teeth something rotten." Then he took a long drawl off of the newly-lit cigarette in his hand. He looked up then and said, "I think it's high-time we had a man to man talk. Or man to man to man. Whatever."

Harry glanced nervously at Ron out of the corner of his eye and saw that Ron was looking completely bewildered. He looked much smaller than normal as he slumped down into the leather arm chair he was sitting in.

Mr. Granger was looking quite intimidating. "I don't believe we've ever really had a real conversation, have we? I don't even think I've seen the two of you since you were twelve years old."

Harry hadn't thought about it, but that was true. He hadn't seen Hermione's parents since they'd brought her to Diagon Alley before their second year.

"Of course, you've both changed some since then," Mr. Granger continued. "You've both grown up quite a bit."

Harry didn't know what to say, so he just nodded again.

Mr. Granger raised his eyebrows in a way that just, quite honestly, frightened Harry. "You're both fifteen now, am I correct?"

Nodding again, Harry and Ron again answered in unison. "Yes, sir."

"Are you both aware that I was once a fifteen year old boy?"

It was clear that this was not going to be a friendly little chat. Harry swallowed and nodded for the thousandth time. Almost eerily, he and Ron both said, "Yes, sir," together again.

Mr. Granger took another drag from the cigarette before resting it in an ashtray and leaning onto his elbows to better address the young men in front of him. "I know what goes on in fifteen year old boys' minds," he said evenly. "Especially when it comes to fifteen year old girls." There was a pause in which Harry and Ron each prayed silently for a fire to suddenly light and free them from this sure to be hell. Finally, Mr. Granger asked them another question. "Are you both aware that my daughter is a fifteen year old girl?"

Once again, the unison answer of, "Yes, sir," sounded from the two younger males.

Mr. Granger looked satisfied and nodded slowly before picking the cigarette back up and taking another puff from it. "I just want to make sure that you are both fully aware that if any of those dirty little thoughts are acted upon with my daughter- any at all- I will make your lives a living hell, and you will wish that you were already dead before I take it upon myself to kill you." He raised the cigarette to his lips one final time before putting the light out in what Harry knew was supposed to be a symbol of their own lights being put out.

Needless to say, Mr. Granger's point was quite clear, and Harry made a mental note to never, ever develop any sort of a relationship with Hermione that might result in his death. He glanced over at Ron and saw that his best friend looked as terrified of Hermione's dad as he had of the Acromantula in their second year.

Somehow, he figured that Ron was feeling even more nervous than he was.

Mr. Granger spoke again. "And just so you both know, as Hermione's best friends, I fully expect the two of you to protect her from any other boys who might have thoughts along the same lines as the ones I've just warned you against." He looked at them sternly. "If someone ever hurts my little girl, I will hold the two of you as responsible as I'll hold the idiot that hurt her. Do I make myself clear?"

Crystal.

Harry nodded. "Yes, sir."

Ron followed suit with a delayed nod and, "Yes, sir," of his own.

Mr. Granger smiled ruefully. "Good!" he said triumphantly. "Now that we've gotten that cleared up, how've the two of you been?"

********************************************

"If you ever do anything to Hermione, and I wind up getting killed, I am holding you fully responsible." Harry was looking very seriously at Ron as they climbed the stairs back up to the second landing.

Ron glanced behind them and rolled his eyes. "I wonder if Krum got that same threat?"

Harry shrugged. "Probably." Thinking a moment, though, he shook his head. "Well, maybe not. I bet Mr. Granger didn't walk in to find Krum pinning Hermione to her bed."

Ron suddenly looked outraged. "He better not have!"

Harry rolled his own eyes and decided not to comment. He didn't really need to, though, because at that exact moment, Hermione came bounding up the stairs behind them.

"Hey!" she said quickly when she caught up with them at the top. They both looked at her nervously as though debating whether or not speaking to Hermione would ensue her father's wrath. Hermione looked at them oddly for a moment before saying, "Did my dad hurt you?"

Harry shook his head. "No. He just threatened to kill us several times."

Hermione wrinkled her nose worriedly. "I'm sorry," she said honestly.

"Jesus, Hermione!" Ron said suddenly. "What is wrong with him?!"

Hermione frowned. "He's just a little overprotective."

"A little?!" Ron laughed sardonically. "Do you know that if you ever get hurt by anyone- it doesn't matter by whom- Harry and I will be fully responsible?"

"Oh, give him a break," Hermione said briskly. "I'm his only child. He still thinks I'm a little girl."

"But you're not," Ron said evenly.

"And neither is Ginny," Hermione said quite pointedly. "But you would still threaten to kill anyone who might be interested in her, now wouldn't you?"

Ron scowled, defeated, and shrugged.

Harry snickered.

***********************************************

Well? You all know I love feedback!!!!