I feel so sorry for Harry in this chapie! But don't worry he and Harold will eventually hit it off!

Disclaimer: I never, never, never, never, never, etc. own Harry Potter and co.

Chapter 15: Meeting Hermione's Father

"Hermione and Harry! Get your all's lazy butts down here before the food gets cold!" screamed Mrs. Granger.

"We are coming, Mum!" shouted Hermione as she and Harry came pelting down the stairs sounding very much like a herd of Hippogriffs. They both collapsed against the kitchen table, panting and laughing their heads off.

"Ha, I won," Hermione gasped.

"Yeah, only because I let you! I didn't want to get hexed for eternity, what kind of a boyfriend do you think I am?" Harry wheezed.

"I so came in on the wrong part of that conversation." Mr. Granger exclaimed. Harry and Hermione hadn't heard him come in. Both jumped and spun around guiltily to face Hermione's father and in Harry's mind his biggest threat to dating Hermione.

"Daddy!" Mione shrieked, "It is so good to see you!" She charged into his arms where he gave her a big bear hug.

"Daddy, I know you are happy to see me, but right now I can't breath." she gasped.

"Oh, sorry," he said and released her. He must have been holding her tight because when he let go Hermione staggered backwards right into Harry's arms.

"Uff, easy Mione, up you go," said Harry as he placed her back on her feet and directing her dad's attention to him.

"So, Hermione who is this?" Mr. Granger asked as he took off his winter coat revealing a stark white dentist robe and khaki pants, with tennis shoes.

"Oh Daddy, this is Harry Potter, you know my friend from Hogwarts…"

"Oh, of course the 'famous Harry Potter' how could I have forgotten, you always talked about him all summer."

Hermione blushed furiously red, as Harry turned and raised an eyebrow at her, secretly wondering how long Mione had been pinning for him.

"Yeah Dad, that Harry Potter and he is also my boyfriend."

Harry closed his eyes, waiting for the explosion, but after a few seconds it didn't come and he cautiously opened his eyes to find Mr. Granger's full six foot six height right in front of his face.

He slowly walked around Harry as if he was an item up for sale at an auction house. He stood rigidly at attention, eyes forward, chest tucked in and heels together, as Mr. Granger continued to circle him all the while making little noncommittal noises. After about five minutes of this, Hermione felt that she had to step in; she could see that Harry's rock hard nerves were starting to wear.

"Daddy, stop it. You are starting to scare Harry. I bet he is thinking this is some kind of 'Meet the Parents' come to life."

Mr. Granger stopped circling Harry, as Mrs. Granger stuck her head in from the dinning room to see where they all were. He gave Harry one last look before grunting to himself and walking off into the dinning room.

Harry followed him with his eyes until he disappeared around the corner, before relaxing and leaned against the wall for support.

"Does he always do that?" Harry asked his voice raspy with strain.

"I don't know. You are the first boyfriend that I have had. It must have been bad though, that was why I stepped in when I did. I could see that your nerves were starting to break, and that is saying something."

Harry snorted, "I am glad that I have fooled you. Do you know that all those times that I have had to face Voldemort I have been absolutely terrified out of my wits?"

Hermione smiled and gave him a quick peck on the cheek, "And you would be a fool not to be afraid, that is what makes you stronger than most, you take your fear and use it against the enemy."

"Harry, Hermione get in here unless you want your food to be stone cold!" boomed Mr. Granger. Harry flinched at the sound of his voice and Hermione chuckled.

"Come on, give him a chance, he isn't all mean and nasty, he is just going to be protective of me until he gets to know you better."

Harry sighed and nodded as he let Hermione take his hand and lead him into the dinning room.

Harry and Hermione walked into the Granger's dinning room. It wasn't large but it looked big because it was long in length. The walls were wallpapered with a yellow and blue flower design and the wall space below the chair rail was the same shade of blue. A small crystal chandelier hung over the middle of the table. Mr. Granger suitably had the head of the table with Mrs. Granger at the opposite end. Hermione raised her eyebrows at the arrangement since it was obvious that her father didn't want them to sit next to each other; so smiling at her father she went to go sit down in her usually place to the right of her dad, when suddenly Harry was there pulling her chair out for her. She just smiled at him and sat down. Harry went back around the table and sat down in the remaining seat that faced Hermione.

Harry was about to pick up his knife and fork when Hermione lightly kicked him under the table with a meaningful look at her father. Harry quickly replaced the silverware and put his hands in his lap. Mr. Granger looked at him out of the corner of his eye the bowed his head to say grace.

"Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this wonderful feast that you have given us and that you have brought our family all together again for the holiday season. Thank you also for bringing to our table today a guest from our daughter's school to share this holiday with us. Amen."

"Amen" everybody chorused. The food was immediately passed around and Harry remembered to say his please and thank you's.

"So Harry," Mr. Granger started on him, "you don't usually say grace?"

Harry looked up from his food and answered honestly, "No I don't. You see at my Aunt and Uncle's house we didn't say grace so I didn't get in the habit of saying it, and of course we don't say it at Hogwarts since the professors don't want to offend anyone who doesn't say grace or has a different religion. But I have no problem with it myself and if you all say grace then so will I, like I said before I just never got in the habit of saying it."

Mr. Granger nodded and seemed satisfied with his answer. Mrs. Granger turned to Hermione to get her father's attention off of Harry.

"So Hermione how is school?"

"Oh really great! My studies are still going well and I am still the top witch in my year!"

"That is great sweetie!"

An uncomfortable silence followed and Hermione realized that her parents were waiting for either Harry or herself to talk about their relationship.

"Harry how long have we been going out?" she asked bluntly.

Harry nearly choked on his food as he looked up at her, "Umm…let's see it was after the official start of school," he noticed how keenly her parents were listening to their conversation, " so that would have been in September, so…I remember the day, it was October 1st, and today is December 17th, so about three and a half months."

"That long?" Mr. Granger asked breaking the silence.

"Yeah, Dad that long." Hermione replied.

"So have you all gone out on dates?" asked her mother excitedly.

Hermione looked at Harry; she wasn't going to answer all of their questions. "Well yeah, but not like real dates just when we are allowed to go to Hogsmead and we walk around together, holding hands that sort of thing."

"Have you ever kissed her?" Mr. Granger asked innocently and Harry for the second time that night nearly choked on his food. Swallowing hastily he grabbed a quick swig of water before answering this delicate question.

A quick glance at Hermione told him that he had better tell the truth about how far they were willing to go in their relationship together.

He looked Mr. Granger dead in the eye and replied calmly, "Yes, I have." Mr. Granger took a deep breath as if he was going to set upon Harry, but Harry held up his hand, "No wait let me finish, before you give the traditional father to boyfriend talk about hurting her, let me explain. We are both comfortable with where are relationship is right at this moment. We kiss, sure, and sometimes the kisses get a little intense but we are teenagers. As far as taking the relationship up a notch, no. I believe strongly in abstinence and I know that Mione does too. We have had this talk once before and that was when we first started to go out, because I wanted to make sure that I didn't cross over a line and hurt her and she the same with me. I would never intentionally hurt her and last year when I was stupid and rushed into something, she got hurt and that about tore me apart. I don't want you to think of me as using your daughter for a quick fling, but that I truly love her and would never ever do anything to hurt her and if someone did I would have to hunt them down to the end of the Earth."

Hermione looked smugly at her dad and bent her head back to her food. Mrs. Granger beamed at Harry, thrilled with his response and looked quickly to her husband to see what he thought of Harry's speech. Mr. Granger huffed but left Harry alone after that. Halfway through dessert Hermione yawned, then Harry yawned, and then they both yawned.

Mrs. Granger smiled at them and gently ordered them to bed. Harry protested about wanting to help with the dishes, but Mrs. Granger shooed them up the stairs to bed.

Once there, Hermione went into action. She quickly grabbed her pajamas and hurried to the bathroom across the hall slamming the door shut behind her. Harry smiled and grabbed his own sleepwear: a T-shirt that said Gryffindor on the front with the quidditch symbol, then on the back Potter was written in big black letters, and some boxers that were black. Just as he had pulled his boxers on Hermione came in. She smiled at Harry and looked him over appraisingly.

Harry grinned at her, "Do I meet your approval?"

"Oh? No not mine, my parents, because knowing my dad he will check on us every ten minutes tonight and I didn't want him to see you in something, uh, embarrassing."

Harry quirked an eyebrow at her and took in her outfit, extremely short gray shorts and a red Snoopy tank top.

"Oh Harry I wanted to show you something." She said as she went over to her corner desk where her computer was sitting. Flipping the power switch she waited for the computer to boot up. When it did she went on the Internet and typed in a web ?" he inquired reading over her shoulder.

"Yeah it is a website devoted to several things, wait let me show you." The main screen had come up where it listed several things. Hermione clicked on books. "Remember that witch J. K. Rowling?" Harry nodded, "Well she published and is still working on writing down your life story for the enjoyment of muggles."

Harry's jaw dropped as he stared at Hermione. "I have all the books that she has published so far, she is up to our fifth year."

"She did? You do?" Harry stammered.

"Also there have been three movies so far based on the books, first, second, and third year. And like many things when they become popular other things come with it, for instance computer games, board games, action figures, and clothing articles. Since we aren't done with our school life yet, that is as far as she is going to write, she hasn't finished the books and have left people guessing about what is going to happen. So people create websites like where they can write down and submit story's about what they think might happen or just something that they happened to pull out of their heads."

She pointed to a link on the computer screen under books, it read Harry Potter: total pages 168,683. Harry felt his jaw unhinge in shock.

"I have the largest number of pages!" said Harry, quickly scanning the page. Hermione nodded, watching him closely.

"You can set the genre for the stories that you want to read, such as romance, comedy, action/adventure, tragedy and so on. You can pick your rating, if you want goody-goody stuff go for G and PG, for more swearing and mention to sexual activity go for PG-13, then for the really good stuff like adult themes, gore, etc go for R. Then you can select your characters, you, me, Ron, Sirius, Lupin, Tonks, Hagrid," she paused and looked quickly up at Harry, "James and Lily."

Harry jerked himself out of his stupor, "They write stuff about my parents?"

"Yeah, though not all of it is true of course, but there is one that I would like you to read because it was submitted by a witch that knew your parents…" she trailed off. Then clicking on Harry Potter, Genre: Romance, Rating: PG-13, Characters: James and Lily, then hit enter. A page came up and Hermione jumped to page three out of fifty and scrolled about halfway down.

There it was, James and Lily: Their Story of Love. Harry stared at it as if it was a ghost. Hermione slid out of her desk chair and Harry unknowingly sat down and clicked upon the story. As he started to read he never made a sound just kept on reading. The story was long with over 25 chapters that were huge. When he finished over two hours later, he looked up at Hermione with tears coursing their way down his face.

"Oh Harry I am so sorry. I didn't mean to make you upset." She cried.

"No, no Mione, these aren't tears of sadness, these our happy tears! Thank you so much for showing this to me Mione! This proves that my dad wasn't a huge jerk like I thought he was forcing Lily to marry him. Now I know the truth. Thank you Mione!"

She stared at him then gave a weak smile, "Come on, it is late and we need to get to bed." Harry nodded and turned back to the computer shutting everything down and finally turning it off. Hermione flicked on her bedside table lamp then turned off the overhead light. She climbed into bed, and then turned to find Harry just standing there and looking unsure of himself.

"It is alright Harry, I won't bite."

Harry gave her a weak smile before also climbing into bed next to her. She snuggled under the sheets and waited for him to do the same. When he had finally put his glasses down on the desk, she clicked off the light. Her room was plunged into darkness, blinking hard, it took Harry a couple of minutes to get is eyes refocused, trying very hard not to touch the body in the bed next to him.

Hermione sighed in frustration when she noticed this and was determined to get him to relax. So she scooted up right next to him and placed her head on his chest so that she is snuggled up in the crook of his arm. She felt him immediately tense under her, but after a few minutes of lightly rubbing her head against him he finally relaxed. He sighed and began to stroke her hair, just like he did when they were together at Hogwarts. Hermione sighed again this time in bliss as Harry continued to stroke her head.

She made herself more comfortable against him and he put his arms around her. She whispered into his neck, "I love you Harry."

He replied into her hair, "I love you too, Mione."

And together like that they fell asleep; blissfully unaware Harry was as he finally drifted off to sleep that tomorrow was going to be one hellish day for him.