Hermione's mother walked pass Hermione's room and glanced in seeing the door ajar. Draco lay on the bed, sound asleep, while Hermione was not to be seen. The clank of a cup on the counter told her Hermione was already up. She glanced at Draco again, her mind wandering as to why he was there. Had he been there all night?

Hermione glanced up when her mother stepped into the kitchen and smiled then leaned down and pulled out the bag of cat food, pouring some into Crookshanks' food bowl. She placed it on the counter as Crookshanks himself strode in, meowing for his food. Spying it on the counter he hopped up and started eating. Hermione stroked him a few times then picked up her own cup of steaming liquid, tea or coffee, Hermione's mother couldn't tell and headed into the dining room.

"Want anything for breakfast?" she asked as she opened the fridge.

"I'm fine," Hermione said taking a sip from her tea.

"I noticed Draco was in your bed this morning," Hermione's mother commented. Hermione coughed.

"Its not what you think," Hermione quickly said and started to explain, "I had a nightmare so he stayed with me."

"I believe you," her mother said and sat down across from Hermione, a cup of coffee in her hands.

"I'm not, I mean I don't think I'm ready to do that kind of thing yet," Hermione said slowly, "I'm not really over from what happened down there."

"Good morning honey," Hermione's dad said kissing his wife when he came down the stairs into the dining room then added, "Morning Hermione. Did you know Draco's in your room?"

"We were just talking about that," Hermione's mother said, "They didn't have sex, don't worry."

"Mom," Hermione said, getting a little embarrassed.

"If you ever do plan on it eventually, we won't stop you," her father added, "Just talk to us about it first."

"I will," Hermione assured them feeling her face heating up and taking another sip of her tea, "You already taught me all those spells though."

"Spells won't protect you from sexually transmitted diseases," her father told her.

"Just say STD's will you?" her mother asked, "I think we're embarrassing her."

This of course made Hermione's face heat up even more.

"That reminds me," her mother said glancing at the calender hanging on the wall, "You have a doctor's appointment next week. I arranged for you also to be tested for AIDS and a few other STD's."

"Okay," Hermione said, surprised she hadn't thought of anything like that; also feeling her stomach drop a little. One of the many little things that reminded her of her experience in the dungeons. What if she had gotten AIDS?

Her mother came over and leaned down to hug her gently whispering, "You're going to be fine Hermione."

Hermione smiled uncertainly and hugged her mother back. Draco came down the stairs then, looking rather disheveled, his hair sticking up all over the place. Hermione mother stood up again but left her hand on Hermione's shoulder, giving it a comforting pat before heading back into the kitchen.

Draco surveyed the living room and the dining room, somewhat the way a large predator might his territory. Hermione grinned, he may have changed a lot personality wise, but a lot of his demeanor hadn't changed much.

An owl suddenly flew through the cat door, dropping two letters into the fruit bowl on the table before hooting a little hello, or goodbye, as it flew back out of the cat door. Crookshanks padded into the room looking around curiously for the source of the hooting noise then trotted over to his cat door and slipped outside.

"Must be our letters," Hermione said reaching for the letters, then handing Draco his as he walked over to the table and sat down next to her, giving her a quick kiss. She smiled and took a longer sip from her tea then opened the letter. It had the standard introduction of acceptance than a list of supplies. There was a second note from Dumbledore asking whether they'd rather stay in the dormitory with the seventh years, now a year younger than them, or take private rooms, still attached to their house common rooms though.

"Read the second note?" Draco asked Hermione then added with a smile, "I think I'll take the private room, I'd find it highly funny to be in a room with someone a year older than everyone else, I'm assuming they would also."

"I don't think I'd mind, Ginny will be a seventh year," Hermione said thoughtfully, "I'll probably just stay in the old dormitory."

"You're lucky that Gryfindors are more open minded than Slytherins," Draco said then added, "I think we'll be needing to go to Diagon Alley soon, I never got the books for my seventh year."

"Okay, we'll head on over there tomorrow then and stay for a few days," Hermione's father said as he stood up to head upstairs.

An hour later her parents headed to work, saying good bye and reminding them that if they went out to leave a msg on their cell phone or else call the dentist place so the person at the counter could tell them when they were finished with a patient.

"Remember to come back at 3 for my counseling session," Hermione said as they walked out the door.

3:00 pm

"Good afternoon Hermione," her counselor Ms. Simara, or Jenny as she insisted Hermione should call her. Hermione smiled in response and sat down in the chair across from her desk.

Ms. Simara was one of several wizard counselor's working in a muggle area, seemingly a muggle counselor. This also made it notably hard to find wizard counselor's out of school.

"First I want to get some paperwork out of the way," she said with a smile, "I'm sending all your files to the Hogwarts counselor. Her name is Adele Daniels. I've talked to her through the fireplace a few times and I think you'll like her a lot."

Jenny pulled out a few papers and set them down in front of Hermione, "I'll need you to just sign at the bottom, this is the form saying I was your counselor, its all confidential, you'll be switching to Adele, all that mess."

Hermione nodded and picked up one of the quills, signing her name, after skimming over the form.

"Okay," Jenny said with a smile then tucked the papers into a folder and stood up going over to sit down on one of the larger chairs. Hermione moved away from the desk sitting down on the lazy-boy chair.

"So, any nightmares recently?" Jenny started out.

"I had one last night, first one is several weeks," Hermione said biting her lip as she thought back to the dream.

"Want to tell me about it?" Jenny asked carefully.

"It was pretty much the same as the others," Hermione told her, "Except I woke up this time, before anything happened."

"How do you feel about that?" Jenny inquired.

"A lot better, but"-

"But?"

"Could it mean I'm blocking it out again?" Hermione asked.

"What do you think?" Jenny asked in return, "Does it feel like your pushing it away or that your nightmares are simply getting better and starting to leave?"

"I'm not sure, during the school year they were pretty bad, but I had them a lot less by the beginning of the summer, so I think it feels more like the nightmares are starting to go away."

"That's good!" Jenny said with a smile. The rest of the session went smoothly, with mainly talk about the dreams she'd had.

A/N: Took a bit in getting this chapter up, been busy, school starting and all. And I haven't been to in a while. I have 11 reviews! I've met my goal of at least five reviews a chapter! happiness :-D

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