"Harry! Ron! Ginny! Over here!" Hermione yelled with a grin when she saw the three of them emerge through the brick entranceway into Diagon Alley.
They all broke into a run to meet in a hug in the middle of the street. Draco stood off to the side a little feeling rather uncomfortable.
"Is Sen here then?" Ron asked when the pulled apart. Draco nodded remembering that Ron and Sen had apparently gotten together in the last week of school.
"Of course Ron would ask that first," Ginny said with a slight roll of her eyes, "She's been coming over all summer, and Ron keeps saying its so she can teach us more about mind stuff."
"Well Harry's been coming over all summer too," Ron retorted.
"Yes, but also because he's your best friend as well," Ginny reminded him. Hermione glanced at Harry who shrugged.
"So how was your summer?" Harry asked changing the subject.
"Good, been showing Draco around the muggle world," Hermione said with a grin, looking delighted to be with all her friends. Draco had no idea what to say, as usual. The fact that the other four had been friends for years while Draco had just recently changed from enemy to Hermione's boyfriend, tended to make things rather awkward.
"So, we're going to meet Sen at Fine Dining?" Draco asked looking at everyone. Harry had put an arm around Ginny and Draco couldn't help but think it was funny those two had ended up together, what with Ginny having a major crush on Harry throughout her first 3 years at Hogwarts.
"Is that's what its called?" Ron asked then explained, "Someone rumpled the note Hermione left us and we weren't able to read the name."
"We still have about an hour til lunch time," Hermione remarked, "Why don't we look around, there's a new model broom out."
Draco could tell she'd caught Harry and Ron's interest immediately, as well as his own. His Nimbus 2001 was the best broom he'd ever had and wasn't sure he needed or even wanted a new broom though. Yet, it was always fun to see the new brooms.
They spent a little over an hour at the broom shop, after Draco found himself caught in a friendly argument about quidditch teams, Ron being an adamant supporter of the Chuddley Cannons. A book on making brooms had caught Harry's eye and he spent a long time sitting on floor reading bits of it before spending more time trying to get it down to a reasonable price. Why he bothered was beyond Draco, Harry was supposed to have tons of money left from his parents.
When they arrived at Fine Dining they found Sen saving a table for them, she hadn't been waiting long having only gotten their five minutes earlier. There was a bit of a reunion with her and Ron before they all crowded around the table to eat.
A few days later...
"Good morning Hermione," Jenny said as Hermione entered the room and sat down in the poofy chairs. Jenny had no notebook this morning, simply sitting back in one of the other poofy chairs.
"Morning," Hermione replied.
"So anything new happen recently?" Jenny asked to start the conversation.
Hermione thought back to the whole trip to Diagon Alley and felt her face heat up a little bit, private things were hard to talk about, even though she knew what had happened that night would be important to at least mention.
"Something did?" Jenny guessed then asked, "Another nightmare?"
"Not really," Hermione said, "More like between Draco and me."
"Want to explain?" Jenny asked.
"Its kind of hard to talk about, you know," Hermione started.
Jenny nodded, "Most of this kind of stuff is. That's why you get counselors, everything said and talked about her is completely confidential and private, and I'm not someone who knows all your friends and family."
Hermione nodded and breathed in deeply trying to settle into a state where she could talk freely with Jenny.
"Draco and I, kind of decided that we wanted to, ah, do it," Hermione began, "But I kind of panicked suddenly."
"You panicked? You just felt afraid suddenly, or felt like Draco was like the death eaters?" Jenny inquired.
"Just afraid, of doing it, not of Draco," Hermione explained, "I kind of saw this image of this death eater standing over me and well..."
"I see," Jenny said, "It made you think of when you were raped, brought back all those bad memories."
Hermione nodded.
"That's completely normal," Jenny said, "A lot of things probably make you remember that experience, but like most things it will gradually fade as time goes by. You need to accept it and talk about it, you'll feel more comfortable and life will be easier."
Hermione nodded again.
"You do have the interesting situation of having a boyfriend even though you were raped," Jenny stated, "You want to talk about that?"
"Draco?" Hermione asked, "He's supported me through all this, he knows what it was like down there."
"He's getting counseling too?"
"Yes."
"Does being with him make you remember being raped?"
Hermione frowned, "No, I always feel safer when I'm with him. Whenever I was remembering it, I'd go to him and we just well hug and stand there and gradually I'd just stop thinking about it."
"Hm, that must be nice," Jenny said with a smile, "He seems like a really special person, not the kind of person you find every day."
"No," Hermione agreed, "We used to enemies though. Being down there kind of made him see what it was like on the side of the one who was getting tormented, or tortured really. Being a victim of the death eaters."
"He and your parents are the only ones you've told about this so far?" Jenny asked.
Hermione nodded, "That's pretty much all though, I haven't really told anyone all about what its like down there, except you."
"Are you planning on telling them?" Jenny asked, "Friends are very important, it'll be better to have them supporting you through this as well."
"I don't want people's pity," Hermione said a little bit fiercely.
"They won't pity you if what you've told me about them is true," Jenny told her.
Hermione bit her lip thinking then said, "It was hard enough telling Draco and my parents."
"Remember how much better it was to not keep it a secret, to let them know?" Jenny asked.
Hermione nodded then finally said, "I'll see if I can get around to it. Talk to them some."
"That's good," Jenny said with a smile then added, "Don't push yourself though, if you really feel like you aren't ready to tell them, don't tell them. Wait for a good time."
"Okay," Hermione said then leaned back for the discussion to continue.
A/N: Sorry for againt taking a while to update! I have a real excuse this timethough, November was National Novel Writing Month, so I had time for nothing but writing my really cool novel every day. It actually isn't quite done yet, even though it has 50,003 words.I need to go back and edit it, but I wanna work on Change adn then this Mercedes Lackey fanfiction I came up with, but first Change. So hopefully I'll get this freakin' story done. :-)