Disclaimers: I think I should say that I don't own anything except Lilian!

A/N: Thank you so much to everybody who left a review! I really can't stop thanking you! I'm the happiest girl in the world! Really thank you so much!

To Angel of the North: thank you so much for beta-reading this chapter.

A Night Talk

"What are you doing here?" she asked after a few minutes of staring with her mouth wide opened.

"Yer might have been happier to see me. I was going ter make yeh tea, but there's all these fancy contraptions, and I didn't like ter. Yeh look like yeh need it. And we need ter talk." He smiled.

She followed him in the kitchen and sat in front of him.

"Hagrid." She stared into her cup as she spoke.

"Yeah?" he produced some biscuits (slightly broken) from his pocket.

"It's nice to see you, but what are you doing here? And how did you get to the U.S.A.?"

"Hermione, calm yerself. Yeh won't get anywhere if yeh get inter a state. I Flooed over from Hogwarts, but went a grate too far. Yer neighbour didn't seem very happy. An' I think yeh know why I'm here. It were her birthday last week."

"Her eleventh." Hermione paused, her voice rising. "But I'm not letting her go to Hogwarts. I left all that behind me."

"She's a witch, Hermione. And with her parents, she'll be a wonderful witch. Yeh have ter let her come."

"Hagrid, no. Please, just leave."

"No, Hermione. Yeh know, yer being like the Dursleys were with Harry."

Hermione looked hurt at this, eyes first on the tea, then the biscuits, and finally meeting Hagrid's gaze, an expression of shock and sadness on her face.

"Do you really think that? That I'm that horrible, because I don't want her to go to England."

Hagrid looked stricken.

"Of course not, Hermione. Yer should know that, of all people. It's just. Yer not the Hermione I knew. Yer've changed."

"I had to change. But is this all you're here for? Lilian? I mean, did Professor Dumbledore send you here only for that?" she asked suspiciously.

She knew very well that the old professor hadn't wanted her to leave the wizarding world behind when she left Hogwarts eleven years ago.

"It's not that much of a trip. Isn't she reason enough?"

Hermione didn't know what to make of it, and lost herself in her thoughts.

'She's all I have. Of course she's enough.' Looking into her cup, she smiled.

"Please, Hagrid, tell me about Hogwarts," she said, with a nice smile, and puppy eyes, just as she had 17 years ago.

"Hermione. No one knows the old castle better than yeh. 'Cept Dumbledore himself, maybe, and the Weasleys' twins, yeh know all these secret passages… but I'm sure yeh're the only ter have read the whole of 'Hogwarts: A History' more than once."

"Hagrid I mean what's new? What happened in 11 years in that world?" she asked sadly.

Now her mind went back 11 years, as Hagrid spoke, softly.

"That world - Hermione, it's your world."

She nodded, but wouldn't meet his eyes.

Hagrid sighed "Dumbledore's still headmaster, Professor Snape - he's still there, Head of Slytherin and Potions Master, I'm still..."

"What about something I don't know yet?" Hermione interrupted him with a smile.

"Sorry. Well, Professor McGonagall, she's got more and more to do as Deputy Headmistress, this year, so they're getting someone as an assistant. He was an Auror, and he's really doing it as a favour. His best friend's now is teaching DADA." Hagrid spoke quickly, and seemed nervous.

Hermione laughed. "Hagrid! Calm down. Do I know them? I hope they're better teachers than the ones we had" she added, remembering some of her DADA's teachers.

"RonWeasleyandHarryPotter."

"What?" asked Hermione moving closer to him.

Hagrid sighed. "Their names are Ron Weasley and Harry Potter. I think you might know them. Ron is helping with transfiguration."

He looked at her. How would she react?

At this Hermione laughed, remembering her school days.

"And Harry's teaching defense."

"Oh." She looked up. "Well, at least the defense teacher is the best they could find. But Ron?"

Hagrid grinned, and Hermione stared at her cup of tea.

"Do they know something about me or Lilian?"

"No." Hagrid let out a loud sigh of relief. He'd been afraid - he didn't know what of, but he was afraid. "Nobody told them anything, as yer asked. But let me say this, it's been hard fer them. Have you no idea how many times Harry and Ron looked fer yeh, when yeh left they were shocked. And how all the professors had ter act like nothin' was happening. Ron - he didn't eat for a week. Yer know what he's like with food." She smiled, weakly, pale. "It's been 11 years, Hermione. They've never dated, never stopped looking for you."

"OH, STOP IT HAGRID! YOU HAVE NO IDEA! DO YOU THINK THAT FOR ME EVERYTHING'S BEEN EASY? WHEN I GOT PREGNANT I FELT SO ASHAMED! AND THEN I CAME HERE FAR FROM EVERYBODY AND EVERYTHING I LOVED. I WAS ONLY 18 AND I HAD A BABY. AND I HAD TO GET WORK AND A HOUSE! I LEFT EVERYTHING BEYOND ME AND, TRUST ME, IT HASN'T BEEN EASY" She was almost hysterical, screaming and crying.

Sadly, Hagrid reached over, embraced her and started to caress her hair.

"Why didn't you stay?" he whispered.

"Because I didn't know how Ron would react. Sometimes he could be, you know, so childish. He could have left me, the way he talked about Scarlet Women when we were younger. He suggested the wizarding world wasn't like the muggle world. I would have just been some slutty witch to him and Harry, and everyone." She was sobbing loudly. "And do you remember our 4th year? When Rita Skeeter spread murmurs about Harry and me? The day that Mrs. Weasley came to Hogwarts she looked at me like I were something of dangerous."

"Yeah, I know! Fer yeh it must have been harder than fer anyone else! Lucky that yeh'r' so strong and so smart! Yeh have become a wonderful woman!"

He smiled at her and she smiled back at him blushing a little.

He looked round the room, and lighted on a picture of the Cliff family, and another of her and her boss.

"Who's he? And who's the kids?"

She looked embarrassed, not looking him in the eye, and reached for a handkerchief. Confused, Hagrid gave her something the size of a small sheet.

"Thank you" she said wiping away the tears. "Can you tell me something about Ron and Harry?" she said softly.

Hagrid grinned. "Of Course I can. Ron was an Auror, and he'll be teaching next term. He's still living at home - the last one. Everyone else has left. Bill's married ter Fleur Delacour, and they've got Mark, Kathy and Michelle. They live in Egypt, and both work for Gringotts. Mark's at Hogwarts - second year this year. Charlie's married ter Rose Campbell - she's a journalist – she works fer 'Daily Prophet', in Romania and they also have three children: Alex, Renée and Bryan. Alex is going ter Hogwarts in September. Charlie's still working with Dragons - Norbert's doing well. He still remembers his mummy."

Hermione grinned in spite of herself. She hadn't forgotten the episode with the Dragon in her first year.

"Percy's still at the Ministry, with his wife Penelope Clearwater. Just the one - Clifford. Yeh know - they don't have lot of time -. Fred - well he's married Angelina Johnson, and George married Katie Bell. Two sets of twins, born on the same day. I swear those boys planned it. Fred's are June and Lee, George's are Candy and Fay. Ginny married Colin Creevey, and they've got a daughter called Iris, and there's another along soon. Oh Hermione! You should have seen them around Diagon Alley at Christmastime. Redheads everywhere. Harry and Ron will be living at Hogwarts. And I daresay Arthur and Molly will be glad to have the Burrow to themselves again. Why, Harry lives away from the Dursleys since he finished the school, and now he lives at the castle! He and Ron have lived together for a while, but they said that their life was so boring! I think that their flat was too much near to the divination shop of Lavender Brown and Calì Patil, from their bedrooms they could hear their chats! And they said they were really silly!" He watched her, wondering if she was imagining an empty burrow, or a full Diagon Alley, or Harry and Ron who were listening to Lavender and Calì's chats. She was smiling, so he guessed the latter.

She was still the same beautiful girl with bushy hair, but she was a girl no more.

"What about Vold- hem -You-Know-Who?" she asked rousing.

"Harry and Ron defeated him. But I don't think he died, I think he's somewhere not far from Hogwarts, waitin' for his revenge with the one he wants as his heir: Draco Malfoy."

Hermione had an I-knew-Draco-was-so-evil look. Then nobody spoke for a while.

"I nearly forgot. This is fer Lilian." He put a letter on the table, which Hermione ignored in favour of her cold tea.

"I know what that is. Have you any idea how many of these I've burnt? She's not going." She said with her eyes closed.

"Hermione, like yer parents let yeh decide she should decide by herself. Don't yeh think?" Hagrid's voice was stern but kind, strangely like Dumbledore's.

She couldn't say no. She wasn't that kind of mother. She didn't want to be that kind of mother. She knew that if she wanted to be honest with Lilian she had to let her decide by herself, but she was afraid.

She sighed. "You're right. But let her think she's Muggle born, and not the child of a witch and a wizard. And please don't mention Ron. Please, for me?"

Hagrid looked at her, and nodded. She looked away, ashamed of herself, scared of what might happen if Ron and Lilian knew, and scared because she was going to hide the truth.

"Shall we be telling her now?" Hermione looked at the clock as she stood up - it was 3 a.m.