A/N: Sat down this afternoon between packing for my trip to Paris, getting over a way too large consumption of chocolate liqour whilst dressed as a Death Eater last night and telling a guy friend to stop hitting on me. Oh yeah...and my laptops playing up so I had to edit this in the HTML mode, so it might not come out too well. Nevertheless, I'm quite fond of this chapter which takes it title coincidently from the dedication of my Mum's boyfriends latest poetry book: To Clare, and hers and mine, moving past your past is never easy... Which is something I believe so strongly in, I'm young but I have a huge past and huge issues with it. C'est la vie Enjoy the chapter, review like mad, have a good few days and I hope to get a few more chapters up as soon as I get back from Paris on Thursday morning.

Draco chuckled softly as he looked down on the basement from the stairs; the doorbell had just wrung announcing either Potter or Weasley's arrival, the large table had a ring of small candles in the middle and various other candles were dotted throughout the room creating a cosy feel despite the size. The bell rang again and Draco ran up the remaining stairs into the hallway.

"Do you think he's having second thoughts?" Ginny chuckled as they stood on the doorstep of Draco and Hermione's London townhouse.

"Wouldn't surprise me if he did…" Ron muttered and Harry rolled his eyes. Lavender shivered, it was a cool night and standing on the doorstep for over five minutes wasn't exactly helping. Just as Harry leant in again to ring the doorbell there was a click from inside and the large dark blue door was pulled open to reveal Draco smiling slightly.

"Evening Malfoy." Harry nodded as Draco pulled open the door to reveal the large hallway and allow them into the house. Ron regarded Draco with a look of scorn as he passed him and Draco took a deep breath into to stop himself from snapping at Hermione's friend.

Ginny gazed around in awe at the grand hallway of the Malfoy home, the high walls were painted a pale burgundy colour and the floor was mahogany, towards the rear of the rectangular room a grand marble staircase curved away to the rooms upstairs. "You can leave your coats in there…" Draco pushed open a white door into a small cloakroom area and waited as they all removed their outer garments. "I won't give you the tour, I'm sure Hermione would rather do that. She's rather fond of the house…"

"I can see why." Lavender mumbled as she peered through an open doorway into the beautiful drawing room.

"Where is Hermione?" Ron questioned as Draco led them down the hallway, past the main staircase and down a spiral staircase into the basement.

"This is like a whole house of its own." Ginny commented to Lavender and they giggled as they sat down on the deep red corduroy sofas.

"Hermione's delayed at work." Draco winked. "This is a surprise; I've been such an ass over the last few days. I've got some serious making up to do…"

"Well, I think I speak for all of us when I say we've got to try and put the past behind us. It was a particularly messy past and I think we need to leave the prejudices behind, otherwise we'll be back where we were fifteen years ago."

"And no one wants to be back there." Mumbled Draco, astounded that it was Ron who was making this statement, or offer of peace.

"Exactly. We've learnt from it and we need to bring up our children in a different environment to the hostile one we attended Hogwarts in. Draco…" Draco's jaw dropped at the use of his first name. "I can't say I'm sorry for everything that happened because I'd be lying, but I want to say I'm willing to move on. Honestly." He held out his hand to Draco who took it willingly, laying to rest more of the ghosts of his past. Harry followed Ron, and Ginny and Lavender received brief but meaningful kisses on the cheek.

"Now that's sorted, I want to know exactly why you, Draco Malfoy, champion of pure wizard blood, have got a television in your basement." Harry raised an eyebrow and Draco laughed as he began opening a few bottles of red wine.

"Surprising isn't it." He handed Ginny and Lavender a glass of wine each. "Well you know how persuasive Hermione is, and she wanted some of her Muggle creature comforts…and I must admit, it is rather wonderful to have something to distract the kids with when you've got work to do." He raised his eyebrows jokingly and passed Harry and Ron wine. "Because lets face it, the twins are a rather annoying mix of Hermione and me; they're as clever as her and as cheeky as me. It difficult to say the least…"

"For Merlin's sake!" Hermione yelled, her voice ringing through the empty offices. Some idiot had managed to cancel the order of Boomslang skin, and it was needed for several of their high selling potions. And all the other wholesalers seemed to have run out, and this was all after one of the interns had spilt a batch of Veritaserum all over the production laboratory, contaminating numerous other potions in the process. Not being able to call Draco and complain wasn't helping either. She slammed her fist down on the desk just as an owl shot in through the open window.

Mrs. Malfoy,

Apologies for the misinformation, the order was not cancelled after all. We will be sending you a consignment of Boomslang skin shortly as well as some complimentary lacewings.

Sincerely,

Aryanna Forthwick

"Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant." Hermione muttered sarcastically as she waved her wand around frantically causing various objects on her desk to fly into drawers. "Maybe I will finally get home now…" She muttered slamming the door behind her and stalking into the foyer of the offices so that she could apparate home.

"Draco, I'm hooooo…." Hermione yelled as she walked down the stairs, trailing off as she saw her husband laughing along with her best friends. "Merlin…I'm must be hallucinating…" She mumbled as Draco laughed at something Ron said before getting up and walking over to Hermione, handing her a glass of wine and kissing her briefly on the lips as she stood completely still at the bottom of the stairs, stunned at the image before her.

"What's going on?" She mumbled as Draco led her over to the sofas.

"I'm sorry." Draco whispered in her ear as the others stood up to greet Hermione, all wearing cheerful grins as they hugged her.

"I can't believe this." Hermione laughed as they sat down again. "I mean, you guys sat perfectly happy in the house of Malfoy. Whoa…"

"Well, we've decided that no matter how hard it is to move past your past, we needed to do it for the sake of our friendship." Harry smiled warmly and raised his glass. "To friendship."

"To friendship." They all echoed as a buzzer went off in the kitchen.

"That'll be dinner," Draco mumbled and shot off in the direction of the oven.

"He can cook?" Ginny whispered in Hermione's ear.

"Yes, long story, but he isn't too bad either." Hermione giggled as they got up to walk across the table where Draco was laying a large pasta bake in the centre. "Now, I want to know about all of your children." She laughed as they all piled the delicious smelling food onto their plates and tucked in.

"Well…if you don't mind me going first, Lavender." Ginny winked. "Harry and I have got three, the eldest, James, has just started at Hogwarts. I believe he's become quite friendly with one of yours…"

"That'd be Lissy, she's in Gryffindor. Alex is in Slytherin." Draco nodded.

"Makes sense. Lily's eight, and the cutest little thing ever. Sirius is five, and shaping up to be quite like his namesake." Harry laughed and Ron and Hermione gave knowing grins.

"And what about you two?" Hermione turned to Ron and Lavender.

"Anna's with James and Lissy in Gryffindor, she's quite shy but I'm sure she'll come out of her shell once she settles in. Remus is seven and his favourite game is winding up young Sirius." Lavender gave Ron a shy smile and he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "What about you guys, just the two?"

"Yes, thank Merlin. They're more than enough to occupy our time." Draco said loudly and Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Alexander Draco, and Elizabeth Hermione…Malfoy – Granger…they're quite a combination." Hermione raised her eyebrows. "Imagine the worst of me and Draco, that's the worst of it. And the best of us, and you have a rather interesting time of it." Said Hermione as Ginny gave Draco a thumbs up for the food. "Ron, Ginny, how are your parents? And the whole family?" Hermione questioned prompting an absolute torrent of information as the evening passed pleasantly in a whirl of wine and amusing conversation.

"Thank you. Thank you so much for this evening love." Hermione spoke softly as she and Draco sat curled up on the large cream sofa in their drawing room, watching the flames of the fire dance in front of them.

"I needed to do something; we couldn't have gone up arguing with each other constantly. It would've meant the end of one thing, either our marriage or your friendships. And I don't think either of those were worth sacrificing over the events of the past." Draco pulled Hermione closer to him and kissed the top of her head. "I noticed that you didn't mention that the children also had Lucius and Narcissa as their middle names."

"I can't quite have seen them understanding that." Hermione sighed. "I didn't want to ruin the evening, it was so perfect Draco. You made me so happy tonight…"

"I can make you a whole lot happier…" Draco mumbled as he lowered his head to kiss Hermione.

I like the sound of my own voice
I didn't give anyone else a choice
An intellectual tortoise
Racing with your bullet train

Some people get squashed crossing the tracks
Some people got high rises on their backs
I'm not broke but you can see the cracks
You can make me perfect again

All because of you
All because of you
All because of you
I am...I am