They sat leaning against a tree, watching Teddy chase after his new puppy, the two of them sending the autumn leaves flying across Andromeda's backyard. Hermione plucked one out of the air and smoothed it out.

'So…' she began, and then lapsed back into silence.

'So…' Harry repeated.

She started folding the leaf smaller and smaller.

'He signed the contract,' she said.

Harry waited a few minutes for a longer explanation.

'What did he say?' he coaxed.

'Things,' she replied.

Harry groaned and lay down on the grass, thumping his head on the ground. 'Hermione,' he complained. 'This is usually the other way around. I refuse to talk about my problems, and you badger me until I give in.'

That brought out a weak laugh. 'I don't know Harry, you can be awfully badger-like sometimes. Maybe you should have been sorted into Hufflepuff.

'With their Quidditch team?' he scoffed.

'But really,' Hermione continued. 'All my badgering ever got was an outburst of temper. Then you'd come to me with your tail between your legs when things reached crisis levels.'

'Do badgers have tails?' Harry wondered. He was rewarded with a genuine laugh.

'If I promise to listen to your superior wisdom next time, will you tell me how the meeting went?' Harry asked.

Hermione sighed. 'He didn't want to take the property back, until I pushed. He seemed like he could care, a little bit, if I let him.'

'Will you?'

'I don't think I want to,' she confessed. 'It would be easier if he didn't. Lucretia Nott and Severus Snape are dead. I can feel however I want about them. But he's a living, breathing person.'

'Your brother,' Harry said.

'I don't know how to be a sister,' she whispered.

'Of course you do,' Harry insisted, squeezing her hand.

'Thank you,' she said. 'But it's not the same, not really. Things between us always felt natural to me, but this…'

'If you need expert advice, you can ask Ginny. Starting with the Bat-Bogey Hex, considering he's a snake.'

Hermione waved her hand. 'No need, she taught me that years ago, in case you or Ron stepped out of line.'

'But you never used it, did you?'

'No. I wanted my own personal brand of wrath.'

Harry shuddered, clearly remembering her little birds.

They both looked quickly over at Teddy when they heard a shriek, but relaxed when they saw it was just a reaction to puppy slobber.

'Alright Teddy, time for your nap,' Harry said as he disentangled the boy from the pup, lifting him into his arms.

Teddy yawned. 'Can you tell me a bed-time story 'Mione?' he asked, looking at her with pleading eyes and a pout over Harry's shoulder.

'Of course,' she promised. 'How about the story of the grumpy badger?' she asked slyly.

'Will you tell us if badgers have tails?' Harry asked, matching Teddy's expression exactly, assisted by the way Teddy changed his hair to a messy black.

'Tail! Tail!' Teddy shrieked.

'You'll have to wait and see,' Hermione said with a wink.

Later that night Hermione knocked on the door of the Burrow, smiling as she listened to the sound of the chaos inside. She could make out a squabble between Ron and Ginny, and a shout of 'George Weasley!' from Molly. The door was warded to let her in without a key, and if she travelled via floo she would have been spat out into the kitchen without warning. But there was something about the ritual of knocking on the door that appealed to her, a chance to pause, to take it all in. She suspected that Molly enjoyed the tradition too, despite her protests that family didn't need to stand on ceremony in her house. It gave Molly more chance to fuss as she bustled her in out of the cold.

When she walked in Ron and Ginny were glaring at each other from opposite ends of the room, and George was scrubbing away at some orange slime on the kitchen floor. Percy and Arthur were huddled over a newspaper, oblivious to the antics around them.

'Hermione!' Ginny ran over to give her a hug. 'Thank god you're here. You can tell Ron how ridiculous his hair looks.' Hermione obligingly looked at Ron's hair. She was speechless for a long moment.

'See!' Ginny shouted.

'It's just a bit of a shock,' Hermione said. 'Your old colour was so distinctive.'

Ron's hair was now a shade of light brown that matched his freckles, and he had spiked up the front with a generous helping of gel.

Ron shrugged. 'I just felt like a change.'

Ginny rolled her eyes. 'Well, I'm off to meet my hunky date. Was he wearing a tie?'

'Yes,' Hermione said. 'And you had better appreciate it. It took an hour to teach him how to tie it the muggle way. I was afraid to show him the spell in case he choked himself to death.'

Ginny cackled. 'Can't have romance without a little pain. These heels are crushing my poor feet.'

Hermione pointed her wand at them and cast a spell.

Ginny gasped. 'That's brilliant!' She twirled around, her dress swishing around in a circle. 'I love you!' She gave Hermione another hug. 'Anyway, I've gotta go, I'm already ten minutes late. Let's meet for coffee tomorrow.' With that, she pranced out the door.

'Dinner's ready!' Molly called out, and Hermione settled in for a feast.

Molly had shooed her out of the kitchen after refusing to accept her help with the dishes.

Ron called out to her, 'Up for a game of chess?'

She moved a knight across the board and took out his pawn. She looked for his reaction, and cursed when she saw a smile. He took out her knight with his queen.

'Harry told me Nott signed the contract,' Ron said, his eyes on the board.

'Yes,' she said. 'But I think I should see him again, at least once. To clear the air.'

She suspected his seemingly vulnerable knight of being a trap, so she moved her castle in the opposite direction.

'What do you really think of my hair?' Ron asked.

The serious tone of his voice told her to answer honestly this time. 'It looks nice, aesthetically. But it doesn't look like you. You don't feel comfortable, and it shows. You might grow into it if you give it some time.'

He nodded. 'It seems to drive Ginny crazy, so I'll keep it like this for a few more days, and then turn it back to normal.'

'Good,' Hermione said. 'I really hate it.'

Ron laughed. 'Nott won't know what hit him. Just make sure you keep the upper hand. Don't let him manipulate you with any Slytherin tricks.'

'I won't.' Although now that she thought about it, had she already been manipulated? Maybe he had wanted his mother's money all along, and he just made those snarky comments about her supposed poverty to trigger her pride. But that was paranoia. The problem was that she knew next to nothing about him.

Ron stretched and leaned back in his chair, and she realised he had check-mated her while she was distracted. 'There's no need to rush things. He isn't going anywhere.'

She could hear the worry in his voice, though he tried to act casual. He had seen her reaction to the revelation of her biological parents, and it hadn't been pretty. Dark as that time was, the one good thing to come out of it was the saving of their friendship.

They had an intense romance for about two weeks after the war. In hindsight, she thought they were probably overcompensating for something that was missing. But chemistry they had in abundance. The wrong kind of chemistry, where two chemicals exploded on contact. They had lost their tempers over something foolish one day, and it escalated into a rehashing of every little argument they had ever had. They broke up, and didn't speak for a week. But when Harry told him about the letter, he had been there in a flash. He had stayed with them at Grimmauld Place for a few days whilst she bounced between depression and rage. It had brought them closer. The ending of their short-lived romance made their friendship more honest. She hadn't realised how exhausting it was to have a crush on Ron until it disappeared. Without all the tension and jealousy she could just enjoy herself in his company again.

Ron had wanted to be needed, and she really had needed him for a while. She wondered if Theodore Nott felt the same way. He had been polished and cold yesterday, but there had been something else behind the mask. She could feel herself getting too caught up in the mystery, too invested in the answer. Maybe if she held back for a while, she could get her emotions under control before confronting him again.

'I'll be busy for a while anyway,' Hermione said. 'I've decided to study for my N.E. and take the first test in July.'

'Decided? I thought that was always your plan. Finish N.E. , conquer the world.'

'For a while I wasn't so sure. In the back of my mind I knew I would need to take the N.E. , but I couldn't bring myself to care much about it. I lost my ambition.'

'We all did,' Ron said. 'I think it's fair enough to take a break after winning a war.'

'Something Nott said just made me feel a little ashamed about it. Like I'd given up.' The accusation that she was scrounging off Harry hadn't bothered her. She and Harry were so far beyond things like that now that it seemed silly. But the implication behind it, that she was hiding away from the world…

'Screw him,' Ron said angrily. 'What has he been up to in his fancy mansion? Probably spends all his time napping. If he talks to you like that again, give him a good Bat-Bogey Hex.'

Hermione laughed. 'Harry said the same thing.'

Hermione and Ron nearly jumped out of their skins when George chimed in. 'I'll give you anything you want from the joke shop if you promise to use it on Nott. Slytherin discount.'

'Were you eavesdropping?' Hermione asked.

'Yes,' he said unabashedly. 'And I for one think your hair looks darling Ronniekins.'

Ron glared at him.

'What you need is some intel. Some reconnaissance,' George suggested. 'Oi, Percy!' he called.

Percy emerged from the kitchen with a long-suffering sigh. 'Yes?'

'Hermione needs the scoop on Nott. Can you find anything out at the Ministry?' George asked.

Percy was working in a junior position in Kingsley's office. He couldn't resist the occasional pompous bragging, but it was more sincere this time around. Hermione admired his enthusiasm for rebuilding the Wizarding World. It reminded her of her old S.P.E.W idealism. She felt too jaded these days to get involved in politics, but it was nice to see that Percy didn't.

Percy looked at her squarely. 'I already ran some checks, when I first found out he was your brother. No major dirt, no alarm bells. I can find out more if you want, but I thought you would only care about the important stuff, not silly gossip.'

Hermione considered it for a moment. She did have an urge to find out every little detail, to arm herself with as much information as she could. She couldn't afford to be naïve. But Percy's faith in her made her feel a little guilty about that urge. 'Thanks. Use your discretion. If you find something really bad, tell me. I don't need to know his favourite brand of ice cream.'

That led to a lively debate on whether the favoured ice cream flavour among Slytherins was 'Menacing Mint' or 'Slime Surprise'. By the end of it Hermione found herself yawning.

She stood up as Molly entered the room. 'Thanks for the dinner Molly, but I think I should be heading home.'

She went around the room to say her goodbyes and give each Weasley a hug. When she got to Ron she whispered a hint of where he could find a spell to turn George's skin purple. If the spell just happened to be in one of the N.E.W.T level transfiguration textbooks, that was a complete coincidence. She had noticed that he hadn't mentioned his own plans when she brought up the N.E. . There would be time enough for pushing and nagging later, but hopefully he would reach the right decision on his own. A she hugged George, she told him she had a proposition for him that she would send via owl, then walked away with an evil smile as he tried to work out what it could be.

She left by the front door again. When she was halfway to the apparition point, she turned around for one last look at the Burrow. That was something else to add to her new list of ambitions. It wasn't a goal so much as a vague hope, of building a place for herself one day that gave her that warm feeling of home.

When she arrived at Grimmauld Place she could hear Harry and Ginny laughing in the downstairs lounge room. She covered her eyes and shouted loudly, 'I'll be upstairs with a silencing charm on my room, so if Molly ever asks I have plausible deniability. Have fun!' It looked like she and Ginny would be sharing that coffee over the breakfast table.

A/N: Send me your suggestions for Theodore Nott's real favourite ice cream flavour. I might slip the best answer into a future chapter. Thanks for reading!