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She smiled shyly. "So you're saying that I should work late and have baby sick on me more often?"


October 14th

Two days later, when Hermione went back to work, Harry insisted on accompanying her in case anything happened. She sighed in exasperation when they stepped from the floo and a photographer from The Daily Prophet snapped a picture as soon as they were fully emerged from the floo.

"Harry, what went on the other morning was a rare occurrence, especially here in the atrium," she said. "I've been coming in this way for eight years and hardly anything's happened in all that time."

"Well, if someone means to cause trouble and they see me here they might think twice," he said.

Hermione stopped and looked at him with a curiously raised eyebrow.

"Come on, you know what I mean. In the Auror business, a certain reputation means more than you know," he said.

"Uh huh," she said dryly and resumed walking.

"I just don't want there to be chance of you getting hurt again," he said.

She patted his arm. "That's sweet, Harry, but unless you intend to be by my side all day, there's a chance of...I dunno, a papercut...I might trip over my dust bin...you can't protect me all the time."

When they got to her office, Harry moved the dust bin from beside her desk to the far corner of the room. She chuckled. He looked at the papers on her desk.

"Don't even think about it," she said. "Now, I've got work to do and so do you. Go catch some bad guys or something."

When he kissed her on the cheek, she dropped her handbag in surprise.

"See you at lunch," he said, winked and left her office, whistling. Seconds later, her boss came in with a stack of folders.

"No rest for the weary," she quipped.

"Welcome back, good to see you up and about," he said and laid the stack on her desk. "I've almost finished redistributing the work load around the department since Mr. Harrington's sudden departure. Here's your Parole Advocate files, and your first appointment is at nine a.m. The questionnaires are already there."

She opened the first file and sighed. Goyle. Fabulous. She opened the second file, saw the name and shook her head. Nott, Theodore. She answered some Intra-Ministry mail and skimmed over the Ministry weekly newsletter and looked at the clock. Her first Parolee of the day was waiting. She went to the waiting room and spotted Goyle. He was taller than the last time she saw him and had lost weight. I hear that people tend to lose weight in Azkaban. She knocked on the door jam and eight in the room looked up, except for Goyle, who was focused solely on the telly, where Ginny was giving the reviews of the weekend's Quidditch matches.

"Goyle?"

He took a sip of tea and didn't appear to have heard. A wizard next to him nudged him in the side. He saw her standing in the doorway and made to put down the tea.

"You can take the tea, follow me," she said.

He followed her to her office. She closed the door, waved to the seat in front of her desk and opened the file with a wave of her hand.

"Good morning, Goyle, I'm your Parole Advocate for the next year or until they assign you someone else," she said matter-of-factly and plucked the quill from its holder. "Hmm...released two weeks ago?"

He nodded.

"You now reside at your mother's residence?" she asked.

"Yeah, my father died in Azkaban, so it's just me and my mum."

"Oh...I'm sorry about that," she said.

He shrugged. "It's our own fault, you know?"

She cleared her throat and moved to the next question. "Have you secured employment as of yet?" she asked.

"Uh...well, I been looking around, but it's hard for someone like me to get a job," he said.

She flipped through some papers and handed one to him. "This is the name of a place that calls itself a trade and vocation agency, you might have better luck with them."

"Thanks Granger, I'll see them today."

"Do you understand the conditions of your parole?" she asked.

He nodded. "Yeah, if I break any of the conditions, I go back to Azkaban."

"Do you have any questions?" she asked.

"How long has that moving picture box been around?" he asked.

Well, he has been in prison.

"The telly, for six years now. Your friend Malfoy is responsible."

"I haven't seen him yet."

"He's a rather diligent businessman these days."

"How did he dodge Azkaban?" he asked.

She put down her quill. "Why do you want to know? Or rather, why don't you know?"

He shrugged. "My trial was before his, and I was sent away before I found out what happened. He shudda been in prison too."

She leaned back in her chair, rested her elbows on the armrests of her chair, and rested her chin in steepled hands.

"I've looked over the testimony from your trial. You testified under Veritaserum that you bullied and hurt students in support of Voldemort during your dubious seventh year at Hogwarts."

"But Draco--"

"Bullied and hurt others like you, yes, but during his trial he and his mother expressed sincere remorse for their actions, testified against other Death Eaters and gave valuable intelligence as to the whereabouts of the others."

"Blokes like my father," he said. She nodded and continued.

"The Malfoys had fallen out of Moldy-wart's favor, and by the time of the Final Battle, they were scared to death and hell-bent one thing: survival. They were frantic about Draco's survival, Narcissa in particular. The fact that Narcissa saved Harry's life right there in front of Moldy-wart helped her greatly at trial. In the end, Narcissa was seen more as unwilling, frightened servant, victimized by her husband and Moldy-wart. Draco was portrayed as a misguided, ignorant child under the sway of a parent rather than an actual Death Eater. The end result is Malfoy Senior is in Azkaban for the rest of his natural life, Mrs. Malfoy was on house arrest for ten years, and Draco finished his yearlong probation after a year's community service. They pledged millions of galleons in reparations. He saw the light, so the saying goes. The result is Dragon Communications."

"Wow."

"I would say so. Any more question?"

"Did you believe all that stuff about the Malfoys?" he asked.

"No, not until the trial. They testified under Veritaserum and a Wizard's Oath, so the truth was incontrovertible," she said.

"Oh," he said. "Well, I'll be going...got to see about a job."

"See you in six months, Goyle. Good luck."


At lunch, Harry walked into the canteen to see Hermione rubbing her temples in a familiar sign of weariness. He bought her a cup of tea and a sandwich. At the table, he pulled out a chair and took a seat.

"Rough day?" he asked and set her lunch in front of her.

"Parolee interviews," she muttered.

"Who? Are you allowed to say?"

"Goyle and Nott were the first two," she replied. "Why was Nott's file still there? He offed himself, didn't he?"

When she told him about the morning of interviews, he chuckled. "You sound like you're in love with the bloke."

"Who? Ugh, Harry, how could you-" she started to protest but he held up his hand.

"I was just teasing, I meant Malfoy."

She gave him a blank look for a few seconds then rolled her eyes. "I'm not in love with the ferret. All I did was tell Goyle what's going on, that's all. Malfoy has come far since his school-git days."

"You always see the best in people," he said.

"You think it's a naive way to live," she stated.

"No, I know you're not naive, you're just truly a good person," he said. "You're fair and honest, you've always been, that's why you're good at what you do."

"Thank you, Harry. I was just trying to get Goyle to see the value in someone turning their life around," she said.

"He may not be such a git theses days, but he's got the playboy act down pat. A different witch every week."

"Okay, that much is true," she conceded.

After lunch, Hermione and Katie Bell, another advocate in the department, and two clerks resumed work on the Archer case. Each had a stack of files before them.

"Okay, we've got a lot to do and not much time to do it. The Wizengamot only gave us a two week extension on this case," Katie said and gestured to the stacks before the clerks.

"You two will need to mark on the parchment every time you see these dates," she said and pointed out a time frame on the board behind her.

"Hermione and I will be pouring over the records of the first trial," she finished wearily.

Hours later, when most Ministry employees had left for the day, he went to the Ministry Legal Department to find Hermione and Katie bent over a file, earnestly discussing some point of law. They didn't notice him until he cleared his throat, and the two witches were startled by the sound of someone clearing their throat at the door of the conference room. He pointed at the clock on the wall behind them. It was almost 7 p.m.

"We would have gotten a lot further into this if not for the stupid parole interviews," Katie grumbled.

"At least you didn't have junior Death Eaters parading in and out of your office all morning," Hermione quipped and took the pins from her hair, letting it fall to her shoulders as she massaged her head. He coughed and shifted his feet. Katie looked at him curiously.

Sexy Hermione-caused erection, incoming! he thought.

"We'll tackle this tomorrow," Katie said and stood, gathering the scattered files.

"Want me to come in early?" Hermione asked. "Or I can take some home?"

Katie chuckled. "That's very dedicated of you, but this bloke doesn't rate anyone's free time. We do the best we can with what we've got."

She looked at Harry. "Take Hermione out for a good dinner somewhere, would you?"

"Yes ma'am," Harry said and winked at Katie when she left the room.

"Just let me grab my things," Hermione said and went to her office. She got her handbag and cloak and joined Harry in the corridor.

"So, where to?" he asked.

"The Leaky Cauldron is fine," she said.

"Come on Hermione, someplace nice," he said.

"Don't let Tom hear you disparage his pub," she said. "I know just the place, hold on."

She took hold of his arm and Apparated. They appeared seconds later in the Granger's back garden. The back door of the home opened and her mum stepped outside.

"Pumpkin! What a nice surprise!"

"Hi mum, mind us dropping by?" Hermione asked.

"Not at all," she said, urging them into the house. She was silently thrilled to see her with Harry. "Have you had supper yet? I made too much spaghetti, there's plenty!"

"No, I haven't eaten, I just left work."

"Nose to the grindstone again?" her dad asked, coming into the kitchen with Evelyn in his arms.

Hermione smiled and reached for the baby. The baby squealed and reached for her in return. When the baby settled in her arms, she grew quiet and vomited on her big sister. Her mum chortled and took the baby from her.

"How can so much of something so horrid come out of something so small?" Hermione asked and unbuttoned her blouse.

She slipped it off and took it to the sink to wash out the vomit. She would have used magic but wasn't sure how the silk would react to the magic. Harry watched her mutter and rinse off her shirt with some dish soap as she stood there in a soft cotton tank top. He thought she might have had something on her shoulder, so he stepped closer to look. His eyebrows rose as high as they could go. Hermione had a tattoo, a phoenix tattoo! Unconsciously, his hand rose to outline the tattoo with his fingertips. She froze for a few seconds then shuddered. He woke from his musings at her shudder and stepped closer.

"When did you get this?" he quietly asked, his lips tickling her ear. She shuddered again.

"August of '98," she replied.

Harry thought back and remembered that he had seen the same tattoo on Ron once when they had been swimming.

"Ron has one too," he said.

"I know," she said. "We got them at the same time, not long before we-"

"Broke up?" he asked. She nodded.

"It's beautiful," he said and decided to take a chance, possibly one of the biggest chances he would ever take. He lowered his head and kissed the tattoo.

"They're my favorite creature, you know," he whispered and outlined the phoenix again, causing her to shudder again. "You keep shivering, are you cold?"

She don't know what possessed her say her next words. "I-I like it when you touch me."

He chuckled. "That's good, I like touching you," he said and swept her hair from her neck, preparing to place a soft kiss there when her dad came into the kitchen, startling them both.

Ian's lips twitched and he opened a drawer, taking out a spanner. "Bathroom basin's leaking again," he said and left the kitchen.

Seconds later, they heard Grace chuckling and "Kids, supper's ready!" She thought the two emerging from the kitchen grinning and blushing was priceless. A single eyebrow rose at the sight of Hermione holding her wet blouse.

"Mum, do you have something I can wear? I don't fancy sitting at supper in a tank top," she said. "I'd magic this clean, but I'm not sure how the silk would be affected."

After two helpings of spaghetti, Hermione and Harry made their goodbyes. Hermione looked at herself and sighed.

"Mum, is this shirt from your seventies disco collection?" she asked and plucked at the end of the flared sleeve.

"Your mum could boogie with the best of them," Ian said and shook Harry's hand. "Take care you two, come back and see us soon."

When they arrived back at Hermione's flat, she groaned and bumped her forehead against the wall of the lounge. "I forgot my satchel."

"I'll pop over there and fetch it, but before I do, there's something I need to say while I've got the nerve," he said and took a deep breath. "If your dad had walked in ten seconds later, he would have found me snogging you senseless. It was all I could think about during supper. You set me off back at your office, when you took your hair down...and you look adorable with babies...that tattoo...you're so sexy and you don't even realize it."

She smiled shyly. "Sexy huh? So you're saying I should work late and have baby sick on me more often?"

"Tease," he said and backed her against the wall.

Her brows adorably furrowed a fraction. "I am not."

He chuckled. "Yes you are, and I love it. Can I see it?"

So he thinks I'm a tease? I'll show him tease!

She looked down and slowly brought her hands to the shirt's first button. She looked up at him through hooded eyes as she slowly unfastened the first button. When she placed her fingers on the second button, he quickly licked his lips. Her eyes never left his as she slowly unfastened all the buttons. She casually shrugged the shirt off and turned around.

"Do you see it now?" she drawled.

The last remnants of his self control snapped at her impertinent question.


At her own home, Ginny set a stool in front of the fireplace to place a floo call to Hermione. She opened the connection and leaned in. A few seconds later she snatched her head back, squealed and clapped. Wayne lowered his paper.

"What was that all about?" he asked.

"They were snogging and her shirt was off!" she exclaimed.

"Who?"

"Hermione and Harry!"

**