[A/N: Hey guys, I am so so so sorry for taking such a long time in updating. If it makes you feel any better, I haven't written anything (fanfiction or otherwise, other than uni essays) since my last update, so I haven't just been neglecting you. I haven't even been reading much fanfiction lately, which generally gets me all inspired about my fics. However, this week I've resurged, and I'm back with a new chapter and some ideas about future ones. So sorry again, thanks for sticking with me/this story, and I hope you like the new chapter!]

Chapter 9:

Uh Oh!

Hermione Granger hadn't been out on a date in years. Yes, it was true that sometimes she felt rather inclined to go out for a nice dinner and have a glass of wine while chatting with a companion, but she just didn't do it. Friends in Australia had tried to set her up with people, but there were always more important things to be done, whether it be putting Alec to bed, or having a family dinner with her parents, or even just work. She hadn't felt pressured to date, and she hadn't considered it in the sense where she wanted a long-term relationship, but the thought was always in the back of her mind... it was something she ought to do at some point soon.

And it was now, apparently, some point soon.

Fluttery feelings about a man were all well and good, but Malfoy was the father of her child-Merlin help her-and she couldn't have those sorts of feelings about him. Considering their history, too, it just wasn't right.

She was going to start dating.

After several days ruminating on the situation, and how to even broach the subject to Alec, Hermione opened her mouth to speak and was interrupted before a word left her mouth.

"Are you lonely?"

Alec sat at the kitchen table, looking up at his mother with wide eyes. His spoon, with which he had been shovelling cereal into his mouth until ten seconds earlier, lay dejected in his empty bowl.

She stood gaping for a second before she managed a "What?"

"Are you a little bit lonely, Mummy?" Alec asked curiously.

Where was this coming from? Was he unhappy?

Hermione smiled and hugged him to her, "I could never be truly lonely when you're with me."

Her son giggled but shook his head, persevering.

"I don't mean me! I mean a man. Like Aunt Ginny has Uncle Harry. Do you not want one?"

My son, Hermione thought with affection.

"I... hadn't thought much about it," she said. It was mostly true. Excepting the few months directly after she got to Australia, she hadn't even considered it until very very recently. "Would that be alright with you, if I did want one?"

Alec nodded, a small smile on his face... he was right. Had anyone ever doubted who his mother was (quite an impossibility but impossibilities aside), his need to be right was so Hermione Granger.

"I have Dad, so I don't need one," Hermione winced at this, although it wasn't her fault that his father hadn't been in the picture for so long, but didn't stop her son from continuing, "But you do, Mummy. Then you can be happy like Aunt Ginny."

"Alright."

"Alright?"

"Yes, smarty pants, alright."

"So you'll look for a man?"

Hermione laughed, "Yes, I'll look for a man."

"Good," Alec pronounced, before returning to his breakfast.

Well that wasn't how I thought that conversation was going to go, Hermione thought.

She was going to start dating. Fifteen minutes later, she and Alec travelled by Floo powder to the Potters' house. Alec disappeared straight away, presumably to find the men, but Hermione sank into a chair.

When her friend emerged from somewhere (Hermione didn't really notice where), she raised her eyebrows at Hermione.

"Gin, I think I need your help..."

Ginny, although surprised at her friend's request for a blind date, spent several days in serious thought about who to set Hermione up with. In fact, everything in connection to this groundbreaking date (Had Hermione ever asked for a date? Had Hermione ever even gone on a proper date?) was done with utmost seriousness. Ginny made reservations at the sweet little café where she had taken her mother last Mother's Day. She told the man in question that he was to be on his best behaviour and that if Hermione wasn't grinning when she returned home that he would be hexed into the next century. Hermione had gone through a lot in past years and deserved a perfect first date.

Alec was almost as excited as she was.

Scratch that, he was more excited. When he heard that she was going out to buy a new dress, in a move that she was sure would one day endear him to many a girlfriend, he insisted on coming along to give his approval. How was her young son so slick and cool? And then she realised. He'd been spending way too much time with Malfoy. Or perhaps it was the Malfoy genes, making their way to the surface. Nature, rather than nurture.

As he rejected dress after dress, Hermione grew more and more upset. A woman who'd borne a child didn't necessarily have the same body as a 20-year-old, but she was far from hideous. What was wrong with them all?

It was the second last dress to try on that finally caught his eye, which was beginning to waver toward the cake shop across the street. In a few minutes he'd be pressed up against the glass, salivating.

It was very dark green, almost black, on the hanger, but as soon as it was on, and contrasted with her hair, it looked much more green. And it was stunning. She loved it. It was waisted and hung to just above her knees, and showed a bit of cleavage, without looking too much like a tart.

Alec loved it too, although by that point she thought he might have just been imagining she was a cake.

Five minutes later they were out of the shop, shopping bag in hand.

She was going on a date.

She was going on a date.

And yet, it wasn't until Hermione stood, touching up her lipstick for the last time in the mirror, and the doorbell rang that she fully comprehended what was going on.

She'd considered her feelings, she'd thought about what to do, she'd spoken with Ginny, she'd had days to prepare for this moment, she'd even taken care to buy a new dress, and yet she hadn't considered exactly what to say or do once she was on the date.

She was Hermione Granger and for once she wasn't prepared for a situation.

The doorbell chimed a second time, slightly more insistently.

Uh oh.