A/N: Hey everyone! Sorry it took so long to get this next chapter up. I moved to my sister's for the summer to help her move into her first house with her husband, so I've been really busy helping them out. The three of us painted every wall and ceiling in their brand new 2300 sq ft house in three days, and I am tired beyond all rational thought, but I had to get this done! So here you are, the twenty-first chapter of In This Life, In My Daughter's Eyes…

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: IN MY DAUGHTER'S EYES

Harry knew better than to argue or ask Sirius to let him go. He followed his godfather through the streets, his arm starting to hurt because Sirius was restricting blood from going to his hand. He was still in a shallow state of awe. He wasn't exactly, well, he just really didn't know how he felt. He knew Sirius had always said that Hermione really did look like her mother. Only a man who knew Hermione inside and out would know the difference between the two. Hermione's eyes held a youthful spark that her mother's did not. She was energetic, happy. Harry decided its because she was loved. Just by looking at the mother of his ex-wife, Harry knew the woman had no love in her life. That was the biggest difference between the two women. Hermione had the love of her family and friends behind her. Her children, her father, Remus, Tonks, Ron and all of the Weasleys, they all loved her. And whether she chose to acknowledge it or not, the father of her children loved her more than life. Lauren was painfully alone. It showed even in the way she sat, shoulders hunched over and sagging. Harry didn't like the woman after the way she treated the woman he loved. What galled him was that if Hermione looked like her mother, and their daughter looked like Hermione, then Cecilia looked like that woman. Harry was grateful Hermione had been raised by someone other than that woman and CeCe took after her mother. But as much as the first impression had given him a distaste for Sirius's ex-wife, he could not help but feel sorry for her. And after all, she was chasing after them. That had to score her some points, didn't it? Wait… she was chasing after them. That little thought registered itself in Harry's still spinning mind.

"Sirius, stop. No joke, man. Stop." Harry reached up with his other hand to pry Sirius' bony fingers away from his wrist. The blood rushed back into his purple hand with a tingling sensation.

"Sorry, Son." Sirius apologized as he drug his fingers across the makings of a mustache that was forming on his face. His dark hair and flashy eyes combined with the mustache made him look ten years younger and still just as attractive as he'd always been. Harry looked back to the woman still running towards them and the man pacing in front of him, trying to imagine them thirty years ago, before their daughter was born. They must have made a stunning couple, the ones who can walk into a room separately and still make a splash, but when they walked in together, they made a small tsunami. Much like how Harry always felt walking next to Hermione, like it was a honor to even be so close to her. It was easy to see just by looking at them that if they had had more children together, they all would be incredibly good-looking.

"Sirius, look who followed us." Harry pointed out to the man who was obviously still so furious he hadn't noticed.

"God damn her, what the hell is she thinking?" Sirius growled. Harry was taken aback at Sirius's reaction. He was pissed, and it showed.

"Maybe what you said had an affect on her. Just give her another chance." Harry spoke patiently so as to avoid making Sirius all the more upset.

"The same way she gave Hermione a chance? What makes you think she deserves it, and why am I hearing this from you? I'd expect you to be just as mad. You love Hermione, you know what her mother is missing out on! Why don't you say something?" The tone in Sirius's voice told Harry that messing with the love the man held for his daughter was deadly. Harry understood. In addition to having his own little girl, he loved this man's daughter.

"Do you remember what the last thing you said to Lauren was? In a nutshell, Hermione will forgive her. I grew up with Hermione. I married the woman, for Merlin's sake. You'd think something of her would rub off on me. This, my friend, would be one of those things. I'm going to give this woman the benefit of the doubt until I have an incredible amount of reason not to, and even then I still might, because my wife will. Excuse me," he said when he saw the corrective look on his godfather's face. "I will probably never get used to putting an 'ex' in front of 'wife', but I'm trying. I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt because my ex-wife will. Good enough reason for you?"

"Damn you, too. You're more like my daughter than you think. Fine. I'll listen to her, because I can't not listen to you when you're making so much sense. But if she hurts Hermione, I'll go after her first, and then come after you. Understand?"

"You wouldn't hurt me if your life depended on it." Harry fired back, smiling.

"Be thankful for your bloodline, Son, otherwise, I'd have no problem hurting you."

"You wouldn't hurt me because of who my father is? Are you sure it's not because you're the closest person to a father I've ever known, and you love me so much that I might as well be considered your only son?" Harry teased.

"That may factor into it. But right now, because you won't just let me be mad when I clearly want to, it's because of your father."

"Whatever you say, Padfoot, whatever you say." Harry chided innocently. Sirius snorted.

Lauren fought through the crowd with all the might her five-foot-three body provided her. She couldn't see over people and had lost track of the two black heads she was supposed to be following. But she hoped to catch them before they made it to the city limits to Apparate. Otherwise, she'd search until she found them in London. She was not letting go, not this time. She ended up in a clearing in the crowd, spinning on her heels looking for the men. She'd lost them. She was closer to tears then than she ever had been in ten years, she looked around frantically. She hadn't cried since she had attended the funeral of her mother nearly a decade again. She'd been in a loveless marriage so long that she'd forgotten what it was like to care, about herself or anyone else. And yet, this daughter she hadn't seen in three decades was bringing her to tears of desperation. Instead of crying those tears of hopelessness, she wept tears of relief when she heard two voices calling out to her.

"Lauren! Lauren, over here! Lauren!" both men shouted out as they saw her run right past them. She pushed through the crowds toward them. In an instant, she stood before them. They stood tall, each of them a good six feet in stature, and shoulder to shoulder. The stern look on their faces made her feel like she was a twelve-year-old in trouble with her father. But the younger man, the handsome one with jet black hair like Sirius's and emerald green eyes, his face was softer than Sirius's. His expression too was stern, but Lauren could see something else laced into it. What was it? It could be pity, but then again, it might be sympathy. The man looked somewhat like Sirius. The thought struck Lauren. He was definitely young enough to be…

"Sirius, I have a somewhat odd question to ask you."

"Fire away." he agreed.

"Um, is this your son?" She asked shyly, not wanting to be wrong and not willing to believe he'd had more children. He'd have to have had him even while he was with Lauren. Sirius, meanwhile, looked at Harry and started to laugh.

"Well, you could say that." He reached over to the man and pulled back his shaggy bangs, the ones that hid well the man's most distinguishing feature. Lauren gasped at the man, not knowing why she was so surprised to see him all grown up, and with Sirius.

"Harry? Wow! I can't believe it! It's you, thirty years older! It's really you! I mean, I don't mean to blubber, but… wow!"

The look on Harry's face was so priceless that Sirius had to laugh. Just as he did, the little bit of information Lauren knew of her daughter came trickling back into her mind. And she looked at Harry again as if it was the first time she'd ever seen him.

"You're her husband. You're my daughter's husband." She said in an awestruck voice. Harry blushed slightly and looked down at the ground.

"Actually, no, we're not married. Anymore, at least."

"What? When did that happen?"

"Right after she died." Harry said and hurried to explain when he saw the look of horror on Lauren's face. "But she never really died. I just never knew she was alive. We were twenty, with two babies, and Dumbledore found out that she was Voldemort's next murder attempt. So he stashed her away and told me and everyone else she was dead. The minute he convinced the government she was dead, our marriage was dissolved, and I had complete custody of our kids. She came back awhile ago. We're not together anymore, even though I want to be. We're in the process of getting joint custody of our kids."

"You have two kids together? What are their names? How old are they?"

"Yeah. She had the first when we were eighteen, the second when we were nineteen. Our older boy's name is Charlie. The little girl is Cecilia."

"Wow. I have two grandkids."

"They're great kids, Lauren You should meet them." Sirius stated.

"I intend to." Lauren took a deep breath. "Sirius, I'm sorry for what I said back there. I do want to know our daughter. She's my daughter; I don't know how I even gave her up in the first place. I'm so sorry I walked out on you, as well. I can't take back what I did thirty years ago. But I can at least pick up the pieces and try to put it all back together. Would you mind introducing me to our daughter?"

Sirius eyed her squarely. "You know, if it weren't Harry Potter over here, I wouldn't have turned around. You should be grateful he was married to Hermione. She should be at work right now." He turned to Harry. "What do you think? Do we go there or go over to her place and wait for her?"

"Go there and get it over with. She's going to go crazy." Harry said and walked further out of the city to Apparate to London.

Lauren and Sirius hurried after him, Lauren still trying to grasp the fact that she was going to be meeting her daughter in a matter of minutes. "Sirius, what does she do for a living?"

"Well, when she got back, she picked up where she left off as Co-Head of the Auror Department with the Ministry. She and Harry run the whole show."

"No kidding. She's an Auror?" Lauren was surprised. She'd thought about what Hermione might be like, but she'd never expected her to be such a risk taker.

Sirius looked at her sideways with a sarcastic look. "Well, what do you think she'd be? A baker? She was married to Harry Potter and has been neck deep in fighting Dark magic with him since they were eleven years old. She never had a single calm year while she was in Hogwarts. When she wasn't trying to save Harry's ass from Voldemort, she was saving him from me. She'd be horribly bored with being anything other than an Auror."

"Saving Harry from you? What the hell were you trying to do to him?"

Sirius laughed, remembering the fierce looks on his daughter's and her friend's faces as they said that if Sirius wanted to kill Harry, he'd have to kill them, too. Oh, yeah, he'd thought back then, that was his daughter all right. "That's the funny thing. I wasn't going to ever hurt Harry. They spent their third year thinking I was after him to finish Voldemort's agenda. You know I didn't kill Peter Pettigrew, I was never a Death Eater, and I never, ever wanted James, Lily, and Harry dead, right?"

"I didn't know you didn't kill Peter, but I knew you weren't a Death Eater, and I knew you'd never kill James and Lily."

"I as good as killed James and Lily, but I never killed Peter. I should have, though. Anyway, Harry believed the universal falsehoods about me, and thought that when I escaped Azkaban, that I was coming for him…"

"Wait, you escaped Azkaban?" Lauren asked incredulously.

"Yeah, but that's a different story. Peter was alive and living in his animagus form as Scabbers the rat with Ron Weasley, Harry and Hermione's friend. Ron and his family obviously didn't know what their rat really was, but I did. In my animagus form, I took Ron at night from right beside Harry and Hermione beneath the Whomping Willow. They didn't know who I was, I didn't know I had just taken my daughter's friend, but Ron had Scabbers in his pocket as I took him, clear to the Shrieking Shack. Harry and Hermione, just like I would have done for James or Remus, and as much as I hate to say it, Peter, came after me. In an instant in the dark of a dusty house, I was face to face with my daughter and my godson. They all thought I was there to kill Harry. She and Ron said that if I wanted to kill Harry, I'd have to kill her and Ron. I had accidentally broken Ron's leg on the way down. Had he not been so green in the face, I'm sure he would have looked as scared as Hermione did. I don't remember now what I said to piss him off, but Harry attacked me, punched me and so on. I actually had quite a time trying to fight him off. We were rolling on the ground, fighting, and I had to reach up and choke him. Hermione kicked out at me, caught me right in the jaw and damn near broke it. I rolled away and ended up at Harry's feet. He had his wand out and he was ready to kill me. Hermione had bought this pug-faced, ugly ginger colored cat at the beginning of the year. That damn cat jumped on my chest, right where Harry had his wand aimed at my heart, and wouldn't move. That bought me some time. Harry never could kill me. I tried to tell him what was going on. He had very little time to kill me, and he couldn't do it. Moony knew all of us were in the Shrieking Shack, and he got there quick enough. When he opened the door on all of us, he saw me on the floor with Crookshanks the cat on my chest, Harry with his wand pointed at me, and Hermione helping Ron on the bed. He disarmed Harry, and in the end, we ended up being able to get Harry to think rationally and listen to us. We proved to him what Scabbers really was. We forced Peter back to human form. He tried begging Ron and Hermione for mercy, didn't work. Hell, even our old friend Severus Snape ended up joining the party. All three kids tried to disarm him at once, knocked him out cold. Then we let Harry decide whether Peter lived or died. He decided we'd hand him over to the dementors. Well, before we could, Peter slipped away, Lupin turned into a werewolf, Harry saved my life from a hundred dementors by conjuring a Patronus at the age of thirteen, he passed out from that and Severus woke up, toke Harry, Hermione, and Ron to the hospital wing and locked me up in an office to wait for the dementors. As it turns out, Hermione had a Time Turner she'd been using to take extra classes all year. Dumbledore put the idea into her head to use the Time Turner to rescue a hippogriff that was supposed to be killed earlier and wait to fly it to the window where I was and send me away on the hippogriff. Of course she did, and took Harry with her. Imagine my surprise when my thirteen year old godson and daughter appear out of thin air on a hippogriff outside the window seven stories up. But they told me what they'd done, and I got away, thanks to the two of them. They snatched me out of the jaws of the Ministry of Magic at the age of thirteen. That was the first time I met Hermione. Later that July, she and Harry met up, this time to get married. Remus and I helped them make an aging potion. How it worked is still amazing to me. Hermione figured out a way to hide Harry's scar so if anybody actually chose to pay any attention to who was applying for a marriage license, they wouldn't immediately recognize them. The people in that department are morons, and so is the justice of the peace who married them. They didn't recognize either of them. Now that I think about it though, I think Remus and I were the morons. We should have never let them go through with it at such a young age. But since I didn't tell Hermione I was her father, and Harry was only just coming around to having a godfather, and Remus was just a family friend and mentor, what could we do?"

"You never told Hermione you were her father? She met you when she was thirteen. She left when she was twenty. That's seven years, and you didn't tell her?"

"No. I couldn't." He shook his head, voice deep as he continued. "I couldn't shake her foundation like that. She believed the people she was living with were her parents. They were good people, and she loved them. What was I to do? She was happy. I didn't want to change that. It wouldn't be fair to her."

"It wasn't fair to you either, though."

"So what? It's not about me, I'm the parent. It's about her."

"You're a better man than I remember, Sirius."

"Well, here we are. Are you ready for this?"

Lauren had forgotten where they were. They'd been walking through London all this time, and she'd forgotten. She stood in front of the entrance to the Ministry of Magic, suddenly chilled and shaking.

"Relax, Lauren, she's a sweetheart. You'll be fine." Harry smiled.

Lauren walked into the phone booth ahead of the two men as Harry whispered to Sirius, "Lauren will be fine, but the question is, will Hermione be okay?" Sirius could only shrug his shoulders and follow the mother of his daughter into the phone booth, dragging Harry along by the wrist again.

Once inside, Harry led the way again to the Auror department, and the office her and Hermione shared. Lauren watched as a slim brunette looked up through wisps of her hair at Harry, smiled a beautiful smile, dropped what she was doing and ran to give him a huge bear hug.

Lauren looked at Sirius, who was smiling. "Aren't they divorced?" she asked as Harry spun the woman in circles, still holding her close.

"No. They were once married, that's all. Give them a while and ten Galleons says they'll be married again. Remember, they were friends long before they were married. They stayed friends."

Harry kissed Hermione's cheek and set her down. She held him even then, smiling, and glanced back at her father and a woman she'd never met. She looked back into Harry's eyes before he leaned in to whisper to her.

"There's somebody your father would like you to meet." He went to ease back from his old friend to let the woman go to her father, but she pulled on his jacket to keep him near.

"Harry, who is that?" Hermione's voice was slow and deliberate as she recognized the physical qualities she shared with the woman standing next to her father, the thoughts going through her mind causing her a great deal of distress.

Harry tried to be as soothing as possible as she looked up at him, eyes wide and pretty mouth agape, "Well, go over there and see."

Hermione glared at him, just enough to let him know she didn't like his answer, grabbed his wrist in a way the Blacks seemed to like doing, and drew him behind her as she approached Sirius. She greeted him with a quick peck on the cheek and a tight hug. As she tried to break the embrace, it was her father this time who didn't let go and whispered to her, "Hermione, I'd like for you to meet your mother."

Hermione was rarely ever breathless. She held her middle as she looked at the older version of herself, not speaking, just staring. There was nothing more she could do. She couldn't find the appropriate words to say what she was thinking, or how she was feeling. The woman had walked out on her and her father without mercy. And yet, here she was, back again and smiling uncomfortably. Just out of the blue. Hermione hated surprises like this. All she could manage was a strangled "Hi" as the first thing she ever said to her mother.

The trance Lauren seemed to be in broke as her daughter spoke. She stopped smiling like a lunatic and shook her head, as if to clear her clouded mind. "I shouldn't have come. This was a mistake. I'm sorry." She looked at Sirius once again, and turned to walk out back into the crowded London streets and the emptiness that was her life.

She was three feet from the crate door that would take her back to the Lobby hallway of the Ministry when she felt a hand close around her elbow. Hermione had surged forward, not ready to let the lady walk out again. "Wait." she said quietly.

Lauren looked into the eyes of her girl, surprised at the warm compassion she saw in them. With a shy smile, she looked at her offspring. "Okay." She agreed. "I can do that." Hermione, with her mother's elbow still in her grasp, walked into the elevator, calling back to Sirius and Harry, "We'll be back later. We have things we need to do."

Lauren glanced at her as she pushed the button for the Lobby. Hermione smiled at her, trying her best to put the woman at ease. "Do you like coffee? There's this great little coffee shop up the way. I need a pick-me-up after this. We could sit and talk, if you want to."

"I would like that. Thank you." Lauren was already getting a feel for her daughter. She had a strong personality. She was one who you might meet once and she'd have you wrapped around her pinky finger. Brilliance was something Lauren knew her daughter would possess great quantities of, not only because her father was a mastermind, but because she was an Auror. She had to be smart, and gutsy as well. Courageous, ingenious, borderline psycho. Warm, loyal, loving. She could see that just from the way Hermione acted towards Harry. She'd been his lover and sidekick since she was eleven. They weren't even married now and a stranger could see the intimacy between the two. They were each other's better halves. Their kids, her grandchildren, for Merlin's sake, must be quite the people.

The little shop, called the Chug-A-Lug Coffee Stop, was decorated in every color of the rainbow. This place was definitely out of place in the modern urban London. It was colorful and cheery. There were no chairs, just low tables and giant pillows for customers to relax on. It made Lauren think of Topsy Turvy Day in the classic Hunchback of Notre Dame story. The employees even had the same style of hats and goofy looks on their faces as those shown in the film.

Hermione led Lauren to a table back away from the door and plopped down on a hot pink overstuffed pillow, gesturing for Lauren to do the same. If only the village people who lived in the shadow of her French manor could see the woman they thought of as uptight and cold now, in the middle of a rainbow and sprawled on an array of pillows.

"I love this place." Hermione started. "It's a breath of fresh air compared to what I deal with all day. Criminals, murder, evil, all day long. This place, though, helps make it seem like none of that exists. At least for an hour. Which is better than nothing, right?"

Lauren laughed. "Oh yeah. I remember. It's a good thing your father has a sense of humor, or he would have gone crazy all those years ago. How is it that you handle everything? I mean, not only are you an Auror, but you and Harry run the whole parade!"

"Well, I've been a part of this thing since I was young. I thought it was only since I was eleven, but that's when I started participating in my own right. I guess it's been a part of me as long as I've been alive, maybe you could say longer than that. I mean, something about being the granddaughter of the most feared wizard in history makes it in my blood." Hermione shrugged sarcastically.

"Granddaughter of the most feared wizard in history? Where did that come from?" Lauren seemed to have missed a step.

"Well, yeah. Did you not know? Dad is Voldemort's son. Obviously he's nothing like him, he hates him, but nonetheless. Voldemort needed an heir. Dad's mom wanted a strong blooded son. She didn't know Voldemort was a half-blood. So Dad was born. But as he grew, along with his half brother through his mother, he wasn't like any of the rest of them. You know Dad, and what all he went through when he was in school. The only people who knew why he was always so much trouble were his mother and Voldemort himself. Even his mother's husband thought he was his son. Other than his real parents, nobody knew of Dad's true bloodline. He unknowingly passed that blood to me. He didn't find out who he was until the year I was fifteen. But he couldn't tell me who I was, either, for obvious reasons. He has said since then that he should have told me earlier, so I could take into consideration any children I might have. He was dead by the time I had my kids. He doesn't seem to get that I would have kids anyway, and Harry would be the very first person I'd choose to have kids with. His blood so counteracts anything bad I got from Dad. Someday he'll realize that he is not who his blood says he is. His parents realized that, and that's why life was so rough on him from the time he was young. I am only a quarter Riddle, half bad blood. I have my genes from you, too. Anyway, I'm rambling here. I'm very proud to be my father's daughter, because that's what I am. His daughter, regardless of where my genetics come from. My kids are great kids, mostly because of their father. That's the bottom line. We're all okay, for the lot we've been given in life."

"Very true. Maybe it's a blessing in disguise. A lot of people would shun him if all they knew was that he was Voldemort's son, you his granddaughter. Who else knows about this?"

"Outside of Dad and I, Dumbledore, Remus, and Harry all know. My kids don't know yet. We might tell them when they get older. We might just not tell them all together. It's not important, and if they ever do find out, they'll need to know that it's not relevant."

"Good thinking." Lauren agreed. Hermione was quiet for a minute, contemplating how to ask a question she needed answered.

"Mom?"

Lauren stopped. Why she was so unnerved to hear herself being called a name like that was beyond her, but she was. It was the first time in her long lifetime anyone had ever said that to her. What had she been expecting? Certainly she didn't want her own daughter calling her Lauren.

"Why did you walk out? Why didn't you believe Dad when he told you he didn't kill somebody? Why didn't you keep me, raise me, be my mother?" Hermione asked, pain she didn't know she ever felt evident in the way she spoke. She'd been through hell herself, already walked a mile in her mother's shoes without realizing it. She had done to her kids the same thing that was done to her without knowing what pattern she was following. She'd left her kids at the same age her mother had left her. She had wanted to stay. It didn't matter how often Harry told her leaving wasn't her choice and therefore not her fault, she always felt she should have done more fighting to stay. She had wanted her children, though.

"I should have stayed with you, Hermione. I really should have. And thirty years later, I know what I did was wrong." Lauren breathed heavily before she continued. The next words were going to be hard for her to say, and harder for Hermione to hear, but for once, instinctually she knew what her daughter needed to hear. "I… I had always thought of you as the biggest mistake I ever made. I was young and free, I had a whole life ahead of me. I had a boyfriend I'd had a huge crush on since I was thirteen, and Heaven knows he was sexy. I got pregnant with you on our first date. I wanted to keep living. I didn't want to be saddled down with a husband and a kid. And yet, he wanted you, and he wanted me. What was I to do? We got married. I befriended Lily Potter, who was a model with pregnancy. Somehow I always got the vibe she knew how I really felt, but being the human being she was, she never mentioned it to Sirius, or James for that matter, who would have spilled the beans to Sirius. We did all the typical Mommy-to-be things together, even if she was more enthusiastic than I was. I tried my best to be like her. I wanted the glow, I wanted the knowing smile a woman gets when she's pregnant. Lily was amazing with Harry. I wasn't so much with you. And for that, I'm sorry. I don't want you to think that you're a pest to me. I may not have meant for you to happen, but… I don't know, Hermione. I'm here with you for a reason. I woke up this morning just like any other morning. But I thought about you, and I realized I messed up when I walked out on you. I messed up when I walked out on your father, who was the one who actually cared. My husband now, we're not in love. We're just married. I never see him. He doesn't come home at night. He stays out with his mistresses. This is not what I pictured when I pictured my life. I don't even remember what I thought life was all about. But I should have stayed, because every part of my heart is telling me that I would have had a shot at a decent happy life with you. I can't make up for what I did to my own daughter. But I want to at least fix the bridges I burned to make them crossable again."

"Yes, Mom, you can. If you want, you can stay with me at my flat for a while. I don't want you going anywhere. Not again."

Lauren smiled through the tears in her eyes. Her father and ex-husband had been right. Hermione Potter was a magnificent human being.