Chapter One

Harry

After the war, everything had turned out as Harry had anticipated; with a couple notable exceptions. As they'd always planned, he and Ron joined the Auror Training program without having to complete their NEWTS. The only hiccup being, he'd expected Hermione to come along as she always had, to stand by his side and support him and their dreams.

Instead, she'd surprised him and the Weasleys by choosing to return to Hogwarts. At first, she'd said it was to just help with repairs. Then it extended to her wanting to attend an 8th year and sit her NEWTS. In hindsight, he really shouldn't have been surprised that Hermione wanted another year to study and take the exams she'd been exempted from. He ought not to have been shocked as it was totally on brand for Hermione.

The Hermione issue aside, everything else had gone according to Harry's desires. He and Ginny had gotten engaged while she was still at Hogwarts, and married shortly after she graduated. It had been the best day of his life, surrounded by the family that had taken him in. Finally officially becoming a part of the Weasley clan.

Ron's luck romantically hadn't panned out as well, putting another bump in Harry's overall plans. For some unknown reason, Hermione had turned down Ron's frequent request to be anything other than friends.

Ginny had been so angry on Ron's behalf that she'd ultimately asked Fleur to be her Matron of Honour, choosing to exclude Hermione entirely from the bridal party. If Ginny could have uninvited her from the wedding without it being front page news in the Daily Prophet, she'd told Harry she would have done so.

Hermione seemed well aware of the tension she'd created between herself and Harry and his new family. So much so that she knew she wasn't particularly wanted on their special day, and was at least thoughtful enough to only stay for the ceremony and the first champagne toast. The only contact she had with the newlyweds was to stop by the head table and congratulate them before slipping out of the grand hall that had been rented for the huge occasion.

Beyond that, she'd had no contact with anyone else, as after her many refusals, Ron had finally moved on from his feelings towards her and made a point to ignore his old friend. And if Ron got Lavender Brown pregnant in the bathroom at the Potter wedding, the next (much smaller) wedding six months later was very lovely, with one Hermione Granger not making the invite list. And if Lavender was clearly pregnant, all the guests had the good graces not to say anything about it.

As the years passed, Harry continued to see Hermione less and less. He'd never imagined that there was a possibility that they would drift apart after the war, not with everything they'd gone through together. She'd always been there for him in the most difficult times in his life, and now that they were growing into adulthood, there seemed to be nothing more keeping them together.

When he would occasionally run into Hermione in the Ministry, where she worked in the Department of Mysteries, their conversations were now stilted and awkward. Her colleague, Theodore Nott, whose father had been a Death Eater for Merlin's sake, seemed to always be hovering when Harry would try to speak with Hermione. Nott's concerned gaze never failed to set Harry on edge. It wasn't as if he was going to do something to Hermione.

And how had a bloody Death Eater's son gotten a job in the Ministry anyway? Harry would always wonder after any of their interactions. Making a mental note that he would follow up with Kingsley, but something would come up in the Aurors office and he'd forget again until the next time their paths crossed.

When he finally did remember, Harry was shocked to find that Nott was well liked by nearly everyone, Kingsley had strongly rebuffed him, and reminded him that Sirius Black among others had had parents who were Pureblood Supremacists when Harry voiced his concerns about children of Death Eaters working for the ministry.

Nott wasn't the only Slytherin that continued to take up space in Harry's mind. As soon, his testimony for Draco Malfoy would come back to haunt him.

The more time went on, and life continued, the more Harry questioned his post war ideals. Maybe all of those Death Eater supporters should have gone to Azkaban, maybe he had been wrong about forgiveness after the war.

And on the day he saw Hermione laughing in the cafeteria with Nott, he felt that way even more. Eventually they were joined by Draco sodding Malfoy, and Hermione looked completely at ease talking up a storm about something Harry could not hear. Her hands waved excitedly in the air, and Harry couldn't stomp down his irritation, snapped his spoon in half.

Deciding it would be best for everyone if Harry just ignored Hermione, he went about doing just that. Until he couldn't. The odd trio was joined by Luna and Neville, causing Harry to drop his coffee all over his shoes. He was even more shocked when he saw Luna give Malfoy a kiss on the cheek before leaving with Neville. Neither of them met his eye as he scowled at them from across the atrium. It was then that Harry realised that neither of them had spoken with him since his wedding nearly five years earlier.

Then Ginny had James and Harry forgot all about Hermione Granger. He took every minute of his paternity leave and then after that he'd floo home every day for lunch. He'd give Ginny a break and spend time with his firstborn son. Albus was born the following year and then Lily two years after that. With three children at home, fighting dark wizards and going on long missions away from home seemed less and less appealing. Harry wanted to be there for his children. So he contacted Headmistress McGonagall and took the position as the newest Defence Against the Dark Arts professor. He'd never been so happy or fulfilled as an Auror as he was teaching. He moved Ginny and the children into a cottage in Hogsmeade so he could be home by dinner each night. And things had never been so good.

And if Ron and Lavender and their boisterous five kids, Rose, Hugo, Jasmine, Marigold, and Arthur, made Harry want to rip his hair out when they came around, then at least the cottage didn't have spare bedrooms so they never stayed over en masse. Once Ron got a position on a Quidditch team in Ireland, he took his whole family to Cork where he had signed with the Krakens as Keeper.

Between teaching and Sunday lunch at the Burrow, Harry settled into his comfortable life nicely and if he sometimes thought about Hermione, with her hair, those curls wild and dirty when they'd been young and alone in the Forest of Dean together and all the things he had thought back then and never said, then he shoved it down deep.

When he overheard Neville telling McGonagall that she'd left her full time position at the Department of Mysteries, but was now only consulting on curse breaking for them and the DMLE on a project by project basis, Harry felt his curiosity peak. It had been more than ten years since the war. He and Ron were still front page news every now and again, but Hermione did everything she could to stay out of the press. There never were any photos of her or articles on what she was doing, or her romantic connections. Harry had only ever seen a single line crediting her on helping the DMLE solve a murder that had used a cursed necklace. In all other ways, Hermione Granger was a ghost.

Since Harry and Hermione's friendship had decayed, Neville and his wife Luna were clearly better friends with Hermione. Harry supposed that he and Neville had never been particularly close in school despite sharing a dorm for years. But these days Neville and Harry were barely civil so it wasn't as though he could ask him questions about Hermione.

Harry Potter became consumed by the mystery of his former friend. He would lie awake at night thinking, convinced she must be up to something. Why else would she be hiding herself away so completely?

He decided to find out. He took a day off and told Minerva that he was going to St. Mungos for a check up, which he did. He still wasn't a very good liar.

However, afterwards he hung around the Ministry atrium in his invisibility cloak. He'd chatted with a couple friends from the DMLE via the floo who had happened to mention that Hermione was working on a project for Robards, Harry's old boss, and was expected in the DMLE offices in the afternoon all week. After a few hours of standing around attempting to not being bumped into, he wished he'd planned this out better, but then she appeared out of the lifts. She walked with speed but not urgency through the atrium greeting a few people as she walked. Harry followed her at a reasonable distance.

He was surprised when she went into the passage to Muggle London. He followed close behind her so as not to lose her. Hermione was a brisk walker, but Harry wondered why she didn't just apparate. Although he shouldn't complain as her walking through London was convenient for following her. She walked through Soho, Mayfair and then through Hyde Park, stopping for only a couple minutes to survey the nannies and children circling around the Serpentine.

How sad, Harry thought, that Hermione had never had children of her own. She'd said she wanted them back in those cold hungry nights in the tent.

Passing Kensington Palace and the embassies, they finally came to a row of stark white houses. One had a bright red door, the next bright blue. The neighbourhood was very posh. Hermione lived in Muggle London, in a neighbourhood there was no way she could afford even with her Order of Merlin and her Department of Mysteries salary.

She had to be up to something untoward.

Hermione went to a bright green door and before she could even fit her key in the lock, the door flew open and she was mobbed by children.

Harry was floored by the number of them and the cacophony of all their little voices yelling "Mummy! Mum's home!" It seemed that they wouldn't let her in the door until she'd kissed each of them. The oldest boy who looked about Albus' age with snow white hair was kissed on the top of the head even though he was close to Hermione's height already. Next there were dark curly haired twin girls who looked like the splitting image of Hermione as a girl. Then a tiny little blonde toddler was up in Hermione's arms being cuddled and held.

"Scorpius, Thea, Emilia, go in the house and wash up for dinner. Let your mother breathe for Salazar's sake." The voice that had to be Hermione's secret husband was eerily familiar, but Harry couldn't quite place it.

Harry himself forgot how to breathe himself for a minute, as Draco bloody Malfoy gripped Hermione by the waist kissing her long and deeply before pulling back, reclaiming the baby off her hip and heading back into the house. Hermione smiled affectionately before yelling in mock outrage, "Draco, give me back my baby right this minute."

As she followed him into the house, a tell-tale shimmer of a ward shifting into place told Harry that the house was now locked down.

Suddenly he felt a wand pressing into his throat, "So Potter, you finally found us," Theodore Nott's voice dripped venom in his ear, "I don't think I like you spying on my family." The wand pressed deeper.

Harry cursed internally. In the years teaching at Hogwarts, he had become sloppy.

Fuck.