NINE YEARS LATER-2007

"You know, honestly, I don't even find it that weird." Ginny shrugged, trying to swat away Albus who was pulling at her skirt underneath the table.

"What?!" Ron's face was almost as red as his face. Susan's hand was on his arm comfortingly as she tried to hide her own laughter. "It's…insane!"

"What's insane?" said a small voice at the table. Harry re-directed James to his plate.

"The weirdest part to me is how normal Harry finds it! He was in full support before it even happened." Ginny clarified her point.

A spoon was thrown to the ground. "No! What is ane!?" shouted the two-year-old. Harry picked it up and pet his son's head, ignoring his outburst. "Look, if you saw how they flirted every day you'd be rooting for them to get it over with too."

"Ewwwww…" Ron and George whined in unison. "Did they feed each other at meals?" George teased, his neatly trimmed beard making him look far more serious than he had any right to look.

"Harry said there were even students encouraging them to get together." Ginny added.

"Weird… We never would have done that when we were in school, would we?" Susan asked the group.

"I mean, we never had hot professors." George happily said, the only one at the table who could confidently do so without the threat of jealousy.

"False." Ginny, Hannah, and Susan surprised each other and the rest of the table with their chorus. They giggled. "Lockhart?" "Lupin…" "Ew, no!" "Ooh, yes I suppose." Then, simultaneously: "Firenze…" The men glared at them as though they had stood on their heads.

"Ewwwww" came a little voice from under the table. Neville picked up the one year old in tiny dress robes and set him on his lap, nodding at him in agreement with his statement.

"Where are they anyway?" With his head, Harry gestured towards the two empty seats at their table. Everyone paused and looked around the room.

"Ewwwww" repeated Albus.

Neville looked down at him and laughed. "Ew indeed."

Hermione walked back into the Hall moments later, bee-lining it to the table full of her friends, who could see that she was mid-rant. "…idiot, immature, Slytherin, can't be trusted to do…"

Ron broke the silence at the table, grimacing. "That didn't last long." Ron's comment was met with a solid smack from both Ginny and Susan. "Ow! Not fair." He slumped in his seat, pretending to pout.

"Not Draco!" Hermione protested.

"Ewww…Draco" whispered Ginny, George, Neville, and Ron.

Hermione rolled her eyes and adjusted herself in her seat. "Not that. It's the Head Girl…oh don't worry about it."

"Wow. They actually were working." Ron said to no one in particular.

Dinner had disappeared and Hermione stood off to the side, scanning the room. The ceiling was that clear, perfect summer night sky, floating candles giving the hall romantic, festive lighting. The tables were scattered and mixed, with the usual shining black, copper, silver, and golden tablecloths. Hermione had seen over the years that people had mostly mixed themselves around them, increasingly ignoring their own house identities in lieu of sitting with friends and family.

The hall had the pleasant buzz of laughter and celebration. Adults and students alike were draped in dress robes that reflected their houses or cultures or jobs. She checked her watch; the Prefects should be taking the younger students back to their dorms any minute. Then the butterbeer and firewhiskey would be brought out. The sixth and seventh years would be more trouble than they were worth in only a few hours.

She spotted Draco across the hall, doing the same job. He had a far better eye for the subtle kind of bullying he had been guilty of himself; she knew exactly what a plotting Weasley-type (and sometimes even a grown Weasley, re-living his glory days) looked like. They were a good team.

He thought it was great that she was leaving for another trip, for most of the summer again and to Sudan this time. She could only imagine the fights and crying that would have resulted if Ron was the one she left at home when she would travel for months at a time. She loved that half the time they were together they were working, grading in silence spread out at tables or on floors, grazing each other's waists and shoulders whenever possible and taking long breaks, sneaking down to the kitchens or staying in bed. They were equally devoted to their work. He wanted to be Headmaster someday. She was determined to figure out the right way to transition the house elves to positions as fairly paid workers. The foreign exchange program had been their idea together. Her parents had no idea he had a difficult history; his parents were too defeated to be violent, and after learning that they had no desire to procreate they had even become tolerant. Her friends mostly found the whole thing funny once they came around, and Harry had been a fantastic ally; his friends, all of them disowned or estranged from their Death Eater parents, had accepted her. Her scar mirrored his, and in bed they kissed each other's forearms and she told him he was good and he told her she was made of magic.

Hermione realized she was watching Draco more than the students and shook her head, bringing herself back to focus and finding Ginny walking up to her, James walking in his much smaller steps at her side. "Hermione, James had something he wanted to-"

"Ditch!" James yelled. Hermione looked at Ginny, begging for clarification.

"The boys want to go outside, fly around a bit. They're restless."

"James and Albus?"

"Harry and Ron, really. Suppose this is what happens when you don't get out very much."

Hermione laughed. "Let me pass off my duties and I'll come out."

Ginny smiled and lifted James with some difficulty. "Hopefully this will tire all of them out early."

Twenty minutes later, Hermione, Hannah, and Susan were sitting in the wet grass under the Quidditch pitch, watching a makeshift game of Quidditch that was lacking in rules. James was very much in charge and had excitedly claimed Ron and George for his team, rejecting his parents dramatically and leaving Ginny, Harry and Draco as their own team, with Neville playing a mostly impartial referee and dual Seeker, which no one pretended made any sense, but James had insisted. Harry and Ginny had enforced that they were not to fly high enough to reach the real hoops and so they had conjured their own. There were no beaters or bludgers and no snitch was released, so to Hermione it looked rather like a game of football.

Albus was walking and falling in equal measure underneath all of them and then occasionally back to the women lounging on the ground, where he would choose without prejudice a lap to crawl into. The grass and fresh night air and hints of butterbeer and firewhiskey on most of the adult's breath (Ginny and Susan had both been abstaining, she noticed) all combined beautifully.

Everyone was still in their (mostly ruined now) dress robes. When Ginny had climbed onto the broom, hiking up her gorgeous skirts without any caution, Harry had looked at her like they were fifteen and sixteen again. Draco had carefully folded his probably very expensive outer robe, and Hermione let herself notice the muscles visible underneath the fitted white shirt. When Ron saved a goal, his bowtie loose hanging around his neck, Susan sighed dreamily. Neville's robes now had stains from the grass, as he kept falling, never discouraged. Hannah was keeping score quietly, well aware that Neville was paying more attention to staying on his broom.

She wasn't sure how you made a memory powerful enough to use later in a conjuring but she thought she should look it up because she wanted this one. "Oh!" She exclaimed suddenly, the Hufflepuff girls looking at her with worry on their faces. "Oh it's fine, it's nothing. Accio Camera!" A wizarding camera Harry had given her once came flying out of an open window in the castle. "Do either one of you know how to use this?" She held it out. "Does it even work in the dark?"

Hannah stood up and accepted it with a grin. "This one's decent, it ought to. Do you want anything in particular?"

Hermione smiled and lay down in the grass, not caring at all that her green silk robes would be stained. "Everything."

TEN YEARS LATER-2008

When Professor McGonagall strode into the Great Hall and the crowd hushed, Hermione was reminded of how Dumbledore was able to quiet the whole room with a his powerful but playful presence. Comparatively, McGonagall was always serious and more commanding. But the play on her lips was noticeable to anyone who knew her well. "Wizards and witches," she began, with a clap of her hands as she walked into the middle of the room, "Welcome to the Anniversary Ball. This is an important event in which we remember the lives given to protect our world at the Battle of Hogwarts, ten years ago this week. In order to properly celebrate we annually invite alumni and veterans to join our students. Welcome all. Now, we will take a moment of silence. Those of you too young to remember, please take this moment to think of your own comfort and safety here at Hogwarts, and remind yourself that lives were given not so long ago in order to grant you that safety."

Hermione kept her lips tight, and actively did not remember the war in that moment. She did that enough, she told herself. Instead she observed the room. The entire hall was quiet as many people bowed their heads or closed their eyes. Others looked straight forward, looking at nothing or perhaps seeing the history that this room had witnessed.

McGonagall quietly clapped her hands once. "Thank you all." She seemed to betray a hint of sadness, or maybe gratitude, in her voice. "And now, we will do as everyone who fought in that war would wish, we will celebrate." Hermione grinned. Dumbledore would have made his announcement with panache and perhaps a trick or exciting spell. McGonagall stopped her sentence short and simply waved her wand, filling the large round tables that filled most of the room with the enormous feast. Then she walked off towards her own chair and nodded to the band leader to begin playing. After ten years Hermione thought she might like the Headmistress's style a little better after all.

It didn't take long at all for Hermione to be shaken from the pleasant trance she was in standing in the corner observing the crowd. She jumped at the hand on her shoulder.

"Harry! You surprised me!"

Harry laughed his deep, carefree laugh that was still new to her. "Who did you think it was Hermione?"

Hermione giggled. "Well you wouldn't be my first choice."

"He's not back yet? I wouldn't think he'd miss this... isn't it kind of your anniversary too?"

Hermione nodded and gave a sad frown. "They finished cleaning out the manor yesterday, he's taking Narcissa to her new flat. She didn't want to live in the big old thing by herself. He should be back by tomorrow." She breathed in deeply. Lucius' death had been hard on Draco. "Anyway, where's Gin?"

Harry grinned deeply, pointing to the back corner and one of the golden table clothed-tables. "It took all of five minutes for the Gryffindor Quidditch Team to find her. I swear it's a record."

Hermione looked over to see a laughing and very pregnant Ginny talking to six or seven students. She shook her head. "Must be nice not to be the most famous one in the room anymore."

Still staring at his wife, Harry nodded. Then he looked back at Hermione. "Oh yes, they're quite bored of me. Though the danger is she'll tell the embarrassing stories. Especially that rogue bludger one, for some reason she loves it."

Hermione laughed at her friend. "Where's Ron? I don't see him."

Harry shifted his body to face her. "Oh, there's too many of them now, so someone had to stay home with the kids and he volunteered." Harry answered with a shrug. "Besides, Amelia is still so little and he doesn't get to see Susan very much now she's opening a school in Diagon Alley as well."

Hermione shook her head and smiled broadly at Harry. "This thing always makes me reflective. Ten years. If anybody had told me ten years ago that Ron would be married to a Hufflepuff and the happiest stay-at-home Dad anyone has ever known, I would've taken them right to 's."

Harry laughed. "I think at this point I owe him more for taking care of James and Albus than I do for any horcrux-related activities. But you can't pretend as though you aren't the surprising one here."

"Hmm… maybe." She grinned bashfully. "I suppose us becoming Professors was inevitable though, wasn't it?"

"You more than me!"

"False!" Hermione exclaimed teasingly. "If you could have seen yourself teaching in the DA fifth year you would have known right away."

Harry shook his head. "I do wish McGonagall hadn't scheduled this right in the middle of exam-grading."

Hermione playfully hit his arm. "Harry! She didn't schedule the Battle of Hogwarts! I believe we can only really blame you for that."

They both paused, and Hermione was reasonably sure that he was thinking exactly what she was; that ten years of acknowledging the worst day of their lives had made it so much easier to think about, to talk about, to live in the presence of. Harry breathed a sigh for the both of them and put his hand on her shoulder again. "You look great, H. I'm going to get back to Ginny."

Hermione hugged her best friend. "Give her my love and don't let her leave without saying hello."

Hermione was woken up by the bedroom door opening. She grabbed the wand underneath her pillow, a leftover impulse that she didn't think any of them had been able to shake. "Draco?" He grunted and she could hear the weariness in his voice. She pulled back the blankets, welcoming him into bed. "Did you just get back?"

"Put on pants, Granger."

"What?" Hermione thought she must have heard him wrong. If anything, he usually told her to take pants off.

"Come on, get dressed." He switched on the softest lamp in the room. She saw he was fully dressed, but casually. Groaning, she pulled herself out of bed and threw on a pair of her jeans along with his slightly too big white tee-shirt she slept in. He had adopted muggle jeans after she had introduced them to him and was wearing them and a soft looking sweater. Standing above her, he looked down and kissed her briefly. "Beautiful."

Hermione often thought about how sweet Malfoy was, and how it didn't always look that way if you didn't know him well. He still acted like a grumpy, spoiled jerk half the time, and as a professor he was surely terrifying. Ron had been the slowest to understanding why she was with him, until after a Weasley family dinner they were all sitting around and Hermione yawned. Without her asking and without saying a word himself he had risen and a few moments later came back and unceremoniously handed her a cup of tea. "I never would have just thought to do that for you." Ron had told her later.

Draco grabbed Hermione's hand. "Follow me." Not knowing what else to do, Hermione sleepily complied. Before she knew it they were standing at the entrance to the Great Hall. She could see that the food and mess were gone, but the decorations, dance floor, and tables remained. Draco waved his wand, re-lighting the floating candles but none of the other lanterns. Finally, Draco waved a spell at the piano still set up in the space the staff table usually took up, and it began to play something quiet and slow. "I missed our Anniversary."

Hermione laughed for a full minute, leaving Malfoy looking baffled. "Always so serious. Come on then, it's never too late." She smiled and pulled the neck of his sweater down, pulling him in and putting her hands softly in his hair. He responded by putting one of his strong arms around her waist and letting his other hand brush into her nest of hair. They kissed deeply, warmly, with all of the love and forgiveness that recovering from a war taught you.

Releasing him, Hermione found his hand and pulled him onto the floor where they danced, barefoot, under a summer sky.

Well, that's that! I have really loved every visitor and especially every review. I hope you all enjoyed it because it was a damn pleasure to write. Thanks for reading!