With a soft pop Hermione apparated outside his front door. Before she could change her mind she raised her fist and banged on the door. It was even colder here than in London so she pulled her jacket tighter around her body to try keep what little body heat inside of it.

She couldn't here any footsteps behind the door so she banged again thinking that maybe he was asleep. She was just about to turn and leave when the door opened a crack and the person said, "Who is it?"

"Scorpius I need to talk to your father is he home?" she asked.

"Lady I don't know what your problem is or why you can't leave us alone but I'm no longer to blame here, Rose told me to beat it."

"I'm not here about Rose, I need to talk to your father about something at work."

"Oh really at 10:00 at night, sure you are."

"Damn it Scorpius let me in."

He was about to slam the door in her face but she stuck her foot inside and stopped it. Before he had time to react she pushed the door back and barged into the Entrance Hall of Malfoy Manor.

"That wasn't necessary," he yelled at her.

"You're telling me," she replied testily.

A million thoughts were running through her brain at the moment, what she would do if he actually wasn't home would she break down and run back to Ron, what she would tell Draco if he was home, how her kids were going to react…

"Where's your father?" she demanded for a second time.

Scorpius caved and replied, "Upstairs but he specifically told me to not let anybody disturb him."

"Well earlier he asked me to so I'm going to."

"Fine I'll walk you up there."

"No I'm fine," Hermione replied as she walked over to the staircase.

"You bitch," he screamed at her.

"Excuse me," Hermione said shocked.

"It was you, you're the reason why my parents split up."

"I never asked him to do that and besides what about my marriage if you're blaming me for your parents divorcing well than maybe my kids should blame you're father for screwing up my life."

"He would never do that, it was your own damn fault that your life is screwed up, he had nothing to do with it."

"Oh well then I guess it's his fault that he and your mother split up not mine if you look at things that way."

"You guys are just so screwed up," Scorpius said.

"Look who's talking."

At this moment a girl walked out of what Hermione knew to be the Library, "What's going on Scorpius, what are you yelling about?"

"Rose," Hermione gasped.

The girl turned her head and looked up the stairs, "Mom, what are you doing here?"

"I was just going to ask you the exact same thing."

"I can explain," Rose said quietly.

"Save it."

"Please don't tell Dad."

"Did you not just hear what she said Rose?" Scorpius yelled.

The colour drained from Rose's face and she turned to Hermione, "It's not true, you're not…you're lying."

Hermione didn't know what to say, what could she say? This was definitely not how she wanted to tell Rose, "I'm so sorry Rose, you weren't supposed to find out this way."

Rose crumpled to the cold floor and sobbed. Scorpius looked at her, grimaced and then walked away but not before shooting a death glare at Hermione. Hermione walked down the stairs to the sobbing form of her daughter and placed her hand on her back. Slowly she started to rub her hand in circles trying to soothe her, just as she had done when she was a baby and a small child.

Rose tensed at this gesture and then pulled away, "Get you're hands off of me you lying, cheating bitch."

Hermione quickly rose to her feet and said, "You will not use that language with me young lady."

"Oh and now you're the perfect parental figure, bull shit."

"If you give me a chance I'd like to explain to you," Hermione tried to reason. She had a feeling though that her daughter had her mind set up already and would not change it.

"Fine tell me, it will probably be a load of crap but it should be entertaining."

So sitting at the bottom of the staircase in Malfoy Manor on the cold marble floor Hermione finally told her daughter the biggest secret that she had.

"It started when I was in my sixth year at Hogwarts. Draco and I had been enemies since first year. The only people at that time that hated him more than me were your father and Uncle Harry. What happened was never meant to, it was an accident us getting together but after it had happened I started to realize that all the reasons I said I hated Draco were actually false. He wasn't such a bad guy. We kept our relationship a secret, meeting at night and in places nobody ever went. As the year progressed I started seeing less and less of him and I started to fear the worst. That was when your father asked me out for the first time. I had always known he'd had feelings for me but honestly I never felt the same way, sure we had a lot of fun together but I thought of him as more like a brother. So you can imagine my dilemma when he asked me out, was I to go into a relationship that was one sided or was I to turn him down and most likely break our friendship up as well as tear Harry apart with who to side with. Harry did his best to stay out of our problems but I could tell it was hard for him," Hermione stopped to gather her thoughts and decide how much she was going to tell Rose. Rose knew about the war and about Dumbledore getting killed, but she didn't know that Draco was supposed to do it.

Rose looked questionably at her mother and urged her to continue.

"So instead of finishing school my seventh year was spent with Harry and Ron traveling around Britain looking for Horcruxs. Your father and I will still together but I was going crazy. He was acting like a complete idiot and I hadn't seen Draco in months. Finally Voldemort was defeated and we went back to our sub normal lives. I went back to seeing Draco secretly and your father proposed to me. Again I was in another dilemma because this time he did it in front of his family and all our friends at Christmas. I accepted so as to not hurt and embarrass him with full intentions of once we got away from everyone to do the right thing and tell him that I wasn't in love with him and never had been. Only problem though was Harry and Ginny decided to get engaged at the same time and Ginny was so excited and she suggested that we have a joint wedding. Now I wasn't just hurting your father but Harry and Ginny as well."

Hermione could see that Rose was now torn, she could finally see why her mother had done what she had done.

"Our wedding was beautiful but I felt empty the whole time. The night before the wedding Draco had come to me and asked me to marry him. He said that we could run away and live somewhere else, outside of Britain. It was one of the hardest things I ever did telling him no. I was so distracted during the wedding ceremony all I could think about was his face, it was if I'd stabbed him in the heart. After the ceremony we went on our honeymoon and…"

"Thanks, but I really don't need to hear about your honeymoon," Rose cut in.

"Fine whatever you want, so after we came back to England we bought a house and I found out not much later that Draco had married. He told me that at any point if I changed my mind we would get together, Draco and I never stopped seeing each other until a year ago when suddenly I stopped hearing from him. I was heartbroken because I no longer had somebody that I truly was in love with. I started to hate him for disappearing without a word but then when I was at the platform yesterday I saw him again. He was back to being his rude self that I remembered from my early days at Hogwarts, but then he contacted me and asked me to meet him which I gladly did. He explained that the reason he had vanished was because he was settling his divorce. I went home late and thought your father was asleep but he wasn't, he confronted me and told me that he had known what I'd been doing for a long time. He was so disappointed, that's when I knew that as much as he said he forgave me it wasn't true, how could somebody truly forgive what I had done? That's what you heard us arguing about last night, I'm sorry you had to hear it. Today Draco and I were in my office and your father walked in, he finally cracked. He said he couldn't take it any longer and that I could now go and do what I want with my life and he wouldn't be holding me down. I was so upset, not that our marriage was over but that I had hurt my best friend so badly. I also knew that it would hurt you and Hugo horribly. After he left I kicked Draco out and then walked around London trying to figure out what I should do. More than once going back and begging to be forgiven crossed my mind but it was out of duty not love. I finally decided to do what I'd been wanting to do since I was sixteen, walk away."

Rose wiped the tears from her eyes and looked up at Hermione and said, "I just have one question."

"Okay."

"Is Dad really my dad?"

Hermione nodded.

"How do you know?"

"I do, Draco is not your father, nor Hugo's."

Rose nodded, "So you don't love Dad?"

"Rose I love him dearly, but not as a wife should love a husband that sort of love was never there."

Hermione looked up and saw Scorpius standing there. He was looking up the staircase at Draco, "How long have you two been standing there?" she asked.

"Long enough," they both replied.

Draco walked down the stairs and sat down next to Hermione. She lifted up her left hand and showed him her bare finger.

"I thought that's what would happen, I know you to well," he said as he leaned in and kissed her, a kiss which she hungrily returned.

"Please, I may have forgiven you but that's no reason to do that in front of me," Rose protested.

Hermione pulled away and wrapped her arms around her daughter and gave her a hug.

"I'm sorry I yelled at you," Rose whispered.

"You're forgiven, now I only have to hope Hugo will forgive me."

Rose nodded.

"I just thought I'd stop by and let you know my decision Draco," Hermione said, "I better get going, I still have to talk to Hugo."

With a final kiss goodbye she was about to apparate but Draco grabbed her arm before she could, "You know we could always make it so your hand was no longer bare," he raised an eyebrow.

"Slow it down partner," Hermione laughed.

Rose looked at her mother and then they both apparated back to their house.

xxx.:.x.:.xxx

a/n wow two updates in two days and fairly long chapters for my standards. I'm amazed at myself. Hope you enjoyed.