Disclaimer: Anything you recognize I do not own.

Okay so I had this all ready to go last night but fanfiction was not working right. Happy Memorial Day to those who celebrate it. Also, a thank you to the reviews I was not able to reply to; I started back to work last week and had quite a busy week.

Friday December 15, 2006

Yet again it was Draco's turn to have both of the children at his flat tonight for a sleepover while Hermione went out on a date with Oliver. It was no secret now, to anyone, that Oliver and Hermione were dating. They were currently the talk of the tabloids. The golden trio widow and the Quidditch star seemed to make a cute couple according to every article Draco had seen about it.

Thankfully this was the second sleepover at his place since the first one, which meant that Hermione either wasn't spending too many weekend late nights with Oliver or she was sending Rose to her Grandparents or other family members. However, during that time Hermione had also hosted a few sleepovers. But according to Scorpius, the second time Oliver had been there to eat dinner with them. Of course Scorpius had loved every minute of it, but it had only made Draco scowl. He hated that it bothered him as much as it did. He had no claim on Granger, so why the bloody hell did he care who she dated? There was just something about the whole situation that niggled at his conscious.

Currently he was engaged in a riveting game of 'the floor is lava' with Scorpius and Rose, and found himself perched on top of his coffee table as Scorpius and Rose jumped from one of the chairs and onto the couch. It was really quite fun to play these games with the two of them, especially since he hadn't had the chance to play these games as a child himself.

"The house you're on is burning, Draco!" Rose yelled, since the coffee table he was on was, naturally, a wooden house, and not a rock like the couch was.

Unfortunately the coffee table ahem—wooden house, had been pushed away from where the rock, couch, was so Draco had quite a leap ahead of him. Both Scorpius and Rose watched eagerly as Draco assessed the distance and both moved out of the way as he prepared himself for launch.

He had just landed successfully between Scorpius and Rose when the fireplace ignited and Hermione stepped out of the fireplace and onto the lava, carpet, of his living room.

"No! Mom you're in lava!" Rose yelled.

"'Mione dead!" Scorpius screamed.

"What is going on?" Hermione asked, her brow wrinkled in confusion at seeing the three of them huddled on the couch with the living room in disarray.

"We're playing the floor is lava, Granger. And you're standing right in the lava." Draco replied simply.

Hermione shrugged her shoulders, uncaring at the moment. Draco noticed her behavior immediately. He knew from watching her with the kids before that she would have joined in immediately normally, something was off. And as he studied her closely he could tell that something had upset her because there were tear tracks on her face, and her eyes were puffy from crying.

"Hey, why don't you guys finish your blanket fort in Scorp's room?" Draco suggested, knowing for sure that something had to have happened if she was here to pick up Rose before she had even spent the night.

Before Hermione could protest that she simply wanted to take Rose home, the children had already run down the hall and into Scorpius' room, leaving the two of them in the living room together.

"What happened? Last I checked the night hasn't passed yet; you're a bit early to pick Rose up."

"I just decided I want her home tonight."

"Bull shit. You're upset. What happened? Did Oliver hurt you?"

Hermione shook her head frantically, "No, he didn't hurt me. If anything I hurt him. I led him on; I'm such a horrible person."

With that said, Hermione dropped down into his recliner dejectedly. How had she ended up here talking to Malfoy about her problems? That had not been what she intended at all. After parting ways with Oliver she was going to go grab Rose, go home, and settle in to bed by herself and her shame. But here she was; about to tell Malfoy why she was a horrible person.

"I'm confused, why are you a horrible person?"

"I led him on."

"How?"

"I was just so happy to be receiving male attention again; I was just so lonely and he happened to come along and show me attention. And he's handsome and he kissed me so well, but it was clear to me by the second date that we could never work, yet I still pretended that it could. I got his hopes up, and that makes me horrible."

"But you told him this tonight though, right?"

Hermione nodded, "Only because he suggested going back to his place. I had to say something. I couldn't go through with that without feeling something deeper for him."

"Don't beat yourself up, Granger. He understood didn't he?"

"Yes, he was very understanding, but I could tell how disappointed he was."

Draco snorted, "Of course he was disappointed; he thought he was going to bed you! Granger, you've been widowed for almost two years, it's natural that you be lonely and crave that kind of male attention. But at least you put a stop to it and realized it wasn't right, no matter how the attention made you feel."

Hermione was quiet for a while following Draco's words. He was right; at least she had stopped it before it had gotten out of control.

"Thank you." Hermione said quietly.

"Mom!"

"Dad!"

"Come see our fort!"

Draco and Hermione shared a smile and stood to go investigate the blanket fort their children had created together, both of them trying to forget the oddity of Draco Malfoy comforting Hermione Granger.

Xxx

Monday December 18, 2006

Christmas was only a week away and Hermione had so much shopping left to do! The research for Draco's case had dominated most of her time, leaving her little time to get presents for people. Her free time had been spent getting ready for her semester in law starting in January, sleeping, and spending time with Rose.

However, she wanted to get as far as she could with this research before Christmas break at the office and before she started her classes. Draco had assured her that the case wasn't going to go to court until mid January, but she wanted to have most of the heavy research done as soon as possible.

"Granger, do you realize that it's seven o' clock?" Draco asked from the doorway of the library where he stood with Scorpius and Rose each holding on to one of his hands. "I picked up Rose for you and took the two of them to dinner."

Hermione looked up, startled. How had the time gotten away from her like that? Slamming her books closed, she grabbed her purse and rushed over to her daughter.

"I'm so sorry, Rosie."

Rose just smiled, "It's okay, Mr. Draco took us to pizza."

"Granger, you need to pace yourself with this research, the case isn't until mid January." Draco said.

"I know, but I want to get most of it out of the way before I start my classes."

Draco nodded, "Relax on it for now. We have to travel to France the week after Christmas for research."

"What? When?"

"You and I are scheduled to head for France on the first of January. And we'll be back by that Saturday. I already checked and your classes don't start until the second week of January."

Hermione breathed a sigh of relief, "What's in France?"

"A witness, with extensive information both in her head and in her library. Not only do I need you for the research in her library, but she doesn't like men and, therefore is very unlikely to talk to me about what she knows."

"What about our children? I need a little more head's up than that you know." Hermione said indignantly.

Draco shrugged, "My Mother is returning from her vacation in France and is watching Scorp for me. You have parents, Granger, ask them."

Hermione rolled her eyes at Draco and grabbed Rose's hand with her own. "Say goodnight to Mr. Malfoy and Scorpius, it's time for us to go home."

After Rose had said her goodbyes Hermione hustled Rose to the fireplaces and took them home for the night.

Xxx

Saturday December 23, 2012

"A week in France with Draco Malfoy," Ginny began, a contemplative look on her face, "that should be interesting."

Hermione rolled her eyes as she searched through the bookshelves of Flourish and Botts for the book Rose had asked for as a Christmas present. Hermione was always happy to buy her daughter books, and judging from the pile already in her arms she might have gotten carried away.

"It's not 'with' Draco Malfoy; it's a business trip, Gin."

"Regardless, it's weird. You'll be traveling with Malfoy."

"Tell me about it, but he is kind of my boss. And this is a big case we're working on. Besides, this is all great practice for when I'm a lawyer at the firm instead of just a law librarian." Hermione retorted, as she pulled the book she had been looking for out of the shelf and added it to her pile.

"I think you've got enough books there for Rose, Hermione." Ginny laughed as she eyed the stack in Hermione's arms. Compared to her own pile for her three children, it appeared that Hermione was the one with three children, not Ginny.

"She loves to read."

"Just like her Mother." Ginny laughed. "Speaking of Rose, who's watching her while you're in France on business with Malfoy?"

"My parents; they're going to take her on a ski trip. I wish I could be there, but at least Rose will have a good time."

"You can have a good time in France too, Hermione. Malfoy can't expect you to be doing research every moment of every day. You better get out and explore France a little and enjoy yourself. Go shopping, eat cheese, drink lots of wine! You're single Hermione! Meet a handsome French man and have a tryst!"

Hermione looked around frantically, to make sure no one had heard her red headed best friend's outrageous suggestion, her face flushed red, "Shh! I am not going to have a tryst with any man, let alone some random French man, Ginny!"

"Well, at least drink lots of wine."

"That's a given considering all the research I'm going to be doing."

After the two witches made their purchases in the book store they headed back to The Leaky Cauldron since they had finally finished all of their Christmas shopping. It had taken a while since it was already five in the afternoon, but Christmas had become quite a big ordeal following the war in the Weasley clan.

Tomorrow for Christmas Eve Rose and Hermione were headed to her parent's house for a quiet dinner, gift exchange, and an evening of board games. Then Christmas morning was strictly time for Hermione and Rose to exchange gifts—or more accurately Hermione to give her daughter her presents. Then in the afternoon the two would head to the Burrow for a rowdy dinner and a huge gift exchange.

When the two reached Grimmauld Place, they found the living room in chaos. It appeared that Rose had introduced her cousins and Uncle to the game of 'the floor is lava'. Harry and the two boys were currently perched on the couch with Lilly sitting in the big recliner looking around in confusion at the chaos around her. Rose was currently in the middle of jumping from the piano bench to an overstuffed chair, and all the boys cheered when she successfully made it.

"What is going on here?" Ginny asked her hands on her hips as she assessed the scene before her.

"The floor is lava, Gin." Harry replied sheepishly.

"Just put it back together again when you're done." Ginny sighed and made to rescue baby Lilly from the recliner. "Thank Merlin I got one girl, without having to have six boys first."

"We should introduce the rest of the kids to this game at Christmas!" Harry said suddenly.

"That'll be absolute chaos." Hermione stated already picturing how competitive it would become with George in on it.

"Which means it'll be brilliant!"

"Yeah!" All three of the children seemed to chorus, except for Lilly who was chewing on the toy in her hand.

"My Mother is going to kill you, Harry Potter."

Harry grinned, "No, she won't. She loves me."