Previously…

"I slept with Lucius Malfoy." Well that certainly wasn't what I planned on saying.

"…WHAT?!"

Hermione had been fiddling with a loose thread on her hem for the past five minutes as George paced in and out of the living room, too shocked or appalled to say anything – or at least that was how it seemed to Hermione. He would stalk out of the room, lips pursed and brow furrowed, quickly reenter as though he was about to launch into a tirade and then quickly turn and repeat the process. Hermione was rather at the end of her tether. She knew he wouldn't take that particularly well, but it wasn't as though she could undo the act ... not that she would really want to, if she was completely honest with herself.

She shook her head, clearing it of thoughts better left for another day. Placating, she whispered, "George?"

His head shot up to look at her as he walked back into the room and he flopped down on the blue plaid couch across from her favorite white reading chair. He stared at her for a few moments, causing her to squirm and wish he would look away or say something, anything. He sat back slightly and asked quietly, "Why?"

Hermione gaped at him, "Why? Why? Not, 'What the hell were you thinking?' or 'I'm going to kill him?'" She stared uncomprehendingly at George, her experience with the red-headed brood was explode first, ask later.

So when George merely nodded his head for her to answer his question, she paused to truly think it out. "Well, I ... I don't really know, to be honest. We were drunk and in Moscow." She took her eyes away from his, unable to bear the honest blue eyes looking through her, and looked over his shoulder at the nice, green wall. "I ... I guess I was lonely. It had been a while, since, well ... anyone. He and I've, well I suppose we're friends after a fashion. Why not?" She asked rather rhetorically, almost reflecting the question inwardly.

George raised his eyebrow, "Why not, indeed. So Miss Hermione Granger got lonely and slept with the ex-Death Eater that threatened her life for upwards of seven years, whose home she was traumatized in as he watched," he spit the word out. "You were lonely." He said the last sentence rather mockingly.

Hermione glared at him, finally giving up her embarrassment and fighting back against his scrutiny, "Fuck it George. I'm twenty-one and I've got a three year old to look after!" She stood up, too anxious to stay still any longer. "My parents don't talk to me, my friends wouldn't notice if I dyed my hair black, and I've lost the only other maternal figure I had in my life." She threw a pillow at the wall in her frustration, making George flinch slightly. "Lucius has been a friend during a time that I've really needed one. He's been there when no one else could. After Ron, and then Ron again, and finally Andy, he's always been there." She opened her eyes a little wider, and whispered to herself softly, as though surprised, "Always."

George glanced over at her with a small feeling of regret, "Herm ... I'm sorry if I haven't been there for you. With the shop and every..."

"Don't for a minute feel sorry, George Weasley. You've been so good to me over the past few years – I don't deserve it in the least. I have no right to claim loneliness after what you've been through, but it still hurts me just the same. For once I want to be looked at as a woman, not as friend or guardian or confidante. Lucius makes me feel like a female every single time that I meet him."

"Hermione, I had no idea you wanted to be a woman," he said with a slight smile on his face. "If you had only told me, love, I wouldn't have had to get ole Fred here. I think I would have been able to muster up something for you." He waggled his eyebrows.

She couldn't help but giggle, their platonic feelings for each other had been established way back in the first summer at Grimmauld Place, when he and his twin had tricked her into a game of Kiss or Dare one night when she was having trouble sleeping. After two kisses, she dared them both to go to sleep, with the alternative of going to kiss Snape.

Once her giggles had ceased, George's face hardened back a little, "But Hermione, that doesn't mean you go jump into the first willing man's arms. Hell!" He threw his arms in the air. "It's Lucius fucking Malfoy!"

She couldn't help the smirk when she retorted, "I know, believe me the middle name suits him."

George blanched and looked at her through wounded eyes, "I really didn't need that, you know." He sighed, "I just ... are you serious Hermione?

She grinned, "You know red hair just doesn't do it for me anymore, I had to try a lighter color."

His gaze turned reproachful and he stood, walked across to her chair and sat on the arm looking down at her. "Stop trying to make this funny. It isn't and you know it." At her shocked gaze, he shrugged. "I know when to joke and I know when to be serious. You joke when you don't want to think about something. So what's going to happen?"

She shrugged, slipping into the serious mood that George desired. "We haven't really addressed it. We kind of skirt around it at our weekly lunches," she caught his renewed glare and quailed a little. "He offered to take Teddy and me out to lunch weekly to let Teddy get to know his family and about the wizarding world..."

Seeing George's glare reach the temperature of an ice burg, she exclaimed impatiently, "I don't know what I'm doing, Merlin! I've got a fucking kid, George!" She shut her eyes tightly. "I just ... I don't know what's expected of me. I don't know how to do this! I wasn't ready for any of this." George watched the tears slip out of her closed eyes. She brought her hands up to her face and murmured quietly, "I wasn't ready."

George pulled her into his arms, "None of us were." He rubbed her back in soothing circles. He simply held her for a long time, waiting for her shakes and tears to slow and cease.

"Hermione, what would Andy say?" George asked simply, once Hermione's breathing had returned to normal and she seemed more at peace.

"Andy would be ecstatic," she said stubbornly, looking up at him. "Lucius and Andy were childhood friends, if you didn't know, and before she died they had begun to exchange owls rather regularly."

George seemed a bit shocked by this and paused a moment to think it over. Then, his eyes widened and he pulled away to look at Hermione in horror, "You ... you went to St. Mungo's today ... " she nodded hesitantly. "You ... you ... fuck! Hermione are you pregnant?!"

She whimpered as her heart pulsed harder than usual and caused a slight pain in her chest. She glanced right, left, anywhere but at George. "No, erm, I'm ... I can't ..." She couldn't bring herself to face it. No children. Ever. No little ones of her own, growing in her belly, no pain of birth well worth it once she held her child, no ... "Oh god!" She flung herself into George's shocked arms, sobbing.

George immediately wrapped her in a strong embrace, feeling his shirt dampen once more, he realized that perhaps the Spanish Inquisition could be temporarily disbanded, at least until she had found a proper hanky.

Harry was rather frantic, but calmly so, considering his best friend was missing. He had gone to Hermione's to ask her a quick question about Teddy, and found or rather, didn't find her there. He searched the entire house for a note, a trace, anything that might have betrayed where she had gone the night before. It was 5am. By all rights, she should be in a bed, at home, Harry rationalized. He sat on the couch to puzzle for a moment.

Teddy had been acting up all night long and Harry had finally been sleep-deprived enough to try and find Hermione to calm him down, despite the fact that he was the one responsible for him that night.

Harry stood up, remembering that last night had been a George night. He rushed to the floo and spoke "W3 Flat apple chocolate." He shook his head mentally at George's odd floo name, but merely put the thought with all his other George and Fred wonderings in the back of his mind.

Coming out of the floo, he blinked the soot out of his eyes and wiped his glasses quickly. He stopped short though when he saw who was on the couch. George and Hermione lay together, limbs tangled, in a seemingly intimate embrace. Harry gaped. How long had this been going on? Why hadn't she said anything?

He stood in shock, taking in George's casual attire of gym shorts and lack of a shirt. Hermione's sleepwear seemed to consist of George's missing shirt and a pair of knickers that Harry glanced away from quickly. He blinked a few more times, but decided that for once he would heed Hermione's advice and not overreact. He flooed back to his flat, praying Teddy had settled down.

He landed in a blessedly quiet flat and he thanked whatever gods there were for that small mercy. Sitting down on his well worn couch, Harry pondered. And thought. And contemplated. For about an hour. Which, considering his lack of studying the past few years was really quite a feat. He decided that he would wait; let Hermione and George tell everyone, he thought. For once he was going to keep his nose out of her business and let the two decide when they wanted to tell other people. He would not make himself the center of drama-related attention, again.

Poor Harry never did choose to listen to Hermione's advice at the right times.