A/N: Wow, so, I know this update is a little later than I promised, but I've been out of town for a days - so to make it up to you lovely people I have two chapters coming up for you :) I'll admit, not a lot is really happening, but Harry is back - alive and well, so I hope that makes up for it :)

Thank you to all my wonderful reviews, I'm thrilled you are all taking such an interest, and are still enjoying the story, I hope you like the next couple of chapters.

Well, I think I've kept you waiting long enough, so read, review, and most importantly, enjoy :)

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DISCLAIMER: I own nothing except the plot...it's all the property of JK Rowling

~ Chapter 8: Harry's Return ~

Hermione sprang from her bed, and dashed from her room, to look over the banister; "Harry?" She called, wondering if she really had heard his voice; seconds later her emerged from the small kitchen, "Harry!" she said again, louder this time with a smile gracing her lips, as she turned and ran down to him. As she got to the bottom of the stairs, she was fully prepared to throw herself into his arms, but upon seeing him up close she halted, shock crossing her face as she fully took in his appearance,

"My god, what happened to you?" she breathed. Harry's left eye was bruised, and there was a large gash running from his right ear down to his chin.

"What? This?" he asked, motioning to his face, and smiling, "It's nothing….you should have seen it the other day,"

"That's not funny" Hermione stated, with no humour in her voice, "What happened?"

Harry sighed, "It's a long story," Hermione raised an eyebrow, "But I will tell you," Harry hurried to assure her, "Pour some wine, I'll pick up some take out, and I'll tell you everything over dinner. Sound ok to you?"

Hermione smiled "Sounds good." As she made her way to the kitchen she asked, "What were you thinking?" the pair falling into an easy routine, as if this situation occurred every day,

"I know of a good Indian place if you fancy it? Great food, and lots of it"

Hermione took down two glasses, and grabbed a bottle of red from the wine rack, "I could go for Indian. You might want to pick up another bottle of wine, though" she added, "Lots of food and long stories require lots of wine."

Harry smiled, turn on the spot and disapparated. Thirty minutes late the pair were sat on Hermione's rug in front of the fire – Hermione now dressed in a pair of joggers and a fitted t-shirt, a multitude of dishes lining her coffee table, rising a glass of wine,

"Ok" Hermione stated, a slight business-like tone colouring her voice, "I want to know everything, I don't care if its confidential to the ministry, tell me where you've been."

Harry sighed, "ok, where to start" he said, more to himself, he then looked at Hermione, "I suppose I should fill you in a little, about the state of the Wizarding world since you left. Ok, so not long after the funer…after you left" Harry changed halfway through, not wanting to dwell too much on the day of the Weasley boys' funeral, "I joined Kingsley in the ministry, straight into the Auror department. We stated rounding up the stragglers of the death eaters. It was pretty hectic the first couple of years, a lot of them were banding together, trying to claim the title of the new dark force to be reckoned with. But these were all the unknown death eaters, the lowest of his ranks. In fact, hardly any of them were even branded with the mark, so they were less than minions, pretty easy to round up." Harry paused to take something to eat, and take a drink before continuing. "The next few years were pretty quiet – still had lots of work to do, a few felons to trace down here and there. They were bad enough in their own way, but nothing to cause a nationwide panic. Then, about a couple of years ago, we got some reports from overseas: odd disappearances scattered around Europe, that kind of thing. They were all in different countries, but because we've been the only ministry monitoring all these countries as well as our own, we were the only ones to pick up on the potential links between the disappearances. So I went over with a couple of Aurors, we checked out each location, looked into it further. We managed to figure out pretty quick who it was: one of Voldemort's old death eaters – which explains why his power rise was so similar to that of Voldemort, he picked up a lot of tricks. He was pretty unknown, definitely outside Voldemort's inner circle, but he had the mark. He was involved in a lot of Voldemort's doings, but low enough, and anonymous enough, to escape from under our radar." Harry paused again, to pour himself another glass of wine, topping up Hermione's as he did so, and took a long drink,

"But if he was one of the lower ranking Death Eaters" Hermione queried, "How did he know so many of Voldemort's tricks? He wasn't exactly a 'share-and share-alike' kind of guy, if I remember"

Harry laughed, "This guy watched everything, and listened everywhere. But he was smart about it: He never asked anyone anything about what he saw or heard, he just stored the information for a possible future use. and because he kept quiet about the stuff he stumbled on, people assumed he didn't know much about anything - he used to play dumb and they bought it. I can't help thinking he was planning his rise to power for many years."

"Who was he?"

"His name was Skander Xavion – like I said" Harry added, seeing Hermione trying to think if she had heard the name, and coming up with nothing, "completely unknown. It took us over a year, but we managed to find some traces of him – he'd learnt well, but not too well. He managed to cover his tracks pretty well, when he first started gathering followers. But his downfall was not being picky about his followers, and whom he could trust with certain things. He soon lost all his invisibility. When I got called out a month ago, we had positive ID of a number of people we knew to be part of his group; they were seen in a remote part of Russia. We went straight over to set up surveillance. It took a while, but we managed to get access to their meeting place, and we staged a raid." Hermione raised her eyebrows, and her eyes widened at Harry's blasé attitude

"I'm guessing this would be the part in the story that would explain your injuries?"

"Yeah, pretty much. It wasn't a pretty battle, there were a couple of casualties on their side, and a lot of injury on both sides. I think I came away in the best shape to be honest – a black eye, bust lip and a few cracked ribs. But it was a victory, that's what counts"

"Please tell me you went to St. Mungos as soon as you returned"

Harry smiled at the concern, "We had Medi-Wizards back at base, trained specifically to carry out healing on the battlefield. All our magical and life-threatening injuries were taken care of right there. But the bruising is going to take a few days to clear." He smiled then added, "Is my face going to cause quite a stir if I help you out downstairs tomorrow?"

Hermione laughed, "You would probably give a few of the older locals possible heart failure"

"I don't look that bad do I?"

"Well, I've seen you looking a lot worse." Said Hermione, a smile creeping onto her face as she added, "But you do look a bit like a hardened delinquent criminal"

"Thank you," said Harry, trying not to be offended as Hermione laughed,

"Don't worry, I've got some foundation and concealer that can cover it right up"

Harry got up to start clearing the plates, Hermione immediately got up to help, "Not a chance," Harry stated bluntly, "I am not falling for that one again, the Weasley's still rib me about that. So, what's been happening here since I left?" He asked, steering the topic away from make-up. To his surprise Hermione laughed,

"You will not believe it when I tell you."

"What? Surely nothing too scandalous can have happened in this place,"

"It's a good job we have another bottle of wine, this is also a bit of a long story" Hermione said, as she grabbed the second bottle of wine from the counter "You remember Betsy?"

"Yes" Harry said slowly, as he placed the plates into the washing up bowl, and threw their rubbish away,

"Well, she's happens to be the niece of Minerva McGonagall" Hermione stated as she went back to the sitting room and sat down on the sofa,

"What?" Harry simply stared, not knowing where to even begin with that piece of information, Hermione laughed, and patted the sofa,

"Sit down, drink your wine and I'll tell you everything."

Another hour later, another bottle of wine drank, and Harry was completely up to date with Betsy's true identity. As the pair had been talking, they had managed to move closer on the sofa, eventually ending up with Hermione curled up to Harry's side, Harry's arm wrapped around her side, keeping her close.

"So, what made her decide to reveal who she was to you?" asked Harry,

"I don't really know" answered Hermione, "I guess once she knew who I really was it was only a matter of time before she said something. Though, to be honest, I think she was more interested in you"

Harry could here the smile in her voice, as though she was trying not to laugh,

"Are you serious? Should I be scared?"

Hermione laughed aloud at that, "Well, you are the famous Harry Potter, everyone wants to know everything about you. She wanted to know all your dirty secrets, anything I could tell her about your teenage years"

"You're winding me up now aren't you?" asked Harry, hoping he had correctly identified the humour in her voice.

Hermione laughed, "Yes, I'm winding you up." She was silent for a few seconds, then went boldly on, "Though she was interested in your love life."

Harry sighed, "Yeah? Her and every woman in England."

Hermione laughed again, "wow, chill the ego a little bit Harry, otherwise I'll start to think you're really Draco Malfoy using pollyjuice."

"I resent that" he said, as he grabbed her side, just above her waist, which he remembered was the one place she was really ticklish. After earning himself a smack on the chest he continued, "what I meant was, every woman I know has been fixating on the fact that I'm single – and have been for about eight years. They're all wondering who I'm waiting for."

Hermione turned to look at him, "You've been single for eight years?" she asked, slightly incredulous, though at the same time, she felt relief that he hadn't met anyone special since Ginny. Harry nodded, "I know, it's a long time." He paused then asked, "Why? How long have you been single? You are single right?" He asked suddenly realising he had never actually verified this fact, "I'm not about to get my arse kicked by some guy bigger than me, for kissing you the other week am I?"

Hermione laughed, "No, don't worry. There will be no more arse kicking for you," Harry breathed a quiet sigh of relief, before Hermione continued, "I'm not sure how long really. I've been on a few dates here and there over the years. I was seeing someone for a couple of years, but it ended a few years ago. Maybe about three or four years ago? I don;t know, the years are a bit of a blur really" she finished honestly,

Harry was silent for a moment, trying to quell the jealously that had suddenly reared in him, then asked "How come it didn't work out?"

"Truthfully, we moved in here – I know it's pretty small, but I needed to stay here for my business-"

"Understandable," Harry nodded,

"It was fine for a while, but then he wanted to extend the bedroom. He, like you, noticed the odd dimensions, and wanted to open the rest of the room up. I told him flat out it wasn't an option. He got pissed off when I wouldn't tell him fully why, then I caught him one evening, preparing to knock down the wall; he'd taken down the mirror and he was trying to pick the lock of the door he'd uncovered - "

Harry sucked in his breath, "poor guy," he said "I can only begin to imagine the wrath he was exposed to. I bet he never recovered"

Hermione laughed, and blushed a little, "Yeah, he left that night and never returned."

"At least he didn't get through door: I doubt he would have survived your anger if he had actually found all your stuff from your past." Harry said, without thinking, "And explaining a magic wand would have taken some doing" He added. Hermione pulled herself away from Harry and turned to face him,

"What..? How did you..? Why do you think that's what's behind…?"

"What else could it be?" Hermione didn't answer, "Come on Hermione, I know you better than you think. You belong in the magical world, you know you do, and I know that whatever you may have convinced yourself into believing now, you know you will always belong there. There are too many memories, too many happy memories, tied to all your possessions. There is no way you would have got rid of them. You couldn't. You could just hide them from view, and pretend to forget. But I can see it in your eyes, you haven't forgot. And I think you know it's time to stop pretending."

As if on cue, a large crash of breaking glass echoed down from Hermione's room, causing Harry to add, "And apparently Crookshanks feels the same."

A/N: And there is chapter 8, I hope you liked it, Chapter 9 will be up in approximately 15 minutes :D

xBx