A/N - I've now finished writing this story and it has eight chapters and an epilogue. Because it's all finished I'll now try and post a new chapter each day.
After travelling back to the lobby and making an official booking for the upcoming ball, Kingsley departed leaving Harry and Hermione standing by the reception desk together. Harry shuffled his feet nervously, unsure about how to react around his former friend.
Realising Harry didn't know what to say Hermione broke the silence. "How about we go and get a drink, do you fancy coffee or something stronger?"
"Something stronger, if that's okay with you." Harry responded, suddenly feeling the need for a drink to steady his nerves.
"That's fine, I just need to check for any messages then we can go." Hermione told Harry as she turned to speak to a young girl behind the desk.
Harry heard the young girl tell Hermione the only person who left a message was her husband, Harry listened to see if the girl mentioned the name of Hermione's husband but she didn't only referring to him as 'your husband'.
After putting the message in her bag Hermione turned to Harry. "Shall we?"
Nodding Harry followed Hermione towards a bar in the hotel. After ordering their drinks, a firewhisky for Harry and a mineral water for Hermione, they sat down at a small table in the corner of the room.
While the pair waited for their drinks they sat in silence, Harry decided he should be the one to speak first as he was partly responsible for Hermione's exit years ago.
"I'm sorry Hermione. I shouldn't have let what happened back then happen." Harry said finally.
"Why did you? Do you have any idea what it feels like to watch someone you love stand there and do nothing as you're verbally attacked?" Hermione asked, glaring at Harry. Even after so many years Hermione could still remember how hurt she had been as Harry didn't speak up in the face of Ron and Ginny's anger.
Harry looked away guiltily at Hermione's questions. "I've always regretted it. I know I should have defended you against Ron and Ginny, I was torn, I didn't know what to do."
"I suppose I should have expected it really. I knew if it ever came to a choice between me and Ron you would choose Ron, and obviously you would side with your girlfriend." Hermione sighed. She was admitting what she had always felt about her friendship with Harry, that if it came to a choice she would always be second best to Ron.
"Why would you assume I would choose Ron over you?" Harry questioned, shocked by Hermione's accusation.
Hermione laughed. "You did, didn't you though. I was right."
Harry had no answer to that, Hermione was right he had chosen Ron over her. Harry picked up his glass and took a big swig, unsure of how to proceed.
"I think about you, all the time." He finally admitted. "I often considered trying to find you."
"Why didn't you?" Hermione asked softly. She had always assumed once she had left, her friends had just moved on with their lives barely giving her a second thought.
Harry shrugged, "Guilt, I didn't know how you would react after the way I behaved." Harry looked over at Hermione. "Would I have been welcome?"
Hermione thought for a while before answering. "I don't know. Sometimes I wish you would just turn up and there are other times I'm still so angry at you, I wouldn't be happy to see you."
"How about now? Are you happy to see me now?" Harry questioned, hoping Hermione answered positively.
"I don't know." Hermione answered honestly. "You really hurt me, Harry and I don't know if I can forgive you for that."
"I'm sorry, Hermione." Harry said sadly, knowing he may never gain Hermione's trust again. "I'm not sure I'll ever be able to make it up to you but I want to try. I want us to be friends again."
"I'm not sure that will happen, at least not in the way you hope." Hermione said, not wanting to give Harry any false hope regarding their friendship.
"I'll take anything. I know we'll never get our relationship back the way it was but I really want to keep in contact."
Hermione looked at Harry and noticed how eager he seemed to re-establish their friendship. Hermione had actually missed Harry's friendship greatly, but she knew if they did manage to become friends again it would never be the same as before.
"I'm sure we can try to regain our friendship." Hermione said. "But I want you to know that it'll take time for me to trust you again."
Harry was greatly relieved by Hermione's olive branch and his face lit up in a huge smile. "I understand. Thank you for giving me a second chance, Hermione. I promise I'll make it up to you."
Hermione smiled slightly and Harry was reminded of all the good times they shared together. He wondered how soon they would be friendly enough for them to meet each other's families, if Hermione had one. With the thought of whether Hermione had a family, Harry blurted out his next question.
"Do you have any children?" Seeing the look of confusion on Hermione's face at the sudden change in subject Harry explained. "Sorry for the change of subject, I was just thinking about how much I wanted our families to meet and then wondered if you had any children."
"Harry, I think it will be quite a while before our families are ready to meet. We need to re-establish our own friendship first, which will take time and effort."
"Sorry, I've just really missed you. I know it'll take a while but I want our families to be close." Harry said.
Hermione was silent for a few minutes, contemplating what Harry had just said. It was one thing to try and forgive Harry and re-establish their friendship but she wasn't sure if she was ready to deal with Ginny and Ron. Ron, and especially Ginny, had said some pretty horrible things to her the last time she had seen them.
"Maybe one day." Hermione shrugged, not really seeing a time when her and Harry's family would be that close. Hermione decided the best thing to do was change the subject before things got more awkward between her and Harry. "And to answer your earlier question, yes I have two children."
"That's great, I do too, two boys." Harry replied, with a broad smile.
Hermione nodded. "I know." Seeing Harry's puzzled expression Hermione laughed. "I read the newspapers, they're quite fond on reporting on The Boy Who Lived."
Harry grimaced. "Yeah, it's quite annoying having your personal life splattered all over the newspapers. Well since you know all about my life how about you fill me in on yours."
Hermione wondered how much to tell Harry about her life straight away. Hermione was still unsure of how much of a relationship she wanted with Harry and as such she didn't feel the immediate need to inform him of her life choices. She wasn't ashamed of being with Draco and certainly didn't plan on hiding it, if Harry was serious about wanting to be her friend again he would have to learn to accept Draco. Hermione knew that if she told Harry about Draco he would want an explanation about their relationship and there was no way Hermione was going to justify her marriage to someone who had hurt her so badly. She knew Harry would soon discover her relationship with Draco as he was around the hotel often. Hermione smiled to herself as she thought about how shocked Harry would be to just run into Draco accidently.
Hermione eventually decided to not mention too many specific details about her life unless he asked a specific question. Harry would find out about Draco soon enough and the part of her that was still angry with Harry felt she owed him nothing after the way he had treated her.
"There's not much to tell, I'm happily married and have two amazing children, a girl and a boy." Hermione said, telling Harry the basic facts about her life.
"Not much to tell." Harry raised his eyebrow. "Hermione you own a massive hotel and are clearly very rich, there is definitely something to tell."
"My husband is from a wealthy family, we own hotels and other businesses around the world, so yeah I suppose you could say we're rich." Hermione conceded.
Sensing Hermione wasn't keen on sharing too much with him so soon Harry tried another tactic. "Tell me about your children." Parents loved to talk about their children in Harry's experience and sure enough it worked as a big smile broke out across Hermione's face.
"Lyra, my eldest, is four in a couple of weeks and Scorpius is four months."
Harry was intrigued by the unusual names for Hermione's children. "Lyra and Scorpius, unusual names."
"They're both named after constellations, it's a family tradition to name children after either constellations or stars." Hermione told Harry never considering he might be able to work out whose family tradition she was talking about.
Harry was racking his brain, someone had told him about naming the family after stars and constellations before, he just couldn't remember who. Putting the thought to the back of his mind he carried on talking to Hermione.
Harry and Hermione spoke for another half hour, only about trivial things though, before Hermione had to leave. Harry was pleased with progress and suggested another meeting soon which Hermione was wary of but eventually agreed to. After saying goodbye to Hermione in the hotel lobby, Harry flooed back to work for a couple of hours before it was time to go home. It was only after he had left Hermione that Harry realised that they had gotten so distracted he had forgotten to ask more about her husband. All he knew about him was that he was rich, owned lots of successful business ventures and had strange family traditions regarding naming children.
When Harry returned home he was surprised to find Ron sitting on the floor playing with James.
"Hi Ron, what are you doing here?"
"Nice way to greet your favourite brother-in-law." Ron answered. "Ginny invited me to dinner."
"That's great," Harry smiled, always happy to see Ron. "Do you want a beer?"
Ron nodded and Harry went into the kitchen to fetch two beers and the best friends sat talking until dinner was ready.
Dinner at The Potter house was a lively affair with two young boys and Harry and Ron joking around like teenagers. Harry had decided not to mention seeing Hermione to Ron. Even after nine years Harry knew Ron was still in love with Hermione, hence his reluctance to settle down with someone else. Harry knew he would have to re-build his relationship with Hermione slowly and Ron rushing in before Hermione was ready would ruin it. He also wanted to ask Hermione that it was okay to tell Ron and Ginny about her as he wanted to regain her trust.
After dinner, while Ginny put James and Albus to bed, Harry and Ron moved into the living room. Ron told Harry he had recently seen Seamus Finnegan in a bar, which led to the pair of them reminiscing about the good old days in school. As they relived some of their adventures different people were mentioned, when Ron mentioned Sirius Black a memory started to tug at Harry's subconscious but it wouldn't quite materialise.
Later that night Harry was lying in bed unable to sleep. After Ron had left Ginny had suggested they get an early night, which Harry had been more than happy to agree to. Afterwards Ginny had fallen straight to sleep but Harry couldn't drop off, something was bothering him, he thought it had to do with something Ron had said earlier and Sirius. Harry lay there for hours trying to make a connection, just as he was drifting off a memory of him and Sirius standing in front of The Black family tree entered his mind.
Harry sat upright trying not to disturb his sleeping wife, as he let the memory play out in his head. Sirius was explaining The Black family tradition of naming children after Stars, like himself or constellations, like Andromeda. Realisation suddenly hit Harry, Hermione had named her children after stars and constellations and called it family tradition, he knew he had heard of the family he just couldn't remember at the time. Harry racked his brains as to who on earth in The Black family Hermione could be married to but it was no good he couldn't think of anyone. Sighing he got out of bed and put on his slippers and dressing gown and went downstairs.
Once downstairs he quickly flooed to Grimmauld Place, while he and Ginny didn't live there they still owned the house. He moved into the room where the family tapestry was located and started to scour it for possibilities for Hermione's husband. For a long time all he found were distant cousins who didn't even seem to be named after stars. Harry moved along to the other side of the tapestry which was where Sirius had been when he had been explaining the tradition to Harry, he spotted the hole where Sirius should be and remembering the other example his godfather had used he located the hole where Andromeda should have been.
It was from there Harry's eyes moved along the line noticing Bellatrix's name and further along Narcissa's. It was the name under Narcissa's that made everything click together, Draco, a constellation. Harry stood there dumbfounded it wasn't possible, there was no way Hermione had married Draco Malfoy. Unfortunately Harry couldn't ignore the evidence, he was the only real possibility of someone in the Black family who would wish to carry on the tradition of naming their children after stars and he was from a wealthy family, like Hermione's husband. Lastly his named literally meant dragon. Earlier Harry had wondered about the dragon charm on Hermione's bracelet and the dragon shaped clip in her hair.
Standing in front of the tapestry Harry was certain of one thing Hermione had married Draco Malfoy, she was now Hermione Malfoy.
A/N - I was originally planning on having Hermione tell Harry who she was married to but I really liked the idea of him working it out himself by what she had told him. I hope people aren't too dissapointed with Hermione's reaction to Harry, I wanted her to still be upset with him but I also wanted to show that's she's a quite compassionate person who would give people a second chance.
Next chapter is a pure Dramione chapter and the one after that Harry and Draco come face to face.