Thank you oh loyal reviewers;

Mihika
ChelseyJ
MaronTodai
SaruDM
Daisy Seary
astaniga
cutiepiehp
echizenochi

For letting me know your thoughts.

I have a stupid grin every time I get a review alert and I read your comments!

So if I'm alone, the grin is well hidden! But in public I look like an idiot, smiling at my phone!

My friends are suspecting that I'm having text conversations with someone rather interesting!

Thank you very much!

I'm sure I'm wearing you'll down by my incessant A/N's so I'm shooing off!

Happy reading!

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CHAPTER 24.

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"HARRRYYY! HARRY? Where are you? Come here this instant! Sweet Merlin, I think I'm going through what do they call it? An electric shock? I have goose bumps all over." Ginny hollered from the kitchen.

Harry ran to where she was and held her by the waist. "What what? What's wrong? Is it the baby? What's happening?" He stuttered.

Ginny sat down on the chair and pulled Harry along with him, her eyes moist by now.

"Harry..."

"Ginny you're freaking the pants off me. Should I call your mum? Damn it why won't you speak?" Harry yelled.

Her eyes were pooling dangerously by now and she offered him the letter that was in her hand.

He looked at her quizzically before taking it in his hand.

He read the title and quickly his eyes scanned the page lower down to see who the sender was.

When his gaze rested on Hermione's name, his body steeled in shock and his eyes refused to leave her name.

"Ginny ... "

"She wrote Harry, she wrote." Ginny mumbled between sobs that she wasn't even trying to hide.

Harry sat down opposite his pregnant wife, his face still incredulously etched with questions but overall elation.

When you have been hoping for something to happen since a long long time and when it really does, one doesn't know how to react. Inwardly ecstatic, outwardly it may appear like one is in shock because they can't believe it's finally happened.

And that is how Harry and Ginny Potter felt today. For the second time in their life.

The first was the news of Ginny's pregnancy and now Hermione had written back.

"Did you .. Did you read it?" Harry asked, trying to bring his voice back to normal.

Ginny shook her head. "I thought we could read it together." She said, clutching her husband's hand.

Harry nodded and wiped the corners of his eyes with his sleeve before starting to read the letter out loud.

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"Granger?"

"Hmm?"

"It's nice here. I like Australia. Do you like it here?"

Hermione stopped chewing her pen and looked up from her notes.

"I guess I do. I mean it's not home but it is for now."

"Why Australia?" He asked.

"You know my parents stay here. It was the only place I could think of coming to."

"Didn't Potter try to find you here? It would seem obvious."

Hermione nodded. "He did. But I forced my parents to never tell. Although after I left my parents' home, Harry did come and meet them once."

"How did you know that? Did your parents tell you?"

"No. He told me once in a letter. He suspects I'm here. But he's not sure. Besides, my parents are in Canberra." Hermione answered.

"How often do you meet your parents?" Draco asked.

Hermione flustered at his question and her eyes reverted back to the notes she was reading.

"I... umm. Why are we having this conversation Draco?" She asked finally.

"Just wanted to know what went through your mind when you left. I haven't heard you speak about them ever since I came here." Draco said.

"Okay. It's not important. This place is far away from England. And has a decent wizard population too. So I'm away and near at the same time." Hermione said.

"You've stopped meeting your parents haven't you?" Draco guessed. "You're running away from them as well."

Hermione slammed her pen on her notepad and looked up, fire blazing in her eyes.

"Yes. So what? I went to them and all they did was pity me and mope with me. After a point they insisted I go back. They got tired of constantly lying to Harry and Molly and they tried forcing me to talk to them. I wasn't bloody ready yet. If I had to talk to them I bloody well would have done it myself. I didn't need anyone to keep their life on hold for me and treat me like I'm a box with fragile written all over on it." Hermione bellowed.

"I couldn't even escape my memories there. I realised if I wanted some peace I needed to get away and so I ran. Okay? Are you happy now? I ran like a bloody coward and now I don't have the guts to pick up from where I left my parents." She continued yelling.

Draco just stared at her. One moment she was calm and the other moment his question had functioned like the whistle in a pressure cooker and she was letting out steam.

If the situation wasn't serious, he could have imagined smoke coming out of her ears.

But there she stood, in beige pants and a navy turtleneck, her curly wild hair twisted up and clutched in those clips that went chip chop when you played with them. Her furious yelling had caused some hair to fall out and it framed her agitated face rather endearingly.

Draco had never thought she had ever looked as beautiful as she did now.

Why was it that her appeal and her subtle beauty peaked when she was yelling, angry or blazingly passionate about anything? Like the time in school when she went on and on about elf rights even though no one paid her any attention except Potter and Weasley, that too grudgingly. Well, and he too himself had borne the brunt of it in private. All because his tyrannical father treated them so lousily.

He didn't know whether it was a good thing or bad because one could just look at her, keep looking at her and drown out all that she said but still follow the motions of her lips which moved furiously as she tried to get her point across.

However well kept or contained her hair may have been, whenever she got furious, her hair seemed to gain a mind and body of their own and they always seemed to free themselves of their containment and she assumed the look of a wild tigress.

Oh Merlin. Dare he say it? Or even think it? There was no rule that said you couldn't find your best friend sexy.

There he thought it.

But with slight guilt.

Best friends aren't supposed to have sexy thoughts about their best friends.

At least not now.

After so many years.

It was long ago. And it was supposed to have gone away.

But so was she.

And she came back. Or he did rather.

So the traitorous thoughts had to come back too?

Merlin! He needed to get a hold on himself.

You're seeing her after so long. It's just a late reaction. And besides you always found her charming. And hot. And sexy.

He slapped his forehead mentally and yelled at his inner voice to shut up.

Men sucked at multitasking, but one thing he had learned after dating some evilly boring women was the art of simultaneously listening and paying attention to the woman in front of you and having a more interesting internal monologue with yourself at the same time.

He was rather proud of this ability of his and was using it right now.

Not that she was boring. Not by a long shot. No. She was captivating. But she evoked all these feelings in him that had to be addressed immediately or dismissed spontaneously. Either of which required said internal monologue. Additionally, he had to listen to her as well. What she was saying was important too.

So he cut short his self battle and decided to pay sole attention to the still fuming witch in front of him.

"So you fought with them and left. And you've not contacted them since?" He asked.

She seemed to have calmed marginally because she didn't yell as she spoke.

"I was so mad. All I wanted was to be left alone. And I thought that they didn't want their daughter to go to pieces in front of their eyes so that's why they kept wanting me to go back. So I left. So that they didn't have to deal with me." Hermione said, her eyes tearing up.

"I .. I .. Obliviated their memory of the fight." Hermione said choking in a mix of guilt and the lump in her throat.

Draco tried not to look aghast as she said this but failed.

She looked at him and said "I said some really rude things, Draco. I hurt them so much. I couldn't leave with them thinking I hated them. I regretted everything I said to them the moment it was out of my mouth."

"You obliviated them? Again?" Draco cringed.

He remembered how livid her parents had been when they had first learned how Hermione had tampered with their memories to keep them safe during the war.

They understood that it had been done for their safety, but the Grangers' were her parents after all. They too, like her detested being told or forced to do something.

After a few tense months, they had forgiven her and forgotten about it. Hopefully. But this time was another thing altogether.

"You know they're going to be extremely upset." He said.

"I know. But I only obliviated the fight. I don't plan on retrieving that memory again. So what they don't know won't hurt them." She said.

Draco gaped at her.

Rule following, honest do - gooder Hermione Granger was going to cover up her tracks?

It almost made her look human. With flaws. Of course she was human. With her own insecurities and flaws. But actually seeing them in the open made Draco realize just how vulnerable she was.

His heart went out to her.

He stood up and walked towards her and engulfed her in a tight hug.

"I don't care. You can never do anything wrong as far as I'm concerned. As long as you're happy I'm happy." He said.

She hugged him back and when he distanced himself from her he had a determined look on his face. Hermione knew there was a 'but' coming.

"But", he said and Hermione smiled to herself, pleased at her accurate deduction. "It's time you meet your parents."

That was not what she had expected to hear.

She staggered behind to create some distance between them so that she could look at his face properly and determine that he was joking.

But he looked very serious.

"Hermione..."

"No. No Draco. You don't get to just come into my life that I've set for myself after all this time and boss me around. I spend every free second of my day with you does not mean I'm going to do whatever you say." She heaved.

"Hermione listen to me please." Draco pleaded.

"No Draco you listen. I don't know what you think you want to accomplish but you're going to be gone after ten days and then I'm going to go back to being the workaholic that I always was. Nothing will have changed." Hermione said.

"Something has changed. And you know it. You're just not ready to accept it. Why then did you come back that day and write to Ginny? Why are you not fighting me on all the absurd things I'm making you do and all the places I'm making you go to with me? I'm here and you spend all that time with me because you want to, not because you have to, okay. So don't tell me you're doing me a favour. And I bloody well am changing things in your life. Because they need changing. You're my friend Hermione and I can't see you this way. Help me help you Granger. Please don't push me away."

"You've always resented change. But it's imperative. And I won't let you just go with the flow. You know you need to see your parents. You knew you needed to write to Ginny. And you did. Can't you try the same way and meet your parents? It's the least you can do." Draco said.

Hermione knew that he wasn't going to back down.

He was Draco. Not Harry or even Ron for that matter.

Harry and Ron knew even before any argument began that it was no use arguing. Hermione always won.

So over the years they had learned to cut short argument time and relent to whatever it was that she was saying. And more often than not she was right.

But Draco was another story altogether.

Whether she was right or not, he would never let go without letting her hear a piece of his mind.

And if he thought she was wrong and needed to do something about it, he would go on and on about it till she agreed.
And that was how even Hermione was with him.

Whenever he had a difficult choice or he was doing something wrong, she had always been there to chide him and bring him back to reality.

Short of actually holding him by the ear, Hermione had done everything to make sure that Draco always did the right thing.
This erupted countless fights between them and arguing matches but at the end of the day, both knew that the opposite person was telling the truth and often begrudgingly, they accepted their shortcomings.

"It's always going to be this way isn't it?" She asked finally in a low voice.

"Which way?"

"This way." She said indicating to the space between them. "We are always going to chew each others' brains when we think we are doing the wrong thing."

"It's the only way I know to get you to do something." He said shrugging. "You're bloody stubborn you know that right?"

She smiled. "Like you aren't."

"I know. That's why we are going to Canberra." He said with a tone of finality.

"We?" She raised a single eyebrow.

Hot damn.

He had forgotten how hot she looked when she did that.

Focus Draco.

"Umm yeah. Well, we'll go to Canberra together but I'll wait for you at a cafe or something. You should meet them alone." Draco said.

"Yeah. I wouldn't suggest you come with me to see them. You know how they feel about you." Hermione said almost apologetically.

"I know. They hate me." Draco said.

"Draco! They don't hate you. They just don't like you much. After all, the Draco Malfoy they remember is the one who tortured and bullied their only daughter. They refuse to believe anything I say." Hermione said.

"I know. It's ok. I remember that I was the one who had told you to not bother changing their views. It's okay." Draco said sullenly.

"Draco. I was a child then. They could tell me who to be friends with and who not to. But I'm a grown woman now. They need to open their eyes. They can't dictate their misgivings upon me." Hermione said.

"Hermione. Let's leave that for another time. You have enough to discuss with them for now." Draco said.

Hermione sighed. "You're right."

Draco got up and rummaged through a drawer of hers.

"What are you doing?" She asked.

He came over and handed a quill and parchment to her.

"I believe you have a letter to write." He said smugly.

"I don't know why I let you push me around so much." She said shaking her head.

"Because you love me." He smirked.

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So many of you'll wanted me to show Harry and Ginny's reaction!

I know it was short! But I hope it hit the mark!

And Hermione and Draco have to have their arguments don't they?

Both are so stubborn!

I hope this was an enjoyable chapter!

Thanks for reading!

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