A/N: Thank you so much to gjasmine59, cleotheo, NazChick and Rawan for their reviews on chapter 2! :)

Thank you also to anyone who alerted or favourited this story! :)

RxExR!

Pictures on a Wall

Chapter 3 - Visiting

"Finnigan, you look like your cat died." Draco looked at Seamus with amusement as the other just scowled at him. He opended the door to let the other man into the house.

"Might as well have." The Irishman muttered as he stepped over the threshold and Draco had to hold back a chuckle.

"That bad?" He asked, genuinly interested in what had happened that had caused such a mood in one of his best friends.

"You have no idea." He exclaimed with annoyance. "It was like I had committed murder or something!"

"Uncle Draco!" Two little boys ran towards Draco and he nearly fell over from the force with which they rammed into his legs with.

"She took it that badly?" Draco asked while simultaneously greeting Seamus' three year old twin sons and trying to get them to let go of his legs.

"Oh no, she didn't just take it badly." Seamus shook his head and detached his two sons from Draco's legs. "She erupted like a volcano!" Draco knew that if the children weren't here then Seamus would probably be swearing.

"What happened?" He asked and helped Sean, the older of the two twins, remove his jacket.

"She went on for a whole hour about how I could do something like that to that charming woman and how I could even think of doing something like this to the children, blah, blah, blah." Seamus had finished taking off Connall's jacket and boots and the younger twin joined his other half in running into the living room where Draco's children were.

"You only divorced the woman who was making your life into a living hell." Draco pointed out helpfully.

"That's exactly what I told her. But no, I made the biggest mistake of my life doing that according to my ever charming mother." Seamus continued ranting. "Only because she is still happily married to my dad after thirty years doesn't mean that a divorce is something horrifying and terribly wrong!" His arms were up in the air by now and he was trying to keep his voice down.

"Well, I'd put the matter behind me for now. Otherwise you'll start Hermione on a rant the topic and I think that would scare away Diana." Draco patted his friend on the shoulder and Seamus' shoulders sagged as he let out a resigned sigh.

"I'm not going there at least until Easter and she's calmed down." He muttered and Draco just rolled his eyes.

"So how's Ella been?" Seamus started another topic, one that Draco felt much more comfortable talking about.

"She's good." He said with a warm smile as the two of them turned the corner into the living room where the others were all gathered. "She's been the quietest out of the four of them so far."

Seamus grinned at that. "So you only have to get up every four hours in the night instead of every three?"

"Actually it's more every four and a half but yeah. It's not like with Cassie where we had to get up every two to three hours." Draco remembered the many sleepless nights that he and Hermione had had when their first daughter had been born. Ella was definitely more quiet than her older sister.

"Well that's great for you two. The first couple of months you guys always look like the walking dead in the morning." Seamus chuckled, finding the thought of children being what brought Draco Malfoy to his knees an amusing one.

"Only in the morning?" Draco asked, the corners of his mouth threatening to twitch upwards. After being married to Hermione for seven years and therefore having been in relatively close contact with a number of Gryffindors, three of the Weasley brothers being some of the top candidates there, he had learned to take their teasing in stride. There was no use in getting riled up about any of it. Actually, once you got past their horrible pride and tendancy to be just as prejudiced as his own house, a few of them were actually quite pleasant to be around. But only a couple of them. The rest of the Gryffindors he would still rather avoid like the plague. Only because he had married one, befriended a couple of others and barely tolerated a few more, didn't mean that he wanted to spend all of his free time with them. He was still a Slytherin after all.

"Well, by mid-day you normally remember that it's all worth it anyway so you have this unnaturally happy glow of parents who have just been blessed by a child. It's quite nauseating to watch sometimes." Seamus continued.

Draco snorted. "Nauseating is it?"

"Oh yes, most definitely." Seamus grinned broadly. "If someone had told me ten years ago that you would be blessed with four children by the end of the decade and married to our Gryffindor Princess to boot then I would have volunteered to become their partner in potions or charms." He grinned and Draco shook his head at his friend. At least the guy knew that he was cursed with something that made things explode when he went near them.

"Well, I shall leave you to the tender mercies of my wife for now since I still need to finish dinner." Draco clapped his friend on the shoulder and then walked off in the direction of the kitchen, giving his wife a quick peck on the lips and his daughter on her head as she walked past him with Ella in her arms.

"Seamus." Hermione smiled warmly and gave him an awkward one-armed hug which he returned.

"Hermione." He returned the greeting with a grin. "Hey Ella." He smiled down at the two month old infant girl sitting in Hermione's arms. The small girl gurgled back at him happily. No matter what he said, he envied Hermione and Draco for their happy union to an extent. The two of them were so happy with one another while his own union had failed rather quickly. To be fair though, he had never been happier to be rid of someone else. His wife had been horrible and he had been overjoyed when he had won the custody war. Yes, she had gotten their house and a rather large amount of money from him but he was happier living in a slightly smaller house back in England with his two sons rather than his old house in France all alone.

And anyway, everyone else had already moved back to England anyway. Greg had moved back to England and taken up his job as an auror six years ago while Hermione and Draco had moved back two years ago, shortly after Jasper was born. He would always miss France since it had played such a large part in the healing of the scars from the war but he was planning to go back for a holiday at least once a year.

"How was your Christmas?" Hermione asked as they continued the treck to the living room.

"Absolutely horrible." Seamus replied, his mood darkening slightly.

"Your mother?" She asked with sympathy in her eyes and he nodded in response. If there was anyone who knew about estranged parents or having a different opinion to one's parents then it was Hermione. And Draco as well. Hermione had only recently started talking to her parents again, they had refused to talk to her, even come to her wedding, after finding out what she had done to them. She had said that she understood but Seamus knew that their reaction hurt her nonetheless.

And Draco had had a pretty crappy relationship with his parents before the war. It had taken years for him and Lucius to patch things up. They got along pretty well now, now that all the misunderstandings had been cleared up and all the apologies said, but Seamus knew that it had taken a very long time for that bridge to be mended.

"Yeah." He replied and she sighed softly. "But let us talk about something else. I've dealt with her for the last two days, I need something else to take my mind off of it." He grinned and she smiled back but he could still see the traces of empathy in her eyes.

Ella made a gurgling noise and Hermione chuckled at her daughter's actions. "Trying to cheer Mister Finnigan up, are you Ella?" She asked the small girl affectionately who just replied with another gurgle after a few seconds.

Seamus grinned at the small girl. "Thanks for trying to cheer me up." The small girl smiled back up at him.

"You know that your children are frightingly smart?" Seamus asked as they stepped through the doors that led the living room.

"Yes and don't start me on it." Hermione said with a sigh. "A week or two ago Jasper asked me and Draco what sex meant and what you did in it."

A large spluttering and coughing was heard from the table as Seamus nearly tripped as he missed a step. They looked up to see Goyle practically choking on whatever he had been drinking while his fiancée was clapping him on the back.

"Your two year-old son asked you what?!" Seamus exclaimed as he stared aghast at Hermione.

"Yeah, imagine mine and Draco's surprise when that happened. Draco practically went into anaphylactic shock when he said that." Hermione now only looked faintly amused by the whole situation.

"How did he even ask something like that?" Diana, Goyle's fiancée looked over at Hermione, waiting for her to elaborate. Goyle had met Diana at a conference in Genf two years ago, when he and his partner had been sent to accompany and protect the Minister while there. Diana had been the secretary of the German Minister of Magic and the two had hit it off almost immediately, with Diana leaving her old job and moving to England to be with her boyfriend. She was currently working as a secretary in the British Ministry of Magic in London and Goyle had proposed to her three weeks ago. This Boxing Day dinner also served as a sort of celebration for their engagement. They were going to be married in three months, it was going to be a spring wedding in the middle of March.

"Apparently Scorpius heard two parents talk about it at school when they thought none of the children were listening." Everyone looked up to see Draco entering the room with some glasses and a bottle of wine.

The others shot him incredulous glances. "They thought the children weren't listening?" Seamus, a father himself, felt affronted at the way the parents had acted.

"Yup, and Scorpius of course asks Jasper if he knows what it means which of course, like any two year old, he doesn't." Draco sighed as he put down a glass in front of each of them and began pouring in the wine.

"At least he's accepted that his younger brother's smarter than him." Diana pointed out.

"I think we all figured that one out when he said his first word at the age of six months, half a year before most babies even begin to think of saying words." Hermione said.

"What was his first word again?" Diana asked.

"Smart." Draco said with a word and they all burst out laughing.

"The kid definitely knows what he is." Seamus said between chuckles and he and Goyle shared a look. Hermione and Diana rolled their eyes at the behaviour while Draco just grinned good-naturedly.

"So what did you do next?" Goyle asked as he reached for his glass.

"We told him that it was something that adults did and that we would explain it to him when he was older." Hermione said with a smirk.

"Smart move." Seamus said as he leaned back into the couch.

"It gets even better." Draco muttered darkly and they raised an eyebrow at him.

"What happened next?" Diana asked and Hermione blushed. That made them all wonder what the intelligent tot had said next.

"He asked us if it was something that we did, since we were adults." Hermione muttered while Draco decided that this was a perfect moment to go and check on the dinner. The others burst out laughing. It took them a good couple of minutes to calm down again.

"I love that kid." Seamus said appreciatively.

"A curse to his parents for inheriting their brains." Goyle said with a grin.

"He is absolutely adorable though." Diana added.

"If you're talking about Jaz, then yup, that kid is going to be a heart-breaker when he grows up." A voice said from the doorway and they all looked up to see Adriana, another good friend of theirs standing there.

"You heard the story?" Hermione asked her friend as she stood up to greet her.

"All of it." Adriana grinned. "Had to say, it was a very entertaining thing to listen to while taking off my jacket and my boots."

Hermione sent her friend a mock glare as Adriana settled down next to Seamus. She'd met Adriana Cossack two years ago when they'd moved back to England. They had literally bumped into each other in the middle of Muggle London and as an apology for practically spilling all of her coffee over her, Adriana had asked Hermione to join her for a cup of coffee as compensation and the two had spent two hours talking, finding out by chance that they were both witches before Adriana had had to go to work. She'd left with a slip of paper telling her when to meet next and since then the two of them had built up a strong friendship.

Adriana had originally come from the USA but after the war, with Hogwarts closed up and all, everyone had been looking for people to do jobs and thus Adriana had come over straight after finishing her school. The chestnut-haired woman still found many things strange about England, but she had come to appreciate them for all their quirks over time.

"Congratulations on getting engaged by the way you two. I don't think I ever actually managed to congratulate you." Adriana grinned at Goyle and Diana and he blushed while she smiled happily.

"Thanks." Diana grinned and they could all see how happy she was.

"You know that that means that I'm the only one single right now?" Adriana asked morosely and the others chuckled at her. She pretended to be affronted. "What? You over there," she pointed at Hermione who raised an eyebrow at her, "have been happily married for seven years to one of the most gorgeous men to walk this planet."

Seamus snorted.

"Don't you dare try and deny it Finnigan. He could turn straight men gay." She declared and they all heard a snort as Draco entered the room.

"Thanks Adriana." His voice was dripping with sarcasm. "Merry Christmas to you to."

"Thanks." She grinned brightly. "And I know that you are the husband of one of my best friends but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate a good man when I see one." Hermione and Draco both looked amused, they were used to her blunt comments by now.

"And then you have four adorable kids to boot, so shut it. Meanwhile you," she pointed at Seamus who resisted the urge to throw up his hands and shout 'I'm innocent!', "were married and while you are now divorced you have two charming kids!"

"Charming my ass." Goyle muttered and while Seamus just chuckled good-naturedly, knowing how troublesome his twins could be, Adriana sent him a look that quickly shut him up.

"And you two are now engaged! All my friends are either already in a committed relationship or settled. And now I'm the only one single since you decided to propose and you decided to accept." She gestured at Goyle and Diana who just smiled at her.

"Oh come on, we all know that you enjoy your current lifestyle too much to give it up. And anyways, not all of your friends are in a committed relationship. Aren't Chloe and Fiona just as free and happy as you are?" Hermione asked while Draco took Ella from her arms to which the small girl made a happy gurgling noise.

"Chloe's started muttering about finding someone to settle down with and Fiona's just passed the two month anniversary mark with Tom. That's the longest she's ever been with anyone!" She exclaimed and the others laughed.

"Don't worry you'll find someone sooner or later." Diana said consolingly.

"That's exactly the problem. My mum's started to get on the case too." Adriana muttered in annoyance and sank down further in her chair.

The rest of the night was filled with pleasant chatter and an even more pleasant dinner which only ended past midnight, long after all the children had already been put to bed.

~.~.~.~.~

The Burrow

Ginny wandered around the corridors of the Burrow lost in thought. It had been five weeks since they had heard those news from Kingsley about their sudden time skip and to be completely honest, it hadn't really hit her yet. Today would be the first time that she would be seeing Charlie, Bill and George since (her) summer and she wondered whether time had changed them so much that she would have difficulty recognising them.

In a way all of them were scared of the meeting. George and Bill had both sent owls saying that they would be bringing their families with them and she knew that at that point she would no longer be able to avoid the truth of the present time.

And then there was the whole thing with Harry. He had come to the Burrow along with Lavender, seeing as they really had nowhere else to go but also because her mother had insisted that they come and join them in their celebrations. Tonks had popped by yesterday briefly before going back to her mother and her son. Apparently Teddy was taking the whole thing with suddenly having a mother a whole lot better than Tonks was taking the 'suddenly-having-a-ten-year-old-son'. Lupin had been moved to St. Mungo's and with their more advanced medicine and knowledge, him waking up soon from his coma looked pretty promising.

Lavender on the other hand was annoying the living daylights out of her. She and Ron were an 'item' as of the moment but she couldn't wait until he dumped her. It had been fine in school where she hadn't had to deal with her fellow Gryffindor around the clock, but since Lavender was pretty much the only other girl around apart from her mother and occasionally Tonks, she found herself spending more time with her than she had ever desired to.

She just hoped that Ron would come to his senses soon and dump her, because if he didn't she would murder the chatterbox herself.

And then, of course, there was another, much more pressing, matter on her mind.

When she and Harry had decided to 'take a break' after the war, she had not envisioned the break lasting six months. In her heart she had kind of expected them to be together again after a couple of weeks but it seemed as if Harry was taking a bit longer to cope with the aftermath of the war than most others. She guessed that it wasn't strange, he had been the one to ultimately win their war after all.

Now it was just awkward between them though. Ten years had passed by and she wondered where they would be by now hadn't they been stuck in Hogwarts. Would they be happily married? Would they have children? Would they even be together? Doubts clouded her mind and while she knew that her love for Harry was as strong as it had ever been, she didn't know whether he still loved her.

She wanted nothing more than a happy family at some point in time but by now she was wondering whether Harry saw their relationship as something that had happened in the heat of the moment, or whether he truly cared for her more than just his best friend's little sister.

Plus there was this whole thing with Hermione. Harry and Ron both seemed so hung up about seeing her again that she didn't know what to do. It was driving her nuts. The way that Harry acted you would think that he cared more for her than just as his best friend and Ron's crush on her was so obvious that even a blind person would be able to see it.

But then again she also missed her friend immensely. Never had she been more aware of how much she had relied on Hermione as her girl friend in school. The two of them had talked about matters that they couldn't really talk about with the boys and it was incredibly relieving to have someone like that. As of late, Luna had been filling that role a lot but she just wasn't the same as Hermione. She lacked the rationality that drove Hermione in many things that she did.

And it was absolutely infuriating how no one seemed to be willing to tell them about their friend. Kingsley had avoided the topic like the plague, saying that they should wait until meeting Hermione herself and getting the answers from her. And she didn't really know anyone else that knew anything on what happened during the ten years during which they were trapped. She had even read through old newspapers but Hermione had somehow managed to avoid the press after the war, it was admirable but also incredibly aggravating.

She would get information out of her brothers though tonight and she knew that Harry and Ron had a similar idea. There was simply no way that they had stayed completely devoid of any contact to Hermione, especially straight after the war.

She heard the floo roar to life downstairs and she ran down the stairs, closely followed by the others that had been resting in their rooms and heard the noise. It meant that one of their brothers was here and they had all been waiting for that literally since the holidays had started.

"Bill!" She shouted overjoyed as she spotted her eldest brother and literally rammed into him, knocking the air out of his lungs.

"Gin." Bill grinned as he looked down at his only sister. It was almost surreal, seeing her again.

"How've you been?" She asked exactly at the same time as Ron exclaimed, "Kingsley said you had three kids!"

Bill chuckled as he looked at the rest of his family gathering in the living room. "Yeah, Fleur and I have three kids." He said when the floo roared to life once more.

"Dad, you forgot your jacket." A young girl's voice said and everyone peered around Bill to see a miniature version of Fleur standing in front of the fireplace. Her hair was slightly darker though and her eyes a bit lighter.

"Everyone, this is my eldest daughter, Victoire. She's nine." Bill said proudly as the young girl looked around in surprise at the many people gathered here. "And that's Dominique, she's seven." Another girl had just stepped through the floo and she looked like a perfect mix between Bill and Fleur, the red hair of the Weasley family still absent though. "And here's Louis, he's five." Bill said as his son stepped through the fireplace, the only one who had the bright red hair that his father also sported. "And I think you all remember Fleur." He smiled at his wife who smiled back before greeting the rest of them.

"It's so good to see you all again." She said warmly and Ginny noticed that her French accent was nearly gone but still present. Mrs. Weasley rushed forward and hugged Bill tightly and Ginny noticed that his children were looking slightly overwhelmed.

"Kids, the wonderful woman currently hugging me is my mother, so your grandmother." He began to explain to his children. "The man standing in the doorway over there is your grandfather," he continued, pointed at Arthur who waved at them, tears gathering in the corners of his eyes, "And from the right are my one and only sister Ginerva, but don't call her that, she hates being called by her full name." Bill's eyes twinkled and Ginny scowled at him.

"Just call me Ginny." She told her nieces and nephews who looked at her with interest.

"Next to her is Ron, he's a year older than Ginny." Ron gave a small wave. "Then there's Percy and next to him is your uncle George's twin brother Fred." Bill grinned at the two of them and Fred returned the gesture while Percy just inclined his head. "Then the two other people who are not related to us are Harry Potter, he's the one with the black hair and the glasses."

"The one who defeated Voldemort?" Victoire asked and Bill nodded while the others looked at him in shock.

"You told your kids?" Harry asked in surprise.

"Of course." Bill replied. "I have no intention of keeping them in the dark about what happened in the war and who was involved." His mother looked at him in disapproval and he merely shrugged. He knew that his mother thought that children shouldn't be exposed to the truth too soon but he had no intention of having them finding out about their parents' and their aunts' and uncles' involvement in the war from anyone else.

"And then the woman over there, next to your uncle Ron is what I'm presuming to be his girlfriend, Lavender Brown." Bill finished the introductions and the three children nodded.

"They all have red hair." Dominique said and Bill chuckled.

"It's a family trait sweetheart." He said and Dominique frowned.

"I like my hair as it is." She said and Fleur was the one chuckling now.

"Only because it's a family trait doesn't mean that everyone in the family has to have it." She said and Dominique nodded, as if that explanation made her happy.

The floo roared to life once more and they all stepped away from it as a dark haired woman stepped out of the fireplace with a small child in her arms.

"Angelina?" Fred asked incredulously as Fleur hugged the woman as a greeting.

"Good to see that you could make it." She said.

"George took forever." She shrugged. "He was looking at the pictures again."

Bill, Fleur and Angelina shared a look that left the others confused. Was something going on that they didn't understand?

Fred on the other hand was still trying to figure out why his ex-girlfriend was standing in their living room with a child in her arms.

"Made it!" Came a shout behind Angelina and they all turned around to see George standing there holding a boy in his arms. The shout had obviously come from the boy, not from George himself. The little boy's arms were waving about in an erratic manner as he looked terribly excited.

"Freddie, please..." George looked in exasperation at his younger son. Whenever they went through the floo, Freddie got excited and bouncy. George wasn't sure whether it was because Freddie loved the floo or because he didn't.

"George?" Fred exclaimed and George looked up to see his twin brother sitting there, looking completely and utterly flabbergasted.

"Fred!" He grinned and stepped forward into the room. "Ron, Gin, Harry, Percy, Lavender." He greeted them all with a broad grin. "Mum, Dad." He nodded at them with a warm smile.

"You're married to Angelina?!" Ginny was the first to respond.

"Yup." He said with a smile.

"We got married four years ago." Angelina elaborated as they began to remove the coats and boots from their children. The others stared at them in something that was a mix between shock and surprise.

"I see everyone's already here." Came a deep voice behind them and they all turned to see Charlie stepping through the front door of the Burrow into the room.

"Charlie!" Mrs. Weasley exclaimed happily, glad to see that her second eldest son had been able to make it too.

"Now all we're missing is Hermione." Ginny said with a grin, happy to see that they were all together once more.

"Hermione won't be coming today." George said slightly uncomfortably.

Harry's "What?!" came the same time as Ginny's and Ron's "Why?!".

"Because she's celebrating with her family." George said, finally able to remove his own coat. "And because a close family friend got engaged and they're celebrating that. But she told me to send her greetings and I've also got something for all of you from her. But more about Hermione later. Mum, I've heard that you made dinner?" He looked over at his mother with a hopeful grin, earning him a small mock glare from Angelina and a warm smile from his mother, despite the worry in her eyes.

What George had just said about Hermione made her queasy. Something had happened in the last ten years that George thought he would have to explain properly which meant that it was something complicated. She guessed that they would now perhaps see the full extent of what could happen in ten years time.