A/N – I've decided to post the only multi-chapter story I currently have finished, which is one of my favourite types of stories - a reunion. As it turns out, it hasn't quite been as hot as it threatened to be earlier in the summer, so I've managed to do more writing than I had thought. However, I still haven't managed to finish anything else, so aside from a couple of one shots, this is it for the moment. To give me more time to hopefully finish another multi-chapter story, I am only going to post this story once a week on a Tuesday. The story has 6 chapters and there is an After The End piece to go with it. Enjoy!
Woodside Manor was the most popular luxury spa resort and hotel in Wizarding Britain, and Ginny Potter had wanted to visit the place since it had first opened its doors five years ago. However, her husband Harry had never been overkeen on the idea. First of all, it was very expensive and while Harry had plenty of money and didn't mind spending it, he wasn't sure if he agreed with the idea of spending so much on a hotel. Although even if he had been willing to pay the price for the hotel, he wasn't at all interested in the spa element, and certainly had no intention of being dragged along to spa treatments simply to keep Ginny company.
However, for her twenty fifth birthday, Ginny got exactly what she had always wanted, as Harry booked them into Woodside Manor for the weekend. Not only was it Ginny's birthday, but they'd just found out she was expecting their first child, and he thought it was worth celebrating in style. Harry had also invited Ginny's brother, and his best friend, Ron, to join them along with Ron's wife, Lavender. Which meant that Ginny could enjoy the spa element with Lavender, while Harry was free to hang out with Ron, knowing his wife was being pampered and having the time of her life.
The two couples arrived at the hotel on Friday evening, and checked into the suites Harry had booked for them. The only accommodation better than the suites he had booked was the deluxe suites, but Harry was confident the rooms he'd booked would be good enough. And they were certainly good enough as the rooms oozed luxury, and offered every amenity guests could wish for.
Dinner on Friday evening had been enjoyed in one of the three restaurants the hotel boasted, with plans made to sample the other two over the course of their stay. Plans were also made for Ginny and Lavender to spend their Saturday at the spa, indulging in as many treatments as they desired. Now Harry had chosen to pay for the hotel, he was more than happy for everyone to thoroughly enjoy their experience.
As for Harry and Ron, they'd spent their Saturday morning exploring the hotel grounds and the surroundings area, and were currently returning to Woodside Manor to grab a bite to eat in the bistro, before they spent the afternoon checking out the quidditch facilities on offer.
"I just need to pop to the bathroom," Ron said as they entered the reception area, and he gestured towards the hallway which contained the public bathrooms.
"I'll just wait here for you," Harry informed his friend, settling down on one of the comfortable seats in the reception area and poking through the magazines scattered on the table beside him.
Not finding anything of interest in the magazine collection, Harry simply sat back to wait for Ron. However, a witch standing at the reception desk caught his attention for some reason and he felt a wave of familiarity wash over him as he gazed at her back. The witch in question was clearly well off as even though Harry knew very little about clothes, Ginny loved her fashion, and he could tell the knee length green and black dress the witch was wearing wasn't cheap. And from the red soles of her high heels, he knew the shoes she was wearing were a muggle designer pair as he'd bought some for Ginny the previous Christmas. Her brown hair was pinned up so he couldn't see how long it was, but he could see the glitter of the green stones in her hair clip, and he suspected they were genuine gemstones.
Harry was just wondering if he should get up and find an excuse to wander over to the reception desk in a bid to see if he knew the witch he'd been watching when she turned her head to the side to speak to an employee who had emerged from a side room to deal with her. From the side, Harry suddenly knew who the witch was and why she had seemed so familiar to him. There had been a time when the witch in question had been one of his closest friends. The witch who had seemed so familiar to him was his old friend, Hermione Granger.
Harry, Ron and Hermione had been close throughout their years at Hogwarts, but he and Ron had slowly lost touch with her after graduation. To be honest the distance between the three of them had started to grow in their seventh year, when Hermione had been made Head Girl. When she hadn't been studying, she'd been consumed with head duties, and she'd been dealing with some sort of family crisis. All of which meant she'd had less time for her friends than normal, and Ron especially had struggled with the distance that had started to grow between them.
But for Ron the final straw came shortly after graduation when Hermione announced she was going to stay in France for a while with her mother. She'd confessed her parents had split up, and her mother had been offered a new start by an old friend and she was going with her to support her. Ron had not taken the news very well at all, and he'd told Hermione that leaving for France was turning her back on their friendship and if she went, he would never forgive her.
Despite clearly been hurt by Ron's ultimatum, Hermione hadn't backed down, and she had left for France, vowing to be back after her mother was settled. Initially she and Harry had wrote to one another, but Harry would admit he hadn't been the best at keeping in touch, and slowly the contact died away to nothing. And maybe that was why Hermione had never returned, even though when she'd left she'd said it wasn't a permanent move. In fact Harry often wondered if he'd managed to keep up the letter writing if Hermione would have come home and things would have been sorted between her and Ron.
Although she was home now, or at least in the country, and Harry thought it was an opportunity too good to miss. He'd missed Hermione, and it would be nice if he could resurrect the friendship that had once been so important to him. Getting to his feet, he was just about to head over to where Hermione was, when Ron returned from the bathroom.
"It's Hermione," Harry whispered, jerking his head in their old friend's direction. Despite Ron's initial reaction to Hermione's departure, Harry knew his best friend missed her as much as he did and it was only recently that a conversation they'd had revealed that they both regretted the fact she was no longer part of their lives.
"Are you sure?" Ron queried with a frown, studying the back of what was clearly a very affluent witch.
"Positive," Harry replied. "Let's go and say hello."
Ron nodded in agreement, and the two wizards had barely taken a handful of steps across the lobby when Hermione turned from the reception desk and the three friends came face to face. Hermione was clearly shocked to see them, and for a moment the trio just stood looking at each other.
"Hello Hermione," Harry eventually said, offering his old friend a tentative smile.
"Harry, Ron," Hermione returned, her face breaking into a genuine smile at the sight of her past standing in front of her. "It's nice to see you both."
"And you," Ron said, his eyes sweeping up and down Hermione's expensively clad body. "You look amazing."
"Thank you," Hermione replied with a slight blush. "You both look really good yourselves. I hope life is treating you good."
"It is," Harry confirmed. "And you? How are you?"
"I'm also good," Hermione answered. "And while I would love to stay and catch up, I've got a business meeting to prepare for. Are you staying here?"
"We're here all weekend," Harry said.
"So am I," Hermione offered. "How about we find some time to have a proper catch up? If of course you want to," she added, glancing warily at Ron.
"It sounds great," Ron said, well aware that his last meeting with Hermione had not been a good one, so understandably she was wary of him. "A long time has passed since we last spoke, and I'm sure a lot had happened to all of us, so maybe a fresh start is in order."
"I'd like that," Hermione said softly. "Now if you'll excuse me, I really have to be going."
"Don't let us keep you," Harry urged with a smile. "We'll see you around and arrange for that drink."
"I'd like that," Hermione said, offering her goodbyes before she headed off to the lifts and disappeared from view.
"Wow, that was unexpected," Harry remarked as he and Ron headed towards the bistro, which overlooked the stunning hotel gardens.
"Very," Ron agreed.
"And will things be okay between you two?" Harry checked. "You weren't exactly happy with her when she left."
"I was young and immature," Ron confessed with a sigh. "She'd been distant with us all year, and I felt her going off to France was the final kick in the teeth."
"I think whatever was going on with her family was affecting her more than we realised," Harry said. "After all, her parents did end up splitting up."
"Yeah, that must have been hard," Ron conceded. "I do wish I'd been more sympathetic towards her. Maybe if I hadn't been so horrible to her, she would have come back like she'd said she would."
"You can spend your life going over the maybes, but it doesn't change anything," Harry said wisely. "What happened, happened, and we can't change it. But we can learn from it and move on. And maybe we've just been presented with a second chance. Maybe this weekend will result in us getting Hermione back in our lives."
"I'll drink to that," Ron said with a grin as they entered the bistro and asked to be seated on the terrace.
The terraced seating area was separated from the inside seating area by some fragrant bushes, and Harry and Ron found themselves sitting behind a particularly large bush with blue and purple flowers. After ordering drinks and food they were just settling back to enjoy a peaceful lunch when they heard someone settling at the table behind the bush. Normally they wouldn't have bothered with their fellow guests, but the voice of one of the wizards seemed familiar, and peering through the leaves of the bush, Ron identified the voice as belonging to Lucius Malfoy.
"Trust us to get stuck next to a Malfoy," Ron hissed to Harry.
"Luckily he can't see us," Harry returned, fully intending to ignore the blond wizard for the duration of their lunch.
Despite intending to ignore Lucius and his lunch partner, Harry and Ron couldn't help but overhear that the blond wizard was conducting a business lunch. They also couldn't help but hear him announce that a witch had arrived to join them, and out of curiosity the pair couldn't help but take a look at who was joining the two men. In all honesty they had expected to see Lucius's stunning wife, Narcissa, but instead the only witch they could see entering the bistro was Hermione.
For a moment Harry and Ron were slightly confused and wondered if Hermione had come in search of them. However, before either of them had a chance to grab her attention, Lucius had risen to his feet and was greeting Hermione warmly.
"Humphrey, may I introduce you to my daughter, Hermione," they heard Lucius announce proudly.
Turning to each other with shocked expressions, Ron opened his mouth to speak, when Harry held up his hand to keep him silent as he wanted to hear more from beyond the bushes.
"It's so very nice to meet you," the wizard with Lucius responded, clearly addressing Hermione.
"And you," Hermione returned politely.
"I've heard a lot about you, young lady," Humphrey said. "Lucius speaks about you rather a lot."
"Does he now?" Hermione questioned in a teasing voice.
"I may have mentioned you once or twice," Lucius retorted dismissively.
"Don't listen to him," Humphrey chuckled. "He's mentioned you every time we've spoken just recently. It's clear you mean an awful lot to him."
"He means a lot to me as well," Hermione replied warmly.
As Lucius suggested they order more drinks and turn their attention for the reason for their meeting, a stunned Harry and Ron turned back to one another. Not wanting to be overheard, Harry cast a privacy spell around the table. However, both he and Ron were lost for words and didn't know how to deal with what they'd just heard. Luckily they were afforded a slight bit of thinking time as the waiter arrived with their lunch.
"Did we just hear that right?" Ron checked once they were alone again. "Hermione is Lucius Malfoy's daughter?"
"That's what I heard," Harry replied, the shock still evident in his voice as he tried to accept that his ears hadn't been deceiving him. "Not that I understand how it could have happened."
"Maybe that was the family drama she was dealing with in seventh year," Ron suggested. "She never did explain what exactly was going on, but we do know it ended with her parents splitting up. Maybe it was because her father discovered she wasn't his."
"But could you really see Lucius Malfoy with a muggle?" Harry queried with a frown.
"Maybe Hermione's mother isn't a muggle, maybe she's a secret witch," Ron mused. "Or maybe she was adopted, and somehow ended up in the muggle world. But however it happened, we heard it with our own ears. Hermione is a Malfoy."
"And you really think she discovered this in seventh year and never told us?" Harry asked.
"Maybe she was worried about how we would react," Ron suggested. "I have to say, the idea of being friends with a Malfoy doesn't sit easily with me. And let's not forget, she and Malfoy were head students that final year and she had no problem working alongside him. and she ran off to France pretty quickly after the end of the year. If that was in fact where she did go. For all we know she's been hiding out at Malfoy Manor all these years."
"No, I'm sure she went to France," Harry said with a shake of his head. "Don't forget, we exchanged letters for a while after she left. And yes, I know letters can find people wherever they are, but what she was telling me about her life over there seemed genuine enough."
"I wouldn't be so sure, Harry," Ron cautioned. "She's a Malfoy, and being dishonest is in their nature. She didn't tell us the truth in school, did she? She had all year to confide in us about her family crisis, but she said nothing. She was clearly ashamed."
"She doesn't seem ashamed now," Harry remarked, jerking his head to the bushes, where they could still hear Hermione and Lucius conducting their meeting. "It's very obvious she and Lucius are close."
"I guess we'll just have to find out the truth when we have a drink with her," Ron remarked.
"You still want to do that?" Harry asked, rather shocked that Ron hadn't immediately announced he wanted nothing more to do with Hermione now they knew who she truly was.
"Oh yeah, I think it's about time she told us the damn truth," Ron hissed. "I can't say I'm bothered about keeping in touch with her, not now. But I do think she should at least explain herself."
Harry did think Ron seemed rather too entitled, but he had to agree that it would be nice to know the truth, and find out why Hermione had lied to them when they were supposed to have been her friends. And as for the future and keeping in touch with her, he was keeping an open mind and would see how their catch-up went before making any decisions. He wasn't quite ready to cast her aside simply because she was a Malfoy, but he might very well decide that he didn't want her friendship if he wasn't happy for the explanations she gave for lying to them all those years ago.