STORY WARNING: Mention of non-consensual sex (nothing graphic).

So this is set after the events of The Cursed Child, and while I might take into account some of the basic timeline, I am not including the main plot points of the show (which everyone should try and see as it's amazing).

This all belongs to the genius that is J. K. Rowling.

...

Chapter 1

"Mum, Gran and Grandad are here."

Hermione looked up to see Lyra leaning against the doorframe as she watched her looking through some old photos of her school days.

"You know you don't have to do this. I can go alone."

Hermione sighed and put the photos away and into her carryon backpack, before picking that and her handbag up.

"I know. But I need to do this. Some Gryffindor I am, I've been hiding for twenty-one years."

Hermione stood and walked over to her daughter, throwing an arm around her neck and placing a kiss on the taller woman's cheek.

"I get this won't be easy for you, mum."

"Yeah, it's really not going to be. I know that. But it's been too long, and I know you want to meet him."

"Been using legilimency on me again?" Lyra gave her a grin.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "No, I haven't. And you know I only did that once when you were seven and wouldn't tell me that you had hidden a magical flame in your toy box which could have burned the house down."

"What can I say, the flame was pretty."

"Are you ready?" Her mum Debbie appeared and stood between them. She wrapped her arms around both women. "We need to get going if you want to make your flight on time."

"Mother," Hermione said in an exasperated tone, "the flight is in over four hours, and it only takes forty-five minutes to get to the airport. Check-in won't even be open yet."

"Still, you don't want to miss it."

Hermione rolled her eyes and met Lyra's as she grabbed her bags and headed out of the house.

"Is everything off?" Her father, Paul, was waiting by the car and had loaded their cases into the boot.

"No, I thought I'd leave the gas on and light a candle for good measure."

"Enough of the sarcasm, young lady." Hermione snorted in laughter at her father calling her forty-one year old self 'young'. She certainly didn't feel it at times.

"I've made sure the stove and lights and everything is off, but as I have said multiple times, my friend is going to be staying here, so no worries."

Hermione had been concerned about leaving her house unattended for so long, although her parents had said they'd stop by to keep an eye on the place. So when one of her Ministry friends split from her long-term partner, she was more than happy to offer up her house to her friend for as long as was needed.

She watched as her mother walked through the house one last time to make sure everything was in fact turned off, and locked up behind her. She pulled out her wand out of her invisible arm holster and set the wards as an extra layer of protection on the house.

They were all quiet during the drive to Melbourne Airport, and her dad parked in the short stay drop off area while they unloaded the car.

"Are you okay? Are you sure you want to do this?" Her mum had concern in her eyes as she looked at Hermione.

"Yes, and yes. I'll be fine, I promise. I need to do this. Hell, I should've done this decades ago."

"Come home any time you want," her mum told her. She knew that she meant it as well. "And stay in touch. They have FaceTime in England don't they?"

"Yes, mum, I'm sure I can find some internet somewhere."

When Hermione had spelled her parents to forget she existed, renamed them Monica and Wendell Wilkins, and moved them to Australia, she had assumed that once the war was over they'd want to return to England. But she'd actually done her parents a massive favour, as even when she restored their memories after the war, they didn't want to return to England. And that Hermione was more than happy to stay in Australia with them only solidified that fact.

She hugged both of her parents, and stood back as both of her parents hugged their only grandchild.

"You too, Lyra, please come back to see us. We're too old to fly all that way now."

There were some tears all round before Hermione and Lyra grabbed their bags and made their way to check in. She had an anxious time going through airport security as she always did considering the wands and other magical artefacts they had on them, but the anti-muggle detection spells she'd used prevented anything from being noticed.

"Remind me why are we not taking a port-key," Lyra moaned as she sipped her pint of beer as they sat in the airport lounge waiting to board their first eight hour flight to Kuala Lumpur. "I'm not sure I can do this."

"Really, it's no quicker. Yes, this is twenty-four hours of sitting still on a plane, but even if we took a port key we'd have to split the journey with at least a twenty-four hour break half way. And that's not to mentioned the side effects of that journey. Do you remember when I went to LA last minute for that conference last year? The side effects were horrific. I missed the whole thing because I was throwing up. So nope, not doing that again. And we're hardly slumming it; we have fancy seats."

Lyra smiled. "Yes, I am looking forward to turning left when we get on the plane."

Hermione tried to relax once they were up in the air, sipping her drink, and watching the latest muggle blockbuster of mutants and superheroes blowing shit up. But she was worried. For the last few weeks over the Christmas period she'd been taking way too much sleeping draught and calming potion to try and alleviate the anxiety, but she had to face this. It was only fair to her daughter.

She looked over at Lyra who was totally engrossed in the film. She was the absolute spitting image of her father. In fact, more than a few times people had made comment that her daughter looked so unlike her that she must have been adopted. Hermione always found that a little rude, but in truth she could see why people said it.

Hermione's wild dark brown hair of her youth had been tamed into more manageable curls, and years of the Australian sun had turned her skin a golden tan. Lyra, however, was pale despite her time in the sun, and tended to burn easily. Hermione had luckily found a good sun protection spell which her daughter used daily. Lyra was also tall and slender, where Hermione had never been considered tall and had a curvier disposition.

The most striking difference, however, was Lyra's pale platinum blonde hair which was as straight as a die. Hermione did think that maybe the volume of hair her daughter had was more her than Lyra's father's, but that was really the only similarity. Even facially she resembled her father's side more than her with a slightly aristocratic look.

"Can I see the photos now?" Lyra asked not long after they boarded their second flight to London.

"Of course," Hermione told her, casting a discrete notice-me-not spell and pulling the photos out of her bag. She'd shown some of the photos she had to Lyra before, but not all of them. She had told Lyra that she did have one picture of her father, albeit not a very good one, and she could see it if she wanted, but Lyra had never asked.

"You look so young," her daughter commented at the first picture. "That's Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley, right?"

The first picture was one from her third year, and she was stood in between her two childhood best friends, an arm around each of them.

"You know who Harry is. I know for a fact that you studied him at school."

Hermione had been aware that Lyra had studied the war in the UK and Europe, but had stayed out of it for the most part, telling her daughter that she'd answer any questions she had about what happened, but never really volunteering the information. She had, out of curiosity, had a look through Lyra's school books one summer to see what was being taught, and she'd been pleased to find for the most part that the facts of the war had been told.

"Who are the rest of these?" Lyra asked.

The next picture had been taken at the end of their fifth year and was of all of the Fifth Year Gryffindors plus Ginny Weasley. Hermione talked through all of the names and studied the faces of the youngsters who were pushing and shoving each other in the looping photograph.

"And more Weasleys, I assume?" The next picture had all seven of the Weasley children and both parents looking proud of their brood.

"What gave it away? This was taken not long after the previous one in the summer before our sixth year."

"Which one of them died?"

Hermione took a deep breath. "Fred. That's him there."

Hermione had never had any problems telling Fred and George apart, and in this photo he was wearing his twin's t-shirt with a massive G on the front.

"That's George, his twin." She pointed to the corresponding boy wearing the F t-shirt. "I don't know how he did after the war, the twins were so close. I didn't see him at all between the end of the war and when I left. The Weasley's really kept to themselves then. I wasn't even invited to the funeral. I only saw Ron once after the war, and even then for no more than a few minutes."

She'd been really hurt by Ron and the Weasleys actions. After their kiss during the Battle of Hogwarts as it was now named she actually thought that they might get together, but she was left out when the Weasleys mourned together over Fred's death. What made it worse was that Harry had been welcomed into the family with open arms but not her.

She'd certainly had her share of both physical and mental scars following the war, and had been too traumatised to tell her friends all of what had happened to her. But she still didn't expect to be excluded the way she was. And then when she found out she was pregnant, it only solidified her plan to head to Australia and track down her parents.

At the time she'd been fully planning on coming back, but on finding her parents enjoying their life in Australia, and not to mention her pregnancy, she made the call to stay, at least for a while.

Ron, it seemed, hadn't been happy with her decision. He had seemed to ignore the fact that he'd spoken to her once in the three months between the end of the war and her leaving for Australia, and was angry with her that she made the decision to move without telling him. He'd sent her a particularly hurtful letter which she'd burned after reading, and that was the last contact she'd had with him.

She'd stayed in good contact with Harry by letter for around five years after, but once he had married Ginny and started having children his letters had become more and more sparse and impersonal, and the last contact she'd had from him was over eight years ago. She still sent him a birthday card every year, but she'd never received anything back.

She watched Lyra as she flicked through the photos, most of which contained the same people in varying poses, and told her who each of the people were. She smiled at the antics of those in photos, one in particular of Sirius Black and Remus Lupin play fighting always made her smile.

At the back of the stack of photos was a few newspaper clippings she'd kept. There was one of Harry during the Tri-Wizard tournament, and another of the three of them at Dumbledore's funeral. The final article was about the first quidditch match of the season, and included a picture of the line up of the Gryffindor-Slytherin match taken at the start of their fifth year.

The looping picture showed all seven players of both teams, with Madam Rolanda Hooch standing in between them. She noticed Lyra's eyes go straight to the picture of Draco Malfoy, who was stood in the centre of the Slytherin team and had the usual arrogant, sneering look on his face. In the picture, he looked over and clearly said something rude to Harry, as he'd reacted and had to be restrained by Angelina Johnson.

"That's him? My dad?"

Hermione swallowed thickly. "Yep, that's him."

"He looks really young."

"He would have been fifteen in this picture."

Hermione watched Lyra study the picture. "I really do look like him, don't I?"

"You do." She paused for a moment. "Do you wish you'd met him before now? Known more about him?"

"Not really, no. I had you, Gran and Grandad. And considering what happened … I don't blame you for not wanting to talk about it. Sure, when I was younger I used to imagine my dad appearing out of nowhere and me having this fantastic relationship with him, but I know that never would have happened even if he did know about me."

Lyra had first asked about her father when she was four. It had been a question that Hermione had been dreading, but she'd been well-prepared with an answer. She'd never known if she'd done the right thing in answering the way she did.

She'd simply told her daughter that her father lived on the other side of the world and left it there. As Lyra got older she had to expand the explanation, and tell her that she and her father hadn't been in a relationship when she found out she was pregnant. It was only when Lyra was seventeen that she told her the whole truth.

The both slept for around five hours on the plane, aided by the fact she'd upgraded them to business class rather than having to sleep in the uncomfortable seats at the back. She'd remembered how uncomfortable she'd been when she flew to Australia the first time, and had sworn to herself that if she ever went back she'd try and upgrade her seat.

They arrived to the UK in the cold and wet mid-afternoon, went through security and picked up their bags like normal muggle tourists. Hermione had told Lyra that they'd even get a muggle cab to their London hotel rather than apparate, in part because she was worried they'd be too tired to apparate, and also so Lyra could see some of the sights of the English capital. She'd booked them into a muggle hotel in Mayfair close to Hyde Park, choosing a two bedroom suite so they didn't have to share a bedroom.

As they headed towards the exit, she noticed a man holding a sign with her name on it. This both confused and concerned her, as she hadn't told anyone she was arriving. She hoped that maybe it was meant for a different Hermione Granger, and ignored the man, speeding up a little and heading towards the exit of the airport.

"Miss Granger, please stop."

She did so, Lyra stopping as well, and turned to face the man. He was dressed in a muggle uniform, but she could tell that it had been transfigured from robes, and likely auror robes considering the dark red colour.

"Can I help you?" She asked in a polite but firm voice.

"I need you to come with me."

She crossed her arms across her chest. "Am I under arrest?"

"No, Miss Granger, you're not. However I am under instruction to escort you to the Ministry."

"Can I at least get your name if you're taking me somewhere. And I would like to see your badge."

The man gave her a weary look before pulling out his identification showing that he was in fact an auror and named Geralt Nicholls.

"Fine. Do lead the way."

Her and Lyra followed the auror for a few paces, before he turned and looked at Lyra. "Just you, Miss Granger."

"This is my daughter. I am not going without her."

Nicholls narrowed his eyes a moment, before relenting and leading them to a car waiting outside the terminal, which the normal security guards seemed to completely ignore. Nicholls and a driver dressed in a green uniform helped get their bags into the back of the sleek black Ministry car and helped the two of them inside.

The car drove quickly away from the airport, and was clearly magically enhanced. Both Hermione and Lyra didn't say anything as they whizzed through London at breakneck speed and avoided cars, pedestrians and other obstacles in the way. They arrived at the Ministry of Magic in Westminster only twenty minutes after leaving Heathrow airport, and the car pulled up to the nondescript entrance.

Nicholls helped them both out of the car and led them towards the doorway.

"Our bags?" Hermione pointed out.

Nicholls looked over to the driver who pulled the suitcases out of the boot of the car and took them towards the door.

"We'll keep them for you."

Hermione wasn't one hundred percent sure on that, so set a quick tracing charm on their belongings before following the auror into the Ministry. They were led through a maze of narrow corridors and up and down sets of stairs before arriving at the atrium. Hermione and Lyra were both registered as guests, and Nicholls led them over to the lifts were he took them up to the first floor.

It was luckily quiet up there, and they were led into a small meeting room and told by Nicholls to wait.

"What the hell?" Lyra asked when they were finally alone.

Hermione sat down next to her at the table and set a muffliato. "Not a clue. I can only assume they somehow knew I was back."

"What, so they kidnap us from the airport?"

Hermione smiled. "It seems that way, I know …"

She was interrupted by the door to the room opening, and them being greeted by the Minister for Magic himself.

"Hermione Granger. I wasn't sure I'd ever see you again."

She cancelled the muffliato and shrugged. "It's good to see you Harry, you've hardly changed." She looked over her old friend, and although he was clearly older, with a little grey around the temples, there was no doubt he was her childhood best friend. "And congratulations on becoming Minister. I'll be honest, I was pretty surprised when I heard."

"I know I never really had the work ethic when we were at Hogwarts, but times change. It turns out I'm actually quite good at this."

"Well, I'm sure you'll do great. I have every confidence in you."

"Thanks." She noticed Harry's eyes drifting over to Lyra, and a definite frown on his face as he assessed her.

"Harry, I'd like you to meet my daughter Lyra."

Harry's eyes opened widely at the mention of the word daughter.

"You never mentioned you had a daughter!"

"You never asked."

"And why would I possibly think to ask if you had a daughter? Hermione … she looks like Malfoy."

"Harry…."

"Tell me she's not his daughter."

Hermione reached under the table and grabbed Lyra's hand, appreciating this wouldn't be easy for her. Her daughter squeezed her hand in response.

"I can't do that. She is."

"And does he know? No, don't answer that, he clearly doesn't. Malfoy may not be my favourite person, but how could you not…"

"Harry, enough. You don't know what happened, and I am not about to go into it now, particularly when you are angry."

Harry turned away from them and started pacing, his hand in his hair and turning it into the mess she remembered when they were kids.

"Fine. Fine. Lyra, it's nice to meet you."

"You too, Harry," Lyra held out a hand to him, which he shook. "I've heard a lot about you from mum."

Harry was giving her an odd look. "You're very Australian."

She rolled her eyes. "Funny that considering I've lived there most of my life."

"You attended the Haversham Institute?"

"I did. I know mum always used to go on about Hogwarts, but Haversham was amazing."

The Haversham Institute was on a hidden magical island located in the Tasman Sea about half way between Australia and New Zealand, with the whole island being the home of the school. It was around two hundred years old and modelled itself on the Hogwarts set up with four different houses.

"So Harry, care to tell us why you grabbed us at the airport?" Hermione asked him. "And how, for that matter. I could understand more if we'd have come in by port-key."

He finally sat down at the table with them. "I guess I've always wanted to keep an eye out for you and hoped you'd come home eventually. So yes, we've had an alert on your name since a few years after the war. And with the muggle authorities as well. Luckily for us, Hermione Granger is not a common name."

Hermione grumbled to herself. "I knew I should have used my married name."

Harry gave her an open mouthed stare. "You're married?"

She took a deep breath to stabilise herself. It was still painful talking about it even now. "I was. Jason, my husband, died three and half years ago from a particularly virulent strain of Dragon Pox."

"I'm sorry to hear that," he told her genuinely. Lyra squeezed her hand under the table.

"Thank you."

"So, can I ask what are your plans now you're here?"

There seemed to be a slight edge to Harry's tone as he spoke to her, but she couldn't really blame him considering how much they'd missed of each others lives.

"We have no definite plans. I'd like to show Lyra around a little. And catch up with old friends, as well." She had a bad feeling that as she'd had a somewhat frosty reception from Harry, her other old friends would be considerably worse. "But to be honest, right now I'd really like to rest and try for an early night. We've had a long few days travelling, and I'm really beginning to flag. I'm sure Lyra is as well."

"And what of Draco? Were you planning to see him?"

She narrowed her eyes at her old friend. "Harry, he's the reason we're here. So yes, I am planning to see Draco."

"Okay, just making sure. Can I help arrange a meeting?"

Hermione looked to her daughter who nodded. "I'm good with that if you are, but maybe in a few days' time when I'm feeling a little more alive. Right now I think I could sleep for a week."

Harry stood up again and tucked his chair back under the table. "I will speak to Draco. It's Thursday now, so how is Monday at eleven for you? I will make sure he's here."

"Thank you, we'll be here then."

"Shall I send a car?"

Hermione shook her head. "No, it's fine. We're staying in a muggle hotel, so we'll just get the Tube. Thanks though."

"I will see you on Monday."

Harry opened the door for the two of them to leave, and as she passed him she met his eyes and he pulled her in for a hug.

"I'm glad you're home, Hermione. I have missed you."

She gave him a genuine smile. "I've missed you too."

...

So… first chapter. I'd love to know your thoughts.

Next: Draco.