The Great Hall at Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, was decorated to resemble a winter wonderland with enchanted snow falling from the ceiling and a thin covering lying on the floor. All the tables and chairs were made to look like they were carved out of ice and the large Christmas trees that were dotted around the room were decorated with various coloured icicles. The headmistress of the school, Professor McGonagall entered the room and looked about in satisfaction, it was magnificent and perfect for tonight's winter fundraiser.

For the first time in its history Hogwarts was hosting an event not attended by the pupils of the school. The fundraiser was raising funds for a new building at the school enabling a permanent residence for exchange students. A new programme was being set up the following year in which students from the three main wizarding schools in Europe would change schools for a year, learning new cultures and hopefully forging strong links with foreign wizarding communities. The fundraiser was being held in the middle of the Christmas holidays so most of the pupils were at home, those remaining at school had all been placed in Gryffindor tower for the night where McGonagall had given them permission to hold a Christmas party.

Most of the attending guests that night were former Hogwarts students, so Professor McGonagall hoped a few of them would be willing to make a significant contribution to the new building project. There were still former students she had contact with and some of them had promised to help, but McGonagall had been thrilled to hear from her favourite former student, Hermione Granger, earlier in the week.

After Voldemort's defeat nearly ten years ago, Hermione had disappeared, she had told her friends Harry and Ron she was going to find her parents but had never returned or contacted them again. McGonagall was aware that neither Harry and Ron knew where Hermione was living, what she was doing or more importantly who she had married. McGonagall herself had always known where Hermione was, as after the war Hermione's husband had helped pay for a lot of the rebuilding work that was needed at Hogwarts after the war.

As McGonagall left to get ready for the fundraiser, she couldn't help but worry about the potential outcome of tonight's event. She knew there was going to be press attending and she knew Hermione's presence would cause a stir, she only hoped Harry and Ron would control themselves when they discovered Hermione's secret.

"Mummy, you look pretty." A small girl with blonde ringlets told the brunette witch standing in front of the mirror.

"Thank you, Carina." Hermione replied turning so she could see her five year old daughter, who was sitting on her bed watching her get ready. "Are you packed for your trip to Grandma and Grandpa's?"

"Yes," The small child responded nodding enthusiastically. "But Cassie isn't, she had too many books, so Daddy made her pick just one."

Hermione smiled at her other daughters love of books, she was just like her in that respect, it was typical of Cassie to try and take more books than her bag would hold. Cassiopeia, Cassie for short, chose that moment to push the bedroom door open and enter the large room.

"Mummy, Daddy said to pick one book but I want to take two." The five year old said solemnly, carrying a book in either hand. "I want the Princess and the Frog and Rapunzel."

"I'm sure we can fit both into your bag, let's go and look." Hermione said to her daughter, leading her from the bedroom along the corridor and into the room she shared with her twin sister.

"Can I take two toys then Mummy?" Carina asked, trailing after Hermione and her twin sister.

"Yes, I suppose so, but pick one quickly."

Hermione watched as Carina looked for a second toy while she helped Cassie put her books into her small pink bag. Carina came back with a large stuffed unicorn, she had owned since birth.

"Carina, that's too big. Pick something small that will fit in your bag" Hermione told her daughter.

"But I want Sparkle." Carina said, holding on tight to her unicorn. Sensing her Daughter was going to start crying, Hermione drew her wand and quickly shrunk the toy.

"There, Grandpa will make it big again when you get to his, now put it in your bag so we can leave."

After making sure the twins bags were packed Hermione followed the two girls down stairs. The pair of them had their heads together as the chatted quietly the whole way to the front room, no doubt planning mischief. At only five, Hermione had already decided the pair of them were Slytherin's in the making.

Hermione entered the front room to find her husband and son already waiting for them. Both Carina and Cassie rushed forward and jumped on their father.

"Daddy."

"Daddy"

Both Carina and Cassie were Daddy's girls. Probably because they were spoilt rotten by their father, Draco Malfoy.

"Scorp, are you all packed?" Hermione asked her eight year old son, Scorpius.

"Of course, I've been packed since yesterday." Scorpius replied, he was extremely organised like Hermione, although he looked exactly like Draco with his straight white blonde hair and grey eyes. Both of the twins had darker blonde hair, with Hermione's curls and while Cassie had inherited her father's grey eyes, Carina had Hermione's brown ones.

"Right let's go, Scorp you go first, take the twins' bags with you." Draco told his son.

Scorpius grabbed the two girls' bags and stepped towards the fire place, taking a handful of floo powder he stepped into the fire shouting out his destination. "Malfoy Manor."

After he had disappeared, Draco stepped into the fire holding on to his two daughters and flooed to his parent's house, where the three Malfoy children were spending the weekend.

Once her husband and children left, Hermione headed back upstairs to finish getting ready. She was already dressed in a floor length, tight green and silver dress and had her make up done. She still needed to finish her hair and put on her jewellery.

As she pinned her hair up, Hermione wondered on how people would react tonight. Apart from Luna and Professor McGonagall, the only people who knew of her marriage to Draco were his friends and family.

Hermione had been with Draco since their fourth year at school, at the end of the night when Hermione was upset after her argument with Ron, Draco had appeared with his snarky comments about her being abandoned. Hermione had been furious and had threatened him with numerous hexes. Unsure of how to deal with the angry Gryffindor, Draco kissed her to shut her up. Both of them thoroughly enjoyed the kiss, even though neither wanted to admit it at the time. Draco had then walked Hermione back to Gryffindor Tower and both went to bed replaying their kiss in their heads. They had then flirted with each other for a few months until after the second triwizard task, in which Hermione had been unwittingly involved in, when Draco had asked her out properly.

The pair dated quite happily in secret for almost a year, before Lucius was arrested in the debacle at the Ministry of Magic at the end of their fifth year. This event and Hermione's part in it led to a lot of arguments between the couple, but they eventually decided they cared about each other too much to let it come between them.

Their sixth year in school had very nearly destroyed their relationship, Draco had initially pulled away from Hermione after receiving the task of killing Dumbledore. After months of barely talking, Hermione cornered him just before Christmas and forced him into telling her what was troubling him. Draco had broken down and confessed everything to Hermione, who tried to get him to go to Dumbledore for help. He refused because the order couldn't protect his mother, Hermione understood and decided she would stand by Draco.

After sixth year ended early after Dumbledore's death and the death eaters attack, Draco and Hermione worried they wouldn't see each other again and that the other might die in the upcoming war. Knowing they couldn't see each other for a long while, and running away together wasn't an option, Draco and Hermione got married, they knew they belonged to each other and no war could tear that apart. Professor Snape, who was aware of their relationship, helped them arrange the ceremony and covered for Draco's absence from the Manor for a few days.

A week after getting married Hermione went to stay at The Burrow, where she started helping Harry prepare for facing Voldemort. For nearly a year Hermione helped Harry find and destroy Horcrux's while Draco coped with living at the Death Eater's headquarters. The only time Hermione and Draco saw each other in that year was when Harry, Ron and Hermione were captured by the snatchers and taken to Malfoy Manor. Knowing revealing their relationship would only cause more trouble, both stayed silent about it during Hermione's brief visit to the Manor. Draco cast a silent protection spell on Hermione before Bellatrix started torturing her, so Hermione mainly pretended to be affected by the curse. After escaping from the manor Hermione and Draco didn't see each other until the final battle, unfortunately they were never alone as Ron and Harry were always present.

After the battle, Hermione was planning on telling Ron and Harry about her relationship with Draco. However both of them were outraged when the Ministry declared Draco innocent of any wrongdoing in the war, the Ministry had accepted that his assassination attempt on Dumbledore had been performed under duress and he had never received the dark mark or performed any acts for Voldemort the following year. Hearing her best friends rant about how her husband should be rotting in Azkaban, made Hermione come to the conclusion that they would never accept her and Draco so they would be better off not knowing.

A month after the final battle, Hermione told Ron and Harry she was going to look for her parents, in reality she knew where her parents were. Snape had placed protection charms on them the summer her and Draco were married so they were quite safe living where they always had been, her story of removing their memories and sending them to Australia had been made up for her friends. Instead of searching for her parents, who were not missing, Hermione and Draco left the country deciding to travel the world calling it a delayed honeymoon.

When Hermione discovered she was pregnant after nearly a year of travelling, they decided to return home. Hermione's parents and Draco's mother were informed of their marriage before the pair headed off travelling, but Lucius who had been in Azkaban at the time did not know of his son's marriage. Upon their return he took the news surprisingly well, he had recently been released from Azkaban, the war and the time away from his family seemed to have had a profound effect on the former Death Eater. Hermione and Draco built a house near to Malfoy Manor where they raised their family, with the twins coming along three years after Scorpius was born. Draco went into the family business alongside his father while Hermione set up her own potions company with Draco's friend, Blaise Zabini, who she found she had a lot in common with.

Draco decided to tell his friends about their relationship, but Hermione decided not to get in contact with hers. Hermione became firm friends with Pansy Parkinson and was her matron of honour when she married Blaise and later became godmother to their young daughter, Alexis when she was born four years ago. Luna came back into her life when she started dating Draco and Blaise's friend, Theo Nott. Luna was immediately accepting of Hermione and Draco's relationship and Hermione was happy to have one of her former friends in her life again.

Hermione was just putting on her silver shoes when Draco returned from taking the children to his parent's.

"Did I tell you how sexy you look in that dress." He said leaning against the doorway to their bedroom. "Very Slytherin."

Hermione grinned at her husband, she had deliberately picked an outfit in his old house colours, the dress was dark green with silver edging and all her jewellery was silver and shaped like snakes. Draco loved seeing the former golden girl of Gryffindor dressed in Slytherin colours.

"No, but you can show me later." She purred to Draco as she moved to stand in front of him. Draco dipped his head and passionately kissed his wife.

"I will, all weekend." He promised Hermione. While the fundraiser was only one night, Draco had insisted the three young members of the family spend the entire weekend with their grandparents, so he could have time alone with his lovely wife.

"We should be going." Hermione told Draco, reluctantly stepping out of his embrace, she would have been quite happy to spend the night at home in bed with her sexy husband.

"Do we have to? We could have so much more fun here." Hermione nodded at her husband, chuckling slightly at his petulant tone.

"Yes, we promised McGonagall. Come on."

"Remind me why we have to go tonight?" Harry Potter asked his wife, Ginny.

"Because you're Harry Potter, saviour of the wizarding world, you're expected to attend events like these." Ginny told her husband as she fixed his tie. "Besides, I'm not going to put up with Lavender on my own."

"You wouldn't be on your own, Ron will be there."

Ginny huffed. "You know as well as I do he just tunes his annoying harpy of a wife out, leaving her to focus her attention on her poor unsuspecting sister-in-law."

Harry laughed at Ginny's dislike of Lavender, he laughed even louder when he heard the floo network and seconds later Lavender appeared from the fireplace, earning a grimace from Ginny.

"Hi guys, Ron's just dropping Hugo at The Burrow." Lavender announced.

Hugo was Ron and Lavender's three year old son, he was staying at The Burrow along with Harry and Ginny's two boys, James, who was five and one year old Albus.

"We're nearly ready, aren't we Gin." Harry told his best friend's wife.

Ginny sighed. "Yes I suppose so, even though I look huge."

Lavender laughed. "Ginny, you look gorgeous. Honestly if you didn't know you wouldn't be able to tell you were pregnant." Ginny was four months pregnant and currently obsessed with her apparent major weight gain.

Ginny smiled genuinely at her sister-in-law. "Thanks Lavender, you look lovely yourself."

Ron appeared through the floo network just as the women began to compare dresses. Harry was quickly able to distract the women from their clothes talk by announcing it was time to leave. At Harry's announcement all four former Gryffindor's headed to the fireplace where one by one they flooed to their destination.

All of the guests arriving at Hogwarts came via Hogsmeade, where the transportation was laid on from. It was too much hassle to have people flooing into the school and no apparating was permitted on school property, so it was easier for people to either floo or apparate to Hogsmeade where they would then take a coach up to the school.

When Draco and Hermione apparated to Hogsmeade they went to their pre-arranged meeting place, where they were due to meet their friends. When they arrived at The Three Broomsticks they found Blaise and Pansy already waiting for them. The two couples settled down for a drink while they waited for the other members of their party to arrive.

While Draco and Blaise chatted about Quidditch, Pansy started to complain to Hermione about her pregnancy, Pansy was seven months pregnant with her and Blaise's second child. Hermione spent five minutes convincing Pansy she did not look fat in her long black dress, and the low cut revealing her impressive cleavage was not indecent.

As Hermione was telling Pansy she was lucky she wasn't carrying twins, the other three members of their party arrived, Theo and Luna Nott and Gregory Goyle. Luna's dress sense had improved dramatically and although she still sometimes favoured some odd clothes tonight wasn't one of them. She was wearing an ice blue strapless dress with a white cloak.

The three of them sat down at the table and the seven friends all had another drink, before leaving for the festivities.

As they were leaving, Hermione pulled Greg to one side. "Greg, are you okay with this?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I've got you guys with me." Greg responded, smiling at his best friend's wife.

As the group of friends climbed into a carriage, Hermione wondered if they had done the right thing in persuading Greg to attend the night's festivities. Six months ago his wife had died, leaving Greg to bring up their two year old daughter alone, since then the only people he had been comfortable with was their small group of friends. When it was decided they would all be attending the fundraiser, the boys decided Greg should join them and persuaded him to come. Hermione wondered if the three former Slytherin's hadn't pressured Greg into agreeing, his personality was more easy going than the other three, who were all used to getting what they wanted. Hermione decided she would make sure he wasn't left alone all night.

When Harry, Ron, Ginny and Lavender had flooed into The Three Broomsticks they had left straight away and failed to notice the group in the corner consisting of five former Slytherin's, one Ravenclaw and one Gryffindor.

The four former Gryffindor's headed straight to Hogwarts where they began to catch up with former friends and classmates. It was an hour after their arrival while the four were talking to Neville Longbottom that Lavender spotted Luna.

"Hey, Neville. Isn't that your ex, Luna, over there." Lavender exclaimed, interrupting the conversation about Neville's job as Herbology Professor.

"She isn't my ex, we were just friends." Neville blushed bright red. "And yes, it does appear to be Luna."

"That's Loony Lovegood, she's grown up well." Ron stated, staring at the pretty blonde figure of a grown up Luna.

Lavender turned to glare at her husband "I just mean, she used to always dress weird and stuff." Ron stuttered under his wife's frosty glare.

"Who's that she's with?" Ginny questioned, eyeing up the back of a brunette witch in a long green dress.

"From the looks of her dress, a former Slytherin." Lavender told Ginny. "Only a Slytherin would wear green and silver."

The group all silently agreed, no one from any of the other three houses would wear the house colours of the most unpopular of the four houses.

"Why would Luna be talking to a Slytherin? And which Slytherin?" Ginny questioned, baffled at her friends association with the enemy house.

"You know Luna, she'll talk to anyone." Harry said.

"Well there's only one way to find out, I'm going to talk to her." Ginny said, straightening her dress and starting to walk over to her former school mate.

"Wait for me." Lavender told Ginny as she hurried to catch her up, she wasn't planning on missing out on gossip.

The three men watched as Ginny and Lavender made their way towards Luna and her mystery friend.

After being at the fundraiser for half an hour Hermione, Pansy and Luna had gotten bored with the talk of Quidditch so had left the men in a corner and had gone off to wander. Pansy had left to use the bathroom a few minutes ago, leaving Luna to finish telling Hermione about her and Theo's latest holiday.

"Ginny and Lavender are approaching." Luna suddenly said to Hermione, who was standing with her back towards the approaching pair.

Hermione didn't have time to decide whether she should leave or stay when she heard the familiar voice of Ginny a few paces behind her.

"Luna, I haven't seen you for years."

Ginny rushed forward embracing the blonde witch.

"Ginny, Lavender. It's nice to see you." Luna told the two women, breaking out of Ginny's grasp.

"It's nice to see you too," Lavender smiled. "Aren't you going to introduce us to your friend."

"I wasn't aware I needed an introduction." Hermione said, turning to face her former house mates. "Hello, Lavender. Ginny."

Ginny and Lavender stared in shock at the woman in front of them, hardly believing the beautiful, sophisticated woman was their old friend Hermione Granger. Ginny was the first to recover the power of speech.

"Oh my god, Hermione. You look amazing." She squealed, hugging Hermione.

"You look great as well, Gin." Hermione laughed, returning her old friends embrace.

Lavender still seemed unable to say anything, just standing opening and closing her mouth like a fish. While Lavender was still unable to speak and Ginny was recovering from seeing her former friend after all these years, they were interrupted by a voice complaining behind them.

"I swear this baby is playing havoc with my bladder, I need to pee like ten times an hour."

Ginny and Lavender turned, surprised to come face to face with a very pregnant Pansy Parkinson. They were even more surprised when Luna addressed her in a friendly manner.

"I'm sure it's not that bad, you're just exaggerating."

"I'm not. This is the last time I'm being pregnant. Once this kids born no more sex for Blaise." Pansy grumbled, totally ignoring the two former Gryffindor's standing watching, open mouthed at the exchange.

"You said that last time, Pans. Then as soon as you were able to have sex again, you dragged Blaise straight into the bedroom." Hermione laughed at her friend.

Pansy smiled and shrugged. "Well, I can't help it if I'm married to an extremely sexy man who's amazing in bed."

"What's going on? I don't understand." Ginny exclaimed, drawing Pansy's attention to her and Lavender.

"Oh Gryffindor's, how lovely." Pansy drawled sarcastically. "What's so hard to understand, Weaselette. Don't you recognise friendship when you see it."

"But how? You're a Slytherin." Lavender exclaimed finally finding her voice.

"Slytherin's do have friends, you know." Pansy snapped at the Gryffindor.

Hermione decided to step in before things got out of hand, she could remember how feisty Ginny could be and Pansy was always prickly, even without the added hormones of pregnancy.

"That's enough, you're not kids any more. Pansy, calm down, the stress isn't good for the baby."

Pansy nodded and stopped the death glares she was sending Ginny and Lavender. The tension in the group had just started to disappear when Theo walked up to the group.

"Hello, Gorgeous." He said, clearly talking to Luna.

Hermione and Pansy looked at each other smirking.

"Hello, Theo." They both purred together, causing Theo to blush bright red.

For a Slytherin, Theo was easily embarrassed and Hermione and Pansy often teased him by flirting with him.

"Hermione, Pansy. I was talking to Luna." He said, recovering from his embarrassment. "I was hoping I could steal my wife for a dance." Reaching out a hand for Luna he quickly whisked her away onto the dance floor.

"Luna married Theo Nott?" Lavender questioned.

"WHAT." Came the voice of Ron, all four women spun round finding Ron, Harry and Neville standing behind them.

"HERMIONE!"