Disclaimer: I do not now nor have I ever owned Harry Potter. He, his world and friends all belong to JK Rowling. I am merely playing in her sandbox.

Authors Note: It's been so long. I am so so sorry, firstly I should state that this chapter is not actually finished. To try an make an uber long story short, my laptop died early last year, the external hard drive I had been using to back things up also had an unfortunate accident, finally the flashdrive that the back up to my back up was on hadn't been updated and I just couldn't find the motivation to rewrite what had already been written. My personal life had also gone off the rails and I was struggling with a lot of things, that I'm still trying to cope with now. Thank you to all the reviewers and readers who even after it hadn't been updated in an age still remained interested, I hate when authors make author notes as chapters so I figured I'd give you what I had. I don't know when I'm going to put up more of this but it isn't dead, so have hope.

Chapter Fourteen

Hermione Granger had always known that she wasn't the most ordinary person in the world, the first time she had realised there was a name for people like her was when one of her au pairs had called her a little genius, after looking the word up she had agreed yes, she was a genius. Despite her parents best efforts she had never socialised well with her peers, they were still intrigued by the idea that Spot could run while she was interested in the various motifs that Shakespeare had utilised in Macbeth, in the way light refracts colour and so many other things, while other children her age were learning that 1+1=2 she was discussing Pythagorean theorem with her parents.

Her parents were another way she knew she wasn't normal, after all how many dentists taught their daughter to pick locks when she was four, admittedly she'd been interested, but still dentists didn't need to know how to disable a security system; or how to speak flawless Japanese, something she learnt when her father was installing their new computer system.

She had expected to continue on with her interesting but often lonely life, until her parents had announced that they would be spending Christmas in New York. She had expected it to be just like every other time they went to a new country and for the most part it was, the three of them had explored the city for several days in a row until on the day her parents had promised to take her ice-skating they'd received a message from an American collegue and had to go and meet them, (again the question arose how many other dentists had American collegues that they had to drop everything to meet?) she had been left with an au pair and the two had departed to the ice rink where she proceeded to learn how one goes about ice-skating, she was doing alright right up until she knocked over a boy of around her age, unlike most other boys that she'd met he didn't get upset with her, she had soon been introduced to his father and brothers who interestingly enough shared no common traits, she supposed the fact that Draco had a different surname from his father could be due to the seperation of his parents and he could simply resemble his mother but his brothers both looked different too.

Mr Lupin invited her to have hot chocolate with them after she brought up the fact that Draco could be dying as they spoke, a reasonable idea she thought.

After a moment where she remembered her parents warnings about strangers and how best to incapacitate them if they looked to be about to do something, she agreed.

Upon exiting the ice-rink she tracked down the au pair and then found the brothers again, they had been joined by an elegant woman with long dark hair, Aunt Bells she remembered they'd called her, again she noted the lack of similar features though Draco might perhaps have her cheekbones in a few years. She introduced herself and they soon made their way to a small warm coffee shop, while the adults casually chatted, she and the three boys exchanged glances before finally she burst out, "Are you certain that your heads ok? Only I really think you should see a medical practitioner."

The smallest who Draco had introduced as Harry smiled while Neville looked confusedly at Draco mouthing out 'medical practitioner', in a quiet amused voice Harry finally spoke, she had realised a few minutes after being introduced that he was quite shy and so felt strangely pleased that he was willing to speak around her though he did eye her au pair suspiciously for a few minutes before doing so, "She means a Doctor, like Aunt Andy."

Both Draco and Neville both looked relieved at having this explained and smiled at her, "Aun' Andy's gonna be here in a few days but I think I'm alright."

Neville nodded, "His heads rilly hard, an i's not the fi'st time he fell on the ice."

"Really? Are you absolutely positive? Only brain bleeds are very dangerous and not something people notice until they drop dead in the middle of a sentence, are you certain that you'll be ok?"

The three boys smiled, "I'll be fine, I've hit my head pl'nty of times like Nev said, after my fi'st few Papa was goin' ta buy me a helm't but Uncle Padfoot said th't I should be alright, he made me look at a light f'r a while an then said th't I'd inh'rited the Black skull-"

"Which means i's too thick an hard to g't anyth'ng through." Neville piped up with a grin.

"Oi! Aunt Bells is a Black too you know."

'Aunt Bells' smiled over at them, "The Black Skull is something only the males inherit in our family Draco."

Mr. Lupin snorted, "Yeah right, Black women are just as hard-headed as I recall Bells, you just hide it better."

"Why Remus Lupin I believe I am offended. How dare you imply that my delicate and ladylike head hides anything so thick as a Black Skull." She smiled as she said it so the children knew she was joking, across the table the three boys smiled, obviously used to the joking familiarity of the two adults. Hermione looked down at her hot chocolate, "I am sorry about knocking you over, as I mentioned it was my first time on an ice rink."

Bella looked at her with a slight frown, "Your first time and you were alone?"

"Mm, my parents were supposed to come with me but they had an urgent meeting with an American collegue and couldn't make it, my au pair Sarah was watching me instead." Hermione explained, Bella's from didn't abate, "Still you could've put it off if you're going to be here a while longer and then gone together."

"Yes I suppose since we are going to be here for the holidays, but I was terribly excited and we've so many other things to do while we're here." Hermione fair buzzed with said excitement and Bella could tell that the girl was gearing up to begin randomly exclaiming facts all over again so she smiled slightly and leaned back in her chair.

Draco had his head tilted as he watched the exchange, "Y're fr'm Engl'nd?" He asked curious about this strangely mature yet excitable girl who reminded him of a bullet train he'd seen once in a film.

Hermione nodded, "Oh yes, my parents and I are over here for the holidays, I thought you were too? I mean because you all have the accent though it's quite different between you all Miss Black has a high-class London dialect, Mr Lupins appears to be Welsh and you three have the strangest combination of Welsh, high-class London, Wiltshire and Scottish with a hint of American, it's very odd." Her head tilted to the side as she contemplated the three boys before her.

Remus chuckled slightly, "Ah the accents the boys have are because of their primary caregivers I'm afraid, we live here in New York."

The brothers all grinned at the look of surprise on the girls face.

Meanwhile in a small restaurant near by Sirius met with his old friends, "Jeanne, Jon, it's good to see you again." He smiled as he shook hands and kissed cheeks. He had met the two whilst working as an Unspeakable, they and Xeno had been assigned to liase between MI6 and their branch of the Unspeakables. Despite the fact that two of them were spies whose real names Sirius wasn't sure even they knew anymore the four had clicked and so things had run much smoother between the two organisations as none of them felt to need to posture or assert themselves as top dog. Due to the nature of their work both were well aware of the magical world and had been shocked and saddened when Sirius had been arrested. Jon smiled "It's good to see you too Sirius, we were glad to hear of your release. Though sad that you've moved over here, we do miss you at work."

Sirius laughed, "Oh well, good to know my efforts were appreciated, I'm actually working on some similar items over here, if you're nice I might sneak you some before you leave." He wiggled his eyebrows.

Both of the spies smiled lightly, "We would appreciate it, work's been so much more difficult since you... left," Jeanne said delicately causing her partner to raise his eyebrow at her phrasing, "Oh yes we've actually had to research to get info now, the horror." Jon joked, the three chuckled, before Sirius' face took on a more serious cast, "Jokes aside, I hope work hasn't been too difficult."

"Oh no, no more than it ever was we still have some of your items, they seem to be holding up well. Jon just misses his weekly case of new toys." Jeanne laughed.

"That's good, after what happened I didn't really think about how it might affect others, my main focus was my godson nothing else really registered; it wasn't until after we were settled here that I worried about how my not being available might cause issue."

The other two smiled, "It was fine, we completely understand, when you're a parent your kid is your main focus." Jon stated.

Despite the covert nature of their work Sirius had known the two long enough to know of their marriage and child both of which were kept secret, neither being recorded in their official files.

13/06/18