Title: The Uncomplicated Knowledge of Bertie Bott's Beans

Summary: Draco Malfoy. She rolled the strange name around on her tongue like a Freshly Cut Lawn Bertie Bott's Bean, and it tasted like sadness.

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoat Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

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The bench was lined with red, coarse square pillows that were faded in places, flipped over with the imprint of lost coins and Muggle batteries. Lily balanced precariously on the edge of a pillow, one leg and one arm thrown wide at awkward angles to prevent her from falling and Jolly Well Breaking Her Neck. She's Queen of Sheeba today, in her new cotton shorts in three shades of lurid pink. Ginny bought new them at Gladrags – Little Miss section – that morning, so they smelled like heaps of clothes and bleeding dye. But that's only if you frown and bend down to sniff.

She proudly showed her shorts off to her grandmother (MollyMollyGrandmaMolly, with her fading flaming hair) who was sitting crosslegged across from her. Her heavy body sagged inwards as she sat, and her spine protruded from under her thin cotton night gown which draped loosely over her bedroom slippers. Sleep and lucidity hovered vaguely in her deep set brown eyes. No one dared to tell her it was afternoon.

They were playing Go Fish (it was too cold to do anything else, really) and eating Bertie Bott's Beans in spilling handfuls. Molly was winning.

"Molly," Lily asked, "do you like this color? Should I have bought those green shorts?" She stuck out her chubby leg and waggled her toes, smoothing out the crinkles in her shorts with the back of her free hand. Multi colored beans fell from in between her fingers. Waiting to be picked up.

She picked up a card from the deck. Queen of Hearts.

Molly squinted at Lily through the dustfilled light and smiled hazily; affection tugging at her lips and flying up to meet the deep sadness in her eyes. She took two cards at once, fumbling slightly.

"They'll match my room now you know," Lily started cheerily, picking up another card and popping a Pineapple bean into her mouth. "These shorts I mean, cos Mum said I could paint it any color I want." She leaned in towards her grandmother, head bobbing conspiratorially. "Daddy's not living with us anymore," she whispered softly. "He said he'd wait until I go to Hogwarts that he'd leave. I only have five years left!" and proudly held up five outstretched fingers. "But I told him I couldn't wait."

Lily suddenly looked down, with a face far too serious for a six year old. "There's somewhere he needs to be, GrandmaMolly. Did you know? I think he needs to see someone, and that's why he's leaving." Draco Malfoy. She rolled the strange name around on her tongue like a Freshly Cut Lawn Bertie Bott's Bean, and it tasted like sadness.

She had heard Draco Malfoy before, when it was flung like brittle Stinging Hexes behind her parents door. And when she had run to the garden shed and hid in there until dinner with her hands covering her eyes because she didn't want anyone to find her, it had tasted like old licorice. Or the stuffing coming out of her favorite toy dragon her Daddy had bought for her. Her small mouth had formed the 'o's in Draco and Malfoy, and decided in the dark that Everything Would Be Alright.

Molly started rocking and crying, a high, frail, old woman's whisper of sadness. She shook like her memories were effusing out of her lungs and seeping through her wrinkles and running down to her hand that clutched her cards. White knuckles, protruding wrist bones. Like stacked spoons.

Lily looked up at her softly keening grandmother. She patted her frail, shaking hand, and cleaned up the cards, except for two Kings on top of the pile, and those she slipped into her pocket like a secret. The King of Diamonds and the King of Hearts smiled at each other softly within the safety of her pocket.

Then she went to the kitchen pantry to find more Licorice Beans, humming along to a tune she couldn't remember.

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