"What do you mean, 'he's asking questions?'"

Ginny nervously helped herself to another slice of chocolate cake and licked the gooey frosting from her fingers. Once the sweet was gone, she hunched over the counter despondently.

Luna sighed and looked out the window at the cerulean evening sky. "I told you, Ginny. Worrying about what he thinks will only disrupt the Neebees, and I'd hate to see you that way."

"But you said that he popped in and headed straight for Edgecomb's desk, and we both know she writes more gossip in one inter-department owl than the entire staff of Witch Weekly does in a month."

Luna gave Ginny a pitying look. "Those Neebees…" she murmured.

Ginny scrunched her eyebrows worriedly. "I know that can mean a million things. But Draco's used Blaise for his dirty work for years, and if he's sniffing around now, it can't be good."

"And you're worried about Nora?" Luna breathed quietly.

Ginny nodded. "He's been very fair with sharing her right now—the whole separation I've had her at least half the time—but if I give him any reason to take her back, there isn't a soul in the Wizengamot who would side against him."

"The Wizengamot?" Luna asked, again staring at the darkening sky. "So you're still planning to officially divo—"

"Darling!" Ginny interrupted brightly as her daughter walked into the kitchen. "Look who's here! You haven't seen your Aunty Luna in forever."

Nora smiled politely. "Hello, Aunty-Luna-who-is-not-an-Aunty." She climbed up onto a stool and joined the women at the counter. "You're having cake!" she cried.

"Eleanora! What do you mean, 'not an Aunty'? That's not nice." Ginny said, appalled.

Nora shrugged. "Aunts are mums of cousins."

Luna nodded sagely. "And also guests at picnics."

Ginny laughed. "You two ought to make a dictionary together." Both blondes stared at her, puzzled, and she stopped laughing. "Oh, never mind," she said crossly. "You never get my jokes."

Nora shook her head sweetly and smiled. "May I have cake now?"

"I think not, darling," Ginny said, checking her watch. "It's half-past eight."

Nora gave her mum a well-used look of utter sorrow. "You didn't notice that I said may instead of can," she wheedled.

Ginny took a deep breath and sighed. "Half a piece."

As Ginny sliced the cake, Luna stood up and walked toward the window. "Is it really half-past?" she said dreamily. "I could have sworn it wasn't quite so late."

"Oh, do you need to go already?" Ginny asked, disappointed.

"I'm afraid so," she said slowly. "You know how the Nargles get. And remember what I said about the Neebees."

She whisked her wand from her pocket and held it above her head. "Goodbye, Nora-not-a-niece."

"Bye," chirped the small girl, shoveling an oversized bite of cake into her mouth as Luna vanished.

"You and Da have more play-dates than me," Nora said, licking frosting from her fingers much like her mother. "I shall have friends over every day when I'm a grown-Witch, too."

Ginny tried to smile, but her stomach clenched at the idea of what a grown-Witch "play-date" might mean where Draco was involved. "Your Da had play-dates? What kind of play-dates?"

Nora shrugged. "I dunno. I didn't play with them."

"Nora, really now. Who did he have over? Were they all—were they boys?" Ginny asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

Nora nodded as she polished off the last of the cake, wiping the delicate china clean with her finger. "Yes. Mr. Zabini and Mr. Nott, all the time. And Grandfather, but that's not a play-date." She wrinkled her nose. "That's a visit, Da says."

Ginny murmured in agreement and set her daughter's plate in the sink. "Are you ready for bed?" she asked, charming the sink to clean the day's dishes.

"Yes!" Nora exclaimed. "I need to hear the rest of the story. Da didn't finish it!"

Ginny turned from the sink. "Da told you a story? About what?"

Nora shook her head exasperatedly. "Same as you, of course. It was about when you were a princess at school. He told me about the part with the mean dragon."

Ginny swallowed. "The mean dragon?"

"Mhm." Nora hopped off the stool. "The one who mocked you and made you cry in the hallway."

"The one who mocked me…" Ginny repeated dazedly.

"And made you cry," Nora finished impatiently. "Come on, I'm all ready for tuck-in."

Ginny trailed after her daughter through the spacious flat and into the girl's bedroom, wondering what on earth Draco had told her daughter—and more importantly, why.

Nora hopped up on the flower-print bedspread and wriggled under the covers. "Okay, I'm ready. Go," she ordered.

"I still can't believe Da told you part of a Princess Guinevere story," Ginny began.

Nora nodded. "He did. You were in it, and so was the dragon. You lived in the Land of the Lions and had a lot of weird friends, like Hermy and Shortfront, and the dragon was in charge of the Kingdom of Snakes, where everyone was unkind."

"And your Da made this up?" Ginny asked. She felt a little put out—the stories had been her idea, and the fact that Draco had managed to insert himself into one more facet of her life was maddening—but she also felt strangely curious.

"Yes," said Nora. "I wanted to hear about how Princess Guinevere was saved by a Prince, because I told Da that Princesses don't need people around to save their tails, and he said sometimes they do."

"Oh he did, did he?" Ginny said as she sat down on the edge of the bed, arching an eyebrow so neatly that it testified to the length of her relationship with her estranged husband. "So, where did Da finish the story off last night?"

"He'd just saved you from a speckle-eyed monster, who was as big as a giant and as stupid as a troll."

Ginny fought back a laugh. "Oh yes, I remember. What else did Da say about the monster?"

"It was called Hairy Potface, and liked to drool all over you."

Ginny stopped laughing suddenly. "I'm not sure that's quite how it went," she said calmly.

Nora sighed. "Okay, he didn't get to the saving part just yet. But he said something about the Princess Guinevere saving the dragon or nearly, and then he said about the drooling. Then he tickled me."

Ginny pursed her lips. "Alright, so the Princess Guinevere lived in the Land of the Lions with her friends. Hairy was the leader of her friends, and the princess liked him very much." She paused to smooth the coverlet before looking back at her daughter's shining eyes. "But by the time the princess was turning into a young lady, she knew that he was not the prince for her."

"How did she know?"

"Well…she just knew, I suppose. He wanted to spend his time defeating evil monsters and wicked wizards, and the princess didn't want to do that all the time. It tired her out."

Nora sighed and snuggled back into her pillow. "Did Hairy Potface defeat the evil dragon?"

Ginny lay down next to her daughter, propping her head up on her arm. "No, he didn't. But certainly not for lack of trying. Hairy and the dragon had several battles, but Hairy couldn't defeat the dragon."

"Because the dragon was way better at Quidditch, right? Even better than Uncle Ron, Da said."

"Oh, really?" Ginny said drily. "I think your Da might have forgotten some of the details. You see, Hairy was an excellent Quidditch player. He was one of the best when he was younger. Once, he and the dragon both played Seeker, and Hairy stole the Snitch right from under the dragon's nose!"

"Whoa," Nora whispered. "I bet the dragon killed him, then."

Feeling a bit smug, Ginny laughed. "Hardly. The dragon left the game and sulked like a little boy."

"Is that when the princess saved him? When he was sad?"

Ginny looked down at her and half wished that her daughter's eyes weren't the exact same difficult-to-read shade of gray as Draco's. She ran her hand over Nora's cheek and bit her lip.

"No. The princess thought the dragon was a stupid, mean old brute who deserved to lose. But…but later she realized that he was just scared. Even though the dragon would never have told a single soul, the princess realized that the dragon was lonely."

"Probably because everyone in his Kingdom was mean. Da said that."

Ginny swallowed, conscious of the conflicting emotions that swept between her heart and her breath. She suddenly remembered a conversation, late at night after a long snogging session in the North Tower, when Draco had first told her how alone he felt in that dungeon dormitory. It had been the first time that he had been completely and honestly vulnerable to her, and she had loved him.

"Yes," she slowly replied. "The people in his kingdom were mean. Even cruel. And they liked people who were cruel, so your—the dragon, that is—decided that he would become the cruelest one of them all.

"He teased the Princess Guinevere, and he had spats with Hairy Potface and the others from the Land of the Lions, and he was even nasty to the people in his own kingdom. He did a great many wicked things. Since the people in his kingdom liked people who were wicked and powerful, that's what he sought to become."

Nora shook her head sadly. "His mum and da needed to tell him to be kind."

Ginny ran her free hand through her hair. "I'll say. His mum and da were a lot different from yours."

"But if the dragon was so rotten," Nora said, rolling over to face Ginny, "why did the princess save him? Was he dying?"

"Noooooo…" Ginny paused to think. "Okay," she began, "one day, when Guinevere was flying around above the Quidditch pitch, she saw that the dragon was flying too, only much higher. The princess had a competitive streak—not unlike someone else I know…" She stopped and gave her daughter a pointed tickle in the ribs.

"Hey!" Nora shrieked indignantly before dissolving into giggles.

"So the Princess Guinevere decided that she'd fly even higher than that mean dragon. So she flew way, way, way up into the sky, and to her surprise, the dragon followed her. He flew just a little higher than her, and so she went a tad higher, and so on.

"Soon they were higher than the Princess Guinevere had ever dared to fly. The dragon tried to tease her, telling her that a little princess not should fly so high. He asked what her precious Hairy Potface would think of her acting with so little regard for her safety."

Ginny felt the ghost of a smile toy at her lips, and she leaned over and kissed her daughter on the forehead.

"For the first time ever," she continued, "Princess Guinevere realized that she wasn't scared of the dragon. So she told him that she could fly as high as she liked, and there was nothing he could do about it.

"At first, the dragon was surprised that the Princess had snapped back at him, because all the other times he'd teased her, she'd been shy, or even cried."

Nora nodded. "The part Da told me, she cried. He said the dragon was very bad, and made her cry."

"Yes," Ginny agreed, "she hadn't been very brave. But this time she was, and she could tell that the dragon was surprised. He flew right up next to her and—"

"Wasn't she scared? Didn't he look like a scary beast with huge teeth?"

Ginny stifled a laugh. "No, darling. Believe it or not, despite being an evil beast, the dragon was very, very handsome, with a very charming smile, and the princess didn't mind in the slightest that he sidled his broomstick right up next to hers."

"Did she smack him for 'venge?" Nora asked, lifting her head from her pillow excitedly. "Did she fight him on broomsticks?"

Ginny blushed. "Er, not exactly. The dragon told the princess that he liked her much better when she was a fiery little minx and not a scaredy-lion. He reached out to brush her hair out of her face—all the flying had pulled it lose, and the wind was whipping it around—and he tucked her hair behind her ear very gently. That's when the princess thought she saw a little spark of goodness in him, underneath all the unkindness."

"Too bad they didn't have a fight on broomsticks. That would have been exciting," Nora said, letting her head fall back onto her pillow with a disappointed thud. "So is that when she saved him?"

"No—but that's when she got the idea into her head that she would try," Ginny said quietly. "So the dragon left her in the sky and flew back to the castle. However, he stopped mocking her in the halls. And for awhile, the princess was happy."

She smoothed the covers over Nora. "I'll have to tell the rest another time. It's getting late, and I'd hate to have to tell your father that you were up past your bedtime."

Nora smirked knowingly.

"What now?" Ginny asked. "I know that look, and it's never good."

"Oh, nothing," Nora said sweetly. "You'll tell me the part about saving the dragon tomorrow?"

Ginny frowned. "Changing the subject, hm? Little minx…I suppose I'll tell you some more this week. For now, lights out."

She flicked her wand at the lamps and they went out, except for a small nightlight that glowed like a tiny fairy in the darkness. "Sleep well, darling," she whispered, kissing her little girl on the cheek. "I love you."

"Love you too, Mum."

Ginny walked into the living room of the ridiculously large flat that Draco had insisted on buying for her. She collapsed on the couch and lay there for a long moment, letting old memories flicked through her mind.

Slowly, she got up and pulled a thin black book from the shelves on the opposite wall, then sat back down. She flipped open the journal to an earmarked page and read:

September 23, 1996

Finally had the guts to give Malfoy the what-for today. He must come up with insults while he goes to sleep at night. Maybe I'll do the same thing, since he likes it so much when I snap at him.

Not that I care about him liking me.

He touched my hair, too, and his hand made my face tingle the way holding hands with Michael used to. Was weird. I blame the wind.

Can't believe I flew that high.

Can't believe I'm writing a diary entry about Malfoy.

She flipped the page and read the next entry, and the one after that, and after that, until she'd managed to relive her entire fifth year.

Somewhere around Christmas, tears began to roll down her cheeks—and they didn't stop until mid-May.


A/N: A heartfelt thanks to all the reviews. You make me smile. :)