The park was still windy and the leaves were still scattered in the air, falling and carpeting the ground. A little girl and an old lady sat on a park bench watching the commotion. They sat for some moments, motionless and silent before the little girl began to squirm, her legs started to twitch, her hands clasping and unclasping uncontrollably and finally her head turned to the old lady, who was holding her composure much better.
A little hand reached for a larger, older, much more wrinkled hand to finger a bracelet around it's wrist. The lady looked down at the girl as the bracelet was being examined; it was being examined not only with the big eyes of a little girl; but with her little hands as well. The lady watched the girl and smiled, a far off smile—one that said she wasn't really there, and she wasn't really happy.
The little girl touched the ladies arm lightly and brought her attention away from the tinkling bracelet to her childish face.
"Are you a witch?" she said with polite bluntness only a child's voice could make beautiful.
And for the first time real emotion played on the old woman's face, not an emotion from the past recycled and reused for the hundredth time but something current: shock.
"Excuse me?" she tried to hide her dumbfounded face quickly.
"It was Hogwarts right?" the little girl pressed, not just with her words but her little body pressing against the old lady, her fingers still clasped tightly around her chained wrist. Excitement bounced around the child, like light in a glass cube.
"Yes..." The lady was truthful but warily reserved.
"It's okay," the bouncing little girl reassured, now physically bouncing up and down on the bench, "I'm going to be a witch." The lady looked at her, not unkindly but blankly.
"I could tell you were a witch because of the way you had trouble describing the classes and quills and owls and messages, it was Hogwarts!" she was excitable, as children are when they have the upper hand and she rambled, her mouth moving fast and then faster yet.
"Yes," the lady smiled. "I guess I thought for a muggle they wouldn't have noticed my small slip ups and just ignore them."
The little girl looked up for a while with dark grey eyes. Her eyes then turned back down to the bracelet.
"There are three charms." She said slowly, serious now. The lady nodded looking down at the top of the little girls head. The little girl didn't move or look back up. "You said he only ever gave you two and you never saw him again."
"Yes, but as he said, I had much more time in my life, too much, after him. There was time to add."
The lady reached into her pocket and pulled out a wand and tapped one of the small silver charms lightly and it transfigured itself back into a wedding ring
"Oh" the little girl whispered more to herself than the lady, her little mouth making the sound more than her voice. She looked back up at the lady with her eyes sparkling but once their eyes met, the stopped mid-sparkle.
"He never talked to you again." she said, this time staring right at the lady. They weren't hurtful words, but Ginny hurt none the less and nodded. She hadn't actually felt hurt for years; it had all grown to be such a regular part of life. But the young life touching hers seemed to bring it all back to reality.
"I don't think he broke the promise." The little girl said, in response to what Ginny had not said.
"Why not?" Ginny asked curious more then offended by the little girl's words.
"Draco Malfoy died miserable." The little girl said as if it were a full explanation.
rather than trying to get a child to explain their too simple for adult comprehension thought process, Ginny just asked, "What makes you think that?"
"Mother said so." As her breath caught with shock she still thought to herself, she knew it'd be an easy answer but could it really be that easy?
Her heart pounding quickly she asked, slowly as she could, "What's your mother know about Draco Malfoy?"
The little girl rolled her eyes, apparently things had yet to be fantastical or unbelievable to her and this was just unbelievably obvious, "He was her father."
Of course he was. Ginny's breath left her completely. On top of the shock there was also embarsssment; Ginny had just revealed to Draco's granddaughter that ginnys life crumbled at her grandparent's marriage. Once again though, the little girl seemed not only to read her mind but respond bluntly and matter-of-factly to the point of Ginny's slight discomfort.
"Its okay, Grandmother knew."
It was the oddest thing to say, but little children seem to always get right to the point, they don't beat around the bush for comforts sake.
"Knew what?" Ginny asked, though she knew very well what.
"That she wasn't the one." The little girl wasn't going to make it anything more than it was; it was simple in her mind, but people like Ginny, adults, needed it explained to make it believable, and they both knew it.
"He wasn't her one either." She whispered grinning. "But I think she must have felt very bad," her face grew more solemn "because everyone knew grandfather was miserable. She at least wasn't miserable." She looked at Ginny in the eyes, but Ginny stayed silent and listened intently.
"Mother says he was a horrible and miserable person in his time," Ginny smiled.
"That doesn't surprise me. How do you know though? He died years ago; you couldn't have been more than three." It was comforting to know she still knew him, after all the years.
"Mother told me, she said he was mean but he was honest and that no one could wrong him because of that, not even grandmother for not loving her." She looked at Ginny harshly for the first time that afternoon.
"You can't wrong him for that either missus."
Ginny looked at the girl with a sad smile on her face. "I'm afraid I can."
"He never broke the promise." the little girl insisted.
"He never fell in love. And he never left you." She retorted with a fierce childlike eyes, "You never came after him."
"He never came after me." Ginny said softly.
"It wouldn't have been honest to." the little girl said raising her eyebrows.
Ginny looked down at the girl and the first truly emotional expression crossed her face during the whole afternoon and Ginny crying a little, and laughed a little at the same time nodded.
"No, I don't suppose it would have been." She assented. It wasn't so unbelievable that it would take a small child a few minuets to tell her the one life altering bit of wisdom she'd been seeking for decades.
That was the end of that, the woman thought. The little girl had bested her and looking to her left at her short companion she felt, for the first time, a feeling that was not remorse as she observed the autumn—with Draco Malfoy's granddaughter.
Some minuets later the little girl started tinkering with Ginny's bracelet again and re-examining the locket; she looked wickedly up at the Ginny.
"I think I see why he loved autumn so much." she said staring down and Ginny's once fiery read locks.
Ginny laughed again, and thought how she hadn't laughed so many times as she had in that one afternoon in years.
Ginny sat, and smiled a little. Still hurting after all those years, but understanding a little more.
Finally, hours after sitting on Ginny's bench in a huff the little girl rose, "This was much better than an afternoon tea, miss."
Ginny nodded. She didn't know whether to feel relieved or heart-broken that the little girl was leaving.
She wasn't the only one either; the little girl stared at the Ginny for a few minuets openly and unashamedly.
"He didn't sweep it out of his head either." she finally said.
"How would you know?" Ginny smiled, she didn't need the words of false comfort, the girl had already given her so much, but she appreciated the effort, "did he tell you?"
The little girl shook her head, this time she was the one smiling, she knew what Ginny was thinking "No but he told Mother."
Ginny stared at her again overwhelmed.
"Mother wasn't alive but grandmother told her the story and then she told me. Grandpa was mad, cause, well… we didn't really know but I guess it was because he loved you and grandmother knew it. They got in a big fight after their wedding and Grandmother said he said 'hurtful but too true' things. After that all mother would tell me was she never made Grandfather do anything again. When they had Mother, Grandfather named her Bellis and Grandmother didn't say a thing. Mother said it was the only thing Grandfather gave her, her whole life. I though that was mean and I told her so but mother said, no it wasn't, cause it was the only thing he ever gave anyone in his life that meant anything to him."
"Bellis?" Ginny asked.
"After Bellis pernnis," The little girl said looking at the old woman significantly, "It's the name of the common daisy."