Remember This Song, Part II
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
He wasn't there. Both relief and frustration flooded through her. She had spent three days cleaning and reorganizing the house, two days weeding the garden and the entire morning getting the children looking presentable. At the very least, the manual labor helped distract her from Albus' request that Scorpius Malfoy come visit during Easter hols.
'Coward,' Ginny thought bitterly as she stared at the near empty yard. The children had already run off but Harry was still there. His back was to her and he blocked most of her view of Astoria Malfoy but she could see the edge of her white muslin dress. Ginny smoothed her own plain cotton dress. Harry was always telling her that she should get something nicer but with three children running about, she had no use for nice dresses. Her lips twisted into a wry smile – she wished she had listened to him now.
She pushed open the screen door and stepped out onto the back porch. She had never seen Mrs. Malfoy before though Ron told her she had been at Platform 9¾ that September when they saw off their respective children. She had been a mess that day with getting the kids ready while Harry sat at the kitchen table with his boots propped up, reading the Daily Prophet. Her hair was greasy and tangled, there was syrup on her jumper and she had suddenly felt like the housewife that she had become but never thought she would be. She had focused her attention on the children the entire time they were at King's Cross and refused to look up, fearing that if she did, she would find his mercurial eyes staring back at her or even worse, looking through her.
She remembered sitting up that night, wondering what his wife looked like. It was easier to do that than think of him. She knew she was a Greengrass before she married Draco so she tried to conjure up an image of Daphne - brown hair, green eyes, pretty. Of course pretty but Ginny couldn't remember much about the Slytherin girl and so bitter Jealousy lured her down another path, to another image. Blonde hair and icy eyes. Long limbs and cold hands. A disdainful glare and red lips twisted in a sneer. A witch she had nothing in common with – except a silver-eyed wizard.
"You must be Ginny."
She didn't realize she had nearly reached them until the bell-like voice spoke. Ginny came to a sudden stop – she didn't really realize till this moment that she wasn't ready for this either. She wasn't ready to face Astoria Malfoy and find out she was nothing like she expected. Of course she was pretty but not cold and disdainful like Ginny thought she would be, like she hoped she would be. She was petite, with long brown locks falling over her shoulders and velvet doe eyes, a disarming smile and a small chin. She looked young, a white ribbon tied just above her ears and knotted to the side, holding her hair back, and a cream sash wrapped around her middle. She held out her hand but Ginny had stopped several feet short of her and Harry.
"I'm Astoria," she said, jerking forward so suddenly that Ginny thought she would fall. Ginny had put her arms out reflexively but dropped them as she watched Astoria take several labored and awkward steps toward her. She was disabled.
Ginny automatically took the small white hand offered to her. "It's nice to meet you," she said with a swallow. She didn't know how she managed to speak but it did help to look over Astoria's shoulder rather than at her.
"No, the pleasure is all mine. I've heard so much about you," the other woman replied, shifting into her view as though she knew that Ginny was trying to avoid looking at her.
"You have?" Ginny choked out. Her eyes widened at the thought – she couldn't imagine what Draco could have told his wife about her that would engender such a sincere smile from the woman.
"Yes," Astoria said, nodding. "Your brothers love talking about you and of course, Harry, too." Ginny's look of confusion prompted Astoria to continue. "Oh, perhaps it hasn't come up before. I work with your brother Bill and sometimes Draco goes to those pick-up Quidditch games. I'm sorry I haven't seen you there but you have such a busy household to manage."
Harry stepped in, his hands in his pocket as he looked sheepishly at the grass he always forgot to water. "Yeah, Malfoy brings Scorpius sometimes so Astoria comes along, too." Of course it never occurred to him to tell his wife that he played Quidditch with his childhood nemesis until she looked like a fool in front of someone else. No wonder Harry had so easily approved of Scorpius's visit. It seemed, unlike their own children, Scorpius was interested in Quidditch. It had been a huge disappointment for Harry that James didn't like flying and neither of them foresaw how James' rebellion would lead to Albus and Lily's disinterest as well. And now he was relying on Scorpius Malfoy of all people to change this.
Ginny clenched her fists and bit her lip. She was good at constraining her anger to a slight tremble nowadays. She hated snapping at him in front of the kids and she wouldn't do it in front of Astoria Malfoy either. She would later let Harry know that it was unfair of him to pressure the kids this way and find out why he was playing Quidditch with Draco. She needn't ask why he didn't tell her. It was just like Harry not to even think of saying some thing.
Ginny turned abruptly towards Astoria. "You work?" Ginny winced. She didn't mean to sound so astonished though she was – the thought that Draco Malfoy's wife worked never entered her mind.
Astoria's wide dark eyes shifted from Ginny to Harry and back again for a moment before she nodded. "I'm a magical theorist like your brother but my field of interest is Arithmancy. I used to work at home but with Scorpius at Hogwarts now, I rather not stay there by myself. I work in the office at Diagon Alley." She smiled her wide, disarming smile. "It's nice to be amongst all the bustle and the people and now Draco can come by during his lunch break to take me out."
Ginny wanted to tell Astoria that she didn't want to know the intimate details of Draco's life with her because she had kept the Draco she had known in a box in her head while the real one grew and changed into someone she didn't know anymore. She was afraid of the one that now lived in the present day – afraid of realizing that he had changed and wondering whether she had changed him for someone else, for the woman standing before her on bent legs. But it didn't matter – there were a hundred things she wanted to say that she didn't. She only nodded in return.
"I wonder what's keeping Malfoy so long," Harry groused.
Astoria, having already grasped Harry's failure to communicate properly with his wife, turned to Ginny and explained, "Scorpius was so excited to get here that he forgot his broom. Draco went to get it. It's incredible to me how on-task Draco can be when he sets his mind to it but you know how his mind wanders and he starts humming under his breath without realizing…" Astoria trailed off and let out a puff of air. "I mean…" she tried again but broke off and smiled apologetically, her pity apparent in the dark pools of her eyes.
She knew. She knew all of her husband's secrets, about Ginny and a past twenty years in decay for him but still alive in Ginny Potter. Ginny looked away, remembering how Draco would hum into her hair and she would laugh and he would pull back with a scowl and ask her what the matter was, and Ginny could see now, beyond Astoria's shoulder, that Draco Malfoy was in her backyard holding his son's broom.