Remember This Song, Accompaniment

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.

Quills. Robes. Hogwarts, A History, 16th ed. revised. Ginny mentally checked off the items she'd gathered in preparation for Lily's first year at Hogwarts. It seemed she had everything – except her daughter. She had dropped off her precocious youngest child at Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. Shopping with Lily usually doubled the length of any trip and there were simply too many errands to run today.

Without Lily burning off some witch's eyebrows or toppling over a display of Remembralls, it seemed that she had finished early. Perhaps they could swing by Florean Fortescue's for some ice-cream.

As she weaved in and out of the pre-start-of-the-school-year crowd at Diagon Alley, she heard a bell-like voice call her name. She instantly knew it was Astoria Malfoy. She moved to quicken her steps but the shuffling of Astoria's uneven gait made her pause. She would not force a disabled woman to run after her.

Ginny was not surprised that Astoria looked as young and pretty as she did the first time she had met her. The other woman was wearing a soft yellow dress and had a white Poet's Narcissus in her hair. "I was afraid you didn't hear me," Astoria said, smiling as she approached.

"Sorry, I'm in a rush," Ginny replied, hoping that would stave off the other woman. Astoria had been persistent in inviting Ginny to Quidditch games, teas and soirées, but Ginny always refused. It had become a routine for her to open the window, detach the note from the regal eagle owl's leg and throw it away without even opening it.

Astoria sighed, the smile falling from her pretty face. "It's been twenty years, you know."

Ginny curled her fingers into the palms of her hands. Her nails were short but she dug them into her skin till she could feel the pain there instead of elsewhere. She didn't need Astoria to tell her what she was talking about. It could only be about Draco, it could only ever be about Draco. "Are you saying time heals? Because –"

"No, I'm not saying that," Astoria quickly replied. "It's not time – at least, not the mere passage of time – that does anything. But things do change in time. People change in time. Draco is not the boy you left twenty years ago."

Ginny turned from Astoria's dark eyes. She didn't need to be reminded that it had been her.

"Look…" Astoria began again, her voice heavy as though she understood. But how could she possibly understand?

"Astoria."

Ginny looked up sharply. Draco was approaching them. He came up and stood beside his wife. Astoria smiled up at him and he placed his hand lightly on the small of her back before turning to her. "Mrs. Potter," he said with a nod. No one called her that. She always insisted on everyone calling her Ginny but she didn't say anything, she merely nodded in return without looking at his pale grey eyes.

"I'll be there in a moment, Draco."

He looked between the two women before nodding in acquiescence. Ginny watched as he took his wife's fingers and squeezed them before letting them go and moving away.

Astoria shuffled forward and placed that hand lightly on the Ginny Potter's arm. Ginny forced herself to look at the other woman's eyes and it made her feel Gryffindor for the first time in a long time. Astoria smiled at her and she leaned in as though she were sharing a secret, "I told him one day he would love me."

She pulled back and left it at that. Ginny knew she had meant it kindly but she also knew, as she watched Astoria lurch her way back to Draco and he held his hand out to her, if he hadn't loved her always, he did now. She was sure of it. Her musings were interrupted by the arrival of Lily who had seen that her mother was only a few stores away and came skipping out towards her, singing a lullaby that Ginny used to sing to her before bed. It had been a long time since Ginny sang it to her, since Lily asked her to, and it made her smile to think of when she did. Ginny walked towards her singing daughter, picked her up, and did not look back.

- La Fin -