"Da," came a small voice, not far from Draco's elbow, "I promise I shall be very, very, exceedingly well-behaved today if you'll take me on a picnic for tea."
Draco continued to pen the letter he was writing.
"As your father," he said without looking up, "I promise that if you are anything other than 'very, very, exceedingly well-behaved' today or at any other time, you shall be very, very, exceedingly sorry."
Nora looked up and sighed sadly. "I shall never go on a picnic," she said despondently.
Draco suppressed a laugh and lifted his little girl up to sit on his desk. She swung her legs as he signed his name with just the barest hint of a flourish.
"Now, darling," he said, rolling the parchment into a tidy scroll, "where did you get this little dramatic streak, mm?"
Nora wriggled her nose. "Probably from Mum and you," she decided.
"Now Mum I can understand. But me? When am I dramatic?" he asked, smiling as he wrapped a string around the scroll. His daughter's interpretation of the world around her was not often correct, but very often amusing.
"You're dramatic when I've been naughty," she said with a tiny, knowing smirk.
Draco looked up from the seal wax he was melting. "Dramatic when you've been...naughty?" he repeated, confused.
Nora swung her legs mightily, crashing her stockinged heels back into his desk with a thud.
"Watch it, Elea—" Draco said sharply, then paused. He had to give her credit; she was sharp for her age. "Ah. I see what you mean, you little terror."
She grinned charmingly.
"May I please fix the letter to Orion?" she begged, hopping off the desk and running toward the owl's gilded stand in the corner of the study.
"I don't know if—" Draco began, but Nora interrupted him.
"You didn't even notice that I said 'may,'" she said resentfully.
Draco lifted his eyebrow a fraction of an inch, clearly displeased.
"Who's to say I didn't notice, hm? But you seem to not have noticed that I was speaking, and I'm afraid that means the pleasure of attaching this piece of paper to that bird's leg is all mine," he said dryly.
Ignoring her sigh of deep disappointment, he tied the scroll to the owl's leg with a neat knot, acutely aware that Nora leaned against the wall, furrowing her forehead in defeat. He knew it was better she fret for a moment than be spoilt for life, but that didn't make saying 'no' any easier.
"Would you like to open the window, darling?" he asked, flashing a forgiving smile.
She grinned, then eagerly unlatched the sash, swung the diamond-paned window out, and peered out of the high, third-story window.
"Da, isn't it such a lovely day?" she said happily, resting her chin on her hands, which she'd propped on the sill.
Draco crooned a few words to the owl before releasing it from the window. As they watched it flap up and over the green forest that surrounded the grounds, he answered, "Yes, it is a very lovely day. Perfect for a picnic, don't you think?"
She craned her neck to glance up at him, as though to make sure he was serious, before she lit up with a grin. "Really, Da?" she shrieked. "You're going to be done with letters for the day?"
Draco rolled his eyes. "Right. Because all I do all day is write letters."
She flew at him, wrapping her arms around his leg in a gleeful, shrieking hug.
"If you don't calm down, I'm going to decide that you're not mature enough for a picnic," he threatened quietly, and Nora instantly ceased her high-pitched cheers. "I only attend picnics with ladies, you know," he added.
She nodded and smoothed her dress. "I suppose I shall need to find my shoes," she said regally.
Draco snapped his fingers, and a house elf appeared at his side. "Lackey, please fetch Miss Eleanora's shoes, and then have the kitchen staff prepare us a picnic basket. We'll be having tea on the lawn."
The elf bowed low and disappeared with a pop. Nora, still giddy with excitement, was twirling in front of the window, making her sundress fluff out like a flower petal as she spun.
Draco decided that an afternoon picnic meant that he could shed the formal attire he'd worn all day—well, all month. Since Ginny had moved out, and since Nora spent half her time with her mother, Draco found that he was spending all his time occupied with matters of business. Better to turn a profit than to let his wife's decisions wear him thin.
And if he worked late into the evening, he didn't have to think about what Ginny might be doing. Or who she did it with.
Nora sighed wistfully, bringing him back to the present. "I'm going to have lots of picnics in my life," she said.
"Oh?" Draco said, carefully hanging his business robes on a hook. "How do you know that?"
She plopped down on the sofa in front of the fireplace and curled her legs up underneath her small frame. "Oh, I'm going to have a lot of romantic moments with boys, and romantic boys always have picnics," she said airily.
Draco froze. He stopped rolling up the sleeves of his oxford and swiveled to look at his baby girl, who was twirling a long lock of blonde hair around her smallest finger.
"And how," he asked icily, "did we just go from larking about, screeching, to talking about romantic moments with boys?"
Nora let go of her hair. "Is that bad?" she asked in a small voice.
Draco raised his eyebrows. "You, Eleanora, are not allowed to have any romantic moments with boys for at least the next ten years. Possibly—probably—twenty years. And I do not want to hear another word about it until then," he said, his tone dead calm. "Is that quite clear?"
"Yes, Da," she said quietly. "Not another word."
Lackey chose that moment to pop back into the study bearing a small pair of shoes and a loaded picnic basket. "Would Master like Lackey to carry the basket?" he asked, bowing low despite his burden.
"No, I think I can manage," Draco said, dismissing the elf.
He picked up the pair of shoes and knelt in front of his daughter, who was worrying her lip. He sighed and lifted her right foot and slipped it into the pretty little sandal, then kissed her cheek.
"You know I love you more than anything in the whole world, don't you?" he said gently.
She nodded.
"And I didn't mean to scare you, darling. I just want to keep you safe. You're my princess, not some silly boy's. Right?" he asked, cinching the buckle of the other sandal so that it fit snugly on her foot.
Nora gave him a tiny smile. "Right," she whispered. "Your princess."
He patted her foot and stood up, making final adjustments to his sleeves. Nora was still slumped against the sofa, and he felt a little twist in his chest. He'd managed to scare her, and he could never do that without feeling a tinge of regret.
But Draco had little estimation for regret, so he put those feelings aside, crossed his arms, and looked down at his daughter archly.
"Now, I command you to laugh, for we are going to have a picnic, which is the last place a frown should be seen," he declared.
Nora gave him a slightly bigger smile.
"What's this? No laugh?" he wondered aloud. "How dare you disobey your father! Laugh!" he ordered, then pounced, tickling her until she squealed with laughter.
A quarter of an hour later, the two spread out a large quilt under a tree not too far from the house. Nora lay down, spread-eagled on the blanket, and squinted up at the bright sky.
Next to her, Draco opened the picnic basket and set out a loaf of crusty bread, a cluster of grapes, cubed cheese, and a bottle of wine. He stared at the wine for a moment before shaking his head in disbelief and placing it back in the basket.
"House elves," he muttered.
He slipped a piece of cheese into his mouth before he lay back like his daughter, and thoughtfully watched the leaves overhead wave in the breeze.
She pointed up at the afternoon sky. "There, Da! Doesn't that cloud look like a dragon?"
She'd learned this game from her mother, and he'd never understood it—and not for lack of trying. Cloud-gazing made Ginny feel free and romantic, and that usually ended well for him.
He squinted. "Which one?" he asked.
"That one over there, just poking out from behind that tall Christmas tree."
"I suppose it does," Draco said, scrunching his nose. It looked more like a chunk of white candy-floss to him. "And that's a spruce."
"Da, can you tell me more about Princess Guinevere?" Nora asked, rolling onto her stomach and selecting a fat, purple grape from the bunch.
Draco watched her savor the juicy bite before he answered. "Didn't your mum tell you enough about her?" he inquired, picking up another piece of cheese.
"Well, a little," Nora said, using the back of her wrist to catch the grape juice that dribbled down her chin. "She told me about when the Princess flew on her broomstick, high, high up—probably higher than that dragon cloud, I bet—and she decided that she was going to save the dragon."
Draco felt his heart stop for half a second, and he frowned to himself. "And then what did she tell you?"
Nora shrugged. "Nothing, really. After that, she just read fairy stories to me for bedtime."
"All week?" Draco probed. "She only told you that one Princess Guinevere story?"
"Yes, she said the Princess stories wore her out," Nora said, pulling the crust off a thick slice of bread. "But they don't wear you out, do they?" she asked hopefully.
Draco ran a hand through his hair and tucked his arm behind his head, carefully ticking off his options as he processed this information. Clearly, Ginny did not have things as together as she had pretended when she'd dropped Nora off that morning. He licked his lip absently, remembering that day in the sky above the pitch and wondering why his wife couldn't tell more of the story.
"Da? Helloooooooo?" Nora exclaimed, cheekily waving her hand in front of his face. "Will you tell me more of the story?
Draco rolled onto his stomach and looked at her. She had his coloring, but her features were undoubtedly Ginny's; they were softer, and her nose was more of a button than an angle. He liked that.
"Sure, love," he said lazily. "I'll tell you more. Where did your mum leave off?"
"Right where I said. She was flying high up, higher than the dragon. And he brushed her hair back, and she knew he couldn't be all bad. He was part good. Oh, and he was a very good looking dragon," she said knowingly.
Draco smirked at the sky. She might call him all sorts of names, and "need space" and even throw her shoes at him, but Ginny still admitted that he was handsome. Perhaps, he decided for the hundredth time, not all hope was gone.
Nora chattered on. "Also, Da, Mum says you were wrong about Quidditch. She said that Hairy Potface was way better at Quidditch than the dragon, and that this one time, they were both playing sSeeker and the dragon was so silly that Hairy Potface snatched it—"
"And that's quite enough of that," Draco cut in smoothly. If Harry was Ginny's mystery man, he'd have him killed. Better to spend his life in Azkaban than face that. "That's not really part of the story, is it?"
She shook her head. "Okay. Start where the princess saves the dragon."
"Where the princess saves the dragon…" he pondered aloud. "Well, once upon a time, Princess Guinevere was feeling lonely. Her companions in the Land of Lions were frequently occupied with being as obnoxious as they could possibly be, and her dearest friends, the Identical Wheezing Jesters, had moved away from the Land a few years before.
"So she was lonely, and she started to spend a great deal of time sitting along the Lake of Shining Waters, which was nearby."
Nora stretched her arms above her head. "Was it a lake like our lake?"
"It wasn't terribly different, I suppose."
Draco propped his head up and looked out over the lake that graced the Malfoy estate. That particular lake had been the backdrop for a much, much later part of the story—and one he was not about to share with his six-year-old.
"Anyway," he said, interrupting his own reverie, "she would sit by the Lake of Shining Waters in the afternoons, making wishes."
"Wishes?" Nora asked, catching her breath. "Did they come true?"
Draco nodded sagely. "Some of them did." He picked up a grape. "So the princess made many wishes. She also wrote stories down in a little book, and other things like that," he said with a wave. "But while everyone from the Land of the Lions forgot that she did this, a knave from the Land of Snakes noticed."
"Ooooh," Nora said, her eyes shining with the thrill of danger. "Did he try to get her?"
Draco laughed. "Yes, but not in the way you might think," he said, remembering Blaise's pathetic attempts to hit on Ginny. Even now, his friend's pick-up lines only worked when the girls were drunk; if Zabini wasn't obscenely good-looking, he'd be out of luck.
"The knave knew the dragon, since they both lived in the Land of Snakes, and sometimes the two would talk. Once, the knave mentioned to the dragon that it seemed odd that the Princess would spend so much time alone out by the Lake of Shining waters. However, every time he tried to go talk to her, she would ignore him."
"That wasn't very nice of her, was it?" chimed Nora.
"Well, you have to remember that he was from the Land of the Snakes. He wasn't known for being very nice, either."
Nora nodded. "Still. The princess should have been beneviolent."
"Benevolent," Draco corrected. "And I suppose she was a little rude to him. He did try awfully hard." He smirked, remembering Blaise's rants about how stuck-up the latest object of his fantasies was. "Maybe beneviolent is the right word.
"However, the dragon didn't need the knave to tell him about Guinevere's strange habit of sitting alone by the lake, scribbling in her journal. He knew because he watched her carefully.
"You see, the dragon was also more and more lonely. His earliest friends were all preoccupied with becoming rich and powerful, and the dragon was starting to figure out that wealth and power are not the best of friends. He felt like no one understood him."
"That's how Princess Guinevere felt, too?" Nora asked, curling up next to him so that she could rest her golden head on his shoulder.
"I suppose. But not in the same way." Draco paused for a moment, remembering the way Ginny sat at the edge of the lake, her head bowed over her journal so that her fire-red locks shaded her face. When the sun went down, it was a captivating view.
He sighed.
"I can see why these stories wear your mum out," he said wearily. "They tire me, too."
Nora sat up. "Nooooo, Da! Don't stop there. Please!"
"Alright, but you have to come here," he said, pulling her back down to rest against his chest. "Where was I?"
"The princess and the dragon were very alone," she recited.
"Yes. One day the dragon found the princess in the deep, dark lands—they were underground, you see—and she was crying. Even though it was frowned upon for dragons to speak to princesses, he felt compelled to ask her why she was so sad.
"So the princess told the dragon her troubles. She didn't think about it, or wonder if he would tease her. She was too upset."
Draco paused. He needed to think through this part very, very carefully. Nora was quiet, but she watched him expectantly.
"She cried because she had finally allowed Hairy Potface to be her prince," Draco said, clenching his jaw, "and he had—he had not treated her like a princess."
Nora's eyes opened wide. "What did he do?"
Draco absently wrapped his arm around her. "That…that doesn't matter. He was more unkind to her on that day than the dragon had been all along, and he broke her heart into a million tiny pieces.
"So the dragon's heart was already a little broken, from the loneliness, and when he saw how sad and alone she was, it began to break even more. And he went to her, wrapped his arms around her and gave her a—a very big hug.
"But he was still a dragon, and she was still a princess. So he left her there, after a moment, and they both pretended like it hadn't happened. She ignored him when they saw each other, and he still teased her when the other monsters from the Land of the Snakes were about. Of course, the dragon thought a great deal about all the ways he could destroy Hairy Potface. But they mostly ignored each other.
"That is, until the fairy godmother, who was very good at noticing the strangest things, decided to help the princess save the dragon, and she—"
"Draco!" called a figure from across the lawn. "Malfoy, is that you?"
Draco sat up quickly. "Blaise? What is it?"
Blaise rushed across the grass, halting at the edge of the blanket. "Draco, I found something—about, ah…" he glanced at Nora. "Well, about our conversation last week. And you're not going to like it, mate."
Draco looked down at Nora, who was looking up at Blaise with wide-eyes, and snapped his fingers. An elf appeared, and he swiftly commanded it to deliver the remains of the picnic to the kitchen and Miss Eleanora to her nursery.
"I'll have to finish it later, darling," he said, kissing the top of her head before dispatching her to the house elf.
"Now," he said, cool fury etched across his face, "who is he, and what's the easiest way to kill him?"
A/N: No, Draco has not read Anne of Green Gables. But the author has, and the Lake of Shining Waters is my homage to that dearly beloved story, also about a red-head who came to be loved by the very boy who mocked her in school.
And my apologies for the late update, especially when I promised a faster one to many of you. This silly site and its problems. :(