If anyone had asked Henry before, he'd have said his grandfather, the prince, was perfect. Perfectly kind, perfectly wise, perfectly courageous. The perfect dad—granddad, since he was pretty much both. Nothing had changed about that, but Henry had started to understand something about adults: They didn't always practice what they preached, even the nice ones.
See, the one time Henry had gotten into a fight in school, his grandfather had reminded him that words are just words and that forgiveness is even more powerful than magic. He'd taken that to heart. That's why he'd asked his mom if Regina could come to his grandmother's party.
Forgiveness is more powerful than magic. He'd said those words over and over to himself until he believed them, until he was ready to love Regina again—a little, at least. He'd thought his grandfather would be proud.
The funny thing was, well, he wasn't proud. He was upset and a little angry. Henry knew the anger wasn't directed at him, but he still didn't understand. All through the evening, he talked to Regina like old times, trying to make her feel wanted, but no one else joined him.
At first, Henry wondered if he was wrong to be forgiving, but when he thought back to all the things his grandparents had ever said to him, he knew he was doing the right thing. That meant—well, it meant that the prince must be wrong.
Henry lay in bed that night, and the image of his grandfather in his head wasn't perfect any more. Pretty close, but not quite. The kid didn't mind. After all, he wasn't perfect, and it was kind of nice to know that the best person he knew in the whole world wasn't perfect either.
