Ava
There was no denying who the mother was of the two and a half year old who was running around clad only in a diaper. Her hair was brown, curly, and almost bushy, but her eyes were not those of her mother. Her eyes were green, like two pieced of green glass set in the chubby little face. The child's laughter pierced the night air, her joy apparent as she ran with hands wide open to catch the lightening bugs that flickered and sparked in the night sky.
"See? Look at the stars," A woman's voice called from over the darkness, her own bare feet tickled by the cool summer grass. The child ran to the blond haired woman and laughed as she tried to reach up and touch the star.
"Shhh! Bugs, yes, it is bugs," the child replied in her infantile speech. He felt his heart soar as the child was still for a moment before tearing across the lawn again in search of her sparkling prize.
`This is what she took from me,' Harry thought bitterly as he stood just out of sight, watching the child stop to examine a piece of stick laying in the grass. The child picked it up and waved it around.
"Alakazam! Hocus Pocus!" The child screeched as she brandished the stick as if it was a wand. It would be years before the child would get her letter from Hogwarts, and her very own wand. Harry felt his heart go stone cold. This child should be with him, learning the ways of their people, not being raised by a muggle woman in a cottage outside of the city without a proper father.
"Ava, come inside now, dear," the woman called as the child took to throwing the stick towards where Harry was hiding. The child seemed to look directly at Harry and smiled, her tiny white teeth shining in the half-lit moon. The child's name was Ava. Harry wondered if her muggle mother had named her that or had her witch mother named her Ava. The chubby toddler ran full speed at her mother, was scooped up, and was taken inside the quaint cottage for bath and bed. Harry had followed, not wanting to let go of the scene.
"Ava, it is time to go to sleep, we pray the lord our soul to keep. A prayer for your mother-dear, and a prayer for your mother-here," The woman prayed with the child, touching the child's heart as she said the prayer. "A prayer for your father strong, a prayer to keep you all night long. Amen."
"Amen," the toddler chimed. The blond woman kissed the toddler's forehead and lay her down in the wooden crib. She stood there, unaware that Harry was there, watching over the child as her eye lids began to fall and all that seemed to be left was the dark eyelashes on the child's cheek.
Harry followed the blond woman, watching her intently. He was certain that she loved Ava well enough, but she knew nothing of the world that Ava belonged in, his world, their world. He knew he had to talk to Hermione about this, to get her reasoning. He knew he would have to forgive her one day, but he knew he didn't have to rush that forgiveness.
The woman, he decided, was nice enough, and he felt secure leaving the little girl in her custody for now. He turned and disappeared from the spot in the blond woman's bedroom. The woman looked up, certain she had heard a noise, but assuming she was hearing things she headed off to bed.
Harry found himself outside of his best friend's house, looking at the old, careworn building that he was using as a sort of bachelor pad since they had both separated from their current mistresses and wives. Harry couldn't help but be angry for a moment at her. She had kept his daughter a secret this whole time.
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