Prologue

"I won’t."

"Please, Yuriko, you’ll like her."

"No!" The black-haired little girl stomped her foot in ire. "I haven’t got any sister!"

"Do too. Come see her, please?"

"She has a different mummy. She’s not my sister, and you’re not married to Mummy anyway, so I don’t have to go anywhere with you!" She turned on her heel and bolted up the stairs. Moments after she disappeared from view her bedroom door shut with a resounding slam.

Harry let out a soft sigh of frustration. Cho shook her head at the expression of thwarted and rejected goodwill on his face.

"I told you she won’t go," she said with a voice like cold iron. "You’ve lost any loyalty she had to you since you left."

Harry reeled on her, suddenly angry without knowing why. "I’m not the one who filed for divorce and started all this, Cho."

"No," Cho agreed. "You were the one having the affair."

There was a long silence. The tension was so thick it was almost hard to breathe.

"I still want her around," Harry said, defeated. "I’m not abandoning anyone."

"Not in Yuriko’s eyes," Cho snapped. "You left us for that Weasley tramp, and she knows it. You might want her around you, but Yuriko wants nothing to do with you."

"How much of it is your interference?"

Cho’s eyes darkened with fury. "Leave," she said, the barest hint of a snarl in her words. "You gave up all your custodial rights, Potter, you haven’t got the right to see her at all. Get out of my house."

Harry and Cho stood in silent anger for a moment longer, each daring the other to be the first to look away. Realizing he was beaten, Harry let out a low growl and Apparated away.

Cho sat down slowly on the bottom step of the stairway, not realizing she was trembling from head to foot. All she really knew was that she had just exiled Harry from his daughter’s life, and that she really didn’t care.

A few minutes later Yuriko came padding down the stairs. Seeing that Harry was gone, she flung herself into Cho’s lap, sobbing.

They stayed there, clutching each other, for a long time.

* * *

"Where is she?"

Harry didn’t answer. He flung himself into the chair, fuming so badly that Ginny half-fancied she could see steam curling out of his ears. It was so obvious what had happened that Ginny wondered why she had even bothered to ask.

"She refuses to come," Harry said in a low voice. "Cho basically kicked me out."

Ginny bit her lip. Some part of her really didn’t blame Cho- Harry and she had gotten married two days after the divorce was finalized, and now a year later they already had a child. But at the same time, she was hurt that Yuriko didn’t want to come visit her own sister. Half sister, but sister still.

"Not much you can do then," Ginny said softly. "That’s their choice. But Harry, Yuriko’s probably really upset-"

"What for? I haven’t abandoned anyone. Cho started it. If anything Yuriko ought to be hacked off at her, not me," Harry snarled. Behind his glasses his green eyes flared with a rarely seen fury.

Ginny was spared coming up with an answer by a soft mewling cry emerging from the bassinet. Grateful for the reprieve, she retrieved the baby girl.

"It’s all right, Harry," said Ginny absently as she clumsily checked over the infant, searching for the complaint. "You’ve got us now."

If Ginny had realized how much that stung, she might have never said it. She didn’t see Harry flinch. When she looked up, he had a slightly bitter smile on his face to hide his true feelings.

"Yeah, I guess so."