Malou looked over at Mr. Hatchitt with a forgiving smile. "There was no way for you to have known." It was easy to forgive him, to forgive anyone who wouldn't have known. It was so easy to assume that her parents still lived, hidden away from this society in their own very different world. But the truth was that Malou was much more alone than most people thought. With Fallon by her side and Mrs. Bagshot's nagging she could almost forget the loss, but it never really went away. She suspected it never would. Whether she had a family of her own or not it would never replace her own parents and the family - no, the life - she had lost. She'd never return to the manor nestled in the woods of Denmark nor speak her own language with the cook. Even with what had happened between her Uncle and herself she found herself missing him too. He'd lived away from them in the city, his own annoyances at the oddness of the family hidden. When he visited he'd more often then not speak to the servants and her father, but ignore her mother. Occasionally he'd indulge his niece in treats from the city and tales if she begged enough. Looking back she supposed she should have seen his disinterest in her. That the only reason he stayed tied to the family he disliked was because of the strength of blood. But she, and her father, hadn't seen the truth that had lingered, hidden in her Uncle's abode away from them - the revulsion he'd felt toward the magical blood that had never appeared in his own veins.

For a moment Malou found herself shocked that Mr. Hatchitt might be well enough informed to know precisely what year she had graduated from Hogwarts, but then she remembered his connection to Fallon. Surely Fallon would have shared the year they graduated from school with him, would have asked him when he had graduated even. It was an easy connection from there. "I'm sorry for your loss." Truly she was. No one should have to experience such grief at such a young age, it was part of what drove Malou as a healer, although there were limits to that even.

"Thank you." She murmured, as the sound of their quiet steps accompanied them. "I should hope they do." But she would always wonder. "I am more suited to this than the path my mother would have picked." She found herself admitting, a hand reaching up to tuck a piece of hair behind her ear. Her mother might never have seen that even if she lived, but it was the truth. Malou would never have made a conented society wife. There was of course always the eccentric that might have married her, someone like the quiet Mr. Daniel Selwyn that Mrs. Bagshot had once suggested might pair well with Malou. But even then she knew the chances she might be allowed to continue working as a healer would be limited and the risk didn't seem worth it. No, she had given up on that life, that road, when she had chosen this one. She had known the risk then of being alone forever, but her friendship with Fallon and her work had always seemed enough that such a void in her life hardly seemed to matter. Perhaps it was because had never experienced love, or even a flirtation, with another, but she didn't feel she was missing anything at all.