~~~

Ron’s face was in his hands as he sat next to Harry on the edge of the bed.
When he looked up, his best friend was waiting for his response.
“How do you know it’s going to work?” asked Ron.
“I don’t care if it doesn’t,” Harry replied shortly. “If it doesn’t work, I’ll be with
her. If it does, then she’ll be back.”
“But I mean, even if it does, how do you know that you’ll be able to find her?”
Harry’s eyes didn’t leave his wife’s lifeless form. “Because I can find her
anywhere, Ron. Found her in South America, didn’t I? I found her when I was in
Scotland and lonely and she was all the way across the pond in the States. Even when
I was in Avalon, and in the years after that...” he hesitated, glancing up at Ron
quickly, “...sometimes we’ve even shared the same dreams.”
Ron pressed his eyes shut. Despite time, despite Mo, this was still very difficult
for him to hear. Yet he knew that it was the truth, knew it as well as he knew both
Hermione and Harry.
“There’s something between us that nothing’s been able to break. I went to
Avalon, she married you, we both tried to live our separate lives without each other.
Nothing worked.”
“I hate that I came between the two of you, mate,” Ron said suddenly, surprising
himself.
“You didn’t,” Harry said. “It’s my fault for not having enough faith in you in the
first place. I didn’t think I could ever be with her and not lose you as a friend. I was a
bloody coward, Ron.”
He let the statement hang on the air. It was the closest he would ever get to an
apology over the situation with Hermione, and Ron knew it.
“Yeah. But you know, they’ve always told us three’s a crowd...”
“Not for us, Ron. I can’t do without her... but neither of us can do without you.
In fact, I’m not sure I’ll be able to reach her without your help.”
“Harry,” said Ron slowly. “What are you planning to do?”

~~~
Molly walked down the hall briskly, followed by Arthur in his floating chair.
“The kids are all concerned about Harry and Ron,” Molly told her husband.
“They’re not certain what they’ve got up to... and yet, the rest are bustling about
trying to prepare a proper burial.”
Arthur nodded. “So our task is to convince them to give up the body?”
“That’s what they’re saying. Ron’s locked himself in there with Harry, and no
one seems to be able to get them to open the door.”
 Molly stopped in her tracks and turned around. Arthur had stopped too, and was
staring at her.
“No, Arthur,” Molly said. “They wouldn’t be so... so unreasonable, dear. They
just wouldn’t.”
Arthur still said nothing.
“Ron’s got a wife! Three children! And Harry... he’s got his school, and his
work at the Foundation... they wouldn’t... they can’t...”
“Molly, what else can they do?”
“They can do what everyone else does! They can just go on with their lives.
Ron’s got a new family, hasn’t he, and Harry... well, Harry can just...”
She trailed off when she saw the sad glint in her husband’s eyes.
“Arthur, it’s not the end of the world for Harry. We are his family and he knows
that. He and Hermione have been thrown together over these past months because of
everything that’s happened. It’s perfectly understandable that they’d decide to
marry... she’s a divorcee, Harry the confirmed bachelor. They’ve always been great
friends...”
Arthur stared at Molly.
“Has it been so long, love, that you don’t recognize it?”
“Recognize what, Arthur? Oh, how you can be so cryptic at a time like this, I’ll
never understand...”
She trailed off, catching the significant glint in his eye... a look that her children
had never seen pass between their parents (for after all, hadn’t they always been
parents?). The years fell away from her eyes, and a wave of warmth washed over her.
“I love to look at you, Molly Prewett,” he said quietly, slowly. Speaking to his
wife in a way that he had not in a long time. “It’s been more than forty years for us.
We have seven wonderful children, and more than a dozen grandbabes. And all the
while that I was ill this fortnight past, I could think of only one thing. That I love to
look at you, that I have ever since I first laid eyes on you, and that if I could only
look at you once more, I’d just...”
Molly’s sensible, kindly face had flushed bright red.
“Arthur, such talk.”
“My dear, all of our children have found happiness. All of them. They
understood what to look for because they saw what was between us. That is why Bill
didn’t last with Fleur. That is why Ron wasn’t satisfied with Hermione. That is why
Ginny defied our sons and us, and married that Malfoy boy anyway.”
“But Harry and Hermione...”
“Are just as much ours as the rest by now. Hermione left her parents behind
when she came into our world as a girl. She stepped into a place they could never
understand, and it created a barrier between them and her. We filled that breach for
her. And Harry... well, you know exactly what we’ve been to Harry.”
“Still, Arthur, I believe they decided to marry because they were the only ones
in their set who hadn’t,” Molly said practically. “Best friends, I’ll grant that, but it
can’t be the grand passion that Ginny’s making it out to be. They’ve known each
 13. The Only One
other far too long for that.”
Arthur laughed to himself dryly. “Molly, this all began long before the war
ended. Didn’t you realize?”
“How can you say that? She and Ron were sweethearts from their fifth year
on...”
“Only because Harry was so preoccupied with Voldemort. Both of them fancied
her by the time they finished Hogwarts... Ron was perhaps a bit more Demonstrative
about the fact than Harry, but Ron had more of a normal childhood than Harry had.
I could see that. Because while our son’s infatuation with Hermione was obvious to
even the blind, what Harry felt about her ran much deeper. In fact, I was a bit
surprised when Ron and Hermione first began to date, although soon I grew quite
used to the idea.”
“You never said any of this to me, Arthur.”
“You were so set on Hermione as daughter-in-law by war’s end. And by then,
Ron and Hermione had been dating for two years, and Harry was off to Avalon.” He
paused. “They say that Hermione went to him there.”
Molly’s mouth dropped open. She gaped, but not a sound came out of her
mouth.
“Even during Ron and Hermione’s marriage, Harry was unnaturally in the
middle. Mediating, serving as a buffer zone, and paying far more attention to
Hermione than to any Witch he happened to be dating at the time. And you have only
to recall what occurred when Hermione disappeared, both times. The first time, only
the Muggle crisis brought him back to Britain. This time, he married her.”
“Arthur, that brings us back to the original point. No one dies of grief, and
Harry is a sensible boy...”
“Yes, he is, Molly. And he is also impetuous, and headstrong, and leaps into the
cauldron before he looks to see what’s boiling. And he is connected to Hermione in a
way that our son never was.”
“Well, Hermione wasn’t the best wife for Ron, was she?”
“No, she wasn’t,” Arthur sighed. “She was best for Harry. And now that she’s
gone, I’m not certain what he’ll do.”

~~~
“What is this place, Grandmother?” asked Hermione, as Crookshanks purred
around her ankles. It should have been quite difficult to think of the golden beauty
who walked beside her as her elder, but the settled and wise eyes told all. This was
her grandmother of the soothing hands and the enchanting fairytales.
“Where do you think you are, poppet?”
“I feel... as if I’m in a dream,” Hermione replied. “A very pleasant sort of
dream, where I can find again everything and everyone I’ve ever lost.”
“Do you recall what happened to you?”
 “Not very well. I just remember walking in a wood with some woman, and there
were a lot of loud noises, and shouting... and then it was dark... and then I was here.
It’s so beautiful here... I never want to leave,” Hermione declared, sweeping up her
girlhood cat for a sudden hug.
“It does seem like a beautiful dream, doesn’t it? But Hermione, what if
everything that happened to you before this was the dream... and this was reality?”
Hermione blinked. “It can’t be real. After all, I’m speaking with you, and
holding Crooksie, and both of you are...”
“Dead,” said Grandmother Helen softly. Stating it without any bitterness at all,
but as fact. “Where you came from, we are dead, and have been for many years.”
At Grandmother Helen’s words, dread seemed to splash over Hermione.
She got the impression that she was supposed to be happy here... but there was
something she was forgetting... something that kept stoppering the fountain of joy
that kept attempting to bubble up deep inside of her in this perfect place...
“I know you’re dead. That’s why this has to be a dream. Soon, I’ll wake up, and
I’ll be with...”
She trailed off, as if the words had been stolen from her. But it had been on the
tip of her tongue.
“Shall we walk a bit further along?” asked Grandmother Helen kindly. “After
all, there are others who are desperate to speak with you after all this time.”
Hermione was more subdued now than she’d been since coming to this place.
“Lead the way, Grandmum.”

~~~
Harry ran his fingers through his hair, attempting to think.
Remembering her fingers doing the same thing. Hearing her voice in her head,
unbidden.
I love it when you do that... here, let me.
He took a deep breath, fingers laced through hers.
“So you’re just going to die?” Ron said, still staggering at Harry’s plan. “How’d
you suppose you’ll manage that? Are you going to kill yourself? Because I’m not
going to do it for you!”
“No, Ron. I’m going to do what every member of the Order can do at will. I’m
going to shut down my heart and lungs, and cease all brain activity.”
Ron’s eyes widened, but he nodded once, grimly. “Automatic suicide. I forgot
about that.”
During their training, Harry, Ron and Hermione had learned this at one of their
last sessions. Hermione had learned it from Nephthys, Ron from Drakkar, and Harry
from the elite group of ten who’d trained him.
If Order members were ever captured by the most elite of Dark Arts adepts,
precious secrets from the beginning of time could be divulged. Although all of them
 13. The Only One
had been in Dark hands over the years, Hermione more than the others, they were
usually strong enough to withstand regular torture.
However, if the situation was dire enough, they’d learned several ways to self-
destruct. The most complicated was the manner which Harry planned to use to follow
Hermione. In it, the Wizard or Witch in question simply willed their vital organs to
shut down, and expired. And that was that.
“Yeah,” Harry said. “I’m going to try and find her. This way, my body will be
exactly like hers... no signs of life, and yet no marks of death. Hopefully, I’ll end up
wherever she is.”
“So what am I supposed to do?”
“Ron, I need you to be my anchor. Somehow, you’ve got to keep me partially in
this world. Otherwise, I might not be able to bring Hermione back.”
“I get the feeling it’s not quite so simple as telepathy,” Ron observed.
“No, it’s more complicated. You’ll have to bind your soul to mine again...
through the Covenant.”
Ron balked. “But that was a triumvirate spell. Hermione broke away from it...”
“Yeah, she did, but we didn’t. If we reveal the binding cords,” with a quick
wave of his hand, Harry did that, revealing two twined strands of faint light – blue
and one green, “you’ll see that some of the residual magic is still there.”
Harry and Ron both looked from the light beams to Hermione’s still form.
“I hope it’s enough,” said Ron.
“It will have to be,” Harry said. “Otherwise, this is goodbye, Ron.”
Ron shook his head.
“I’m not going to say goodbye to you,” he replied quietly. “Either of you, Harry.
I’ll anchor you best as I can, but I want you to remember that I’ve got a wife who
needs a husband, and three boys who need their dad. And Harry, if you stay there
with her, you’ll be affecting all of them.”
Harry didn’t say anything. He brought his other hand up to stroke his wife’s
thick brown hair.
“Not to mention... what about your children, Harry?”
“The kids at DSG have Sirius and Carole, Remus and Jocelyn and Janet, and the
Linsenmayers...”
“No, Harry. I mean your children. Yours and Hermione’s. What about them? If
you stay, you’re letting them down. You’re denying them the chance ever to live.” He
smirked a little, attempting to lighten the mood. “Hell, you’re denying me the chance
to be their handsome, cool, and fun godfather.”
The corners of Harry’s mouth twitched upwards, but he didn’t say anything. He
was too busy studying the contours of Hermione’s face, as if to scan and memorize
before his search.
“I’ll do anything I can to bring her back, Ron.”
Ron glanced over his shoulder out the window. Dusk was starting to fall.
“Then what are you waiting for?”
 ~~~
She didn’t know there would be birds here.
The moment the snowy owl that had been circling her streaked off out of sight,
Hermione looked ahead of her... and saw several curious-looking birds waddling
towards a river in the distance. From a distance, a sound that was almost like the
onrush of many waters could be heard.
“Why, Grandmother, those are dodos!” she laughed.
Grandmother Helen smiled too. “Yes, I forgot there are none where you came
from. Rather odd sort of bird, I’ve always thought. But they’re harmless, and
sometimes make for good company.”
“Are there no other people here?”
“Of course there are,” Helen said. “In fact, we’ll meet up with a few who are
desperate to see you quite soon.”
Hermione did a three-hundred-and-sixty degree turn.
“There can’t be anyone around for miles,” she finally pronounced.
The cryptic little look returned to Grandmother’s face.
“They are all around you, Hermione. All you have to do is open your eyes. For
we see exactly what we wish to see...”
Hermione frowned, and blinked...
And soon she was looking into her own face.

~~~
Draco ran into his in-laws on their way back down the hall.
“Black, Lupin, and Granger’s father have arrived,” he announced shortly. “They
wish to see her before the Witches prepare her body for the ceremony.”
Molly shook her head. “We’ve just come from the room, dear. Ron said to give
them one minute.”
He frowned.
“One minute, Mrs. Weasley. That’s all that can be spared.”

~~~
There was a chair in the bedroom opposite the one Ron was sitting it, pulled
close to the cold fireplace.
With a flick of his wand, Ron ignited it.
“You might get cold,” he explained. Feeling helpless as he watched the blue and
green strands, roped from himself to Harry.
Harry nodded. Hermione’s body was cradled in his arms as he walked across the
 13. The Only One
room, from the bed to the chair.
He sat down with her.
Ron waited.
“There is no incantation. I’m simply going to try and find the telepathic link
I use whenever I talk to her inside our minds... and then, I’m just going to do it.”
Ron’s only answer was a curt nod. Still, he couldn’t help his eyes from filling
with tears.
“Good luck, mate.”
“Thanks. I’m going to need it. And Ron...”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t let anyone open that door until the twenty-five hours are up.”
“Right.”
“And Ron... if I’m not back by dawn, just go ahead and burn us together. Tell
them not to bother preparing all that stuff for me, as I never planned to have any of
that anyway. When we were in Gringotts last week, I changed my will so that she
gets everything. But there’s a clause as well which says that if something happens to
us both, then you and your entire family will be well provided for, especially the
children...”
“Harry,” Ron said, very quietly. “Just come back with her.”
He nodded.
Then he closed his eyes, and took one last breath.

~~~
“Mother,” Hermione breathed, sobbing happily into her mother’s cheek and
hair. “You’re here, you’re really here!”
“Of course I am, darling. Where else would I be?”
“Oh, Mother, there’s so much to tell you... it’s all starting to come back to me
now. I stayed in America, and I did so very well at the Centers, and I met the nicest
Muggle doctor named Jack...”
She trailed off, having had the briefest of flashbacks from the place she’d just
left.
“Is Jack here?”
Grandmother Helen placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Yes, he is.
Would you like to see him?”
All of a sudden, Hermione felt unsure. “Well... time enough for that, right? Isn’t
this the longest dream? But I’m glad of it, Mum, Grandmother... glad that I can stay
asleep long enough so that we can spend some time together. I wish I could stay here
forever, only... what’s wrong?”
For her mother and grandmother were looking at her with the saddest
expressions on their faces.
“Hermione,” her mother said gently. “Don’t you realize what has happened to
you? You’re...”
Helen stopped her daughter by holding up a silencing finger. “Caroline, you
must exercise care. You know the laws.”
Hermione looked from one to the other.
“Surely there are no rules in dreams, Grandmother?”
But then a rustling warm wind breezed by her right side, stirring her hair,
heralding new company. Hermione felt her spirits lift momentarily, and she turned
her head to greet their newest visitor.
She saw the flowing mane of dark red hair first. The woman was pale and tall,
with delicate features, curly red eyelashes, and the faintest dusting of freckles across
the bridge of her nose. But something about her ears... her slight smile...
And then Hermione saw the woman’s eyes.
“Welcome, Hermione,” Lily Potter said, taking her hands and kissing her cheek
quickly. “You’re everything I hoped you would be. But there isn’t much time left.
I desperately need your help.”
Hermione staggered back, as if Stunned. Her knees buckled...
Her mouth opened in a soundless scream as her mind fragmented.
“Dear me,” said Helen, watching Caroline and Lily rush to her granddaughter’s
side. “This is not good.”

~~~
Harry came to himself in a place that made Tartarus seem like a pleasant holiday
destination. He sat alone in pitch darkness, atop a rather squelchy mound of...
something he didn’t care to think of. The air was close and sticky, and he was having
a hard time breathing...
Only he didn’t need to breathe anymore.
His only source of light was an occasional flash of lightning. And what he saw
in those instantaneous flashes caused even his jaded spirit to recoil within him.
Webbed wings.
Phlegm-dripping teeth and jaws.
And a trillion faces, moaning with agony, surrounded his crumbling islet as their
bloodless hands reached upward...

~~~
The door splintered the moment the sun sank beneath the horizon.
And broke.
Draco reholstered his wand, and stepped aside so that Sirius Black, Remus
Lupin, and Ted Granger could walk into the room.
Ted staggered forward. Mouth gaped open.
 13. The Only One
Remus turned to Sirius. “Old friend, this isn’t the appropriate time for `I told
you sos’, but...”
Sirius nodded, jaw set, eyes blank. “You were right.” He placed a restraining
hand on Ted’s shoulder, not that the Muggle was moving much anyway.
Draco surveyed the scene. Hermione appeared very pale in Harry’s arms, and
even from the doorway, Draco could tell that Harry had either ceased to breathe or
had been Petrified. As for Ron, his eyes were staring sightlessly forward at his two
best friends, the pale green and blue helix that connected his chest to Harry’s
flickering ominously.
“If this doesn’t work, Lupin,” Draco asked, “what do you expect will happen?”
“First,” Lupin said slowly, shooting a sympathetic glance at Hermione’s father,
“it very likely won’t work. It’s been tried before without success. As it stands,
they’ve got until perhaps four or five tomorrow morning, and that’s assuming
Hermione cools more slowly than any other Witch in known history.”
Sirius walked over to the armchair which held Harry and Hermione. He placed a
hand on his godson’s neck, then drew back.
“Bad luck, Moony,” he said, looking exceedingly grim. “You’d better think of
something fast... because for all intents and purposes, Harry’s dead too.”

~~~
Maureen knocked on the open doorway. Quinn was cradled close to her in a
baby sling, sleeping soundly.
“Hey there. Can I come in?”
Ginny turned away from her loom, wiped her red and teary eyes, and nodded.
“Sure, I could use some company. Pull up a stool.”
The Canadian Witch did so, staring at the intricate scrolling pattern that had
been woven together by Ginny’s deft wandwork. “This looks lovely. Hermione
would be so pleased... how did you learn this craft? Very few Witches or Wizards can
weave a proper Death Shroud.”
She sighed. “Professor Flitwick taught me and some of my friends during the
war. They needed every hand they could get to make them in those days.” Ginny ran
a hand over the shroud. “I think Hermione would like it.”
“I’m sure somewhere she sees it, and knows how much everyone loves her,”
Maureen nodded. “Do... do you think I could help?”
Ginny nodded without looking. “Of course you can. Just watch what I do...”

~~~
The very fabric of Hermione’s otherworldly surroundings rippled as grief tore
through her mind and soul.
 For the moment she saw Lily Potter, she remembered everything. How could
she not? It was all there in her green eyes.
Harry’s eyes.
Her mother’s arms were thrown about her, cradling her so that Hermione felt as
if she was a newborn again. Lily had come to kneel in front of her. She took
Hermione’s hands up again and tried to reason with her.
“Hermione, I can only imagine what you...”
“No, you can’t!” she said hoarsely. “I promised him I would never leave him
again! Now Harry’s in trouble, I know he is! What happened? Is he still back in the
other life? Is he in his right mind? Oh, this is all my fault!”
“Lily,” Helen said. “Don’t say anything more until she calms down.”
“Helen, the situation is urgent. James and his father have already gone to see
what can be done. As it stands, I’m unsure they’ll be able to reach him in time...”
“James... your husband?” Hermione stammered. “As in Harry’s father? Where is
Harry?”
Before the other two women could stop her, Lily said, “He followed you, of
course, which means...”
“He’s here? Harry’s here? Then where is he? Why doesn’t he come to me?”
“He’s...”
“Lily, not another word,” said Helen firmly. “Do you want to lose her too?”
“If we can’t get my son out of there, Helen, I fear the worst. What will become
of her then?”
“All the same, Lily...”
She turned back to Hermione. “I promise that soon you will know all. But you
must pay attention to what I’ve got to say to you, and trust that we will do everything
we can to get him out of this.”
Hermione tried to take a deep, steadying breath... but in the afterlife, there is no
air.
Instead, she reached inside her mind... reached for peace...
Reached for Harry.
Darling, you are my other half. I can’t exist without you even in the afterlife.
Please be all right. For both of our sakes.

~~~
The mound of muck that Harry sat upon was nearly gone. The slimy human
hands closed in, grasping towards his direction...
He didn’t mind so much.
There was no way he could reach Hermione here. He understood that almost
from the instant he arrived.
Harry hadn’t suffered the same delusions as Hermione. His own death had been
deliberate, not a shock. He knew full well where he’d gone, and why he hadn’t
 13. The Only One
immediately been reunited with his wife upon arrival.
Suicides went to hell. Everyone knew that.
What he hoped was that hell was considerably closer to Paradise than the first
life. And perhaps, that there would be a devil to bargain with.
He’d sell his soul just to see Hermione one last time. To say the good-byes that
had been denied them. To ask her forgiveness for not being there to protect her from
harm yet again.
But there didn’t appear to be any devil around. There wasn’t any fire, either...
but it was so cold that the chill gave the sensation of a slow burn.
Although was this really skin he had? Harry touched his arm. It certainly felt
like an arm, but did one have such mundane things as arms and legs in the afterlife?
Then he wondered why he was thinking of such things at all...
Never mind.
Soon he would be one with the gripping, floating hands and faces.
Unless, of course, he figured something out first.

~~~
The room was filling up fast. Thankfully, it was rather large, so it was less
crowded than it could have been. Sirius, Remus, and Ted Granger surrounded Harry
and Hermione, being careful not to disturb the enigmatic light connecting Harry to
Ron. The rest all sat on the bed or stood around, keeping their own counsel or
speaking in low tones to each other.
Maureen, who’d left Ginny’s side at the commotion, had to be restrained so that
she would not go to her husband. Liz quickly took the baby away from her as Bill
and Charlie pulled her back.
“Let me go, you two,” Mo snapped. “I’m not going to do anything stupid.”
“If you do,” Bill said warningly, “we may lose all three of them.
Ron might be the only thing holding Harry to this world.”
“Yeah, obviously,” said Maureen, her starry dark eyes sweeping from her
husband, to his two dead best friends, to the rest of the Weasley siblings, then finally
to Ted Granger, Draco, Sirius, and Remus Lupin. “Just tell me this. If Harry’s gone
after Hermione somehow, and Ronald’s anchoring Harry, then what’s holding my
husband here?”
Sirius and Remus looked at each other.
Sirius tried to make an excuse. “He’s still got a pulse, Maureen.”
Remus was honest. “Didn’t think about Ron,” he admitted.
“None of you ever do,” she said shortly. “Which is what I’m here for, of
course.”
Mo disappeared into the restroom and came out with a cushioned dressing stool.
She placed it next to her husband and sat down.
“Ronald’s told me all about this Covenant. But explain this to me. What magic
is this exactly,” she asked Sirius and Remus, “that binds my husband to them even
after the Covenant was broken?”
“Ancient magic,” Remus replied. “Covenant binding is one of our oldest and
most sacred oaths. It is written that to break a Covenant spell is certain death, and
before Hermione, no one granted a seat at the Stone Table has ever tried to do so.”
“I remember red, green, and blue strands,” Mo said, referring to the fateful night
four years before. “I only see green and blue now.”
“The strands represent their souls. Hermione removed herself from the
Covenant; her strand was red. Your husband’s is blue, and Harry’s is green. Observe
how faint the green grows. But it is still there, which means some portion of Harry
can be pulled back into this world...”
Maureen held up a hand. She was shaking. “Just explain to me what my
husband was thinking when he did this.”
“Harry’s gone after Hermione. He thinks that he can somehow find her soul in
the afterlife and bring her back. All members of the Order are taught several different
ways of taking their own lives in cases of extreme duress. That is what Harry has
done.”
“So Harry’s dead now? What... what about my husband?”
“Your husband is all that holds Harry in this world. You must understand that
there are a thousand steps on the road between consciousness and the life beyond.
When one sleeps, one takes a few steps down that road. When one faints or is
drugged, one takes a few more steps. Harry is fully down that road... but Ron is
holding open a door of return for him with all his strength.”
“With all his strength, you say?” Mo took his hand in his. The strands flickered
dangerously...
“Be careful, Maureen!” Penelope snapped. For once, everyone agreed with her.
Mo ignored her. Instead, she spoke to her unconscious husband.
“Ronald, babe, you are not going to sacrifice yourself again for their sakes,” she
whispered. “If you want them back, I’m going to help you.”
Softly, she leaned into him... and dropped into unconsciousness.

~~~
Just as Harry thought all was lost, he was suddenly pulled upwards so that he
hovered a few feet above the sea of misery.
He looked upward at the murky grey sky.
“Thanks, Ron!”

~~~
Sirius’ eyebrows lifted.
 13. The Only One
“Harry’s got a pulse again.”
Fred looked from him, to Maureen, and over to his twin. “You mean to say that
whatever she did, actually worked?”
“It makes an odd sort of sense, Frederick,” Draco pointed out. “Marriage is
apparently a universal covenant. It stands to reason that Weasley is just as bound to
his wife as he is to Potter and Granger.”
“I have an idea,” Anya said suddenly. “I might be able to latch onto Maureen.”
Sirius seemed dubious. “Are the two of you under blood covenant?”
“No. But I’ve learned some things in my psychiaWizardry training and she is
my dearest friend. And then...”
“And then I could anchor you,” George said to her, then turned to his twin, “and
then me and Fred... and then, Fred and Angelina...”
Angelina shook her head. “No, because then it would end with me. From the
little I learned of ancient magic from my grandmother and sister’s Society, covenant
protection can also be invoked by blood. That’s why Diane felt bound to protect my
family.”
“Exactly my point,” Sirius said. “Mating is one bond that can be used in old
magic, and so can blood relationship. It was Lily’s blood that protected Harry, and
later Petunia’s...”
“Right. So if you’re going to try some sort of chain, then it might be more
powerful if we go from Fred to Percy, from Percy to Charlie, and from Charlie to
Bill... but then, that would end with Bill...”
“No, it wouldn’t,” said Madeleine. “If Ginny comes away from her weaving, it
could end with Malfoy.”
“It would indeed end at me,” Draco said, firmly, although Liz had been eyeing
him hopefully. He turned to Sirius and Remus. “Then what happens next?”
“Then you might try pulling Ginny toward you with your mind,” Remus
suggested, “as there’s a distinct possibility that you’ll still be conscious... and Ginny
would pull Bill...”
Bill nodded. “And I would pull Charlie, and so on...”
Anya said thoughtfully, “And since Maureen’s already attempting to pull Ron,
and Ron’s connected to Harry...”
No one completed the statement, until Ted Granger looked up hopefully.
“Is there... is there a chance for my daughter?”
Sirius ran his fingers through his hair.
“If there is,” he replied, “you couldn’t have picked a better crowd to work a
miracle.”

~~~
The four women were now walking towards a deep-hued forest that shadowed
the horizon, ankles sinking deep into blades of what appeared to be meadow grass.
Lily and Hermione walked together, followed closely by Helen and Caroline.
“This place looks familiar,” Hermione murmured to herself.
“That’s because you’re creating it in your mind,” Lily said.
Hermione shook her head. “How can I be creating it if you three are here with
me?”
“We’re still inside of your consciousness, poppet,” Helen said gently. “This
place exists on the threshold between the life you’ve left behind and the next one.”
“Mother came to meet me here when I first died,” Caroline said. “I saw her face
in the hospital room even as the first life faded away. It makes the transition much
easier...”
“But I didn’t see you when it first happened,” Hermione said. “I ended up in a
very dark and cold place where I couldn’t see, could barely walk...”
“Your death was unnatural, caused by murder,” Lily said. “James and I ended up
in the same place as you did when we were first killed. Our parents pulled us out of
there...”
“Then why can’t we get Harry out?” Hermione asked.
“Oh, Hermione...” Caroline began gently.
“The transitional place you found yourself in is not for murderers,” said Lily.
“Harry isn’t a... that! How can you say that about your own son?”
Lily shook her head slowly. “Hermione, allow me to begin by saying that most
of the living would be surprised to learn that there are consequences in the second
life for our actions in the first. But there is a catch, a catch that almost no religion or
belief system accounts for.
“You see, in the first life, we can never entirely be free agents.
We make many of our own choices, but we do not make those choices in a
vacuum. The choices of others very often affect the choices that are then available to
us. So in the first life, one can never be truly free.”
Hermione began to protest, then when she realized how true this was, remained
quiet.
“The second life is different. In the second life, everyone lives with the
consequences of the decisions that their own soul has made.
The choices that one has made in the first life lead to the life that one lives in
the second. A soul that murders itself is a soul that has willfully chosen oblivion.
However, the soul itself cannot be obliterated. The soul is the one part of us that
exists from life beyond death to life again. So you see, the one who murders himself
or herself faces a dilemma once they find themselves in the second life.”
“Harry’s committed suicide.” Hermione felt rather as if her heart were being
ripped from her chest. “But it wasn’t to obliterate himself! It was so he could be with
me...”
“Of course I understand that, dear. My own James, you know, Harry’s father,
made a similar sacrifice for my sake and his.”
“With all due respect...” here, Hermione trailed off, as she wasn’t sure about
how to address Harry’s mother, as Mrs. Potter or Mother (which seemed strange, as
 13. The Only One
her own mother was standing right there), or just plain Lily, “...it isn’t the same.”
Lily stopped short. So did the other women.
“Whatever do you mean? James and I sacrificed everything for Harry’s sake!”
“Yes, I know. You gave up your lives in order to spare his. I didn’t mean to
undermine what you did, Lily. I merely stated that it isn’t the same because it isn’t.
Harry isn’t your husband, and I’m not you. Your husband grew up as a pampered
prince of the Wizarding world, wanted and loved and adored. Your son grew up
unwanted and unloved until his eleventh birthday. You were so impossibly beautiful
and wonderful that your husband wanted to be with you from the start. But I began
my journey with Harry as his friend, not his lover... there wasn’t much to wonder
about where I was concerned, and it took time for him to see beauty in me.”
“James and I only had five years together before we came here,” Lily said
quietly.
“Yes. And Harry and I only had five months together before we came here. You
and your husband haven’t been apart since you were seventeen. I’ve spent nearly half
a lifetime away from mine.”
“I know, Hermione. We can’t see everything in the first lives of our loved ones
from here, but we can see enough.” She sighed. “I can’t help but think that if James
and I had lived longer...”
“If you and James had lived... but Lily, that’s so very difficult a scenario for me
to wrap my brain around. Harry’s entire life has been defined by your death.”
“I know it,” repeated Lily. “How well I know it. But Hermione... there is much
that you do not know, either.”
Hermione frowned. “What don’t I know? Harry’s committed suicide, and he’s
wherever suicides go, and we’ve got to get him back. Seems pretty logical to me...”
Caroline spoke up. “Logic? Dearest, what is logic?”
“Mum, logic is whatever’s reasonable, you know that. Causal relationships.
Following a law, a rule, a principle to its logical conclusion.” She blinked. “Okay.
What am I missing here?”
“The fact that although you have not yet fully passed on to the second life, you
are no longer in the first, dear heart,” Caroline replied. “You’ll know all about the
veil that exists between life and death that we spoke about not very long ago. But
Hermione... what is that veil?”
Could one catch a chill in the afterlife? Hermione blinked.
“What is the veil made of? Is it infinitely thin?” her mother continued. “If so,
then the veil is nothing, its flutter only a figment of the imagination. But we know
that the veil exists, Hermione... because we are all here, and it is here that the living
and the dead meet.”
“Why, that’s impossible, Mother. Either one is dead or one isn’t...”
But now Lily was circling her slowly, sizing up her son’s wife in a way that she
hadn’t since she’d come. Her green eyes were as intense as Harry’s could get when
he was trying to make a crucial point.
“Really, Hermione. I’d thought better of you. Consider this. Have you ever had
a dream that you were certain was real?”
Scotland. Georgia. Brazil.
“Y... yes.”
“That’s right. Now consider this. What if you were unable to wake from that
dream?”
“You don’t mean to say...”
“What if you were unable to wake from that dream, Hermione?” Lily repeated.
“What if you were unable to wake from that dream, Hermione?” Caroline asked
a third time.
Hermione looked from her mother to Lily Potter to her grandmother.
She wrapped her arms around herself to stop from trembling.
“How would you know, poppet,” asked Helen, “how could you know the
difference between what is real... and what is actually your dream?”

~~~
Above the pit of oblivion, Harry floated in the midst of nothingness. He knew
that somehow Ron had lifted him out of certain danger, but now he was stuck in
limbo. While he appreciated his friend’s gesture, he couldn’t very well get to
Hermione from this position... it felt as if invisible cords were pulling at his soul,
making him a marionette.
From this vantage point, he was afforded a view of the bleak muck.
As far as the eye could see in every direction, faces moaned and screamed, and
hands grasped and pushed and pulled. Sometimes, a face would disappear beneath
the murky surface of... of whatever they were floating in. Immediately a new face
and a new set of hands would fill in the gap.
Harry tried to remember a place quite like this one and failed. At first, he
thought that it reminded him of Tartarus. Then he revised his opinion of the matter.
Tartarus reminded him of this place... Tartarus had been a five-year old’s scribble of
the reality. A blueprint for hell.
It wasn’t anything like any conception of hell he’d ever heard of, read, or seen.
For one thing, not only was there no sign of a devil or Demons, there was nothing to
see other than undifferentiated faces and hands. This bothered him far more than
what he’d expected.
Perhaps pitchforks dripping blood and the stench of burning brimstone? At
least, that was what the mythology of his Muggle childhood had purported.
This place was so... impersonal.
He had a fleeting thought. What if Hermione’s down there? How will I ever find
her?
Before he could explore the thought further, he felt his puppet strings being
yanked even further up again.
 13. The Only One

~~~
Back in Bariloche, nearly a dozen Wizards and Witches (most of them red-
haired) were slumped around the second guest bedroom in varying states of
unconsciousness. For instance, although Ron was comatose, two links down the
chain of the mind, George Weasley was snoring in his sleep, his twin Fred’s head on
his shoulder. Angelina, along with Penelope and Liz, had left to look after the
children.
Several links removed from George, Ginny Weasley moaned as if she were
attempting to shake off an anesthetic potion. Draco, who held her, was all but awake,
and in spite of his heavy-lidded eyes was getting information from Sirius and Remus.
“Now, if you’ll try pulling with all your might... find your center, and...”
“What do you think I’m doing here, Lupin, fishing for lake trout?” He glared at
them despite his bleariness and general ill humor, concerned for his wife... and
keeping a close eye on the weakest link of the chain, Anya, who was nearly grey.
“Enough sarcasm, Malfoy. You’re wasting valuable concentration with your
nonsense,” Sirius snapped.
“Then don’t speak to me, Black, so that I won’t lose any of them.”
Meanwhile, Ted Granger was making himself useful by keeping a close eye on
the pulses of all concerned.
The door flew open. Arthur hovered in his chair. Behind him, Molly had placed
a clenched fist to her lips.
Remus went to the door, attempting to keep the peace. “Molly, let me explain...”
“You would risk all of them, Sirius?” she said as Arthur reached over his
shoulder and covered her plump hand with his thin one.
“Molly,” Remus continued, seeing that Sirius was all but ignoring her, “your
children aren’t children any longer, and well you know it.
Bill is nearly fifty, and all of the rest have children of their own. They are war
veterans all, quite used to this sort of thing, used to hard work and sacrifice... values
that you and Arthur taught them...”
“Sacrifice! Why must it always be my family that has to make the sacrifices?
Hermione is dead... this isn’t going to bring her back!”
The corner of Remus’ mouth quirked upward.
“You’d be surprised.”

~~~
“Hermione,” her mother began, “do you remember the phenomenon that you
told me all about when you first began researching the possibility of working at the
Centers?”
She considered. “I think so. SUNDS, yes?”
 “Right. Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal Death Syndrome.”
Hermione remembered the reports. From 1981 to 1990, over one hundred
twenty mysterious deaths were reported to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.
Healthy adult men, most of them Laotian-American immigrants, were dying in their
sleep. No medical cause of death could be determined. There was evidence that the
victims had struggled in violent nightmares before they died. Though the scientific
community did not settle on its own diagnosis, reports of what became known as
Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal Death Syndrome raised the unsettling possibility that
dreams could kill.
“What are dreams?” Hermione asked as they entered the forest.
“Practice for the second life,” Lily said.
“A locked room where the only object is your own mind,” Helen continued.
“The place where the veil flutters, the lie is revealed, and one can see what is
behind the fictions of the first life,” Caroline finished.
Hermione blinked, moving aside a low and limber branch of foliage that had
brushed against her face. “Fictions of the first life? What, are you saying that life is a
dream, and death is the reality?”
She laughed aloud at that ridiculous notion.
She stopped once she realized that she laughed alone.
“Oh, my goodness. That is what you have actually come to believe.”
Hermione looked at them all, trying to conceal her pity.
They looked even sadder.
“I watched you,” Lily began as they resumed their walk through the woods.
“I watched you from the time you came into my son’s life. I watched and I was
fascinated. I was so fascinated that I sought out your grandmother first, and then
when Caroline arrived, I was anxious to meet her...”
“If everyone in the afterlife exists in a mind prison of some sort,” Hermione
interrupted, “then why are any of you here?”
“Oh no, poppet, it isn’t a prison at all,” Helen said. “Rather, it is a room with
infinite possibilities, a locked room.”
“Locked room. Prison. Same difference, Nana Helen.”
“There is a difference, dear.” Caroline picked up her daughter’s hand and
clasped it tightly. “In a prison, you are detained against your own free will by a jailer.
In the second life, you are in a room of your own, but you hold the key.”
“Love is the key, Hermione,” Lily said softly. “Love meant that I couldn’t stay
in that room... love meant I had to stay by James’ side, and by his side keep watch
over the babe who’d been ripped away from my arms by unspeakable evil. Love
made your grandmother watch over Caroline and you, fearful about the consequences
of the choices she was led to make in the first life... fearful about what her choices
would mean for both of you. Love has caused Caroline, who could revel in the
pleasures of the second life, to return to the veil and seek you, if only just to see your
face a bit before the appointed time.
“There is only one truth in the second life, and that truth is this: love is all there
 13. The Only One
is, Hermione. And you loved my son from the beginning... not with a woman’s love,
of course, but at every stage of your life, you’ve given him everything that you had to
give.”
“You gave your life, Lily, and kept him safe even beyond the grave,” Hermione
replied. “Me, I’ve broken his heart. I promised your son that I would never leave
him, and look what happened.”
“You will keep that promise, because you are going to find him. A mother’s love
for her child is indeed great, but there are greater loves.”
“I can’t think you’re proposing that romance is greater than maternal affection,”
Hermione said. “People’s hearts and minds are fickle, and we often deceive ourselves
into thinking we want what we don’t want. You can’t say that I love Harry more than
my own dear mother when my actions have shown otherwise. And you can’t say that
I love Harry more than you love him, Lily...”
“She hasn’t yet attained the second life,” Helen told the others. “That much is
obvious.”
“Hermione, love is a key, not currency,” Caroline attempted to explain. “It isn’t
a question of how much or how little you possess...”
“But there is some sort of hierarchy.”
“There is,” agreed Lily. “Don’t you think that if I could reach Harry, if I could
have had him here by now, I would have?”
“Lily, you’re his mother.”
“And Hermione, you’re his One.” She shook her head, obviously trying to
remain patient, and Hermione admired the glorious coppery curls that the afterlife
had not dulled. “He couldn’t talk to me and his father face to face, of course, but
before he was a man, he realized you were and whispered it to us when he knew no
one else could hear...”
“But you’re his mother,” Hermione replied.
“Yes, but not his One. And I don’t want to be, quite frankly. That is unnatural
and unwise. I know what being the One means. No proper mother can fill those
shoes. I can’t be the one for Harry any more than James’ mother could be the one for
him.”
“One, Hermione. Think of what that implies,” implored her mother. “It’s
language you never used when you and I spoke about your first marriage. Neither did
Ronald tell us that you were the One. He just said that he loved you, and asked for
your hand.”
Her grandmother picked up the thread. “Being the One meant that you could
save his life when his shadow fell upon the veil while you were lost in Tartarus.
Being the one meant that Morgan le Fay, who had not allowed the uninitiated into her
realms in two thousand years, had to allow you access to Avalon.”
“I thought Sirius did that.”
“Sirius secured permission from her, but Morgan could not deny you.” Lily
stared into Hermione’s eyes. “Do you understand now? I saved my son once, when
he was a child. I cannot save him again. You have to understand.”
 A tear slipped down Hermione’s cheek.
“I’m trying, Lily. And I’ll try harder just for you.”
“You say that, but that’s not what you mean.” She grinned. “It’s okay. I know
you’re trying harder for him.”

~~~
Harry’s legs were dangling so far above the sea of oblivion that all he could see
of the faces and hands were pale dots and lines against the everlasting deep.
What in Tartarus... or wherever he was... were they doing up there?

~~~
Ted Granger’s head flew up from Anya Weasley’s chest.
“This one’s heartbeat... I don’t like what I hear,” he said. “To be certain, my
training isn’t in medicine, but I know when a patient is in danger of flatlining.”
Sirius rushed over to his side and began to shake her.
“Anya? Anya!”
Her eyes cracked open slowly.
Along the chain, the others were shocked back into consciousness.
Draco was fully alert within a second. Ginny shook her head a couple of times,
regaining her bearings. Bill, Charlie, and Percy broke off their light sleep. The twins
ceased snoring.
Maureen sat up and placed a hand to her head. “What’s wrong?”
Because something had gone very wrong. Ron’s eyes bulged open as his
heartbeat sped up again. He began to gasp down air as if it were water.
All this happened within thirty seconds. Before anyone could register what had
happened, before anyone could figure out how to reconnect and resume...
The mysterious, swirling green and blue light that had connected Ronald
Weasley to Harry Potter for fourteen years faded...
...and disappeared.
“Oh, no...” Maureen said, seeing her husband was too shocked to speak.

~~~
The women were nearly out of the forest when both Lily and Hermione stopped
short.
“Did you feel that?” Lily asked her.
Hermione nodded. “I wonder what’s happening?”
Both women picked up the skirts of their robes and began to run towards the
 13. The Only One
sound of the water before them.

~~~
Harry felt it when the invisible cords were loosened. This was because he
immediately plunged down, then sprang back up part of the way. The sensation was
not completely unlike flying.
Up and down... up and down...
And then he felt those cords snap, and hell came rushing upwards to meet him.

~~~
“Harry!” Ron yelled with all his might.
But he was back in the first life, and there was nothing more he could do.

~~~
“HARRY!” Hermione screamed in the lands of the veil, running to the edge of
the river, running until her ankles and legs and knees were soaked...

~~~
But it was not to be.
A second vortex split from the first. It swirled strategically below Harry, and
despite his valiant struggles, sucked him into it.
Hermione screamed and thrashed against the hands that now seemed to be
pulling her upward. She fought hard at first, but when Harry disappeared out of sight,
she was bereft.
She whooshed upwards and found herself on the opposite bank of the river.
Looking across, she couldn’t see Lily and James Potter at all...
“What are you looking for?”
Hermione looked down. A little girl, perhaps a year younger than Maury, was
tugging at her robes. She had masses of frizzy red hair, freckles, and when she spoke
Hermione could see her large front teeth...
She plunged to her knees.
“Veronica?”
In response, the four year old flung her arms around Hermione’s neck.
“Mummy!”
 ~~~
Harry found himself in a small round room that seemed to be made completely
of earth. If he hadn’t known better, he’d say that he was in an oubliette...
But whoever put oubliettes in the afterlife? Rather stupid idea, if you asked him.
Oubliettes were places to put people you wanted to forget. Stick in stasis. Keep in
limbo. The afterlife... well, you were either dead or you weren’t, right?
“Stand up, Potter.”
The voice was cool, sneering. Harry scrambled to his feet, rubbed his eyes
(right, how did his glasses get here?), and goggled.
“Professor Snape?”

~~~
Hermione learned that it was possible to cry in the afterlife... tears of joy.
“Mummy, did you forget all about me?”
“Oh, darling Veronica, I thought you were lost to me.”
And she held the daughter she’d never held, never seen before. As she felt the
little arms around her, she momentarily forgot her despair.
“I wasn’t sure how far along I was when I lost you... perhaps four months at
most. I didn’t believe... I never dreamed there was any place like this.”
“I’m so glad you’re here, Mummy! There’s someone who wants to see you!”
She looked up to find that Veronica was not alone on the riverbank that day.
With her was Jack Calhoun, who looked exactly as she’d remembered him.
“Jack...” She picked Veronica up and stumbled forward, unsure whether to
embrace him or cower with embarrassment. “Jack, I see you’ve met my daughter.”
He looked at the little girl. “Yes. You didn’t tell me about her.”
“I didn’t think to tell you about her, Jack.”
“You told me so little.”
She sighed. “Do you hate me?”
“There is no hate here, darlin’. I love you as much as I ever did.”
“But I caused your death by not being truthful about the Wizarding world. By
not breaking up with you when I was in love with someone else.”
Jack shrugged. “The second life rearranges our priorities. What we give all this
meaning to in the first life, a lot of it means nothing from our perspective here.
You’ve just got to realize what means most to you.”
She closed her eyes. “Jack, I do care for you. But I was never free to love you,
not the way that you wanted me to. You know that now.”
He nodded. “Yes, I do. And I understand. And it means next to nothing. In the
first life, Hermione, we see ourselves through a glass, darkly. Here there are no
secrets, no mysteries. Only wisdom and understanding.”
 13. The Only One
Hermione gazed up at her adorable little girl. “Even for her?”
“Even for her. The One Who Sees is both just and kind, Hermione... and in the
second life, everything that is wrong is made right.”
“Not everything, Jack. Everything is not right when Harry can’t get to this part
of the afterlife because of some trumped-up idea of false justice.”
Jack was shaking his head indulgently. “Whoever said that he can’t get over
here?”
“It’s not words, it’s actions! Someone, something is holding him so that he
can’t!”
“Oh, Hermione. Hermione. Even after everything you’ve seen, you still don’t
believe, do you?”
“Believe in what? God? Jack, come on! If God exists, shouldn’t I have seen
Him by now?”
“Hermione, this has been explained to you, but you do not wish to understand.
In the second life, we see what we wish to see, we experience what we choose to
experience.”
“Harry didn’t choose to be sucked up by some underwater tornado!”
“Mummy, there’s a story I’ve learned here,” said Veronica. “May I tell it to
you?”
Hermione sank down into the sand with her daughter. Jack followed suit and
Veronica began.
“Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Mary. This little girl lived in a
world where everything was black and white. Roses, trees, sunsets, rainbows... she
could see nothing but black and white.
The pictures in all her books were black and white. Her dollies were black and
white. She thought that she knew the world, but there was still much that she did not
know.
“Then one day, the little girl got a great big birthday present... a pair of new
glasses! She put on the glasses, and all of a sudden, she saw color for the first time
ever in her life. And it was all so beautiful that she began to cry...”
Hermione’s cheeks were wet. She dashed her tears away quickly.
“The moral of the story is this, Hermione,” said Jack. “Open your eyes, and you
will see.”
“My eyes are open.”
“Then you will always be blind.”

~~~
“You? Why you? Why not Dumbledore?”
Severus Snape’s lip curled upward. “Still just as self-important, Potter. Pity
death couldn’t cure you of that.”
“Where am I? What is this place? Where is Hermione?”
 Harry hadn’t noticed the chair. Snape moved over to it, sat down, and folded his
arms.
“Well?”
“You will see your wife when you are truly ready to see her. When you are, let
me know.”
A barrage of not-so-nice language emanated from Harry’s mouth. Snape held up
a tsk-ing finger.
“Now, now, Potter. We don’t have the Soaping Charm in the second life. How
I regretted that when I first heard, as I still had scores to settle with your father when
we met in the second life. Perhaps that is part of the reason why I was assigned this
thankless task.”
“My... my father? He’s here? Where is he?”
“Not here, quite obviously.” Snape regarded him. “Though you are still very
much his twin.”
“Thanks for the compliment,” Harry snapped back.
“I did not mean it as such.”
“No, you didn’t, did you? That would be expecting too much.”
Snape unfolded his arms. In one hand, he held a rather large hourglass.
“Three hours. That’s all the time you’ve got left before your wife slides
permanently into the second life. If I were you, I’d think quickly, because once she
has slipped fully beyond the veil, you will never see her again.”
“I’ll never stop searching for her.”
Snape sneered. “Precisely why you are here, and not there.”
“Why? Because I love my wife?”
“No, because you are still the same arrogant dolt that you were whilst scraping
your pathetic way through my Potions classes. Granger was right, Potter, you do act
the hero far too often for your own good.”
“Acting the hero isn’t exactly foreign to you, Snape. In spite of your excellent
attempts to convince us all otherwise, you are a decent human being. You saved our
school on Remembrance Day...”
“And I’ve seen your laughable attempts to immortalize me. It doesn’t make up
for everything that came before. My soul was damaged beyond repair long before
that insignificant gesture.”
“Insignificant? Don’t think so. You might be willing to trivialize it, but that
insignificant incident gave hope to the Order, and the tide turned at Hogwarts on that
day. What you did... I couldn’t have defeated Voldemort without you... doing what
you did.”
Snape glared at him for long moments.
“Give a dog a bone, Potter?”
“No, you dunderhead. Just giving an old mentor my sincere thanks.”
Snape held up a hand. “I cannot help you find Granger until you’re ready to see
her. So if this is an attempt to gain favor...”
“Tell you what,” said Harry slowly. “You said I’ll see my wife when I’m ready
 13. The Only One
to see her. How is that determined here?”
The old Potions master frowned as if he couldn’t believe Harry’s question. But
instead of drawling an insult as per usual, he seemed floored.
“Well?” Harry pressed.
“Patience, Potter. Though from your question, perhaps it can be ascertained that
you are not a lost cause.” He paused. “I told you. When you are ready to see her, just
let me know.”
Harry mirrored Snape’s frown. Surely it couldn’t all be that simple.
“Professor Snape, may I please see Hermione now?”
Snape stood to his feet.
“Follow me.”

~~~
“Will I get to see everyone?” Hermione asked Jack, cuddling Veronica close as
her daughter skipped stones across a glassy sea.
“Depends on who you mean by everyone.”
“Oh, there’s ever so many. Professor Dumbledore, for one, and I long to hug
that silly Hagrid, and of course I’d love a long chat with Minerva McGonagall as
well.”
“They are all anxious over your welfare, and have said they will see you later.”
“Even perhaps... well, Lenore tried to save me and Heath did the same with
Harry. Then there’s the matter of all my ancestresses... even those first two nutters.”
Jack handed Veronica another stone. “Hermione, it is important always to
remember that in the second life, we are allowed unfettered choices. You may choose
to see others or not, and they have that choice as well.”
“So what you’re saying is that Lenore and Heath and my ancestresses don’t
wish to see me.”
“Not at this time.”
Hermione lit up, mind reaching a logical conclusion. “Aha! I’ve found a
contradiction in that reasoning. If they don’t choose to see me, but I choose to see
them, then my choices are being inhibited by their unwillingness to make the same
one.”
“That’s first life thinking, darlin’.”
“Obviously `second life’ thinking as well,” Hermione said smugly.
“No, it isn’t, and I can prove it. Think about it. Do you really want to see Lenore
or Heath or your foremothers at this very moment?”
Hermione began to say yes, but found herself inexplicably unable to lie in this
place. Obviously, only the truth was allowed in the afterlife.
So she shook her head.
“Mummy, what’s wrong?” asked a concerned Veronica, watching Hermione’s
frown.
 Jack patted the little girl on the head.
“Your mother’s not used to being wrong, that’s all.”

~~~
“This afterlife’s nothing like I thought it would be,” said Harry thoughtfully,
following Snape into a desolate wilderness. There was nothing but cracked and dry
earth, making it seem like the surface of an alien planet.
“Potter, I hope you don’t think that is a particularly unusual or unique
observation. Quite the contrary. Everyone’s first encounter with the second life is that
sort of shock. Nothing is what it seems, and from this vantage point, most things in
the first life seem trivial.”
“Including your rivalry with my father, you mean?”
“There is little love lost between your father and me,” Snape snapped. “There is
no magic in the second life. However, because all things are revealed in this place,
James Potter and I can understand each other. It wasn’t until the second life that we
could see each other for what we were. In the first life, whenever I saw you, I saw
your father.”
“I know.”
“The first life is filled with such smoke and mirrors, lies and deception and
misunderstanding. One of the only regrets that we who have attained the second life
have... if there can be such a thing as regret here, which frankly there is not... is that
we cannot return to the first life and share the truths of what we have discovered in
the next.”
Harry considered this. “I thought that some have?”
“Yes, and they are martyred as dreamers and fools. Which is one of the many
reasons why return is nearly impossible.” He stopped in his tracks to consider his
former pupil. “You are not thinking of returning, are you?”
“I’m only thinking about Hermione,” Harry replied. “We’ll cross that bridge
when we get to it.”
“Very well, then,” said Snape. “It is quite encouraging to see that you have
given up many of your delusions of grandeur.”
Harry shook his head. Even after death, Snape was still Snape.

~~~
Jack was bidding goodbye to Hermione during a glorious sunset.
“Won’t you come and search for Harry with us?” she asked.
“No, I don’t think I will. I only wanted to see you once more, but I am sure we
will meet again whenever you do attain the second life.” He took her hand in his.
“Harry’s got himself a real prize in you. If you both would do me one favor...”
 13. The Only One
“Yes?”
“If somehow you don’t reach the second life right away, and you make it back,
could you two look in on my mother from time to time? Mama’s getting on in years,
which is one of the reasons why I’m staying close to the veil. But she always liked
you.”
“Of course, Jack, but even if the impossible could happen, I’m not sure it would
be appropriate for Harry to come along with me...”
“It will be fine. Mama knows that I’ve died, but she doesn’t know any of the
details. You’re still a young woman, so it would make sense that you’re not alone.
Just so long as I know she’s not alone, either.”
“She wouldn’t be. Not as long as I had anything to say about it.” She stood on
tiptoe and kissed his cheek. It felt exactly as it had in life. “Perhaps we’ll see you
sooner than we think, Jack.”
“Until next time, Hermione.”

~~~
Ginny passed the last strand through, her wand moving the shuttle effortlessly.
When she was done, she tossed her wand to the ground.
She’d chosen an unusual color for Hermione’s death shroud. Instead of the
traditional white or Hermione’s favorite blue, she’d used fiery red and orange tones.
Red for the cloth itself, and orange for the writing.
In the pattern, she’d told Hermione’s life story, speaking plainly about both the
good and the bad in the way of magic folk. She told of her birth to Muggle parents.
Of the life that she’d lived, an imperfect life, but one filled with the highest honours
and the deepest sorrows. Of her death, and of her legacy.
The last two lines on the shroud were from an old Muggle proverb that her
father loved.
Strength and honour are her clothing,
She shall rejoice in time to come.
“Wherever you are, Hermione,” Ginny whispered, sitting heavily back in her
chair as Anya and Maureen charmed the cloth out of the loom, “I hope you’re
rejoicing.”

~~~
Hermione held Veronica’s hand as they skirted the shore of the sea.
Veronica seemed perfectly happy, and Hermione’s mind was racing.
Long ago, in the first few happy months after their wedding, she and Ron had
decided on names for their eldest children after much deliberation. The eldest boy
would be called Ronald, and the eldest girl Veronica. At the time, Hermione wasn’t
completely certain she ever wanted to have children, but they were married and her
husband expected it. When she was twenty-three, Hermione did was expected.
By the time she’d learned she was pregnant, she already suspected that Ron had
been unfaithful. So she had been very ambivalent about the child. Combine that with
the fact she’d never been much of a child person, and she didn’t really make for the
most attentive or joyous mother-to-be...
Until she lost Veronica, that is.
One of the reasons she’d taken the Sterilization Potion in the first place was to
punish herself for what she’d done to her unborn child.
By ignoring Veronica’s existence, she’d proven that she was unfit for
motherhood.
She believed that until one night on the trail to Atlantis, when she still thought
she was pregnant. As the camp slept and they watched over their mates, they talked
about her first pregnancy.
“I have never asked you what you thought about it,” Hermione said. “When you
learned I was pregnant...”
“Of course I wished he or she was my child. You were having trouble with your
marriage, and I was mad in love with you. Natural reaction, I should think.”
“Perfectly natural. But Harry, what if the child had lived? Do you think Ron and
I would have stayed together?”
He had to consider this for a moment. “Well, there was still the matter of
Maury.”
“You’re right. I would have still divorced him.” She’d stared into his eyes.
“What would you have done if that child had lived?”
“I would have married you sooner rather than later, and been the best stepfather
in the Wizarding world, and your child would have been the eldest amongst our own.
Ron could have split custody with us, and eventually it would have worked out. It
isn’t as if this sort of thing never happens...”
“In soap operas.”
“In the real world.”
She had to shake her head at that notion. “Harry, only imagine the scandal that
would have caused in the press.”
“You know what? The problem is that people expect their heroes and heroines
to have these fairy-tale love affairs with happily ever after endings. Merlin forbid
there are any complications or thorny issues. When they see any of that, they’re
quick to slap the label `soap’ on it. They do that, love, because they want to escape
from their own lives into ours instead.”
Hermione had chortled at that. “Imagine anyone wanting to live our lives!
They’d be insane.”
“You’d be surprised. But when we public figures fall short of the demigod or
demigoddess status, you know, those who once adored us loathe us. That’s because
we’re not supposed to fall. We’re supposed to be perfect, of course. When we let on
that we’re not, it reminds them of their own imperfections.”
 13. The Only One
Veronica’s voice snapped Hermione back into the afterlife.
“Mummy? What are you thinking about?”
“I’m thinking about how sad I am that I wasn’t able to be with you,” she replied.
“Don’t be silly, Mummy, there’ll be lots of time for us,” she laughed.
“Still, to think of you being a wee babe and not in my arms hurts more than you
know.”
The little girl nodded. “I know. All the mothers feel that way. But there’s a place
for us, you know.”
Hermione marveled at this. “Really?”
“Yes, for all the babies lost before they can make their own memories and know
about love. Even if we didn’t have a first life, there is a place for us in the second. In
that place, Mummy, there are beautiful people who watch over us night and day.
They care for us and feed us, hold us and tell us stories... and when we are older,
there are so many places to play!”
Her eyes had filled with tears again. “Do you... do you have schooling there?”
“Oh, yes! We learn ever so much, Mummy. We learned that we are old enough,
we become the eyes and the hearts who watch over the first life. We get to protect all
the mummies, and the daddies too, and even sometimes our brothers and sisters. And
then when they come here to the second life, we meet them.”
Now, Hermione was the sort who always thought the concept of guardian angels
was rather cliché and outdated. But never in a million years had she considered what
actually happened to the millions of babies who died each year, no matter what the
cause, some given names, others nameless and forgotten by all except...
She was crying openly now, clutching her daughter close.
“You knew me. That’s how you knew me, Ronnie. You’ve been watching
already, even little as you are.”
“I’ll always watch over you, Mummy! You and Daddy, and my stepmum and
stepdad, and all my brothers and sisters...”
“But Veronica,” Hermione sniffed, “you haven’t got any sisters. Your father
only has sons, and as for me, you’re my only...”
Veronica had clapped her hands over her mouth. “Oops! Sorry, Mummy!”
A soft wind breezed by them, and Veronica was immediately contrite.
A tall man in pure white raiment appeared, his wings curving over his head.
“Time for your lessons, Veronica,” said the angel in a voice that seemed to be a
perfect chord.
“Aww,” whined the little girl. “But I was having so much fun with Mummy...”
“You’ll see your mother again, so give her a hug and kiss. And no more spoiling
surprises for her, okay?”
“Okay.” Veronica launched herself onto her mother and gave her a huge hug.
“I’ll see you again, Mummy. Kiss Daddy and everyone hello for me, and tell them
I will see them one day too.”
Hermione breathed her in, breathed the heavenly scent of her child. “But you’ll
be busy with your lessons. You’re already not my babe any longer. Who knows, the
way time works here, you might be a woman grown before we meet again...”
“Silly Mummy,” Veronica laughed. “I’ll always be your baby. Forever and
ever.”
Before Hermione could say anything else, Veronica skipped into a twirl... and
with a twinkle, disappeared.
The angel then turned to Hermione.
“Did you not know? You are here before your appointed time.”
Hermione was still staring at the space that had moments before held her
daughter. “Is that even possible?”
“It does occur more often than one would think,” said the angel.
“Then can I see my husband? Please... I’m the only reason why he’s here, so if
it’s not my appointed time, it isn’t his either.”
“Of course you may. However, I must return to my young charges. Someone
will be here shortly to lead you the rest of the way. But what you must do, you must
do quickly and without hesitation. There are laws that we cannot change even in the
second life.”
The angel reached out a glowing hand and touched the side of Hermione’s face.
In spite of herself, she bowed her head.
“For you, seeing is believing. Blessed is she who does not see, and yet
believes.”

~~~
Only Ginny remained in the room now, the shrouds draped across her lap.
For Harry, there was only a plain white one. There hadn’t been time to weave
anything more elaborate for him; as it was, it was a testament to her skill that they’d
even finished a second one in the time allotted.
She couldn’t believe this was happening. Of course, they’d lived through a war,
but during wartime, one expected to bury loved ones and to mourn. Not during
peacetime, and not over something so very trivial...
A Squib with a grudge?
Why did it seem as if the foolish things of the world prevailed over the mighty
and the wise?
Knocking on the open door. She turned around and saw her husband.
“Everything ready?”
“All save for Granger and Potter. Your brother’s still in the room with them.”
Ginny nodded.
“We looked in on him a few minutes ago. He asked about you.”
“As in?”
“That you might want a moment yourself.”
She shrugged. “What for? It isn’t as if I’m going to step across the threshold and
they’re going to resurrect.”
 13. The Only One
Draco didn’t say anything.
“They’re gone. Nothing we can do or say is going to change that. But oh,
Draco... all day and all through this night, I’ve been hearing her voice. As I wove for
her, I heard her admonishing me to mind where I let the shuttle fly, and then I heard
her tell me all about how to cure obscure loom injuries, of all things! And then
I heard her laugh, and I had to stop weaving, and just here...” she indicated a small
imperfection in the cloth that no one else besides her would likely notice, “I wasn’t
sure I’d be able to finish.”
“Now, as for him... I haven’t heard him, but I’ve seen him. I’ve seen him swoop
down to the ground and jump off his broom as if he’s just had the best time up in the
air... because you know, that’s the only time he’s truly happy. I closed my eyes as
I cut this down,” she held up the white shroud, “and I saw him pick up Hazel last
Christmas, when he was so worried about her even while he was with poor Lenore...
but he picked up our child, and chatted with her as if he were a year old all over
again!
“And I’m thinking about our daughter, Draco, and the fact that she isn’t going to
know them... she’ll just know our stories and what’s in the history books. But she
won’t know how wonderful they were, what good friends they were to us... that they
were real...”
She broke down crying. Draco shut his eyes. Wanting to comfort her, trying to
break through years of conditioning in that regard, trying to deal with his own anger
and frustration and grief.
He’d begun by hating Granger for what he thought she was, and ended by
genuinely liking her for the Witch he’d come to know.
He’d begun as Potter’s archnemesis, and ended up as his friend.
Friends were too few and far between in Draco’s life to lose.
“Come and I’ll take you upstairs,” he told his wife. “Bring the shrouds.”

~~~
Harry noticed that Snape still carried the hourglass as they continued to traverse
the bleak landscape. He hadn’t paid much attention; now, he was acutely aware of the
trickle of sand.
“Not much time left, is there?”
“In the first life, no. Here, we have nothing but time.”
“So it doesn’t matter when we find Hermione, then? It just matters if we want to
try to come back to life?”
Snape stopped, and stared, and shook his head.
“Delusions of grandeur still intact, are they? I suppose I spoke too soon.”
Harry couldn’t fully suppress a groan. “You said there’s not enough time left in
the first life, but the second life has nothing but time.”
“I did not, Potter. Clean out your ears. What I said was that here we have
nothing but time.”
“Here? Well, here’s the second life, isn’t it?”
Snape stared at Harry again.
“Come, Potter, you can’t possibly be that stupid.”
“You know, Snape, I really don’t have time for your insults! Either explain what
you mean, or shut up and lead me to Hermione!”
Snape didn’t stop staring. “Potter, after being the hero of two Wizarding wars,
surely you can’t tell me that you don’t know what happened when a Wizard dies? Or
were all your results as trumped-up and forged as I always suspected?”
“Never mind.”
“Twenty-five hours is the time of the veil. For most kinds of death, that is... this
is why the Killing Curse was forbidden, because it shortens the time and hastens
bodily death. Twenty-five hours... but most do not linger within those hours the way
you and your know-it-all wife are doing. Most do not cling to life, but slip into the
second life willingly or not.”
“So...” Harry stammered, “so Hermione and me aren’t dead?”
“You are dead there. However, you have not begun your life here.” There was
only about a Snidget’s worth of sand in the huge hourglass. “Yet.”
Harry glanced from the hourglass to Snape, and then broke into a run.
“Hermione! Where the bloody hell are you?”

~~~
The angel had flown away, and with him, all the light in Hermione’s world had
been extinguished.
Whispers, voices, breath surrounded them. Yet all was dark, save for the single
light in a feminine cupped hand. This bluebell one hovered a finger’s width above
her palm.
She’d always had a knack for flames herself...
“Where are we?”
“In the beginning. It is always dark... in the beginning.”
Hermione’s eyes stared into the heart of the fire. She knew that voice.
The glow brightened, illuminating both women’s faces.
It was her ancestress Delilah.
“One single flame,” she said, “is all that I have left.”
“Of the years you spent fused to your sister?”
“No, Hermione. It is all I have left of him, of his gift to me.”
Hermione knew exactly who her foremother was referring to... her immortal
love who could never attain the second life, lost to her forever.
“Does that make you sad?”
“It does and it does not. For there is no lack in the second life, and there is an
eternity for us to be reunited again. In the fullness of time, what is impossible in the
 13. The Only One
first life is possible in the life to come. In eternity, all things are possible.” She
sighed. “You still not have forgiven me.”
“Yes, I have. What’s more, I understand you.”
“Do you?”
“Of course. You are the first of the line. I am the last. Put simply, given the same
set of circumstances, you would have made my choices. And given the same set of
circumstances, I would have made yours. We are the same, you and I. You showed
me that in all those dreams... quite fascinating, by the way.”
“Thank you. I expected your judgment.”
“Knowledge leads to wisdom, and wisdom leads to understanding. Those who
are quick to judge lack understanding.”
Delilah looked at her tenderly. “My daughter, you have grown wise.”
“No, I was born wise. Good genes, you see.”
“You are not smarter than your foremother, cheeky girl. I look into your eyes,
and I understand you do not think that an Old Witch such as myself knows what
genes are.” She smiled. “I wish for my genes to continue. Great though you are, I am
thinking that my line should not end with you. Therefore, I give you one final gift.”
She placed the miniscule flame into Hermione’s hand.
“What is this?”
“Your future.”

~~~
Harry ran as fast as he could, streaking over the bone-dry landscape.
“Hermione! We’ve got to go!”

~~~
Ron glanced from his best friends to the clock.
Four-thirty in the morning.
Fifteen more minutes.

~~~
The light in Hermione’s hand grew brighter and brighter until it lit her world
again.
They were now standing at the edge of a great cliff, Hermione and Delilah side
by side. The drop below and the cliff opposite was many, many times the size of the
Grand Canyon... Hermione wondered if somehow they’d made it to one of the
superlative fissures on Mars.
 No, that was ridiculous.
“Your husband is just over there.”
Delilah pointed across the canyon.

~~~
Harry would have fallen off the cliff. He was running at such a brisk pace, and
his momentum wasn’t allowing for optimal braking.
But a hand grabbed him by the collar, and kept him from tumbling off the side.
A long-boned, be-ringed hand.
Harry turned around.
“Dumbledore!”

~~~
“Where is he? I can’t see him?” Hermione placed a hand over her eyes. The best
she could do at this distance was to make out the fact that there was a corresponding
cliff on the other side.
She turned to Delilah.
“What happens next?”
“It is very simple. You and Harry chose different paths into the afterlife. Your
path ends here, and his ends over there. Between the two of you, there is a great gulf
fixed. You must find a way to span the gap.”
Hermione peeked over the side and had a terrible case of vertigo. “What
happens if I fall?”
“If you fall, you will have to dust yourself off and try again.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound that bad...”
“Not until I tell you how long it takes to climb back up and start over.”
She blinked. “How long does it take?”
“No one knows.”
“Why doesn’t anyone know?”
“Because no one has ever succeeded. They try, they fall... they are no longer in
the second life, and if they’d returned to the first, someone would have heard about
such a thing.”
Hermione sat down, thinking. Perhaps a bridge would work... but what was she
to make a bridge of? She could possibly get back to one of those forests, but if people
didn’t use magic the same way here, how could it work? What feat of engineering
would it take to build such a bridge? It would likely take all eternity for it to work.
Her thoughts grew more wild and frenzied. Could she convince that angel to
come back and fly her over?
“Come now, daughter,” laughed Delilah, obviously eavesdropping on her
 13. The Only One
thoughts. “That is too easy.”
She screeched her frustration.

~~~
Ten minutes left.
There was a knock on the door.
“Ron? Ron, it’s Ginny. Draco’s with me.”
Ron stared at Harry and Hermione’s lifeless bodies.
“Gin, give me five more minutes.”
“Ron!”
“Five minutes, Gin,” he said impatiently. “Five minutes, and then I’ll do
whatever you want.”

~~~
Harry looked up into the face of the man who’d been mentor, father figure, and
role model for all of his Wizarding life, waited to hear the words he’d longed to hear
after the war, after every success since then...
“I’m proud of you, Harry.”
Harry swallowed the lump in his throat. “There’s so much...”
“I know. But there isn’t time. There will be someday. We’ll talk it all over, and
take our time. So we will neither say hello nor goodbye, but only help you solve this
puzzle so that you can get on with the work you were placed in the first life to do.”
He nodded. “Where is Hermione?”
“If I were to say she’s waiting for you on the other side, what would you say?”
Harry considered this. “I’d try to think the way she does. If she’s over there,
she’s probably trying to figure out how to get to me, right?”
“Right.”
“So the only question I’ve got for you is this... is she over there, Dumbledore?”

~~~
“The answer is right in front of your eyes.”
Hermione nodded. “I know. I’m trying, but I just can’t see it. I can’t hear him in
my head. It’s a leap of faith to even think he’s over there, but I trust you.” She rested
her chin in her hands. “Obviously, I can’t build a bridge out of thin air. Can I get
around it?”
“Unfortunately not. The gulf is infinitely long in either direction.”
“A perfect line. Of course. So there must be a way over it, or it would be
impossible.”
Delilah came to stand next to her, staring across the gap.
“Improbable, perhaps. Perhaps not impossible.”
Hermione turned around and came face to face with Lily Potter again.
“We haven’t much time, Delilah,” she said. Then she turned to her daughter-in-
law.
“Think, Hermione. I can’t give you the answer, but you don’t need me to.
Knowing you, you don’t want me to. The answer is right in front of you. You know
exactly what you’ve got to do.”
“What do you mean, I know what I’ve got to do? What about what you and your
husband said about intellect, about its worth...”
She stopped short.
“Hermione. You know.”
And in that moment, she did.

~~~
The knock sounded again. This time, Ron got up and answered the door.
Draco and Ginny stood in the hallway, Ginny with the shrouds in her hand.
They did not speak, or even look at each other.
Ron moved aside.

~~~
“Dumbledore, just tell me. Is she over there?”
“Yes, Harry. She’s there.”
Harry didn’t hesitate. He gave himself a running start...
...and jumped.

~~~
Without another look at the two women standing behind her, Hermione gathered
her skirts in her hands...
...and jumped.

~~~
They met in the middle of the air. Or rather, they both knocked each other out of
the air, coming together at a velocity that would have killed them in the first life. As
 13. The Only One
it was, the wind was knocked out of them both, as they plummeted downward...
But just as across wasn’t nearly as wide as it had seemed, down wasn’t quite as
far either.
The only problem was that the ground was extremely hard. Harry managed to
break most of Hermione’s fall, but they both took a moment to recover.
“Ouch, that hurt,” was the first thing Hermione said.
“Yeah, won’t be trying that again any time soon.”
They scrambled to a sitting position, grasping for each other’s hands...
“Wait a minute,” said Harry. “I just came from here.”
For they were back in the oubliette where he’d talked to Snape. Now there was
no Snape, only an hourglass with a few grains of sand left at the top.
Behind Snape’s chair, there was a doorway... and at the end of the doorway,
fading light.
“Think you can help me out here?” Harry asked her.
“Right. Well, if we hurry and run down that hallway, we might be able to make
it back into the first life... although I can’t quite figure out how that works, because if
you think about it, it should be impossible to go backward...”
“Explain it later, beautiful, please. So if we run out of time...”
“Then we stay here, I think. But the light at the end of the tunnel... you said
you’ve been here before, right? Did you come from that way?”
“Can’t remember... yeah, I did.”
“So if we go back that way, it might lead back to our bodies, but then again, it
might not...”
Next to them, the sand in the hourglass kept running... running...

~~~
Ginny placed the shrouds on the bed. Draco unsheathed his wand and looked at
Ron, who hesitated for one more moment...

~~~
“Hermione, love, we haven’t got time... the hourglass...”
“Oh, Harry, sod the hourglass... the hourglass... that’s it!”
He saw what she was aiming for.
They both had a hand on the hourglass when it fell to the oubliette floor...
...and shattered...

~~~
 ...and just as Draco and Ron were about to cast to separate them, to wind them
up in the mantle of death, Harry took a deep breath and opened his eyes. He looked
down at the lace nightgown-clad bundle on his lap, and still heavy-lidded, pressed a
soft kiss upon her lips.
At the kiss, Hermione stirred, and with a blink of her eyes, was fully awake.
“What time is it?” she murmured, trying to gain her bearings.
Draco, for the first time in his life, dropped his wand. His grey eyes were wide.
Meanwhile, Ginny had plopped down on the bed, gathering up both of the shrouds,
and sobbing into them.
Ron walked over to greet his two best friends, tears standing in his blue eyes.
“Blimey, what took you two so long?”
 A/N: This was a very ambitious chapter, one that I couldn’t have
written without seeing a movie that was extremely cathartic for me after
my father’s death, What Dreams May Come. The scriptwriting was
absolutely terrible, and I didn’t like the idea of people changing their
appearance at will after death (just struck a wrong chord with me), but
the basic premises were fascinating and the visuals were second to none.
Another book that helped a great deal was The Matrix and
Philosophy, edited by William Irwin. Just as the LOTR trilogy speaks to
the history of Western Europe, the Matrix trilogy speaks (however
awkwardly) to existential and ontological questions that are essential to
human civilization. The first Matrix movie is one of my top ten favorites
of all time, so please forgive me if at times the women speak in the voice
of Morpheus or the Oracle!
Speaking of which, the sum total of the above does not equal my
personal beliefs about the afterlife. I won’t get into my faith, as I’ve
largely kept it out of the Paraverse, but suffice to say that I believe this
life is only a foretaste of what is to come. I believe that describing
heaven to our mortal flesh is a bit like trying to explain the Internet or
rocket flight to, say, an ant.
As for the resurrection of the dead... in the words of psalmist David
Teems:
There is so much we’ve dared to uncover, Still only one thing
I dare to believe...
Well, as I’ve said, I’ll keep what I believe out of this.
Other influences included the Kevin Costner movie Dragonfly and
Amel Larrieux’s 2002 wedding ballad “Make Me Whole”. All of the
lyrics of the latter pretty much express the depth of what Hermione feels
about Harry even in the afterlife...
If there’s one thing that’s true –
It’s that I was born to love you.
It’s as simple as that.
One more chapter to go... keep reading...
– eet, 8/13/2004, 1:11 a.m. EST

Chapter Summary:
Dedicated to all those who have found everlasting happiness... and
to those of us who are still “waiting in the wings”.
Also dedicated to Pippin, the best beta-reader in the universe, and
my daughter-of-the-heart Jana. Couldn’t have done this without you, my
dear...
aaaaaaaa
 14. Forever

“Everybody’s got opinions

`Bout the way they think our story’s
gonna end... Some folks feel it’s just a
superficial thrill, Everybody’s going to
have to think again.”
– Anita Baker, “Giving You the Best
That I’ve Got”

Tuesday, February 26, 2013.

Studio A, Wizarding Wireless Network, London.

A t the beginning of the twenty-first century, Wizarding “green rooms”

were little different than Muggle ones. To be certain, the magazines
were Witch Weekly and Quidditch Digest rather than Heat and GQ. The
sweets were from Honeydukes rather than from Cadbury and Nestle. Yet the
concept and function were the same.
On the fifteenth of March, the Potters were sitting in the green room
adjacent to the Ministry’s WWN studio. Ignoring the sweets and magazines and
other creature comforts. Just relaxing and going through what they were going
to say as the hair stylist finished taming Hermione’s hair into sleek submission,
and Harry ducked away from the makeup artist’s powder brush.
There was a bit of laughter in Hermione’s thoughts. Stop squirming.
You could be Mirabella Facial Potions’ newest spokesmodel.
Ha, ha. You’re full of humor this morning. Are you that nervous?
Not nervous. I’m just impatient, knackered, and ready to go home.
You and me both.
Since their shared near-death experience, Harry and Hermione had been
communicating mostly telepathically. It would take some time before they
would feel comfortable talking audibly while in the presence of other people.
Although they were sitting across the room from each other, they could tune
others out and plunge deeply into their shared consciousness.
In those first few weeks, their minds needed to touch and fuse just as often
as their bodies did.
It had been ten days since the Potters had left South America. After leaving
Charlie’s, they had not rushed home immediately. They’d gone with Ron to the
Confederation offices in Buenos Aires and turned themselves in. Their release
was immediate when the local authorities saw the evidence they’d gathered, and
owled Tir Na N’Og.
 The South American authorities were informed to ask Harry, Ron, and
Hermione to appear before the International Tribunal for questioning on the
twentieth of February.
Harry and Hermione had said goodbye to Ron, then spent a few days in the
United States before heading towards Confed headquarters in the Irish Sea.
Their first stop was the home of Jack’s mother, who was perfectly gracious
towards them, showing them the hospitality that only a Southern woman of good
breeding can.
Next, they headed to Atlanta. Hermione didn’t bother setting foot in the
CDC, but she checked on her house. Since her friends were purchasing a condo,
she employed a young woman whose parents stayed in the neighborhood as
caretaker. Then they headed to Boston, and spent the day with Darice and her
parents before taking an evening flight back over the Atlantic.
After standing before the Tribunal, they’d spent the week since then in and
around London. They’d spent each afternoon and evening at the home of a
different friend, but soon this grew tiring as everyone began showing up no
matter where they were. Still, they didn’t complain or go off to themselves just
yet... they knew after everything that had happened, the ones that knew them
and loved them best needed reassurance that the crisis was really over... and they
were really okay.
Harry and Hermione were used to delaying gratification. So although each
one’s first impulse after coming back to life was to grab the other and head for
the underside of the nearest rock, they didn’t take that luxury. Because after the
Wizarding ceremony later that spring, they didn’t expect to have any company
on Ayr until the winter holidays, with the exception of Ron and his family
sometime that autumn after their home was finished.
Which suited them just fine.

A tall, pinched-faced Witch poked her head through the door.

“Professor Potter... Dr. Granger... the press is waiting.”
Another decision that Harry and Hermione had made upon their return to
England was not to announce their marriage to the press or anyone other than
the friends they could trust to be close-mouthed about their affairs. Neither was
looking forward to being in the public spotlight again, or having their personal
life return to fodder for the mealtime conversations of complete strangers.
So it was a very subdued pair who emerged from the back room to the
noise of the bloodthirsty press and the flash of camera bulbs.
How long do you think this is going to last? Harry asked her.
Not too long, I hope. Don’t worry, I’ll do most of the talking.
Don’t answer any question you don’t want to answer, love. You’re being
more than gracious even giving this interview, considering how the press has
been trashing you since you were gone.
They sat down in the two seats provided. Hermione placed the folder she had been carrying
 14. Forever
down on the table. Harry leaned back comfortably in his chair, held up a hand, and then
nodded at Hermione.
“First, we would like to thank you very much for coming today,” she said.
“Let me begin by reading a brief general statement, and then we’ll take
questions.”
Hermione opened her folder and extracted a sheet of lined parchment from
it, then closed it again and began to read a statement that was neither brief nor
general.
She first gave a brief history of the Cabalistica, which most ordinary people
had never even heard of. She told about Voldemort, then Hecate Quirke, Diane
Johnson, and Sebastian Borgin... and their organized decades-long programme
of terror. She explained how the Muggle storming of Hogwarts fit into that
program, along with the scapegoating of Muggleborn Witches and Wizards.
“The final phase of this terror was a plan to purge the Wizarding world of
all Muggle taint,” she explained. “The Cabalistica devised a fatal virus that they
planned to use to create a worldwide pandemic. Judging from everything I have
seen and read, they nearly succeeded in committing genocide... but thanks to the
efforts of Dr. Simon Branford of the Malfosoft MediWizarding Research
Institute, those plans have been averted.
“On behalf of Harry and myself, we thank both the International
Confederation and the British Ministry of Magic for dropping all charges against
us and our dearest friend, Ronald Weasley, who is spending some time with his
wife’s family in Canada and could not be with us today. We hope that as the
facts of the matter begin to come to light, we will be just as fully exonerated in
the court of public opinion.”
Hermione let the parchment fall to the table.
“We’ll take your questions now,” Harry said. Only Hermione could detect
the note of reluctance in his voice.
Most of the several dozen journalists in the room clamored forward.
Angelina stood at the back of the room, chattering with Tirzah Levin. She
caught Hermione’s eye and shook her head.
Hermione acknowledged a sandy-haired Witch whom she recognized as the
new news editor for the Daily Prophet. “Therese?”
“Dr. Granger, save for a brief September 2012 appearance in Diagon Alley,
you have been noticeably absent from the Wizarding world since your divorce
from Ronald Weasley. Where have you been for the past four years?”
“That’s a fair question. After the divorce, I accepted a position with the
Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia. I have Muggle relatives in the
United States, and at the time, the press over the matter was simply unbearable.
Living in America provided the catharsis I needed to move on with my life.” She
nodded. “Therese, you had something else to ask?”
“If you would, Dr. Granger... did you ever intend to return to the Wizarding
world?”

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Paradise Lost 4
“I believe I always intended to return eventually. You know, those of you
who have studied psychiaWizardry understand that a very natural response to
adversity is `fight or flight’. I had been fighting ever since I learned I was a
Witch... for acceptance because I was Muggleborn, at Harry’s side to defeat
Voldemort, alongside Neville to solve the puzzle of the Sponge and to improve
the quality of Wizarding life. Somewhere along the way, I realized that I’d
grown weary of fighting. I wanted a quieter life, and that’s not something I could
have here in Britain.”
Beneath the table, Harry’s leg brushed hers reassuringly.
“I hope that answers your question.”
“It does, Dr. Granger. Thank you.”
Harry nodded. “Yes, Alastair?”
“Thank you, Professor Potter. My question is for you. I’d like to talk about
the press conference that took place in Brazil in December. According to
Joseane Jobim, the Brazilian Minister of Magic, you were granted political
amnesty in her country. Please explain how you both came to be under the
protection of the Brazilian magical authorities, and explain why Jobim would
make this choice before you were cleared of charges.”
He considered the question for a moment before answering, then plunged
in. “Hermione was kidnapped by the Cabalistica shortly after her Diagon Alley
appearance last year. She ended up in a containment facility in Brazil. Ronald
Weasley and I went to Brazil in order to find her. We met up with Joseane, and
she believed us rather than the allegations. Plain as that.”
“Rumor had it that Dr. Granger lost all of her magical ability during that
time.”
“Don’t believe everything you hear,” Harry replied. In his head, he could
hear Hermione’s warm laughter, although she remained completely straight-
faced.
“Nigella, your turn,” Hermione said.
“Dr. Granger, I’d like to return to your tenure at the Center for Disease
Control. Records show that you were employed there from September 2009 until
September 2012, exactly three years. During that time, you began a close
friendship with one of the directors, Dr. Jack Calhoun, that developed into a
dating relationship. However, Jack disappeared without a trace in December
shortly before the Brazilian press conference. Is there a connection between the
two events?”
You don’t have to answer this, Harry’s voice said inside her head.
“Jack Calhoun was murdered by the Cabalistica,” Hermione said, trying to stop the tears
from filling her eyes. She explained quietly what had happened. “He was a Muggle, yes, but
he was a good man who accepted me into his life without questions. The allegations against
me on his account were infuriating. Jack did not know that I was a Witch until moments
before he was killed.”
There was some commotion over this, as it contradicted the story everyone
had been told over the past year. Owls went flying out of the windows. Quick-
- 44 -
 14. Forever
Quotes Quills, along with more modest writing implements, scratched against
parchment.
To change the topic, Harry pointed at one of the few journalists he’d always
liked. Tirzah and Angelina had joined the fray, making their way to the front.
Harry called on Tirzah.
“Dr. Granger, did you have anything to do with the miraculous Zotanos, the
new cure for the descolada virus?”
“I don’t want to take full credit for it,” Hermione said, pulling herself
together again. “Simon Branford and I came up with the same conclusions,
working independently. If the trumped-up charges and circumstances had not
detained me in Brazil, I am certain that the cure could have been found that
much sooner.” She then smiled at her old friend and housemate. “Angelina?”
“Dr. Granger, Professor Potter,” Angelina said, quite formally although
there was a slight smile on her face, “is it true that many magical governments
have been infiltrated?”
“It’s very true,” Harry replied, thankful for the lead-in. One could always
count on a Weasley to cut through and get to the point. Here goes nothing,
Hermione, he thought.
Hermione nodded. “We have evidence of corruption within our own
government.” She opened her folder again, and pulled out an envelope. She then
gave it to Harry, who held it out so that the cameras could take pictures of it.
“Within this envelope,” Harry said, waving it, “is extensive proof that our
own Minister of Magic, Brian Riordan, has a long history of involvement with
the Cabalistica. Furthermore, we have Pensieve records elsewhere of the
Minister himself ordering Hermione’s assassination.”
The press conference exploded with that information as every hand shot up
and everyone began talking at once. It took quite a while before everyone
calmed down, and quite a bit longer before Harry and Hermione could explain
about Cameron Sinistra. Of course, they amended the ending of the tale a bit,
only saying that the crisis was averted and that Cameron was killed in self-
defense.
“Of course, we expect to press charges against the Ministry,” Hermione
said finally. “In my opinion, Riordan ought to resign immediately.”
“Dr. Granger...” Rachel Ratliff’s voice cut silkily through the clamor that
descended upon the pressroom after Hermione finished. “Dr. Granger, is it true
that Sinistra actually did succeed in killing you, and that the Professor brought
you back from the dead?”
The first time she asked the question, Harry and Hermione managed to
ignore her, because everyone else was so loud anyway. The second time, the din
had quieted down since the reporters next to her had heard the startling question
and began hushing the rest in anticipation of the answer.
That little prying, nosy...
Don’t. I’m going to pretend I don’t know what she’s talking about.

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Paradise Lost 4
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Hermione said coolly.
Instead of backing down, Rachel Ratliff held up some documents of her
own. “I figured you would say that. Dr. Granger, I’ve just come back from San
Carlos de Bariloche in Argentina, and I’ve brought back proof. The coroner’s
statement declaring you died on Valentine’s Day this year. Anonymous
statements from villagers who sold your friends funerary implements, including
wood, wool, and wine.”
Hermione’s level of panic was increasing. Oh, this is not good, Harry... this
is really not good...
“So Professor, did you really bring Dr. Granger back from the dead?”
“Don’t be stupid,” Harry said. “As you can see, Hermione’s very much
alive, and in all of recorded magical history, no mere Wizard’s ever resurrected
the dead. That is the province of certain Muggle religions, not magic.”
And then he laughed.
Most of the rest of the room joined him, although Rachel reddened at her
humiliation and Hermione breathed an audible sigh of relief. He rested his hand
on her shoulder momentarily.
“If there are no more questions,” Hermione began, “we’d like to thank
you...”
“No, that isn’t quite all,” interrupted a meddling American reporter
surnamed Moore. “Professor, it seems as if congratulations are in order.”
“For what, Michael?”
“From the looks of it, you’ve recently married.”
And he indicated Harry’s wedding band, which he hadn’t thought to
remove before the press conference.
This might have caused the biggest stir of all, as the reporters again
prepared owls and chattered amongst themselves about this very surprising
news.
“Not recent at all,” Harry replied, resigned to the end of their privacy.
“We’ve been married for two and a half months now.”
“We?” pressed Michael Moore. “Who’s we? You don’t mean to say...”
Harry took Hermione’s hand in his.
“Esteemed members of the press, I’d like for all of you to meet my
wonderful wife, Dr. Hermione Potter.”
And then, there in front of the entire world, he kissed her.

~~~
“I don’t know how in Merlin’s great name my colleagues missed that bright
blue rock on Hermione’s finger,” Angelina said that evening over a merry dinner
with the Weasleys, their last before Harry and Hermione headed to Oxfordshire
for the day and then... at long last... arrived at Ayr. “The shine almost blinded

- 46 -
 14. Forever
Tirzah and me from the back of the room. We couldn’t stop laughing.”
“People see only what they want to see,” Arthur said sagely, cutting up his
steak and ignoring the shaking of his hands. “They were so busy salivating over
the juicy rumors of political intrigue and murder and treason that they couldn’t
see what was right in front of them.”
“At any rate, it’ll be all over the papers by morning,” Hermione said
comfortably, savoring the delicious plum pudding she’d been denied for more
than a half year. “It’s a relief, really, that people finally know. Although it’s
going to make Diagon Alley tomorrow that much more challenging to negotiate.
We’ve got to get back to Gringotts, and I wanted to pop into Flourish and Botts,
but...”
“I say we let the press snap a few pictures tomorrow,” Harry said
reluctantly. “Better than them harassing our staffers whenever they step off Ayr...
what do you think, Molly?”
“Just so long as you two behave yourselves,” Molly said to Harry and
Hermione, as if they were still both thirteen and not going on thirty-three.
“Oh, Mum, pictures can’t lie,” Ginny said, allowing Draco to transfer a
sleeping Hazel from her lap to his. Their childcare staff had been paid to do
nothing since they’d returned from South America, as neither had let their only
child out of sight since then. “Even if they try to behave in public, no telling
what their photographs will get up to on page one. Let everyone see Harry and
Hermione kiss a few times so they can get over it and the press can get on with
covering Brian’s trial.”
“How is Nick taking it?” Hermione asked. Brian Riordan’s younger brother
was a friend of the Malfoys.
“He’s pleased to see his brother being brought to justice. There was no love
lost between them,” Draco told her. “The Riordans were much like my own
family. They couldn’t even relate to a scene like this one, for instance.”
Ginny looked sympathetic. “We choose what we become,” she said to her
husband, who rarely said much at Weasley gatherings. Yet his eyes said it all.
“I disagree. What we become,” he looked pointedly at Harry and Hermi-
one, “chooses us.”
Harry smirked. “You’ve become wise over the years, Malfoy. I never
would have thought it possible.”
“Not to worry, Potter. Someday, if you try very hard, perhaps you too can
become exactly like me. After all, it’s what you’ve always wanted.”
“Keep dreaming.”
Arthur grinned with content. “Ah, things are getting back to normal.”

~~~
The next day, Harry and Hermione learned exactly how good at acting they

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Paradise Lost 4
were.
They went to Diagon Alley first. There seemed to be camera flashes
coming from every direction, and an unusual number of people seemed to be on
the street and in the shops. Nevertheless, they managed to grit their teeth, hold
hands, and pretend to be a normal newlywed couple who were very happy to be
together at last... rather than a very famous newlywed couple who were totally
wrapped up in each other’s presence.
As the news had been on the front page of every daily, people stopped to
tip their hats, offer their congratulations, or just beamed at them as they passed.
One could hear snatches of whispers:
“I’m so glad that he’s found happiness.”
“Always thought she should have married him in the first place. Never
thought she and that Weasley boy were suited.”
“The smart money’s been on those two since Hogwarts. Remember the
articles right before the start of the war?”
“Goes to show that it all comes out right in the end.”
Their first stop was Gringotts. The press tried to follow them inside, but the
wily Goblins forbade their meddling by shutting it down while they conducted
their business.
“Master Weasley is waiting for you upstairs in his office,” said their old
friend Griphook, long the executive manager for the London bank.
It turned out that not only was Bill waiting for them, but so were the Goblin
King and Queen, who rarely left their underground realms.
Harry bowed formally to Jareth, who shook his hand in congratulations.
Sarah greeted Hermione’s curtsy with a kiss.
“You don’t know how pleased I was to hear about your marriage,” the
Goblin Queen whispered to Hermione as the men began chatting while Bill
charmed the coffee to pour. “I know something of what you’ve endured through
William Weasley.”
Hermione chortled softly. “It certainly hasn’t been easy.”
“It never is, is it? I met Jareth when I was a spoiled fifteen year old girl,
and knew I was his even then. Everything about him intrigued me, and when
I solved the labyrinth and earned the right to return to my own world, I was
bereft for years. But I had to grow up before I was ready to accept what that
meant.” She smiled over at her husband, who couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off
her. “I imagine it was the same for you.”
“I imagine it was,” Hermione said, expression softening as Harry pulled out
a chair for her and guided her into it.
When Bill went over Harry’s financial statements, Hermione had to stop
herself from gaping like an idiot. She certainly had never worried much about
money, but she was shocked over Harry’s net worth.
“Bit more than I thought,” Harry said when he was done.
“The investments I made for you and Malfoy held the economy afloat

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 14. Forever
during the recent crisis,” Bill replied. He turned to Jareth and said, “Even with
Malfoy offering Zotanos nearly wholesale, revenues have soared. It should be a
profitable quarter for the bank, Sire.”
“Very good,” the Goblin King replied. “Potter, now that you’ve managed to
wed this lovely creature, it is the hope of myself and my queen that you will
finally accept our invitation to spend some time Underground.”
“We certainly will, Your Majesty,” Hermione said, speaking for both of
them. “I’ve always been fascinated with Goblin history, and would love a visit.”
After the meeting, the King and Queen returned to their realms, while Bill
personally escorted Harry and Hermione underground to their respective vaults.
They went to Hermione’s first.
“This just seems redundant,” she told Harry as they stepped inside. “What
do I need any of this for?”
“Because unlike me, you earned every single Knut in here.”
“I did not. I got half of Ron’s assets when we divorced...” She sank down
into a pile of Sickles and Harry followed her.
“As I’ve said, this is your gold, gold that you’ve earned. I did not earn most
of mine. I inherited it and was awarded it. The salary I earn from DSG is
respectable, but it’s only a fraction of what you earned as a doctor...”
“And you mostly live on your salary, not on your inheritance.
Understandable. But Harry, even your salary is more than adequate to support
us. What do I really need to spend my gold on?”
“Anything you like. Keep it, Hermione... you can use it to buy a century’s
worth of birthday and Christmas presents for your doting husband.”
They went to his vaults next, where gold was stacked higher than Bill’s
head in a labyrinthine suite of treasure rooms. Harry ignored it, pulling her
instead towards a chest towards the back of one of the rooms. This cavernous
room held no gold or silver, but was surrounded by priceless artwork and
antiques. Hermione couldn’t help but gasp. They could open the finest shop in
all of Britain just from the stuff in that place.
“Here they are,” called Harry, flinging the chest open with his wand. “The
Potter family gems.”
Hermione knelt beside him and peered in. And her eyes were dazzled by an
array of precious stones set in the purest metals, some for Witchy wear, some
that were more Wizardly.
“My dad’s favorite ring,” Harry said proudly, pulling it out for Hermione to
see. A deep red ruby was set in a wide platinum band that was inscribed with
runes of power. “Or that’s what Sirius and Remus tell me. He got it for his
sixteenth birthday.”
Her fingers touched it reverently, then traced the lines of his palm. “That’s
nice. Why don’t you ever wear it? It’s your birthstone.”
“Rather extravagant, don’t you think? I don’t wear jewelry, you know that.”
“You do now,” she said, picking up his left hand to trace his wedding band.

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Paradise Lost 4
“You might try wearing it on special occasions. Wearing my mum’s jewelry
always makes me feel closer to her... just like wearing this ring makes me think
of your mother.”
Harry stopped rifling through the chest to pick up Hermione’s hand. “What
was she like?” he asked for the hundredth time.
Hermione knew it wouldn’t be the last, either, but she didn’t mind.
Quite the contrary.
“Your mother is one of the most strikingly beautiful women I’ve ever seen,
Harry. I don’t doubt that your father fell for her the moment he saw her. Lily’s
kind, but Merlin, is she ever straightforward!
She doesn’t pull punches, but lets you know what’s on her mind. She is
fiercely protective of you... when I was despairing of ever finding you, she
whipped me back into shape.” She grinned. “Lily’s also been rooting for us for a
very long time. Claims she knew that she wanted me for you when she saw me
boss you around when we were eleven.”
“Sounds like quite a Witch. I can’t wait to tell her so myself someday.”
Hermione bit her lip. “Harry, do you think we made the right decision?
Coming back, I mean?”
“Yeah, we did. Twenty years ago, I wouldn’t have believed that. But we’ll
have the rest of forever to spend with Mum and Dad, won’t we? In the
meantime, what Mum told you was absolutely right... we’ve got work to do, a
Wizarding world to watch over, and as Eva would put it, babies to make.”
She leaned up to kiss the corner of his mouth. “Right, and what a lot of fun
that’s going to be.”
He returned the tender gesture. “Somehow, Mrs. Potter, I get the feeling
you’re not talking about working or watching.”
“You got that exactly right, Mr. Potter.”
They might have begun the babymaking right there and then, if Bill’s voice
hadn’t sounded through the vaults, looking for them. Harry swore, and
Hermione giggled heartily.
“I can’t wait to get home,” he complained once again.
After leaving Gringotts, the cameras and reporters trailed them again as
they went to lunch. They opted for Florean Fortescue’s, as neither were very
hungry after Molly’s mammoth breakfast. Sitting at a table next to the window,
they waved at the passersby merrily as they shared a single sundae after
finishing their sandwiches. A few people stopped to ask Harry for an autograph.
“Begging your pardon, sir, but it’s such an honour... my wife’s been
wanting to meet you for ages,” one young Wizard gushed.
“That’s all right,” Harry said. “Good afternoon,” he said to the Witch, who
giggled at him, then caught Hermione’s eye and subsided a bit.
The young Wizard continued. “Please, sir, I don’t mean to overstep my
bounds, but... it’s wonderful to see that you’re happy at last.”
“That I am,” Harry returned graciously. “Thank you.”

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 14. Forever
“You’re a very lucky Witch,” the little wife managed to squeak, seemingly
afraid of Hermione, who smiled at her.
“Yes, I am. Extremely lucky.”
Between Fortescue’s and Flourish and Botts, they received many more
congratulations, requests for autographs, and even some unsolicited advice. A
few people were less than nice, and made sarcastic comments (mostly in
reference to her marriage to Ron), but most seemed genuinely excited.
One thing that Hermione didn’t like about being a public figure was the
way that complete strangers believed that they were acquainted with you
because so many of the details of your life were public information. The clerk
who rang Hermione up at Flourish and Botts was one such person. Harry had
popped into Quality Quidditch Supplies a while before, saying he’d return
shortly.
“That’ll be seventy-five Galleons, Dr. Granger... I mean, Potter.”
“Either is fine,” Hermione said, writing up a cheque for the amount. “Could
you have these books Owl-shipped to Ayr Island? I don’t think I’ll be taking
them with me now.”
“Certainly, madam. So was it awkward?”
Hermione blinked. “Pardon?”
“Was it awkward, marrying your ex-husband’s best friend?” The clerk
clucked her tongue. “Witch Weekly always says that’s a no-no.”
“I don’t take my relationship advice from Witch Weekly,” Hermione
snapped. “And quite frankly, my personal life is none of your business.”
“Nonsense,” the clerk scoffed. “That’s the price you pay for becoming a
celebrity.”
Hermione stopped writing.
“Never mind, I don’t think I’ll be taking these books after all. Instead,
I think I’d like to speak with your manager...”
“What’s the matter?” asked Harry, coming to stand behind his wife, putting
his arms around her waist. “Is something wrong here?”
“Just that this young upstart of an incompetent clerk seems to think that our
personal affairs are her concern.”
“Is that right?” He released Hermione, approached the counter, and leaned
forward. “Exactly what would you like to know, miss?”
The young clerk seemed unnerved. Under Harry’s intense green stare, she
stammered and blushed. “Well... it’s just that everyone knows your wife was
married to Ronald Weasley for years, and now she’s married to you, so...”
“Oh, that’s simple. I’m far better in the sack than he is. Anything else?”
The young girl gasped. Hermione’s eyes rolled ceilingward, wondering
what Ron would say when that particular comment reached his ears courtesy of
whatever tabloid this tart would sell it to.
Fortunately for them, the manager came rushing to the counter, a huge grin
plastered on his face.

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“Harry Potter, what an honour! And of course, it’s always good to see our
favorite Dr. Granger... Potter now, right?” He thumped Harry on the arm and
chortled. “I hope young Goldie has been giving you excellent service.”
“As a matter of fact, she has,” Harry said before Hermione could launch
into a tirade. “What an efficient and polite young Witch she is. She was nothing
but gracious towards my wife... so gracious, in fact, that she offered to pay for
the doctor’s books out of her own salary.” He stepped back to pull Hermione
into his arms.
“Ah, now there’s good customer service!” He patted Goldie on the head.
“Excellent! I shall be more than happy to take the amount out of your next pay!
At this rate, girl, you’ll make stockroom clerk by the end of the decade!”
“However,” Harry continued, “my wife and I really don’t think this is
necessary. We just believe in treating others the way we would like to be treated.
And we thank Goldie for showing us that same courtesy.”
And he looked straight into Goldie’s watery blue eyes as he said it.
“Yes... yes, of course, sir,” she stammered as Harry took out his own wallet
and wrote a cheque for the books. “Thank you very much, sir.”

~~~
Dinner that evening was in Hermione’s beloved City of Dreaming Spires.
Ted had invited his daughter and son-in-law to a new Japanese restaurant in the
city centre, saying that there was someone he wanted them both to meet.
“This place is way better than Privet Drive,” Harry said as they walked
toward the restaurant. “I can see you as a little girl here, darting in and out of the
bookshops.”
“Oxford is rather nice,” Hermione replied. “However, I didn’t grow up in
the city centre, but in plain old boring Headington. My parents could easily have
afforded Summertown, but since I was their only child, they remained in their
first home and now I don’t think Dad will live anywhere else... what is it?”
For Harry had stopped on the sidewalk and was staring at her.
“Nothing. It’s just that... I can’t believe that tomorrow this time, we’ll be
home.”
Hermione grasped his hand tightly.
“I know. I can’t wait, either.”
Ted Granger’s surprise was a new girlfriend... a stately middle-aged Witch
who worked on Ayr as an archivist for the Foundation. Harry immediately
recognized Fiona Graham and shook hands before both men introduced her to
Hermione.
“Of course I’ve heard all about you from your father. And I’ve watched you
from afar, and I want to say that I think you and the Professor are the perfect
match.” She smiled at Ted, who beamed back at her.

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 14. Forever
Your dad did way better this time, beautiful. You ought to be proud.
Yes, thank goodness I don’t have to endure another incarnation of Clara.
But I never thought my dad would take up with a Witch...
He spent nearly forty years married to one, didn’t he?
Hermione considered this. Yes, I suppose that’s true, although neither of
them knew it.
Think you’ll tell him about your mum?
Not right now. Look at him with Fiona. If I get to have a hand in the
choosing of a potential stepmother, I don’t think I want to mess this up.
After dinner, Ted dropped Harry and Hermione off at the house.
“Going to take Fiona to London, as she’s staying there with friends.” He
waved at the Witch in the car, then lowered his voice. “Don’t wait up. I’ll be
back for breakfast.”
They waved as they watched Hermione’s dad drive off. Then both burst out
into peals of laughter.
“Harry, I cannot believe my father sometimes.”
“I can. The man’s obviously found something he wants.”
Hermione glanced at him and felt the very air ignite. “And you?”
“And I...” He pulled her into his arms. “I want to make you dessert.
Literally, Hermione,” he said, catching her naughty glance.
“Come on, Harry, we’ve got the entire house to ourselves!”
“And?”
“Harry, we are completely and totally alone in a building for the first time
ever during our marriage, and you want to tie on an apron and bake?”
He snogged her lazily, tongue darting out to taste her lip. “One-track mind.
Plenty of time for that, as you didn’t hear the other part of this plan.”
He had a point.
So less than fifteen minutes later, they were in her parents’ kitchen, clad
only in their underwear. Harry was at the counter while Hermione lounged at the
kitchen table, reading cookbooks.
“When we get home,” he said contentedly, whipping up egg yolks, sugar,
and cornstarch for trifle custard, “we’ll do this starkers.”
“Honestly, Harry, cooking is not something one should do with no clothes
on.”
“Why not?”
“If you want to fry bacon `tackle out’, that’s fine. Don’t come crying to me
when it spatters everywhere.” She kept reading recipes coolly.
He left the custard to whip of its own volition and walked towards the table
slowly. At the sound of his footsteps, she stopped reading and looked up.
“You’re actually saying you wouldn’t lick my wounds?”
His stomach was right before her face, his navel at eye level. She admired
the slight ripple of muscle, then leaned forward to press her face into it.
Then her fingers slipped into the waistband of his boxers.

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“Your wounds aren’t what I’m interested in licking, love... I’m much more
fascinated with something else,” she said, pulling his shorts down and leaning
forward with a purpose...
“That custard is completely ruined,” Harry observed about a half hour later,
glancing over his shoulder as he pulled Hermione up to sit on the edge of the
kitchen table. “It’s all foam. I’ve never done that before.”
“First time for everything,” she said, glancing around at the miscellaneous
items that littered the kitchen floor, including his glasses. “I’ve never done that
in my parents’ kitchen before. On the table that I used to eat breakfast at as a
child, no less.”
“Bit pervy, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I’d like to think so.” She took her bra out of his hands. “So pervy, in
fact, that I’d like to try that again sometime.”
A quick charm cleaned the kitchen so that it was nearly as good as new.
They shared her shower next, and produced steam that had nothing to do with
the temperature of the water...
“Is this your old rubber duckie?” Harry asked, picking up a water toy and
squinting a bit to see it as Hermione shut the water off.
“Yes,” she replied, grabbing it out of his hands. “I’ve had that since I was a
baby. And considering where those hands have just been, you shouldn’t be
touching it.”
He took it from her, a wicked gleam in his eye. “We could get up to all
sorts of fun. I picked up a simple spell a few years back while travelling in India,
and...”
She snatched it back. “No, we could not. I intend to pass that on to my
children, and I won’t have you ruining it.” She turned around and placed the
duck on the side of the sink, then reached for a towel...
Which dropped out of her hand as she was pressed against the sink.
Attempting to keep her wits about her, she glanced at him through the
mirror in front of her.
“Darling, we really ought to go to bed, we’ve got a long day of travel
tomorrow... but ahh, that feels good... that feels really good...”
And her eyes crossed, and shut, and she said no more that was intelligible
for quite a while.
They did manage to leave her bath (eventually), dry off, and were curled up
in her gorgeous bed at a very respectable hour.
“This has got to be the most comfortable bed I’ve ever been in. Not even
the Hogwarts beds were quite like this. Did you have this when you were a kid?”
“No, I purchased it the summer after we returned from Avalon when Mum
and I remodeled the room. Disappointed?” she teased, loving his newfound
fascination with her past.
“Not really. I’m just wondering if you’d mind taking this home with us.”
She propped herself up on one elbow to look down at him. “Any particular

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 14. Forever
reason why?”
“I don’t know. It’s just that... well, I purchased my bed that same summer,
and over the past twelve years it’s been...”
“Fairly well used for purposes other than sleeping?”
“Right. I know it’s just a bed, beautiful, but I want to change over the entire
house. It needs to be our home, not just my place. I want to make a fresh start,
and I don’t want reminders of the more regretful things from my past.”
“I don’t regret your past,” she said softly, settling back into his arms. As he
stroked through her hair, she felt at peace. “I’m gloating because I get to reap the
benefits from it. And in case you’re wondering, I am the only one who’s ever
slept here. Whenever I spent the night with... with Ron while we were engaged,
I went to his flat. Which meant I didn’t use this room very much.”
“Those years seem like a bad dream.”
“Oh, I know. We’ll just spend the rest of our lives making up for them.”
She rolled over so that her arm and leg were flung over him. “Consider this bed
the first wedding present from me to you.”
“And these white linen sheets,” he murmured. “I want these too.”
“They feel great, don’t they? They’ve got a terrific thread count... twenty-
first birthday gift from Ginny. She gave me several sets, and tells me she sleeps
in nothing else during the summer.”
“And I want something else.”
“Anything, darling.”
“I want you in this bed, looking at me just like that for the rest of our
lives.”
She leaned up so that her face hovered inches above his. At this close
distance, she knew he could see her clearly even without his glasses. “Exactly
how am I looking at you?”
“The way you’ve looked at me ever since I’ve known you. The way you
looked at me at times even when you were married to our best friend.
As if I am the center of your world. As if you don’t see anyone else other
than me. As if you adore every bit of me, even when I exasperate you...
Hermione, I’ve always seen my future in your eyes, and it’s almost as if you can
see it before I do...”
Their fingers intertwined.
“I’m so grateful you love me, Harry,” she breathed. “I never dreamed that
you would... and then, when I knew you really did, I never thought we’d get out
of there alive. And then, when I died...”
Her voice broke, and overcome, she sobbed into his neck as he stroked her
spine slowly. She felt his lips playing at her ear, warming, calming her with the
gentle hum of his breath.
“Harry?” she said softly after a while, tears dried. “Do they know?”
“Do they know what?”
“Do they know how much we love each other, need each other? Even those

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nearest and dearest to us... can they know? Is it possible for them to know?”
“Well, consider this. Do we care? Have we ever cared?”
She met his grin with one of her own. “No, not really.”
“Then let them say what they will. All that matters is what we think.”
“What we think, yes.” She kissed him gently. “What we feel. What we are
when we’re together. You’re very right. That’s what matters most.”
“Right. So what do you say, beautiful? Think you feel up to marrying me
all over again in a few weeks?”
Hermione considered this carefully, then came to the obvious conclusion.
“Only if you ask me the way you did the first time.”

~~~
Nine weeks later.

April 30, 2013 – Ayr Island, Scotland.

Early afternoon.
Normally, Ginny Malfoy was one of Harry and Hermione’s favorite people.
Not at the moment.
“Ginny, you said a few guests!” Harry said the moment the door to the
headmaster’s suite closed behind him. Hermione’s arms with folded.
Draco took a seat, the slight glint in his eye indicating his amusement over
the situation.
“It is a few, Harry dear. All your family and friends and work colleagues. “
“We don’t even know a thousand people.”
“Nonsense. You’ll know everyone there. If I recall correctly, this is only a
fraction of the size of Hermione’s first wedding.”
“If I recall correctly,” Hermione said shortly, “we told you that we didn’t
want to make this an event.”
Ginny looked from Harry to Hermione, then retreated to sit in the chair
next to her husband.
“Well, pardon my innocent attempt to be gracious to two of my best and
oldest friends. It isn’t as if you’ve had to lay out any of the gold for this little
affair...”
“Little affair?” Harry exclaimed. “Ginny, there’s nothing little about this!”
“Harry, your wedding can’t help but be a huge deal. Even if it is Hermi-
one’s second, it is your first and therefore special. The rules of etiquette are very
clear on such matters.”
“Oh, sod the rules of etiquette, Ginny! Harry and I have been married for
nearly five months. This was supposed to be just a simple Wizarding ceremony
with a plain reception. We were very clear when we talked to you.”

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 14. Forever
“Well, it isn’t as if the two of you have made yourselves available for
consultation over the past couple of months! If you honestly didn’t want me to
make decisions about the guest list, décor, menu, and the like, you should have
bloody well poked your heads out of your love-nest for once and told me so!”
Draco took his fuming wife’s hand in his before this pointless conversation
went further. “Potter, Granger, if you like, we can call the wedding off. There is
still time to contact everyone.”
“Draco, I think they ought to be more appreciative!”
He did not respond. “Of course, if you call the event off, you will fuel yet
another round of controversy, because everyone will want to know why. In my
reasoning, twenty-four hours of inconvenience in exchange for peace until the
winter holidays is well worth it. Then again, far be it from me to force my
reasoning on either of you.”
There was silence for a moment.
“Ginny,” Hermione began, “we’re really sorry. I’m sure you thought you
were doing what was best.”
She nodded, trying to contain her anger and disappointment. “Right. I’ll set
the staff to owling everyone on the guest list...”
“Whoever said we wanted you to do that?” Harry asked.
“I thought you wanted to call it off.”
“The second wedding was our idea in the first place, remember?”
Hermione laughed. “You were gracious enough to plan it whilst we had our little
honeymoon here at home. I think Harry and I can be gracious enough to enjoy
the company of those who want to celebrate with us... even if you did go a bit
overboard, dear.”
Ginny sprang up and hugged them both.
“You’re going to love this, you two. You’ll see.”

~~~
Ayr was overrun with Wizards, Witches, and a select few Muggles one day
later. Hermione had appropriated Harry’s rarely-used suite in the school
dormitories to dress while he used their cozy cottage.
She assumed her new home was as overrun with Wizards as the suite was
with Witches at the moment.
She’d only arrived here a few hours before. Ginny, Maureen, and
Mrs. Weasley, who had all arrived the day before, were scandalized when
Hermione went home to her husband for the night. No matter what number the
marriage, this was something that Witches just did not do.
“It’s bad luck, dear,” Mrs. Weasley had said. “You ought to consider
staying here at the school, even if it’s just for the night.”
“Oh, Molly, honestly,” Hermione scoffed back, but not unpolitely. “That

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isn’t an option.”
“Surely that’s not too much to ask of Harry?” Mo laughed.
“It isn’t about him at all. That’s too much to ask of me.”
Not only did she spend the night with her husband, she’d spent a
scandalous amount of time with him that morning in spite of the guests that were
stowed away in the other rooms. After refusing his proposition to ditch the
wedding and run away together until it was all over, she pulled herself out of
their shared bath around eleven o’ clock and Apparated to the school complex.
It hadn’t taken very long for her to dress. She had to assure Ginny of this
fact, because she was a good three hours late. Nevertheless, there was all the
usual wedding hustle and bustle around the manor house as the other Witches
dressed and she helped with buttons and zippers and even updos until Mrs.
Weasley and her daughters-in-law forced her to sit still.
Penelope took it as an opportunity to fuss. “This is supposed to be your
day, Hermione! Stop being so jittery and sit down a moment.”
“I haven’t got jitters, Penny. This isn’t ten years ago. I’ve done this before,
and helped several of you do it as well...”
When they forced her away from the dressing nonetheless, Hermione went
to Harry’s classroom so she could hear herself think a moment.
She found Harry there, standing in front of the window, gazing out of it.
The Wizards must have come up from the cottage already, as was to be
expected. She wondered where the rest were.
He knew she was there without moving an inch.
Should I turn around?
Hermione found herself admiring the elegant cut of his formal robes even
from the back. “Not yet, I’m enjoying the view from here.”
What do you think?
“I think you’ve got the cutest arse I’ve ever seen.”
He turned around, intending to inform her that not much of his arse was
visible in the voluminous robes, then to ask what she thought of the view from
the front, but was struck dumb by the sight of her.
She was wearing a dress that Ginny had designed for her and stitched
herself. It was a simple floor-length sheath with a slight train, made of the palest
blue silk Ginny could find. The fabric was shot through with an enchanted
thread that alternated from a matching blue to silver to white to transparent. A
matching light blue veil covered her hair like a snood.
She wore his grandmother’s blue diamonds. In the matching necklace, the
single largest diamond used for her engagement ring had been replaced by a
dazzling white one.
In turn, she was admiring him. He always looked incredibly hot in his dress
robes, and these were fine ones, she thought. The cut of the fabric showcased his
broad shoulders and following the planes of his chest before falling to the
ground. Beneath them, he wore a dress shirt with slacks.

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 14. Forever
This time, she broke the stalemate. What are you thinking now?
“I’m thinking,” he said audibly, walking towards her, “that you’ve got too
many clothes on.”
“Okay, Harry, we ought to start this wedding now,” said Hermione, in her
best fussy tone that didn’t quite hide the fact that she was happy to be in his
arms again. “That is, before we create a scandal that we won’t soon live down.”
“They’re already talking. Might as well give them something to talk
about...”
“Harry.”
“Right. Let’s get this show on the road, then.”

~~~
Harry and Hermione’s second wedding took place in the northern Ayr
meadow at noon on Remembrance Day 2013, with the forest and majestic
Falcon Point as backdrop. That first of May was a sunny day, unseasonably
warm without a cloud in the sky. The wind on the beach was quite brisk, but in
the center of the island the weather was pleasant enough.
Percy Weasley, as the new Headmaster of Hogwarts, performed the
ceremony. And this time, they didn’t bother with writing their own vows or
flowery speeches or elaborate declarations of love.
They were a bit beyond that point now.
So the Wizarding ceremony proper went fairly quickly, taking less than a
half hour. Then there was the interminable receiving line.
It took well over three hours to greet over a thousand guests, for everyone
who’d received an invitation had shown up. Photographs took the better part of
the next hour, and Hermione (who having removed her dainty shoes while
standing in line had replaced them for pictures) teetered on her heels.
““I’ve been smiling so much my teeth hurt, Harry,” she murmured to her
husband beneath her breath. “I’m afraid my face will get stuck like this...”
In response, he kissed her so long and thoroughly that it took a while before
she could breathe normally again. Those nearest them began to cheer, and
glasses tinkled, and the cameras flashed even more vigorously.
“Are you teeth still hurting?” he asked, with the most innocent look he
could muster.
“Oh, yes,” she winked. “That is, if there’s any more where that came
from...”
“There’s plenty more where that came from...”
Ginny clapped her hands in front of them, obviously trying to hide her
smile.
“Harry, Hermione, everyone’s waiting for the two of you to cut your cake.”
“We’re on dessert already? What happened to dinner?” Harry asked

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incredulously.
“Dinner’s over... people moved from the receiving line to the banquet.
We’ve sent yours to the cottage. You can have it later.”
Harry shook his head. “At least we got to eat at our first wedding.”
“The faster we finish this,” Hermione pointed out, “the faster we can say
our goodbyes and head home.”
At a traditional Wizard wedding, after the bride and groom used the cake
knife to cut the first slice, the rest of the cake partitioned itself nicely according
to the number of guests. Harry and Hermione went one better by having theirs
arrange itself on plates and serve itself to the guests.
While their guests ate, and before the dancing was set to begin, they
mingled with their guests... for after all, this was more for their friends than it
was for them.
Many, many people had accepted the rare invitation... if only for the partial
tour of Ayr Island that had preceded the wedding. Of course, all of the Weasleys
were present, with their significant others and children. So were their school
friends and work colleagues and the close acquaintances they’d made over the
years... all of the usual faces from the postwar set.
But this second wedding was special, and there were faces in the crowd
that were very old and very new.
Several members of the Order were in attendance. Nephthys and Drakkar
had attended Hermione’s first wedding, but this time they brought along their
son, Riki... who’d nearly knocked them both over in the receiving line.
“Why, you must have grown a foot since this winter!” Hermione said,
ruffling his dark hair. “How’s the shapechanging going?”
“My parents have taken me to one of the worlds where I can learn to use
my abilities,” Riki told her. “It’s a place where ancient Egypt never lost its
power... and I’m learning all kinds of great stuff!”
“I thought you might come to my school,” Harry said, looking
disappointed.
“I asked Mum and Dad about it, and they said you don’t take kids until
they’re thirteen. So next year, if you’ll have me...”
“Of course I will. Looking forward to it.”
Demetrios Solon was present with his wife Elaine. Elaine Solon was
perfectly friendly this time, and Hermione marveled at this as they walked to the
next table.
“Dr. Jekyll, Mrs. Hyde?” Harry suggested aside to Hermione.
“I’d say. Perhaps she has so little charm that she must save it all up for
social occasions.”
They greeted Lady Morgan next. She was so radiant that it was difficult to
look directly at her, and she was attended by several of her fae handmaidens. A
couple of the nymphs were giving Harry knowing looks until they caught
Hermione’s eye and withered a bit.

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 14. Forever
“This is the second time I’ve walked the earth this millennium, and all
within a space of ten of your weeks,” she said, her voice melodious. “I’ve
brought the two of you a wedding present, but it will keep until this is over.”
One of the blondes who’d been gazing at Harry spoke. “When can we
expect you next in our fair realms?”
“Totally up to my wife,” he replied, putting the emphasis on that last word.
His past was just that... the past.
“Oh, perhaps sometime during the winter holidays,” was Hermione’s
suggestion. “Harry’s back at work now, and after school term is over we’re
going to be remodeling our home.”
Sirius approached them next with his family, Max in his arms and Carole at
his side, greeting the Lady, then turning to grin significantly at Harry and
Hermione.
“So it’s over,” he said.
“It’s over for us,” said Harry, referring to Carole’s advanced pregnancy,
“but it looks like it’s just about to start for you.”
“He’ll be here end of spring, perhaps even by Midsummer. If so, we’ll
celebrate with a bonfire,” Sirius said contentedly. “Another son for me, just as
I told her.”
“Perhaps so,” Carole said, nudging her husband affectionately, “but I’m not
going to allow you to spoil this one as you did the first. I’m going to name him
after me.”
“What, you’re going to name him Carole? Good luck sending the kid off to
Hogwarts,” Harry laughed, pulling Hermione close as she chuckled too.
“For your information, smartarse,” said Carole, “I’m calling him Mitchell.
That’s my maiden surname, and a fine one it is. So... you two planning for a
honeymoon?”
“Not really,” said Harry, sobering up. “We’ve talked about it, and decided
against it.”
“Why?” Carole asked, obviously surprised.
“Carole, you’re a dear, but don’t you think it’s sort of redundant at this
point?” Hermione laughed. “Since we’ve been married, we’ve been to Brazil,
Argentina, the States, England, Scotland...”
“Don’t forget dead,” Harry chuckled under his breath.
“Exactly. Everyone’s inviting us everywhere... the Goblin King and his
Queen want us to visit the Underground, the Lady wants to see us in Avalon, and
the Rosettis are hoping we’ll visit their home in the Alps.” Hermione sighed
wearily. “In my opinion, travelling is overrated. There’s no place like home, and
I don’t fancy the thought of ever leaving again.”
“Sim, garota, but should you ever need us...”
Hermione turned around and let out a happy sort of squeak. Zach and Eva
had only just arrived from South America, along with Juliana, who was carrying
baby Daniel. She hugged each of her friends in turn, and swept into her arms the

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first baby she’d ever delivered...
The first of many, she realized happily.
“Sorry we missed the ceremony,” Zach said, shaking his head at Eva, “but
my wife took forever to get ready. We missed Charlie Weasley’s first Portkey.”
“Yeah, you’ll find that Witches do that,” said Harry, earning a sock in the
ribs from his own wife. “They do that, too.”
Hermione pulled Eva aside for a quick bit of girl chat.
“How are you enjoying married life, my dear?” she asked her.
“Ai, so much to get used to, sim? But it is good, very good.” She lowered
her voice. “My Zach is not Sabaean anymore!”
They giggled as if they were both thirteen again. Eva sobered up first. “And
for you, Hermione? Still fresh and new as ever?”
“Oh, please,” Hermione waved it off. “Harry and I are home now. We’re
practically an old married couple...”
Eva smirked at her.
“What? We are!”
But what happened after the first dance gave the lie to those words.
As the other couples joined them on the dance floor, Harry pulled her off to
find Lady Morgan’s present.
“Can’t it wait?”
“No, it can’t. You’ve got to see this right now.”
“Harry, we’ve spent months practicing... I’ve spent all this time teaching
you how to dance...”
“Yeah, and most of those lessons, we did more than just dance.”
“Well, that certainly wasn’t the intent, but things do happen...”
“In fact, most of those lessons, I seem to recall that we didn’t dance at all.
At least, not vertically.” He touched her nose with his. “Not that I’m
complaining.”
“Harry, you’d think that at our own reception, you’d just...”
She stopped in her tracks when she saw what the immortal Lady of Avalon
had brought them for a wedding present.
“Pegasi live far longer than your Earth steeds,” the Lady told them,
stroking the mane of the magnificent winged stallion, “and their memories are
far greater as well. Titan’s missed the two of you... for although it has been
many years for you, it has been decades for him...”
Hermione’s mouth formed a perfect o, making her look momentarily like a
beached fish. The Lady was so amused by the sight that she laughed, a startling
musical sound much like clanging cymbals, and others joined in.
“How can we ever thank you?” she asked the Lady once she’d recovered.
“Thank your husband. It was his idea. When you come to our realms for
Christmas, I will gift you with his mate. She is young yet, but she should be
ready for him by then...”
Harry was grinning. But Hermione wiped the grin right off his face with a

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show-stopping and intense kiss.
“I’m ready for you now,” she said against his lips.
“Right,” he said, pulling her toward the horse. To the guests, he called,
“We’re going for a ride. Be back!”
Harry mounted first, helping Hermione up to sit in front of him.
They kicked off and soared high into the air.
“But where are they going?” asked Zach incredulously.
Eva grinned significantly.
“To start making their pretty babies, of course. Where else?”

~~~
It was a bright day in June when term ended at DSG. Instead of a Leaving
Feast, Harry usually had the staff prepare a special luncheon for the kids and
their parents. Awards were given, speeches were made, and with a minimum of
fanfare, the island lost two-thirds of its population by evening.
This year, though, he sat through the luncheon in the Headmaster’s chair,
feeling like an imposter as Jocelyn distributed the awards and made an end-of-
term speech that was filled with quips and anecdotes from the past year.
A year he hadn’t spent with his students.
Not that he regretted any of it, of course. Given a chance, he would do the
same all over again.
After lunch was over and farewells were said, he returned to his office to
catch up on a bit of work. Despite his staff’s insistence that it was unnecessary,
Harry had given his own exams. Dot Lightfoot had done a tremendous job in his
place as Telesthetics supply teacher. He’d already graded the practical on the
spot, and now just needed to mark the essay portion. There was also a mountain
of paperwork and owls shoved to one corner, consisting of all the many issues
that neither Jocelyn nor Janet or anyone else could handle... they’d graciously
saved it all for his benefit.
Then there was the matter of breaking ground for Ayr village. They’d had
their first council meeting of resident DSG instructors and Foundation staffers
two weeks before. It had been a grand success, and much had been
accomplished...
Thanks in large part to his amazing wife.
Hermione was technically on sabbatical, but she didn’t believe in being
idle. Neither did she believe in working on a single project at a time. Harry had
long ago realized that Hermione was at her best when she was multitasking,
bouncing two or more disparate problems off each other until everything was
worked out.
Since their return, while he’d worked during the day, Hermione had been
busy herself. First, there was her book about the devastating descolada plague

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and what it revealed about magical origins. She was already half done with it,
and had secured a publisher, who promised her a generous advance.
She also took over the incorporation and survey project for Ayr village.
Although it did surprise Sirius when she insisted upon a collaborative effort. She
refused to write laws or policy, stating that it wasn’t her area of expertise.
“That’s the meaning of a being a charter member of a community,” she’d
said at the first meeting. “Everyone ought to have a hand in actually writing the
charter, right?”
Her final project was the one that Harry cared about the most.
Sometimes he’d stop home for lunch to find her half-buried beneath
construction spellbooks and Muggle home improvement magazines, or poring
over the plans they were drawing up...
They’d decided to do the work on their home themselves. Although there
were Wizarding construction firms aplenty, including several owned by the
Malfoys, between magic and elbow grease they would be just fine.
It wasn’t a matter of gold. They just weren’t ready to share their sanctuary
with anyone else yet.
During the day, they were available enough to DSG and Foundation staff,
and of course the students. Occasionally they ate at the school, more rarely still
with Sirius and his family when Remus came to the island.
Weekends and nights were their time alone.
So the summer holidays would be. Hermione had volunteered to put her
first two projects on hold until September to concentrate on their home...
And him.
He left off marking his exams with a smile, setting his quill down in front
of his picture frames. Although he had a fair number of pictures on the
bookshelves of his parents and close friends and his Weasley nephews and
nieces, there were only three on his desk.
One was a picture that both Ron and Hermione had kept on their work
desks as well. In it, he was thirteen years old, and Gryffindor had just won the
Quidditch cup... one of the first happy memories he could recall. He was still in
uniform, glasses slightly askew, beaming as he shifted his weight from one foot
to the other. Ron and Hermione were flanking him, wearing striped garnet and
gold Gryffindor shirts. Ron was nudging him happily while Hermione grinned.
We’re much stronger together than we are apart.
Another was much more recent, part of a package sent to them just before
their reception by Brazilian Minister of Magic Joseane Jobim.
Wedding photographs.
Harry had selected his favorite for the desk. It wasn’t artificially posed like
the ones taken at the reception had been. Indeed, Harry hadn’t realized that
anyone had bothered to snap pictures at all on their day.
In this photograph, he and Hermione were swaying to the strains of some
unheard melody, most likely Lena’s song. He didn’t look as stupid or as

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 14. Forever
awkward as he’d always thought he appeared, but at ease and quite happy.
Hermi-one was looking up at him dreamily as they moved about the frame.
My fears are all gone, I like the sound of your song, And I think I’m
going to sing it forever.
The final picture was one that Hermione hadn’t known he’d kept. It was a
black and white headshot, taken when she was twenty years old...
Taken by a random admirer at the pub in Aberdeen, after Avalon.
It had later appeared in one of the smaller local papers, which Harry
usually never read, but somehow he’d got a copy of this particular issue. He
opened it, saw her face... and learned how sentimental he was when he clipped
the photograph and placed it in an old scrapbook that he’d kept in the attic. None
of his girlfriends had found it, not even Diana... Lenore.
When they’d learned about Cameron Sinistra’s shrine during the tribunal
questioning, Hermione had been alarmed, not to mention creeped out, by the
idea.
“It’s almost as if he’s been storing away little bits of me,” she said.
“Obsession makes people do crazy things.”
When they’d arrived home, he’d shown her the scrapbook. He’d clipped
not only pictures, but many, many articles detailing her achievements over the
years. He’d saved the programme from her medical school commencement.
He’d even cut out the first advertisement the Daily Prophet had carried for the
Granger-Longbottom clinic.
Instead of the instinctive recoil he’d braced himself for, Hermione flung her
arms around his neck.
“You turned something horrid into something special,” she said. “How do
you always do that?”
“Natural talent and charm, of course. But here, look...” He flipped to the
back of the book, which was only half full.
“Blank pages,” Hermione said. “We’ll fill them together, of course, but
what do you suppose they’ll say?”
He didn’t answer her then, at least not in words. Weeks later, as he resumed
his grading, he thought again of her question.
No one could know what the future held. But now that one dream had come
true for Harry, he considered others. A new home and a new life. A brand-new
village. A peaceful Wizarding world.
And children, of course. Children with the Witch he loved more than life.
For somehow, she’d gotten it all back. Her magic, just as potent as before.
Her confidence. Her ability to be the crucible for new life.
Maybe there was a such thing as happily ever after, after all.
Rapping at the window. He glanced up, and with a quick wave, opened it to
let DuskChaser in. He felt a pang of disappointment that Hermione hadn’t come
to deliver the message in person, but he’d told her he would be working late.
Likely she was telling him she’d come back from Aberdeen with takeaway, or

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had made sandwiches...
He opened the note and scanned it quickly.
Then he shook his head, the pang replaced suddenly with bubbling joy.
She was right, he supposed. It was just as she’d said the night before they
entered Atlantis.
She was determined to be the life of him.

~~~
Hermione was waiting for him when he arrived in his classroom. She’d lit
several dozen of her favorite candles, and had set them to float everywhere.
Scented, wax, oil. Votives, tapers, floaters, tea lights, lanterns, jars... their light
and fragrance was almost tangible, but not overpowering.
In the center of the plush carpet, she’d spread out dinner... great Wizards,
had she gone all the way to London for that crispy duck?
Judging from the look of the cartons, he supposed so, taking in the china
plates and crystal glasses and bottle of wine.
“You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?” he said, closing the door behind
him. The lock engaged with a click. “What’s the occasion?”
She was facing the window, watching the sunset. He appreciated the fact
that the robes she was wearing appeared to have no back at all.
“No particular reason,” she replied, drawing the curtains closed and turning
around. “Just have been waiting for quite a long time for this... and now that
your pupils are gone for the summer, I thought I’d work on another one of those
fantasies from that infernal list of yours.”
Harry’s mouth went dry as she walked toward him. He’d never seen her in
this nightgown before. It was pale gold, and the candlelight made her appear to
be glowing, shimmering...
She closed the distance between the two of them, then looked up at him
with a smile.
“I can’t work out whether I like you best in blue. Or white, or pink, or red.
Or this...”
Hermione placed her fingers against his lips.
“Oh, I know exactly how you like me.”
And never breaking eye contact with him, she slid the straps off her
shoulders. The nightgown pooled at her feet.
Beneath his breath, he whistled low...
Paradise found.

– finis –

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 A/N: Man, this chapter made me all nostalgic for TiP!
I listened to my music from 2000 while writing it, including Sade,
Niamh Parsons, and of course The Best Man soundtrack from the
movie that inspired my story idea in the first place. I also listened to
Anita Baker’s smooth jazz/soul standard “Giving You The Best
That I’ve Got”, my favorite song by her... the musical style is more
from my own culture than that of my characters, but my goodness,
do the lyrics ever fit.
Couple of things... first, please note that the timeline of
TiP/PL doesn’t completely fit with the timeline of the future fics.
Perhaps this is nowhere more evident than in the mention of
Mitch’s birth.
In the future fics, he was born in 2008, same year as Ron and
Maureen’s eldest son Maury. Here, he’s born in 2013, two and a
half years before... well, those of you who read the future fic know
who.
*grin*
Speaking of future fics, this truly is the Neverending Story in
more ways than one! For those of you who want to know more
about the Paradise version of happily ever after, be sure to check
out the Files section of the HP_Paradise Yahoogroup
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HP_Paradise). Originally, I was
planning to write a trilogy, but instead I converted the last book to a
number of short stories. They go in this order, immediately
following PL14: “Christmas in Paradise” (in the 2001 Holiday
folder), “While You Were Sleeping”, “Monster Under My Bed”,
“Autumn Wild”, “Sixteen Going On Seventeen”, “Discovery”
(which is incomplete), and “Redemption Song”. In the queue:
“Prodigal Son” and “Stolen”.
There will be a special epilogue in a few months. In order to
do that, I need a fan artist or two, and someone with HTML who
knows how to create a simple webzine. If I find people with the
time and interest and all goes well, look for it in December.
Looking back over the past four years, I realize how much
I’ve grown up along with this iteration of the characters. I am
extremely pleased with the TiP/PL tale, and thank God for restoring
confidence in my writing ability with this story. I’m also glad that
I gained scores of new friends and gained thousands of readers
along the way.
And although it is hazardous to name names at this point,
many special thanks to the dozens of beta-readers, consultants, and
reviewers who have edited, revised, corrected, and admonished.
You’ve made me a better writer.
Thanks for the ride! Keep in touch. Stay tuned to the Paradise
list for more stories from this universe and post-OotP, and for news
and updates about my forthcoming original fiction (!).
Paradise Lost 4
~eet, 8/11/04

Christmas In Paradise
Summary: Exactly seven years after the infamous first chapter
of Trouble of Paradise, the holidays at the Burrow in 2015 include
faces old and new.
After reading the fic, please stop by our Paradise Christmas
2015 Album and view Karen McVicker’s wonderful family
renditions of Wizarding snapshots from this future Christmas.
Finally, please keep in mind that this is only one possible
ending for the Paradise series. The author makes no promises that
any of this will eventually happen... she just wants her friends and
readers to have a very merry Christmas. ;-)

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 Christmas In Paradise

P
December 24, 2015 – The Burrow.
enelope Clearwater Weasley was the first to arrive that Christmas Eve, an
hour before the specified time. This was her usual habit. As self-
appointed matriarch in training, she rather liked the sense of one-
upmanship she felt when she showed up at any given family event well before
her sisters-in-law. No one could really challenge her place of honor, either.
Lizeth was eldest amongst the wives and might have liked to be Molly’s right
hand, but was far too laid-back to compete seriously for the crown. The rest of
the women were younger than Penelope and she bossed them around as much as
their individual tempers and tolerance levels would allow.
So she arrived via Floo with her two youngest children an hour before the
tree decorating was to begin.
“Go and put your cloaks away, go on...” she ordered her twins briskly
before bustling into the kitchen like the perennial busybody that she was.
Gryff, ever the Ravenclaw and very much like his mother, began to shrug
his wrappings off without protest. Raven, the Gryffindor, pulled a face behind
her mother’s back.
“Stop that,” said Gryff disapprovingly, still unwrapping. “She’ll only half-
Petrify you again if she catches you at it, and you won’t like that much, will
you?”
“Leave me alone,” said his twin sister. “Ever since we began term in
September you’ve been no fun at all. Then again, I suppose Ravenclaws think
fun is beneath them, especially that snobbish lot you hang around with...”
“No, we just have a healthy regard for rules, dear sister. Quite unlike the
hooligans from the Animal Kingdom that you seem to favor.”
Raven mouthed, “Boring!” just as her brother turned around, finished
divesting himself of cloak, scarves, hat, and cardigan.
“I am not boring!” he nearly shouted. “Ravenclaw Weasley, you take that
back!”
“Will not! Not my fault the truth hurts... you’re boor-ing...”
Gryff had heard all he could take. He shoved his sister back roughly, and
Rave pushed back. The only thing that saved them from a full-fledged brawl was
the opening of the front door.
“What’s all this then? All right, you two, break it up,” said Fred, grabbing
Gryff by the scruff of his neck and setting him a ways apart from his sister.
“What’s going on here?”
“She said I’m boring!” exclaimed Gryff.
Sequels
“Does that give you the right to hit your sister, Gryffin? She’s a girl...”
Angelina had come in, with a bundled-up twin of her own under each arm.
She was frowning at Rave. Rave felt instantly sorry... she and her cousin
Malinda were close, and she’d always loved Aunt Angelina.
“Raven, did you really say all that to your brother?”
Ravenclaw hung her head; part visible between glossy auburn braided
pigtails. Then she nodded.
“You do realize that it wasn’t a kind thing to say, especially at Christmas...”
“But Aunt Angelina, you don’t know what I have to put up with!”
exclaimed Rave. “Gryff’s becoming... a junior version of... Dad.”
Fred and Angelina looked at each other. Then their combined laughter rang
out and filled the vestibule.
The little girl who was shuffling up the walk just then appeared as if
laugher was the furthest thing from her mind. She’d just endured a veritable
trial-by-fire during her initial semester at Hogwarts, and could barely believe she
had made it back home intact.
Perhaps I ought to leave, she thought as she shook the snow from her
velveteen boots and stepped into her grandparents’ home. Yes...I’ll make the
announcement over dinner tomorrow. Malinda Denise Weasley, first-ever
Weasley Hogwarts drop-out in the history of the family. The aunts and uncles
will have fits. I can just see all of their faces... but I don’t care. They just don’t
understand.
None of them were unlucky enough to have been thrown into the midst of
the worst lot of Slytherins in the history of the school.
With tears in her eyes, Malinda slid out of her cloak, offered it her mother
(who never noticed her much these days save to nag anyway) and made her way
to the front room fireplace. Not saying a word to Raven, who broke out of her
fury instantly to look after her favorite cousin.
“Wait... Linda, what’s wrong?”
Her only answer was a loud sob. Raven petted her shoulder, feeling a bit
helpless.
“I hate it there, Rave. I want to leave. Or tear that bloody Sorting hat to
shreds. I agree with all those who say there shouldn’t even be houses anymore.
It was a stupid idea when the Founders first thought it up, and it’s even stupider
now.”
“There, there... it’ll be all right, you’ll see...”
“No, Rave, you can’t know what it’s like! No one else in the family was
unlucky enough to be in Slytherin.”
“That’s not true. Uncle Draco was in Slytherin before the war and he’s dead
cool,” she said in the same august tone that all the Weasley children used when
they spoke of the Second Voldemort War. To listen to them, one would think that
it all happened two millennia ago instead of two decades. “Not to mention rich.”
“Yeah, but I’m not him, am I? And no one else our age is down in those

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dungeons with me. Elizabeth and Gryff are in Ravenclaw, and you’ve got your
sister Mary in Gryffindor, and your brothers were in Hufflepuff together until
this year. Both my parents got to play for Gryffindor, so did four of our uncles...
come to think of it, almost all the aunts and uncles got to be in that house, and so
were Grandmother and Grandfather. I grew up hearing all these stories about the
Tower and the common room and now I’ll never get to see any of that.”
“That’s rubbish, Linda. You know very well Uncle Draco says he’s been all
over Gryffindor Tower, and Uncle Harry always talks about how dead easy it
was to sneak into the Slytherin dungeons. Now, Mary’s a prefect, and she’s
snarky enough... we’ll see about somehow sneaking you in for an overnight stay
very soon, I promise...”
“It’s not the same,” said Malinda sadly.
“Well, what about Quentin? He’s nice enough and I always see him tagging
after you...”
“Quentin’s in your year and house, Rave. He’s also a stupid boy. He’s not
in my year, not in my house, not in my dorm. I can’t eat with him or go to
classes with him.”
Raven grinned. “Yeah, but he sure loves to race you, doesn’t he?”
“Oh, stop,” said Malinda as Raven began to giggle. “Stop it, I say... he’s
just a stupid boy and he’s slated to be Seeker for Gryffindor after Alma
Pilkington leaves. He’s just looking over the competition... wants to know how
well the youngest Slytherin Seeker in a century can fly.”
“Sounds like a match made in heaven to me,” said Raven. “Hey, everybody,
guess what? Malinda’s got a boyfr...umph...” For Malinda had knocked her from
the divan they’d been sitting on and covered her loud cousin’s mouth with her
hand.
“Will you just stop it? My Dad will have my hide if he hears you!”
Raven pulled Malinda’s hand away. “Oh, I’m sure Uncle Fred won’t mind.
Quentin’s a great guy, I’ve known him since Hogsmeade first school. Half the
girls in my class fancied him... you ought to consider yourself lucky that he’s
even paying attention to you, Malinda.”
“Who are you talking about, Quentin again?” asked Gryff pompously. “Oh,
come off it... why girls always go bonkers over the stupidest boys utterly
mystifies me...”
Seeing Malinda’s embarrassment, Raven pushed her twin so hard that he
sprawled on the ground. “Oh, do be quiet, you’re such a pain.”
Gryff sat up. “I’m sure Uncle Fred would love to hear all about this
Quentin bloke...”
“Gryffindor Weasley, if you even think about telling Linda’s dad about
Quent, I’ll... I’ll tell the whole school that you sleep with a bedful of stuffed pink
Puffskeins and suck your thumb!”
Gryff’s mouth dropped open. “You wouldn’t?”
Raven folded her arms and pressed her lips together in a gesture that was

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eerily reminiscent of their mother. “Try me.”
As Gryff marched away in a huff, Malinda stifled her giggles behind her
hand. “Does he really?”
She nodded gravely. “But I wouldn’t ever tell, you know. It would be just
as embarrassing for me as it would be for him. After all, like it or not he is my
twin.” Raven reached into her robe pocket and handed Malinda a small wrapped
present. “By the way, Merry Christmas.”
Malinda’s mouth opened. “Really, Raven... you shouldn’t have...”
“Oh, stop blubbering and just open it.”
Malinda took off the paper and drew out two chains, one golden and one
silver. Each had a broken pink heart half hanging from it. Malinda’s read “Best”
while Raven’s bore the legend “Friends”.
“There’s more to it than meets the eye,” explained Raven. “The charm’s
really a sort of amulet, you know... I bought the necklaces but Carole helped me
with the heart. If you hold it like this,” here Raven palmed the amulet and
clinched her fist around it, “you’ll be able to reach me and we’ll be able to talk
to each other even while we’re in our separate houses.”
“Oh, how creative!” Malinda threw her arms around her cousin’s neck.
“Thanks!”
Raven returned the hug. “Well, it’s true, you know. You’re not only my
cousin, you are my very best friend and always will be. And next term we’ll find
a way to make those Slytherins pay...”
“What’s this about Slytherins paying?” said a voice directly behind them.
“Slytherins don’t pay, others pay us.”
Raven laughed merrily. “Oh, Uncle Draco, I didn’t hear you there!”
“No, and obviously you didn’t hear your mother calling you, either,” he
replied. “Although I can’t say I blame you for tuning that noise out. You have
my sympathy, Ravenclaw.”
Rave groaned, shrugged at Malinda, and ran out of the room.
Draco Malfoy sat down on a nearby pouf with his daughter Hazel leaning
against his leg, a smug sort of smile curling about her lips. Nearly five years old,
Hazel Claire Malfoy was the classic enfant terrible. Spoiled rotten and cute as a
button, she ruled over the cousins in her set like a queen... and Linda felt that her
richest uncle’s one flaw was that he was blind to his only daughter’s
shortcomings.
Uncle Draco had owled her every Monday that autumn, short missives on
Malfosoft stationery that didn’t exactly give her the warm fuzzies but that had
been oddly comforting in the midst of her despair. He’d told her that no matter
what anyone else in the family said, Slytherin was the best house and she’d do
great things there.
She’d also got presents from other old Slytherin members. Shortly after she
made the Quidditch team there was a nice owl and a bag of Bertie Bott’s Every
Flavour Beans from Dr. Zabini, the mediWizard who’d delivered her, and a

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 Christmas In Paradise
week later there was a lovely silver and green scarf from Dr. Parkinson-Locke,
another associate of her Aunt Hermione’s. They both told her that she was
among the very best, that Gryffindor and the rest were overrated, and that she
would do great things for the exclusive House of the Serpent.
The best of all was the five hundred Galleons Uncle Draco had given her
when Slytherin trounced Gryffindor in her very first ever Quidditch match.
Many of her aunts and uncles and cousins had come, as Mary was a Gryffindor
Beater and P.J. was Keeper and team captain. Despite the antics of some of her
teammates, Malinda had played as fairly as she could, and it had been a very
easy matter to outfly Alma Pilkington and snatch the Snitch from right under her
nose.
“That child has made my day,” said Uncle Draco on that day to a
speechless Uncle Ron, as he handed Malinda the sack of Galleons and sent her a
nod of approval that made her extremely happy. “Talk about satisfaction.”
Her own father’s mouth had twitched. “Malfoy, you must realize that it
wasn’t until a Weasley began wearing those infernal green robes that you were
able to gloat so ungraciously over a 170 to zero match...”
“Fred!” had been her mother’s response. “Of course we’re all very proud of
you, Linda.”
Now it was Christmas, more than six weeks after the event, and Uncle
Draco was speaking to her. “And how’s my favorite Slytherin niece?” he asked.
“Wonderful,” she said.
“You’ll be even better when you see the Christmas present that Hazel and
I picked out for you, won’t she, darling?”
“Yes, but mine is much bigger,” Hazel sniffed. “I’m going to be in Slytherin
soon, Malinda, and then I’m going to be the Seeker instead of you.”
By the time you get to Hogwarts, little girl, I’ll be tops in the League. “Of
course you will, Hazel,” she said instead. “I’m just paving the way.”
Back in the kitchen, poor Raven was enduring a sound tongue-lashing from
her mother for her behaviour upon arrival. She knew that Uncle Fred and Aunt
Angelina hadn’t told about the near-fight she’d had with Gryff. It must have
been Gryffindor himself, angry over her Puffskein and thumb-sucker threats.
“Where is he?” exclaimed Raven. “I’ll hex his tale-telling tongue off!”
Penelope gasped, sputtering.
“You’ll do no such thing,” said Grandmother Molly calmly, whipping a few
dozen egg whites quite easily with her wand. “Now, just calm down and listen to
what your mother says, there’s a dear.”
“Ravenclaw, I am terribly disappointed with your behaviour,” said
Penelope gravely when she’d recovered enough to speak. “Therefore, you’ll get
no crackers this year.”
“No crackers... but... Mother, I didn’t do anything!”
“You had better be grateful that I didn’t give you the punishment you
deserve,” said Penelope. “Off with you, now, before I tell your father about

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this.”
Raven ran out of the room, crying. Molly looked after her granddaughter
with a sigh.
“I tell you, Mum, I’m not certain where that child came from,” said
Penelope wearily. “I mean, I can understand Mary’s mood swings – her birth
mother was manic-depressive – but all the other children are reasonable whether
I birthed them or not.”
“She’s high spirited, Penny,” said Molly. “Merlin knows we’ve enough of
that in this family. I do think she’ll be all right.”
“I’m sure.” Penelope reached for a sack of flour and set it heavily on the
table. “I’m not sure how you and Arthur managed to raise seven children.”
“You’ve seven children yourself, dear.”
“Oh, yes, but I also had daycare and a large support network and you. Your
parents and Dad’s were lost fighting Grindelwald, and your siblings were no
help at all. However did you manage?”
Molly patted her daughter-in-law’s shoulder. “Oh, Penelope, you still
haven’t learned the secret. Think about it. Things usually end up managing
themselves, don’t they? With a family as large as this one is, if I worried over
every small thing my hair would be snow-white by now. Arthur helped me see
that you have to take things as they come.” She smiled. “Raven will be just fine.
Sometimes it’s easy to feel ignored if you’re in the middle of a large family. She
needs to know that you love her.”
Penelope nodded slowly. “Yes, that always. I suppose I shouldn’t have
made such a fuss over her first year results this summer. I just know that she can
achieve so much more than she’s doing... sometimes I feel if she just pushed
herself a bit more...”
“She’ll be fine,” Molly repeated. “Let it go, dear.”
Just then, Ginny burst into the kitchen in a blaze of glory, resplendent in
green and silver robes.
“Hello, mum, Penelope,” she said, hugging her mother and then her sister-
in-law. “Merry Christmas!”
“Same to you, dear,” said Molly. “Where is Draco and the little one?”
“Out by the fire, I expect. Is Dad... is he...”
“He’s resting,” said Molly. “Today has been a good day for him. He’ll be
down in a bit.”
Ginny exhaled in relief. “Oh, I’m glad to hear that. I was hoping he wasn’t
having a bad spell. Have Neville and Hermione begun that new experimental
treatment? I’m anxious for Dad to have some relief.”
Molly sighed. “Neville has been in and out since... well, you know what’s
happened to his wife. And of course Hermione’s still recovering from last
month. She says she’s going to cut her leave short and expects to be back in the
clinic at the New Year. I’m quite certain she’s not got her strength back yet, but
she says that your father is her first priority.”

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“Well, that’s great to hear. If anyone can cure him, she can.”
“Let’s hope so,” said Penelope gravely. “Are they all coming down for the
evening?”
“Yes, I heard from Harry earlier today,” said Molly. “Sirius and Carole and
Max will be here as well. Remus and Tatiana can’t – the moon’s all wrong – but
they say they will ring in the New Year with us.”
“That’s everyone, then,” said Ginny happily. “I’m sure it will cheer Dad a
great deal. Shall I begin with the decorating, Mum?”
“That’ll be fine, Ginny,” said Penelope, answering for Molly. “Everyone
else can join in when they arrive.”
Arriving in the vestibule just then were Bill and Madeleine accompanied by
Charlie, Liz, and Elizabeth Molina. Charlie’s usual practice was to spend the
winter holidays with his closest brother and longtime girlfriend, instead of
traveling back and forth from Argentina. So Elizabeth would take the Hogwarts
Express back into London, meet up with her aunt and uncle, and wait for her
parents to arrive from South America.
“Right, then, where’s the mistletoe?” asked Bill, swinging Madeleine over
the threshold as she clutched a lumpy sack of red velvet that was spilling over
gifts.
She clucked her tongue at him in mock derision. “Naughty, naughty.”
He growled back at her. “Sexy, sexy...”
Elizabeth made an eloquent face. “You two are disgusting,” she said
matter-of-factly to her favorite aunt and uncle. At sixteen, she believed that
public displays of affection were inappropriate for anyone over the age of
twenty-five.
“As yucky as this?” her mother asked, pulling Charlie’s head down for a
long kiss.
“Eww! That’s it!” exclaimed Elizabeth Molina, chucking her blue cloak
over her parents’ snogging heads. “Grandmother! Can I stay over here tonight?”
Ginny rushed out into the vestibule and grabbed Madeleine. “Come,
Madeleine, I need someone with an eye for color and proportion to help deck the
halls. Draco’s doing a fair job with the outside lights and some of the little girls
are helping him, but Fred and Angelina are wreaking their usual havoc upon the
tree.” She lowered her voice. “This year it’s green tinsel and purple and pink
bulbs...”
Madeleine gasped. “Mon Dieu, that is an emergency!”
She and Ginny rushed into the main room to stop the madness. Charlie and
Liz grinned at Bill.
“Are you two up for a snowball fight?” asked Liz.
“For certain,” said Charlie. “I have a score to settle from last year.”
“Just be prepared for Penelope’s disapproval,” added Bill.
“Oh, Penelope can go suck an Alihotsy leaf. I don’t feel like doing anything
useful or sensible. I’m useful and sensible three hundred and sixty-four days of

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the year.”
“A snowball fight? At your ages?” asked Percy, Apparating in with P.J. by
his side. “Be reasonable, please.”
“It’s perfectly reasonable,” Liz insisted. “Fred’s twins and Gryff are outside
making snow people, and I’m sure a simple Animatus spell will add to their fun.
Let’s go play Frosty.”
And with that, two fortysomething Wizards and a fortysomething Witch
raced outside to play. Singing an improvised carol at the top of their lungs:
It’s beginning to seem a lot like Christmas
Ev’rywhere you look;
The prices at Dob and Wink’s
Will make you toss back a drink,
And say that every Wizard merchant’s a crook...
“I cannot believe those two,” said Percy, shaking his head in disapproval.
“Well, Dad, you know how Uncle Bill and Uncle Charlie are,” P.J. replied.
“They like to have fun.”
“Fun? Considering the circumstances, how can they?”
Percy Junior looked at his own father, prematurely balding, creases criss-
crossing his forehead. Ever since he’d been appointed Minister of Magic over
the summer, the little wellspring of laughter and fun Percy Weasley had allowed
himself before had all but dried up. P.J. also knew that his father was very
concerned about his grandfather’s well-being.
“They haven’t said a word to either of your grandparents, and now they’re
out there rolling in the snow,” said Percy, walking towards the kitchen. “There
comes a time, son, when a Wizard must decide that he’s a man and not a silly
boy.”
P.J. blushed a bit. Ever since he’d announced his engagement to Deborah
over the summer, he’d felt himself cross over the same invisible line that his
older sister Maggie and older brother Paul had gone beyond when they’d
married and otherwise partnered off. This meant that he was no longer a
Weasley kid, but not really a full-fledged adult either, as it seemed difficult for
his parents and their aunts and uncles to accept that any of the children could
ever grow up.
Deborah was spending the holidays with her own family in
Buckinghamshire, and he felt her absence keenly. Deborah. How he missed her.
He loved her quiet spirit and her subtle sense of humor. He was also thrilled that
the family had embraced her so readily, especially his Aunt Anya, in whom his
girl had found a kindred spirit.
As if his own thoughts had conjured them up, the door opened and in
stepped both Aunt Anya and Uncle George, along with their three daughters
Katarina, Natasha, and Anastasia. The two older girls ran into the main room in
search of the other children; Ana, being only eight months old, slumbered in her
mother’s arms.

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“Hello there, P.J.!” said Uncle George. “Where’s Deborah?”
“At her mum’s house,” said P.J. “She’ll be over tomorrow for Christmas.”
Aunt Anya hugged him. “I know how you must miss her. Don’t think
anyone will be offended if you Disapparate for a few hours...”
P.J. shook his head. “You don’t know my mother.”
Anya nodded her understanding. “Is Angelina here yet?”
“Yes, according to Aunt Gin she and Uncle Fred are making the Christmas
tree look absolutely ghastly as usual.”
“Excellent!” said Uncle George with a grin. “I wonder if old Fred
remembered the spitting gingerbread men and the squirting angel? Must go and
check...”
“Has Maureen arrived yet?” Aunt Anya asked, handing him the baby so
that she could lay off her wraps.
P.J. shook his head, gazing down at the baby. He’d never paid much
attention to any of the babies before; their family had always had far too many
of them at any one given time for him to consider them special. But now he
thought of Deborah, and their wedding at the end of the next year... and his older
sister who’d just begun a new generation and was spending her holidays with
her husband’s family.
This is what life’s all about, P.J. thought. Not success and fame and glory...
The door opened again, and in stepped Uncle Ron. Uncle Ron was one of
those Wizards whose presence seemed to fill a room. P.J. used to be rather
intimidated by him until he’d had occasion to spend a day with him when he
was a very small boy and had learned of some of his uncle’s own growing pains.
“Merry Christmas!” his uncle said, embracing him warmly, then punching
him on the arm before going to greet Anya, who’d collected her baby again. A
few blinks later, eight-year old Maury trotted into the house, followed by six
year old Artie and three year old Quinn. All the boys raced down the hall... P.J.
heard his Aunt Penelope’s shriek, and then the back door slam, all within ten
seconds.
Those boys of Ron’s are unholy terrors, he could hear his mother say. But
no wonder, look at what they’ve got for a mother.
That mother of theirs walked in next. Maureen Weasley was carrying a
small bundle of blankets, a warm smile on her face. Anya rushed over, kissed
her cheek, and Uncle Ron relieved her of the child she was holding. Both Aunt
Maureen and Aunt Anya had given birth on the same day last April, and as a
result had grown even closer.
“I’m going to see if Maria needs changing,” said Ron over his shoulder,
walking upstairs. “Go and relax for a minute.”
“Relax? You’ve set your sons loose on the Burrow. Impossible.”
“Oh, they’re outside rolling around in the snow with the others,” said Anya.
“Come on, Mo, let’s charm together some popcorn and cranberry strings...
we’ve overdue for a chat.”

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P.J. took Anastasia back one more time. “I’ll look after her for a while, if
you don’t mind. I think I could use the practice.”
Both Witches froze.
“Oh, not for use in the immediate future! Deb’s not... I mean, what do you
take me for?”
“Things happen, hon,” said Aunt Maureen.
“Not if I can help it,” said P.J., wishing suddenly that it was next year this
time. “Not until we’re ready.”
Back in the main room, the tree was coming together quite nicely.
Everyone was helping with it, although Fred and Angelina seemed sort of
offended at their handiwork being undone and George supported their point of
view.
“I say, Gin, this is not for a Gladrags shop window, it’s a bloody family
tree,” protested Fred.
“Exactly. And we must consider what statement this tree is making about
our family. Think about it. Are we really that tacky?”
“Yes, which is why we shouldn’t have changed it,” said Angelina. “You
might not think our tree was very attractive or organized or orderly, but our tree
represents us, not high society.”
A minor argument ensued, in which Ginny and Madeleine made a good
case for fashion and Fred and George and Angelina advocated personality. It
grew more and more heated, with a lot of wand swishing and flicking for
example and emphasis, so that at the end half of the tree looked like a Madame
Malkin’s ad and the other half looked rather like a Martin the Mad Muggle
comic...
“That has got to be the most frightening Christmas tree I have ever seen,”
said Penelope, stepping into the midst of the fray. “We’re about to bring Dad
down... please put this room into some semblance of order and stop acting like
children.”
Usually they ignored Penelope, but not this Christmas. Soon the snowball-
throwing masses trooped in from outside and everyone rushed to finish the
decorating.
It was all done in less than fifteen minutes. The dots of varicolored light
outlining the outside of the Burrow perfectly. Inside, white tapers hovering
everywhere, glowing. The fireplace cracking and glowing.
And there was a soft white light that encased the tree. White, silver, and
gold everywhere. Strings of popcorn and cranberries. Ornaments that walked
and talked and smiled, that had been with the family since their poorest days.
Aunt Penelope and Grandmother began filling cups with strong coffee and
tea, along with sweets of every variety. And then there were footfalls on the
stairs, and here was Grandfather, being supported by Uncle Ron and Uncle Bill.
They were all very glad to see him, and the love shone from all of their
eyes. But as he was too frail for their usual manner of greeting, they waited

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patiently, quietly as he was settled down into his favorite chair and his pipe was
handed to him, stuffed with new holiday tobacco.
The children gathered at his knees with a near reverence that was
wonderful to behold. A general hush fell over them all as Arthur began to speak.
“Well, now, children... what story shall I tell this year?”
The children all put in their special requests. Grandfather’s Christmas
stories were as much a part of the season for them as Santa and Rudolph, as
trees and stars and angels. But they couldn’t decide on just one. One wanted “A
Visit From St. Nicholas”, another wanted “The Pine Tree”, and yet another
wanted to hear of shepherds and Magi and a manger.
“Perhaps it’s time for a new story, then,” said Grandfather. “Now, let me
see...”
The bells on the front door tinkled one last time. In the distance was
laughter, and a slight commotion, and a few seconds later a young boy
somewhere between Hazel and Malinda’s age raced in. He had his father’s black
hair and his mother’s brown eyes, and bore a wide grin and another sackful of
presents to add to those that filled the corner by the tree.
“Why, hello there, Max,” said Grandfather, ruffling his hair with a feeble
hand. “Shall we wait on the Ayr Island people to arrive before we begin?”
“Yes, please, Mr. Weasley,” said the boy, very politely.
There was really no waiting, though, because presently Sirius and Carole
came into the room, greeting everyone and murmuring something about a
snowstorm brewing over Scotland that hampered their party’s arrival as they sat
in the only two remaining places by the fire. They were followed by Hermione,
who seemed a lot more fragile than usual and was carefully carrying yet another
bundle of blankets, tinier than any of the others.
She said quick hellos and sat down carefully in a seat very near the door.
But Arthur looked her way, smiled and said:
“We’ll wait a moment for Harry before we begin, dear... but in the
meantime, I’d rather like to see our newest addition.”
Ginny rushed to help her, and soon the newborn was placed carefully into
Arthur’s arms. Hermione leaned over both of them, lifting the creamy coverlet
away from her tiny daughter’s face.
“How are you feeling?” Hermione asked, placing a hand on top of his head.
“Today has been better than most, thanks for asking, dear,” he said, looking
down at the baby. “And just what is this delightful little girl’s name?”
Some of the other adults winced in spite of themselves. Arthur had indeed
been told the baby’s name several times, but the disease was causing him to
forget things more and more often. This was very disconcerting at times, even
for Arthur himself.
“Delilah,” Hermione said with a grin, knowing that there had been much
silly speculation over that choice of name over the past six weeks. But she and
her husband knew the reasoning behind their child’s name, and that was all that

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mattered. “We’ve taken to calling her Lila, it’s easier.”
“Hello, little Lila,” said Arthur with a wan smile, as the child’s tiny fingers
wrapped around his outstretched thumb. “Welcome to the family.”
Ginny took Lila away from Arthur, and the tiny child squalled as if this
action greatly offended her. Hermione, whose hand was still on Arthur’s
forehead, was going to take her back, but Harry had finished stowing away
everything and had come in. The minute he lifted the little girl away from
Ginny’s arms, she seemed pacified... clearly a miniature ‘daddy’s girl’.
“Now, then, for that story...” said Arthur, nodding at Hermione, who went
to sit with her husband and daughter.
“I want to hear the story of the Christmas Witch, grandfather and I want to
hear it now,” demanded Hazel, folding her arms.
“No one cares what you want, you little goose, so shut it and let
Grandfather speak...”
“Raven,” said Percy sharply.
Through tired eyes, Arthur looked around the gathering. All of his children
were there, along with their life partners. There were dear family friends as
well... two he’d practically fathered, who’d finally figured it out at last, along
with their closest mentors. They all had their ups and downs, their good times
and their bad times. But overall it was a happy lot, and a very successful one...
his sons and daughters and their friends had shaped the age that they lived in.
And the children! Arthur looked around at all the fresh young faces, from
the very littlest one nestled in Hermione’s arms to Percy’s son, now a young
man. He thought of little Maggie, now a wife and a mother. He thought of Paul,
now an up-and-coming theatre director who was spending the holidays with his
partner John and brother Joseph in New York... their parcels had been received
and sent earlier in the week.
“No, really Percy, it’s all right. I think I’ll do ‘A Visit From St. Nicholas’ as
usual, but before, I think I’d like to tell a new story. It’s a Muggle retelling of
one of our stories, in fact, for all know that Camelot was the last Wizarding
kingdom of the Golden Age... Elizabeth Molina, please bring me our book...
we’ve read all of the stories save the last one, the one that I’ve never told
before.”
She did so, tugging down the heavy volume from one of the holly-covered
bookshelves at the far end of the room. Mary helped her set it down in their
grandfather’s lap as carefully as she could, and Arthur opened it to the very end.
That story which the bold Sir Bedivere,
First made and latest left of all the knights,
Told, when the man was no more than a voice
In the white winter of his age, to those
With whom he dwelt, new faces, other minds.
For on their march to westward, Bedivere,
Who slowly paced among the slumbering host,

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Heard in his tent the moanings of the King:
‘I found Him in the shining of the stars,
I marked Him in the flowering of His fields,
But in His ways with men I find Him not.
I waged His wars, and now I pass and die...
All children love stories, and these Weasley children were no exception.
They pressed closer, clearly entranced by the story that he had to tell. Even little
Wizards and Witches loved the tales of Camelot, of the age when the greatest
English Wizard of all time, Merlin, walked the earth, of a time when the whole
world was a crucible for magic.
But their parents were a bit more concerned. They wondered about Arthur’s
telling of this tale on this night, wondered what his eyes really saw just before he
requested the book.
Ginny crept silently over to sit on the other side of Hermione. She was a
wife and a mother, and yet she was ever Arthur’s youngest child and only
daughter. Now she looked up at her old friend with imploring eyes. Asking
questions without saying a word.
Wordlessly, Hermione handed Lila to Harry. Then she put her arms around
Ginny and hugged her tight.
“Dad seems a bit down this year, doesn’t he?” said Ron to Fred, under his
breath.
“I expect he’s somewhat knackered. Being sick and all that,” his brother
murmured back with a shrug. Usual light tone wavering at bit.
Anya and Maureen sat side by side, each with their youngest child crawling
underfoot. “The littlest don’t realize it, do they?” whispered Anya.
Maureen shook her head. “What I wouldn’t give to be that innocent again.”
But the young realize more than adults usually know, and adolescents are
nearly impossible to hoodwink. Malinda and Raven sat side by side, exchanging
anguished looks with Elizabeth and Mary. P.J.’s chin rested in his hands and
Gryff was staring into space. Together they sat, oblivious to the reactions of the
adults or the smaller children as Arthur read his namesake’s swan song from the
book.
And slowly answered Arthur from the barge:
‘The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfills himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me?
I have lived my life, and that which I have done
May He within himself make pure!
For so the whole round earth is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.
But now farewell. I am going a long way
With these thou seest – if indeed I go

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(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)-
To the island-valley of Avalon;
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
Deep-meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns
And bowery hollows crowned with summer sea,
Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.’
Arthur finished the story and closed the book. “Thank you, my dear,” he
said to Elizabeth, and she and Mary heaved the book away. He looked around.
“Dear me, so many long faces... and on Christmas? Why, there’s no need for it,
everyone, absolutely no need for it.”
“I guess everybody likes the stories about the knights and the battles better,
Gramps,” said Maury. “I know I do.”
“I liked that story, Grandfather,” said little Kat, drawing near. “But it was
really sad that the king had to go away... didn’t he know that everyone would
miss him?”
Arthur leaned back with a sigh. “Oh, the king never went away, not really.
He lived on in the hearts and minds of his people forever. And they passed these
stories down to us. Now, speaking of stories, let’s have a Christmas one... let me
see if I can remember...”
“‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled down for a long winter’s nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter...”
As if on cue, there was a fantastic banging on both of the doors. Before
anyone could react, there was a fantastic crash, and a couple of dozen people
sprang to their feet. Everyone over the age of ten drew a wand. Some of the
littlest children ran behind their mother’s skirts; Maury Weasley snatched up a
piece of kindling.
“Hey! What happened? We were having a tremendous time out there!”
One by one, the lot of snow people that Sean, Michael and Gryff had
created and their aunt and uncles had brought to life came marching in.
“Whew! It’s far too toasty in here,” said one of the snow boys, wiping the
water from her brow with a mittened hand, then dumping a lot of snow on the
fire so that it was snuffed out. “Ah. That’s better. So, what’d we miss?”
No one could even say a word. Even the babies seemed speechless.
“Cat’s got your tongue, eh?” said one of the snowmen. “Well, we’re
awfully glad to have a look inside for a change, you can’t know how boring it is

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to just sit around outside all winter until the next thaw.”
Ginny recovered first. “Merry Christmas, all. Why don’t you, um, have a
seat and we’ll bring you a nice cup of tea.”
“Oh, no thanks dear,” said one of the snow matrons. “We’d just sweat all
over everything and none of us are much for tea anyhow... beastly stuff, that.
The floor’s just fine for us.”
A set of snow twins, one a girl, the other a boy came to sit in the midst of
the little children. They all shivered and put their arms around themselves. Some
tucked their hands into their sleeves.
“Through the window we saw you telling a story, sir,” said the girl-twin.
“Please, do continue.”
And so Arthur continued with the tale of St. Nicholas for the human and
snow children alike.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Santa himself comes thumping down the
chimney after this,” said Penelope, her mouth curling as she went with Percy to
go set the doors back on their hinges.
But Santa didn’t come, of course, as that would have been extremely
unlucky for the little ones who were nowhere near sleep. They said the famous
reindeer’s names along with Arthur, adding in “Rudolph” at the end of the verse.
They chortled when the line “I laughed when I saw him in spite of myself” came
up.
And then all the children shouted the last bit together:

But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,

“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!”

Indeed, that was a very happy Christmas, and one that the children would
never forget. For death’s dark shadow drew near, and the next year even the least
of them would know its cruelty and finality. But now was not the time for
sadness, it was a time for celebration and laughter.
The snow people lasted inside for three-quarters of an hour, and then were
returned to outdoors and sleep. Fires were re-lit, cloaks were removed, and then
there were plenty of apples and popcorn and Christmas sweets to go around.
Then the littlest children began to grow heavy-eyed and one by one were carried
upstairs despite their drowsy protests.
Bill brought out his guitar, strumming absently as Madeleine leaned her
head against his shoulder. Maureen caught the melody and began to hum. Ron
took her hand in his with a smile.
P.J. began to hum along in harmony. Then the caroling began in earnest.
Some of the songs were merry and some of them pulled on the heartstrings.
Most of them were downright silly, though, as Bill and Charlie and the twins
attempted to change as many of the lyrics as possible.
Malinda and Raven sat together near a window, a bit apart from the rest.

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Raven was tracing patterns on the frosted pane with her wand, and soon they
danced in kaleidoscope fashion.
“Linda, do you think Grandfather will be all right?” she whispered, ice
swirling behind her. “He seems so serious this year, and the grown-ups seem
sad.”
Malinda looked at their grandfather, who had drifted peacefully off to sleep
with a smile on his face. Then she glanced around at all the remaining cousins,
the uncles and aunts, the family friends, her parents, Aunt Penelope and her
grandmother going back and forth from the kitchen.
And she thought of something her mother said every year: It’s rather nice
to be a Weasley at Christmas, isn’t it?
No. It was quite nice to be a Weasley any day of the year.
“No, I think he’s right as rain, actually. I think he’s happy.” She touched the
amulet around her neck. “With a family like this one, how could one not be?”
Raven nodded her understanding. “Merry Christmas, Linda.”
“Merry Christmas, Rave.”

– finis –

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 Monster Under My Bed

“Daddy, there’s a monster under my bed.”

Harry’s eyes opened slowly. First one, then the other. A small pink-red-and-
white blur filled his vision. He squinted, trying to get his bearings through his
potion-induced fog... reached for his glasses...
It was his three-year-old daughter. Isabella (who was always called Bel
ever since Uncle Ron said her name was too much of a mouthful for such a bite-
sized girl) was standing next to the bed. She was dressed in her favorite pair of
pajamas, white ones with a candyland print and the feet still in the bottoms.
Clutched close to her chest was her favorite stuffed animal, a large green-
yellow-and-purple Muggle-made lizard inexplicably named Asa.
Harry sat up groggily, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Then he swung his
legs over the side of the bed and drew the small girl to sit on his knee.
“What is it?”
“A monster. Under my bed. A scary monster.”
He turned away from her to cough into a sweaty cupped hand. From his
previous two, Harry had learned that was nothing worse than a frightened child
save for a frightened and sick child. He didn’t want her to catch whatever he
had.
Be nice to deal with the obligatory midnight wake-up calls when he felt
better himself.
He sneezed, and then picked her up. She was getting far too big to be
carried around, Hermione fussed, but he just didn’t have the heart to push her
away, ever. The other two were growing up alarmingly fast enough as it was.
Lila’s head was already up to his elbow and Drew’s shoes had to be charmed up
a size nearly every six weeks... even if they could afford to buy new ones every
time this happened, in Hermione’s opinion that was scandalous waste and that
twice a year was good enough for even a Potter kid.
It seemed as if it was only yesterday morning and their older two were the
ones waking them up in the middle of the night. Now after dark Lila was stowed
away in the loft bedroom, her miniature kingdom these days, and Drew read
with one of his mum’s old wands and a muttered Nox beneath his covers.
His wife wasn’t as matter-of-fact about childrearing as she claimed to be
herself, he reflected. When Bel was finally toilet-trained, eight months before,
Hermione had gone off to her study to cry and mope for the duration of the
evening.
“For the past year you’ve done nothing but complain about Bel and the
Sequels
loo... and how the two seemed never destined to meet,” Harry had said to her
that night. “Don’t you think you’re being just a little unreasonable?”
“Oh, Harry, you don’t understand,” Hermione had said morosely, turning
her face so that her tears ran into their shared pillow. “Today she was so happy,
and so proud about it... and I smiled and kissed her, because I was relieved and
proud too... but Harry, she’s our last one.”
She indeed was their last. Just as Lila was the first Potter child and Drew
was the only boy, little Bel was not only the youngest Potter kid, but the
youngest sprog amongst all their entire set... the youngest in a generation.
The last baby.
So his virulent summer cold and Hermione’s absence notwithstanding,
Harry stood up with the small girl, grabbed his wand out of sheer instinct, and
walked towards her room.
“Right, let’s just go see where this monster is.”
Bel’s small arms went around her dad’s neck, just before she rested her
cheek on his shoulder. “Yay! Daddy’s going to blast the monster... Daddy’s
going to blast the monster...”
“Shh. You’ll wake your sister and brother up, you know.”
“Uh-oh... sorry,” giggled Bel, and continued in what was her best attempt at
a whisper (but still pretty loud). “Daddy’s going to blast the monster... Daddy’s
going to blast the monster...”
He opened the door to her small room, which she had shut... sniffling
desperately so that he wouldn’t drip on his daughter’s head. Everything looked
normal. For baby Bel, normal meant clothes and toys scattered everywhere,
especially since Hermione had been gone for three days now and he didn’t have
the heart to fuss about the mess much.
Harry expected by the time his wife returned from Paracelsus the next
evening, the floor wouldn’t be visible.
He tipped up the covers. The clutter here was much less. He saw nothing
amiss.
“There. See? No monster.”
Bel frowned up at her dad. Green eyes met green.
“But there was a monster, Daddy.” The look on her face was one of pure
honesty.
Harry nodded. “I know. But it looks like he knew you were coming to get
me and he ran away.”
Bel giggled. “Yeah, because my Daddy blasts all the monsters away, every
time!”
Despite his congested chest and sinuses and likely having a temperature
that was more than a few degrees higher than Hermione might have liked, Harry
melted, hugging her close. He didn’t want her to catch his germs, so he kissed
the top of her red hair.
“And Daddy always will, sweet.”

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But Bel, ever affectionate, more expressive than her father and mother and
sister and brother put together, giggled again... leaned up... and planted a
butterfly kiss on the tip of her dad’s nose.
“Go to sleep,” Harry said, smiling indulgently as he let her down so she
could scramble underneath the covers. He tucked her in.
“Can you tuck Asa in, Daddy?” Bel asked, holding out her stuffed lizard.
Asa, who was inanimate like all Muggle stuffed toys, was made to nod by the
precocious tyke... “Daddy, please tuck me in too!” she said, muffling the sound
in Asa’s toy fur.
Harry obliged. “Now go to sleep...”
“Can you hum me?”
“No, that’s Mummy. You know that’s her,” said Harry, suddenly dizzy. He
sat down on top of the covers, placing a hand up to his throbbing head.
Bel nodded. “I miss Mummy. Where did she go?”
“To London,” said Harry for about the thousandth time that weekend..
“That’s too far away.”
I know. Believe me, I know. “Never mind. She’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“After you close your eyes, love... and when you open them again, it’ll be
tomorrow...”
Bel promptly squeezed her eyes shut, then bugged them open.
“Oh! Is it tomorrow, Daddy?”
Harry gave her a look, shaking his head. He was groggy, and she was being
very silly.
“Not until daylight comes again. And then we’ll have a spot of breakfast,
and you can come to the school with me. We can lunch with my students, you
always like that... and you can go to port with me tomorrow to meet your mum.
Okay?”
Bel nodded, then buried herself up to the chin in the covers and buttoned
her eyes up tight. “Okay.”
Harry bent over and kissed her forehead. “Sleep well, wee Bel.”
He didn’t leave her then, of course. He sat with her for the few moments
until she drifted to sleep, a half smile showcasing the dimple in her left cheek.
Bel was the first dimpled Potter or Granger in a couple of generations, and the
effect was to make her silly, happy grin appear a bit lop-sided.
They were all amazing children, Harry reflected as he walked back to his
bedroom. And not just because they were his, really. His biggest fear upon
becoming a father was that his children would be horribly maladjusted, spoiled,
or otherwise unpleasant individuals. He found himself torn between indulging
their every whim just because he loved them so much and wanted them to have
everything – and keeping his horrid cousin Dudley at the back of his mind as an
example of what excessive doting upon a child could do.
Yet he couldn’t be too hard on them. Especially not his girls... not Lila, with

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his eyes shining out of an exact replica of Hermione’s face of thirty years ago...
not Bel, who was the living portrait of his own mum. And although once in a
blue moon he wanted Drew to close the books at times and go flying and
horsing around with the other boys from the village, it did give him some
satisfaction to note that school came as easily to his son as it had for Hermione.
Indeed, it was Hermione who provided the much-needed balance in their
parenting. There was never any danger of the children being spoiled rotten, for
she simply wasn’t a spoiler. After all her fears of being a mother, Hermione
simply excelled at it. She was firm yet fair, the disciplinarian amongst the two of
them.
“Children need rules, Harry,” she would say time and time again. “You
have to be firm.”
“Rules are meant to be broken,” he’d reply, “as long as there’s a good
reason...”
“Which there rarely is,” said Hermione.
And then Harry would kiss her, and say, “But I taught you otherwise, didn’t
I?”
To which Hermione would reply: “You’ve taught me a lot of things... not
all of which I’m willing to share with the children.” This said with a wicked
gleam in her brown eyes... a gleam which he knew just how to answer...
Harry plunged his weary head down upon the pillow.
She’d only been gone for a few days this time, yet it seemed like an
eternity. Her absence always left this strange gaping void in the house...
although he was a very involved dad and this hadn’t been Hermione’s first trip
away without the family, the children still missed their mum.
Not half as much as he missed his wife, though.
He couldn’t say how much.
It was ridiculous. They’d been married for nearly a decade. Yet the very
thought of his Hermione still made Harry smile, and the sight of her still had the
power to render him breathless.
Had she been home tonight, she would have fussed over his propensity to
run himself ragged, then babied him with her best fast-acting Potions and
soothing hyperempathic touches. And after she made him feel better, he’d repay
the favor in her favorite fashion...
He missed her so much it ached.
But as long as their children were around, he couldn’t be down. No one
could be depressed or feel sorry for themselves when Delilah, Andrew, and
Isabella Potter were in the vicinity.
Harry’s thoughts turned again to his youngest daughter. He wondered if
perhaps he should have let her slide in to sleep with him... but no, that was a
horrid habit. Dudley had slept with Petunia and Vernon Dursley on a regular
basis, nearly until he was ten. Dudley was a huge coward and Harry wouldn’t
have his children growing up to be anything like his fat and stupid cousin.

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He’d seen the Dursleys only twice in the years since he’d left Hogwarts.
Neither time was intentional. The first hadn’t been so bad, as he’d been alone.
The second was worse, and quite recent – he’d had his family with him only a
year before in London while visiting friends, and they happened into the same
Thai restaurant in Piccadilly Circus.
Petunia had sniffed down her nose at Hermione. Hermione, ever civil, had
ignored the condescension and introduced young Lila, who was looking up at
her great-aunt as if she were the most horrible woman she’d ever laid eyes on.
Meanwhile Vernon and Dudley were staring meanly at Harry (who glared over
his sleeping toddler’s head) and Drew (whose mouth was quirked up into a
frown).
“I see you’ve produced a litter,” said Vernon, as a way of opening
conversation after the awkward greetings and introductions. “Doesn’t surprise
me.”
“Now, Vernon, three children hardly constitutes a litter,” said Harry, much
more casually than he felt – as he felt like smashing his uncle’s nose in.
“And your boy is a swotty runt, just as you were,” said Dudley, coming up
to tower over Drew.
Drew send a disdainful look over the rims of his glasses. “At least I’m not a
pig... a big ugly pig who smells,” he said, holding his nose.
“Andrew!” said Hermione, yet not as sharply as she would have otherwise.
Dudley lunged for the boy, but Drew was too quick. Harry started forward
with a dangerous look in his eyes, but he was still holding Bel... and the baby
woke up at the sudden motion.
She took one look at Dudley Dursley, threw back her head, and howled at
the top of her lungs.
The Dursleys were so offended by this that they pushed past the Potters and
went on their way. Harry, trying to calm his daughter down, watched them
retreat with mixed feelings. On the one hand, he felt no qualms about their
sudden departure. On the other, looking at his greying and unhappy-appearing
aunt and uncle, with their rotund, balding and insignificant son who’d never
even had a date and would likely die all alone, without a soul in the world to
care... Harry felt sorry for them.
He was lucky, Harry thought, as sleep finally claimed him. His children
were worth a thousand of the ilk of Dudley.
After all, there was a difference between being spoiled and being rotten.

~~~
Bel knew that the monster was still there, of course. No sooner had she
drifted off to sleep when Daddy left and it returned. She felt it go back under her
bed with a whoosh! and a howl, and then...

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And then her little trundle-sized bed began to vibrate with a barely
detectable hum.
Bel didn’t move a muscle. She knew better, knew she had the advantage of
surprise on her side. If the monster knew she was awake, well... it would come
and eat her. After all, all Wizarding children knew that the scary bed-monsters
lived on the trembling fear of children.
As long as she didn’t get scared, she’d be okay.
Scary bed-monsters were usually easy to take care of. Any child could
expel them with even a simple toy wand. The problem was that Bel’s toy wand
was the only item in her toy box, clear across the room... and unlike Mummy
and Daddy, she couldn’t move things just by thinking about them.
Not yet, anyway.
For this, she would need to be swift, to time her movements exactly so that
the monster’s teeth wouldn’t nip at her little ankles as she jumped out of the bed.
Hugging Asa tightly to her, she shifted the covers off her, quickly...
Yet the monster was quicker. With a whoosh, its shadow-form zoomed from
beneath the bed, rising so that she had to throw back her red head to look into
his eyes.
She did.
This wasn’t any ordinary bed-monster.
The monster froze. So did Bel.
Then it opened up its mouth to reveal jagged teeth... and to hiss...
But before it could, Bel squealed loudly, and quicker than a flash, was
outside her door. Panting hard, she made up her mind to tiptoe to her parent’s
room and sleep there until morning... on the floor, if she had to... because no
scary monster would ever dare to hide beneath her Daddy’s bed.
Then she realized.
“Asa!”
Her first instinct was to open the door and to rescue her friend. What if the
monster hurt Asa? What if it ate him? Bel began to tremble.
For this, she would need help.
Hurriedly, she raced down the hall to her Dad’s room and shook him again.
“Daddy, Daddy!”
It was a short while before Harry managed to open his eyes. “Bel?”
“Daddy, Daddy, the scary monster...”
Without thinking, closing his eyes again, Harry threw back the covers and
held out an arm. “We’ll go have a look in the morning. You can sleep here with
me until then.”
“No, Daddy...” she began, tears beginning to fall.
“I know you’re...” here Harry’s murmurs were interrupted by a yawn,
“...you’re missing Mummy. She’ll be back in the morning. Come on and... go
to... sleep.”
“But Daddy, Asa...”

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Yet her Dad was asleep again, the effects of the medicinal potion finally
taking their toll. Shaking this time didn’t work... Daddy simply rolled over,
pulled Mummy’s pillow closer, mumbled something Bel didn’t understand, and
then nothing she did could wake him back up.
Bel pulled the covers back up and assessed her options. She had to rescue
her beloved friend; leaving Asa in the bedroom until morning wasn’t an option.
The closest source of help was also the most unreliable. Nevertheless, the
small girl had no other choice.
Running down the hall, she opened the door to her big brother’s bedroom...
and began to shake the lump that was completely hidden beneath covers.
“Drew!”
From the quilt-covered lump emerged a seven-year old boy with tousled
black hair, wire-rimmed glasses tilted askew over bleary brown eyes. He sat up
and stared at his baby sister.
“What d’you want, Tinkerbell?” he groaned. That was Drew’s special name
for her. He’d recently read his mother’s old battered copy of Peter Pan, and
nicknamed his little sister after Peter’s fairy admirer.
“Drew, there’s a scary monster loose in my room! He’s going to eat Asa!
He’s...”
Drew righted his glasses on his nose and stared at her incredulously.
“You woke me up,” he said, “for that?”
Bel’s eyes filled with tears. “Drew... help me! I love Asa! He can’t get
eaten!”
“Right, he won’t be,” said Drew dryly. “Bed-monsters don’t like the taste
of stuffed pets, Tink. Trust me on that one... go back to sleep.”
“But I can’t!”
“You can sleep at the foot of my bed,” offered Drew helpfully. “See, I’ve
got an extra cover...”
“But you have to help me rescue Asa, Drew...”
“In the morning,” her brother replied. Had his sleep been interrupted by
anyone else, Drew would have been quite annoyed. Yet he had a soft spot for
Bel. They all did.
“That will be too far away for Asa,” Bel protested.
“If it is, I’ll buy you a new toy with my allowance money,” grumbled
Drew. “But it won’t be.”
“Drew...”
“Good night,” her brother said, in that tone that let her know the matter was
closed.
So that was that. First Daddy, now Drew. So much for the Wizards of the
family.
As for the Witches, they were completely unavailable to her. Mummy had
gone away for her job – again! – and Lila was upstairs in the loft. Bel never
went into the loft unless she was carried, and then never at night.

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It wasn’t because she was afraid to climb the ladder stairs. She couldn’t
reach them when they were drawn up at night. Only Mummy and Daddy could...
and Drew, with his toy wand, although he never wanted to. So that was why she
hadn’t gone to Lila before.
Another reason she avoided the loft at night was because of Daff. Bel
wasn’t afraid of very many things. She wasn’t afraid of Daff. Yet she wasn’t
overly fond of cats... Daff’s hair got everywhere at times.
And the way his eyes glowed in the dark was almost as scary as the scary
bed monster.
Bel went back to her room. Hands shaking, palms sweaty.
She opened the door...
And saw Asa, helpless on the floor. Almost within her reach.
The scary-bed monster saw her too. It whooshed for the door...
But Isabella Potter wasn’t the daughter of the youngest and most famed
Gryffindor Seeker in a century for nothing. With lightning reflexes, she slammed
the door shut again, resolved, determined to do what she had to do.

~~~
Lila had been having a bad night of it. Oddly, it wasn’t because of Maria
Weasley or any of the other silly girls at school this time. It wasn’t because of
something strange or stupid that Mitch or Pro had said, either.
It was because poor Destiny had a broken leg... and it was all her fault.
Destiny had been her father’s ninth birthday present to her, one of the
youngest colts of her dad’s Avalonian Pegasus, Titan, and his mate, her mother’s
own Tinuviel. There had been other colts, but never one like Destiny. She had
Titan’s strength, Tinuviel’s wingspan and grace, and was absolutely divine.
Lila loved to currycomb her horse, to groom her baby wings, to entwine the
midland wildflowers through her mane and tail and to crown herself with a
wreath of the same. Although Destiny couldn’t fully fly yet, Lila loved to
encourage the little colt to hold herself up in the air by flapping her wings as she
leapt.
She knew very well that Dad said Destiny wouldn’t be ready to ride until
the spring after she turned ten... a full year away. Even then, Lila would only be
able to ride her for a few minutes each day, so that Dest would be able to
develop her own flight-pattern and not be restricted by Lila’s riding.
Yet she’d been sneaking rides, not because she wanted to be disobedient,
but because she had never seen the equal of her parents riding their horses. In
fact, while her father preferred brooms, these days her mother would only ride
Tinuviel when she was required to fly anywhere on Ayr... and grumbled about
not being able to take horses on the ABFN.
“It’s a shame, Harry. Just because horses can’t fly at the same speed as

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brooms... nothing should go at 150 to 200 miles per hour, at any rate. The
Ministry really ought to reconsider that ruling, you know.”
As much as Lila loved her broom, and as well as she flew with it, she
couldn’t wait for Destiny to grow up.
Earlier that spring, she’d noticed that Dest was able to hold herself up for
longer and longer stretches of time.
So for the first time that March, when she was sure that no one was around,
she leapt up on Destiny’s back... and leapt up in the air with her. The first time,
she’d just done it once. She had initially promised herself that she would never
do it again.
Yet Delilah Potter had learned the way of the transgressor... a slippery slope
that was easier and easier to slide down after that very first time.
The single leap had turned into a series of leaps every time Lila could
manage it. From there, she went on to going on short bursts of flight, Lila
wobbling along with the small colt.
She was caught twice. The first time was by Pro, who guffawed with
delight and insisted upon riding too.
“No, she’s too young... you’d break her back. Not to mention scar her sides
with those infernal hooves.”
“Right, it’s not fair you get to ride her when I don’t.” Pro made a face.
“Destiny is not yours!”
“She won’t be yours when your parents see what you’re doing.”
“Oh, honestly!” exclaimed Lila, exasperated. “Get your own bloody horse,
Proteus Maximillan, and shut up!”
She wasn’t any kinder when Mitch caught her flying the colt, one day along
the seashore when the rest of the Potter family was off to Hogsmeade and Lila
had begged off, citing homework as a reason.
“You will damage a good pegasus forever if you keep that up,” said Mitch,
by way of greeting.
Lila leapt from Destiny’s back in a flurry of skirts, arms folded. “And just
what do you know about the breaking in of winged horses?”
“I know that she’s not ready to be flown yet. Someday, but not yet. Patience
is a virtue, Delilah.”
“Oh, come off it,” said Lila dismissively. Normally Mitch was great, but
just then he was annoying her to no end. “You aren’t my bloody father and never
will be.”
“No, never that,” agreed Mitch. “And quite grateful that I’m not. No child
of mine would be as coddled and indulged as you are.”
“You’ll never have children, you’re far too much of a stupid prat to be
anyone’s dad,” said Lila shortly.
Mitch didn’t like being called names. “I’m going to tell your father all
about what you’re doing, then...”
She glared at the gangly, dark-haired sixteen year old who was usually one

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of her dearest friends. “If you do that, Mitchell Black, I shall never speak to you
again.”
So Mitch didn’t tell. And Lila’s campaign of deception went on.
Today, however, had been the end.
She’d been fly-galloping with Destiny through the woods. She hadn’t seen
the log, propped against the tree at a hazardous angle. Neither had her colt.
Lila had been thrown from the little horse (it was lucky that she got off
with only a few bruises), and had sat up dazedly just in time to hear Destiny’s
first whinnies of pain.
Oh, no.
Mum and Dad were going to kill her.
Or even worse, ground her. Literally. As in, she’d be restricted to the
ground and not allowed to fly.
Yuck.
But the worst of it was the amount of pain poor Destiny was in. Somehow,
Lila got her back to the stables, where Tinuviel promptly took her colt under her
wing (and gnashed her teeth furiously at Lila as well).
Lila then stalked off into the house guiltily. Perhaps Dest would never been
the same again. It’d be all her fault.
So she shrugged off Bel’s offer to have tea with her and Asa... Bel, who
quite enjoyed playing with her older sister, was crushed and went unhappily out
to the garden, where Drew read to her. Lila went upstairs to her room to brood,
but Dad called her downstairs to help with dinner... he wasn’t feeling well and
was never in a great mood whenever Mum was away, so she helped.
Then she returned upstairs and watched the sky turn dark.
Sleep eluded her, though.
Then all of a sudden, she heard a creaking on her stairs... Daff meowed...
and there was the scurrying pitter-patter of small feet on her floor...
“Lila? Lila, help me, please...”
Lila sat up and looked into her little sister’s small, tearstained face.
“Bella, what’s the matter?” she said, pulling the small girl up to sit with
her, to lean against her own girlish chest.
In gasping sobs, Bel managed to get the story out.
“And it’s got Asa... oh, Li, I want Asa to be okay!”
Lila nodded. “Of course you do. Bit odd for a bed-monster, really... usually
they’re huge cowards... but as you say, we’ll go check it out. Nothing frightens
my little sister and gets away with it.”
Bel looked up at her older sister, gratitude written all over her face. And
Lila, in spite of her earlier faux pas, despite knowing that her mother would be
furious when she learned about Destiny... and that her father would be
disappointed, which was somehow even worse...
She felt strangely, oddly, almost redeemed.

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~~~
Harry Potter got the shock of his life when, just before dawn’s first light,
his daughters dragged the dead Lethifold into his room.
Just how the creature got into the house was always afterward a matter of
speculation. To be sure, it was late spring and Bel’s window had been open... but
as no living shroud had been found in the North Forest up to then or after that, it
had to be ruled out as a source.
The best explanation the Potters were ever able to come up with was that it
had been caught up in a shipment from Earth’s tropics... such boxes came into
the island from time to time, and Harry himself had ordered a lot of bamboo just
the week before for Hermione, who’d wanted to change the lattices in the
Japanese section of her garden before summer.
The other and larger marvel was just how Lila was able to slay the thing. Of
course, she’d not been using a toy wand, but an real one that had belonged to her
mother, a wand Hermione had never really used because she’d bought it long
ago when she’d thought her postwar one was lost.
She hadn’t conjured a Patronus. That much was clear even before Harry
performed the Priori Incantatem on the wand.
The problem was that they couldn’t figure out what she’d conjured to kill
the thing.
All they could ever get out of Lila was this:
“It was trying to hurt Bella,” she said flatly. “It would have, had she stayed
in that room last night. I had to stop it.”
And in that moment, as in other rare moments of her childhood and that of
her brother and sister, Delilah Potter was terrible as an army with banners... and
very much the heir of the most formidable Wizard and Witch of the age.
Harry, for one, had been shocked out of his bad cold. He took Bel to school
with him, to lunch, and refused to let her out of his sight. He carried her to the
docks to meet her mother, held her on his lap during and after dinner, and was
really quite overprotective. Because of his oversight, his weariness and
grogginess, he hadn’t been there to protect his little girl. She could have been
badly hurt... she could have even...
“And yet she wasn’t,” said Hermione softly that night, watching Bel sleep,
nestled happily between her parents with Asa in her arms. For the first time, the
manner in which he usually celebrated his wife’s return had to be delayed. He
had refused to let his youngest daughter sleep alone in the bedroom where she
could have been suffocated to death the night before.
“She could have been. She almost was. I would have been just a few steps
away if she had...”
“But she didn’t, did she, darling? Bel was brilliant, and Lila’s performance
last night saved her from a severe punishment over the Destiny affair, although

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I still say she ought to be grounded until school is out...”
“No,” said Harry firmly. “She saved her sister’s life, beautiful. Anything
she did to Destiny is negated by that.”
“Yes, I know, Harry, but Lila still must learn to think before she acts. She is
far too heedless and impulsive... she always rushes into situations foolishly
before she thinks... she’s far too much like...”
“Me?” Harry winked at her.
“Yes. And in a way, so is this one,” said Hermione, pressing her lips to the
top of her sleeping daughter’s head. “And the one who looks exactly as you did
at that age. I love seeing you in them, Harry. Even though I nag and fuss and
scold, somehow I hope they always know that they’ve made me the luckiest
mum in the world. That I love them and am so proud of them.”
“Luckiest mum... how about luckiest wife?”
“Right,” she grinned. “Pity I can’t show you just how lucky I am at the
moment.”
“There are other rooms in the house, you know. And easy Silencing
Charms for them.”
“What if she wakes up?”
“We won’t be gone all night. She’ll never even know we’ve left. As a
matter of fact...” He leaned over Bel’s head and whispered something into
Hermione’s ear that made her go positively red. “What do you say, love?”
“No, Harry! That’s totally scandalous!”
“How? It isn’t like she’s in there...”
“The bedding...”
“Right. As if we wouldn’t use our own. We’d have to lengthen the bloody
thing, anyhow...”
Hermione shook her head. “I still say no. Not when there’s a perfectly good
hearth-rug out front...”
“Right, imagine the older two getting up for a drink of water and seeing
that. Talk about traumatized,” Harry said, reaching over their daughter to do
something to her mother that he would have never done had the child been
awake.
“Harry, stop! Not with the baby here. There’s something frighteningly
Electra-like about it all... carry her back to her room first.”
“No,” Harry said first. “Not until we figure out how that Lethifold got into
her room. I don’t want her sleeping alone...”
That’s when they both realized.
“Lila.”
If it had been any other night, neither Harry or Hermione would have
minded Bel being there with them. But this wasn’t just any night... Hermione
hadn’t been home in more than a week, they hadn’t had the chance to connect
the week before her leavetaking because they’d both been busy, and they wanted
very much to be alone. There was a full-sized bed in the loft, and after all, it had

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been Lila who’d looked after her baby sister in the first place.
So as Hermione waited at the foot of the narrow steps, Harry carried the
little girl up to her sister’s bed, tucking her in, explaining to half-asleep Lila that
her sister didn’t want to be alone. The older girl nodded, curling her sleeping
form towards Bel before shutting her eyes again.
Harry, after a long glance at his dozing daughters, turned away from the
bed and descended the stairs with a look to Hermione that said I can’t believe we
got away with it! In response, she giggled silently, girlishly... giggled in a way
that a woman of her age had no reasonable right to giggle...
He held out his arms then, and Hermione went to them, and he swung her
off her feet with a kiss.
“I love you,” he said. “I thought I’d go mad this week without you.
Welcome home.”
“Remember, darling, that actions speak louder than words,” she breathed.
Just before Harry reached up to close the trap door, however, something
happened that threw a dash of cold water on their coup... for just as it shut, they
heard the tiny, giggly voice of their three-year old say:
“Mummy, Daddy! Look out for the monster in your bed!”
It took a while before her scandalized parents realized that the silly child
had meant Asa and not anything more... disturbing.
Nevertheless, the mood was totally ruined. Resigned, Harry placed his wife
back on her feet and trudged up the staircase to retrieve his daughter.
That night, Bel slept between her mother and father, with Asa in her arms.
Peacefully. With no more dreams or thoughts of scary monsters.

~fin~

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