46 - Epilogue

Chapter 46: Epilogue: Everything comes to an endNotes:

Good morning and welcome to the final chapter of this story. I can't believe that we've come that far and I'm so very thankful for every single reader, everyone that took the time to comment, everyone that gave the story kudos. It's so very unbelievable, especially since this is my first story. I had no idea what to expect and was positively overwhelmed.

So thank you.

I do hope that you'll like the epiloge, and in the notes at the end I'll put the link to my new story whose first chapter got posted just minutes earlier. Hopefully we'll see each other there

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Epilogue

"I will, Hermione. I'll stay by your side forever. I promise."

The promise Harry had made Hermione on the pier, just as the big ship in the Great Lake vanished and they walked up to the castle, was one that he kept - every day of his life.

The aftermath of the whole Dumbledore incident was a bit stressful for Amelia, because once they had left Hogwarts, they sent support to Austria to clear Nurmengard and take down the entire network. Dumbledore's spymaster - he called himself Gareth these days - was quite helpful under Veritaserum to arrest anyone helping the old meddler. 

And so, most of the Dumbledorians went into Azkaban. Not all of them, because the old meddler hadn't reached out to every single one of them, but most of them, be it the Lords or their followers in mid-to-high positions at the Ministry. 

Just as planned, Amelia announced her retirement, together with the information about the successful raid of Nurmengard. Jacob Ogden became Minister of Magic, just as the Alliance wanted, though the people called for Arthur, Harry or even Remus to consider running too. Each of those declined and endorsed Jacob, who delivered some very convincing campaign speeches and won by a big margin.

Amelia and Sirius' first child, a boy named Regulus Harry Black, would become the first of several children of the two and Harry's first godson. The two of them would have four children, two boys and two girls, while they completely restructured and modernised Wizarding Britain over the next few decades.

Remus continued teaching for decades to come, and he was by far the most popular teacher, even when he was the oldest staff member. He never found his luck with Nymphadora, despite knowing that in the previous timeline it had worked, they were different here. Besides, he had enough children to care for as Head of Gryffindor, there was no need for him to have some of his own. For about a century, students could find him sitting in a secluded corner of the common room, reading books or grading essays, and if one asked, he always helped and tutored. Once a month he offered to tell the stories of the past, about the wars and battles, and how they changed the world. Occasionally Harry, Hermione, Sirius or someone else who had been there, joined him in telling the tales. 

Eventually he gave up DADA due to his age and taught History. He reached an age of 157 and was the last Marauder to pass, Sirius having died about a decade earlier.

Minerva and Filius would both teach for many more years until they got too old and retired to spend the last few years of their lives with friends. Minerva was saddened when her old friend retired, but she understood, and together they picked his replacement. As Head of Ravenclaw Ms Luna Lovegood, the CoMC teacher (living together with Padma at the castle, who had taken over Arithmancy), and as Charms teacher Alastor Shacklebolt (son of Kingsley and Septima, and a truly brilliant wizard), at least for the OWL charms. Hermione Potter was teaching Ancient Runes after a brief episode of being Head Unspeakable and Minister, and she was teaching NEWT level charms too, no one could doubt that she was beyond brilliant.

When Minerva retired, she lived the rest of her life at Potter Manor with Harry and Hermione and their children. She was - after all - their "grandmother." She wrote several books in this time, making important discoveries at transfiguration, and when her last moments had come, she was surrounded by her family. Harry and Hermione with their children, now all grown up, even the first grandchild already in the room. Sirius with his family, Remus, Neville and Daphne with their children and one grandchild (which was Harry and Hermione's grandchild too), and a few others that were with her for so many years. 

She was buried on the grounds of Potter Manor, next to Fleamont and Euphemia, her old friends, and a statue of her was standing in Hogwarts' transfiguration courtyard, remembering the great woman. 

The new headmaster following her retirement was no one else than Harry Potter, choosing to not become Minister or Chief Warlock, or even an Auror. Minerva told him she saw him as a teacher at the beginning of his sixth year when he began tutoring the lower years. He finished his DADA, Transfiguration and Ancient Runes Masteries while being a student and immediately began as a teaching assistant following his NEWTs. Over the years he took over more and more duties from whichever Professor needed it (since he was working on more Masteries at that time, he was eligible to teach most classes at least until OWL level).

Harry and Hermione finished their schooling after seventh year with a few Masteries and a lot of NEWTS (as well as an Order of Merlin, First Class). Mione went into the Ministry as an Unspeakable, rising to the top in five years. Just a year after finishing Hogwarts the two married, and not long after they had their first child, Minerva Lily Potter. That was the only reason Mione needed so long to become the Head Unspeakable, she always claimed. Dan and Emma looked a lot after the kid at first, but she soon was Hogwarts' favourite baby, cared for by elves and her dad during the day, and spoiled by her mother (well, actually both her parents) in the afternoons and evenings at Potter Manor. 

Mione also became Harry's proxy for the Wizengamot Seats most of the time, he was truly dedicated to teaching, and that's when she was elected Minister just eight years out of Hogwarts. Jacob Ogden had fallen ill and resigned to focus on his health, and Amelia didn't want the job anymore.

During the next five years in office Hermione had a set of twins, Dan Severus (after Hermione's dad and Severus) and James Neville (godson of Nev), making her life a little stressful. She still managed to give her children the amount of attention they needed and deserved from a good mother while making political changes with Amy and Sirius. But after one term (it was five years these days) she didn't want the reelection despite having more approval than Amy or Jacob (or anyone else) ever had. And she was just 31 years old by now.

So she took a year off, where the fourth and last child, a girl named Amelia Luna (after two of the strongest and most incredible women she knew, Minerva excluded, because they already named their first child after her, and Emma didn't want them to call her Emma too, she was happy with being the grandma) was born.

And after that one year hiatus, she went into Hogwarts too. The magical society was growing, and so having a second teacher for some classes (like the favourite of many kids, Ancient Runes) so the groups were smaller, was a relief for many teachers.

The Potter duo also started managing the duelling and combat magic classes, always with various guest lecturers. Their children, Minerva by now being a second year student, were always running through the corridors and filling the castle with more life and laughter, occasionally being followed by Harry's phoenix Fawkes, who always stayed with him and his family. It was a fascinating sight to see the bird on Professor Potter's shoulder while teaching, or Fawkes making his rounds through the Great Hall during breakfast and singing for the students.

Little Minnie quickly became the top student of her year (maybe because Grandma Minnie, who had cried for over an hour after finding out that the Potters' first child shall be named after her, had always read a lot with her, and little Minnie had her mother's intellect). 

Harry came out of the room, smiling broadly. Sirius was the first to ask:

"Boy or girl?"

The twenty or so close friends - and every other person nearby, the Potters were famous after all - waited for Harry's response, and for once, St. Mungo's was absolutely quiet.

"A girl."

 And the whole hospital started cheering, but was quiet quickly enough to hear the next statement too.

"A healthy little baby girl, and Mione and I are in agreement. Minerva Lily Potter."

Everyone, but especially the two Marauders grinned broadly, and were waiting to see any reaction from the elderly headmistress, who was - to put it mildly - quite stunned.

"No?"

"Yes. Come here, Minnie."

And Harry tightly hugged the woman who couldn't stop crying. For the first time she completely understood just how much she meant to the two of them. 

"Hey, let's go and meet your goddaughter, shall we? I'm pretty sure little Minnie wants to meet Grandma Minnie - or is it Great-Grandma?"

Wiping the tears out of her face, the witch playfully smacked Harry before following him into the room as the cheering started again, and soon everywhere people gave a toast to Minerva Lily Potter and the Potter family.

Neville and Daphne had married just a few months later, and like Nev had said, in the rebuilt Longbottom Manor. Many, many people had celebrated with them. Daphne would eventually become a successful author and Neville had his big herbology business before being elected Chief Warlock decades later. For a while he thought he might replace Pomona Sprout one day, but he didn't. That was his eldest son, Frank Harry, since Pomona wasn't THAT old yet (though older than Minnie) and taught for nearly forty more years after Harry and co. finished school.

The oldest Longbottom child though was a girl named Rose Augusta Longbottom, who would one day fall in love with Dan Severus Potter, eventually giving Harry, Hermione, Neville and Daphne a mutual grandchild. 

The four of them were always close and often spent the full moon together with Moony and Padfoot as animagi (Neville as a horse and Daphne as arctic fox).

Susan, who was still basically Harry's sister by marriage (kind of), only found love during her last year at Hogwarts. 

Theo Nott.

The Slytherin boy denouncing his father and associating with Harry and co. Turns out he's a very kind person if you give him the chance to open up. Oh, and he might deny it, but he wasn't always calm and composed and certainly was a match for Susan's more adventurous side. They married five years after Hogwarts and had two children. Each of them, so they decided, would carry one of the family's titles. And since they had two little girls, for the first time in history the Head of House Nott would be a woman.

Nathaniel Parkinson spent his final twenty or so years (all the fighting and the occasional curse that hit him had weakened his body) under house arrest with his wife and daughter, monitored at all times. Originally they had intended Azkaban with visiting rights (they got rid of the dementors by now) as a punishment, but he gave up all of Dumbledore's operations as well as all the remaining parts of Voldy's old network. Maybe it was a little bit too kind, but on the other hand, he was a pureblood Lord who had lost his magic. That was quite the punishment indeed.

When Molly Weasley came out of prison, she had no idea what happened over the past years. Arthur actually was so kind to pick her up (giving the woman false hopes, he actually just wanted a divorce, which magic wouldn't allow when one of them was in prison).

"So Arthur, when am I gonna meet the kids? And how are they doing?"

"Well, let's see. Bill is the liaison for Gringotts and doesn't want to see you anymore, Percy is a top DMLE prosecutor and has told me at our dinner yesterday he doesn't want to meet with you. The twins have their joke shop and are richer than any other Weasley, and I'm not sure you'd survive walking into their shop, they hate you."

The woman interrupted him, being absolutely furious.

"How dare they? I'm their mother. I'll have a word with them, and besides, what good is a joke shop? I presume we'll see the others at home?"

"Molly, first of all, Fred and George have over a million Galleons in their vaults - each. They are more popular than Zonko's, everyone loves them. And didn't you open any of the official correspondence when you were at Azkaban?"

"What, that nonsense from the corrupt Bones-Potter government? I tossed that out of the window."

"Well, then you really don't know. Charlie died fighting Voldemort, and Ron died fighting Hermione Granger after he tried killing me and fled when he tried toppling the government with Dumbledore. And Ginny, she's free of your brainwashing now and would probably kill you on the spot. She's married to Anthony Goldstein, a nice guy who was in Ravenclaw and now works as an Unspeakable."

At this point Molly Weasley was not sure if she should cry or scream, and in the end it was a mixture of both. But the worst thing was what followed.

"Arthur…take us home."

But Arthur just shook his head and spoke out the magical declaration of divorce on grounds of potioning and betrayal. The Weasley family magic accepted, and Molly Prewett fell onto her knees, crying. But Arhur had not even the slightest bit of guilt or compassion, he just summoned the chest (undetectable extension charm on it) with all of Molly's possessions, then turned around and walked away.

Molly would soon find out that no one would employ her, because no one trusted her. Not even the Prewett family took her in, so she went to her sons. Other than Arthur predicted, neither actually killed her, but after barging into WWW she decided to leave the country. That embarrassment of walking through Diagon Alley with so many transfigurations and colour changes on her body was just too much. 

In the end she lived off little jobs all over central Europe, but she never got happy again in her life. And not once did she think that all of it was her or Albus' fault, no, it was always Potter or Black, or the mudblood, or Arhur or…

Harry and Hermione were happy. 

They had children, grandchildren and so many "nieces" and "nephews" due to all their friends. They were happy teaching and still discovering some of the castle's secrets. And while Harry had to break with the tradition of giving the cloak to his eldest son, he still gave his eldest - Minnie - the map. Oh and it was unavoidable that Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry got to see many new pranksters (the Potter kids, the Black kids and grandkids, the Longbottom kids, the Bones kids…downside of having two Marauders and the Weasley twins in your close circle of friends).

Decades after finishing school, he was headmaster by now, Harry stood on top of the Astronomy tower, together with Hermione.

"So much has changed. We changed all of it."

"With the time travel?"

"Not just with that. You know how different everything is since we finished school."

Hermione smiled, because Harry was right.

"Oh yes. We and our friends, we made it better."

"Yes, we did."

He put his arms around her shoulder, they both smiled and silently enjoyed the sunset. 

Hogwarts was better.

The world was better.

Everything was alright.

Finis.

Notes:

And that's it :)

Thanks again, it's been an unbelievable journey. I'm lacking the words to say more than that right now.

And as I already teased last week, I have a new story, a Lily Potter returns H/Hr story with Weasley and Dumbledore bashing etc. It starts during fifth year. Maybe we'll see each other there

A Cat's Tale