DISCLAIMER: See
A/N:
Here we go, people, the final chapter!
CHAPTER
50: THE ROAD GOES EVER ON AND ON
The
road goes ever on and on
Down
from the door from where it began.
Now
far ahead the Road has gone,
And
I must follow, if I can
Pursuing
it with weary feet
Until
it joins some larger way
Where
many paths and errands meet.
And
wither then? I cannot say.
–J.R.R.
Tolkien, “The Lord of the Rings: The
Fellowship of the Ring”
Terminat
hora diem, terminat author
opus.
The hour ends the day, the author ends his work.
–Latin saying
While
the battle for Hogwarts would definitely go down in the History of
Magic, the
tales of Harry Potter and his friends, professors and companions would
flourish
over the years into more tales and adventures, whether they were
battling Dark
forces or just dealing with ordinary life.
After
Harry left Hogwarts, Dumbledore retired from his position as Headmaster
to
enjoy the peace and tranquility he believed he had finally and
rightfully
earned from ensuring Harry’s survival in the struggle against
Voldemort, and
McGonagall succeeded him as the Head of Hogwarts. However,
he still lived on the castle
grounds, sometimes wandering around and contemplating the world, and
other
times spending his time with a good book, some hot chocolate, lemon
drops,
woolly socks, and Fawkes the phoenix.
However, he still tried to stir up food and snowball fights when
no one
was looking.
After
McGonagall became Headmistress, she still taught Transfiguration for a
few
years before one of the strangest changes of teaching positions took
place. Lupin took over as Head of
Gryffindor and Transfiguration professor (he had the right credentials,
being a
former Marauder and skilled in the subject), while a new professor
moved in as
the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.
Snape
still taught at Hogwarts, although since he was no free from having to
favor
Slytherins to please Voldemort, he developed a less hostile and more
neutral
and supportive teaching style to the point where he could be as welcome
and
accepted as any of the other professors (not that that mattered much to
him). Over the years, he developed two
more breakthrough potions: One which cured lycanthropy, and another
which gave
Squibs the ability to do magic. He earned
quite a few prestigious awards for his work, and with the aide of a few
books
he published, he became considered one of the top authorities on
Potions in the
world.
His
son, Mark Evans grew up into a fine and handsome young man, and
eventually
married his classmate and fellow Slytherin Michelle Perry (who was
eventually
able to accept the fact that he was Severus Snape’s son).
Together, they had a couple of children,
including a son named Darius Snape (although known to most of the world
as
Darren Evans).
Lupin,
in addition to his new professional changes, was the first to receive
Snape’s
“Anti-Lycanthrope Potion,” and even started a charity organization to
try to
brew it for other werewolves around the world, with some help from
Felicity
Umbridge-la Fontaine back in
Hagrid
could still be seen alternating between his gamekeeper duties and
teaching Care
of Magical Creatures, but a few years after the end of the second war,
he
eventually married Madame Maxine (who resigned from her post as
Headmistress of
Beauxbatons for another position in England), and together they had a
son,
Goliath (known as Lee) for short.
With
Voldemort gone for good, Mad-Eye Moody finally settled back into his
retirement, although he was sometimes called into the Ministry to give
lectures
to Aurors-in-training or lend expertise in Ministry affairs.
Tonks
eventually rose through the ranks in the DMLE until she became the
Senior
Undersecretary of Law Enforcement to Madam Bones; apart from her
occasional
clumsiness, she was great at the job.
Peeves
still floated around the castle, making both messes and interesting
events, but
eventually had to come to a truce with Arabella Figg, once she took
some of
Snape’s magic-giving potion, got her own wand and learned magic she
never could
learn as a child.
Arthur
Weasley reigned for nearly a decade as Minister of Magic before
deciding he’d
ruled for long enough, and stepped down despite the inevitable protests
from
his more staunch supporters. Almost
quietly and overnight, he slipped back into his beloved Misuse of
Muggle
Artifacts office, which now had a respectable place in the Ministry,
with five
new applicants under his tutelage to boot.
Blaise
Zabini eventually settled down with Nora Moon, and became an
Unspeakable for
the Ministry, working for Counterintelligence and Wizarding
Draco
Malfoy, while financially secure and well-off for life, was too
productive to
spend his time lounging around all the time in his family Manor. He
took an
interest in magical artifacts (surprisingly few of which were Dark),
and
eventually built up a collection of artifacts from all over the world. He was often called upon to verify the
authenticity of certain objects, and was even called upon from time to
time by
magical law enforcement to analyze evidence left behind by the kind of
criminals that Blaise often dealt with.
He married Pansy Parkinson and two sons, Sebastian and Horatio
(which
some people often joked was as close as he would get to naming his
children
after Severus Snape and Harry Potter, although this rumor could never
really be
confirmed or denied).
Lucius
Malfoy was never caught and apprehended, although the Ministry is
naturally
still on the lookout for him to this very day.
Cho
Chang eventually married Roger Davies, and started their family with a
son,
rightly named Cedric. She eventually got
a spot on the Tutshill Tornadoes as a reserve, but was then quickly
upgraded to
part of the team itself once news spread about how she once beat Harry
Potter
at Quidditch.
Neville
married Luna and started a small family, starting with their daughter
Florie. While Luna took over as the
editor of The Quibbler after her
father retired, Neville started a whole garden where he grew all sorts
of
plants from all over the world. Often,
he ended up being one of the bigger distributors of potions supplies to
his
previously feared Potions Professor.
Near this vast property was a giant house for Neville and his
family,
including his grandmother and father-in-law.
Bill
Weasley and his wife Fleur were the first to give his parents some
grandchildren, starting with twins, Adam and Helen.
Both of them were handsome and beautiful
respectively, and even a day after their birth, it became obvious to
all their
relatives that the two would be heartbreakers in their own ways by the
time
they started going to Hogwarts.
Charlie
married Anya Petrova, a Russian graduate from Durmstrang who was also
an
associate of Viktor Krum. They worked with
dragons, but had to tone it down with the level of their research, once
Anya
got pregnant and eventually gave birth to a son they named Seth.
Percy
was eventually able to fix most, if not all, of the problems he’d
caused with
other people during the Second War, Harry included.
After finally finding away to balance his
work with his family and still feel like he was doing some good, he
married his
girlfriend Penelope and eventually had a daughter, Elizabeth. It turned out, much to the varying degrees of
all, that he could be just as good a father as a Ministry worker. In time, he even became Minister of Magic
some years after his father retired, winning through an unexpected
landslide of
popularity after he had single-handed found solutions to some of the
Ministry’s
problems.
Fred
and George eventually married Alicia Spinnet and Katie Bell
respectively
(Angelina Johnson eventually married Lee Jordan after things didn’t
work out
with Fred). Both Alicia and Katie knew
that the twins could be loving husbands, although once the twins
formulated the
idea of having a double wedding (they claimed it only somehow seemed
right),
the rest of the Weasley clan jumped in to make sure the twins wouldn’t
prank
their own wedding; Molly even kept a constant watch on the twins with a
different version of the Marauders Map (courtesy of Harry and Lupin,
who
designed it together), from engagement all the way through to the end
of the
wedding, just to make sure her two soon-to-be daughters-in-law were
marrying
the right twins. Eventually it worked,
although the twins eventually destroyed afterwards one day it when
Molly wasn’t
looking (as they didn’t want her eye on them even after they were
married). After a couple of years, Fred
and Alicia had twin boys, Ben and Jake; about six months later, George
and
Katie had twin girls, Amy and Fran.
Ron
finally had the courage one day to ask Hermione to marry him, and after
eyeing
him suspiciously for one moment, she ecstatically accepted. While they still did fight every now and then,
they turned out to be a rather ideal couple.
Much to the relief of everyone, they didn’t fight during their
own
wedding. Their first child was a
beautiful daughter, Minerva “Minnie” Weasley, who had quite an
interesting mix
of her father’s bravery and outgoing personality and her mother’s love
for
books. After her, they had two sons,
Harry and Liam (Ron insisted on the name of the older of the two, as he
swore
to name his firstborn son after his friend during the crisis in 6th
year when Voldemort captured Harry).
After Binns suddenly faded away one day, Hermione was hired by
McGonagall to teach History of Magic, which she gladly accepted. Ron joined the Chudley Cannons as a reserve
player, eventually becoming the Keeper for the team, and five years
after he
joined the team, he helped them win the Cup.
Harry
married Ginny, and they were able to have a lively and festive wedding,
free of
the press and anyone else not interested in their well-being. Much to the surprise of everyone, their first
children were beautiful triplet boys, aptly named James, Sirius and
Remus,
after the three true Marauders. They
looked much like their father, except they didn’t need glasses, and
their
surprisingly tame hair also had hints of red in it; they were also
unpredictable,
since sometimes they were mature gentlemen and other times chaotic
demons. A few years after that, they had a
beautiful
daughter, Rachel, who looked for the most part like her mother and
paternal
grandmother. The females in the Weasley
clan, however, sincerely hoped she wouldn’t grow up like Ginny did,
owing to
her older brothers, plus the added bonus of being Harry Potter’s only
daughter. After careful consideration in
regards to his own welfare and that of his family’s, Harry became an
Auror while
Ginny became a Healer for St. Mungo’s, and when neither of them could
look
after their children, the house elves at Potter Manor cheerfully did so
(Dobby
often worked “on shifts” between all the Weasley relatives).
While
for the most part idyllic, the adults also still upheld the Order of
the
What
were those adventures like?
You’ll
have to wait and see…
(End
of Chapter 50.)
FIN
A/N:
YES! I’M DONE!
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
TO THOSE WHO HAVE
HELPED
First
of all, thanks to SnowyBlackOwl for her help and support
through my more
difficult times writing this, not to mention her brainstorming.
A
similar thank-you goes out to SarahtheBardess, for moral
support and
brainstorming.
I
would also like to thank VegaSailor for designed the amazing
“book
cover” for this story.
An
especially big thank-you is in order for Khadon, who sent me
his
backed-up files of the original version when I especially needed them.
Also,
thank-you’s all around to Vladtepes, The-first-phoenix1,
and Lillian
Marie Potter for beta-reading my work at one point or another, and
another
thank-you to The-first-phoenix1 for helping me chart the
Harry/Snape
genealogy.
Thanks
to Kemenran for helping me create and design websites for this
story,
which are still in the process at the moment.
A
similar thank-you goes out to Quickbrew, for generously giving
HoG a
home on his own website (see my ff.net profile for more information).
Also
thanks to Stikye for helping me fix the problems in the
rewrite,
concerning things from the original version that were somehow
overlooked and
unedited before they were fixed.
Additional
thanks go out to Xyverz, for helping me come up with
descriptions for
the motorbike which sounded better and more accurate.
And
last but not least (and as strange as this might sound to some people),
thanks
to Superspike and RossWrock, for playing Devil’s
Advocate and
telling me to give up, which only served as incentive for me to finally
get
this done!
Thanks,
guys, I couldn’t have done this
without all of you!
ALSO,
to everyone reading this story: Please
email and thank all the nice people above for their great help, as I’m
sure
they’ll appreciate it! Most of their
email addresses are at their user profiles at
www(dot)fanfiction(dot)net, but
if you can’t find one, let me know and I’ll try to help.
THANKS
TO THOSE WHO HAVE LET ME USE
THE FOLLOWING THINGS IN MY WORK (AS A REFRESHER):
Dzeytoun, for letting me cite
his “Sorrows of Lucifer” passage and use his analysis of Snape’s
psychological
insight.
Draco664, for letting me
borrow and tweak the prank with the beds in the middle of the night,
not to
mention all the multiple births of Potters and Weasleys for the next
generation, especially the Potter
triplets.
AgiVega, for letting me
borrow and change her éclair prank.
GreenGecko, for letting me
borrow a few of her spells.
Logical
Raven, for letting me
borrow and edit the Apparation License contact (or whatever it’s
called).
VMorticia, for the “mutant
guinea pigs” joke and idea of Draco Malfoy giving fake answers on
Lockhart’s
test to annoy the guy.
Monkeymouse, for telling me
Harry Potter’s name in Chinese (OK, not
that Monkeymouse actually owns it, but hey, you know what I
mean, right?).
Jonny
English, for inspiring
me with the idea of Harry as a lion Animagus.
Dragongirl16, for letting me
use the basic concept of the shower prank (although I greatly
changed the results), and for letting me experiment with
the basic idea of the “betrayal” concept in the original version (which I still have proof of, if anyone wants
to see it).
Also,
this isn’t really official, but the idea for Peeves having some sort of
“backstory” came from TheVelvetGhost, although it
should also be noted that TheVelvetGhost’s idea of
Peeves’ origin is almost nothing like mine.
FINALLY,
THANKS TO EVERYONE AND ANYONE WHO’S READ OR REVIEWED MY WORK! YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!
HOWEVER, before I go, I want to ask all of you to do
a favor
for me, since I have worked like a slave to entertain you all with this
fic. Since this story can’t exactly be
put on www(dot)fanfiction(dot)net, please mention this story on your
user
profiles and tell anyone who wants to read it that they can contact me
at my
Yahoo email address. If you can think of
anyone else who’d like to read this, please sned it to them.
Signing
off (or for now, at least),
Craig