Epilogue: The Assigner

The man wearing nothing but boxers and gym shorts was vaping a box mod.

"The Wheel of Fate is turning." he whispered.

He was near-sighted and wore thick Ted Baker glasses. His hair was always short, even though he never had it cut. He was impossibly old, but from outside appearances he seemed in his mid-20s.

He hit the button on the mod and breathed in. The flavor was Fresh to Death, from The Machine Shop. He breathed out. The setting was 50 watts, which was too mild for most but perfect for him.

In front of him was an immense wall that was 60 square feet. He stared at the magic whiteboard in front of him. It was showing feeds from all over. And the feeds showed him that all was as it should be.

Ron and Pansy were goofing off in the United States again, in a hotel.

"I think this room has rodents." he said to the thoroughly annoyed maid standing at the door. Ron was huddled under the covers.

Pansy crawled from the bed to a chair in the middle of the room, balling herself up behind it. She could still plainly be seen.

"I just saw it!" Ron cried fearfully.

The man with the box mod laughed.

Draco and Hermione were playing wizard's chess and talking about the state of the Ministry.

"Bunch of complete, bloody idiots." she said. "Carmichael thinks he can run the Department of Records all around with his excuses. Of course...doesn't help that the Head is just letting him do it."

"Why don't you run for Minster of Magic?"

"I told them both that—"

She stopped. Looked up at Draco, whom was keeping his head down, looking at the pieces, and trying to figure out his next five moves.

"What did you say, Draco?"

"You heard me." he stated. "Why don't—"

Theo and Lavender were making love.

Harry and Ria were making love.

Neville and Luna were planting some botanical shit in their fields on their farm.

Cormac had yet another Quidditch game, this one yet again saw them in opposition to the Harpies. He nearly did another blockade, but a single Quaffle went through, to the cheering of the Harpy audience. He favored them with a modest "Well, what can you do?" shrug.

Blaise was working overtime at Gringotts.

Daphne and Ginny were eating dinner at an Italian restaurant. The pizza was good but the service was extremely bad. Their first waitress disappeared, and they had to flag down another.

"People are staring at us." Daphne said.

Ginny looked around and, yes, some people were glancing over their way. But it could be for any reason.

"Let them stare." Ginny said. "We aren't doing anything except eating dinner."

The feeds had no source. There were no animals giving him the information.

It was because the feeds were unstuck in time. Just like he was.

[2]

He blinked and suddenly the feeds were from two years later.

Draco and Hermione were celebrating the second birthday of Rose Malfoy. Rose didn't wait for anyone to cut the cake for her. She dunked her hand in and went to town, making all in attendance laugh their asses off.

Daphne was interviewing a 10 year old kid. He was nervous even though she told him not to be.

"Do you like to play indoors or outdoors?"

"Out."

"Would you say you are brave or would you say clever?"

"Neither."

Daphne laughed, putting the boy a little at ease.

"What's your favorite animal?"

She expected a predator, like a lion, or a wolf, or even a dragon. But the kid surprised her.

The kid blushed. "I don't really like things with fangs. I like, you know, pretty things. Like fireflies or phoenixes."

"Things that shine?" she asked, smiling broadly.

The boy nodded.

She wrote down in her notebook: Possible unicorn core.

Blaise was reading a book and thinking about adoption.

Cormac was sitting in a locker room, waiting for a game to start, and thinking about adoption.

Ron and Pansy were celebrating the three-year birthday of Arthur Jr. "Art," as he was called, completely ignored the cake and began eating the salad with his hands.

"Maybe we should have called him Rabbit instead." he said, and the Weasleys around him laughed.

Neville and Luna were making love.

Harry and Ria were in Godric's Hollow. They were standing in front of the graves of James and Lily Potter...and Professor Severus Snape, who had died of Nagini's poison a year after Harry and Ria were married. As the man with the box mod watched, Harry put a flower on each one.

"I love you all." Harry said quietly. Ria squeezed his hand.

"We need to be there for Teddy." he said.

"We will." Ria said.

George and Millicent were in a Hogsmeade tavern and drunkenly singing.

"I thought I heard the old man say..." George bellowed.

"Leave her Johnny! Leave her!" Millicent crowed.

The drunks around them cheered, most of them tapping their feet to provide the rhythm.

"Tomorrow ye get will yer pay..."

"And it's time fer us to leave her!"

Ginny was writing an article on the growing anti-purity/pro-Muggle born movement. It seemingly had no headquarters, no place of concentration or focus. It was headed by a person known only as "The Witness." The Auror department of the Ministry was desperately trying to quell it without making it obvious that it was what they were doing.

But they couldn't afford to ignore it completely. Antisemitism in early 20th century Europe was ignored until it was too late. Pure-blood supremacy was ignored until it was too late.
Except, on this particular subject, it was already too late. Much too late.

"The Wheel of Fate turns and turns." the man said.

[3]

The man blinked and he was back in the present. Or what he took for the present.

"Now, who's left?" he asked, to no one in particular. And even the empty air knew the answer to that. Millicent Burtrude or whatever her name was given the living Weasley twin. She was thick but not repulsive and the living twin actually liked them that way. And she liked redheads, even though she wouldn't admit it.

There was one good reason that he paired so many Slytherins with so many Gryffindors.

What he said to the Minister of Magic was something along the lines of this:

The idea was that there was no better lesson than having the living counterpoint fall asleep next to you each night.

Parkinson was given the youngest Weasley boy. Because they were both pretty social, but also complete basket cases that said the worst thing at the worst opportunity. Also because they both represented a reversal in fortunes.

Parkinson had gone from a princess with connections to a pauper that would be starving in the street if not for the charity of those she had insulted. The youngest Weasley, though not rich was still much wealthier than he had ever been as a kid. People liked him, admired his bravery, and he knew his family loved him. The awful phantom images from the horcrux he's slain was always far away from his mind.

Granger was given Malfoy. But the Malfoy boy had learned the lesson of humility long before he even hit his head on the fireplace in the Burrow. To make the humility stick, the idiotic fool—once stampeding all over the place about the "Mudbloods"—now had one as his wife and lover. He worshiped the ground she walked on and they both knew it.

She in turn, had two choices: either hold on to the resentment or let it go.

The only Weasley daughter and the elder Greengrass had been given Zabini and McLaggen. Of course, he'd known from the "beginning" that they were all homosexuals. Just as he'd known he would pair each with the lover of the other.

And both marriages had been quite funny to watch.

Brown had been given Nott because they both had terrible darkness inside of them. Brown's darkness was known by others, especially herself. Nott's was...not. He had little idea of the atrocities he was capable of.

"Ria" had been given Potter. Another living contradiction, at least for him. Snape was a good man, but was still a bully that gave in to his worst desires, even by his own admission. Slughorn was no wizard-Nazi but still fell prey to the beliefs of many in the wizarding world: that Muggle-borns were perhaps not as magically powerful as the halfs or the pures. Neither of those things had been lost on Potter, whom really hadn't expected someone like Greengrass in Slytherin, just like he wouldn't expect his son.

She, in turn, discovered the man behind the legend. No faultless god but a simple man, short-tempered and prone to acting long before he thought—the same skills that made him a genius at magical combat, able to duel formidable dark wizards and come out on top.

But even all those things listed above were not the reasons he had made those assignments. Not the real reason. And there was only one.

Wheel of Fate had decided it. Had decided all of it. Not him.

There were still a few left from Hogwarts. A few stragglers, as the saying went. There were the Patil twins, neither of whom would be paired with Slytherins or anyone else from Hogwarts for that matter.

But that was for later.

Right now, everything was fine. Everything was as it should be. He did not feel pride in the results. He had seen the results "before," and he had been proud "then."

[4]

He blinked and he was a few months in "the future."

Nobody was busy. Nobody was making love. Whether reclining in a couch, or lying in bed, or sitting in lawn chairs, each person was simply with the person that they loved.

For one of the few moments in his impossibly long life, he felt just a hint of sadness. The Third Wizarding War was only two decades away. It would be caused by the Equalists. And the face of its leader would be familiar to all of them. Sometimes, he wanted to stop it.

The doubt cleared away from his mind. He was happy. There was no stopping it. What must be must be. The Wheel of Fate turned. It was the will of God.

And that was just fine.

[5]

Ria Potter gave birth to her only daughter in 2007. The doctors said her genetic weakness would not allow for more than that. The next would kill her long before she went into labor.

They were, of course, completely wrong. But the man saw no point in telling anyone that.

Only Draco and Hermione and Daphne were able to make it. They welcomed Ria's daughter into the new world.

"Merlin, Ria," Hermione said with complete pride, tears in her eyes. "Your baby is beautiful. Simply beautiful."

The man with the box mod agreed.

"What is her name?" Draco asked, smiling.

"We really aren't sure." Ria said, shrugging her shoulder as much as she dared with a baby in her hands. "Are we Harry?"

Harry Potter had continued growing a bit, and maturing even more over the years. While he was still vicious to those who assaulted others, he'd developed a sense of patience that seemed almost alien to those who saw it.

"Nope. No idea." he agreed sheepishly, running a hand through his hair, which had somehow grown even messier. He'd lost much—though not all—of the anger he'd been bottling within his since childhood.

The man laughed at the thought of it. How painfully idiotic humans could be. How shallow, how capable of ignorant cruelty.

And yet, at the same time, they could be capable of so much love. So much courage.

So much magic.

[6]

Eventually they gave Ria time to herself, and to the treatment of doctors, who eventually went away as well. Harry was outside the maternity ward, talking to Draco. The feed came from a close wall with a sign pointing in the direction of the ward.

"She's absolutely perfect." Draco said, "No way she's related to you, Potter."

Harry snickered. "This day is so great that not even you can mess it up, Malfoy."

"Isn't it wonderful, how everything turned out?" Draco's grin was fading. "It's so perfect, it's almost like a dream."

For a moment, he was his old frightened self, afraid of the future. "Potter, what if it is a dream? What if none of this is really happening. What if we're still in Hogwarts right now? What if we're still enemies and Riddle is still alive?"
Harry put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

"Take it easy, mate." Harry said. "This is no dream. It's all real and everything's going to be fine."

"I don't know. It's just...those anti-blood purity protests." Draco said. "Some of them have become riots, you know."

"I know."

"And I've heard some people have died." Draco swallowed audibly.

"Yeah, Ron and me have been arresting a quite a few of them." Harry's smile was also gone. "Potter, the 'Muggle-born traitor' they call me."

The man with the box mod knew what he was thinking. He was wondering if people ever learned anything.

"It's like some twisted karma." Draco grimaced as he thought of the past. "Everything we've done is now coming back to bite us right in the cu—"

"Malfoy, shut up." Harry's hands had balled up into fists. "Are you going to beat yourself up about this forever? You were a complete ass, fine. You never hurt anyone. It's in the past. It's done. Let it be done."

Draco regarded his words in silence. And the man with the box mod knew what he was thinking. He was thinking about his Slytherin friends, but not just them. He was thinking of all the pure-bloods, the Sacred Twenty-Eight, but not just them. He was thinking of all those associated with them, and how they would be targets too.

Like his wife. Like his daughter. Like his infant son.

Harry said: "I've got to tell you that whoever their ass of a leader is hasn't made a broadcast in a few months. The whole thing could be blowing over."

Draco didn't respond.

"You believe what I'm saying, Malfoy?"

"Sure."

But the man with the box mod looked into Draco Malfoy's eyes and could tell he didn't believe it at all.

[7]

The man with the box mod was watching Ria again.

Her newborn started to cry.

"Hush, baby it's alright." Ria cooed. And the baby quieted some. Against the wishes of the doctor, Ria gave her milk. The baby fed while Ria thought of names. It took her a long time. Of course, the man with the box mod knew exactly why: she didn't know whether to come up with something completely fresh or honor the dead or do a little bit of both.

When one finally came, the baby had already finished and was fast asleep.

"I've got it." she whispered.

She stared lovingly at her child as she slept. "There's a lot of bad people in this world, my sweet thing. A lot of hatred. A lot of people who consider themselves above others. But it will be dealt with. Because everyone on this planet can do magic. Every person. We'll make it happen. I believe that. And a lot of people agree."

Her face seemed to transform as she spoke. From a sweet, loving mother into something that was truly eldritch. She didn't look like a person anymore.

Her daughter must have picked up on what was happening, because she woke up and began to cry.

"That's okay." Ria said, smiling gently, almost looking normal. "Mommy will protect you. Mommy will always protect you. Mommy will show you the way. You and Daddy."

The baby continued to cry. Her mother continued to smile.

"I love you, Delphi." she said. "I really do."

Now the man smiled.

The Wheel of Fate turned and turned.

And it always came back around to the same spot yet again.

THANKS EVERYONE FOR READING