Check first chapter for disclaimer and other warnings.
Chapter 38 – A Reversal of Roles (Epilogue)
"Promise me you'll never do something like that again." she said softly.
He looked at her eyes, and saw the uncertainty there. "I promise." he said, and they held each other silently for several minutes.
"You could have fled with it."
"I know. But I couldn't. Not without you."
"I love you." she said, closing in.
Whatever he wanted to say was drowned in a deep kiss.
A squeal.
"Hey! Stop stealing my towel when I shower!" he indignantly exclaimed. "It's immature!"
"Immature? What about your pitiful attempts in transfiguring my nightgown?"
"Tell me about them, again." she said during one of their cuddling sessions.
He stood and extended his hand to her. "Why don't you join me? After all, I should present you to them one day or another."
They went to a pensieve that held something so important that it was surrounded by numerous charms.
"It's a good thing the ring was functioning. You got us out just in time." she reminisced.
"Yes. When I saw them pausing and heard him scream, I knew it was finished."
"Happy accelerated birthday!"
"Oh thank you! My favourite cake."
BANG!
Silence.
"You got me an exploding cake? I'll get you! Come here!"
As both of them were ticklish, no one won over the other, and the remains of the cake stayed like that for a long time. Except those on themselves. Those got licked away real quick. Or slow.
"The core is inserted in the hollowed part, like... like..." he stuttered, stumbling on his explanation of wand making.
"You are pretty when you blush like that, love." she said, her eyes twinkling with mischief.
"Have you sent the story to the Prophet yet?" she demanded, fists on her hips. She knew she resembled her mother, that way, and it often amused her to get specific reactions from him.
Hearing the question, Harry suddenly remembered what he had forgotten earlier. "Err... Oops?"
"And the letter to mum?"
"Double oops?"
"Do it. Now."
"So, if everything is correct, it should be blue." he said, pouring a vial of asphodel in the cauldron.
"Bummer. Green again. Try again."
"She didn't seem concerned with practicality."
"I don't care, it worked, and I'm sure I can reproduce the experiment."
"You can reproduce? I hope so."
"You witch you!"
"Hey, have you changed yourself recently?" she asked, looking up and down at his frame.
"No."
She pointed to his forehead. "You checked that spot recently?"
"No."
"You should. It's disappearing."
"-and you mix it with mine, and you get-" BANG! "-exactly that."
"Why did you repeat a failed experiment?" she demanded.
He looked sheepish, all of a sudden. "For experience?"
"Right! As if failing repeatedly could improve your chances of brewing things right. Look at Neville..."
"Muggles say that, if there's a one-in-ten chance to succeed, you ought to do it ten times and collect the good one."
"As you told me, muggles also have laws saying that manipulating those laws don't work. It's not because it rains when you wash your car that you'll succeed in making the rain fall by washing your car."
He looked at her appraisingly, but his eyes belied his serious face. "I'm impressed you understood that part."
"Prat!"
"Do you think they would leave us the hell alone and forget about us?" he asked.
"Not bloody likely." she replied from her desk, where she was pouring over three tomes and taking notes at the same time.
"I love you, but you swear too much."
"Yes, me too." she said absently, before adding "And you too."
He came out of the Potion lab with his apron covered in soot. "Is there any asphodel left, dear? I need some..."
"No. You used the last parts yesterday." she said, and noticed him taking the apron off. "What are you doing?"
"I have to go buy some."
"It's night time outside, and it will be for the next week."
He stopped and looked at her. "Bummer."
"You said it."
"Have you seen my 142nd notebook?" he exclaimed from under his desk, searching through crates of papers.
"Isn't it between the 141st and the 143rd?"
"No!" he answered, as if it was unnatural for that to occur.
She shrugged. "Don't know, then. You should have another way of recognizing them, really!"
"How much time do you think we have?" she asked.
"Oh, I don't know. Besides, we count in days while they count in hours. Come here." he finished huskily, patting the bed.
"They will have a surprise." he said, helping her packing her last belongings.
"I guess. How much time already? After your explosion on our first time?"
"I think it was three months in... that makes... two years. Do you regret it?"
"Not a bit. But I'm not sure about my family..." she trailed off, biting her lower lip.
He found her adorable, and told her so. And things led to other things…
"Damn! Look at the outside clock!" he exclaimed.
"What about it?"
"It's time already! They must be eating now."
She summed the situation quite articulately. "Shit."
"And you kiss me with this mouth?" he asked, his eyebrows raised.
"I'll stop doing things with it if you don't get yourself prepared."
"What, the hickeys?"
"You prat!"
"Ready?" she asked in a trembling voice.
"No! But let's face the music."
"I love you when you are responsible."
"I'm not. I just sound like it."
"I don't like this smile... where is our target?"
"You wouldn't believe it if I told you. I explored the empty castle a bit while you slept. The activation word is... Schoolprise!"
Hogwarts, the Great Hall, September 1st...
"...and it's my pleasure to welcome you for another… school… year." Minerva was saying, but her last words came slowly, for the sight that graced her eyes wasn't something she was used to. Two teenagers, a boy and a girl, had appeared from thin air, right in the middle of the room.
"Thank you very much." said the boy. "Sorry for being late, Headmistress. We sorta..."
"...slept late? ...did things? ...were taken in our studies?" answered the girl, facing him with her fist to her sides. "What sort of excuse are you going to find this time, Harry?"
"Come on, Gin, don't yell like that. I already told you it was unladylike, and your bro-"
"Harry?" "Ginny?"
The shocked questions came from their table. They both turned and watched as Hermione, Fred, and George stood up, before walking between the tables toward them. Once they were in direct sight, Hermione took a run and launched into Harry's arms, crying, and making him stumble on the sorting stool, before falling backwards on the floor. Not even concerned with proper appearance or their current position, the girl was continuously mumbling "Thank you, thank you."
"You know, Harry, if I didn't know you as I do, I'd think you are cheating on me." said Ginny, who was being bear-hugged by her brothers.
"Hey, help me up, instead of joking." he answered. "I don't know who put that stool there, but-"
"I did." she smugly answered.
His eyes got wide, then narrowed, and he struggled to get up. "I'll get you for that."
Everybody who hadn't read the Prophet that summer, as well as those who read it but didn't believe it, understood that Harry Potter was finally back in the world of the living, and ready for another year at Hogwarts. The five teenagers returned to the Gryffindor table, Harry and Ginny noticing several new heads who were wondering what the commotion was about.
"As I was saying until I was so aptly interrupted..." started the Headmistress again, with a pointed look at the group of redheads and one raven-haired boy. "...welcome to another year in Hogwarts. Today is Friday, so it gives you two days without class. There will be a Prefect reunion in my office at nine, during which we'll decide on the activities. I expect everyone else to stay in your House quarters until-"
Harry tuned the woman's speech out, and looked around, noticing that many of the students who knew him from two years ago smiled or nodded at him. The others looked at him in wonder, or, in the case of most girls, with a strange smile, either dreamy or hungry. He was jerked from his thoughts by a particular sentence in the Headmistress' speech. Everyone else seemed to follow the same lead, as the Hall grew completely silent.
"...and, this year, after more than a century in service of the school, Professor Dumbledore decided to retire."
In the shocked silence, she stepped back a bit so that the aged Professor could stand, helped with a cane. Albus opened his mouth to speak, when a sound prevented him to.
A clapping.
Harry Potter, the boy he had wanted to talk to for months, the boy he wanted to apologize to, was sending his greetings in a touching way. Everybody soon followed, and the hall soon resounded under the applause of the hundreds of standing students. After five minute, during which the clapping seemed to intensify each time the old man opened his mouth to talk, the room finally quieted and everybody sat down.
"Thank you." he said in a strained voice, before sitting down.
"Thank you, Headmaster." answered Minerva, still standing.
At Dumbledore's sharp look, she smiled. "For most of the people who passed in these walls, you are Hogwarts Headmaster." Turning back to the students, she smiled. "I know I have several other things to say, but your young stomachs won't listen properly until filled. I just have some words to say beforehand..." she stopped for effect, and threw a smug look at Albus, who looked back questioningly. What was she doing? She turned back to the room and spoke loudly. "Oddment! Nitpick! Fluripar! Bionic!" And she sat down in the resulting shocked silence.
Even when the food appeared, nobody moved for a second, until several persons started clapping again. The room once again rolled in the applause, although it was shorter than Dumbledore's. Soon, everybody was eating joyfully.
During the meal, an owl deposited a message at Harry's place, and he quickly read it, before nodding to the Headmistress.
Harry and Ginny, the message said.
Please meet the Heads of House after dinner in my office.
Minerva McGonagall.
A bit later...
"...and that's how we ended up ready for the same year." he finished.
Harry had just told Albus and Minerva about his summer with Ginny. Not that they didn't know. Despite the professors' inability to reach them, the teenagers had found ways to send messages from wherever they hid. And studied. And worked out. At an accelerated time. Harry had nicely filled his 16-year frame, and Ginny had developed into a beautiful 15-year old girl. Due to the teens' stance, and the fact that they practically lived together unsupervised for two years, there was no doubt about their feelings for each other. However, their request was quite unheard of. They didn't want to enter third year, like Minerva had thought. They wanted to jump directly in seventh year. The 4-year gap couldn't be crossed with only two years, even with intensive study.
"You do realize, I hope, that seventh year ends with the NEWTs, and that you can't go to classes where you don't have the required level. You'll have to pass OWLs first, to be allowed to enter these classes." she said.
"Very well." Harry answered.
After a moment of silence, Minerva looked at them, then at Dumbledore, then back at the annoying teens. "What?" she asked.
"Do test us." answered Ginny.
A pause.
"I'll see what I can do." answered a grumpy Headmistress.
"Now that this is out of the way," said Dumbledore, "can you tell me exactly what happened to Voldemort? And why a 20-mile radius zone centred on Little Hangleton is completely impervious to magic."
"Impervious?" asked Harry. "In what sense?"
"In the sense that no magic functions in that zone."
"That's interesting." Harry mused, tapping his chin thoughtfully.
"You didn't know?" asked the old man in wonder.
"Sorry, no. It must be one of the side effects of the explosion."
"And about Voldemort?"
Harry removed his portable pensieve from his pocket and put it on the desk, opening it. He only warned them about the noise before the two professors jumped in. After a few minutes, they came out, visibly shaken.
"Harry," Dumbledore asked. "What was the spell you put in the weapons?"
"It was no spell, Headmaster. I mean... Professor. It was six thousand evil souls. In each gun."
Both teachers paled and their eyes went wide. "How..." started Minerva, but she couldn't formulate her question.
"How did we come in possession of these?" asked Ginny.
The Headmistress nodded.
"Well... Harry? That's your story."
"Thanks, Gin." he said, before turning to the professors. "You remember when you found us stumbling out of a house in Little Hangleton?"
They nodded.
"We just came out of Voldemort's lair. He had killed Ginny with an Avada Kedavra, and Hermione died the same way."
Minerva "Died? But..."
Harry continued as if he hadn't been interrupted. "The man who helped us escape has inv-"
"Speaking about him, Harry," Dumbledore interjected, "where is he? He's a dangerous man."
A smile. "I know, Professor. I had two years to think about him, and I reached the appropriate conclusion. I know who he was. I also happen to know it was him who invented the Avada Kedavra and the Dementors, both in the same intent: to give him souls to feed on. That's how he managed to stay alive for so long. But he was stopped."
Despite his old age, the man knew his way around sentences and key words. "Was?" he asked. "Stopped?"
"Yes. He's not on this world anymore. We encountered one of the... Powers... he had cheated to accomplish that feat, and He told us about his state. Before filling our guns with dark souls."
"What are you saying, Harry?" asked Albus. "Is he still alive or not?"
Harry sighed. "The man you are talking about has been belittled and defamed by my own ancestor for his beliefs. Even if those weren't gentle, the man was honourable and wasn't the dark wizard everybody wants him to be."
A pause.
"But don't worry." he continued. "He's gone now."
"And what about the weapons?" asked Minerva. "The... guns?"
"The device used to collect the souls taken out with the spell and the Dementors looked like a pensieve, and several people got fooled by it. The Minister, as well as one of the Unspeakables, brought a soul to their temple, and ended up possessed by it."
"Do you know whose soul possessed them, Harry?"
A pause.
"I know about the Minister." he answered, looking at his feet. Ginny, knowing about it because of their long talks about it in the Hideaway, took his hand encouragingly.
Just as Dumbledore's mouth was opening to ask about the name again, Harry told them. And the professor's mouth stayed open in shock, quickly imitated by Minerva's. Both teachers knew a bit of Muggle history, especially as that particular bit was closely linked with Grindewald's raise in power and subsequent demise. After a long pause, Minerva recovered enough to speak again.
"Well... that explains several of the laws he passed."
"To return to the pensieve of souls, the... entity who we talked with had separated the souls in it, keeping only the most evil ones, and it was he who filled our guns with them. After discussing with Ginny, we also came to the conclusion that, since they were inherently evil, they weren't able to reach her because she's inherently good. The Death Eaters, on the other hand..."
Everyone nodded.
After a pause, during which the adults digested the information and the teenagers were thoughtful about it, Harry spoke again. "Professor Dumbledore?"
"Yes, Harry?"
"You are really retiring?"
The old man sighed. "Yes. The elapsed year has taken a hard toll on my old body, and I'm not sure I'll be able to spend the whole year teaching again. As Minerva... I mean, the Headmistress... told you all earlier, we found a suitable replacement in the person of Ludmila Rogdanova. She was already teaching the subject in the Durmstrang academy, but got ill and needed a change in climate."
Seeing the disgruntled faces, he smiled. "But I'll still spend time around here. After all, it's almost as if I was a piece of furniture in that castle, now. I'm sure that, even after I die, I'll return to haunt it, like professor Binns did."
"Did, sir?"
"Yes. You obviously didn't catch everything I said, young man." said Minerva in mock indignation. "Professor Binns has slowly lost his grasp on reality, and completely disappeared over July. We found a proper replacement in the form of Samuel Rodenbach, who comes from America."
"Minerva and I also discussed about a couple of other subjects that I wanted to include in the curriculum, but couldn't find proper teachers in." said Albus, before looking at Harry intently.
"What?" answered the teenager anxiously, having a faint idea about what it was.
"What do you want to do after graduating, Harry?" asked Minerva.
Harry and Ginny looked at each other, before the boy answered. "For a long time, I wanted to be an Auror. After seeing what I saw and doing what I did, I'm not sure about it anymore. I mean, Voldemort is dead, now, and most of his Death Eaters too. I don't know, in fact."
"You should have thought about it before thinking about joining seventh year, Harry. And you, Ginny?"
"Well, there are several things I want to try, but I want to understand the wizarding society first. I think I'll be working with dad for a time."
"Have you ever thought about teaching, Harry?" asked Dumbledore to a surprised teenager.
It took a moment for Harry to ponder it, before he was able to answer. "No... I'm not good enough in any course except Defence and it's not a topic I particularly like anymore."
"I didn't mention the course, Harry." he answered. "Let me tell you a story. Several years ago, there was a teacher here. Passionate about her course, and the students loved her. Unfortunately, she was killed and nobody had ever been able to teach the course ever since. You know the story, Harry. It was your grandmother. Would you agree to teach Technomancy, after you graduate?"
Harry was stunned. Him, a teacher? After all the rules he had broken? He thought about it for a long time, before smiling at the old man. "I'd like that, sir. In fact, I have another idea of a course which could be interesting."
"What is it?" asked Minerva.
Harry drew his platinum-coated wand and showed it to them. To their surprised faces, he said "Wand making."
After a long pause after which they demanded to know what it was made of, thus eliciting another silent pause, they heard a knock at the door. It was the Prefects, right on time for the meeting. Harry and Ginny weren't Prefects this year, because they hadn't been reachable, and the proceeded to leave the office, when Dumbledore stopped them.
"I happen to know, since I participated in their making, how the Prefect status works." he whispered while the other students sat noisily in the chairs conjured by Minerva. "It's linked to the badge. I'm sure you will find creative, although responsible, use of a... let's say "borrowed" badge." He winked.
The two teenagers stood still for a second, before breaking into a large grin. That was going to be an interesting year.
One and a half century later...
Through his office window, Harry looked at the pick-up game of Quidditch the students were playing and sighed. He wanted to play with them, but his life had loaded him with responsibilities, and he couldn't escape them like that. He reflected about what had happened in the 150 years since he had told his former Headmaster that he agreed to teach.
Despite the advanced exams, despite the stress of passing the OWLs in Halloween and the NEWTs the same year in June – Hermione had made a sour face which had lasted six months – his last school year had been his last year of real freedom. Afterwards, he had followed the career of Professor in Technomancy and Wand Making. Right after marrying Ginny.
At some time during his last year as a student, he had visited Ollivander and revealed his identity to him. The old man had nodded, as if he had suspected something like that, and had extracted a promise that he would continue to help him after he graduated. Harry had groaned, but he was fond of the old man, and promised to spend all his summers helping the man until a suitable replacement had graduated from Hogwarts.
It had taken several years to convince him, but Blaise Zabini had finally taken the job, right after marrying Harry's sister. Megan, who had, several years later, written the Equality Act, the base of today's Bill of Equal Right Between Sentient Creatures, applied to everyone: magical creatures, wizards, elementals, muggles alike. Unfortunately, Megan had been killed by a racist fanatic a short time later, and Harry had made sure that Blaise and the kids were settled comfortably before taking on a personal crusade against fanatisms of all kinds.
The Act had helped Remus reintegrate the wizarding society, though, just a year before Hermione and Severus, lawfully married after her Master's thesis in Potions, had invented the vaccine against Lycanthropy. It had involved complicated ceremonies to take place over the time span of a year, but it had been a complete success. Several years after that, the couple, who had only taken time out of their studies to spend a week of honeymoon, had gone into disarray over the education of Enguerran, their adolescent son, and they had separated. Severus had delved into more complicated potions, inventing several of today's healing potions – more powerful and better tasting than the infamous Skele-Gro, for instance. Hermione had gone to Harry to learn Technomancy in detail, and invented a shielding spell against the Unforgivables. The association of pure magic and technomancy allowed her spell to detect an incoming curse by the air moved by the curse beam, and her shield simply let the curse pass through, but moved the caster out of the way. Enguerran had continued his brilliant education in Hogwarts and took the position of Potion professor after his father's retirement.
Harry's mind went back to his sister's wedding. After that event, Harry, who had been so taken by the teaching, had decided to take a sabbatical year and had taken his wife on a trip around the world, visiting his muggle friends in the way. Jason and Joan had been happily nursing their third child, while Tamara and Kevin had been their usual selves, respectively hot-tempered and smug. They were a tad mollified by the years, though, and also by the fact that Tamara was pregnant with twins. In-vitro fertilization, used by muggles when regular reproduction means failed, had often the effect of giving multiple births. They all enjoyed a week together, reminiscing the good times, before Harry and Ginny left for America, starting their world tour there. When they returned, Ginny was sporting an unnaturally large swollen belly for a 6-month pregnancy, and surprised everybody with triplets, whom they named Molly, Lily, and Albus.
Albus Dumbledore had died a couple of year before, after a satisfying retirement with his brother Aberforth. Harry had visited him several times, repairing their mutual trust, and the old men had taught him everything they knew which wasn't related to teaching. Needless to say, Harry had returned home a few times with a head pounding with useless information. Unless it was plain alcohol.
The great man's funeral had brought about almost every witch and wizard from Great Britain and several countries around the world. Despite his grief and his dislike of public occurrences, Harry had pronounced an inspired funeral oration before returning to his bench besides Ginny.
Ginny. She was still his wife after all that time, and they were both happy with it. After a career in the Ministry, where she ended at the Department of Education, she switched to Hogwarts to help Harry who had just become Headmaster. With her, he had then proceeded in the changes he had wanted for the school. He had already changed the curriculum when he had been a Professor, taking charge of an introductory course to magic for the muggleborns, for instance. Now that he was in charge, and with a wife having so many connections inside the Ministry, he went for deeper changes.
Using his own magic, as well as the one linked to his position, he had changed the castle's structure. Instead of a cold building with dangerous stairs and dank dungeons, it became a campus-like architecture, with several smaller buildings scattered on the grounds. It needed more caretakers, then, and, despite many raised eyebrows, he decided to employ Draco Malfoy. The man had been helpful in the past, and was wilting away in his wing of the ex-Malfoy Manor. Draco had been hesitant, but, after several days of work, he had thanked Harry profusely before thoroughly investing himself in his job.
In Hogwarts campus, Harry used several newly-constructed buildings to create an elementary school for magical children. There, like muggles, they would learn to live in a disparate society, and not like supremacist recluses the pureblood had often been raised to be. After finding Gryffindor's secret rooms and the blood samples in there, he had found a way to detect elemental ability, and several political agreements afterwards, he had also created an Elemental course, and Magiuses and Elementals alike were quite happy to drop pretenses.
As the Houses system had always been the source of disagreement between the student, as well as the teachers, he had also removed it. Now, students were lodged by year, and there was only one Quidditch team for the school. The difference resided in that it played against teams from the other magical schools over Great Britain, and the team winning had a shot at student teams from other countries. It opened the student to the fact that schools existed outside Hogwarts, and in other countries as well.
The Technomancy professorship had been the hardest, but also the most interesting, because he had had to spend a long time documenting himself on what muggles did in almost every sciences. His long life allowed him to, though, and he had often associated his name with Hermione for publications, either in the magical world or in the muggle. His name had also became famous because he introduced the shape-shifting theory to the magical world, and his chocolate frog card was the one where the text was written in the smallest font – just to be able to hold everything.
Harry opened the eyes he hadn't been aware of closing. All his memories were wearing on him, even if he was happy, like Dumbledore before him, to use several pensieves to store the direst away. Upon opening his eyes, he smiled at the portrait right in front of him, and the two people on the portrait smiled back. Right after graduating, he had remembered about his parents' portrait from his vault and, after asking them, had deposited their souls into it, giving it life. It was even more life-like than the other magical portraits, as his parents were sometimes able to take a ghost form to escape the painting. And it was more resistant, too. The other magical portraits constantly had to be recharged magically. In Hogwarts, the castle's magic was taking care of it, but it still appeased him that his parents were able to see and comment on his accomplishments. And pranks.
Harry smiled. Several times over his professorship, he had driven the whole school mad with practical jokes. It was always good-natured and done at times where it was safe – which meant no exam or other unpleasant happenstance. He had never been found out, and people had started to whisper that the Marauders' ghosts had infested the castle. People at large still didn't know the identity of the infamous pranksters, and Harry had planned his pranks to confuse the audience even more.
The Marauders themselves had rallied the Weasley twins' ideas and had been producing joke items for most of their life, staying young in spirit – something their spouses and even their progeny hadn't accepted all the time. Remus had been the first to depart: despite having been cured, his body had already suffered greatly from years of lycanthropy. Sirius had got his first white hair only then, but continued to play pranks till the end: people coming to his funeral had been shocked to see his body sit suddenly on his bier and start singing a tavern song in a cavernous voice.
When Harry had become Headmaster, he hadn't had anymore time to amuse himself with pranks, but he was still enjoying when others did, especially the numerous descendants of Fred and George. Bill, too, liked the pranks, even if he didn't have much time to witness them. The man had asked to be transformed into a ghost to check on his family, something that he had done with a religious-like zeal for almost a century, before asking to be relieved from his state. He couldn't watch the numerous houses populated with redheads anymore. He had discussed with Ginny for a long time, both of them crying, before being sent to the Heaven's judge.
Thinking of Bill brought about an older thought, about Fred and George. After digging in the twin's life, Dumbledore had finally found the reason why George was able to pass through walls when kicking on them. It was due to the strange substance from Slytherin's office in Azkaban, which container had crashed on the floor and splashed George's feet. That had brought several rounds of laughter and several years of pranks from the twins. However, try as they might, the twins, and their pranking descendants, had never been able to catch Harry and didn't dare prank Ginny at all. Harry was very powerful but calm and collected – most of the time, which meant, when he wasn't angry. His wife was powerful in her own right, and hot-tempered as well. Fred and George had also been unable to do anything against Ron and his wife Luna. The two of them had been, despite their aloofness, two of the most insightful Seers of their time.
Harry sat down in front of the mound of paper which continually appeared on his desk. He had charmed his desk to check the arriving paper so that most of the paperwork was treated automatically, but it seemed that he still had to sift through most of it manually. He sighed, and closed his eyes again. He had started one of his reminiscing mental trips, and wasn't done with it. The last thing of importance he had done, as the 'most powerful wizard' and ambassador of the magical world, was to put an end to the Secrecy Act. It was just in time, because muggles had already been studying applied genetics, and several squibs and wizards living in the muggle world had had their blood checked by muggle hospitals. On top of that, the wizards could help in the newly-formed international project of space exploration. The muggles had finally understood that a project of planet terraformation, despite the time needed, would yield much more than the initial cost. They had estimated that Mars wouldn't be ready before centuries, but Harry knew that with a bit of magic, things could go faster.
The disclosure of the magical world brought a shock on the population but, at least, they didn't go after them with pitchforks demanding that they burn on the stake. Some did, but the targeted wizards had been able to defend properly and legally: the wand was considered like a gun and that was all. After a few tentative years, everyone had settled down. Helped with Ginny, Harry had used a large part of his immense and ever-increasing fortune, as well as his political weight, to ease the wizard-muggle relationships.
After this, several years had gone by calmly and routine had settled. Harry and Ginny always kept an eye on their descendants, and were looked upon as models by most wizards and witches, as well as numerous elementals and muggles.
His mind bringing in more recent topics of reflection, he remembered what had happened the week before. During an interview for a professorship in Divination, one of the applicants had suddenly stood up and spoken with a cavernous voice. Browsing through her mind afterwards, Harry had determined that it was a true Prophecy, and had hired her. The Prophecy had involved an orphaned boy destined to defeat the next Dark Lord. Despite Harry's continuous efforts, not all orphanages where filled with happy youngsters, and he had launched the member of the still-active Order of the Phoenix in search of the boy.
The roles were reversed, but he wouldn't do like Dumbledore. He would protect the boy, and he would check on him. Even at night, if there wasn't any other alternative. After all, it was a well-known fact that Harry Potter didn't need sleep anymore. What very few people knew is that Harry had charmed the Headmaster's office and quarters in the same way his grandmother's Hideaway had been. That could have posed a problem with his aging, but his real age wasn't even showing. People thought he was 164 years old, but with all the accelerated time spent in his office, he knew, inside, that he topped the 200-year barrier. It was the only way, anyway, to allow him to write his Memoirs, like Dumbledore had done before him. That particular read had been interesting, and he learned about the old man's faults, hoping he wouldn't repeat them. Thinking of books, he also remembered when he had returned to the old bookstore near the funfair, surprising the owner. He had paid a hefty sum and asked the man to leave him alone for an hour. When the man returned, the only thing that had changed in the bookstore was an additional bookcase in the corner. The man had blinked, but Harry had cryptically said that he had owned the building of the bookcase to an old man, and left. Unbeknownst to the muggle owner, Harry had merely dispelled the hiding charm before removing the books from it. Mostly dark arts books which didn't have their place in a now-muggle bookstore for kids.
He stood up, stretching, and looked at his black mane in the mirror. It had returned to its initial colour a few years after Voldemort's demise. Several people asked him if he used hair dye, before remembering that he was the first shape-shifter in recorded history (his ancestor hadn't been recorded as such) and didn't need dye to change his hair colour. The truth was that he didn't even need it. Not yet, anyway. Ginny had started morphing her hair back into its initial colour a few years back, when she had spotted her first white hairs. And she wasn't living in a constantly accelerated time frame like him. The Creator had been true. He would live a very long life. Harry had known for a long time the disadvantages of living longer than others. Outliving one's own children is one of the most painful experiences. He wasn't sure he could survive outliving his wife.
He shook his head, and allowed his natural optimism to flow again. They were both alive at the moment, and they had great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren who were enjoying their education. Speaking of whom...
He extended his hand and his faithful Firebolt jumped in his hand. He smirked. What was the interest of living longer than most if you can't learn useful talents in the way? Transfiguring his robes into the Gryffindor's Quidditch uniform he was always wearing when playing Quidditch, he opened the window and jumped in the normal time frame. He saw Andrew and Jenny between the other players and waved to his descendants. He could name each of them, as well as each of the other students as well. He knew them and, looking at their flying, realized that they were happy. Happy to live in a carefree world where the main danger resided in Quidditch accidents. He smiled. Despite the threat outlined in the Prophecy, the world was well, and the next generation was happy.
He joined the fray.
The End
Finally, I wrote 'The End'
Looking back, I comprehend
That I liked writing, so much
That I'll persist. Stay in touch!
Final Author's Notes: Finally. It's done. 277777 words full of entrancing magic, powerful battles, and unconditional love. I thank the many reviewers who took the time to give me a bit of advice or a pat on the back. Here was the closure on Strengthening Wounds: I don't think there will be a sequel.
Now, take a break, and, if it isn't done yet, read my other stories. (grins)