DON'T FORGET TO READ CHAPTER 12 BEFORE THIS ONE! I DOUBLE-UPDATED BUT I'M NOT SURE TWO EMAILS WENT OUT

Epilogue: Give the Devil His Due

(William Shakespeare – Henry IV Part I)

The stone floor of Malfoy Manor is cold under Hermione's feet.

She left Draco behind in bed, fast asleep, one arm thrown around the pillow she substituted for her body, so he doesn't wake up at feeling an uncustomary emptiness in his embrace. Normally she loves to watch Draco sleep.

But not tonight. Tonight, she feels restless, as she rarely has since she died.

How long has it been since Dr Hermione Granger took her last breath? She isn't entirely sure. Time moves a little differently in Hell. And it doesn't help that demons live forever. In the seventy-seven years of her mortal life, she aged as any human woman does, while Draco never looked older than eighteen.

Did it lead to crises? Of course. Hermione has always struggled with her self-image. When she was thirty, and having sex with a boy who looked sixteen, it was depraved and delicious. But then she was forty, having sex with a boy who looked seventeen, and suddenly she remembered or rediscovered all the things she hated about her body. Her sagging breasts, her stretch marks, her belly and thick calves. The day someone asked if she was Draco's mother was the day that nearly pushed her over the edge.

But then he reminded her that they didn't care about silly Mudblood words and silly Mudblood rules. He is the Devil's son and she is his mate; they don't need to know anything more than that.

So she lived out the rest of her days on earth as the eternal spinster Dr Granger, who frigidly rebuffed all of the few attempts men made to ask her out, yet whose patients recovered from life-threatening diseases as though through miracles. (Not quite miracles. But who's asking?) She thinks her parents suspected. Oh, not that she was with a demon, of course: the senior Drs Granger were atheists. But that someone secret lay behind her continued refusal to meet other men.

Certainly, sometimes her colleagues asked her the identity of the young, handsome, frightening blond man who sometimes picked her up and dropped her off. A cousin? A nephew? Or then, as she got older, from people unfamiliar with her: a grandson?

But she never told.

"You look like you're thinking deep thoughts, Hermione," a deep voice drawls from behind her.

She turns around with a slight start. She hadn't realised that she fell into a reverie while staring at a basilisk-scale coat of armour, standing in the middle of a corridor. Her father-in-law is directly behind her.

"Not too deep, Lucius," she says with a smile that exposes the tips of her fangs. She had to beg Draco to let her have them, but she likes the way they look. And he likes the way they feel on his skin while they're having sex. "Just thinking about my mortal past."

He hums and comes to stand next to her. Now both of them are staring at the armour. They remain in companionable silence for a while until he breaks it.

"Are you satisfied with the outcome of your wish, Hermione Granger?"

"Hermione Malfoy," she corrects. "And I must say that I am."

"Many have wished for love before," he muses. "But this is the first time they were happy with the outcome."

She shrugs. "I never had a particular type of love in mind. A friend, a lover, even someone whom I knew would care about me regardless of my cleverness – that was all I wanted. But I must say, I've been wondering about something."

He raises a blond eyebrow. "Oh? Do tell."

"Why did you send Draco and Theo to watch over me for those forty-nine nights at the beginning?" she asks. "I have my theories, of course, but… why? Why am I the one person whose wish you never twisted, whose contract you never upended?"

He seems to change the subject. "What do you know of telling the future?"

Reflexively her lip curls. She remembers Albus Dumbledore, whom Draco tried and failed to kill when she was eighteen, who was eventually murdered by one of his own lieutenants.

"I know there are people who say they can see it," she says. "And that you can see it best of all. But let's just say I've always struggled with the concept."

He barks out a laugh. "You would, my dear. Well, let it be known that I am the Devil and I have the True Sight, granted me on the condition I say nothing of what I see. But I can act – and when Draco was seven years old, I learnt that the love of my son's life would be the Mudblood girl who managed to summon me fifty years after I was last called up. So I ordered Draco and Theodore to watch over you, to – shall we say – allow you to spend time together."

She's silent as she absorbs this. Theo, who is now a good friend of hers as well as of Draco's, often good-humouredly pokes fun at them for the fact that Draco forbade him from coming along on their nightly dates after the first time. She wonder how much he suspected.

"Well," Hermione says at last, "I still have issues with seeing the future. But I must say that on this occasion, I'm glad you listened to what you saw."

He grins. "Have we made a believer out of you, Hermione Malfoy?"

"No. This is just a one-time exception," she says primly.

Then they laugh together, the Devil and his daughter-in-law.

AN: SO THAT'S THE END OF MY FIRST EVER MULTI-CHAPTER FIC! I'm kind of shook because I thought it would always be To Kingdom Come (there's only one chapter and an epilogue left for that, go check it out!) but this story idea just bit me and wouldn't let go. I haven't really done justice to the vision I had of it inside my head, but I'm still pretty pleased with the outcome and I really, really hope you all enjoyed reading as much as I've enjoyed writing! I think I've managed to tie up all my loose ends but let me know if anything is left! A HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who left reviews, especially those who reviewed faithfully every chapter. I love you!

NEXT UP: Finishing TKC, then I'm starting work on The Liar's Kiss - first chapter up in a few days! Not to self-promo, but follow me if you'd like to know when it's up. I go back to uni in October, and speaking of academics if by some wild chance you are a UK-based lawyer let me know... :P I may write The Quick and the Damned on the side anyway because I miss my Jily, but the Dramione is a cert!

Anyway, thanks for being on this journey with me :D