Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, he's too emo for me!
Epilogue
I once had a crush on one of the guys from Gryffindor. I thought he was the world when I first saw him. Little did I know when I was ten years old. I was supposed to be there with my parents sending my youngest brother of for his first time to Hogwarts, wishing him 'Good Luck' and hugging him and my two older brother who were still going to Hogwarts that year. We were on our way to the Hogwarts Express when I first met him. A scrawny boy with glasses and unruly black hair. But the thing that got to me most were his sad, but huge green eyes. I really thought he was the world and that someday I was going to marry him and have children.
The year after that I was lucky enough to be send off to Hogwarts, finally I would know if the tales about the grandeur of Hogwarts would be true and that I could see the stage of all my brothers stories and most important I got to see him again. The famous Harry Potter. Ever since I had seen him I dreamt about seeing him again and I knew the stories about him. Every parent has told their children about the infant Harry Potter who survived a deadly attack from You-Know-Who and defeating him in the process, whether it was a tale of hope or to bring them spitefulness for the fall of their Lord. The first time I saw him at school, my heart raced and I felt butterflies all over. It was a typical childhood crush. It even got worse, when he saved me that year from You-Know-Who's diary. We shared a bond knowing we were the only people we knew who were possessed by You-Know-Who and lived to tell the tale.
Luckily around my third year my crush faded as I noticed that he only saw me as a little sister. Together with my brother Ron and Hermione they were always on adventures or they were doing stuff by their selves, excluding me. I did manage to build up a friendship with Hermione, one where we would tell each other our secrets. I told her I had a crush on Harry, she would tell me about her crush on Ron. I would tell her about how my crush had faded and she would tell me what an incredible git Ron was and why she still had a crush on him. Around that time that my crush faded I noticed the other boys. Michael Corner from Ravenclaw for instance. We dated for a while at the end of my fourth year, but in the end it didn't really work out. Something about I wasn't smart enough for him, but everyone knew it was about the fight we got when Gryffindor had won from Ravenclaw. I couldn't stand the fact he was sulking about it and I dumped him.
In the beginning of my fifth year at Hogwarts I started noticing more and more guys. I noticed the fact that even though he's still a Ferret, that Malfoy was pretty good looking, just like another Slytherin.. I believe his name was Blaise Zabini or something like that. Around that same time I also noticed that other girls were talking about the Fantastic Four. At night Lavender and Parvati couldn't stop talking about them, annoying Hermione with their incessant chatter. The first time Hermione told me about that I couldn't stop laughing, but the name grew on me. In the meanwhile I started dating Dean Thomas. He was the quiet artistic type, it seemed quite mysterious at the time and the fact I discovered he made numerous sketches of me did flatter me as well. But somehow I think the real reason that I dated him was because of his best friend Seamus. Seamus always cracked me up with his antics and he always had a way to bring the best out of Dean. I however, did not. So when Harry finally saw me as more then a sister. That was the right time to let go of Dean. We had broken up before that kiss, but Dean and I still snogged sometimes and he really thought we still had a chance.
Yes, Harry finally showed interest in me and for old times sake and the fact I didn't really like Dean anymore, I didn't really protest when Harry kissed me. Safe to say it was most definitely over between me and Dean and now I had the chance to date Harry. It was something like a childhood dream coming true. The first week it was actually quite enjoyable and it sort of felt like the feelings I had for Harry the first years came little by little. The second week however Harry was starting to get annoying. Even though his childhood was really tough on him and let's not forget the fact that You-Know-Who was constantly trying to kill him. I was not the person for him to fix that. He was depressed from time to time, constantly asking him if I loved him or not. Constantly talking about his family he never knew and wanted to see. I really felt sorry for him, but after the tenth time that week I just felt like screaming: 'They're dead, get over with it!'
After Dumbledore died, I wasn't sorry that he dumped me. If he would've thought about it reasonably, he would know, that it wouldn't matter if he dumped me to save me from You-Know-Who. Mainly because I'm still a Weasley and You-Know-Who doesn't like Weasleys. But it doesn't matter. Harry was too angsty for me. I was only hoping he doesn't really think I was waiting for him. I asked Hermione if she would change his mind about that, during the Horcruxes hunt. But it didn't come to that.
After discovering that the Slytherin locket in the cave was a fake, Harry, Hermione and Ron started investigating where the other possible Horcruxes could be and what the current whereabouts of the locket could be. The investigation wasn't leading to much, actually they stumbled upon dead ends again and again. The fact Snape was in hiding, guilty of the murder on Dumbledore wasn't helping. He used to be one of our main sources of information on You-Know-Who. Even though the order does question that now. They're inclined to believe that Snape has been feeding us false information all along. Especially since every spy that infiltrated the Death Eaters had died from the day on that Snape fled school grounds.
Every connection to information about what You-Know-Who was up to, was severed. Hermione tried to read every scrap of information she could get her hands on about the possible Horcruxes. Together with Harry and Ron and the Order they discussed the infinite possibilities about which Horcruxes there were and where they could've been located. But everywhere they tried, they would end up with nothing. It frustrated everybody, especially because Death eater activity would increase day by day.
It wasn't up until one day Remus Lupin found the locket again that they discovered a few years back, when they tried to clean up Grimmauld Place. To his surprise it turned out to be Slytherins locket. Later Remus said nobody found out about it's origins because it was so weathered and desperately needed a polish, but because so much has happened around that time, everybody forgot about it and failed to show the locket to Dumbledore, who might have guessed it was Slytherins locket be sensing its magical residue. After that, the Light sides luck seemed to turn around.
A few days after they had discovered that the old weathered locket was the Horcrux they were looking for, I received an anonymous letter, containing the whereabouts of the other Horcruxes. I showed the letter to the Order and they tried every sort of spell trying to detect who might have sent the letter, varying from Aparecium to Specialis Revelio, but the sender remained unknown, which made the members of the Order suspicious. The way they saw it, the sender had gone through a great deal of trouble to remain unknown, which meant that the sender in question was a powerful wizard. To add up with that he tried to be anonymous and send it to me, someone the Death Eaters already had used trying to rid the world of Harry Potter, they concluded that it must be a trap. If you think about it logically you would deduct the same conclusion, but putting logical, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley in one sentence is hoping for hell to freeze over.
Hermione tried to stop them of course, but as usual she was sucked into the illogical little theories and enthusiasm of her friends and the next day they were gone. Off on their own to find the Horcruxes mentioned in the letter or at least clues about where they might be or who send the letter. The Order dispatched several groups of their members to the places mentioned in the letter in hopes of rescuing Harry, Hermione and my brother out of the mess they most lightly were in. But when Tonks en Remus found Harry holding up a small Gryffindor crest, they contacted the other members of the Order to look if the other artefacts mentioned in the letter were there.
It looked like the mysterious R.A.B. had tried to hide them from You-Know-Who and someone else had got a hold of that information or that R.A.B. had send them the information himself. I thought it was improbable, since I knew no one with those initials. Later on we found out that the notorious R.A.B. was in fact Regulus Black, Sirius his brother.
Of course You-Know-Who found out we had killed every last of his Horcruxes. He probably had a some sort of link with his Horcruxes and felt it as soon as we destroyed the Horcrux inside of Gryffindors crest, Ravenclaws bracelet, Slytherins locket and Hufflepufs cup. It certainly drew him out, because only a few days after the last Horcrux was destroyed he opened an attack on Hogwarts. It still was a heavy battle. But for the first time we truly saw some of the students loyalties. Nobody expected to see Justin Finch-Fletchly fighting on the Death Eaters side, him being all Hufflepuf and noble, but many people thought he was being under Imperious. He was the one that had led the Death Eaters inside the castle. Personally I don't think he was under Imperious after I saw that maniacal glint in his eyes when he was fighting Luna. But it didn't matter anymore, seeing that Luna killed him after a tiring battle.
Most of the Slytherins however were fighting on the light side, to everyone's surprise. When I was being attacked by some random Death Eater, Pansy Parkinson turned up and stunned him when he was trying to attack me from behind. She winked at me before storming off to fight another Death Eater. I saw Blaise Zabini defending Lavender, Padma and Parvati. The only Slytherins who were actually fighting against us were Crabbe, Goyle, Millicent Bulstrode, Daphne Greengrass and a few others I did not know by name.
What surprised me the most was that Snape and Draco Malfoy were at Hogwarts as well and were also fighting on our side. The aurors and the order members did not know what they saw when they saw Snape and Malfoy siding together at our side. At first they wanted to attack them, but Tonks saw Snape and Malfoy jr. killing off Malfoy sr. together, she told the others to back away.
Panic and chaos was running wildly throughout the school, everybody still standing looked like a bloody mess and stunned people and dead bodies adorned the school's floors. There were some students from Ravenclaw taking orders from Michael Corner, who were trying to get to the stunned people before they were being trampled. The most vicious battles were fought in the Great Hall and that's where Voldemort was. After what seemed ages, the light side seemed to be on the winning side and the Death Eaters were retrieving even though You-Know-Who was screaming like a mad man on the Slytherin table that they had to fight. The destruction of the Horcruxes seemed to render You-Know-Who almost powerless and even more insane then he was before.
That was the moment that Snape jumped onto the table and tried to strangle You-Know-Who with what seemed to be a ripped-off piece of his robe. In the confusion You-Know-Who dropped his wand and was waving his arms around in an attempt to get Snape of his back. I saw Harry running towards that table. Probably with his hero-mode in full action, hoping that Snape wouldn't beat him to the revenge he so desperately needed. But Snape seemed to understand that as well, because when he saw Harry running towards him, he yelled 'Kill him Potter, finish him off, you insufferable brat!' Fuelled by anger Harry pointed his wand at You-Know-Who and Snape and yelled out the very same words that killed his parents. A blinding green flash lit up the whole Great Hall and when I looked again, Snape and You-Know-Who were on the table laying there in very compromising position. In Harry's anger he had pent up so much magic that the force of the spell killed both You-Know-Who and Snape at the same time.
I can't tell you how much of an anticlimax that was. Some people were crying out of relief, some were laughing and crying at the same time, happy that it was over and freaked out by the sight of seeing their most wanted enemy and most hated teacher laying on the Slytherin table in what looked intimate if you left out the part that they were dead. There were people still fighting, but most of the Death Eaters pulled their masks off and turned themselves in.
I saw Draco walking towards me and he gave me a note. The look in his eyes was unbelievably sad. That was probably the first time that I looked at Draco Malfoy without contempt. I stared at his back when he walked towards Tonks. I had taken the note and had put it in my pocket. Many students had died that day, perhaps not if you look at it logically because it wasn't more than ten percent of the student body, but I felt that it was too many and I know that others thought about it the same way. Ernie Macmillan, Malcolm Baddock, Hannah Abbott and that were only a small fraction of the names on the list. The most casualties were in Slytherin, a few killed by mistake but most of the casualties were killed by their own parents for opposing them and the Dark Lord. I never thought people would be capable of killing their own children, but I guess I was wrong. We all mourned for them, for the students, the aurors and the few teachers killed in battle,
It wasn't until much later that I remembered the note Draco gave me. Luckily I remembered it before his trial begun. Because that was one of the things that happened next. The trials. It was a huge event for the wizarding world and many people attended the trials to see justice upon the people who had murdered loved ones or other people they knew. One day they would attend a funeral or a memorial service, the other day they would visit a trial and there were people who would their loved ones at St. Mungo's or festivities in order to celebrate the final demise of You-Know-Who.
It was because of my mother I remembered it. She had spoiled me since the day I returned home from St. Mungo's after that horrible battle and was grateful that everybody was still alive from our family. She cried almost everyday just out of joy that all of her children were still alive. But soon after she went up to wash my clothes that were covered in blood, she came down again and gave me the note. First I didn't even recognised it, but mom looked at me with a serious look in her eyes and said that I should go to Draco's trial, after I had read the note. At first I thought that the tears that were forming in her eyes were the same kind of joyous theirs as before, but I understood them as soon as I read the note.
Ginevra Weasley,
Even though you should be the last person on earth I should be sending letters to, I'm still sending this letter. In this war everything considered to be right is so wrong and that's were I decided that everything that seemed wrong must be right. Unfortunately I still maintain the brain capacity to know that something as wrong as Potter would still define me as wrong, so I can't see him as completely right.
Our family has wronged you so much in many ways, that I felt that you should be the one that should decide if the Malfoy family name has the right to continue on. My father has taken your life in his hands and toyed with it. So that's why I've decided to put my life in your hands. I do not ask of you to save it, nor am I pleading you to send me off to Hell. That choice is yours to make.
There is only one thing I hope you will grant me. This note is a transfigured belt with several glass bottles on it. They contain both Snape's memories as well as my own. If you are not willing to hand over my memories at my trial, please do bring the bottles with Snape's name to the Wizengamot. He has been through a lot and deserves to live in peace, not in a hellhole like Azkaban
The incantation to end the transfiguration is Finite Incantem, but you will have to perform it three times.
Draco Malfoy
I looked at my mother and I saw her looking back at me, when I reached for my wand. Before I could utter the incantations, she stopped me for a moment. "Dear, do you think it's wise to do it yourself? It could be a trap?" But I was almost certain that this wasn't a trap. Of course there was a nagging feeling somewhere deep in my gut, telling me that it was Malfoy we were talking about, but at the other hand I had seen the desolate look in his normally so cold eyes. Determined I tapped the note three times, each time whispering the incantation. Luckily for me it wasn't a trap and the note did transfigure back in a belt holding several glass bottles, each of them containing some silvery shining liquid, which must be the memories Malfoy was talking about.
I was quite lost what to do back then. A submissive Malfoy putting the decision of his life or death in my hands and even Snape's redemption, even though it wouldn't do him much good now he was dead and had died in a manner that wouldn't do his reputation any good for as long as magic would exist. I thought about how he could have send this message with the knowledge I was nothing but a goody-two-shoes and would save him even after all he had done, but on the other hand in the end he did fight for the good side, so his sentence would be reduced anyway. He wouldn't die that easily if he only had to spend a few years in Azkaban. But then I noticed that the handwriting from the bottles was the same as the note and it reminded me of something else. I quickly asked if mom knew which Order member kept the note telling us about the whereabouts of the Horcruxes. After she told me it was Remus, I wrote a quick note to him telling him I wanted to see the letter and that it was urgent, sending Pig off with it.
And only a few minutes later Remus apparated in front of our door. He had the note with him and after I saw it and quickly compared it with the lettering on the bottles, I knew enough. I asked him if he could take me to the Ministry of Magic and up to the court rooms of the Wizengamot, before Malfoy's trial would start and off we were. The lettering on the bottles matched the handwriting of that note and I managed to convince Griselda Marchbanks to at least look at the memories. Not long after that, not only Draco Malfoy was released after being declared innocent, but also Snape's name was cleared. It turned out that Snape had killed Dumbledore, but was highly opposed to actually doing it. Dumbledore knew he was dying and also knew about the vow Snape had taken to protect Draco from harm. With the help of legilimency Dumbledore had reminded Snape about their prior talks about when it should come to that point that Snape was to kill him. It was actually al quite complex and most of the wizards still didn't believe in Snape's innocence, but for the people that mattered it was enough.
After a few months things started to calm down. Most people were still mourning, but begun to rebuild their lives as good as they could. Harry didn't have as many interviews or trial attending as a witness anymore, so he started to come by the Burrow more often. It looked like Hermione actually managed to speak with him. After a few visits he asked me if he could talk to me, when we were alone he asked me how I thought things should go from here. If I believed that us being together still had a chance or that we should go our separate ways. Before I could even answer the question, he dramatically threw his hands in the air and started to cry. In between the blubbering sounds he told me that even though he thought his life had sucked, that this was all worth it and he didn't want to hurt me, but he was so happy now. Continuing on by asking if I would still see him as someone in the family.
I must say, if I didn't stop liking him before, this would've done it. But what he was saying made no sense to me, so I had to ask what he was trying to say. Luckily for me it was good news, turned out I didn't have to dump him, but that I was being dumped.. again.. He told me al about he didn't mean to, but that he had fallen in love with someone else and that he was so happy now. And of course the usual break up talk, if we still could be friends and that he really liked me before.
It took me all my strength to keep a straight face when he was telling me that and even more strength when he told me who his new found love was. Pansy Parkinson of all people. Ok, she wasn't the evil conniving bitch everyone thought she was. I still owe my life to her, but Pansy Parkinson? It was taking me a lot of effort not to erupt in full blown laughter and I was glad when Harry finally left. Harry Potter and Pansy Parkinson as a couple. I can only hope that my debt to Pansy will not include babysitting her future children. I've heard them both wailing before and I don't want to know what kind of volume their offspring would have.
But mainly I was just glad that my crush on Harry Potter was over and luckily for me, so was his crush on me too. Now I could concentrate on the here and now and on the fact that Hogwarts was reopening in a few weeks. Everyone, teachers as well as the remaining student body decided that it was in honour of the deceased students, aurors and order members that we would continue our lives and that we would make our dreams as well as theirs come true.