Epilogue for The Giver
She walked out of her too-crowded home into the cold to escape the shouts and bustling of the children for just a moment. The girl looked out across the endless expanse of empty white, and there, in the distance, through the snow, was a hobbling figure tumbling down the large hill just past the Burrow. 'Why would anyone be out in this weather?' She wondered to herself and set out across the crunching ice. Finally, she came to the foot of the hill, to see a young boy sprawled out across a sled, blue-lipped and shivering, a baby clutched to his chest. 'They'll die out here!' She thought, 'I have to get them inside.' And so she cast a quick Hot-Air Charm and ran back to the house for help. 'Please, please be okay when I come back.'
Jonas blinked open his eyes. He felt warm and comfortable; which wasn't right. The Community wasn't warm and his bed wasn't comfortable. Jonas sat up fast, his eyes darting around the messy yellow room with a fire in the grate. Where was he? How had he gotten there? And then it all came rushing back to him, the plan, the escape, the hunger, and the cold, cold snow. He was still hungry, but he wasn't in the snow... and he didn't have Gabe!
"Gabe!" Jonas shouted, not knowing what answer he expected.
A woman rounded the corner, her blonde hair glowing in the firelight and her pale blue eyes stretched wide.
"Oh! You are awake!" She proclaimed, something odd in her voice, something completely alien to Jonas.
She walked up and leaned against the over-stuffed couch Jonas lay on. "I am Fleur Weasley, you are in the Burrow right now, my home. Gabe? Is that your little friend? Do not worry, he is perfectly fine. What is your name?"
Jonas was slightly stunned, she talked so fast. At least Gabe was okay. "...Jonas." He answered.
Fleur turned to a staircase to her left and shouted, "Children! Come and meet Jonas!"
There was a rustling upstairs and down came a torrent of people chattering excitedly about him and other things that Jonas couldn't begin to understand.
When they were all positioned around Jonas, Fleur went through quick introductions.
"These are Lily and James Potter, 10 and 13, Rose Weasley, Scorpius Malfoy, and Albus Potter, 12, Hugo Weasley, 10, Roxanne and Fred Weasley, 10 and 12, Teddy Lupin, 20, and my three beautiful children, Victoire, 18, Dominique, 16, and... Victoire, where is your brother?"
The tall girl at the end of the long line named Victoire, a near duplicate of her mother answered with a sneer, "Louis is cramming for some upcoming test, as usual."
Jonas looked around the group, marveling at the size, a million questions popping into his mind at once when his eyes stopped roving. He leaped up off the couch and walked quickly over to a small red-headed girl at the very end, Lily. She was holding a sleeping, but very much safe and alive Gabriel. He smiled at her and said, "Hello, Lily, my name is Jonas, and I believe you have something of mine."
She returned the smile, shyly, her skin red underneath her spattering of freckles, and handed Gabe to Jonas. The chatter had stopped in the room with Jonas's words and all of the heads had turned to him. Fleur looked at him warmly.
"Jonas," she said, "I think you have a story to tell us. And I think we have one to tell you."
And so Jonas told them his story, about the Community, his life, and his journey, patiently answering the frequent, excited questions. Bill, Fleur's husband, brought food to Jonas and Gabe, and Gabe babbled happily, the way he used to, before he was hot and cold and hungry all the time.
After Jonas had finished telling his tale, the room stayed silent for a while, an air of awe filling the space.
"Wow," said Fred, "Hard to believe what a few memory charms can do."
"What?" asked Jonas.
Fleur sighed. "I told you that we would also have a story to tell you. We want to tell you the truth behind your Community. Bill, would you-"
"Actually," spoke up Scorpius, a sly-looking blonde boy with blue eyes and a serious demeanor, "if you don't mind, I would like to tell the story."
Everyone in the room looked slightly stunned, everyone except Jonas, who didn't understand what there was to be stunned about.
"O-okay, you can tell it, Scorpius," said Fleur nervously.
Scorpius looked at Jonas, "Okay, so you've seen bits of what the world was like before, right? Through the memories?"
Jonas nodded.
"Well, it actually wasn't so long ago that the world was like that. In fact, it was only twenty years ago. Let me explain," Scorpius said when Jonas opened his mouth to ask how that was possible. "We are wizards, that means we are people with magic, abilities to do things that others can't, like make things float or set things on fire, by simply saying a few words. You are also a wizard, that's why you were able to receive the memories, you were subconsciously using magic without realizing it. We wizards kept all of the magic mostly secret from other, non-magical people, Muggles. Many of our kind scorned Muggles, considered them lesser beings and opposed our government, who were coming to accept Muggles more. There were other reasons these people hated the government, but this was the most important one.
"Well, there came a wizard, a very powerful wizard, who believed that he could lead us better than our government could, and he would make sure that the Muggles knew of us and feared us, worshiped us as gods. His name was Voldemort. The people that were against our government rallied under him, called themselves the Deatheaters, and planned to take over the world. Rather cliché isn't it? Well, anyway, he was well feared and he only ever got more powerful. That is, until one night. He heard a prophecy that some child was going to rise up and take away his throne, so he tracked down the kid he thought fit the bill, wanted to kill him before he ever grew up.
"Things didn't work out so well for him. That baby's parents died for him that night and it was his mother's love that protected him. That kid's name was Harry Potter. So, Voldemort was very weak after that, took a rest for eleven years, recooperating, letting the world think he was dead. Then he came back, weak, but alive. There was a long, drawn out fight for the next seven years between Harry and the good guys and Voldemort and his Deatheaters. During that seventh year it finally looked like Voldemort was going to win, he'd all but taken over and the Muggles were cowering under him, being beaten and tortured and killed. Well, long story short, we won the war, but there were groups of people that were so badly messed up that they couldn't get back to normal life.
"We thought out a plan for those people, we set up a bunch of Communities like yours. We modified the memories of the people, but we left people who held the memories, like the Giver. We took away a bunch of the great things in life, weather, color, love, so that when you were ready you would make your ways back into normal life, the way you did."
Jonas was stunned. "But how did you know we would come back?"
This time it was the girl next to Scorpius who answered, Rose, "We knew there would always be people like you and the Giver, Jonas." She smiled and tucked a tuft of ginger hair behind one ear, "There will always be people who believe in something better and will fight for it. That's just how we humans are."
Jonas paused to think about what she said and finally he smiled back, "I suppose so."
So Jonas stayed with Fleur and the others for the remainder of the Christmas holiday. He learned a lot about what the world was like now and made good friends. When the holiday ended he was shipped off with the other kids to Hogwarts, where he was sorted into Ravenclaw house and lived a great life. A life full of color.