A/N: So, I was reading a Harry Potter fan fic called 'The Veil' by mak5258, and came to the end which left a lot of questions unanswered. Also at the end of the story was a challenge by the author for someone to write an epilogue for the story. I searched through the comments and didn't find any takers even though it's been 4 years, so I thought I'd take a whack at it, despite the fact that I've never written Harry Potter stories before and I have a ton of my own stories that I should be working on instead. :P

I highly recommend that you read the original story first before reading this, and after doing so, I hope that you enjoy my take on the ending of an incredible story.

You can find it by searching for the author here in FFN.

After The Veil

Nineteen years later...

"I'll buy you a sketchbook."

"I can't draw."

"I'll teach you."

When Severus had made the rather desperate offer so long ago, willing to do anything to spend more time with the young woman who had saved his life and stolen his disillusioned heart, he hadn't realized quite what teaching her to draw would entail.

He certainly hadn't envisioned being the object of her sketches to the point of an obsession that equalled his sketching of her. Nor had he anticipated that she would prefer to sketch him in the nude, in all his scarred glory.

He certainly would never have anticipated that such artistic leanings would bring them to the point of wild desire, long nights of lovemaking, and eventually admitting to the rest of the world that they were madly in love with each other so that they could marry in the grand ceremony that Hermione deserved. Severus would have been much happier to elope, but his fiery angel had a dream of a gorgeous wedding filled with friends, flowers, and a formfitting white dress that made him drool. (The dress and Hermione's expression of sheer happiness made the tedious sea of humanity and fluffy pink flowers worthwhile.)

Of course, much occurred during that phase of tentative exploration that transitioned into confident joy.

Finally feeling almost like herself again, Hermione braved the world of hungry reporters and curious people to return to Hogwarts for a day, where at twenty-nine years of age, she finally took her N.E.W.T.s. And, as expected by everyone that knew her, she received an Outstanding on every exam.

She was offered high paying jobs all over the world, but Hermione was quite content to stay in London and take a job at the Ministry of Magic where she quickly worked her way up the ranks. When Shacklebolt retired, Hermione was unchallenged for the position of Minister for Magic.

She loved her job, loved the responsibility of so many people under her care, but she still kept a hand in the running of her precious bookshop. (Which now had all three floors dedicated to the joy of losing oneself in reading.) It would always be their retreat from the stresses of organizing the lives of so many.

Severus wasn't exactly sure how it happened, but he'd somehow found himself the Headmaster of Hogwarts when Minerva retired. What was even more perplexing was how the children didn't fear him anymore. Surely his scowl was just as ferocious? His black robes just as maudlin?

Hermione said no. She said his eyes were too happy and the black robes made him look distinguished and went well with his long black hair that he now kept in a queue at the nape of his neck. (This was by her request, since she said she loved running her fingers through it. He could see the appeal, but his lanky locks couldn't possibly hold a candle to the silky depths of her riotous curls.)

One of the best things to happen with the return of Hermione's ability to actually feel emotions was her desire to truly reconnect with her friends and to start searching for her parents. Severus had never felt so proud in his life when he could surprise her with a trip to Australia and tell her that he'd already found them and restored their memories as they stood in front of the Granger home.

She was still kissing him with tears running down her face when the front door had opened and the older Muggles in question had appeared. Much kissing, hugging, and crying had occurred, since this had been a surprise for all of the Grangers (the elders still believing that Hermione was dead). Severus had simply stood back and watched his handiwork with the barest hint of a smile crossing his face and his hands clasped primly behind his back.

It was one of the most satisfying accomplishments of his entire life and helped him feel just a tiny fraction better about all of the dastardly deeds he'd had to perform as a double agent for Voldemort and Dumbledore.

Another of his best accomplishments was finally feeling boneless in his arms as he paced the hallway and hummed a quiet lullaby, her head settling on his shoulder heavily. (You'll never catch him singing, but humming was an acceptable method of soothing the savage beast known as a human child.)

Severus gazed down at his two year old daughter with an expression of relieved adoration. The pale skinned girl already had a glorious head of pitch black curls, and behind her closed lids were Hermione's dark whiskey eyes. She was also teething something awful right now, and getting her to sleep for more than a couple of hours was a huge accomplishment despite all of his potions and spells that were supposed to help with this unfortunate fact of life.

He carried her back to the nursery across the hall from the master bedroom and very gently laid her down on her toddler bed so as not to wake her up by accident. He tugged a light sheet over her pajama clad body and then pressed a soft kiss to her milky soft forehead. In a somewhat pleading tone, he whispered to his youngest child, "Sleep well, my little Bethone."

As Severus left the nursery, he almost walked down the hallway to check on his older children, but remembered at the last second that the boys were sleeping over at the Potter house tonight. Mattius (12) and Venerus (8) where quite attached to their almost cousins and begged to go to the Potter or Weasley houses more often than not. And then there were the times that the whole flock of Potters and Weasleys came to their manor house on a lovely estate at the edge of Muggle London, completely taking over the entire four story abode with screaming and laughing and running and crying and...

Severus shook his head, dispelling the shudder worthy thought. It was bad enough he had to live through it, there was no need to relive it as well.

He'd thought the house Hermione had picked was much too large for their needs, but after playing host to all of her friends and family, he'd come to the conclusion that it wasn't large enough. Not even his study was exempt from the outpouring of humans on those days.

Merlin save him, because it was bound to just keep getting worse, what with the oldest Potter and Weasley children getting married and settling down at an alarming rate. (Where had the years gone?)

Sighing, and feeling much too old even though he'd essentially stopped aging for the foreseeable future when he hit forty-five, Severus walked into the master suite, leaving the doors open a crack in case Bethone woke up wailing again, untying his robe as he did so. He hung it on the hook beside the door, leaving him in just his boxers.

Hermione was reclining in the bed, wearing his favourite cherry red nightgown that brought so much colour to her cheeks and emphasized the natural red of her lips. She glanced up at him, sketchbook and pencil in her elegant hands. Her long legs were bare and crossed at the ankles, drawing his appreciative eyes away from the way her golden brown curls cascaded around her nearly equally bare shoulders. Her lips pursed as she looked him up and down hungrily. "Bethone always settles so much faster when you walk her."

Severus felt his own gaze heat with desire as he crawled onto the bed like a predator stalking his prey, slowly, one limb at a time. "That's because she's a daddy's girl just like her mother," he rumbled out in his deep bedroom voice that his wife had told him countless times made her wet in an instant.

She gasped slightly, pupils dilating, giving credence to her words. Severus felt his mouth twitch with amused pride and his manhood rose to life as well inside his shorts. Merlin, they were still so hot for each other after all these years, it was nearly mind blowing. He imagined that it would be the same another fifty years from now.

"Stop," Hermione said.

Severus' eyes widened and he froze about halfway across the extremely large bed on his trek to his petite but luscious wife. "Why?" he said quietly.

Hermione grinned and flicked her pencil at him, making his boxers disappear in a show of nearly wandless magic. (You could possibly call a pencil a wand if you really stretched it. Not that she needed a wand, as she'd demonstrated about four thousand times by his count, making her magic just a little stronger than his own.) "Because I want to draw you just like that, my dear Sevy." (Only Hermione was allowed to call him that ridiculous nickname.)

Severus sighed quietly to himself as she proceeded to do just that, her pencil flying over a fresh sheet of paper. He remained poised in a crawl for the ten minutes it took her to complete her drawing before she nodded to herself, made one final mark on the paper, and then put the sketchbook and pencil on the bedside table.

Severus sprang at her, growling, forgoing his stalking crawl for the remaining distance. He landed with limbs on either side of her and his mouth only a fraction from hers.

Hermione gasped again before giggling as she wound her arms around his neck and played with the ends of his hair that fell past his shoulder blades. "Awwwww. Did my sexy black panther lose his patience?" she whispered throatily.

Severus didn't bother to dignify that with an answer, even though her words sent a thrill of desire and pride through him. (He never would have thought of himself as sexy until she told him otherwise so many times over the years.) Instead, he settled his lips over hers in a heated kiss, demanding entrance into her sweet mouth, and then taking command of her tongue.

Hermione moaned into his kiss, fingers clenching in his hair and her back arching as she moved to rub her silk covered breasts over his firm chest.

He groaned in return, tearing his mouth from hers with a nip to her lower lip. In his own demonstration of wandless magic, he vanished her nightgown with a wave of his hand, and then he was kissing her again as he wrapped his arms around her back and helped her rub against him. Her already pointed nipples left little trails of heat across his chest and rubbed just right in the fine hairs that traversed his muscles in a Y shape from groin to pecs.

Desperately wanting contact with her core, Severus ended the kiss, rolled over onto his right side, and then turned her so her back was to his chest. He pressed kisses to her slender neck and jawline as one large hand cupped a soft breast and the other travelled past the seven month mound in her belly that was their second daughter and dived into her core. "Always so wet and ready for me, Mine," he rumbled into her delicate shell of an ear.

Hermione whimpered as he played her clit just so with his thumb as three fingers tortured her channel just right. "It's easy to do when my husband is the sexiest man alive," she gasped back, rubbing her round butt into the hollow of his hips and torturing his erection in return. One arm wrapped around his head backward, arching her back, and the other grabbed the hand over her breast and squeezed his wrist.

Severus growled his approval of her words and actions, kissing her neck and sucking on the tendon just the way she liked. He moved his hand to her thigh and pulled it up and over his own, giving him access to her from behind. And then he was burrowing his throbbing erection inside her heat to the hilt and they both moaned and closed their eyes in bliss. "Merlin, that never gets old," he said before starting up a slow and steady thrust that hit all her favourite spots just right.

Within minutes, he could feel her tightening around him, and her hushed moans and whimpers where getting more frequent.

Severus increased his pace.

She responded by clasping him with her sheath in a vice like grip, and her hands sunk their nails into his scalp and wrist as she came on a silent scream.

Severus let go of his control and came with her with only two more thrusts to get him there. Then he held himself as deep as he could and emptied his seed and heart into her depths. She owned him every bit as much as he owned her.

As their breathing slowly returned to normal, he moved the hand off her thigh and cupped her hard, round belly, faint scar lines decorating the mound, feeling their daughter do gymnastics inside her from their activity. He chuckled as he gradually softened and slipped from inside her hot channel. "I'm not sure if Melone approves of the bouncing we just gave her."

Hermione turned her head over her shoulder, smiling, and gave him a soft kiss, her doe eyes warm and nearly liquid with love as she gazed into his obsidian ones. She moved her hand down to cover his over her stomach so they were both holding their daughter. "I'm going to believe that she enjoys it because to do anything else is unthinkable."

Severus laughed and kissed her adorable freckled nose. "Merlin forbid we should have to abstain to keep her happy. I think we'd expire from the deprivation." He was only slightly joking.

Hermione snorted inelegantly and snuggled backwards into his chest just a little further, then rested her head on his upper arm as she yawned. "Maybe not expire," she said sleepily. "But I know I'd feel less alive if I didn't have you inside me every day."

"Seconded," he murmured as he summoned their blanket from the end of the bed and covered them before turning off the light with a flick of his finger.

"Love you," she mumbled just before he felt her go limp with sleep.

"I love you more," he replied under his breath, resting his cheek on her soft hair that covered practically everything. He wrapped his arms just a fraction tighter around the woman who'd given her life for his and restored his faith in humanity. She was the reason he went to sleep and woke up every morning with a smile on his face that still felt just a little strange to wear.

Hermione and their children were the joy he never thought he'd receive. Or deserve. But they were his and he was never letting them go.

He breathed in his wife's flowery shampoo, closed his eyes, and smiled.

And then Bethone started crying again.

A/N: Thank you all soooooo much for reading my stories! Every fav, follow, or nice review makes me want to write that much more for you. :D :D :D :D :D

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