A/N: This chapter will contain, I think, the last bits I'm stealing from Harry Potter's Doom, so if you're wondering . . .yeah. We'll move on very soon! As I've said in some review replies, the title is Epilogue for a reason.

My thanks to all who are reading this fic, adding it to their lists, and a special cup of something harmlessly intoxicating to all who review! And as always, a special bow of appreciation to Katmom, who tries to keep me from going crazy. :)


CHAPTER SIX

HALLOWE'EN, PART TWO

Unable to stand back any longer after Neville slaughtered the snake, Hermione dashed past all those who were waiting, waiting for something to happen.

What the hell were they waiting for, she wanted to know. Confident in her invisibility, wand at the ready, she made it to the clearing where Voldemort and his minions had started a small riot as Voldemort started whining about his snake and then—

Severus looked to be balanced, casting curses that didn't hit anyone. His face was a mask of concentration but Hermione couldn't spend time figuring him out just then, for Harry brandished the Elder Wand and cast the Cutting Curse at Voldemort.

"Diffindo!" he cried and Hermione grinned within the safety of the Invisibility Cloak. Ending Voldemort with that curse was definite and sure. Harry had aimed at the other wizard's head, she believed . . .

But her grin broke when she heard Voldemort direct the Killing Curse right at Harry.

"Harry! No!"

She didn't think, then. She just ran, throwing hexes and curses as she went, fighting to get to her friend's side. She would have cursed Severus as well, as he was standing over Harry, but she saw him seem to actually be in a defensive posture.

"Sectumsempra!" the Potions Master growled, his wand directed at Voldemort, who was trying to heal himself from Harry's attack.

Hermione had to see what happened, and she was fiercely relieved to see the sickly body of the Minister for Magic—the man who had killed her parents, who had directed she herself be permanently scarred—erupt in a series of vicious, bloody stripes.

Hermione only watched to see that Voldemort fell before dropping to her knees next to her friend. "Harry!"

There was no response, though, and her heart thudded painfully before leaping to her throat. "Harry! Come on!" She glanced up to Severus, who was standing as if in shock, his wand still out. "Severus! Help me! Harry's not waking up!"

He knew who she was even though she was still in wrapped in the Cloak of Invisibility. "Granger. He was hit with an Avada," the older wizard murmured, not taking his eyes from the flurry of fighting going on just behind Hermione. She barely registered the cries of betrayal or the shouts of spells. "I don't think he will wake up. A man can only survive that well, never, actually." Then, "Merlin's bollocks, Nott! Die, already!" And he was gone, fighting with the Aurors against the Death Eaters.

But Hermione didn't follow his progress. She bent to Harry's head to listen for a breath before putting her ear to his chest whilst feeling with her forefinger for a pulse in his neck. "No! You can't die!" Her thoughts scrambled, her mind felt like spaghetti, so she took one long breath.

Think, Granger. Think! ABC. Airway. Breathing. Circulation. Right. She had taken CPR . . . before. She could do this. She had to! After her initial panic, she remembered how to tilt Harry's head back to open his airway. She knew he wasn't bleeding; the Killing Curse didn't do that. So heart. Yes. She could do that.

Compressions. "You can't die. Damn you, no. No, no!" In time with the chest compressions, she chanted the words, hoping he'd hear her, hoping he'd heed her. Hoping, hoping, as she pressed and rocked the force of her body through her arms before closing his nose, opening his mouth and pressing her lips to his. Breathe! And . . . "You can't die, Harry! No, no, no!"

"Harry!"

Neville's voice penetrated her focus and interrupted her chanting and breathing. "Nev."

"Harry!"

"Ron!"

"Hermione? That you?"

Hermione ignored Ron; she didn't know him as well as she knew Neville. "Breathe for him, Nev, like this." She demonstrated quickly before resuming compressions. Neville swallowed visibly before nodding. "When I say, okay?"

"Don't die. Don't die. Don't die!" she chanted as she did her compressions. Then, "Breathe, Nev!" He did, and she resumed and they kept this up, with Ron muttering about standing guard over them.

It was rather a relief, really, allowing her to focus on this purely Muggle manner of saving a life.

"Talk to him, Nev! Give him something to focus on!"

Neville spoke. "I got the snake, Harry. With the sword. Like you said. And all the Death Eaters swarmed like, like Acromantulae. It was creepy, but good, because we knew they were getting away from you."

"Breathe!"

"And we came back to you and, and Riddle, Harry."

He paused a bit too long, so Hermione said, knowing she was sounding breathless, "Neville told me the prophecy. Breathe!"

Neville continued. "And Severus . . . Severus was standing over you. Wand out. And the Dark Wanker trying to heal his neck from where you'd hexed him, Harry. And Severus cursed him with something that made his whole body open up and bleed. Everywhere."

"Breathe!"

She was wondering if this was going to work at all. Was she—were they—having any effect? Muggle training told her that she had to keep at this until he woke up or she was relieved by a competent Healer, but—

"Ow."

She froze, staring down into slitted green eyes and a pain-lined face. "Harry?" Tears started to drip from her face and she tossed back the hood of the cape as she wiped them away. "Harry?"

Slowly, oh so slowly, his lips parted in a tiny smile and he reached up to brush her cheek with the tips of cool fingers. "Don't cry. Did we win?"

Neville sniffled and unabashedly rubbed at his eyes. "We did. Can you believe Severus killed him?"

"Harry! Mate!" Ron fell down on his knees next to them, near Harry's knees, wand out and eyes shifting focus from the concluding battle behind them to Harry. "You did it again! Survived that damned Avada!"

"Can I sit up? And Hermione, you look right odd with your head just hanging about on its own."

Together, the four of them sat on the grass in the Forbidden Forest, supporting Harry, sharing what they had seen and heard, and quietly rejoicing that it was over.


Harry knew there'd be a debrief, and he was thankful that it had waited until they got back inside Hogwarts. "Being dead—again—was not my favorite way to spend the evening," he confided to Sirius over a cup of chamomile tea. "But at least the damned prophecy has been fulfilled."

Sirius looked pale, his skin nearly parchment-hued in the light of the candles that shone in Hermione's quarters. "Fucking Prophecy," he said on a growl. "One of you had to kill the other one. Always figured you'd do for him, lad."

Grateful to be alive and drinking comforting tea, Harry was able to pull up a smile and nod. "You know, I've spent years with a target on my back, here. So has Hermione, and even Neville, to an extent. And she brought me back, Padfoot," he added, leaning forward and tapping Sirius on the knee with his hand. "She brought me back. I'm fine. Muggle medicine, yeah?"

The color flew back to his godfather's face and the older man leaned back in the rail-backed chair. "Yeah. Of course, you owe her a life debt, now."

Harry frowned and stared into his tea. Clear and pastel in shade, it calmed him with its aroma as well as its essential qualities. "I can feel that, you know. In my magic. It's . . . weird." He looked up at Sirius. "Why don't I feel that for you or Remus? Merlin knows you've saved my life."

"She brought you back from the dead, lad," his godfather said, his voice clogged as if he were going to start crying. Again. Even with victory, there was still a strange sort of sadness within him, Harry felt. An emptiness. "He actually did manage to kill you, remember."

"I remember. It was . . . do you remember that place in Dover? There was that shipping company we went to before it all went to shite. I went there, Sirius, when he, when he hit me with the Avada."

Apparently, that had been one too many revelations for the night, because his godfather, for the first time in Harry's memory, fainted.

"What happened?" The chorus was echoed throughout Hermione's rooms as everyone who had accompanied Harry after the events of the night rushed from wherever they had been to all but fall down on the floor next to the unconscious Marauder.

Remus, face wrought with concern, asked, "What happened?"

"He fainted!" Harry almost laughed to see the incredulity in Remus's eyes as they shifted to a golden hue. The older man rocked back on his heels before landing with a thump on his rump on the floor. Hermione, unsurprisingly, Harry thought, felt for Sirius's pulse and nodded to herself. Neville clapped a hand on Harry's shoulder, and Harry covered it with his own in a brief acknowledgment of the support offered.

Ron snorted. "Fainted? Sirius Black? Merlin's bloody broom, we can't let him forget that."

Remus smiled a little as he dropped a kiss to Sirius's forehead. "C'mon, Pads. You're ruining your image, here. Wake up." Then he asked, "What did you say, Prongslet?"

Harry felt his whole face catch fire as Hermione covered up a quick laugh and Ron just stared. He could feel Neville's silent amusement and realized, belatedly, that he still had Neville's hand pinned on his shoulder. "Erm. Right. That." He took a breath and met everyone's eyes. "I died."

"We know that," Hermione said in quiet response.

Tentatively, he met her gaze. "I know. But what happened was . . . weird. I woke up, you know, when I was . . . well, waiting to come back, right? And I was in a shipping center in Dover." He waited whilst everyone had a moment to express shock or surprise—at least no one else fainted. Remus, though, glanced quizzically at Sirius. Harry continued. "So I was there and . . . and would you believe Dumbledore was there as well?"

"The Headmaster?"

Severus Snape cleared his throat. "Did you see . . . anyone else?"

"No, Severus. Sorry." The dour fellow nodded shortly and gestured at him to continue. "Dumbledore pointed out this . . . thing to me. It looked like a wizened, creepy, well . . . baby? Thing? And Dumbledore looked as if he were going to cry or something when he told me I had had that thing in my head."

Harry had figured that revelation would also be a problem; but he was prepared for that, so he held up a hand and waited. "I knew that it would be there. It was . . . him. Voldemort." And after they all (saving Severus, Sirius, and Remus, who already knew) expressed their shock and horror, Harry told them about the horcruxes and how he'd been assiduously working to eradicate them and prevent the creation of new ones, as Tom Riddle had sought to hide the ones he had amongst certain families across Europe.

The tale was long in the telling, but Sirius awakened before too long and, after Hermione conjured a slew of fluffy pillows, the group was largely flopped all over the floor of her quarters as All Hallow's Eve became All Hallows Day.

All save Severus Snape. Harry drew him aside as soon as Sirius recovered enough of his equilibrium to let him out of his reach for a few moments.

"Severus. Thank you," he murmured quietly. "Thanks for taking care of him." What did a man say, anyway?

With an impatient flick of one hand, the Potions Master shook his head. "Yes, well. I heard the entirety of that prophecy, you know." The pain in their shared history was evident in the narrowing of the older man's dark eyes. "He killed Lily. There was a certain amount of satisfaction in killing him in return."

Harry nodded; the pain of his mother's death, the issues with Severus Snape—all had been talked to death, years ago, and they were part of a complicated history that had lost the power to wound. "Well. Yes. And now you can be hailed as the Savior of Wizarding Britain." He had to chuckle when Snape's pale face drained of all color in what Harry imagined was horror. "Yes, indeed, Severus. It's your turn to be the icon of our people. Me, I'd just as soon . . ."

"Fade into obscurity?"

"I should be so lucky."

Severus stared at him, mouth agape, before he shut it with a click of his teeth. Then he swore, a lot, under his breath and Harry could only let himself marvel at the breadth of the other man's vocabulary. After a final, rude gesture, Snape spun about and, well, billowed right out of Hermione's rooms, slamming the door behind him with overplayed disgust.

Remus made a sort of interrogatory sound as he rose slowly from the pillowed floor, dragging Sirius up with him. "Pardon me, Harry. What the hell was that all about?"

"Severus reacting to the news that he is the new Savior of Wizarding Britain. A title, by the way, I am more than happy to pass along." He realized, at that moment, that he was feeling a little . . . giddy. Dizzy. Lightheaded, maybe.

"Harry?" Hermione was at his elbow within a beat of his heart and he shook his head, trying to get that sense of not knowing which way was up to go away. Then, Neville was on his other side and two of his oldest friends steered him toward a proper chair.

"No fair, you fainting, Prongslet," his godfather advised. He didn't sound jovial, but then it hadn't been that kind of night.

"Stop calling me that," he told the man for the hundredth time. He was sure it was at least the hundredth. "And I'm not going to faint."

"We won't let him," Neville assured the others, a smile in his voice.

"You're a good friend, Nev," Harry murmured. "But I don't know how successful you're going to be at that. I'm feeling . . . off."

And then he followed in his godfather's prestigious paw prints and fainted.


"Oi! Harry!" Ron stared with his entire face as Harry collapsed right between Hermione and Neville.

Neville shared shocked and then concerned looks with a pair of cinnamon brown eyes before sighing. The entire group gathered around as Hermione cast a Mobilicorpus on the Man Who Bought It. "I think," he said slowly, "he's had a hard day. I can go get Poppy to cast a diagnostic, if you want?"

"No, I've got it." Hermione still had her wand out and, as soon as Harry was settled on her bed, she cast a quick series of spells above him. "I had to learn a lot of these during our fourth year, Nev," she reminded him.

Sirius and Remus, as well as Ron, ignored the symbols that flared in the air, as they were all staring intently at Harry's pale face. "I think," Sirius muttered, "that we should get Pomfrey."

Hermione, though, was in her own place and had her own bit of authority, Neville understood. "No," she insisted as she cocked her head. "He'll be fine. He needs rest. I think he might be magically exhausted. Good rest, some good food, and he'll be fine within a day or two. I'm sure Minerva will find a substitute for his classes for the rest of the week." Her smile was a bit sad, but also, Neville thought, a bit proud. "He did, after all, die." She cast a monitoring charm—another bit of spellwork she had picked up from Poppy—and nodded. "We should bring Minerva here."

"I could volunteer to take Harry's classes for the rest of the week," Remus said, looking hopeful.

Sirius cleared his throat. "And I'll handle the Ministry. And probably the press." He sighed and rubbed at the back of his neck. "This is going to be a mess."

Neville felt he should add to the discussion. "Maybe we could get that one reporter in here to talk to Severus? He was the one who killed Voldemort, after all."

Sirius Black chuckled, low but long. "Oh, hell. Much as Harry's been carrying that about all his life, it seems beyond belief that he'll be allowed to stop being this supposed savior, now. Thanks to Snape. Damn. Damn, damn. Snape, by Merlin's everlasting beard."

Hermione made shooing motions with her hand and wand. "Hush, now. Harry needs rest."

Neville nodded and led the way out of her bedroom—a room he had certainly seen before, but never had it been quite so populated. "Right. So. Want me to get him back to his room, Hermione?"

"He's welcome to stay here." She looked around at all of them, her final stop being at Ron. "You all are, really. I'm sure the castle will accommodate. I can just let Minerva know . . .?"

"We've got the guest rooms in the West Tower," Neville reminded her quietly.

"We're got the place in Hogsmead, Hermione," Sirius added. "Though I have to say I would sleep better knowing he wasn't alone."

"We'll make sure that doesn't happen." Neville caught Ron's eye. "Are you able to stay tonight or did you have something happening?"

The Quidditch player laughed quietly. "You're joking, right? No, nothing going tomorrow. I told the coach there was a family emergency and I'd be back Sunday. I didn't ever mention that I might not make it back." His light expression darkened immediately. "Bloody hell. He died." He dragged both hands through his bright, orange-red hair. "Never expected that to happen, to be honest, mates. I though, y'know, maybe me? Maybe Granger, here?" He smiled sheepishly at Hermione, who nodded without rancor. "Not you, Nev. You killed the bleeding basilisk! But Harry?" Blowing out a breath, he collapsed onto one of the pillows still on the floor.

Sirius stood, wand away and hands in the pockets of his dueling robes. Remus had one arm over his shoulders and the older men stared off into the unseen with the same stare his gran adopted when she thought about the night his parents were cursed by Bellatrixx Lestrange.

Which reminded him. "Was Lestrange there, tonight? Any of them, really?"

"My cousin was, yes. Got her sent off with Amelia Bones, though. I did for her husband, the bastard."

"I handled his brother," Remus assured Neville with a nod. The Lestranges had all been involved in cursing the Longbottoms.

Hermione leaned against a wall and the tension that had held her up all evening seemed to let her go all at once. "Did . . . did anyone on, on our side, erm, not make it?"

"Mad-Eye. Auror Moody," Sirius added quietly. "Man was supposed to retire fifteen years ago, but he's a stubborn git, always has been."

"I'm sorry," Neville murmured. "I'm also surprised. He seemed very alert."

"Only takes one Avada," Sirius whispered harshly, scrubbing at his jaw with his knuckles as he leaned a bit into Remus. "And he'd dodged more than his fair share. I think, I think he would be happy that it ended like that, for him. Good fight, winning side."

They were silent in honor of the Auror, but then, Neville cleared his throat. "Well. I'm sure Severus has reported our success, but as for me, I could use a drink, I think."

Hermione made a shocked sound. "Neville! We're working in the morning!"

Some general laughter ensued, but quietly, as they got sorted. In the end, Neville escorted Harry's godfather and his godfather's partner to his, Neville's, quarters. Ron insisted upon staying with Neville and Hermione in her quarters, though he opted for trying to get a bit of a rest on a pile of the pillows after he'd transfigured them into a mattress. He was snoring in minutes.

"You want to whip up another mattress?" Hermione asked, pointing at the floor where some more pillows sat in a colorful heap.

Neville shook his head and looked at her half-shut bedroom door. "I don't honestly think," he whispered, "that I could sleep if I couldn't you know, hear him if something went . . . wrong."

Her face paled and her lips parted in clear horror, so he pulled her up against himself and comforted them both with an embrace that they hadn't really been able to have since before the battle. It was warm, needy, solid, reassuring. "He'll be fine," she murmured against his chest. "He will." When she sniffled and pulled her head away, though, he was surprised to see a smile in her tear-rimmed eyes. "But, I think I'm with you, Nev. I want to be near him as well."

Without another word, they gathered up the pillows and took them to her room and, after transfiguring their clothing one more time that long, long day, Neville gathered Hermione in his arms and they lay in her room on a carefully crafted bed of sorts, where they could watch Harry Potter sleep.

And if his fingers twitched, at one point, with an unspoken wish to maybe grab Harry's hand as well as Hermione's? It was no one's business but theirs.


A/N: Finally, right? Thank you for your patience! Next up, we begin what is really an epilogue in the HP 'Verse. The What Happens After Tom Riddle Buys the Farm. Or something. I will have a sneak peek for those who wish to see it - just remember to cast the Revealing Charm: Aparecium! It only works if you're signed in and accepting PMs!