Author's Note: So, it comes to an end, as all things must. I didn't imagine when I started this that it would take me so long to finish, and I didn't imagine when I abandoned it that I would ever come back to it. But it did, and I did, and now it's done. Please, if you've got this far, leave a review. I'd like to know if it was worth it.

Epilogue
Life Must Go On

"Do you remember and long for the past?
When love was eternal and joy seemed to last?
Yesterday forever is gone."
Alter Bridge

The first few months were the worst.

We'd lived through a bitter and terrible war together, Draco and I, but getting through that Christmas Day was the most difficult thing either of us had ever done. Alcohol was involved, copious amounts of alcohol. Perhaps that wasn't so surprising. I hadn't known Christmas presents could reduce a man to tears - but Dorado's presents, the presents that would never be opened, broke Draco all over again. Just seeing them was too much, a reminder of the boy they'd been bought for, a boy who was gone forever. He couldn't take that. No one could.

In the end, I took them all outside and burned them. I could've destroyed them much more easily with magic, of course, but that was how I wanted to do it. Standing there and smelling the bitter smoke, I felt it sting my eyes - and for the first time, I allowed myself to cry, if only a little. For the most part, I'd kept all my own feelings locked away inside. Neither Terry nor Dorado had been mine to mourn. Knowing that I didn't really have the right to be as unhappy as I was didn't have any power to stop me from feeling that way, though. The most I could do was keep my tears away from Draco, because my friend needed me to be the strong one - and given how seldom he admitted to needing anyone at all, I'd rather have died than let him down or made his pain worse.

January came around and I went back to Hogwarts, though Draco did not. I knew in my heart that he probably never would, and it hurt to think that I was losing my best friend. We had spent every day together before, and I knew I would miss that. But how could he be expected to return to a job teaching children after what had happened to his own child? It was hard enough for me to step back out in front of a class and talk to them, to lecture them on the Dark Arts as if nothing had happened, as if the winter holiday had not changed me irreparably.

I looked at the sea of faces before me and thought of Dorado, his death and the one-sided duel that had most likely preceded it. At first, it had made me feel hopeless, and I questioned whether anything I ever taught would do anyone the least bit of good. That lasted a few weeks; it wasn't in my nature to despair for long. Once I'd shaken it off, I decided that I would teach the students everything I knew for Dorado. It hadn't saved his life, but that didn't mean that the knowledge I could impart would never save anyone. I had to keep hoping, keep believing that there was some purpose in what I did. That preparing children for the worst would help them avoid it when they were older. That maybe one day, I'd redeem myself.

With a heavy heart, I advised Minerva to advertise for a new Potions Master.

I visited Draco whenever I could; he seemed to be losing touch with the world, and I was deathly afraid that he no longer wanted to live. If he... did something drastic, that would be on my conscience. I'd failed his son. There was no way I was failing Draco, too. Though I would never dream of saying the words out loud, I loved my friend dearly. I didn't want to lose him more than I already had. But I didn't know what to do to save him - so I did what I had always done during the war, whenever I had been at a loss for what I should do. I called Hermione.

Whatever she said or did, it worked. And for a while I was jealous; Draco started to come back to life, but he spent a lot of time with the bushy-haired witch, with barely any left over for me. It was a stupid way to feel, and unworthy of me. My friend seemed - well, not happy, but at least far less depressed, and I knew that I should've just been grateful for that. But things had changed. Dorado was gone. Draco was no longer at Hogwarts. Hermione had come back to the wizarding world, and spent many of her evenings alone with Draco, humorously abusing her now-late ex-husband well into the late hours. Or so he claimed, anyway.

It wasn't as if I spent all my evenings alone, either. Charity was still a part of my life, and we met whenever my presence wasn't required by the school or Draco. She had taken her mother's treachery hard, unsurprisingly, and I felt sorry for her; if she had been unable to escape her parents' legacy before, it would be still harder now. People wouldn't see her as I did - they'd see her sainted father or her cold-hearted mother, who had sat in contemptuous silence when sentenced to life imprisonment. Charity wasn't either of her parents and never had been, but it would be nearly impossible for her to step out of their shadows now.

Still, Harry had always met adversity head on, and had never given up the fight no matter how hopeless things had seemed. His children had always taken after him.

I watched the sun set, knowing that it was not long now before the full moon rose and brought with it the usual pain. It was summer and the nights were short, but they could never be short enough. Behind me, Charity was decanting the Wolfsbane potion into a glass with grim concentration, but when I looked at her she smiled. She'd never told me how much it cost her, how much it hurt her, to see her little brother transform every month. That, I supposed, was Gryffindor stoic bravery - but it looked so like Slytherin reserve from the outside that I could hardly tell the difference.

"Ready?" she asked, her voice light, giving no clues as to her true feelings.

"When you are." I turned away from the window.

Together we went through into the other room of the safe house. Andrew was sitting there, a book open on the table in front of him, apparently trying to do some homework before he... before the moon rose. He looked up when we came in and tried to smile, bravely, but I could see his fear on his face. In a way, though, I was almost grateful that he despised the curse. I had seen too much of what could happen when a werewolf embraced their animal side. Far too much. Looking at Andrew, I wondered what had become of Fairfax Smith. Would it even be possible to teach him how to be human, after all this time?

"That potion tastes disgusting," Andrew said, pulling a face. Seeing the dark look Charity gave him, he quickly added, "Yeah, I know I need to take it anyway, sis. Give it here." He took the glass and drained it dry in a few seconds. "Ugh. Horrid stuff."

"We're all sorry you need to take it, Andy," Charity said, gently.

The boy shrugged. "Yeah, well, life's not fair, is it?" The look on his face at that moment was moody and dark - but then, the sun had almost completely set, and the hour of his transformation was almost upon us. After a moment, he looked up at me and said, "Thank Prof- uh, Draco for me, will you, Theo? I - I don't know what it's like without the potion, but I don't really want to find out." His nervous grin looked unnatural and didn't reach his eyes. I felt terrible for him; he was too young for this. Why did such terrible things always seem to happen to such vulnerable children?

"I'll tell him, Andrew," I promised. It had surprised me when Draco volunteered to brew the complicated potion for the young werewolf; I had thought him too absorbed in his own misery to spare a thought for anyone else. But then, Andrew was Harry's son, and Draco had always said that he owed Harry a debt he could never repay. Maybe he thought that if he did this, that would go some way towards paying that off.

"Thanks." He turned his attention back to his books. "Look, I'm glad you're here and all, but if you let me work I can get my Transfiguration homework done by the time the moon rises."

Charity pulled me towards the door of the room. "Okay, Andy. We'll look in on you, after..." Her voice trailed off, but her brother nodded understanding. None of us said the stark words aloud, not if we could help it.

Back in the kitchen, she turned to me and said, "I don't know how he does it. How he keeps going. I don't know if I could."

I took her hands in mine, gently. "He's strong," I said, confidently. "You both are." She shook her head and tried to protest, but I interrupted. "No, really. I know you don't believe you are, but it'd be hard for most people your age to cope with everything that's happened to you. I admire it, I really do." In an almost inaudible murmur, I added, "It gives me hope." Then I pulled her into my arms and held her close, feeling her body against mine, for once thinking of the future and not the past. I could never get the life I'd had before back. But life has a habit of surprising us - and maybe what I'd gained would make up for all I'd lost. Stranger things have happened, after all.