Epilogue
Ten Years Later…
Ten years after the demise of Voldemort, the magical world faced a new threat. Muggle technology and communications had improved drastically and in many countries, the secret of magic was out. In Ireland, there was widespread hysteria and threats to the Muggles. In Nigeria Wizarding secrecy had been irrevocably breached and the government had set up the office of Witchfinder General. In Britain and America, recorded evidence of magic had been disseminated online much faster and more extensively than a handful of Obliviators could cover up.
Amelia Bones, the Minister for Magic, called an emergency meeting. Harry and Sadie (now his wife) attended. Harry had recently been promoted to head of the National Magical Security Office in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and on the back of that, he had this very day just got his position on the Wizengamot at an unusually young age. Sadie, a qualified General Healer at St Mungos, had urged him to capitalise on his fame and push for this position. She had endorsed him. She was a celebrity in her own right now…
Amelia looked very grave. "This is it. It would not be melodramatic to call this the end of the Wizarding World as we know it."
Sadie's blue eyes were anxious as she sensed Amelia's stress. She reached over the table to touch her hand. "Amelia, don't worry, everything's going to be fine. We can introduce ourselves to the Muggles as friends. I have a plan for this."
By way of contrast to the Minister, Dumbledore affected his normal smiling, twinkling façade. "Let Sadie's confidence give you confidence, Amelia. She did save us all from a most dire peril last winter during the Dementor Uprising. You recall how Fudge was sacked because he had no plan for the contingency of the Dementors revolting? Sadie showed unprecedented resourcefulness."
Sadie smiled at him. "I couldn't have done it without my husband. His expertise with the Patronus Charm was an essential part of my counter-attack on the Dementors when they were about to swarm the mainland."
"Yeah," said Harry. "But you taught me to give my Patronus the power of our dreams. So I conjured a Patronus that looked like a human and really reflected my dreams."
"A Patronus 2.0," squeaked Chip, who was sitting on a high chair beside Sadie.
"Yes, and it was Sadie infused the Patroni with Dark Energies," said Tracy, Harry's second wife. As a celebrity, he had had the option of taking a second wife. This required special dispensation from the Wizengamot.
"I collected the dark energies and enhanced the Patronus men, yes," said Sadie. "This proved the value of the Dark Arts once and for all."
"Quite," said Tracy. "You earned the title, Lady of Dusk."
Sadie did indeed have a title now, just like Harry was the Boy Who Lived.
"We all accept your innovation," said Dumbledore. "Even the best of us must sometimes eat our words. Although let it be said that I had felt the Ministry was wrong to ally with Dementors since before some of you were born."
Harry wondered why he hadn't done more about it then, but that was not the pressing issue. The Dementors were all destroyed and would never trouble them again.
"We can prove how much we can offer the Muggles," said Sadie. "My studies of Muggle medicine tell me that they have made innovations that will be greatly enhanced with the use of our type of magic that can work with no consistent limitations."
"Their computer programming discoveries can be used in conjunction with Arithmancy too," said Chip.
"Programming does my head in," said Tracy, shaking her head so that her blond hair rippled and bounced. "But Sadie's done amazing new things by combining Muggle Medicine with magic. Like helping Alastor Moody."
"Quite right," said Dumbledore. "She has restored poor Alastor's face and leg. No more cumbersome peg leg for him."
"It was heart breaking that the other Healers had given up on helping him further as soon as that war with Voldemort was over," said Sadie. "I couldn't let that injustice slide."
"I was happiest when you repaired your own face," said Tracy, kissing Sadie's pale cheek. The two of them then kissed, using their tongues. Sadie had indeed removed her cursed mask just recently. It had been another breakthrough of hers – curing magical disfigurement. She had spent some time afterwards with her head wrapped in bandages while her skin regrew with regenerative spells.
"I am confident we can help the Muggles with those vile diseases that have caused them so much grief – cancer and HIV," said Sadie. "The Muggles will look on us as benefactors. And really, it is high time we gave back to them, after centuries of living parasitically on their economy and eating their crops and produce without giving anything back."
"Admirable ideas. I fully agree," said Dumbledore twinkling. "The magical community will look to Harry and Sadie, two young celebrities, to be a rallying point."
00O00
Back at Hill House, Goldie, Harry's eleven year old little sister, confronted him about the proposals of Magic and Muggle reconciliation.
The green girl put her hands on her hips. "Is it true, Harry? You ac-chew-ally like that the Muggles know about us now? You have a plan for them to accept us?"
"I do, lil sis," said Harry.
Goldie gazed at him with bright blue eyes. The sunlight streaming through the window shone off her green nose and cheeks. "Good," she said suddenly. "I wanna be a Shakespearean actress, and I need Muggles to make up an audience. It's dumb that so few wizards know about Shakespeare. I know the parts I wanna play. I know the lines."
"That's wonderful," said Sadie beaming. "You are so, so talented."
"Yeah, I ac-chew-ally know that already, Sadie," said Goldie, brushing her silky golden hair away from her green face.
"What's your favourite role?" squeaked Chip. He was in the sling around Sadie's waist.
"First, I wanna play Bottom in a Midsummer Night's Dream," said Goldie. "Muggles should all get to see my Bottom as well."
"They will," said Sadie. "We are starting a new adventure, with the greatest goal of all. Magicals and Muggles will be friends."
Sadie lifted the hood of her purple cloak. She had drawn dark runes in black face paint on her cheeks. She lifted her little hand to show off the silver ring with an amethyst stone on her finger. She had given Harry one as well. They were for all followers of the Lady of Dusk. "Those who follow me will spread compassion and healing to all – Magic and Muggle."
"I'd take a ring if it means I can show my Bottom afterwards," said Goldie.
"You have to be of age to accept my ring and join my fight, sweetie," said Sadie, touching Goldie's green cheek.
00O00
Sadie's followers assembled in the foyer of Hill House. Harry, Tracy and Cora had already accepted the amethyst rings that were linked by magic. They followed the Lady of Dusk. So did a number of her old school friends: Colin Creevey, Hannah Abbott, Daphne, Theo and Millie. Who else would she recruit to her inner circle?
"This is so exciting!" said Colin. "I always knew you were a real superheroine. From the minute I saw you."
"I realised that when Mummy resurrected me with her Philosopher's Stone," squeaked Chip. "I was just a Muggle boy who had died of Leukaemia two years previously. Mummy still didn't give up on helping me even though the Muggle doctors and Magical Healers all had."
"Well said," said Tracy. "You were always a bright little boy. Sadie made good use of that Philosopher's Stone she pinched when she was just twelve."
"I'll help you. If it means helping Muggles as well, so be it," said Theo. "Draco's having cold feet about that part though. So is Pansy. Who will join the Lady of Dusk?"
"They'll all come around, I have faith," said Sadie. "The Darkness will show us all the way. Now the oath. Feel free to help improve on it. That goes for everyone reading this."
The oath of the Lady of Dusk is as follows:
In darkest hours, we wield our power.
Darkness gave, so life we'd save.
We followers of Dusk have sworn,
To spread compassion, Forever More!
