Twenty-Two Years Later

"Mum, where's Minerva's spawn?" Rose Roland inquired, flooing into the cottage that Hermione and Minerva had purchased after getting together at the Duel-Off, twenty-two years ago. They'd married a year after, following the Headmistress' retirement from Hogwarts. Minerva liked to say she'd been planning to retire anyhow, but Hermione knew it had more to do with the fact that she'd gotten pregnant with their daughter. She evidently hadn't regretted becoming a parent, as two years after that, they'd had a son.

"Are you referring to Cowen or Enya?" Hermione asked her older daughter. "They should both be here shortly, as should Minerva. I believe Enya is bringing someone over for the family dinner tonight, for everyone to meet. Seems like she's met her idea of mister right and unlike someone she didn't simply elope."

Rose snorted. "Yeah. Wait until you meet the guy. If he is who I think he is, then you're going to blow your bloody top, and Minerva is going to be worse. Hugo will laugh his arse off… oh, gods, Uncle Harry will shite himself."

"Who the bloody hell is this boy?" Hermione asked, her curiosity getting the better of her.

Her question remained unanswered as the floo came to life again, and out tumbled her wife, along with both of her sons and her son-in-law, along with Rose and James' children. True to their promise, the Rolands had waited a few years before starting a family. James had completed his Mastery under Minerva first and taken up her former position as Professor of Transfiguration at Hogwarts before they'd begun having children. This - thank Merlin for small mercies - meant that Hermione's grandchildren Jered and June, now nine and seven respectively, were both still significantly younger than her own late in life, second marriage children. It would have been completely awkward if she and Rose had been having children at the same time. As it stood, she had to deal with the fact that Harry's boy Albus, had ended up connecting with that French cousin of Teddy Lupin's - Tia - and they'd begun a family fairly quickly. Their eldest was only two years younger than Enya. Most of the other children, however, had also waited a few years to find partners, and a few years beyond that to have families.

"Hey Mum," Hugo greeted, sweeping in and pressing a kiss to her cheek.

"Mam," Cowen said with a grin, his brogue showing how he'd been raised in the Highlands. His accent was thicker than even Minerva's was, in some regards, despite their efforts to refine his speech. When they'd agreed to raise their children out of the city, they'd not predicted how it would impact language development.

"Hi Hermione," James offered, looking weary. Between teaching and raising children, the poor American was always looking weary these days. She and Minerva took the grandchildren off his and Rose's hands every other Saturday, and his parents took them on alternating Sundays thanks to the wonders of Portkeys. That helped some, but being a young parent was exhausting one way or another. It was just the nature of the task.

"Boys," Hermione greeted her sons in turn.

"Nana!"

"Hey Jered, hey Junie!" Hermione cooed. "Playroom is open. How about you two go on and play so I can catch up with your Mum and Dad?"

"Gran gunna go with us to fly later maybe?" Jered wanted to know, looking hopefully at Minerva. The children knew better than to ask Hermione about flying. She hated brooms. Always had, always would. Minerva was the grandparent to go to for that sort of thing.

"It will be dark later, loves," Minerva replied regretfully. "Next time you are over during the afternoon, we'll go flying. Perhaps this weekend."

"Kay," Jered nodded.

"Oh thank Merlin," James moaned. "It's your weekend, isn't it?"

Hermione chuckled. "Our Saturday. You're not that lucky, Roland. Min, before I forget, did you get the invitations sent for the annual family picnic like I asked?"

Minerva nodded. "Yes, dear. To the Potters, the Hagrids, the Lupins, Rolands, Weasleys, Krums - I still can't bloody believe that Harry's daughter ended up marrying Viktor's son! - Grangers, and McGonagalls. Albus confirmed that he and Tia will be able to make it in from France this year, and will coordinate with your parents, James, for Portkey arrangements."

"Sounds good. It will be good to see them for more than five minutes at a time in the course of hostage exchange," James replied, cheekily referring to their biweekly childcare arrangement with Carl and Laura Roland. After a few years of trying to keep in touch with their son while he lived in Scotland and they in America, the Rolands had given in and emigrated to the United Kingdom, eventually settling in France, not far from where Albus and his wife resided.

"How big is the pool this year?" Minerva asked, rubbing her temples. "It was damn near a fortune last year. I swear Albus and Robert are making their living off this bloody bet."

"I think Tanner is in on it at this point," Hermione mused. "Twenty-two years after the fact, and we've managed to keep the truth of his birth limited to a trusted few. His siblings know, obviously. He insisted that Robert and I not keep secrets from our families, which is why you all know. But given the secret was made in great part to protect Harry and save Rubeus and Ginny the wrath of Molly and Arthur, it has continued to be kept from Harry, Molly, and Arthur. After the Duel-Off, it was discussed - the notion of owning up to everything - but I suppose a Slytherin godparent wore off on Tanner enough for him to get a thrill in maintaining the secret as long as possible."

Cowen cackled. "Then he went and got a Slytherin god-brother."

Minerva sighed. "Don't remind me."

Cowen sorting to Slytherin had not been a surprise to Hermione, and it should not have been a surprise to Minerva. Of course, her wife had been in deep-seated denial at just how much like his Uncle Robert their son was. Their daughter, on the other hand, was a lovely blend of the two of them. A Gryffindor through and through, she was bookish and passionate, innovative and fearless. Alas, to Hermione's dismay, she loved her broomstick. She loved Quidditch. Also, apparently, she loved a young man called Don.

"Thus the betting pool of how many years we can keep it quiet. The picnic became the marker," Hermione continued, rolling her eyes. "I lost my chance to win it two years ago. I didn't expect them to be able to keep it up for more than twenty years. I believe if it comes out before the end of the picnic this year, the pool goes to Malcolm, actually. I remember him saying something about twenty-two being a nice not round number when he took his guess."

"What an idiot," Minerva said, chuckling. "No wonder he's still single."

"Ish…" Cowen interjected. "You didn't hear it from me or I'm a dead man, but there might be a woman and he may not have scared her off yet. It's vaguely possible I'm attempting to talk him into bringing her to the picnic."

Everyone in the room stared at the youngest McGonagall, shocked. The idea that Malcolm Ian McGonagall might actually settle down was a truly foreign concept for all of them to digest.

"Wow," Rose finally let out. "Who do we know in hell? How about that Bellatrix Lestrange cunt I've heard about? Can someone check in with her to find out if it's frozen over?"

Hermione winced at the name, and closed her eyes, willing herself to remain in the present. It had been years since she'd had a flashback, but gods, she still didn't enjoy hearing that name.

"Rose, please do not talk about that witch in this house," Minerva said quietly.

Hermione's elder daughter raised an eyebrow, looking oddly like her step-mother for a moment. "Is this going to be one of those war stories you two won't talk about until one of us puts a foot in our mouth occasions? You do realize how unfair it is to us to expect us not to be complete prats when you won't talk to us about the war, right?"

"Life's not fair," Hermione told her daughter stiffly, rolling up her sleeve and removing a charm that covered the scar Bellatrix had left behind. "This is why we do not talk about Bellatrix Lestrange in this house."

All three of her present children, along with her son-in-law, peered at her arm intently.

"Holy fuck, Mum," Hugo finally spat out. "I mean, I knew you went through some stuff in the war, but…"

"You were bloody tortured?" Rose nearly screeched.

"Oh come on, Rose," James chastised his wife. "Why are you really so surprised? Did you not see your mother at the Duel-Off? I realize how young we were then, but looking back now, do you not realize how much she had to have gone through to have gotten that good by the time she was about the age we are now? I mean hell, I've had twenty years to refine, and the duelist I am today still wouldn't stand a chance against the duelist she was then. She had to have gone through hell."

"Ugh!" Rose finally groaned. "Why couldn't you have been a normal mum!"

The Floo roared to life again a moment later, and out stepped her younger daughter, along with a red-haired boy she had not seen in forty years. Suddenly, Hermione was wondering the exact same thing as her older daughter, face to face with something of a paradox. The cup of tea she had been holding fell to the floor and shattered in her shock as the young man met her gaze and offered her a sheepish grin. "Uh. Hey. I'm Don Amsley."

Hermione looked at Minerva, who, looking at the boy holding her daughter's hand having clearly bypassed shock and moved right onto murderous, was drawing her wand. "Step away from her," the elder witch demanded. If the room had not already been filled with tension, it sure was now.

"Hey now!" the newcomer said, holding his hands up to show he was defenseless. He looked at Hermione pleadingly, and any doubt she had about who he was vanished on the spot as she met his eyes.

Well, she thought. This is awkward.

"Mum!" Enya screeched, stepping in front of her boyfriend. "What the bloody hell, Mother?"

"Enya, sweetheart," Hermione finally said after taking a very calming breath. "It's alright. Don simply looks a good deal like somebody your mother and I once knew."

"Knew, my arse," Rose grumbled. "Please, please tell me I'm wrong…"

"Yeah, Mum, I'm calling bullshite," Hugo added. "Truth. We've seen pictures, and it's uncanny. Who the hell are you, bro?"

Don shifted uncomfortably. "Can we not in front of your sister, mate? She's my girlfriend."

Enya narrowed her eyes. "And if you want me to remain your girlfriend, you are going to answer my big brother's damn question. Clearly, I'm missing something, and I have a feeling it's going to explain why you've been avoiding meeting my family for two years."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Honestly! You fell in love with my daughter and you thought of all the shite you pulled that would be the thing I couldn't forgive? Deal with? What?"

Rose gulped. "It's you, isn't it? It's really you? De-aged?"

He shrugged. "Assignment for the Ministry twenty years ago, from your perspective. Send an agent forward in time twenty years with a device allowing them to report back on certain developments and such. Research division, highly classified stuff. Upside was that the way the magic worked was that to go forward in time that much, your body magically reverts that same amount of time. Some babble I didn't understand about balance and crap, I dunno. I only got the part where they said 'go forward twenty years, be twenty years younger, boom,' and I said I'd do it."

Rose, who had been gripping her handbag, pursed her lips for a moment before lifting the bag and hitting her sister's boyfriend over the head, repeatedly. "You bloody fucking moron! You missed everything! You missed everything when you were here you stupid prat!"

"Been waitin' a while to say that, Rosie?"

"Wait, wait, wait!" Enya finally shouted. "I don't understand. So Don, you're saying you're a time traveler?"

"Yeah, babe."

"And you knew my family before you came to now, which was you traveling into the future?" she went on.

Hugo snorted. "Knew us? Baby girl...Ron… ugh, that's Don to you I guess… he's me and Rose's father."

Cowen gagged in understanding. "Ew. Sis, you're shagging a bloke Mum shagged."

Hermione rubbed her temples. "Cowen McGonagall, I brought you into this world…"

"Yeah, yeah, I know," he muttered, "you can hex me out of it. I swear, too many years of those stupid Madam Dumbledore headlines have gone to your bloody head."

"Thanks, Cowen," Enya winced. "I'd puzzled that out myself. Plus side, I have an emotional range greater than that of a bloody teaspoon, and I'm not going to judge my boyfriend's sexual history, regardless of if that history happened to have included one of my parents."

"That's very mature of you, love," Minerva praised.

"Well you're being immature enough for both of us, Mother," Enya said, glaring. She'd clearly not yet forgotten which of her mothers had pointed a wand at her boyfriend.

"Donald could have ducked," the Scottish witch grumbled.

Hermione couldn't help but laugh at the horrid joke at Ron's expense, and then laugh harder when he gave as good as he got.

"Minnie can go chase a mouse," he retorted, "if she's feeling so violent. I'm not going anywhere, Enya. I love you."

James, the only American in the group, personally found the Walt Disney references to be a sign of great class. "Well Ron, Don, whatever the hell we're supposed to call you; welcome or welcome back to the family. Don't knock my sister-in-law up before you marry her, or my wife will give me an earful. Alternately, my mothers-in-law will probably kill you and I'll get recruited to hide the body. No fun either way, so please don't."

"That would be bad," the young man agreed. "And for simplicity's sake, stick with Don. Ron Weasley hasn't existed for twenty-two years. Also, for the record Rose, Jered is a splendid name. Thank you for not naming the poor kid after your idiot father."

Rose scoffed. "As if that was ever a consideration. I mean, sorry, but I'd have named him Harry before I'd have named him Ronald. Yes, I'm bitter. Twenty years ago I was an insecure young woman, but now? Merlin, you never were my father, so shag my sister all you like. It's not weird for me at all. You have my blessing. Let's all do ourselves a favor and not tell the children who you really are."

Don nodded in agreement. "For that matter, I'm inclined to arrange for Molly, Arthur, and Ron's siblings not to recognize me either. The less people who know the truth, the better. Less complicated."

Less complicated.

Hermione scoffed at that. Twenty-two years ago her life had gone from dreadfully simple and dull to obscenely complicated almost overnight, when Minerva had walked back into her world. So much had changed in the years since, but over time the waves of upset had given way to ripples of chattered-about curiosity, and then eventually, things had been calm again.

Then, Ron had to show up and bloody well fuck it up again. Oh, she couldn't begrudge Enya's happiness, or even Ron's - Don's, that would take some getting used to! - and Merlin knew she'd known it was coming. Ron had told her that he'd come back into her life one day. She just hadn't expected it to be in such an intimate way. One part of her felt like Enya deserved better than a man like her former husband, but really, what better a man could her daughter hope to find than one that had made all his mistakes already and learned from them?

Hermione remembered, vividly, the look in Ron's eyes when they'd said their goodbyes and he'd talked about getting a second chance. He hadn't seen it as a chance to make new mistakes, or even to escape the old ones. If he'd meant to escape his former life's mistakes he'd never have come here today, after all. He'd never have been willing to face Rose and Hugo. No, when he'd made the choice to come to the future, Ron had been looking for a chance he'd not had before. A chance to heal, and then a chance to get things right. For her, that chance to heal had been found in Minerva all those years ago. For him, it had been in a job that gave his life purpose without putting him in constant peril. Getting things right, for her, had been building a life with Minerva. For him, perhaps it would mean a life with Enya.

Still, decades had passed since the end of the war, and the scars were still clear. Ginny, Rubeus, and Tanner still held onto their secret to some degree, causing strain in surrounding relationships. Tanner was getting married this summer and he wanted his mother to participate as a mother should, but to do so she'd have to publicly acknowledge him. He wanted to introduce his fiancée to her, but for now, he couldn't. Lily and her husband wanted to assign Tanner as legal guardian for their children should something happen to them, but couldn't because he was not their godfather, and not legally acknowledged as Lily's brother.

Hermione felt like there was a fair chance that this may be the last year Ginny would keep her secret, and she was afraid it would mean the end of her best friend's marriage. She didn't know if Harry would be able to forgive Ginny all those years of secrecy. More close to home, Hermione wasn't sure Harry would forgive her for helping Ginny keep that secret. Was she about to lose Harry, after everything? Was getting Ron back some sick omen, to trade one of her boys out for another? Was life always meant to go like this; ebbs and flows, war and peace, strife and complacency? She had sworn, at the Duel-Off, that she was finished dueling - done with the fighting - but she supposed that even after all of that was said and done, there was still more than a little left to do.

There was still healing.

A/N - Well folks, that is the end of Dueling. The Sequel will be titled "Healing", if and when I get to that. This does stand alone just fine and I'm not committing to a follow up at this time, although I am very open to and interested in it. I'm putting serious thought into the notion, but I do have a number of other projects open that are begging to be finished as well, so we'll see. I know some of you were a bit icked by the Ginny and Tanner twist, and the only explanation I'm going to put out there for why I chose to do that is this: so often in fanfiction writing I see portrayals of the effects of war, however horrid, ultimately leading to a happily ever after, not unlike what happens here for Hermione and Minerva. The truth of the matter is that sometimes, there is no happy ending. Some times, lives are turned upside down and ruined completely as a result of the trauma. The situation with Ginny and Rubeus was meant to be a symbol of that. In their situation, as Ginny explained it, there was no happy ending no matter what choice they made. The best they could have done, and did, was chose to allow the birth of their child and celebrate that life despite the circumstances of how it came to be, and I like to think Tanner is a pretty cool guy; a nice blend of Rubeus' gentle spirit and sense of fairness, and Ginny's passion for life and willingness to befriend based on merit rather than background. In any case, nobody in the story was denying that a relationship between Ginny and Rubeus was a bad idea from the off, but the friendship existed and where friendship exists there is always going to be a possibility for alcohol and poor judgement to culminate into a situation like this one. Of course, this dynamic will be further explored in a follow up story as they all continue to heal. You can expect the return of Robert McGonagall, as he finally lets go of Ariana Dumbledore, and his brother Malcolm as he finally settles down with the mystery woman mentioned in the Epilogue. We'll also see the return of Teddy and Pierre Lupin, along with Albus Potter and his wife Tia, along with their children. Clearly, we have "Don Amsley" to contend with now, as he sorts his place out in the family alongside his girlfriend Enya McGonagall, and we'll get to explore Cowen McGonagall and watch the young Slytherin butt heads with his mother Minerva a bit. Hermione will have her friendship with Harry tested, we'll get to see Lily Krum and her husband (formally Potter), along with her father-in-law Viktor, and certainly we'll see a fair helping of the extended Weasley clan as well. Hugo, I'm sorry to say, was not interested in an American wife, and has thus far been rather like his step-mother in regard to jumping from one vaguely serious relationship to another, but never committing to anyone. He assures his parents it's not because he's pining for anyone. Hermione's parents have passed on by now, but the Grangers listed in the invitations of the Epilogue, well... you'll just have to wait and see now, won't you? Special thanks to my wonderful Beta, Queen Corbeau, and thank you deeply to all of you who have stuck with me on this journey! Looking forward to seeing you on the road ahead! All the best, Sela McGrane. As always, PLEASE REVIEW!