A/N

Time for the epilogue, in which all the loose ends ... or at least the ones I can remember, and that weren't complete red herrings, are tied up.

Epilogue. Later that evening.

"...and so it was Draco really," said Hermione. "If he hadn't been there, I dread to think what would have happened," she looked around the room. Everybody was staring at her, their mouths wide open. There was a deathly silence.

"So Draco saved the day," said Fleur, after a moment. She was still holding Andy very tightly, as if afraid he would vanish at any moment.

"We all owe you a vote of thanks," said Harry.

Draco looked slightly embarrassed. "I won't say it was nothing," he said. "Because that would be a lie ... it was bloody difficult. But ... I'm very sorry too. This was all my fault. I precipitated everything ... if I hadn't been so damn stupid as to try and see Hermione, or as to try to run away, none of this would have happened."

"You can blame anything on anybody if you go back far enough," said Hermione. "If I hadn't been born a witch, I'd never have ended up at Hogwarts, and then I'd never have met Draco ... for my part Draco, I'm sorry I shouted at you in the castle, and I'm sorry I couldn't make any time for you when you first came to see me, hell, let's just say I'm sorry for the whole relationship up to this point ... and, as long as you know it can never be like it was, I hope we can still be friends."

"I'd like that," said Draco. "Thanks."

"You mustn't beat yourself up," said Harry. "In my eyes, you've redeemed yourself, and I think Hermione and the kids feel the same way ... and if you ever need a favour ... I could even pull a few strings up at my Department ... sort you out with some work. Have you ever considered being an Auror?"

"This isn't a recruitment drive Harry," said Hermione.

They ignored her. "No hard feelings?" Draco asked.

"None at all," said Harry. "I'm sorry about the ferret thing."

Draco shrugged. "That wasn't your fault ... anyway, I'm sorry about most things," he said. They shook hands. Ron looked extremely sullen.

"Enough with the tearful pledges of eternal friendship already. I think we need a little explanation," said Sirius. "Some of this ... we already know. Ron? Is there something you'd like to tell us?"

Ron got to his feet. "Yes," he said. "I've, something that, that I've been hiding for quite a while now. That I guess I should have told you a long time ago. I hope that, after I've told this, you'll find it in your hearts to forgive me for lying for so long."

Sirius looked at him expectantly.

"What do you think my job is?" asked Ron.

"You're a broomstick salesman," said Harry. "You run a successful wholesale company in Diagon Alley."

Ron shook his head. "I've never sold a broomstick in my life. I never will ... perish the thought."

Harry, Hermione and Fleur stared at him, open mouthed.

Ron continued. "When I left Hogwarts, I was approached by some men, who represented a section of the Ministry, a very high level section. They wanted to set up some sort of task force, a Magical Espionage Unit. Of course, I told them where to find you Harry ... but you'd already signed up to play Quidditch, and they said they didn't want you anyway. Too high risk. I ... they trained me up, as an Auror. I've been a professional, qualified Auror since I was twenty. Longer even than Harry. Now, originally, there were five of us. Me, Dean Thomas, Sirius here, Alastor Moody, you'll remember him, and Andras Scalzsek ... he's Polish, you won't know him. There's only three now ... Scalzsek and Dean both died in action."

"The Ministry said Dean Thomas died in a broomstick accident," said Harry.

"The Ministry lied," retorted Ron. "Together we were the most highly trained group of Aurors ever. We were the ones who were invariably called in. We must have gone over just about everybody's head over the years ... including Harry's. We were the front line of defence against Voldemort. If the call came through ... I'd have to be off within hours. You remember all my business trips Fleur?"

Fleur nodded. "Sure, you went all over the place. Europe, America, Japan."

Ron shook his head. "No," he said. "The business was a complete front. There never was any. When I was called away, it was usually because we'd had word of a group of Death Eaters, or some other sinister activity. Now, about seven years ago, we got word that there was a particularly large cartel of Death Eaters in southern Romania, near the Serb border. Somebody," he turned to Draco, "came to the Ministry with substantial information, in exchange for immunity from prosecution."

"That's true," said Draco. "It was me. But I never realised they put you on the case."

"Why would you?" said Ron. "It's a secret."

"Fair point," said Draco.

"Anyway," Ron continued. "There were reports of several wizard villages in the area being torched as well, unusually high dragon activity ... some muggles were getting worried. So off we went. We took a flight to Timisoara, where we were meant to meet Romanian Ministry officials. We thought we had met them as well, except they turned out to be Death Eaters. Someone had fixed us up," he turned again to Draco.

"I gave that information in good faith," said Draco. "That at least wasn't my fault."

Ron shrugged. "Whatever," he said, evidently still believing that Draco had set them up. "They drove us up into the Carpathians ... we didn't have any idea where we were going ... our information on Romania was sketchy at the time, remember the Iron Curtain had only just come down. We got to this castle. Horrible it was, all creepy dungeons, dripping water ... freezing cold."

Draco, Will and Andy turned to look at each other.

"That must have been where we were," said Will.

Draco nodded. "I recognised it straight away ... of course," he said.

Ron coughed. "We were brought before Voldemort. He was, as you can imagine, rather pleased to have caught the most significant threat to him, with little apparent effort on his part. He had us tortured for information ... nobody talked of course."

Fleur let out a little cry.

"Then we were thrown into one of the dungeons. I won't bore you with the details of our escape ... but we managed it, and we legged it down the mountainside to the nearest muggle village. The Death Eaters were close behind us, and then they had us cornered in this village. We couldn't go anywhere. It was either us or them, wasn't it Sirius?"

"Exactly," said Sirius. "One or other of us would have to act first. Fortunately for us ... we did."

"We got five of them," said Ron. "The others fled. We lost Dean though, and Scalzsek. One of the dead appeared to be Lucius Malfoy."

"It wasn't though, at least, not in spirit," said Draco. "It's so obvious to me now, I can't imagine why I never figured it out before. Voldemort and the Dementors were always closely allied ... right?"

Ron and Sirius both agreed.

"Not all the Dementors were at Azkaban you see," said Draco. "Voldemort kept some of them for his own use, after his second resurgence, when they went over to his side. He kept them locked away in one of the dungeons."

"You mean to say?"

Draco nodded. "My Father was effectively soulless. The Dementors had sucked it out of him ... it was the best way Voldemort could think of to maintain absolute control over his servants. A few more weeks and he would have done it to me ... that's why I ran away."

"Lucky for us you did," said Ron. "I think I see where you're going here."

"Exactly," said Draco. "Avada Kedavra has no effect on those without souls. Seeing as they're effectively dead already. It certainly wouldn't have affected my Father. You see Ron, you did kill him, but as he was already dead, it made no difference to his general state."

"It makes sense," said Harry. Hermione nodded her agreement.

"So how do you explain how I survived Avada Kedavra?" asked Hermione. "I don't ever recall being soulless."

"I might be able to explain that too," said Draco. "Harry ... how did you survive it?"

"Everyone knows that," said Harry. "Some ancient magic, white magic, invoked by my Mother at the time of Voldemort's attack. It meant the curse was deflected back onto Voldemort when he tried to kill me."

"You're all familiar with that part of the story," said Draco. He got to his feet and took to pacing the room as he talked. "It is my belief that a lot of that magic still lingers within Harry's body, and that he in turn has endowed his children with that same protection ... see how they both have inherited scars on their foreheads .. fainter than Harry's, but still visible. It is my belief that were I to turn on Will and Rebecca, and try to perform Avada Kedavra on them ... there would be no effect. A lesser effect was demonstrated on Hermione when she was attacked by my Father. She was also protected by Harry's magic."

"How can that be?" asked Hermione. "We're not blood relatives."

Draco shrugged. "My guess," he said, "and this is only a guess, is that Harry's love for Hermione is so strong that Hermione is in some way protected as well. It's a pathetic theory I know, but I think it's the right one."

"So what really happened to me?" asked Hermione.

"Probably, what Draco means, is that you had the appearance to us of being dead," said Harry. "Whereas what had happened, I imagine, was that you were merely stunned ... your metabolic rate slowed right down ... your heartbeat and pulse became so slow as to be undetectable. To all intents and purposes, you were dead ... in truth you were merely sleeping very deeply."

"Voldemort would have needed no great skill to reanimate you," said Draco. "I imagine he had put you under the Imperius Curse."

"What about your Father?" asked Ron. "Was he acting under the curse too?"

Draco shrugged. "We'll never know," he said. "I'm certainly not going along to Azkaban to visit him, and I doubt he'll ever be in much of a condition to reveal all. I can tell you what Hermione told me though ... that he was acting under Voldemort's instructions, though he believed himself to be masterminding some sort of plan to capture you Ron ... in reality, he was acting out Voldemort's scheme all along. Voldemort had no intention of letting me back into the Death Eaters ... thank God. But probably, the Imperius Curse was used."

"You said he had no soul," said Sirius. "Pardon me, but doesn't that reduce a man to an empty husk? How would he have been capable of anything beyond innate reactions, breathing, and so on."

"Voldemort had overcome that particular barrier. He had their souls, in little jars, I saw them once ... yet he could still give them instructions ... and they could carry them out. Unfortunately, this is all speculation," said Draco. "The only person who ever really knew what was going on was Voldemort himself ... and we don't even know if he's dead or alive."

"So what do you chaps make of the footprints in your garden Harry?" asked Sirius.

Harry shrugged. "We won't ever really know," he said. "Lucius Malfoy may have made them ... I expect he probably didn't though ... they led away from the house."

They looked to Draco, but Draco just shrugged. "I was in your garden the previous night," he said. "But, um, it wasn't me ... I left by a different route," he was certainly not about to tell them he was an unregistered Animagus.

"And the smoke?" asked Ron.

Harry shrugged. "Perhaps the farmer was lying ... more probably I'd got the date wrong. It doesn't matter anyway."

"That's a relief," said Fleur.

Sirius coughed. "Awfully sorry to change the subject and everything, but looking at my watch," he said. "I see we still have about four hours of Christmas Day left. What say I get the house elves to rustle up some lunch?"

"That," said Harry, smacking his lips. "Would be lovely."

The End.

A/N

Anybody fancy a sequel? This is definitely the end of this one, but if I get enough reviews pointing me that way, I might be tempted to carry on. Thank you so much for sticking this out, it is my first effort, and sometimes I think it lacked in style, something which I'm working on. I was also conscious that I introduced several characters ... then dumped them ... I felt I had too many to work with, which is why Rebecca and Mary barely figured ... I may axe them in future, cos I think they get in the way ... let me know what you think about that problem. Thanks also to everybody who reviewed ... a huge hug to all of you! See y'all again some time!