Epilogue Harry Potter had been staring at her for a long time. His wife, Cho Chang Potter, slept peacefully. Her short, untidy, black hair, high cheekbones, and dark eyelashes still had the same mesmerizing effect it had had on him the first time he saw her back at Hogwarts. Her understandabe fatigue was from their trying for another child the night before and having, as usual, spent more time than they had planned to. Harry could have gone back to sleep; his sore muscles begged him to lie back down. But he willed himself to stay awake, because it was important that he mentally make amends to her. He stared at the smile on her face and the rising and falling of her back as she lay on her stomach and breathed in a hypnotic rhythm. It was cold, so he dragged a stray silk blanket over her and softly dropped it on her back. He had a slight hangover from the wine they had shared, but he could ignore it. For the single thought that occupied his head was reminding himself of all the good times they had spent in the ten years that they had known of each other and the four years that they had been married.

He tore his eyes away from her with great effort and focused on the nightstand to his right. The clock read 4:15 AM. His eyes descended slightly to a pair of rings that Cho treasured. The farther one had diamond studs that shone brightly in his eyes. He continued to stare at the engagement right that he had bought it in Hogsmeade shortly after they had started dating. "She will adore you for it," David Smith, the world-famous jeweler had said, "because it will remind her of Hogsmeade, the place where she grew up." "She already adores me," Harry remembered himself replying, "but I should probably make sure she always does in case I mess up in the future." Harry remembered the events that immediately followed. He had to save her life in the next Quidditch match, and the next several hours after that he had spent doing the same thing he was now, watching her lie down with eyes closed, praying for her safety, and asking for forgiveness for all the times when he had indeed messed up.

When only the combined strength of their love for each other could save them from Lindsay McCourt and the Relic of Power, he had held her so tightly partly out of guilt. At the point of certain death he had found himself suddenly begging that they survive, partly because he just wanted more time to apologize to her. To apologize for her recent orphanhood, because the murder of her parents was motivated by Lindsay's obsession with Harry. On a lighter note, he wanted to apologize for constantly desiring to break her rule. On so many occasions, he struggled so hard to restrain himself from kissing her. The following summer, he proposed to her out on the spacious Weasley lawn on the most beautiful summer day he had ever seen. She had stunned him by not giving him the chance to propose, and then, after further thought, she had suddenly accepted him.

Her acceptance put him in a state of euphoria for the following year, until terrible things happened. The murder of Sirius Black, the theft of Harry's inheritance, the debts, the framing of Lupin for the murder, and the return of Wormtail. It had all been a struggle, and so many times Harry told Cho out of love for her that she could break the engagement at any time. But she was as constant as the North Star, and from her constancy Harry drew his strength. When Harry finally defeated Wormtail in the _______, he had fought so hard not to kill his enemy. Cho had helped him to show mercy, and Wormtail had then inexplicably taken his own life.

That same year, Ito Mori had returned, and in a battle where Harry and Cho could not use magic, she had come as close as one possibly could to dying for him. When Harry had finally activated the Scale of Life and Death, Cho had survived and Ito Mori went back to the land of the dead.

In Harry's final year at Hogwarts, he had come closest to death and he had missed Cho desperately. She bought a small house in Hogsmeade that Harry could only visit on assigned weekends. She suddenly contracted a magical sickness for which there was no cure, like the Muggle cancer, and he had spent so much time by her side. Go on and live, she had told him. Harry had never given up, though everybody else did, and one day he had found the cure that no magical doctor could ever discover. Snape had been absolutely dumbfounded. Voldemort had been responsible??





After narrowly surviving his defeat of Voldemort in his seventh and final year at Hogwarts, Harry graduated with his unforgettable friends from Gryffindor. Ron, Hermione, and Ginny were the siblings he never had. They cared for him, fought for him, wept for him, love him, shaped his character, and forgave him. Harry treated Cho differently. Whenever he hurt her in the slightest of ways, he would suddenly feel the utmost sympathy for her. He would beg for her forgiveness for the things so trivial that she had already forgotten them by the time he had apologized. And despite her objections, he would insist on apologizing. He didn't deserve this wonderful girl. She deserved someone who didn't constantly lie, pry, and think in terms of "I" instead of "we."

Harry's eyes moved to the other ring: a gold wedding band. The day after Harry's graduation, he and Cho had been married at the little-known Hogwarts chapel. Everyone was invited, and almost everybody came. Still the happiest day of his life.

The first child was born within the year, and they had named him/her __________. In the next two year, two more children were born, ____ and then _____. Cho turned out to be a great mother.

Of all the people she could choose, she had chosen him, and he knew that she had never regretted it. He had done heroic things, but they really came only natural for him. She had forgotten him for every hurtful comment, every half-truth he had told and would ever tell. She had accepted him completely. If only he could accept himself as well.