The last chappie: the longest, too.

June 31, 1997

The Hogwarts Express

Lana was laughing and talking with her friends, Luna, Ginny, and Hermione. She was too busy chatting to pay much attention to anything else that was going on, only looking up briefly when Harry, Ron, and Neville's game of exploding snap  became unnecessarily rowdy. She was happy for the first time in a long while. This year, she'd finally made friends – real friends. She lay back in her seat and smiled contentedly.

Just then, she happened to glance out the window. "Oh, look, we're back at the station."  She barely managed to keep the emotion out of her voice. Hermione peered over the top of her book at Lana.

"Yes, we are. By the way, what classes are you taking next year?"

The girls were still deep in conversation about classes, teachers, and careers when they stepped off the train. So deep, in fact, that Lana did not notice her mother until it was too late.

"Hello, Lana, Mrs. Bramham said, teeth gritted. "How . . . nice to see you've made a new friend this year."

"Bye, Hermione," Lana called over her shoulder as she walked away.

"You fool!" hissed Mrs. Bramham. "That girl's a mudblood."

"Why is it any of my business who my friends' parents are?" Lana hotly retorted. "She's my friend."

"Not any more, you filthy little blood traitor. Give me your wand!"

"NO!" Lana cried. She ran towards the barrier, tears flowing down her cheeks, her hair slowly turning blonde. She burst through into the muggle world, not caring who saw her, only wanting to get away.

She could run anywhere she wanted, to the states, maybe.  She could stay a blonde, live as a muggle – anything to never face her mother's wrath again.

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"Quick, we've no time – get the boys in their car seats!"

Ethan, dazed, did as he was told. Lana, agitated, nervous, waited impatiently. She was ready to dart forward to help, but could not, as her hands were rather full.

As soon as Ethan had Henry in his car seat, Lana sprang into action. She pointed her wand at one of the time-turners. "Portus."

After she had placed the now blue-glowing chain around her infant son and his car seat, she tapped the hourglass, setting it spinning backwards, and kissed the sleeping infant's forward. "Goodbye." Her teary whisper was barely audible as the floor shook once more, causing several pictures to fall off of the walls.

Ethan steadied himself, then watched bemusedly as Lana repeated the same process a little more hurriedly on Ian's car seat.

"What," Ethan asked, "was that all about? And what are –" He stopped abruptly as his sons vanished, one, then the other. "WHERE DID THEY GO?!?"

"Hush," Lana whispered in his ear. "They're safe – much safer than we'll be."

"But . . . why?"

"It's a long story."

"I love long stories."

"All right, then. Don't say I didn't warn you."

"I won't."

"Well," Lana sighed, "let me see. I guess it all started when that seer prophesied to Uncle Regulus –"

"Wait – a SEER?"

"The story'll go faster if you just let me tell it," she said reprovingly. "I'll explain, I promise. You see, I'm a witch –" She held her hand up. "Do NOT interrupt me."

Ethan sank meekly back into his chair.

"Anyways," Lana continued, "the seer told my Uncle Regulus, 'thy niece shall become thy mother.'"

Ethan shivered, for her voice carried something wholly alien to him – the harsh timbre held by even a repeated prophesy.

"Well, Uncle Regulus told Uncle Sirius, who told my mother, who told me. I was very confused, as I was the only niece he had, or ever will have. I was convinced that the seer had gone mad, and didn't think about it until the boys were born. You see, Henry looks an awful lot like my Uncle Regulus, and Ian looks like Sirius. That reminded me of something – both my uncles were adopted. And, they were both exactly the same age our boys are now at the time that they were adopted. I knew I'd have to send them soon. I'm just glad I had a reason. Don't know if I could've done it without one. I just . . ."

Lana began to cry, harder and harder, until sobs wracked her body. Somehow – neither of them could manage to remember after – Ethan ended up holding her. "There, there. It'll be all right."

Lana, looking up at him, hiccupped. "I missed you, Ethan."

"I missed you, too."
Inexplicably, their faces came closer and closer until their lips met. And oh, what a kiss, filled with nine months' worth of loneliness and longing. When at last the kiss was over, Lana was smiling, though her cheeks still shone with tears.

"What is your hair doing?"

Lana glanced at a lock of her now black hair. "Oh, drat, I've lost control."

"Is this something else to do with being a witch?"

"Yes. Would you like to see my birth appearance?"

Before Ethan had a chance to answer, Lana's eyes shifted from blue to black, her skin tone changed subtly, the shape of her face shifted, and her once perfectly arching blonde eyebrows became straight black darts. Ethan was shaken, for though he knew this was the woman he loved, he felt as if he no longer knew her.

"It's all right, Ethan. It's me. I'm a metamophmagus. I really doubt that there's a hair color called Metabolize."

Seeing the shocked look still etched on Ethan's face, Lana smiled, then pulled him down for another kiss.

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A breeze rustled along Grimmauld Place, which lay disheveled and dirty under the inky sky, a place where no one would expect astonishing things to happen, or would ever care if they did. Ian Woods shifted under his blanket without waking up. One small hand curled around the hourglass that lay beside him, and he slept on, not knowing he would be awoken in a few hours' time by Annabella's gasp of surprise as she opened the front door to check for the post, or that he would not see his twin brother, Henry, for three years. . . . He couldn't know that his parents would die when the ceiling collapsed on their head, just as his mother had been saying, in a hushed voice: "Ian and Henry -- the boys, they lived!"

Since I'm posting the epilogue today, too, this is the last time I'll respond to reviews. Thanx to all my regular readers. I'll miss you! And still review, I know I'll rewrite it next time my muse of editing comes back from vacation.

Taskemus – The totally amazing plot came through, didn't it?

Sunkyssed – Glad you're back!

Everyone else – Come on, review already!