Epilogue: Close the curtains.

"Closing time - time for you to go out, go out into the world.
Closing time - turn the lights up over every boy and every girl.
Closing time - one last call for alcohol, so finish your whiskey or beer.
Closing time - you don't have to go home but you can't stay here.
I know who I want to take me home.
I know who I want to take me home.
I know who I want to take me home.
Take me home...

Closing time - time for you to go back to the places you will be from.
Closing time - this room won't be open 'til your brothers or you sisters come.
So gather up your jackets, and move it to the exits - I hope you have found a friend.
Closing time - every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.

Yeah, I know who I want to take me home.
I know who I want to take me home.
I know who I want to take me home.
Take me home...

Closing time - time for you to go back to the places you will be from...

I know who I want to take me home.
I know who I want to take me home.
I know who I want to take me home.
Take me home...

Closing time - every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end...."

Closing time, Semisonic.

.::(~'*'~)::.

@ Ireland, Cork - Black Manor. July 1st of 2145.

After one hundred and fifty years waiting, the portal would finally be opened in a fortnight. If she would only fall into yet another new world or if she would go back to good old Middle-Earth was anybody's guess.

Arien put the last of her robes on her bag and closed it. The room before her was now empty and cold, even when she should not feel the temperature. She was cold inside.

She had bought a truck to take her belongings. The parallel was truly comic- she'd come in a wagon and would return in a truck. Ha. Inside the automobile- like everything else around her, enchanted, so it would be larger inside than it looked outside-, she had placed her carefully collected treasures: Photographic albums, the trip diaries the Eagles had written, Magic books - a whole library of them, one hundred and eighty five thousands meticulously picked titles she had gathered since her student days in Hogwarts-, huge supplies of magical ingredients and cauldrons, her brooms and other personal things, her wand-making sets, and the several journals she had kept in those one hundred and fifty years on earth. A habit Dumbledore had instilled on her.

Her memories written down.

Her agony and claustrophobia in Hogwarts, as well as all the joys she'd found in the school. Her wanderings throughout the world and all the adventures she'd lived among both wizards and muggles. Her meteorical model career, her years at Avalon University of Magic as an Apprentice of Light, her years working as a researcher for the Ministry of Magic. Those last thirty amazingly exhausting and exciting years she worked as a professor at Hogwarts, as the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher and Head of Ravenclaw. Eventually the wizarding community was lead to believe she had accidentally drank a potion that made it impossible for her to age as time went by – she still looked like a teenager. It had been a very delicate issue with her students – they were also Ravenclaws.

And the most important of all - the memory of the experiences she had had with her loved ones.

Loved ones. All her friends, her second family, and Sirius.

Sirius.

They had never been apart after that Easter. Arien even bought the fight with the Lady of the Lake to allow him inside the Island for the time she was there. He was with her in her university, in her travelling, always understanding her drive, her ambition, and her passion. Never failing to give her support and counselling. And she had agreed on spending most of the year on Black Manor, as research was, after all a job one could do at home. A lab in the first floor and that's all she needed. They travelled the world together, living one great adventure after the other, giving each other what they needed most- she gave him love and joie de vivre, and he gave her acceptance, experience, stability and wisdom- not elven wisdom, but the kind of wisdom that comes from one who saw too much darkness, who survived many things, who learnt to savour life and its simple things. Some people would cal it common sense, she called it wisdom.

The doom of men had taken its toil, of course. Her husband died, at the respectable age of one hundred and seventy. Dumbledore, Molly, Severus, Minerva, Bill, Fred and George, Draco, Ginny ... all of them died, not so long ago - one by one, she was deprived of all those she loved. Their friends' children were also getting old and would soon be gone.

Next day she would go to Gringots and empty their vaults. All that could be turned into gold had been, except for the Manor- Arien hadn't had the heart to sell it. As they hadn't had any kids, it was given to Eddie and Amanda's grandchild, the lovely Sabrina. Arien would distribute some other gifts to some new friends she had made along the way and take with her the rest.

Her fingers ran lovingly a necklace she remembered seeing at her mothers neck several times. It hadn't been made after her exile, she was certain- it was something she had with her when she was trapped in a new world. It was so beautiful it hurt her eyes – memories of a life she had buried, and now were coming back from the Never Land.

The pain in her heart had subdued to bearable levels, and she had no doubt she would be back to one piece soon. She was a survival – that had been her major trait for as long as she could remember. The pure power to survive anything life may have in store.

She still had a long list of things she wanted to purchase before going to her own Big Adventure. A list of books she hadn't found in her last trips to Diagon Alley, and had to call for them directly from the publishers. A lot of unicorn hair powder bottles, and even some unicorn blood on the black market – Professor Sanders had ordered them for her. She had seeds of magical herbs, colonies of fungi and all.

With a sigh she magically locked her trunk. No much time for reminiscences tonight. She was doing the right thing, she knew it- she'd go mad in that world, no matter how fascinating , or how beautiful, it was.

She had suffered far too much for someone her age. For someone any age. it was time for some nice and quiet, where she could lick her wounds in peace and heal on her lair, till the time she felt strong enough to go out in the open and face the world- whatever world.

But Sirius was right. She would do it all over again.

The last knight of an age of heroes. Not that she considered herself a heroin- it was too pompous a name. But there was no other participant of the Second War against Voldemort alive. And soon she'd be gone.

Wandering through the now empty halls of that beloved piece of land in fair Ireland- oh how Sirius loved that place! They would travel all over the world, but they would always return there. Return home. In no other place he would feel at peace like in there – she remembered the portraits that had hung in the walls, and were now wrapped in sheets and stored in the truck, along with the pieces of furniture she'd take, books and magical supplies. The waving pictures had been a delight and a torture- to see her friends alive and moving, and in some pictures even talking, and remember they were long gone – oh!

But fate wanted her to loose what she had achieved. And not even her power as a witch could stop Fate. She couldn't stop death – delay, yes, but only so far.

She stopped in the middle of the huge living hall at the first floor. That house had been built for a big family, for plenty of kids running up and down the stairs and playing havoc in the lands. But Sirius couldn't have children, and he loved Harry's child as it was his own. It had been her only secret pain, one he sometimes suspected but she never showed- a secret she could never tell him, as she couldn't tell him of the whereabouts of Severus Snape and the true identity of her friend and ex-lover Alex – that she had wanted to give him a child, see his eyes shining bright with the joy of guiding a life to character and fortitude. But maybe it was better that way. She knew what it was like to lose a father- and it was something she'd like to spare her children, knowing they'd live as much as she did.

The end of the Black line.

It had a bit of poetry, that Black would see his beloved state in the hands of the heiress of Potter and Malfoy. Sabrina Potter was a lovely girl, with messy platinum blonde hair and emerald green eyes, with the best of both families' traits – and she had been a Hufflepuff! Professor Arien Black had almost fallen from the chair when the girl was sorted, Eddie and Mandy had been fighting over which house their granddaughter should be in – Slytherin or Gryffindor. Arien had risked Ravenclaw, and the proud parents were avoiding telling anything. And the girl end up in Hufflepuff!

She would have to 'die' eventually, as she was already a one hundred and sixty year old witch. It was a perfect time to leave the stage and let the others shine on their roles.

New players for an old game.

Time to close the curtains and end the show. The thing was, there would be no one in the theatre to clap. No one to hold her hand and tell her she had made a brilliant performance, that everything would be alright in the end. She had made new friends, of course, among Hogwarts staff, and the offspring of her friends, and some of her students as well. But she had no illusion- she'd have to go through that alone, as she had come.

The years hadn't improved her absolute lack of skill in Arithmancy. But Professor Woods had calculated the probable date and time of the gate for her based on Dumbledore's notes. Well, Middle-Earth would have to live with it. Eventually, as she was teaching, Professor Celine Reece had managed to teach her something about divination. Though it actually really sucked, because it was never that precise. After a few lessons about tea leaves, and planets, and crystal balls and tarot cards, Arien quit it.

July 15th.

She was going home.

Was she?

.::(~'*'~)::..::(~'*'~)::..::(~'*'~)::..::(~'*'~)::..::(~'*'~)::..::(~'*'~)::..::(~'*'~)::. .::(~'*'~)::.

@ Ered Mithrin, Middle-Earth, July 24th of 2910 of the Third Age ((A.N.: at the foot.))

She had been at the right time in the Black forest, and saw, with a mixture of relief and dread, the contours of the marble gate appearing before her eyes. With a final quick hug for her goddaughter Sabrina she drove her truck through it. And …

Damn.

'This is not where I'm supposed to be. Where the hell is the sea of Rhûn?'

Arien took her old map out of her pocket and muttered "point me" to her wand- a tricky little charm Hermione had once taught her, while they were still students at Hogwarts.

A chain of mountains on the south (in front of her) that crossed another on the west (on her right).

Holy shit.

She went straight back to the Dorian Empire. Or rather, either what would be or what once had been the Dorian Empire. The whole area was desert now, no sign of life for hundreds of miles.

With a deep sigh, she controlled her tears- even if there would be no one to see them – and put the truck in movement. Thank goodness the trip would be very quick. An automobile- and an enchanted automobile – would run way faster than any horse, from Rohan or not, and she did have the advantage of knowing exactly where she wanted to go. She would be in Antar in a week or so.

.::(~'*'~)::..::(~'*'~)::..::(~'*'~)::..::(~'*'~)::..::(~'*'~)::..::(~'*'~)::..::(~'*'~)::. .::(~'*'~)::.

((A.N.: the portals are not exact in their transportation in neither time nor location. I guess she was very lucky on being taken to the right dimension , in the end. Arien is returning from Middle-Age 2874 years after the year she left (and she spent 150 year at Earth), and she was brought to a place very far off where she was either. Ered Mithrin are also known as the Grey Mountains, and they are north of Mirkwood – she came back to the place where the Dorian empire once was. She'll have to travel it all over again – but this time she does know the shorter route!.))

So this is it, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening. I had thoroughly enjoyed being with you in these 80,000 words. As things are, I have to tell a secret: the sequel wasn't exactly written because I had liked this so much: it was only that I wrote this story because I wanted to make a base for the next story. Hope you have enjoyed yourselves, and I haven't bothered you (much =] ).

By the way, the name of the Sequel - already on line – is The Renegades: Lady of Magic

See ya! And don't forget to review!