EPILOGUE
OR, WHAT WAS FOUND
It was raining at the edge of Surrey, and a dozen other places all around. The air was humid and dark, with a pale new moon attempting to steal its way through the clouds. The death of the world's greatest White Wizard had fallen over countless lives like a suffocating blanket of dull color.
In one of these houses bordering Surrey, a small brick house with pale yellow flowers gracing the curtains, sat a man with wavy blond hair, dressed in turquoise robes, bent over a bound journal, scribbling, apparently oblivious to the rain that threatened to break the windowpanes of his home.
A step sounded in the open door behind the man, and he looked up, moving to hide the journal under the table as if on an afterthought.
The woman in the doorway had already seen, and she came forward, smiling slightly, tiredly.
"What're you up to, dear?"
"Trying my hand at writing again, if you must know, Elleyne." He grinned at her enigmatically. "I think I'm on to a great idea for a book."
"Hopefully it's better than your last few."
"Haha. She's a funny woman, she is," Gilderoy muttered. "You told me you were going to sleep."
Elleyne sighed.
"Look…I know it's been a week and I shouldn't think on it any longer—he wouldn't want me to think about it…but Dumbledore's death…I just can't seem to accept it. After he helped us so much over a year back. He saved our lives, cleared our names…after, you know…he got us started in this life, and I just feel like we never got the chance to repay him."
Gilderoy had stopped handling his journal, and nodded. After a while he spoke.
"I know what you mean. In a way, this," he indicated the book. "Is trying to make up for it. Dumbledore has…well, he's given me advantages I didn't even deserve."
He laughed. "But I'm thinking he's not wanting us to feel this way…if you know what I mean."
"Yes." Elleyne moved over to his side and placed her hand on his shoulder. He touched it affectionately with his own.
Then, smiling darkly, mysteriously, she added. "He would want us to live on, live life to the fullest, and leave a legacy behind."
She stressed these last few words gently, hintingly, and Gilderoy turned to her questioningly.
Elleyne placed a hand on her stomach, mysterious smile still in place.
Gilderoy's eyes grew wide.
"Really, then?" he asked weakly.
She nodded. Her eyes were tearing up.
Gilderoy stood up beside his wife, drawing his arm around her waist and placing his hand on hers.
"We should go to bed," Elleyne said tremulously. "I've said what I need to."
"Of course," smiled Gilderoy, staring wonderingly at where there hands came together on her stomach, so ordinary looking now.
Lives have ended. And lives begin.
Gilderoy took her hand and led her upstairs.
The End.