Five Years Later, or

The Holly Leaves Their Fearless Hues Display

Epilogue

Harry and Ginny Potter came to Lucia's wedding. It was the first time Harry and Draco had met since the Battle of Hogwarts. Their wives, old school acquaintances if not exactly bosom friends, linked arms and left them alone.

"Do you think they'll talk?" Ginny asked, "or kill each other?"

"Probably neither," Astoria answered. "Best of friends they're not going to become, barely nodding acquaintances, probably. They're both as stubborn as an Australian pig-mule. But they're not enemies any longer. I don't know if that's Lucia's doing or Narcissa's or what."

"Speaking of Narcissa, I notice Lucius Malfoy wasn't invited to the wedding."

"He wasn't exactly well-pleased to meet his half-Muggle daughter, or to be beholden to a Muggle for helping his son. He's still a bigoted old git. But he's not a half-bad father-in-law, really, almost decent to me, despite my profession. Narcissa rules the manor now, and she has mellowed a good bit. She has no objections to what I do, not that it would make a difference if she did."

"But still, no one would ever have expected someone with the last name of Malfoy to be the Ministry's liaison to the Muggle Prime Minister!"

Astoria shrugged. "Lucia and her mum gave me a taste for Muggles, is all. Draco pretends to disapprove, but he doesn't, really. He's besotted with his 'aunt,' he calls her. Look at him."

Draco's discussion with Harry had been very brief but peaceable. Now he was going over to where Dita was sitting and watching her daughter (in white and green with a Luna Moth at her waist) and new son-in-law (whose hair was looking suspiciously like feathers) dancing closely. He bent to speak to her, and his face had lost its usual austere hauteur, become gentle, even tender. He whisked out a handkerchief and applied it to her eyes, then drew her up and danced with her.

"See?" Astoria said in a disgusted tone. "I practically have to share him."

Ginny laughed. "You're not fooling anyone. You're as besotted with her as he is."

"Not quite, but almost. Everyone who knows her is." Her attention was drawn to the large, pale green moths flitting about above the dance floor and shedding light on everyone's heads. "It was nice of Luna to bring all these. Where has she gotten to, anyway?"

"She and that odd husband of hers had to get back to their African expedition. It's just like Luna to suddenly show up to someone else's wedding with a husband no one ever knew she had, plucked from the wilds of Nepal or somewhere. I always did think that she and Neville… Well, Neville doesn't want to go meandering all over the world, and this Rolf suits her, I think."

"I think she's pregnant," Astoria grinned.

"Do you? I had my suspicions… And so Lucia's to be apprentice to Young Ollivander! I thought all those years of studying Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures had to be tending to something interesting."

"I only hope she doesn't blow herself up."

"No, not Lucia. But now that she has to go tagging all over the world after a peculiar wizard with peculiar ideas for what can go in a wand, what's Chador going to do?"

"Tag after her, of course. Probably keep the both of them out of trouble. He's good at that. I always thought he should have been an Auror, but he never wanted to. He says he's perfectly content being a correspondent for The Quibbler, writing a history on wandlore, and being long-distance partner to Regulus Moonshine."

"Jack of all trades and master of, well, all of them," Ginny grinned.

"It's true. Do you think McGonagall knew what she was about when she appointed him as Lucia's mentor?"

"Wasn't it the Hat that did it?"

Astoria shrugged. "So it seems, but really, what does a hat know? Lucia said it tried to put her in Hufflepuff!"

Ginny laughed again. "That's ridiculous. Everyone knows she's Slytherin through-and-through."

"Not back then, we didn't. Not the way Slytherin was then."

"You two worked miracles with that House."

"Not just us. It was Sinistra and Graham and—well, everybody, really. It took a long time, but it's not a disgrace to be in Slytherin anymore, nor a danger. Look at that."

Draco and Chador had exchanged partners. Chador danced with Dita and laughed at something she said, his thin face alive and joyous. Lucia danced with her older brother, looking up at him with tremulous happiness, and he held her gently, and his self-protective hauteur was gone.

"Dita worked miracles too," said Astoria.