So, this is it, ladies and gentlemen. I have decided that I'm going to end it here. I know many of you will probably have to go back and re read everything since I took so long, but if by some insane chance you've stuck with me through this long and drawn out process, thank you, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

Love, as always,

JacintaM.

It's been seven years to the day of that fateful coming together (yet again – I did not mean that double entendre. It just kind of happened. That one, too.) in the library.

Seven years, in which I've done much that I never thought I would do, but I did.

I saw two – well, three, though Harry's practically Molly's son – houses, alike in dignity, no longer divided.

I heard, "Congratulations, mate," pass from Ron to Draco without so much as a snarky undertone.

I kissed a dragon.

After I said, "I do," that is.

As you've probably guessed by now, we did get married. He made good on his promise ring.

That was five years ago.

Then three years ago, our first child was born. A girl. We named her Minerva.

Draco started calling her Minny after he first saw how tiny she was at the hospital.

He doesn't call her that in company, though. He still thinks that Harry and Ron would take the piss if he did.

Some things never change.

As I look over what I've written, I realize that, perhaps, I don't want anyone to read this. Especially not the people I've dedicated it to. I mean, do I really want my children to know how her mummy and daddy got it on in the corridors and classrooms of the school she'll one day roam?

Probably not.

But she'll want to know, I hope, how her mummy and daddy fell in love, and stayed in love, after everything.

Her and her brother. Though I shouldn't really say that… he's hardly one yet, but he's his father's son through and through. No doubt a Slytherin – though he does have my brains.

Draco tries not to brag.

Sort of.

Well.

Okay, not at all.

But I try to help him curb the habit – not that I'm much better, or so Harry, Ron, and the rest of the wizarding world tell me.

In a few years – when my daughter is old enough – this will be her Christmas present, just like it was mine all those years ago. Same with the promise ring. From us to her, though, it'll mean something different, and I hope, if she gives it to her daughter, it'll mean something different to her. I've realized through all this that anything can be interpreted in any way, and, well, you carry with you what you want. This, I hope, she carries, and I hope it means something special to her, like it did to me.

So to my children (and grandchildren – though no pressure, kids. Yet.) I leave you this – live and love without prejudice, and learn like there's no tomorrow. Of course I had to add that in there. I may be romantically out of character, but I am still Hermione (Granger) Malfoy, the bushy haired Head Girl who fretted at being late for a class I could probably have taught. The greatest joy in life is learning – and nothing is better than learning all about someone you've never known.

A stranger, after all, is just a friend you just haven't met yet.

Love forever, your mother,

Hermione Malfoy.

Minerva closed the tome, and glanced up at her parents. Pushing her sleek brown hair behind her ear, she smiled when she saw her parents had cuddled up together closer on the love seat during her reading. It had become a family tradition, this reading aloud. It had started when she had been presented her mother's diary, and she had read the first few lines out loud in disbelief. Her brother, Edward, had looked up at her in horror – he had been sixteen, and could guess what the first few words of the entry had meant. The words, "trysts between us," in relation to his parents, could only mean a few things, and none of them pretty.

Not to him, maybe, his father had replied coyly, and his mother had laughed.

This was the twentieth Christmas they had read a piece of the book. This time, it had been the snow bank incident, for which both Minerva and her brother had helped their mother get vengeance for. Numerous times.

There was silence for a moment whilst all present basked in the romance of it all. Each couple – Potters, Malfoys, Weasleys, and the newest addition, Holmses – chuckled at the couple at the centre of the story. They were looking at each other like they had on their wedding day.

With love.

With dedication.

And with a wary amusement of everything they'd lived through, and everything to come.

- FIN -