When she was alone these days, it felt like the line between the living and the dead was very thin. She could feel them with her, the people she'd lost along the way. Severus most of all, of course.

She talked to them sometimes. There were things she just knew they were teasing her about from beyond the veil and she wanted a comeback. (She tried to remember not to when the kids were around, though. It made them nervous.)

"Mum?"

"In here!" She stood up, bringing the box up with her. She'd put it off for much too long. 'Just do it or don't,' she could hear Severus say in her mind. Was it a memory or her imagination?

"Let me help," Ellie said, taking the box.

"Thank you, dear," Hermione said, then added, "Never get old."

"I'll try not to, Mum."

Hermione smiled and led the way to the study (once Bast's bedroom), directing her daughter to put the box on the desk. She could've carried it herself, and it would've been perfectly easy to use a spell, but it was Severus's box of notes and she'd wanted to hold it. She would've ended up using a spell, though—her hands were shaky today. It happened. She'd aged relatively well, though her joints ached no matter how many potions she took, and her left hand tended to cramp up painfully.

"How are you today?"

"Still old," Hermione said, smiling at her daughter. It was summer, and that meant Ellie had more time. She'd never had children of her own, but she and her husband were both Heads of House at Hogwarts now. Hermione told herself that they would be fine—there were hundreds of young people who cared about them, not to mention the nieces and nephews. There would be somebody to check up on Ellie when she was in Hermione's position.

It was odd, the things she worried about now. A long time ago, it had been Horcruxes and whether or not madmen were going to kill her husband. (There was no small amount of pride in that he'd died of old age, more or less.) Then it had been her children, their happiness, their safety. Then it was things like werewolves' rights, and whether or not Severus thought she was getting fat. Life was odd like that.

These days, she worried about what was going to happen to the people she worried about when she wasn't there to worry about them anymore.

All things considered, she didn't worry about things half so much as Severus had. Retirement had given the man altogether too much time to think.

"Well? Are you going to look at it 'til I'm as gray as you, or are you going to open it?

"Very funny," Hermione said, but opened it. Stacks of notes, some of them yellow with age, most of them Shrunk to fit, filled the box to the brim so that they fluttered and threatened to drift out. They were covered in his handwriting, which hit her in the gut like a punch. She sat down.

"You've decided to write it?" Hermione nodded. Ellie smiled. "I didn't think you would."

"Somebody should, and most everybody else is dead now."

"Uncle Ron isn't. He'd be glad to help."

"He'd be glad to tell me we're both single now and destined to be together at last."

"Mum!" Ellie pulled a scandalized face, but giggled. "I can't see the two of you together like that."

"It almost happened. You probably would've been a Weasley if Dumbledore hadn't given me the Time Turner."

"Elaine Weasley," Ellie said, then gave an exaggerated shudder that made Hermione smile.

"He named all his daughters after flowers. You would've been Chrysanthemum or Rose or something."

"Well, thank goodness for Dad," Ellie said, grinning as she pulled over a chair. "Chrysanthemum," she muttered. "Honestly."

They started sorting through the box. There were photos tucked here and there, notes Severus had jotted down after talking to somebody about what had happened. He'd got his hands on a transcript from the hearing, which wasn't supposed to have been possible. Hermione wondered if he'd taken a Dictaquill into a Pensieve.

A/N: So I promised myself I'd upload this next part if we hit 1,000 reviews by the time I woke up, thinking it wouldn't happen and I'd just putter around as usual before I head off to work this morning. I was wrong! (Yay) So here it is, and I'll post the next bit when I get home this afternoon. And then there's one more before we're done—it just worked better to split the epilogue up into bits like this (what with all the jumps forward in the timeline), even if they're a bit short.

And, of course, thank you for getting us to 1,000! I've never had this much feedback on anything I've written ever. It's fantastic.

Cheers!

—M