EPILOGUE : ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL

Sparhawk sat in his bed long after all his yearmates had fallen asleep, recalling the events of the past couple of days. After getting rid of Voldemort, Aphrael had gently touched Hermione's forehead and then disappeared. Sparhawk was getting quite tired of that act. Then Dumbledore had shown up, somehow making what was supposed to be a somber blue outfit garishly eye-watering. According to him, his yearmates had gone to Professor Sprout when they couldn't find Hermione, who assumed the worst considering her recent run-in with Quirrel. She'd managed to rally the other teachers into waiting around for Dumbledore because they weren't going chasing after a killing curse-happy madman whatever Snape insisted. Thankfully for all parties involved, Dumbledore had returned at that instant and stormed off to the third corridor himself. They hadn't been that worried about Sparhawk, because according to them, "It's Sparhawk. Who are we kidding?"

Instead of the long trek back up, his phoenix arrived and after what Sparhawk felt was a bout of completely unnecessary and joyous bout of trilling, he grabbed them and they disappeared in a flash of a comfortably warm fire to reappear in the infirmary. Thankfully for them, it was quite empty, except for Madam Pomfrey who immediately began fussing over them. Sparhawk apparently had a cracked rib and something of a broken nose. The rib healed fine but apparently, there was a bit of magical residue in whatever blast damaged his face and Madam Pomfrey apologetically explained that his nose would never be quite straight. She did not understand why the boy seemed so happy about it.

But what was surprising was that Hermione was mostly unharmed even being so near to the site of the blast and even more, seemed to only vaguely recall the events of yesterday. "I feel fine, really" she protested, as the healer kept doing more and more tests to find something that should be obviously damaged somewhere, "More than fine actually. And as for yesterday, it's all like a fog. Can't remember much. I really don't know why. I remember praying, you know, to Aphrael. That's the God Sparhawk prays to, in case you didn't know. And there were shepherd's pipes, I think?"

Sparhawk, when pressed, had given a brief and rather edited version of events. He'd been looking for Hermione and had spotted Quirrel leading her off to the third-floor corridor. He'd quietly followed on their heels and accosted them. At which point Quirrel forced him to come along for his little jaunt. Cerebrus. Devil's Snare. Keys. Troll. Potion. In that order. There had been some conversation about the Philosopher's stone, funny name that, and then when things seemed to reach a standstill, Quirrel decided to murder the two of them and take the mirror whole. Only he ended up hitting the mirror. Huge explosion. At this point, Sparhawk had slipped and accidentally stabbed him twice.

"Accidentally stabbed him twice?" asked Dumbledore with a pained expression.

"All by the grace of God, neighbour."

After that, he asked Dumbledore what became of the stone. Dumbledore sighed. "I assume it was destroyed when Quirrel, or Voldemort rather, used the killing curse on the mirror. While I am happy that he himself has inadvertently destroyed what could have potentially brought him back to power, this means that Nicholas Flames, who is the original creator of the stone as you know (Sparhawk doubted that) and his wife Perenelle must finally go their rest. Although when someone has lived that long, I assume there occurs a certain fondness for the prospect."

"Shame."

And then he'd promptly feigned exhaustion and determinedly avoided all eye contact with the man.

He had discharged himself earlier in the day and was looking forward to some time alone to gather his thoughts. But on returning to the common room, he was bombarded with hugs and questions and exclamations of relief from Oakstaff. There was the match with Ravenclaw the next day. He gave them all the same version he gave Dumbledore and there were gasps and shrieks when Voldemort was mentioned and a lot of chocolates pressed into his hand and Oakstaff telling him all he needed was whipping the Ravenclaws in a match to get it all out of his system.

And here he was now, alone in his bed, wondering about the events that transpired and wondering about Aphrael. There was much that needed to be discussed and he was missing the little Goddess' company. And her wisdom.

There was a breeze and a faint echo of pipes and there she was. "You just needed to call, Sparhawk."

"Well?"

"Well, what?"

"What happened back there?"

"There are protocols to follow, you know?"

"I'm not going to start asking in styric again. That would be ridiculous."

She held out her arms. He laughed and hugged the little Goddess. "Yes, I have missed you. Now what happened back there? Why did you suddenly disappear into the mirror and where have you been?"

"You sensed the stone, Father, did you not?"

"When you came out of the mirror. It was almost like…"

"Indeed. Remember I told you about something called Klael? The counterpart to the Bhelliom? The stone, I believe, was a remnant."

"And that was why you went into the mirror?"

"Yes, Father. There is much power, even in a remnant, and I figured that now that the consciousness in it was no longer there, I could take it for myself. A little pick me up if you will."

"And then?"

"Well, getting the stone was easy enough, but I couldn't get out of the mirror. Some blasted charm or something. Nothing especially powerful, but oh so very vexing. I'd nearly gotten it figured out by the time Quirrel blasted the mirror. And whatever he hit it with undid all enchantments."

"And the stone. You've taken its power then?"

"Oh yes, father. Much more than I anticipated. Should last me nicely while you get some followers."

"Hmm… And where have you been the past two days?"

"Oh, here and there, Father. Doing this and that. You'll see. For now…" she touched his forehead, "That should be enough to keep the old man out until we can get you trained in the mind arts." And she disappeared once more leaving behind the faint smell of grass and tinkling laughter.

The next day, the Hufflepuffs beat the Ravenclaws soundly at Quidditch, because whoever thought having a house full of nerds was a good idea? And getting them to play jock sports? Now that's just evil. The end of the year feast came and went. Hufflepuff was abysmally behind because of all the points that Snape had taken off when they came to him for his underwear, and Dumbledore wasn't just about to start handing over points for murder well done and so the banners were green; Slytherin won again and Sprout was inconsolable. Atleast they had the Quidditch cup. She could drown her sorrows in drink.

All too soon, the last day came and things were packed, and things were forgotten. Sparhawk was informed that Dumbledore had managed to find safe enough accommodations for Adelaide and had gotten a few of his people to discreetly guard them. Also, an old friend of his happened to be looking for work and had been hired as a live-in bodyguard. Hermione had gotten over the whole ordeal. His friends had gotten over being upset at not being there for Sparhawk, not that he would ever put them in such danger. But the incident with Hermione had shown him he needed to be a bit more proactive in dealing with these malcontents.

Invites to come stay for the summer were given all around and the Hogwarts Express finally pulled into platform nine and three-quarters at King's Cross station. It took quite a while for them all to get off the platform. A wizened old guard was up by the ticket barrier, letting them go in twos and threes so they didn't attract attention by bursting out of a solid wall all at once.

Sparhawk's face broke into a rare, genuine smile when he caught sight of Adelaide. She swooped him into her arms for a hug and then let him down with an 'oof!' "What are they feeding you there? You've grown!" she said, looking at him with shining eyes. And then, they widened. "Sparhawk! What happened to your nose?!"

"Occupational hazard."

Behind her, partly concealed by Adelaide, was an older bland-looking man with roving eyes. He smiled at Sparhawk and it immediately raised his hackles. Adelaide followed his eyes to the newcomer.

"Oh, this is our new…you know? Dumbledore set him up." She whispered. He smiled again. Sparhawk really thought it didn't suit him. Quite like himself. "Doe. John Doe." He introduced himself. "Funny name, isn't it?" And there it was, that damn smile again.

Sparhawk shook his hand. And then he turned to see Hermione being welcomed by her family. And right there by her parents…

"Oh, Hermione! We really should have told you!"

"But it all happened so fast, you see!"

"It was just that you're going to be away most of the year…"

"And the house was feeling rather empty…"

"And we thought you'd appreciate a sibling too!"

"And we'd just applied a few days ago, but they said we were in luck!"

Hermione was only half listening to her parents. She was looking at the dark-haired little child shyly holding her mother's hand. She must have been about six or seven. In her hand, she loosely held a set of shepherd's pipes and her feet were inexplicably bare, which Dent was noticing just now. "How does she keep losing her shoes?" he grumbled and turned around to look for them.

"Go on. Go say 'Hi' to your sister."

The girl shuffled forward, big dark eyes downcast. She looked up at Hermione and gave her a tiny smile. She was a rather cute little critter. Hermione, eyes beaming, held out her arms. The little girl swarmed into them and she lifted her off her feet and laughed. Sparhawk watched in disbelief as an impish smile found its way onto the child's face. She caught Sparhawk watching, mouth agape and winked.

-Thus ends Book One of the Sapphire Knight Chronicles-

A/N: And we are done! Thank you to the people who read this. Thank you, especially to those who took the time to leave reviews. I love you just a tiny bit more than the ones who didn't ;) I started writing this with the less than pure intentions of having The Elenium series piggyback on the popularity of Harry Potter and maybe gain new readers. This wonderful idea I had from reading 'Hogwarts In The Middle' and its sequels written by HiBob, which are a series of crossovers of Harry Potter and Malcolm in the Middle. Before reading it, I hadn't heard of the series and then I wanted to watch it. Somewhere along the way, it also became a test of myself, a test of whether I really liked writing for its own sake and I stuck around, and so I guess I did.

Initially, I wanted to rewrite the entire seven but over the course of the past two years, new plot bunnies and new commitments have sprung up, so I've put that on hold for now. Hopefully, I will return to Sparhawk and his shenanigans sometime soon in the future.

This is my first writing venture of considerable length, and English is not my native language. So I hope you will forgive the occasional faux pas and the below-average writing.

You may notice that I have omitted to elaborate on certain portions like what really went on with Snape and his laundry. I hope to incorporate those as short addendums in the future.

Once again, thank you all for sticking with me. It's been a pleasure.