77.

Epilogue 1.

It was a weekend in mid-July, 2022, and Hermione was melting in the heat; exhausted and slightly queasy as she cast a cooling charm and then sighed with relief at the sensation. The summer was supposedly cooler than last year's heatwave, but she didn't feel it right now. Carina appeared to be unbothered by the heat, much like her father always was, and was busy trying to fish half an ancient rusk out from under the couch. "Oh, no, yucky, sweetheart," Hermione said, scooping the toddler up with her left arm and grabbing the rusk with her wand hand.

"Mama, ucky! Mama, ucky!" Carina said excitedly, grabbing at the rusk as Hermione headed for the bin in the kitchen. They were supposed to have flooed over to the Burrow ten minutes ago to collect the children, but Hermione had fallen asleep during Carina's nap. She was just so exhausted these days.

"Your mother is definitely not 'ucky'," Malfoy said, appearing out of nowhere to sweep up the chubby toddler and free Hermione. She tossed the rusk in the bin and turned to face the two.

Carina had one grey eye the exact shade of Malfoy's, and one brown, slightly lighter than Hermione's. An unexpected mix of the two of them. Her hair was a rather more mundane mix; it was several shades darker than Malfoy's, but curly like her mother's. And Carina had dimples on her elbows and knees, which Malfoy did not have anymore, but definitely had as a toddler. Narcissa had showed Hermione the – utterly adorable – photos.

He was currently wearing an oxford shirt with the sleeves rolled up, paired with trousers, despite not having cast a cooling charm as far as she knew. And yet somehow he looked nearly unaffected by the weather as he dangled his giggling daughter upside-down by one ankle. It was most unfair.

"I feel 'ucky' right now, to be fair to her. I'm so sweaty. I should've cast a cooling charm before I fell asleep, but I didn't exactly plan to," she said ruefully. "We're going to need to put in Muggle air con and pray that it works if we have another summer like this, or I'll melt." She sighed, shooting him a long-suffering look. "Well, I'd better go get the children from the Burrow. Are you coming, or staying?"

"I'll come," Malfoy said with an easy shrug, and then snagged Hermione as she walked past, stealing a brief kiss before he set her free, holding Carina on his hip with casual ease. "And I'll look into the air con tomorrow. Even if it works inconsistently, it'll help." He looked down at Carina. "Burrow, mon petit chou?" he asked her.

"Yes! Burrow!" the toddler in his arms declared happily. "Rina go!"

They flooed through, Malfoy dusting soot out of Carina's curls once they arrived with a thump in the Burrow's kitchen. Ron looked up from the long table, where he sat with the Daily Prophet open in front of him. Chastity was beside him with a large, icy glass of water, looking as worn out by the heat as Hermione felt. But then she had an excuse – she was eight months pregnant, despite their first, Johnnie, only being two months older than Carina. Apparently Chastity had meant it when she'd told Ron she wanted a big family, and she was starting quickly. Hermione supposed she admired the efficiency.

"Kids! Your mum's here!" Ron bellowed, and then grinned and got up, giving Hermione a rather sweaty kiss on the cheek before he nodded to Malfoy, and gave Carina a grin and a wave.

"Hi Chastity," Hermione said.

"Hi Hermione." Chastity smiled slightly uncertainly, never quite at ease with Hermione, even after so long and despite Hermione's best efforts. The younger witch always felt marked as the newcomer and interloper, Hermione suspected, although even Mrs Weasley had accepted her now, and the rest of the family liked her well enough. "How are you?"

"Tired. This heat wave is killing me. I guess I'm getting old," Hermione said ruefully, and Chastity laughed politely. "And how are you?" she asked of the younger witch, who looked as though she was ready to floo to Antarctica to escape the heat, despite the fact that it was cooler at the Burrow than at home in Ilkley.

"Tired as well, but fine otherwise. I'm just too pregnant for this weather." Chastity heaved a sigh, and pressed her condensation-wet glass to her cheeks.

Something twanged in Hermione's mind, and she eyed Carina's belly and resolved to stop by Boots after work on Monday. Just in case. She counted days in her head. Definitely Boots. And she'd better not have wine with dinner tonight. Just in case.

Only last month, she and Malfoy had decided – well, not to try exactly, but to leave things in the hands of fate.

Hermione hadn't been expecting fate to knock on her door so sodding soon though, at her age. She'd expected to have at least three months or so before anything happened, if indeed it ever did. Well, maybe she was getting ahead of herself – maybe she wasn't pregnant. Maybe it was just menopause. The symptoms were eerily similar, she thought wryly.

And then the children came streaming in, although they could hardly be called children now. They were proper teenagers. At just turned sixteen, Scorpius was nearly as tall as Malfoy, and Albus – hanging off Scorpius's arm, because so far their relationship had stood the test of time and the tumultuous teenage years – was taller than his own father.

Even Rose was Hermione's height, and the fourteen-year-old Hugo was about half an inch taller, and still growing like a weed. He came in last, lugging Johnnie in his arms like his half-brother was luggage and put him down on the floor, ruffling the toddler's dark hair as he plopped down on his bottom.

"Where's your mum? I must say thank you for having them all," Hermione said to Ron, and he waved her off.

"She had to pop into Horizont Alley earlier, and isn't back yet. But they're no trouble these days. They look after themselves, and Johnnie too." Ron grinned. "It's like having a houseful of babysitters."

"Well, thanks anyway, Ron," she said, although he was right. The three of them doted on Carina when they were home for the holidays.

He shrugged. "They're my kids too. Well, except Scorp and Al, but they may as well be. We're all interlinked now, like it or not." He grinned. "Things turned out alright in the end, didn't they, 'Mione?"

"Yeah. They really did," Hermione said sincerely, meaning it with all her heart as she gave Ron another quick, tight hug goodbye, while in the background Malfoy chatted with Scorpius and Albus, and Rose gave a peal of laughter and shoved Hugo, who stuck his tongue out at her. And then with a wave to Chastity, Hermione gathered up the children that were hers and Malfoy's, as he stood there watching her with fond, wanting eyes, Carina in his arms.

Al gave Scorpius a lingering kiss and then went on through the floo first, with an expression that made him look just like his dad as he said, "Grimmauld Place!" and vanished.

"Come on, you lot," Hermione said, chivvying the teenagers along after Al, and making plans in her head as Scorpius flooed home first. She needed another lie-down, and she wasn't opposed to bribing the children to take Carina for a walk down to the nearby children's playground so that Malfoy could join her. Because if she was going to be sweaty and tired, it might as well be for good bloody reason – and if she wasn't already pregnant, she may as well give getting that way a proper go.

Hm. If she gave the children £20, she might be able to get rid of them for at least an hour.

She eyed Malfoy meaningfully, and he shot her a wicked, knowing smile back, before he threw down his pinch of floo powder after Hugo, he and Carina going up in a flare of green flame.

Hermione gave Ron one last smile and wave before she went through the floo herself, as he slouched back at the table with his arm slung around Chastity, Johnnie clambering up onto his lap. He kissed the side of Chastity's head and ruffled Johnnie's hair, wrapped up in his new, growing family, and looking just about as content as Hermione felt, right now.

For once Ron was right – things really had turned out alright, in the end.

They'd turned out rather perfectly, in fact.

Epilogue 2.

Late April, Five years later

Lunch at the Folly? was all the interdepartmental memo said, and Hermione smiled, happiness suffusing her.

It was so nice finally having Malfoy back at the Ministry again, now that Carina and Caelum had both started at Ilkley – Caelum beginning last month, when he'd turned four. It made arranging their twice-weekly lunch dates so much easier, and she always hated missing those. That was what they did – their tradition, whether at the Folly or elsewhere. She loved their lunches.

Yes, she wrote back, with a spark of anticipation as hot and bright as if their relationship had been eight months instead of eight years. Come and collect me in fifteen minutes.

Epilogue 3.

September 1st, 2053

Carina Granger-Malfoy waved to her daughter as the Hogwarts Express pulled out of the station, chuffing merrily. Thomasina pressed her freckled face up to the window as she waved back, the skinny eleven-year-old all wild strawberry blonde curls and bright grey eyes in her school robes.

"And so another generation has gone off to Hogwarts. God, I feel so old."

Johnnie grinned, ruffling her short dark blonde curls, much to her irritation. She fended him off, scowling, although honestly her annoyance was a nice distraction to the way her heart felt like it was going to break. She was going to miss her eldest so badly. Thomasina seemed far too little to be sent away.

At least Carina still had the other two at home, currently at the Ilkley primary school her father was still the benefactor of. Johnnie pushed his dark hair back off his forehead. "Thirty-two going on thirty-three is hardly old, love. Your mum was forty when she had you, and she's still spry. She doesn't look a day over fifty."

"Don't call her spry in her hearing. That's an old lady word. She'll clobber you," Hugo said, meandering over from waving farewell to his daughter, Lilah; the girl was in fifth year, and the only child he and Alice had left at Hogwarts, since their eldest had graduated last year. He was as cheerful as ever as he greeted his two half-siblings.

It was an odd situation to explain to strangers, and had caused no little upheaval and scandal amongst their extended families when they'd first got together in seventh year. She and Johnnie were entirely unrelated themselves, and yet shared a set of half-siblings in Rose and Hugo.

It was, admittedly, unconventional.

Hugo ruffled her hair too, and she hissed in annoyance and smacked at him. He laughed and subsided, grinning at Carina and Johnnie. "Well, we've got our first ever Granger-Malfoy-Weasley hybrid off to school. How exciting. I hope the old place survives."

Carina laughed. Technically, Thomasina, her little brother, and her younger sister, were all Granger-Malfoys. Johnnie had briefly argued to have Weasley in the name in place of either Granger or Malfoy when Thomasina was born, but Carina had levelled a flat, deadly stare on him as she'd cradled her firstborn, and said, There are more Weasleys in the world than I can count, and only two Granger-Malfoys – me, and Caelum. Besides, I just pushed this fucking baby out of my vagina. I will call her what I damn well please.

Johnnie had sensibly agreed.

"It'll be fine if it's survived the triplets so far," she told Hugo, talking about James's lot, two girls and a boy, who were sixth years now and apparently worse than their Uncles Fred and George had been at school. Carina believed that, having babysat the three of them often, many years ago. "They're a menace, but it seems like old McGonagall is still going strong, and keeping everything in hand."

"Actually, I heard she's talking about finally retiring next year," Arthur said as he popped up from out of nowhere – the youngest of Johnnie's five siblings by Aunt Chastity, he'd only graduated last year.

"Really? Oh, that's so sad. She's practically an institution at this point."

"Hogwarts won't be the same without her," Johnnie said, and Carina agreed wholeheartedly. Things were changing so fast these days it was hard to keep track.

She looked around the bustling platform as Johnnie, Arthur, and Hugo discussed whether Deputy Headmaster Longbottom would step up as Headmaster, when McGonagall retired.

Johnnie's parents, Uncle Ron and Aunt Chastity, weren't there to see Thomasina off – they were on holiday in Argentina and it was around 4 am there right now – but they'd called yesterday to wish the nervous first year luck and had sent young Arthur in their place, to take photos.

Both Carina's parents would've been there, but there had been a breakout from Azkaban last night, and as Minister for Magic, her mother had of course needed to go into work. Her father was there though, in conversation with Scorpius, Albus, and Aunt Ginny – as Head of MLE, Uncle Harry also had to be at work of course, given the situation. Her father's white-blonde hair was more white than blond now but he was still as hale as ever, and had given Thomasina a tight hug goodbye before she'd gone charging off with her many cousins.

Many, many cousins.

On Johnnie's side, Thomasina and her siblings had all the Weasleys – most of the youngest ones half-bloods now – many of them had gone looking further afield for partners in order to avoid some degree of incestuous connection, and some had even met and married Muggles. Well over half of them still had the red hair Johnnie had avoided though, which made them easy to spot – the Weasley genes were strong.

Whereas on Carina's side the children had only Scorpius and Albus's son David, so far – a second year at Hogwarts, they'd adopted him as a four-year-old from the Muggle foster care system, when he'd shown early signs of magic.

Soon there would be another cousin though. Carina's younger brother Caelum – her polar opposite; studious, dark-haired, and with grey-blue eyes unlike Carina's own mismatched ones – had got married last year to Amara, a graduate of Uagadou. They were currently living in Nigeria close to Amara's family, as she was five months pregnant and wanted to be near her mother.

Carina knew Amara wanted more than one child, if all went well; she was from a large family herself, and had said she wanted at least four. And Caelum seemed happy to do whatever his new bride wanted, blissfully happy.

So yes, their little branch of the family was growing, slowly but surely. They'd never overtake the Weasleys of course, but the family name was continuing in its hyphenated form – something that had always irked her rather stern Grandfather Lucius, much to her mother's quiet amusement.

Her father strolled over, smiling faintly at Carina and Johnnie as the train vanished in the distance. "Your mother will be disappointed to have missed this – I took some photos, but they're not the same."

"Thomasina understood. It's just bad timing."

"Hopefully they have the crisis in hand by midday, or I'll have to steal her away from work under protest, escaped prisoner or not. Potter's Head of MLE – he can handle it. I refuse to miss our Tuesday lunch," her father said, and Carina smiled to herself. Every Tuesday and Thursday for as long as Carina could remember, her parents had been going out for lunch. Over the years they'd eaten at restaurants and cafes all over the world – both Muggle and wizarding – and aside from when Carina and Caelum had been small babies, they'd only missed a handful of days, thanks to illness or the most dire of emergencies.

"I'm sure she won't put up much protest," Carina teased her father. Her workaholic mother's two weaknesses were her children – she'd always dropped everything in a heartbeat for Carina and Caelum if they needed her – and that sweet, dark look her father gave her, which had always made Carina and her brother pretend disgust as children. It had really been rather nice though, in hindsight, to see them look at each other like that. As though the rest of the world fell away. As though they had a secret shared just between the two of them.

Seeing that silent exchange over the years had meant that when Carina had recognised that same look in Johnnie's eyes in seventh year, and then realised she was returning it, she'd known he was the one. She hoped the two of them were still as stupidly in love as her parents were, after nearly thirty-four years together. So far, so good, Carina thought as she smiled over at Johnnie, tall, tan, and dark-haired, chatting to Hugo animatedly, his blue eyes like pieces of the sky. Affection overflowed her, hot and full in her chest, and then she remembered they'd have a few hours at home entirely alone before they both had to go to work, and she needed to repress an expectant grin.

"No, I imagine she won't," her father said, flashing a smug smirk, well aware of his persuasiveness when it came to her mother. "Besides, this is the day it all began. Thirty-four years ago on the first day of term, when I finally spoke to Granger for the first time in decades." Her father's eyes were distant, hands in his pockets, a little half smile curving his mouth as he remembered it.

God, they were still so sappy, both of them, right down to how they still called each other Granger and Malfoy, which had also made Carina and Caelum cringe, growing up. "It's too important to miss."

"Where are you going today?"

"The Folly, of course. Where we had our very first lunch date." Her father's eyes were faraway; lost in memory.

Carina sometimes thought her parents would haunt The Veela's Folly, when they passed – God willing, not for a very long time yet. She imagined the two of them young again; insubstantial and peaceful, standing companionably shoulder to shoulder as they leaned out over the railing together. The rough sea falling out below them and the sky stretching out above, gulls crying as they rode the currents, the sound snatched away by the lashing wind.

The two of them there, together forever, until the cliff itself wore away.

– Fin. –

This fic began where the epilogue ended in the books, and I tried to make it as canon as possible. So it made sense to echo the books, and once more end where we began - at King's Cross, decades later, sending yet another generation off to Hogwarts

Now, Johnnie and Carina... I just had to, you guys. I HAD TO. I had no choice. The story made me do it. The idea of solidifying the intertwining of the families that way? First with Al and Scorp, and then with the unrelated kids who share half-siblings? Who then have Granger-Weasley-Malfoy kids? I just couldn't resist. It was too perfect.

Plus Thomasina, and her little unnamed siblings. And mention of Draco and Hermione's other child, Caelum, who has dark hair - a Malfoy with dark hair! Woo! And Al and Scorp adopting a little boy Also, Hugo would be 45 in this epilogue (!) and in my head he married Neville and Hannah's daughter, Alice, and has two children. Rose by contrast, is happily childfree off in New York, a career witch like her mother - living a glamorous life and being an amazing aunt.

Of course, Hermione had to be Minister for Magic - at a slightly more believable age, in my opinion, being nearly 74 (!) And Draco is still on the Wizengamot, (probably aiming to take the Chief Warlock position at some point in the future, now the war is so long ago in people's memories,) while also managing more and more of the Malfoy investments, as grouchy Lucius ages.

(And also of course, Ron was fantastic with all the mixed bag of kids as they grew up, related or not. And had six kids with Chastity! Because he deserves that huge family. Eight kids, jeez, Ron )

I also loved showing Draco and Hermione's relationship through Carina's eyes - and having that tiny window into her relationship with Johnnie It made me really happy to write.

And the idea that Draco and Hermione will be there at the cliff forever, side-by-side in companionable silence, through storms, sunrises, and perfect, sunny days? That's how I picture them

Anywayyyy, I really hope their ending made you all as happy as it made me! Thank you for reading and coming on this journey with me!