Chapter 25: Epilogue
The next few years found the makeshift family growing closer. Severus and Remus both healed in their own time from the trauma and pain of the past, despite the physical proof of it. Severus became used to his weakened voice and got quite good at the spell he needed for teaching. Harry grew quickly and found himself studying to be a medi-wizard. He had never forgotten the time they had spent in the infirmary and all Pomfrey had done for his family, he wanted to do the same for others. Haven and Voldemort had moved into a house in the hills of Scotland nearby to the school they visited often. Lucius and Narcissa had turned the ministry around and had become the leaders in the changes throughout the wizarding world, Draco was following in his fathers footsteps. Remus and Severus continued to work at the school, they enjoyed their time there as the danger faded. Both of them eventually found someone to begin to settle down with. Severus began a relationship with one of the new teachers, she had taken over Sprout's job, as both teacher of Herbology and head of Hufflepuff. Remus had found a nice shop owner in Hogsmeade. The two of them had been slow to welcome in the new relationships, but once they had their wives had become just as much a part of the family as everyone else. Severus had fully adopted Harry a year after the end of the war, and so Harry had gained his own family once more, his favorite part being the new little sister and brother he had gotten in the process. Yes, the family had grown, changed, and flourished in the years following the end of the war. Eventually the pain of those moments would fade into a distant memory for the group. Years later, long after even Harry's own children had passed on, the first year students at Hogwarts would be led up the stairs towards the great hall only to be stopped before a large painting, where they were told of the family in the painting, and how they had saved Hogwarts. With this only one other thing showed that it had happened, and that was the two graves in the field outside of Hogwarts, and each year a small group made up of mostly Snapes, Potters, and Malfoys, would gather there and lay green, purple, and white ribbons on the graves. This year, the 100th anniversary of the deaths of the two buried there, a young woman with dark hair and a slightly curved nose, who wore the robes of a potion apprentice, laid a small vial on the graves,
"Thank you. Both of you. The world changed because of you, and now this potion will forever be available to everyone who needs it, in memory of you." Lily Snape then turned and walked slowly away from the graves. She was the eldest of the fifth generation since the two men who had created the family she grew up in. She had been named by her great, great, great grandfather Harry, after a woman she had only heard of as the one who saved their family. Lily didn't need to know who she was named after though, she only cared about her last name, because that was the one whose legacy she was a part of. Which was why, on that cold day, the anniversary of the end of the war he had fought in, she had finally begun to market and sell a potion created originally by Severus Snape, a potion for deep cuts, wounds, and scars, and especially for blood quills.