Relations, Revelations

Thanks so much to all who stuck with me through the struggle to get this thing written and posted! I\'ve given up on getting more reviews for it because I\'m out of patience and more importantly out of time (My plane for Germany leaves in exactly 11 hours). Here\'s the long awaited Epilogue for all my kind and patient readers and reviewers. Thanks also to Desiree for her last review! If I had tried to make the story any longer it would have just come across as being very fake-sounding ranting, so I stuck to my strengths. Any proofreading errors can be accounted for by the formating problems this site has been having. If you\'ve read any other stories lately, you may have come across some strange swapping/replacing of letters in odd places. Anything that looks like a genuine typo is probably my fault, and any grammatical errors can be put to rest by the fact that english is my second language (doesnt mean I haven\'t been speaking it for 18 years!)

Thanks again to my faithful reviewers: Blackrose, Carmen, Sky, Sepia, Torny, nancy, Tina, Kat, cofaym, Kelly, Kateri, Tiffany, WizardingAngel, BacardiBob, joedi, Silvana, iccle mousie the potions ingredient, erik, geekofyerdreams, and Desiree!

Double thanks to Anita Coffee, my lovely beta, and the sexier-than-ever Jonathan, my amazingly good-looking and stunningly attractive Latin dictionary! (Just a tip to anyone who cares, never fall in love with your best friend! *sigh*)

Final thought: Does anyone know why the hit counter keeps rolling back the odometer? I used to have over 5,000 hits... that 700 just doesnt do me justice!

Hope you\'ve enjoyed!!!

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Epilogue
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A year and a half later, our Gryffindors were freshly graduated from Hogwarts and scattered across the countryside. Professor Snape had made Hermione his research assistant in her seventh and last year. She tutored Neville Longbottom in her spare time, and he excelled at potions, due in part to Professor Snape’s subdued nature. The greatly reduced Slytherin class also managed to break free from their reputation and succeed in forming inter-house relationships after losing their junior Death Eaters.

After the graduation of his nephew, Professor Snape decided to take a sabbatical, leaving Hermione Granger to teach his first through fifth year classes. He taught pre-NEWT and NEWT-level potions four hours a week and sunbathed at his home in Godric’s Hollow with his fiancé Athena Dumbledore the rest of the time. Their mutual twelve-year crush and year-long courtship had finally flourished into a deeper, more committed relationship.

Ronald Weasley found himself working in Hogsmeade along with his older brother George. The twins had recently purchased Zonko’s Joke Shop when old Mr. Zonko decided to retire and move to Corfu. With Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes expanding, Fred, who now ran the Diagon Alley shop on his own, found himself financially secure enough to finally marry his long-time girlfriend Angelina Johnson, who had just competed in her first Quidditch World Cup. George, although very busy with the new Hogsmeade shop, found the time to drag his brother off engagement ring shopping. Shortly thereafter, Hermione found herself wearing a very large sparkly rock on her left hand.

Neville Longbottom lost his gran and Uncle Algie in an unfortunate broomstick accident that was found to be caused by inclement weather three months before graduating from Hogwarts. This second tragic event in his life influenced him to finally pursue mediwizardry and take up an apprenticeship at St. Mungo\'s hospital. He moved in with his girlfriend Nymphadora Tonks who lived near the Ministry of Magic in muggle London and was slowly but clumsily working her way up the Auror chain of command.

Seamus Finnegan and Lavender Brown got married in Las Vegas two weeks after graduation, and had shortly thereafter taken up residence in a shabby little flat just off of Diagon Alley. Seamus worked behind the counter of Quality Quidditch Supplies as a broom specialist, while Lavender trained to specialize in cosmetics at the Diagon Alley apothecary.

Ernie Macmillan finally found it in himself to come out of the closet, and was now happily living in the wizarding community just outside San Francisco with Zacharias Smith, who never actually had a stick up his ass. He just wished he did.

Susan Bones, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Parvati Patil, and Dean Thomas rented a teensy flat in muggle London together, where the boys introduced their girlfriends to the finer points of muggle University life. They subsisted primarily on peanut butter sandwiches and pot noodle, watched reruns of old TV shows, slept very little, studied a lot, and were quite content living as muggle students.

September second found Harry Potter, the famous hero of the Wizarding world, a week away from starting his Auror training. He had worked part-time over the last two summers in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement as an Azkaban guard, and had taken up residence at Snape Estates. He lost count of the number of times Ron had popped through his floo to visit Sephera, who had just come home from her sixth year in San Francisco, at all hours of the night. Harry quickly learned to sneak out and cast silencing spells on his cousin’s room to keep her father from wringing his best friend’s neck.

After a thoroughly satisfying stretch to loosen up his sleep-tensed muscles, Harry sat up, stepped into his slippers, rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and pulled on his dressing gown. A glance at the mirror told him that shaving could wait until after breakfast. He groggily trod down the stairs, opened the front door to untie the post from the morning owl, and proceeded into the kitchen with his stack of parchment. Athena greeted him with a kiss on the forehead and a fresh cup of coffee in his favorite Chudley Cannons mug. He dumped his handful of mail onto the kitchen table and took a seat. A sip from his steaming mug revived him from his near-coma.

“Sleep well?”

“Mm. Finally managed to master that screening spell on the window. Bugs out, breeze in. Thanks for teaching me that one, by the way.”

“Any time dear. Eggs?”

“Just toast, please. Might want to feed the owl outside too.”

Severus stumbled into the kitchen a few minutes later, looking nowhere near chirpy and cheerful. A cup of coffee was pressed into his hands as well, along with a good morning kiss on the mouth. Harry ignored it for the sake of his sanity, though the domesticity was refreshing.

A letter addressed to “Dad” was picked up by its rightful owner and flipped over to reveal a Hogwarts seal. It was promptly skimmed over, as Severus’ face magically morphed back into its famous scowl and took on a remarkable shade of puce.

“OH BLOODY HELL! SHE’S A GRYFFINDOR!!!”

Harry just grinned over the edge of his cup.