Sunrise.

Your roommates were always too tired to accompany your morning ritual when you were younger, and you're sort of glad for that; admiring Hogwarts' first light from the Gryffindor tower was a private proof of magic that you kept for yourself over the years. You've always planned on becoming a better photographer, so there'd be a way to show it to your children someday before they got to Hogwarts.

You chuckle. Children. I'm thinking of children.

The rays filter through the windows of your office with the same persistence they've had for centuries. Such an abstract repetition, you ponder: we'll come and go, but there will always be another sunrise.

You can hear her stirring in your bed, and the noise brings you back to the present. Careful with your steps, you peek through the door that links your office to your chambers.

A mess of brown hair hides her features. Still fast asleep using the clothes she wore the day before, she extends her arm over the side of the bed that's as neatly arranged as it was when you laid her down to rest.

You tap the cup to your left, enchanting it so the tea will be at the right temperature when she wakes up, sheathing the wand back into its holster (a parting gift lovingly purchased by the Auror Office for your retirement; sewn in the leather, the phrase "A soldier will always be a soldier").

When you look up, she's staring right back at you, wearing her shame like a vibrant aura as her eyes scan the room and her brain, without a doubt, guides her through the events of last night.

You maintain eye contact and assure her, wordlessly, that all the things you said and promised a few hours ago when she cried into your shoulder are still true. That she's just confused, perhaps as confused as her husband is, and that whatever needs to happen, it surely won't happen here.

Half of your mouth curves into a smile and promises her no harm have been done to your friendship, and you both know, as she smiles back, that this is why she truly came to see you. Because when hope was riding a broom into the sunset and all Hell broke loose that fateful day, you held the bloody line; you let whatever fight was left in you do the talking, and by Merlin you'd let it free till there was absolutely nothing else you could do to make things right.

She came here because a soldier will always be a soldier, and there will never be another quite the same as you.

You arrive home to find another woman to wake up. She never questions your delay, dreamily smiling to the sight of you caressing her cheek.

You don't pat this one's arm lightly. No, sir. This one, you take your time kissing lazily as you settle in, cradling her body with your arm and pulling her closer as if you existed only to complete that space next to her.

The rush inside your veins told you to decide.

"You're worth twelve of him", my friend once told me.

You heart knew there was no decision at all to make.

Hell.

You really have come a long way, haven't you?

AUTHOR NOTE: Well, some of you asked for a proper ending, and that's the one I would've liked to deliver. I invite my reviewers to go and write their own epilogues as well, if they so choose. ;)