Last time around. Enjoy!

Changing My Life

Chapter 38: Epilogue

Easy as that. And it was. Surprisingly the plan for Voldemort went exactly to plan and by the end of the day, he was dead and a good portion of Death Eaters were captured in the raid.

After the war ended celebrations were thrown all over magical Britain in Harry's honor and Voldemort's defeat. Shortly after Voldemort's defeat, Harry was offered many job offers in the Ministry despite his age. He turned them all down and vanished without a trace. Even his friends didn't know where he was. At least Daphne suspected that Hermione knew and that was what brought her to Hermione's doorstep two months later.

When the door opened the first thing out of Daphne's mouth was, "You know where he is don't you?"

Hermione pursued her lips and moved out of the doorway in a silent invitation into the house. Daphne looked at her before walking past and into the house. Hermione closed the door behind her crossed her arms. They were standing in the hallway, looking at each other not moving. "Yes, I know where he is." She admitted honestly as she swept past Daphne and into the living room with Daphne following shortly behind her.

"Well are you going to tell me where?" Daphne questioned exasperated. Hermione paused in her motions of cleaning up a coffee table as she stood and faced Daphne.

"If I do what do you plan to do with the information?"

"Find him, talk to him." Daphne shrugged.

"And say what?" Hermione sighed. "Look, I just don't want him to get hurt okay? He's been through a lot. And he's moving on, creating a life for himself, being happy."

"And your afraid I'll stop that?" Daphne demanded.

"Honestly yes. The two of you together are like fire and ice, you clash. I don't want something to happen and for you to hurt him." Hermione resumed picking up the mugs and made her way to the kitchen again with Daphne following.

"Yes we clash. Yes we fight." Daphne admitted. "But that's what makes us real. No we don't live a fairytale, but it's still love." Daphne argued. Hermione put the mugs in the sink and turned to lean against it, looking at Daphne. Sighing, she gave in and grabbed a legal pad from the counter and scribbled an address down and ripped it off handing it to Daphne.

"You'll probably find him here. If he's not there then you're out of luck. Don't hurt him." Hermione walked past Daphne and left the room leaving Daphne standing in the kitchen holding the paper with the address. Reading it, she disappeared with a pop.

She landed a few blocks from the address. Walking the rest of the way, she found herself standing in front of a tavern. Rechecking the address, she shook her head and entered the pub. Pushing past the doors, she looked around. It didn't take long to spot him. He had the same black, short hair.

Approaching the bar, she took a seat at a stool across from the bartender. "What can I get you?" He greeted without looking up or bothering o see who it was.

"A conversation would be nice." He froze at her words. That was all it took for him to recognize her voice. He sighed and looked over to her.

"It wasn't personal." He explained. "I left for me." He went back to cleaning the counter with the rag.

"Would it've killed you to ask me if I wanted to come with you?" Daphne remarked.

"No point in me asking when I already knew the answer." Harry shook his head and turned to the other side of the bar to organize glasses and mugs.

"You knew an answer. Not mine." Her words stopped him but he didn't turn. "I would've come with you. I wanted to come with you. I've been searching for you since you've left." Daphne revealed. Harry turned and set his hands on the bar leaning on her looking down.

"Why?" He looked up at her sadly. "I'm broken. We won but, I realized that everything I've been doing, that I did? None of it made me happy. I changed yeah, that made me happy. Being my own person made me happy. But I think somewhere along the way, I lost myself in the war. That's what I've been doing here. Trying to remind myself. What makes me happy."

"Whatever's on tap." She answered. "Two."

"What?" Harry questioned confused. Daphne smiled.

"I'll have two of whatever's on tap." She repeated. Harry nodded hesitantly and did it. He put both in front of her and stood across from her trying to see what she was playing at. She pulled in to her, and pushed the other to slide in front of him. He looked down at it before a small smile graced his face and he bent down with his elbows on the bar on either side of the glass.

And so they remained there until the bar closed. Talking, about the past two months, what they've done, each other, everything. No topic was off limits. And no one interrupted them. Anyone that wanted a drink or something seemed to know to go to the other bartender, that he was off the clock to all of them but her.

And so they talked, and reconnected. It wasn't easy, but eventually, months later they had what they once did. Except this time, it was so much better because they knew, it would last a lifetime.

Daphne did as Hayden asked and never thought of the future until it wasn't the future anymore but rather became the present. It was when Daphne was watching her youngest son and Hayden came up to stand beside her that Daphne thought about how things might've been different and how she wished she could thank Hayden. She often thought about that last day, and the advice Hayden gave her during the months that Harry and her were working on coming together again.

"What're you thinking about?" Hayden questioned standing beside her mother, watching her brother. Hayden watched Daphne out of the corner of her eye.

"Just something someone once told me." Daphne answered vaguely. Hayden nodded.

"I'm glad you took my advice." Hayden broke the silence causing Daphne's head to whip around and face her. Looking at Hayden, she noticed the differences between her own Hayden and this one.

"How?" She questioned in disbelief.

Hayden looked at her and smirked. "Magic." She suggested with a shrug. "You did it. You did good." And with that she vanished in a gust of wind before Daphne's eyes, leaving Daphne looking at the place where she was.

"Hey mom, what're you doing?" Hayden's voice drew her attention, turning she saw Hayden standing in the doorway smiling looking at her. "Everyone's out back waiting to get started." Daphne looked back to the empty spot beside her.

"Just thinking. Tell them I'll be right there." Hayden nodded and retreated back outside. Daphne followed shortly behind but when she reached the doorway, she turned and looked back.

"Thank you." She whispered as she turned and left the room joining the rest of her family outside.

Many, many years later, when it came time, she walked towards the light as it overtook all of her senses as she walked through. When she made it through, the first sight she was greeted with was the familiar face she thanked so many times up until that day. She would always be able to tell the differences between the Hayden she met when she sixteen to the Hayden she raised. But this Hayden, the one she met when she was sixteen, was someone who drove her to live the life she did. And she could never thank her enough for that.

"It's nice to see you again… mom." Hayden greeted and Daphne couldn't lie, even though she knew this wasn't exactly the person she raised, it still felt good to hear that title. "You too dad." She continued causing Daphne to frown and turn around only to see Harry. He was smiling as he approached her and came to stand beside her.

"But you still had time. A life to live." Daphne protested. She knew what it meant if Harry was here. "The kids…" She trailed off.

"Not a life I would want to live without you beside me. I lived a long life, with you, and that will always be enough for me. You changed my life, made it a life worth living. And besides, they now have life's of their own to live." He grabbed her hand and intertwined it in his. "You and me, forever and always." He recited with a smile.

"Forever and always."

Well. I guess that's it. The end of my first story. It's been a long ride. A ride with its twists and turns, with its problems, flaws. I'll be the first to admit, it wasn't perfect. But if it had been, I wouldn't have learned some of the things I did about writing a story. The numbers that we achieved blew my mind. Nearly six hundred followers, about three hundred and sixty favorites and nearly three hundred reviews. This story is also in twelve different communities. This story took on a life of its own, it was way bigger than I could've ever imagined. So many stories go unnoticed here, but somehow mine didn't and I only have you all to thank for that. SO THANK YOU! And I can never say it enough. And with all of its faults, I like to think, this story got its proper ending. A good ending. Thank you all.

As warned in the last chapter, there is a big announcement. The Potter Will stories prologue is being released TODAY. The name of this story is, How It Should've Been. Aside from today's release, the story will normally be posted on Wednesday's every other week. Be on the look out for that and here is the summary for it:

What if the Potter's will wasn't sealed? What if Sirius was declared innocent? This is the story of those 'what ifs?'. Now we must find out what happened in past years and what will happen in the coming ones. Love, hate, they're the game we're playing. And the name of the game is L&W. We just need to find out what it means and how to win because 'what if?' can be a deadly question.