Here we are, the last chapter. I took a really long break in between but here it is. Thanks to those of you who have had the patience to stay with this story to the end!

Chapter 17: The Gift and the Present

The hallway of the Department of Magical Transportation was relatively quiet. The rain beat on the surface of the enchanted windows dolefully as Elise, the young, crude, present-day Elise, exited the lift wearing a lanyard around her neck.

Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny left the storeroom, rubbing their heads.

"Can we choose somewhere else to volunteer after lunch?" Ron asked, "I don't want to be anywhere near that metro-thingy."

Hermione sighed. "It's called a metronome, Ronald! Although I do agree with you; it was quite noisy. No wonder it's being kept in a storeroom like that!"

"It was like, one second we were looking at it and the next we were on the floor with massive headaches," Harry thought aloud.

Fuhrman's tall form approached them, her long dark hair in a messy ponytail. She was wearing her favorite combat boots and a tank top that showed off her biceps.

Her amber eyes watched Ron as she passed. "Wotcher, Weasley?" she asked, "Something wrong with your head?"

"Ron's just having a headache. We're all kind of having one, actually," Harry answered.

Her animal-like eyes had suddenly found prey. "I didn't ask you, did I, Potter?"

Ginny's eyebrows rose menacingly. Harry could feel her tense next to him. "So you're the cow Harry's been telling me about!" she snarled, "You're Fuhrman!"

Fuhrman looked her up and down, eying her curiously. "You might be a twat, Potter, but you have good taste in women. It's Ginny, is it?"

"What's it to you?" Ginny spat.

Fuhrman shrugged coolly, "Nothing, I suppose. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a storeroom to clean." Fuhrman strolled past them, purposefully bumping into Harry, and entered the storage closet.

Ginny grasped her wand in her hand, looking back at the polished wood door through which Fuhrman had just left. "Some people in this world just need a good bat bogey hex."

She turned to go back into the storeroom, but Harry grasped her arm.

"Just forget about it, Ginny."

Fury filled Ginny's face with Weasley scarlet. "Forget about it? Harry, she called you a twat!"

"I know."

"She's been goading you this whole year."

"I know."

"Then why aren't you letting Ginny hex her?" Ron asked, "It's always fun to watch- I mean, except when she does it to me."

"It's because Harry knows that kind of combative conduct isn't allowed between aurors outside of training. Right, Harry?" Hermione suggested hopefully.

"Well, no, it's not about the rules," Harry hesitated, "It's just…she's here to volunteer, isn't she? Maybe we should let her do her job." He couldn't shake this feeling he had. He hated Fuhrman for her pettiness and her generally nasty behavior and her assumption that he was an attention-seeking brat, but for some strange, inexplicable reason, a voice much like his own echoed inside of his head: you'll find that Elise Fuhrman has a bigger heart than you could ever know. It might have been intuition, but his intuition had never felt so tangible, so familiar, like an old box he had stored in an attic and long forgotten.

Ginny and Ron's mouths hung slightly open in disbelief, but Ginny eventually folded her arms and nodded down the hall as if to say, Fine, let's go.

The four of them piled into the lift.

"I know it's still early, but I feel like I've been awake for hours," Ron complained.

"It's probably the headaches," Hermione explained, "We'll feel better after we eat."

She pressed the button for the Atrium, but the lift stopped at level one.

"Level one," the cool female voice said, "Minister for Magic and Support Staff, including Senior Undersecretary and Junior Assistant to the Minister for Magic."

A small excitable man in a purple top hat strolled into the lift. His face lit up at the sight of the four. It was Dedalus Diggle.

"Well, hello there, you lot! I thought I would see you here, Harry."

"Hi, Dedalus," Harry answered.

"Just been in to see Kingsley." Dedalus winked at them. "He's found an Undersecretary that he'd like to appoint. Things are looking up, but there is certainly a lot to be done. Every department's gone awry since the War, and eleven months hasn't been enough to get it all back to normal."

"Atrium," the cool female voice said. The five of them left the lift as more volunteers rushed to take their place.

Hermione eyed the volunteers. "I can't imagine all of the work that Kingsley is doing right now. I don't think I could take all of that responsibility."

Ron chuckled lightly.

Hermione scowled. "Just what is so funny, Ron?"

Ron rolled his eyes, "Hermione, you're brilliant at, like, everything. I wouldn't be surprised if you ran for Minister some day."

"I don't think so. I'm not interested in politics." She flushed with embarrassment. "Besides, it's very difficult to become Minister; you would need to be popular with everyone in the community and-"

"That wouldn't be hard," Ron interjected, "People would love you, Hermione. I can just imagine everyone waving to you and saying 'Hello Madam Minister' everywhere you go."

Harry wondered if this was something Ron had read about in Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches. Charm your partner by visualizing her success…

Dedalus rocked on his toes excitedly. "He isn't wrong, my dear. If you are half the witch everyone says you are, you could have a great career in politics."

Hermione looked down sheepishly. "Thanks, Dedalus, and thank you, Ron." She grasped Ron's hand.

"Someone's going to get a snog later," Ginny whispered in Harry's ear, "I'll bet you they won't be available when Mum asks them to set the table tonight." Harry privately hoped that he, too, would get a snog later, but right now all he wanted was lunch.

As the four set across the Atrium it seemed as though half of the Wizarding World was still in line at the registration desks. The War had done nothing to soften their passion for change, their yearning for the better. If anything, it had strengthened it. It was a line through time, unyielding, unbroken, stretching into forever, it seemed. Same line, same dimension, the voice in Harry's head thought. People stared as they passed. Some of their school friends, like Demelza Robins, waved happily. The four of them finally opted to take the old telephone booth up to the streets of London.

The telephone booth was never big enough to fit four people, theoretically, so when it finally rose to the surface on the city streets, the four wizards struggled out. The spring air outside was cool and fresh, much unlike the warm sunny affair depicted in children's books about the seasons. Harry didn't mind it, though, as it gave him an excuse to hold Ginny's hand and keep her close as they walked their way to the Leaky Cauldron, led on by their yearning for butterbeer and superb fish and chips.

"Maybe after we finish volunteering we can go and see George," Ron suggested, finally throwing open the door to the Leaky, "Haven't seen a lot of him since-,"

He stopped in his tracks, squinting concernedly. It wasn't hard to see why. Angelina Johnson stood in front of the bar, her arms folded somberly. There were two butterbeers in front of her, an odd detail considering that she was all by herself. She appeared to be waiting for something. The four of them approached her tentatively.

"How are you, Angelina?" Harry asked. He realized a moment too late that this was a stupid question.

Angelina surveyed him tiredly. There were black circles underneath her eyes. "Hey, Harry. What was that?"

"Um..Are you okay?"

She shuffled her feet a little, glancing over her shoulder, "Well, I'm okay. Can't say the same for George. He's here with me."

"Doesn't look like it," said Ron.

She shook her head. "He's in the loo. Sometimes we'll be in a public place, you know, and he'll just break down and-" Her face reddened, as if she had said too much. "He just needs a few minutes is all. I mean, considering everything lately…"

The four of them knew exactly what she was talking about. The twins' birthday had been two days ago, and it had been one of the most difficult experiences for the Weasleys. George had politely told his family that he would rather not have a big birthday celebration, and would instead like to celebrate alone in the quiet of his flat. On the surface, that sounded fine, except that a concerned Angelina later implied that George had spent an extremely dark day in his flat, and she refused to give all of the details when asked.

"You can sit with us while you're waiting, Angelina," Hermione suggested, "We were just about to order some fish and chips."

"Nice choice, Hermione. I'll get some too." It was George. His eyes looked red and puffy, and there was a certain emptiness to his gaze, a flame that had been subdued. He desperately tried to hide it, but it was hard not to notice. A thing that I thought you understood is the terrible destruction of the mind that occurs when someone close to us is ripped away. Harry agreed with the Voice. He did understand. He did. The Voice did not want him to be ashamed. But it also refused to let that destruction consume him or those he cared about.

George sat next to Angelina as they ordered a few butterbeers and some fish and chips from Tom the barkeep. After several sips of butterbeer, George cocked his head curiously.

"Harry," he whispered, "Do you think we'll be okay? After everything?" This was a different side of George, to see him bore his eyes into Harry's with such seriousness over this one question. Angelina's eyebrows were in her hairline, which told Harry that she had never heard this question from him either.

Harry searched his brain for an answer, but was surprised to find that the Voice already had one. "I know we'll be okay, George," he said. It was as if somebody else was using Harry's lips, Harry's voice, and whoever it was had mountains of wisdom and confidence that currently surpassed his own.

"We'll all be really successful some day, I know it," Ginny said, "Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes might be all over the world someday, George."

"You think so?" George wondered.

"The future's full of possibilities, Mate," Ron added.

The future? Harry sat up with a jolt. "I just realized! Teddy's birthday is in two weeks! I haven't gotten him anything!"

Ron laughed. "Mate, it's two weeks. He's turning one. Calm down."

"Teddy's a cute kid," George said. A spark entered his eyes, and, miraculously, for the first time in weeks, possibly for the first time in months, he smiled. "Harry, I have the best idea for his birthday! It'll be like a WWW product, but safe enough for babies. It'll be a present to remember!"

"But he won't remember it," Hermione chuckled, "He's a baby."

"Who cares!" the others chorused, their faces alight. As George went into brainstorming mode with Ron, Angelina smiled over George's shoulder. Thank you, she mouthed to them.

Were any of them really okay? No, not entirely. But they were positive they would be, some day. They were looking forward to life's tidings, to the blossoming of winter into spring, to birthdays and births, to making new friends of old enemies, to forging new paths.

What fueled them was the promise of more, the promise of the only constant:

Change.

Hooray! My first mutli-chapter fic is done! This is certainly not the last fanfiction I will write, so stay tuned for future stories from CrookshanksTheKneazle!