A/N: Wow, final chapter. My first inclination was to call this an epilogue, but I just couldn't bring myself to call it that because there have been one too many epilogues in the HP series already, lol. So instead, to quote Steve Jobs, I give you, "One more thing..."

LUNA LOVEGOOD and the TROUSER SNAKE

(But Here's What Really Happened)

CHAPTER NINE

ONE MORE THING...

Three hours later, Harry and Hermione breathed a sigh of relief when the Fat Lady's portrait was finally in sight. They had made it back to the common room, in one piece. Though they were both limping slightly.

Their activities this afternoon had been no more vigorous than last night, however, they realized that with three people involved, they had tried new things that required new positions that they weren't quite expecting.

Now, Harry truly did have a strained muscle in his leg that wasn't a euphemism for something else. And Hermione's legs, back, and arms were sorer than the time Moody had taught them emergency tactical broom flying.

The new two-thirds of a trio walked arm in arm as they approached. Before they had left the bath, the three sat together on the steps of the bath and just held each other as best they could in that position. (The bath had not been designed with cuddling in mind.) They spent about twenty minutes discussing how they felt about everything that had happened and where they wanted things to go in the future.

The easy part was that they all agreed this felt right and that it was what all three of them wanted. The hard part was how exactly they wanted to proceed. Strictly for context, Luna explained how plural marriages worked in wizarding society but confessed she didn't know how plural courting or dating worked… or how it was regarded by said society.

Marrying two women was completely acceptable under the appropriate conditions, but dating two women, publicly, was a little more complicated. It was sometimes hard to tell the difference between plural courting and philandering.

Luckily, they knew that nothing had to be decided today. No one even knew that Harry and Hermione were officially dating yet. Should they announce themselves as a couple first, then add Luna later? Or wait and declare themselves as a trio?

Everyone agreed that to satisfy the fickle whims of wizarding society, they needed to do more research on the customs of plural marriages with special emphasis on what happened before marriage or engagement. Hermione would check the library for books on the topic while Luna would ask her father to ask some of his more eccentric friends who might know about uncommon things. And Harry was nominated to ask the headmaster in his role as Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot.

At first, Harry was loath to discuss his romantic interests with Professor Dumbledore. But then Hermione reminded him of the times that he had complained about the headmaster's occasional cryptic comments about the power of love and Harry's ability to love over the past many years, and how the wizened wizard refused to explain it any clearer than that. So, what better way to get some legal advice and also test the headmaster's belief in the power of love?

Even though Harry was sure this wasn't what the headmaster had intended it to mean. Then again, all the better reason to ask. Suddenly, Harry was a little more eager to discuss this after all!

In the short term, nothing needed to change between the three of them in public other than the occasional discreet game of footsie in the Great Hall. And of course, the occasional visit to the Prefects' Bath or Room of Requirement… if they could secure that. Hopefully, it wouldn't take them more than a few days or weeks to work out the proper protocols so they wouldn't have to hide their new relationship… at least without announcing an engagement.

Just short of the portrait hole, Harry felt a tug on his arm as Hermione stopped short.

"Oh no!"

With her free arm, she put her hand on her forehead in annoyance as though she'd just realized something unpleasant.

"What?" Harry asked, perplexed.

"I can't believe it. It's… it's…." she bemoaned, clearly indicating just how—whatever it was—was.

"What's the matter?" he asked, now slightly concerned.

"I can't believe… I… it… I'm never going to hear the end of it!"

Harry looked around to see if there was someone or something causing this. What could cause such an unhappy reaction in her? As the three of them were getting dressed (which took twice as long as it needed to), Hermione had told both of them how happy she now was, a feeling they both eagerly returned.

After sharing something so beautiful, what could possibly…?

Oh. NO!

"Hermione, please tell me you weren't mistaken about those contraception spells being good for eight hours, and not just one… erm, attempt. I know Luna said I'm supposed to have two kids with each of you after we're married… and the thought of it does really excite me… but I was kind of thinking more like a few years from now."

Hermione's attention was quickly recaptured at the sound of something that almost, sort of, sounded like a proposal. She understood the context and what he did and didn't mean right at that particular moment however, so she let it pass unmentioned for now.

"What? Oh, no. No, Harry, we're fine. Eight hours," she assured him. Her look of consternation quickly reappeared though. Harry brought his hands up and cupped the sides of her face. He leaned forward and gave her a little peck on the lips.

"What is it then? What's got you so upset?"

"Luna," she replied, sounding rather resigned.

"Luna? What about her? I thought we sorted that all out?"

"She drew you, Harry. She drew your… your…" Hermione seemed unable to say the last word. Why? Considering the things both of them had done with said body part, he found it quite amusing how at this very moment she seemed unable to say it outright.

But for the sake of his Trouser Snake, he felt it best not to point that out. So, he just broke the ice for her.

"My penis?" he offered, his voice deadpan.

"Your Trouser Snake," Hermione countered, a bit annoyed. "She saw it, Harry. She drew it."

"So? You know her. You said she agreed not to show anyone the drawings. 'Sides, I reckon I 'gave her quite the thrill' today when she saw it for real!" Harry teased smugly. Only because Hermione had said those exact same words yesterday when she told him about Luna's outlandish Trouser Snake story, was he willing to say them too.

Hermione rolled her eyes and swatted his arm playfully.

"No, no, Harry," Hermione replied, then suddenly corrected herself. "I mean, yes, yes to THAT, you definitely gave her quite the thrill. So did I," she added with a blush. "What I mean is, don't you see? She 'Saw' you, and then drew you."

"Yeah, I get that. You've said it three times already."

"No, she SAW you, in her 'vision.' She was right, Harry! Her drawing was absolutely and completely accurate, in every single, magnificent detail. Her drawing was perfect!"

Harry started to shake his head a little, still lost. His mouth was partially open, his unknown question unasked.

"Don't you realize what this means, Harry? Snorkacks are REAL!"

FINAL A/N: Well, I genuinely hope you enjoyed this. It literally took me twelve years to write this. Granted I was on hiatus for ten of those years, but at least finally, it is done. And to my immense pleasure and relief, it is MUCH better than I ever imagined possible back in 2008, especially when I ran into writer's block on everything regarding how to bring Luna. Once things fell into place, everything seems so simple and obvious now. But then again it always looks easier AFTER it's done. LOL! If you've enjoyed this, please leave a review to let me know.

For anyone who remembers the one last story of mine that is not on here, Their Way, well, I am hoping I can return to that and finally finish it. Leaving it unfinished when I stepped away from writing back in 2010 left an open wound on my writer's soul. As I said when I first came back to The Stowaway a few months ago, time has healed some old wounds. I hope to be able to finally come back to it soon. If you are interested in that story, please favorite or follow me as an author so you will get a notification if I post a "new" story here. If it does happen, it probably won't be for a while though. Although I have no intention to re-write the story from scratch, if I do come back to it, I'll most definitely go through each chapter one by one again just to reacquaint myself with all of the details of the full story, and as well as doing some minor edits and grammar polishing, etc. The update pacing on that story will be much slower there because I'll be editing and then posting one chapter at a time, whereas with these previous 3 stories, I edited/re-wrote the entire stories first before posting since they were so small.

BONUS: As a geek, I find it entertaining to make PDFs of my stories in a style that resembles the official US Harry Potter books. If you're interested to see these PDFs, or if you'd like to download any of my stories for permanent archive or for easy reading on mobile devices, please see my author's profile page where I list their file locations. I can't post direct links inside the story itself. These PDFs are EXACTLY the same as the stories published here, except in a prettier format.