Disclaimer - I do not own Harry Potter, but after finally completing this fic I feel like the characters are pretty much mine anyway and I shall continue to play with their lives in a sequel :P

AN - It is the end. Thank you for your continued support, patience and reviews. Enjoy :)

Epilogue

Harry sighed, putting down the last page of his father's occlumency diary. He couldn't believe it was over. He had gone through every scrap of paper in that chest - every photograph, news paper clipping and crumpled piece of parchment, and had rather come to the conclusion that his parents had lived rather melodramatic lives. Or perhaps what his mum and dad had gone through at Hogwarts was normal, and it was Harry who had largely missed out on life.

Neither he nor his friends had dealt regularly with tangled love lives, premature marriage proposals, pregnancy scares (thank Merlin!), or frequent Death Eater attacks (well, during school time). Was that part of what being a teenager or being at school was all about? Harry wished he had more answers, but made himself a promise that whatever happened next year when he returned to Hogwarts, he would make the most of every opportunity. After all, with Voldemort finally gone, he really had no reason not to.

Harry almost said aloud that he was quite lucky to be able to learn from his parents when they were no longer alive, but then thought better of it. He was glad that Ginny and the others had followed him to Godric's Hollow but at the same time it was an extremely private thing that he was sharing with them and he wanted to keep parts of it just to himself.

"You know, it's a bit odd that the notes just stop here," Ginny said, pulling Harry out of his musings.

"How come?"

"Well, it's just their stuff from when they were at school," she replied thoughtfully. "I mean, surely they would've kept newspaper clippings and letters after they'd left Hogwarts."

"Like Sirius did," Hermione added, as she and Ron reentered the room with four mugs of Butterbeer that they'd summoned.

"And they wouldn't've stopped writing in their occlumency diaries, would they? I mean, Sirius might've, but You-Know-Who was still around, wasn't he? They would've had to've kept them," Ron said thoughtfully.

"Well then, where are they?" Harry asked, irritated. Didn't they think he had looked already?

"I dunno, mate? Did you check the other rooms?"

"I glanced at them, but nothing stood out," Harry replied, slightly calmer after taking a long swig of his drink.

"I could do a revealing charm," Hermione suggested, "It should work unless they've specifically hidden their stuff behind layers of protective magic, which I don't think likely."

Harry just nodded, and watched as Hermione muttered something complex and moved her wand expertly in a circle.

"Does this house have a basement?" Hermione mused.

"I don't think so, why?"

"Because my wand's pointing downwards. It works like the four-point spell except instead of pointing you in the direction of North, it directs you towards the object of your desire. So, how do we get downstairs?"

After five minutes of searching the house, Ron discovered a panel next to one of the bookshelves in the Potter's study which opened up to a set of cold stone steps.

Harry, absolutely intrigued by this secret passage in his old home, descended without a second thought, lighting his wand along the way.

Ron was about to follow when Hermione put her arm out and shook her head.

"I think Harry needs to do this on his own," she said.

"If it's okay with you guys, I'm going to stay here and make sure he's okay," Ginny said.

"But it could be days," Ron protested.

"It's alright. I can summon food if we get hungry and I'll owl you if it takes longer than expected."

"Are you sure? I think Harry kind of needs to do this on his own," Hermione said awkwardly.

"Yeah, I know, but someone should be here for him just in case," Ginny said, her jaw set in determination.

"Right, then we'll leave you to it," Ron said, steering Hermione towards the front door so as to avoid a conflict. "See you."

Meanwhile, Harry had gotten to the bottom of the roughly hewn stairs. He was in what appeared to be a small cellar. Bottles of muggle wine, elf mulled mead, Firewhiskey, spirits and butterbeer all lined the walls in shelves. Candles which Harry promptly lit were shrouded in spiderwebs hanging in a small chandelier dangling from the ceiling, and more stumps of wax and wick could be seen half melted into a small wooden desk in the corner.

Harry made his way towards the desk and sat in the dusty armchair placed there. He closed his eyes for a moment, wondering if his parents could've hid down here when Voldemort came knocking. Of course he knew they couldn't; once the Fidelius charm is broken, there is no safe house, but the muggle in him couldn't help but think that a secret passage would equal safety.

He opened his eyes to see a large chest, not completely unlike the one upstairs in the bedroom, sitting on the floor next to the desk.

Eagerly, he pulled back the lid and found more reams of parchment and notes and scribblings. He couldn't help but grin, overjoyed that there was more to read, more to learn about the lives of his parents. Once again casting the spell to chronologically order the documents, Harry settled down to read.

AN - It's late at night and I'm sick and I am so sad and glad that this is finished. I know the epilogue was short, but I wanted it to match the prologue, so yes. Stay tuned for the sequel - I have the ENTIRE plan written out, it's just a matter of typing everything up and putting things together in my head.

Thank you all SOOOOOO much for reading and reviewing this stupidly long fanfiction. I sort of wish i could publish it properly but unfortunately due to copyright laws I can't. So I'm going to write my own original story as well as the sequel for scribblings. It's thanks to all your support and constructive crit that I think I could maybe possibly give writing something original a go so THANK YOU!!!

I hope to post again soon and I think now that I'm starting a new story (well, it's a sequel, but it's NEW) I'll be a bit more speedy with the updates.

Again, THANK YOU all for everything. It's been two long years but it's finally done. So I hope you enjoyed and I wish you all a HAPPY NEW YEAR and also HAPPY FANFICCING!!! :D