Battle Royale

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all associated characters, places, and terms are property of J.K. Rowling.

Chapter 9: Epilogue: Fifteen Years Later

Hermione Potter and Daphne Greengrass were having tea on a quiet Saturday afternoon at the home of Daphne's good friend, Tracey Davis. The three women were catching up on the latest happenings in each of their lives. Much to her chagrin, Hermione had graduated second in her year, losing the top position to Daphne. The Slytherin girl gleefully rubbed it in whenever she though Hermione was being an "insufferable know-it-all." Ironically, Hermione was Daphne's superior at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement where they both worked. Hermione was making a lot of progress in reversing many of the laws biased in favor of Purebloods. Daphne was of great help in that endeavor because she knew how Purebloods thought and was instrumental in convincing many of them to agree to Hermione's reforms.

As for Harry Potter, he was the current head of the Auror department. The fact that Hermione and Daphne, his wife and concubine respectively, worked on the same floor made work pleasant on most days. Of course if they were mad at him, his work day was miserable and he would find himself sleeping on the couch.

On her part, Daphne kept her promise to never forget about her friend Tracey. In fact, that was why the three of them had tea together every week. In return, Tracey would often help babysit the Potters' four children, all of whom were attending Hogwarts at the moment.

"So how are things with Roger?" Daphne asked Tracey with a mischievous smirk on her face.

"He's doing well," Tracey replied. "Ironic that I would end up dating a Ravenclaw."

"Nothing wrong with that at all," Daphne replied. "After all, I am with a Gryffindor. One who has a silly habit of trying to save the world. Besides, would you have preferred to end up with someone like Goyle?"

Tracey shuddered at the thought. "Merlin, no. Who knows what would happen if we ever had kids."

"Now all the boy has to do is stop sitting on his ass and propose," Hermione stated. "You've been going out for what? Nine years now?"

"Ten actually," Tracey replied. "Our anniversary was a couple weeks ago."

"And you didn't tell us?" Daphne said. "I think I might need to threaten the boy."

"He treats me well," Tracey said with a small smile. "He knows I can set him in his place if he does something to displease me. And I'm not in any hurry to get married or have children. I've had four of your children to spoil."

"And a good job you've done of that," Hermione said. "They always come back asking when they'll see Aunt Tracey again."

"Well they're Slughorn's problem now," said Tracey.

"Only Daphne's two are in Slytherin," Hermione said. "Mine are in Gryffindor remember?"

"Ah, that's too bad," Daphne said teasingly. "I always thought that Gryffindors were useless."

"Only if their last name is Weasley," Hermione deadpanned.

"Speaking of which, have you heard anything about George?" Tracey asked. "Last I heard he was married to Angelina but that was several years ago."

"And he still is," Hermione replied. "He's still running the joke shop. Since Harry gave Fred and George the money to start up their business, George sends us updates on how he's doing, along with samples of their new gags to 'try on our children when they're being naughty.'"

"Even I think that's cruel and unusual punishment," Daphne commented. "I'd much rather test it on his weasel of a brother."

"We managed to prank him a lot when he was in the Auror corps," Hermione said. The memories of many a prank on Ron Weasley brought a smile to Hermione's face.

"But now that he's working for George, it'd probably be hard to prank him," said Daphne. "He probably knows all the gags by now, even if he is an idiot."

"Since we're talking about Weasel, whatever happened to Ginny?" Tracey asked.

Mention of Ginny caused Daphne reminisce back to the wonderfully brilliant prank that Harry pulled on Ginny in their final year at Hogwarts. After Ginny passed out, Professor McGonagall had taken the girl to the hospital wing and placed her in the care of Madam Pomfrey. When she awoke, Ginny immediately ran to her dorm room to look for the letter that Harry had sent her in order to prove that Harry wanted to propose to her, but all she found were ashes where the letter should have been. The Weasley girl suffered ridicule for the remainder of her time at Hogwarts. However, when it came out that Ginny had attempted to sabotage Hermione and Daphne's relationships with Harry on more than one occasion earlier in the year, Ginny earned the scorn of many of her classmates and was the victim of pranks up until the very end.

After a rather private "celebration" of Harry's proposal to Hermione, Hermione confessed to both Harry and Daphne that she was extremely surprised that Harry would propose marriage to her. Hermione then offered Daphne the honor of being Mrs. Potter because she owed Daphne for giving her the push she needed to finally date Harry, which meant that Hermione would settle for concubine status. But Daphne replied that Hermione had been Harry's best friend since first year and stood by him when everyone else had abandoned him, which is why it was fitting that Hermione should become Mrs. Potter. Hermione could not come up with a good counter-argument so Daphne ended up as the concubine. Hermione commented to Daphne on occasion that she sometimes thought that Daphne gave up being Mrs. Potter just so that Hermione would be distracted enough so as not to end up first in their year at graduation. Daphne would always reply with a smirk.

Unknown to Harry and Hermione, Daphne actually kept her list of competitors from the contest the girls had throughout the year. In fact, it was proudly displayed in the bedroom she shared every other day with Harry. However, she made a few changes to the list. The first change was that she added Hermione's name to the list. Daphne also put a header that read "The Future Mrs. Potter." Except for her name and Hermione's, all the other girls' names were crossed off. Hannah had never been officially eliminated from the contest, but after Daphne told Hannah to burn her list on her own, Hannah's name crossed itself out. As far as Harry and Hermione knew, the list displayed was the same one that Ginny had sent to Hermione in an attempt to get her to turn on Daphne. When asked why Ginny's name was now on the list, Daphne merely stated that she thought it was fitting that Ginny Weasley's name should be added to the list and crossed out like all the others because it was a testament to the fact that Harry had chosen both her and Hermione over all the other possible candidates. Harry and Hermione were none the wiser, but Daphne was not going to let them believe otherwise. After all, why ruin a perfectly good thing? She was happy as Harry's concubine; she had a good job and was part of a good family.

"Somehow she manages to keep herself in the spotlight," Hermione told Tracey. "She's been playing as a chaser for the Holyhead Harpies since graduation and the team has been doing well."

"Yeah," Daphne agreed. "I have to admit that she's done a good job of repairing her reputation. Our classmates did not take it well when they heard she tried to sabotage our relationship."

"As long as she doesn't try to steal Harry away from us again, we'll leave her alone," Hermione said as she sipped her tea.

"Maybe I should try to steal him away from you two," Tracey said with a playful laugh.

"You'll keep your hands to yourself if you know what's good for you," Daphne said threateningly.

"My my, aren't we possessive?" Tracey teased her friend.

Daphne saw Hermione glance at her watch and gave her a questioning look.

"Harry will be home for supper soon," Hermione told her. "Shall we head home?"

"Where is Harry?" Tracey asked.

"Now that Neville's Professor of Herbology at Hogwarts, Harry's been visiting the school every time we come here," Daphne replied. "It gives him an excuse to see the children."

"He really loves them, doesn't he?"

"He does," Hermione said. "We all do. And we wouldn't have it any other way."

"So who's turn is it to sleep with Harry tonight?" Daphne asked Hermione as they left Tracey's home.

"Yours," Hermione replied with some curiosity. "Why do you ask? You know that we take turns keeping our man company at night when he's not being naughty."

"Except you like it when he's naughty," Daphne said playfully. "Because the sex gets that much better."

"Hah," Hermione scoffed. "I know you're thinking the same thing."

Daphne's face flushed. "You know me too well. It's just that I was thinking that we should give Tracey another Potter kid to spoil."

Hermione cocked an eyebrow at Daphne. "Oh? I thought we were done at four. Still, I suppose Harry wouldn't mind."

"Perhaps an ambush is in order for him tonight?" Daphne said with a mischievous grin.

"I like where your head is Greengrass," Hermione said, returning Daphne's mischievous grin with one of her own. "Now where do you suggest we lie in wait?"

"The bedroom, where else? Harry will never know what hit him."

A/N: And that's the end of the story. I hope you've enjoyed it. I do apologize for the length of time in between updates for the previous chapters, but hopefully this one makes up for it. It took me a while to come up with devious schemes for some of the chapters since I was trying to do stuff that had never been used before. I didn't have Harry marry both of them because I wanted to do something a little out of the ordinary. For those of you who are wondering, neither Harry nor Hermione ever found out about the contest. While writing this Epilogue I thought of a rather unique Harry/Hermione/Ginny plot that'll just be a one-shot. Once again, any feedback would be appreciated.