We come to the end of this story. My wife believes that I may have dragged this on too long, but I am glad that I hit so many great ideas in a very full plotline. (Perhaps this should have been broken up into separate stories, like book 8/9 of a Harry Potter AU)

Final song correlations, and my favorite ones:

Hermione (end): we're in this together

Narcissa (end): with teeth!

I find myself in the apparition spot deep within Malfoy Manor, wondering why Fate brought me back here and what point of time it was.

Soon enough, I overheard Dobby in the dungeons talking to Harry and Ronald, which was quickly drowned out by my own blood-curdling screams.

Bellatrix is torturing me upstairs.

I have seen this moment in two perspectives now; both in my own and in Narcissa's.

This makes the third perspective... Three again.

I disillusion myself and make my way up to the imminent fight, knowing that Dobby, Harry, and Ronald were going to quickly rush the Malfoys and Fenrir and get the drop on them.

Did they have any wands? How did they succeed when they were outnumbered?

I knew Harry had to disarm Draco, so I left that to him. Fenrir could get confunded, and I would be the one to kill Lucius once I'm left behind.

That's what changed; I left with Harry and Ron last time because Dobby didn't take a step to the left.

I shook the temporal paradox out of my head, remembering how Harry knew he could cast the perfect Patronus Charm because he saw himself do it already.

As I entered the room full of chaos, I had my wands drawn on Fenrir and Lucius and confunded the pair of them as the massive duel unfolded before me.

The chandelier came crashing down as I remembered, and Bellatrix was her usual unhinged (but very much still alive) self.

Just kill her now… you know you could do it…

I had the Harbinger Wand pointed at her as I cast the Killing Curse, and… nothing happened.

Damn it.

As I thought to use my regular wand, the silver dagger was already flying towards Dobby and it became painfully clear what my role was here.

I made a silent plea of mercy as I threw a weak banishing charm at the House Elf, shoving Dobby to the left and making the dagger not hit him in the center of his chest as Trixy had been aiming for.

I cringed as the knife hit with such force that the shoulder was hit, and the weight pulling Dobby in different directions made him splinch, leaving his arm behind with a scared, hysterical Hermione Granger.

Narcissa took the moment as Lucius and Fenrir were still recovering from the confundus as Bellatrix cheered gleefully at hitting Dobby to shoving Draco's wand under the crumpled form of Hermione. Cissy protected her son the best she could and hoped that Hermione would realize what just happened.

"She is MINE!" Lucius proclaimed, nearly strutting in place as Hermione's hands whipped out a raw Sectumsempra curse across the room, bisecting the Malfoy Patriarch in one swish.

Magic flowed through the room, from Lucius to Hermione and she gasped in painful pleasure as the Bonding transferred onto her.

I couldn't help but grin as my wife intervened.

"Stop! We must respect tradition!" Narcissa said, shocked as she felt the Compulsion demand that she protect her new spouse.

Bellatrix cocked her head and looked like a sad puppy who didn't understand why they couldn't torture and kill the muggle-born. "What are you talking about, Cissy dear?"

Narcissa regained her composure ever so slightly. "The mudblood… defeated my husband… in a legal duel, on his own property." She looked to Bella. "She wins his estate by default."

Feeling reassured that the timeline was restored, I made my way back down to the apparition spot and twisted into nothingness, my destination firmly planted in my mind: The Department of Mysteries.

As I make my way to the lowest floor of the Ministry, 'Bob' was there, looking at me with utter confusion.

"Miss Granger… why are you here?"

"No time to explain, Croaker... I'm the Harbinger."

"How did you know I am… ? Harbin...? Okay, I know that prophecy, Miss Granger. But, um, I haven't seen anything to indicate that-"

"In my timeline, before the Fates were killed, magic quit working. Also, it's Mrs. Granger-Black now. I won Narcissa in a deal with Lucius."

His eyes widened as he instantly became a believer. "...becomes a wife by ending life... Okay. What do you need?"

I pulled out the charmed spectacles that belonged to Luna's mother.

"Get these to Severus. And don't tell me that you saw me, is that clear?" As I handed it over, I realized that I was fulfilling a temporal paradox. Those glasses will exist twice in the same point of time.

"Temporal Paradoxes are mandatory course material here. Understood. Should I know anything… without revealing too much?"

"Trust Harry, and trust whom he chooses to trust."

"Why wouldn't I trust Ron- oh." I couldn't keep my face neutral at the mention of his name. "I'm sorry. Is there anything else I can do for you?"

I took a breath to steel my nerves. "I need the Resurrection Stone and access to the Fate Chamber."

That surprised him. "I can get you that, but the chamber is always locked!" He looked down at my wand and saw the symbol at the end of the handle. "Though I guess that would work as a key." We went and got the stone from his office vault, and wished me well as I was going to twist back Fate.

The Fates were in a suspended animation; they weren't alive nor dead, but neither could they move or talk. The spinning wheel was also in a state of flux, both spinning and stationary as the loom seemed to 'stutter' at making the Tapestry of Life.

"Merlin's Whore." I swore as I looked up and saw the full length of the Tapestry of Life spiral above me. It was all of recorded history, and I could pick any point in time and travel there.

I could assassinate Salazar Slytherin before he puts the Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets.

I could kill Tom Riddle when he was yet a baby in the orphanage.

I could end Bellatrix before she ever became a Lich.

As I looked at how the Tapestry was woven, I knew that undoing any of those moments would have disastrous results.

I would lose Narcissa and Carina.

I wondered then if TrixyMort had changed the timeline at all, as she would have not chosen to stabilize Dobby to stab him square in the chest when she could have undone Harry reflecting the Killing Curse onto The Dark Lord.

If she didn't unwind Fate, what did she do?

I didn't see as much as feel the presence behind me, and I turned to see a violently livid TrixyMort, equally frozen still and 'stuttering' as if a millisecond was replaying itself on a continual loop.

She's been trapped here, so this reality was caused by my inaction?

This wasn't the first temporal paradox I faced, but it did confuse me. I had to live through this reality in order to change it and make Dobby take one step left.

I looked back up to the Tapestry of Life, found my wedding day, and pulled myself through the thread to return to that point in time.

I found myself in Narcissa's quarters, leaning over the crib to see my daughter Carina.

"I'm home, Carina. Mama's home."

Crookshanks trotted past me and gave my ankle a quick face-rub as he turned the corner and hunched down, as if preparing to attack. I knew something was up, so I disillusioned myself and followed my familiar and saw him hissing at my doppelganger in the room.

"Surly, get Carina out of here!" I whispered, raising my wand to strike them down.

As Surly popped in and rescued carina, Crookshanks leapt into action.

"Crookshanks! What are you doing to Hermione?!" Narcissa asked as I shot the killing curse and struck the imposter down.

Cissy turned, wand ready and panicking as I put up a shield and disillusioned myself.

"Wife, it's me! Look at the body!" As the Polyjuice potion wore off at death, we saw my features morph back into Percy Weasley. "Surly took Carina someplace safe."

Startled, or at least just confused, she lowered her wand as she looked over Percy. "You know it's bad luck to see the bride before the wedding."

I smiled, grateful to be back. "We've been married since the day I set foot in Malfoy Manor, my love. Now, will you trust me?"

Cissy summoned a vial out of Percy's pocket and inspected it. "Exploding potion. Not much to do any real damage."

My mind raced to think of the wedding we were about to have. "It's not the only one… Protean Charm."

Narcissa nodded in understanding. "We need to evacuate the area."

"Actually, your sister is coming to slaughter us all right now. Collect all the potion vials; we're going to need it."

"Bellatrix is coming? But she can't be killed-"

"I know, only the dead can kill the dead." The feeling of the resurrection stone was heavy in my pocket. The Goblins used this to start an apocalypse, now I'm going to use it to end one.

I pulled out the stone and flipped it over three times, thinking of all those who have died due to TrixyMort's reign of terror.

The ghostly apparitions of Neville, Mad-Eye, Tonks, Fred, Bill, Remus, Dean, Nigel, Collin, Leanne, Romilda, Lavender, Sirius, and Pandora Lovegood appeared before me.

"I need your help. Bellatrix is a Lich, and only the dead…"

"Say no more, Hermione." Neville replied. "I've been waiting for this day." His voice was darker than I had ever remembered. Even I was more aligned with the Dark than during the War.

Mad-Eye looked off into the distance. "She's raising an Inferi Army."

Narcissa looked at the exploding potion. "I think I can handle that… where's the Elder Wand?"

I frowned at that. "She probably has it, and I'm wielding the Harbinger." As I look out the window, the sky begins to get blotted out with unnatural darkness. The temperature plummets and it's apparent as to what just happened.

"Now I know where all the Dementors that she 'ate' went…" My mind went back to the prophecy and how my Patronus had changed.

Raising my own wand, I cast the spell and watched a giant lioness bound out of the castle and go after the Dementors. Outside I could hear others begin to do the same as we realized we were being ambushed.

"Accio Broom!" Cissy called out, and within seconds, we were flying out of the castle and over the battlements to face off TrixyMort one last time.

I had never seen a Patronus fight another Patronus before, but my lioness was fighting a splintered-looking serpent that must have been hers.

Bellatrix still wore the face of Voldemort's skull like a mask, and it terrified me. "How are you here? I thought Percy said he got Ron to steal you away!"

"He's dead, and so are you, lich!" I shouted back, reveling in my rage and anger.

"I am the Lord of Death! I am a GOD! I squibbed the world so I had enough power to destroy the Elder Wand, and now I control it!"

"That's nice. I stopped you."

She seemed to spit venom at that, too enraged to reply. I took the moment and fired off another patronus to deliver a message to Kingsley Shacklebolt. 'Rookwood is the last traitor in the Ministry, be careful: he's an Unspeakable. Best to send a howler laced with Erumpent Horn.'

TrixyMort's dead, red eyes locked back onto me. "You cannot kill me for I am already dead. Death Himself will not touch me."

The Dementors swarming overhead were chased away by the multitude of Patronuses and Narcissa flew overhead, throwing all of the exploding vials onto the Inferi Army all at once.

The massive explosion distracted her enough that my lioness patronus got her jaws around the serpent and snapped its neck, and I cackled with glee.

The remnants of the Inferi Army were still trying to crawl their way to attack the school and the wedding, but I felt Yggdrassil's roots go through the earth and sprout out fine vines to grasp and bind down the remnants of the undead to the ground, immobilizing the army in one fell swoop.

"But I have the Deathstick!" She shrieked. I knew there was some kind of malevolent grin as I felt the spirits of my friends take the field and begin to rip her apart, piece by piece. It was almost too easy as I shattered the Wand of Destiny with the Harbinger Wand. Once I vanished the pieces to nothingness, the Harbinger Wand itself dissolved into thin air.

It was finally over. Bellatrix the Lich was finally dead, and I reveled in the sounds of her soul being ripped apart by the spirits I had summoned with the stone.

"Hermione?" Narcissa asked, her voice quivering.

I found myself kneeling over her sister's remains, fingers trailing the mask that once was Voldemort's skull.

There was a type of morbid beauty there, and power. It called out to my hand as I caressed it.

"What are you doing with that?"

"I won it, it's mine." I replied simply. I couldn't understand why she didn't get that.

"Hermione, you have to destroy it!" There was panic and fear in her voice, and I wanted to console her. I wanted her to know that it would be alright.

"But I won it. By rights, it belongs to me." I lift the mask, inhaling the sweet sickness of decay as I bring it to my face. Cissy's hands have my wrists in a vice-like grip.

"Belongs to you… just like I do?" Her question struck me as odd. Of course she belongs to me!

"Yes." I shook that away. That was how Lucius treated her. "...no... I mean, I love you."

Her eyes met mine, her beautiful blue eyes, and I saw the depths of her soul as we connected on that fundamental level we have.

"I love you too. Please, for the sake of the world, and for us, destroy it."

I understood where she was coming from. Yet I could feel the power that this had, and what I could do with it.

"But I can do so much good with it! I'd be unstoppable with this much power; I could call up every corpse and destroy every Dark Wizard that exists! Can't you imagine it? A hundred years of peace!"

"No, Hermione. You can't control that power. Nobody should."

She pulled one of my hands off the mask and held my hand. The contact seemed to strengthen our connection.

"Think of us, think of Carina. She wouldn't want you to become a Lich. Please. I'll help you destroy the mask."

Afterword

Narcissa and I went to going to Kings Cross with Carina in tow to watch Teddy get onto the Hogwarts Express for the first time, waving to Harry and Andi.

"We are right bastards, you know." Cissy says as I laugh.

"Oh, let him have his surprise." Draco says, waving to the new students from the platform.

A pregnant Ginny is held in and embrace by Harry while Draco's other hand is holding hers. "Do you think he'll face much bullying for having two dads and a mom?" Ginny asked.

Fleur smiled at that. "Not when people realize how many of his family members are teaching there."

Severus and Fleur stood side by side, getting special attention when Teddy pointed out 'Uncle Severus' and the other students gasped in amazement. "Staff meeting in one hour; we have a retirement party to organize for Minerva."

It would be a few more years before I taught Carina in Transfiguration, but I would savor every day with my wife and daughter as if it were my last.