Epilogue

The alley was crowded and rowdy as she made her way down it. Ollivander had offered to open the floo for her, but she'd stubbornly insisted that they needed to talk first before he took that step. Stupid of her. People looked at her with mistrust, only made better by the fact that she was no longer pregnant and the children were at home with Draco and Severus. Still, shoulders bumped and shoved, paths were blocked, and Hermione felt their eyes everywhere on her. Judging her. Assessing her.

Finally, right by the end of the alley where it split right and left alongside Gringotts, she entered the old Ollivander's Wand Shop. The windows had been repaired, the shelves had been reassembled or replaced … the wands that had been there had all been either raided by the desperate or taken when the initial Death Eaters had captured him, but she saw the wands they had made while in hiding filling up one shelf on the back wall. It was progress, however small.

"Oh, my dear, you came," Ollivander ambled from the back room covered in sawdust and wood shaving, patting his glasses clean once again. He never protected them with magic as he believed it affected his vision of the wood's design, but he still needed a new handkerchief every day to clean them. It was good to see him, and the two exchanged a fond hug. "Finally ready to take over here? I'm getting on, you know."

Hermione smiled as she was led to the back room. "Well, the girls are finally on solid foods now. I thought it'd be the best time to come and negotiate with you."

"Negotiate?" Ollivander gave her an objecting eye. "You still insist you aren't simply going to take the shop?"

"That wouldn't be fair," Hermione insisted. "I know you said you still have plenty of money in your vault, but I insist on paying you something for this. You're heading to America, for goodness sakes! Portkeys that far are expensive, and I know you want to spoil your grandchildren too."

Ollivander sat in a wooden chair and Hermione headed to the little gas kitchenette to boil the kettle for tea. He always had tried to get her to stop, but she argued she was his apprentice and that it was her job. In truth, she could see war and age were catching up on the old wandmaker. He still walked with a limp from his torture, was tired more readily. He needed to leave and retire, but he felt responsible for keeping his shop open. That was the reason she came the moment she could leave her babies alone for longer than a few hours; he needed her to do this.

"The shop is your due," Ollivander said softly. "You saved my life and the lives of countless others. In truth, you deserve more than my little shop, but it seems the rest of the world is content to ignore you."

Hermione gave a half-hearted laugh. "You give me too much credit."

Ollivander looked at her like he was looking at one of his wands. Whatever he saw, he decided to ignore it. "What would you consider fair, then?"

"I don't suppose you'll let me pay you full price?"

Ollivander shook his head and they both shared a laugh.

"Alright, alright," Hermione smiled. "How about this; half price for the shop, and I buy your portkey to New York?"

Ollivander shook his head. "I will not put you out so much. You may purchase the portkey and perhaps even pay me a few months of rent, but no more."

"Garrick Ollivander," Hermione huffed, "you are such a Hornbeam!"

The old man smiled. "Then why do you fight my very nature?"

"Just because you're stubborn doesn't mean I'm not right," she waved the teaspoon in his direction. "At least let me give you some fraction of what this shop is worth."

"Very well. The fraction is ten percent."

"Don't make me laugh. You won't even accept half, so how about forty, at least."

"Twenty percent, then? Come now, don't be difficult.

"You're the one being difficult! How about thirty-three percent? A third?"

"25. That is still a hefty sum, Miss Granger, I will not accept any more."

Hermione huffed in frustration. Stubborn, stubborn Hornbeam! He wouldn't give up until he had done whatever he single-mindedly fixed his goal to.

"Twenty-five percent, your portkey, and I pay for your first year living in New York."

"I'm living with my daughter's family," Ollivander reminded her.

Hermione grinned. "Then you'll have no problem with me paying for food and expenses? What do you think, 500 galleons a month sound fair?"

"1200 for the year," he countered. "100 a month."

"2400," she shot back, bringing over the tea tray. "Think of it as a gift."

Ollivander rolled his eyes but nodded as she put the teacup in front of him. "Very well. Twenty-five percent, the portkey, and 2400 galleons over the course of the year."

Hermione smiled. "You're too kind, you know."

"As are you."

They clinked their teacups and drank to the deal.

It had taken her many lost naptimes, a few conferences with Ollivander, and two tear-stained breakdowns, but she had finished it. Her English Oak wand had been filled with the blood and heatstrings of the man once known as Voldemort and lacquered as well as she could for permanence. No one but those present at Grindelwald's final moment, and Severus, knew the center of her wand. It was her main wand for crafting, so in tune with her magic that it often led her to some strange wands with little reason or rhyme besides, 'the magic told her'.

The shop did well despite her presence there. At first people either came just to see the war heroine, or to condemn her. Nowadays things had calmed and Ollivander's was just as it had always been; a centerpiece to Diagon Alley's aesthetic.

She was lucky to have Severus. Some days he would take the girls and care for them, others he would be brewing for someone and the girls would come with her to work. They would play in the room upstairs while she carved and helped customers. Today was Severus' day with them, so she was surprised when her Floo activated mid-afternoon.

"Mama!" The young cry came from the direction of her fireplace. Setting aside the tools she was using, she barely had time to stand before her arms were full of a two tiny four-year-olds. "We've been good!"

"Don't you dare, little hellions," Severus came up behind the girls.

He may have looked severe, but the tenderness in his gaze towards her daughters made up for it. It made him unbelievably attractive to her. She'd rejected him many time over the years – the girls were still too young, she wasn't ready, she was living with him and didn't want to strain their friendship – but at some point she'd stopped fighting it and hadn't regretted it. She wanted him, and he wanted her. Damaged goods and all.

"Hermione, tell these two little beasts that my punishment still stands."

"What did you two do?" she asked the girls sternly, hands on her hips. "You know Severus wouldn't punish you if you were being good girls."

Thea was the ringleader of their group of friends, a little three-foot bundle of tenacity only quelled by her mother, Severus, or Terra when she was in a mild mood. And it looked like Severus had been given a bad day with the pair of them.

"Well?"

Terra caved first but tried her hardest to not look guilty. "Sev was making potions again, the nasty purple ones you make us drink when we are sick. We wanted to make them taste better."

"It was just the peach juice!" Thea interjected, trying to sound innocent. "We didn't know!"

Both girls adopted an infamous look of pure misery and innocence. Lips pouted, hands clasped behind their backs, tears welling in their blue eyes … That look had gotten countless leniency, favours, and sweets from the other adults in their lives and they always adopted that angelic look when they were about to be punished. They were dramatic little Slytherins, as Severus would say.

Hermione gave Severus an apologetic look. He shook his head. "They are fortunate the potion was already completed and didn't explode in their faces. As it is, that potion I left cooling was an order for Draco's main office and it will need to be redone."

"You know the rules," Hermione told her two wavy-haired miscreants. "Potions are dangerous, much more than mummy's work, and Severus is just as much responsible for you as I am. When you do something naughty, there are consequences because we care about you. So if he says you need a time out, or lines, or to clean your room, you have to listen to him. What did he tell you was your punishment?"

The girls looked down, not telling.

Snape rolled his eyes at their antics. "Not telling your mother doesn't mean she'll change the punishment, nor will I."

"But you're not our daddy!" Thea wailed petulantly.

Hermione raised her eyes to him, seeing the weight of those words in his eyes. He resolutely looked at the girls instead of her.

Taking this opportunity, Hermione knelt by the girls. "That wasn't nice, Thea."

"He's not!" Terra defended her sister with a stamp of her foot.

Hermione shook her head. "Not right now, no, he's not. But that doesn't mean he hasn't raised you just as much as mummy has, and it doesn't mean that mummy doesn't love him. I think one day very soon mummy will marry him, and then he will be your daddy."

Eyes snapped and connected. Severus looked hopeful for a moment, before he put up his barriers once more. Hermione gave him a smile and nodded, feeling a blush rise to her cheeks at the intensity of his gaze. Did he still feel for her? Did he still want her?

She turned her eyes back to her children. "Severus loves you. Apologize."

Both girls looked ready to cry, and so turned to the imposing man with hanging heads. "Sorry Sev."

Hemrione nodded approvingly at them. "Thank you, girls. Now what was the punishment Severus gave you?"

Both girls pouted. "Time-out."

"Then you go to time-out and you stay there for eight minutes," Hermione told them. "Since you're in the store, you get to go to the corners. Now."

Both girls sniffled, but still hiked over to the two separate corners of the room. Severus immediately put up his signature muffliato and approached her, pulling her into his arms

"I'm sorry about all that," Hermione sighed. "I swear, if the Weasley kids weren't even worse I'd feel like an awful parent."

He rolled his eyes. "You are a marvelous mother and they are tolerable most of the time; better than the other spawn I've met."

"That's because they're scared," she feared. "I wonder when they'll forget."

"Forget the time Thea had her arm dislocated by her hating public, or when they nearly had their mother taken from them by the Ministry, or last week when they both accidentally apparated away from the Parkinson girls after their hateful diatribe?"

Hermione's eyes welled up. "All of it."

"They are their own people," Severus comforted. "The way they were raised will win out. You have two gorgeous daughters that anyone would be foolish to judge. Besides, some people think they're mine. Hardly better to come from an illicit professor-student relationship, but still …"

They looked at the mopey slouched backs of the two girls with little smiles. It really wasn't that bad of a punishment, but they always looked so put-out. Hermione was glad for the black hair, truly. It was easy to deal with, and Severus was right that some people thought he was the father because of it.

"She was wrong, you know," Hermione said after a moment. "You are as good as Thea's father. Terra's too. Her words weren't fair to you."

"She knows that, and yet … she's a child, she needs absolutes. Thea has felt … ill-at-ease this week since the break-up of Weasley and that Imogene girl. I believe she worries that I will leave. She wants permanence," he told her, lifting her blushing face to his. A soft kiss was pressed to her lips, making her sigh. "I heard you say you want to marry me. Do I get any say in the matter?"

"You asked me before," she pointed out with a quirk of her brow. "Are you saying no?"

Severus smirked. "I expect to be wined and dined before my lady proposes to me. You don't even have a ring, do you? I am shamed."

Hermione laughed and smacked him on the arm. "Alright, you beast. Come to dinner with me on Saturday. I'll show you wined and dined."

"Then I'll save my answer for then," he grinned mischievously. "I hope you take this very seriously; one rogue napkin and I might say 'no.'"

"You…" Hermione was cut off from her diatribe by a searing kiss, the kind that had her heart warm and her head woozy. His hand came up to her curls and held her steady, forcing her lips even closer to his. "You-" kiss, "are," kiss, "a," kiss, "lout."

"One you wish to marry," Severus kissed her ear, causing shivers down her spine. "One who loves you."

Hermione smiled up at his, but in her mind she couldn't help but think of the reason she'd said no when he'd asked. "You … you don't mind that it'd have to be muggle?"

Even with Voldemort gone and the yearly visits to his grave now more nostalgic than sad, her magic still held a piece of him. It was there when she tested each new wand, there when she fixed the accidental messes her children made with their magics, it was there whenever she used it in her day-to-day life. Even her wand – the one of English Oak and the blood of her bonded mate – reminded her. And because of it, she could never bond magically with another man. Not Severus, not anybody.

The sadness in her must have shown, because he pulled her close in his arms so she could rest against his herb-scented shoulder.

"I would never ask that of you," he whispered in her ear. "That part of you is his, and I feel no less cared for knowing that just as you do not feel unloved because of my once-love. You've nothing to apologize for."

She felt him smile against her ear and kiss it, making her shudder. "In fact, I should be thanking you. Do you know how long I've waited for you to marry me?"

Hermione ducked her head under his to kiss his chin playfully. "Well, we wouldn't want you to wait any longer, then. How about we make it official tonight? I'll take you out, the twins could have a sleepover with Scorpius …?"

He pressed a tender kiss to her lips, the kind she'd never had with anyone else. "That sounds perfect."

Their eleventh birthday was right before the school year began, just in time to still go to Hogwarts. They would be the youngest in their class but they didn't care, all they wanted was to go. It was enough to make Hermione a wreck.

Still, there was something she could do to send them off properly. So two weeks before their birthday on a Saturday morning, bright and early, she placed a notice in the storefront that it was closed for the day and took her two beautiful girls to the wand grove.

The forest they were in was just outside of Sheffield and belonged to the Notts, had for centuries. They were the ones who worked with the Ollivanders and negotiated for wand woods and the like. It was a magical place that intersected four ley lines and the magic in the air was palpable. Woods taken here were very likely to be wand woods and today her girls would look for their own.

"Do you remember what I told you?" Hermione asked each of them. Their heads bobbed excitedly. "Good. Now stay together and remember your wood lice. Don't try to cut your branch without me, okay? And if you don't know or would like help, I will help you pick your wood as well. It's not something everyone can do, alright?"

The girls barely waited for the end of her sentence before the started in on it. They moved to tree after tree, trying to do as she'd taught them and feel the magic of each. Hermione followed, feeling each wand tree they passed and looking for the matches herself. If they didn't feel it she'd guide them towards it with a few words and see if they could.

Hermione had an idea of what would take them, though. They were twins so they might come from the same tree, but she had narrowed it down. Thea was a south-side wood and Terra was a north. Each girl had their own affinities in magic that she'd seen since they were born, but they had a lot in common. Both had their father's temper and their mother's excited curiousity.

And they were little Slytherins. Oh, she'd raised them to be honest and straightforward, alarmingly blunt, but Severus had raised them to be cunning. Both parents had tried to teach the girls to be thoughtful, too, so they tended to pause themselves every now and again before they restarted with a completely different aim. Their parents didn't know what happened when they froze together like that, but the girls explained they were just, 'trying to agree on something.' Twin power or not, they were very much of one mind whenever they struck.

With her observations in mind, she led the girls be proximity to the center of the grove.

Over the years Ollivander had planted many wand trees in the grove to encourage the diversity found here. More exotic woods could not be found, but the sturdier varieties of everything else could. Cherry and apple, Scots pine and spindle, linden trees and strawberry trees all along the way. The girls pranced over to one, earning an excited shout from Terra. Thea frowned though, saying, "that's not right," and led her sister to another tree. Hermione only nodded at Thea and Terra, letting them know she agreed, before the moved on.

When the girls approached the tree she had scoped out before, she knew she was right. The cedar tree practically danced next to the girls, its energetic magic glad to be of use to the twins who hadn't yet realized it was their tree. Hermione felt them and the tree, mentally picking out the two branches for them. There was one, thicker and closer to the ground. Terra's for sure, north-facing and true. Thea's was farther up and south-facing, thinner.

When the girls touched the tree, they jumped about a mile high in victory before the turned with a frantic, "Mum, mum!"

Both girls were so happy when she nodded at them, proud they'd managed to find their tree all by themselves. To continue this independence, she let them feed the bowtruckles and cut their wand woods from the tree relatively unassisted. Thea needed to be levitated, but the girl still sawed off the tree branch with her own strength. With the wand wood chosen, Hermione brought the girls over to the place where she'd dropped of her Core Chest and motioned for them to sit with their branches in their hands.

"Now, you've been chosen by the cedar tree," Hermione told them. "Cedar is a passionate, intuitive wood. It will respond to what you truly want, regardless of whether you know it at the time. It is a true wand, true to itself, to its owner, and it hunts for truth from those around it. Your core will determine what attributes of your wand are enhanced and which will be dulled. I do not expect you to have the same type of core as you have wand tree, but we'll see."

Cupping her hand around her pregnant belly she smiled at her daughters. "It is also a very familial wand. You don't know how happy I am; cedar tells me you both love your me, your dad, and your brother. I know you'll still love this family even with your soon to come sister. But … you both know I love you, right? And that your dad loves you?"

Both girls looked down at their branches and up at their mom, faces set in stone as they fought to conceal their emotions. Thea spoke first.

"But we're not HIS."

Hermione didn't wait to take both girls into her arms. They fought for a second, but their mother's pregnant belly kept them fairly still.

"Thea, Terra," Hermione pulled back and looked both of them in their eyes, "your father loved you. Before he died he looked forward to your births. He picked your names. I don't want you to think that your father didn't want you for a second.

"But I also don't want you to think Severus doesn't either," she continued, taking a deep breath to open her magic even more, taking in the girls in front of her. Both looked at her an nodded hesitantly. "I know you love your brother, but we had this talk before he was born. You are our daughters, and Conrad is our son. Not one of you is less in our eyes because of what heritage you have or your gender or anything. Do you understand that?"

Terra frowned even as her sister nodded. "You and dad love us … but you're having another girl."

Ther it was. The girls were really excited when they'd had a little boy, eager to have a brother like their friend Teddy. But another girl they thought would replace them. Hermione pulled them into her arms again. "Do you really think I could ever replace my little girls? Do you think either of us raised you just to stop loving you when another little girl came along? We love you, and we'll miss you every day you're away at school."

Tears leaked from her eyes and she brushed them away. "Now, enough of that. We need to pick your cores now."

She held her belly up while bending over to open her ingredients case and made sure her wards around the area held. There were too many expensive ingredients here to not worry about them being stolen, but she'd wanted her daughter to go somewhere special for their wand selection. Ollivander's had been special for her when she was eleven, but her daughters had grown up in the shop, watching their mother match woods to cores and even learning to carve them themselves. They'd designed their wands months beforehand for their mother to make, and she knew they were looking forward to it.

"Thea, as the oldest you get to pick first," Hermione motioned the little girl forward. She knew their magic better than anyone's and so she pulled the tray she'd pre-prepared for the young girl. Fire was Thea's ally and so phoenix feather, dragon heartstrings, and the fire-breathing chimera's hair were placed before her. She thought she knew which the girl would choose, only to be surprised when instead of dragon heartstring she reached out and pulled one of her few phoenix feathers forward. It seemed to shine just a bit brighter in Thea's hand and Hermione knew her daughter had chosen well.

"That's the one," Thea beamed at her mother. Both phoenix feather and branch were placed in a special box her mother had prepared. "What does it mean, mum?"

Hermione placed the box within the chest. "Phoenixes themselves have good intuition and are known for seeing the true center of the people they meet. More than that, though, they are dramatic, fiery, and loyal. This core will highlight those traits in your wand, while also make the spells you cast more powerful so long as your heart is truly behind it. This is a loyal, very protective wand. Truthfully, this will be a fighter's wand but please don't test that, Thea."

Despite the admonishment, Thea preened and grinned at her sister as she sat back on the grassy floor. Terra came up next, and Hermione could see that while she was just as excited as her sister, she was also nervous. Terra was always the more self-conscious of the two and Hermione reminded herself to praise the core of the second girl just as much as she had the first.

"Ready Terra?" Hermione smiled as the girl nodded and leaned forward excitedly. Terra – as her name suggested – had an affinity for earth, maybe with some water mixed in. Cut from the same cloth though they were, Thea was day where Terra was night. That came with an affinity for potions that Severus was eager to pass on and a grounded core that would mature more steadily than her sister. Herbivore and plant cores would do well for her, and so Hermione had assembled a selection of unicorn and kelpie hair, spriggan sap, and some of her centaur tail hairs. "Find the one that feels right with you and your wood."

Terra took a while longer, fingers brushing bottles and hairs as she tried to find the right. She finally pulled out a small vial of sap and one of the centaur hairs, looking between them as if deciding but looking torn. Hermione reached out then and touched both cores, feeling how they had decided to share the center of her daughter's cedar wand.

"Are they both saying they're yours?" Hermione asked her daughter, who nodded in frustration. "Then they're both yours."

Terra looked surprised, so Hermione elaborated. "I have a wand with a centaur tail hair as well, but their hairs aren't very powerful. They're almost always combined with another core. Would you like me to tell you what I think the combination of your cores means?"

Terra nodded, her teeth biting at her lower lip like Hermione always did.

"Spriggan sap is very naturally attuned," Hermione told her, "and very conscientious about it. So are centaurs, but their magic focuses on seeing foundations and futures, while the spriggans are about the here and now. It feels like they've come together to help you understand more, and to help your intuition in areas of study like potions, herbology, or magizoology. This wand will be less centered around people, like Thea's, and instead around environment."

Hermione took the branch and cores from Terra and placed them in another box for transport. "You both chose really well. Are you ready to go home?"

The baby came right before school was set to start. Conceiving a baby for Christmas was more trouble than it was worth, and she was glad it at least had the decency to come a few days before her daughters had to be sent off.

In case there were complication and she'd be required to stay in one place for long, she'd had a midwife come to deliver her baby girl in the home she had with Severus. She could feel both girls staying up way into the night as they nervously awaited their newest sibling. When she came crying into the world, both girls tried to come in but Severus intercepted them before they could see their mother's awkward and bloody position, or her feeding the newest little Snape.

"Oh, you were tiring," Hermione breathed and kissed her newest child on the head. "But I don't think I'll ever get used to how quickly I come to love you all. You'll be so loved, darling."

A knock came at the door and Severus peered through the crack in the door. "Are you ready for visitors?"

Hermione smiled tiredly. "If there are kids, no jumping."

He turned his head to their children. "You'll have to be gentle with your mother, alright?"

Three little children came through the door, the twins and their little four-year-old brother. Each gasped as they saw the little baby in their mother's arms and hurried over to the side of the bed with Conrad just a little further behind with his shorter legs.

Her mother and father came in too, accompanied by Harry, Ginny, Ron, Draco, and Headmistress McGonagall.

"Girls, Conrad, meet your little sister," Hermione leaned the baby over just a little bit to show them. "This is baby Mina. Mina Annalise Snape."

Conrad crunched his nose. "She looks like a raisin."

Severus rolled his eyes and Hermione laughed at their littlest one. Ron nodded his agreement with the little tyke though, earning an elbow to the ribs from Ginny. The girls, though, held their hands behind their backs and cooed at the little baby. She saw her opportunity.

"Do you girls wand to hold her?" she asked. Both nodded. "Aright. Terra, you first."

Severus came up behind her and helped position Mina in her arms, but then let Terra just look at her little sister.

"Congratulations, Miss Granger," Minerva started them all.

"Yeah, congrats."

"Good job on the mini-you."

"She's so cute!"

"She's so small," Terra said, the question on her face. "Conrad wasn't small."

"Well, you were a little smaller back when he was born," Hermione recalled fondly. "She'll be much bigger by Christmas, I promise."

Thea and Terra sported identical frowns at the though. "Do we really-"

"Need to leave?"

"What if you need us?"

"Or something happens to Mina?"

Severus chuckled and patted them fondly on the head. "Your mother and I raised both of you without incident, as you are well aware. I'm sure we'll manage."

Their godfathers consoled them too. "Besides, we can all help out, too. We'll protect little Mina."

Both girls looked really sad at the thought of leaving their newest family member, so Hermione took pity on them. "Maybe I could convince your Aunt Minnie to let dad guest lecture in Potions … and he could bring baby Mina with him for a visit."

All heads swiveled to Minerva who clapped excitedly and gave her wholehearted approval.

Severus quirked a brow at her even as the girls nodded enthusiastically. "Do I get a say before you volunteer me for days of monotonous repetition?"

"No!" All four woman cried together before everyone promptly laughed.

The years passed. Thea and Terra were both Slytherins – predicted by them both – while Conrad joined the ranks of Gryffindor. When Mina grew to Hogwarts age, she would become the out-of-the-blue Hufflepuff of the group and Hermione would tease Severus endlessly about how none of his hidden Hufflepuff traits.

The twins were still inseparable even as adults. Thea never grew out of the need to protect her twin, and Terra always counted on Thea to be the leader of them. Even when they wanted to be independent from their parents they lived together in their little flat. Terra worked with Severus in his private potions business which had expanded to take over the upper floor of Ollivander's, while Thea had found her calling as a curse-breaker like Uncle Bill. Both, therefore, worked in the Alley with their parents and met up for lunch nearly every day.

Conrad, the little heart attack, had fought his parents to not only marry right out of Hogwarts, not only marry the daughter of Charlie Weasley, but also to move with the new Sophia Snape (nee Weasley) out to Charlie's dragon reservation to work. Both of his parents had a near-heart attack at the thought of their sole boy going up against massive dragons on his own, but couldn't deter him for longer than the wedding took. So after a few months of training with Severus (and a few dozen threats to Charlie's life if he let their boy be killed) they knew they couldn't keep him in England and so they saw him off to Romania.

Little baby Mina was the one who stayed with her mum and learned how to make wands. It had started out as a kind of arts and crafts time with her mum, learning about making wands and learning how to carve them herself, but then it was a summer job, and then she graduated Hogwarts to work there full-time. At first Hermione was reluctant to let her little girl commit to running the shop with her out of fear that the loyal Hufflepuff was doing this only to help her mother; she certainly didn't want Mina to do anything she wasn't interested in. Yet after pushing the issue a few times Hermione came to see that her daughter truly did enjoy the work and especially the people. It put her fears to rest.

Every year in July Hermione would make the trip to Sayre Mansion and the grave of Tom Riddle with a bouquet of zinnias in her hand and maybe a report card or two from the girls. It was a personal time for her and so after the first visit Severus let her come alone. After their first year of Hogwarts they girls started to join her in her yearly remembrance. She told them what she could about him, about the wars he caused and how he'd tried to kill their uncle Harry multiple times, but when she spoke about how she'd come to be pregnant with them she couldn't tell them the truth.

Instead, she told them she'd loved him enough. Enough to be with him for a little while and to care about him, but how she'd betrayed him in the end. To their eternal credit, Thea and Terra never condemned their mother for her choice and loved her even after.

Their lives went on and on without Him. They laughed, they loved, they suffered, they wept, but the chapter involving Voldemort was over.

And as she'd had inscribed on his headstone, "Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live." – Robert Kennedy

A/N: And thus it ends! I know the epilogue isn't necessary, but I just hate leaving things out that I've planned. And I like knowing where they all end up! Thank you all so much for your lovely reviews, support, and what-have-you. Thanks for reading my first completed fanfiction. I'll be posting some revisions and such to make it a more cohesive story and to fix some errors, and I might just find a beta who can help me edit it into a more novel-esque form, but for now there's just one thing to say ... FIN.