I yawn and stretch my back after finally finishing a long day in the lab where I have worked on another refinement of the Wolfsbane potion. It's nearly complete, I think, just need a final verification of the Arithmancy equations to be ready for testing at St Mungo's. Casting a stasis on it I head upstairs to fetch her from the office where she's been holed up for the past few months, preparing to defend her thesis in Arithmancy and soon thereafter, Potions. She's been working on them for a little over three years, which is blindingly fast for a double Mastery. Not that I've ever doubted her.

Her. Hermione. Wife. It still feels unreal, to have someone to call by that title.

Nodding at Aster Parkinson who is managing the shop floor I find Hermione in the office as expected, buried deep in tomes and parchment, her hair frizzier than ever. She has kept up her Hair-ologist business as well, setting up a treatment room in a former closet expanded to become a fully equipped room, but only accepts to help those she felt were worthy of it. Aster has been with us since leaving Hogwarts, and is doing well with both basic brewing and the business side of the Apothecary. Her older sister, my former student, is doing better as well, still working at the Prophet in a more senior role and dating Neville Longbottom, of all people.

She gets up when she sees me and steals a kiss, before packing her most recent projects in her bag. The thing holds an impressive amount of stuff with the undetectable extension charm, but I'm most amazed by the fact that she actually finds things in it considering she must have half a household in it. About a year after she moved in with me we bought a cottage in a lazy hamlet in Kent, with room for potions gardens and a large library, obviously. It took us a while to negotiate leaving times and what to do when the other is immersed in work, but we seem to have found a balance that works for now.

We married quickly, in August not even a year after we met in fact, on the Longbottom estate at the suggestion of Augusta. It was small and intimate and just about perfect, and the Fae came to dance with us as the night fell. She's forced me to call her friends by their first names now, and most of them are actually bearable company. Luna comes over occasionally. She went to live with the Fae for a year after her children were born, and still visits them often. Harry and Ginny Potter are regular guests. He went back to the Aurors right after everything went down. Kingsley quickly regained the Minister position and has made radical changes to what was left of the Ministry, to clear out the corruption and wrongness that was left behind. Ginevra joined him as an aide of some kind and has quickly made a name for herself too, not only as Mrs Potter.

Neville also shows up occasionally and is still supplying me with potion ingredients from Hogwarts, but Augusta Longbottom passed about a year ago. She did have the chance to see Frank and Alice wake up, though. Alice unfortunately didn't survive but Frank lives, he went back to Hogwarts and now works as a gamekeeper there.

Minerva writes often but cannot get away from Hogwarts most of the time, so we try to visit a few times per semester. The Malfoys are thriving. Draco is a licensed perfumer these days, and the two elder Malfoys have reclaimed their place in society and politics, this time without the threat of a madman looming behind them. Narcissa has taken on the Wizengamot, claiming both the Black and Malfoy seats, and is apparently making a lot of changes to drag Wizarding society into a better state.

Hermione has finished packing, and we Apparate to the cottage. Our elf Dinky appears, flaps his ears at us and promptly serves a cottage pie for dinner. He came with the cottage, sort of, or maybe Augusta had something to do with it. I'm not entirely sure. One day he was there, refusing to move out.

Others have been less fortunate, although mostly of their own accord. Umbridge was, thankfully, sentenced to Azkaban and won't make it out in this lifetime. Rita Skeeter and Molly Weasley, however, were sentenced to society service for five years each, seeing as their actions were aimed at one individual rather than the whole of Wizarding society, and mainly driven by jealousy. They are also under a life-long ban to not go anywhere near Hermione, which is enforced by a Charmed ankle bracelet that will heat up in warning and then Apparate them away if they break the ban. One or both of them is working at a Ministry-run orphanage, and Rita has to wear another bracelet that stops her from shifting into her Animagus form.

The only other Weasley I'm in touch with is George, and the shop is doing well. I heard Ronald had a nervous breakdown not long after everything happened, saying something about wishing to become a monk and trying to hide whenever a woman approached him, but he is apparently doing better now and has returned to the Hogsmeade branch. Not that I care much, to be honest.

"You think too much, love," Hermione says.

I refocus my gaze on her again. Apparently we're done eating. "I was just thinking about everything that brought us here."

She smiles and reaches for my hand. "It's odd, isn't it? The Fae knew what they were doing, even if it was a bit convoluted. I don't regret it, but I'd like to think that we could have met anyway, if none of this had happened."

Warmth blossoms in my chest. I'm still not quite used to this, to being wanted. "It is not out of the question," I admit. I rise and pull her up from the chair, and we walk to the sitting room where Dinky has already started a fire. We settle on the couch, her head by my shoulder, her ridiculous hair tickling my nose.

"We could have met at a conference somewhere, you a brilliant speaker and I'd be sitting in the front row, taking notes. I'd insist on meeting up afterwards and…"

I snort. "More likely you would have presented something outrageous and brilliant and I would have tried to shoot you down with questions from the back of the room, and then offered you a drink later."

She giggles. "Why not both. Or an Order party to celebrate, say five years after the War, and I'd have fled to the library at Grimmauld where you inevitably are lurking already."

"I never lurk," I say loftily. "I merely choose a strategically optimal position."

She laughs, again, and pulls me to her for another kiss. Inspiration strikes and I proceed to demonstrate several other strategically optimal positions for mutual enjoyment.

Yes. Life is good, and I could never have foreseen this when Lucius dragged me to an appointment with the Hair-ologist three and a half years ago.