A/N: I can't believe this is complete. I hope I've answered most of your questions about the hows and whys of this fic and PLEASE let me know if there are any outtakes you want to see, whether pre-Harry, during Jim's travels, during the five-year mission, or in answer to a question you had that I didn't explain here. I'd really love to write more for this verse, so if you ask for it, it will probably happen. In the meantime - thanks for being amazing, everyone! I hope you enjoyed the ride and, Abby, I hope this is what you wanted. :)

Epilogue: Old Men

Their first five year mission was nearly at an end and Jim couldn't stop smiling, watching his crew – his crew – laughing and crying and, in the case of Bones, getting roaring drunk. They hadn't all made it, of course, but Jim was selfishly grateful that of their losses, none were his close personal friends or bridge crew.

His grin widened as a tipsy Uhura planted a very indiscreet kiss on his First Officer in plain view of the whole room – she was going to regret that in the morning, but Jim knew no one on his crew was going to spout fraternization policies or report the Lieutenant. After all, it would take a particularly heartless creature to get in the way of his doubtless soon-to-be engaged and beaming Communications Officer or her blushing beau. Sipping from whatever wonderful alcoholic drink Scotty had handed him as soon as he entered the mess hall, Jim's gaze shifted to Bones, who had holed himself up in a shadowed corner with a bottle of Romulan ale, the latest recording from his baby girl and a sappy smile.

Scotty soon barged into the picture, pressing some of his engine hooch onto the good doctor before being tugged away by Chekov who was babbling in a Russian-Standard pidgin about modifications for his console that could be handled during their extended break. Jim followed the duo with his eyes and winked at his pilot as they settled in a huddle around Sulu, laughing.

His crew was alive and healthy and happy and the only thing that could have made Jim's night better as the hours passed and the hall emptied of all but his closest friends was—Jim grinned. A barely tangible hug wrapped around him and he thought questioningly at the shimmering aura that was Harry as it surrounded him. A hesitation and then gleeful affirmative were all the answer Jim needed as he brought his fingers to his lips and let his mother's beloved whistle shatter the murmur of conversation and giggling.

All his crew turned to him with varying degrees of exasperation and he beamed at them, ducking as Bones let the nearest party hat fly toward his face.

"Damn it, Jim! Are you trying to make us all deaf before we're thirty—" "But I thought you were already thirty-eight, Bones, don't tell me you lied about your birthday again!" Bones threw his hands in the air and everyone laughed, louder or softer dependent on how much of Scotty's hooch they'd enjoyed. Jim motioned them all in and felt his grin widen as they obeyed unquestioningly, Scotty and his cohorts settling directly in front, Bones close at his right, and the happy couple with eyebrows raised at his left.

Opening his mouth, he paused and earned more raised eyebrows from all sides, realizing he'd never actually explained Harry or even considered how to explain him. Ignoring the eyebrows, Jim finally shrugged and tilted his head back, seemingly speaking to the air, "Harry, I need you."

And Harry was there, Harry was always there and a small, warm smile filled Jim up like light, like the smile Harry had just for him.

"Took you long enough, kiddo." Jim pouted and Harry laughed as his crew stared.

Jim drew a breath, "Everyone, this is Harry. Harry Potter. He's, well, it's a bit hard to explain but he's like my—" Harry grinned, "I'm his guardian angel." And Jim laughed hard. "Angels don't do what you have, Harry, and they certainly wouldn't be the proud son of three Marauders." Harry shrugged unapologetically and his smile softened for the gaping men and women around them.

"My name is Harry, but you might know me better as Enterprise." Harry finally explained and that absolutely did not help with the staring, Jim noticed with a snort.

Waving everyone's attention back to him, he offered, "Let me tell you an old story." And Bones grunted, shifting to a more comfortable position, as the others settled in quietly to listen to their Captain share another of his surprising secrets.

"Once upon a time, magic was real." For the wide eyes and caught breaths about him, Jim smiled and told the story of a truly magical world and the three brothers that once lived there, of a school called Hogwarts for witches and wizards, and a war like nothing they could even imagine where the Dark and Light weren't just ideals, but people, children trying to defend their families and the magic they loved so well. He explained how three special artifacts came together under one particular child and made him immortal, much against his will.

Engrossed, no one questioned him as Jim spoke of unbearable grief and a boy who never aged even as his family did, so he explained how the boy made a deal to keep his family with him always.

Harry cut in then with that bright, bright smile Jim had only seen a handful of times and suddenly his aura was visible to even these untouched mortals. Jim watched their awe and let it grow with his own, for he had never become accustomed to this beauty, to this sort of power and greatness and he never wanted to. Then Harry winked at him and Jim got a surprise for the first time that night as Harry's vividly brilliant aura was suddenly a mass of ghostly figures.

Jim recognized enough of them at once that it almost brought him to tears. There was the Weasley red hair and mischievous grins, there were a stag and a Grim and a wolf romping through the glow, and all around them, under them was a field of untouched lilies where shrieking children with messy black hair and two women, a pink-haired metamorphmagus with her baby and a scraggly blonde haired girl who stared up at the sky, whispered about the universe's secrets for a bearded old headmaster and a sneering bat of a man.

Jim spoke for his crew's benefit, then, "It was too much for one person, even one so special as he was to hold all those souls in a mortal body. So he left the body and the vastness that he had become settled into every stone and stairway in Hogwarts – the building was his new body, their new body. Until one day the last living friend and the school's Headmistress found that the school was going to be torn down and modernized. She could not bear the thought of her friend suffering, so she called on a very old magic that loosed his spirits from Hogwarts to drift, deeply asleep for two hundred years, on the currents of the Earth's magic. When he woke at last, he had only moments to find a new structure to settle in and the only thing strong enough and large enough close by was the half-finished Enterprise. Its structure gave him form and stability but contained him, tying him to the life of the ship for as long as it would exist."

Harry broke in then, smiling just for Jim as he concluded, "It was a very boring existence until one day the Enterprise made a friend."