Chapter Sixteen - Epilogues (not a train station in sight)
Epilogue the first - Dunvegan Castle, Scotland
The sun was setting over the western sea as the two appeared on the windswept balcony of Dunvegan. Stumbling a bit, Harry held Hermione up as their eyes adjusted to the oncoming twilight. Looking around, they saw Francis Bethune standing in the lee of the wall, waiting for them. Walking towards them he held up both hands in surrender.
"Hermione, we had no idea that this wasn't what it seemed." Francis began before Hermione could begin to take the offensive. "We've launched an investigation to see where this mysterious witch has come from. The aurors have started looking in the obvious places and our people are looking in the unobvious ones. For what it's worth, I'm very sorry."
"Francis, I'm not going to bite your head off for this." Nodding to her companion, she grinned. "Harry brought me all the briefing documents that you offered him and Ron and I would have agreed to do this mission knowing what you knew, even the stuff you didn't tell me. Let's just get these trinkets back where they belong so I can go home and soak in a nice hot tub." Nodding towards the doors leading into the castle, Hermione motioned for Francis to lead the way, ignoring the knowing look he gave them as they were standing there hand in hand.
Following him through the drawing room and into a hallway, the climbed a steep set of stairs and entered the main hall. Hermione's eye was immediately drawn to the framed copy of the An Bratach Sith that had hung there since the robbery.
Walking over she nodded to Harry and he lifted the replacement from its place on the wall. Hanging the original back in its place, she stepped back, closed her eyes and sought for currents of magic that swirled around the ancient castle. Binding a protective screen around the frame, she tied the screen to the two bloodlines that held claim to the Fairy Flag, the MacLeods and the Sidhe.
Stepping back, she slumped a bit as the toll of the magic took its effect. "Tell the MacLeod that he's going to have to make arrangements for a relative to do any moving of the An Bratach Sith from now on. Just dusting it or straightening it won't cause a problem. If anyone not of the blood tries to take if from its spot on that wall, both he and I will be notified that something is amiss. It's not perfect, but it should supplement any muggle burglar detectors he has installed."
"I'll notify the auror detachment on Eilean Mor so they can arrange to make periodic checks on the castle here." Francis shook his head at the wards established by his protégé.
Looking at Harry, Hermione grinned. "Harry, would you mind waiting here a bit while Francis and I return the Amen Glass to its display case?" Nodding warily, Harry flashed her a tight smile. "Don't look like that; I'm not going to murder him as soon as we're out of sight. You know how I work; I try never to kill anyone unless you're there to help me clean up the mess if I can help it." Grinning at Harry's slow smile, she turned to Francis. "Lead on, MacDuff"
Grimacing, Francis started down the twisting stair to a lower level. "You could at least get the quote right, Granger." Smiling over his shoulder at her, he was taking the stairs without looking as if he had gone this way numerous times before.
"What fun would there be in that?" Smiling impishly, she sensed that she was finally getting to the end of this entire sordid mess. "Besides, in the Scottish Play, Macbeth says that to his enemy, and despite my occasional shrewish display of temper, I have never considered us to be enemies."
Chuckling, he turned around as he came to a landing with a doorway leading into dimly lit hallway. "And thereby hangs the tale, Kate. Do you really think your young man is going to patiently wait up there for us to return from our errand?"
Growling in frustration, Hermione looked at Bethune in disbelief. "He's not `my' young man…." Stopping and blushing, Hermione sighed. "All right, you're correct in that, but that's not what would bring him down these stairs. Harry's an auror and my oldest friend. In an ideal world he'd not budge an inch, but since he knows that things around you become `interesting' more often than not. And since I never actually asked him to stay put, I wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't half a dozen paces behind us waiting to see if something else comes unglued with this escapade." Feeling Harry's mental chuckle at that remark, Hermione wondered exactly how much of a headstart Harry was giving her.
"Then why bother with the charade?" Using his wand to silently open a door, He ushered Hermione into a room containing several display cases containing Jacobite memorabilia. Hermione smiled as he pointedly left the door ajar.
"Thank you, Francis. That's an easy one. This gives Harry and myself the leeway to ignore what's about to happen next, if we decide it's not something we want to talk about just yet." Looking into the case, she saw that a very accurate copy of the Amen Glass was resting in its place of honor. "Do you want to do the honors, or shall I?"
Reaching into her bag, she drew forth the cloth wrapped glass. Peeling back the protective wrap, the blue glow of the MacLeod heirloom lit up the room. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a peculiar shadow on the wall, indicating that the light of the Amen Glass wasn't totally fooled by Harry's invisibility cloak. "I do wish it would stop doing that."
Smiling Francis opened the cabinet and removed the ersatz glass. "That's what it's supposed to do. The MacDonald daughter who enchanted this envisioned it bolstering the claim of the rightful Stuart claimant to the Scottish throne, and thereby the throne of England as well." Nodding towards the vacant spot, he waited for Hermione to unwrap the glass and gingerly set it into place.
Stepping back, the glow faded until it was a bare glimmer when they were about six feet from the glass. "However, she was too general in her spellwork, and any rightful claimant to the Scottish throne will evoke the expected response." Nodding towards Hermione thoughtfully, he motioned her forward. The glow intensified with her proximity. As she stepped back, he smiled. "It works for the heir of the royal house of Dunkeld or Canmore," nodding towards her in respect as he stepped forward and touched the glass as its glow intensified again, "as it does for the heir of the royal house of Stuart."
Closing the display case, Charles Edward Francis Bethune, heir to the House of Stuart offered his arm to Hermione Jane Granger, heir to the House of Dunkeld as they turned and exited the room, neither one looking back at the Amen Glass sitting quietly in it's case, both trying not to notice the faint sound of footsteps hurrying up the stairs ahead of them.
Epilogue the Second - A dungeon below Malfoy Manor
Torchlight flickered fitfully, dimly illuminating the edges of the underground chamber. The center of the room was visible in a baleful reddish glow that emanated from a sinister statue of a monkey-faced wizard presiding over a basalt block that was streaked with reddish stains. The lower part of the statue flowed into a macabre throne, where a dark-haired witch lounged in apparent boredom.
Kneeling in front of the block were three wizards in black robes. Heads down, all three waited silently as a fourth wizard paced around them. Glowering, Lucius Malfoy shook his head as he periodically cast a minor curse at the three, receiving some small amount of satisfaction from watching them flinch at the continued assaults. Finally stopping, he looked up at the figure lounging in the throne before the statue. Seeing her languid nod, he turned his attention back to the three in front of him.
"Fools! Incompetent fools." Lucius Malfoy resumed his pacing around the torch lit room, glaring at the three kneeling before the blood crusted stone. "I can't believe you three couldn't orchestrate the demise of one pathetic mudblood. My contact in the Ministry was correct that they would send her to retrieve those toys you had stolen from the muggles, why couldn't you finish her off?" Throwing his hands in the air in frustration, he stopped directly in front of a particularly thuggish looking member of the trio. "I can't believe that I once considered you a suitable companion for my son."
Laughing, Pansy Parkinson displayed her contempt for Lucius' comment. "Your son? You mean Draco, the one who failed when the Dark Lord tasked him with the death of Dumbledore? The one who had to be rescued twice in one night by Harry Potter? The one who has repudiated you and everything we stand for? That son?"
Spitting to one side, she grimaced. "Draco is no more one of us, you really should write both him and that baggage you call a wife off and move forward Lucius." Gently caressing his forearm, she shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. "I can't believe that neither my agent in America nor that group of cultists that follow The Founder there were able to clip the wings of that overrated trollop." Shaking her head, she sighed. "She must be sleeping with Bethune or Kingsley, or both. That's the only reason I can see for them to use her as their personal errand girl while they allow her to play with her elves. But, the exercise wasn't a total loss" Smiling coldly, she drew an ancient looking piece of parchment from beneath her robes.
"I don't see how you could think this was anything short of a catastrophe."
"Because, while I was hoping to see the death of the mudblood Granger there in the Serpent Fane, I found this concealed within an altar before those incompetent Americans searched the premises." Using her wand to conjure a low table, she placed the parchment on it. "This was written by The Founder himself."
Stepping back, she gestured towards the page in mock gallantry, motioning Lucius forward. As he stepped forward and bent over to look at the document, his gaze was drawn to the text and the accompanying drawing. Looking up sharply he looked at her with a gleam in his eye. "You have read the entire text?"
"Yes Lucius, I didn't suffer through three years of Ancient Runes for nothing. It's exactly what you think it is."
Smiling coldly, Lucius' mind began to plan. "A map to the resting place of Salazar Slytherin and directions for raising him from his long slumber." Smiling at Pansy he asked, "Whatever shall we do with this?"
Epilogue the Last - Number Four Privet Drive, Surrey
The sun was dropping below the horizon as Petunia Dursley worked the flowerbeds in front of her home. Carefully weeding and mulching, she lovingly tended the beds that had become a place of solace and comfort, partially because they reminded her of her sister's son Harry.
Pushing back guilt and bitter thoughts about how he had been treated growing up in her house, Petunia allowed her head to hang a bit as she offered a quick prayer, thankful that Harry had been able to forgive her and her son Dudley for the horrendous way he had been treated. The last two years had seen a remarkable change in the young man after he finished the war that took the life of her sister, his mother, so many years ago, and Petunia marveled that he was able to set aside so much of what happened.
Looking over the joyful colours spread before her, Petunia smiled as the late season bloomers were beginning their annual show. Shaking her head, she wondered if Vernon would bother to come home at all this week, and she smiled ruefully when she admitted to herself that she really didn't care. Harry's young friend Hermione had introduced her to a solicitor who dealt with family law cases and she was quietly gathering together papers and records that would see her and Dudley free of Vernon's toxic personality and influence.
"Petunia, are you feeling all right?"
Looking up, Petunia smiled as she saw Chastity kneeling beside her. The young witch had accompanied them during their year in hiding from the magical terrorists who had killed her sister years ago, and she and Dudley had become inseparable since that evening Dudley had rescued her by charging a pair of Death Eaters who were too busy torturing her to notice him and laying them both out with a cricket bat that had been at hand. Shaking her head, Petunia thanked Providence that Death Eaters seemed clueless to the fact that they weren't invulnerable to a well-placed swing from an enraged striker. Smiling, she nodded. "I was just thinking about how much things have changed in the past three years."
Smiling, Chastity bobbed her head as she unconsciously ran her finger over the engagement ring that Dudley had given her last month. "And things are still changing. That solicitor that Hermione set you up with is the older brother of a classmate of mine. He'll be able to get everything in about what kind of man Vernon really is into the record without letting anything slip that might cause undue attention."
Looking at her soon to be daughter-in-law, Petunia smiled. "There's something else, isn't there?"
Smiling, Chastity nodded. "I don't know anything for certain, but Helen Granger, Hermione's mum, just sent us an owl." Watching the older woman nod in anticipation, the blonde witch grinned. "You were saying that Harry was sounding too happy while he was in American after rescuing Hermione to be explained by just his relief at finding his friend safe and sound, even his best friend."
Rolling her eyes, Petunia snorted. "It's like watching my sister and Harry's dad all over again. Isn't there someone at the hospital of yours that can check and see if they've been cursed or something? I do believe that they're the only two in England who hasn't figured out they actually belong together."
Shaking her head, Chastity chuckled. "You're not the first person to make that suggestion, though usually people wonder if his ex-girlfriend had inherited her mum's hand at potion making. But Helen said that they're having a dinner in Oxford tomorrow for the two of them, it seems that there's some sort of announcement to be made and she's wanting the three of us to be there for it."
Her eyes lighting up, Petunia began to gather up her gardening tools. "I wouldn't miss that for the world." Sobering for a second, she shook her head. "I do hope that other boy isn't too hurt by this. He's always seemed a bit taken with Hermione."
Nodding, Chastity smiled. "I was there in London with them the two days we were waiting for Hermione to be found and I was first on the scene after Ron and Harry went in. He's a better man than I ever imagined him to be. I think he sussed out how everything stood before they did. That whole forty-eight hours, he kept telling Harry that she'd be all right, that they'd bring her back to him."
Smiling wickedly at the thought of another blonde Ravenclaw, she added. "And I don't think Ron will be sitting on the bench very long, not if one of my old housemates has anything to say about it. She's fancied him for years and as soon as word gets around that Harry and Hermione are together, she'll be checking in on him very quickly."
Nodding towards the house, where Petunia could see a diminutive pygmy owl sitting on the windowsill to the living room, bobbing its head enthusiastically, she smiled. "Since there's an owl available, why don't you send your friend a note that she might want to check in on Ron? Just to see if he's all right, of course."
Chuckling, Chastity nodded. "You're always such a thoughtful person, Petunia. I think that Ms Lovegood would appreciate that."
"Luna? She's been by the house a couple of times over the last year. Lovely young woman, but I can never make heads or tails of what she's going on about, half the time."
Reaching down, Chastity adjusted the small stake that was stuck in the ground at the edge of the flowerbed. "I've always meant to ask, why do you put these stakes out like this?"
Shaking her head, Petunia smiled as she looked down at the small stake. "I've always done this with my gardens, though for years it was Harry that put the stakes out. It was a habit my mum had and I just started doing it when we moved here to Surrey. One of the teachers from the local school brings her classes by on walks and we've got most of the houses in the area labeling the flowers so the students can learn to identify them." Gazing down at the stake bearing the label `viola tricolor hortensis', she smiled. "Although anyone can look at these and know they're Pansies."
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