The Elder Wand
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter universe and all the characters in it belong to J.K. Rowling. This story is a work of imagination and is directed solely at readers of this website. No infringement of any rights is intended and no criticism of J.K. Rowling or her work should be considered to be stated or implied.
Author's note: I don't particularly enjoy stories that ignore canon. For this reason, my previous stories have dealt primarily with events after the DH epilogue. This is my first story that has suggested an alternative reality prior to the DH epilogue. I therefore have to bring it back into line with canon. This chapter assumes the generally accepted timeline that Harry started school in 1991. It is set in 2006, the year before the publication of DH and is for those of you who, like me, can't ignore the DH epilogue. For those of you who can, don't bother reading this chapter, just accept that Harry and Hermione were married and lived happily ever after!
Part 11. Epilogue
Harry Potter sat at the kitchen table in the house that he shared with his wife and children. The house, which had been built only about 20 years before, could best be described as spacious and exclusive and Harry knew that it was far larger than they really needed. He had bought it - using some of his extensive funds - because of its position - close to London - and its seclusion - the dwelling was set well back from the quiet country lane that provided access, in about half an acre of land. The house was reached by a long gravel drive and both the front and rear gardens - which were laid mainly to lawns surrounded by colourful shrubs and flowerbeds - were protected by tall evergreen hedges. There was a large double-garage to one side and the property was situated between other similarly grand and secluded houses, all of which backed onto open countryside. Harry was conscious that he now lived in a very wealthy area; a far cry from the pretentions to affluence of Privet Drive. All of his neighbours were "something in the city" and they clearly assumed that he was the same, since all that they knew was that he travelled up to London most days and could afford to live in this area. They were also aware that his smart and rather attractive wife similarly worked in London, presumably doing charity work, since she certainly would not need an income of her own, and that his children - who were currently asleep in their bedrooms upstairs - were bright and precocious and went to a local private school. If they had realised that when Harry left for work in the morning he was destined for the Ministry of Magic and that his wife was heading to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, while the children would, in time, be attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, there would have been an outcry that would have completely disrupted the smug affluence of the neighbourhood.
The décor of the kitchen, like that of the rest of the house, was modern and rather utilitarian, with pale wood cupboards, a slate-grey tiled floor and black granite work surfaces - in their Muggle life, Harry and Hermione tried to avoid any hints of eccentricity. The rectangular kitchen table at which Harry was seated, set towards the back of the room near the door, was made from a matching pale wood and was large enough to comfortably seat six people. As he often did when Hermione was not at home in the evening, Harry had pulled out the battered wooden storage box that he kept in the under stairs cupboard and was rummaging through its' contents, reliving old memories of his time at Hogwarts; the most influential years of his life. There was the rather dishevelled piece of official looking parchment inviting Harry to attend the school and his first set of Hogwarts' robes; there was the Monster Book of Monsters, still held in check by a stout leather strap; there was the remaining fragment of the mirror given to Harry by his godfather, Sirius and the Golden Snitch bequeathed to Harry by Professor Dumbledore; and hidden away, having slipped right to the bottom of the box, there were the broken shards of the Elder Wand and the gold setting that had once held the Resurrection Stone. Harry reached in and pulled out the disfigured, incomplete ring and turned it thoughtfully between his fingers. Turning this very ring in just this way had almost cost Harry his life but inadvertently had led to the best thing that could possibly have happened to him; his marriage to Hermione Granger.
Harry could vividly remember those awful waves of nausea that had swept over his body as he battled for his life with Factoris, the room around him fading into a blur of colours and shapes while sounds became muffled and distorted. Through it all, however, he had still been able to vaguely discern Hermione's voice and presence, desperately supporting him and willing him on. Without that knowledge, Harry believed that he might have given in, just to spare himself the pain of the effort needed to fight back. But the desire not to disappoint Hermione, to somehow get back to her, had driven him on. As he recalled those moments, he could again feel the weight pressing down on his arm as he tried stoically to point the Elder Wand at the blurred image of the Resurrection Stone, lying on the floor close to his feet. Then there had been that juddering spasm as his life force returned explosively to his body, accompanied by that last terrible wail of despair from Factoris. It seemed that the return to full consciousness had been accompanied by a heightening of his senses and that first beautiful, lingering kiss with Hermione had etched a deep neural pathway in his brain so that, even now, eight years later, if he closed his eyes, he could still taste the sweetness of her breath and feel the moistness of her lips. That kiss, originating as it had out of their mutual fear of loss, had finally caused them both to drop their fragile veneer of casual friendship and banish the insecurities that had kept them apart for so long. The result was a passionate day and night spent in the Room of Requirement that, even with all of the good things that had happened since - marriage; children; a relatively peaceful family life - still remained as the high point of Harry's existence. The following morning, Harry had wandered dreamily up to the Gryffindor common room to find Ron's owl waiting impatiently for him with a message that Fred's funeral was to be held the next day. That information had brought their idyll to a premature end, thrusting them back into the reality of their situation and all of their old anxieties about their relationships with the Weasleys had returned. They had fretted, for the rest of the morning, about how they should handle the situation. Harry had been all for openness, regardless of the consequences, but Hermione had urged him to be more sensitive.
"Ron has been your best friend for seven years and the Weasleys treat you like a member of the family. You can't risk ruining that," she had warned, "and what about Ginny, she'll be heart-broken. She has been set on becoming Mrs. Harry Potter since she was about 10 years old!"
So, when they had returned to the Burrow, they had maintained the pretence and had kept their distance from each other, although Harry could remember that he had still been able to snatch a few fleeting, secretive kisses when he had been certain that nobody else was around. And things had not been as bad or as difficult as they had expected. Ginny had been quiet and withdrawn, filled with grief at the loss of one of her favourite brothers and, seemingly embarrassed by the knowledge of the influence that Voldemort had wielded over her, she had turned to her mother and father for condolence rather than to Harry. For his part, Harry had been polite and concerned but had avoided being alone with her and Ginny had seemed to sense that things had changed and to realise that the situation was irretrievable. An awkward atmosphere had hung between them for a few weeks but this had largely been due to Harry's sense of guilt. Then one morning, after Harry had returned to Hogwarts to help with the restoration work, mainly because he had needed something to do and didn't really have anywhere else to go apart from the Burrow, Ginny had cornered him unexpectedly as he emerged from the portrait hole, exiting the Gryffindor common room.
"Harry, what's going on?" she had asked him defiantly.
"What do you mean?" Harry really had not been sure, taken off guard by the suddenness of the confrontation.
"It seems that we hardly dare speak any more. We're walking on eggshells and I hate it." Ginny had actually stamped her foot in frustration as she said this.
Harry had looked down, not knowing how to reply and had shifted his own feet awkwardly.
"I know that what I did was wrong," Ginny had continued, "and I'm sorry if…"
"It wasn't your fault," Harry had interrupted, finally looking up at her. "It was Voldemort's doing."
"Yes, I realise that, but perhaps I could have resisted more - if I hadn't wanted it so much anyway."
It had then been Ginny's turn to look away, embarrassed by what she had just confessed, and a heavy, solemn silence had hung between them for a while.
"I always knew about Hermione," Ginny had eventually said, a subtle air of defiance creeping into her tone.
"What do you mean?" Harry had asked again, unconscious of the repetition.
"Come on Harry, I'm not stupid and I am a woman. It was obvious whenever I talked to Hermione about you; and I would see the way that she gazed at you when she thought that nobody was looking. I always knew that she fancied you, Harry. She didn't just want to be your friend, although she would never have admitted it to anyone. I told Ron as well, but he didn't want to listen. It just made him even more jealous than he already was. For some reason he was fixated on Hermione, although it was clear to everyone that they weren't suited."
Harry had stood with his mouth hanging open, like a goldfish pressed up against the glass wall of its tank, a deep frown creasing his brow as he struggled for words.
Ginny had begun to look quite smug.
"Don't look so shocked Harry," she had said coyly. "You and Ron never had much of a clue about women, did you?"
She had smiled sweetly and Harry had not been able to stop himself laughing.
"I'm all right with it, Harry," Ginny had continued, still smiling. "I'll get over you. We Weasleys are tougher than we look you know. And Ron will get over it too. We talked about it when you and Hermione went back to Hogwarts before Fred's funeral."
"You told Ron?" Harry had gasped, returning to his impression of an asthmatic goldfish.
"Yes," Ginny had laughed, "and he was grumpy as usual but eventually even he admitted that it was inevitable that the two of you would hook up. Anyway, I think that he now has other fish to fry, if I'm not very much mistaken."
"Ginny, I can't believe this. How could everyone know except me?" Harry had been incredulous.
"Because, let's face it, you're a bit thick Harry and far, far too modest," Ginny had replied. "Anyway, I don't want things to be like this between us. I want to get back to normal."
"Friends?" Harry had tentatively held his hand out for Ginny to take.
"Good friends," Ginny had answered, pushing Harry's hand aside and reaching up, with her hands gently grasping his shoulders, to kiss him firmly on the lips.
And when Harry had thought about it later, he could see that she had been right about Ron. From the moment that Harry and Hermione had returned to the Burrow for Fred's funeral, Ron had seemed preoccupied and had largely ignored Hermione. Over the next few days, he had often disappeared furtively and been gone for hours at a time. When Harry had asked him where he had been, Ron would normally only say that he had been down by the stream or checking up on something but on one occasion Harry had secretly followed him until he was certain that Ron was heading in the direction of the Lovegood's property. After that, Harry had not pestered Ron anymore and had just made sure that Ron, or any of the other Weasleys, did not catch him and Hermione alone together.
After Harry's talk with Ginny things had changed completely. Harry had returned to the Burrow and had invited Ron to have a drink one evening at the local pub, so that he could talk to him with no fear of interruption. When they were seated opposite each other across a wobbly wooden table, in front of a gently smouldering open fire, their second glass of fire whisky nestled in their hands, Harry had finally plucked up the courage to broach the subject that threatened to divide them.
"Ron, I think that you should know that Hermione and I have started to go out together," he had said hesitantly.
"That's old news," Ron had snorted. "Ginny told me ages ago."
"You don't mind?"
"Mind? Why should I mind? If Ginny's OK with it; I never had any particular hold over Hermione. I just fancied her, that' all."
"Yeah, but that's just it," Harry had persisted. "We're all friends and I knew that you fancied Hermione and I don't want to upset you. Remember what happened with the locket?"
"Look Harry, I appreciate your concern," Ron had taken a large gulp of fire whisky and his voice had become hoarse, moisture trickling from the corners of his eyes as he suppressed a cough, "but stop being such a drama queen. I'm not going to fly into a jealous rage, if that's what you think. I told you a long time ago that I had given up on Hermione. It was always a stupid idea, in any case."
Harry had known that Ron didn't really mean what he had said, but he had also known that Ron didn't want to admit his true feelings and so, for the sake of their friendship, Harry had decided not to press the matter. He had changed the subject by asking Ron for his opinion of the new beater for the Chudley Cannons and the pair of them had gotten progressively more drunk and verbose as the evening wore on, before staggering back to the Burrow sometime after midnight.
Harry had told Hermione about his conversations with Ginny and Ron and they had decided that the time for caution and secrecy was now over. They had still been careful when they were with any of the Weasleys, restricting themselves to holding hands and light kisses, not wanting to flaunt their new intimacy too openly and this sensitivity had been rewarded by a gradual acceptance of their developing relationship, even by Molly. However, Molly's attitude of benign hostility had changed to complete indifference after Ron suddenly announced that he and Luna were to be married. Harry had been astonished when he had first heard the news.
"Are you sure that you know what you are doing, you always thought that she was crazy?" he had challenged Ron.
"No I didn't," Ron had been instantly defensive, "well, perhaps a little. But when you get behind all of that, she's really nice and she makes me feel really good about myself, which isn't something that I've had too much experience of."
Harry, who knew enough about Ron's insecurities to fill several large volumes, had smiled at that and had just wished his friend good luck. Ron's precipitant marriage had left the way totally clear for Harry and Hermione and they, in turn, had been married six months later. Ginny had drifted through several relationships but never seemed to settle on anyone and Harry worried that she was still pining for their lost romance. He felt guilty but had no choice but to leave her to work through whatever feelings she still had for him at her own pace, hopeful that no permanent damage had been done.
Harry revolved the ring slowly in his fingers once more, his thoughts returning from the past to the present issue that threatened to upset the peaceful, private Muggle life that he now shared with Hermione. The kitchen was a large room, with the primary access being through a doorway leading from the main hallway of the house. However, there was also a doorway that opened onto the sitting room and Harry had entered by this route, leaving the door ajar behind him. Looking through this opening from his vantage point behind the kitchen table, Harry could just see the corner of the elegant bookcase that nestled in an alcove next to the fireplace in the sitting room. He knew that on the shelves of that bookcase sat copies of the volumes that had caused such a stir in the Muggle world and that still represented such a challenge to his privacy - Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone; Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets; Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban; Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire; Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix; Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. When the first two volumes of this series had been published back in 1997 and 1998, nobody in the magical world even noticed. The battle against Voldemort had been raging and the Ministry was in turmoil. Voldemort and his supporters treated the Muggle world with disdain and certainly paid no attention to their literature. However, by the time that The Prisoner of Azkaban was published in 1999, the battle against Voldemort was over, Muggle memories had been modified and the activities of Muggles were once again under close scrutiny. The excitement surrounding the publication was therefore soon noted and to their horror the Ministry discovered that this book was the third volume in a series of children's stories telling Muggles all about the magical world and particularly about its most celebrated individual, Harry Potter. A high-powered committee was therefore quickly set up to review the potential crisis that this could precipitate. When subjected to a close review, the stories proved to be remarkably accurate in their major details and it was clear that their source had access to the Dursleys and also to Hogwarts and, in particular, the Gryffindor common room. Despite all of their efforts, the committee were unable to determine where the information was coming from and to put a stop to it. The popularity of the books and their widespread, but by no means universal, distribution meant that it was difficult to consider any attempts at memory modification or property destruction. In any case, there were fears that further universal memory modification could react adversely with that already imposed to cover the actual impact that Voldemort's activities had inflicted. However, much to their relief the committee found that nobody in the Muggle world seemed to take the stories seriously. They considered them to be purely the work of an extremely ingenious imagination and so it was decided to simply monitor the situation and to try to limit any possible damage that might result. This strategy proved to be very successful and, in fact, many wizards and witches quite enjoyed the stories, although it was clear that much of the finer detail and private interactions between the protagonists were, at best, conjecture. Of the people who were most at risk of being recognised, Vernon Dursley had already died, the victim of a heart attack, brought on by years of obesity and the stress of thinking that he might be a potential target for Voldemort. As soon as the first book in the series was published, Petunia and Dudley had moved away from Privet Drive and had started to use Petunia's maiden name, although few people would have associated the slimmer, pleasant and modest young man that Dudley had become with the overweight, cowardly bully portrayed in fiction. Hermione's mother and father moved back to Australia and once again took up their identities as Wendell and Monica Wilkins. As far as all of their acquaintances knew, they did not have a daughter and when Hermione visited she presented herself as their niece, Jean. That just left Harry and Hermione, who, after they were married, wanted to live mainly in the Muggle world and give their children an initial Muggle education. This originally had not seemed to be a problem. They also used the surname Wilkins to protect their identities and, although they received some jocular comments about the coincidence that their names matched those of two popular fictional characters, it had seemed highly unlikely that anyone would take the association too seriously. After all, the books up to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, followed reality closely and clearly indicated a relationship between Ron and Hermione and between Harry and Ginny. In addition, they had deliberately chosen names for their children, Justin and Lucy, which utilised the same initials as those of Harry's parents but had no other connection with the people associated with him in the books. Then, news had reached the Ministry that the last book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was intended to contain an epilogue describing what had happened to the main protagonists after the battle against Voldemort had been concluded. This immediately brought with it the potential that the source knew about the relationships that had developed and that, when this information was revealed, the coincidences would become too great and that Harry and Hermione's pleasant Muggle existence could be placed in jeopardy.
Harry's reverie was broken by the sound of a key turning in the front door lock. He pushed his chair back, the legs scraping quietly across the rigid tiled floor, and levered himself up from the table before moving across to the doorway leading out into the hall. He saw Hermione, her back turned towards him, close the front door carefully and start to shrug out of her coat. Even after seven years of marriage, Harry could not look at his wife without a slight quickening of his pulse. To him, she was the most beautiful and elegant woman in the world. He knew that she was not, perhaps, considered to be beautiful in the conventional sense, like Ginny and Cho, although with her slim figure and her hair cut shorter, to tame its bushiness, she drew many admiring glances whenever they were out together. But, since their marriage, Hermione's self-confidence seemed to have improved and she now exuded an air of calm assurance that couldn't help but demand attention and, to Harry, everything about her seemed to be perfect.
"Hello, I'm back," she called as she hung her coat onto one of the metal hooks located on the hallway wall just inside the front door, completely oblivious to the fact that Harry was standing close behind her.
"Hello darling," Harry replied, smiling as he saw Hermione flinch with surprise.
"Oh, I didn't know you were there…sneaky." Hermione also smiled as she walked across to her husband, reaching up to kiss him.
"So, how did things go?" Harry asked as they pulled apart.
"Fine, it's all sorted. The epilogue has now been suitably modified and nobody will ever realise it. I am now Mrs. Ronald Bilius Weasley and I have two children, Hugo and Rose, while you are married to Ginny and have three children, James, Lily and Albus."
"Albus!" Harry repeated, his face contorting into a grimace. "You are joking aren't you?"
"Certainly not," Hermione replied smugly. "Albus Severus Potter, to be precise."
Harry laughed. "You're wicked. You know that, don't you? But, we're safe then? There's no chance that things could be reversed?"
"Not with the power of the magic that I used. Whoever the source is, they won't be able to do a thing about it," Hermione replied proudly. "Yes, I think that you can say that we are safe to continue just as we are." She clasped her hands behind Harry's neck, kissing him again. "Now let me show you just how wicked I can really be," she whispered.