Fic: Harry Potter: The Epilogue
Harry Potter: The Epilogue
By minnow_53
Disclaimer: It’s patently obvious I’m not JK Rowling! *sigh* Pretty well everyone and everything in here belongs to her.
Summary: What happened to everyone after the end? The very last chapter of Deathly Hallows.
Rating: G
AN: This isn’t crack, but a fairly straightforward attempt to think my way into the fate of all the characters. There are hundreds of possible outcomes: these are just speculation!
AN2: No spoilers as such, obviously, though there may be inadvertent ones: but this is a work of pure fiction.
AN3: This was written a while before Deathly Hallows came out.
Harry Potter: The Epilogue
If you were Minerva McGonagall, out for a spin on your broomstick this fine summer evening, you too might feel a certain curiosity, and, almost unconsciously, point your broom toward Ottery St. Catchpole.
A few miles away from The Burrow, between the village and the sea, a little cottage nestles in a hillside: a tiny cottage with a thatched roof. It's far from being a rich dwelling, yet the small garden is beautifully kept, full of flowering roses and a lawn smooth as velvet, with not a gnome in sight.
In a front parlour suffused with sunshine, a young woman sits feeding her baby. Her hair is a paler pink now: motherhood is exhausting, after all. But her features are soft as she cradles the infant in her arms.
A man stands in the doorway watching her, blissfully unaware of the nosy woman outside on her broomstick. Remus Lupin, who would never have dreamed he might have a happy ending, looks younger now, almost youthful at times. The worried lines on his face have smoothed out, and he’s more likely to be smiling lovingly at his wife and child than fretting about the state of the Wizarding world.
Not that he needs to. The Wizarding world will sleep soundly tonight.
Minerva smiles too, and hovers outside the window for a minute. Then, hoisting herself upwards, she flies a couple of hundred yards east, to The Burrow.
The Burrow, this July evening, is busy. In the back garden, three tables end-to-end groan under the weight of food. Though it won’t be dark for an hour or so, Chinese lanterns overhead, with their special moth-repellent charms, bathe the happy scene in artificial sunshine. This is obviously a big Weasley family reunion, because Minerva can count at least six heads of distinctive red hair.
Percy is in place of honour, next to his mother, who can’t look away from him for more than two seconds at a time.
‘I’d better start serving,’ Arthur says to Charlie, smiling ruefully. ‘Otherwise we’ll never get our dinner. Here, have some potatoes.’ He shovels mash on to a big plate, and dollops gravy over it.
The twins have thoughtfully provided some musical accompaniment with their latest invention, the self-playing accordion. It flaps comically in mid-air, opening and closing to play its wheezy but oddly attractive music.
Fleur and Bill are holding hands under the table. Minerva wonders idly when their first child will come along; but that really is none of her business, she scolds herself.
She also notes that two places are empty: Ron’s and Ginny’s. She sighs a bit, then turns the broom abruptly round and, in a dizzying change of direction, heads for London, flying over the miles of suburbs in a flash, and finally ending up outside a smart address near Kensington.
This house, so much larger than the Lupins’ tiny cottage, is far shabbier. The windows are uncurtained and, from the look of things, the inhabitants have been reduced to letting rooms, for the place now has the air of a rather seedy lodging-house. Minerva thinks, inconsequentially, that it’s just as well Muggles can’t see number 36 Aston Square, or they’d think there were squatters living there, and complain bitterly that the neighbourhood was going down.
Minerva can see a wizard who greatly resembles Dedalus Diggle using his wand to shave in front of the open window, while a couple who look and sound uncannily like the Diggorys carry on a shrill argument about whose turn it is to put out the cat. Well, she is of an age where everyone you meet reminds you of someone you’ve once known. It certainly couldn’t be Cedric’s parents, who now live in France, and Dedalus would never shave so clumsily.
Downstairs, in a once-grand drawing room with faded gold fitments, a man and woman are just settling down to their evening; or rather, a boy and woman, Draco Malfoy and his mother, Narcissa. Hardship has been good for Narcissa, Minerva thinks. Her nose is now not nearly so high in the air, and the look in her eyes, as she watches her son, is closely akin to the look in young Mrs Lupin’s as she feeds her baby.
Draco’s robes are now even shabbier than Professor Lupin’s. Minerva feels a rather mean sense of triumph when she notes the patches and the poorly-executed sewing charms on the split seams.
He holds his wand aloft to Transfigure a cheap white china dinner plate into a cushion for his mother, and tucks it solicitously behind her back, smiling at her reassuringly.
‘There, Mother. Your programme’s just about to start.’ He turns on the wireless and the strains of the Wizarding Youth Orchestra drift through the open window. Not Minerva’s favourites, but they can carry a tune all right.
No doubt Draco misses his father, she thinks with a pang; even the children of Death Eaters are innocent victims in this war. But the twin blows of bereavement and defeat have made Draco a far less arrogant, more caring boy: and that will have to suffice for now. He’s working hard at his ill-paid junior post in the Department of Magical Games and Sports, and his boss, Ludo Bagman, seems pleased with his progress.
Back in the sky, Minerva finds herself racing an owl carrying a very important-looking parchment in its beak. She amuses herself by trying to overtake it, but the bird manages always to fly ahead of her, steering its course north, and further north, along a dark, dank river choked with weeds.
She descends where it descends, to a Muggle house in the shadow of a gigantic mill chimney. The owl taps on a window with its beak and is admitted by a wizard with sallow skin and a hooked nose, who says impatiently, ‘You took your time, Socrates!’
Minerva is a bit nervous about spying on Professor Snape, the spy of spies, double agent of double agents, and considers doing a Disillusionment Charm to disguise herself. But as former Head of Gryffindor House, she is nothing if not courageous; keeping well within the shadow cast by the huge chimney, she tentatively peeps through the window.
Severus scowls as he reads the important-looking document, which looks suspiciously like next year’s Potions syllabus. Horace Slughorn was more than happy to go back into retirement, and Professor Snape is firmly reinstated as Potions Master at Hogwarts. At the start of his new tenure, Headmistress McGonagall had a stern word with him about the way he treats his students.
‘Now I’m no longer under stress, I’ll be the most popular teacher at Hogwarts!’ he promised her.
Minerva replied drily, ‘No need to go that far! Just try not to inflict too much damage on the children.’
Certainly, he has been chastened by his wound, the deep scar across his forehead that ironically echoes Harry’s and proclaims him to be a good guy after all. Whether he can live up to that reputation remains to be seen.
He puts down his parchment and looks round; obviously, his sharp ears have detected something. Minerva stays absolutely still, holding her breath, and a few minutes later Severus relaxes and pours himself a big measure of Firewhisky from a bottle of Ogden’s. Like father, like son. Minerva frowns, and sets off again on her flight.
She isn’t looking forward to the next destination. She’s glad that she can’t actually see into the charmed windows of St Mungo’s, and she has no intention of even trying to go into the hospital. She just wants to perform a silent salute to those who have fallen in the second war and remain within its walls.
Cornelius Fudge, Rufus Scrimgeour, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, Susan Bones, Zacharias Smith, Roger Davies, Marietta Edgecombe, Cho Chang... Some on the right side, some on the wrong, but every one damaged by an Unforgiveable Curse, every one of those promising, or less promising, individuals doomed forever to life in a closed ward.
Or perhaps not quite forever. Cho Chang has suddenly been making miraculous progress, and there’s a rumour she might be out of hospital before Christmas. Draco Malfoy spends a lot of time with his old friends Crabbe and Goyle, who have been doing well as a result. Narcissa has also been visiting them regularly, and mother and son have agreed that they should come and stay in Aston Square if they continue to improve.
There are other victims who have already been at St Mungo’s for some time: the Longbottoms, Gilderoy Lockhart. Minerva waves to them silently, feeling a bit silly: but she doesn’t know what else she can do.
She turns the broom round and makes her way south again, to Surrey: to a staunchly Muggle suburb, where a cat once sat in vigil outside the door of number four Privet Drive.
There are raised voices here that can be heard even in the street; embarrassing for Vernon and Petunia, no doubt, even though one of the voices is Petunia’s.
‘You’ve been smoking, Dudley! Don’t lie to me.’
Minerva is both amused and repelled by the sight of the hulking blond boy towering over his mother with a mixture of fear and defiance on his face.
‘It was only one, Mum! Piers Polkiss made me do it! He said he’d beat me up if I didn’t.’
Minerva smirks; she’s seen Polkiss, who’s about a foot shorter and four stone lighter than Dudley.
‘You must never do it again!’ Petunia says shrilly. ‘What would Mummy do if her little Dudleykins died of lung cancer?’
‘Now, that’s enough, both of you.’ Vernon Dursley enters the fray, his face red, creased with anxiety. ‘Dudley, you will never touch another cigarette, understood?’
‘Yes, Dad.’
Minerva grimaces and leaves them to it.
While she’s here, though, she can’t resist making a little detour to a very ordinary terrace house a few streets away. Fastidious Minerva wrinkles her nose a bit as she lands just outside the back door, and performs a quick Scourgifying spell; such a shame that the owner of the house can’t do one for herself!
She hides her broomstick under a bush in the overgrown garden. Slipping into her Animagus form, she nips in through the cat-flap and finds her way to the front room.
Arabella Figg is peering round suspiciously, her nose twitching. ‘Where did the smell go, Mr Paws? Tufty?’ She shakes the heavy curtain and a kitten tumbles out of its folds.
The ten or so cats draped round the room on chairs, sofas and floor, seem oblivious to her agitation. But it hits Minerva that Arabella might notice an intruder - cat-lovers are funny like that - so she hastily goes out the way she came, transfoms back, and retrieves her broomstick.
On the outskirts of London again, Minerva flies down to an attic room at the very top of a rambling Victorian house. She feels a bit self-conscious spying on a pair of lovers. However, at the moment, they’re sitting at a round table playing chess, with apparently new rules.
‘How about if I be the queen and you be the king?’ Luna asks eagerly, laying out the pieces in entirely the wrong way.
Neville, in an unfortunate check dressing gown, beams at her widely. He’s got more confident since his heroic stand against Bellatrix Lestrange in the final battle; Minerva can see his medal propped on the mantelpiece, with its inscription, For Valiant Service in The Wizarding Wars. Next to it is a photo of Trevor, who is far from dead but currently living with Augusta Longbottom, as he doesn’t get on with Luna’s Blibbering Humdinger.
‘We don’t usually play like this!’ a bishop protests, and Neville says sternly, ‘Oi, you! If Luna tells you to do it, you will.’
‘Oh, all right.’ The chess pieces subside, still grumbling a bit.
Minerva leaves the couple in peace, and sets her course a bit further south, twisting and turning among the narrow streets around Brixton. Her destination this time is a rather grim fortress: not Azkaban, obviously, because Azkaban is a broomstick-exclusion zone, but a Muggle prison of stone and brick.
Not a flash of the beautiful summer evening sun penetrates the cells here; not a breath of the sweet air reaches the prisoners in this fastness. At least, Minerva, reckons, it’s better than Azkaban, though probably not a lot.
At this destination, she doesn’t remain anonymous, but whistles softly outside a cell high in the building, and receives an answering whistle in return.
A face appears at the bars. ‘Hey, Professor!’
‘Mundungus. I’ve brought you some decent food.’ She waves her wand, the bars part, and the bulky parcel falls into Mundungus’s grateful hands.
‘You couldn’t do that and get me out, could you?’
‘Certainly not!’ says Minerva indignantly. ‘You were found guilty by a Muggle court, and you must serve your time.’
‘Only another six months,’ Mundungus says. ‘Thanks for the food, Professor.’
‘You’re welcome. See you next week.’
As she flies back towards central London, Minerva ponders those less lucky than Mundungus. Lucius Malfoy, Bellatrix Lestrange and Fenrir Greyback given the Dementors’ Kiss immediately after the final battle; Rodolphus Lestrange now completely mad, rambling day and night in his cell; all the Death Eaters, Rosier, Avery, Mulciber, Nott, Crabbe, Goyle, captured and incarcerated in the new-style Azkaban with its extra security.
In a way, Minerva rather regrets the post-war ruling against Dementors. True, it is comforting to know that the last Dementor was Annihilated six months after the war ended. But some people deserve the very worst, Minerva thinks grimly.
Still, at least Stan Shunpike now has a job as one of the first human guards at Azkaban, which pays better than the Knight Bus and is less likely to give you motion sickness. The last she heard of him, his acne had cleared up and he was very happy indeed.
Minerva’s final visit is to 12 Grimmauld Place, which is currently empty and boarded up. Kreacher, of course, is dead, to nobody’s great sorrow, but Minerva feels slightly nostalgic as she looks down at the deserted house. In retrospect, she had some good times there, at those Order meetings when Dumbledore and Sirius were alive, when they were confident in Harry’s power to defeat evil. How arrogant they’d been, but how hopeful! She whispers, ‘See you again,’ to the house, relieved that nobody can hear her except a couple of London starlings.
Then, she hastily wheels round and makes for King’s Cross, leaving London via a familiar route, the track of the Hogwarts Express. She doesn’t stop again until she reaches the school grounds.
Even in the summer holidays, Hogwarts is far from deserted. Hagrid’s cottage has been magically extended so he can share it comfortably with his wife, Olympe. The couple and Grawp are sitting outside by the pumpkin patch, finishing off a dish of ferret stew and drinking Butterbeer from great tankards. Once again, Minerva makes herself known, waving and calling down cheerfully, ‘Hello!’
‘All right, Professor?’ Hagrid raises his tankard to her.
‘Never better!’
Never better or not, she doesn’t relish her next task. Professor Dumbledore’s memorial beside the lake glows red and gold in the sunset, and when she flies across to the Hogwarts graveyard she is struck, as she has been since the war, by the rows of new stones. Michael Corner, the Patil twins, Hannah Abbot, Angelina Johnson, Terry Boot, Dean Thomas... The bodies were, of course, claimed by families, buried in other graveyards or burned and scattered, but each student has his or her memorial here at Hogwarts.
Delores Umbridge, though, actually is buried here: but only because she was a former Hogwarts professor and technically on the right side. Very technically. At least there’s no doubt that she really is dead, or so Minerva hopes.
And Peter Pettigrew is undoubtedly dead too. She exhales loudly as she reads the name and dates on his stone. True, he died saving Harry, and true, she can imagine Professor Dumbledore saying that he deserves some respect in death, as he repented at the end. All the same, if not for him, none of this would have happened. Minerva still hasn’t quite decided whether his remains will stay here or not. His grave is at a distance from the memorials to the true war heroes: though obviously he was also a hero in the end.
She gives up trying to work out the conundrum and starts to make her way back to the castle. Her broomstick’s a bit tired after its long flight and tries to land on the Quidditch pitch, but she coaxes it upward again.
The castle is, well...downright noisy. The lights in the entrance are blazing and there’s loud music coming from the Great Hall: some modern rubbish like the Weird Sisters. McGonagall sniffs.
She hopes Madam Pomfrey hasn’t got any sick staff in the hospital wing, or that if she does, she’s cast a decent Muffling Charm. For her own part, she’d march in and give the revellers a piece of her mind, only she does feel they deserve a bit of a break. And it is Harry’s birthday, after all. No doubt Filch has already regaled them with threats; since Mrs Norris died, he’s been dangerously unsettled.
It’s now almost dark, with a thin moon rising. Peering into the Great Hall, she sees that the four House tables have been pushed against the walls, and the house-elves are busy piling them with food and drink, oblivious to the fact that Nearly-Headless Nick is loudly challenging the Bloody Baron to a duel.
'Not so proud of your Slytherins now, are you?’ he jeers.
A bad idea, because the Baron’s face is contorted with rage, and if the Grey Lady and Fat Friar weren’t holding the two of them back, the ghosts would be killing each other all over again.
They’re interrupted by a commotion at the tables, as Hermione, with Crookshanks at her heels, bustles round with the house-elves, pouring crisps into bowls and setting out knives and forks.
‘It’s all right, Hermione Weasley,’ squeaks Winky. ‘Winky can manage the work.’
‘Don’t be driving Winky back to the Butterbeer!’ moans Dobby, wiping his forehead with the spare sock he keeps for this purpose.
Talking of Butterbeer, Minerva notes with disapproval that Professor Trelawney has already got through a good half bottle of sherry, which Filius Flitwick seems to be sharing; they’re both giggling quite disgracefully. She makes a mental note to give Sibyll another verbal warning: not that they’ve had much effect so far. If Binns were there she’d steer him in their direction, sober them both up a bit, but unfortunately Binns rarely leaves his classroom or the staffroom.
And Harry has to be somewhere here... Minerva manoeuvres as close to the window as she dares, almost bumping into Firenze who’s gazing out at the stars and very nearly spots her. She immediately reverses her broomstick, and finally locates Harry, sitting in a corner discussing Quidditch moves with Madam Hooch, in a loud, excited voice.
‘The point is, you never see the Snitch going that high, do you?’ Harry asks, and Madam Hooch says, ‘There was a case where the Seeker put an Orbiting Charm on the Snitch, and kept it up in the sky for a week, while the other team got too tired to play on. He slept on his broomstick, of course.’
Harry is the youngest Professor in the history of Hogwarts. Since Voldemort’s final demise, the curse over the DADA professor seems to have been lifted, and Harry is about to start his second year.
‘I don’t want you to risk it, Potter,’ McGonagall said, when he first applied for the post.
‘If I get slung out, I can always try teaching Potions,’ Harry rejoined.
She’s still disappointed that he didn’t fulfil his ambition to be an Auror, but as he points out, being an Auror is a bit boring these days, what with all the bad guys dead or in Azkaban. Mad-Eye has taken to golf, a Muggle game he finds especially challenging for a man with one normal and one magic eye. He gets very paranoid about his opponents, but that’s only to be expected.
Minerva casts an admonishing glare at the second-youngest Professor in the history of Hogwarts, who’s still getting in the way of the house-elves. ‘Leave them to it, for Merlin’s sake!’ she hisses, but only to herself.
She’s always had a soft spot for Hermione, and is happy to admit it. Though she was at first heart-broken at having to relinquish her beloved Transfiguration classes to anyone else, she soon realised that it was impossible both to teach and be headmistress. So far, Professor Weasley has been exemplary: no student in her class got lower than 120% in the end-of-year exam, a promising start.
Even Dennis Creevey, in his NEWT year, studied hard, though his ambition is to join his brother as a photographer for the Daily Prophet. ‘That would be amazing, wouldn’t it, Hermione? I mean Professor Granger. Sorry. Professor Weasley.’
Lavender Brown starts as Divination assistant in September, and Minerva is a bit worried that there may be some hostility between her and Hermoine. However, Lavender is engaged to Seamus Finnigan, so no doubt that will diffuse any problems; Minerva certainly hopes so. Conflict among staff members is always difficult. Harry and Severus spent most of Harry’s first year here pointedly avoiding each other, but seem to have thawed a bit toward the end of the summer term.
Just before Minerva leaves, she checks on Ron and Ginny, amused that they have gravitated together, in true Weasley fashion, to discuss their respective spouses.
Ginny says, ‘The other day, Harry actually picked up Hedwig and said, ‘She’d make a wonderful Snitch.’ Hedwig bit him, of course. I sometimes feel he’s picked the wrong subject to teach.’ She looks at her watch, then adds, ‘I wonder how long he can talk about Quidditch without stopping.’
‘Probably about as long as Hermione can sit up preparing lessons,’ Ron says, a bit gloomily. ‘You’d think she’d be sick of school, wouldn’t you? She says it’s so wonderful to be able to enjoy Hogwarts without worrying about You-Know-Who or Harry getting killed.’
Certainly, there are no more shadows over Hogwarts. The dead have been mourned and honoured, and the living can now look hopefully toward the future. The new Minister of Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt, is intelligent and intuitive, always ready to listen to even the humblest denizen of the Wizarding world. Voldemort and his minions have been defeated, and in this new, open climate every wizard and witch feels confident that they can deal with whatever fate throws at them next.
Minerva mounts her broomstick again and makes for her office. The portrait of Dumbledore hanging opposite the desk watches her, eyes twinkling. ‘Am I to assume all is well, Minerva?’
‘All is well.’
Fawkes stirs on his perch, then puts his head under his wing and goes to sleep again.
End
By minnow_53
Disclaimer: It’s patently obvious I’m not JK Rowling! *sigh* Pretty well everyone and everything in here belongs to her.
Summary: What happened to everyone after the end? The very last chapter of Deathly Hallows.
Rating: G
AN: This isn’t crack, but a fairly straightforward attempt to think my way into the fate of all the characters. There are hundreds of possible outcomes: these are just speculation!
AN2: No spoilers as such, obviously, though there may be inadvertent ones: but this is a work of pure fiction.
AN3: This was written a while before Deathly Hallows came out.
Harry Potter: The Epilogue
If you were Minerva McGonagall, out for a spin on your broomstick this fine summer evening, you too might feel a certain curiosity, and, almost unconsciously, point your broom toward Ottery St. Catchpole.
A few miles away from The Burrow, between the village and the sea, a little cottage nestles in a hillside: a tiny cottage with a thatched roof. It's far from being a rich dwelling, yet the small garden is beautifully kept, full of flowering roses and a lawn smooth as velvet, with not a gnome in sight.
In a front parlour suffused with sunshine, a young woman sits feeding her baby. Her hair is a paler pink now: motherhood is exhausting, after all. But her features are soft as she cradles the infant in her arms.
A man stands in the doorway watching her, blissfully unaware of the nosy woman outside on her broomstick. Remus Lupin, who would never have dreamed he might have a happy ending, looks younger now, almost youthful at times. The worried lines on his face have smoothed out, and he’s more likely to be smiling lovingly at his wife and child than fretting about the state of the Wizarding world.
Not that he needs to. The Wizarding world will sleep soundly tonight.
Minerva smiles too, and hovers outside the window for a minute. Then, hoisting herself upwards, she flies a couple of hundred yards east, to The Burrow.
The Burrow, this July evening, is busy. In the back garden, three tables end-to-end groan under the weight of food. Though it won’t be dark for an hour or so, Chinese lanterns overhead, with their special moth-repellent charms, bathe the happy scene in artificial sunshine. This is obviously a big Weasley family reunion, because Minerva can count at least six heads of distinctive red hair.
Percy is in place of honour, next to his mother, who can’t look away from him for more than two seconds at a time.
‘I’d better start serving,’ Arthur says to Charlie, smiling ruefully. ‘Otherwise we’ll never get our dinner. Here, have some potatoes.’ He shovels mash on to a big plate, and dollops gravy over it.
The twins have thoughtfully provided some musical accompaniment with their latest invention, the self-playing accordion. It flaps comically in mid-air, opening and closing to play its wheezy but oddly attractive music.
Fleur and Bill are holding hands under the table. Minerva wonders idly when their first child will come along; but that really is none of her business, she scolds herself.
She also notes that two places are empty: Ron’s and Ginny’s. She sighs a bit, then turns the broom abruptly round and, in a dizzying change of direction, heads for London, flying over the miles of suburbs in a flash, and finally ending up outside a smart address near Kensington.
This house, so much larger than the Lupins’ tiny cottage, is far shabbier. The windows are uncurtained and, from the look of things, the inhabitants have been reduced to letting rooms, for the place now has the air of a rather seedy lodging-house. Minerva thinks, inconsequentially, that it’s just as well Muggles can’t see number 36 Aston Square, or they’d think there were squatters living there, and complain bitterly that the neighbourhood was going down.
Minerva can see a wizard who greatly resembles Dedalus Diggle using his wand to shave in front of the open window, while a couple who look and sound uncannily like the Diggorys carry on a shrill argument about whose turn it is to put out the cat. Well, she is of an age where everyone you meet reminds you of someone you’ve once known. It certainly couldn’t be Cedric’s parents, who now live in France, and Dedalus would never shave so clumsily.
Downstairs, in a once-grand drawing room with faded gold fitments, a man and woman are just settling down to their evening; or rather, a boy and woman, Draco Malfoy and his mother, Narcissa. Hardship has been good for Narcissa, Minerva thinks. Her nose is now not nearly so high in the air, and the look in her eyes, as she watches her son, is closely akin to the look in young Mrs Lupin’s as she feeds her baby.
Draco’s robes are now even shabbier than Professor Lupin’s. Minerva feels a rather mean sense of triumph when she notes the patches and the poorly-executed sewing charms on the split seams.
He holds his wand aloft to Transfigure a cheap white china dinner plate into a cushion for his mother, and tucks it solicitously behind her back, smiling at her reassuringly.
‘There, Mother. Your programme’s just about to start.’ He turns on the wireless and the strains of the Wizarding Youth Orchestra drift through the open window. Not Minerva’s favourites, but they can carry a tune all right.
No doubt Draco misses his father, she thinks with a pang; even the children of Death Eaters are innocent victims in this war. But the twin blows of bereavement and defeat have made Draco a far less arrogant, more caring boy: and that will have to suffice for now. He’s working hard at his ill-paid junior post in the Department of Magical Games and Sports, and his boss, Ludo Bagman, seems pleased with his progress.
Back in the sky, Minerva finds herself racing an owl carrying a very important-looking parchment in its beak. She amuses herself by trying to overtake it, but the bird manages always to fly ahead of her, steering its course north, and further north, along a dark, dank river choked with weeds.
She descends where it descends, to a Muggle house in the shadow of a gigantic mill chimney. The owl taps on a window with its beak and is admitted by a wizard with sallow skin and a hooked nose, who says impatiently, ‘You took your time, Socrates!’
Minerva is a bit nervous about spying on Professor Snape, the spy of spies, double agent of double agents, and considers doing a Disillusionment Charm to disguise herself. But as former Head of Gryffindor House, she is nothing if not courageous; keeping well within the shadow cast by the huge chimney, she tentatively peeps through the window.
Severus scowls as he reads the important-looking document, which looks suspiciously like next year’s Potions syllabus. Horace Slughorn was more than happy to go back into retirement, and Professor Snape is firmly reinstated as Potions Master at Hogwarts. At the start of his new tenure, Headmistress McGonagall had a stern word with him about the way he treats his students.
‘Now I’m no longer under stress, I’ll be the most popular teacher at Hogwarts!’ he promised her.
Minerva replied drily, ‘No need to go that far! Just try not to inflict too much damage on the children.’
Certainly, he has been chastened by his wound, the deep scar across his forehead that ironically echoes Harry’s and proclaims him to be a good guy after all. Whether he can live up to that reputation remains to be seen.
He puts down his parchment and looks round; obviously, his sharp ears have detected something. Minerva stays absolutely still, holding her breath, and a few minutes later Severus relaxes and pours himself a big measure of Firewhisky from a bottle of Ogden’s. Like father, like son. Minerva frowns, and sets off again on her flight.
She isn’t looking forward to the next destination. She’s glad that she can’t actually see into the charmed windows of St Mungo’s, and she has no intention of even trying to go into the hospital. She just wants to perform a silent salute to those who have fallen in the second war and remain within its walls.
Cornelius Fudge, Rufus Scrimgeour, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, Susan Bones, Zacharias Smith, Roger Davies, Marietta Edgecombe, Cho Chang... Some on the right side, some on the wrong, but every one damaged by an Unforgiveable Curse, every one of those promising, or less promising, individuals doomed forever to life in a closed ward.
Or perhaps not quite forever. Cho Chang has suddenly been making miraculous progress, and there’s a rumour she might be out of hospital before Christmas. Draco Malfoy spends a lot of time with his old friends Crabbe and Goyle, who have been doing well as a result. Narcissa has also been visiting them regularly, and mother and son have agreed that they should come and stay in Aston Square if they continue to improve.
There are other victims who have already been at St Mungo’s for some time: the Longbottoms, Gilderoy Lockhart. Minerva waves to them silently, feeling a bit silly: but she doesn’t know what else she can do.
She turns the broom round and makes her way south again, to Surrey: to a staunchly Muggle suburb, where a cat once sat in vigil outside the door of number four Privet Drive.
There are raised voices here that can be heard even in the street; embarrassing for Vernon and Petunia, no doubt, even though one of the voices is Petunia’s.
‘You’ve been smoking, Dudley! Don’t lie to me.’
Minerva is both amused and repelled by the sight of the hulking blond boy towering over his mother with a mixture of fear and defiance on his face.
‘It was only one, Mum! Piers Polkiss made me do it! He said he’d beat me up if I didn’t.’
Minerva smirks; she’s seen Polkiss, who’s about a foot shorter and four stone lighter than Dudley.
‘You must never do it again!’ Petunia says shrilly. ‘What would Mummy do if her little Dudleykins died of lung cancer?’
‘Now, that’s enough, both of you.’ Vernon Dursley enters the fray, his face red, creased with anxiety. ‘Dudley, you will never touch another cigarette, understood?’
‘Yes, Dad.’
Minerva grimaces and leaves them to it.
While she’s here, though, she can’t resist making a little detour to a very ordinary terrace house a few streets away. Fastidious Minerva wrinkles her nose a bit as she lands just outside the back door, and performs a quick Scourgifying spell; such a shame that the owner of the house can’t do one for herself!
She hides her broomstick under a bush in the overgrown garden. Slipping into her Animagus form, she nips in through the cat-flap and finds her way to the front room.
Arabella Figg is peering round suspiciously, her nose twitching. ‘Where did the smell go, Mr Paws? Tufty?’ She shakes the heavy curtain and a kitten tumbles out of its folds.
The ten or so cats draped round the room on chairs, sofas and floor, seem oblivious to her agitation. But it hits Minerva that Arabella might notice an intruder - cat-lovers are funny like that - so she hastily goes out the way she came, transfoms back, and retrieves her broomstick.
On the outskirts of London again, Minerva flies down to an attic room at the very top of a rambling Victorian house. She feels a bit self-conscious spying on a pair of lovers. However, at the moment, they’re sitting at a round table playing chess, with apparently new rules.
‘How about if I be the queen and you be the king?’ Luna asks eagerly, laying out the pieces in entirely the wrong way.
Neville, in an unfortunate check dressing gown, beams at her widely. He’s got more confident since his heroic stand against Bellatrix Lestrange in the final battle; Minerva can see his medal propped on the mantelpiece, with its inscription, For Valiant Service in The Wizarding Wars. Next to it is a photo of Trevor, who is far from dead but currently living with Augusta Longbottom, as he doesn’t get on with Luna’s Blibbering Humdinger.
‘We don’t usually play like this!’ a bishop protests, and Neville says sternly, ‘Oi, you! If Luna tells you to do it, you will.’
‘Oh, all right.’ The chess pieces subside, still grumbling a bit.
Minerva leaves the couple in peace, and sets her course a bit further south, twisting and turning among the narrow streets around Brixton. Her destination this time is a rather grim fortress: not Azkaban, obviously, because Azkaban is a broomstick-exclusion zone, but a Muggle prison of stone and brick.
Not a flash of the beautiful summer evening sun penetrates the cells here; not a breath of the sweet air reaches the prisoners in this fastness. At least, Minerva, reckons, it’s better than Azkaban, though probably not a lot.
At this destination, she doesn’t remain anonymous, but whistles softly outside a cell high in the building, and receives an answering whistle in return.
A face appears at the bars. ‘Hey, Professor!’
‘Mundungus. I’ve brought you some decent food.’ She waves her wand, the bars part, and the bulky parcel falls into Mundungus’s grateful hands.
‘You couldn’t do that and get me out, could you?’
‘Certainly not!’ says Minerva indignantly. ‘You were found guilty by a Muggle court, and you must serve your time.’
‘Only another six months,’ Mundungus says. ‘Thanks for the food, Professor.’
‘You’re welcome. See you next week.’
As she flies back towards central London, Minerva ponders those less lucky than Mundungus. Lucius Malfoy, Bellatrix Lestrange and Fenrir Greyback given the Dementors’ Kiss immediately after the final battle; Rodolphus Lestrange now completely mad, rambling day and night in his cell; all the Death Eaters, Rosier, Avery, Mulciber, Nott, Crabbe, Goyle, captured and incarcerated in the new-style Azkaban with its extra security.
In a way, Minerva rather regrets the post-war ruling against Dementors. True, it is comforting to know that the last Dementor was Annihilated six months after the war ended. But some people deserve the very worst, Minerva thinks grimly.
Still, at least Stan Shunpike now has a job as one of the first human guards at Azkaban, which pays better than the Knight Bus and is less likely to give you motion sickness. The last she heard of him, his acne had cleared up and he was very happy indeed.
Minerva’s final visit is to 12 Grimmauld Place, which is currently empty and boarded up. Kreacher, of course, is dead, to nobody’s great sorrow, but Minerva feels slightly nostalgic as she looks down at the deserted house. In retrospect, she had some good times there, at those Order meetings when Dumbledore and Sirius were alive, when they were confident in Harry’s power to defeat evil. How arrogant they’d been, but how hopeful! She whispers, ‘See you again,’ to the house, relieved that nobody can hear her except a couple of London starlings.
Then, she hastily wheels round and makes for King’s Cross, leaving London via a familiar route, the track of the Hogwarts Express. She doesn’t stop again until she reaches the school grounds.
Even in the summer holidays, Hogwarts is far from deserted. Hagrid’s cottage has been magically extended so he can share it comfortably with his wife, Olympe. The couple and Grawp are sitting outside by the pumpkin patch, finishing off a dish of ferret stew and drinking Butterbeer from great tankards. Once again, Minerva makes herself known, waving and calling down cheerfully, ‘Hello!’
‘All right, Professor?’ Hagrid raises his tankard to her.
‘Never better!’
Never better or not, she doesn’t relish her next task. Professor Dumbledore’s memorial beside the lake glows red and gold in the sunset, and when she flies across to the Hogwarts graveyard she is struck, as she has been since the war, by the rows of new stones. Michael Corner, the Patil twins, Hannah Abbot, Angelina Johnson, Terry Boot, Dean Thomas... The bodies were, of course, claimed by families, buried in other graveyards or burned and scattered, but each student has his or her memorial here at Hogwarts.
Delores Umbridge, though, actually is buried here: but only because she was a former Hogwarts professor and technically on the right side. Very technically. At least there’s no doubt that she really is dead, or so Minerva hopes.
And Peter Pettigrew is undoubtedly dead too. She exhales loudly as she reads the name and dates on his stone. True, he died saving Harry, and true, she can imagine Professor Dumbledore saying that he deserves some respect in death, as he repented at the end. All the same, if not for him, none of this would have happened. Minerva still hasn’t quite decided whether his remains will stay here or not. His grave is at a distance from the memorials to the true war heroes: though obviously he was also a hero in the end.
She gives up trying to work out the conundrum and starts to make her way back to the castle. Her broomstick’s a bit tired after its long flight and tries to land on the Quidditch pitch, but she coaxes it upward again.
The castle is, well...downright noisy. The lights in the entrance are blazing and there’s loud music coming from the Great Hall: some modern rubbish like the Weird Sisters. McGonagall sniffs.
She hopes Madam Pomfrey hasn’t got any sick staff in the hospital wing, or that if she does, she’s cast a decent Muffling Charm. For her own part, she’d march in and give the revellers a piece of her mind, only she does feel they deserve a bit of a break. And it is Harry’s birthday, after all. No doubt Filch has already regaled them with threats; since Mrs Norris died, he’s been dangerously unsettled.
It’s now almost dark, with a thin moon rising. Peering into the Great Hall, she sees that the four House tables have been pushed against the walls, and the house-elves are busy piling them with food and drink, oblivious to the fact that Nearly-Headless Nick is loudly challenging the Bloody Baron to a duel.
'Not so proud of your Slytherins now, are you?’ he jeers.
A bad idea, because the Baron’s face is contorted with rage, and if the Grey Lady and Fat Friar weren’t holding the two of them back, the ghosts would be killing each other all over again.
They’re interrupted by a commotion at the tables, as Hermione, with Crookshanks at her heels, bustles round with the house-elves, pouring crisps into bowls and setting out knives and forks.
‘It’s all right, Hermione Weasley,’ squeaks Winky. ‘Winky can manage the work.’
‘Don’t be driving Winky back to the Butterbeer!’ moans Dobby, wiping his forehead with the spare sock he keeps for this purpose.
Talking of Butterbeer, Minerva notes with disapproval that Professor Trelawney has already got through a good half bottle of sherry, which Filius Flitwick seems to be sharing; they’re both giggling quite disgracefully. She makes a mental note to give Sibyll another verbal warning: not that they’ve had much effect so far. If Binns were there she’d steer him in their direction, sober them both up a bit, but unfortunately Binns rarely leaves his classroom or the staffroom.
And Harry has to be somewhere here... Minerva manoeuvres as close to the window as she dares, almost bumping into Firenze who’s gazing out at the stars and very nearly spots her. She immediately reverses her broomstick, and finally locates Harry, sitting in a corner discussing Quidditch moves with Madam Hooch, in a loud, excited voice.
‘The point is, you never see the Snitch going that high, do you?’ Harry asks, and Madam Hooch says, ‘There was a case where the Seeker put an Orbiting Charm on the Snitch, and kept it up in the sky for a week, while the other team got too tired to play on. He slept on his broomstick, of course.’
Harry is the youngest Professor in the history of Hogwarts. Since Voldemort’s final demise, the curse over the DADA professor seems to have been lifted, and Harry is about to start his second year.
‘I don’t want you to risk it, Potter,’ McGonagall said, when he first applied for the post.
‘If I get slung out, I can always try teaching Potions,’ Harry rejoined.
She’s still disappointed that he didn’t fulfil his ambition to be an Auror, but as he points out, being an Auror is a bit boring these days, what with all the bad guys dead or in Azkaban. Mad-Eye has taken to golf, a Muggle game he finds especially challenging for a man with one normal and one magic eye. He gets very paranoid about his opponents, but that’s only to be expected.
Minerva casts an admonishing glare at the second-youngest Professor in the history of Hogwarts, who’s still getting in the way of the house-elves. ‘Leave them to it, for Merlin’s sake!’ she hisses, but only to herself.
She’s always had a soft spot for Hermione, and is happy to admit it. Though she was at first heart-broken at having to relinquish her beloved Transfiguration classes to anyone else, she soon realised that it was impossible both to teach and be headmistress. So far, Professor Weasley has been exemplary: no student in her class got lower than 120% in the end-of-year exam, a promising start.
Even Dennis Creevey, in his NEWT year, studied hard, though his ambition is to join his brother as a photographer for the Daily Prophet. ‘That would be amazing, wouldn’t it, Hermione? I mean Professor Granger. Sorry. Professor Weasley.’
Lavender Brown starts as Divination assistant in September, and Minerva is a bit worried that there may be some hostility between her and Hermoine. However, Lavender is engaged to Seamus Finnigan, so no doubt that will diffuse any problems; Minerva certainly hopes so. Conflict among staff members is always difficult. Harry and Severus spent most of Harry’s first year here pointedly avoiding each other, but seem to have thawed a bit toward the end of the summer term.
Just before Minerva leaves, she checks on Ron and Ginny, amused that they have gravitated together, in true Weasley fashion, to discuss their respective spouses.
Ginny says, ‘The other day, Harry actually picked up Hedwig and said, ‘She’d make a wonderful Snitch.’ Hedwig bit him, of course. I sometimes feel he’s picked the wrong subject to teach.’ She looks at her watch, then adds, ‘I wonder how long he can talk about Quidditch without stopping.’
‘Probably about as long as Hermione can sit up preparing lessons,’ Ron says, a bit gloomily. ‘You’d think she’d be sick of school, wouldn’t you? She says it’s so wonderful to be able to enjoy Hogwarts without worrying about You-Know-Who or Harry getting killed.’
Certainly, there are no more shadows over Hogwarts. The dead have been mourned and honoured, and the living can now look hopefully toward the future. The new Minister of Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt, is intelligent and intuitive, always ready to listen to even the humblest denizen of the Wizarding world. Voldemort and his minions have been defeated, and in this new, open climate every wizard and witch feels confident that they can deal with whatever fate throws at them next.
Minerva mounts her broomstick again and makes for her office. The portrait of Dumbledore hanging opposite the desk watches her, eyes twinkling. ‘Am I to assume all is well, Minerva?’
‘All is well.’
Fawkes stirs on his perch, then puts his head under his wing and goes to sleep again.
End