After the Flaw: Finale

[kanedax]

 
Title: After the Flaw: Finale
Author: kanedax
Spoilers: Deathly Hallows, Previous Chapters (READ PART V FIRST) ( timeline)
Rating: PG-13 for language and suggestive content
Summary: Doesn’t Finale summarize it enough?
Notes: I first started this series with a missing-chapter one-shot on 22 July, 2007, the Sunday after the release of Deathly Hallows. Five months and God knows how many words later, it’s finished… for now. But I’ll post about my future plans for this timeline in a day or two. Just know that I’m not going to abandon it yet.
I want to thank all of my readers who started when I first posted After the Flaw, and all those newcomers and lurkers who have hopped on since. You’ve driven me to write more and go deeper than I ever have in a fic series before, and helped push this series to heights that I never imagined.
I own these characters. All others belong to JK Rowling. And even those I did create were inspired by her to no end.
Thanks again for reading!

Granger Stubborn / Previous Chapters / My Fanfiction Page / After the Flaw: Oligarchy

On 2 June 1998, Harry Potter faced Lord Voldemort and certain death so that his friends, his neighbors, and the wizarding world could defeat the Dark Lord and his minions and live their lives in peace and harmony.

Soon after, Harry faced He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named again. This time, Voldemort himself was defeated once and for all.

The world was saved that night by a seventeen-year-old boy and his friends.

All was well.

7 September 2017.

Nineteen years, three months, five days, and about seventeen hours later.

“You have to be fucking kidding me.”

“Oh, don’t get your panties in a bunch.”

“Of course I can should my panties in a bunch!” the Knight known as Brad_Pitts_Clone said. “We can’t fight those things!”

“But I've fought them before,” Tesla7Fold, the thief of their guild, replied. “Hell, I've fought more than them before with my old guild. There’s only, what, two orcs guarding that gate? Easy as pie.”

“Two orcs were easy last week,” countered the guild’s healer, VBaudelaire. “Before that system glitch happened. Now we’ll all get smooshed into a fine paste. You especially, Tesla.”

“Oh, come on,” Tesla said. “We might not have the levels we had before, but we’ve all been playing long enough where this should be simple. We have real experience.  We can take them. Right, Harmony?”

“Hermione.”

“Whatever,” said Tesla, and Hermione Caroline Granger could practically hear him bouncing on the balls of his feet.

“No, Brad’s right,” Hermione sighed. “We’re not ready to fight them yet. We should probably go back, spend some time building up our experience before we come back. I know I don’t have the spells to handle them like I used to.”

“But this map sucks,” Tesla grumbled. “All it has is a bunch of slimes. It’ll take us hours to get any meaningful levels built.”

“Then that’s what we’ll have to do,” said Hermione.

“I remember this from the first time I played,” said Tesla. “There’s a bunch of really nice wolf packs on the other side of the gate. Tons of experience, and they’re a breeze to cut through. Do you think we can get through the gate without beating the orcs?”

“I don’t know,” said Baudelaire. “I don’t think the system will let us do that.”

“Well, only one way to find out, isn’t there?”

And Tesla7Fold was gone, sprinting across the digital field towards the huge gate.

“Oh, God, what does he think he’s doing?” asked Brad as he watched the two orcs step in front.

“He’s pulling a Leeroy Jenkins,” Hermione growled. “Idiot. Come on, let’s get it over with.”

“How do you know this guy again?” asked Baudelaire as the three ran to battle.

“He’s one of my old friends from USC,” said Brad. “His old guild broke up and he was looking to hook on somewhere else.”

“What did they call themselves? The Suicide Commandos?”

Much to their surprise, Tesla was able to slip past the orcs undamaged. Unfortunately, and not as much of a surprise, as soon as he reached the gate, he bounced off harmlessly, as though it were blocked by an invisible barrier.

“Shit!” he cried. “No good.” The MMO’s programming not only prevented him from passing through before the orcs were defeated, but also made the barrier powerful enough where his character was knocked onto his back. Before he righted himself, one of the orcs dropped his club onto the thief's chest, taking out a quarter of his hit points.

“Get back here, Tesla!” Hermione called out. “We’re going to get slaughtered, but we might as well make the best of it for practice. V, are you on it?”

“I’m on it,” Baudelaire replied, and Hermione saw the MAGIC menu pop up beside the white mage, the highlighter scrolling down until it found a basic cure spell.

“This sucks, this sucks, this sucks,” Brad chanted over and over as he took numerous swings at one of the orcs. Hermione quickly selected a low-level flame spell, one of the few in her inventory at this point in the game, and shot it at the second orc.

“God, we’re barely doing any damage,” said Hermione. “We’re going to have to pull back.”

“You need some help?”

Hermione’s screen scrolled to show four other players approaching the battle.

“No, we’re fine,” Tesla said. “Go find your own fight.”

“We all need to get past these guys,” one of the four, another Knight, said. The name floating over his avatar listed him as LittleGreenMan. “You’re newbies, we’re newbies…”

“I’m all for it,” said Brad, swinging away. “I’m almost out of HP here, though…”

“Sounds like we found some fellow Brits, too, Hermione,” said Baudelaire.

“Brad, pull back,” Hermione said. “V can fix you up. We could definitely use the help.”

“Oh, come on!” Tesla argued. “I don’t want to split the experience eight ways!”

“Thirty seconds ago you were ready to run past these things without getting any experience,” Baudelaire argued.

“Okay, okay,” Tesla grumbled. “Whatever…”

“Good,” Hermione said, turning back to the newcomers. “Who’s the leader?”

“Gou is,” said their necromancer, Asya0998.

GouFukami, the guild’s sorcerer, stepped forward. “That’s me.”

“Nice name,” said Hermione with a smile.

“Thanks,” Gou replied. “How do you want to do this?”

“You lead your team, I lead mine?”

“Probably easier with one head,” said Gou. “I’m all yours, Hermione.”

“Hey, get that!” Brad called out as his avatar skirted back to the edge of the battlefield, where V began casting her healing spell. “Someone actually pronounced your name right, Herm!”

“So how do you want to do this?” Gou repeated.

“Um, alright,” Hermione mumbled, tallying what they had available. She had been playing this game for years, but this was one of the few times she had been asked to coordinate more than four players. “What level are you all at? Ten?”

“More or less,” said Green.

“Gou, you have fire spells?”

“And a nice thunder spell,” Gou replied.

“Lovely,” said Hermione. “We had a system glitch and we lost most of our leveling a few days back. I only have a first level fire and a stunning spell so far.”

“Ouch,” said Green.

“Yeah, not pretty,” said Hermione. “Gou… That is a cool name. Lots of kids my age grew up with Power Rangers, but not many of them knew anything about the original Sentai.”

“Well, Gou’s my favorite character,” Gou replied. “Are you a fan of Gekiranger?”

“I am,” said Hermione. “It was my favorite when I was only watching the English versions, at least. But Gaoranger’s my Japanese version.”

“Oh, please,” Gou replied. “Gaoranger was too busy. Too many characters, too many mecha. Besides, it was an anniversary series; of course they were going to go full out. But it got too busy; the plot wasn’t very cohesive compared to Go-onger and Magiranger.”

“Hey, that’s what I liked about it, though!” said Hermione. “The twenty-four Red Warriors were half of the fun.”

“Look, I hate to break up the geekfest,” said Brad, “but shouldn’t we be doing some fighting?”

“Oh,” Hermione said. “Sorry.”

“Yeah, sorry,” said Gou, walking away from Hermione’s sorceress.

“Hermione,” Brad said with a sigh, “you want to do this? Or should I figure this out?”

“No, I’m on it,” said Hermione, momentarily flustered. “Okay, so Gou’s got some decent spells. So do I. What other long-rangers do we have?”

“Cat’s a ranger,” said Asya. “Bit of a plonker, though.”

“He’s the newbie among newbies,” said Gou as Hermione examined the bow-wielding CatnTheHat.

“I’ll do all right!” Cat argued.

“Alright, well, I suppose it’ll have to do,” said Hermione.

“We’ll make sure he hands it off to the girlfriend if there’s any problem,” said Green. “She’s just as raw, but her aim’s probably better.”

“Alright,” said Hermione. “Asya, what do you have?”

“Just a drain spell so far,” Asya0998 replied. “But my staff’s really pointy.”

“Okay, then you can go in with Green, Brad, and Tesla. Those three come back out to V if you’re getting short on health, and Asya pull back and cast some drains for yourself unless you absolutely need a cure spell.”

“Got it,” said Brad and Green at the same time.

“Okay, everybody focus on one orc,” Hermione said as Gou, V, and Cat spread out. “Get the one closest to us first. Try to avoid the second one if you can. It’ll be a lot easier to take them one at a time than to try to spread the fight.”

“Ready when you are, Hermione,” said Gou.

Brad chuckled. “Let’s kill us some bad guys.”

Hermione Caroline Granger took a deep breath.

“Go!”

The battle went a lot more smoothly than even Hermione anticipated. While Asya was a little rusty at times, it seemed as though Gou and Green knew what they were doing. Probably not their first MMO, she thought.

Her plan worked almost like clockwork, too, except for the few times that CatnTheHat hit their own players with his flailing arrows.

“There’s too many buttons!” he cried out over the microphone. “I can’t…!”

“Give me that,” a female voice came from the background, and within seconds the ranger’s arrows struck true.

“That was a good fight,” said Gou a few minutes later as the teams divvied up their spoils and the gateway opened before them. “Good planning, Hermione. I could learn a thing or two from you.”

“Thanks,” said Hermione.

“Hermione,” Gou mused. “That’s Shakespeare, right? Midwinter’s Tale?”

“That’s where my parents got it from,” Hermione said. “I’m impressed.”

“It’s nice.”

“Thanks,” Hermione replied. “So where are you from? You sound American.”

“And you sound British,” Gou replied. “London?”

“Oxford, actually,” said Hermione. “Well, actually, I’m in Bristol right now, at the university, but my family’s in Oxford.”

“No way,” said Green. “You’re in Bristol?”

“Yeah?”

“We’re in Bristol!” Green replied with glee.

“You are?” Hermione asked.

“Yeah, me and Gou are both here!”

“But I thought Gou’s an American?”

“Well, actually,” Gou said. “I’m visiting Green this weekend. Decided to meet up with the old guildmates. We’re actually at Green’s apartment right now, decided to get a little game in before going out for dinner. But I’m crashing on his couch this weekend.”

“How old are you?” Baudelaire asked.

“Nineteen,” Gou replied.

“Are you single?”

“Danielle!” Hermione cried, spinning around in her computer chair to stare angrily at her roommate, who was sitting across the room on her own system.

“What?” Danielle asked innocently, turning around to face Hermione. “I’m not allowed to ask?”

“Why?” Gou asked. “Are you?”

“I’m not,” Baudelaire replied. “But Hermione is.”

“Dani!”

“Are you cute?” Danielle, VBaudelaire, continued unabated.

“I don’t know how to answer that question,” Gou said uncomfortably.

“He is,” said Asya. “And I can say that in a purely non-romantic, platonic way. Gou’s hot.”

“Agreed,” said Cat, who was now being voiced by the original player’s girlfriend.

“Look, I’m not single!” Hermione cried out. “I’m not… I mean… we’re seeing other people, but I’m not single!”

“Since when did this turn into a dating sim?” asked Tesla. “Can’t we keep moving?”

“Hermione’s really cute,” Danielle said, ignoring Tesla. “And she wants to meet you.”

“Danielle, no!” Hermione screamed, pulling her headphones off and sprinting across the room.

“Really?” Danielle said, laughing hysterically as Hermione tried to wrestle the headphones from her head. “Brilliant. Well, she can’t hear you right now, but I’ll tell her. No, I promise she’ll be there. What?”

Hermione finally pulled the headphones from Danielle’s head and held the attached microphone up to her mouth. “V and I have to go,” she said quickly. “Brad, Tesla, I’ll email you and we’ll figure out our next meeting time.”

“Bye!” Danielle yelled loudly, still giggling like she was in primary school as Hermione reached over and logged VBaudelaire out of the system.

“What are you doing?” Hermione said between clenched teeth.

“Setting you up on a date,” said Danielle, standing up and walking to her bed. “Saturday, two o’clock, at the Tea Party on Park Street.”

“What?”

“Hermione, I’m making you go on a date.”

“But why?”

“Because he’s cute, and he’s single, and he’s American and short term and you could use a good weekend fling, and for God’s sake you were drooling all over each other with that Sanka talk-“

“Sentai-“

“And so you have more in common than you did with a lot of the other supposed dates you’ve been on.”

“But…” Hermione said weakly, sitting hard on her own bed, “but… Dani, I don’t know…”

“Look, you said you wanted to see other people, right? That’s what you told Ted?”

“Yes, I did,” Hermione argued. “But for relationships. Not for… whatever I’d have with someone who’s leaving on Sunday.”

“Why not?” Danielle shrugged. “He seemed really nice, and you two have a lot in common. Why not meet him, and see what happens?”

“Because nothing can happen.”

“Sure, things can happen,” said Danielle. “A lot of things can happen. You could come up with a new guildmate. You could find a new IM buddy. You could have fun for once instead of locking yourself up in our room every weekend.”

“I don’t-“

“You do,” Danielle insisted. “Too much. Hermione, you’re too sweet, too pretty, and too available to be wasting your university years away. Go out. Have fun. Get shagged.”

“Danielle!” Hermione cried. “You know I’m…”

“Right, right, you’re still a virgin, sorry,” Danielle sighed. “But bloody hell, Hermione, would it hurt to have someone touch your fanny besides Mr. Buzzy?”

“Oh, Lord,” Hermione moaned, falling back onto her pillow. “Dani… I’m going to come off like a complete git…”

“No, you won’t,” said Dani, walking across to Hermione’s bed and sitting down. “Look, Hermione. Go on Saturday. Two o’ clock. Give Gou an hour. For me. If it goes well, you can thank me on Monday after he’s flown back to wherever he came from.”

”And if it doesn’t?” Hermione asked, covering her face with her hands.

“Then I promise I won’t try to set you up with anyone else ever again.”

Hermione dropped her hands and looked at her roommate in disbelief. “Danielle,” she said. “Please…”

“I promise I’ll make an effort to not set you up with anyone else ever again,” Danielle amended. “But I also don’t want you to be single for the next two years. At the very least it would be nice to bring Phillip over some nights without you being here.”

“I don’t…” Hermione began, but then shook her head. “You’re right. I need to get out.”

“Saturday?”

“Saturday,” Hermione said begrudgingly.

Danielle squealed with glee and clapped her hands together. “I’m going to make you look so good!”

And Danielle did a good job.

As Hermione Granger turned the corner and saw the blue front of the Boston Tea Party, she stopped to check her reflection in the window of the tailor’s shop next door.

“You know, you should try dressing like a girl more often,” Danielle had said, tossing various pieces of wardrobe at Hermione as she sat helplessly in bra and knickers on her bed. “Jumpers and jeans will only get you so far.”

And she was right. Hermione knew that her best friend shared a completely different style than her own. And she probably would never dress like this again unless Dani specifically dressed her again.

But for now, the skirt, polo neck, and button-up sweater loaned to her by her roommate looked very nice. And with her blond hair down (she usually wore it back in a ponytail, at least unless she was with Ted don’t think about Ted), wearing Dani’s beret, Hermione was fairly confident that Gou’s jaw would hit the ground.

But that’s just it, a part of her protested. Do we really want his jaw to drop?

Hermione did her best to shut that small voice out. It’s just a date, she responded, taking a deep breath and stepping into the café. Not a marriage proposal.

The café was somewhat dim as she stepped in from the bright September afternoon.

“Okay then,” she whispered to herself, scanning the dozen or so bodies spread across the tables. “What did Dani say? Brown hair, brown corduroy jacket. Brown hair, brown corduroy jacket.”

And there he was, at one of the middle tables. His back was to the door, head down, studying a menu, a steaming cup of something at his side. Hermione hesitated. Steeled herself. Took a step towards the table. Then two. Then she was walking.

Then she was sitting.

“Hi,” she said nervously. “Sorry if I’m…”

Gou looked up.

It wasn’t Gou.

“Hi,” said Teddy Lupin.

Hermione’s eyes went wide. “Ted!” she cried, standing up. “What are… What are you doing here?”

“I have a date, actually,” he said, looking around. “What are you doing here?”

“I… I do, too…” she said, her face turning scarlet. “Sorry, I guess wrong table there must be more than two corduroy jackets here…”

“That’s alright,” Ted replied.

Why is this so easy for him? Hermione thought. How can he play it so cool when it feels like I’m going to burst into flame from embarrassment?

“Who are you looking for?” Ted continued. “What does he look like?”

“I… I don’t know…” she said, staring at the floor, wishing she could just dig a hole and die in it. “I just met him… well, it’s a blind date, Dani set it up… Dani my roommate…”

“Oh,” said Ted. “Well, that’s nice.”

“Yeah,” Hermione said, pulling the beret from her head, suddenly feeling very stupid and very fake with it on.

“Well, do you want me to leave?” asked Ted. “I mean, if you’d rather be alone…”

“I don’t know,” Hermione sighed. She looked back into his eyes. And she was locked into them. Your… Your… Didn’t you say you have a date? Shouldn’t you wait for her?”

“Actually, she’s here already,” said Ted.

“Oh,” Hermione said, her face almost purple with embarrassment. Yet her eyes couldn’t move. “Right. Well. Alright. Then. Um. I should. Go. Outside and. Wait for him.”

“Well, that would be odd,” said Ted.

“Why would that be odd?” asked Hermione. “I don’t know what he looks like but I know what he’s wearing.”

“No, I just mean it would be odd because I’m your date.”

“What--?”

And then Hermione’s words were cut off because Teddy Lupin was kissing her.

It was like nothing she had ever felt before. None of their kisses, not their first, not their last, nothing compared to this one. And with it Hermione felt a year and a half of loneliness, a year and a half of nerves, a year and a half of not having the one man she needed… all gone in an instant.

“Ted,” she breathed, her heart pounding in her chest as she forced herself to pull away from him. “Ted, we shouldn’t…”

“Hermione, listen to me,” Ted said.

And she did. She fell silent, just reveling in his arms again.

“I tried,” he said. “I tried to date other people. Tried to tell myself that there was a chance that you weren’t right for me. But then I decided that it was just stupid. I didn’t want to delay the inevitable. I could have waited until you were done with your schooling, but in the end it would feel like it was a wasted effort. I don’t even want to wait anymore. I just want us. I’ve never wanted anything else.”

“Ted…” That slowly dying remnant of Granger Stubborn, of paranoia about whether she was making the right choice, was desperately fighting a losing battle.

“Look, alright,” Ted said, stepping back. “In the end I just want you to do what you think is right. I just needed to tell you all that. I wanted to tell you that I love you, and that I’m going to wait for you. No matter what. So whenever you decide you want to be with me, I’ll be waiting.”

“Ted…” Hermione repeated. So many words she wanted to say…

“But if you want to be with Gou instead,” Ted said with a small smile, “I’ll understand.”

Hermione saw Ted covertly pull his wand out of his coat pocket and give it a small flick. Since they were in a Muggle location, he couldn’t dare do anything more. But Hermione knew in which direction he had pointed the spell, and turned back to the table where the two had first met.

There was now something new at the table.

Relatively speaking.

“Oh, my God,” she gasped, walking back to the table. “Is this…”

“I told you online,” said Ted as Hermione picked up the toy, “Gou Fukami’s my favorite. The Purple Ranger. Always has been. That’s the same Ranger that Neville gave me for my birthday when we were four. The one I asked for because I knew you liked the show. You know, before you started liking the original Japanese.”

“Ted….” It seems like all she could say anymore. She gazed amazingly at the purple plastic ninja, its paint now chipped away in most places. The right arm was tacked back in place, a small nail embedded in its shoulder. Had Harry done that? No, he would have used magic to repair it, most likely. It was probably Hermione’s own father, Dan Granger, who had fixed Teddy’s toy when it had been broken. He was a Muggle, and Teddy hadn’t wanted to entrust the Muggle toy to anyone else.

And around his neck…

“Like his necklace?” Teddy said behind her, his mouth an inch from her ear.

Hermione’s hand covered her mouth in a very Granger-like way at the gold band encircling the toy’s neck.

“We can wait,” he whispered, wrapping his hands around her waist from behind. “We can wait the two years until you’re done at the university. But I wanted to ask now. So I know. So we know.”

Hermione Caroline Granger, her hands suddenly shaking uncontrollably, slowly lifted the ring from around the toy’s neck. Afraid that she was going to drop it into Ted’s tea, she quickly set it into the palm of her hand. She wanted go wrap her fingers around it just to be safe, but she couldn’t look away.

“Hermione Granger,” Ted whispered. “Will you marry me?”

She turned around in his arms. And smiled. And nodded.

And she kissed him.

“Bloody hell,” she heard from somewhere in the distance. “What the hell’s wrong with that bloke’s hair?”

“Newest in hair dye technology,” a female voice responded. “Not on the market yet, still in its test phase. Changes color in response to the scalp’s body temperature. You’re not allowed to tell anyone about it until it hits the shelves.”

Hermione pulled back to see that Teddy’s hair had now turned bright blue.

“Oh, God, Ted,” Hermione gasped. “Your hair… you’re in public…”

“Asya’s with the Muggle-Worthy Excuse Department,” he whispered, motioning to a nearby table. “She handled it well enough, I think…”

“Carla?” Hermione gasped, as Carla Meece gave her a friendly wave, Edmund Lemming sitting beside her.

“She’s pretty good, isn’t she?” Ted said with a small smile.

“She’s Asya?” Hermione gasped. “How did she know how to play?”

“She’s studied Muggle,” said Ted with a shrug. “She learned how to use a computer as part of her training.”

“And the others?”

“Ummm, let’s see,” Ted said. “Edmund’s LittleGreenMan. He was a player before he even started at Hogwarts, so he knew what he was doing. Gavin and Jenn,” he pointed to another smiling couple at other end of the café, “were CatnTheHat, and you could tell. They played like they had never touched a computer in their lives. They were using Edmund’s sister’s system, didn’t even know what a bloody keyboard was until Edmund and I sussed it out with them.”

“Was… They were all in on this?” Hermione gasped in bemused disbelief. “Dani?”

“I emailed Dani last week,” Ted admitted.

“But you didn’t know her!”

“Your sister told me about her,” he replied. “Gave me a last name. I looked her up in the school’s directory. Sent her an email. She was all for it, wanted to do whatever she could for you. Both of them.”

“My sister?” Hermione said, her disbelief piling up. “She… She helped?”

“She’s the one that gave me the swift kick in the arse, actually,” said Ted. “She’s a nice lady, Aunt Jean is. We had a nice long chat.”

Hermione smiled, shook her head in amazement. “You’re astonishing, you know that?”

“I’ll do whatever it takes,” he said, and kissed her again.

A minute later (Was it a minute? Hermione thought. It felt like a moment) Ted pulled back. “Oh, and you’re supposed to call Dani,” he said. “She couldn’t make it, but she wanted to know the outcome.”

“I’ll get around to it,” Hermione chuckled. “I’m a little busy right now.”

“If you want, I could send her an owl,” said Carla. “Which is teenage slang for a text message,” she said quickly, seeing a nearby couple look at her in confusion.

“An owl?” Hermione whispered to Ted.

“Why not?” Teddy Lupin replied. “She’s your friend. Don’t you think she should know about the family you’re marrying into?”

Hermione Caroline Granger smiled. Kissed her fiancé again.

“I definitely have to buy some of that hair dye when it comes out,” the café patron whispered to her partner as the wizard and the Muggle kissed in the middle of the café. “It’s bloody brilliant stuff.”

This kiss lasted a lot longer.

Nineteen years, three months, seven days, and twelve hours later.

And all was well.

THE END

Granger Stubborn / Previous Chapters / My Fanfiction Page /  After the Flaw: Oligarchy