Hey all! I finished HP 7 the week it came out (I would have finished it that night but other stuff came up). Here is the promised epilogue. WARNING: MAJOR (!!!) SPOILERS FOLLOW!!!

Also, (a) I have already cited the below song lyrics, (b) I have never been to Oxford and so am modeling it off Harvard and some other New England universities, (c) I will change certain details in the main body of the story later (though I was pleasantly surprised to find that most of HP 7 fit EXACTLY with what I thought was going to happen, so it’s as if I wrote most of this story already knowing how everything was going to turn out, and consequently I don’t need to change very much, woot!), and (d) I hope you enjoy this final chapter and tell me what you think! Thank you so VERY much for bearing with me over the course of this entire ridiculously-long story…I have very, very much enjoyed it and it was a pleasure writing this final chapter and reviving my characters one last time. Ciao!

EPILOGUE

7 Years Later

Harry Potter trudged through the half-rain, half-fog that shrouded the ancient stone buildings of the University of Oxford. Shivering, he made his way down the length of one of the archway-lined corridors and pushed open a wooden door next to a sign that read “Admissions”.

He found himself in a pleasantly-warm hallway. Unwrapping the Muggle scarf he had purchased in the city—even now that he lived as a wizard, Harry kept some Muggle clothing around the house—he shook the water out of it before taking a small package out of his coat pocket and patting it to be sure it was still dry. Satisfied, he pocketed it and walked purposefully down the hallway.

His stride faltered as he approached a second door with the word “Undergraduate Admissions” carefully stenciled on the glass. His hand automatically went to his wand pocket for reassurance; it took considerable effort for him to pull it back and reach for the door handle instead.

He took a deep breath and opened the door.

To his immediate left he could see a row of chairs and a small table stacked high with magazines. He looked at the desk; behind a very high computer screen someone was typing away. Behind him, the door made a soft ding—at which Harry jumped—and the typing stopped.

Harry almost sighed aloud with relief as an elderly woman, not a young one, stood up and smiled. “Good afternoon,” he said as she looked at him inquisitively.

“The same to you. May I help you?”

“Yes. My name is Gerald P-Porter. I have an appointment with T-Tabita Godfrey, I believe?” Harry knew he appeared nervous, and mentally kicked himself.

Fortunately, the older woman attributed his nervousness to something else. “You have an interview, yes?” she asked kindly. “Please sit down. Miss Godfrey will be out shortly.”

“Thank you.” Harry sat and studied his scarf fringe intently, willing the back office door to remain shut. He’d promised himself to do this—for Sirius, and for Remus, Harry—but it had been difficult to force himself to actually make the journey. Now he was going to have to explain this whole insane story to a young woman who would probably have him thrown out of the office for lunacy, but it had to be done.

After Remus and Tonks’s funerals, Harry had discovered a small package in their house that had been left especially for him; in fact, Remus had charmed it so that no one but Harry would be able to open it. It had contained several pictures and a letter. Harry remembered sitting on the Lupin’s now-empty couch and looking through them hungrily. One was of his parents and Sirius; James waved wildly, arm-in-arm with his wife, and Sirius’s face was lit with laughter.

The next was of Sirius and a young woman Harry had never seen before. He paused at the expression on Sirius’s face—he looked remarkably happy and both his arms were around the young woman’s waist, his chin buried in her hair. She was flushed and laughing as she tried to wave up at the camera; her eyes, a dark grey-green with charcoal rims, arrested Harry. He turned the picture over and recognized the same handwriting that had appeared as “Moony” on the Marauder’s Map. Remus had written, “Sirius and Sabrina, Prongs’s wedding” in scrawling letters.

There were two more pictures—Muggle pictures. Harry’s frown deepened as he picked up the first. It showed the woman Sabrina in a folding metal chair, an infant in her arms. No one Harry knew was anywhere to be seen in the photograph. He picked up the next Muggle photo and found himself staring into a miniature, female version of Sirius’s face.

He did not need Sabrina’s carefully-folded letter to understand, though he numbly read it all the same. It was Remus’s letter that remained in Harry’s mind forever.

Dear Harry,

If you find this letter, it means that I am dead, for whether by my own voice or by my hand I intend to tell you the truth about your godfather. I am sorry that I have waited so long, but it is for the sakes of others that I have kept silent. You may wonder who the woman in the pictures is. Her name was—is—Sabrina Godfrey-Black, and she was Sirius’s wife.

We all met Sabrina in our seventh year at Hogwarts; she was in Gryffindor and became very good friends with the Marauders, your mother, and Sirius’s girlfriend Katie. Sirius admired Sabrina—she was kind and funny beside being a brilliant witch—and he eventually ended his relationship with Katie to be with her. They were engaged at your parents’ wedding and got married in secret soon thereafter. It was done “in spirit”, as a legal marriage would have put Sabrina in great danger from the Black family.

Here I must confess something which I pray you will never repeat, Harry—I hope you will not think badly of me, but I fully accept your right to do so. I loved Sabrina Godfrey. I was young and foolish and I allowed my feelings for her to grow even after she was married to my friend. You must understand, Harry, that I did not want to hurt Sirius, but I wasn’t thinking plainly. She never encouraged me—she is guiltless in this—but I let myself care for her beyond friendship—far beyond—and, blinded by this, I began to become jealous of Sirius, to the point where I thought him capable of betraying his best friend and brother to Lord Voldemort. Had I been willing to see clearly, I would have picked Peter as the spy, but there were other factors at work: fear for myself as a werewolf, which you—and, earlier, she—rightly admonished me for; James’s absolute confidence in Sirius; Sirius’s assumption that he would be James’s right-hand man in everything; Sirius’s distrust of me—which my feverish brain took to mean that he was the spy and which I only later realized was the result of his discovery of my feelings for his wife—and more. I now believe it was, in part at least, my thoughts and actions that led to Sirius labeling me the spy and Peter innocent. Jealousy and envy are terrible things, Harry. They convinced Peter, I am sure, that he should do anything to gain as much talent and power as James and Sirius possessed; they convinced me for over a decade that one of my best friends in the world was capable of murdering the woman that we both loved, he more than his own life.

Such was the extent of Voldemort’s influence in those days that I even believed that Sirius—by which I mean the image of the spy I had created in my mind, not the man that we both know—would kill his own child for power. You see, on the night your parents died, Sabrina, who was carrying Sirius’s child, was traveling to visit a relative of hers. Death Eaters were waiting for her and targeted the bus she had been traveling on; they did not realize that she had gotten off in the village and Imperius-cursed an oil-transport’s driver into colliding with the bus. Some woman had stolen Sabrina’s identification, and the bodies were so burned that there was no way to recognize them except by identification papers or cards. Apparently, from what her letter to Sirius said, Sabrina believed Dumbledore could no longer help her; she thought that since Dumbledore knew of Sirius’s innocence—she did not realize that he had no knowledge of the switched Secret-Keeper—and since he was still doing nothing to free Sirius, he must be in no position to keep their child safe. She disappeared into the Muggle world in the United States.

Again, it is hard for me to write these next words. I will admit that I was not fully in my right mind when I learned of your parents’—and Peter’s—deaths, and finding that Sabrina and her child were (I thought) dead was nearly impossible to bear. I went to Sirius’s holding cell in Azkaban and told him that he had killed them all. I told him that he had killed his wife and unborn child; I threw the newspaper article at him. Then I left my best friend to his fate. That destroyed him, Harry. He knew that his family wanted Sabrina dead, both as an Order member and as an insult to the Black family name—if she had not married Sirius, she would have been safer—so he held himself personally responsible for the death of the person he loved most in the world.

She wrote a letter, which I am sure you have already read, several years after that. Kreacher hid it somewhere for many years, and Sirius did not discover it until the night he was killed. He had started composing a reply letter when he left for the Ministry; he never finished it. I know that he died happy, and for that I am glad.

I hope you know that Sirius and your father meant everything to me, and that you can one day forgive me for what I can only believe was in great measure my fault. I must ask that you one day contact Sabrina and her daughter Tabita and tell them everything. Also, Harry—if my wife and son are—as I pray—still living at the time you read this letter, please give them my deepest love. You understand, I hope; I will be eternally grateful.

Please forgive me, Harry, for everything,

Remus

Harry had put down the letter, hands shaking, and stared into the dimness of the snug little living room that Tonks and Remus had so recently shared.

Now as he sat holding that same package in the waiting area of the University of Oxford’s admissions office, Harry smiled bitterly as he twisted the thin band of gold on his left ring finger. He had never thought of any of it being Remus’s fault, in fact could not fathom the thought that Remus Lupin would ever do anything to hurt one of his friends. For a while, he had thought, somewhat irrationally, that perhaps Sabrina Godfrey was to blame for everything: if she hadn’t been there, Remus would have been clearer in his reasoning and Peter would have been caught out. However, the line Remus had written kept running through his mind: “She never encouraged me—she is guiltless in this—” Harry thought now of his wife. Ginny would never knowingly cause a situation like this, though he knew it wouldn’t be hard for one to come up; he’d had to fend off some eager would-be suitors before their engagement was announced.

He was startled back to reality by the door opening behind the small welcome desk.

“Please come in, Mr. Porter,” said a strangely familiar voice. Harry would have called it a slightly younger version of Narcissa Malfoy’s, with a hint of an American accent, but Narcissa had never sounded so warm and…playful? He looked up and almost did a double-take. A young woman stood in the doorway, a smile on her face. She looked very much like the Sabrina Harry had seen in the photographs, but her hair, which she currently had tossed behind one ear, was a deep red-brown and her face had more of the Black aristocratic lift, even in one so young. Her smile wasn’t Sirius’s—the tilt of her chin was different—but her eyes…Her mother’s letter had been correct. It made Harry ache just to look at them.

He stood up quickly, nodding a greeting, and walked into her office, where she motioned for him to sit down. He did so, and she sat across from him.

“Now, Mr. Porter, you were considering applying as a transfer student, is that correct? I must say, you look familiar, though I’m sure I’ve never met you before…” She was all business, but she smiled again at him as she began to write on a blank sheet of paper. G-e-r-a-l-d P-o-r-

“It’s Potter,” Harry said gently. “And you haven’t met me, you’ve seen pictures of my father.”

Her pen stopped. “Pardon me?”

“My name is not Gerald Porter. It’s Harry Potter. I—”

Tabita’s head snapped up and she stared at him with grey eyes—Sirius’s eyes—narrowed. Her face was carefully cool. “I don’t understand, Mr. Porter.”

“Yes, you do, Miss Godfrey.” Harry smiled wanly. “Harry Potter. The Boy Who Lived. I’m sure your mother has told you all about us.”

“What are you—” Tabita froze. Harry had pulled the small package out of his coat and was dumping the contents on the table. With trembling hands, Tabita picked up the same picture of her parents that she had asked her mother about years before. The young Sirius and Sabrina smiled and waved up at the camera, wrapped in a loving embrace. She looked up at her visitor, face blank. “How—how did you get this?”

“My father took this picture,” Harry said. “It was at his wedding, the same day your parents got engaged. Sirius was my godfather.”

“My mother has this picture,” Tabita whispered. “She told me stories...” She looked up. “You're—you're really him, aren't you?”

In answer, he handed her Remus’s letter. She read through it quickly, her face paling as her eyes traveled down the page. “Oh, my God...it’s true, isn’t it? It’s tr—”

Harry wondered for a moment whether she was going to faint. Either that, he decided, or she would take him for a lunatic—the picture was a moving wizard photo, after all—and throw him out of the office. Instead, she reached for the phone. “Pardon me one moment,” she said softly. “I'm going to phone my mother.”

Harry was about to ask if that was a good idea, but she had already picked up the receiver.

Tabita's fingers were shaking as she dialed a long number and listened to the ringing on the other end. A click, then, “Hello?”

“Mum? It's me, Tabita.”

“Oh, Tabita! How are you? Is anything wrong?”

Tabita almost smiled. “No, Mum, nothing's wrong...well, actually, there is something very important I have to tell you. You remember, um, James Potter?”

There was a short silence on the other end, then, “Yes, of course; why?”

“Well, erm, his son Harry...he's here in the office. He's got a picture of you and Dad, and Mum, it’s a real wizarding photo. Everything you told me is true, Mum, it’s true. You've got to come to England right away.” She paused. There was only silence on the other end, followed by a soft sound. “Mum?”

On the other side of the Atlantic, Sabrina Godfrey-Black had collapsed into a dead faint.

-

They arranged to meet her at King's Cross. It wasn’t practical to use the Floo network or Apparation over such long distances, so she’d taken the Muggle route. Standing on the platform next to Tabita—whom he supposed to be something like a sister, since Sabrina and Sirius were his godparents—Harry listened for the approaching train.

It came at last. The train hissed to a stop, and passengers began to get off. Harry strained to see her through the crowd; he'd seen pictures, of course, but he didn't know what she looked like now.

A woman wrapped in a deep charcoal wool coat and hood was the last passenger to disembark. Her hood slipped down, revealing shoulder-length dark-brown hair that tangled in the wind, and green-grey eyes searched through the crowd until she caught sight of the three. Harry knew who she was; even before he felt Tabita tense beside him, he knew...

They locked gazes and he saw Sabrina Godfrey-Black’s face turn ashen—she truly looked as if she had seen a ghost, which, Harry reflected, she nearly had. Tabita went to her through the crowd; Harry followed. After a quick hug for her daughter, Sabrina turned to Harry. “James,” she whispered, before shaking her head. “I'm terribly sorry—Harry. I'm Sabrina G—Black.”

Harry shook her hand, vaguely feeling that this was the wrong thing to do, and said awkwardly, “Nice to meet you.” He felt much better when, a moment later, she pulled him into a very motherly hug.

She released him and held him at arm's length. “You look so, so much like your father,” she said wonderingly, “but you've got Lily's eyes...”

Harry just smiled.

-

It had been several years since Tobias had seen the Grim in the cemetery of Godric’s Hollow, but he had ever after made it a point to avoid the three strange graves where he had seen the man and dog. It was therefore not without consternation that he found himself leading a small group of people in funny clothes toward those same graves.

The group was headed by a woman with startling grey-green eyes and a young man with round glasses and even greener eyes. They were nice enough people, but Tobias sensed something…different about them. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but they made him feel uneasy, all of them.

“Here they are,” he said gruffly as they rounded the final curve in the path, throwing his arm out to indicate the three stones.

“Thank you,” the young man said quietly. The woman’s eyes were fixed on the third, independent stone. “Sabrina Godfrey-Black and Infant,” she said softly. Almost unconsciously, she reached out and gripped the shoulder of a young woman about her height, with—Tobias realized—very similar features. He didn’t know the young man’s name, but he rarely forgot a funeral, and the young man looked very much like another young man who had been buried here in this very spot…

His mind working feverishly to put together the threads of conversation he’d heard earlier from the group, Tobias was about to open his mouth to ask what was going on when the woman turned to him and said, “Thank you for your assistance. I am sorry.” She lifted a strange stick and said something in another language, and Tobias felt his whole body freeze. He fell to the ground and lay there, terrified.

“Wouldn’t a memory charm have done the same thing, Sabrina?” A frown creased the young man’s forehead.

“Yes, but we don’t want him to leave and then wander back. It’ll only take a moment. He’s not in pain, and we’re obviously not going to harm him, Harry.”

Harry half-smiled. “You sound like Hermione.”

“From what I’ve heard about her, I’ll take that as a compliment.” She turned to Tobias. “I’m really very sorry, sir. This will just be a moment.”

Tobias couldn’t answer. He just watched, cursing his luck as they all took out what he decided were wands—though that was silly, wasn’t it?—and pointed them at the gravestone that said “Sabrina Godfrey-Black and Infant”.

There were several jets of light, and two strange things happened at once: the original stone disappeared, and a double headstone, bearing the names “Sirius Black” and “Sabrina Black”, appeared in its place. A few feet away from Tobias, near a row of graves, a second headstone with the words “Matilda Howe, 1938-1981” appeared, along with a neatly-tended patch of grass over the new grave. If Tobias’s eyes could have widened with amazement, they would have been the size of saucers.

This done, the group gathered around the fresh grave. Tobias watched uneasily from the corner of his eye—they were maddeningly just outside his field of vision. The woman—Sabrina, was it?—stood directly before the headstone with her head bowed. “Thank you, Matilda Howe, whoever you were. You never knew it, but you kept my child hidden and safe, and for that I owe you everything. You have already paid a terrible, terrible price; may you now rest forevermore in peace.”

Then she turned back to Tobias. “You may have a slight headache tomorrow morning, but it is far better if you do not remember what you have witnessed.” She raised her wand and Tobias’s world went black.

-

“We wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!”

Several members of the Weasley family tromped through the now-cheery halls of Grimmauld Place, waving sparkling garlands and laughing, faces shining in the candlelight. Harry and Ginny Potter met them at the door to the kitchen.

“Merry Christmas, dear boy.” Percy Weasley, a great deal softer-spoken than in former years, clasped Harry’s hand in his own. Right behind him came George, who clapped him on the shoulder. “Merry Christmas from Fred and me,” he said jokingly, but Harry could see the pain that flickered in his eyes. Fred’s death had left a gaping hole in the Weasley family; George and Percy, of all unlikely people, had grown closer over the years since, trying to make things seem the same. Harry put his hand on George’s arm. “Thanks to both of you,” he said softly. George nodded stiffly and moved forward into the kitchen. Ginny’s worried brown eyes followed him.

“He’ll be all right,” Harry said softly to her.

“Merry Christmas, Harry, Ginny,” a familiar voice interrupted.

“Merry Christmas, Ron, Hermione.” Harry grinned at his best friends, who still blushed madly whenever their names were mentioned in the same sentence. “Or should I say, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley?”

“Stop it, Harry,” Hermione protested, but she flushed pink. Ron stood straight and very proud, grinning from ear to ear.

“Where’s our hostess? Or should I say, hostesses?” he asked, looking around.

“Sabrina’s still baking cookies, and I believe Tabita’s out back setting up Christmas lights,” Ginny said, smiling. “Mundungus brought enough butterbeer to drown the Hogwarts giant squid in, so everything should be set to go.”

“Great!” Ron grimaced at the look Hermione threw at him, then turned to Harry. “How are they getting on, mate?”

“They’re fine. I’m sure it’s a bit odd for Sabrina to be back working at Hogwarts—and odder for Tabita to be living her double life as a Muggle and a witch—but I think it’s all for the best.” Harry smiled, remembering the day he had given Sabrina Black the keys to Grimmauld Place. Although she was not legally the heir to the Black fortune—Sirius hadn’t written her into his will, since the original version was meant to conceal the fact that he was married and subsequent versions had made no mention of one who was supposed to be dead—Harry had given a substantial amount of it to her anyway. Grimmauld Place had been a fair portion of it, since he and Ginny were currently living in the house that Sirius had bought with his Uncle Alphard’s “bit of gold”.

“I think you’re right.” Hermione’s eyes were lit as she looked around the room. “They’ve done a wonderful job brightening up in here, haven’t they?”

“Thank you,” a new voice interjected. “We’ve been hard at work for the last two weeks getting ready for all of you!”

Sabrina stepped, smiling, out of the kitchen, flour still on her apron. Behind her, Tabita was carrying a plate of cookies. “Merry Christmas, everyone!” she called to the group, before disappearing to the right of the doorway.

They headed into the kitchen, which had been softly lit with candles and beautiful, rich green garlands. Above the table floated dancing ornaments from George and Fred’s old joke shop. Harry could see the expression in George’s eyes as he looked at them, and was glad he had asked Sabrina and Tabita to use them as decorations.

After dinner, they turned on Christmas music and sang along. The butterbeer put everyone into a happy stupor, and they were mainly content to hum along or just watch the fire.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas…

The words floated across the room. Harry, his arm around his wife, noticed Sabrina’s face change. A few lines into the song, she got up and walked to the window, arms wrapped around herself and staring up into the night sky. Her face was reflected golden-orange in the darkened window as the fire slowly died behind her.

Harry carefully disentangled himself from Ginny, who had fallen asleep on the cushions, and joined her at the window. “Everything okay?” he asked casually.

Sabrina nodded, still looking out the window. “Just thinking of another Christmas.” They stood and listened to the voice singing on the radio:

Here we are as in olden days,

Happy golden days of yore.

Faithful friends who are dear to us

Gather near to us once more.

Through the years we all will be together

If the Fates allow…

“Look,” Sabrina broke in suddenly. She pointed to the icy sky outside. “It’s his star.”

Harry followed her finger and saw a brilliant blue-white star. It sparkled as he watched. “What is it?”

“That’s Sirius, the Dog Star. The Black family named many of their children after stars. They named Sirius after the brightest star in the sky. It only appears in winter, in the darkest, coldest time of the year.”

“I wish he were here now,” Harry said quietly.

“I wish all of them were here.” Sabrina smiled and looked up at the star glittering in the deep blue Christmas Eve night sky. “Merry Christmas,” she whispered, and Harry wasn’t sure if she was talking to him or not.

They stood at the window as the song faded to nothing and London slept underneath the winter starlight.