* chapter 19 – epilogue redux *
Montrose won after almost four days of Quidditch in a game that had most of wizarding Britain in the stadium. Marcus finished the match with two cracked ribs and a personal best three hundred and seventy-eight different fouls.
Harry refused to speak to Hermione after the Championship, until the Harpies' played Chuddley and Ginny collided with a Cannons' Chaser. She returned to the game with a suspected concussion despite her husband's pleas for her to go to St. Mungo's for a check up.
That first reunion was acrimonious. Harry and Hermione argued the next time they met as well but they kept meeting and eventually ironed out their differences. They went to Australia together, to her parents' graves so Harry could pay his respects.
Marcus and Hermione spent Yule together with Octavius, who seemed much more settled on the medication and counselling program Mrs Shaw had recommended. He was well enough by April for a weekend away at the Higgs' lodge, where he spent his time playing with Estelle's kittens and painting.
Marcus and Harry stood as groomsmen at Neville's wedding to Hannah, with Hermione and Susan Bones as bridesmaids. Ginny was invited but refused to go, though Bill, Charlie and George Weasley and their wives did attend making a reasonable show of getting along with everyone.
Hermione and Marcus did not attend Harry's twenty-first birthday. Ginny threatened to leave him if he invited them and Molly insisted the Weasleys show their loyalty to Ron by supporting Ginny's stance.
For his part, Ron demanded to be left out of the feud. He quit his job as an Auror after a third sanction from Everild Proudfoot over unfinished paperwork. He spent a few months travelling around North America, living it up as a bachelor before returning home. He accepted a position at Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes and headed back to the United States to expand the business there.
Harry was Ron's Best Man when he married an American witch but by then his relationship with Ginny was on the rocks. They separated late in 2002, with Ginny leaving the country to unsuccessfully tour with the English National Quidditch team.
Throwing himself into his work, Harry not only closed down the black market in stolen wands but brought four Wizengamot members in on corruption charges. He was promoted to Deputy Head of the Auror Department and found himself working closely with Hermione and Theo Nott on better oversight protocols for the Ministry.
Hermione Jean Granger graduated from Oxford with a Master's degree in Biochemistry. She deferred her plans to undertake a Doctorate in Neuropharmacology after she become Madam Flint again, as a nostalgic honeymoon in Palau left her and Marcus with a surprise.
Livia Evelyn Flint was born on the 11th of June after a long but pleasant delivery. Hermione Flint, Brightest Witch of her Age, ensured both she and her daughter had every spell or potion to make labour as comfortable as possible. Marcus, true to his word, resigned from the Magpies the next day.
Hermione resumed the Flint Seat in the Wizengamot. The first thing she did was replace the chairs with more ergonomic seating. The second thing she did was fill the new seating with representatives for the old abeyant Seats. Squibs long denied their birthrights and Muggle-borns with previously unknown connections to magical families took their places in the wizarding government.
Terence Higgs married Tamsin Applebee on a beach in Oahu in a Muggle ceremony to please her father, then married again in the Tyrolean mountains to please his. They spent their honeymoon in the Atacama Desert entirely alone watching the stars.
After an unconventional courtship, Luna Lovegood and Lucian Bole married in a barrow mound in Shropshire, and spent their honeymoon happily hopelessly lost in the Yucatan until Marcus and Hermione flew in with Peregrine Derrick to find them.
Millicent Bulstrode cut ties with her parents after they arranged a marriage for her with a pure-blood wizard twenty years her senior. The Flints supported her while she undertook a Healers' apprenticeship, which she more than repaid in Hermione's eyes when she saved Harry's life after an Auror raid gone wrong.
Marcus was less pleased when his cousin and the Chosen One began dating. He did manage to toast Millicent and Harry at their engagement party without smirking. The Bulstrodes graciously acquiesced to their daughter becoming Mrs Potter, but were not invited to the private hand-fasting ceremony in Godric's Hollow.
Septimus Ian Flint was born on the seventh day of the seventh month of 2007, arriving a little early but very loudly. Theo Nott and his wife Padma were his godparents. Photographs of the new arrival were taken but not printed by the Daily Prophet after privacy laws were passed in the Wizengamot.
Ginevra Weasley was the second person, after Rita Skeeter, who was charged under new libel laws after she published a tell-all book about her marriage to Harry Potter. Bankrupt after a failed Quidditch career, she was unable to pay the court mandated fines and spent two years in Azkaban. After being released, she migrated to Romania.
Octavian Martin Flint arrived nine months after his mother defended her doctoral thesis. He suffered the childhood nickname of 'Doc Ock' after his brother was introduced to Spiderman by his cousin Frank Longbottom and his friend James Potter.
Leota Yaxley and Finella Rhys wed in London the day after the Muggle United Kingdom passed marriage equality legislation. They started their own advocacy firm to assist wizarding folk appealing against archaic inheritance laws.
Marina Alexandra Flint was still small enough for Marcus to carry her on his back in a Muggle baby harness when he marched his children onto the train platform for Livia's first trip to Hogwarts.
Hermione held her daughter's hand as they walked, reviewing what they had packed and reassuring the serious girl that they had everything. Including one of Crookshanks's and Estelle's children riding smugly on the luggage trolley.