Epilogue~
They wake up in her bedroom, in her dear old home, in rumpled nightclothes, and in a miniature heaven whose lyre notes seem encased in their minds. Outside, the clouds are nothing but cotton puffs, and June looks like June.
Not that they notice.
Maybe that’s why the skies decide to darken again.
“Maybe this was why I saw the skargles.”
“Eh?”
Ron and Luna were currently helping dismantle the tables set in the garden. It was Sunday brunch at the Burrow. But the weather had suddenly decided to be a killjoy. Ron was carrying a stack of plates in his arms. Luna, instead of continuing to put the plates from the table to this stack, had snatched a piece of the Daily Prophet from Tori, who had been cutting it up happily. Ron had thought Luna had swooped down for the scissors. He’d thought wrong. She was now immersed in whatever was in there, while Tori bawled at their feet and flailed dangerously.
“Recent findings have been published, you know, that skargles sometimes mistake love for drunkenness, so they also trail people in love.”
Ron rolled his eyes and placed the stack of plates on the table so he could mollify Tori before Fleur or Ginny hexed his balls for ignoring the kid or for letting the kid slice herself. “Who did they trail? Hush now, Tori, we’re just looking at the pretty pictures you did! Wow, look! Amazing” fuck! I mean, Puck, Robin Goodfellow!”
Tori giggled. Ron set her down and sat down himself. He slapped a hand on his forehead. He should get a grip.
“Hermione,” answered Luna, still poring over the article as though nothing had happened. “That dinner a year ago, that night you tripped on the doorstep and kissed my chin and broke my nose, remember?”
Ron recovered from his slight shock, and then it was his turn to snatch the paper away.
“Is that pern you’re so intent at behind the Prophet?”
Blaise jumped in his La-Z-Boy (a his-and-her wedding gift from Hermione) and looked up at his wife. And then he burst into laughter. “Pern? What’s pern?”
“Don’t act innocent! Luna said you and Ron and even Harry look at those things. They’re not even real! They’re disgusting. How do Muggle women stand to put those cone things inside them?”
Now Blaise was slapping his thighs. “Cone things inside them?”
“Cones inside their breasts, idiot! What exactly are you braying at?”
“Oh, Pansy. You stup”I mean, it’s silicone, love. Not cones. I think men will notice cones.” He laughed again. “And it’s not porn I’m so intent at, not that I’m admitting to that rubbish you heard from Loony. Here. Look.” He got up from his armchair, ushered Pansy into it, and showed her the paper.
Pansy went still. “Is that really them? You couldn’t tell. That could be impersonators.”
“Oh for Merlin’s sake, you’re not fooling me. Go ahead and squeal.”
Pansy squealed. Blaise rolled his eyes and covered his ears.
When she was done, Pansy said a little breathlessly, “You owe me five hundred galleons, darling.”
“Now, wait just one second. This is all speculation and sensation only. Actually, don’t wait just one second. Wait until we have the wedding invitation.”
It was different this year.
Last year, they’d almost cancelled their trip because her daughter had been visited with insanity. This time, they didn’t even know what hit them until they were on the boat to France because his son had booked the tickets. Couldn’t get rid of them fast enough.
Last year, June had been cold. This year, June was sweltering. They were glad to be off. It was cooler in Autun.
Lucius leaned back on his garden chair, sipped from his demitasse, opened the Daily Prophet, and expelled his coffee all over it. He couldn’t believe it. He thought he’d never do that revolting thing. Where was his dignity?
Helen looked at him from across the table over the rim of her sunglasses. Wordlessly, she flicked a cloth napkin at him. Also wordlessly, he handed over the paper. She hesitated taking it. “It’s not about us, is it?”
“Not precisely.”
“Edrina, I think this owl’s got business with us.”
“Oh, get along with you,” Edrina snapped, covering her flowers with bags. This was the second time in two years running that June had betrayed her. “I won’t be taking in an owl. You made me take in possums, for God’s sake! If you want to watch gutting and clawing, go to the telly.”
“Edrina! The owl’s got a... a paper!”
“What paper? Toilet paper? What interest do I”oh! Finally!” Edrina opened the greenhouse’s window and the owl fluttered in, depositing the paper on Edrina’s eager hands and taking off with an indignant glare at Michael. Edrina laughed.
“Well, I’ll be!” Michael said, staring after the owl, looking hurt. And then he turned back to his wife. “What’s that?”
Edrina slapped his hands away. “Let me see it first, Michael.”
“Are those photos moving?”
“Yes. Lovely, aren’t they? This is the wizarding paper. Draco and Hermione bought us a gift subscription. I do love those children.”
“Whatever for? You’re not a witch, though you look and act like one.”
Without looking up from the pages, Edrina said, “Michael Aston, I’ll make an alopecia potion tonight to put it in your dinner.”
Michael’s hand flew to his thick hair. He opened his mouth to retort, but the contented look on Edrina’s face silenced him and made him smile instead. He turned back to their tomatoes.
Only when he had picked everything in the whole blithering greenhouse did Edrina emerge from the Daily Prophet. She was grinning widely. “I think I’m going to write this Rita Skeeter. I like her.”
Snow in June, Again?
Temperatures have shot up and dive-bombed like malfunctioning Nimbuses, but we might have snow in June again in another respect.
My gentle readers will recall a similar phenomenon two years ago, when Lucius Malfoy, ex-Death Eater and former Azkaban resident, married Helen Granger, whose Muggle-hood is eclipsed by her motherhood to none other than our darling Miss Sunshine, Miss Hermione Granger. Stepfather and stepdaughter seem to have gotten along like a crup and a pureblood. And now there is proof of just how close the Granger and Malfoy families have entwined.
Draco Malfoy has been seen several times with Muggle women in the past after the cancellation of his engagement to pureblood princesses. If my discerning readers have wondered where our Casanova has been in the past year, it seems we have an answer.
Hermione Granger continues to shake, rattle and roll things at the Ministry. We admire her and wish her a future career as Minister. But sources from those slightly unspeakable offices say there’s been a noticeable decline in Miss Granger’s bustle. It seems we have a hypothesis to that.
A hypothesis hereby investigated and presented with a conclusion.
This photograph has been taken with great pains from the street outside Miss Granger’s”or should I say Mr Draco Malfoy’s”home in 7 Primbrook Lane, London. They are strolling in the most charming pocket garden this author has ever set eyes on.
Sources at the Bureau of Immovable Property and Possessions have revealed that the house has formerly belonged to Logan and Helen Granger. It’s been sold to Draco Malfoy. Whatever the reason, Miss Granger does not look irate about it. And if our camera can be trusted as all wizarding lenses can be, the house might be Miss Granger’s already as well.
If the photograph is a little artfully smudged, consider the wards around 7 Primbrook Lane. The very same wards are also responsible for the photograph’s imperviousness to the animation inducements of our various patented photograph developer potions.
What is Miss Granger holding? A four-leaf shamrock, perchance? A trinket of some sort, perchance? A ring of certain carats, perchance?
We shall soon know.
It will snow.
“Miss Sunshine. Hermione will laugh at that. What’s a crup?”
“A dog.”
“So she called my daughter ‘darling Miss Sunshine’ to perhaps distract me from discovering that she called my daughter a dog? The nerve of this woman. What are you wincing about?”
“This isn’t bringing family togetherness to extremes, is it?”
“Oh tush! For someone who came from a family that married its first cousins, you do take on so.”
“I’m just... I said something once. I should have bitten my tongue. I’m now deathly afraid our grandchildren will marry Weasleys.”