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If The Fates Allow | ||||||
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Category: Post-OotP Characters:Draco Malfoy, Harry/Ginny Genres: Drama Warnings: Sexual Situations, Extreme Language Story is Complete Rating: R Reviews: 596 Summary: Ginny has been forced to marry Draco Malfoy, but her heart still belongs to Harry. Will she ever be able to break free from this unwanted marriage? Will Harry help her? A story of passion, blackmail, Greek gods and a most surreal place for playing Quidditch! Join Harry and Ginny on their odyssey through despair and hope, faith and love, amidst Voldemort's machinations! Hitcount: Story Total: 114784; Chapter Total: 3732 |
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Author’s note: this version of the epilogue is somewhat shorter than the one I submitted to fanfiction.net and schnoogle. The reason? In the original version there were some puns that relate to things that had happened in chapter 15, and I had to cut those parts out of the SIYE version of chapter 15, so I had to cut the epilogue too. If you wish to read the full version, go to ffnet or schnoogle. On her way back from Hagrid’s cabin, Headmistress McGonagall almost had a heart attack when Harry Potter suddenly turned up on the Hogwarts grounds, Dobby bouncing around him happily. “Mr… Mr Potter!” She grabbed her chest, feeling that her heart wanted to jump out of it. “Are my eyes deceiving me, or is it… is it really you?” “You can be sure, professor, it’s me,” Harry replied. Minerva gave him an incredulous look, as if trying to read his features, trying to find out whether he was telling the truth. “What did I offer you after you had come to me with Dolores Umbridge’s letter that said you had talked back to her in class?” “As far as I remember, a biscuit.” He grinned. A relieved expression spread on the old headmistress’ face as she stepped to Harry, and – to his greatest surprise – gathered him into an almost motherly embrace. “So good to have you back, Mr Potter. Everyone thought you to be dead. We even had a memorial, and…” “I know.” He smirked. “And I’ve heard about the statue as well – I’d like to see it. I heard it had been destroyed, but was restored it to its original state. “Come, this way.” McGonagall beckoned to him, feeling a bit weird about taking someone to his own memorial. Five minutes later they were standing in front of the Potter Memorial, whose white marble glittered in the early afternoon sunshine. “Beautiful, isn’t it, Harry Potter, sir?” said Dobby admiringly. “Actually, I think it’s horrible,” remarked Harry. “Not that the sculptor wasn’t talented, but…” “Don’t apologise, Mr Potter, I agree with you a hundred percent,” replied Minerva with a small smile. She had never liked this statue, for it depicted a way too old and serious Harry, while she liked remembering him as the cocky boy who had kept talking back to that toad Umbridge. She only kept the statue in the Hogwarts park out of reverence. “Then it’s settled,” said Harry. “What?” “Let& #8217;s get rid of it. I’m not dead so no memorials are needed. Don’t you agree, professor?” “Well...” McGonagall looked unsure what to say. “Where could we put it, then? If we restored it, then it wouldn’t be proper to just blow it up or Vanish it again, would it? Yes, Dobby?” She looked down, feeling that the house elf was tugging at her skirt. “Headmistress McGonagall, madam, Dobby would love to have this statue! It would be the crowning glory of Dobby’s humble garden!” “Er…” Minerva looked at Harry, who shrugged. No house elf had ever been as happy as Dobby had that day: he had got two ‘Harry Potter presents’: the real one had returned from ‘death’, and he had become the proud owner of the only existing Harry Potter statue. Years and years later he added several new rooms to his tiny house and opened the world’s only Harry Potter Museum and Shop, in which the lucky guest could view not only the famous Potter Memorial, lots of Harry-clocks, Harry-patterned tableware, and newer and newer editions of My Hero Harry, but also a huge collection of wonderful socks in glass cases with one black sock placed into the most luxurious glass case. The inscription on the little tag next to it said 1993’ Azkaban Peter Pettigrew was staring at a particularly dirty spot on the floor. He didn’t know how long he had been staring at it; it might as well have been hours. He had only been brought into this cell a week earlier, but he had already lost track of time. Although the sunshine barely came through the cell’s window and he could only see a small rectangle of the blue sky outside, it would have still been bright enough to read; yet he didn’t feel like reading. He had been allowed to bring along his books, for no other forms of entertainment had been provided here, but he just couldn’t bring himself to open any of them. Azkaban had changed a lot over the last few years: for one thing, the Dementors had long since been dismissed and replaced by professional jailers, who treated the prisoners much more humanely than the Dementors ever had. One could have said that Azkaban had become a tolerable place. Even the other dozen Death Eaters who had been sent here could say that their next 10-100 years at Azkaban would be more or less bearable. They got their sentences depending on the number and type of the crimes they had committed in the Dark Lord’s service, and the youngest Death Eaters who had been considered by the court as ‘poor, misled youngsters’ got only 10-20 years. The hardcore dark wizards who had been serving Voldemort for decades had got life sentences. So, Wormtail with his five years sentence was downright lucky. He had been offered a chance to be put into a cell with other prisoners to keep him company, but he turned it down – he wanted to be alone. Alone with his thoughts. He still couldn’t come to terms with the fact that Amrita had died. The little girl’s lifeless body haunted him in his dreams, and didn’t leave him any peace of mind in his waking hours either. Sometimes he saw the little girl playing with her vampire dolls and laughing, or drawing a picture of her ‘family’, but at the end her lively form always dissolved and was replaced by the image of her lying on the corridor’s floor, her red-gold locks falling over her closed eyes like some curly curtain… A sob escaped his mouth and he shuddered, sitting on a patch of straw; however, he couldn’t shed anymore tears. He had cried too much already, he felt he no longer had any tears in him… so he just cried while his eyes remained dry. Five years! Five whole years spent in here! Five years with Amrita’s picture haunting him every day and every night! And not just during these five years… no… Peter was sure that the child would keep reappearing in his dreams even after he was released from prison. She’d be his sad companion throughout his life… He wasn’t sure at all whether he wanted to wait for his release from Azkaban. Perhaps he should really die… then the terrible nightmares and frightening daytime images would be gone forever. He’d find peace… and perhaps he’d find Amrita. In the afterlife. Suddenly some noise caught his ear. It sounded like Benjamin, the jailer; however, it wasn’t the time for him to come… Wormtail was sure that it was barely past ten o’clock, he had long received his breakfast and lunch wasn’t due for another two hours. What could Ben want here, then? The door of his cell creaked open and the jailer walked in. “Pettigrew, you have visitors.” Wormtail thought he’d heard it wrong. Who would want to visit him? He didn’t have any family members left, and he surely didn’t have any friends, so… who? “Potter…” he whispered as Harry walked in. “Just call me Harry… Peter,” said the visitor in an unusually soft voice. “What… what are you doing here… Harry?” croaked Pettigrew. “You’ve come for a thank you for getting the judge reduce my sentence to five years? Well, thank you.” He looked away from Harry, trying to show that he wasn’t in the mood for having visitors. “No, Peter, I haven’t come for thank you’s. I’ve come here to talk to you… about Amrita.” Wormtail raised his head and looked at the young wizard with narrowed eyes. “What about her?” “I know you truly cared for her, Peter,” said Harry. “And I’d like to thank you for that. You gave her love when I couldn’t. Your love for her saved her from turning like… Tom did.” “It still wasn’t enough to save her life!” snapped Peter, jumping up from the ground. “V…Voldemort still killed her!” “He didn’t,” replied Harry. “W…what?” stammered the onetime Death Eater. As a response Harry looked in the door’s direction and beckoned to someone with his head. Peter looked at the door, and thought he’d died and gone to heaven. A little angel in a white, frilly dress entered, her red-gold locks dancing around her head… and as she caught a glimpse of him, she yelped ‘Wormie!’ and ran up to him. Peter was practically blown away by the ‘angel’s’ attack; he could barely stand upright with her clinging to him and her arms encircling his waist and her face buried into his chest. With his mouth agape, Peter looked up at Harry, who was smiling, then back at Amrita, then at Harry again – his smile seemed real, Peter couldn’t detect any sort of deception in it. He glanced down at the child again, and slowly reached out to touch the top of her head with his left hand. Her curls felt real under his fingers, and her grip on his body felt very much real as well. ‘You’re stifling me,’ he wanted to say, but he realised he couldn’t produce any sort of voice. Although he had thought his tears had ebbed, now they were freely flowing down his cheeks, onto Amrita’s red-gold locks. “Why?” he whispered, when he finally found his voice. “Why have you brought her here?” “Are you talking about me?” Amrita drew back a bit, giving Peter a slightly annoyed look. “Why wouldn’t Daddy bring me here?” “Because… because this is a… prison, dear. No place for children,” Pettigrew replied, gently caressing her now wet curls. His eyes met Harry’s. “You needn’t have brought her here. She shouldn’t have seen this… seen me here.” “She wanted to see you,” Harry said. “She wouldn’t leave me alone until I agreed to bring her to her ‘Wormie’. And you know, Peter… I thought you deserved to know that she was alive… and you deserved to see her.” “I don’t deserve anything but a life sentence, Harry.” Pettigrew hung his head. “I should have got a life sentence.” “Perhaps yes… perhaps no. If I only looked at your past, the old Peter who had betrayed my parents, then I’d say that you deserve what you got and even more. But if I look at the new Peter, the Peter who redeemed himself, then I just can’t be mad at you anymore. You’ve changed.” “I have not.” Pettigrew shook his balding head. “I’m still the coward, still the disgrace to the name of wizard and the house of Gryffindor…” “Gryffin dork?” Amrita interjected. “Were you a Gryffindork, too, Wormie? You told me Daddy was one, but you never said you were one too!” “Yes, dear, I knew.” Peter smiled down at her, and as a tiny sunray shone into the cell, he suddenly saw himself reflected in the child’s clear green eyes. He was there: ugly, balding, but smiling… The old Peter, the traitor Peter had barely ever smiled. It had been Amrita who had made him smile again, after years and years of sadness. She had been his little sunray, the sunray that shone through the darkness of his heart and warmed him from inside… the sunray that had cleansed his soul. Harry Potter had been right. He’d changed. He’d changed – for Amrita. “I love you, Wormie. Do you know that, too?” The child beamed at him. Through the curtain of his tears he looked down at her and nodded. “I know. And I love you too, little angel.” “Hey, visitor time is over!” the jailer shouted gruffly from outside. Wormtail’s heart clenched. Would he ever see his precious little princess again? As if she had read his mind, Amrita let go of him and said cheerfully: “I’ll come and see you soon, Wormie!” Peter looked at Harry questioningly. The young wizard nodded. “I’ll bring her here as often as I can. I owe you this much.” “You don’t owe me anything, Harry.” The onetime Death Eater shook his head. “Perhaps you’re right… once I saved your life, and you owed me a wizard’s debt… but you settled it by taking care of my daughter. We’re done. However… I still feel I have to do this. Not for you, but for Amrita. Well, take care, Peter.” “I will.” Pettigrew nodded, and gave the child one last hug. As he watched his visitors leave, he felt that now he had a reason to take care of himself – he no longer wanted to starve to death - he no longer wanted to die. He wanted to live, for now his existence had a meaning again… The garden of the Three Broomsticks, 26th August, 2004 “I swear to love and honour you, in sickness and in health, and to be faithful to you as long as I live…” This time Harry had found it considerably easier to say the weddings vows than the last time – for this time he really meant them. When he had given a similar vow to Phaedra, he couldn’t help but feel that he was lying and making a fool of himself – he couldn’t help feeling that it was just a ruse, that he had been a mere actor playing a role. Now, however, he meant every word that left his mouth, and he was determined to keep his promise: he’d love Ginny and remain loyal to her till the day of his death – and, knowing the Underworld – even after that. “I swear to love and honour you, in sickness and in health, and to remain faithful to you as long as I live…” This time Ginny didn’t feel as though she were just reciting some ‘let’s-get-over-it’ waffle that didn’t mean anything to her – this time she meant every word she uttered, and seeing the bright smile on her fiancé’s face, she felt tears coming. Last time she’d cried at her wedding, for she had been miserable – now she cried because she was so happy. Never in her life had she felt such eternal happiness… so she just held Harry’s right hand and smiled, tears of joy coursing down her cheeks. For a second she thought that Harry’s eyes seemed wet too, but perhaps she had just imagined it. She felt that her hand was slightly shaking when Harry slipped the wedding ring on it, and the shaking became so bad that she almost dropped the ring she wanted to put on Harry’s finger. “Hereby, in accordance with the power bestowed upon me, I pronounce you husband and wife.” As Harry’s lips descended on hers, she felt deaf and dumb for a second – she didn’t even hear the cheer of the guests or the crackling of Fred and George’s Wildfire Whizzbangs. She just kissed him, the suppressed passion of six wasted years bursting out of her… She grabbed his untidy black locks (that he had tried to tame for the wedding – without much success) and held him firmly in place. She only drew back when her index finger got caught in something (Fred shouted: ‘high time you stopped it, we were already worried someone had cast a Permanent Sticking Charm on you two!’). Her eyes widened when she realised what her finger had been caught in – in her ‘blinded by happiness’ state of mind she hadn’t even noticed that Harry was wearing an earring. Seeing her bemused stare, he leant closer and whispered into her ear: “You said you found Captain Harry Sparrow darn sexy with that earring. I was giving thoughts to grow my hair and wear a pony tail, but I didn’t want your mum to beseech me the whole evening to let her cut it.” She giggled. “I love you, Captain, with or without an earring.” “Glad to hear, Hera. May I ask why…?” He pointed at the peacock feathers she had stuck into her hair. “Didn’t you say come on, who’d like a woman with peacock feathers sticking out of her head?” She grinned. “Just wanted to test you.” “With or without peacock feathers, I love you.” He bent down to kiss her again, but before their lips could touch, they had to jump apart and out of the way of a red-coloured Weasley’s Wildfire Whizzbang (that formed a heart with the letters H and G in it). The firework started to chase Rita Skeeter, the only journalist who had been allowed to be present and report about the wedding. After she had helped Harry by writing that particular article in The Quibbler, Harry had sort of learnt to trust her, and as long as Hermione was near, he didn’t need to worry about Rita writing made-up stories about him. Rita had been the fortunate one who had got the chance to have an exclusive interview with Harry about his return to Great Britain and Voldemort’s defeat. Thanks to Rita, the wizarding community of Great Britain soon knew everything about the trials at The Hague, Harry getting divorced from the mysterious Greek witch, Draco Malfoy getting divorced from the Weasley girl, and even about sightings of the ex-Voldemort cleaning streets in Surrey. Amrita (wearing a lacy pink flower girl dress) squealed with delight, while the Weasley twins doubled up with laughter as their firework chased the unfortunate journalist across the garden, and they only stopped laughing when three fabulously pretty women walked up to them. “They hit it off well with the sirens, eh?” Harry turned to his best man, Ron, who smirked, while Hermione, who was Ginny’s bridesmaid, made a disapproving face. Not far from them, Mrs Weasley, holding her grandson Sirius, was eyeing the twins and the sirens with even greater disapproval than Hermione. “Mum doesn’t seem too happy about it,” remarked Ginny, smoothing her ‘ancient Greek’ wedding gown. “Well, when is Mum happy about something?” said Ron. “I could name some cases,” replied Harry, “for example ickle Ronnie getting his Prefect badgie…” Ron rolled his eyes. “I meant she’s never happy about her children having relations out of wedlock… she’s been nagging me to marry Hermione for years! Honestly…” “You said it as though it were such a terrible idea,” young Miss Granger said scathingly and walked away. “I just wanted to propose to her,” Ron grunted, pulling a small jewellery box out of his pocket. “Then you should have phrased it in another way,” Ginny pointed out. “Yeah, it sounded as though you really had the emotional range of a tea-spoon,” added Harry. “Very funny.” Ron grimaced and ran after Hermione. As the Potters exchanged an ‘it’s high time for these two to get married’ sort of stare, Remus and Tonks stepped up to them to congratulate them “Oh, my little godson!” said Ginny and took the Lupins' baby, Brian into her arms. The little boy’s christening had been a month ago, along with Sirius’. As Tonks had promised her almost a year earlier, Ginny had got the honour of being Brian’s godmother, and in return Remus became little Sirius’ godfather. As Harry watched Ginny play with Brian - jumping out of the way of Rita who was followed by a firework and the firework followed by the giggling Amrita, he could barely imagine that just one year ago he had returned to England, mourning his lost daughter, not even hoping to find his other one, his heart full of bitterness and despair… Now all the bad things seemed to have become hazy, he couldn’t have properly recalled them even if he had wanted to. And, quite understandably, he didn’t want to. His gaze shifted to Hagrid and Hedwig who was sitting on the half-giant’s shoulder. Hagrid sent him a wide grin and even the owl’s amber eyes seemed to be sparkling with happiness. After Harry had talked to McGonagall about removing his memorial from Hogwarts, he had visited Hagrid and apologised to Hedwig for his rude words from so many years earlier. The owl had been beside herself with glee to see him alive and forgave him for everything. Harry smiled at the memory of Hedwig’s excited twittering at seeing him again. Good old Hedwig… He only came out of his blissful reverie when Draco Malfoy stepped up to him, followed by Phaedra. Harry had known they had been invited to the wedding, yet he felt a bit surprised to see them. He hadn’t really expected them to turn up, especially not haughty Draco Malfoy. However, Phaedra didn’t seem a bit unhappy or jealous to see her former husband marrying another, nor did Draco look murderous about seeing Ginny in ‘Potter’s’ arms. The only conspicuous thing Harry noticed about Draco was that he was sporting a black eye. “Er… congratulations…” said Malfoy in a low voice, as though it had taken him a lot of effort to utter something as soppy as this. “Yeah, congrats,” added Phaedra with a small smile. “I hope you’ll be really happy together. You deserve it.” “Thanks to you both,” replied Harry, glad to see that his ex-wife behaved totally naturally, without any trace of jealousy or sadness. For a moment he wondered whether Malfoy’s ‘wand’ had worked wonders on Phaedra… “Um… what about… you two?” “Us?” the dark haired witch raised an eyebrow at him. “What about us?” “I meant that you have a child, after all, and…” “Well, Potty,” Malfoy drawled, “Phaedra and I have decided to share the parents' duties… in other words we’re bringing Dora up together.” “Glad to hear it.” Harry smiled. “Does this mean you’re getting married?” “We never said that, did we?” Phaedra gave him an impish look. “Though… Jason would be happy if we did.” “Yeah,” grunted Draco, pointing at his black eye, “got this from him yesterday when Phaedra finally confessed to him that I’m the baby’s father.” “I take it Jason wasn’t charmed.” Harry smirked. “It seems my dear bro hates Draco even more than he used to hate you,” Phaedra said with a slightly malicious grin that made Draco scowl at her. Harry had to hide a grin. Malfoy was in for a rough life at Phaedra’s side, especially with Jason as his future brother-in-law. And knowing Phaedra, she would surely manage to ‘tame’ Draco a bit as well. Well, Draco definitely deserved it… Holding his wife in his arms, snuggling his nose into her neck, Harry felt at peace. Ginny pressed her back to his naked chest and pulled his arms even tighter around her. She felt his ragged breath on her skin and had to grin – no wonder he was out of breath, it had been a very tiring wedding night, indeed. The newly engaged Ron and Hermione had volunteered to take care of Amrita and Sirius for the night so that the newlyweds could devote all of their attention to each other. “We’re in their debt, you know,” Ginny whispered. “It was so nice of them to let the kids sleep at their place… I don’t know what I would have done if Sirius had started to cry every ten minutes like he does all the time…” “By the way, speaking of children… once Trelawney predicted that I’d live to a ripe old age, become Minister for Magic and have twelve children…” “Well, you can’t be Minister, dear, for you have a criminal record,” she pointed out, running her index finger idly across his chest and it made him shiver – with cold or with desire, she couldn’t tell. “Yeah, that’s right,” he said in a slightly hurt voice, “but you could still give me twelve children…” “Dream on, Potter,” she laughed lightly and placed a feather-light kiss on his chin. “I am dreaming.” He suddenly reached out and jerked her onto himself. She squealed and playfully tried to get free, but he held her firm. “I am dreaming, Gin…” he repeated again, his eyes boring into hers. She couldn’t make out much of them in the semi-darkness, but the way they glinted as the sun-about-to-rise painted the horizon with a whitish-pinkish hue, she knew that Harry’s eyes radiated nothing else but love. She felt that her heart wanted to jump out of her chest with happiness, and for a second she feared she’d only dreamt this and she’d wake up to realise that she’s still Draco Malfoy’s wife… but no. Harry’s arms on her back felt real… It was real, and Draco belonged to the past. To the past, and to Phaedra’s future. She had to smile at the irony of life: those two had gone after her and Harry to separate them, and they ended up together. It seemed that fate – or The Fates? – had a weird sense for humour. “Actually,” he continued in a lustful voice, “even if I ever got to be Minister, you wouldn’t have to give me twelve children.” “No? How good for me,” she teased as the first ray of the sun shone into their room, illuminating Harry’s face. “No.” He grinned mischievously. “I already have two. You’d only have to give me ten.” Author’s note: now it’s really over. I hope you enjoyed the ride just as much as I did. When I started posting this fic here, I never thought I’d get more than 150 reviews, given that SIYE is a considerably small site and the overall willingess to review is low compared to other sites. So now I’m more than happy and satisfied to have over 350 reviews here and over 3200 all over the web. Thanks to everyone who ever submitted a review for this story, thanks for your support! :) Some of you said you hoped to see more HP fics from me. Well, I’m not planning to write a new one any time soon, but after book six comes out, I might. You can still read my older trilogy on ffnet :) And of course thanks to those who reviewed the previous chapter: Cole, Ima Quidditch Fan, jumpin, Marissa, AngieGS, Lourdes, LoSeR BuGeR, Meganne, shriya, Irish_Lass08, $p!d3Y, Miss Ray, eli_moon, Mina, ally Lilyanna: thanks, but I doubt SQ would be happy about this fic if I tried to submit it there. It’s a bit too ’racy’ for their site, IMHO. And you know, I dread submitting my fics to sites where betaing is slow, and I heard it wasn’t too quick on SQ. I used to post an earlier fic of mine to the one-time gryffindortower.net and my beta corrected one chapter in two months! I don’t think I could bear that again. Jessica: you can read other fanfics of mine on fanfiction.net, under the same authorname. Erin: why were you dreading to read the epilogue? Rhiannon: I’m glad you managed to catch up and big thanks for reviewing almost all the chapters! I don’t know whether Harry mentioned the Lupin/Tonks marriage to his underworld family, but I take he must have. Glad you liked the Christianity reference in the fic :) |
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