So, we all know that the epilogue of
the unbearably good final Harry Potter book is unbearably disappointing. I find
it spectacularly unsatisfying, so this what I like to imagine happened; a
satisfying conclusion that ties up loose ends, nods at the emotional aftermath
of traumatic events and closes some character arcs, unlike the official ending.
I like to believe that Harry played Quidditch for England and became a teacher
at Hogwarts. It’s his home. Eventually he will become Headmaster and live
happily there for most of his life. He gets married to Ginny, who becomes the
business manager of Weasleys’ Wizarding Wheezes and makes it an astonishing
success with George’s help as the inventor. Ron becomes a nurse and then a
stay-at-home dad. It turns out he has a talent for domestic magic, which he
never discovered before because he’d never tried. Hermione will become the
first female Minister for Magic and is extremely popular, and never compromises
her principles. She succeeds in liberating the house elves. When she retires
from politics, she writes the next generation of Hogwarts textbooks. Neville
goes to wizard university to get a wizard PhD and becomes a world expert in
aquatic magical plants. Luna just carries on with her brilliant self. Teddy
Lupin turns out a good hearted guy with a lot of girlfriends and a dragon
leather jacket. He rides Sirius’s flying motorbike. Hagrid stays exactly the
same. No one is named Albus Severus.
Harry Potter looked out over the Great Hall of Hogwarts
from the teachers’ table. It was the first day of term. Hundreds of bobbing
heads spread out before him clattering their breakfast dishes and chattering
loudly, bathed in the bright daylight falling from the bewitched ceiling. The
four long banners of the Hogwarts houses still hung down, but no one sat
according to house any more; scarlet, emerald, airy blue and sunny yellow mixed
freely in the mass of black hats and robes that filled the room. Harry allowed
the air of excitement to draw him in and found himself grinning down at the
teenagers below as he scanned the hall for a few familiar faces. Next to him,
ancient Professor Flitwick, now tinier than ever, happily piled bacon into his
scrambled eggs.
A pang of pride as well as amusement swelled in Harry
as his older son, James, swaggered into the Hall in his new red Quidditch
robes, surrounded by friends. Harry himself had retired from professional
Quidditch two years earlier when he was made Head of Gryffindor, but at sixteen
James was turning out as good a Seeker as Harry had ever been, and as his
coach, Harry pushed him ever harder. Harry trusted that the conceitedness which
grew alongside his talent, fuelled by his good looks and the prestige of his
famous father, would eventually fizzle out. This morning, James studiously
pretended not to see Harry, who took great pleasure in waving to him as
exuberantly as possible. Laughing at the half-hearted glare he received in
return, Harry resumed watching for his timid younger son, whose first day it
was, but saw him nowhere.
Albus had been sorted into Gryffindor only
yesterday, to his own great surprise and relief. Watching him don the battered
Sorting Hat had opened a floodgate of treasured, if painful memories for Harry,
who in the few seconds it took for the hat to reach its decision had relived
his own first night at school, drawing the ruby sword of Gryffindor from the
hat in the Chamber of Secrets, almost drowning in a frozen forest pool,
Dumbledore’s death, and the moment Neville had drawn the sword himself and
dramatically slain Voldemort’s snake, precipitating the beginning of the end of
the final battle at Hogwarts. Only a handful of people in the Great Hall now
remembered it as it had been that night, with rubble torn from the walls, the
long tables pushed away, and lines of bodies on the floor surrounded by weeping
families. It startled Harry to think that none of the pupils now comfortably living
their lives in front of him had even been born into a world where Voldemort
existed. His own formative experiences were little more than a story or a
history lesson to them. Now, when the bright eyes of excited first years
performed the still-familiar flick up to the scar on his forehead, they wanted
to hear about the World Cup. For several years after Voldemort’s final defeat
so long ago, Harry, relieved of the burden of being a hero, had suffered
intrusively vivid flashbacks, panic attacks and uncontrollable bursts of anger
and fear. At one point he had thought he might never be able to return to Hogwarts,
but time, talking and therapy had helped alleviate his post-traumatic stress
disorder.
Feeling himself being sucked into a well of
memories, Harry turned along the table to catch Neville’s eye. Now Professor
Longbottom, Neville, already spattered in mud, was cheerily talking at the
bemused new History of Magic teacher, and gave Harry the thumbs up. Comforted
by his close friend’s good nature, Harry rose to head for his first lesson of
the day. Practical Defensive Magic, once known as Defence Against the Dark
Arts, was one of the most popular classes at Hogwarts, and Harry’s timetable
was always heavy, but he had his own reason for looking forward to this
particular lesson.
When he arrived at his classroom, his younger son
beamed at him from the first row and chirruped “Hi, Dad!” Next to him, Ron and
Hermione’s daughter Rose – Albus’s best friend and cousin, and a brand new
Ravenclaw – looked up from her textbook. Both Harry’s sons looked like him
rather than Ginny, but only Albus had inherited his distinctive green eyes.
Their daughter Lily, now nine, favoured the Weasleys.
As he waited for the class to fill, Harry amused
himself by flicking through The Quibbler,
these days a well-respected if quirky publication employing a number of
promising Hogwarts alumni and edited by Luna. He was proud to see Hermione
feature prominently in a long article about international merpeople territory
rights, and a garish full-page advert for Weasleys’ Wizarding Wheezes that
flashed purple and green as he looked at it. When he looked up, Harry caught
the eye of Scorpio Malfoy, a pale, round-faced little boy who had been made a
Hufflepuff. Harry inwardly chuckled as he imagined how Draco might feel about
that. He and Malfoy would never be friends, but they had achieved a
relationship of mutual respect. After Lucius’s suicide, Draco had donated much
of the Malfoy fortune to help the families of the victims – magical and Muggle
– of the Death Eaters, and sat on the board of several organisations that
worked to improve the infrastructure of wizarding society. Harry thought that
Scorpio looked like he might turn out to be quite a nice boy. Hufflepuffs
usually were. Still nobody wanted to be in Slytherin; although it was no longer
the factory for Dark wizards that it once was, it still tended to collect the
bullies and their supporters, but it had also produced a handful of Harry’s
favourite students. Harry would never be able to forget Slytherin’s part in the
events of his own schooldays, but he also tried never to forget that the
Sorting Hat had suggested he become a Slytherin as well.
A spontaneous hush fell over the room, and Harry
realised the seats had filled up with tiny eleven year olds all bursting for
their first ever real lesson in magic. Sharing their excitement, he stood up
grinning, and gave his favourite instruction, one that never failed to produce
a shiver of anticipation in an eager class. Harry remembered how much he loved
to teach.
“Put
away your textbooks and take out your wands.”
*****
As dusk fell over the grounds of Hogwarts, Harry
walked, as he did most days, down to the lakefront, staring out across the
landscape. Dumbledore’s tomb and the tall marble cenotaph that stood next to it
gleamed gently in the dark. Though he knew the long, long list of names
inscribed upon it almost by heart, from Hannah Abbott all the way down to Fred
Weasley, Harry stood by it for a moment. Time had taken away the sharp sting of
pain that thinking of Fred or Sirius, Remus, Tonks or Dobby had once caused,
but his heart was heavy as he briefly wondered how many more excited children
there might be at school today if the many dead had survived. At forty, Harry
sometimes felt very old. Trying to shake out a sadness that would never truly
leave him, he lifted his eyes to the sky, drinking in the last glow of the
sunset over the lake, the forest and mountains. He never tired of seeing
Hogwarts’ beautiful surroundings, and stood there watching until it became too
dark to see anything more. Wordlessly he conjured his Patronus and turned
towards the castle, noticing Hagrid’s silhouette stomping around in the light
of the fire outside his hut. A huge puppy skipped and rolled at his feet. Harry
smiled, knowing that Hagrid was little changed but for the grey in his beard.
He gave his affection as freely as ever, and loved Harry’s children like his
own. Harry’s heart squeezed tightly at the thought of the people whom he loved
so much, and how many of them he had lost, and he hurried quickly towards the
castle, blinking away tears. The stag walked beside him.
Harry’s office at Hogwarts was cosy, warm and
golden. Letters, books, snacks and newspapers were piled on every surface, and
photographs covered the walls; in any direction he looked, Harry’s eyes would
land on something to make him smile. On some bad days, this had been
invaluable. This evening, he watched his small self and his teammates dancing
and shaking their Quidditch World Cup for a few seconds, then turned to the
group photo of his and Ron and Hermione’s families that they had taken on their
holiday in Thailand the summer before. Lily and Molly Granger-Weasley sniggered
together from behind Hermione’s mother’s legs, while Teddy Lupin wrestled Albus.
After he had looked long enough, Harry collected his post from his huge eagle
owl, Gretel. She had brought him a note from Dudley, with whom Harry was on
surprisingly friendly terms, containing a photograph of his new and chubby
baby. The baby would clearly take after Vernon, while Dudley’s second wife
looked disconcertingly like Petunia. Gretel uh-hued impatiently as Harry read and
ruffled her wings to draw his attention to the intruder in her corner; one of
Pigwidgeon’s many tiny descendants was sleeping peacefully on top of the letter
it had come to deliver. Harry recognised the luxurious Ministry for Magic
parchment; it was from Hermione.
Harry –
Hope you’re all well and this reaches
you in time for the first day of school! We’re so pleased about Rose getting
into R. and sure you’re thrilled for Albus! Molly hasn’t talked of anything but
the day she and Lily will get to be Sorted all week – think she will miss Rose
terribly, would you ask Ginny if it’s possible for her to take L over to play
soon? Molly would love it and sure Ron would as well. He and Arthur have been
working on getting the flying car going again, did he tell you? George put
something together last week that seems to have fixed it, but he says don’t
tell Ginny or she’ll dock his salary from WWW! Perhaps visit Ron yourself if
you get a chance – he misses talking to actual grown ups, but his cooking just
gets better and better. We’re making plans to visit Bill and Fleur in Nice over
Christmas, perhaps you’d all like to come too? And Teddy if you want, he’ll be
delighted. Am suggesting him for an internship in Law Enforcement, though I
know he was hoping for Mysteries. Work stressful as always but we are making
great strides with the merpeople rights and hope we will have a real
breakthrough with the Pan-Asian Committee for Magical Relations soon. Better
go, have meeting with Cambodian delegation tomorrow. Send love to Ginny and
kids and to you of course. Have a great term! Talk soon. H xxx
Hermione Granger
Head of the Department of
International Magical Co-operation
Ministry of Magic
The rest of the page was filled with glitter and a
large crayon drawing of a dragon. Harry longed for the day when Hagrid would
teach Molly that they were not actually pink. Smiling over the Hermione-ish
letter, he opened the door that led from his office back into the family
apartment, and was greeted by the warm smell of roasting chicken and a shriek
of “DADDY!!!”
Lily flung herself into Harry’s arms and he lifted
her up to kiss her. Ginny, plump and beautiful, followed more sedately through
the door, a stack of Weasleys’ Wizarding Wheezes order forms in her hand. Harry
felt the familiar thud of love in his stomach as he looked towards her. Lily’s
and Ginny’s eyes were exactly the same shade of brown.
“Teddy’s
coming for supper,” she said.
“And
he’s bringing a girl,” Lily
announced, crossly. She was hopelessly in love with Harry’s exuberant godson.
Harry laughed, and strode towards Ginny, crushing his wife and daughter in a
tight hug. Ginny, who always understood, squeezed Harry’s hand and allowed him
to bury his face in her shoulder and kiss her hair, overcome by his happiness.
He breathed in her soothing scent and noticed how her copper hair blended so
precisely with Lily’s. As he began to drift into the comfort of the embrace,
the quietest creaking of the door caught his attention. Harry lifted his head.
“Boys…” he began. There was a muffled giggle, and
then the Invisibility Cloak fell to the floor, revealing Harry’s sons smirking
proudly. Harry tried to look stern, but the memory of his own invisible
ramblings floated unbidden into his mind and he just shook his head
affectionately and waved James and Albus into the tight family hug. In private
his sons were not too grown up to wrap their newly gangly arms around their
parents and sister and have Harry ruffle their hair, overwhelmed with the love
that filled his whole body. With his family pressed tightly in his arms and the
heat of their aliveness spreading
through him, tears began to trickle and then flow down Harry’s face. He cried
for everything that he had lost, but even more for everything that he had now.
They were tears of sadness, but also tears of joy, because Harry Potter was
finally happy. Harry Potter was finally home.
