Epilogue: Bright Blessings

Disclaimer: Reggie, Rose, and Moto are mine. The rest I nicked when JKR wasn’t looking, and will have to return… eventually.

Epilogue: Bright Blessings

“I’m behaving myself,” Hermione said smugly as they left the doorstep of the new house at Godric’s Hollow.

“If you had been behaving yourself, you would have managed to avoid this invitation altogether. And rest assured, I will spend the rest of tonight working in my laboratory if you decide to be so absurd as to say, ‘That wasn’t so bad,’” Snape said. He didn’t bother to disguise his sarcasm any more than she had her smugness.

“I think Aster actually liked you,” she teased. “There must be something about you that appeals to young females in the Lovegood family.”

Snape gave her a glare that could have curdled milk. “I thought I was the one who liked inciting arguments to solicit make-up sex. Believe me, I could have happily gone the rest of my life without acquainting myself with Potter’s little foliage-themed brood; it’s quite unnecessary for you to relive the introduction all the way home.”

“All right, love.” Hermione laughed. “But will you at least agree with me that naming identical twins Aster and Azalea is cute to the point of inducing nausea?”

Snape humphed, but it was an amused ‘humph,’ and he knew his wife would recognize it as such. He would really rather put all thought of the little Potter brats out of his mind, but he couldn’t help thinking, Hermione and I could do much better than that.

Perhaps one day… if he could convince Hermione. Hadn’t Albus’ portrait all but said that they were destined to have a child anyway?

The thought crossed Hermione’s mind that she really would like to have a child while she was still young and while Severus wasn’t especially old by wizarding standards. Perhaps she could, sometime in the near future, talk him into just one.

When they reached the Apparation point, he pulled her close, looking deep into her eyes with a suggestive smile playing about his lips. Hermione clung to him tightly, answering desire sparkling in the chocolate depths of her eyes. Without a word exchanged, they Disapparated home—straight to the bedroom.

“Would you like to play our song?” she whispered. He flicked his wand at the phonograph, knowing that the recording was still there from the last time they played it. There was no need to discuss what they intended to do next.

Rose moved her workbench into the half of the garden accessible from her shop. The moon was full that night, and she didn’t want to waste a single ray; conditions were ideal for making divination rings.

Bless the old man who sold this building, and Mr. and Mrs. Snape, and anyone who made it possible to move Moore and Mraz to Tangent Alley, she thought. The garden alone was worth more than the old shop in its entirety. There was no substitute for moonlight unfiltered by glass windows.

She set out silver ingots, an array of moonstone cabochons, a handful of beryl orbs, and several onyx discs, to absorb the moonlight. Then, she removed the stones and metals charged on the last clear, moonlit night from their protective sacks and set to work.

Rose had only completed four rings (two with moonstones, one with a perfect crystal orb of clear beryl, and one with an oblong disc of onyx) when soft music began to drift from the upstairs windows. She listened for a moment, then smiled. Her landlord and landlady played that tune often enough that she’d picked up all the words. This was no song to make scrying rings by. She Summoned paper and parchment and began to design betrothal rings.

As the strains of the orchestra floated in the moonlight, she softly sang along…

‘When I fall in love

It will be forever

Or I’ll never fall in love.

In a restless world like this is

Love is ended before it’s begun

And too many moonlight kisses

Seem to cool in the warmth of the sun

When I give my heart

It will be completely

Or I’ll never give my heart

And the moment I can feel that

You feel that way, too

Is when I fall in love

With you.’

Sometime the next afternoon, Regina Fletcher sensed an appointment being written into her Fairy Date Book. She hastily flipped several pages into the future, then whooped ecstatically at the new entry writing itself in.

“Moto! Moto, are you around? Get your arse over here!”

Motoyoshi trotted over obediently. Even though the silver threads around the waistband of his tutu proclaimed that he was now a Journeyman and no longer answerable to Reggie, he still kept up with the cases they had handled together. “Do you have news of Hermione-san and the Snarky One?”

“Yup. Kid number one is on the way,” Reggie said, happily pointing out the entry: ‘Celebrate Birth of Eileen Snape: February 16, 2008.’

“Though I am pleased to be a Journeyman, it saddens me that I will have no reason to visit the child since I am no longer your apprentice,” Moto said wistfully.

“You could always just show up with me and claim you ‘poofed’ the wrong way, like when we ended up in L.A.,” Reggie said with a snort of laughter.

“Oh, I brought us to Los Angeles intentionally. I remembered that you said you were born there, and I thought you might like to see it again,” Moto said.

Reggie stared at him, her little jaw dangling. Never mind that it had been so many years since she’d been there that she would have been hard-pressed to find her actual birthplace with locator spells… paws down, that was the most thoughtful thing anyone had ever done for her.

“Moto, I know for damned sure I never said this enough… but you were one hell of an Apprentice. No matter what they come up with next, it won’t compare to you.”

Moto bowed. He now managed to do so without spilling anything… most of the time. “Domo arigato, Reggie-san. And you were a most excellent Master.”

Over the course of the coming months, Reggie watched the name in the FDB change to ‘Athena Eileen Snape… Acantha Granger-Snape… Eileen Amanda Granger-Snape… Acantha Eileen Snape-Granger…’ Motoyoshi ultimately gave up the vigil, asking Reggie to please inform him when a final decision was reached.

As she noted the almost daily name (and sometimes hourly) changes near the end of the nine months, Reggie said lazily, “You know what, hinnys? You’ll bloody well have to work that part out for yourselves.”

FIN

Author’s Notes:

‘When I Fall In Love’ was written by Edward Heyman and Victor Young; if anyone other than Nat King Cole ever recorded it, I don’t need to know about it.

I’d like to say thank you, Jim Henson, wherever (or, if you believe in reincarnation, whatever) you are. From the time I was three years old, your brilliant creations deeply ingrained in my psyche the idea that fuzzy critter + adult vocabulary = comedy with a heart.

Thanks, as always, to my Dad—who hadn’t the faintest clue what constituted appropriate TV viewing or reading material for a young, impressionable child. I owe you half my DNA and most of my sense of humor, Dad. Though I picked up all the bad words on my own… and I think Mom might be to blame for some of the risqué elements of my humor.

And will everyone who reads this please join me in giving Tempest of Dreams a well-deserved round of applause?

We’re taking a wee break from Reggie’s case files on Severus and Hermione, but be on the lookout for ‘The Origin of the Fairy God-Jarvey’—a trip back in time to discover the Jarvey behind the snark and the laughs. Warning: in the long literary tradition of stories involving animals, the humor will be, at best, bittersweet. But it’s all about Reggie.