And in the End...

A/N: Thanks again to not_london! Please read the epilogue that will be up shortly.

***

Silence fell across the decimated room. The beautiful ballroom, once so ornate and gilded, had now been reduced to a pile of rubble. But it did not matter; Voldemort was dead and it all over. Severus turned to Genevieve, and they embraced in relief and exhaustion. Then, Genevieve turned to rest her head on her love’s shoulder and opened her eyes.

“Severus,” she murmured. “Look.”

He turned and saw the dead and wounded. They scrambled over the debris of the mortar and plaster that had fallen from the ceiling onto the floor. Remus was holding a wounded Tonks. Severus bent down and started muttering an incantation to close her wounds. Genevieve made her way deftly around the sharp edges of the rubble, barefoot, towards the Weasleys. Charlie had a nasty wound to the chest, but Madam Pomfrey had Apparated and was tending to him. The twins were wounded, but not badly. Hermione was holding Ron as they cried at the release of so much tension and fear over the years.

Harry was helping a wounded Ginny bandage up a nasty slash on her arm. Dumbledore was putting out the last of the fires. McGonagall was passing around Essence of Dittany to the wounded. Mad-Eye passed around a bottle of firewhisky. He came to her and offered it to her. He chuckled at her get-up.

“What?” she said. Then she looked down at her ridiculous get-up and smirked at the man as she grabbed the bottle from him to take a swig. Her hair, always put up so neatly and tidily was down in tangles, and her normally clean and pale face was smeared in make-up that had long since run down her face. She was barefoot and a shocking sight.

Severus came to her side, and she looked around at the destruction. In her mind, she could still recall the night so many years ago, when the room was so beautiful and the people so charming. It was where she first saw the man who would forever have her heart. She had so much to say, but she wasn’t good with strong emotions. The words couldn’t form on her tongue. She walked over the place where Severus had first danced with her as a girl, and she could hear the music in her mind. She closed her eyes as the tears fell. She would never dance in this place again, never be able to set foot again in this wonderful room that was a fairy-tale land, that had given birth to all her girlish dreams of love. It was a kind of death.

She felt strong arms wrap around her waist. He rocked and swayed her in his arms. “I know,” he whispered. That broke her resolve. She turned and broke down, crying violently. All the losses, all the little deaths along the way, the compromises, the outright deceptions—How were they to start again?

Molly came over to see to the crying girl. She took her wand and said, “Tergeo!” Genevieve’s face became immediately spotlessly clean and fresh.

“Oh, Molly!” she cried as she embraced the woman. “You saved my life! Bellatrix would have killed me if you had not stopped her! Thank you!”

The witch smiled. “Well, we can’t have Severus lose you both now, can we?”

Snape frowned. “What do you mean ‘both?’”

“Severus, why do you think I was so adamant about you keeping her out of the fray?”

Genevieve rounded on him. “That’s why you kept me back?” She turned back to Molly. “He threatened to hex me with a full Body-Bind Curse if I didn’t keep back and out of the way.”

“And as well he should have!” she replied indignantly as she Transfigured Snape’s frock coat into a suitable witch’s robe.

Molly led them back towards her clan and put her hands on her ample hips. “I’ve had seven children, Severus Snape, and I assure you, I know when a woman is with child!” She then took her wand and whispered a spell as she pointed it at Genevieve’s belly. A golden mist hovered over her abdomen.

“Oh my!” Genevieve whispered. After a moment’s silence, the room was roaring in laughter, huzzahs, and congratulations. Severus Snape stood gaping like a codfish as Arthur Weasley shook his hand. Mad-Eye came right over and thrust the bottle of firewhisky into Snape’s hand.

“There you go, lad. I think you need a drink more than anyone else about now!”

McGonagall levitated one of the sofas over to Severus and Genevieve so they could sit down. They were both gobsmacked. Finally, they looked at one another. Snape’s face grimaced and looked as if he were dying to say something.

But Genevieve was no fool; she immediately spoke up. “No, Severus,” she whispered. “I may have done things with Bellatrix and Narcissa, and I even was forced to do things with that snake bastard, but no man has been inside me but you.”

He grabbed her and held her tightly. “I love you,” he whispered. “And this is how we are going to start over. The three of us.”

Well, starting over would have to wait. There were the dead to bury, and the wounded that needed attention. Snape and the able-bodied men burned the body of Voldemort and buried the dead Death Eaters. The women Apparated back to the castle with the wounded and attended to their healing. When it was finally over, Genevieve had never felt so exhausted. She and Severus slept for three days, only waking periodically to eat the food the house-elves left for them to eat.