Vagary

{Epilogue III}

The Happy One...

Harry was back in the office only a week after his father's funeral. He was chuffed to be back to work, the same being said for Severus and Hermione in their respective places, while Draco was once again content to be at home rearranging the furniture and moving things around the new Potter Portrait.

The ministry was quiet, however joyful that Arthur Weasley had accepted the responsibility of Minister for the next year until James' current term was up.

Basically, everything was back to as normal as it possibly could be while dealing with a loved-one's death.

What was not normal was the letter on Harry's desk from Aries Malfoy.

It was simply a request to join her brother and brother-in-law for their daily lunch, unaccompanied by Ron.

Harry never would've refused, but it was certainly odd.

She arrived early in all of her Malfoy glory, an absolute vision he might say if he was any less in love with his husband.

"Aries, how are you?"

"Great, Harry, thank you! I had dinner with Iris and Luna last night, it was wonderful, even if I did feel a bit left out of the on-again-off-again feeling I get from them."

Choking a bit on the air that seemed suddenly dense, Harry recovered with a smooth cough.

"Right... was there something you wanted to talk about?"

"We can wait for Draco... it's nothing bad!"

They chatted merrily before Draco arrived via floo, his entire countenance pristine.

"Aries, what are you doing here, squirt?"

"I had something to talk to you two about!"

Draco glanced briefly at his husband who only shrugged, having no idea what she had to say, only that he knew she would be there.

"We'll head to the café, then hit us with it, yeah?" Draco offered.

Aries nodded and they all went out, ordering and sitting down, merely waiting on their food when she eventually let them in on what was important enough to come all that way for.

"I want to donate one of my eggs to you two."

Harry nearly spit out his tea, and Draco dropped his cup altogether at the announcement.

"What?"

"Well, I know you two were going to adopt, but I've been looking into muggle solutions for such a thing, and it's quite common in their world. You can do IVF on me, and that way you will both be a part of the baby in a way. It'll be the closest thing you two can have to a natural child, half me and half Harry. Not that I'd ever discredit the love you'd have for an adopted child, but the offer is more just to please the Malfoy traditionalism. Of course, I totally understand if you want to stick it to traditionalism-"

"We understand," Harry said with a hand over hers, halfway to laughing if her offer wasn't so serious. "That's a very generous offer, Aries."

He looked over to his husband, wondering how Draco would feel about such a thing considering all the trouble Narcissa had when she was having Aries in the first place.

"I'll go through all the healer appointments, you needn't worry a thing about my health or well-being, they're much more precise than the muggles about it. If anything is wrong even a smidge we shan't go through with it."

Draco squeezed Harry's leg under the table, remembering Narcissa the same as Aries was in that moment. Her struggles in bringing her daughter into the world were not worth risking said daughter for. Plenty of health check would be needed for certain, but another thing specifically plagued Draco about this idea.

"Have you talked to Ron about all this?"

Aries frowned.

"Yes, and he wasn't exactly a fan. He's scared what happened to mum will happen to me, as we all might be, no matter how many preliminary appointments I go through... but he didn't have any other objections. He loves you guys, too," she said earnestly, not wanting to insinuate he didn't.

"It is something to ponder over," Draco said, looking at his husband who looked on-board enough to at least consider the offer until a later date.

Aries added syrup to her toast in front of her and smiled delicately. "You just lost a family member, Harry, I get it. I do not want you to think my opinion is that you should replace them, I only wanted to give you this opportunity since no one else can. It won't expire, and I shan't tell anyone else until you decide. Just let me know."

Only a month later they sat down with Aries and agreed that it might be something they're interested in, if and only if she passed each and every test the healers assigned to her.

Late summer of two-thousand and four, she was expecting the first Potter baby.

Ron had split from her when she'd begun the process, unable to watch her hurt herself in case it went wrong, despite the healers giving her the cleanest bill of health in the history of St. Mungo's. He went on a bender through Romania with Sirius, causing much riff in the family, dubbed as the wayward Minister's son, until in desperation, after Aries' first trimester, he came back to her on his knees. Lucius Malfoy had been not nearly as accepting as Aries was, but eventually got over it when he held his new grandchild in his arms.

James Narcissus Potter came into the world on April first, two-thousand and five, a month after Hermione had announced that she was once again pregnant, and had been for over three months.

Rosalie (Severus had protested Rose, said it was much too common) Ginevra Snape was born just in time to go to Hogwarts with James when they would both turned eleven, her birthday the thirty-first of August.

After Aries recovered from the Potter pregnancy, Ron proposed, and they were married a few weeks after James turned one.

And despite what everyone thought as the two grew closer over their spouses deaths, Lily and Lucius never got together.

There were many times it could have happened, all the times they were one-another's plus-ones, all the times they seemed to dance romantically and call one another beautiful and handsome, yet not a kiss was shared or even an embrace held just too long in the public eye.

Neither Narcissa nor James would have blamed them, either.

A few more children and a couple promotions later, Peter Pettigrew died in Azkaban, releasing what would forever be known as the Vagary Pamphlet, marking Hermione and Harry once again as famous, and out of the most surprising turn of events, clearing Dumbledore of his name. Quite the shock, to be sure.

The pardon to Albus Dumbledore was a divisive decision during McGonagall's term as Minister which caused a lot of chaos that the world hadn't been prepared for. It was eventually overshadowed by his peaceful death in the calm hills of the English countryside. All in all, it saved an old man from dying in Azkaban.

James and Rosalie's first year at Hogwarts was remarkable for them. Their family's had expanded so much in their wake, and all that had changed due to their parents had been smoothed over time so that Rosalie could at least enjoy having her father be Headmaster. Her brother would be following a year later, not to mention all four of James' siblings trickling in eventually.

And time had smoothed over, too, set in stone for once and for all, as unbreakable as a diamond.

Kind of like the one James would propose to Rosalie with in the distant future...

The families proclaimed it a vagary, indeed.

A/N: And there it is folks, the true end to the story:) Let me know your thoughts, I love to hear it, and if anyone has any Christmas wishes for upcoming stories, I take those too! I wish everyone a happy holiday season, and I hope to be back with something new soon! \

All the best, 

alover_forSnape <3