The Final Battle

Epilogue

It was an extremely bright June day, and the midday sun bathed the grounds of Hogwarts in lively colours. Groups of students, mostly from lower years, were enjoying themselves in and around the lake, the giant squid drifted lazily along the surface and bathed in the sunlight while everywhere on the castle grounds small groups of students and their parents walked along and enjoyed the day, mostly muggle-born seventh years who showed their parents around school as they had not seen the castle before.

It was no usual day at Hogwarts, it was Graduation day.

In the Quidditch stadium, Professor Flitwick and Professor Martins were busy lowering the stands to ground level for the parents and younger students to sit on during the ceremony as well as setting up a platform where the speeches would be made and the students would receive their diploma as qualified wizards. The stands were set up on one end of the pitch facing the platform on the other end. In between, the teachers and seventh years would be seated during the ceremony on chairs that had been summoned from the castle.

After an hour of work, Flitwick and Martins nodded at each other. Everything was ready for the graduation ceremony.

Professor Carrie Martins had come to Hogwarts slightly more than a year ago, as a replacement for Minerva McGonagall. When the Head of Gryffindor had become Headmistress after the Death of Albus Dumbledore, she of course had not been able to fill her previous positions anymore, as headmistress her days were laden with work enough already.

Martins had graduated from Hogwarts around fifteen years ago and up till last year taught in a wizard elementary school in Kent, until the letter from Hogwarts had arrived. McGonagall had remembered her as one of the most talented Transfiguration students she had ever taught and had considered her to be the perfect choice for the job, and Martins had more than gladly accepted the job offer. She had enjoyed teaching the younger children, but working with students who didn't even own a wand and therefore could not perform any magic had become quite dry and unrewarding with the years, it didn't demand her to use her skills as much as she would have liked.

The students had immediately taken a liking to their new teacher and Head of Gryffindor house, especially the male population of Hogwarts. Carrie Martins was the youngest of the staff members, and by far the best looking with her long honey coloured hair, expressive brown eyes, well shaped body and her liking for robes that were slightly more tight tailored than it was standard. And while probably most of the male students above fourth year had a crush on her, the female population of Hogwarts as well as her colleagues appreciated her teaching qualities, her knowledge and her fun loving attitude and open nature. She wasn't as strict and unapproachable as McGonagall had often appeared, but made it perfectly clear right from the start that in her classes there were some ground rules, and those who crossed them would find themselves on her bad side. And those students who had experienced it so far swore that it was something they didn't like to repeat anytime soon.

McGonagall was convinced that she could not have made a better choice than hiring her, though Snape contradicted openly whenever she said so. With Martins, finally someone had entered the staff of Hogwarts who was able to give Snape back some of his own medicine, and there had not been one single verbal sparring match or discussion so far that the Potions master had won. Though McGonagall had noticed that whenever confronted with Martins, Snape seemed to lose a rather large part of his ability to think straight and coherent, and from time to time she had caught her colleague stare at Carrie with a somewhat glassy and dreamy expression.

McGonagall truly enjoyed confrontations between those two teachers in the staff room, Carrie Martins' presence seemed to do Snape good. Between all the banters and quarrelling, the Potions master seemed to have discovered that sarcasm wasn't the only form of humour that existed.

Leaning on one of the goal posts, Remus Lupin watched how Martins and Flitwick finished their work and set off towards the castle again. He too had noticed the change of Snape's behaviour whenever the new Transfiguration teacher was around and used it mercilessly to tease him. He still was a Marauder, after all. And once he had even managed to make Snape blush when he had reminded his colleague to send him and Sirius an invitation for the wedding. Snape had quickly turned around and left, but Remus had seen the colour rising in his face.

Sirius hadn't stopped laughing for the better part of an hour when he had told him about it.

Remus shifted his position a little and glanced around the castle grounds. They were looking just like they had done on his day of graduation, there was no sign indicating anymore that one and a half year ago the final battle against Voldemort had taken place here.

Remus couldn't prevent his thoughts from returning to the weeks of the aftermath.

It had taken the Ministry quite some time to figure out what exactly had happened that night.

The number of the people killed had become clear after a couple of days. A hundred and fourteen Ministry wizards had been killed either by the Death Eaters or the werewolves, seventeen more had received the Dementor's Kiss during the battle and had ended up at St. Mungo's. None of the Aurors that had been bitten by a werewolf had survived the night. And though the Ministry wizards had tried to stun and arrest rather than to kill, sixty two Death Eaters had not survived the night either. A large number of them had been attacked by their own werewolves after the Aurors had started protecting themselves against them.

The werewolves as such had been a riddle far more difficult to solve. Nearly ninety dead werewolves turned back into humans had been found on the battlefield the following morning, and the wolves that had fled into the forest had found themselves in a rather difficult predicament after they had changed back. Ministry wizards had collected one hundred and four naked and very confused Romanians out of the Forbidden Forest and the surrounding area, hardly any of them able to speak English but all of them very confused.

After they had been collected, checked by medi-wizards and given clothes and food, they had been brought into custody of the Ministry for questioning. It had not surprised Remus that none of them had been able to recall precisely what had happened to them, but what had surprised him was that none of them remembered to have left Romania at all. Even if they had been caught during full moon, they should have remembered the things that had happened after they had changed back, and most of them had been caught more than three months ago. Either their memories had been altered, or they had not changed back at all.

After the Ministry had carefully examined every single one of the werewolves and had found no trace of any memory charms, they had already been willing to declare this riddle as unsolvable. But then one of the Death Eaters in Ministry Custody had turned out to be one of the few Death Eaters that had been stationed at the Manor where the werewolves had been kept. The man had testified that the werewolves had been caught in Romania during two full moon nights by Death Eater forces, then been sedated and brought to England by portkey.

The Death Eater told the Ministry how they had been held in the dungeons, their jaws magically chained and that once a day they had been stunned to administer a potion that prevented them from changing back. At this point, the name Valeria Salenin had been mentioned for the first time and the Ministry had approached Snape with the matter. Though the former Death Eater did not know Salenin in person, he had heard her name before, but not in connection with Voldemort. He knew her as a very skilled Russian potion expert, the books she had published since her graduation at Durmstrang had even become standard works on Potions in Russia, but she had never been brought into connection with Voldemort before the Death Eater had mentioned her.

Of course, the wizarding authorities immediately alerted their colleagues in Russia and Europe about this, but Salenin seemed to have vanished without a trace.

After Charlie Weasley had recovered from the consequences of being under the Imperious Curse for such a long time, he and the tree colleagues of his that had survived the night of the battle had been questioned by the Ministry as well. Their camp in Romania had indeed been raided by a large group of Death Eaters who had attacked at night, they had been stunned and transported into the Manor where they had been put under Imperious. The rest of their statements confirmed the Death Eater's testimony, though they neither knew any details about the potion nor the identities of the Death Eaters they had met during that time. But with these testimonies, the riddle about the werewolves was finally solved.

Snape had taken blood samples from a larger number of the werewolves and ever since then had tried to find out which potion Salenin had created for her purpose. It was a complex and difficult task, but Remus was convinced that Snape wouldn't let go until he had found out.

The Romanian werewolves had been sent back to Romania, along with a group of British wizards from the Department of Dangerous Creatures who helped the Romanian authorities with registering the werewolves and establishing a system to keep them under control. Both countries agreed to work together on this in the future, and though Remus knew from own experiences that the British system was far from being perfect, a system with flaws was better than no system at all.

The Dementors had also been a difficult issue. Though their appearance during the night of the attack was easily explained, after all the raid in Azkaban had definitely not gone unnoticed, it had been quite a struggle for the Ministry to find and arrest them in the days after the battle.

After the wave of joint Patroni had chased the Dementors away, they had spread in separate groups and tried to get as far away from Hogwarts as possible. Of course the Dementors could not be allowed to roam freely through the country, but finding a new location for them had been a difficult task. In the end, Hermes Wielding and his fellow Ministry officials had decided to locate them on an island in the North of the British Isles, according to the Dementors' liking for cold and wet climate. The island had been secured by countless wards and charms to prevent any wizard or muggle from accidentally landing there. This solution had proven to be successful during the last year. Nobody had entered the island and no Dementor had left it. Also, the island was watched closely by the Ministry to prevent any future dark wizard from recruiting them to his forces.

But the chances for any future Dark Lord were quite slim anyway these days, at least none that would be a former Death Eater. The Ministry guessed that the number of Death Eaters who had been able to flee and avoid being arrested was very small, and certainly no former high ranking Death Eater had been left. The slightly less than two hundred Death Eaters who had been arrested after the battle, Peter Pettigrew amongst them, had been given trials and had been judged according to their crimes. Peter Pettigrew had received a life-sentence in Azkaban, in a cell that had no possibility for him to escape as a rat. Of course without the Dementors guarding the prisoners, Azkaban resembled now a muggle prison, but still Remus was content with that punishment. Nobody had earned to go through what Sirius had, not even Wormtail.

From the castle in the distance, Remus could hear McGonagall's magically amplified voice telling the students, teachers and parents that the graduation ceremony would start in half an hour. It was the sign to finish all dressing and other preparations and assemble on the Quidditch Pitch.

Remus sighed. The day seemed to have passed in a blur. The parents and siblings of the seventh years had arrived in the morning after breakfast, and from then on the students had been allowed to fair just as they liked until the ceremony would start. Most muggle-borns had used the time to show their parents around and to introduce them to the teachers and ghosts. Remus knew that Ron and Harry had strode off together with Hermione and her parents, showing them the places of their adventures. But of course the first thing Hermione had shown them had been the library.

Remus had spent the rest of the morning talking to various parents as well as with a long conversation with Neville's grandmother during which he could not help but remember Neville's Boggart from years ago and told her about it. She too had been very amused by the story, considering that it had helped a lot to increase Neville's self esteem. After a quick lunch he had left the castle and just aimlessly strolled across the grounds, letting his thoughts drift freely while he watched the buzz of preparations around him.

He was sad to see Harry and his friends leave Hogwarts, from his own experience he knew that live would not be the same for them afterwards. Of course they would see each other regularly, but it wouldn't be the same as it had been for the past seven years. They would all start their own lives, their carefree time without responsibilities was over now. Truly, the time Ron, Hermione and especially Harry had spent at Hogwarts had not been really carefree and there had always been greater worries than the next term paper or exams, but still they had yet to discover how bitchy life could be when it came to the small details of everyday life. But Remus didn't have the slightest doubt that they would find their place.

He crossed his arms in front of his chest and watched as the first students and parents left the castle and headed towards the Quidditch stadium. He could easily spot the Weasleys, all of them except from Fred and George. Remus shivered as he remembered that he had last seen them talking animatedly with Sirius in the entrance hall. The thought that Fred and George were back at the castle and didn't face Filch's wrath and the risk of detention anymore was scary enough, but the possibility that Sirius was with them somewhere, planning a prank, scared Remus to some extend. He knew the schemes Sirius could come up with, and combining them with Fred's and George's love for harmless looking inventions with scary outcomes was a dangerous thing to do. Harry had dragged him into their joke shop once, and what he had seen there had given him a very good impression of what was possibly about to happen tonight. Remus made a mental note only to eat things Sirius ate too at the feast tonight.

On the other hand, Remus was glad that the biggest pranksters of Hogwarts' history were once more roaming the castle, life here had become quite dull and easy to foresee in that department after the Weasley twins had left. But despite all their efforts, Sirius and James still held the school record for most detentions.

Remus closed his eyes and let the sun shine on his face, enjoying the last minutes of peace before everybody would arrive to start the ceremony.

His thoughts drifted back again to the weeks after Voldemort fell for the second and final time. While the Ministry had been busy cleaning up the mess and convincing the public that the threat had been finally banned, Sirius and Harry had been trying to sort out the mess that had once been their relationship. That battle had probably been more demanding than fighting Voldemort could have ever been.

After Harry had broken down the night that Remus had tried to make them talk to each other, they had finally started to talk about all that had happened. But their situation had been one in which a mere 'Sorry' had simply not been enough, the trust between them had to be rebuilt and that had been a long and painful process.

Both had had to realize that the basis of their relationship had been too weak to sustain such a hard testing as the one they had faced.

Sirius had come into Harry's life again at a time when Harry had already been a personality of his own, used to dealing alone with his problems and afraid to let people get close to him out of fear that they might get hurt or leave him again. And the circumstances under which Harry had discovered that he had a godfather could have been hardly worse as well. Sirius himself had his own personal hell to deal with, twelve years in Azkaban leave nobody unscarred in body and especially mind. And during the first two years in which Sirius had still been a fugitive, they had hardly had any chance to get to know each other better at all. Truly, Sirius had been important for Harry as well as the other way around, but there had been this enforced distance from each other that had prevented them from discovering the other's faults and failures, let alone talk about all the small things people in close personal relationships normally knew about each other.

And even when Sirius had finally been able to offer Harry a home with him, it had been under everything but normal circumstances. First, Harry's uncle had beaten him into oblivion and just as he had recovered from this, it had appeared that Remus had been murdered.

Though both Harry and Sirius had stood beside the other through these hardships, they simply had not had any time to get to know each other better. There had never been time for them to just relax, sit down and tell about their lives, get to know their strengths and weaknesses, their hopes and fears, their achievements and mistakes.

They had been close, no doubt about that, and they had trusted each other unconditionally, but the incidents around Voldemort's last attack had proven that it had not taken much to destroy this. Sirius and Harry had learned the hard way that circumstances had rushed them into this close relationship. All their confessions of love and trust had been honest all right, but they had been forced to leave out the necessary steps in their relationship that would have made those commitments last.

It had taken both Sirius and Harry days and weeks of talking, shouting, of accusations and tears to come to that conclusion, many times one of them had stormed out of the room, slammed doors shut or thrown breakable things at walls and doors. Remus had done his best not to interfere and let them work it out on their own, but more than just once he had been the one to settle between them when things threatened to get out of hand, or to console Harry or Sirius after particularly nasty confrontations. There had been times during the first two weeks when Remus had thought that things got only worse and had no chance of ever getting better again, but after Sirius and especially Harry had let out everything that had been weighing on them they had been able to start picking up the pieces.

What had followed had been weeks during which Sirius, Harry and also Remus had caught up on the things that had gone wrong in the first attempt. Now that they had let off the steam, after they had told the other what bothered them about each other, they began a new foundation for their relationship.

Even if he had wanted, Remus could not have excluded himself from that. He was a part of Harry's past as well, he too had witnessed the circumstances around the death of Harry's parents and he, being the last of his father's friends that had not been dead, supposedly dead or in prison, had not been a part of Harry's life either. A fact for which Harry demanded an explanation from him.

And so they started talking about it all. It was hard for Sirius and Remus to think back to the time around James' and Lily's death, to try and find words to describe the situation to Harry, to explain their suspicion against each other and the reasons for the decisions that both of them had made, but they tried their best to tell Harry everything he wanted and needed to know to understand what it had been like. Remus thought that he had never been so honest about what he had seen, felt and done, and also about the mistakes he had made. It was scary, it was dreadful, and most of all it hurt so much that he would have preferred not to think about it at all, but he knew that it was necessary for all of them. Sirius didn't feel much different about it, especially since he had learned to dread all those memories during his time in Azkaban. But they went through with it, despite all the pain it brought.

As a countermove Sirius had expected Harry to be just as honest and open about what he had been through as well, and he too realized that getting through with it despite the pain was the only option he had if he wanted to save the relationship he had with Sirius. If he wanted to have Sirius in his life as a parental figure, he would have to share his feelings and fears with him, he would have to let him get close to who he really was, without keeping secrets. And this was something Harry had never done before.

Eleven years of living with people who despised him and didn't care about his feelings at all had left their marks on Harry, and the following years during which he had tried to keep people from getting too close to him did not help him in this situation either. Harry had always been forced to live up to certain expectations, being The Boy Who Lived he had thought he was not allowed to be weak or overtaxed. So it was difficult for him to believe that Sirius didn't have any expectations concerning him at all, that all his godfather wanted was to really get to know and understand him with all his strengths and weaknesses.

But Harry had known that if he wanted Sirius to be a part of his life, then he would have to overcome his doubts and tell him what he wanted to know.

Harry knew that he wanted to get close to Sirius again, the thought that he could lose the only parental figure he had ever known hurt him more than anything, but Harry was scared.

Remus clearly remembered the night when Harry had woken him up at three in the morning because pondering over this again and again had kept him from sleep.

Harry had been scared out of his mind that Sirius might not want him anymore when he found out who Harry really was and how weak he considered himself to be. It had taken Remus a lot of coaxing to get this confession out of Harry and a lot more to convince him that Sirius didn't hold any expectations towards Harry, except that he was honest towards him.

Remus had been astonished how afraid Harry was of admitting weakness and failures, how much he was convinced that people only saw in him what they wanted to see and weren't really willing to look below the surface. He had realized then that Harry had lived in the shadow of so many expectations for all his life that he now was afraid to disappoint people around him in their beliefs. The memory of James had thrown his long shadow over Harry just as much as his own fame as The Boy Who Lived. Harry had developed the feeling that he had to adjust his life to all those expectations.

That night, Remus had talked to Harry for a long time, trying to convince him that he didn't need to have those fears, not around the people who really cared for him. They had talked about Ron and Hermione and why Harry didn't have those fears around them, and in the end Remus had convinced Harry a little more that he really didn't need to pretend to be something he actually wasn't, especially not around Sirius.

Looking back now, those first two months after Voldemort's destruction had been the hardest Remus remembered. Having the people you cared for still alive and around you, but seemingly out of reach on an emotional level had been a difficult task for all three of them, but especially for Harry and Sirius. But slowly, with a lot of honest confessions, rebuilt trust, shared secrets and even far more tears, they had made it.

It had been awkward at first, after they had talked about everything that had been bothering them. As if they had been afraid to do something that might make it all worse again, Sirius and Harry had treated each other as if they were made of glass, carefully avoiding everything that could cause a new disagreement.

But then Harry had spent two weeks with the Weasleys at the beginning of April, and this had given Sirius and him the distance they needed to process everything that had happened. When Harry had returned, it had been hard to believe that the situation between them had been so strained only weeks before.

Remus knew that this would not always remain that way, there would surely be fighting, arguments and disagreements in the future, but this time Harry and Sirius had a far better basis to sustain it all. They knew where their middle-ground was and which borders of the other one it wasn't wise to cross.

Of course neither Harry nor Sirius was perfectly okay again, both had too much in their past lives to cope with. Sirius was still haunted by his time in Azkaban, he was still paying the prize for the one wrong decision of his life, for the one time when he had put his trust in the wrong person, and he would be paying that prize probably for the rest of his life.

Harry was still trying to get over the death of Dumbledore, the guilt he felt for Cedric's death and the harm that Voldemort had done to him by murdering his parents and with this condemning him to a life with his aunt and uncle. Harry had seen things Remus would not wish his biggest enemy to go through and parts of that would accompany him throughout the rest of his life.

But both now knew that they didn't need to go through this alone, they knew whom to turn to when they felt they could not bear it alone anymore. They had both begun to heal and Remus knew that if they were given more time and rest, they'd be able to leave it all behind eventually.

Remus jumped nearly thee feet into the air when suddenly a voice next to him pulled him out of his thoughts.

"Daydreaming, Professor Lupin?"

Remus spun around and found himself face to face with a grinning Sirius. He smiled.

"Sort of. Just letting my thoughts drift off."

Sirius nodded and pulled out something from behind his back.

"Treacle tart?"

Remus eyed the small pie that Sirius held on his outstretched hand suspiciously, then remembered whom his friend had been spending the past hours with and shook his head.

"Only if we share it."

Sirius looked at the tart and bit his lower lip, something that only confirmed Remus' suspicion that it was advisable not to eat the tart.

"You see Remus, I'm not very hungry at the moment."

Remus nodded.

"Of course. What doest that tart do?"

The grin on Sirius' face was back and even wider than before, something Remus could clearly remember from their time at school.

"Well, let's just say that Fred and George are really inventive. Clever buggers, those two, surely worth every detention they ever received."

"Sirius, what does that tart do to the one who eats it?"

"Something I would very much see happening to Snape. Or can you imagine him saying everything he wants to say in limericks?"

Remus grinned. He would love to see Snape like that, but he also instinctively knew that this was not the only thing Sirius and the twins had prepared for this afternoon and the following feast.

When he looked around, he saw Carrie Martins pass them with a very pissed off expression on her face. Remus knew of only one person who could do that to her, and suddenly an idea struck him.

"Sirius, I'm going to make sure that Snape eats at least one of those tarts if you tell me what other pranks you and the Weasley twins have planned."

Sirius raised his eyebrows and put on a hurt expression.

"Me? Remus, how can you accuse me of..."

"Sirius!"

Remus grinned knowingly and finally Sirius gave in.

"Okay, deal. But first you show me your infallible plan to make Snape eat this."

"Fine. Carrie, would you come over for a second?"

Carrie Martins, who had been talking to Professor Vector some feet away from them, looked over and nodded. She quickly ended her conversation and stepped towards the two Marauders. Had Remus been looking at Sirius at that precise moment, he would have seen his jaw drop nearly to the floor.

"Oh, Carrie, have you met Sirius?"

Carrie shook her head and smiled.

"No, I don't think I had the pleasure so far."

"Carrie Martins, this is Sirius Black, Harry's godfather and an old friend of mine. Sirius, this is Carrie Martins, Transfiguration Professor and new Head of Gryffindor House."

Sirius gained control over his facial muscles again, put on one of his infamous million-candle-smiles and stretched out his hand.

"Pleased to meet you. Now I fully understand why Harry has developed such a sudden liking for Transfiguration during the past year. I always considered it a rather attractive...subject, myself."

Carrie laughed and blushed a little.

"Harry is a very clever student, it was a pleasure to teach him and his friends. And now I finally get to know that legendary godfather he talks about so often."

Their hands lingered a moment too long for a normal handshake, and had they been looking at Remus they would have seen him rolling his eyes. After a moment, Carrie drew her eyes away from Sirius and looked at Remus.

"Remus, you wanted to talk to me?"

Remus nodded.

"You looked kind of distressed when you came here. Could it be possible that you had a lovely encounter with a certain Potions Professor on your way here?"

Carrie's facial expression quickly turned harder and her eyes began to sparkle dangerously.

"The air of that man, it's...it's...there are no words to describe it. Really. The school year is already over, and just as I pass through the Transfiguration corridor, I see him taking off points from three of my students. For the next school year, can you believe that?"

Remus frowned his brow, not so much because that didn't sound typical for Snape, but because he wondered what the Potions master had been doing in the Transfiguration corridor.

"What happened?"

Carrie sighed.

"Two of his fifth years with that typical Slytherin attitude had started insulting and threatening those three second years of mine. And as a reply, they got hexed with a nice mixture of itching- and hand-numbing-hexes. Snape came along and without asking took five points off for each student. Well, I just came across that scene and gave him a piece of my mind about that."

Sirius and Remus laughed as they imagined Carrie giving Snape some harsh words in front of the students. Carrie grinned.

"And after he and his students left, I awarded ten points to each of my students for creative use of magic. Serves him right. Oh, sometimes I only wish I got the opportunity to get him back for this unbearable attitude."

Remus grinned and put an arm around her shoulder, pulling her into the shadow of one of the stands, Sirius following suit.

"Oh Carrie, I think we can help you with that."

Carrie grinned. She knew that Remus had a very strong fun loving and pranking side, and if only half of what he and Harry had told about Sirius was right, then this promised to be fun.

Five minutes later, Carrie left with the treacle tart wrapped in a handkerchief and a rather large grin on her face, an expression matched by Sirius'. Remus gave his friend a look from under raised eyebrows.

"What?"

Sirius pretended to be innocent as a newborn baby, but he couldn't fool Remus.

"You fancy her."

Remus couldn't believe his eyes. Sirius blushed! That was even better than teasing Snape with it.

"Well, you can't deny that she's hot, Remus."

Remus laughed. No, he could definitely not deny that. Sirius suddenly sobered.

"Or do you...? Because I wouldn't want to interfere..."

Remus raised his hands.

"Not at all. That's something you'll have to fight out with Snape and the majority of the male students at the castle."

Sirius grinned mischievously.

"Well, the thing about Snape sounds like fun."

Remus shook his head. Sirius definitely would never grow up.

"Come on, let's go. Or do you want to miss Harry's graduation?"

"I wouldn't want to miss it for anything. Will Snape be making a speech?"

Remus laughed.

"Unfortunately not. But I guess we'll hear some poetry of his during the feast tonight. Which reminds me...on our way back to the castle, I'd like to know which food is save to eat and what places I should avoid standing in at certain times. You promised."

"Maybe we should take a longer road back to the castle, the list is quite long actually. Did I mention that Fred and George are really clever guys?"

Remus nodded and grinned painfully.
"Yes, I think you mentioned it somewhere between the lines."

They moved out from behind the stands and while Sirius took his place in one of the stands next to Molly Weasley, Remus set off towards the teacher's seats. He sat down next to Fillius Flitwick and with a grin noticed that Snape had willingly eaten the treacle tart that had been handed to him by Carrie. Remus relaxed back into his chair. This day promised to be fun.

After Headmistress McGonagall had made her speech about how the seven years of magical education had turned the unknowing eleven year old children into fully qualified wizards who were now able to leave the safety of the castle and find their own places somewhere in the wizarding community, the top student of the graduation class held another speech as it was tradition. And who else except from Hermione Granger could that have been?

Much to the surprise of most of the people present, Hermione didn't speak much about the magical education they had received, as most people would have expected especially from her. Instead, she held a very touching speech about friendship and the value of standing up for your beliefs. Remus couldn't help but notice that Harry and his friends were far more mature and grown up than he and his own friends had been at their graduation. For the Marauders, life after Hogwarts had seemed the next great adventure, something they needed to explore and of which they wanted to take as much as they could get.

Harry, Ron and Hermione had experienced more adventures than they could recall during the past seven years, they had grown up seeing Hogwarts as a safe place in a threatening and violent world where you didn't know whom you could trust. During their years here at Hogwarts, they had seen things no children of their age should have seen, and instead of exploring something new they now longed for a little rest and some time to find their place in the changed world around them.

Remus knew that Hermione with her top grades had already various job offers, he knew that Ron and Harry had been approached about joining the Ministry of Magic and that Harry had been asked to join Puddlemere United as a professional Seeker.

But the infamous trio had already made their own plans, and job offers at the moment didn't have that much place in them. Harry had never left the British isles in his entire life, and so he, Ron and Hermione had planned to spend the next six months just travelling around in the muggle and wizarding world all over Europe, and maybe even America or Australia. They had not really planned that far ahead, they just wanted to go wherever they got drifted to and didn't even necessarily plan to make the entire journey together. After all, Ron and Hermione were still together and Harry knew that they would want to have some time of their own. Just as well as he knew that Ron would need somebody to distract him from Hermione after some time, those two had not really changed when it came to the fighting department.

Sirius had not been too pleased that his godson planned on journeying around alone, without someone to protect him, but in the end Harry had won that particular argument. All it had taken had been the promise to owl every week and the permission to Sirius to go searching for him if he didn't owl for two weeks straight.

Remus knew how hard it was for Sirius to let Harry go, to let him lead a life of his own so shortly after they had come into each other's life, but Remus thought that Sirius seemed to take it very well. Well, he'd hide the key to Sirius' house bar after Harry would leave, just to make sure.

While Remus was grinning to himself at the image of an over-protective godfather trying to get drunk because his precious godson was so grown up all of a sudden, Hermione ended her speech and the handing out of the diploma began.

Politely, everybody clapped as the students were called onto the podium one by one in alphabetical order and received their diploma from McGonagall.

When 'Granger, Hermione' was called upon, the applause grew noticeably louder, but that didn't surprise, considering that the entire Weasley family was celebrating their 'daughter-in-law-in-a-sense'.

When finally 'Potter, Harry' entered the podium and shook McGonagall's hand, the applause was ear-deafening. But still Remus' sharp hearing could detect a very loud cheering from behind that suspiciously sounded like Sirius.

But that was nothing compared to Fred's and George's idea to surprise their little brother. When Ron received his diploma, from all around the stands batteries of "Filibuster's Wet Start Fireworks" shot up and formed the words 'Go Ronnykins' in the afternoon sky. Ron blushed a deep crimson red, obviously deeply embarrassed by his elder brothers who were sitting in the stands and laughed their heads off. Remus saw them high-fiving Sirius and inwardly thanked his old friend that he had spared Harry with this. On the podium McGonagall seemed to wish that finally the day would come when the last Weasley would leave Hogwarts for good.

Remus thought with a grin that he would tell dear Minerva later on that Fred's girlfriend Angelina was pregnant. The next generation of Weasleys was not that far away, and he would very much like to see her face when she got to know that. He made a mental note to ask Sirius for the camera before he told her.

~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~

Remus was standing near the buffet in the Great Hall and watched the scenery before him. The band had started playing some minutes ago and all over the dance floor in the middle of the hall couples were moving with the music. Arthur and Molly were somewhere in there, just like Ron and Hermione, and not so long ago he had seen Sirius dragging of Carrie towards the dance floor. While Remus was watching, Harry was approaching him from the buffet with a plate of food and a glass of fruit-bowl.

"He Remus."

"Hi Harry. Enjoying yourself?"

Harry shrugged his shoulders.

"More or less. I'm hiding from Ginny, she wants to ask me for a dance. Gosh, can nobody understand that I don't like dancing, let alone that I'm not able to dance?"
Remus laughed.

"Women."

He watched Harry's plate with a clinical interest. Should he warn him?

"Erm, Harry? I don't think you'd want to drink that fruit-bowl."
Harry looked up in confusion.

"Why?"

"Which bowl did you take it from? The left or the right?"
"The left. Why?"

Remus quickly took the glass away from Harry and held it in a firm grip for himself.

"Well, the right one was spiked by Fred and George. The outcome of this you see if you take a closer look at Professor Sprout."
Harry looked and had to bite his tongue in order not to laugh. The small Herbology Professor was talking to a pair of parents at the far off wall, but her feet weren't touching the floor. She was hovering about three feet in the air.

"Okay, I see. But why then should I not drink from the other bowl?"

"Because the other bowl was spiked by your godfather. And judging from what he did at our graduation you don't want to drink it. Besides, you're far too young to drink Fire-whiskey in those amounts."

"Remus, I'm not a child anymore..."
But Remus only shook his head and kept the glass out of Harry's reach.

"You'll thank me tomorrow morning when you wake up and don't feel as if you've been hit by a bus. Besides, you'll have enough to deal with when you've eaten the food on your plate."

Harry shook his head.

"You're not serious about this, are you?"

Remus ignored the old possibility for a pun and nodded.

"Oh yes, I am serious about it. We should take care that Fred and George's meetings with Sirius will be reduced to a minimum in the future."

When Harry looked around in the Great Hall, he realized that nearly everybody suffered to some extend from 'Marauder food poisoning'. Professor Flitwick was constantly jumping up and down, McGonagall's hair changed its colour every ten seconds, various parents had changed the colour of their skin, a group of fifth years was trying to get their ears and nostrils from steaming and when his eyes finally fell on Draco Malfoy he burst out laughing.

The Slytherin was standing in a far off corner talking to Pansy Parkinson. He didn't seem to have realized yet that his hair was standing up in neon coloured spikes, and Parkinson didn't make one move to tell him. Other than that, his fine dress robes had miraculously turned into a brown and green muggle hippie poncho without his knowledge.

Remus joined Harry's laughter.

"I think the poncho was a nice hex from Hermione, if I've judged her wand waving and laughter from a couple of minutes ago rightly."

Harry looked up.

"Then I guess I'm right if I suppose that Sirius had something to do with Snape's sudden liking for comical poetry?"

Remus' eyes widened.

"You heard him? It's a pity, so far he's kept silent the entire evening. We already thought the prank had been in vain. What did he say?"
"Well, I don't think he wanted to talk to me, but old habits don't die that easily I guess. He caught me outside the hall as I just came back inside with Ginny..."

Harry blushed a deep crimson and Remus had to bite his tongue in order not to laugh out loud.

"Well, anyway. He wanted to tell me off for walking out of bounds again I guess, but it came out different than he wanted."
"What did he say Harry? Don't tease me, I've waited the entire evening for this."

Harry's face showed a smirk every Malfoy would have been proud of.

"Potter, you rule-breaking prat

Once more you got caught in the act

You strayed out of bounds,

You havocked these grounds

You should be punished for that!

He couldn't stop once he started it, and he made a face...it was unbelievable! As if he would kill himself because of that! It was awesome, I should thank Sirius for that!"

Remus took some moments until he had himself under control again, but just as he had composed himself once more, he unconsciously took a deep swig from the fruit-bowl in his hands, which immediately resulted in a coughing fit.

Harry patted his back and when Remus could breathe freely again, his face looked slightly flushed.

"I guess I should warn Sirius that it would be healthier to avoid Severus for the rest of the night, less he wants to spend another night in Madam Pomfrey's care."

Harry looked around.

"Where is Sirius?"

Remus shrugged.

"Last time I saw him, he was dancing with Carrie."

Harry raised an eyebrow at this, but remained silent. Both Harry and Remus soon spotted Sirius and Carrie amongst the dancers, when suddenly from the other end of the hall Snape started hurrying towards the two. Sirius saw him coming, stifled a laugh and after some quick words grabbed Carrie's hand and pulled her off.

Harry laughed just as well. Other than his little poetry problem, Snape now also had the hair on his head bouncing up and down in tight little curls, a pink bow tied in the middle. He didn't look too amused about it, much unlike the rest of the people in the hall.

Harry looked at Remus with a mischievous sparkle in his eyes.

"He'll never grow up Remus, will he?"

Remus only shook his head.

"I hope he won't."

END