The Elder Wand's Finish

The Elder Wand's Finish

Part One

It was a beautiful warm summer day. The leaves on the trees rustled in the soft country breeze. In the distance, there was a small village that was hidden from sight by many sloping hills. There were a few old homes scattered here and there, including the Burrow down the road a ways. The Burrow was now where an old man named Hugo Weasley lived with his wife. It had once belonged to his grandparents before him. The house was very ancient, but with the help from his intelligent sister Rose, they had made it as safe and stable as a brand new house with hexes and charms.

The tall house next door had once belonged to Xenophilius Lovegood, and was now inhabited by the descendents of Luna Lovegood, Xenophilius's daughter. Luna was still alive today, as she would be for ten more years, longer than anyone else in her family had ever had.

The house where our story begins was a roomy three-story cottage in a field that was built for a man and his wife many decades ago. Their children were raised in that house and the man and his wife were both still alive and still lived there today.

Harry Potter and his wife Ginny sat peacefully at a table on their bright sun porch where they were playing a game of wizard's chess. This was becoming increasingly difficult for Harry now, since he was as close to blind as one could be without actually being blind. Luckily, when he went to send a white knight to kill a black bishop, the black king bellowed: 'Stop moving the white pieces! Are you on our side or not?!'

'Oh, sorry,' said Harry who sent the bishop out of harm's way from Ginny's knight. Ginny smirked.

At that moment, Teddy Tonks and Victoire, his wife appeared on the stone walkway leading to the front door of the cottage. Teddy was holding a small parcel wrapped in colorful paper. Harry's hearing was going slightly and he could no longer make out the popping sound made by Apparition, so it always came as a great surprise to him when people appeared out of nowhere, even when he knew they were coming.

'Happy birthday, Harry,' Ted and Victoire announced loudly enough for him to hear, walking onto the porch to greet them. Today was July thirty first, 2071. Also known, as Harry's ninety first birthday. A year ago, on his ninetieth birthday, there had been an article about it in the Daily Prophet by Linda Balthazar, Rita Skeeter's great granddaughter. Fortunately Linda didn't seem interested in scandals and exaggeration when she wrote which thoroughly impressed Harry. Ginny smiled as the two visitors bent down to hug her, then Victoire hugged Harry and Ted shook his wrinkled hand.

Harry now had very thin messy white hair, half-inch thick lenses in his round spectacles which highly magnified his bright green eyes and enough lines on his forehead to make it extremely difficult to find his lightning bolt shaped scar he'd had for nearly ninety years. He now walked with a polished wooden cane because of his bad hip. Ginny on the other hand, walked perfectly well for a woman her age and needn't any help. Her once bright red hair had lost its color and was now a dull shade of gray and her sagging lined skin was blotched with liver spots, but in Harry's eyes she was as beautiful as ever.

Ted and Victoire were also growing old themselves, Ted being seventy-four and Victoire, seventy-three. Ted's white hair only had a slight tinge of turquoise in it and Victoire still looked beautiful with her mane of long, shiny silver hair.

Suddenly, Albus Potter and his wife Roxanne appeared, and soon after so did their son Harry and his family who arrived by portkey (a cracked ceramic flower pot). Harry II and his wife had recently welcomed the birth of their second child and first son Finley. They also brought their four-year-old daughter Olivia. They all greeted Harry and Ginny warmly, even though they saw each other rather often.

By now, there were four living generations in the Potter family. Harry's three children, James, Albus and Lily had all married and had at least two children of their own. Now, their children were grown up and the majority of them had children, too.

Soon, nearly all of them would arrive to the little (or not so little) party. The crowd of people couldn't fit inside the house, so they sat and mingled or played games in the large field where dozens of picnic tables were magically set up. Meanwhile, Harry sat in an old rocking chair on the porch with Lily's oldest daughters, the twins, Ava and Isabella. They looked at an old photo album Harry had of him and his family when he was younger.

'This picture is actually a picture of me when I was a baby,' Harry pointed to a very old weathered photograph in which a black-haired baby was riding a moving toy broomstick with his father behind him. The picture however looked as if it had been ripped in half.

'What happened to the missing half of the photo?' Ava asked, clearly intrigued. She and her twin had inherited their mother's red hair and brown eyes, which also made them identical to Ginny.

'Umm, well with age, your memory isn't quite what it used to be and I can't recall what happened,' Harry lied. 'But I think my estranged aunt Muriel was in the other half of that photo. She was a bit mad, really.' The three of them laughed.

'Now, this was taken of your great uncle and aunt Ron and Hermione and I when we were in our second year at Hogwarts,' he explained, looking at a picture of three young students, one with bright orange hair, one with round glasses and one a girl with bushy brown hair. They all smiled happily.

'Ah, yes I remember Aunt Hermione. Her funeral was just a few years ago,' said Isabella, leaning in closer for a better look.

'Yes, I think about five or six years ago.' He turned the page. 'And Ron passed away at seventy-nine, so a few years before her. Now this, as you can tell was my wedding day,' Harry said proudly. The girls gaped at this photo. It showed a young twenty-year old Ginny in a gorgeous white bridal gown and Harry in black dress robes, trying to cut a colossal white cake on a table between them.

'Wow. Grandma looks so pretty,' gasped Isabella. 'Could I get a copy of this?'

'Yes, me too!' Ava exclaimed.

Just then, three young children came bounding toward the porch and stopped in front of Harry and his granddaughters, including four-year old Olivia. The two others were Ava's seven-year old son Grant and nine-year old daughter Cecilia.

'Great-grandpa!' panted Cecilia. 'Uncle Harry was just telling us that you killed the most evil wizard in the world!' She called him "uncle Harry" even though he was her second cousin.

'Is it true?' Grant wanted to know.

Harry grinned at Ginny who was now stepping onto the porch. 'Is that what he told you?'

'Yes, and he said that the most evil wizard in the world tried to kill you when you were a baby and he couldn't,' Grant squeaked enthusiastically.

Harry had gone through this with his kids and then his grandkids. He decided it was better if they knew the truth. 'Yes, that's true. But I only survived because my mum was protecting me. If she hadn't, I couldn't have survived. And yes, I did end up defeating him-'

'When he was only seventeen,' Ginny added.

'Well, yes. I couldn't have done it without the help of a lot of people, though.'

'You're too modest,' Ginny said for the three thousandth time since they were married.

The children were completely in awe. 'How'd you do it?' little Olivia demanded.

'Well...' Harry looked around and noticed that half his large family was standing around the porch listening to the story. He continued, 'It took a really long time. You see, there were several really important objects that were really valuable to him that I had to destroy before I could actually go up to him and kill him. I only destroyed one of the objects, though. And I didn't even know how important it was when I destroyed it. A lot of helpful people helped destroy the other ones. In the end, there was this big battle at Hogwarts and lots of good people died-'

'But why did he want to kill you?'

'Before I was born, a Prophecy was made that said that in the end, either I would kill him or he would kill me, so he figured it would be easier to kill me when I was a baby.'

'But he couldn't kill you.'

'That's right. And he disappeared for a long time and everyone thought he was gone...'

Everyone had finally left after a wonderful birthday dinner and after Harry opened his gifts. Really, he hadn't expected anything but the real gift was just to be able to spend time with all his family together. Every year at his birthday party, there seemed to be more and more people and Harry felt very fortunate to be blessed with so many people who loved him. He had had such a good life and he'd done so much that most people would never dream of doing. Yet he didn't feel like much of a hero for defeating Lord Voldemort all those years ago; it had been his duty.

Harry climbed the stairs to his second floor bedroom after finishing a cup of tea. He pulled on his pyjamas and slowly climbed into bed. He couldn't believe that it had been so long ago that it had happened. He could remember every single detail so clearly. He honestly had trouble believing that he himself had been so brave to stand up to Voldemort like that. He took off his glasses and put them on the bedside table. He remembered when everyone praised him and rejoiced that Voldemort was finally dead. They were so full of gratitude. He smiled to himself. 'I guess I really accomplished a lot, didn't I?' he thought. He knew he had done what he wanted to in his life and he was satisfied.

Ginny walked out of the ensuite bathroom in her white flannel nightgown. She turned off the light and climbed into bed next to Harry, facing him.

They looked at each other for a moment before Ginny said softly: 'I love you.'

'I love you, too,' Harry said, pulling her into his arms. Ginny lay with her head on his chest, feeling his heartbeat. Harry was incredibly happy. He closed his eyes, thinking about how complete his life was. There was only one last thing that he wanted to do: he would make the Elder wand be finished, once and for all. Never again would people fight for it. Never again would there be a Master of Death. So he finally fell asleep, with a smile on his face, knowing that he did well.