Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn

Harry and Draco are dreaming dreams. The same dreams. The same, possibly precognitive dreams. The Headmaster knows this. He also knows that trying to fiddle a prophecy is rather dicey: look at Œdipus at the crossroads, Tom Riddle at Godric’s Hollow....

In which the precognitive dreams continue, Harry, Draco, and Our Esteemed Headmaster begin to wish they wouldn’t, we peel back a second layer of the onion, motives are uncovered, uncharacteristic actions turn out to be all too characteristic, and Accidents Will Occur, to the surprise of all (including the somewhat astonished author, who wasn’t, actually, expecting some of this to happen).

More masks come off. The future turns out to be rather more complex than expected. And a chorus of voices raise the same warning....

Does the Draco of Hogwarts years escape the Death Eaters? Does the future hold new threats and new joys? Do the Old Hogwartians govern post-War Wizarding Britain? And what is being smuggled, down the Docks, burgled - and in Seamus's manor, at that - and fenced, down the Erumpent and Castle?

The post-war peace is threatened by something far darker than mere smuggling, and our heroes (yes, yes, Hermione: ‘AND heroines’) find themselves at the crossroads. Specifically, at the intersection of low deeds and high politics. And then there’s the matter of a certain rat, and what the Seventies were actually like at Hogwarts….

In which Harry and Draco resolve their enmity. And, shall we say, their tensions.

Country matters. (Ah, Bardic bawdry.) Peace and quiet: what they fought for.

This is not so much a chapter, as it is my ‘English Suite’. An ode to peace, family, and the fruits of victory. Motifs include a predatory, widowed, and razor-sharp Narcissa; her elder sister, the imperious Aunt Andromeda; a reasonably nervous Snape; post-War politics; publicly naked Draco (please, control yourselves); and the post-War Baby Boom. (Run away!)

Between adoptions and 'alembic babies', Our Heroes are going in for fatherhood.

This the end of dreams, dreams of peacetime and the fruits of victory.

Light breaks, day dawns, and dreams are fled.