Voice of Love

Epilogue

Battle of Hogwarts
2 May 1998

It felt surreal. Narcissa knew very well the risk of pronouncing Harry Potter dead. She knew very well the risk of abandoning the Dark Lord and escaping with Draco, her husband, and their lives. She very well knew that if the Dark Lord killed Harry Potter, her family would be tortured to their deaths. She still took the chance to keep her family safe.

Turning her head to look once more at the chaos that made up the school she lived in for seven years, she couldn't help but be reminded of what she had thought was her freedom so many years ago. The circumstances were all the more terrible. She had experienced first-hand what her husband had felt. She had experienced the constant belittling from the Dark Lord himself as  punishment for Lucius' failures. She had watched her son break apart over the impossible task of killing Dumbledore, and had resorted to begging for Snape's help once more. And now he is dead. She had dealt with her sister hating her because she had chosen the Dark Lord over family, which she had scolded Andromeda for a lifetime ago.

She had received a thousand blows, but nothing as painful as her relationship with Lucius. Their doubt for each other had stretched to impossible lengths when he was sent to Azkaban, and she had almost considered divorcing him despite how dishonorable it would be. It was too disappointing to watch him become a shell of the man she once knew. He looked miserable and he was.

But reminding herself of what they once were together, her unconditional love for the son they had created together, and their son who was watching over them, she had taken chances that suggested death with no hesitation, time and time again.

And in her final difficult choice, the odds were for her. She witnessed her husband become him. His hair was silky and kempt, he was void of dark under-eyes, and most importantly, he was back, in his full and arrogant self. The look that told her he would do anything and everything for her. They had fought so much to be together, and together they were. They celebrated their 27th wedding anniversary bearing scars, but that would heal and disappear over time.

Their love wouldn't.

And this time, in a room surrounded by former enemies and new friends, she knew they were truly free.