A Gift of Light: Epilogue

Minerva McGonagall repressed the urge to sigh loudly.

When Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore had been known for his succinct, often humourous speeches. Since becoming Minister for Magic, and with each successive graduating year, his speeches were growing longer, more convoluted and frankly bored the pants off not just her but pretty much all of the staff, the graduating class and their parents and guests.

She looked around the Hall, taking her last look of many of these studentsno -longer. On the whole, a good batch, she thought. The last of those who had experienced the Slytherin purge. Many of them already knew what they were going to be doing and where they were headed. A few would decide along the way. Fewer still might never know. Par for the course.

There was some restrained coughing from one of the staff. She looked around and found that Professor Sun was holding a delicate kerchief to his mouth. Over the material, his eyes met hers and smiled, promising much. Dear old Yat. Yes, there would be time for them once this day was over. She smiled, thinking of the rather expensive negligee she had purchased on a recent trip to Diagon Alley.

A sharp pain in her ankle brought her back to the Hall. Sinistra, sitting next to her, stifled a snicker and, like two dutiful students, they turned their attention to the droning speech.

There was some noise to one side. McGonagall directed her Headmistress glare onto it. The Media were certainly taking up a lot of space and not so quietly jousting for the best of it. Usually there was just the photographer from the Daily Prophet, but this year, due to the group sitting to one side of the front of the Hall, there were several international papers represented.

After all, it wasn't every day that the President of the International Federation of Warlocks attended a graduation at Hogwarts. And the fact that the school had been the one to educate his grandson had elicited a great many inquiries from the diplomatic community. Sitting next to the President and his new wife were the Ambassador of Russia and his wife (boy, third year, Ravenclaw), the Head of the International Trade Organization and her husband (boy, second year, Hufflepuff) and the Representative of the Imperial House of China (girl, first year, Slytherin).

They all knew, the Representative, the girl, Sun Yat-Sun and herself that the child was attending in hopes of finding out into which swamp Yat had tossed the former Minister for Magic, but then again, in not too great hurry as the present Minister was far more effective in the position than his predecessor had been.

Besides the added presence of the Media, there was an undetermined number of security people, many speaking softly into their sleeves. And she knew their presence was due not only to the dignitaries sitting in the front row, but also to the man in black who was sitting calmly in one of the back seats. Next to the man whose teal-coloured robe did nothing to distract from his rather stunning looks.

She had been rather stunned herself to find Severus Snape's name on the list of those accompanying the President. More so when the Auror in charge of the Minister's security and the President's Head of Security had met in her office to discuss plans and strategy, and no particular comments had been made.

She was aware that, in the last couple years, Severus had made a name for himself as an investigator into matters that concerned both potions and multi-national jurisdictions. The Daily Prophet, on the bottom corner of page two, had once deigned to mention that a Potions Master with a British background had played an important role in determining that if Mongolian yaks ate a certain spring flower - which bloomed apparently only every five years - it affected the taste, in a minor yet very important way, of fermented yak's milk - a drink to which the Goblins of Mongolia were partial - thereby avoiding a nasty situation with their counterparts in Northern China.

He looked well, she thought. That new shorter haircut didn't make him look any more handsome, but he looked...distinguished, less secretive. And, yes, content. He wasn't paying any attention to the speech but was watching The Unholy Three: Rhodri Ddu, Geoffroi Kynan, and Alexander Hillswick. Or as they were known in the school: Dragon, Vampire and Wolf.

She wondered if Snape knew that Hillswick had insisted his graduating papers list him as Alexander Snape-Hillswick. No, the boy was probably keeping that as a surprise. As it had probably been for the Minister for Magic, who personally signed all the official documents indicating that the graduates were now fully competent wizards and witches.

And she was thankful to Severus. Not only had he sent Sun Yat-Sun to them, but so far three very bright, very gifted young people were attending Hogwarts on his recommendation: an American and two Scandinavians. All three of them werewolves. Which was not a problem as the Sorting Hat automatically sent any of those - they had four attending from Hillswick - to Slytherin, where Yat saw to it that their Wolfsbane was prepared for them every full moon. He had trained his assistant, Pheo, in the making of the potion but still supervised its preparation as he worked on other potions or corrected assignments.

Minerva smiled as she spied Harry Potter in the audience, sitting with a rather...striking woman. Well, one wished to be diplomatic: she was dressed in Gryffindor colours, including her hair. She was looking around the Hall, leaning over and probably asking Harry about the banners because she was pointing to one. Older than Harry. By quite a few years. Minerva knew that Sirius Black was not pleased that the American was still in Harry's life: he thought her a bad influence. He had been very vocal about her involvement in Harry's leaving the National team to set up and coach a brand new Quidditch team in New York.

She wondered if Sirius had noticed that the woman was pregnant. She doubted it as she couldn't be that far along in her pregnancy. But her red and gold robe - decorated with lions playing Quidditch - was rather tailored and women tended to notice such things.

Harry grinned at something she said and she glared at him which made him grin even more. Not a good move, Harry, Minerva thought. And felt her judgement vindicated when the woman flicked the end of his nose and turned back to listen to Dumbledore. Harry leaned over and whispered something that had the woman blushing.

Good for him!

For a moment she thought that the loud snort she heard had come from her. But no, it was Sirius who had long minutes past reached his admittedly short tolerance level for what he called `idiots who love the sound of their own voices'. She noticed that Remus was glaring at him, with no great effect.

She was worried about those two: the snapping and the growls were growing louder and slightly more vicious between them. Lupin had asked for the first term off, and she hoped they could settle whatever problems existed between them. She would hate to lose either of them. Besides being a good professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts, Lupin was an excellent role model for the werewolves. Hooch had agreed to come out of retirement for one term to teach Flying and coach the Quidditch teams in Black's place.

Not that they were going to be able to replace Hillswick and Ddu easily on the school team.

"And so I know that Headmistress McGonagall, the staff and all of us wish you the best on this new adventure that you are off to pursue."

The polite applause from the audience was drowned out as the students stood up and, yelling, tossed their student caps into the air, never more to wear them. As the excited graduates hugged each other, many pulled out their new caps, no longer plain black cones but a variety of colours and shapes. Some even threw off their black Hogwarts robe to reveal personal choices.

She noticed the Unholy Three were now all wearing Slytherin green robes with silver decorations. She must make a point of going over to them and, under the guise of saying goodbye, confirm that these would be dragons, bats and wolves. She would miss these three, though school life would probably be a little calmer now that they were gone. Until their successors.

Minerva stood up in preparation of walking over to thank Dumbledore for taking the time out of his busy schedule to attend this year's graduation. She had been told he would be leaving immediately as he was required elsewhere. She had noted that the President and his ensemble had indicated that they would be remaining for an hour after the ceremony.

She was pleased they were. She doubted she would ever again have the opportunity to thank Severus in person for what he'd done and was doing for Hogwarts. Over the last few years there had sprung up a rather wary correspondence between them, usually concerning the students he had recommended, but she wanted to share a few of Hillswick's adventures with him now that the boy had safely graduated.

Besides, Hillswick had been a favourite with many of the staff and, as a parent, Severus would enjoy hearing their comments on his son. And some of the older staff, Sinistra and Sprout in particular, had indicated several times that they would have liked to say a proper goodbye to their old colleague. Now they could do so without worrying about the Minister's reaction.

With a cool smile plastered on her face, she walked over to Albus Dumbledore. "Minister, another inspiring speech..."

La Fin

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