Pawn to Queen
The Last Chapter

Getting on the train for Platform 9 3/4 was always bittersweet, but this year it was even worse.

The Slyffindor Seven stood a little apart from the others--- heroes, all of them, in different ways. The three who would be returning next year looked simply happy--- though Hermione caught all three of the younger ones giving their significant others thoughtful looks.

And what about me? She looked back up at the huge comforting bulk of Hogwarts Castle. A safe place--- to an extent. But also a place that had challenged them, beyond the limits they had known they had. And then set them free when there was nothing more it could give them.

Yet.

She smiled slightly at that. Just like Severus. They had gone to the limits of the chess game; she had reached the eighth square, as promised--- and it was for her, now, to discover what a queen's place could be, beyond the limits of the chessboard.

Beyond the limits... who knew what was possible?

She turned back--- and caught Harry's eye; he, too, had been looking back at the place that had been home for them for the last seven years. They smiled.

It was different for the others, the ones from wizarding families. Both she and Harry were entering another world entirely from the one they had been raised in--- takign the final step into an existence that no one in their own world could imagine.

Yet. She thought of Susan Teasdale in her lab at Kings College, of Gerry and the older Teasdale twins, working their way through the world of Muggle finance. Of the plans that she and Blaise and Ron had made--- taking hybrid fortunes to the next level.

And of Lily--- Lily, Gryffindor, Muggle-born, and strega, like herself. Lily, who had also left a family that loved her for the challenge of the wizarding world--- who had realized her own power and accepted it.

Almost. Lily's acceptance had come when there was nothing left but the power; she was, after all, a Gryffindor. Hermione, too, would have shunned that power once, something so subjective, so selfish, as a power that could only be used in service of one's own understanding of the world, of those people and ideas that were closest to one's soul.

She wouldn't have understood that, after all, that was all anyone could ever do. That to act beyond the limits of one's own understanding was a worse cruelty than any other--- and all the worse for thinking that you were acting for the best. That was what moira meant, after all.

"Hey---" Harry's voice cut into her thoughts. "Knut for your thoughts?"

Hermione shook herself, and smiled. "Moira."

Ron snorted. "Strega-stuff."

"I didn't hear you complaining when we got Malfoy's old man of business to work for us on the strength of same," Blaise said dryly--- which comment sent them off discussing their after-Hogwarts plans: the high-risk Muggle/magical investments firm that the two strega and Ron had set up with Bill Weasley and Gerry Teasdale, Harry's plans to play pro Quidditch for a few years. "You three are so lucky," Ginny said at one point. "I can't wait to get started on--- life."

"You'll get there soon enough," Blaise reassured her gently. Hermione, hearing some of her own tristesse in her friend's voice, looked closely at her and they exchanged private smiles.

All too soon, the whistle blew, and the mass of students slowly filtered onto the train, sorting themselves out in their own patterns. More mixed compartments, Hermione noticed, seeing the rainbow of colors in cubby after cubby as the seven of them moved through the train looking for an empty space.

Mosto f the train was already full; they finally settled themselves in the caboose, with its picture window facing Hogwarts. None of them had ever sat back here before, but it seemed right.

They chattered about nothing as the train pulled out--- then Blaise looked up as the front of the train moved around the curve that would take them out of sight. "Hey---"

"What?" Ron had his arm around Catlin.

"This is the last sight some of us will get of Hogwarts---" She flung herself across the compartment to the window. "Let's watch."

Florian followed her, and Catlin dragged Ron along in his wake. Harry and Ginny came to perch on the seat--- then Hermione followed, siting between Harry and Blaise.

No one said anything as the castle receded in the distance.

Hermione thought of Severus, then, of what she was leaving behind. Everything they had given each other. The lines from "Little Earthquakes" came back to her. "Give me life, give me pain, give me myself again."

She hadn't listened to Tori Amos since... since Voldemort and Lucius Malfoy had died.

But it was what she and Severus had done for each other. He had a choice now--- he no longer had to hide from his mother and Voldemort under Dumbledore's protection. Being part of the moira of every strega in the western world gave him enough power to defy any single other person--- including strega herself. His mother had found that out the hard way.

And what he'd given to her.... Nietzsche was right, she thought, smiling--- that which does not destroy us makes us stronger. He had kept her from being destroyed--- and that in turn had given her the chance to grow stronger. She'd never have been strega, never have had the friendship of Blaise and the twins--- most of all, never learned to trust in herself--- learned that trusting in herself was a perfectly acceptable way to move through the world.

Yes, they'd given each other a great deal. And what else was possible... she didn't know. She remembered the promise she'd given him--- five years apart. And his answer--- that he would prefer the unknown to knowing he had lost her.

She didn't know what the future held--- for either of them. But she knew that that, at least ,was impossible. They might never be lovers--- but then, they never had been. But he was part of her moira--- her responsibility, within her own understanding.

They'd see each other again. How or where, she didn't know, but they would.

A hand on her shoulder made her turn--- Harry, looking down at her seriously from where he knelt on the seat beside her, Ginny tucked under his arm. Knowing--- or thinking he did-- what she left behind.

She smiled at him--- felt, on her other side, a hand slip into hers--- a sister's clasp. She turned, knowing she'd find Blaise beside her, smiling slightly. Blaise... didn't know, but she understood. For strega, "first person" was a double meaning.

She looked past Blaise, to where Florian has his arm around Blaise's shoulder, to his sister on the other side and Ron beyond. The Teasdales together, the Weasleys at opposite ends--- there was a difference between Slytherin and Gryffindor, family loyalties and romantic love as organizing principles. And she was betwixt and between, enough to realize that both dynasty and romance were illusions. Connections were only as much as the people in them--- at the end of the day, *all* men are islands.

Blaise, catching her eye, winked.

In the distance, Hogwarts Castle vanished round the bend. They sat for a moment longer, then, together turned around.

It was time to look forward--- not back. Time for a queen to find out what her realm could be.