There is absolutely no excuse for how long I've left you guys waiting. I could just NOT get this chapter correct. Thanks to everyone who's stayed on this story and has waited for me to finish! Here's Part One of the climax, with only a few short chapters left!
The End
PART I
September 11, 1996
10:13 A.M.
Medical Ward
"Breathe, loff!" Viktor then tried to demonstrate with the 'hee-hee-hoo,' breathing.
I groaned through another contraction, breathing deeply and feeling more agitated than comforted by his presence. "I'm breathin', dammit!"
Doc was setting up her Muggle technology all around my hospital bed. Viktor tried to protest against it, saying that many healthy wizard babies had been born without it, but the doctor wouldn't listen to him.
My room was large and white, protected by dozens of wards as my mother, two Marines, and the General set them up. Viktor, my brother, and my sister were the only others in the room.
I squeezed my brother's hand harshly as another contraction moved through my body. "Ooh, you've already...ah...been through this once, haven't you?" I felt bad that I'd missed the birth of my nephew and niece.
"You'll meet the twins soon enough. They're in France with their grandmother right now. Their other grandmother is feeling a bit left out." He told me the last part in a whisper, laughing along with me. At least he was trying to lighten the mood.
My mother wasn't paying attention, instead giving directions to the Marines in the room. "Uh, mom," I said with a groan, "I know we need the protection, but I'd rather not have...ah-ah! Marines in my room!"
She nodded and shooed them out, making them swear to stay at the door at all times. She then motioned for the General to leave as well. He did so with a large frown and a twitching lip, as though he were angry.
Viktor was still doing the 'hee-hee-hoo' noises next to me, which was rather comical. I thought of the first moment I'd met him, how he'd offered me his coat and asked me if I was alright. I bet you never thought you would end up here, Viktor. "The great...ah...Viktor Krum, doing lamaze. Are you ready to switch a broom for a bottle?"
He stopped the comical breathing and ran one hand over my sweaty hair. "Of course, loff. Anything for you and our child." Viktor's beautiful smile landing on me made everything I was going through so much better. "I never thought...that vhen I first met you, I vould be here." His lips touched my forehead, making tears not of pain well in my eyes.
A breathy laugh came from my lips, along with a smile. "Want to trade places?"
His deep, chocolate eyes softened even further as his cheeks stretched in a smile. Stubble formed around his strong chin, "I vould if it vould take the pain from you, loff."
"Men can't take the pain of a childbirth," the doctor said suddenly, pushing my husband out of the way. "Hence the reason that women carry and birth children. Move. I need room to work and you are all smothering her."
I gripped Viktor's hand in one of mine and my brother's in the other. "Don't either of you dare move!"
They laughed nervously and stayed to be my stress relief—too bad for them.
The Doc looked strangely maniacal behind her glasses and frizzy red hair. The crazy laugh she gave off didn't help any either as she braced herself between my raised, spread legs. "Alright, folks, this baby is on its way and it's not stopping!"
12:32 P.M.
The cry of a newborn could be heard throughout the medical ward at the Academy. For the first time since it's opening, even its very first opening, a new life was born.
Samantha Rosa Krum was a healthy eight pounds three ounces, just at nineteen inches long. Her murky blue eyes were made darker by the thick mop of black hair upon her head. Obviously, she wouldn't keep her blue eyes, both parents having darker ones.
"Where's my mother?" Leigh Ann asked, her hazel eyes sparking in worry.
Viktor ran a hand over her hair and kissed her forehead, then kissing their child's forehead. The little baby had her little pudgy hand wrapped around his pinky. He couldn't get over how small she was...how she was made of him. "She vent to see about a dis...dis..."
"Disturbance?" his fiance, mother of his child, asked. She looked exhausted after two hours of labor, which, according to the doctor, wasn't that long. But she still had an air of victory about her. She still looked as though she could fight thousands more battles and win. "Well, we've got a good amount of protection."
She said this with a lot of sarcasm in her voice, which Viktor was just now figuring out how to understand. He looked behind him and saw two Marines standing at the door, and he knew that the General was standing just outside.
He nodded and leaned his head down on her chest, right above his daughter's head. Leigh Ann put her head upon his, clasping their hands together. "You are an amazing voman," he told her softly, giving her hand a gentle squeeze.
She sighed and gave the top of his head a kiss. "And you are a wonderful man, Viktor. I'm just...worried."
"About what?"
She was silent for a moment, going through what to say before she said it, no doubt. Typical Leigh Ann. "When I went to the Capitol..."
Viktor picked his head up at this, staring at his soon-to-be wife. She was looking at him with a seriousness he hadn't seen leave her eyes in a long time. The fact that she is telling me this now... "Yes?"
"I found the prophecy. My prophecy. You...you're going to be taken."
He didn't know what to say to that. He wasn't sure if he was supposed to feel scared or upset that his wife didn't believe in him. "That's vhat you vere doing in Vashington?"
"That's not the point," she sighed, bringing Samantha up to her shoulder. The babe curled into her mother's neck, one small hand against her bow-lipped mouth. "The prophecy told me that I would lose someone...someone soon. Someone close to me, that would hurt me."
He grasped his fiance's hand and stayed silent for a moment, staring at the small hands of their daughter, at her dainty feet, at the wrinkled skin around her neck. She was wearing a Bulgarian Quidditch uniform for newborns, a golden snitch stitched onto both booties. "I von't leave either of you," he said finally, softly as to not wake the babe.
"And if I make you leave with our daughter?" she asked just as softly. He looked up to see her hazel eyes filled to the brim but not spilling as she stared at him, eyes never leaving his face.
One pinky being held by his daughter, he used the other to grasp his future wife's. He stared Leigh Ann dead on and tried to put as much truth into his eyes as he could. "Leahn. I vill not leave you."
"I want you to go. Not to Blugaria, not anywhere in America. Maybe seek shelter in Hogwarts or Beauxbatons...anywhere they can't find you."
He just stared at her as if she were growing to heads. The stubborn woman just didn't quite understand, because when he said that he would protect her with his life, he meant it. Just as he would protect his daughter, just as he would uphold his marriage vows until the day he died. "No."
She finally looked away from him, clenching her jaw. "You're going, and that's final. I can't take it if you're hurt, I just...what was that?"
A loud commotion was happening outside the room, somewhere down the hall. The baby squirmed in Leigh Ann's grasp, starting to fuss, as the Marines at the door turned around and pointed their wands at the door. On each hip were two pistols per soldier.
Viktor kissed his loves on their heads and stood up, taking his wand out of the holster on his hip. He knew that the guards at the door would guard his girls with their lives. "I vill be back."
Anna tried to stand up behind him, but he put a hand on her shoulder and gave her a look that meant business. "Let me help, Viktor!"
"You've just had a baby!" he laughed. He started to put a powerful protection charm around his women. "Stay, loff. I vill not let them harm you."
The joke she let off next did nothing to hide the fear in her molten eyes as she clutched their child to her breast, trying to calm its fussing. "Maybe there's a troll in the dungeon."
He finished off the protection ward and gave one last glance at her. "Ve half a dungeon?"
"Nevermind."
Leah Sampson
1:23 P.M.
Mess Hall
"MOVE, MOVE, MOVE!"
Gunshots and curses were flying through the destroyed Mess Hall. Tables were flipped over to create barricades and smoke created a layer of disruption in the air. Shouts of the wounded and dying coated the ears of the fighters on either side.
Leah dipped behind a steel picnic table that was on its side and wiped the sweat and blood off her face as she reloaded her Colt M4 Carbine. It was easier to use in close quarters combat than her M16 and it packed a hell of a punch, being lighter than its cousin and shorter to boot.
She was mentally trying to count the bodies lost in her head when she heard a familiar voice crying out in pain from the other side. Jessica Nelson!
The professor tried to find the girl by peeking her head up and over the table, only to have it almost shot off with a curse and then a bullet less than a millisecond later. Cursing, she bent back down and moved over, trying to confuse the shooters. It didn't last long, but, she got a glimpse of the girl's blonde hair from where she was kneeling—the girl was on the other side of the room, up on the teacher's podium, where the Klan members were mostly positioned.
Shit, girl. You couldn't have even been in no-man's-land..you had to be in enemy territory. But the girl was one of her students, and an innocent, to boot. As a teacher and wizard, it was her duty to try and save the girl and take out as many of the bad guys as possible.
She knew she was getting old, but after throwing a smoke bomb and jumping over the table to run through it, she didn't really realize how much so until she missed a step and a curse caught her in the leg. Searing pain ran up her thigh, but she moved on, the adrenaline keeping her from most of the agony.
One hooded member got the butt of her gun in the back of his head. Another got three rounds to his chest, and yet another was stabbed with the bayonet she had on top. In her other hand, she held her wand, which took out three more Klan members. All she was left with in her sector was the one holding Jessica Nelson.
No...it can't be!
Jessica was passed out in this man's arms, blood covering the snowy white cape that she should never have even worn. It had fallen from her face, revealing her school uniform...as she wasn't the first one to turn on those she loved. How long had she been with the Klan? No one would ever know. She'd no doubt held her own sister hostage...and that wasn't the most surprising thing.
Ice blue eyes stared back at Leah, barely covered by a white cloak that had fallen from his face. Hair almost as white as the capes, peppered with black, peeked from underneath the hood. His strong, tan hands were gripping the front of Nelson's cape, his wand dangerously pointed at her throat.
"Don't do this, General...or should I call you Dragon, now?"
General George Harrington, Headmaster of the American Academy of Magic, was standing over his own student, ready to kill her. He'd most likely already killed hundreds of the pupils he'd sworn to protect with his own life. The Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan was a man she'd even entrusted with her own life.
The older man threw down the girl in his hands and stood tall, taller than she'd ever seen him stand. He was easily two heads taller than her, with more than a hundred pounds on her. He was a stronger wizard and had a deadly gun hanging off his right hip, his wand already in his hands.
But there was a crazy look in his eye. He was extremely demented and she wasn't sure how she hadn't seen it before. There have been signs...idiot! Memories came flooding back, even from before, when she was in school and he was just a professor. "Could you pull that man from that burning building? Or the tank? Or the Fiendfyre? Could you, Sampson?"
Could she take on this man, now? Was she wrong to have joined this organization, to want to help others, to protect without fear? Why are all of these feelings coming back now? I am meant to help others. I am meant to teach men and women how to protect themselves, to learn, to be strong and independent. I am strong and independent.
"How long?" she finally asked, both gun and wand pointed at the traitor in front of her. Cries of pain and gunshots and curses still rang out behind her, but the smoke was keeping the owners from her view, and her from theirs.
The man laughed and stepped on Jessica Nelson, cracks ringing out from her rib cage as she yelled and cried more. He stepped over her and came towards Leah. "Why, the entire time, Leah. Ever since you joined this school. At first, I disliked you. I really did. I was unsure of a woman entering this school and I did everything to dissuade you from finishing. But you did."
She held her chin up high and tried to hold both hands steady. Don't let him see your fear. Don't let him see you weak. "I earned my position."
"Yes, you did," he said, suddenly frowning. A fire started to grow in his eyes. "But then, you allowed an avalanche of filth in our halls. Filth! Mudbloods, Half-breeds, and multiple races and religions. And now, even you are filth. Blood traitor!"
As he spat that, he also sent a curse her way. She dodged, landing on her bad leg and falling to the ground over Jessica's whimpering body. "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry," the girl was whispering, breathing heavily. Blood covered her entire torso, most of it hers, from a wound to her stomach by two gunshot wounds.
Leah wasn't sure how this girl could have gotten mixed up in all of the madness, but it could have been anything. Most likely, she had been forced or pressured into it. She couldn't believe that the girl had done it of her own free will.
"I am only doing my duty," Leah lied, trying to buy herself some time before backup came. She could hear her soldiers gaining ground, whether from more troops or because they noticed she was gone and were fighting to avenge her. Either way, she didn't mind. "I'm protecting these plebes with my life, as I swore when I took my position."
He laughed maniacally, chilling Leah to her core. "And I'm doing mine, which I swore long before every becoming employed here. I'm ridding the world of wizarding filth." He stared into Leah's green eyes for a moment, a slightly sad look coming over him. Goodbye, Leah. You were one of my hopefuls...but, I guess... Oh, well. Ava—"
Suddenly two forms jumped at the man. One covered Leah and Jessica with her body. The other literally pounced on the General. The curse was never cast, and she and Jessica were saved.
Rene Nelson was crouched over her daughter, agony, anger, and hundreds of other emotions flittering through her solider eyes. She then scooped her daughter up and looked Leah in the eyes. "I'm taking her to the Medical Ward. I'll be back to help...but she's my first priority."
Leah nodded, clutching her leg, and looked past the running form of Rene to see Viktor Krum wrestling with George Harrington on the ground. Fire was starting to spread around them, literal fire, and both were reaching for wands.
She raised her wand, only to notice that she couldn't shoot unless she wanted to hit Viktor on accident, as well. So instead, she made her way over to where they were wrestling and grabbed the General's gun, giving him one less weapon.
"Go!" Viktor yelled, holding the General down in a headlock. Leah looked at him with trepidation, not wanting to leave. "Go!" he yelled again, determination in his face. "I vill hold him!"
Leah grudgingly left the two and went back to the scuffle. Most of the room had been taken by her soldiers, but many had been left dead or dying. She moved to help a wounded girl on the ground, but her leg gave out from under her. When she looked at it, it was charred up to her hip, black and flaky, like burned wood. Blood and puss was oozing from the spot where the curse had landed.
The last thing she remembered was someone yelling, "CRUCIO!"
A man was screaming, mixed in with the sound of her own cries of pain.
