The End
PART III
Life changed forever, after that final deathblow four months later. There was a final battle at the Academy, with over three hundred student and teacher deaths, and more on the KKK's side. It had been heartbreaking to learn that the leader, the protector, the headmaster of the American Academy of Magic had been behind the death and terrorism of so many.
But he'd died all the same, with a shot to his frozen heart.
No one knew who'd shot the death shot, but, as soon as he died, half of the KKK stopped fighting and turned themselves in. The others either ran and hid or kept fighting, to the death, on the most part.
George Harrington's body was burned, never to defile the earth with his diseased body. No sorcery could bring him back to do more harm as his ashes blew away in the wind with his pyre.
The bodies laid out in the Mess Hall were hard to look at for all. All were covered in American Flags or bloodied white robes. The lines were perfect on either side of the pyre. Friends and families found their dead and took their dog tags, while John and Jane Does were taken to the morgue for identification later.
The body count was all that even Rene Nelson had time for, though her phone kept ringing. Important people wanted important updates. They wanted damage reports and liability wavers and monetary loss reports. But as she stared down at the families who had lost everything, families whose cookouts and birthdays and homecomings she'd been to, she couldn't think about work. She went to them and helped them, and then found others who needed help before she would ever take the "important" people's calls.
Leah Sampson rode to the fields outside the castle's walls until she was on her favorite spot on the pier by the water. She was sitting in a wheelchair, still getting used to her entire right leg not being there. It was just...gone, up to her hip. Sometimes she had phantom pains, remembering the burning, but there was nothing she could do about it. Still, she stared out at the serenity of the water and held the gun in her hands tighter, polishing the steel as she'd learned to do so long ago.
Jason Nelson was sitting in his father's office in Bosnia, watching the man's face as he took in all of the information that his son was telling him. Jonathan Nelson just held his face in his hands and kept asking what he could do to help, but Jason shook his head and explained that it was a "wizard thing." Jonathan didn't care for that and shouted at his son as though he were one of his subordinates. The grown man took it as it was, for he was too tired to care, and said "yes sir" when prompted, taking all of his father's anger with a grain of salt. The man was just scared. After Jonathan's fit, he picked up his phone and called his wife. Jason did the same and meant to go see his wife and children as soon as he left.
Jessica Nelson knew that her life was forfeit after all that she had done. She felt as though no one could ever forgive her for what she'd done, nor did she think that she could forgive herself. When she was sitting in a wheelchair at her hearing, still not fully healed, she pleaded guilty, for she knew that she was and so did everyone else in the room.
"Jessica Nelson, you are hereby charged with treason. You will spend the next sixty years in Guantanamo Bay, and, on good behavior, may be set for bail in fifty. Case dismissed."
Leigh Ann Nelson held her daughter to her chest, finally safe, and watched as her younger sister was taken away. The girl was completely defeated as she was rolled out of the room, followed by many more traitors to the States who went to the same place that she did. Most of them weren't even being controlled with an Unforgivable Curse, and even those who gave other names were not allowed freedom. They would be in the most unforgiving place in the world; it was filled with dementors and enough wizard military police to give an invading force (or escaping force) need to rethink their actions.
Samantha Kr—Nelson—was sleeping soundly against her mother's chest, unknowing of the father she would never meet. He was happy, somewhere, without all of the assassination attempts on Leigh Ann's life for years after the end of the war. He was happier without being used as leverage against her mother, and without all of the pains that had come with nightmares and panic attacks for many years after. Taking the curse off would have taken years—it had destroyed the memories of everyone except for Leigh Ann, and no one would understand.
It was easier this way.
Leigh Ann looked at her daughter, with her brown eyes, her black hair, and her tan skin, and knew that she could never have given her up. Samantha was her only reminder of him, along with a diary that should have been burned years ago. But, as the girl got older, Leigh Ann only wanted to hold onto her daughter, that diary, and a shirt that had been slept in years and years ago. It had lost its smell, but not its memories.
And memories were all she had.