Fifteen Years Later. . .
BELLO
I never understood why my sister ended her recollection of what happened there. She was the one who recounted what her and my brother's ghost had gone through, during the Third Wizarding War. Maybe it was because she'd lost hope, because she'd believed that there was no way for things to get better for our family.
I could understand that. The straits were dire. Between Mother's coma, Father's arrest, Jacen's death, and the death and injury of so many of our friends, my sister was so alone then. I was only just a child.
Little did she know the truth.
I compiled scraps of my brother's recountings of his time in Numengard, as seen before. But I see that it is I that will have to complete the historical record of the end of the Third Wizarding War. I certainly wouldn't want to ask Ella or Jacen to do it, anyway. They've told enough of their story, anyway.
Ella learned from a young wizard who escaped the clutches of the trifecta's army, who had learned of Jacen's true situation. He had been cloned through the darkest arts of magic, while the original was imprisoned in Numengard, his connection to Ella severed by similar dark arts. This wizard, a boy by the name of Fiyero, was the one to reunite Jacen and Ella—just as Jacen had escaped with a resurrected girl named Red, who he'd suspected to be the lost Mara-Jade Evans.
But reunited, the twins managed to reconcile with Rowan and the rest and broke our father out of Azkaban to launch an attack on Numengard. They managed to destroy the Resurrection Stone and put an end to the trifecta for good, as well as the broken chaos magic. This was what ended Mother's coma, as she no longer shared a tie to Lord Voldemort in her soul.
Red perished in the final battle and we never learned for sure who she was.
Ella and Rowan were close friends for the rest of their days, but could never be so close as they once were. She and Fiyero were married a few years ago before they moved to America to leave behind all that had happened here. I believe they work as artificers there. They come back every Christmas and invite me over for Fourth of July every summer.
Whereas Jacen and Kieran married not long after the war ended, to everyone's surprise. Although re-reading the history, I think perhaps they were among the only two people in the world who could have understood each other, with Kieran suffering her injuries in the war and Jacen his.
I was raised in a more complete Potter-Emrys family, all hatchets buried in the wake of the war. I never knew my grandparents the same way that my older brother and sister did, or even my mother did. I never had to fight in any wars during my time at Hogwarts.
I was sorted into Hufflepuff, again to everyone's surprise. I'm not my bold, brave uncle or grandparents. I'm not my sly, ambitious mother or my clever, knowledge-hungry father or siblings.
Maybe I'll be the one to defy greatness and make a life of my own. I certainly hope I will.
And perhaps I can start by giving the story the happy ending it always deserved. A good start for one of the youngest archivists for the Department of Mysteries, don't you think?
AN: It's been ten years since I first posted Apples and Snakes, and nearly that amount of time since I published Apples and Ravens and failed to finish Apples and Trees. Much has changed over ten years. But I never forgot Apples and Trees, even if I never figured out how to end it properly and lost my way. This wasn't how it was supposed to go, but Bello's recount of events are accurate enough, I suppose. I hope this is a satisfactory ending after ten years. And if it isn't-I encourage you to write the ending you think should have been there.