Belladonna

She followed them downstairs. Everything was dark as the power had apparently cut off. She used her wand to illuminate the stairs. She wasn’t surprised to see corpses laying in the floor. There were at least ten aurors that she knew from the camp and other fifteen that she couldn't recognize since their bodies were disfigured. What she wasn’t prepared to see were the ones that weren’t actually dead. The screams of horror came from the ones that had lost their heads, curtesy of the Cruciatus curse. The agony nearly pierced her eardrums, but she kept on going. She had no way of helping them. When she arrived at the ground floor, the smell of blood bathed her, almost making her sick. The walls were covered with it, as well as the floor ruining her perfect dress. As she carried on, she saw the dismembered bodies of her mates. Some of them still alive by the power of magic.

“Belladonna...” someone whispered her name. “Belladonna...”

The Lumos charm helped her to locate the body. It was Dorothy Palazzo the one who was calling for her.

“Merlin!” she cried when she saw that the girl was missing a leg. She was bleeding uncontrollably, losing tons of blood. “Sh! I’ll help you. Sh!”

“Please, please...” her voice was too weak.

Ofelia ripped off the fabric of her glorious dress and tied her leg in order to stop the haemorrhage. She wasn’t sure if she would survive, but she couldn’t just keep on walking and leave her behind.

“Do you have a family, Dorothy?” she asked trying to keep her away.

“Yes, my parents and my two sisters.”

“Think of them” she insisted. “Someone will come and pick you up. I’ll make sure.”

“Please, don’t leave me. Please.” she cried.

“I’m sorry” Ofelia whispered. “You’ll be fine. I promise.”

She had to go. It was her destiny and she wouldn’t run from it. No when she could hear the sounds of spells going back and forth between the two sides. There they were. She managed to see the Dumbledore brothers fighting some acolytes, and Tina Goldstein and Newt Scamander were fighting Grindelwald by the main stairs. While Credence, who she wasn’t sure when he had appeared, fought his ex-mates.

“Bella,” Theseus Scamander appeared behind her, “go away. It isn’t saf-”

But he couldn’t finish talking because one of the acolytes attacked him from the right, so he had to defend himself. Only the best wizards were standing from both teams. Even Theseus had a great injury in his left arm, but he kept on fighting like a professional. Two acolytes jumped on her as well, throwing unforgivable curses. They weren’t going to give her a rest. This wasn’t the duelling club, where you could ask for a time-out or where the battle was over when one hit the ground. She had to be ruthless too.

She got rid of them, but more acolytes appeared. They were like cockroaches. They were unkillable. She hit her back with someone, only to turn around and find her professor.

“You should leave, Miss Rizzo” he practically ordered.

However, she wasn’t going to accept it. She had wished for living this exact moment since she was 10. She wasn’t backing down now. This was exactly where she was supposed to be that night. So, with a single flip of her wand, she forced the acolytes that were fighting Dumbledore to faint.

“Maybe you should leave, grandpa.”

“Stop calling us that” Forth appeared from behind them with a grin.

“Dad!” They heard someone yelling from behind them.

It seemed that everything happened in slow motion. Grindelwald tried to kill Aberforth from behind, so Credence stepped forward to protect his father. His body fell to the ground, and although Ofelia had said that he looked like a corpse before, this time it was true. His father caught him before he hit the bloody floor and hold him tight.

“I don’t- wanna go...” His whole body was trembling down.

“I got you. I got you...” he whispered into his ear, while Albus leaned in too to hold his nephew’s hand.

“It’s a shame...” Grindelwald said, he sounded in shock. “I always appreciated you, Credence. But you chose wrong.”

The Dumbledore brothers were too distracted mourning to notice what Grindelwald was about to do. He casted the infamous blue flames against them, but before it could hit them, Ofelia created a fire shield that covered them from the blue flames.

No more nice girl.

Grindelwald stared at her in shock. He hadn’t seen the girl until that moment, but he was already suspecting that she was the one that had been ruining all of his plans. The rumours had flown even up to him about the girl that was leading Scamander’s troops.

“My name is Belladonna Rizzo and I’m going to make you pay for what you did to my family” she stated when she got face to face with the man that was responsible for her family’s tragedy.

She had imagined that moment a million times: looking right into his cold eyes and revealing herself. She wasn’t sure what she was expecting from him. But this was what she had wished for a long time, now she had to go with it.

“Rizzo?” he questioned. “But there was no girl in the...”

“There was a girl” she affirmed. “Me!”

And just like that, she threw a ball of fire into his face. He barely managed to escape it and attack back. But she was quick enough to stop it with a fire wall that divided them. Grindelwald was starting to get annoyed because a sixteen-year-old didn’t even blink with his attacks, while she threw him to the floor in 10 seconds. However, to be fair, she had been prepared for that exact moment for more than five years, and Grindelwald was living his life believing that there was no threat against him. He felt angry and confused because all those years ago, he had gotten rid of the Di Mercurio bloodline. And now, he had realized he had failed. It was a clean punch into his ego, so he casted a dragon made of blue flames. Ofelia had never made something of that magnitude, but she had to do it if she wanted to fight back. She casted a giant snake made of fire, more like a basilisk. Both magical creatures fought in the air, while their owners controlled them with their wands.

“Theseus!” she yelled to her boss. “Get everyone out of here!”

“I am not leaving you.”

“Take them out!” she insisted right before the two animals crashed into each other and exploded, making them fall into the ground. “Go!”

Scamander finallyagreed to what she had insiated on, but first he helped her to stand up again. “Remember: Justice, not vengeance.”

She nodded and then she let him go. Now, her dressed was officially ruined. Not only it was scratched and dirty, the gown had also burnt out. While Grindelwald stood up again, she kicked her heels off and took a defensive position barefoot.

“Come on, Grindelwald!” she yelled at him. “You can't possibly be tired already.”

He raged against her. Knowing that he couldn’t fight with fire, he started to throw curses and jinxes, but because of his anger he wasn’t being precise or thinking straight. Therefore, it was easy for her to outwit him. She had the upper-hand, as her mind was calm and collected.

“Expelliarmus!” she disarmed him catching his wand, as he fell into the ground.

“Go on then!” he screamed. “Kill me.”

“I am not killing you” she expressed. “That’s revenge and I am not here for it.”

“Coward” he hissed.

“No, you son of a bitch” she laughed bitterly. “You have a date with destiny to attend.”

She turned around and saw Dumbledore approaching them.

“I’ll let the lovebirds have their moment.”

She returned the wand to his enemy and she walked out. She had defeated him and that was all she needed. By winning the duel, she felt like she had defended her family and regained their honour. It was all that she needed. So, when she watched Dumbledore defeat the dark wizard, it didn’t feel like she had missed something. She was satisfied with her actions and she had understood soon enough that the rivalry Dumbledore-Grindelwald (or more like Albus-Gellert) needed a proper finale. Although she didn’t know why they had a personal fixation with each other, she could recognize a nemesis from miles away.

Dumbledore defeated Grindelwald finally, putting an end to the whole affair. No more war. It was over. She stood still while the aurors took him away. He was unconscious.

“I’m proud of you” Theseus said standing next to her.

“Me too.”

“Not because you won” he explained, “but because you were strong enough to back off when you needed to. That was a very mature thing to do.”

“Thank you.”

He brought her into a hug. Theseus Scamander had felt a special connection with the girl since that Christmas party. Maybe it was because he felt alone, but he knew that primarily it had to do with the fact that he wished for a family. And in the past few months, he had learnt to love her as a daughter.

“I’ll be waiting for you at the Ministry” he assured her, as he gave her his coat to cover herself, “after you finish school.”

“I’ll be there, sir.”

He left and then she saw her friends. They were helping Chuck to walk.

“You did it!” Nale yelled.

“I did it!”

They hold her tight because those past months had been terribly stressful. Yes, they wanted to be a part of it since the beginning. But, after all, they were kids playing adults and it had been so hard for them. The things they saw, they heard, they had to do... They were so excited that it was finally over and that now they were safe and allowed to go back home.

“It’s over...” she cried, as they kept on holding her tight.