Chapter 1 Aftershock
Since so many of her children were leaving that afternoon Molly Weasley had managed to coax the group into an early lunch at the Burrow which turned out to be a lecture aimed at dissuading them from going. In the end the absolutely miserable state of George, bluntly pointed out to her by Luna – in George’s presence – had convinced her. They ate dessert in complete silence and then it was time to go.
Luna, Dean, and Ron were the first to leave, hurrying to find their guide and catch the plane which would take them to one side of a decades’ long conflict. The second group included Hermione, and their Portkey was waiting on the tabletop.
“Well,” Susan said, “We’d better go too. Thank you for lunch Mrs. Weasley!” She was the first to place her hand on the large old-fashioned key they were using. Neville touched it next and then Hermione, and last, seemingly reluctantly, was Blaise Zabini.
“Portus!”
She had one glimpse of the grove they had landed in. Trees, hills all around, and then a very large wall a little way ahead…
CRACK!
“Bloody Hell!” Hermione looked around; trying to understand what it was that had felled Zabini so suddenly. Neville was already crouching beside him, his wand and Healer’s kit out.
“Bullet!” Neville yelled to them as they worked. That shook Hermione to her senses. She cast a quick, botched protection charm around them and then grabbed the key out of Susan’s hand. There was something wrong with the Hufflepuff, but Hermione did not have time to ponder it just now. She grabbed her and dragged her towards the boys, holding out the key.
“Portus Revertere!” she hissed as soon as they were all touching it. Neville was making a strangled noise of protest and Blaise was groaning as blood gushed out of his wound.
For one terrible moment she was certain it hadn’t worked. The tower in the large wall was now clearly visible and she felt exposed to whomever was up there; the shooter.
A strange silvery glow around their hands and then the horrible sensation of being squeezed and then they were gasping on the floor of the Weasley’s kitchen.
There was a rush of noise that Hermione could not concentrate on. Molly’s voice was soothing, though, whether you actually listened to the words or not. Hermione had grown accustomed to it; to the knowledge that the voice meant security, meant that you were being taken care of. Blaise was carried onto a couch and Neville was finally allowed to attend to him under “proper healing procedure”. Hermione knew that travel was seriously forbidden when the patient was so badly injured, especially travel by Portkey, but it had been that or sure death for all of them.
“Susan,” Ernie’s voice broke into her thoughts, “Are you alright?”
Hermione turned to the girl beside her, remembering her strange inaction from before. The girl was not a stranger to battles and urgent situations, that had been the whole point of this expedition after all, but something had happened in those few moments they had spent at the edge of an Olive grove.
Ernie stepped closer and Susan suddenly began to shake. “Walls…” she whispered almost inaudibly, “Walls... a cage, and what comes after…”
Hermione turned, forcing her eyes shut, as Ernie’s arms enveloped Susan. She heard his small mutterings, heard him say it would be ok, Susan didn’t have to go anywhere; none of them did. There would be no more walls, he promised.
“No,” Hermione heard the girl’s bracelets jingling as they bumped into each other, “I’m going with you, Ernie. Where there aren’t any walls…”
It was that, again, and Blaise’s sudden scream in the darkness behind her closed eyelids that heralded the onslaught of images. Images of what came after the walls. Screams in the dark, jeers, and three girls chanting desperately in a cold, dirty cell. He’s dead. Voldemort is dead. He’s gone. “Voldemort is gone.”
Her eyes flew open as she realized she had said it out loud. Many eyes were turned on her now, even Susan’s. Another jingling noise as Susan’s hand fell from Ernie’s shoulder.
“Bloody hell; that was a game!” Ginny’s voice and the door bursting open, “Oh, you lot are still here. Bloody Hell, Zabini, didn’t take long to bring you down.”
She dumped her bag unceremoniously in the middle of the floor and set her expensive broom (very gingerly this time) by the coat hangers, before moving to watch Neville work on Zabini’s wound.
“Right,” Theodore Nott finally broke in, “I guess we’ll have to cancel for now and go tomorrow when we’ve got Blaise, and a new form of Travel for this lot, sorted out…and papers for Bones, since she’s coming with us.”
“I already have my St. Mungo’s papers,” Susan’s voice had recovered that rather obstinate Hufflepuff tone Hermione had grown used to, “We can leave right away – they don’t need us to help them, I’m sure Hermione has three back-up plans already worked out.”
“Just one.” Hermione recovered her voice.
Theo took his leave of Mrs. Weasley very politely, eliciting a snort from Ginny, and then stepped over to the couch where his friend lay. “Enjoy your time here, Blaise, and don’t let them cart you off to St. Mungo’s.”
Blaise made a strange noise, still in pain. There was a moment of silence and then Theo stepped over to the fireplace. The “Natural Disasters Division”, as Hermione had named it on her notes, would be taking the floo.
Susan and Ernie stepped in after him.
*** *** ***
It was one thing to read about a crisis. Calculate the variables and identify the real question that had to be solved. Standing in the middle of it, however, was an entirely different story. Cho had known this too, in the way you know something you have heard many times, or because you have experienced the frustration of not having all the answers in books, but she had never really understood it – not until now.
She felt suddenly uncomfortable in her new summer dress, looking out at a crowd of people, in one of the world’s richest countries in terms of natural resources, as they argued, very loudly, over bread.
She stood, almost transfixed, and watched the argument spread down the long line, and then escalate into a full-blown fight. Cho flinched and turned away, her eyes meeting Lee’s unexpectedly. There was sadness in them, she noted. Cho was sure there was no sadness in hers. Her sadness had been spent, long ago, and now, here, only one thing remained.
They would use the cleverly designed devices that each of them had. Would talk to the people; collect information, move on to the next site, and collect more information, until the pieces came together. Until the puzzle was complete. Cho Chang was a Ravenclaw, she would not be defeated by any question, especially when she put her mind to it, and now there was only one question on her mind. She had journeyed here, so far away from everything she knew, with a map full of small red marks for places she was going to visit, solely for the purpose of solving this one problem.
There was a hunger crisis in the Muggle world and the countries most affected, according to all the Histories and Terra Copiae she had read, were – historically, geographically – some of the most resource-rich places in the world.
Ravenclaws did not like contradictions.
*** *** ***
Everything had a negative side-effect. Ernie had been one of the Healers of the Auror Department ever since he had left Hogwarts, eleven years ago now, so he knew this for a fact. He had insisted from the beginning that these devices could not be as wonderful and convenient as the boxes they came in claimed. The Instant Translators or “Insta – T’s” as they were commonly referred to, were, for one thing, too clever for his liking.
Now, sitting in a makeshift Hospital in the middle of a strange country after an Earthquake, with people yelling all around him, Ernie finally found the drawback – one of them, at least. He fought a feeling of nausea, his hands still working rapidly on Healing the man that had just been pulled from the rubble of a collapsed building, as the jumbled words swam in his head.
He was going to be sick. He remembered the words of one of the most respected Healers – could not remember which one: “A Healer hears too much, must learn to filter out the unnecessary so he can perform his duty.”
The problem was that although he understood that the Insta – T was picking up too much, translating all the words and exclamations from different conversations in a too-large radius in an incoherent, jumbled manner, he could not bring himself to take it off.
He was finished with the patient; forced an encouraging smile, hoped it didn’t look forced, and moved on to the next in the way he had become very used to.
The problem was that it was all so new to him. There was a feeling that he had stepped into a completely different world and every word, every color, every expression and gesture was something that would never be repeated for him. Ernie knew that this weakness had been with him since he had become a Healer, he liked hearing things that people only spoke in the presence of their healers and no other type of stranger, he liked stringing together bits of stories.
And this, this wasn’t anything like the last few months at St. Mungo’s. No silly young witches talking about the latest edition of Witch Weekly and feminine products he had no desire to try and make sense of. No excited conversations about a Quidditch game whose every detail he had already memorized from the fifty million previous patients. This was a new exploration; a completely new adventure where he didn’t have to pretend to be happy with the complete calm and normalcy that had come over the world, and then feel guilty about his wrong secret desire to be back in the battlefield.
It wasn’t wrong anymore, he had realized. Now he knew there was still a place for a man like him; he could do what he liked here and there was no need to feel guilty because that desire, it turned out, really wasn’t like wishing Voldemort or his Death Eaters back. It wasn’t.
He heard the word Witchcraft and tried to follow the thread of that conversation, silently making a note that the unchanging voice of the translator didn’t help – could possibly be fixed later, when there was time. His eyes found and rested on two women that he thought fit the conversation. One of them was saying something about how the earthquake had been some sort of punishment, the other one insisting that they had done nothing wrong in this small town in order to deserve punishment so it must be evil people tampering with things they shouldn’t – Witchcraft.
His hand froze in the air, wand strapped into the inside of his sleeve as it had been all morning in case a patient needed more than a speedy bandage. That was when the aftershock came and chaos erupted all around them. The earth was rumbling, roaring, undeniably moving under his feet and Ernie McMillan, clinging to a tray of very sharp supplies that could not be allowed to fly into the air, was silently wondering whether it was right to treat a patient with Magic if they believed it was evil.
