Chapter 28 Flames in the East
Flames in the East
Raise the Alarm
Flames in the East
No Smoke Rising
Emmett stood by his window for hours that night, unable to get the rest he really needed. It was the same window Jeremiah had spent hours contemplating and he tried, when he looked at the dark world below, to see what the other boy had seen. “It’s messed up, Emmett and I’m not having any part in it!” that had been his most famous phrase. But they had eventually convinced him, though it had been difficult, to do his part in helping to make it better.
“Have you done your part?” Emmett asked himself in a small whisper. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. No, he hadn’t done his part. Not yet.
He’d spent the entire time harping on to Jeremiah about how he had to face who he was and do what he was good at, fight, not what he wanted to do. And all along he had failed to see that he was just as stubborn and blind as his friend, maybe more. As he looked out into the shadowy, gloomy world below Emmett knew that he had not done his part yet, that he wouldn’t do it even if he spent every waking moment of his life for the next fifty years fighting and marching around the city with the fancy cloaks and the old lamps.
Setting his face into a determined expression he tore his gaze from the window and grabbed his bag. Tipping it upside down he was surprised at how much he enjoyed seeing the books spill out of it. He then walked into the kitchen and opened drawer after drawer pulling things out and stuffing them into the bag. He was a man of science, whether he bloody liked it or not and the streets below were just entirely too dark for his liking. He had finally seen what Jeremiah saw through that small pane of glass.
…
“Frankly,” Mahmoud said, “I won’t believe it until I see it, but he says he’s going to walk from door to door and work ‘his own brand of magic’. I didn’t get close enough to see for sure before the attack, but I could have sworn that I could see light through one of the windows of that old place on the corner by the old hospital.”
“I’d love to see him at work too,” Hannah replied, “I’ve never really understood how those Muggle contraptions work and the ekletricity.”
“But…?”
Hannah sighed, “Malaika says she’ll murder me if I so much as step out of this place.”
There was a short silence in which they both noted the fact that they already were, technically, outside the hospital boundaries. “I’ll miss you out there.”
…
Mahmoud watched from the doorway as Emmett finally got to work after hours of knocking door to door and asking people if he could try and fix their electrical appliances. Door to door salesmen had never been popular…and never would be- a fact which they had all forgotten until now. The fact that he wasn’t going to take anything for it made things worse; people became rather suspicious and, all things considered, they had every right to be.
Mahmoud tried to imagine the city the way it had been before. Tried to picture it alight once more, but he didn’t think that would happen for a long time yet. Some things never healed, and some things took a very, very long time before getting back to normal. But perhaps, he thought, perhaps they could be better.
He was jolted out of his thoughts when he heard the voice of a small boy. “Can you tell me where you got the lamp?”
The boy couldn’t be older than thirteen, but he had a very grave look on his face. Mahmoud’s noticed Emmett stiffen as he turned his attention to the boy.
“Why?” he asked, “I’m sorry, what’s your name?”
“George, can you tell me please. I really want to get one and make the streets light up again. I want to help you and be just like you.”
The boy suddenly stopped and hung his head. “Or maybe when I’m older.”
Mahmoud’s heart preformed a strange new kind of flip and he turned to Emmett. Their eyes connected and for the first time both boys understood each other completely, much more completely than they ever had with words. The city had been attacked quite hard the day before, which was the reason for the hospital being so busy, and they knew that it might not survive another attack like the last one. Not the way things were at least. If they had enough warning, a warning system, however, things might be different.
“Actually,” Mahmoud said slowly, “If your parents say yes, I don’t think the getting older bit is necessary.”
George looked up and his eyes were alight with the same kind of boyish excitement and dream of adventure that Emmett’s had when he first tried on his cloak. “Will you talk to them?”
“Why don’t you try to convince them and I’ll be back with my friend in a few hours?” Mahmoud said noting that Emmett had finished his work on the fridge.
The boy nodded excitedly and Mahmoud and Emmett took their leave of his parents before exiting the house at a hurried pace.
“Where now?” Mahmoud asked.
“Maps first,” Emmett said as if he’d been planning this for a year, “Jeremiah and I made the perfect one the other day with the routes all worked out and everything. Then we go back to that alleyway where you saw those orphan twins and then I think we can get one or two people from the old man’s neighborhood.”
“Probably three,” Mahmoud nodded, “Why don’t you go get the map and I’ll meet you at the antique shop?”
“Perfect.”
……
Ron set off at a run, The Marauder Map in one hand and his wand in the other. He called to Dean as soon as he saw that the boy had stunned the Death Eater he was fighting and Dean called to Seamus and Neville.
Several pairs of feet followed him, their footsteps echoing in the hallways and they were soon joined by Professor Lupin, Kingsley and another Auror whose name Ron couldn’t remember. Two small spots were moving along slowly in pursuit of one labeled “Tom Riddle” on the map. Ron gritted his teeth and tried his best to pick up the pace, but he knew they wouldn’t be there in time to help Harry with the Horcrux.
They were still in the thick of the battle and there was just no getting around facing whatever or whoever came in their way before they could move on. He just hoped that Harry would be able to destroy it quickly before anything unexpected happened. Then they would have Voldemort left to finish off and Ron wasn’t entirely sure that any of them could destroy even a seventh of him.
They finally reached a small dungeon doorway off the Slytherin Dungeons and Ron checked his Map once more to make sure this really was the place. “Ready?” someone asked from behind.
“Bloody hell, yes!”
……
The snow was falling thick and fast Mahmoud drew the cloak around his shoulders and smiled at the thought of the small, nimble fingers that had put it together.
Turning his head on either side he strained his eyes, trying to see the small specs of light that indicated that the others were keeping their patrol. The streets were quiet, almost haunted and no one dared stray too far outdoors or make too much noise, especially in this deserted area. Living this far on the periphery of the city meant that you were too far away from the hospital to get there in time if anything happened.
There was, however, a special beauty to this spot, Mahmoud thought as he made his rounds at the very edge of the city. The houses were small specs in the sea of white and trees swayed in the wind. There was a calm, rather than frightened sort of quiet here. As if it was only a perfectly normal, sleepy night.
The flame of a small candle flickered in one of the windows up ahead and a watchful father waved a tired arm to Mahmoud from inside his home. He waved back and smiled although the small faint hum of busy people up ahead meant that neither the doctors nor the firefighters were getting any sleep.
He soon found that he had to stop and abandon his patrol entirely as a small group of children of all sizes issued from a half broken building and began making their way purposefully up the nearest hill with broken boards of wood and cardboard boxes. He watched, lamp held in front of him, as they marched up to the top and then proceeded to slip and slide down the snowy hill as if nothing was wrong with the world.
They were thin and haggard and their eyes held a tinge of pain that shouldn’t be there, but they were children. And children played. He waited, watching the area around him a little edgily, waiting for someone to show up and hustle them back in, but although many heads were stuck out of windows and many voices bellowed at them to get inside if they knew what was good for them, no one came outside to get them. They were, Mahmoud realized, orphans. Orphans that had no orphanage, and no one to care for them but each other.
He turned his gaze back towards them and let his eyes taste the beauty of laughing, giggling children and of snowmen and snow angels and flying balls of snow. He turned his gaze back towards the house from which they had come and imagined a large, sturdy brick home with a steaming chimney and large glass windows. The windows would be covered with frost and icicles and small fat fingers would trace shapes from the warmth inside.
He could almost smell the sweet cookies that would be baked inside and the soft, warm cushions they would have to sleep on. He even saw the loving eyes of a chubby middle aged woman that would listen to their silly stories and tell them about fairies and adventurous heroes.
Suddenly, something pulled on Mahmoud’s right sleeve, disrupting his picture and it hung before him, half-drawn, before fading into the cold night. “Excuse me,” a tiny voice said from below and he turned his attention to the small bundle, “I think there’s a fire over there, Mr. Firefighter, do you think we could put it out if we throw snowballs at it?”
Mahmoud blinked several times and stared at the small pointing finger, “I can throw really, really far, want to see?”
He turned his attention to the direction at which the little girl was pointing and sure enough, over the horizon from the east, there was an orange flame as if from a huge blazing fire.
Suddenly a small snowball zipped by his head and flew for a few meters before falling to the floor.
“See, see, I almost reached it.”
The child bent over to make another snowball, no doubt for a new attempt, but Mahmoud’s mind had just registered something very important. There was no smoke above the fire.
“There’s no need to throw any snow at this fire!” he yelled before running up the hill. Then, placing his lamp on the ground in the center of the hilltop he pulled off his cloak and draped it over one shoulder. And there on the hilltop, Mahmoud broke into an old half-remembered dance from his memories and welcomed the sunrise.
