Chapter 3 Detours
Cho could not help the feeling that this entire trip was becoming a detour. They were supposed to be in the Cameroon to learn about how the country had been affected by the food price crisis, but they seemed to be constantly straying into sight-seeing.
She had been entranced by the chocolate production and a little surprised that all George could manage was a small smile at the sight of dozens of cocoa pods and the large cocoa drying square. It was Lee who asked to see the actual trees – not that Cho complained – and they spent an afternoon weaving their way between the trees with their red and purple pods and talking to the farmers.
Maybe she was too single-minded. That’s what Lee said when she told him she was worried they were turning this into a tourist outing. That was before the visit to the fishing village and the long trip north and East to see the Foulani people. And now they were here, watching the village women with their bright, colorful clothes that reminded Cho of her visits to China as they carried large baskets on their heads. They didn’t even have to hold them with their hands most of the time – balancing them on their heads as if it was the simplest task in the world.
“Think Lee will let us leave here any time soon?” George said from beside her.
Cho doubted it very much. Lee was enjoying this trip very much. “Well,” she said, “He’s talking to them, at least, sp we’ll know their opinion on the food crisis and whether it affects this province like the rest of the country.”
“Can I call you single-minded?”
“Yes,” Cho said irritably, “I need to understand this crisis, at the least, if I can’t fix it. I’, not used to problems that take this long to solve.”
“Right,” George said, “You’re a Ravenclaw. But admit that you’re enjoying this trip a lot.”
“I am,” she said, “But that feels bad too when you think of all the hungry children we saw and the poor people that told us they’re struggling to survive these days and-”
“I know,” George said, “it doesn’t make any sense. You think too theoretically, as long as there are people in the world like Voldemort and Lucius Malfoy – and there always are – the world will never ‘make sense’.”
“So what can we do!” Cho stood up in frustration, “I guess I really am arrogant, but I came here thinking I could solve the problems of the Muggle world…we defeated Voldemort, didn’t we?”
George nodded and silence fell.
Lee and their Egyptian guide Ghalib soon joined them. It was George who broke the silence a few minutes later. “Don’t you think the Muggles are already trying to solve their own problems?” he asked, “I mean, I’ve never even taken Muggle Studies, but don’t you think they’re already helping each other?”
“You have Muggle Studies at Hogwarts?”
“Yes,” Cho said, “Don’t you take Muggle Studies at the Wizarding School here?”
“No,” Ghalib said, “We live with the Muggles, mostly, many of us have ordinary jobs and ordinary lives aside form the Quidditch games and Wizarding events.”
“The right people don’t get to help, though,” Lee steered the conversation back, “And the people that do help and give aid are the wrong people doing the wrong things.”
“What do you mean?” George asked.
“Well,” Lee said, “People don’t need to be given money or food, they need established, stable means of making a living and they need to be allowed to control the resources of their own countries. And whenever rich countries send “aid” it’s rarely any good and it’s rarely what the people need.”
Ghalib nodded. Cho felt as if this was a continuation of a conversation they had been having in the village. “How exactly is the Muggle Aid not good?” She asked, feeling as if they were near to some sort of answer.
“I mean, it’s literally not good,” Ghalib said, “There have been many incidents of food aid arriving spoiled or, in other cases, types of food grain arriving where they’re not needed.”
“Why would someone give food aid that’s spoiled!” Cho said, “Don’t the Muggles have ways of storing things and preserving them?”
“Sure they do,” Lee said, “But I expect that aid is often just given because someone wants to get rid of it-”
Cho turned on him angrily, but Ghalib spoke before she could find the right words.
“Lee’s not just making a baseless accusation,” he said, “That’s usually the only obvious conclusion when shiploads of grain turn out to have mice in them when they reach their destination.”
“Show me!” Cho was angry now. She wasn’t sure who she was angry at, but she was sure of one thing. She was not yet ready to believe this.
“Alright,” Ghalib said, “I’ll go find a time-turner, but it might take me a while. Will you stay here or move on?”
“I want to go see the Musgum,” Lee said, reminding Cho of his unexpected fascination with traditional Muggle villages and ways of life, “Diallo can take us there and you can meet us there when you find the time-turner Ghalib.”
George and Cho both nodded their agreement, glad to see that Lee, at least, was enjoying this trip.
George spent most of his time on the reports, letting that become his life. He would open the small notebook and scribble in it for hours on end, letting the others know about their trip and the places they had visited. When they reached the Musgum village Cho found herself sketching a picture of one of the houses in her notebook. They were unique, something she knew she’d never see again anywhere else for the rest of her life.
It did not take too long for their guide Ghalib to return with the time-turner. They took a Portkey to Jordan first, and then they had to travel near to the spot where he knew the aid shipments had been unloaded. Finally, they each cast a Chameleon charm on themselves and then Ghalib pulled the time-turners over their necks and began to turn.
Cho had her Insta-T on, but there was too much noise here. Some of the workers shouting at one another over the sacks they were lifting, others holding long conversations about politics and refugee camps and the economy, and some laughing and joking with each other. Soon all these different threads of speech joined into one. She could see the Mice now, scurrying away, as shouts rose up all around her. She could not make out any of the words anymore, but the disgust and horror around her were palpable – needed no words.
Suddenly, she heard two whispered words from a worker standing very close to where she was. “Of course,” he said. He stood, strangely calm, wiped the sweat from his face and neck with a towel he carried on his shoulder and then turned sharply and walked away slowly, but surely.
She wanted to do the same, right there and then, but she couldn’t, the others still wanted to watch. Finally, after what felt like ages, Ghalib pulled the chain around their necks again and turned the time-turners back to their own time, 2008, where people in Africa still believed that this sort of thing could and did happen. Who was she to question that? If it had happened once, not so long ago, as she had seen with her own eyes, if people could give rat-infested aid then, why not now? She didn’t think the world had changed much. The world, people, never really changed. Voldemort had proven that to them, hundreds of years after Salazar, only a few years after they thought they were rid of Grindlewald.
Cho followed as Ghalib led them through a refugee camp, her head pounding. George had stopped dead in his tracks somewhere behind them, and Lee was staring around him like a Muggle at Gringotts. Cho just wanted to drop where she was. Children were staring at them from behind starved eyes. Suddenly, a thought occurred to her.
“This is a Palestinian Refugee camp,” she said, “We’re not supposed to be here, Ghalib. Hermione and Neville are going to these places. Our group isn’t the one researching war; we’re just looking at the food crisis.” She was angry now too, but mostly tired.
“And don’t you think all these things are connected?” Ghalib asked, “These are some of the poorest people in this country. Whether they are refugees of war or not they live and work in this country now, but they still can’t make a decent living. Just like you saw everywhere else we’ve been. And this country has resources too.”
George finally came up to where they had stopped. Cho sat down on a broken concrete step. She didn’t want to keep walking now. She shook her head stubbornly.
“They thought they would be able to go back,” Ghalib said bitterly, “And they’ve been stuck here – the tents of the camp turned to these miserable homes in between waiting and permanence. They thought this country and my own, Egypt, and all the other Arab countries would fight for them, you know.”
“They did, didn’t they,” Lee said, “I saw it in Hermione’s notes and maps. There was a war.”
“There was a war,” Ghalib agreed, “And pathetic armies that never even got to fight – soldiers that really believed in their cause, they would have fought with their bare hands if they had to, that never got to fight for it, and there were lots of traitors too.” He sighed.
“We’re not supposed to be here.” Cho repeated dully.
“Sure,” Ghalib said, “If you say so. I’ll show you the resources then and we’ll pretend we can leave politics alone, as if it doesn’t affect the food crisis at all.”
“You go,” George said in a very odd voice, “I’ll be right there…just…”
His breathing was ragged. He had finally reached the place, Mudblood town, they called it. He could stop now, if he wanted, but he found that if he even slowed down he would collapse so he kept running on his momentum and his anger and his fear.
The war was over. It had been over for a month, in fact, but unbelievably this place had come to existence.
George ran through the narrow streets, in between the embodiments of misery and shock. People crammed into too tiny hastily built shelters that they thought they’d never get out of. Children looking at him with wide eyes, maybe wondering if he’d give them something to eat, or hold them and tell them it was all going to be okay, it was all going to be over soon. He didn’t know.
All he knew was that this place existed even though the war was over, even though Voldedemort had been killed. Muggle-borns who had nowhere else to go were stuck here now because they were different, because the world didn’t want them anymore. Their homes couldn’t hold them anymore, because now they belonged to Purebloods.
He shivered. He stopped suddenly in the center. Closed his eyes.
And George opened his eyes, years later, in the same place. The same walls, half-broken, decorated with graffiti – words and images of anger and despair, and the same children with their wide curious eyes and their ragged clothes and –
“George let’s go.”
He followed weakly as they left the camp, a stream of children following behind them. He couldn’t give them anything, had never been able to give them anything. If Fred was here he would know what to do. George didn’t so he just hoped that Lee and the others knew.
It felt very incongruous to be visiting tourist places right after. Walking in between Roman pillars and in through passages between the mountains to the dwellings of some ancient civilization George had never even heard of. He walked up some ancient steps, found himself wondering if there had been refugee camps and Mudblood towns back when people lived here in these ancient places, and then realized, suddenly, horribly, that the Mudblood town was the only reason he had survived without Fred. So he hated himself a little and realized that he would have to keep seeing such places for the rest of his life. That was his place in the world. He had to find something he could give to the children to make them laugh like normal children again.
“This is amazing,” Cho said breathlessly from beside him, “these ruins could bring so much money to the country and -”
“And it’s all being sold off, now,” Ghalib cut her off, “to western companies.”
George frowned. “How can you sell part of a country?” he asked.
Ghalib laughed; long, and hard, and bitterly. George thought maybe he was going to cry, but he didn’t. “Happens all the time around these parts.”
“We need to move on,” Cho said, “We need to follow the trail of resources like that farmer told us to.”
“Well,” Ghalib said, “I understand you’ve been to most of the affected countries now, with me and before you found me. So there’s only one place left to go and I can’t go with you.”
“Why not?”
“Because they don’t like people like me where you’re going.”
“What are you talking about, Ghalib, we’re wizards too and Muggles don’t have to kno-”
He grabbed her hand and held it out beside his own, the different shades standing out against each other.
“What about me?” Lee asked.
“No, you’ll see many Black people where you’re going, Lee, they stopped hating them a while ago, most did anyway. But a few years ago around 3000 people were killed by a few crazy men that looked a little like me so now we’re all The Enemy. But if that was how the world worked then I have more than enough reason to hate every single Westerner there ever was, because you see it always comes back to wars upon wars upon wars that have been fought here. It’s not how the world works.”
“Can’t be,” George said. “We can’t let it be.”
“You can’t change people’s hearts,” Ghalib said, “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. That’s the problem.”
He held out a couple of Portkeys. “Take this one to England first then the smaller one. Remember to activate it properly…good luck.”
They decided to rest in England so they went to see Zabini and the Weasleys. It was a single trip. Zabini was almost healed, but he was still at the Wealsey home, being fussed over by Molly Weasley.
George noticed that Ginny was staying around the house a lot, and that Harry was still not here and that everyone skirted around mentioning him at all. He decided to ignore all this, said a toneless hello to Blaise and went to his room to write the report. This time, because you could do that with these notebooks, he addressed his report to only one person – he didn’t want everyone to read this.
Dear Ernie,
How did it feel when you decided on your profession? You told us then that it was all because of a little detour you took to visit Neville. Did it feel like swallowing fire and knowing that you had to live with it smoldering in your stomach for the rest of your life? How does it feel to see them everyday – your patients – and remember the war every day and remember the other patients, the broken bodies. The places that never should have been and the events after the war was over…that should never have been.
We went on a detour - I saw Mudblood town again today. I couldn’t do anything, again.
Suddenly other words interrupted him. Ernie’s careful script.
Funny. We were on a detour too. Theo seems to have found his place exploring the herbal treatments and folk medicines here. We were on the island of the Rapa Nui and he told me that he hated himself because he knew he was seeing a piece of a whole he could never understand. Something that has been lost. I told him there were always time-turners, but he shook his head and said he wouldn’t be able to contain himself and stop himself from meddling with the past.
Maybe that’s why people choose their professions. Because they know they can’t really satisfy their curiosity or their desire, they know they’ll never be able to fulfill the task their hearts set them, but they want to try. You stop hating yourself when you spend all your waking hours trying, you know.
George smiled wryly.
Sure about that, Hufflepuff? What if you feel like your whole existence depends on people’s misery? I wouldn’t even still be alive if it weren’t for bloody Mudblood town.
There was a long pause after which Ernie’s handwriting became slightly more rigid.
You’re talking to a healer, Weasley. I wouldn’t have a job if people didn’t keep getting hurt. So spare us the self-pity and do what you need to do, ok.
George almost closed the book, but then he picked up his quill again and stared at the page. “George!” mum called, “Dinner!”
“Coming, Mum!”
Thanks, McMillan.
