Chapter 5 Muggle Magic
“You know,” Harry said over his salad, “Muggles have this thing called Marriage Counseling…”
“We’re not married, Potter.” She had never called him that before. Ginny found herself studying his face, trying to catch one of the betraying signs that would tell her he was hurt. Maybe Zabini was right, maybe she should have been in Hufflepuff. Bloody Hell, this was all Zabini’s fault. He was the one that kept talking and talking and calling Harry by his last name.
She reached out a hand towards the raven-haired boy she had once loved. He turned his face to the side so that she would miss. After a few moments of silence that she could not read he turned back to her. “But we’ll get through this…whatever it is. We always do and we were meant to be. We’ll be happy, Ginny.”
Ginny had learned years ago that this last statement was an impossibility; a contradiction of terms. A “we” that included her and Harry would never be happy. Not this Harry that she had finally come to understand, or allowed herself to understand, after the war. She had fallen in love with the boy who lived, the Chosen One, the raven haired boy with broken glasses who always seemed to save the day almost without trying. And now…now all he wanted was to settle down and be happy.
Maybe Ron and George weren’t the only ones in the family that needed that stupid project of Hermione’s to set their brains straight. But Ginny refused to let herself go there. She did not need Hermione’s find yourself through saving the Muggle world project because she had already found herself a long time ago. The problem was that this boy she had fallen in love had only been a hero because he was forced and it had taken her too long to find that out.
Boy. Ginny put a hand to her forehead and took a deep breath. “Yeah, Harry,” she breathed. She could not bring herself to finish the sentence.
All she wanted to do was leave this restaurant, but the food they had ordered hadn’t even arrived yet. She looked around as if trying to find an exit. This was needless; of course, she had located the exits even before taking her seat. The view this quick glance provided was also sickening. Why did Harry always bring her to restaurants where couples were staring soulfully into each other’s eyes and all the rest of that nonsense?
“We don’t have to stay here, you know.” He said, “We could just skip this part of the evening and go see the surprise I have for you.”
“If it’s another pink-wrapped-“
“Relax,” he laughed. Did he think she was joking? “This is different. You’ll like this one I promise.”
Since she could no longer stand the atmosphere in this place, or face her salad without wanting to lose the part of it she had eaten, she decided to go along with this. Besides, the sooner she would see the surprise the sooner she could get away from Harry. Preferably upset and throwing hexes so that he would leave her alone for at least a week.
***
Neville had found himself a niche within the broken wall from which he observed the quiet green strip of land. It was a very small bit of earth, between the houses, smaller than a Hogwarts Greenhouse, in which the people of the neighbourhood grew vegetables. Almost everyone owned land or knew someone that owned land that was now beyond – or underneath - the wall, unreachable, useless to them. He could see the laundry hanging on the periphery of the small green area, billowing and swaying with the trees.
It was peaceful for a few minutes. Neville’s eyes were fixed on a young boy who issued from his house and walked between the plants, finally stopping to pick some mint or thime leaves and carry them back to his mother. Three of Samir’s cousins were climbing a fig tree out in their portion of the land. One of the girls had her schoolbooks with her and she seemed a little frantic, the rushed flipping of pages and nervous tapping of the page reminded him of NEWTS.
Suddenly two boys he had grown quite fond of, Adel and Malek, issued from the house carrying an old broken TV set which they dumped behind him on the ground. He did not have time to ask them anything before they ran back into the house and got another one and some other ruined old Muggle appliances. Finally, Adel perched himself on a small stool and surveyed the junk. “You take that one, I’ll get the black one,” he decided and the boys set to work.
Neville watched them dismember the thing, pulling wires and discarding nails and screws and eventually one of the screens. “Are you fixing it?” he asked hesitantly, knowing full well, even with his limited understanding of Muggle contraptions, that what they were doing would not fix anything.
Malek snorted. “No,” he said, “Karim can’t fix it so we take the good parts to sell.”
“Ahhh,” Neville breathed. So he found himself engaged, for the next couple of hours, in watching the two ten year old cousins make a small pile of copper wire. He could sense the excitement of the young boys who would be earning money out of their own hard work. This could only be doubled by the fact that poverty was so prevalent here, and conditions so harsh. Only a few days ago when they had been invited over to Samir’s uncle’s place next door Neville had discovered that the barbecuing was a very rare treat which could only be afforded when guests like Samir and his friends were present. Then he had discovered that the meat they were eating was Turkey, which tasted almost like red meat, though cheaper.
Finally, the boys were finished. They cleaned up and took their precious copper to go trade it for a reward. They were back very soon, grinning from ear to ear. They split the money in the same spot where they had taken the TVs apart, and Neville watched on lazily, glad to see their youthful excitement and the evidence of their resilience and resourcefulness. The children’s happiness was short-lived, however.
He didn’t think Adel’s mother noticed his presence when she came to speak to them. Neville, used to the role of invisible spectator, put on his Insta-Ts and listened. It was a very brief conversation. “If you want your clothes washed this week I need you to go buy me some detergent with that money.”
She tried to make them feel proud that they were helping provide for the family, but the boys walked out with their heads hung low, kicking small rocks. And for a second Neville’s eyes connected with the mother’s. They were deep wells housing memories of pain and resilience, one memory for each day of her life. It was by this magic, the magic of a mother’s strength and her ability to bury everything deep within the soul, that the Muggles survived this life.
He tried to ward off the memories, but it was futile, the white walls of St. Mungos imposed themselves over his Muggle surroundings.
***
Cho sat there feeling lost and tired. The Prophet headline stared back at her from the edge of her desk where it had been sitting since that morning. “War Heroes Aim to Save Muggle World!” it declared. So sensationalized, but true. That’s what they had been aiming, that’s what in their arrogance, they had believed they could do. Now she was sitting at home under mounds of research, hitting dead ends. She had even taken Zabini’s suggestion and tried using that ‘Muggle Research Box’ – she doubted this was its actual name – but that had not helped much.
George and Lee had arrived from their short trip to some struggling farmers in India. “Well?” she asked them, hoping that they had been able to procure better results than her research.
George sighed and allowed Lee to explain.
“Mostly the same stuff we heard in Africa, Cho.” Lee said, “We should go to one of these big companies they talk about and see what’s happening.”
“You know it isn’t that easy,” Cho said, “We’ve been hitting dead ends for weeks, all our Magical connections want nothing to do with this, especially if it involves those Generically Modified foods or whatever they called them, and the Muggles we’ve come across are either sympathetic and helpless or else powerful and completely hostile.”
“I don’t need to hear it again, Cho,” Lee said, “Have you found anything in your research?” They stared blankly at each other for a few moments then he collapsed onto a couch and began to describe their trip in detail. Cho had heard most of it before, over and over, in all the other places they had visited. She found herself drifting off into her own thoughts and losing track of Lee’s story. A few minutes later a log fell over in the fireplace and startled her back into attention.
“She said that one of the main concerns of the farmers was that some of the big countries use food aid as a way of dumping unwanted crops on the less developed countries – heard that before – she also mentioned GM crops again, though. Interestingly enough she said that most of Europe has a ban on this stuff, which may be why we couldn’t find a lot of information about this from English Wizards. And apparently America has tried to bully Europe into lifting this ban, not just so they can sell their products in Europe, but also so that countries receiving food aid will stop turning their noses up at the stuff at the cost of hundreds of lives.”
“But that’s not the only reason they don’t want it!” George interrupted all of a sudden, “Most of the farmers we spoke to have specifically mentioned the fact that the food provided by big companies, whether it’s just cheaper, genentically modified, or whatever, makes them lose out in the markets. Poor people aren’t going to buy more expensive stuff just because it’s local and so the small farmers end up struggling or just losing their businesses all together and these resource rich countries end up being even less able to rely on themselves for food. That’s why they don’t like those crops, and it doesn’t help that there are health risks. What has McGonagall always said about eating transfigured food? It’s just common sense.”
Lee blinked at his friends’ red face after this surprisingly passionate interruption. “I know, mate, I was getting to that part.”
Before Lee could go back to telling the story the fire crackled again and a voice issued from the flames. “Got room for one more person on your mission?” Padma’s face smiled back at them.
“There won’t be a trip!” Cho exclaimed before she could remember her role as the host. She summoned a drink of water and Padma squeezed an arm through to gulp it down.
“Thanks,” she said, “I’d forgotten how thirsty Floo always makes me. What’s wrong? When I spoke to Zabini he said you were scheduled to leave today. Thought I might have missed you already, especially when I accidentally ended up in some crazy old Muggle’s living room – apparently her husband still hasn’t told her he’s a wizard and they’ve been married for forty years. Almost got my eyes poked out before her husband came in and distracted her from me. Nasty business. Any chance you can move to a place with a better address?” Padma smiled and quirked an eyebrow.
Cho could not help grinning back. Ever since that Floo accident in seventh year that none of the professors had believed it had become something of a Ravenclaw tradition to make up crazy Floo stories. “First of all, I don’t know who appointed Zabini as out coordinator,” Cho said sourly, “But we can’t leave as scheduled because we’ve reached a dead end. We don’t know where to go from here!”
“Oh,” Padma said, “So that stuff about following the trail of resources I saw in the prophet wasn’t true?”
“Well, that’s what we’ve been told, but it’s a rather vague statement. Everywhere we go farmers tell us the same things and the big companies seem to be fortified against us and our questions and I want more than opinion or official statements about how everyone’s trying, that doesn’t-”
“You want evidence,” Padma said, “of course, but I will ask you one thing before I help: are you looking for evidence so you can know or are you looking to help the Muggles?”
Cho sensed by Padma’s familiar tone that this was some sort of trick question. Depending on her answer Padma may or may not help them. Before she could work out for herself what it was exactly that they wanted George had spoken.
“We can’t help anyone if we don’t know first.”
Padma grinned and heaved the rest of her body through the fireplace.
***
Ginny felt as if she was drowning. The truth was that she liked the idea of having a warm, cozy house all to her own. The truth was that she was lazy and wanted a beautiful home to trudge through late in the morning and stare out at the backyard while sipping her coffee, a place to burrow inside against the cold of winter. This unspoken secret was precisely why she could not live in this gorgeous, perfect place.
She had decided long ago that there was more to life, that even if she had to drag herself by force, her heart kicking and screaming all the while, she would not rest until she had achieved something worthwhile, left some sort of legacy. She wouldn’t rest while there were still battled to be fought. Harry’s might be over, but her was not.
She gripped the edge of the kitchen table until her knuckles whitened. Harry was blabbering on and on about his plans for a nice, quiet life, how he would teach their children Quidditch and how he would name one of them after Dumbledore and the other one after Snape. She suddenly let out a scream.
“No, Harry!” she said, working hard to control her voice so it was still understandable, “I don’t want to teach our children Quidditch, I want to play Quidditch and hunt down those bloody arseholes that started the second war after Voldemort’s death, every single one of them, even if I have to do it myself. I want to keep doing things that are important until I can’t bloody move anymore, then I’ll settle down.”
“Ginny Voldemort is finished, the war is finished, both of them…” The tone of his voice infuriated her even more; everything about him at this moment infuriated her. Her wand was crackling and he took a step back.
“Your war is finished Harry,” she said, “Not everyone is lucky enough to have a prophecy like yours, to be able to fulfill their duty towards the Wizarding world in one fell swoop and then consider it a job well done.”
“You’ve done a lot too, Ginny, you need to give yourself a break. No one expects you to upset your whole life just to prove-”
“I expect things from myself, Harry. I’m the one who isn’t happy with all I’ve achieved yet; I’m the one who wants to do more.”
He stood there stunned for a few moment and weakly gestured to the house around them.
“The house is beautiful, Harry,” she said, “Now all you have to do is find someone that wants to live in it… you’re right, I need to take a break from – from this relationship.”
“Look, Ginny we can work things out, I’m not going to stop you from doing what you want. I just think if we give this a chance, you know, once we’re together we’ll grow towards each other more. We’ll…it’ll work out. Don’t give up on us so soon.”
Ginny sighed, resolved. “I’ve been giving this a chance for a long time now because I didn’t want to hurt you, Harry, but I can’t marry you. I’m not giving up on us, I just don’t want us to be hurt even more later on.”
“The war’s torn us apart, but we can work it out, we shouldn’t let those Death Eaters and their actions control our lives, they’re defeated.”
Ginny sighed, “It wasn’t the war, Harry. I’ve always admired the Hero in you, it took me a long time to discover that you don’t care about any of that. You did it because you had to, because you couldn’t neglect your responsibility, but I’ve always wanted to fight and be a hero because that’s where my passion lies.”
“In fighting and killing?”
“We’ve had this conversation a million times,” she cut it off before it could get to the part where they both became irrational, “I can’t marry you because you’re not the person I thought I fell in love with and you can’t marry me because I’m not what you want, either.”
“Don’t put words into my mouth!” he started angrily.
“I don’t want what you want, I hate it when you talk about your plans for the future, so I’m obviously not the person you want, Harry. I’m sorry.”
She didn’t look back to see his reaction or to glance at the house one more time either. Ginny waited until she was well out of sight of the place then she turned on the spot and Apparated home. The squeezing sensation of Apparition was welcome right now. She let her determination and her crazy drive feed on it. Now that she didn’t have to spend so much time in Harry’s company, tuning out the sound of his boring plans, she had much more time for Quidditch practice, and the War Orphan foundation, and that bloody Greengrass murder case that had the Auror department in a frenzy.
She found her Mum and Zabini at the kitchen table. Staring at that stupid clock. Together. Mum’s eyes were bloodshot and Zabini seemed to be considering the advisability of putting an arm around her shoulders or giving her a tissue.
“Is it Ron?” Ginny breathed, “Geor-“
Before she could finish her brother’s name she was being squeezed in one of her mother’s death-grip hugs. Finally, she was allowed to surface for air. She spluttered a little and then looked questioningly from Zabini to her now beaming Mother.
“Minerva told me this morning that Harry had moved out of his rooms at Hogwarts and bought a house.” Her mother began explaining hurriedly, “The clock...I…I was talking to Blaise and he helped me with some of the house work to practice his spell-work and then when I told him he said to check the clock.”
“Aaaand?” Ginny was still very puzzled.
“It was on Mortal Peril Ginny!” she said.
Ginny raised an eyebrow, “You know, I really don’t think Harry was planning to kill me, mum.”
“Don’t make fun, Ginny, do you know what I had to do to get out of marrying Lucius Malfoy.”
“Harry’s annoying, mum, but I wouldn’t compare him to a Death Eater.”
“That Death Eater,” Zabini said in an unreadable, hard voice, “Loved his family, no matter how he treated everyone else and your mother certainly had no way of knowing then what he would eventually become.”
“You don’t love him, Ginny,” her mother said rather fiercely.
Ginny found herself grinning, and no matter how horrible it was, thinking that this was an excellent bit of information to store for later, in case she needed to convince her mother that one of her crazy projects was important and completely harmless.
***
It was, essentially, a repeat of their little detour in Jordan. There they had seen the bad aid first then the refugee camp and the eyes of hungry children. This time they saw the slums first, the children scrabbling for food among the rubbish, making survival into a deadly, cruel game because it was not something to be taken for granted, because it must consume their entire lives if they were to have it.
Cho was not sure she had any breath left in her lungs when they Apparated out of the slums and into a giant warehouse. “Remember now,” Padma said, “We are still in India, still in the same country where you saw that slum.”
Cho tried hard not to vomit at the mounds and mounds of “surplus” grain stacked in this warehouse. She heard the squeaking of mice and the pattering of their little feet. There would be no reprieve, however. Padma took them next to a ship a few miles off the shore. Cho was disoriented from the successive Apparitions, the rocking in the sea, and the lack of sense in all that she was seeing. When her eyes finally focused enough to let her see she looked out over the railing and watched the grain being dumped into the sea. George was retching.
“Why,” she asked feeling somehow less human from the lack of air, or perhaps it was from the irrationality of her surroundings, “Why is it always like this in these countries. Don’t they want to help their own people, why is there so much disparity?”
“Oh, dear,” Padma said and Cho let her get away with the slightly condescending tone, “It doesn’t only happen here, no, it’s just that it mostly only touches the people in these undeveloped countries. The perpetrators are found all over the world. Our next stop is the Juneau; an American CEO was convicted for ordering the dumping of grain into the South China Sea in 1999. I was able, with some very complex summoning spells, to procure a piece of old metal from the ship. Everyone put a foot on this.”
She placed a small piece of metal on the floor beneath their feet and they all stepped on quickly, people on this ship were starting to notice something strange, even with the chameleon charms they had on. It was very crowded so they kept bumping into unsuspecting Muggles and confusing or scaring them. Cho did not have it in her to take a deep breath before the Portkey was activated. She heard Padma chanting something that she guessed must be the charm which would take them back in time to when the grain was being dumped.
George had nothing left in his stomach to lose but when for the second time they saw the sight of thousands of tons of grain being dumped out into the sea he was heaving again. Cho realized abruptly that she was leaning on Lee. She took her back to her own living room by side-along Apparition. Padma and George followed soon after. There was silence for as while and then Cho demanded details.
Padma explained what she knew about that particular dumping. Apparently it was done because the food, which was supposed to be sent as aid had been contaminated by oil. “So they weren’t just throwing it out on purpose.”
Padma pushed newspaper articles and a small flask of what looked to be memories her way. “I have some eyewitness reports there, but the only one I could get us to in person was the Juneau because the case was known and easy to track. This happens all the time. Look at this.” She tapped one of the stacks of paper. Cho felt that blood might drip from her nose onto the paper, but she began to read it anyway.
It was legal-looking paper from Ireland and she soon discovered that it was a set of laws for how to apply for permission to dump ‘surplus’ crops.
“They wouldn’t make laws about it if it didn’t happen all the time and as we know already, if it isn’t dumped into the sea it can always be dumped on poor countries to destroy the livelihood of local farmers. And all of this, by the way, is done to keep the prices stable.” Padma studied Cho carefully, and Cho felt a little uneasy under her gaze.
To break that unwavering assessment Cho finally spoke and drew attention to the document. “And all these regulations about how it can be dumped and the conditions, they’re all about protecting the environment from the changes it’ll cause in the water, as if there was no question of people in other places possibly needing it. But, do we want them to give it to others when you say the aid hurts local farmers?”
“We want,” said Padma who seemed to gain stability through the conversation, Cho wasn’t feeling anything of the sort, “we want the Muggle world to operate on the basis of need and…sanity. There are places in which grain is grown naturally, other places in which it isn’t. Some places have other assets and resources. If the world was sane people would just trade what they have that’s extra for something they need but don’t produce themselves. It seems logical to me, anyway. But the Muggles don’t think that way in this case. They think about making money from the business of growing food. It’s not about who needs it and where it should go, and whether they really need to make so much of it in their country, and whether other countries need the ‘aid’ they decide to give or not. It’ll all about making money. So when making money means throwing it into the sea to get rid of a surplus, great. When making money means making more and more of it by their GM methods they do it. When making money means you have to throw the extra onto some poor country where local farmers are struggling to survive then so much the better because that’ll reduce competition. How do you fix it, Cho?”
It was a challenge, but Cho did not have an answer and she doubted that one would be forthcoming. Ever. Her specialty was not changing the way Muggles think, this hadn’t been part of the long list of things she had expected when she decided to go on this mission. At length she said, “This may be the first time I forfeit anything.”
Lee was methodically tearing his Insta-T into shreds. George was staring at the roof with those haunted eyes that had been his ever since Mudblood Town.
***
Neville weaved his way through the hallways of white, up staircases and past beds, without even looking. He finally found their room and their beds and sat down on his stool. It had been his ever since he was a small child. He spoke to them because he needed to, not for them. If he really loved them then he wouldn’t be talking to them about the horrible things he had witnessed.
But he had nothing left. No one.
“We still haven’t found any of the girls,” he whispered looking directly into his mother’s eyes, “The Purbloods have the Ministry, the Papers, hundreds of Aurors, even the Quidditch Association. They…they have the Muggles too. I’ve never…imagined. We’re stuck again, just like when we were hiding in Hogwarts. But back then we know there was good waiting for us outside, we knew there was Harry who was destined to defeat Voldemort, we had hope and we know there were hundreds who would continue the fight even if we were crushed. We have none of that now, Mother, nothing.”
Alice smiled lovingly at him as if he was reciting poetry or showing her perfect scores on his NEWTs. He let his head fall and stared hard at the ground. “What can I do?”
“They’re doing this because they think they’re above everyone else.” Neville looked up, startled, “We can insist that we are not above anyone. We can live and go hungry and die like everyone else even if we don’t manage to save the world. I’m not going into hiding.”
“Neville, hey, are you alright, mate?”
Neville surfaced with a deep, shuddering breath and tried to shake the memory from his mind. Evening was falling. He did not want to go inside. The walls offered no protection, he had seen the evidence of this a hundred times already in this small choked city, and if he went inside he would be giving up the fresh night air, the small desperate piece of dignity that the small green strip of earth offered.
“I want to sleep on the roof tonight,” Samir was saying, “At least just for a couple of hours. Want to join me?”
Neville nodded wordlessly and practically sprinted up the stairs. Some of the cousins had been lounging on cushions on the roof that afternoon. Neville and Samir found the area very comfortable as they settled down. After a few minutes Fadi, a cousin almost exactly Samir’s age, joined them with a pot of hot chocolate. Neville found he rather enjoyed it even though he was more used to it with milk than just water. He burned his tongue and almost choked himself once when a not distant enough bang was heard.
The men talked for a while, but the silence of the night, punctuated by the singing of crickets, was beautiful so they eventually fell into silence. It was too early to sleep, and the distant shots and explosions were not any less disconcerting out here on the roof. The air felt nice, but the darkness made the fear multiply. Even after weeks of being here Neville was not used to being helpless.
An image flashed through his mind; a vivid memory that would never leave him for as long as he lived. Ginevra Weasley, battered, dirty, and wild. Her red hair subdued to a brownish color and hanging down the sides of her face in wiry strips. Her eyes raging flame. The most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life as she declared. “What the bloody hell are you all waiting for? They’re trapped in the Fleming estates, a hidden doorway behind the painting of Salazar leads to the dungeons. Go!”
There was no question at that moment that her word would be obeyed. The room emptied almost immediately and only a few remained to wait and prepare for the injured prisoners to come in. Ginny was led to a couch where she pretended to be resting with her foot tapping the ground angrily and impatiently. Neville did not go anywhere near her wounds, they were too numerous and deep for his beginner’s skills. He merely watched her from afar as she plotted to set herself on a relentless course of spying missions, battles, and rebuilding.
“You crazy?” Samir pulled him back down to a reclining position, safely hidden below the level of the concrete wall of the roof. Neville had not noticed until that moment that he was standing and pacing, looking over the side of the concrete wall.
“If they see movement here at this time of night we’re all dead.” Neville should not have needed telling. He tried to calm his racing heart and muttered a desperate prayer of thanks that he had not caused the destruction of this whole family because of his carelessness. He glanced at his watch. It was still only eight. Even the fresh evening air had a price here. Restriction, fear, and humiliation.
