Chapter 6 The Key
The group had essentially given up when Padma showed up again. She had a gleam in her eye that made Lee’s blood rush to his head. He forced himself not to get excited. He had learned a lot on this journey, he had come to love so many different people from all over the world and seriously consider giving his life to help them, but the most important thing he had learned was that even if there was an answer – and this was highly unlikely – he, an outsider, was not part of this answer.
Padma, however, was obviously not going to be swayed by any argument so he simply prepared himself to listen with the most skeptical state of mind possible. Cho dropped the paper she had been staring at for the past half-hour and leaned over Padma’s notes. Lee had actually begun to be worried about Cho. She had been so demoralized by the insanity of the Muggle world that she did not even want to write the report about their journey. He hoped that her fellow Ravenclaw would at least be able to bring her back to her normal self.
George hovered a little further away, but he let Lee pull him closer, which was all that could be hoped for at the moment. The words on Padma’s small Muggle notepad did not make sense to Lee. He could not bring himself to concentrate hard enough to un-blur them. He lifted his eyes to Padma’s face instead.
“So,” she said in a businesslike manner, “we’ve discovered that the Witches and Wizards in other parts of the world aren’t as isolated from the Muggles as we’ve been in England. Degrees vary, of course, but in many parts of the world they just live side by side with the Muggles, learning their magic at home and keeping it secret. They’re an active part of Muggle life, they understand it more than we do. I want to use them.”
Cho was clearly becoming impatient so Padma ploughed on quickly before she could venture an interruption. “What I imagine is an international network of institutions set up to help the poorest and most disenfranchised Muggles gain a measure of independence. They can start out as schools, farms, and other important institutions. We fund them, wizards from these parts of the world help us to hear the Muggles’ voices so that we know what they need, and the Muggles decide for themselves, do for themselves, with just a little bit of help from us. I mean, it’s a bit depressing and all, but we’re still Wizards, yeah, we can still do things that Muggles can’t even dream up or imagine.”
None of them spoke, because although Padma paused a little she was clearly about to ask a question. To their surprise the question was not something like “what do you think?” or “shall we go for it?” it was, “So what’s going to be our first location?”
Cho looked nonplused. Lee was fighting against a grin. He looked at George. “You choose, mate, go on!” No matter how much George tried to deny it, Lee knew that he was getting excited about the prospect of doing something to help the people they had met on their journey.
***
“I have to go, Neville,” the words still echoed around in her head. She was probably insane, but this possibility was nothing new to Hermione. She needed to get to the village that the Key – the one they had intended to use as a Portkey – had come from. She had witnessed the daily struggles of the Palestinians and now she needed to go back and understand, from a historical perspective, how it had come to be. She could not venture to what was referred to as ’48 – the land that had become Israel – but she trusted that the other group would take care of that part of the history.
The key, as she had found out from Elias, the Christian Palestinian Wizard that had lent it to her, came from a village called Imwas. She had attempted to find it on a map by herself to no avail and, finally, she had contacted Elias again and told him her plan. He had freaked out on her over the phone.
“Listen, Hermione, you can’t go there from the West Bank!”
“But it’s in the West Bank isn’t it?”
“Yes, but it’s controlled by Israel, it’s a park now for Israelis. You won’t be able to get in that way.”
“Well, anyway, I wasn’t planning to go in the proper way, I’ve got an invisibility cloak I borrowed for this.”
That was when she discovered silences were more awkward over the phone. Finally, Elias spoke again. “Ok, I’m coming. I’ll get as much info about where the house is from my parents. Just wait until I get to you, ok.”
Hermione had met Elias for the second time at a checkpoint in the West Bank. She had convinced Neville to stay behind so that if something happened to her he could record the details of their journey. At first he had looked like he was going to kill her himself, but Hermione knew how to be stubborn and it really wasn’t negotiable. Finally, he caved and told her they’d meet at their last stop: Gaza. Samir was even more upset about this decision, but he had been convinced to go with Neville – if he could.
It was strange Traveling with someone she had only met briefly. Hermione was aware, however, that this almost-stranger had entrusted something to her care that was very important to him. The key was a part not only of his family history, but also of his sense of identity and his struggle for his rights.
Even more awkward was traveling under Harry’s invisibility cloak. Finally, they reached the Imwas or Emmaus Monastery. They stood before it for a while, and Elias explained in a rather small voice that people had taken refuge here in ’67 hoping that the fact that it was a Christian site would make them safer. They had been driven out all the same. They took a right turn on the road and before them was the entrance to Canada Park, a green, inviting area that beckoned to them beyond the gate. The only indication that there had ever been a Palestinian village here, or in fact three, was a torn and vandalized piece of paper. It was barely legible and Hermione doubted if she would have been able to decipher it without Elias’s help and knowledge of the history. They explore the Park, watching people eat picnics and laze around in the shade of the trees.
All the people enjoying the park, Hermione noticed, were Israelis and possibly some western tourists although this was outside of Israel and in the West Bank. She was pondering on this for a while. One people could not even go to their university classes or their jobs or visit their relatives while others were enjoying nice weekends at a park in their lands.
With this thought she stumbled. She looked down to find that it was a concrete rock. Not far away Hermione spotted the remnants of what had once been large water tanks for the village. She had just stumbled upon one of the three villages that had been razed to the ground by the Israeli army in 1967. Hermione let Elias try to locate his old home while she explored the tiny remains of the old villages. The destruction had been very efficient, what remained seemed like something ancient, or some random discarded building materials. A group of cheerful campers had approached and set up a picnic on top of the water tanks so she was unable to explore them. She tried to remain unobtrusive, but it did not feel good being without the cloak. She had given that to Elias because he was the more striking in terms of his appearance.
Hermione could not see Elias, so she hoped that he was busy and far away and took a deep breath. The spell would not work properly on any old house, the key and the house it had come from was what would make it work, but she wanted to try it first anyway.
Almost every object, she knew, had memories attached to it. She wanted to tap into these memories, using magic, to attempt to reconstruct an image of what had happened when the people had been driven out of these villages.
Hermione took a deep breath and put her right hand to one of the stones and muttered the incantation.
The house seemed to reform around her. She looked around, clinging to the piece of stone for dear life. She could not hear anything and there seemed to be no people, but the signs all around were of people leaving in a hurry. A single baby shoe was left on the ground in front of the door. The door itself was standing open. There seemed to be a fire inside the house. Hermione guessed that someone had left their cooking on the stove.
Keeping her hand on the stone she was holding, which was at the bottom of the front wall of the house, she turned her head so she could see down the street. The other houses were in the same shape as the one she was touching. Doors lay open all around the village and random things were strewn around on the floor as if someone had dropped them in a hurry. Hermione could make out the edge of a military vehicle from behind the house across the street. Also stopped not too far from it was a large bulldozer.
Something connected with her side and her hands flew up around her head automatically. She looked up and saw a ball bouncing not too far away. The picnickers were now playing ball, it appeared.
An invisible hand held her from her elbow. She took in a sharp breath, but immediately recognized it as Elias. He led her away into the trees and then stopped before another very small stone remnant. “I think this is it,” he said taking off the cloak. Hermione stowed it in her bag and took out the key.
“I’ve been working on a spell,” she said in a half-whisper, “to tap into the memory of the place. I tried it over there, but I couldn’t hear anything or see any living beings, just the buildings and objects as they were. Hopefully the key will help.”
Elias looked at her intently. His eyes had a gleam in them she thought she could understand. “You don’t have to,” she said, “If it’s too painful.”
Elias laughed aloud. “My dear Hermione the history of my people has been painful for sixty years. I have to know, no matter how painful it is. I want to experience it.”
Hermione nodded and they both approached the house. Hermione taught him the incantation. They gripped the key together and each grabbed a piece of the ancient stone with their other hands. It was an immediate thing. Shouts went up all around. Someone on a loudspeaker was ordering the people out of their homes. “You have a few minutes left. Leave now, leave everything!”
Children were crying. Families were running out of their homes in a rush, dropping things and attempting to shield their children from the view of the soldiers and their tanks and trucks. Hermione saw a woman with four children tear out of her house, begging the neighbours to tell her where husband was. No one knew, they urged her to move on and reunite with him later. Hermione realized she had the Insta-T on in one ear only so she could hear everything in Arabic in one ear and also hear the translation. It added to the urgent, frustrating atmosphere.
The woman ran back to her home and closed it up, pulling out a large old-fashioned key and hurrying her children along with the growing crowd. Suddenly a loud, firm cry came from Hermione’s left. She turned.
The door of one house was open and some family members were waiting outside, but there was an argument going on inside. “No!” it sounded like an old woman to Hermione, “I’m not leaving my house, Kamel.”
“Mom, we’ll come back. They’ll kill us if we stay. We have nothing to fight with, we have to save the children.”
“They told us the same thing in ’48!” the woman scoffed in a bitter tone, “I’m not leaving my house again. No one’s going to save us. No miraculous Arab army’s going to come and free us and take back out lands. We’re on our own, and I’m not just leaving my house so they can take it.”
“Mom, please, I promise-“
“Don’t!” the old woman yelled, “Take the children and go, but I’m not leaving.”
A young man issued from the house looking pale. “Come on quickly,” he told his wife and children, “I’ll take you all to safety and then I’ll come back for her.”
They joined the long procession that issued from the village. Many families had small bundles on their backs; others had not even had enough time to close their doors. Some were too busy looking for loved ones who had been away at work when all this madness began. Hermione could see the soldiers waiting not so far away. Some of them had guns trained on the escaping families. The bulldozer began to move.
One of the last families to leave was Elias’s. They were supporting a very old man between them. A youngish woman Hermione guessed must be Elias’s grandmother closed the door and let her hand linger on it for a moment. Then she pulled out the key, identical to the one Hermione was holding forty one years later, and followed the others.
What disturbed Hermione the most as she watched the people leave in their long, long line was the looks on their faces. They were like deep wells holding memory upon memory of suffering and humiliation, this last expulsion they were facing was just one more. And that was forty one years ago. Hermione wondered how much longer they could take it in and bury it behind their eyes and move on. How long until the crushing weight of it all would finally break them.
She came up shuddering from her thoughts. A loud crack was heard. The large bulldozer started moving, loudly, and began to raze the houses to the ground. She felt a jolt and suddenly she was kneeling beside Elias in a park, the grandchildren of the soldiers and the bulldozer drivers playing ball on top of the destroyed villages.
Elias had broken the connection. He was breathing deep, heaving breaths. It was only then that Hermione understood that the greatest part of a solution was recognizing the past. Israelis could not continue to play ball in the park and enjoy the weather and expect everything to be all right while the Palestinians were suffocated between fifty foot walls or else roaming the world being shunted from one country to another. They had to recognize, to really see, what life was like on the other side, what it had been like for the Palestinians from ’48 until the present. She was not a pessimist; she believed that if they, and the rest of the Muggle world, knew about these things then they would be able to make a change for the better and move forward.
When she told Elias this she expected him to be bitter or pessimistic, but he just turned those expressive eyes to her and said. “All it takes, Hermione, is for the rest of the world to really see us as equal human beings deserving the same rights as anyone else. Once that fact is recognized solving this conflict is a piece of cake.”
***
They met Luna’s Arab-Israeli acquaintance, Farid, in a small café. There was a tense silence at first, but of course they had Luna with them so any silence could not last very long. She launched into a long account about some sort of “mythical creature” she had read about. Dean knew that if her friend had not been a Muggle she would have been open about her belief that it actually existed. At least she had a tiny bit of discretion around Muggles, he thought, that had to count for something.
Finally, Dean decided to steer the conversation in a more serious direction. “So,” he said, “I was just wondering if you could tell us a bit about your life as an Arab-Israeli.”
Farid nodded over his coffee. He took another gulp of it and then put the cup down, thoughtfully, as if weighing where to begin. “Well,” he said, “Israel as you all know was created for the Jewish people. As someone who happens to not be Jewish I’m living in an environment where I’m reminded every day that this isn’t for me. For me that’s the root of the problem. All the fighting, all the war and politics, that’s just symptoms of the real problem: exclusion…” he sighed and then continued, “…racism.”
“Well,” Sarah said, “That’s what the UN decided, they split it into a state for the Jews and a State for the Arabs, but the Arabs didn’t accept so Israel got it’s state running properly and the Arabs still don’t have a state, but that’s what’s being negotiated, isn’t it?”
Farid laughed. “But why?” he asked, “Why does there have to be a state for one race or religious group or class and one state for the other? Why can’t they live together?”
Sarah reddened. “The Jews were murdered and persecuted-”
“Not by the Palestinians,” Farid interrupted, “The Jews have lived as respected minorities in the Arab and Muslim world while they were being persecuted in Europe. But some of them brought Hitler’s same idea of exclusion and a state based on people’s blood and race and they imposed it on us.”
“Then,” he said, “that small group, and I don’t believe it represented more than a very small minority of the Jews back then, most of them were just fleeing Hitler and genuinely wanted to live with their neighbors – anyway, that group put pressure on England, which was colonizing the country back then, to promise the Jews that they would have it for themselves. My grandparents and their neighbors and all the Arabs who would have been happy to take these people in and make them part of society suddenly realized that there was a plan – and a promise – to hand over the country to the Jews.
“The British liked to pretend back then that it wasn’t exactly a colony, that it was a Mandate and they were only here to prepare the people for self-rule. And they promised something that wasn’t theirs to a third group of people, just like that. When the UN partition plan came out the Jews were a tiny minority. Even with the large influx of immigrants from Europe and from Russia they were only 33% of the population, and they only owned about 7% of the land, but the partition plan gave them 56% of the land for the Jewish State – and this included the richest and most fertile lands.
“And the UN didn’t tell them ‘you can kick the Arabs within those boundaries out’ which is what they did. Many massacres were committed, people were driven out by force from their homes, and those of us who stayed were considered ‘present absentees’ – our homes and land were used by the Jewish State and the use of them was allowed only to Jews. I can see my grandparents’ home, but I can’t go back and live in it now. I wasn’t supposed to be here. They regret not having managed to kill or kick out all of us.”
“But surely,” Ron said, “If Israel is a Democracy then there must be some laws about equality of everyone, in the constootion.”
Dean cringed, but Farid didn’t seem to notice Ron’s slip up. “Israel doesn’t have a constitution,” he said, “It has a handful of ‘basic laws’ that are based on the Jewish religion. There are properties and lands that an Arab-Israeli cannot buy even though they’re a citizen, but any Jewish person can come in and buy it. Arab-Israelis who are residents of Jerusalem can lose their ID and never be able to return to it if they live outside of Jerusalem for a few months while any Jewish person from anywhere in the world can just drop into the country whenever they want on a ‘birthright’ tour and they try to convince them to stay in the country, they pay them loads of money, give them houses for free just so they can stay and make the state more Jewish. If an Arab wants to build a house or an extra floor for their home they can’t get permits to do it – I’ve seen hundreds of house-demolitions of houses they claim were built without permits, but a Jewish person can build any time!”
“But you’re an excellent example that there are Arabs in Israel,” Sarah tried again, “You’ve been allowed to go to university here and everything!”
“Oh thank you!” Farid said sarcastically, “I suppose I have to be ever grateful to the Jewish state for letting me study at all, as if Education and being allowed to live as an equal to everyone else isn’t a right that all human beings have.”
Sarah looked horrified. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I know,” he said, “But it is what they mean when they say it. You haven’t been here for a long time; you come from England where being a different race isn’t such a big deal. All the things I talked about, the institutionalized racism that makes sure there’s always a difference between the two people, that makes sure the Arabs are always second-class citizens, that makes the Jewish Israelis here get used to it and take it in as a part of every day life. Even the ones that were just normal immigrants fleeing Hitler wanting to live a normal life, now because of all this their grandchildren begin to feel like they’re better, like they have more right to be here because the state is for them, not for other races. Now even the moderates who would oppose violence and war just want the Arab Israelis like me to ‘go to their own state and leave us in ours’.”
“We saw some nutters in the settlements in the West Bank that don’t even want Arabs in the other state, they want it all for themselves,” Ron said, “But honestly, after all this, after everything they’ve done to you and your family, would you want to live with them, side by side in a normal state for everyone, which is what you seem to be suggesting…”
“Yes,” Farid said without hesitation, “otherwise I’d be no different than the ‘nutters’ you saw. As long as those who have been responsible for killing or harming innocent civilians are brought to justice and they’re not allowed to keep practicing racism why would I have any problem with living next to someone from another race or religion?”
Dean eyed Farid carefully. If he had been a Muggle, he might not have believed the other man. He had, however, witnessed Mudblood Town and the horrors the pureblood families had committed and he had also witnessed the healing that had taken place after. He had not believed it would have been possible back then, but when the nutters in the Wizarding World had been taken to justice the ordinary people really had settled into normal lives again as neighbors, sharing their world with each other.
“You know,” Fardi said, “There was a time when being different was good, we could all learn from each other’s differences, taste a different kind of life and enrich ourselves with a new culture or a new piece of knowledge.” He sighed and Dean felt himself sighing with him although he wasn’t sure what time Farid was referring to when all this had actually taken place.
“So you don’t think there should be two states at all?” Ron clarified, “Because all the stuff I’ve read, and it’s not too much mind you, but I think I had a good sampling, it all said that the two state solution was the way to go.”
Farid shook his head. “Even if they go for it and that works for a while, with the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza or whatever tiny potion they want to give the Palestinian state, get some small form of independence, that won’t solve the problem. Even if Israel leaves the Palestinians to complete freedom, which I doubt they will ever do and even if they settle for whatever little they get, and everything over there is fine and perfect, there will still be problems in here, In Israel, because Racism is still the problem. And it’s not even about Jews and non-Jews.
“Do you know that there are two main groups of Jews, the European Askhenazi Jews and the Sepahrdic Jews who have been living in the Arab and Muslim world for hundreds of years? Even among these two groups there are problems, the Sephardic Jews aren’t treated as if they’re proper Jews. Many look down on them and treat them differently. It’s as if the state wasn’t made for Jews, it was made for the blonde, European Jews. If they happen to black that’s an even bigger problem. Jews from African countries are tempted to come here so they can make up the numbers and increase the Jewish population officially and so that they can take the less desirable jobs, especially now that they don’t let the Palestinians come in to work from the West Bank, they need these lower class Jews to do the manual labor. In some schools they’ve even discovered that the teachers have been keeping black children in separate classrooms and different play-times, rushing them into and out of school so that they don’t come into contact with the other kids. Racism has to be faced and gotten rid of otherwise it just keeps getting worse and worse, going to further and further levels.”
“Can I see something about these schools?” Dean asked, curious.
“Sure,” Farid said, “It was in the papers I can find the articles for you.”
“Is the reporting here fair?” Sarah said like someone grasping at straws.
“Let’s just say, it shows more about the country than you would see if you were following British or American news, has tiny bit more backbone, but that’s not really hard to do. There are some people here who will report fairly, some who risk their own lives to help Palestinians and fight for their rights. It’s a small minority these days, but these are people I would be proud to live by side with!”
***
Ginny could not believe how far she had come since that day when she had dumped Harry. It had not been difficult. She had been infatuated with the Boy-Who-Lived ever since she was a small child. She had realized, however, that it wasn’t Harry she had loved, it was an image of him doing the things she wanted to do with her life, helping her achieve her ambitions. The real Harry didn’t want to have anything to do with being the Chosen One or even with Ambition in general. She tried to make herself think he just had different ambitions, but even in her head it sounded stupid. Ginny just could not understand his need to settle down and get away from it all, she couldn’t call that an ambition even in her head, and most importantly, she couldn’t live it with him.
Once she had recognized that truth it had been so much easier to live with having disappointed him. He would get over it, eventually, he would find a nice girl that was tired of all the fighting just like him and they would settle down together in the cute little house he had bought. Meanwhile, Ginny would set herself on the course she wanted for her life. She already had a really good start. She had been very busy ever since she had dumped him. There was just so much to do and some of these save-the-Muggle-world idiots really were creative despite being a little messed up from the war.
Her most recent project was one of theirs. Apparently Nott wanted to open a research institution into ancient magical traditions from lost civilizations. This would include some of the Native American ones he had come across in his recent travels as well as the Ancient Greeks, Egyptians, Babylonians, etc. It was exciting building something like that with a group of highly ambitious people with the same energy she felt bursting inside her. The coolest part about this research institution, though, was the old and new spells they were discovering. So far they had been doing whatever they could whenever they could.
Blaise had finally made a recovery and together he and Ginny were heading up the work in England, working with the Ministry of Magic, finding a suitable location for the institution and researching the spells they would need to keep it hidden from Muggles and protect it from invasion by Dark Wizards, and all the rest of it. Blaise was up in Hogwarts now using the library as well as discussing ties between the two institutions with Professor McGonagall and some of the other Professors. He had invited Ginny to come along, but she had other work for the Squib Affairs Office. One of the groups that had suffered the most in all the turmoil in recent years was the Squibs, especially the Squib children who happened to have been born in prejudiced Pureblood families.
She walked up to Honeydukes to meet Blaise. They hadn’t specified a time to meet, but Nott, Ernie and Susan were back in town and they had their first meeting for the research institution over lunch so he would have to leave Hogwarts soon. Ginny’s mother had insisted they have the lunch at the Burrow and Blaise, slick as ever, had accepted too graciously for Ginny to put up a fight. She admitted to herself that it hadn’t been a bad night last night, preparing come of the cookies and cleaning up at the house. Of course, Ginny wasn’t any good at cleaning and she found cooking a little tedious, but the time spent together had been fun all the same.
She smiled and chatted with Rosmerta a little before ordering a hot chocolate and taking a seat. It was a chilly day out, today; fall was just around the corner. Sipping her hot chocolate Ginny went over some of the stuff she wanted to say at the meeting. Getting it all organized would hopefully mean that she wouldn’t have to do any of the ministry paperwork and could concentrate on her areas of specialty. She was really excited about getting Bill into this project; his work in Egypt would really come in handy.
“Afternoon, Rosmerta!” Blaise said, closing the door behind him. He made his order and then came to sit beside Ginny.
She didn’t find his smile nearly as irritating as she had when he had been stuck on her couch, throwing suggestions and near-insults at her all day long. She grinned back.
“Lot’s of good stuff today,” he said showing her some books and loose parchments with notes on them, “McGonagall and Flitwick are on board. Do you want to hear it all now, or at the meeting?”
Ginny shrugged. She was very excited about the meeting, but she didn’t think she could sit and listen to the same thing twice, either. “It’s only an hour, I’ll wait. Aren’t you going to try and catch up with the others – Hermione’s group isn’t due back for another couple of weeks?” This question had been on her mind for a few days now.
Blaise grinned. “We set off on that mission because we were looking for something,” he said, “I seem to have found what I was looking for without having to look very far.” The look in his eyes at that moment made something at the pit of Ginny’s stomach do a back-flip. She had not expected to have such feelings so soon after her train wreck of a relationship with Harry, but it was undeniable. This was what love was about: being able to share the things you loved the most with someone.
***
Hermione and Elias had not been able to get into Gaza. It was so heavily blockaded that even food did not get in, so Hermione was not entirely surprised. She had heard from Neville, though, through the notebooks, and he said that he and Samir had managed to get in. Hermione suspected that her tongue was part of the problem, but she could not help it.
“We’ll just have to Apparate under the cloak,” she said, “I mean I can see the inside of Gaza from here, it’s not that far.”
“I can’t,” Elias said, “You’ll have to go in by yourself.”
“Oh…” Hermione said, “Well, we can side-along Apparate-”
“No, I mean I just won’t. Listen I’m a Wizard and I know I was brought up in England, but we’ve still held on to a lot of our culture. Many eastern wizards, if they’re religious like me, won’t perform certain types of magic on ourselves or other human beings. And of course Divination and all that junk are out too.”
Hermione was shocked by this revelation. It made some sense; she had never felt great about memory charms, for example. This would be a very interesting topic to explore in an essay – the thought of the many essay topics she had lined up made her smile a little.
“Well,” she smiled, “I agree with you about Divination at least!”
Elias grinned back at her. “I’ll watch you go and then head back the way I came. Good luck and thanks.”
“Thank you,” she said sincerely, “Meet you back in England if I don’t get myself killed.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
She threw the cloak over herself and steeled herself for the uncomfortable feeling.
Once on the other side Hermione was kept busier trying and failing to help than she ever had been in her whole life. She had heard that the Israelis had pulled out of Gaza, taking the settlements and their military presence away. She expected to see conditions better than those in the West Bank. She had been very wrong.
While the Israelis had pulled their troops and settlements out every aspect of the Gazan’s lives was still controlled by Israel. She could actually see large Israeli military ships in the distance off the shore, keeping track and controlling the waters from afar. She knew how hard it was for people to get in because she had been unsuccessful; it was infinitely harder for food and medical supplies to get in. Hermione had thought that the people in the West Bank were being suffocated slowly. The people here were much worse off, being starved brutally, trapped in an open-air prison.
She found Neville and Samir in a hospital. The time they had spent getting them all Muggle Doctor’s papers had not gone amiss. Neville was knee deep helping the doctors and nurses there. They couldn’t do too much, they’re equipment was old and needed new parts they couldn’t get, they didn’t have the right medicines to give to patients, and they didn’t have the numbers to help the large influx of patients, especially malnourished children, that were coming in.
“Damn Egyptians,” she heard one doctor mutter to another as they hurried through the halls, “It’s not enough the Israelis have us blockaded; they won’t open their border either. How am I supposed to keep this place running without any money for medicine – they’re not even letting the donated medicine in, as if I could kill an Israeli on the other side of the damn wall with pain killers and cough medicine.”
“How much are we short for the doctor’s wages for next month?” the other doctor said picking up a clipboard and pulling his mask on.
The first doctor laughed. “I don’t even want to think about it! Abu Ahmad promised me 20 000 from the money that was supposed to come in yesterday through Egypt and even that wouldn’t have been enough.”
“We’ll manage,” the second doctor said, “God Willing. This can’t last forever.”
They separated and Hermione turned to Samir. Since they were both unskilled when it came to healing they left the hospital and wandered the streets, talking about the conditions all around them.
That night Samir, Hermione, and Neville returned to the home they were staying at. Hermione could not help feeling guilty with every bite she put into her mouth, knowing that their hosts had tried their bests to come up with a generous dinner and feeling as if she was taking away from their own chances of surviving this siege. That night she found it very difficult to sleep. She took out her notebook and began to make notes on her trip to Canada Park – the park that lay on top of three destroyed Palestinian villages.
Finally, she dropped off to sleep only to be woken far too early by a woman telling her that she had to go meet her friends. She got up, rubbing her eyes and wondering what was going on. Finally, after a cup of strong tea she realized that it must be time for Ron, Luna, and Dean to meet with them. The others had decided that since it would be near impossible for them to get into Israel through border crossings in the West Bank or Gaza they would come into Gaza from Israel. She hoped they could make it.
Shaking her head and throwing on some clean clothes she told herself that they would make it. She knew Luna and Dean were much better at keeping their thoughts to themselves than she ever had been. Ron had come a long way from the tactless teenager he had been at Hogwarts. He had spent years as a spy infiltrating the ranks of the Purebloods when they had been in control of England. “They’ll make it in…” she whispered to Neville and Samir when they set off.
Neville nodded grimly. He looked like he was in a different world. When they passed the hospital she realized that must be where he wanted to be. They made their way as close to the border crossing as possible. They could see it from afar, but apparently it was dangerous to approach it from this side, so they decided not to risk it.
It was near evening, and she was worried about Neville’s blood vessels popping from the inaction, when four figures finally appeared. Hermione threw her arms around Ron’s neck. She had not realized how much she missed until then.
“Took you long enough,” Neville said rapping Dean on the back.
“We might not have been able to get through if not for Sarah.” He gestured towards their guide, “She mentioned some stuff about collecting money for charities and she said we were coming to get you guys and convince you that the charity money collected by our group should go to the Israeli side. It helped that she actually has family in Israel, in the end they believed her, but I tell you we wouldn’t have been able to get in if we’d had a ton of money on us or anything. They’re really strict about this siege.”
Suddenly Sarah spit on the ground in disgust. Hermione wasn’t entirely surprised by this gesture, not after what she’d seen on the Palestinian side. She was sure that anyone, Jewish or otherwise, who saw the situation with an open heart, could not help feeling ill and disgusted at the way the Palestinians were being treated.
When they had reached the small home that was to host them all for the next few days they discussed all the events of the past few weeks. Although Hermione had read about some of the other groups’ adventures in the notebooks she liked hearing it first hand and being able to discuss and compare everything.
Their hosts joined in heartily, displaying a hungry appetite for discussion and debate that Hermione had become accustomed to in her interaction with the Palestinians. Their lives were so ruled by politics, and never for the good, that it was constant topic of discussion. There was a lot of discussion about internal Palestinian politics too, with both praise and not so kind words about figures from all sides of the political spectrum.
Finally, they all headed off to bed. Now that Hermione was sharing a room with Luna and Sarah – who was Muggle – she could not use the Lumos spell and write in the notebook. There wasn’t much to write about, however, except a sense of waste that the whole day had gone by waiting for the others to arrive. She would have to record that tomorrow.
The next day would be their last day there. When she woke up, however, it was to be told that Neville had been at the hospital again from the crack of dawn. The electricity wasn’t working. In a large pot in the kitchen there was a small fire with some water being heated on it for tea. Hermione would have skipped the tea and gone for milk instead, but there was none. The wood being used for the fire looked suspiciously like it had been broken from furniture. Hermione sighed and ate her meal quickly, bursting to get out.
The moment she stepped out of the house she felt a crushing pain settle over her heart. The entire neighborhood was flooded. The water did not look clean at all, and it smelled disgusting. “Sewage,” Dean said from the lowest dry step where he was sitting, “There wasn’t enough electricity for the sewage plant so it overflowed.”
Hermione fought a scream that was pushing up through her throat. Young men with disgusted, tortured faces were trying to make their way to their various jobs or to the market without getting dirty. It was an impossible task. She watched one of them on a bike, moving himself forward by placing his hands against the walls of houses and pushing; if he tried pedaling the bike his feet would be immersed in the sewage.
Hermione wanted to turn away, but she couldn’t. There was nowhere to go. She felt as if she could no longer breathe. Suddenly, Dean got up, conjured some paints with the wand hidden up his sleeve and began to paint on the wall of they alleyway. His feet began to dip into the disgusting water as his painting became larger and larger, but he did not seem to care. It was the first time he had picked up paints or a pen since the war.
Hermione turned to go inside and came face to face with Luna. Luna grinned and sat down to watch Dean. Sara had been following Luna out. When she saw the sewage she uttered a small scream.
Hermione hurried into the house. She needed someone to talk to, about this and everything else. She sunk onto the living room floor beside Ron with her back against the wall.
She could not say she regretted leaving that evening when they set off. They would be at the Egypt border well before it opened in the morning so hopefully they would be able to get out quickly. Then, Hermione mused, they would be able to do things, to change things, from the outside. There was nothing for her to do there. Neville, however, saw things a little differently. He did not want to leave with them.
“Neville,” Hermione said in frustration, “The school year’s about to start, you’re the Herbology teacher!”
“Anyone can teach Herbology at Hogwarts,” Neville said ignoring her small ‘not as good as you!” and going on, “I’m the one here, right now, seeing all this. I can’t leave.”
“But you’re not doing any good.” She pleaded, “You’re just one more doctor trying desperately to heal people when you don’t have the right equipment and when you know they’re just going to keep coming back to the hospital. The cause of their suffering is still there, they’re going to keep getting shot and starved and-”
“Yeah,” Neville interrupted, “And I’m going to keep healing them again and again and again until you, out there, find a way to stop this insanity. I’m staying and I’m going to help them through this.”
Neville was not aware then, just how long the siege would go on for, and just how much worse things would get. He waved them off as they drove away and then turned and walked back into the packed hospital.
A/N: Some vids that I drew upon for parts of this chapter. Please let me know what you think of the story as this is the last chapter. I know I left the Neville bit open, but I seem incapable of closing this fic off neatly and it just felt right for Neville! You can imagine what happens to him as he stays there for a few months into 2009...
(Riz Khan Debate vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iss_BRp6Cgk&feature=channel)
(Sewage Gaza vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01hqVzViFTw)
