Malaika had gone back to the hospital and taken Millie with her. She always did, now, and Hannah wasn’t ready to offer to take care of the girl. Not today. Hannah had been waiting for hours for Mahmoud to come back so she could give him the cloak, but all three of the boys had been absent for far too long.
She paced the room and then cooked and then paced some more. She finished up the last bit of cleaning and then paced again. She looked nervously out of the windows and doors and checked her watch every few seconds and paced again. Suddenly, looking down at her watch for the tenth time within a minute Hannah stopped pacing and took a deep breath. She was doing it again, just like she had done when they were taking their OWLs, and soon she would be having a breakdown. There would be no Madam Pomfrey to give her a calming draught this time.
She hesitated for a few seconds and then put on her warm coat, grabbed the cloak, and hurried out the door. She knocked on their doors first, to eliminate the faint possibility that they had actually come home, but she had not heard them. No one answered.
“Fine,” Hannah whispered, heading for the stairs. She would go out after them. If something had happened they would need a friend to help them and she would be there.
She quickened her footsteps and left the building at a run, almost bumping into the old man, Mr. Wilson.
“I’m so sorry!” Hannah said a little shrilly.
“You too, then?” he asked, smiling grimly. “Well, come along, Hannah! We’ll find them.”
Hannah fell into step with him. She couldn’t bring herself to say anything. No words were needed right now anyway. The lamp the old man held in his wrinkled hands lighted the way. Hannah tried not to look too hard at the signs of destruction as they walked, but it was everywhere; there was no safe place to turn her gaze. Even looking down at the cloak she had made with her own hands was worrying.
The light from Mr. Wilson’s lamp was doing strange things to the orange and red threads she had so carefully woven into the white material. They seemed to turn into flames and leap up from the hem to cover even more of the material. Hannah stifled a gasp and looked away. She could not help looking back every now and then. The flames were still there, licking at the cloak every time she moved it. Hannah had vowed never to do any more magic, and she had not felt any power leaving her fingertips as she wove the cloak, but magic was the only explanation for what she was seeing.
They walked through deserted squares and rubble strewn streets. As they approached the heart of the city they began to see unmistakable signs that a recent battle had occurred. People were slowly making their way to the hospital. Others were clearing the worst of the rubble and putting out fires. Hannah’s heart began to pound as she saw the bodies that were being carried away for a rushed burial. She quickened her footsteps, leaving Mr. Wilson behind. The cloak in her hands felt like real fire now, as she looked desperately for the boy that had saved her life.
She heard his voice first; beautiful and calm in the face of disaster as it had been that night. He was singing again, and even now Hannah could not understand the words. The voice grew louder and louder as she approached him. There was a terrifying sadness in his tone. Suddenly, Hannah understood that he was singing in a different language. Even if she had not been half-starved and delirious the night he found her she still would not have understood his words.
He was standing straight – too straight – in a circle of men, with Emmett beside him. Hannah stood on his other side and the men made room for her. Mahmoud looked at her briefly, but then he turned his grief-stricken eyes back to the object in the center of the circle.
It was not an object, it was Jeremiah. He was dead.
Hannah turned her head sharply to study Mahmoud and Emmett’s faces. Grief was written in their eyes. In the slow, melodic way that Mahmoud was moving his mouth. It was written in the uncharacteristically disheveled, mud-streaked appearance of Emmett’s stony face. It was this sight that brought tears to Hannah’s eyes more than anything. The enormity of their loss was almost overwhelming.
When Mahmoud’s voice trailed off and the circle of men lifted Jeremiah’s body away both boys looked lost. Emmett rushed off after the men, protesting that Jeremiah’s family should be contacted before he was buried, but the men laughed at him, asking him which cold room he was going to keep the body in while he looked for the parents.
Hannah’s mother’s body had been kept cold with a charm so it would not begin to decay before they all said goodbye.
She forced her thoughts away from these dark corners and turned to Mahmoud. With him, Hannah was always able to talk; she always found the words she wanted to say.
“He died a hero,” she said, “and we’re going to keep helping people, just like you’ve been doing, together.”
Mahmoud nodded, but he seemed to be shrinking inward. She thought he might collapse soon. “I made you something,” she said, holding the cloak up. “It’ll keep you warm when you go out to help people.”
Without asking for permission or giving him a chance to refuse Hannah stepped closer and drew the cloak around his shoulders. He seemed to be struggling with words so she waited.
Finally, he spoke in a choked, small voice. “Thank you…” he took a deep breath and then continued, “He saved a little girl before he… I – was so close, but I couldn’t do anything. That’s eighteen people I watched die. Eighteen people I couldn’t save.”
“You saved me!” Hannah said firmly. “You’re going to show me how to help people too, and bring me with you. We’ll save a lot of people, together. Have you counted the number of people you did save?”
Mahmoud shook his head. There was denial in his eyes, as if he didn’t want her to speak sense or make him feel better.
“Can you sing to me again while we walk home?” Hannah asked.
“Sing? Oh – you mean…” finally, he sent her a puzzled sort of half-smile. They fell into step and Mahmoud began to sing, the cloak he was wearing seemed to burst into flame every time he leapt over a pile of rubble or turned sharply. It was quite impressive, quite frightening. Maybe it would protect him from the Death Eaters, Hannah thought - then she wouldn’t feel guilty for her unintentional use of magic.
…
Ginny stood back to back in the center of the room with Theo and Blaise, staring out at the frightening mess all around. The wireless floated a couple of feet above their heads. Lee had just finished reciting the names of the recently killed and all three took a relieved breath – no one they knew had been mentioned this time.
“As our listeners may know, many Muggle cities across England have been placed under enchantments to stop their electricity from working,” Lee was saying. Ginny sent basic cleaning curse at a mold-infested corridor.
“Cambridge,” Lee continued, “was one of the first cities to lose its electricity. And as you know this has increased the effect of the constant darkness on the Muggles. While we may be able to cast a quick Lumos or conjure flames the Muggles are helpless in these situations.”
Blaise made a triumphant sound and Ginny looked around to see that he had finished patching up the north wall very thoroughly – and it was mold free. She grimaced and copied the spell he was using.
“It’s not only that,” Remus’s voice joined Lee’s, “Muggles and Muggleborns have assured me that none of their devices seem to be working, even though many devices, such as flashlights, for example, should be able to work without electricity, using something they call batteries.”
“Fascinating,” Lee said. “They really are quite inventive those Muggles, finding ingenious ways to live without magic!”
Ginny did not feel very happy with Muggles at this moment. The Muggle mansion that Blaise and Theo had picked for the Healing Academy – although Blaise insisted that it was Theo who had picked it and he had nothing to do with the choice – was quite filthy. Ginny had been forced to clean many things in the past, including the revolting Grimmauld Place, but at least that place had been filled with Dark Magic and Doxies and various dangerous things. This place was just dull and disgusting.
“… the Muggles of Cambridge have somehow managed to work around the enchantments!” Ginny let her wand drop to her side and listened carefully. Even Blaise and Theo did the same. “Eyewitnesses have Apparated into Cambridge and seen for themselves that many of the Muggles have flashlights, and those loud cars that take people to hospital and put out fires, though I don’t think they’ll be able to do much against magical flames, unfortunately. They’ve also been seen using strange little devices that they put on unconscious victims’ chests – we assume to revive them – and those objects definitely work on electricity.”
“Batteries,” Remus corrected.
“Right,” Lee said good-naturedly, “it’s clear that even the Muggles, who are still being Obliviated and have no clue what’s happening to them and why, have managed to resist the Death Eaters! Take heart, listeners, and follow their examp-”
“Why the hell are they still Obliviating them?” Theo said angrily. He rarely spoke and Ginny had never heard him use any language that may be considered angry or impolite. She sighed.
“I expect to try and protect them. Reparo!” A shattered window began to repair itself. Even the Muggles were fighting no matter how much time the Order wasted trying to ‘protect’ them.
“Listen,” Blaise said, “I think it’ll be faster – and more thorough – if all three of us start off with this spell. It’s a combination of the Scouring Charm and a Vanishing Charm…”
…
Millie was chatting away cheerfully as if nothing was wrong with the world. She smiled at her mother’s tired, breaking body as if just by smiling she would make everything alright. Fix everything. Some people had smiles that made you feel that they had such power and Millie was one of them. She was so young, but she understood perfectly well that her mother had a terrible illness, and instead of crying about it she insisted on bringing every beautiful and cheerful thing from the outside world back here into her mother’s hospital room.
Malaika tiptoed into the room, listening to her little sister’s story about Hannah and Emmett and Mahmoud. She settled herself on the edge of the bed and looked into her mother’s eyes and, suddenly, she did not have to be the strong, untiring nurse anymore. The pain that she had been fighting against all day came crashing down on her.
Her mother reached out a hand and Malaika collapsed onto her mother’s shoulder, letting that gentle hand wrap itself around her. Millie was still talking cheerfully as Malaika shed silent tears into her mother’s hospital gown.
“…and then Emmett tried to fix our oven and toaster and everything, but Malaika made him come to the hospital and fix the lights and things here. I still think she should have let him fix the toaster because then I could make breakfast for everyone, but he’s too busy now! It’s really fun using candles all the time. And Mahmoud gave us one of those cool lamps-”
“How do you cook, then?” her mother asked with a calm, collected voice.
“Oh, Hannah cooks all the time in the fire and Mahmoud sometimes brings us stuff that he’s cooked. Yesterday he made this really tasty sweet and I brought some for you, but the doctor said I couldn’t bring it in here because he didn’t know what the ingredients were so today I’m going to ask him to write them down…”
Millie’s voice faded away into a warm comfortable darkness. Malaika was woken an hour later by her mother’s gentle voice. “Wake up, darling, you need to go home and get Millie to bed.”
Malaika closed her eyes and steeled herself. She took a deep breath and then pulled herself out of her mother’s arms. She almost broke down again when her mother’s face broke into an encouraging smile.
“Come on, Millie,” Malaika said in her usual firm tone.
“One second!” Millie protested, “I’ve got to finish this drawing for Mum!”
Malaika watched her sign the bottom right corner of her drawing and hang it up proudly next to its predecessors. They said goodbye and Malaika lifted her tired little sister into her arms. Hannah was just leaving the training room with a new First Aid kit in her hand. They fell into step with each other and walked silently past the chaos and pain and out into the perpetual night.
Mahmoud was, as usual, waiting for them just across the street with his lamp and the strange, bright cloak that Hannah had made for him. He offered to carry Millie, but Malaika shook her head. She was dead tired, but she was having a very hard time letting go of her sister lately, even if for one second.
Something about the boy had changed ever since his friend’s death. Jeremiah’s loss had turned the seventeen year old boy suddenly into a man. Even his artwork had lost its sense of teen angst – although Mahmoud had more reason than many to feel sorry for himself – and taken on a new purposeful feel. He was more serious and, with Hannah’s inexplicable encouragement, he was becoming more and more different.
Malaika looked down at her own deep brown hands and then sideways at Hannah’s cheerful white face. It bothered her a little that Hannah was the one to not only accept, but encourage Mahmoud to embrace his little differences. Hannah seemed to drink in his singing although she had no idea what the words meant, she was intensely curious when she happened to find him praying and she kept pushing him to show her the pieces of art that had been inspired by Middle-Eastern artistic styles. Maybe the girl was naïve, with her excessively cheerful insistence that it was wonderful to be different. It may be wonderful among friends, but the rest of the world they lived in didn’t see that. The rest of the world was full of suspicion and doubt and hatred and cruelty.
They finally reached the building and climbed the stairs. Malaika’s arm was growing numb under the weight of the now-sleeping Millie. She made her way very quickly into the apartment and set Millie down on her bed. Tucking her in, Malaika tried hard not to fall prey to the dozen frightening scenarios of the room being blown up or the building catching fire. She forced herself to leave the sleeping girl’s room.
The apartment door was still open and, looking through, Malaika saw that Hannah was still standing in the corridor, talking quietly to Mahmoud. She was not the only one watching the pair. Her eyes met Emmett’s across the hall. He was staring a little suspiciously at Hannah. Finally, Emmett interrupted the pair’s quiet conversation by asking everyone to come into his apartment to discuss his latest plan.
If Jeremiah’s death had changed Mahmoud it had caused an even bigger change in Emmett. The bespectacled redhead was determined not only to bring electricity back to Cambridge, but also to use it to defeat the gangsters that were terrorizing the city. He had singlehandedly fixed three ambulances and, with the help of many eager and enthusiastic volunteers, had somehow fixed the hospital’s generators so that the electricity in there worked again.
While Hannah determinedly completed her advanced first aid course and Mahmoud continued to patrol the streets and organize people’s escape during attacks Emmett began to teach others how to bring their machines back to life.
“I reckon you should get some sleep,” Malaika echoed the dozens of people who had been telling her the same thing, wondering, privately, if she looked quite as sleep-deprived as Emmett.
“I will,” Emmett said seriously, “once we figure out how to fix the problem of overcrowding at hospitals. The hospitals in this city just can’t handle what’s being thrown at them…”
Malaika sighed hopelessly, but the others did not seem to see the impossibility of the situation. Mahmoud and Hannah immediately began to offer suggestions and soon she was looking on in amazement as the three of them began feverishly planning for a mobile hospital. The three very different young people seemed to forget all the awkwardness that existed between them as they planned excitedly to save the city. She tried not to let herself get caught up in the increasingly convincing idea, false hope was destructive, but soon Malaika found herself poring over maps of the city with them.
“I’ll go make us something to eat,” Hannah said hours later. She headed for the door, but Emmett stopped her.
“Wait,” he said, lifting his head and giving her the same suspicious look that Malaika had seen him use earlier.
“Just use the toaster in my kitchen, it’ll be much faster and I’ve got stuff in the fridge we can eat with toast.”
He dropped his head again, but Malaika continued to stare at him as Hannah entered the kitchen hesitantly. The words he had just spoken did not seem natural, somehow. She was almost sure that he had been waiting for this moment for a long time, that the words had been rehearsed many times, but for all Malaika’s ability to read and understand people she had no idea why Emmett would be so suspicious of Hannah or how the toaster was going to help him.
