Panorama
"Grandmother, are you okay? I can help -"
"I'm fine, darling," Rose gritted, "I'm perfectly capable of walking into a lift."
"Well," her granddaughter said, "okay. But the ship is going to pass through an atmosphere with much less gravity and high quantities of radioisotope Polonium-210, so everyone is supposed to be getting to the bunkers as quickly as possible in the next five minutes."
Rose felt her weak limbs and her hand, shaking atop of a cane, and sighed. Ely, her granddaughter, was a very headstrong young lady and spouted bits of knowledge all over the place.
Rose couldn't fault her for that, because it was a quality she found in herself as well.
Ely took her arm and they entered the brilliant piece of Muggle technology, all steel and glass and touchscreens - oh, she thought, how things have changed.
There was a simpler time, way back when she was still youthful and active and happily married. Scorpius and herself had gotten married young, right out of Hogwarts, and they had spent many happy years in that two-bedroom flat in London, right across the street from Diagon Alley. On Earth, she would wake up, go to work as a herbologist, spend the evening with Scorpius - later Scorpius and her son - and she would go to bed feeling content and calm.
However, peace can never visit for too long, and everything had happened at once; the storms, the biological weapons, the malfunction of technology. She was in her mid-forties then, looking forward to retirement and spending more time with her husband.
Instead, along with the rest of the dwindling wizard world, she was ushered aboard a ship (another piece of clever, clever technology).
It was the simple things she missed, as well. The smell after it rains, the falling leaves of autumn, skiing and skating and the snow. Every day it makes her terribly sad that her granddaughters will most likely never see or feel nature.
"Grandmother? We're here." Ely's voice was patient, with an undertone of forced calm. Most likely, she's sick of her grandmother zoning out. The white doors to her bunker had opened after Ely completed a face scan, and Rose sat down on her dull grey bed and sighed heavily in relief. At her age, everything ached all of the time and in a way that even magic could not fix. Her brittle bones felt heavy, her hair was not vivacious and red but white and thin.
What a terrible thing, to grow old alone. Scorpius had gotten ill a few years after boarding the ship, and he was bedridden for two years before he left her a widow at the age of 48.
She had not noticed Ely still at the door. "Would you like me to stay, Grandmother?"
"Oh no, I'm perfectly fine," Rose said instinctively. "I know you have much more important things to do than to watch over your grandmother."
Ely half-smiled. "Okay. But, you know…"
"I'll press the button if I need anything, dear."
It was twenty minutes of reminiscing (her favourite pastime, these days) when she felt her bunker begin to shake violently. At first, she thought it was herself, but when she noticed her pictures of Scorpius, herself and her son shaking on the top of the dresser, she realized it wasn't.
She began to panic. They were going to die. They were going to die, and she wasn't going to see her son or Ely ever again and if this shaking keeps going, they're all going to die and she will die alone.
Oh, Merlin, she should have refused to come on this ship and just died in the terrible storm that hit London.
Rose lifted a finger and pressed the button.
Within moments, Ely was there. Like she expected her to press the button.
"There's a bit more pressure as we're approaching the outskirts of the atmosphere, so there will be a bit of shaking. Don't worry, this will stop soon."
Comforting words mixed with a confidence on what she was speaking about - very much reminded her of her mother, Ely's great-grandmother.
The minutes passed silently, blankly. The vibrating of the bunker stopped any real thought.
The doors opened automatically when the vibrations were finished, and the buzzing voice of the Commander rang in Rose's ear. They had installed these neat little chips on the underside of everyone's ear years and years ago. A personal intercom, Ely called them. It enabled her to hear whatever the Commander of the ship had to say.
We would like to thank you for your patience and understanding. We have passed through the Polonium-210 and, from where we are at the edge of the Milky Way, one can see the planet Earth through the ship's second and third level eastbound panorama windows.
"Ooo, we can see the planet," said Ely. It was a rare commodity, seeing the Earth, and when they did see it, it was barely a speck in the distance, thousands of light years away, magnified through the special panorama windows.
Still beautiful, however.
"I'll come with you, dear," said Rose. "I've been missing home."
Ely cast a sad, sideward glance at her grandmother and offered her an arm. Rose accepted, and they made their way through the halls easily. Even with traffic, there wasn't enough people onboard to make the ship even close to crowded.
The panorama windows stretched the whole east length of the ship, from one corner to another, and if it weren't for the magnification effect it had it would seem as though an even hole had been cut in the side of the ship. The windows were magnified thousands of times so the Earth could be seen.
A man-made colour could never match the vivid blue of the oceans, nor the green gradient of the land, and above them, the swirls of grey and white, storms continuing long after humans had all left or perished. It caused a continuing ache in Rose's chest - as a herbologist she longed for the outdoors all of the time, and in forty years she had not experienced it.
At least she could see it, though.
Rose felt Ely touch her elbow, she too marveling at a world they would never know again. If Rose squinted enough, even through her waning vision she could see Europe, the south of that little island in the north of Europe. London. Her real home.
a/n - I love Rose Weasley, I love futuristic sci-fi-ish fics, and I like writing. I think I would like to expand more upon this idea in the near future.
For Puddlemere United, Captain, round 6. I used the genre of Sci-Fi.
Also apologizing for any glaring mistakes I may have made with technological terms or anything chemistry-related.