Written for The Houses Competition, Year Two, Round Seven
House: Hufflepuff
Year: 5th
Category: Short
Prompts:[Speech] "I miss moments like this more than anything."
Wordcount: 1527
Betas: Aya
Title: Breaking the Statute of Secrecy
Summary: American witches and wizards were supposed to stay out of the Revolutionary War. But were the British going to do the same?
Emily Rappaport appeared in a sandy clearing surrounded by the highest dunes on Cape Charles. Her arrival had disturbed a cluster of plovers clacking their little beaks. The tiny birds scurried out of reach on their twig-like legs. They ran across the sand and out to the beach, where they played tag with the incoming waves, and caught sand fleas in the retreating surf for their afternoon meal.
"I miss moments like this more than anything," she sighed, gazing into the blue expanse of the sky. Everything here was so peaceful.
Forty kilometers away from the nearest No-Maj settlement, the island was where her Auror team often met to discuss delicate matters in private. From here, she had a clear view of the inlet to Yorktown and could also see the fleet of newly arrived ships, deliberately moving into battle formation. She counted twenty-four of them, spread from the cape all the way to the mainland, blocking any entrance or exit from the Chesapeake Bay. They flew French flags, which shouldn't have surprised her. MACUSA had gathered intelligence that the French were allied with the Americans and were opposing the British forces as far south as the Caribbean.
Yorktown had recently fallen under British control, and ever since the unfortunate incident where a rogue wizard had cursed a copy of the Declaration of Independence meant for King George the Third, the President of MACUSA had ordered all British-held territories to be closely monitored for unauthorized magical advantages over the Americans. This was Emily's post, and she had been sent to watch and listen, and report anything unusual going on within the walls.
It wasn't ever supposed to be like this. Emily had known Robert Foursquare personally, having trained with him in Williamsburg as Junior Aurors. Robert had always been a hot-headed mess, but she'd never expected him to turn rogue and put a curse on the scroll meant for King George. It had been meant as a joke, a simple leg-locking curse, nothing that would permanently harm the monarch. But it had done considerable political damage, summoning the wrath of the Ministry of Magic back in England, putting all American witches and wizards on constant watch that no magic should 'get out of hand' like that again.
Here, she could finally see what all the commotion in the town was about. Beyond the cape, in the ocean, a mass of ships approached from the north. Emily reached through the slits in her skirts and pulled a small spyglass from her pocket. She peered through the glass and spied English flags on the main masts. This was bad news. There weren't enough French ships present to take on a fleet that large.
She adjusted the spyglass and looked again. There was something else behind the ships, coming in from the east. It was barely a speck on the horizon. As the British ships came closer, the speck grew at an alarming rate.
The sound of cannon fire flushed out the little birds that had resettled around her. Panicked, they rose into the air, abandoning their nests. The French, already lined up for the confrontation, had engaged the British.
Emily took cover behind the dunes, but positioned herself to continue watching the sky. The speck had grown by a magnitude of ten in less than a minute. Her spyglass revealed its shape as a huge gliding bird, but as it got closer, it appeared to be something larger, and more sinister.
More shots were fired at the British. The odds were truly now against the colonists. Frustrated, Emily wished she could do something to help. The wizarding population had the means to turn the tide of this war if they were called upon, but any assistance by magic was strictly forbidden. Her presence on the coast was to ensure that no rogue wizards interfered with the fight between the No-Majs and the Muggles.
This was not their fight.
But that thing out there was very troubling. Through her spyglass, Emily watched the flying thing shift its trajectory, pulling up from its forward motion and backing away from the smoke. The cannonfire seemed to confuse it, and suddenly, a large stream of fire came straight out of it, turning the surface of the ocean to steam.
She pulled the spyglass from her face and stared, open-mouthed at the shape in the sky.
"It cannot be," she whispered, recognizing the dragon breed at once.
The Ukrainian Ironbelly was far away from its mountain home across the ocean. Every volley of cannon made its flight path more and more erratic. It swooped down, skimming its talons over the water, and then pulled up again, looping back, and then gliding forward behind the incoming ships. Then it barreled downwards again and let out another jet of fire from its open maw. She had never seen a dragon this close, or this angry and out of control before. The massive beast's body measured twice the length of the largest ships in either fleet, and its wingspan sent a shadow over the waters like an incoming storm cloud. Even though it seemed to have come in with the eastern British ships, its fire was indiscriminate.
Emily watched in horror as the fire caught on the sails of the approaching ships and burned straight through them. The British clearly had not been expecting this, and their ships slowed to turn on the dragon. Their direct cannon fire incensed it even more.
The dragon soared overhead and let out a great bellow, spreading fire everywhere. The French were too busy to pay any mind to what was going on beyond their line, but Emily saw it. She fished out a small silver tinderbox and popped it open. Polishing the small mirror inside of it, and then blowing off the white dust that her sandy apron had deposited into the hinges, she shouted into it.
"I need to speak to the President right away!"
An eye appeared in the small mirror that wasn't her own. "The President is busy," it stated in an official, snooty tone.
Emily practically snarled at it and shouted back, "I'm rather busy too. Look!" She pointed the tinderbox mirror up as the dragon soared right over her head, turned, and headed away from the land. It swooped down, grabbed one of the sinking hulls in its huge talons, and flew out towards the open sea.
She made sure that the little tinderbox mirror had an eyeful of the whole thing. Then she turned it back to her. The eye inside the mirror was wide and fearful.
"Tell the President that it's an emergency. I need the Head Auror's team to converge at Cape Charles immediately."
The eye pulled back from the mirror until she could see the entire worried face of the President's aide. "H-how many do you need?"
"As many as you can muster," she demanded.
"Right away!"
With that, Emily snapped the tinderbox closed and rose from behind the dunes. The cannon fire between the French line and the northern British fleet still dragged on, but that wasn't what concerned her now.
The British Ministry of Magic had grossly stepped over the line. The mutual decree of "sitting this one out" had officially been broken, never mind the Statute of Secrecy. How else had the British acquired a dragon? Clearly, they had lost control of the beast, and now it was up to her and whatever American wizards she could gather to clean up the catastrophe. She had no time to curse the name of Robert Foursquare and his stupidity. Right now, her priority was to gather the No-Majs that required obliviating, or hot-headed scourers would rush across the land, armies or not. It would be worse than the Salem masacre. Most of the No-Maj population was armed and already at war with each other.
Emily ran up the beach until her shoes were muddied in the surf and her skirts were heavy with soaked up seawater. While the French line still engaged the British in the bay with cannon fire, she gazed out to the east.
Beyond the fierce battle, where she expected to see the remains of a great British supply fleet, not one vessel remained. Emily's knees buckled under the rush of the incoming tide.
They weren't her people, but they were people.
Gone. All of them.
She reached into her skirts and took out the tinderbox once again. She opened it and tapped at it until the eye appeared, wide and frightened, in the mirror.
"The team is almost ready," the eye said to her. "We are about to send them by portkey to your location."
"Call it off," Emily said wearily.
"Call it… what are you saying? Is everything… are you in danger?"
"No, I'm fine. There's no need for an entire team. Just send an emissary for an official inquiry into a gross breach of Secrecy. There is no one left to obliviate. See for yourself." Emily held up the tinderbox mirror for the wizards on the other side of the country to see for themselves.
The eastern sea lay empty. Only ashes and smoldering embers remained.