QL round 8, Dystopian Future; write a story that is set one week after Voldemort rises to power.
Prompts:
(word) cruel
(quote) 'An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind' - Mahatma Gandhi
(Dialogue) 'well played, voldy'
The Restricted Section: Shelf 1
The Quidditch Pitch: fish
Story Prompt: They had agreed on three meeting places in the event of an emergency. She was about to enter the last one.
…
Ginny took a deep breath and knocked three times.
"Hello? She called nervously.
There was no answer. Ginny sank down the door and put her hand in her hands. This was absolutely—
No. She couldn't give up, not yet. She had two more places to try, and he could still be here. Maybe he was being cautious? Anybody who was on the same planet these days would give up all of them and get their hundreds, no thousands of galleons.
She kicked the door open and was greeted by stares. Lots of stares.
Oh. When Neville had suggested a pub on a side street from Diagon Alley, she had assumed he knew everyone there, or that it was closed, or… something?
She hadn't expected a normal, busy pub. Of people who live on her planet and would give up all of them and get their thousands, no millions of galleons.
She turned and ran.
Ginny took a deep breath and knocked three times.
"Anyone?" she called nervously.
She gently pushed open the door and found a massive, empty, dark, eerie warehouse.
"Neville? Are you here somewhere?" Nobody.
Ginny once again sank down the wall. She was never going to find him. They had lost the war. Everything was gone. Well played, Voldy. She had lost her family, all her friends, the people she cared about. Hogwarts would be worse than last year. The kids would never understand the good magic could be used for. Muggleborns would never discover their powers, or at least the true extent of them. Muggles would be like subjects, to the almighty king.
Voldemort had won. It was over. She would never see her loved ones ever again. She had had three places to try and then—
Three. There was one more place to try. She could do this.
Ginny took a deep breath and knocked three times.
"Nev?" she called nervously. If he wasn't here, there was nowhere else to try.
There was a loud crash and then the door opened. Ginny did not see the face she was hoping for, all she saw was a shoulder. She froze for a second, and then she laughed. She fell into the arms of her best friend.
"I can't believe you've all been here!"
Neville smiled guiltily and the others laughed. Dean patted her on the shoulder.
"If it makes you feel any better, Seamus and I spent hours sitting an old bloody warehouse because we thought we might just have been the first ones there. Hours."
Everyone laughed, and then it was quiet.
"What happens now?" asked Ginny quietly.
There was another long silence.
Luna grabbed Ginny's hand and smiled. "We'll figure something out ."
"It doesn't matter for now!" insisted Neville. "We've found each other. Every single one of us is accounted for. It's a cruel world, an impossible world, and it'll be tough. But, we can fight back. We can't wait for another battle."
"What are you saying?" piped up Dennis. "We kill 'em all one by one? I'm down."
"No." said Luna softly. "An eye for an eye only makes the whole world blind."
Ginny blinked twice. "Luna, what are you saying? We give up?"
"We can't give up." Said Neville furiously. "But we can't beat them in a fight right now either. We need a plan. We cannot turn this into a war, because they will win. No. This is a mission.
"I like the sound of this."
Ginny tied the button on her cloak and pulled the hood over her head. They were on a rescue mission.
Seamus gave her the thumbs up from around the corner.
She leapt onto her broom and swept past all the windows. As she past, she gave Pavarti, Hannah and Ernie, all polyjuiced, the thumbs up and they all disapparated with a click. She turned the corner and waited for Neville to give her the thumbs up before she flew again, this time passing the signal to Dean, Katie, Padma and Anthony. She then waited for, in turn, Zacharias and Dennis to give her the third and fourth signal, so she could fly around again and pass it on to the next two waves: Luna, Terry, Angelina, Percy, Justin, Michael, Alicia and Lavender.
There weren't many in each wave, but they knew what they were doing. She nodded to Neville and saw him turn around to communicate with the others behind him and they all leapt onto their brooms and followed Ginny. This was going to be the most fun she had ever had.
Ginny flew through a window and crashed into a huddle of tall, long-coated men and launched straight for the ceiling before wheeling around and powering for the ground, whooping and hollering as she went. She heard Seamus and Neville on either side of her, and two others behind.
They were in charge of the distraction. And Merlin, were they distracting.
Lee passed Ginny his mug and she laughed and re-filled the cocoa.
"Who knew a muggle creation would be this good?"
She laughed again. "Well, you're going to have to get used to it. We can't really use anything magical, or they could track us back to the house."
"So, this is life on the run then?"
Everybody looked at each other sadly. A couple of the new-comers laughed quietly.
"Well, anyway," said Lee, immediately trying to re-raise the mood. "The flying fish in the Department of Magical Transportation idea was inspired, who thought of that?"
This time everyone laughed and Ginny looked around at her new family.
It was sad and broken and incomplete but they would get through this. It might take a month, a year, a decade, but they would restore everything to how it used to be.
It had only been a week. How much worse could it get?