Written for the challenge on His Most Faithful Forums to include the mention of a muggle item. I chose a radio, from the 1940s. One of the speeches below is directly from the words of Winston Churchill. I adore history and it seemed right to include the view of Tom.
500 words exactly
8th of May 1945
The dining room in the orphanage was unnaturally crowded as every resident, both staff and child, crowded into the room.
Tom Riddle was one of them.
Squished between a boy five years his junior and an auburn haired girl of seventeen who insisted on brushing her arm against his at every opportunity, he vaguely considered he may have made the wrong decision. Perhaps he should have stayed at Hogwarts for the Easter Break rather than return to the foul orphanage that he loathed. However, curiosity had forced him to return.
Even if he was surrounded by muggles, he wanted to hear this for himself rather than as a report he would read in the paper.
At Hogwarts, magic was so intense that muggle technology did not operate. It meant, if he wanted to hear this, he would have to resort to returning to the orphanage for the holidays. He had no guarantee he would even hear this broadcast, yet he knew there was a possibility news might break soon. There had been whispers and rumours it was drawing closer.
He had been right.
It was upon them now.
Standing at the front of the room, Mrs Cole adjusted the dials on the radio and, finally, the announcement they had all been waiting for left the instrument in the gruff and distinct voice of the muggle Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
"Yesterday morning at 2:41 a.m. at Headquarters, General Jodl, the representative of the German High Command, and Grand Admiral Doenitz, the designated head of the German State, signed the act of unconditional surrender of all German Land, sea, and air forces in Europe to the Allied Expeditionary Force, and simultaneously to the Soviet High Command."
Tom closed his eyes as emotions swept the hall. There were screams, there were cries, there was applause and there were those who listened to the rest of the speech in silence.
He was the later.
He remembered how it had been crouched in shelters as the bombs fell over London or the fear even he felt that the German bombers would return even months after the attacks. He remembered hands that fought hard not to tremble as he read the news stories from the front. He remembered the feeling of dread as the expansion of conscription continued and his own birthday drew closer. With it, the possibility that he could be called up and would perish alone on some distant muggle battlefield.
Tom kept his face calm from the filth that he was surrounded by, but even he felt relieved that it was all over. He did not know if Grindelwald had yet been defeated, yet he was not as much of a threat to Britain and, more importantly, to his own safety.
Opening his eyes, he listened as the last of the speech was finished and silence settled over the hall.
For the first time, he felt the same as the muggles: Relieved.
It was over.
It was finally over.