The Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition
Beater 2 - Wimbourne Wasps.
Prompt - A human caused disaster.
Optional prompts included: (word) hardened, (word) biting, (word) family.
The evening air had been balmy – however as the sun had sunk below the tops of the buildings a chill clung in the atmosphere. The yellow lights of the city were still twinkling; this was the city that never sleeps and right now – in the aftermath of tragedy – no one was sleeping…
The front door of the house slammed loudly: "Hermione?" Ron's voice called out. "Where are you?"
"I'm in the living room." Hermione replied quietly.
"We're all being sent home, the whole ministry has gone into shutdown…" He burst in through their living room door; Hermione was standing in the middle of their living room watching a horrific scene unfold on the television. "What's going on?" On the screen thick black smoke was billowing from a skyscraper, the tail end of a plane visible projecting out of it.
"A plane has flowing into one of the world trade centres in New York." She replied, her arms were folded across her chest protectively and she was staring unblinkingly at the screen.
The blocks that surrounded where the two world trade centres had once stood were now cordoned off to the public; there was a huge silence that blanketed this centre part of the city, as many private residents had moved out of the area in the two weeks that had passed since the actual incident. The roads and pavements were coated with a thick layer of dust and the only imprint in this layer of grime was footprints. If you walked for five minutes in the other direction along Liberty Street you quickly would come into contact with the traffic, and the busyness and the people going about their everyday lives – it felt like walking into another dimension.
Hermione shifted her position leaning against a shop window as the darkness began to fall around the buildings and long shadows were being created by the few streetlamps that were still intact. She was waiting at the designated rendezvous point, but she couldn't see any other movement from either end of the alley; her heart was racing in her chest as she waited, nervous and wondering whether she had made the right choice.
*
"But… why have we been sent home from work?" Ron asked sounding confused, as the two of them stood simply watching the smoke and fire billowing from the building on the tv.
"Oh Ron! One of the sectors of the American Federation of Wizards is located right next to those buildings…" Hermione replied, "They're going to need help, once this is all over."
*
"Hello?" A voice came from out of the shadows behind where Hermione had been standing, she jumped in surprise and whipped around; a tall thin man was peering down at her. "Are you one of the ones from the British Ministry?" He asked rather cryptically, his voice ringing out in the silence of the night.
"Yeah, I'm Hermione Weasley," She answered, shaking the hand of the man.
"Rufus May," He introduced, "I can't begin to explain how generous it is of you to come and help us."
"It's nothing…" Hermione murmured, "Not after what has happened…" Rufus' shoulders dropped suddenly and his head hung dejected.
"It's such a waste…" He responded, "All those lives lost, and at the orders of one man and a band of his followers. Yet its times like these that the lines between muggle and wizard kind are the thinnest and cooperation can happen."
"Are there other people coming to help?" Hermione asked, she was beginning to shiver as the temperature around them began to drop as night fell properly.
"There's a team gone round just now to start the process." He answered, "We have to use disillusionment charms because the whole site is so tightly protected."
"Right," Hermione nodded, pulling out her wand to perform the charm on herself.
"We've been using protective and silencing enchantments around the site while we're working there – the muggles don't know anything about us helping, but if we can give them a help through magic then perhaps it will be easier for them…" Rufus informed her, and she nodded. "Shall we go round?"
"Yes," Hermione was steeling herself for the task that she had wanted to help with.
"I'll warn you, it's – it's not a pretty sight." He said.
"It's alright."
"You want to do what?!" Ron yelled, it was later on in the week – Hermione had been biding her time, trying to think of the best way to suggest to her husband what she wanted to do.
"I want to go and help…" Hermione repeated, "With the clean-up…"
"But why?" He sounded exasperated.
"Because… because… because it's important Ron." She had struggled to get her words out, especially because of the way Ron was staring at her. "It'll be good for the international relations; but it's mainly because I feel like it's something I should be doing…" Ron ran his hands through his hair, ruffling it into a mess, and sighed. For a few seconds speech seemed to be beyond him, but he finally reigned in his thoughts and when he spoke he no longer sounded exasperated, but disappointed.
"But… I thought we were going to start trying for a family Hermione…" He said quietly.
"We are!" Hermione insisted, "But we can do that after I've helped with the clean-up effort!"
"But we can't have a family if you're going to run off to help every time some nutter decides to do something like this!" Ron exclaimed.
The cold air was biting into Hermione's skin now as she walked alongside Rufus towards the barriers around the site. The first thing that struck Hermione was the sheer size of the pile of rubble, but then – there had been 110 floors… The hairs all over Hermione's body were standing on end, just being in the immediate vicinity of the attack that she had watched happen on television. She could see tiny pinpricks of light moving in and out of the rubble, each of them seemed to be working on their own small patch – but voices, with many different accents, were calling out to one another.
"There's about forty of us in total." Rufus told Hermione. "We decided that out main priority should be to shift some of the rubble, and…" Rufus paused, seemingly trying to decide whether or not Hermione could cope with the next bit of information. "And looking for bodies…"
"I can do that." She nodded, "Should I just choose a section and work through it?"
"Yeah, and yell if you find anything."
Hermione had been working, sifting through the fine pieces of rubble on the east side of the wreckage site, for no more than twenty-five minutes before she should her first body… Hardened as she had become to death because of the part she had played in the War against Voldemort, this was something different. It had been the glint of something silver that had attracted her eye, and on further inspection she had realised that it was the face of a wristwatch still attached to the arm of someone who was so badly burnt that their skin was a charred charcoal colour. They were the first, the first of so many…
After an hour working through the rubble, moving piles of glass and melted metal with her wand, she came to realise that every time a voice called out from someone else who was working, it meant that yet another body had been found.
By half four in the morning the temperature of the night air had dropped to almost 0 degrees, Hermione could feel her fingers going numb, but she did not care. The cold was nothing in comparison to the importance of this job. Even though Hermione was small, and not very strong, she made a conscious decision that whenever she found another body, she would tuck away her wand and carry the person down through the rubble, laying them in a row at the foot of the pile. By five am Hermione had found, and carried out, eleven bodies… some of them more burnt, or broken, than others; but when she laid them on the ground she closed their eyes, or positioned their arms, so they might have just been sleeping. The sight of the bodies brought tears to her eyes and her breath caught cold in her chest. Their lives had been taken away from them without warning, by the decision and actions of another human being – the least that she could do was try to give them a little bit of dignity now… and perhaps, if they were identified, give their families a bit more peace.
As the sun began to rise, Rufus swept around the entire site, calling for all the witches and wizards that had been working during the night to congregate. He spent a few moments thanking them all for their work, knowing that it would be appreciated – even if not understood by the muggles; then he dismissed them, and many began to leave in groups of twos and threes.
"Hermione?" He called out, she had just been beginning to leave, but she turned back when she heard her name.
"Yeah?" Rufus was staring at her with a slightly peculiar look on his face.
"You carried out each body personally." He stated.
"I did." She nodded.
"Why?" He asked curiously, Hermione frowned slightly.
"What do you mean why?"
"I just wondered, well – you have a wand, you could have gotten the bodies out by magic, rather than having to touch them." He expanded.
"They're not just bodies…" She replied, "They're people, and they died in horrific circumstances, beyond their control… So I wanted them to have the decency that someone cared enough to personally carry them down; even if they're unrecognizable and not able to be identified, I'll always remember them, so someone will remember the tragedy of their loss…"
"Oh…"
"I'm not going to go running off – I'm not running off!" Hermione argued, "I don't know how to explain it Ron, I just – I need to do this…" Ron was still looking annoyed. "Why do you want to help?" He asked, "There'll be loads of other people who do it."
"Please Ron…" Hermione reached her hand out and took hold of Ron's. "I know you want to start trying for a family, and so do I, but please, before we do – let me go and help all those families in New York who are missing someone…"
"I… well…" Ron stumbled. "I can't stop you." He said eventually. "I still don't completely understand why you want to go, but I'll be waiting for you to get back…"
Despite the site being closed to the public, Hermione remained – disillusioned – at the corner of the rubble site. During that night the team had uncovered one hundred and ninety three bodies, and they were now laid in rows; one after the other, after the other… Someone's mother, someone's brother, someone's daughter, someone's father, someone's sister, someone's son…
A/N: I hope you enjoyed reading this, and I'd love to know what you think about it! :)