They did not know how the muggle woman had come into their encampment.
From everything they knew it should have been impossible. She seemed to possess no means of passing through any magical barriers, even if they were mostly based on suggestion. Hannah made a note to get Hermione back out there at some point.
Currently, the strange woman was resting in one of the huts that some of the other women were using. She was, according to Moody, from the Kachin ethnic group, and according to anyone with eyes to see her, greatly distressed. From the state of undress in which they found her, the Hufflepuff witch just sort of guessed that no one wanted to vocalize what had probably happened.
"Do we have any idea who did it?" she asked Moody.
"If we did, we couldn't do anything about it. The army of Myanmar would definitely make reports of being attacked by a group of wizards."
He had explained that to Grindelwald's credit, the problem with fighting regular armies was not their abilities. Standard shield charms could easily block bullets, and they had other weapons, but as long as a group of wizards understood the task before them, they could wipe out any unit of normal soldiers. The problem was maintaining Secrecy. If they attacked any unit in the world, no matter how quickly they wiped it out, someone else would find out about it. Units were in constant communication along their chain of command; even a remote detachment usually reported back at least once a day. There was no realistic way to cut off all their communications, and even if they did, someone would notice the absence.
"Can't we help her, then? We could make her forget about it..."
"That's the plan. We were going to have to modify her memory anyway, seeing as she found this place."
Something that Hannah was only just picking up was that the ex-Auror had some reason to know that the army of Myanmar was responsible. He would not just state something like that without having some idea. Does he know that they're active in this area?
"Why do you say it was the army?" she asked as he turned to go.
"There's really no other reason they would torture her this much, Miss Abbott. She's a lone woman living in the mountains; she hasn't done anything. We found bruises and cigarette burns all over her body and the nat-kadaw said that her spirit is damaged. This was a war rape."
She had heard about the concept, but she had never seen it before. Not for the first time, she wanted the wizarding world to bend the normal people to their will, just to stop that sort of thing from happening. At the same time, though, she doubted anyone who was in power would be terribly interested in making things better for the muggles; Grindelwald just wanted power over them, Voldemort was not concerned about them at all, and the Ministry probably considered them about as irrelevant as the wizards who needed to die to cement their rule.
Having received a limited amount of news from back home through other Order members, she understood that there was a new, probably manufactured, trend of not carrying a wand at all. Celestina Salmoneus, a celebrity of the magical food world, essentially led the charge of relying on house elves and pre-warded cooking materials and to her credit produced highly acclaimed cuisine. She and a handful of other easily controlled savants of some industry, like theatre, music, and simply being related to someone controversial, had been in turn interviewed by the Prophet, and come to a consensus.
"It's just a commonly acknowledged fact," Danaus Dobsworth was quoted. "The best witches and wizards can use magic just fine without a wand, hell, even Albus Dumbledore didn't have any trouble with it- not that I'd be associating with him." Well, no, I wouldn't think so, since you were expelled from Hogwarts for verbally abusing a second-year until she tried to kill herself.
Hannah's blood boiled as she read the next bit. It was all she could do not to set the smuggled paper on fire.
"I mean, unless I'm wrong, it's mostly wizards with the death grip on the wands, right? Witches across Britain have really impressed me with the way they've compl- with the way that they haven't complied with, well, Dumbledore's vision of a world where it's just- everyone's got a wand and it's every witch for herself. Wizards are just being ridiculous right now. I mean, we know why they're doing it."
The Hufflepuff with was spared the anger endorphins of his actually spelling out the somewhat phallic appearance of wands, but it was possible the interviewer just decided it did not need to be included; most interviews were just bits and pieces of the questions that were actually asked and the answers given; only the parts that supported the predetermined narrative were actually used. She imagined Ron joking that Umbridge was probably croaking with joy in her grave.
Having a thought to check on him, she stopped dead in her tracks when one of the wards was tripped. Probably everyone in the base was aware of it, but she specifically remembered Hermione saying that when she felt a chill in her feet, there was an intruder coming from the east.
"Hagrid!" she cried out. "They're near the Demiguises!" As she ran it annoyed her that the assault was completely without warning except for the one her friend had installed herself. She doubted that the half-giant was sensitive enough in his feet to be able to feel the ward going off, but if she remembered correctly, he was already over there. The distinctive sound of guns rang out. Damn. We just realized that muggles could get through if they were bull-headed enough- why didn't we get Hermione over here straight away? Did anyone contact her?
Running without thinking, she was reminded of the battle for Hogwarts, wherein she ended up with Parvati, worn out and nearly collapsing on the stairs until they practically crawled back to the Great Hall to replenish their strength. She caught sight of none other than Remus Lupin, the other werewolf, telling Andromeda the men had to be chased into the jungle, down the stream, up the stream, and wherever else they went.
"Aren't they running?" she asked, almost instinctively.
"Yes, but that doesn't mean they won't be back. You're on stream duty. They know they've seen something they weren't supposed to see, so they'll know your looking for them." Perhaps he noticed her expression. "It's the Statute, Hannah, no one else is going to enforce it, and someone has to."
She sighed and ran off to the muddy stream without further complaint, though she wanted to say it seemed like the attackers were drawing them out. Even if they are muggles, they could still lead us into a trap. Having cut wards into her own skin for the third or fourth time, she was quite sure she would not die because of bullets, but she could not say the same about everyone in the base. Casting a detection charm one of Ron's brothers showed her, there was no one directly beneath her in the muddy stream when she reached it.
The water was a neutral tone and moved slowly at the present. The British had used horses to traverse the rugged terrain rather than bothering with roads; moving quickly was a matter of adjusting to the environment. Silently casting a few stunners at the water just in case, all she hit was an unlucky and probably very confused fish. She felt like she would be wasting her time if she went all the way down the stream and found no one, but whether it was a waste or not could only be determined by a thorough search, so she ignored the protest of her body and mind as she scanned the trees. The footprint revealing charm showed prints going in every direction, but there had just been a scuffle when the muggles discovered the camp, so she expected some noise.
"Protego," she incanted, a yellow shield coming out behind her, blocking the bullets directly after she smelled gun oil on a crosswind. Whether or not a werewolf could be killed with mortal instruments in human form, she did not want to find out. The uniformed Burmese soldier jumped out at her rather than running, and she stunned him. His body landing in the water, she had to move him out, lest he drown. Well, there is hardly a point if we just kill him back at the camp, is there?
They were running into the problem with their local recruits who were in favor of killing muggles rather than memory charming them, because a charmed muggle could find them again just as easily as before. Moody had explained that killing someone leaves a hole, and holes raise questions, but it seemed they were not terribly concerned with Secrecy in the first place. She had no way of knowing whether they really believed in the basis for preferring to kill over erase, or if they had some other reason for wanting muggles dead.
"How far have you gone down this river, Abbot?" Moody asked, appearing from behind and making her jump. He had, it seemed, no qualms at all with using the invisibility cloak to sneak up on her. "Seen anyone other than this bloke?"
"No," she said. "The detection charms didn't find anything further on. I can't smell anything interesting, either." The Hufflepuff witch had told herself that there was no sense still being embarrassed or ashamed of being a werewolf when the ex-Auror already knew about it.
"Can you smell fear?"
"No. I mean, I've heard that people sweat differently when they're afraid, but I wouldn't be able to exclude my own fear or the fear of other Order members. I can smell in a radius of about one or two miles, and I can hear in a radius of about six miles. You're not being too loud except when you appear right behind me because my senses adjust to how much I'm using them."
"Interesting. I suppose that might be why the local creatures are so surprised when- Get the soldier back to camp. We'll obliviate them all at once."
"Mobilicorpus," she incanted without protest. It might just be my imagination, sir, but you came dangerously close to an apology right there. As she moved the unconscious body back to the encampment, she decided it was unreasonable to expect people to treat her exactly how a werewolf wanted to be treated, because they had no idea what it was like. Feeling comfortable enough with him, she had told Ron bits and pieces of it, though he admitted he would not remember everything.
At the base she found the building for keeping their temporary captives, trying as it was not to think of it as a prison, and dumped the soldier in there after body-binding him. The stunner would wear off eventually, but to her knowledge, the curse would stay there until it was removed. Malfoy had some kind of amulet that got him out of curses, but she had no idea how to make it. I should really ask Hermione if she knows anything. Come to think of it, now that we have a moment to think, we need to contact her anyway.
Hastily writing a letter and trying to make it not sound like she was blaming her friend for the security breach, she requested that she come over and improve the defenses against muggles. Generally suggestion was sufficient and preferred, because if the particularly bull-headed ran into a wall, it stood a chance of being even worse than someone getting in, because fewer people would notice. The only thing worse than hearing about a Secrecy breach is not hearing about it.
When Lupin returned, he brought back a fair few more prisoners. From their uniforms, some of the locals were able to tell it was a small detachment, but they did not know exactly how many men were in each unit. Moody suggested getting it out of the prisoners and walked off as if he were about to go do that. I can't help but feel like if we didn't have these prisoners, we wouldn't even be able to deal with one or two of them showing up.
When the ex-Auror returned with the information, it seemed the military base was miles away from their encampment, and only a small patrol had been going in their direction, tracking the footprints of the muggle woman. When they neared, it seemed more and more like there were people around, with broken twigs on the ground and erosion by the stream. They had been trained to recognize Kachin settlements ensconced deep in the mountains and jungles, and apparently were tasked with hunting them down and destroying them. Hannah had no idea why they were being killed, the muggle woman had no idea why they were being killed, and perhaps unsurprisingly, the soldiers had no idea why they were ordered to kill them.
From what she had heard, the majority of the country was the Burma ethnic group based in the valley formerly controlled by the Pagan Empire, though various powers had controlled it since then, including the Chinese and her own countrymen. When British rule fell apart after the Second World War, the country was divided between the Burma people, who preferred a central Socialist government, and the smaller ethnic groups who wanted it to at least be a federal system in which the states had some control of their own territory.
With the letter sent to Hermione already, she guessed it would be there and back in a matter of days, assuming there was no interception. Sending a message to expect it through the closed floo, she expected that intercepting letters was less of a viable strategy as long as people were expecting it, because everyone had a sense of the absurd speed at which owls could fly. On a related note, she supposed, it was the same with propaganda.
"Hannah, are you all right?" Lupin asked when he found her. "You didn't suffer any injuries?"
"They weren't carrying any silver," she said. "I don't imagine they expected to find a magical settlement here, but if they did, they had no way of expecting there would be werewolves here."
"I would hope not." Though he paused, a local wizard interrupted them.
"They'll be back," he said, adjusting the red cap he was wearing. It was her understanding that he had been practicing his English off the Order members, and since he had grown confident enough to speak, had taken on the post of the voice of the locals, and to say the least, she had not expected to find him nearly as annoying as she did. Not by a long shot for the first time, she was reminded that the Order was there to do more than just help people.
"If they come back, we'll know how to deal with them," Hannah said. "We're not just holding people indefinitely when they've done nothing-"
"We were hardly suggesting holding them, unless we are to also adopt your tradition of coffins. I would not say they did nothing."
"Well, let me finish. They've done nothing to harm our position or the Statute. I know they... did something horrible to a normal woman, but that's not something we can fix."
It challenged her more than she let on. She wanted nothing more than to take over the muggle government of Myanmar and force them to figure out who was responsible for the many crimes their army had committed against innocent people. It was perfectly clear to her that the Order was capable, and to do so would almost certainly have good results, but they would be going against everything for which the Order stood, and from a more practical perspective, the end of Secrecy would mean the Death Eaters and various Ministries would be able to take over several other countries.
"I would not say there is nothing to be done about it."
"Well, what do you recommend? Going through their whole army to find the people who did it, drag them here, and put them in prison?"
"That would be a good place to start."
"They're not under our authority," she said. "They don't know we exist, so they can't consent to our government."
"Our government would be good for them!" The weizza was positively glaring at her.
"They're not children. They're capable of deciding what would be good for them."
"Not if they don't know we exist-"
"Fine. Once and for all, when I have the consent of our leaders, we'll bring some regular Burmese people here and ask them if they want to be governed by us. If I win, we obliviate them and put them back. If you win, we'll join Grindelwald or something." She took a breath.
"You are only saying that because you know the Order would never allow-"
"I'm saying it because I know what the Burmese will say. If the question we mean to ask them is whether or not they want a greater power to assume control over their country, then they have already answered it."
"That was your people- Of course they would not want to be governed by the British, but if weizza were to reveal themselves-"
"Which ethnic group?" she asked. "Evidently, no one can agree about that. You realize there are weizza among the Burma people, right? There are probably more of them than there are among the Kachin people." She sighed a bit. "Even if the Death Eaters or someone else never gets involved, do you really think the people of your own country are just going to accept that weizza from various ethnic groups are going to take over? I can't help but to think that would be like Scottish, Welsh, and Gypsies just deciding they were going to be in charge of the UK without thinking about how the English might respond."
"Then we don't have to tell anyone, just this once we'll go after the-"
"Is it ever just this once?" she asked, shaking her head. "I actually knew a lot of people who were like you; I had to live with them for a few years. Everything they ever said was just a means to an end. They couldn't accept that some people were going to get away with crimes if we had fair trials, so that had to be thrown out. I know I'm younger than you and a lot of the people here, but basically they weren't really behaving like adults at all; they were just being emotional and then rationalizing their emotions."
"I expect you dealt with them the same way?"
"No, they just sort of shunned us until we made things inconvenient for them; then they tried to kill us. You've been a lot better so far," she said. At least now I know why he annoys me so much. "Anyway, the way they want to run things isn't based on anything that actually works, it's just something they want to work, so they make up whatever they have to make up to convince people that it will." Well, with Crouch heading up the entire Ministry, maybe now they'll get to see what happens when they actually have power.
It seemed that during their conversation there had been some onlookers, mostly not understanding what they were saying, she imagined, but if she had really been talking to the voice of the people, then whether he agreed with her or not, he would take her words back to the Burmese allied with the Order and faithfully relate them. Perhaps not everyone would take her side; all she could do was explain it, and perhaps some would leave the alliance, but at the very least no one would think they were hiding things or that they were inconsistent.
Hannah sighed when she had a moment to herself. The arguing that she had to do sometimes had a way of helping her to sort out what she personally believed. It reminded her of all the times Terry and Ron had butted heads. Going to check on him, there were some people standing outside with confused expressions. Hagrid was among them.
"Damn sorry, Miss Abbott. I wasn' watchin' 'im. Nothin' happened ter the Demiguises, in case yeh were wonderin'-"
"Hagrid, please, what happened?" Please don't tell me someone killed him.
"Not sure. He's gone."
