Chapter 8
The Carpathia

An hour later Hermione woke; still cold and still in a lifeboat. She suddenly realized that Lily, Fred, and George were no longer beside her. In their place sat three men, the one that was closest to her, she recognized as Bruce Ismay. "Where are the people that were here?" she asked him.

"They transferred to lifeboat number two," he replied. Hermione uncovered her watch, three-thirty.

"Look!" someone shouted. Hermione looked up and saw one white flare fly through the air and disappear.

"Their rockets!" Hermione said, loudly. She pulled her wand out of an inside pocket of her outer most layer of robes. She raised her arm and sent up red sparks, nor was she the only one to do so. Other witches and wizards did so too. Now with a feeling of safety, Hermione looked toward the east where the sun was beginning to rise. Icebergs dotted the sea. She sat quietly while the boat rowed up to the Carpathia. Other lifeboats rowed up and waited their turn to climb aboard the ship.

Hermione climbed up the ladder hanging on the side of the Carpathia. When she reached the top, she climbed over the railing, landed on the deck, and for the first time in hours felt at last safe. Hermione didn't know how many boats had already come; judging by the crowded deck, most of the lifeboats had. She set off through the crowd to find the others. She found Fred, George, and Lily sleeping on the floor of one of the public rooms. Hermione decided to leave them, and continued to look for Harry and Ron. She looked in all public rooms, on the boat deck, and even in the cabins given to some of Titanic's first-class passengers. She found neither Harry nor Ron. Exhausted and close to tears, Hermione returned to the boat deck were she collapsed into one of the deck chairs. "Excuse me, miss," a stewardess said quietly to Hermione, "but there will be two religious services. One will be a short prayer of thanks for the seven hundred people saved, the other will be a memorial service for the fifteen hundred who perished."

The stewardess went on passing the word to the other survivors. It took a minute for this to penetrate Hermione's brain. Then she sat bolt upright. "Fifteen hundred?" she muttered. How can that be? So many lives lost, so many families torn apart, so many hearts broken, all in one long, terrible night. She had been silly to think Harry and Ron survived, while so many others did not. Hermione decided to wake the others and take them to the services with her.

Hermione thought that if the others had broken down during the service, she would too. But none of them did and neither did she. Hermione said a silent goodbye to Harry and Ron. Regretting not showing her true feelings toward Ron, Hermione wept silently for him. She had never told him that she loved him.

Lily's thoughts were on Harry, she was lament on having so little time to spend with him.

Fred and George grieved for their friend and little brother.

After leaving the dining room, Hermione said, "let's get something to eat." She led the way to the kitchens, where they got hot soup. Their meal was calm; there was little noise on the deck. Most survivors sat quietly, lost in grief. Others refusing to give up hope wondered the deck, looking for someone lost to the sea. Children unaware of the horrible truth played quietly, while their mothers were comforted, or conversed with other survivors.

"I'm going back to sleep," Lily said, Fred and George nodded and followed her.

Hermione got up and settled in a nearby deck chair. She sat there unable to sleep. Hermione was staring out at the sea, when a pair of women passed her, talking. "They've taken her to the hospital," one of them was saying. Hermione sat bolt upright at the word "hospital". It had never occurred to her that some of the survivors might be there. Of course they would, she thought, frostbite alone would send someone there. She stopped a passing steward.

"Excuse me, sir, but could you tell me where I might find the hospital, on board?" she asked him. The directions were specific. Hermione ran through the ship.

She was almost there when she saw someone; a tall man, walking toward her, he was going very slow, one hand trailing along the wall. She stopped and he, noticing her stopped too. He lifted his head and sunlight fell across his ginger hair. "Ron?" she whispered. He held his arms out; she ran, but stopped suddenly. I don't want to hurt him, she thought, and if I threw myself at him, as I want to, I might somehow hurt him. Hermione walked slowly toward Ron, and hugged him. He let her stay there for a while, and then backed away. She helped him walk along the corridor. "Ron," she asked, "I never did check the hospital, Harry?" He raised his head, his face was gray and tried looking, but a smile appeared there, and Ron nodded. "Is he going to be OK?"

"Harry will be just fine," Ron replied. His voice was barely above a whisper. A vision of what he must have went through to get on board this ship flashed through Hermione's mind and she shivered.

"How did you get here? How did you survive?" she asked.

He shook his head, "it doesn't matter," Ron said. "What about the others?"

"Fine, they're sleeping." Hermione stopped walking. "I want to see Harry, can you take me to him?" Ron nodded, and together they turned around and made their way to the hospital. They reached the last corridor when a scream stopped them.

"Ron!"

It was the others. Fred, George, and Lily wrapped their arms around Ron and Hermione. When they separated, Lily asked, "Harry?"

"He's in the hospital," Hermione said. As a group they entered the small white hospital; it was full, and they found Harry lying in one of the far beds.

"He should be good to go," the doctor told them.

An hour later, they stood on deck, dusk was falling over the ship and Hermione couldn't be any happier. Harry and Ron are alive, she told herself, and in a few days we'll be safe in New York. A stewardess came over to them and asked them their names for the survivors list. "We have a couple of first-class cabins left," she told them, "you can have them if you want."

"Sure, we'll take them," Fred said.

"Come, I'll take you to them." They followed her down two decks, where they stopped outside two cabins. Harry stared at the brass numbers on the doors: sixty-nine, and seventy. Harry and Ron walked into sixty-nine. It wasn't as luxurious as the Titanic had been, but it was even more comfortable.

"Have you seen any of the Malfoys or Snape?" Ron asked.

"No," Harry replied, "It was mostly first-class passengers that survived."

"I think there're putting out the list of survivors tomorrow," Ron said, sitting on one of the beds. Harry went over to the other bed and lay down.

"My head is pounding," Harry said.

"That's cause you were knocked out for awhile," Ron replied.

"What is today?" Harry asked

"Tuesday," Ron said, "Lets get something to eat." Harry got up and felt lightheaded; he reached for Ron and grabbed hold of the sleeve of Ron's robes before he passed out.