CH. 16 "The ICWW"
Very critical additions and corrections by my beta FriendofMolly.
As always, reviews make both of us very happy.
Harry was worried as he and Albus, Ron and Rose came through the floo in Switzerland and started towards the auditorium where the ICWW was meeting. The first subject was the document from the Elves, and there were large groups from several countries opposing the document.
"Everybody, be on guard," Harry said as, surrounded by Aurors, they made their way thru the streets. The crowd was getting thicker, and Harry could sense some jostling that seemed to be separating Albus and him from the others.
"Albus," Harry said. "Be on guard!"
"Yes, father," Albus said. Albus was usually a little paranoid in crowds anyway, but he too did not like what was happening. All of a sudden Al saw a man take a gun out of his robe and start to point it at him. Al did the only thing he could think of to do. He levitated the gun out of the hands of the person, above his head, and pointed it down. The trigger of the gun had been locked on, and as Al levitated the gun three of the bullets hit his Kevlar and magic robe.
Al could sense that the gun was locked on, so he pointed it the only place he could and not risk an innocent getting hurt. With great effort he kept the gun firing right at the head of the person who pointed the gun at him.
When the gun stopped firing there was no more force holding it from coming down, and gravity and Al's magic pushed the now hot gun right into the bloody mess that at one time was a person. Except for the arms the wizard just looked like hamburger, sizzling hamburger, like the illustration from one of the worse horror movies you could ever see.
It was later figured out that the gun held sixty bullets, and that all but the first ten had pierced the head of the wizard who had quite obviously tried to kill Albus. The wizard also had a Kevlar robe, that contained all the bullets that hit the wizard inside his robe.
Albus tried to take a breath, and almost collapsed. The first three bullets had taken his breath away, but the whole attack was over in thirty seconds. Now he had to breathe. Harry grabbed hold of Albus as he collapsed, shaking uncontrollably. A healer was there almost immediately, doing a quick scan. Before he was finished blood started to spurt out of an artery in Albus's neck. The healer put his wand on the place where the blood was coming out, and called for help. Harry backed away as three healers started working on Albus.
Harry scanned the room, which was in utter chaos, with a number of other wounded people. He spotted someone intently looking at Albus with malevolence in his eyes. The wizard's wand was out and pointing at Albus and Harry heard the Avada Kedavra curse. He deflected the curse, as he watched Dobedo take out one of the wizards' legs with his cleaver. Somehow the wizard stayed standing as Dobedo took out the leg, and then stood suspended in midair as Dobedo took out his other leg. Meanwhile two other Aurors were helping Harry deflect the curses. Dobedo then jumped up and severed the wizards' wand arm, which continued to try and throw curses. The wizards other arm came over and grabbed Dobedo by the neck. Dobedo waved his cleaver arm around severing the wizards' head, but the hand would not let go. Finally two other Elves appeared, and they pulled Dobedo free.
Harry looked around for any more trouble. He spotted one dead witch who's head was almost missing it was so damaged, and a large number of wounded, but no more evidence of attacks. A number of people threw up at the gory site, as Swiss and British Aurors rushed to secure the scene.
Gerhardt Richter appeared, and said, "Please clear the area. If you saw anything that may be important there is an Auror station there." Gerhardt pointed to a sign in the air, with several Aurors standing under it talking to people. "If you did not see anything until after the attack, please leave, and let the Swiss staff take care of this crime scene."
Harry turned back to Albus, who had a bag of something attached to an arm, and a nasty scar on his neck. The healer said, "Blood replenishment potion. It only needs to be on him for ten more minutes, and then we can use potions."
"Is that all?" Harry asked.
"Magic core needs a little rest. If he was not so young we would say not to use a wand for a couple of weeks," the healer said.
Albus looked at his father, and said, "I think someone doesn't like us."
Harry nodded.
"Is everybody going to be OK?" Albus asked.
"Both of the attackers are dead. I need to ask a few people, Albus. You did a fantastic job!"
"Not good enough, if other people are hurt," Albus said.
Harry looked over to where the dead witch lay. "A Chinese Auror took a bullet protecting one of her charges," one of the Aurors told Harry.
A small Elf healer came up to Harry and said, "Dobedo needs a few days' rest. We would take him home, but his mate is here. He will rest in bed they share here, with a healer there the rest of the day. He will be fine in a few days, but is very weak. Magic cursed hand."
Another Auror came up to Harry. "All the bullets were cursed, Auror Potter, sir. That is why they did so much damage. There were powerful curses on each one. You and your son saved a lot of lives today."
Harry looked around, and thought that if he and Albus had not been in the middle of this big crowd there would not have been this damage. They would have to be even more careful.
The second in command of the Swiss Aurors told Harry, "Go with your son. We have everything under control here." Harry accompanied Albus as they took him to a hospital, and put him in a private room. Two healers were with him, one keeping tabs on him, a wand touching him every couple of minutes. The healer explained, "We are looking for delayed curses. In another two hours we should be able to let Albus go, but we will be checking him every few hours for another week."
Albus said, "D…D…Dad, I just k…killed someone. The bible says, says, says not to kill. I…I… feel sick. I feel, I feel ... dirty, like I did something terrible."
Harry said, "You defended yourself, and you saved a lot of other lives today, Albus. I really don't see what else you could do. I know of nothing in the bible that forbids you from defending yourself."
Albus said, "Do…do…dad…do you want me to feel GOOD that I killed someone. I feel awful."
Harry shook his head before he murmured, "No I don't think you should feel good, I never felt good about being the cause of Tom Riddle's death, but he was trying to kill me. I did what I had to do. But I felt horrible about ending his life.
"I have worked as hard as I can so that there is very little killing in Great Britain. I try to make sure the Aurors and other people in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement only kill as a last resort, when they themselves are under imminent threat. That is one reason we got rid of Hit Wizards and merged them into the DMLE. But Albus, we just cannot get rid of all violence when people are doing violence to us."
Albus was all but crying. "I'm just not sure God will forgive me. Killing is really bad."
Harry sat on the bed next to across from his son, taking him in his arms, while he hugged him. Harry said, "Would it help if I had one of the priests talk to you?"
Albus nodded yes, so Harry tried to contact Apollo Scherica. Bishop Scherica had heard of the attack, and he and a couple of his priests were consoling people. He immediately took the call from Harry.
"Albus feels terrible about killing the attacker, Apollo," Harry told the Bishop. "He is not sure if God will forgive him."
"I will come right over," Apollo said. A short time later he was in Albus's room.
"Hello, Albus Severus Potter," Apollo said.
"Hello, Bishop Scherica," Albus said.
"That was a very brave and noble thing you did, Albus," Apollo said.
"But I killed someone. That's against a commandment," Al said.
"The proper translation of that commandment is not 'do not kill' but 'do not murder.' You may have killed that wizard, in self-defense, but you did not murder him. What you did saved many lives, and was the furthest thing from murder."
"Should I feel good about it?" Al asked.
"I think every taking of a human life is a tragedy, even if it is absolutely necessary," Apollo said. "You need to forgive not only others, however. You need to forgive yourself. You did the best you could do. Humans are never perfect, and often the best we can do is not enough to fix all the ills of the world.
"We will be judged on if we tried or not, not if we succeeded, Al."
"So it is alright to feel bad about it?" asked Al.
"It is better to feel bad about it than to glory in it," Apollo said. "We should never be proud that we killed, even if we had no choice."
Apollo and Al talked for another hour, until the healers said Al could be discharged.
As Albus was being discharged Apollo said to Harry, "I cannot believe Albus is not quite seven. He is as knowledgeable, and as mature, as most of the teen-agers I talk to."
"He and his cousin Rose Weasley have always been scary smart," Harry said. "It is a concern. He could start Hogwarts tomorrow, and handle the course work."
"He needs to be home until he is eleven," Apollo said. "He is emotionally mature as well, but he is still a child. I will pray for your family, as I already am praying. You do not have an easy road ahead of you."
"Thank you," Harry said, grateful that they had survived another attack, but very worried that they would continue.
Instead of starting before lunch, the International Confederation of Witches and Wizards started at about two in the afternoon. Everybody who was originally supposed to be there was, even a rather shaken Albus. When Harry and Albus walked in many of the Magi and Elves rose and applauded. Albus tried to make himself invisible, but finally had to acknowledge the applause.
The fights started right away.
"We are not trying to change anything," Harriet would insist.
"We have just discovered some of our history," John Rivendell, Harry's head elf in Switzerland explained. "We have words that translate into Wand Carrying Elf or High Elf or something like that. We need English and French and German and Chinese and other Magi words for the Elfish words.
"You cannot tell us not to translate the words, and to tell us to translate them wrong is neither honest nor helpful to you or to us. We are just trying to deal with some of our history."
"You are trying to become Wand Carrying Elves," one of the opposing wizards said. "I know there are not enough votes for you to get what you want." A roar of approval went up, along with some vocal dissent.
Harry finally said, "I propose we accept this document only as a first attempt to translate elfish words into contemporary languages. We will ask any Magi who know Elfish to help in the translation."
You could not really ask someone who did not know any Elfish to help translate the document, so after much discussion and dissent it was approved. Of course the only Magi who knew the Elfish Language were the students studying the language with the elves. Hermione and Harriet had the students sitting with their parents, not in a block, partly so that the opponents of the translation document would not imagine the students as a block for change and against them.
As soon as the ICWW was over Al and Rose started language classes with the other students.
As the students were gathering Jean-Louis Felion said, "Did you see Albus kill that wizard? It was fantastic magic! Great job, Albus! How did it feel?"
"I killed someone," Albus said. "It felt terrible!"
"He was trying to kill you and other people!" Jean-Louis said.
Sarah Firewalker said, "I'm glad Albus won, but it's not like killing someone is something you should get happy about."
Rose asked, "How do the elves feel about what Albus did?"
There was a lot of talk in Elfish, not all of it understood by some of the children. Albus did understand most of it. Finally the Elves told the children that it was a sad necessity. There was a lot of emotional talk that is very hard to translate from the Elfish to another language.
Finally Jean-Louis said, in English, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry you had to kill someone, and I'm sorry I thought it was a good thing. I guess I just didn't realize how bad it could make you feel."
The students went over the document that had been submitted to the ICWW again, and worked with Harriet and, occasionally Hermione, to refine the language of the document. They left it as a work in progress before they ended the meeting that started their language training, but came back to it several more times over the course of the summer.
Harry and Ginny talked to Al on the phone or using the mirrors almost every night, but it was not the same thing as having him home. Harry and Ginny knew that Ron and Hermione, and usually Jean Grainger, were also talking to Rose every night, but that they missed her too.
The children were meeting in Switzerland, and this year every parent of each one of the children was also in Switzerland at the International Confederation of Witches and Wizards. Harry and Hermione were trying to get the conference to change its name to the International Confederation of Magi, but were not making a lot of progress. The parents of the children were all either very high officials or children of very high officials or otherwise prominent Magi in the various regions of the world. If you had wanted to get together the powers that were going to influence the world of the Magi for the next generation or two or three you could do a lot worse than to start with the families represented by these children.