The Train

Screams, and terrified crying, shrieking filled her ears, and she could hear nothing else. A wheezing was hardly detectable in the background, punctured occasionally with an explosion from the magic seeping out of the mutilated engine. It was a sound so all-encompassing, so terrifying, that she couldn't bear it. She pulled her knees closer in to her chin, but had to stop as a sharp and terrible pain ran up her back. She seemed to be on fire. Pain- pain like nothing else she had ever endured wrapped around her. Her legs, her arms, her feet, her stomach, her head, her whole being felt as if it was being ripped slowly in two. Her eyes started to leak hot tears, and suddenly she couldn't stop. She wept for her mother who would have so willingly and so perfectly made everything better. She wept for her father who would have been smothering her with hugs, and jokes, and maybe even chocolate, but only if she was good. She wept for her brothers who would never let her play with them and their friends, but loved her so very much. And she wept for the pain- oh the pain...

She would never know how long she lay curled in her pool of misery on the cold and uninviting floor of that train, but it didn't matter. It felt to her like she spent all her life, and yet no time at all there. Her teeth were clenched so tightly together, trapping the screams from escaping. Her breathing was labored through her nose, and she hardly noticed it slowing. Something warm and wet was soaking her from underneath, something her delayed senses couldn't perceive. And yet, no one would help her.

As suddenly as the pain had taken her, it started to wear off. As if an egg were being broken above her head, the pain receded downward, leaving a feeling of utter relief and comfort. Nothing seemed to matter. The acrid smell of burning leather and plastic was dimmed, as was the screaming, and the flickering lights, and everything. She had never been as comfortable as she was then, not even when her mother used to hold her, and stroke her hair, and they would talk quietly together.

She tried to bring her hand up to wipe the tear tracks that ran down her face. Her hand wouldn't move. She tried again. Nothing. The first bursts of ice-cold panic started to bubble in her stomach. She tried to jerk her leg. Nothing. Desperately, she wriggled her shoulders, as if trying to escape from a straight jacket. Harder and harder she struggled but to no avail- she was stuck, paralyzed in this position. Something inside of her was telling her to stop, don't try, and isn't this comfortable?

But she couldn't stop, she wanted to get out. She had never liked being confined, and never would. When many of the kids her age had been perfectly comfortable sitting in the common room or at their houses playing a game during their free time, she had gone outside, taken a walk, gone until supper exploring.

Abruptly, as she continuously tried to move to get out, her shoulder seemed to become unparalyzed. She moved it gratefully, tears again making their way again down her still-frozen cheeks. She hardly noticed in her happy state that same voice inside her saying, all right, if you want it that bad, for now...

And just as suddenly as the paralysis had come on, it released her. She jumped up, never having felt so alive, so fresh, so free! She jumped up and wiped absently at the wetness on her cheeks, wondering why anyone would ever cry. She ran outside of the wreckage that had trapped her so possessively and was startled at the scene before her.

Healers, aurors, teachers, students, and parents surrounded the area. Adults clutching each other, bawling, looking for all the world like their lives had just been destroyed. She looked back and wondered dimly why there was a giant train engine folded into a wall of rock like an accordion, its wheels off the track. Stretchers and bodies were laid out, being tended by so many worried people. Through the slightly hazy view she had, she noticed that some of them she recognized. They looked pale, she thought, but couldn't understand why. None were moving. She again looked to the damaged train; more bodies were being piled out. As she watched in fascination, two men brought out a body, a body of a girl, the body of-

"Ginny!" a woman screeched, and Ginny, in her confusion whipped around to see her mother, so distraught, being held back by a reluctant auror. "That's my baby!" her mother pleaded with the auror. "Let me see my baby!"

Utterly confused, Ginny called out, "Right here, mum! I'm right here!" Not getting a response from her mother, Ginny rushed towards her. Her mother was stroking Ginny's forehead- but it wasn't Ginny, because Ginny was right here.

"Mo-om! I'm right here!" Ginny stomped her foot angrily in a way reminiscent of her throwing a tantrum at the age of nine. She knew it would make her mother angry. But nothing- her mother didn't even flinch. Ginny started to shake, and she decided she didn't like her mother right now. She wanted her mom to hold her, not that other girl.

A man in a green uniform walked by. He peered at the girl her mother thought was Ginny and shook his head. His face appeared pale, and he looked as if he opened his mouth, he would be sick. The pen in his hand made a check on a clipboard he was holding. He gazed for one more second at the girl, and left to see someone else.

Ginny herself was starting to feel sick. She went up to her mother and tried to hug her like she used to when she was sorry she had been mad. But her mother didn't react.

A new sensation started to encompass Ginny. A sleepy, dreamy, comfortable feeling. The voice inside her whispered, that's right... It's over now... come... come with me... you'll be happier now...

And she gave in as darkness surrounded her.