The Muggle War

Chapter 3 Omaha Beach

"Where are we?" asked Ron. Harry had no answer. They were standing on what appeared to be a beach. The weather was cloudy. The ground was laid with what Harry recognized as obstacles. Bunkers were built to guard against the direction of the sea. Harry could make out amphibious landing vehicles making their way towards the beach. It was relatively peaceful now, like just before a storm.

"Ron, I think we're in France," said Harry. Thinking quickly, he remembered the concept of pensieves. He had experienced such or similar things twice: Tom Riddle's Diary and the once in Dumbledore's room. Both cases, the viewer was considered only an observer, and what he saw wasn't real. What can guarantee that the viewer won't also be interacting with the environment in this particular pensieve? Details of the environment, such as flying bullets, might be all too real.

"France? Why do you think that?" asked Ron, puzzled.

"I have reason to believe it's D-Day, and the allies are making an attempt to land, right here and right now," said Harry. Ron looked back with an expression even more puzzlement.

"The Muggle War, Ron. You know, the World War. We're looking at an important chapter of it," Harry said, pointing to the amphibious vehicles.

"We are in a pensieve?" asked Ron. Harry nodded, glad that he was familiar with the concept. "No, Harry, this can't be. A pensieve is a product of a person's memories. We should be seeing all this through the perspective of a person. Right now, we are alone here on the beach. And where's Hermione?" To Harry, that made sense.

"You suppose everything here is real?" Harry asked. As if an answer to that, the first artillery fire boomed. The sound shook the two friends. A huge splash appeared on the sea.

"What was that?" demanded Ron. Harry was already tugging Ron's robe to run for safety.

"That was a muggle cannon!" cried Harry as more booms sounded. Harry led Ron to where he thought was safest, to the bottom of the bunkers. He carefully touched the barbed wire. He could actually feel the sharp edges, and it was obvious he wasn't going to get past it without tools. "This feels too real! Wands ready! We have to blast out of here, away from the beach."

Ron and Harry produced their wands. What the effects of using magic inside a book will be, they weren't sure. But they were about to find out.

"Destructos!"

Ron and Harry's wands let out brilliant yellow bolts, blasting the barbed wire perimeter open. The sound of machine guns started to rattle behind them. Harry ducked, while Ron only blocked his ears from the sound.

"Ron! Duck! Bullets can kill!" cried Harry, tugging at Ron's robes.

"What are bullets?" asked Ron as he lied down on his stomach, still covering his ears.

Bullets wheezed over their heads.

"You hear those things flying real fast over our heads?"

"Yeah?"

"Lead pieces flying real fast to kill anything in its way!"

Ron and Harry looked behind, the amphibious crafts had reached the beach, but as the soldiers poured out from them, they were met with machine gun fire from the bunkers. The men fell like flies. Some men fell back without limbs or a head. All the blood started to change the color of the water.

"This is terrible!" yelled Ron over the noise. His face had an expression of extreme panic. He had never seen such horrors with his own eyes before. Neither had Harry. Smoke and splattered sand filled the air, screams of pain died out in sounds of explosions and guns firing.

"Let's go!" Ron yelled. The two started to crawl their way through the hole they made in the barbed wire fence. They had to climb a hill and several bullets landed only meters away from their path. They crossed over to a flat land behind the bunkers and crawled into a trench.

"Where now?" asked Ron.

"Anywhere but here!" said Harry.

They ran through the trenches when they ran into a big figure. Harry replaced his crooked glasses and looked up at what he had bumped into. It was a Nazi soldier looking down at him. He looked confused and angry, and had a machine gun aimed at Harry and Ron. Apparently, he was wondering what two little boys with odd-looking robes were doing in a trench in the middle of a battle. Soon enough, he looked like he had made up his mind, as he lifted his gun at Harry and Ron.

Ron fell back, screaming. Harry tried to shield Ron, hoping to give Ron a chance to run away. Just then, a flash of light went off behind the Nazi soldier, and the soldier fell forward unconscious.

The Nazi soldier fell on Harry on Ron. The two boys screamed again. The silhouette of a small figure with long bushy hair holding a wand at ready appeared.

"Hermione!" said Harry, pushing the soldier off.

Hermione looked equally shocked as the boys as she couldn't believe what she had just done.

Ron looked at the soldier. "He isn't dead, is he?"

"Paralyzing spell..." muttered Hermione. Another explosion nearby drowned out her words.

"Come on, let's go!" said Harry, coming back to his senses. The sound of the battle was coming closer.

"Where did you come from?" Harry asked as the three ran off again through the trenches.

"Behind the bunker! I was wondering where you two were!" Hermione said angrily. "What happened? Where are we and why are we here?"

"To see that, I think!" Ron said, pointing. Harry and Hermione looked where Ron was pointing. Wizards on brooms and flying carpets were flying around blasting away with their wands. Some wizards were flying on their own or firing without wands from their fingertips. Despite the confusion, Harry could tell that the wizards were of many ethnic backgrounds.

One of the wizards caught a glimpse of the three students. He was a young Asian man flying on his own without a broom or a carpet. He could not have been older than twenty. "Captain! Look!" He yelled, pointing at Harry.

The captain, Indian wizard with a turban, sitting on a fast moving flying carpet, looked at their direction. "What the..." He said.

"Chang! Retrieve those three!" The captain shouted, surprised to see Hogwarts uniforms on a battlefield.

"Yes, Captain Sharmar!" Chang said. The Asian wizard who had spotted them first was Chang. He immediately swooped towards the three like a diving ghost and landed on his feet in front of the three. He was very tall, and towered over the three students. Harry could see a young handsome face that had a hardened expression. The thick black eyebrows, almond eyes, a strong jaw line gave the young man a strong willed look. If it weren't for his black robe and pointed hat, he would have seemed like a muggle commando.

Just then, more Nazi soldiers emerged from the trench. They seemed confused, but were not shy to open fire with their machine guns. Chang raised his hand and the bullets stopped mid air in front of the children as if they had hit an invisible force field. When the bullets dropped to the ground, Chang extended his other arm and released fire from his hand onto the soldiers. The soldiers were burning, their features were unrecognizable under the flames. Their desperate screams were again drowned out by sounds of more gunfire and explosions that seemed to be coming closer.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione, however, were once more dumbfounded. They had frozen where they stood and could only look at what was happening with horror. Chang wasn't wasting time making conversation. He bent down and held all three students in a huge hug. Harry could feel the strong arms under the fabric -- this was for real. Chang launched into the sky at an amazing speed holding all three children.

An old Indio witch with a colorfully patterned cloak on a broom was yelling, "Entry path for the allied forces is open, Captain! Artillery has been destroyed as well! Squads at Utah Beach report success as well!"

"Alright! Mission accomplished! All squads, fall back!" the captain yelled. The wizards instantly started to fly away from the beach. From above high, Harry could see the smoking beach as allied soldiers started to overrun the bunker and the trenches as Chang carried him away.