Character Assassination

Character Assassination
6. The Children Of The Revolution

That night me and Khalid slept in our different rooms, our parents totally oblivious. And me totally horny. When someone came into my room I hoped it was him, and I said, "Khalid?"

"Fuck, no!" Mum whispered. "Why're you awake?"

"What the fuck? It's two am, why're you awake? And sneaking into my room?"

"Mal," Mum said, "it's starting."

I got up.

"I didn't mean to wake you," Mum said. "I thought you were asleep, I came to leave a note. Mal, we have to go. And you stay here."

I snatched the note. I read it. It was short and to the point and ended with "We love you." And my blood went cold.

"Don't be fucking stupid!" I hissed at her.

I charged out into the corridor and Khalid was there too, arguing with his dad. We all sort of collided, and Mum and Hussain desperately shushed us.

"Shut up!" Mum whispered. "Everyone'll hear us."

Grandad came out of his room with a torch.

"We're not letting you leave without us!" I said loudly.

"Shush!"

It was dark and it was chaos. Khalid grabbed my hand.

"We're coming." he said.

Grandad started to storm towards the stairs. "Let them come."

"Dad!"

"We can't stop them. Least this way we can keep an eye on them."

"We promise we'll be careful." Khalid said.

Hussain was fuming, but he nodded at Khalid and we all went down the stairs, through the quiet lobby, and out the door. We went through the car park, our little army, stones crunching under our feet. I swear, that walk across the car park took ages, probably because we were all wondering if we were going back. Not wondering it out loud, but still wondering it.

And we got out into the field, among trees in the almost complete dark, and something jumped out at us.

"Fuck!"

But whatever it was gave a little gasp of relief and lunged for Mum and hugged her. While the rest of us caught our breath, Mum said, "This is Moira."

"Mrs Granger?" I gasped.

"Yeah," said Moira. "Yeah." She was gasping too. She'd been running. "Listen, we warned our daughter, me and Trev, and she's gone up there, our girl's up there. Sharon, the safest thing is to turn around, all of you, go back."

"What's happening?" Grandad asked.

"They blew holes in the place. The kids are being evacuated, and the Ministry of Magic's flying in, and I think..." I knew what she was going to say. "...I think people are dead." We all stood there. "And I think Dolores Umbridge is there too." That, I hadn't expected.

"Right," said Fatima, and there was a world of fear and anger in that word. "We're not leaving. Unless you want to take the kids out of here."

"No!" me and Khalid both said.

"Please," said Moira. "You'll be hurt. And it...I know what happened to you, Mr Abdel, and you, Sharon..." Her eyes hit the ground. "But this has gone way past madness. Go home."

"Home is where our daughter is," Hussain said grimly, and he began walking past her.

"What are you trying to do?" Moira called. "Who are you trying to defend?" But as we walked, she fell in with us. And from somewhere, there was a war-like noise, an explosion, some shouts and screams...

"Run!" Mum said.

So we ran, towards it. Moira was shouting something about her ex-husband, and she got out a mobile phone but it wasn't working. And we stumbled and ran and there it was, the castle, all these little pinpricks of light around and inside it, green beams-

Something stirred in my head about green being the colour of the killing curse, Roseanna had said, these things were like a million gunshots to a wizard...

Khalid ran ahead, even as his father shouted at him not to. And I ran too, and everyone else behind me, running past discarded relics of a past that wasn't even ours, running, running, past things we weren't even supposed to be seeing, I was sure, running-

-I fell over a dead body.

I fell so I was actually looking into its eyes, which wasn't actually the worst experience of my life but was pretty bloody horrible. Because it was Matthew, the bloke from the meeting, the one who'd been led here by Aaron. He'd been cut in half. And I wanted to be sick.

Khalid saw and doubled back and looked down at it too.

"Come on, Mal," he said, and pulled me up. Then he knelt down and closed the corpse's eyes. And Mum and Moira and everyone else collided with us.

"Don't run on ahead!" Hussain shrieked at Khalid, so viciously that flecks of spit came out. "You could have been that!" And he pointed violently to Matthew's corpse.

There was smoke in the air, and there was starting to be more, and we realised we were in some sort of sports field. There were seats and hoops and broomsticks on the grass. And yells, off in the distance.

"The spells are coming down," Moira said. "We can see it, we can see it for what it really is." And we could. And it...

...was a castle, and a forest, and a lake. Not scary. Just a place. I felt weirdly disappointed.

Khalid began to run again. His father tore after him, and the rest of us followed, and then we saw them. Aaron and his army. Not the small amount of people we'd expected, but hundreds. And some were carrying banners, some were carrying guns, viv la revolution. Vie la revolution? I dunno any French. And Aaron was in front. And someone else was there too, a woman levitating above the crowds, shouting things we couldn't hear, and Moira saw her too-

"Hermione!"

Hermione didn't hear her, though. And as we drew nearer she shouted again, her voice echoing out like magic. Which it was. "The death count is six. I implore you to keep it that way. Go home. There's no-one here but emergency personnel and none of them have any wish to harm you." And her voice was shaking.

"You'll wipe our brains!" shrieked Aaron.

Mum was staring intently at a man among the crowd, a man I could now see was wrestling his way through, and she turned and whispered to Moira just as Hermione began shouting again. "It may be for the best. Do you want to have lived through what you've lived through tonight?"

"OF COURSE WE FUCKING DO!" roared Aaron, and the chant came up from the crowd, of course we fucking do, of course we fucking do-

"Trevor!" Moira yelled, and it took me a second to realise she was talking about her ex-husband, who was the man in the crowd, who had just reached Hermione. He had virtually collapsed at his daughter's feet, and she stared down and recognised him, and one word echoed out over the shouting-

"Dad?"

And then Aaron fired his gun. And all hell broke loose again.