Character Assassination

Warning: This was written many months before the Norway shootings, but it's taken on a sudden worrying significance now. Essentially, there is talk of killing children for political reasons, although no-one actually carries out that act.

Character Assassination
7. Build Me An Aeroplane

Moira ran through the crowds even as people started shooting. It was a miracle she survived, seriously, and man was that day short of miracles. She reached her family and I didn't see what happened next, because Hussain pulled us all away, behind a tree, to safety. And some people flickered into the crowd in bursts of smoke, and light was all around and people were dropping like flies. And, because whatever spell she'd done was still working, I heard Hermione say tearfully, "Mum, Dad, you shouldn't have come, it's not your world." And I'll never know what Moira and Trevor's answer to that was, but I like to think it was, "Well, you're our world," although if it had been me, I'd have added, "And you're a stupid cow for thinking people don't have the right to their own memories." But enough of that. Almost everyone was on the ground now, not dead, still breathing, except for Aaron and a few more who were dodging attacks, and Hermione and the Grangers. I wanted to run out, although I didn't know what for.
For some reason I was thinking of Nymphadora, and her dying in this very place. I didn't run, none of us did, and we heard Aaron shout-

"You're monsters! All of you! You killed our children! You stole our memories! You rule our world! You-" And the rest of what he said was lost in gunfire as he fired wildly at Hermione and her parents, and missed entirely. Then a beam of light hit him and he fell.

None of us were sure what to do. One of the robed people who'd been firing spells walked over to Hermione, wand raised, but she shook her head. And as everyone stared out at the field of bodies, streaks of smoke crashed to the ground. More people arrived. An old woman with black hair, men and women in greens and blues, an important-looking black man in purple and-

"No," said Mum.

It was her.

And none of us had ever seen her in the flesh before, and we just stared. Dolores Umbridge looked around, and I noticed that although the others held wands she didn't. The world had gone quiet now the fighting was over, and Hermione had taken the spell from her voice, so we had to listen hard to make out what was being said.

"-never happened before," one of the women was saying. "Whatever possessed them-"

"Get as many from the Secrecy Department as possible," the black man said. "Wipe their memories, and put them back where they came from."

"Minister," Hermione said in a quavering voice, "These are my parents."

The Minister looked down at Moira and Trevor, and Moira said, "You can't."

"I can," said the Minister. "But I won't." He turned to Hermione. "Take them home."

Hermione led her parents away and that was the last I ever saw of her. The men and woman in the flowing robes began levitating the bodies, like they were fucking crates, and I wanted to shout to treat them with respect, especially the dead ones, but I couldn't. And Dolores Umbridge started speaking.

"A rebellion! An uprising! Never in a hundred years-"

"The times are changing, Dolores," the Minister almost spat. "Go and gather the Muggle weapons. And stay in my sight." And Dolores started walking around, head still held high, gathering the guns and knifes and holding them in disgust, and she was walking towards us, so close-

Who are you defending?

"Let's get her," Hussain whispered. She had stormed right away from the Minister and the others, and was walking towards the disgarded machine-gun on the ground right next to us. Carrying all those firearms and blades, she looked stupid. A parody of the Wicked Witch of the West, no broomsticks, just guns.

No-one was looking, and she was so close. Grandad dived at her, and before she could scream, he punched her three times- sharply, there, there and there- and she collapsed, and we quickly tied her up and started to drag her away.

*

In the middle of the woods, she came to. We threw her to the ground. She stared at us in appalled shock, and tried to scream, but was too shocked to even manage that.

"Muggles!" she spat, and fought against the ropes. "Vicious! Vile! If I had my wand you'd be toads!"

"You don't, and we're not," Hussain said. "We're going to talk to you and then we're going to kill you." And I felt the ripple of fear go round, and I knew I didn't want to be the one to kill her. Or if I wanted her to die at all. Somehow.

"Our daughter," Fatima said to her, her voice shaking, "she was killed. More than killed. Because of you."

Umbridge ignored her. "The Minister will come looking for me. All of them, they're on their way. And then you'll pay, you animals." She gave a little laugh. Things didn't look quite right.

"Why," said Grandad, fists clenched, "did they let you out of prison?"

"Azkaban is closed," Umbridge said. "A misguided idea, our own kind shouldn't be left to rot, not when your kind outnumber us a thousand to one." And something in her eyes- fear, maybe- flickered in momentarily. "No more prisons. People must contribute to society. I am now bound to the Minister, serving as his...his assistant."

"His slave, you mean," Khalid said.

"I still have authority! I have authority over you!" There was madness in her eyes. And the moon was coming out. "Flithy, nasty Muggle scum!"

"Enough," said Grandad, and he pointed the gun at her head. "Tell us why you killed our daughters."

"I killed no-one."

"You ordered them killed."

"You're like Hitler," Khalid said. "And they'd have hung him if they'd caught him."

"Don't mock me with your Muggle legends-"

"Legends!" Grandad spat. "Where were you when Nazis were killing children?" And something occured to me, occured to all of us, and Khalid ran forward and stood glaring down.

"Where were you?" he asked. "Any of you? All that magic, all that power, and there's been two world wars! What were the wizards doing then? What were they doing during genocides? During famines? During 9/11? During a hundred, million deaths that could've been prevented!"

Umbridge spat in his face. Khalid flinched and did nothing.

"Nothing to us. Muggles killing muggles," said Umbridge, her head craned expectantly, waiting for her rescuers. Hussain turned away from her.

"It ends tonight," he said to us.

"It won't," said Fatima, in a voice so low I think only I heard it.

"I don't want my daughter doing any killing," Mum said. "You hear that, Mal? You're never going to be no killer!"

"I know," I said, hurt she'd considered it, that I still would.

"Help me!" Umbridge shouted. "The Muggles attacked me! Help!"

Someone was running through the forest-

"I'll do it," said Grandad. "Gotta be done."

"It'll change you forever," Mum said, but hesitantly.

"We'll both do it," said Hussain. "Me and Jeremy. We'll both shoot her. We'll never know who actually killed her, whose was the fatal shot. Alright?"

"Alright," said Fatima. "Do it." And then someone burst in on us, appearing from the shadows of the forest like a wraith, not a monster, not a dark lord, but a mother holding a gun-

"Dolores!" snarled Moira Granger.

Umbridge glanced up at her, and laughed, a high cold laugh. "I saw you run to your daughter, Muggle! Where is she now?"

"My daughter stood above a field of the dead and the living and told them she had the right to wipe their minds," said Moria, her voice so vicious. "All her childhood my daughter hurt no-one, all she wanted to do was read and learn! And that's a life, that's a Muggle life, that's a good life! And you took her, you and your world, you threw her to the fire and made her like you!"

"Hermione Granger is nothing like me," said Umbridge.

"She is like you enough," said Moira, and I saw Trevor, Hermione's father, standing behind her just watching. "You killed our children, you stole our memories, you rule our world. But you can't have my daughter. Not my daughter," she whispered, "you bitch."

Even tied up and at our mercy, Umbridge's nostrils flared at the swear word. "I have no wish to," she said. "Your world, your pathetic, colourless, magic-free world, it may keep her. And I may be a martyr to my cause."

She'd basically told us she didn't mind us killing her. We all were silent. I looked at the night sky. A light was streaking across it, an aeroplane, and I wondered if there was any wizard living who could build an aeroplane...

Trevor spoke for the first time. "Before you die, you have one chance to apologize. It won't save you, but it might go a little way towards getting you out of hell."

"Never. You are lower than mud-"

Moira shot her in the head. I saw it for just one second, a face, Umbridge's face, with nothing on it. Then she fell face-down into the dirt. And nothing happened. No-one moved. No-one cheered.

Khalid clutched my hand.

"I don't believe it," he mumbled, "I wanted this for most've my life-"

Moira was breathing heavily. She spat on the body, and turned to her ex-husband, who held her. She acknowledged the rest of us for the first time, and gave us a little nod.

"Australia was rubbish," she said. And started to walk away.