Bomb

Bomb

I remember every detail down to the last one. I had just finished my homework for Potions when Ginny ran into the common room, calling my name. She was out of breath and looked frightened, but she said nothing at all and took my hand, pulling me to the door. She led me outside to a tree, a tall tree wich looked very much alive except for the way it hung down to the ground. I would never forget that image as long as I live. Underneath it, I could see a small package wrapped in brown paper. Harry and Ron and even Draco were standing nearby, not wanting to go any closer to the package. Harry told me that it looked suspicious and that it had a note that said 'Goodbye wizards' taped on it. I wondered what that meant until Harry began to unwrap the package using his wand instead of his hands. When the packaging came off, we found a clear cylinder, tightly sealed, with a bluish liquid inside that was bubbling. When air started to get into the cylinder, it started to rock and immediately I knew what it was.

'Hydrogen,' I said aloud, shocked. 'A nuclear bomb.'

Harry, the only one in the group who understood what this meant, yelled, 'Run!' And so we did. I pulled Ginny and Harry caught Draco and Ron by the arms and we ran like wolves were chasing us. The whole time I wondered how that bomb got inside the grounds, why it got inside the grounds, who sent it there. There was a deep ravine up ahead of us and I pulled Ginny inside just as the bomb suddenly went off. I could hear a large roar in my ears and feel the others falling into the ravine next to me, sliding down to the bottom. The earth quaked violently and it felt like the end of the world. I could hear trees moaning in the distance and the sound of shattering glass under the constant cry of air crackling like a whip. A violent gust of wind roared above us, pushing everything in its way and destroying them. It was like a tornado, only worse.

Ron threw up at the bottom of the ravine and I held Ginny's hand until our hands were white. She looked like she was about to cry, not from the pain but more from the shock that we could die. Draco was simply shocked as well, staring wide-eyed at the commotion above us and Harry, well, he didn't look too good. We both knew that a whole lot of people were about to die in this bomb and that we may be the only ones to survive. The roaring winds suddenly died down and I breathed again, taking in smoke into my lungs. I had almost stopped breathing. Coughing, I crawled to the edge and looked over. Blue light was flashing here and there and thick black clouds rose into the air from the direction of the castle. I looked back down into the ravine and saw that everyone was staring expectantly at me, as if to ask if it was okay now, if everything was better, if it was all a dream. But it wasn't.

I didn't answer them, just dragged my body over the edge to look at my surroundings. There was nothing left, as far as I could tell. Trees had been smashed down. The tall, hanging tree was no more. It was blasted to smithereens and the remains had caught on fire. Hagrid's hut was a bunch of rubble and the Greenhouses were just glass now, tiny fragments of glass that littered the yard with plants strewn all over. When I saw the castle, tears came to my eyes. In my imagination, I dreamed that the castle would still be standing and everyone inside would still be alive, but no. The fates just had to do this to us.

The castle was lying on its side, in flames. Large boulders of stone were ripped out of it and thrown metres away and wood littered the area. I knew that everyone was crushed underneath and since Hogwarts had been on top of a cliff, the remaining bodies would be in the lake. It was gruesome, I know, but that is the brutal truth about nuclear bombs. They destroy everything in their paths, including people's lives.

Behind me, the others slowly came up out of the ravine. Ron had gone white and was staring about him in shock; Ginny was crying uncontrollably; Draco was shaking his head as if he couldn't believe that his school had just been blown to pieces by a Muggle technology; and Harry had sunk to the ground, his head in his hands. I suddenly felt angry that he should be so weak when innocent students could still be alive inside. And I was right that their were survivors.

Draco had to go find Hagrid either inside his hut or in the not-so-foresty Forbidden Forest. Hagrid should have been able to survive as well and might be able to help with getting other survivors out. Ron and Harry were to go down to the lake and find survivors down there as well. Ginny and I were to begin work on the castle, starting on the side where there was less material lying around. We pulled up stones and boards and beams, and strained our muscles in doing so. Ginny was still pretty torn up about it. Every so often, we would come across a dead body, mangled underneath a stone, blood dripping out, the skin pale and torn. I threw up at the first body I saw. These were people we knew, but now we knew them no more.

Ginny called out for any survivors once in awhile. That was good thinking because we would hear moans replying and other people try to shout. The first survivor we came across was Stephen Cornfoot from Ravenclaw. He had a broken back and a large beam was on his left leg, pinning him down, but he was alive. Ginny and I rejoiced at that and we set to work on removing the beam from his leg. As carefully as we could, we lifted it off and brought it over to the pile of rubble we had made in our search for survivors. Then, we took his body and gently moved it onto a piece of stone that was as long as him and moved it carefully out of the way of the castle and away from the smoke.

Other survivors came after that and we pulled them out one by one. Each had a different injury or shared one with the others and Ginny and I were careful to move them for fear of causing even more injury. Some cried, some screamed when they looked around. By now, the stench of death was almost overwhelming and several times I had to throw up. Ginny too. The smoke was also playing its own little part in killing us slowly. Ashes got lodged inside my throat and I would cough uncontrollably until the soreness was gone.

Two shadows moved in the distance and they came up to us. Draco was covered in ash and mud and Hagrid looked worse than him. He had blood streaming down his left elbow and he was crying, wailing that Fang died. I didn't want to hear the details since I saw them for myself in the students, but I tried to comfort Hagrid. I told him to find anything that could fly to a Wizarding hospital because we had survivors, but they were injured badly and needed treatment. He walked off with a slight limp in his left leg, still crying.

Draco was put to work immediately. He had to help carry the alive-victims out with Ginny while I remained back and dug for more. So far we had a body-count of twenty-seven and a survivor count of nineteen. We had worked for hours in the burning sun and smoke and had made it far into the castle. There were areas where the building was still standing and I could hear crying when I went inside. The first time, I heard a girl crying off to the left off me and went into another room where I had to crawl. I used my wand to light up the space and I saw Lavender, her hair red from a bump that was still bleeding, her leg sticking out in an odd way, cradling a dead Parvati. Parvati's head was cut open and blood was pouring out in buckets, but the rest of her body was fine, her skin pale. I pulled Lavender out, leaving the body behind.

I will never forget that day. The victims I saw, those that were alive were crying violently, and those that were dead looked like they would never return again. If I had of gotten scared that day when I saw the castle down and knew there would be dead people, and ran away from it, then those that survived wouldn't have been able to make it. Some would have, but others desperately needed to get out. That remained in my mind the most, the feeling that I did something good for those that remain and they would live on as would I.

Later on that day, Medi-wizards finally arrived on the scene along with volunteers and Fire-wizards and the such. More volunteers meant more lives could be saved. Most of those that were alive and in bad condition were air-lifted to the nearest Wizarding hospital for treatment. Others that just had scratches and scrapes would have to go on their own. The Fire-wizards put out the fire and carried away what remained of the hydrogen bomb. Scores of students died and some teachers died with them, in that group Dumbledore died as well. But many survived, Professor Snape along with them. Harry and Ron came back from the lake announcing that there were others that had survived too, and they were extremely wet and covered with blood.

When all was over and the bodies were brought to the morgue for funerals and everyone's family was notified of what happened, I sat down on a hill and heard nothing else around me. I remember that Ron sat next to me and put an arm around me, but I didn't hear him speaking. I couldn't. I was too shocked to listen. At the end of the day, you suddenly realize that what you just did and the situations you had come across during the day had really occured, that it wasn't a dream that you were waking up from. I had that and tears came to my eyes knowing that innocent lives have been taken and that I couldn't have done anything to save them. But somehow, I got threw it, knowing that the students who died were in heaven and were now being taken care of by God. I had fallen asleep with my head on Ron's shoulder and him stroking my hair. For months afterward, I would have nightmares that the same thing was going to happen again, but it didn't come.

As for everyone else around me, parents of dead children cried intensely during funerals, mourning over their loved ones. I attended every funeral I could get to, along with the other survivors, even Draco came to them, sitting with the Weasleys instead of with his parents. This event had hit home with Draco and he finally found that he didn't want to go down the path where he would have to see dead bodies again, so he was disowned and went to live with Ron and Ginny. Ron and Ginny were supporting each other as best as they could and Draco with them. All three couldn't believe that it had actually happened. Harry stayed by my side all the time when Ron wasn't with me, trying to put on a air of being strong inside, but I knew better. Inside, he was torn. He had just lost friends like he had lost his parents and he had just lost a home, which meant that he would either have to go back to the Dursleys or stay with Siruis while he was on the run.

From that day forward, that day would be known as All Souls' Day, in rememberance for the people who died in the bomb and those that were victims of Voldemort.