Chapter 30.3- Doom Days

The blood splatted all over me, and for a second I froze. Not from fear or anything so silly. It was from rage. That had been a child. I had few morals to speak of, but one thing was sacred to me. Don’t fuck with kids— little troublesome arseholes that they were. I snapped to of it when screaming reached me from the other end of the platform. I looked over, another kid had exploded. It happened two more times before people jut started taking their kids and hightailing it out of there.

It was generally rude to apparate into or out of a place anywhere other than the designated apparation spots. That rule and politeness disappeared in a manner of seconds with both children and parents being scared of losing their kids. The Parents did not even bother trying to find what was causing the explosions. They just took their kids and left. I turned to the train, seeing the kids that had already been onboard making their way out. One of them was a familiar mane of bushy hair that instantly turned from a perfect brown the colour of mahogany to redwood— assuming redwood was red, of course. It was a terrible metaphor, but it was the first thing that came to mind as the boy she had been helping out of the train bubbled and exploded as she reached out a hand for him to take.

She froze. It did not shock me that she did, but that was possibly the worst moment. The crowd went insane. So did the kids inside the train. They began running, pushing, rushing, and shoving to get out of the tran through the bottleneck that was the door and Hermione was right to the side of that. It would only be a matter of time until she was swallowed in the stampede so I yanked my wand like I was pulling on a rope and summoned my intent. It was a modified seize and pull charm, but it did the job of pulling her in my direction and away from the train.

In the end, no other kids exploded, but it was too little and too late to prevent the panic. By the time the aurors showed up, I was comforting a still silent and mostly frozen Hermione in a train station that was empty apart from the few muggleborns who had had their families leave the station early, and those who still stood, sat, or knelt next to the splattered remains of children, and loved ones.

“What happened?” I heard a shocked voice ask, but it didn’t matter to me. I took a look around before grabbing on to Hermione’s hand and side-along apparating us out of there. I didn’t have the patience for Rufus Scrimgeor and his antics.

XXXXX

Hermione had taken the better part of a day to get better, and to begin talking and regaining some measure of her former self. In that time, I’d returned to the ministry, claimed the apparation was accidental magic, paid the fine for an illegal one and accepted the warning before giving my witness statement. As expected, Scrimgeor had done everything but make the process easy.