CHAPTER 103: THE MUGGLE WAR, PT 2

It couldn't be long, they knew.

Albus Dumbledore and most of the staff were constantly sporting faces of extreme worry. The Daily Prophet spoke of Muggles attacking wizards and the Muggle government going into hiding. Sunday morning brought news of suspiciously large groups of Muggles being spotted near magical dwellings.

Yet it was still a surprise when, on Monday evening, a tawny owl fluttered into the Great Hall during dinner and dropped a smoking red envelope on the Head Table. All eyes followed it, as only owls sent with enchantments of urgency were allowed to enter the Great Hall outside breakfast time. The Headmaster frowned, and pointed his wand at the letter.

The Howler exploded. A witch's voice, controlled but loud enough to make the windows reverberate, filled the hall.

"MUGGLES ARE ABOUT TO BOMB HOGWARTS. GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE NOW!"

There was a moment of horrified silence. And then the screaming and shouting and jumping up and running started, before the Headmaster leaped up from the Head Table and a blast of thunder shook the Great Hall.

"Miss Granger," he bellowed. "Evacuate everyone. Somewhere away from Muggle eyes!"

And then, amid gasps of surprise, he grabbed Fawkes's claw and disappeared.

Hermione sat in shock as everyone turned to look at her, faces filled with hope and fear. Part of her was baffled that the Headmaster would just leave. But a more important part, one that had been in charge for most of last Monday as the innocent child that Hermione had been was retreating further and further and she just kept on doing what needed doing, was already taking control.

"Group up everyone! Groups of at most fifty, holding hands! And I want a member of staff with every group!"

Where could she take them... She had been to a lot of places on last week, but mostly those had people in them, even if in some cases those people were all dead. Even for the places without survivors, there might well be Muggles around or on their way by now, and they would not be kindly inclined towards witches and wizards at the moment. She needed a safer place, away from everyone else.

Her parents had taken her camping once in the Forest of Dean. It wasn't exactly Muggle-free, but it was not a school holiday now, and there were places there where few people ever came. She pictured the place, and let Xare take her there.

The children stared in shocked betrayal at the place where their heroine had disappeared.

"Do as she said!" Professor McGonagall commanded. "Prefects, organize your houses!"

Yes, she thought, looking around at the silent area between the trees. It would have to do. If it wasn't good enough, the staff could always suggest a better place after she got everyone out. How long would it take for the bomb to come? A Patronus would have been faster than a fighter jet, but an owl? If the sender had been wise enough to Apparate to the gates before posting the owl it might have bought them some time, but still: the message had been sent in a real panic. No, it did not at all sound like they would have more than minutes...

She burned back to Hogwarts, where people greeted her with sighs of relief. "Is everyone holding hands yet?" she yelled.

Harry was already running towards the little apartment where his parents were having dinner, his heart beating rapidly.

What is going on?

Were Muggles actually going to drop a bomb on a school? And would that even work? The Hogwarts wards were ancient – but would they be able to withstand an atomic bomb? A normal one? Evidently the Headmaster considered it possible that bad things might happen, but where had he gone off to?

Could it all be a trap to get the children to a more exposed location? If so, they were going to walk right into it, because they couldn't risk staying with that information.

Harry screeched to a halt as he reached the door. "Mum, Dad, you need to follow me to the Great Hall now."

Minerva couldn't cast a Patronus anymore, that was the problem. Filch wasn't in the Great Hall, nor was Hagrid. Madam Pince and Madam Pomfrey also had duties elsewhere, and there might be children in the infirmary, and then there was Professor Trelawney who rarely came down to eat with the others. They had all become so used to their Patronuses that they didn't really have ways to quickly communicate without them.

She spotted Lesath Lestrange being pushed away by a number of Gryffindors in a group he had wanted to join. She would have some words to say to those boys later – and this for her Gryffindors! She might have some more than mere words in store for them, in fact. But for now, there were higher priorities.

"Lestrange!" she called. He turned, and she waved him over.

"Have you learned yet how to send messages using a Patronus?"

Harry ran into the Great Hall, his parents on his heel, panting as they did not have his army training. Ahead of him, he saw the burst of flame as half a group disappeared, the other half looking surprised and rather sheepish.

How long did they still have? And what would happen if they were too late?

"I think – you should – bring the food – Harry," Petunia said in gasps behind him. She breathed deeply a few times. "We'll need it – this may well take hours."

Harry nodded. "I'll see what I can do." He pushed his parents into the nearest group of Hufflepuffs. "Hold hands with them, and make sure everyone else does, too." His father nodded.

His Mum was right; trivial though it may seem, if they were stuck in some random place – where was Hermione taking them, anyway? – for hours, the children would get hungry, would need their strength. The mostly uneaten food from the five tables would probably fit in his trunk, but he didn't have his trunk, and the middle of an urgent evacuation was probably not the right time to run up to his dormitory. Nobody ought to be running for their stuff, even if it was an expensive trunk full of books their father had bought for them.

With that thought, the reality finally hit him.

If a bomb hit, he would lose his trunk, with all his books and clothes and everything in it. The Ravenclaw dormitory would be gone, this hall would be destroyed. They could all die every moment they lingered. He could be dead in the next ten seconds if he were unlucky.

Behind him, another group flamed away. Harry grit his teeth and ran towards where McGonagall and Lesath were standing together.

"Get into a group!" She barked at him.

"Professor, can't we stop this bomb?"

"I'm pretty sure that that's what Professor Dumbledore is doing, Potter!"

Oh, of course. "Do you need any help to get this done faster?"

"We've got the situation in hand, if all the children let themselves be evacuated."

"Can you get the food?" He asked. "My mum says that –"

"Yes, now go!"

Harry joined the nearest group, and realized that they, too, weren't holding hands properly: there was a separate loop of ten children to one side. He yanked two of them apart and pushed them towards other children. Then he stepped away and looked around to see whether the other groups were fine.

It was Professor Snape who grabbed him and steered him into the group of Slytherins who were next up for transportation. "We will handle this from here," he sneered. "Stay. Put."

Rubeus Hagrid, the Hogwarts gamekeeper, ran towards the forest in great bounding steps, followed by his wolfhound Fang.

One of the children had sent him a human Patronus to order him to the Great Hall immediately, as the school was about to be attacked. The boy hadn't said what was going to happen, but an attack on the school meant that far more than his own life was in danger.

Aragog and his children would have to be prepared for whatever might be coming. There were very few potential attackers who would be kindly inclined towards the giant spiders, and he could help. He had been allowed a new wand only two months ago, but he'd been practicing, and now he finally had a good reason to use it.

As the last group of students, together with Professors McGonagall and Snape, arrived with her in the forest, Hermione breathed a sigh of relief. She'd done it. Everyone was out of there before any bomb might hit. The students were safe.

Professor Flitwick shuffled over to her and Professor McGonagall. Speaking in a low voice, he asked: "Do we actually know whether all the students were in the Great Hall or Infirmary?"

A Sonorus by Professor McGonagall had called for all students to check whether their friends were there.

Fred and George Weasley looked at each other. They had taken to carrying around the map ever since the Headmaster had borrowed it from them, just in case it might be needed again. They didn't really like showing their piece of the Hogwarts security system to Professor McGonagall, who tended to be a lot more strict than the Headmaster, but lives were in danger.

They pushed their way through the students to the rescue team, led by Hermione Granger and Professor McGonagall. Fred was already removing the map from his pocket and muttered "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good", this one time a complete lie. Lines started tracing themselves on the parchment, giving a complete outline of the school and everyone still in it.

"Professor," George offered, "we think we can help."

Professors Snape and Flitwick were keeping the curious students away from the central group as Professor McGonagall spread the map out over an improvised table. Fred and George, who had become quite adept at scanning the map in over two years of owning it, were helping to look over it.

"There," Fred pointed. "No, wait, that's Professor Dumbledore, what's he doing in the library? Madam Pince got everyone out of there already."

"Mindery Sodel," George said, pointing at a girls' bathroom at the fifth floor. "Wow, she must have been there all through dinner. Constipation much?"

Professor McGonagall just shot them an angry glare, as Hermione disappeared in a burst of flame.

"There's another one, in the Hufflepuff dormitory. Oh, and three children in the Slytherin dungeons."

"And some lovebirds in the grounds, see?"

Professor McGonagall closed her eyes. If they were all going to survive this, she was never getting angry at the Weasley twins again.

"I don't know how to get to the Slytherin dungeons," Hermione was saying. "And I'm not sure Robert Jugson is going to want to come with me either."

"I'll come with you." Snape grabbed her by the shoulder, and looked in her eyes. "That is what it looks like down there."

With another burst of flame, the pair disappeared.

Harry was sitting by the table, sick with nerves. He should probably be doing something, but he had no idea what, so he just kept watching as Hermione went back to Hogwarts again and again, picking up the students who hadn't been at dinner or near a staff member. Every time, there was a very real chance that she'd arrive in the heart of a massive explosion. Every time she came back, his heart unclenched a little, just to wrench again as she went to fetch the next student.

"– see no real reason for alarm," Professor Hooch was saying. "Hogwarts is unplottable. How would they even find it?"

"Look, I'm pretty sure that message was from Sarissa Johnson," Professor McGonagall said tensely. "A capable Ravenclaw student in her time, with a Muggle husband at a high position in their military. You should not dismiss her assessment of their success so lightly."

"But they would not willingly attack school children!" Professor Burbage, the Muggle Studies teacher, exclaimed. "Even if they're angry, they're not evil!"

"Excuse me," Harry cut in. He could use the distraction. "But what exactly does unplottable mean?"

"You can't put it on a map," Professor Flitwick explained. "And if Muggles tried to go there, they would get lost, or remember they had other things to do."

"What about satellite photos? Could you see it from space?"

The teachers looked at each other.

"No," Professor Snape said (apparently, he had come back in one piece). "The Hogwarts grounds and other unplottable areas show up blank, and Muggle eyes automatically fail to notice that."

"Muggle eyes?" Harry pressed. "What about computers?"

"What's a computer?" Professor Burbage asked.

"I think that was the last," Fred said. Hermione breathed a deep sigh, and sank down on the soft transfigured chair that Professor McGonagall quickly pushed underneath her.

"Is the Headmaster still there?" she asked.

The twins just shook their heads. "He was popping in and out for a bit, but we can't find him anymore."

What is he doing? But it wasn't important. The crucial thing was that everyone was safe, now.

"Do you think they'll really do it?" she asked no one in particular.

Harry, who was also standing by the table, nodded grimly. "They probably don't even know that it's children they'd be killing. If they used their computers to detect places that didn't show up on the maps, and then sent drones or missiles to the corresponding coordinates, Hogwarts would be a prime target. Sarissa Johnson's Muggle husband was probably the only one who would realize that an undetectable place in Scotland was likely to be a school, and he couldn't point that out, because they'd realize the connection and keep him out of further discussions."

At that moments both the twins gasped. Everyone looked in their direction.

The Hogwarts map had gone completely blank.