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The Severed Souls by Magical Maeve

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Chapter Notes: A little graphic description of wounds - but nothing too bad.
In the immediate aftermath of what was to be the first of many train derailments across England on that day, all life seemed suspended. Only the metallic sounds of settling machinery disturbed the silence. No human noises could be discerned in the disaster-hushed area. Not yet anyway: they would soon come.

Impossibly, Roderick had been flung clean through a breaking window and landed in a heap a few metres away from where the train had finally come to rest. His cloak was torn, and the tumble across rough gravel had resulted in further damage to the fabric and to his face. The carriage he had so recently been travelling in was on its side, wedged in the air at a slight angle by the impact of the carriage behind it. The forward one had formed a deranged concertina at the front end and he knew with certainty that whoever had been travelling in those parts of the train would be beyond help.

Not that he had time to help anyone for he could see that he had not been alone in being thrown from the train. Lying in a crumpled heap further along the ground where the two Death Eaters that he had spotted and who had given chase when they had realised that he was a fellow wizard. He hadn’t hung around to see if their questions were friendly ones. Roderick knew that there was only one reason for Death Eaters to be using Muggle transportation, and it wasn’t the quality of the on-board catering.

The train had de-railed at a point where two sets of tracks fanned out into an interchange. Other tracks snaked away to either side of the main up and down lines, giving the impression of a narrow river opening into a wide sea. He had landed between sets of lines and, once on his feet again, picked his way gingerly across the tracks to reach the side of the stricken train.

No time, he thought, moving quickly to stoop in the approximate area that he thought Maeve had been sitting, trying to get his head between train and ground. Get her and Draco out and then get as far away from the disaster area as possible before they were seen. The last thing he needed was anyone important seeing any of them there.

Maeve was first aware of a pressing against her ear drums, the pressing of sounds trying to be heard. They were soft sounds, a muffled groan here and a drip of water there, gentle sounds almost. But her ears rang from the noise of the impact and she shook her head slightly to dislodge the after-effects. The glass that had initially showered her had rained down, back through the space where it had previously formed a solid pane of glass, and was now pooled, glittering like a treacherous frost on the ground. Draco had been thrown hard over her as they had hit and his full weight was now pinning her to the side of the carriage.

As her senses returned fully she realised that it was his groans that she could hear.

“Draco,” she whispered, and the sound of her own voice sounded dull and distant. “Draco, you need to sit up. I can’t move.”

“My head hurts,” he replied in a sluggish manner that suggested he was still reeling from the shock.

“Can you feel everything all right?” she asked. “Nothing broken? How does your neck feel?”

“I don’t think anything’s broken.” She felt extra pressure as he moved, pulling himself free of her by clambering across the table that had so recently been between them and which had now come loose from its fixings and was propped beneath the ground and the train. “My face feels wet, but my neck’s okay.”

“Lumos!” Now was not the time to be worrying about Muggles seeing magic, Maeve decided, as she held her wand to Draco’s face. He had been caught by some of the larger shards of glass and his left cheek had some bad cuts and running blood coursed from them. With a further flick of her wand and some muttered spells she had sealed the wounds and cleared away the blood. There was a powerful smell of diesel coming from somewhere, not burning thankfully, just there, leaking away.

“Do you think you can Apparate out of the carriage?” she asked, knowing that she would barely have the strength to be able to get herself out of the train using her magic. It would be impossible to get Draco out too.

“He’ll have to.” The clear voice came as such a relief that Maeve felt her insides turn liquid. “There’s no way you’ll be able to get through this gap by crawling through it. Just Apparate straight out and I’ll be here to get you both away. We need to move quickly, there are Death Eaters out here and I’m not getting close enough to see how not dead they are.”

Maeve’s hearing seemed to clear, as if water had gushed through her ears to wash away the cobwebs left by the crash. It was pure coincidence that this aural clarity happened at the same time as real panic broke out in other parts of the train. People woke to a nightmare far worse than anything sleep could provide. A woman’s scream tore through the carriage, and seemed to set off a chain reaction of noises that indicated the worst of human suffering was here. Draco winced and with a smart crack was gone. She could hear Roderick welcome him into the fresh air and then his voice was urging her to hurry up. Funnily enough, Draco had seemed to be the most normal he had been in a long time, and the fact he hadn’t used the opportunity to disappear on them suggested that he had accepted something fundamental “ not that she was quite sure what that would be.

There was movement along the train as people began to try to escape; small shifts that threatened bigger movements if they became too numerous. Maeve could feel the weight of the suffering creeping up on her and it made her realise that she couldn’t leave this wizard-made disaster behind.

“Roderick, I can’t.”

“What do you mean you can’t? Are you hurt? Trapped?” There was anxiety in his voice.

“No, it’s nothing like that. I’m fine, just a bit shocked. But I need to help these people.” She had wrestled herself up and was looking down the length of the carriage. “I can’t leave them like this when a little magic could ease some of their suffering.” The first wail of a siren could be heard in the distance, and she knew that some of the passengers wouldn’t make it if they had to wait for the arrival of the emergency services.

“Magic? Have you lost your head? Lovely, you can’t use magic in front of the Muggles!” Roderick’s voice was now at quite a high pitch, anxiety replaced by mild alarm. “Just get out of there and we’ll be clear of danger in no time.”

“Roderick, cast a concealment charm on the carriage. If I’m quick I can treat them and Obliviate the memory and they’ll be none the wiser.” She was already on the move, her robes catching on the broken seating and impeding her movements.

“Concealment?” His tone was becoming ever more incredulous and she could imagine his face would be wearing a thunderous expression. “Get out!”

“Just do it, please,” she barked, climbing further over the seats to find the first passenger crumpled against the seat with a head wound and an expression of deep disbelief on his face. “It was our magic that caused this. I think it’s the least we can do to use some of that magic to put it right.”

“Oh, for the sake of all the Muses, you have finally gone stark raving mad.” There was a brief moment of silence. “Done it. But you had better be quick. I’ve put a binding spell on the two Death Eaters, but don’t reckon it’ll last long if they wake up and really want to move!”

With a great deal of clambering around, and an exhausting amount of spell work and charms, Maeve managed to get through a good deal of the carriage. Some of the wounds were minor towards the centre of the carriage, which was where she had been sitting, but towards the ends there were some terrible injuries, with limbs so damaged that she could do nothing about them but staunch the wounds and make the injured comfortable. She had just reached a girl of about twelve, whose right arm was badly crushed between the seat and the window frame when she heard Roderick shout to her.

“Time to leave, my darling, the creatures are waking up. The medics are here now anyway.”

“One minute!” she shouted back as the girl’s eyes widened in fear.

“You don’t have one minute,” he yelled back.

“It will be all right,” she whispered gently. Without resorting to spoken magic, she mentally pushed back the frame from the girl’s arm, freeing it. “What’s your name?”

“Emily,” the girl managed, “Emily Dickson. My mum’s asleep.”

The woman opposite them was unconscious with skin that had been slicked with a deathly sheen and Maeve feared the worst. She quickly patched up Emily’s hand, the skin smoothing itself out at her touch and whispered charms. The girl was stunned into silence by the magic as Maeve then turned to the mother.

“Maeve, we have to leave now. One of them is moving his legs.” Roderick sounded very insistent. “There’s several fire engines already forcing their way onto the site. You’ve done enough.”

The woman had a feeble pulse, her breathing so shallow that it was barely there at all. It was only when she moved the woman’s coat did she see why. A strut from the train’s bodywork has twisted through the back of her seat and was protruding through the poor woman’s chest by a few inches. Unfortunately, her daughter had full view of this and began to scream violently, causing a flicker of pitiable recognition to cross the woman’s closed face. Maeve had a serious crisis of confidence. If she pulled the strut free she would have a matter of seconds to repair the wound before the woman bled to death and she wasn’t sure she could be that quick in such a drained condition. She desperately tried to reach inside her and extract something of her Grandmother’s spirit, knowing that there wasn’t a human medical condition beyond the older woman.

The pop by her ear startled her, and she turned to find Roderick frowning down on her.

“When I say now, I mean now!” He was about to be furious with her and then he realised that the scene before him was so desperate. “Good grief, Maeve, the poor woman is beyond our help. Let’s go.”

“You may be unmoved by her plight; I’m not. She has a child to live for.” His coldness gave her the final pinch of courage she needed and with the swiftest of magic she shoved the offending item back through the woman’s chest to rest out of harm’s way in the stuffing of the seat. Her left hand shot out and plugged the gaping wound while her lips mouthed a repetitive incantation to stopper the veins and make everything come back together. She tried not to think too hard about it as her fingers began to close the broken skin on the woman’s back and work their way forward.

Her wand hand flitted over the flesh, pulling it back into shape. As sinew and bones re-joined, she gradually pulled her hand back, the speed of the recovery hastening her withdrawal. With a final whisper of relief the flesh became as perfect as it had been before. She was about to cast a Reparo on the woman’s ragged clothes when Roderick finally took decisive action.

“Okay, we are now very much done,” he said, and to avoid any further arguments he grabbed her hand and Disapparated.




“You have done what?” Jenny Fitzwilliam was filling quite a lot of the new Minister for Peace’s office, or certainly gave the impression of doing so despite her relatively small size.

“I’ve recalled the Death Eaters.” Clipped words for what had been a fairly clipped action. Owls had been procured in some numbers and dispatched with instructions to them all to return immediately to the Ministry.

“All of them?”

“Yes, Minister, all of them.” His hands rested in the desk, rapping it without any concession to rhythm.

“And would you perhaps like to tell me why.” She was now facing the huge map, which had ceased to show any kind of activity. “On top of the rather abrupt way you cut off the Muggle minister this seems a little rash and, dare I say it, ill-judged.”

“I need to formulate a plan, and there is nothing clever about derailing twenty-three trains. We lost four of our own in the attacks, so I see no reason to continue in this vein. It is suicidal.”

“I didn’t think our campaign against the Muggles had anything to do with clever. Isn’t it supposed to be about mass murder? I’ll give you the pleasure of telling Voldemort that you have side-lined his most ardent followers .” She smiled as she came back to face him.” No matter, I am sure he will believe whatever you choose to tell him anyway. I’m leaving for the day. I shall see you at our appointed time.”

“That might not be possible,” he said carefully.

“Why not?” She frowned now, her handsome face puckering slightly.

“Something has come up.” He felt himself pale at the thought of what it was that had potentially come up. He was sure it was impossible to tell from the outside looking in, but he knew he was definitely pale.

“Something more important that our discussion? Are you sure, Severus.”

“Absolutely sure, Minister. We shall have to re-arrange it for tomorrow evening.”

“I will be at my book club tomorrow,” she replied, as if her book club was the most important thing in her diary that week. Severus arched an eyebrow but did not pass comment. “I suppose it can be missed just this once. I am not much enjoying Tobias Smollet anyway. Very well, I suppose. Same time, different night it shall have to be. I will see you in the morning.” She gave him the briefest of nods and turned on her perilously high heels to stalk back out through the door. Severus could not help feeling that she was the bright future of modern wizarding and it depressed him somewhat to think that centuries of tradition would be lost beneath some expensive lip gloss and a pair of precarious shoes.

Within minutes of her departure he was, himself, heading for the main atrium and the exit. He would have to visit the scene of the crash himself, wary of risking any forms of communication with the current state of affairs the way it was. He had already inquired of the Muggle Prime Minister whether everyone had been accounted for at the crash sites. The Muggle Prime Minister had naturally been somewhat sniffy towards him and reluctant to talk about the whole thing in any detail. He was rushing off to a press conference, but he had said that he would get someone to compile a list of the injured and make it available to him if he wished.

In the event, Severus had declined the offer. He was not truly interested in any of the other victims, beyond feeling a sense of weary bleakness that so many had died. He would visit the site and then “ well, then he wasn’t quite sure what. A visit to the hospital would be the only thing to do in order to ascertain if she was among the people taken there, but that would involve a level of disguise in order to blend in.

The lift stopped, doors sliding open to reveal the lobby area. As he stepped out he could almost taste the encroaching darkness on his tongue as he passed through the thinning crowd. It was just past the hour when everyone would have been rushing home, and the stragglers were those so recently victorious, those with something to gain by being around after hours. Men and women who sought preferment, and who believed that the only way this would come was by always being available.

He moved through them, a silent passage opening up for him as he walked. On large screens recently installed he could see the images of his interview with the Muggle minister, a scurry of words across the bottom of the screen declaring him triumphant. No wonder people knew who he was; this was celebrity, this was power. A shudder ran through him as he reached the telephone kiosk and rose from the bowels of a ministry that had lost what little decency it had maintained and emerged onto a grey London street in early evening.

Three hours had passed since the train crash, three hours with no word from anyone, not even Lupin. This gave him some cause for hope. Surely Lupin, fool though he was, would find some way to get news to him if it was bad news. But why, he reasoned, as he narrowly avoided collision with a couple of city workers hurrying towards a tube station, would anyone consider him at all. He couldn’t possibly have known they were on the train so unless the news was calamitous, there would be no need to contact him.

He followed a circuitous route to Grimmauld Place, making sure that he was not being observed by means of various tricks he had perfected during his years of spying. A soft drizzle had begun to fall, leaving a thin layer of water droplets across his wool-clad shoulders. Perhaps an innocuous owl to the Weasleys could be managed, something bland, but suitably worded to show that he had concerns. Untraceable, of course, but was anything truly untraceable these days? He was on a small high street now that signified he was no longer in the centre of the city but had reached one of its many outlying areas. Only a few shops remained open, the small supermarket bustling, the Italian restaurant quiet in anticipation of its first wave of evening diners and a TV repair shop in which an elderly gentleman was deep in conversation with the younger man behind the counter. It’s door was open and their voices drifted out in a low hum.

There were several TVs in the window, all switched on to display their superior quality. Some of them had their prices obscuring the pictures, but a rather large one was fully visible, a rolling news story playing out. He stopped in front of the window and watched the silent pictures. How the wizarding world had not caught on fully to this mode of news transmission he did fully understand. The wireless was all well and good, but how much more immediate was this box full of pictures. Severus’ attention had naturally been caught by the continuing reportage regarding the trains. How ridiculous that the head of the Death Eaters was now reduced to second hand tittle tattle from Muggles to get his information.

It was difficult without being able to hear the words. The tape across the bottom that clattered furiously with words informed him that the death toll had reached 253, a truly shocking figure, and that relatives could call a telephone number for information on their loved ones. If only, he thought, it was that easy for him. They then switched to an interview with a young girl and her mother, survivors of the Letchworth crash, and he was instantly much more interested. With surreptitious glances over his shoulders he gave a indecipherable flick of his concealed wand and a small circular hole appeared in the glass. The volume on the TV was low and he had to crane inwards slightly to make sense of what was being said.

“I don’t know who she was. My daughter thinks she was travelling in the same carriage as we were because she said she saw her get on at Cambridge. No one else remembers her, but I was seriously wounded. Look.” She pointed at the bloodied tears in her clothing that indicated something unspeakable had happened there. “Not a mark on me.”

“And your daughter confirms this?” the reporter asked, a look of sheer disbelief on her face.

“My hand was hurt and the lady helped me too,” the young girl said, looking to her mother for support. “And there was a man with her. He came out of nowhere and then took her away to nowhere, like they just disappeared.”

“And can you describe this mystery woman?” The reporter looked like she was getting bored, her weight shifting from one foot to the other impatiently. Severus found himself wanting to snatch the microphone from her inept hand and ask some proper questions.

“She was taller than mum, with red hair and a kind face. She had a nice accent.”

The mother cut across her daughter. “She was from Scotland, or perhaps Ireland, it was difficult to be sure because she didn’t say much and I was in shock, you know. But she saved us, and she saved a lot more people on that carriage.”

“No one else remembers her,” the reporter pointed out.

“Yes, I’ve heard.” The woman passenger seemed to be losing patience with the glamorous young news hound. “But I also bet that a lot of them weren’t too badly injured either. I can’t explain that, can you?”

The channel cut away from this interview to another of the crash sites and Severus sighed with frustration. It could only have been her. Only Maeve would have been that foolish. A quick Obliviate on the passengers would have sorted out their memories, but clearly someone had stopped her applying it to this pair. He could only hope that someone had been Roderick.

“Can I help you?” The man behind the counter was calling to him through the open door, so with a quick snap of his wand he closed the window and moved away. She was clearly alive, but he was clearly still very much in the dark as to her whereabouts.