A/N: This story sort of popped into my head and I had to start writing it, but I'm not sure how regular the updates will be as I'm still not quite sure where I'm going with it. If people like it I may try and write a bit faster, but otherwise I'll just work on it whenever I have ideas.

To those of you who read my other fic - As The Walls Fall Down - I promise I will try to update as soon as possible, I just keep getting sidetracked by random stuff that I'm inspired to write.

Disclaimer: None of the characters, settings etc. belong to me

Chapter One

Doubtfully, Harry surveyed the strange little group standing before him. They were an odd team. Ron and Hermione – who were still awkwardly trying to work out their new relationship and were therefore quite difficult to be around – were trying to be supportive, but were struggling with so many issues themselves right now that it would probably be easier if they hadn't been here at all; Ginny – who was furious with him for leaving her for a year – had been very annoyed when she discovered she was assigned to his repair team and was determined to avoid him as much as possible; Neville – who was struggling to cope with his new-found glory and fame, but had nevertheless retained his practical, down to earth nature – was the one member of the team whose name Harry had actually been pleased to see on the list; Draco Malfoy – sulky and scowling – was only here at all because he had been sentenced to a year of community service rather than being sent to the already overcrowded Azkaban; Astoria Greengrass – a young, pretty Slytherin who Harry had never met before – had volunteered to take part, saying that she wanted to do something to help repair the damage done by the War, but Harry had no idea how useful she would really be; Hannah Abbot – a former member of the DA and one of Harry's classmates – was enthusiastic about the task, but Harry's experiences of her had always been of a naïve and often incompetent girl, who was nice enough but lacked self-confidence and was inclined to crack under pressure, and he wondered whether she would cope with the amount of work that had to be done. He sighed. This was going to be an interesting year. If they survived it without anybody killing anybody else, as well as actually getting some work done, it would be a miracle.

Volunteering for this had seemed like such a good idea at the time. It had been Professor McGonagall's idea to set up teams of volunteers, as well as the occasional Death Eater who had been sentenced to community service, in order to try and repair some of the damage done to Hogwarts during the final battle there. Harry had signed up immediately and she had made him leader of his team, saying that people would automatically look to him as an authority figure. He had been uncomfortable with the idea, in fact he still was, but McGonagall got her way. She always did.

"Right," Harry said, trying to sound confident, "We're going to be working as a team for the next year, trying to do as much work as possible repairing Hogwarts." He paused and looked around at the team: Ron and Hermione smiled supportively, Malfoy and Ginny glared at him, Neville gave him a sympathetic grin and Astoria and Hannah gazed intently at him, waiting eagerly to hear what he had to say. Reluctantly, he continued, "A lot of the work is going to have to be done manually, as Hogwarts is highly resistant to magic. In particular, we are going to start by working in the Head's study, which was demolished several days after the Battle in an explosion, the cause of which is still unknown, and it could be full of unknown magic, so could potentially be very dangerous if we use spells anywhere in the vicinity. In fact, Professor McGonagall has suggested that we leave our wands out here before going in there to work every day. Until we've cleared the rubble and sorted everything out properly even a simple charm could have disastrous results."

Nobody looked very happy at the idea of surrendering their wands every day, but nobody disagreed, and when he asked them to they obediently dropped their wands into the box Harry held out. Malfoy in particular hesitated for a very long time before giving up his, as though worried Harry might steal it again. Eventually, however, he seemed to realise that he was lucky to have his wand at all – the Ministry had confiscated that wands of many Death Eaters, and he only still had his due to being let off with a more lenient sentence than many of the others – and let it fall among the other wands. Harry counted the wands, making sure that there were definitely seven, before adding his own to the collection and setting the box on a table.

"Come on, then," he said, leading the way out of the empty classroom and along the corridor towards the entrance to the study. The little group followed him, some reluctantly, some eagerly, and some with an air of resignation. However they did follow him, and he took that to be a good sign. Or at least, a good start.

The gargoyle, which normally stood at the entrance to the office, had been taken away to be repaired, so they were free to climb the stairs unhindered. The stairs themselves were relatively undamaged, but when they reached the top the door was gone and half the doorway had collapsed, forcing them all to clamber through the small gap that remained. The sight that met them was catastrophic. Harry had been up earlier with McGonagall to inspect the damage, but everyone else was horrified. A large chunk of the ceiling had caved in, with large chunks of rubble landing on and completely destroying the desk. Part of the wall had crumbled, strewing more rubble across the floor and burying most of Dumbledore's old books and strange instruments. The paintings had been blasted off the walls and were in various states of disrepair. Those that could be salvaged had already been removed from the room and taken away; several were destroyed beyond repair and had been disposed of, though they would hopefully be replaced some time in the future. Many were still missing, and Harry was hoping that the team would discover them at some point, preferably still intact.

Quickly, Harry sorted everyone into smaller groups, hoping to avoid too many arguments. Knowing that Ron and Hermione would not deal well with being separated, he asked them to work on shifting the rubble off the desk and sorting through anything they might find underneath. Ginny and Neville had grown much closer throughout the year when they had been running the DA, and Neville was one of the few people she wouldn't immediately fly into a rage with nowadays, so he sent them to try and clear the pile of stones under which he believed most of the paintings lay. That left Malfoy, Astoria and Hannah so, hoping that Hannah would cope with working with the two Slytherins, and that Malfoy wouldn't cause too much trouble, he set them to work creating a bigger entrance so that eventually a new doorframe and door could be put in place. Harry himself didn't join any of the groups, but instead flitted from one to another, helping out where needed, giving his opinion and answering their questions about what to do with various objects they uncovered.

For the first hour or so, everything went fairly smoothly. Five minutes in, a fight erupted between Ron and Hermione, and everyone stopped to watch them yell angrily at each other, but then Ron caught Harry's eye, took a deep breath and apologised to Hermione for being such a git, she smiled and blinked back tears, saying she was sorry for being so bossy, and everyone went back to working in peace. Neville and Ginny chatted quietly as they worked and Harry avoided going near them, knowing that it would immediately ruin Ginny's improving mood. He watched from a distance though, a little jealous, as Ginny laughed easily at something Neville said. He didn't think he'd seen her so much as smile when she was around him for the last few months, and he still couldn't understand what he'd done wrong.

To Harry's astonishment, the most productive of the three groups was Malfoy's. He had been expecting moaning from Malfoy about how this was servants work that he shouldn't have to do, and about the fact that he had to work with a Hufflepuff, but his expectations were never realised. Malfoy worked quickly and quietly, rarely stopping to rest and not speaking a word, except to ask politely for help lifting a particularly large chunk of stone, or at one point to apologise for knocking into Hannah. Hannah and Astoria proved themselves diligent, sensible workers who worked excellently together. As far as Harry knew, they had never met before today, but they seemed to click immediately and worked as an efficient, seamless team, pausing only occasionally to help Malfoy when necessary. Astoria – who was only fifteen and was just helping the group for the next few weeks before term started – was extremely grown up for her age, and Hannah was not the Hannah Abbott Harry had once known. She was quietly confident, with a calm air and a gentle smile that never quite reached her sad, empty eyes. Then again, Harry thought, Hannah had been through a lot since he had last seen her. The death of her mother in their sixth year, for one thing. And then the year spent under the rule of Snape and the Carrows, and she fought with the DA during the Battle of Hogwarts, in which she had probably seen friends and classmates dying around her. That could have an enormous effect on anyone; Harry was sure that he wasn't the same person he had been a couple of years ago. They had all changed. War did that to people.

Lost in thought, Harry didn't notice Ron and Hermione dragging the Pensieve out from beneath a pile of rubble and peering curiously at it. He did, however, notice Malfoy uncovering a strange, silver contraption – formerly Dumbledore's probably – and reaching out to pull one of the levers.

"No!" he shouted, leaping forward, but it was too late. Malfoy pulled the lever, the contraption exploded and they were all thrown backwards, landing hard on the stone floor with rubble showering down on them. When it was over, Harry sat up and looked around. Ron had thrown himself on top of Hermione to shield her, Ginny and Neville had their arms over their heads and everybody else was lying sprawled on the floor, but miraculously nobody was hurt. Breathing a sigh of relief, Harry glanced towards the source of the explosion to see what damage had been done, and his heart sank. The explosion had brought down another section of the ceiling, but this time it had collapsed directly over what was left of the doorway, creating a huge mound of bricks, which blocked the entrance and looked as though it would take weeks to shift. They were trapped.