From The Ashes
Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be.
A/N: A post-last battle fic, set in seventh year. This is a one-shot, though I may do more with it at a later date, when I don't have other long fics on the go. You will notice OotP knowledge is COMPLETELY unnecessary; this fic was written last December and therefore holds no information whatsoever regarding who died. The person who JKR killed off may or may not be featured in this story. I won't say anything for the benefit of those who have not yet read it. Two characters who we first meet in OotP get a brief mention at the end, but again, it won't give any of the plot away. Flames will be used to toast marshmallows. Enjoy.
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"It's over," an eighteen-year-old girl with dusty, bushy brown hair stated, partially sadly, partially disbelievingly, as she surveyed the collapsed, crumbled ruins that had, up until a few hours ago, been Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Dust still hung in the air, the late March afternoon sunlight catching it, making it seem as though the very air were on fire.
"Yeah," whispered a blonde-haired girl, joining her. "Do you think Harry –"
"No," cut in the first girl bitterly. "Harry had no chance. The whole school's come down around him. He'd never be able to get out. He'd have been crushed to death."
"Oh God…" the blonde girl choked out, hands covering her mouth, as though struggling to accept the possibility of the death of the person that the other girl had mentioned. She shook herself. "But at least maybe V-Voldemort will have been crushed as well. N-now he's got a body and all…"
The first girl shrugged helplessly. "We don't know, Han. We just don't know."
'Han' (Hannah Abbott, to give her her full name) dropped to the ground, idly scanning the ruins. "And it's not just Harry. We couldn't get everyone out. Sirius went down to the dungeons, to see if anyone was down there. Snape probably was; it's his territory, after all…" Her voice trailed off as a series of small explosions came from one corner of the heap of rubble. A fox near them barked, a note seemingly of hope in the sound.
"That's about where Snape's office is, isn't it, Herm?"
"Was." 'Herm' (Hermione Granger) nodded briefly. "I expect it's the potions reacting to the dust. Snape said that some were explosive when exposed to air or dust." She sounded bitter, defeated.
"We can't give up hope!" cried Hannah, then started as a particularly loud and violent explosion shook the ground they were standing on. She scrambled to her feet, ripped and torn clothes and robes flapping in the light wind. "There's people over there, Herm!" She watched as two figures emerged, both tall and black-haired, dust covering them. The slightly shorter man wearily shot green sparks into the air from his wand while the other disappeared, replaced by a huge, shaggy black dog which easily (though somewhat tiredly) bounded over the rubble to the two girls. Upon reaching them, it transformed back into an exhausted Sirius Black.
"Sirius!" Hermione shrieked, flinging her arms around him in sheer relief. "You're alive!"
"I am indeed, Hermione. Snape is as well," he added as an afterthought. He pulled away and nodded briefly at the other man, who had nearly reached them. "When we realised what had happened, Snape and I mixed up some explosive potions, chucked them at the rocks and blasted our way out."
"Seen anyone else?" inquired Severus Snape. "We've been trapped down there for hours, knowing absolutely nothing."
"Draco's been searching; he went in before – before the building collapsed, to get people out," Hannah informed him shakily. "I – I don't know…if he got out…"
"I'm not going to die on you that easily, Abbott, so don't write me off just yet," a new voice, teasing and lighthearted, yet weary at the same time, responded.
Hannah whirled round. "Draco! You're alright!" She hurried over to him and hugged him tightly.
"It's notoriously hard to kill my family," Draco Malfoy returned with his trademark smirk. "Took 'em six tries before great-great-great-however many greats-grandfather Julius popped his clogs. Mind you," he added thoughtfully, "he was meant to be a pretty hard bastard anyway, so maybe we're not that invincible…" He grinned, though the horrors of war were still apparent on his pale face. It was his dry, sarcastic sense of humour and tales of eccentric relatives (such as Bellatrix Lestrange, who had 'gone round the twist and lost her marbles rather spectacularly, allegedly – if she had ever had any marbles to begin with – before I'd been born', to quote Draco) and ancestors long-dead, which had kept them going many a time when they had been ready to give up.
"Never thought I'd see you fighting with us, Malfoy," remarked Sirius casually, eyeing him slightly suspiciously.
Draco shrugged, hands in the pockets of his torn robes now Hannah had released him. "I didn't particularly like the idea of grovelling in the dirt on my knees, kissing the robes of Tom Riddle," he answered indifferently. "I have my pride; I kiss the robes of, and grovel in the dirt to, no-one. Particularly if that person's some jumped-up half-Muggle preaching about pureblood supremacy and not twigging that once in power, he'll have to be bumped off 'cause he's not pureblood. And I don't like being ordered around." He smirked, brushing strands of dirty blond hair out of his grey eyes. "Anyway, I couldn't have the Dark Mark ruining my perfect skin, now, could I?"
This comment broke the tension and they all laughed, though it was forced – their worry over the safety of Harry Potter was far too great, and Hermione was the first to voice her fears, leaning against Sirius, the missing boy's godfather, for support.
"I'm sure Potter will emerge practically unscathed," Snape told her irritably. "He always does. Why should the final showdown with the most powerful Dark Lord of all time be any different?"
"I'm willing to investigate," offered Hannah, despite her exhaustion. "I can get into small spaces in my Animagus form. Unlike Sirius – he's far too big."
"If you think it'll help," replied Sirius dubiously.
"It can't get any worse."
Snape rummaged in his torn black robes. "Try some Anti-Exhaustion Potion. It might help."
"I've never heard of that," remarked Hermione as Hannah gratefully took the flask from the Potions teacher.
"I developed it in my fifth year. When you're staying up all night on a regular basis at weekends, you need something decent and effective to keep you awake and alert. It has a high caffeine content."
Hannah downed it all in one go. "I like the lemon taste."
"Personal touch. Tastes absolutely foul otherwise, like most of Poppy's medicines," Snape told her.
Hannah handed the empty flask back to him. "I feel better already. See you in a bit." Moments later there was a light ginger cat where she had been standing. She trotted off at a brisk pace and soon disappeared into the rubble. Hermione leaned into Sirius, who slipped her arms reassuringly around her. "Harry will be fine, Hermione," he insisted, though none of the remaining foursome were entirely sure who he was trying to convince. The silence that filled the area was deafening, and Snape shuddered involuntarily as it was broken by an unidentifiable noise from the Forbidden Forest, which stood at the edge of the Hogwarts grounds. "We're not safe out here in the open," he said, glancing around nervously. "I've survived the final battle and I don't want to end up as dinner for some monster from the Forest."
"Same," agreed Draco, shivering in a gust of cold wind. He was thin, too thin really, and his tattered clothing was little defence from the cold March weather.
"What happened to Lucius?" inquired Snape cautiously. Draco's father was a delicate issue, as he was one of Voldemort's most loyal and faithful followers.
Draco tensed, and would have paled if he hadn't been deathly white already. "He's dead," he stated shortly. "Saw the Aurors coming for him and downed a load of fast-acting poison. I watched him do it. No great loss to our world, I s'pose, but he was my father." He shrugged helplessly. "Mother died a few months ago, so it looks like I'm not going to get the big eighteenth party I was promised for my birthday next month." He smiled wryly. "Ah well. Guess I'll have to arrange it all myself."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Only you could think of your birthday when the entire wizarding world is falling down around us."
He shrugged. "Someone has to; might as well be me." The smile faded and was replaced by a sad, haunted, bitter expression. For the first time Hermione noticed the dark shadows under his eyes – probably not unlike her own or Hannah's. She knew he'd had a particularly rough time in the last eight months or so, since he'd made the decision to fight with them and join the Order. He'd been deeply involved in a lot of strategic planning because of his family's background in the Dark Arts and connections to Voldemort, and had also had to hide his role from his Slytherin housemates, as many of them were, by the middle of his sixth year, quite open about their support for Voldemort. It had been hard on Snape as well, as a spy. They'd never worked out how Voldemort had believed him when he had pretended that he was spying on Dumbledore.
But by then, Hermione reflected, Riddle had gone clinically insane and 'round the twist like Bellatrix', so perhaps it wasn't really that much of a surprise.
"I think we could all do with some Anti-Exhaustion Potion," said Snape, breaking into Hermione's thoughts. "I have plenty on me, so it's not a problem. The dungeons are actually relatively intact – the Potions ones, anyway. The Slytherin dorms aren't; they've been decimated by fire." He pulled out four more small flasks of the potion and handed them round before sitting down. The other three followed suit, Hermione leaning against Sirius and Draco against Snape. They sat in silence for a long time, Hermione near tears. Everything was gone, ruined, shattered, destroyed. She didn't bother to wipe away the few stray tears that slid down her cheeks. She should owl her parents, let them know she was alive, had survived the final battle. 'Not like Ron,' she thought sadly. 'Or Neville, or Dean, or Lisa, or Sally-Anne, or the Creevey brothers, or so, so many others…'
She couldn't stop the tears of grief now, and Sirius drew her into a tight hug, silent yet understanding. He had lost his three best friends – Peter Pettigrew, to Voldemort and then death at the hand of the very master he served, Remus Lupin because he was a werewolf, and Harry's father James, along with his wife Lily, at the hand of Voldemort himself, seventeen years ago, during his first reign of terror.
Snape slipped an arm around Draco's thin waist. The Potions teacher had lost his partner, Connie, eighteen years ago when she had been six months pregnant with their daughter. She had been involved in a train crash, losing her life upon impact. It had been Connie who had turned him from the dark. 'Hufflepuffs seem to have a tendency to do that to dark Slytherins,' he observed wryly, glancing down at a statuesque Draco. It had been Hannah who had changed him, simply by being kind and friendly to him in his final two years in Arithmancy, Basic Magical Medicine and Charms. 'Must be an inbuilt Hufflepuff thing.'
Draco was gazing unseeingly at the destroyed building that had once been a spectacular castle, built by the Founders themselves over a thousand years ago. He wasn't quite sure how Hannah had saved him – he doubted even she knew – but she had, and he could be his own person, not just his father's clone. 'There's still time for the redemption of the Malfoy name, despite the best efforts of my predecessors,' he thought drily.
Finally Snape broke the silence. "Where do we go from here?" he wondered aloud, sounding somewhat dazed.
"No idea," Sirius replied, shaking his head. "Absolutely no bloody idea." They lapsed into silence again until a yell startled them.
"It's Hannah," announced Draco, leaping to his feet and yanking off his robes. Underneath, his school jumper was riddled with holes, his white shirt was no longer white, his trousers had holes in the knees and were ripped, and his silver and green house tie had long been discarded. Where, he had no idea.
He raced over scrambling over rubble and huge stones where he reached them, not caring about the state of his appearance. The others weren't far behind, Hermione's uniform visibly ruined now she had discarded her own robes.
He reached Hannah in record time. "Han? What's up? Are you OK?"
"Are you just going to stand there all day, Malfoy, or am I going to get helped out of here?" a new voice demanded impatiently.
"Potter?!" asked Draco in disbelief.
"No, it's Voldemort, you pillock; of course it's me! Come on, give me a hand!"
"Sorry; Herm had us all convinced you were dead," replied Draco nonchalantly, pulling his wand out of his pocket.
"Draco!" hissed Hermione, elbowing him sharply, her own wand now in her hand.
"Oh all right. Wingardium Leviosa!" He was joined by Hannah, Hermione, Snape and Sirius as together they lifted the stones and dropped them on the nearby grass. Soon Harry was free and, as Snape had predicted, practically unscathed. He wiped his scratched, dirty hands on his torn trousers and pushed his messy, dust-coated black hair out of his face. Amazingly, his glasses were still intact apart from being slightly askew on his nose. "No bones broken," he declared as he scrambled out. "No Voldemort, either, thank goodness. At last."
"He's dead?" asked Hermione hopefully.
"As dead as can possibly be," confirmed Harry. He gazed at the ruins surrounding them, for the first time. "My God…Are people alive under here?"
"No," Snape informed him brusquely. "I cast a Death Toll spell. No survivors except for you. Anyone who was in the castle when it collapsed will be dead."
"Seamus is in St. Mungo's with a broken leg," said Hermione. "I don't know about anyone else, though."
"Susan'll know," Hannah stated. "Three's an emergency centre at up at The Three Broomsticks, linked to Hagrid's hut by Floo. Dumbledore – "
"Is dead. I know. Voldemort killed him," cut in Harry shortly. He began scrambling over the rubble with Sirius' help. "We lost McGonagall and Flitwick together. Lucius Malfoy and Avery did it; I recognised them."
"My father has since committed suicide," Draco told him quietly. "The coward."
"Sinistra was in her office at the top of the Astronomy classroom; she'll have gone." Harry sighed heavily.
"Sprout and Vector have gone," added Hannah.
"Seems like I'm the only teacher left," remarked Snape, "so you may as well call me Severus. It's not like there's a school any more." He helped Hannah drop down onto the grass from a high stone. "Which means me out of a job for life; nobody else will take on an ex-Death Eater." His tone was bitter, and none of the others blamed him, knowing that he was right.
They wandered down to the lake, Draco leaning on Hannah for support (he had slipped during the scrambling and twisted his ankle badly). While Hannah treated the injury and wrapped a bandage she had in her pocket, round it, Harry trailed his fingers in the water, Severus paced up and down and Sirius just sat.
Hermione stood, gazing out across the expanse of water in front of her. "How are young wizarding children supposed to learn, now Hogwarts has been destroyed?" she asked, somewhat rhetorically. "They can't not go to school. It's illegal, for starters."
"Herm, that's in the Muggle world," Harry tiredly pointed out.
"So let's start a school of our own, if you're so desperate for education!" Draco snapped as he gingerly put his sock and trainer back on.
Hermione turned slowly to stare at him, her expression changing from anxiety and weariness, to slow comprehension and amazement. "Of course! Draco, you're a genius!"
"I am? I mean," he added, smirking, "of course I am."
"Yes! You, me, Harry and Hannah! We'll found our own school!"
"Er – we will?" Harry blinked, rather bemused.
"Yes. Like Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin," she answered impatiently, a gleam of excitement in her eyes.
"I wonder what happened to Gryffindor's sword," mused Harry. "Dumbledore had it in his office…I'm going to find it!" And before anyone could stop him, he was gone, heading back to the castle. Sirius made as though to go after him, but Severus held him back. "Let him go," he advised.
"Are you two in?" asked Hermione, facing Draco and Hannah.
"Absolutely," confirmed Hannah promptly.
Draco smirked. "I suppose I'd better, what with it being my idea and everything…"
"Good. We'll name the houses after ourselves…Abbott, Granger, Malfoy and Potter do sound good house names, don't they?" worried Hermione, beginning to pace up and down.
"The houses should take on our Animagus forms as their symbols," suggested Draco. "You know – hedgehog for Abbott, otter for Granger, stag for Potter and fox for Malfoy."
"I like it," Hannah said, her voice taking on a note of her usual enthusiasm. "What about colours? I'd rather like to keep the yellow and black of Hufflepuff, if that's okay."
"I'm keeping my Slytherin colours," put in Draco immediately. "But Herm…You and Harry are both Gryffindors. What will you do?"
"I'll take Ravenclaw colours," answered Hermione promptly. "I nearly got put there in first year anyway."
"I'll design the badge if you want," offered Hannah. "I've always been pretty good at art and the like."
"You do realise," cut in Severus, "that any school you plan on founding requires a name…"
"Ah. Good point." Hermione was, unusually, stumped, dropping down to the ground, deep in thought. "Maybe Harry'll have an idea, as and when he returns." She flinched as the sound of stone being forcibly shattered reached her ears. "What is he doing?"
Draco shrugged. "Beats me. Perhaps he thinks it'll get the job done quicker. Who knows where Potter's concerned?"
"Oh give over!" snapped Hermione.
Draco shrank back, visibly flinching. "No need to shout. I had more than enough of that last summer in between everything else."
"Sorry," Hermione apologised briefly, watching Harry once again. "Name, name, name…It needs to be something that reflects the school."
"Oh yeah, and 'Hogwarts' really did that," Draco retorted sarcastically, earning a deadly glare from Hermione.
"I'm being serious here, Malfoy, so if you don't like it you can, go and sit at the bottom of the lake!"
"Can't; the Gillyweed was destroyed when the greenhouses were blown up," Draco shot back flippantly.
"No-one would ever guess you'd just been involved in a battle by your behaviour, Malfoy! You're the same cocky git you always have been!"
Draco got swiftly to his feet, eyes narrowing. "I take objection to that, Granger," he snarled. "I was trying to stop people getting too serious. You always appreciated it before."
"Draco – "
"I'll be back in a while. There's something I have to do, and it has to be done in private," he informed her stiffly, stalking off until he was out of sight.
"You don't think he'll try to – to kill himself, do you?" asked Hannah nervously.
"No," replied Severus confidently. "He just needs some time on his own. His father died yesterday, and he'll want to be alone to begin to come to terms with it. He was like this when his mother died. It's just the way he does things. I rather suspect as well that he wants to cry, but Draco is a Malfoy and he won't cry if he has an audience. Everyone deals with things differently, and he'll come back when he's good and ready."
Hermione nodded reluctantly. "I suppose it makes sense."
Severus seemed about to respond when Harry came bounding up to them, his emerald eyes round in amazement. "Found these…right near…the surface," he gasped out, sinking to his knees and dropping four long, narrow objects to the ground.
"What –?" began Hermione in confusion.
"It's…Good grief! It's the Founders' swords!" breathed Hannah in disbelief. "My God…"
"How do you know?" asked Sirius.
Hannah pointed to the four swords in their red, yellow, green and blue scabbards with the initials GG, HH, SS and RR engraved on the four swords respectively.
"I recognised Gryffindor's," added Harry, "having used it in second year. Dumbledore said something about how one day the swords would all fall to blood descendants of the four Founders of Hogwarts, and that these four would found a new school. It's an ancient prophecy, apparently."
Severus nodded. "I'm vaguely familiar with it. The fall of a dark lord, et cetera, et cetera. You should put your own initials on them; they seem to be meant for you, and somehow I cannot see the Founders appearing from the past to claim them."
Hannah bent down and slowly picked up Helga Hufflepuff's sword, drawing it out of its scabbard. The hilt was encrusted with brilliant yellow citrines. "Wow," she breathed in awe.
"'Wow' is right," agreed Hermione, examining Rowena Ravenclaw's sapphire-encrusted sword.
"What about Draco?" asked Harry, noticing the other boy's absence for the first time. "Where'd he go?"
"He'll be back later," said Sirius. "We'll give Slytherin's sword to him then. Now, about the name of this school you four are planning on founding…"
"Phoenix," announced Harry immediately. "A school is reborn from the ashes, just like real phoenixes are."
"I like it," declared Hannah. "Phoenix School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It has a certain ring to it. But what do the houses stand for?"
"Similar to the old ones, I reckon," said Hermione. "Abbott: loyal, hardworking, friendly. Granger: intelligent, responsible, a desire for knowledge. Malfoy: shrewd, ambitious, cunning. Potter: brave, resilient – and unpredictable. I'd say that pretty much sums us up."
Snape cleared his throat. "I hate to ruin your dreams, but where exactly do you plan on having this school? Unless you want to rebuild the castle?"
"Malfoy Manor?" offered Draco, suddenly reappearing behind them and making them all jump. "It'd have to be thoroughly cleared and so on, but it could be ready in time for September 1st, if there are enough people working hard on it. I certainly don't want to live there on my own. It's far too big for one person. And you can get the train from Paddington from Platform Five and A Half to near it. There's a station about a mile or so from the Manor – Somersby Halt – that's wizarding-only and just for the village of Somersby Halt, which is all-wizarding. We could use that. I'm sure they'd let us. As for the Manor, there are four wings – one at each corner – that we could use for the four houses…the dining room's certainly big enough to accommodate an entire school at meal-times, we have dungeons (well, technically cellars) that I'm sure you'd love to use for Potions, Severus…There are certainly enough rooms for classrooms, smaller ones for offices, the grounds are definitely large enough for a Quidditch pitch, there's a large forest out at the back, which I'm sure Hagrid would appreciate. The lake isn't anywhere near the size of this one, but that doesn't really matter; we could use it for swimming in the summer – I know I always loved it. We actually have a tower that could be used for Astronomy lessons, courtesy of my five-greats-grandfather Cassius who was a devoted astronomer and had it built specially…"
"Wow," remarked Harry. "It sounds perfect."
"Completely," agreed Hannah, and Sirius grinned.
"I love it!" declared Hermione.
"Why, thankyou," said Draco, bowing graciously and sending the girls into fits of giggles. "It will be a pleasure to show you my elegant home. Once all the anti-intruder charms and curses have been removed, of course, which could take several days. My family never changed the wards when the son took over; each generation merely added to them. I'm going to need your help here, Severus."
"Not a problem," replied Snape. "Potter, Granger, Abbott, report to Bones up in Hogsmeade and let her know we're alright. Draco, Black, let's go and get started. We'll owl you when we're done with the curse and ward removal – so don't expect to hear from us for a few days."
"Okay," said Hermione.
"And you'd better start looking for staff."
"That's true," said Sirius.
"Oh, I've already thought about that," answered Hermione nonchalantly. "Us four will be the House Heads and school heads. Severus can take over as Potions teacher, Sirius, you'll be our Transfiguration professor –"
"I will?"
"You will – if you want to, that is."
"Oh, definitely."
"Good. I'll teach Muggle Studies, Harry can teach Defence Against the Dark Arts, Draco can teach Arithmancy, seeing as it's his best subject after Potions and he loves it, Hannah can teach Herbology…"
"Susan'll work with Madam Pomfrey," put in Hannah. "She was planning on staying on at Hogwarts and training under her anyway, and Pomfrey's up in Hogsmeade with her right now."
"Excellent! Now, which other posts do we need?"
"Charms, History of Magic, Divination, Study of Ancient Runes and Care of Magical Creatures," supplied Harry, "although I expect Hagrid and Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank will be willing to continue teaching joint classes as they've been doing for the past two years."
"Tonks was always outstanding at Charms; I could talk to her," offered Sirius. "I was talking to her a few days ago and she doesn't think she can take being an Auror any longer. Said she wanted to do something a little less dangerous."
"I want an interesting History of Magic teacher this time," said Hermione. "Binns was just no good. And people wonder why only Draco, Mandy and I got top grades in our OWLs?"
"Get Mandy," advised Hannah. "She was going to do some kind of further study or research relating to magical history anyway, and we worked together quite often. She'll be good – she's really enthusiastic."
"Ancient Runes?"
"Ernie Macmillan's older sister," said Hannah. "She's always wanted to teach it, and she works as a private tutor at the moment, but she'd prefer a class to one or two 'disinterested, irritating little brats', as she puts it."
"Can you speak to her?"
"Yep."
"Good. Now we just have Divination to do – and I don't want Parvati or Lavender. They'll just annoy me all the time."
"How about my sort-of-aunt Felicia?" suggested Draco. "She taught at Beauxbatons for a while, but they were all convinced she was a Death Eater like batty Bellatrix – which she wasn't - and they made it so horrible for her that she was forced to resign three years ago. She hasn't worked since, but she knows what she's talking about and she isn't some nutter like Trelawney was."
"If you can get in touch with her, that would be good," replied Hermione.
"I can," Draco affirmed.
"Great. So that's the staff. All we need to do now is create our own Sorting Hat and contact all the relevant people – and parents (that's extremely important) – set up the school and there we have it."
"Come on, Draco, Black," ordered Snape. "Let's start work on that Manor." Together the three Apparated, leaving the other three on the site of Hogwarts, preparing to traipse up to Hogsmeade, filled with apprehension and excitement at the long task ahead of them.
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Finis
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Perhaps. There may yet be a sequel.