Hallowed
Chapter Seventeen: Repairing The Broken
His dreams however, were not nearly as peaceful as that thought. Images of the deceased dark lord's face loomed up out of the darkness. His laughter echoed in Harry's ears, and all of the pain that he had managed to avoid with the repeated cruciatus curses hit him like an ongoing train. Body contracting and shaking while he slept, he never heard a scream; not his nor anyone else's. He could hear the screeching of metal on glass as he had many times before, but there was never a cause. Only when the sound was unbearable did he see a blast of green and the dream ended; leaving him sitting up on the sofa with a startled Ron and a not-so-surprised Hermione looking at him.
"So I take it you didn't sleep well." Hermione said as she offered him a cup of hot chocolate.
"No, not really." Accepting it, Harry took a long pull from the mug. His entire body started to relax, so that led him to raise his eyebrows. "You put a calming draft in this, didn't you?"
"Well spotted." She smiled, and pulled a small potion phial out of her robe pocket. "Had it brewed back when we were out and about. Never really needed to use it, though."
"Good thinking." Ron grinned as he looked Harry over again. "Bad dream, then?"
"Just a compilation of what all we've had to deal with, I guess." Taking another pull from the mug, Harry placed it on the table nearest. "I'm sure it will fade in time."
"Speaking of," Hermione looked back at him as she stroked Hedwig absently; the owl resting on her knee. "What time did you head to bed last night? Ron and I waited up a bit, but you never showed."
"Wasn't sure I could sleep when we were first heading up to the tower, so I took a walk." Harry said as he pulled on his glasses and provoked the fire in the grate with his wand. "Wound up in the great hall and spent a few minutes talking with McGonagall."
"Right brave of you to get in front of that curse for her yesterday." Ron commented as he took a seat to Harry's left while Hermione did the same on his right.
"Suppose I'm just trying to even the score." He didn't have to look to see their confusion, so he elaborated. "Aside from warning us of the death eaters, dueling Snape, and dueling Voldemort twice on my behalf, she was there when I was little." He remembered the summers and intermittent times during the winters when he had that odd tabby as company; when he would talk about all that went on and would swear she was listening. "After all of that, I wasn't about to let that happen."
"Surprised he didn't go for me." Neville said as he cleared the stairs from the dormitories. "I mean I killed the snake."
"Probably saw her as more of a prime target, yeah?" Ron suggested.
"He would have been right." Hermione nodded. "When he was torturing what we all thought was your body," At this point she stopped for a moment, and Ron patted her on the shoulder a few times. His expression was jst as grim for a moment, though. "I thought she was going to kill him then and there."
"Wish I could have seen it." Harry muttered. "Mind, I was taking a few looks around while everyone was distracted."
"Actually, that was the only reason we knew to look for you when she started dueling him." Hermione said brightly. "Ginny spotted you looking around and nudged Ron and I."
"For a moment there, I thought it was right cheeky of you." Ginny had come down the stairs to the girls' dormitories now and took a seat in one of the armchairs while Neville took the other. "Then, when you disappeared, I figured you had a good reason for it."
"I figured that then was as good a time as ever to move." Harry grinned sheepishly. "I mean two powerful people dueling right there almost on top of me and all." He looked around to the window but was nonplused to see that the clouds covered up the sun's progress again. "What time is it, anyway?"
"Nearly noon." Ron grinned. Only then did Harry notice the flecks of light snow melting on his robes. "Been out working in the greenhouses today. Never thought I'd be happy to see devil's snare again."
"I think I remember Professor Sprout saying that she'd use it on the giants if possible." Harry commented, remembering when the heads of houses had split off before the battle of Hogwarts.
"Oh yeah." Neville grinned. He had to be careful as he did so, though. Even with most of his wounds healed or in the process of it, he winced slightly. "Saw her release it on a pair of giants, and they were brought down within a short while. I think she even used venomous tentacula and snuffalog pods."
"That right there is nasty." Ron said. "Venomous tentacula, I mean."
"Exactly." Neville's grin broadened. "Couple of death eaters followed her into the greenhouses and were attacked immediately. Sods ran out screaming with marks all over their faces and hands."
"I think they're going to start work on the first floor today after lunch." Hermione addressed Harry. "Are you interested?"
"Yeah." He stood and headed for the stairs. "I'll just change into my robes and be back down."
"No need to look too hard for them." She tossed a set of navy blue work robes at him. Catching them, Harry examined them carefully.
"Thick, aren't they?"
"Well, there're gaping holes in the first floor corridors because of the giants lumbering around, so warmth is hard to find." Ginny grinned.
"Fair enough." Harry headed upstairs, changed out of his pajamas, and placed some of his things back in the robe pockets. Opening the rucksack, he withdrew the Elder wand and headed down to meet the others again. When Ron and Hermione looked from the wand to him, he shrugged. "Most powerful wand made; maybe it will come in handy with the repairs."
"Let's hope so." Hermione said as she vanished the now empty mugs that they had all apparently been drinking out of.
The three left the tower and met several other volunteers on the first floor. Having been there the previous night, Harry wasn't surprised to see it hadn't really improved all that much in the morning, but he was thankful that there were many people to at least make the work go by more pleasantly. Molly, Arthur, and most of the other Weasleys were already shifting stone alongside Professor Flitwick. Remus was working alongside Luna and Dean to repair many shattered windows. Desks were being driven back into classrooms by Professor McGonagall, who was lazily directing them with her wand. Harry had to stifle a grin when he remembered seeing her leading them in a rampage to hinder the progress of death eaters leaving the castle last year. Even Severus Snape was working to right several bent up and damaged suits of armor. One was rather stubborn and seemed to insist on wearing its chestplate warped and burnt.
"Looks like he's having issue with that armor there." Ron grinned as Snape grew rather frustrated.
"Stubborn thing." The headmistress crossed the corridor, took her wand, and gave the suit of armor a good thump on the helmet. In that instant, it fell apart into pieces. "Should be easier now, Severus."
"So a good thump to the head actually fixes something, Professor?" Neville asked as she went and began working on a few of the sculptures and statues that had been destroyed in their attempts to assist in the battle.
"Not in your case, Longbottom." The quick quip had everyone laughing except for Snape, but Harry swore he saw the man's mouth twitch. He repaired the suit of armor and replaced it on its pedestal. No longer animated, it offered no response to its forced repair.
"Move that here, and I'll see what I can do with it." Filius Flitwick motioned to a large hunk of stone that Fred and George were working to shift. "I think I can use it in this hole."
Harry, who saw a few suits of armor with the same symptoms as Snape's troublesome one, moved to repair them while Ron and Hermione worked with Ginny to shift more stone nearby to patch a hole that led out into the courtyard. Using the Elder wand as an experiment, he found It reacted just as well as his own, but it seemed to get more done. The suits of armor were repaired within a space of ten minutes, and he was working to secure a few tapestries back onto the walls with Dean after.
For the next month or so, the days passed relatively the same. In the morning, breakfast was a means of waking everyone up and work was done in the warmer parts of the castle during the morning. Lunch was usually light, but there were all sorts of options provided by the house elves. Repairs would be done to the cooler or outer parts of the castle during the majority of the day to ensure that temperatures didn't get too chilly, but there were those who kept torches or jars of fire burning throughout to keep warm. Dinner was a satisfying meal that ended the tedium and workload. Though most meals were social, it was the most; people playing chess, exploding snap, or even gobstones afterwards. After all of that was cleared away, people would go off to different parts of the castle or even Hogsmeade to spend the rest of the evening.
One warm afternoon found Harry working out on the quidditch pitch with repairs. It was hard to think that the night he had returned here, this field was on fire along with the stands. They had managed to replace the grass, but it would take the spring rains and summer to get it back to its normal velvet state. The stands however, were an easy repair. Base structures made of stone, they were working to repair the stairs and the benches. House draperies that surrounded them were already done and secure. Most of the stands were done; wood having been brought in from the forest and crafted due to the many downed trees. As he wiped sweat from his brow carefully, Harry looked out over the pitch again. Golden goal posts shining in the afternoon sun, it was tempting to summon his broom and just fly around them for nostalgic purposes, but he had a few more benches to work together before dinner. He returned to fitting the bench into its two stone legs so that it would be secure, and once that was done, he performed a good sticking charm to ensure the wood would not move.
"Done up there, are you?"
Harry looked down from the bench he had just secured and saw a silver-blonde head darting out from the stairs leading to where he was. Draco Malfoy had volunteered, along with Madam Hooch, Oliver Wood, Angelina Johnson, the Weasley twins, Cho Chang, and Katie Bell to assist in the repairs of the stadium. Most of the others had headed up toward the castle a few minutes ago. "Nearly. Still got three more to go." Pulling the next bench seat from the stack of long, heavy, and finished wooden planks with his wand, Harry directed it to the stone supports on the level below the one he had just finished. "Others are done, I take it."
"Just left, yeah."
"Got the stairs secure?"
"Yeah, heading up now." Draco disappeared back into the stands where Harry was working and he could hear the slytherin climbing up to join him. Harry lay the heavy wood down carefully and moved down to the empty stone supports to check them for cracks or anything. Walking along the length of the supports, he found nothing. He raised his wand again and moved the bench top over from its temporary resting place and let if slide easily into its proper place before he performed the same sticking charm as before. When that was done, he turned to see the next one already floating nearby. Draco was checking the stone supports on the next row down.
"Thanks for that." He addressed the slytherin in earnest. "I'll get the last."
"Figure the more I do, the less I think about everything." Draco muttered as he went to apply the sticking charm.
"Everything alright with your family?"
"Good as it can be, I suppose." Draco watched as Harry finished up the last bench. "Mother's got the house sorted and all."
"Hear anything from your father?"
"Azkaban." Draco said shortly. "Got caught fleeing Hogsmeade when the ministry got here."
"I'm sorry." Harry couldn't say he was sorry in earnest, but he could appreciate the fact that Draco had lost his father to prison again.
"I'm not. He wanted things to go back to the way they "were"." This made Harry look up from where he had been checking the bench to see that the sticking charm he placed was done properly. Once he was sure it had, he sat down on it and looked out over the pitch while Draco did the same.
"I take it you didn't want it that way."
"I didn't want to see teachers that I had seen in school killed in front of me, no."
"Professor Burbage." Harry said with a slight lump in his throat. Though he didn't know the muggle studies professor at all, he knew what Voldemort had done to her. "Killed her in your family's house and had the snake go at her after."
"Yeah." Malfoy turned and regarded Harry with curiosity. "How did you know that?'
"Sometimes I could see what Voldemort was doing because of my… connection to him." Harry hadn't really gone off and explained everything about him being a horcrux to everyone just yet. "I saw that, what he did to Ollivander, and a few others."
"Didn't know that." It was all that Draco had time to say due to the sudden appearance of Hermione and Ginny. The two boys jumped when they heard the latter's voice.
"There you two are."
"Hey." Harry grinned after getting over their sudden appearance. "Thought we'd disappeared, did you?"
"Rumor has it that only happens to referees." Hermione said as she and Ginny stood just above the boys. "Dinner in the great hall soon."
"Came down here just to tell us that?" Draco asked as he stood up from the newly completed bench.
"Felt like getting out of the castle." Ginny said as she looked toward Draco. "Working on it has been a chore, and sometimes it's just good to see something that has been completed rather than most that is still in repair."
"Just got finished here." Harry stood as well and wiped the sweat from his brow with a sleeve. It wasn't an absolutely hot day, but when the sun hit just right, it got a bit warm in work robes. "How's the room of requirement going?" I heard some were working on that today."
"It's getting there. Just clearing off a lot of the rubbish that was still there. Flitwick says he can have the usual enchantments in place so that the room serves its old purpose after everything is cleared away." Hermione said as she glanced back up at the castle. "We're getting there, you know?"
"Yeah." Ginny added. "Looks like we'll meet that deadline for term in September."
"That'll be good." Harry and Draco started moving up the rows to the stands' exit as Harry spoke. "It will be nice to maybe return here for my last year without worrying about something going wrong."
"Or someone trying to kill you." Draco quipped.
"Yeah, and that."
The rest of the afternoon was an interesting one. Harry was surprised at how, dare he say, pleasant Draco could be. Sure, he had his moments, but didn't everyone? The two had managed to work in the quidditch pitch without killing each other; even Ginny and Hermione had managed to talk to him off and on. Ron still seemed a bit put off by the fact that they were talking, but that was nothing they hadn't seen before. He had been a bit stubborn when Hermione and Viktor Krum were getting close. He had questioned their associating with the slytherin when they all entered the great hall nearly ten minutes later.
"Hanging around with him now, are you?"
"He and I were repairing the pitch with others, so yeah." Harry answered with a raised eyebrow. "Why?"
"You trust him?"
"Yeah." Harry answered again. He had sat down near Ginny and was pulling a platter of chicken toward him. "Thought we had discussed this, Ron. He could have sold us out at Malfoy manor but he didn't, and he could have turned on me in the room of requirement. He didn't."
"That and he risked everything by not going over to Voldemort's side in the battle." Hermione added.
"Suppose you're right." Ron admitted, but he still didn't get too social with Draco over the course of the evening. Harry didn't push the issue; instead, he just enjoyed the evening. Hogwarts staff had long since abandoned the staff table during the repairs, and they had intermingled with the past and present students. There were those who chose to remain in Hogsmeade rather than at the castle itself, but Harry couldn't turn down the cooking of the house elves. He had to admit that he looked forward to seeing Kreacher and Dobby during the evenings in the common room.
Tonight however, he found himself walking along the grounds as the last traces of winter were replaced by spring. The first day of the warmer season was coming tomorrow, and he had mixed feelings about seeing it go. There was still a fair bit of work to do out in the grounds, and the cooler it was, the better the work would pass. Then again, he had had quite enough of sleeping out in that tent in the bitter winter to last him a while. As he walked across the repaired bridge, he could see the lake and the entrance to the forest from his position. Closing his eyes, Harry could see the grounds as they had been that night. Hagrid's hut had been ablaze again, the quidditch pitch had been as well.
"Out walking again, Harry?" He was drawn from his thoughts by one of his best friends as she crossed the remainder of the bridge to moin him. Hermione was clad in dark crimson robes as she stood loking out at the swaying dark trees. "Third time this week, isn't it?"
"Yeah." Harry hadn't expected her to be out this late. Turning to face her, he saw traces of what he recognized as fury vanishing from her face. "You and Ron have another row, I take it?"
"Not really." Hermione huffed as she sat down on the low steps that led to the grounds; Harry doing the same beside her. "He and I were talking and Lavender came 'round from Hogsmeade. Instead of giving her the brush off like I thought he might, he's working out just why they broke up. Lavender dropped the bomb that he was asking for me while he was out of it in the hospital wing, and he looked at me like I should have told him sooner. Now, they're just talking."
"So what are you bothered about then?" Avoiding the subject of Ron and Lavender had been a good idea, or at least while they had been on the move. It had been awkward enough between Ron and Hermione when he had left and come back.
"Peeves." She muttered. Only then did Harry notice that Hermione's hair was still soaking wet. "He was dropping water bombs again."
"Right." Harry pulled out his wand and aimed it at her sopping hair before performing a drying charm and moving it about. "Like he did in the beginning of fourth year."
"Well, we were lucky then that there weren't potions in those balloons." Hermione muttered. "Thanks, by the way."
"No problem."
"So," She looked out over the now quiet and dark grounds. "What are you doing out here anyway? I think Ginny was looking for you."
"That's one reason I'm out here." Harry admitted before he could stop himself. At Hermione's confused glance, he clarified. "I've been doing a lot of thinking over the last week. We've spent a good bit of time together, and I do feel a connection between us, but there's something off about it."
"Off?"
"Yeah. I can't really put a finger on it, but I just feel like something about it isn't right."
"Well," Hermione thought for a moment as she ran a hand through her now dry hair. "You both seem to care for one another, but I dunno." She thought for a moment longer before turning back to him. "Maybe you just need time."
"For what, exactly?"
"Maybe just time to get over all that's happened." She motioned with her hand around the grounds. "Just a few months ago, we didn't know if we would come out on top of this war, Harry."
"We didn't." He agreed slowly. "Thought everything would all end around that night." Harry looked out over the grounds again. "For me, it did, in a way."
"What happened in that forest, Harry?"
"Something that will eventually happen again."
From that night on, Harry decided to take a break from his forming relationship with Ginny. He spent time with her and didn't shut her out, but he explained that he needed time to really put things behind him. She easily agreed and gave him all the time he needed to move on. Work continued throughout the next months, and as August began to give way to September, Harry and the others slowed down in their efforts to repair; there were school spplies to collect and some spellwork to brush up on. Harry found Ron and Hermione in the back of Flourish and Blott's They each had an arm full of books, quills, and rolls of parchment.
"Preparing to do it all again, are you?" He asked as he placed his own pile of books, parchment, and quils on a table near them. "Feels odd after all of this."
"Didn't think I'd go back, honestly." Ron admitted as he worked to shrink his books so that they would all fit in his pocket. Sadly, he couldn't manage it and Hermione showed him where he had missed the wand movement. "After Mum found out, she just said I should do what I thought was best."
"Odd that Mrs. Weasley would say that." Hermione remarked. "Seems as if she would have gone mental if she knew you weren't finishing your education."
"Yeah." Ron agreed. "Thanks. Figure I'll get that one right eventually."
"Took long enough for me." Hermione admitted as she too shrank her books and supples to pocket-size and prepared to leave the shop. "Good that we bought these before the crowd hit. That poor shop owner will be busy for awhile."
"Didn't you mention working here for a bit after you finished seventh year?" Harry asked.
"Still considering it." Hermione nodded.
"Well, got potions supplies, books, quills, and all that. Are we missing anything?" Ron asked as they made their way out of the shop and onto the crowded narrow street.
"Can't really think of anything." Harry managed as he moved past a cluster of people staring at the latest broom in the Quality Quidditch Supplies shop. "Bought the replacements for my broom care kit while you two were still getting fitted for better robes."
"Yeah, I bought one of those when we first got here yesterday." Ron grinned. "Been awhile since I gave the cleansweep a once over."
"Well, if that's everything, then we can escape this crowd." Hermione offered. "Kreacher wanted us home before dinner."
"Oh, that's right." Harry clapped a hand to his forehead. "I completely forgot." Pulling out his timepiece that Molly had given him for his birthday, he saw it was a quarter past four. "Still have time. Floo?"
"Better than apparating." Ron said as he opened the door that led back into the Leaky Cauldron. "Though I think Harry would disagree."
"Yeah." Harry grimaced at the thought. "I'd say apparating is less disorienting. I know you prefer it though, Ron."
"Yeah, didn't care for that trip to Shell Cottage the first time." Ron shivered at the memory. "Smarted, that did." Seeing the slightly confused looks on the others' faces, he elaborated. "Got splinched when leaving that night I was in a right state. Saw a few snatchers and managed to knock them stupid before disapparating."
"That's putting it mildly." Hermione remarked as they entered the pub and approached the fireplace. "Right state. That you were. Bet the splinching hurt terribly, though." Pulling a pinch of the sparkling green powder from the jar on the mantle, she dropped it into the empty hearth and waited for the green flames to rise before speaking the name of their location clearly. "Number twelve, Grimmauld Place." With that, the three stepped intothe grate and vanished behind the fire.
