Chapter 4

"That's it Lika! You're doing wonderfully." Harry chimed as a loud crash came from within the room.

Livius and Romilda curiously wandered in amazed at what they saw. This man, this, this wizard was using magic as though he could control every last bit of it. The dark man could as well. Romilda couldn't help but hope that Lika was right and these were the men from the legends. "What are you doing?" She asked, her wand to her side.

Harry looked back and smiled to them. "Great! Snape's already sent back 2 of you. Okay, I need whichever one of you is stronger magically to help me separate the wood from the tables from the wood on the trees. The other one, start transfiguring the wood from the trees that I cut off into coal."

The two looked to one another and Romilda cleared her throat. "Uhm, sorry to uh… the thing is… we can't."

"We don't know magic like you know it." Livius added.

Harry stopped and turned around, frowning. "Lika, keep working. What do you two mean you don't know it like I do?"

"Well, you say words and then things you want to happen happens." Livius told him. "That kind of magic control is the stuff of legends."

"We can only spout off magic sometimes and even then it's a toss-up as to what happens." Romilda said, glancing to her feet as though she'd done something wrong.

Harry sighed and rubbed at his temples. "Accidental magic… you have wands though; you can use them, right?"

"The dark man made them for us; he said she was good for transfiliping, or whatever it's called." Livius supplied.

"Oh great, Snape making wands, that's just as absurd as me teaching Divinations. Alright, alright, I think I know what to do. Okay, guy, what's your name?"

"Livius Lupin." He replied.

Harry blinked for a moment. Lupin? Ahh, his questions could wait until later. "Alright Livius, hold out your wand like this, yes that's right, now get the movement down first. It's a swish and a flick, swish and flick, then you say Wingardium Leviosa. It will levitate the rubble. See, watch." He demonstrated for the young man.

Livius protested though. "But I've never- I mean we don't- I can't."

"You don't know until you try… just try it." Harry urged.

Livius nodded and he tried. His first attempt brought nothing and he was disheartened, but he tried again. His second attempt made the fallen rock tumble around a bit, but nothing more. Seeing the progress though was just what he needed. On his sixth attempt he cleared his mind, pointed his wand, closed his eyes, and recited the spell. The rock smashed through one of the windows, flying outside. He felt he'd done something wrong, but the elated look on Harry's face told him otherwise.

"Alright Livius, just keep practicing on that. Work on getting the rocks and stuff out of here and into the yard. Woman, what's your name?"

"Romilda Weasley, but if you call me Romilda I'm going to hit you… just call me Romi." She said with a nod.

Harry couldn't believe it, a Lupin and a Weasley! Maybe all hope wasn't lost. "Great! Great, okay, you're good for transfiguration, right?" He worked with her as he had the young man and taught her how to transfigure simple wood into charcoal.

They were building up the piles of charcoal when he decided that she had the hang of it, and he turned back to watch Livius tossing stones, trash, and other debris out of the window that he'd broken earlier. Harry smirked to himself and he began working on fixing the tables and cutting off more wood from the trees, stopping every now and then to replace a rock in the wall and shift it to the right shape to fill a gap. Lika was simply doing what she had been doing; cleaning things that the Potter man said were going to stay so that they didn't look so grimy. This day was going to be a very long day for those four.

Snape had learned 3 fundamental things from his trip through Hogsmeade. Firstly, he'd learned that all he really needed to do to get these witches and wizards to do what he wanted, being just following him around until he could take them back to the castle, was to speak in a commanding tone with the promise that he would help them learn to control their magic. Secondly, he learned that there were very few witches and wizards about. He knew that some had to be in hiding somewhere, but where he had no idea. Thirdly, he had learned that he was going to have to become a wand crafter soon and study into it if he could. He only hoped that the school's library wasn't in complete ruin so that he might have a chance to really study and learn how to make these people proper wands.

All together he'd gotten at least 17 people to follow him. He gathered them all in a group and decided that he just did not have time for a floo, the castle needed magic and it needed lots of it. Merlin knew the two he sent back weren't going to be much help, neither would this lot unless he got to work. Upon meeting them all he'd had to craft a temporary wand for them out of the three basic well-rounded things he could find. In essence they were all copies of the Lupin boy's wand. He looked around the group and called there attention. "EVERYONE LISTEN UP! I want you all to hold hands, think of it as a train. This ride is going to be fast, and it's going to be dangerous. When you make the line, go around me as though you're in a circle and have some part of you… touching my robes." He groaned internally at this. Too many people touching him, he was not looking forward to this. At least they responded well to direction and he didn't have to worry too much about that.

When they'd done as he had told them, he apparated them all back to Hogwarts. He found, much to his dismay, that the grounds no longer had active wards and they'd apparated right into the Great Hall. At least he didn't have to look far for Harry.

He was surprised, though, at what he'd seen. Harry glanced back from atop the mound in the mostly clean room. It had been a good 6 hours since they'd started working in here, and an hour ago the room was mostly perfect to what Harry had remembered; sans the house flags. The dark was drawing nearer and he knew that soon they would need to transfigure some candles.

"Lika, go and start filling the heaters with charcoal. They're downstairs, to the left of the Grand Staircase's entrance. It will help to start heating the school." He ordered before looking back to Snape and the rest. He racked his mind trying to think of what to do. "Okay! Everybody who has stuff turn from one thing to another when your magic happens, go stand by Romi." The woman raised her hand and 6 people went to stand with her. "Everyone who has things float and blow up and change colors and stuff like that, go stand next to Livius." The young man followed suit and another 5 people went towards him. "You 6, you go and stand with Livius too. Livius, Romi, I want you both to teach your groups what I've taught you. If you need to practice, you can start with the Grand Staircase, just follow the super fancy looking stairs outside of this room and take a right."

He sighed as they dispersed and went over to Snape. "This is going to be hopeless. I could clean the whole room, but for some reason I just couldn't touch this mound. I think the core's under it."

Severus frowned at this information. "But the core isn't a physical thing it-" He stopped himself when he realized that a core needed something physical to hold it, and perhaps whatever was under the mound was what the castle had chosen to hold the core. He closed his eyes and felt for the core again. It was definitely stronger than it had been before, but not by enough to count for much of anything. "It's working. It's not hopeless. We're just going to have to deal with the mound's location until we can find a more suitable host for the castle's core." He suggested.

Harry nodded but was quickly turned off guard when he heard an unfamiliar voice. "You're going to restore our world." A female voice called, dreamily and airy.

Harry turned to face her and was caught off-guard by the uncanny resemblance she had to Luna Lovegood. "Who are you? What is your name?"

She smiled and curtsied to him. "Elise Malfoy, at your service Sir." She said, looking back up to him with a smile. She tucked some of her hair behind her ear to reveal an earring that Harry had known belonged to Luna because he'd been the one to give them to her for graduation. She tilted her head as she watched him step back from her. Catching his stare, she couldn't help but smile. "You like my earrings? They've been passed down through the family for ages." She said, pulling one from her ear. She handed it to the man. "My mum said that her mum had told her a story about her grandmum. Unfortunately mum couldn't remember the story; she only knew that we were supposed to pass them down from one daughter to the next."

Harry cleared his throat and nodded to her. "Do you know much of your family tree?" He asked, hoping she could shed some light.

"No, Sir. Nobody knows their heritage anymore. I mean, we know our mums and dads, most of us, and we know the names we have, but the lines have been lost. There's been tale of tapestries that once held our genealogy, but none of us have found them."

Severus watched as the two conversed a bit more before he decided to try something. He went to the mound in the center of the room and placed his hand on it. "Can you hear me?" He asked lowly. A small 'yes' in his head was the only reply. The castle explained that it had gone from actual speaking to telepathy to save on its power. "Is the magic helping?" He asked, receiving a positive affirmation. He took his leave from the Great Hall and started down to the library, hoping that perhaps he would find at least one book that was salvageable that might help him in his quest to craft wands for these people. What he found when he arrived in the library was nothing short of an astonishing surprise.