Chapter 8

After nearly an hour and a half of transfiguring small herbs into larger vegetables and shifting various trees into full on fruit trees, Severus and Harry had finally gathered enough food for the whole group. It came with a warning of being tasteless due to the nature of how it was made and the lack of ability on both of their parts regarding proper transfiguration, but it would still provide fullness and nutrition.

Harry found it much easier than he thought it would be to convince the families of those who wanted to stay in the castle to come back with them. All he really had to say was, "We have food and warmth.", and the people he sought were more than happy to come join him.

When the group had returned, they'd found that Snape had prepared a proper veggie meal for those who wanted it, and there were makeshift sleeping bags strewn about. A small fire on the left side of the room roared with flickering green flames, a side effect of the potion that had been put on the log. Soon the small vegetarian feast was underway.

As everyone settled in for the night Harry found himself unable to sleep. He couldn't still his mind for the life of him. Soon he crept out of the Great Hall and slipped into the hallway. A quick glance around and the young man decided to head off for Gryffindor Tower, partially to see if it were still accessible and partially to see if he could find the ghost of his friend.

The Grand Staircase was treacherous to say the least. Between being forced to climb vines and tug himself up onto unstable platforms where the stairs used to meet, Harry had almost fallen three separate times during his ascension. Finally he was only one floor away from his goal, but alas he saw absolutely no way to reach it.

The walls were bare, the stairs couldn't move underneath all of the roots and plant life that covered them, and the vines didn't reach this far up. The young man groaned as he looked around for something- anything that might help. Suddenly an idea struck.

One of the blocks that had fallen whenever the roof had collapsed was near to him on the platform. He pulled his wand and pointed it towards the block, and with rocky success, managed to make it levitate. Gingerly he crawled on top of the floating block, but as soon as his foot left the platform he and the stone began to plummet. "Wingardium leviosa- wingARDIUM LEVIOSA!" He screeched as he pushed as much magic as he could muster from his wand.

Slowly the stone began to raise once more and as Harry's erratic heartbeat slowed, the young man approached the platform to the door of Gryffindor Tower. After he'd settled the block onto the platform and crawled off, Harry approached the door with a worried gulp. He twisted the knob and opened it.

Despair crept over him and his heart sank as the young man stared into the night sky. No walls, no floor to speak of- nothing remained. Gryffindor Tower had been utterly demolished.

Angry at the unknown future, or past as it were now, Harry slammed the door and made his way back down. His hike had earned him a few scrapes, so he decided to stop by the infirmary in case they had anything of use. Once again he was met with destruction as although the infirmary still stood there were papers, bandages, linens from the beds, and broken potion vials scattered throughout the room. Everything was covered in an odd thick layer of almost slimy dust that didn't seem present in the rest of the castle.

Harry tiptoed through the room and checked for the four cabinets he remembered. Unfortunately two had been destroyed some time ago it seemed, and one had its door ripped off and was empty. The last was coated that thick slimy layer. "Scourgify." Harry said lowly, and soon the cabinet was sparkling clean- a true stand out in the rest of the mess.

His first attempt to open it failed, and the young man thought it must have been locked. "Alohamora." He tried, but to no avail as the second try proved it to be stuck. With a growl, Harry grabbed onto the handle and yanked as hard as he could, but it only caused the handle to break off. He threw it to the ground with a sharp growl of frustration.

Finally he gave up for the night and made his way back to the Great Hall. No Ron in sight, no knowledge of what could be in that stuck cabinet- he figured it would be best to try again tomorrow morning after he'd had some sleep.

"I'm telling you it has to have something useful inside it. Why else would it be so stuck?" Harry tried as he led Snape up to the infirmary.

Severus stopped at the third floor platform and hunkered down with his hands on his knees as he fought to catch his breath. "I am not... some young thing anymore... Mr. Potter." He said between breaths as he stood back up and took in a deep lungfull of air. The sun beat down on them from the hole where the ceiling used to be. "I'm also not going to be climbing those vines you insist upon using." He leaned against the wall behind him and stared up one floor to the infirmary's doors. "The castle is in ruins, we're going to be fixing it anyway so just go get the blasted cabinet and slice it out of the wall. We'll fix the hole after we fix the staircase, and after we fix the ground floor hallways."

Green eyes darted to the ground as Harry sighed. "We aren't going to be able to fix the whole castle- Gryffindor Tower is gone, just completely wiped out." He muttered quietly.

Severus raised a curious eyebrow towards the boy. "It's quite in one piece lying on the ground outside. Have you not done a preliminary walk around the castle yet? Really Potter, you should learn to take in your surroundings. That should be the first thing you do."

"Oh..." A small spark returned to Harry's eyes and his excitement built back up. "Right then- how do I slice the cabinet out of the stone? And don't suggest the gouging spell, the cabinet's made of wood it could destroy it and make a total mess of whatever's inside."

A groan escaped Snape as the man realized this young man still had so much to learn. "Under normal circumstances I'd make you figure it out yourself, but something useful could be kept in there and we haven't the time for you to figure it out. Incendio Tria is the easiest. It will take a couple of minutes, however if you aim it right and go slowly it can cut through most things, except for metal there's a different spell for metal."

Harry nodded and quickly scaled the vines that led to the infirmary. Due to the size of the cabinet and the thickness of the stone blocks it took him nearly ten minutes to carve the thing out of the wall, and when he caught it from its fall, Harry discovered that it was a bit heavier than it should have been. Though this concerned him, he went back out to find Snape had begun his trek back down to the ground floor already. The young man levitated the cabinet and the stone pieces it was attached to down to the ground, then made his own way back down.

Finally once they were back in the Great Hall with the sleeping forms of the group they'd gathered, Harry and Severus set in to trying to open the cabinet. One by one the people woke to the noise the two made, and they were quickly put to work with assignments from Harry while Severus tried spell after spell to get the thing open.

Lika and one of the older women were sent off to find anything edible in the overgrowth. Just as they were leaving, Harry stopped them. "Oh before I forget- Ma'am, what's your name?"

The woman smiled awkwardly. "Korin Tasslefi, age 42, skill 2."

Harry thanked her, his mind still wondering where this skill rank system came from, but he pushed that thought aside as more tasks needed to be doled out. Romi and most of her group were quickly taught a simple transfiguration spell that turned sticks into planks and were sent off to find just as many sticks as they could and build up a pile of planks off in one of the far corners of the Great Hall. Livius and his were taught the scourgify charm and were sent to help clean the main entrance.

"I've got it." Severus called from his spot hunkered down over the cabinet. Harry made his way back to the man. "They used a permanent sticking charm."

Harry groaned and slumped down to his knees. "And it's permanent so there's no way to remove it."

"Untrue. It's only permanent if you don't know the counter charm, and that is some information I happen to be privy to." Snape said as he pointed his wand to the cabinet. "Prohentum."

Sure enough the door of the cabinet shifted. Severus reached for it and pulled open the door while he and Harry peered in. Small bright eyes glinted back at them in the sunlight.

Etymology of Non-Canon Spells used in this chapter:

Prohentum - comes from the Latin, 'prohibere lentum', which means, 'stop sticking'. This charm, though simple, is the little known counter charm to the Permanent Sticking Charm. It only works if there is a single layer of the Permanent Sticking Charm; if there are 2+ such charms laid over one another, this counter will have no effect. This spell is not taught at Hogwarts, and the vast majority of the population isn't aware it even exists. It was used and taught in secret primarily by special aurors, as the Permanent Sticking Charm was one of their more frequently used apprehension techniques and the lack of knowledge kept the witch or wizard they were chasing from knowing the counter charm and escaping.