A/N: Thank you so much to mwah and cleotheo for their reviews on the first chapter. :)

Without much further ado, here is chapter 2!

RxExR! ;)

Pictures on a Wall

Chapter 2 - Release

Five weeks earlier...

Harry looked around the darkened corridor in front of him for stragglers as he checked every nook and cranny if there was anyone still out after the curfew. Along with him on patrol was Blaise Zabini, the current Head Boy of the school.

After returning to Hogwarts after the war and to complete his final year of schooling, he had found out that his whole year had become a temporary eighth year that was only present this time around so that they could redo the year that they had missed out on due to the war and finish their NEWTs. Kingsley, while acting as a temporary Minister of Magic due to the chaos that was currently present in the Ministry, had proclaimed that they wouldn't be of any help to anybody without having at least a proper degree first and knowing all the stuff that the others knew when leaving school to get a job, so they had been ordered to go back to school to do exactly that.

Internally he was quite happy about that decision since it gave him another year to decide on what he wanted to do now that Voldemort was actually dead and wouldn't be bothering him anymore by trying to kill him, and because it gave him a chance to enjoy a relatively stress-free year at Hogwarts before setting off into the world. He still complained along with Ron though about the fact that they were the only year that had to do homework for a year longer than the rest of the school which had resulted in Hermione starting a long tirade about the importance of school and a proper education that had shut both of them up pretty quickly.

So they had returned to the school a month earlier than the first of September with the other students all returning within that month too to help and rebuild the school. Originally, he and Ron had wanted to accompany Hermione on the search and recovery of her parents but she had remained adament that this was something that she wanted to do on her own. "I sent them away so therefore it's only right if I alone get them back. You two are not going to be coming with me, this is something I have to do by myself."

Hermione. He missed her dreadfully. It had been ten weeks since school had started and she still hadn't returned to Hogwarts. After seeing that she wasn't back the first day of school, he and Ron had been ready to storm out of the castle and go and look for her to make sure that she was safe. That was when they had found out that they were unable to leave Hogwarts and its grounds, including Hogsmeade. Professor McGonagall had assured them that the Ministry was probably doing everything in its power to set it right and that she and the professors would do their best from inside whatever barrier was holding them to get them out.

By now ten weeks had passed and they were still unable to get out, and by the looks of it, anyone else was also able to get in. It frustrated him that in the one year where he thought he would finally have some peace and quiet, another huge problem had arisen.

And since Hermione hadn't turned up, she had also been unable to claim her position as Head Girl. Due to that the teachers had been forced to choose a new Head Girl since they couldn't just leave the position unoccupied. In the end, Ginny had been chosen to fill that position due to her all-round good academic grades, as well as her heavy involvement in Quidditch.

Everyone had been suprised, nobody more so than Ginny herself. Mrs. Weasley had danced with joy when finding out that her only daughter had become Head Girl. He and Ron had both been become prefects, something that pleased Ron in particular while he would have rather have avoided the extra responsibilities. He had also become Quidditch captain and was currently training his team to finally win the Quidditch House Cup with him as captain this year. Ron had also become Keeper once more and Ginny was a Chaser and he had managed to find an extremely competent set of people to fill the rest of the spots.

Although with Draco Malfoy's absence from school and thereby also from the Slytherin Quidditch team, he was pretty confident that they would be able to win this year, something that pleased him immensly.

And with Malfoy's absence, the school also had the problem of a vacant Head Boy position. When they had found out that Malfoy was meant to be Head Boy, he and Ron, as well as several others, had gone to Professor McGonagall to complain about her choice. She had told them that despite his past, he was still the boy with the highest academic results in school, as well as (mostly) exemplary behaviour. His trial had proclaimed him innocent so he had been free to return to school, but he had not returned before the strange barrier spell had been cast on the school, so he hadn't been able to claim his position. Thus the Head Boy badge had been passed to another Slytherin, Blaise Zabini.

Harry didn't remember a lot about the dark-haired Italian that was currently patrolling the corridors with him. He had some memories of him in the Slug Club during his sixth year, but apart from those he knew that the Italian had never really stood out amongst the Slytherins.

He was incredibly good-looking, or so half the school's population proclaimed, and apparently he and Malfoy had been quite close. Harry couldn't remember him ever partaking in harassing the other houses as much as the rest of the Slytherins though. He had always seemed pretty neutral and from what he had heard from both Blaise himself and the others, the young man had left the country with his mother for Italy at the beginning of the war and had only returned after it was finished, thereby completely keeping himself and his family aloof from the death eaters and Voldemort which he found quite astonishing, considering the fact that Blaise was a Slytherin and all.

But from all of his interactions with Blaise so far, he could see that the man had never really believed in or followed the ancient beliefs of pureblood supremacy despite being a pureblood himself. He was courteous to Ginny and the girls and pleasant to the rest of them, so Harry had not had a single problem with him the whole year. That and the fact that apparently he and Luna had started dating.

The mere thought boggled his mind, not only was Luna dating a Slytherin, but one of the most popular ones at that. And by the looks of it, Blaise was enjoying himself while being with Luna, keeping up with her crazy theories and talk of animals that didn't really exist, even believing in one or two of them himself.

Yeah, this year was definitely different to the rest of the years. The barriers between the houses in his year and the one or two years below his own were nearly gone. The Slytherins did not go out of their way to torment them while the Gryffindors did not try and bait them all too much. The years below that though were still the same as always, the rivalries remained and the jabs and insults were still thrown across the room at one another, but nobody mentioned blood purity or something along those lines. Everyone steered clear of that topic.

Overall the year had been pretty peaceful so far, despite the fact that they couldn't leave Hogwarts and that they couldn't send any mail to anyone outside either. The owls simply returned with the letters untouched and they hadn't gotten the Daily Prophet since the second to last week in August.

Some of the Order members were also in the castle to help with the rebuilding. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were here to help rebuild, as well as look after Fred while he recovered from his near death experience. When the corridor had collapsed on them back during the Battle of Hogwarts, Fred had pushed Percy out of the way and had been burried underneath a wall. It had taken their combined efforts to unearth him and they had managed to get him out, barely breathing with a cracked ribcage, several internal injuries and more cuts and bruises than one cared to count.

Tonks and Lupin hadn't fared much better. Their old Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher had jumped in front of his wife and taken a curse from her and was still in a coma from it. Tonks had been hit by several dark curses but none had proven to be fatal and she had finally been able to get up and start trying to walk again a week ago. Due to the overwhelming numbers of wounded that were in St. Mungo's, a lot of the people injured in the Battle of Hogwarts had remained in the castle to recuperate so as to take some of the pressure off of the overflowing hospital.

Percy had remained to watch over Fred while George had gone away to look at the damage done to the shop and possibly even the Burrow, but he had also been unable to return and thus they hadn't seen him either in ten weeks.

Ginny and he had decided to take a break from one another while healing from the battle, but after three months they still weren't back together and he wasn't quite sure why that was. He missed her dreadfully in the sense of her being his girlfriend, but he wasn't quite sure how to breach the subject with her when she was being as moody as she currently was.

Ron wasn't much better in that sense either. His best friend had brooded and moped for three weeks straight after Hermione had said that she wanted to concentrate on the aftermath of the war rather than a possible relationship before going off to Australia, leaving Ron feeling quite insulted since he had been hoping to finally start a relationship now that the war was over. After that, his friend let some of the fame get to his head and now he was walking around with a new girl every couple of days, although Lavender had managed to keep Ron interested for two weeks now which was an achievement in itself.

It was in moments like these, when he had a lot of spare time to think while on patrol, that he missed Hermione especially. She would have been able to stop Ron from acting like he was god's gift to women and she would have been able to talk to Ginny and figure out what was wrong with her. He only hoped that the stupid barrier would soon vanish so that she could come back to school and they would be able to sort everything out. The wounds from the war were still fresh and in the process of healing and he really wished that they would fade one day for all of them, until they were nothing but reminders of bad times, and not headaches and nightmares that visited often.

"Oi, Potter." Harry's reverie was broken as Blaise pointed outside of the window. "Do you know what that is?" Harry looked into the direction that Blaise was pointing to and saw what looked like violet dust falling from the sky.

"I'm not sure." He said as he shrugged. "But maybe..." hope bloomed in his chest, "maybe it's the barrier finally breaking." He grinned as his gut told him that he was probably right. Blaise's face lit up.

"You think so?" He asked, some hope also glimmering in his eyes.

"Let's go and ask McGonagall." Harry replied and the two of them set off to the Headmistress' office to see if their assumptions would be proven correct.

~.~.~.~.~

It was the middle of the night as the floo roared into life in the Headmistress' office. Minerva McGonagall looked at the fireplace in surprise. It hadn't worked once in the last ten weeks when she had tried to leave the castle or even floo call Kingsley at the Ministry or anyone else.

She had been working on the reports that would be sent home with the children over Christmas, reading them over, checking them and then signing them. It was always a long and tiring job, and she preferred to start as early as possible so that she wouldn't have too many sleepless nights in the weeks before the Christmas holidays began.

Through the emerald flames stepped the very man that she had been thinking of, Kingsley Shacklebolt. She smiled warmly as her mind reached the conclusion of what this meant. The barrier was gone and she would finally be able to call back the students that had been missing out on their school work and the students and teachers themselves would be able to get in touch with their families once more.

"Minerva." He smiled warmly in return. "How have you been?"

"Good." She nodded towards a seat and he took it. "But tell me, what happened? We have been unable to reach anyone in weeks."

"Weeks?" Kingsley grew paler as his mind began to work in overdrive.

"Yes, ever since the end of August we've been unable to leave the grounds and we've also been unable to send any owls." She put down her quill and got a rather uncomfortable feeling as her old friend looked at her closely.

"Minerva, I know that this question may sound strange but, what year is it?" He asked and swallowed heavily. He did not want this to be what he thought it was. His aurors had spent ten years trying to figure out what spell had been cast on Hogwarts but no one had been able to figure out what it was. If this was what he thought it was, then this was bad.

Minerva's brow furrowed ever so slightly. "It's November of 1997, the war ended six months ago on May the second." She replied cautiously.

"Minerva..." Kingsley began softly, "it's not 1997 anymore. It's November of 2007." Minerva felt all the air leave her lungs as she slumped slightly in her seat.

"What?" Incomprehension was written all over her face, disbelief coloured her eyes.

"We've been trying to get in touch with you for ten years." Kingsley truly didn't know how to lessen the blow that ten years had passed by without her knowledge. "We've been trying to break the spell on the castle and it's ground for ten years and my aurors informed me not five minutes ago that the spell had somehow disintegrated. I came here immediately to see what was happening and found that I could floo into the castle for the first time in a very long time." His eyes held pain and pity and Minerva felt slightly faint. This could not be happening.

"Ten years?" Her usually strong voice faltered slightly and he winced.

"Yes. Ten years have passed since we last heard a word from you. We didn't know what spell had been cast but I'm pretty sure I know what it is now, seeing your reaction and what you told me."

"A preservation spell?" She asked and he nodded in response.

"It certainly seems though. I have never seen one of this scale though. From what I know, preservation spells are normally only cast on inanimate objects such as flowers."

"And they disintegrate after a set amount of time." She finished and he nodded once more.

"Ten years?" She asked once more, the information finally beginning to settle in.

"Yes." He responded quietly and she began to sit up again. She couldn't let this get her down, she needed to figure out a solution to the problem at hand. They would have to tell the children and the teachers. They would have to prepare them for a changed world. She was the Headmistress now, she couldn't allow herself to be weak in a time like this.

"What's happened in the last ten years?" Her strength began to return as she made herself a rather strong cup of tea and prepared herself for a lot of information. The reports would have to be done another time.

~.~.~.~.~

Harry looked around the common room in anticipation. When he and Blaise had arrived at Professor McGonagall's office last night, Kingsley had been there explaining something to her so she had sent them away and told them that she would have several announcements to make to the school to the following morning where everything would be explained.

He had been disappointed that McGonagall hadn't told them more last night, like whether the barrier really was gone or not, but Kingsley had been there, and since Kingsley had become the temporary Minister of Magic to help sort out the chaos that was the aftermath of the war, he knew that whatever they had been talking about was probably something important. And probaby something to do with the fact that they had been cut off from the rest of the world for the last ten weeks.

"Come on Harry, let's go!" Ron called out excitedly as Harry grinned in reponse and ran after his best friend. He had told Ron and Ginny about his assumptions when he had gotten back from patrol last night and now the two of them couldn't wait to see if it was true or not.

If it was, then they would be able to see Hermione again. Ron and Ginny would get to see the rest of their family once more. They would be able to see how the world was recovering after the war, they would know about the trials of various death eaters and how they had ended. They wouldn't be in the dark anymore.

As they walked into the Great Hall, excited chatter met their ears. It seemed as if the news of the strange sparks last night, as well as Kingsley coming for a visit, had passed around rather quickly. Harry could hear murmers about it from every direction. But that was only natural, not a lot had happened in the last couple of weeks, so this was the first bit of larger news in quite some time.

As they sat down at the table for breakfast, Ron immediately reached for some food and began eating which caused Harry to chuckle at the predictability and unchanging habits of his friend, while Ginny nagged at him to try and eat in a more presentable manner. According to her, Ron ate 'like a pig'.

"Won-won!" Lavender's happy shout could be heard long before she even reached them and he and Ginny winced slightly as she came closer. If Hermione were here to see this, she would probably be fuming and would send some of those 'Oppugno' birds at Ron for his and Lavender's behaviour. While she might have told him that she wanted some time to sort things out first, Harry was pretty sure that she was staying faithful to Ron while he wasn't doing any of that.

They began eating as McGonagall wasn't at the teacher's table yet and chatter about upcoming tests and homework that was due and complaints about lessons and teachers filled the air between them. Harry noted that Ginny looked happier than she had been in weeks.

"Students!" McGonagall's amplified voice reached their ears. "Settle down please! The Minister of Magic and I have some very important news to tell you!" Silence settled over the hall as her voice faded away. Everyone's attention was directed at the teacher's table where their Headmistress stood next to Kingsley Shacklebolt, the temporary Minister of Magic. If Harry didn't know any better then he would have said that McGonagall looked pale and exhausted and that Kingsley looked extremely worried.

A smile settled on Kingsley's face as he looked around the hall. It had been so long since he had seen these people, it was a joy for him to see them all alive and well.

"Students of Hogwarts," his voice was also amplified, although with the silence currently reigning it probably didn't need to be. Everyone could hear his every word, "Esteemed teachers and helpers that have been working so hard to rebuild the school, it is truly good to see you all again."

His eyes swept around the room and they briefly settled on Ron, Harry and Ginny and Harry swore he saw sadness sweep through them before the eye contact was broken and Kingsley continued with his speech.

"It has been a long time since I have seen you all," a murmer swept through the hall, "and believe me when I tell you that words alone cannot express my relief at seeing you all well."

"What's he talking about?" Ron muttered. "We've only been stuck here for ten weeks, he's talking like it's been ages." Harry shrugged in response, no words coming out of his mouth. A bad feeling was settling in his stomach and over the years he had learned that his gut feeling was pretty much always spot-on.

"After talking to your Headmistress, the aurors and I have managed to find out what spell had been placed on the school that stopped you from leaving and anyone else from entering it. The Ministry, in particular the aurors, have been spending a lot of time and effort in figuring out what it was. Believe me, if we had known sooner, a lot of what is about to come could have been avoided." Harry and the others did not like the way that Kingsley was talking, something was wrong here, he now knew that.

"The spell that the school, the grounds and Hogsmeade were placed under is called 'Infinitam florent'. It roughly translates as infinte flower. It is an extremely powerful preservation spell that up until now we only thought was used to preserve flowers and other inanimate objects for a certain amount of time. It is similar to the way Muggles create something called plastic flowers, the beauty of the plant is meant to be preserved for maybe not eternity, but a very long time."

Harry looked at the other students and glanced at the Slytherin table. A lot of them were looking extremely pale, almost ill. Pansy Parkinson looked as if she actually wanted to be sick, an unhealthy green tone colouring her cheeks.

"Ten weeks may have passed for you." Kingsley swallowed heavily. "For the rest of us, your ten weeks while under that spell have been a whole decade."

"Ten years?" They all looked over at Professor Trelawny who looked as if she was about to faint.

"Yes." Kingsley nodded. "Ten whole years have passed while you were caught under that spell."

Ron's spoon fell from his hands with a loud clatter as silence invaded the whole hall. Nobody could move, everyone was frozen. The information hadn't been processed completely, people hadn't gone into shock just yet.

"The Headmistress and I will speak to you all individually or in groups before anything else is done. Until everything has been explained to you all, none of you are leaving the campus. I have aurors posted everywhere around the boundaries to make sure of that. All of you have a ten year gap and are therefore unaware of what the world is now like. We need to make sure that you are all well-informed before anything else happens." Kingsley's expression was one of a person that had just told you your family had died. Abstractly Harry realised that for some people that might be the case.

"I'm truly sorry for all of this. I shall see you all shortly." Kingsley left the hall with their Headmistress while the rest of the student body, as well as the teachers sat there, the shock and severity of the situation finally sinking in.

None of them moved for another ten minutes while silence reigned. Then the protests began.

~.~.~.~.~

"Molly, Arthur and everyone else. Please, come in all of you." McGonagall nodded at them all in greeting and Harry could see the exhaustion clearly on her face now. It had taken all of the teachers combined, as well as a couple of the more level-headed students to calm down the others that morning before they had all gone to lessons.

People had been pulled out of class the whole day and yet it still felt surreal to Harry. He didn't want any of it to be true. It couldn't be. Wasn't this supposed to be the year where he was finally able to have some peace?

"Is it true?" Mrs. Weasley's voice quivered and the rest of the Weasleys looked at the Headmistress uncomfortably. The news had hit them all hard, but the matriach of the family was the one who was showing the most emotion and her distressed state was making them all uneasy.

"I'm sorry to say that it is so." Again Harry thought that the voices they were using when talking about the whole affair sounded an awful lot like someone had died. He really hoped that this wouldn't be the case.

"But what about George and Bill and Charlie?" Ginny asked quickly, the pain unmasked in her eyes.

"They are all fine. In fact, they are all quite happy at the moment." Everyone's attention focused on Kingsley as he was the one now talking. It made sense, Harry guessed, that Kingsley would be the one doing this since he was the one who had come into Hogwarts from the outside. Professor McGonagall probably didn't know any more than they did about each individual family.

"They are okay?" A sense of relief seemed to be settling over them all by now.

"Yes. In fact, George has also married and settled down and Bill and Fleur are still residing in Shell Cottage. Charlie's the same as always." Kingsley's eyes twinkled.

"He's what?!" Ron looked at the former Order member, completely flabbergasted. He wasn't the only one.

"My idiot of a brother is what?" Everyone looked surprised and Fred, who had been allowed to leave the hospital to join them in the office for this meeting, looked like he was going into shock.

"Married." Kingsley looked amused at their reaction.

"He's not even thirty yet!" Fred finally managed to choke out and the others nodded. Fred and George had always said that they wouldn't want to get married and settle down before they were thirty so that they could enjoy life to the fullest, something that had always annoyed their mother greatly.

"He got married four years ago. He even has two kids. One of them named after you I believe." Kingsley said, most definitely amused at their varying states of panic at the news. Fred and his mother looked like they were about to go into cardiac arrest while Mr. Weasley tried his best to calm the two down. Percy was standing there like a statue, stock still and unmoving, trying to process the news that his irresponsible younger brother was married with kids. Ron was flailing about and Ginny had sat down in shock, all the news of the day beginning to wear down on her.

"What about Bill and Fleur?" Harry asked to diffuse the whole situation that was beginning to get slightly out of hand. After all, nobody had expected to hear any of this.

"Still happily married," Kingsley began and Harry had to refrain from smirking as Ginny muttered something that sounded suspiciously like 'stupid phlegm' under her breath, "With three kids, the first being born a year after the war."

"I'm a grandmother." Mrs. Weasley's eyes watered and now everyone was trying to make her stop. None of them liked to see their mother cry. "Arthur, can you believe it? We're grandparents!" Happiness flooded her eyes and her husband nodded, a small smile on his face. It would take some time to get used to the idea that he was now a grandfather but he was sure that once he had seen them, the reality of things would really set in.

"What about my family?" Tonks asked quietly and everyone turned to look between her and Kingsley as he answered. Tonks had decided to leave her husband's side in the hospital wing briefly to come and hear about her friends and family.

"Teddy turned ten a couple of months back and from what I've heard, he can't stop talking about wanting to finally go to Hogwarts in September." Kingsley smiled reassuringly while Tonks sat down in a chair.

"He's ten?" She asked softly and he nodded. Harry guessed that this had to be especially hard on her, finding out that she had missed the first ten years of her child's life.

"Yes and he lives with your mother in this charming little cottage by the coast. Quite close to Bill's and Fleur's actually." He said and Tonks nodded, still looking slightly overwhelmed.

"What about Hermione?" Harry asked quietly, the question having plagued him ever since the announcement that morning.

Kingsley's expression grew more guarded and Harry wondered why. "She's happily living here in England. She returned two years ago from France."

"That's good to hear." Ginny said softly, having been worried that perhaps in the aftermath of the war something had happened to her.

"How is she?" Ron asked eagerly and Harry could clearly see the crush that Ron had been harbouring for her on his face. He wondered if Hermione had been waiting for Ron or if she had moved on. It would be extremely painful, especially for Ron, if she had moved on.

"She's good." Kingsley replied once more.

"And...?" Harry tried to glean more out of the Minister, unsure why he was so unwilling to talk.

"And that is it. It is not my place to tell you anymore. What information you get is up to her." Kingsley said resolutely, once more shocking the others.

"What do you mean its not your place?" Ron exclaimed angrily but Kingsley's gaze remained unwavering.

"Exactly that Ron." He said gently, trying to lessen the blow. "None of you are direct family to her and although I know that you are the closest she has, you still aren't related to her by blood. Which means that I can only divulge a certain amount of information about her. Those are simply the rules, accept it. And anyway, I am sure that she wants to tell you most of this herself when she sees you again."

Ron was fuming and looked like he was about to explode so Harry quickly intervened.

"When can we see her and the others again?" He asked quickly.

"During your Christmas break." Kingsley replied.

"What?!" Mrs. Weasley looked aghast. "Do you mean that we cannot see them until then?"

"That's five weeks away!" Fred exclaimed.

"Yes, I know that. But please consider this. You have been gone for ten years and therefore have no knowledge of the situation of things outside the castle. You need to read through old newspapers that the Ministry will be supplying and we are also having people come in to brief you on laws, legislation and the political side of things. A lot of things have changed and most of us had ten years to get used to that change. You have not. You haven't even had the time to deal with what you have been told today properly yet. We cannot send you back out in the world while you remain ignorant to certain things. You could act in a way that will eventually cause more harm than good and I think we'd all like to avoid that."

"But..." Harry began.

"There are no buts here Harry. It is what has been decided and should you try to leave the castle before the Christmas break, we will be forced to detain you here. We simply cannot afford you going out there and something happening." Kingsley said and his voice left no room for arguments.

"I think you should all go back to bed now and sleep on what you have been told." They looked over at their Headmistress, almost having forgotten that she was there. "If you have any more questions, I am sure the Minister will be happy to answer them for you tomorrow." It was an order to leave and go to bed and everyone knew it.

As they all filed out of the office bidding goodbye to Kingsley and McGongall and thanking them, Harry knew that this might just possibly be worse than the war against Voldemort. It was already beginning to put a large mental strain on them and while he might disagree, Harry also knew that Kingsley was right. They would need some time to deal with the whole situation.