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Chapter 4

Bill and Charlie had been assigned a section of the castle near Gryffindor Tower. As they made their way up the staircase, Bill nudged Charlie with his elbow.

"So, what'd you think of her, huh? She'd fit right in, she has red hair!"

"I don't know why you're so obsessed with me getting together with this girl. She seems nice enough though, and I don't think McGonagall was exaggerating her abilities. I'd never even thought of needing a spell like this, but it makes sense if we want to rebuild Hogwarts the way it should be. That's what I care about."

"Just trying to lighten the mood, I guess. There's no denying that it's hard to be back in this place after… everything."

Charlie thought Bill did have a point there. Everywhere he looked there were signs of destruction, caused either by mere physical forces or by magic. It was impossible to tell what the extent of the damage really was until they got started. A simple reparo spell wasn't going to fix all of this.

"Hey, look at this." Bill had stopped in front of an old tapestry that was now riddled with holes. "Didn't this used to be a tapestry that could turn into a door? I think we're in the right place."

"One way to check, right? Primitus incantatem!" said Charlie as he pointed his wand at the tapestry. Sure enough, a faint image of the tapestry solidifying into a door appeared from the tip of his wand. He had to admit, this spell was pretty useful. "Well, we can at least fix the holes to start, right?"

"I'm not sure we can," said Bill. They look like they've been burned with Dark Magic." He tried repairing it with a standard reparo, but the strings just sort of wiggled in the air before drooping apart again. "Well, make a note of this one - we could use Mum right now with her sewing spells. Maybe Emily has seen this before."

Charlie kept their notes of all their findings. They were able to fix most of the things they found, since most of it was caused by blasting spells, in an attempt to fling heavy rubble at people. It was almost time for lunch, when he heard a light set of footsteps walking down the hall. He turned around - it was Emily.

"Bill, don't get any ideas. Just tell her about the tapestry," Charlie whispered harshly. Bill just chuckled softly.

"Hi there, um," Emily checked her clipboard somewhat nervously, "Bill and Charlie. How has it, um, how's it been going here in this section of the, uh, castle?"

Charlie thought she seemed awfully nervous when she was on her own. She'd seemed very self-assured when she had been addressing the whole group.

Bill took the initiative. "Well we've actually been able to repair most of the damage - it was mostly just damaged stone that didn't have any special magical qualities about it. A couple floating steps… but what has us stumped is this tapestry. It's supposed to turn into a door when you touch it with your wand - shortcut to the third floor, comes out near the library."

Emily looked interested. "Oh and of course it looks like it's been burned badly. I can fix that, we've seen old tapestries a lot in our research." She took out her wand, rather short and slender, cherry in color, and wordlessly waved it at each of the holes. "Now for this spell to turn it into a door… let me see…"

As she worked, Charlie noticed that she didn't seem nervous at all when she was totally absorbed. Bill was watching her intently, obviously fascinated.

"But what you just did there, won't that keep the tapestry as a door permanently, rather than switching back?"

Emily seemed to be having fun now. "Oh no, you'll see. Watch this…" She waved her wand a few more times, ending with a final swish that seemed to reset the tapestry back to its original state. "Ready to try it out?" She reached out her wand one last time, turned the tapestry into a stone door, and opened it. Bill and Charlie looked at each other, shrugged, and walked in with Emily. Sure enough, they ended up on the third floor, right down the hall from the library. They stepped out into the hall, turned around, and the door had disappeared.

"Is that right?" Emily asked, a hint of nerves back again. "Should the door disappear, or is there supposed to be a way back in…"

"No no, this is exactly how I remember it," Bill said. "Did you ever use this passage, Charlie?"

"What? Oh, yeah, I used this one all the time. There's a different one to get back up, and it doesn't seem to be damaged." Charlie had been looking at Emily, marveling at the magic she had just done. It had taken her all of five minutes.

Emily seemed to notice Charlie's gaze and quickly looked away, her cheeks red. Charlie was starting to find this endearing, against his better judgment.

Bill, however, seemed to be enjoying himself immensely. "About time for lunch then? Let's head to the Great Hall."

On the way they ran into Harry and Ron, and the boys all chatted happily while Emily walked a short distance behind. Charlie turned around to look at her. She was gazing up at the ceilings and portraits, taking everything in. Charlie didn't want to be curious about her, but he decided to hang back and let her catch up to him. He'd deal with Bill later.

"How are you liking your first day?" Charlie asked, hopefully sounding casual.

"Hm? Oh, yes, it's been, well, lots of interesting…" she trailed off, beat red now.

Charlie was bewildered. She had sounded perfectly fine when she'd been instructing them, but seemed incapable of having much of a conversation. He often relied on others to carry the conversation, so this was pushing him out of his comfort zone as well. But, he figured it would be rude to end the conversation now, so he plowed on.

"You must have gone to Ilvermorny. Is it anything like Hogwarts?"

"Ilvermorny is smaller, and doesn't have nearly as many magical secrets. I'm finding Hogwarts to be fascinating. Already today I've seen a staircase that goes somewhere different depending on the day of the week, the sorting hat, although that's a bit similar to our sorting, and of course that tapestry we just fixed."

"You mean the tapestry you fixed. Bill and I couldn't do anything to it until you got there." It seemed like the way to get her talking was to discuss work. That was something Charlie understood well - he could talk for ages about the dragons he'd studied.

"Well, it was just… it was similar to an artifact I'd seen before." She stopped suddenly, presumably because they'd arrived at the Great Hall. Charlie thought he understood her hesitancy.

"Would you like me to grab you something to eat, so we can eat outside?" Charlie asked, knowing full well that he would hear about this from Bill later.

"I would love that! The grounds seem so beautiful, and I barely got a chance to look this morning." She sounded relieved, and Charlie figured he had made the right call.

"Perfect. I'll be right back." He quickly went into the hall, grabbed whatever food he found first, and got back out again before anyone noticed him. He conjured a basket, tossed everything in, and together they went out the giant oak doors onto the grounds.