17 October 1997. 10:00 a.m.
The eight chimneys of Sadie House still stood, poking up from the ruins. Their tops stuck through the magical shield and glistened with rainwater. Dudley couldn't hear anything outside, but he saw the grasses bend nearly flat from the wind.
He flexed his hands. The black gloves acted like a second skin, light, strong, but impenetrable. The material felt like something between leather and vinyl. Fine lines ran across their backs, traces of oblong scales larger than those of any snake Dudley had seen.
They had moved on from cleaning flints to rebuilding the walls around the wooden frame. Not all of the flints were clean – far from it. The most complete section, the east wing, was where the five of them were working. Most of the walls hadn't crumbled completely – they'd broken off in segments, pulled down by the weight of the falling roof, or knocked over by the Death Eaters.
Earlier that morning, Hestia had mixed up lime mortar in the largest cauldron from the attic, blending sand, powdered limestone, and water with a stick that stirred itself. The stick churned and thumped slowly in the thick paste. From the large cauldron, globs of mortar flew up and filled and refilled the smaller cauldrons that floated alongside each crew member – Hestia, Dedalus, and the three Dursleys. Dudley reached into his cauldron and scooped a large mound of mortar he could work from small portion of mortar and spread it across the flint. He settled the stone into its place, scraped away the excess, and picked up another flint.
Why, Dudley wondered, had Dedalus' ancestor decided to build such a massive house?
Even with the five of them – Hestia, Dedalus, Vernon, Petunia, and Dudley – all working on the flint wall, they'd barely completed one corner of one wing of the sprawling mansion. A whole work crew of twenty wouldn't get it done in a month.
Dudley dug his trowel into the lime again, wondering how he could convince Dedalus to rebuild his family manor as a one-room hut.
The Wizarding Wireless reported another set of werewolf slayings – three locations, spread from Swansea to Bute. The announcer seemed to take pleasure describing the slayings in graphic detail.
"All listeners are warned to double their Wards on full moons, and to avoid venturing out of doors. Pureblood wizards and witches needing assistance placing wards may be requested of the Ministry. As the Beast Division of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures would like to reassure our listeners that tracking and destroying werewolves remains a top priority. Rumors that the Dark Mark was seen above the werewolf victims' homes are entirely unfounded."
They'd already heard from Remus and Tonks, separately. Tonks had sent a Patronus the night prior, saying that she'd arrived safely. Remus' Patronus had arrived shortly after sunrise. A simple message even Dudley could remember, "Wolfsbane worked perfectly. Back Sunday."
Tapping with his trowel, Dudley settled another flint into place.
"Next, we discuss the ongoing Quidditch match between the Caerphilly Catapults and the Appleby Arrows. Four days and counting, with the Catapults down to their Keeper, one Chaser, and the Seeker, and the Arrows fielding a full team. Listeners are reminded that no substitutes are permitted once the match has commenced. Supporters are requested to stop sending Howlers offering to volunteer to the Catapults captain."
Dudley tried to clear his mind of everything but the sound of his trowel scraping against the stone, and the smells of the seagrasses, lime, and fresh timber. He didn't want to think about werewolves at the moment.
A while later, he paused as his small cauldron refilled.
He watched Hestia, whose section included large areas of stone wall far too heavy to be moved by anything but magic. One of these floated in the air, while she waited for the mortar to refill her cauldron. She sat back on her heels and studied her trowel. Her hair hung into her eyes, and she tucked it back behind her ear, not bothering to remove her gloves.
Dudley edged his way past Vernon to get to her. "Your hair – you got the lime in it." He offered her a handkerchief. Technically, it was her handkerchief, as he'd taken it from one of the bureaus in the attic.
"Thanks, Dudley, I'll get it." She pointed her wand at her head and siphoned the mortar away, sending it back into the cauldron. She sat back against her heels, and she narrowed her eyes at her trowel before covering the edges of the wall segment – the size of Vernon's car. Once it was in place, it was obvious a few of the original stones on the edge had been blasted into fragments and were now unusable. Hestia took a few measurements and split fresh flints to fill the gaps. Even working with magic rather than a hammer, it took a while before the flints were ready.
Dudley realized he'd been staring too long and turned back to his own work. Still, he could see her from the corner of his eye, could hear the loud splintering of the rock breaking apart.
"How did he do it?" she muttered, flipping one of the freshly knapped flints into her cauldron. It flew from the cauldron coated in mortar and settled onto the wall. The stone stuck out from the wall at an angle, and mortar oozed onto the stones beneath. Annoyed, Hestia flicked her wand again, and the stone straightened. The extra mortar crawled onto the top of the wall, waiting for the next flint.
"Dedalus?" she called. "How long did it take him – this house?"
Dedalus, spattered with mortar from his cravat to his spats, seemed glad of a chance to stop and talk. "Great-grandfather never stopped working on it. He was always tinkering, adding a window here, an owl roost there."
Hestia closed her eyes. "When did he start the work? And when did Sadie move in?"
The sound of scraping and thunking stopped as the Dursleys stopped their work to listen. From the way Dedalus scrutinized his trowel, Dudley could tell he didn't want to give an answer.
"I believe," Dedalus said, after a long pause, "that he began work on the expansion shortly after purchasing the original stone cottage when he was twenty."
"And how old was he when he got married?"
"Well, I'm not entirely sure. When were your great-grandparents married, young lady? Can you tell me, without looking it up? It's written in the family ledger… or was. Burned in the fire, don't you see. We could check the official records, but as you know, Hestia, visiting the Ministry is rather fraught at the moment." Dedalus placed another flint. "I think we all ought to get back to work."
"I'm not trying to be a bother," Hestia said. She removed her gloves and stood. "Just, I can tell from the stones that he didn't use a Gemino charm on any portion of the walls. If he had, there'd be repeating shapes and sizes, and I can't see any pattern to any of the stone I've arranged."
Dudley looked at the neat array of stones and wall fragments, stretching out on all sides of the ruined property. There was a wordless spell Hestia had used, over and over again, until she nearly fell asleep on the spot, that had pulled out and sorted the stones from each wall, placing them in their original positions.
"So," Hestia continued, running her bare hands over the section of wall they'd rebuilt last week, "since he didn't use the currently recommended technique, I have to believe he either built it by hand – alone? Did he have House Elves helping him?"
Dedalus placed another stone. "No Elves. They never had much interest in working for our family, as far as I'm aware. Great-grandfather was… rather single-minded. Or triple-minded, I should say. Sadie, Quidditch, and building. In that order. My great-grandmother and he would meet in secret at Ilkley Moor – the teams that were playing didn't matter, as long as they were together. And between games, he'd come to Kent and work on his magnum opus, as he called it. They kept on that way, all through their marriage. My grandfather was born at Ilkley in fact – right in the bleachers. Great-grandmother didn't want to leave, as the score was quite close, and the Snitch was nowhere in sight."
"Unemployed, was he?" Vernon asked, rather gruffly. He rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck, grimacing. He tried to catch Petunia's eye, but she had her eyes closed and was leaning against the wall. Dudley thought she must be annoyed at all the magic chatter. She took a deep breath through her nose and settled another small stone into place in an arched window.
"Heir to a great fortune, my dear fellow." Dedalus shook his head. "The Diggles could have been richer than the Malfoys, if we'd have managed our money a bit better."
"Why didn't he hire –" Vernon began, before Hestia interrupted as if he hadn't spoken at all.
"Well. There's a war on, Dedalus. I don't fancy spending ten years - or however long it took your grandfather, since you can't or won't tell us – fixing up your home." Hestia set her jaw. "I said I'd get you your house back in order by Harry Potter day, and we're nearly at the end of October. The only way – really, the only way I can figure it – is to let me use the Gemino charm." She sighed, looking at the rocks. "It won't have the same artistry – not by half. But we can't go on like this. The weather's getting colder, and the lime won't set properly once we get into winter, and we've quite a lot of business to be doing in the fight against Voldemort."
Dudley felt a surge of hope. If Hestia could use magic to fix up the rest of the house, he could…
Get back to feeding chickens and transcribing?
It's not like he had anything to look forward to at the cottage. Workouts were fine, but he felt like he was losing his edge, what with all these months of training with no sparring partner. Moreover, he hadn't visited the attic since the incident with the Bludgers. Between being under constant supervision following his mishap under the Befuddlement Charm, and being scared to see the site where he'd nearly been killed by a game, and being embarrassed at having broken the celesta (and several other things), and being embarrassed at trying to learn to play the celesta, Dudley had found it easier to stay downstairs or outdoors.
He heard Dedalus say, "I don't mind at all if you use Gemino on one section of wall, or one wing at a time, Hestia. Whatever you think best!"
"Then again…" Hestia twirled her wand. "You want something that really lasts. Gemino wears off after a while, so you or your heirs would need to keep reapplying it, as the copied bits will deteriorate faster."
"My house is rubble, dear girl. As long as we get the roof and walls back up, we can worry about the fresco quality later, yes?"
As Hestia continued to debate herself, using Dedalus as a foil, Dudley continued rebuilding his own section of wall and held his own internal debate.
Hestia probably could fix the celesta. But she might want to hear him play it. Or, she might think it was funny he'd been trying to learn it. He was out of practice. But he was bored. He missed playing it. But he didn't want even Dedalus, let alone one of the Lupins, watching him practice. They all still treated him as if he were a baby who needed constant minding. Dudley's stomach flipped over at another thought. If his parents learned he'd been up learning an instrument.
Scrape. Thunk.
He could picture it now – his mother swooping and shrieking about her genius son, his father making plans for his future recitals. He pictured the smirks passing between the witches at the ridiculous, spoiled Muggle they had to deal with. Hestia rolling her eyes and shaking her head. Tonks growing twenty fingers and showing him up playing the hardest songs in the book.
That, or his parents would blanch at the thought of their son messing about with a tinkly magical instrument.
He could sell them on it. It was the closest thing he had to a videogame, after all.
But for some reason, when he pictured anyone finding out he played, he preferred them coming in on him playing something far more impressive than the beginner's workbook he'd been using.
Maybe, he thought, he could get Hestia to go up in the attic to visit Frankie. Maybe he could point out a few fun things he'd found (they were her own family's old junk, he reminded himself) and maybe he could ask – very casually – if she thought Reparo would work on something complicated like the broken instrument.
Maybe it wouldn't even work, he thought. He thunked his flint down on the wall so hard that the stones beneath it slid awry from the force, and he had to spend extra time fixing it.
"It'd take a proper crew a year or more to get this place back to its original glory," Hestia said. "And that's with a master builder on top of it. There's too much damage from those Blasting Curses – got to be Dolohov's work. I'm sorry, Dedalus, but most of the restoration may have to wait til well after this war ends."
Dedalus levitated another load of flints to where he was perched on his ledge. They didn't use scaffolding, just bits of plank that were fashioned into ledges wherever it was convenient to work. "I'm grateful for anything, at this point. You've already done me a tremendous favour, laying out all the stones, setting the new frame, and everything."
"I hate to leave a job half done…" Hestia mused, mostly to herself. "You know, there's a book in the Hogwarts library that might help with this. I came across it, Seventh Year, but I didn't have time for a proper read, what with N.E.W.T.s and all. Think we might be able to smuggle home a copy?"
"I'll send Filius a message tonight. What's the name of the book?"
18 October 1997. 12:40 p.m.
Dedalus' friend Filius had easily smuggled a copy of "An Account of Rebildinge the North Toure" from the Hogwarts Library to the Hog's Head pub, and Dedalus had picked it up mid-day.
"Apparated directly into the upper room," he said, waving it about. "Abe didn't mind the rudeness, bless him. The noise from the lunch crowd drowned out the sound of me Apparating in and out, so there should be no trouble there."
"Brilliant!" Hestia reached for the book.
"Ah ah ah, hands," Dedalus warned.
Hestia held her hands out for Dedalus to blast them clean with Aguamenti. She scrubbed at the lime and dust that had accumulated in spite of the gloves.
Dedalus told her, "Sorry, but you know if we get this book dirty, I don't trust Irma not to curse us, Fidelius Charm or no."
Hestia transformed one of the flints into a chair, sat down and started reading without a word.
Dudley liked how quiet she could be.
She was sort of like an owl, he reflected, watching her read. Plenty noisy when she was upset, but so quiet you might never notice her most of the time.
He was jolted from this reverie when Hestia gave her wand a flourish at a pile of flints, which promptly crumbled to dust. She clicked her teeth, exasperated.
Several tries later, and the Dursleys were still flinching with the cracks and explosions from failed charms.
"Sorry, everyone," she apologized, after Petunia flung her trowel in the air at another explosion. "These thirteenth century charm diagrams are so dratted incomprehensible. I'll just go off and practice down at the beach for a while."
"You'll go deaf if you keep on like this," Petunia told her. "All the banging. You ought to have earplugs."
Hestia raised her eyebrows, but she tapped her ears with her wand and muttered something. "SEND UP SPARKS IF YOU NEED ME," she said, far louder than usual.
Dudley continued working.
It was nearly sunset by the time Hestia returned, battered and dusty.
She mixed up another, massive batch of lime, tearing up the grass and earth until she reached the white stone beneath, bursting it to powder, heating it, cooling it, and mixing with water, all in the same huge pit. Then, she flicked her wand in the most complicated pattern Dudley had yet seen. The entire lawnful of carefully laid out flints rose and floated in the air, separated by thin gaps. The mortar spun in a cyclone shape, then extended thousands of branch-like filaments that flew into the gaps, filling and settling between them.
In a matter of seconds, the wall was complete.
Hestia repeated the process, walking the entire perimeter, until the whole house was up.
Sadie House was missing its windows and roof, and all of the furniture had been either burned or damaged, and the carpets, books, handkerchiefs, and tapestries were gone forever. But, the house was back and standing.
Finally, Hestia cast a silver, glowing mesh that rested on around the roofless structure.
"The lime needs to cure for a few days," she said. "And I want a few more weeks before we add the roof to it. There's still a lot to be done, and –"
She was drowned out by the sound of applause.
"Miss Hestia Jones," Dedalus began, "words – words do not suffice to –"
"Never mind all that," she said. "I'm famished. Shall we get dinner? And, can you do all the Apparating, because I'm rather spent?"
For a brief moment, Dudley had the ruins of Sadie House to himself, waiting for Dedalus to return. He ran his hand over the stones in his section of wall and smiled. The glowing mesh felt springy and cold, but he could still feel the texture of the flint and lime beneath it. He stepped back and viewed the site, the roofless mansion casting a stark shadow pointing toward the sea.
This mix of pride and accomplishment, he'd felt before. His opponent reeled back against the ropes, still conscious, but losing all control of his arms. Dudley got in a few more blows before the bell, and he felt his arm being raised into the air. Victory.
Dudley shivered a little, as his sweat began to cool. He pictured his own home, ablaze. The Wireless mentioned the Dursleys every day, low down the long list of Undesirables. The Death Eaters living in 4, Privet Drive could get bored waiting for them to show up, and could well decide on arson. But, if they did, Hestia could rebuild it, easily. A four-bedroom house, only two floors?
It will be all right, he told himself, trying not to think of all the things in his home that he wanted back.
CRACK!
Dedalus had arrived. Dudley set his hand on his friend's shoulder, and they returned to the cottage for dinner.