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Building for Forever | ||||||
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Category: Reconstruction Challenge (2007-5) Characters:Harry/Ginny, Hermione Granger, Minerva McGonagall Genres: Action/Adventure Warnings: None Story is Complete Rating: G Reviews: 4 Summary: Harry assists in the reconstruction of Hogwarts, trying to keep the existence of the Elder Wand a secret. Hitcount: Story Total: 6755; Chapter Total: 2567 Author's Notes: My first HP fanfic. All criticism welcome. No need to hold back. |
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“I’m sorry, Professor, there’s just no two ways ‘bout it. I don’t think that I can guarantee the completion of all reconstruction projects any earlier than September 8th.” Minerva McGonagall exhaled audibly as she removed her spectacles and placed them gently on her desk. She squeezed her eyes shut and gently pinched the bridge of her nose in a gesture of frustration. A few deep breaths later, she returned her steely gaze to Barney Kilgore, the lead construction engineer for the reconstruction of Hogwarts. “Mr. Kilgore,” the former head of Gryffindor began, “I thought you said that once we got Harry to use the Elder Wand in the reconstruction efforts that we would be able to meet the intended September 1st deadline. This one week delay is not only an inconvenience to the students and staff, but an imposition to Mr. Potter. Do I have to remind you how hard it was to convince him to put his Auror duties on hold for this?” “No, Headmistress, you do not. And while we are making more progress than we were a few weeks ago, I seem to have overestimated Mr. Potter’s abilities.” Professor McGonagall’s mouth tightened at the slight dig to her former student. “Well, luckily for all of us, Mr. Potter’s forte has always been Defense Against the Dark Arts, otherwise we wouldn’t be sitting here having this conversation.” Barney’s face dropped at the headmistress’s retort. “I meant no disrespect, Professor. I just assumed—” “Yes, well everyone seems to have conveniently forgotten that Harry completely skipped his final year at Hogwarts to ensure the demise of You-Know-Who. To say nothing of the fact that he has little to no experience in the construction trade. Who do you have working with Harry for the tasks that need the power of the Elder Wand?” “Acrimus. Ambrose Acrimus.” McGonagall scowled in disgust. “Mr. Acrimus had a knack for scoring highly on written exams, only to fail dismally during the practical portions. No doubt he’s taking every opportunity to belittle Harry’s incomplete knowledge of construction techniques to boost his own wanting ego.” Kilgore tried to shake his head in disagreement, but it was useless. He cast his eyes downward in embarrassment. In a matter of minutes the Headmistress had found a significant flaw in the current situation that was responsible for at least half of the inefficiency they were facing. Barney only hoped that she could come up with a solution just as quickly. “... well, Mr. Kilgore?” “I’m sorry, Headmistress, I seem to have gotten—” “... ‘lost in your thoughts.’ I thought I cured you of that habit back in your fourth year.” Kilgore’s face colored at the rebuke, but he did not offer a defense. “I was asking you if Mr. Acrimus is still unaware as to the true nature of the source of Mr. Potter’s unique abilities.” “Yes, Professor.” “Very good. He shall remain uninformed.” “But, Headmistress, wouldn’t the knowledge of the Elder Wand help to boost Mr. Potter’s stature to Acrimus?” “If bringing about the downfall of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named wasn’t enough to draw out the proper level of respect, I doubt mastery of the Wand of Destiny will help. If anything, an opportunist like Mr. Acrimus will only make things worse for Mr. Potter, by drooling on it. He’s already uncomfortable about removing the Elder Wand from its hiding place.” “Yes, Professor.” “Now then, who is next in your leadership chain, behind Mr. Acrimus.” “That would be Jonas Thatcher. Not bad with construction concepts and techniques, but a little weak in Arithmancy.” McGonagall ingested the newest piece of information, and within moments an almost imperceptible smile appeared on her lips. Kilgore did not fail to notice the change in the headmistress’s demeanor, nor did he miss the twinkle in her eye. Perhaps the solution he was hoping for had presented itself already? “Excuse me, Mr. Kilgore. I have to call on a friend.” Before Mr. Kilgore could react, Professor McGonagall stood up from her desk and strode purposefully to the fireplace. She took a pinch of floo powder from a jar on the mantle and threw it into the flames, causing them to change to a bright green hue. She called out in a loud, firm voice, “Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures,” before kneeling and sticking her head into the flames. She soon found herself looking at a rather plain office with two desks. The desk on the right was impossibly cluttered. Several scrolls of parchment formed a loose mountain in the middle of the desk, with the base of the pile bounded by several picture frames, four empty ink bottles and half a dozen or so sugar quills. Three interdepartmental memos folded into paper airplanes floated above the desk, dutifully waiting for the return of the absent Ministry worker who used it. The desk on the left was immaculate. The only piece of parchment on this desk was being examined by a bushy haired brunette. Her mione Granger was not in the best of moods. Her efforts to further the goals of the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare were being repeatedly met with indifference, and occasionally outright derision. She knew she had only been at it for a month, but she truly thought she would have made more progress by now. The benefit of cooperation among magical races had been proven rather thoroughly at the Battle of Hogwarts, as the climactic conflict had come to be known, and it was quite beyond her why other members of Wizarding society were so slow to acknowledge the truth. Although she loathed the idea, she was considering authoring a letter to implore Kingsley Shacklebolt, the Minister of Magic, for a public display of support. She was contemplating what form this support would take when Professor McGonagall’s voice roused her from her task. “Miss Granger?” “Professor McGonagall! How wonderful to hear from you!” Hermione got up from her desk and made her way to the fireplace in deference to her former mentor. Upon seeing the professor’s face, however, Hermione’s disposition quickly turned serious. “Is something wrong?” “Unfortunately, Miss Granger, I do have an ulterior motive for this call — but it has nothing do with Death Eaters or the like.” Hermione’s face relaxed considerably. “How may I be of service?” “I’m sorry to report that the reconstruction effort to our beloved Hogwarts has fallen behind schedule. I was hoping that you might be able to take a brief hiatus from your duties with the Ministry to help us meet our September 1st target date.” “Things are quite slow here in my department, but I don’t understand how I would be useful.” “I’ll explain when you get here, but quite frankly we have need of your Arithmancy skills, your general knowledge of spells and your friendship with Mr. Potter.” Hermione grinned at the mention of her best friend. “I’ll be working with Harry, then? That sounds wonderful. I’ll just send an explanation in a short request to my department head for a brief sabbatical.” “Will you have any problem getting your department head to grant your request?” “I don’t think so.” Hermione’s grin had returned with a tinge of mischief, “I’m going to make sure he knows that both you and Minister Shacklebolt will be receiving copies of my request.” “Excellent! Feel free to floo directly to my office when everything is settled.” Hermione raised her eyebrows in concern. “How far behind schedule is the reconstruction effort?” The headmistress pursed her lips in annoyance, “One week.” “One week!” Hermione exclaimed in horror, “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” At this Professor McGonagall nodded once and retreated to her office. She carefully stood up and turned to the construction engineer, who had not moved from his seat, “Mr. Kilgore, here’s what is going to happen...” As it turned out, Hermione’s request was met with little resistance and she arrived at Hogwarts in time to catch a brief lunch. Although she felt uncomfortable taking her meal at the staff table with the headmistress, she was able to maintain enough focus to learn exactly what Professor McGonagall hoped they would accomplish over the next two weeks. Although he had helped to complete some of the more challenging construction tasks, Harry had been getting on horribly with the construction engineer assigned to him and had almost hexed him a couple times in frustration. While Hermione frowned on Harry’s inability to control his temper, Professor McGonagall assured her that Harry wasn’t completely to blame. At any rate, the headmistress was hoping that a new task force comprised of Hermione, Harry and Jonas Thatcher, another construction engineer, would be able to do enough to enable Hogwarts to open on time. After her meal, Hermione was rounding a corner to get to the Astronomy Tower when she literally ran into Ginny. “Hermione!” the redhead exclaimed as she wrapped her friend into a hug. “What are you doing here?” “Professor McGonagall recruited me to help Harry with his reconstruction projects.” “Oh good! Perhaps you can put that Ambrose Acrimus in his place.” “I’m not even going to meet him. I’m here to replace him, along with another engineer... Jonas Thatcher?” Ginny squealed in delight, “That’s fantastic! Acrimus was simply ghastly to Harry. It’ll mean so much to him that you’re here! Maybe you can even help speed things along so that Harry can take a break?” Hermione noticed the impish twinkle in her eye, “I’ll see what I can do. But, I really must be off now. Where are you going to be working?” “I’ll be out by the front gate helping Bill and Fleur with some of the new protection wards.” “All right then, perhaps we’ll catch each other later.” Hermione continued down the hall and soon found herself climbing the necessary stairways to reach the Astronomy Tower. Once she reached the top, she made her way outside, and found Harry standing next to a young man whom she assumed to be Jonas. She quickened her pace to greet them, but stopped short a few paces from them. The wand in Harry’s hand was darker than holly and seemed longer than eleven inches. She locked eyes with her best friend and the look in his gaze and the slight shake of his head signaled that they would take up the matter later. For now, she would just have to trust him. She reformed a smile on her lips and completed her walk right into a warm hug. “Goodness, Harry! You just saw me last night at the Burrow for dinner!” “It’s not because I haven’t seen you. It’s because you’re not Acrimus.” Jonah guffawed, reminding Hermione that they were not alone. She turned to him and offered her hand, “Hermione Granger.” “Jonas Thatcher. I’m rather pleased that you’re not Ambrose Acrimus, myself.” Hermione thought she detected a roguish element to his smile, but deftly ignored it. “So, what’s the problem here?” Harry responded to her, “No problems with this task. I’m just finishing up something from yesterday.” With that, he turned back his work. First, he shrank an enormous stone and levitated it to a hole on the roof. Once in place, he enlarged the stone to fill the hole, whereupon Jonas would cast the proper spells to hold it in place. “How do you know that block is the right size before you put it up there?” Harry grinned at his ever curious friend, “It’s not. None of the stones up there were. I just stop the enlarging spell when they’ve reached the right size. Nothing wrong with timing a spell properly so that things end up at the right size, don’t you agree?” Hermione grinned at the fourth year memory Harry evoked. “So, that’s it? The Boy-Who-Lived was enlisted for a shrinking charm and an enlargement charm?” Jonas explained, “It’s not a matter of difficulty, but of manpower. It would normally take three wizards to shrink and re-enlarge a stone of that size. I’m not overly fond of Mr. Kilgore, the lead engineer, but I have to admit, it was a great idea to recruit the world’s most powerful wizard to assist with the reconstruction.” Harry nervously eyed Hermione’s reaction to Jonas’s comment. When their eyes finally met, Hermione gave him a small nod to convey her understanding and support of the situation. Harry smiled his thanks and returned to his assignment. Hermione continued to wait patiently as Harry and Jonas repeated the process two more times. “Done.” Harry declared. “Now we can get on to one of the real reasons you’re here.” Harry tucked his wand into the back pocket of his trousers and began walking to the staircase. Hermione, smiled at her best friend’s hopeless habit, then followed him back into the castle. Jonas smiled at Harry’s habit as well, but kept his glee to himself. Harr y led them to the front courtyard in front of the main entrance to the castle. Once outside, Hermione noticed that the flagstones that paved the area were gone. Instead, bare dirt met their feet, while off to one side new flagstones were stacked upon one another in various sizes. “I assume I’m not just here to help levitate the stones into place?” Hermione inquired hopefully. Jonas answered, “Of course not. We need your Arithmancy skills. The problem is that we know these stones are supposed to form some type of a spiral pattern to cover this area. Unfortunately, the witch who designed the pattern met with an accident the other day. She’s recovering in St. Mungo’s but is at the moment unconscious. We were hoping you might be able to make something of the different sized flagstones so that we could finish the project.” Hermione examined the stack of stones and first noticed that all of the stones were in the shape of a square. She also observed that except for the smallest two, each piece of pavement was larger than the one above it. The two squares on top were the same size, approximately one meter wide, while the eighth and final square seemed to cover more than half of the courtyard. After some thought, she turned to Jonas, “Doesn’t it seem odd that she’s using squares for a spiral pattern?” “That’s what we thought too, but we think it’s intentional. She could have ordered these stones in whatever shapes and sizes she required, but chose these.” Hermione was tapping her forefinger to her lips when Harry saw her triumphant smile for solving a problem break through. “It’s a Fibonacci spiral!” Jonas glanced at Harry, who could only respond with a shrug of his shoulders. “Fibonacci was a muggle mathematician who studied a numerical sequence where the next number in the sequence is determined by adding the previous two numbers. The various sizes of these blocks are based on that sequence.” Another thought struck the bushy haired witch and she offered a suggestion to her friend, “Why don’t you take a break, Harry? Professor McGongall said they’ve been working you non-stop for the past few days. Jonas and I can finish this up now that we know what we’re doing.” Harry opened his mouth to protest, but Hermione interrupted him, “You only have time for a short break before dinner, and I happen to know that a certain redhead is helping her brother with some of the wards by the front gate.” Harry’s face broke into the widest smile she’d seen on him for ages. Without another word, he took off for the front gate. As they made their way around the lake to their favorite tree, Ginny couldn’t help feeling that although she had finally gotten what she had been dreaming about for weeks, something was missing. The essential elements to her daydreams were there: dashing boyfriend with unruly, black hair and brilliant, green eyes, beautiful weather, and some free time, with no obligations. Unfortunately, said boyfriend seemed to be lost in his thoughts and often the only way to get him to talk about them was to wait until he was ready. Hopefully, this wasn’t one of those times. “Knut for your thoughts, Harry?” “Sorry, Gin. I guess I’m still nervous about using the Elder Wand for the construction tasks.” “Is there much left to do?” “I don’t think so.” He sighed dispiritedly, “Maybe I’m just being paranoid, but I know I’ll feel better when I know it’s back where it belongs.” “I don’t suppose there’s anything I can do to make you feel better until then?” Harry was often regarded as thick headed, but even he couldn’t miss that hint. They didn’t come back up for air until after dinner had started. |
| Reviews 4 |
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