Harry Potter Hogwarts Caretaker

Chapter 9: Hermione

The next day Harry stayed mostly in his office and concentrated on interrogating Dobby. He soon learned the names of all the house elves though he so far didn't know the faces that went with them.

He had started a little file for each of them mainly stating their names duties and special talents according to Dobby. He'd decided to take everything Dobby told him with a grain of salt though as Dobby claimed that he himself was very good at solving problems. Remembering his second year at school Harry had good reasons to doubt that. When Dobby stated that Winky was very good at calming frightened children Harry found that quite plausible however and wrote it down into her file.

The schedules were progressing nicely as well as Harry was beginning to see a pattern now that he had three days fully worked out. He'd also learned to ask his questions more precisely and get Dobby to give him the answers he really wanted most of the time. Still it was tiring work to get useful information out of the house elf. Maybe Dumbledore had made him ask Dobby to keep him busy and his mind off of his past?

"Harry Potter Sir? Dobby has promised Winky to help watch Blinky after lunch. Can Dobby come back in the evening and answer questions, Harry Potter Sir?"

It took Harry a moment to figure out what the elf wanted.

"Sure. ... Wait a minute, Dobby! Who's Blinky? I don't think I've got a file on anyone named Blinky yet." Harry said searching through all the parchments scattered on his desk.

"Blinky daughter of Dobby and Winky. Blinky not know how to work yet. Blinky baby."

"You've got a little daughter Dobby?"

Dobby nodded proudly.

"Oh, that's wonderful. Congratulations Dobby. Of course, take the afternoon off to be with your family, by all means. It's really important that parents spend as much time with their children as possible."

Dobby smiled happily and hugged Harry.

"Oh, thank you, Harry Potter Sir, thank you, thank you, thank you. Harry Potter Sir is soooo good to Dobby. Dobby promises to work extra hard for Harry Potter Sir. Harry Potter Sir is soooo kind."

Once the hose elf had finally walked out still muttering praises Harry started sorting through the parchments on his desk. He pinned the schedules to the wall where he could always see them and then ordered the files on the house elves alphabetically. He had to leave them on his desk for the time being as he still hadn't removed the old files that were taking up all his boards.

He should have asked Dobby where he might store them before he'd let him go. Then he could have started moving them right now. Well, it would have to wait for another day.

Maybe he ought to resume his exploration of the castle? Or go down to the kitchen and get another house elf to help him with the schedules? Or maybe take a closer look at Filch's old files? He could start sorting out which ones he was going to move into storage and which ones he might still need around.

Something dropped out of an air vent and landed on his shoulder. Something white, furry and twitchy with gray eyes.

"Twichy!" That was how the ferret did it! He travelled through the air vents. No wonder he always showed up in closed rooms even though he was too small to be able to open doors.

Harry grabbed the little animal and cuddled him.

"Hello, Twichy. So nice of you to drop in. I love that soft fur of yours, you know."

Harry played with the ferret for a little while, then decided that it was time to do something productive once again and went to check Filch's old toolbox. Most of the tools were still in good condition, but a few needed replacing. Harry started sorting them out.

Twichy hopped onto the open lid of the toolbox and watched curiously. Harry soon found himself holding out every tool he checked to the ferret explaining it's use and why little ferrets had better stay away from some.

"This one is called a hammer, Twichy. It's very useful for all kinds of jobs. It's purpose is to drive nails into objects. Into walls to hang up pictures, into furniture to hold it together..."

Twichy stretched towards the hammer reaching out his front paws for it and sniffing at it. Harry lowered it into reach and watched the ferret's inspection.

"It's also very heavy and painful if it happens to land on a foot or tail. Little ferrets should better watch out around hammers." he advised Twichy.

Twichy twitched his little pink nose at him in response not looking worried at all. In this light he looked more blond than white, Harry noted. He was actually silver coloured not white as Harry had thought at first. That had to be why he had gray eyes instead of red ones. He wasn't an albino, just a very light colour. Maybe especially bred by some very clever owner of a pet shop? He was one very good looking ferret for sure.

Harry put down the hammer besides the other still functional tools and was about to pick up the next tool when he heard a knock on his door.

"Come in!" he called out wondering who besides Twichy and Dobby might want to visit him in his boring little office.

The door opened and Albus Dumbledore walked in.

"Headmaster?" Harry asked in surprise. "What brings you to my office?"

"Hello Harry. Already making yourself at home here? Very good. Ah, and Twichy. Feeling bored, my young friend?"

Harry stared at Twichy. He could almost have sworn that the ferret had just shaken his head in response to Dumbledore's question. But that couldn't be. Most likely there had been something tickling his ear that he'd been trying to shake off.

Twichy as usual didn't sit still for long. He raced up onto Harry's shoulder, by now so used to climbing his muggle clothes that he didn't even hesitate anymore. Dumbledore smiled at the ferret's antics.

"Twichy must really like you. He usually only gets this intimate with his close friends." the headmaster commented.

"Well, maybe it's the muggle clothes that he finds so interesting. What can I do for you headmaster?"

"First of all you can call me Albus. As I told you before all the staff do and I kind of like the name. Second, I fear that Peeves has gone on a rampage in the arithmancy classroom and as I see you've already got your tools out. I also suggest that you take a few house elves with you to help with the cleaning. The room really is a mess. I'll have to do something about that poltergeist someday." that last remark seemed to be more addressed to himself than to Harry.

Harry quickly threw those tools that he'd found to be in good working order back into their box, picked it up and hurried down into the kitchen.

Luckily all house elves except for Dobby and Winky were there at the moment as it was almost lunchtime and they were busy preparing the food.

Twichy jumped off Harry's shoulder which he'd ridden down there and went to inspect the pots. Harry noted with slight surprise that none of the house elves moved to hinder the ferret. Wasn't he in danger this close to boiling soup? Didn't they fear that he might steal the food?

Well, maybe the elves knew more about ferrets than he did. Maybe Twichy knew to avoid boiling water. And maybe the elves thought that it was okay if Twichy stole food as they thought it okay when the pupils stole food. They were probably happy to provide the ferret with an extra delicious meal.

Since Harry had no idea who was who he just shouted out the names of four house elves Dobby had repeatedly mentioned during his explanations as he assumed that they had to be among Filch's usual cleaning crew.

The four elves immediately hurried over to him beaming with pride at having been chosen for whatever job Harry was going to assign them. Harry had to admit that it was rather nice to have such an eager crew. He quickly explained the situation to them and found that he could barely keep up with the elves as they raced to grab brushes and buckets. As they raced out of the kitchen Harry felt the impact of something small against his arm and seconds later something was tickling his ear. Twichy had come back as unexpectedly as he'd jumped off.

Harry had never been in the arithmancy classroom before and didn't know what it usually looked like. The devastation left behind by Peeves didn't give him much of an idea either. On the first glance it seemed that nothing had remained whole. The furniture was reduced to splinters of wood, the books were lying about in ugly heaps along with some ripped out pages and everything was covered in something that looked almost like snow.

Harry bent down to investigate. Running his fingers over the floor he discovered that it felt more like powder than snow. He lifted his hand to take a closer look at it. Chalk! Peeves must have found the school's chalk supplies and crushed them over the remains of the classroom.

'Must have been the supplies for an entire year.' Harry thought standing up and taking another glance through the room. Hermione and several students he thought he remembered seeing at the Hufflepuff table during meals were trying to salvage whatever Peeves had left whole or only slightly harmed. Hufflepuffs? What were the Hufflepuffs doing in here?

Hermione threw her hands up in frustration and came over to his side.

"Oh Harry, so nice of you to come this quickly. As you can see this is a sort of emergency. I can't possibly teach in this room the way it looks now."

"This looks really bad." Harry admitted. "I fear it would take a miracle to get this cleaned up in time for the afternoon classes. I'm not even sure I can have it back to working condition by tomorrow."

Actually he didn't even know where to start. Everything looked totally beyond repair from what he'd seen so far.

"We've tried to use the Reparo charm on some of the furniture, but it didn't have much of an effect. I fear its too badly damaged. Anything you can do with that repair kit?" Hermione asked hopefully.

Harry picked up another splinter of wood and looked at it wondering what kind of object it had once been a part of. A chair? A table? Maybe even a piece of the blackboard? He shook his head.

"I can only help the house elves clean all of this out and bring in new furniture from one of the unused classrooms. Maybe it would even be a better idea if we just moved you into one of those. Then you could start teaching again right away."

Hermione nodded sadly.

"I kind of grew attached to this room over the years." she mumbled.

Harry remembered how she'd always, loved arithmancy back in their school days. He remembered their friendship, their many adventures together...

"Okay, just write me a list of what you want in here and we'll try to get this back into working condition in about a week. You can move back in here as soon as it's done and use the room next doors until then."

"Thank you, I'll do that." Hermione smiled at him shyly as if she wasn't sure how to talk to him.

"You know, back in school I always thought you'd someday follow in McGonagall's footsteps. You'd become transfigurations teacher and head of Gryffindor." he tried to start a conversation.

If he got her to talk to him normally, maybe they could be friends again. He wondered if she could ever forgive him for having been a death eater. Probably not, but she was making an effort and so would he.

"Arithmancy." Hermione smiled, but Harry could see that it was a forced smile. "Arithmancy and Hufflepuff."

"Hufflepuff?" Harry asked totally confused.

"Well, Michael is the only former Hufflepuff left in the school now and he wasn't qualified. So they offered the position to me. Seeing how Neville's still new and they wanted an experienced teacher." Hermione explained.

"You're the head of Hufflepuff? I always thought Ravenclaw would suit you much better."

"I didn't get to choose. Draco's been head of Ravenclaw for years and the kids just love him."

Twichy at the moment on Harry's right shoulder gave a sudden squeak. It sounded almost as if he was protesting against something. Maybe the chalk dust was tickling his nose.

"Hi, Twichy." Hermione continued. "No, Ravenclaw is in very good hands. Hufflepuff needed a new head so Hufflepuff was what I got."

"But Malfoy was in Slytherin!" protested Harry. "Cho was a Ravenclaw. Why didn't they give the job to Cho?"

"She declined. Doesn't want the responsibility. Draco's much more competent anyway and the kids are proud to have a Slytherin head. Cho didn't even fight in the war. She just holed herself up in her little out of the way house in the country and waited it out. Kids want their heads of house to be real war heroes these days, not just survivors."

Harry swallowed hard. The war. The war he'd picked the wrong side in. He'd betrayed them all. And obviously Hermione too had been one of the defenders of Hogwarts. Well, of course she had. She had always stood up for what was right as all Gryffindors had. All except for Harry. He stared at the dust covered floor unable to look her in the eyes. The silence grew. Neither of them knew what to say.

"Professor Weasley! Look at what he did to this poor book." a Hufflepuff prefect came rushing over presenting a badly mutilated book to Hermione.

Obviously Peeves hadn't just used the chalk to let it snow. He'd also tried to write with it. The book's cover was covered with obscenities.

"I'll have to talk to the headmaster. Something has to be done about the poltergeist." Hermione decided. "Nina, that book is ruined anyway. Please throw it away."

"Yes, Professor Weasley." the prefect answered.

"Proffessor WEASLEY?" Harry repeated not believing his ears.

Hermione shifted her weight from one foot to the other then back clearly feeling uncomfortable.

"Ron and I got married one year after we finished school. We really wanted to invite you to the wedding, but we just didn't want to wait that long. You now, with you being in Azkaban and ... well ... "

"That's okay. I understand." Harry said again staring at the floor.

So he had missed his two best friends' wedding. Well, he couldn't expect them to wait with their lives until he got out of prison. He was the one who had deserted them after all, not the other way round. He ought to say something more to Hermione. Show her that he wasn't angry, that he still was her friend. But there just wasn't anything he could think of to say and she didn't say anything either.

With a sigh Harry took up a brush and started cleaning away chalk dust. He was here to work and not to chat after all.

In the next chapter: we meet one of Harry's father's old friends, Harry has a problem with chairs and gets yet another invitation for tea.