After

The courtyard was back to its usual state, and that face of the castle’s facade was intact once more by mid-morning. 

Minerva passed through the castle to where the greenhouses were supposed to be. It was just as Filius had said it would be, a mess of shattered glass and broken plant pots. She mourned for a moment, putting herself in Pomona’s place, what a blow it must have been to her friend to throw away years of careful cultivation in one night. 

Minerva stepped through the rubble, assessing the damage as glass crunched underfoot. She knew that she had to put it right before Pomona came back home to this. The thin metal skeletons that held each pane of glass in place were only slightly damaged and warped but easily reconfigured by Minerva’s magic. It was the glasswork that would be tricky and time-consuming.

She forged ahead anyway, summoning the panes together, reassembling them in their frames like odd puzzles without pictures. Greenhouse one only took a little less than an hour of her concentrated effort but there were eight greenhouses. With a sigh, she recalled Pomona, and just how upset she had been at the loss of nearly all of her plants, even those that were not suited to becoming impromptu weaponry. She went on with the work and it went quicker now as she fell into a pattern of repairs. The sun was still high when Minerva closed the last glass greenhouse door. 

It was still a long time to spend on one area, but she wanted this place back to rights, for Pomona. Just as the hospital wing was for Poppy, she wanted them to come back and find that they weren’t amid total wreckage. 

‘This way they don’t have to start from zero, maybe that’ll be enough to bring them back’ she thought as she absently cleaned a bit of blood from the stone walkway outside greenhouse five. She took one last look at her work and hoped she’d done enough for her dear friend before she turned back into the castle and to another area that required her attention. The arithmancy department on the first floor.

Except for the library, the ground floor was returned to its fundamental principles. The library was too large a task for her to start on then, so she climbed the stairs to the first floor and went back to gathering the broken portrait remnants from the floor and removing the scorch marks of spells that had missed their moving targets. She worked her way to the Arithmancy classroom whose contents had spilled onto the ground floor when the floor between them gave way. 

She repaired the walls there, where a few burn marks laid on the flagstones she’d already replaced. This was where Septimia held advanced classes, the sixth and seventh-year N.E.W.T. students she was so proud of. 

Arithmancy was one of the few areas of magic in which Minerva had little interest and no skill, as far as she was concerned it was still divination, though Septimia had tried to explain the difference half a million times. She managed a small, fleeting smile at the thought before she summoned up the broken desks and shelves that belonged there. Maybe she did understand the difference, really, but it was much more fun to rile Septimia up by pretending she didn’t. 

She carefully repaired and replaced the student desks in rows like they were in her own classrooms before remembering that Septimia prefers to group them together to allow students to work with each other. She used her magic to send the lot of them spinning around the room to where they belonged. Satisfied that the placement wasn’t completely off, she set to work repairing Septimia’s desk at the front of the room. Septimia’s chosen specialty required a different kind of study than Minerva’s own Transfiguration; it was much less rulebound and strict, though Septimia herself was a stern personality. Minerva thought of how they were rather similar in the way they behaved with students, despite the difference in their academic areas. 

She arranged the remaining books that didn’t need replacing on the shelves to one side of the room and replaced the other charts and tools that weren’t too damaged. She decided that it would have to be good enough and moved on. She checked the other classrooms and found a few minor repairs to do in each until she reached the end of the hall. The room at the end of the hall looked out over the front lawn and the path to Hogsmeade, and currently one could see all the way to the village as most of the wall was missing. Septimia’s office was almost a complete loss. 

Minerva heaved a sigh and thought of just how heartbroken her colleague would’ve been at the state of this office. Septimia took pride in her office, and it had been far from austere. Her office walls had been covered in tapestries and star charts and behind her desk, the portrait of famed Arithmancer Bridget Wenlock had resided. Now the gilt frame of that portrait was smashed against the bookshelf, though the canvas was relatively intact. Its occupant was nowhere to be seen. Minerva knew she couldn’t repair all of this, most of the personal effects would have to be replaced, but she started putting the wall back up. 

She sorted through the rubble of Septimia’s academic home, magic separating the stone from the other debris. The wall went up easy, Minerva was well practiced in that now, and despite the fact that she had told herself not to worry about windows yet she did repair the diamond patterned panes of these windows. It was something at least. She moved on to clearing some of the contents, those that were broken past repair. She found Septimia’s multi-magnifier under one of the tapestries that had fallen from the wall, miraculously only six of its fourteen lenses were broken. She set it aside to work on later, she knew they weren’t exactly easy to get ahold of and Septimia was so fond of hers. 

She put the tapestries back up on the wall, cleaning them and being thankful that they weren’t too torn as they returned to their hanging places. She repaired one of the chairs that usually sat in front of Septimia’s desk and pulled it up to face the wall. She sat down as she repaired a few minor tears and frayed edges, a task that required a little more careful concentration. It might have been easier with a wand. Minerva just sighed at that thought and went on magically pulling threads together, rejoining broken ends and stretching missing pieces to fill in the gaps. The late afternoon sun shone through the repaired windows as Minerva stood up stiffly from that task. 

“You ought to stay there a while longer,” She heard a voice say from the vicinity of Septimia’s desk, making her start. It was the portrait of Bridget Wenlock. “My sincerest apologies, headmistress, I could not think of a way to avoid startling you.” 

Minerva had already picked the portrait up off the floor and propped it against Septimia’s newly repaired desk. “No apology necessary, I don’t think it could have been avoided.” 

“I imagine you have been rather alone these few days past,” The portrait, of an elder woman with bright brown eyes and a kind, but pitying, expression, said. 

“Well, there’s always Peeves,” Minerva answered jokingly, trying to find a tactful way out of this conversation. She had no desire to speak to anyone, let alone some 13th-century Arithmancer’s memory. 

“Yes, he is good company,” Bridget answered sardonically, rolling her eyes.

“I didn’t know they’d invented sarcasm in the 12 hundreds,” Minerva replied with the shadow of a smirk. 

“Ha ha,” The portrait said, not laughing. Her tone was genuine when she went on, “You know Professor Vector could’ve done all of this, why do you torture yourself so?” 

“I know she’s quite capable,” Minerva answered, thinking of Septimia’s stubborn streak, and her ability to take almost anything in stride, “believe me I know.” 

“Then why? Why not let this wait for the others? I know they’re coming, and so do you.” Minerva started to answer but the portrait held up a hand, “But they were bright enough to take some time to recover themselves first,” Professor Wenlock admonished, raising an eyebrow and giving Minerva a look that she herself might give a misbehaving student. 

Minerva rolled her eyes, “Yes, they’re all much cleverer than I am,” She admitted, without sarcastic intent. “I couldn’t tell you why I do such stupid things, other than it’s the only thing that feels right.” That was the best answer she could give. 

The portrait nodded with great poise and conceded the point, “Well, if it is what feels right to you, headmistress, then Hogwarts must surely bow to your power.” 

“Thank you, professor Wenlock,” Minerva answered softly. She did feel better to think she wasn’t alone here, she hadn’t spoken to anyone, portrait or otherwise, since Peeves had come to annoy her on the first day. 

“However,” Bridget began again, with a somewhat wicked smirk that led Minerva to believe that she was a devious woman in life. “If I happen to see Professor Vector from my other perch in the Arithmancer’s guild, I shall be forced to tell her that you are here.” 

The shadow of a smile that had been on Minerva’s face fell away and she looked down at the portrait and shook her head. “I know I can’t stop you. I wish you wouldn’t, but I’ve no control over it.” She was lying a little when she said that, she would never send for anyone herself, and she would never admit aloud that she wished someone would come and find her, but it was true. 

“That’s all the answer I needed, now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and keep a lookout,” Professor Wenlock chuckled mischievously as she left. 

Minerva rolled her eyes and re-hung the empty canvas, returning it to its golden frame and wondering just how long she had before someone came to drag her out of there. Until they did there was still work to be done.