Ghost Image
The next few days passed in a blur for Ginny. For the most part, she could let McGonagall look after her own school, apart from giving advice and helping her keep them entertained. Her thoughts remained wrapped around Undine, and what they were doing together.
Gosse was remarkably understanding, she thought when she had time for introspection, and allowed Undine to monopolise her, and vice versa. They could have starved to death, in fact, if Gosse hadn’t cooked them meals and made sure they ate them. And the house stayed remarkably tidy, which had to be down to Gosse, unless it was Ruby, of course.
Ruby was also modelling for Gosse now. She kept her clothes on, but Ginny realised when she saw the paintings that she’d forgotten how attractive Ruby was.
Another Gosse painting came out of that time as well: A strange impressionistic assembly, with Ginny and Undine in the centre, surrounded by swirls, against a background of rock and stone blocks.
The second stage of the construction of New Hogwarts was slower than the first, as Undine assembled walls of blocks, that climbed up the front face of the burgeoning castle, dividing up huge rooms into smaller ones – classrooms, dungeons, dormitories, bathrooms – carving doorways as she went.
Ginny grew to love even further the intent expression in Undine’s eyes, the puckish twist to her mouth as she spoke spells, and as she reacted to every part of the castle build with an artist’s pleasure.
“And there’s nothing to worry about if we find we have forgotten anything,” said Undine at one point. “We can easily add more rooms. Except that the pipes are a bitch,” she added, casually, making Ginny laugh.
But each day brought something new, as the castle grew in front of them. The parapets were at full height by early on the fourth day, and they would twist to stand on the crenelated wall and look down as spell after spell built Undine’s eye-caressing Huff Puff cloisters. Maybe I’m in the wrong house, Ginny told herself then, but when they built the squat and massive Gryffindor tower she grew to love that too, for the echoes of the original it invoked.
The astronomy tower was so sheer and narrow that it gave her vertigo, but she’d never particularly liked Astronomy either, and Professor Sinistra was delighted with her new eyrie. Ginny wished she could have asked Draco what he thought of the new Slytherin house, but Malcolm Baddock told her not to worry. Which she had to treat as a positive sign, really.
Now Ginny and Undine were re-casting the heap of powdered rock into glass, and forming endless rooftiles and column drums as well as actual windows, and the entire castle was roofed, towers as well, so it looked like a proper castle now.
Ginny was itching to see the Slytherin common room glazed, and the moat filled with water, but Undine said that would have to be one of the last steps.
The greenhouses were growing up the front of the castle now, and almost at the same time the entrance bridge was taking shape.
The bridge was in two parts: The section furthest from the castle was a handsome stone-arched bridge – the hardest part of the whole castle, according to Undine – that crossed the main Beauxbatons stream, and led to a lifting wooden drawbridge that in turn crossed the moat.
Then Undine was tutting over the descending portcullis at the entrance. When that was finished, she began eating into the remaining piles of rock, to produce glazed tiles for the bathrooms, in sparkling colours, so it was easy to forget you were deep inside a cliff.
Undine and Ginny celebrated the commissioning of the bathrooms by taking a bath there themselves, but then had to hurry back into their clothes when some of the inevitable sightseers appeared.
At last the moat could be filled: The flow from the pool beneath the tumbling waterfall was redirected, filling the dusty ditch with crystal-clear water and immersing the Slytherin windows – which didn’t leak as Undine had twitchily forecast – before pouring over a new weir to join the stream emerging from the lake.
There was no formal moving-in day, as Ginny had hoped for. Instead, some enterprising pupils dragged their trunks and orange sleeping bags into their newly-created houses and slept on the floor.
Undine didn’t object to this, but became twitchily stressed all the same at having to work around them - and handle all their requests. To Ginny’s surprise Ruby came to the rescue here: It turned out she could speak French.
“Dad had an interest in a casino in France,” Ruby explained. “Down on the coast. But he was in meetings the whole time, so we had to manage.”
Neither Ruby’s accent nor her vocabulary was perfect, but she could make herself understood to both Undine and the ever-demanding Hogwarts teachers and pupils, and translate Undine’s questions and the replies as to what the beds should look like, and sofas, and what wall hangings they should have.
Ruby was also useful, Ginny came to realise, at pushing back on some of the more extravagant requests, because Undine was far too willing to indulge everyone and everything.
Undine’s elegantly small head seemed to house an infinite level of detail, and if she couldn’t always remember a pupil’s name, and struggled to pronounce it, she always knew what they had asked for, and how she would satisfy what they wanted. And Ruby’s copious note-taking kept track of all the demands, and kept them from morphing into something ever different, ever bigger.
“You don’t need stands,” Ruby told Professor Hooch. “The Quidditch pitch can go at the bottom of the valley, and you can just climb up the hills to watch.”
“What are you saying?” Undine asked anxiously.
“Anyway, now you’re at Beauxbatons,” Ruby added, brightly, “Shouldn’t everybody be playing Choc?”
“Choc,” put in Ginny, amused. “Soft C.”
“We can see how it goes, I suppose,” said Professor Hooch, unconvinced.
“What are you talking about?” asked Undine.
“And Undine has another school she has to build now,” said Ruby. She switched to French. “Undine, did Professor Stonelake talk to you about those extra animal cages he needs?”
Professor McGonagall enchanted the Great Hall ceiling with the day’s weather, but was otherwise hands-off throughout the process. But Ginny knew from the warm comments she made to the pair of them that she was delighted with what Undine had provided.
“I might just send a wee note to the Ministry,” McGonagall commented as she inspected the newly-furnished staff common room, with its lovely views across the valley. “I think I need to wind up their nonsense even further, or we might have to return home… Merlin’s pants,” she added suddenly.
Ginny turned to her in surprise; She’d never heard McGonagall use such language. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
Were McGonagall’s cheeks red? “We left in such a hurry,” she muttered in annoyance. “Bound to forget someone.”
“Peeves?” Ginny suggested.
“Worse,” admitted McGonagall. “Professor Binns!”
Ginny’s hands went to her mouth in surprise and entertainment. “Professor Binns? Oh no!”
Professor Binns was the teacher of History of Magic at Hogwarts – and a ghost.
“He won’t be best pleased,” said McGonagall.
“He might not have even realised,” suggested Ginny. “He never seemed to notice us when he was teaching.”
“Possibly,” admitted McGonagall, slightly cheered. “But how are we going to get him here? He’s tied to the castle, of course. Oh, bother…”
Ginny had to leave then – she still had her own responsibilities, even during the holidays – but she had only reached the bridge across the weir when she turned around and went to find McGonagall again.
“I’ve had an idea,” she said to McGonagall. “About teaching History of Magic.”
McGonagall raised a wry eyebrow at Ginny. “Ye mean, don’t bother?”
“No, actually,” said Ginny. “I just need to send Gosse to Hogwarts for a couple of days.”
McGonagall squinted at her. “How would that help?”
Ginny was proud of herself. Not just for the idea, but for the self-sacrifice of managing without Gosse for a day or so. It was agreed that it would be better if she didn’t travel to Hogwarts with him, and risk arrest, so he had to travel alone.
But he didn’t return for nearly a week. He would send monosyllabic replies to her Patronus messages, asking if he was OK, so she knew he was still alive, but she didn’t find out why he’d taken so long until he returned, bearing a large flat package.
He looked entirely worn. “What happened?” she asked. “Was it Peeves?”
He shook his head. “Just Binns,” he said. He unwrapped the package, so Ginny could inspect it: It was a portrait of Professor Binns. He gave her a most uncharacteristic simpering smile. Behind him was a bookcase, full of books. “Can I see my new classroom now?” he asked immediately.
Ginny widened her eyes in surprise. “I suppose so… Gosse?”
“You can take him,” Gosse said, flatly.
He wouldn’t explain further, so Ginny carried Professor Binns over to New Hogwarts. She found Undine and Ruby there, talking to Professor Stonelake, and Ruby led her to the History of Magic classroom, where Ginny used a sticking charm to attach the painting to the wall, in pride of place where the teacher’s desk would have been.
“This is excellent,” said Professor Binns, looking around the room, more cheerful than she had ever seen him. “You can send my first class in now. Thank you, Weedon.”
Ginny left him there and hurried back home, accompanied by Ruby. They expected to find Gosse in bed, ill perhaps, but he was in his studio, painting a faceless nude.
“What happened?” Ginny asked.
He didn’t turn to look at her. “It was easy, at first,” he said. “I painted him, while he modelled. But because he was grey, I had to choose the colours.”
“Well, of course…”
“I had to repaint him,” said Gosse.
“He objected to the colours?” put in Ruby. “Of his clothes?”
“That too,” said Gosse, still intent on his nude. “His skin, to start with. And his eye colour. And his hair colour. And he was sure he had more hair than I had painted. And then he moved on to remembering what colours his clothes had been.”
“Oh, no…” said Ginny.
“And he wanted his books with him. In his painting.”
“Oh, no…” said Ruby.
Ginny realised the nude was holding something in one upraised hand. A head…
Gosse breathed angrily through his nose. “At first, I just painted a dozen books. But then I had to fill up the shelves, as he thought of more books he needed. Then he had a long list of more books. I was angry then. I wiped out the entire painting, and started again with bigger bookshelves, and smaller books. And then he said he had to be able to read all the titles.”
“Gosse, I’m so sorry…”
“I thought that was the end of it,” Gosse continued grimly. “But then he said he needed two paintings. So I could leave one there, so he could go between them. And he could go home when he wanted, so he could consult with his ghost.”
“Oh no…” said Ginny and Ruby together.
“And then he said the colours were much better in the new painting, and could I change the first painting to match.”
Gosse’s rapid strokes were giving definition to what the nude was holding: A decapitated bleeding head, mouth slack, eyes staring.
“You didn’t…”
“You’re correct,” said Gosse with satisfaction. “I didn’t. Instead I mentioned your Demenda spell, and how it also worked on ghosts.”
“You threatened him?” Ginny asked with horror.
Gosse turned to glare at her. “I think he realised it wasn’t just a threat. Your lover was this close to murdering a ghost.”
“Cool,” said Ruby. “So why hasn’t she got a face? The nude, I mean?”
Gosse looked at her blankly, then at the painting. “I don’t know,” he said eventually.
“You could paint me,” said Ruby. “My face, I mean.” Without warning she seized Ginny’s hair and assumed the pose in the painting. “Grr!” she said.
“Ow!” squawked Ginny. “Gerroff!” She had to use both hands to free herself from Ruby’s grasp. “But keep your clothes on!” she said breathlessly.
Ruby looked at her in amazement. “Gosse, you mean? No offence, Gosse, but you’re not my type.”
“Oh, yeah?” said Ginny, unsure now. “So who is?” Gosse had never given her any cause for concern, jealousy-wise, but she was always conscious of the string of models in his past.
“Oh, I know that one,” said a voice behind them. Ginny turned to see Undine, looking unusually impish.
“Undine…” began Ruby, sounding dangerous, reminding Ginny suddenly that Ruby had a late unlamented gangster for a father.
“Didn’t you notice, Ginny?” said Undine, her eyes dancing.
“Notice what?” asked Ginny, in puzzlement.
“Undine!” snarled Ruby. “Shut it!”
“Oh, Professor Stonelake,” fluted Undine. “How would you like your classroom arranged? Oh Professor, don’t you need more light? And how does that Bewilderment charm go again? The one where the victim can’t stop singing?”
Ruby’s hands were in Undine’s hair now, and the pair of them were struggling breathlessly.
“Professor Stonelake?” gaped Ginny.
“Oh, Professor Stonelake,” Undine squeaked and panted. “Isn’t your new classroom a little cold?”
Gosse dropped his painting wand on his easel and went over to the struggling pair. “No no no,” he said, taking hold of Ruby’s arm, the one holding Undine’s hair. “Like this,” he said. “Undine, kneel. Now you stand over her… Like that. Yes. Just one hand. Remember you’re holding a sword with the other one. Shoulders back. More stretch. Look at me… Head up. More…”
“So how long must I stay like this?” demanded Undine.
“Don’t talk,” said Gosse. “You’re meant to be dead.”
Early in the New Year, before the beginning of the Beauxbatons term, a flock of Thestrals arrived unexpectedly. They were loaded down with endless paintings. Filch, the Hogwarts caretaker, who had elected to stay and look after the original Hogwarts castle, had been increasingly plagued by the castle portraits – wound up by Professor Binns, of course - that they were missing out on all the excitement, and were demanding to be rehomed. It was strangely disconcerting to see the old painted faces once more, as they wandered from painting to painting, gawping at all the new rooms. The Fat Lady, of course, made a fuss until she was placed on guard at the entrance of the new Gryffindor tower, and refused to visit anywhere else thereafter.
Then there was another eruption back at the old Hogwarts, from all the other ghosts who had been left behind.
“No!” said Gosse, when he heard this. But Ginny managed to persuade him, on the basis that she accompanied him this time, bearing a Demmy Slicer. It took Gosse several weeks, and Ginny had to leave him for extended periods to return to Beauxbatons, to do her own job – and deputise for his, as well.
It was strange to be teaching art again, as well as modelling for the Premier year pupils, only they wouldn’t let her sleep while she modelled. But while she was at Hogwarts, it was like last year’s life modelling all over again, because her eyes seemed to close of their own accord, and she would doze for hours. Despite her inattention, the ghosts remained meek and compliant throughout, their eyes nervously fixed on the dagger in her hand.
When she got bored, she would walk down through the snow to see Hagrid and his family, who still lived in his old hut. But the hut had an annexe now, a large rectangular stone building, bigger than the hut, which was Furd’s nursery.
Furd was less than a year old, according to her doting parents, but she was already walking. To Ginny’s worried eyes, Furd looked nearly as tall as her. The floor was scattered with human-sized children’s toys, mostly broken, and unrecognisable lumps of hewn stone, also mostly in pieces.
“She takes after ‘er gran’mum,” said Hagrid happily, leaning over the barrier between hut and nursery, an infatuated look in his eyes. “Spitting image, would yer believe?” Furd was broad-featured and blunt-faced and as good-natured as her father.
“Your mother, you mean?” Ginny asked, nervously.
“Aye! An’ I already got her dahn f’r Hogwarts,” Hagrid added, proudly.
“Hog!” said Furd. She was pulling at the stone shelf below the window, and Ginny could see it moving.
“See!” crowed Hagrid. “She’s real clever! Little Miss Furd Hagrid is goin’ ter set Hogwarts by its ears, I can tell yer!” he added, bashfully. “Ah said we should name ‘er Furd Maxime, but Olympe, said, no, she should bear ‘er father’s name. Oo’s Daddy’s li’le girl?” he called.
The shelf fell to the floor and cracked in half. “Dur!” cried Furd, trying to climb up to the window.
“I’d best stop her,” said Hagrid, climbing over the barrier. “The centaurs were none too pleased las’ time she got out.” He gave a yelp as Furd lovingly buried her teeth in his leg. “Now, princess, it’s not dinner time yet! Jus’ have ter put this shelf back…”
“You should take her for a walk,” called Olympe behind Ginny. “Zhe hasn’t been outzide zis morning.”
“Arr, she’s looking a tad tired,” said Hagrid, climbing back over the barrier. Ginny could see blood running down his leg from the bitemark. “Best wait ‘till arter ‘er dinner.”
Furd had picked up a long piece of stone and was using it to hammer the newly-replaced window ledge.
“So what does Uncle Grawp things about all this?” Ginny asked, as shards of stone flew off the window ledge.
“Well,” said Hagrid. “Mos’ly they compete as ter ‘oo can make the most noise, ter be ‘onest. But sometimes they play really nice tergether. It’s a picture.”
Gosse, to Ginny’s surprise, painted two portraits of each ghost: One remained at old Hogwarts, while the other one was carried back to Beauxbatons by Thestral to be hung in the new castle.
One of these was Nearly-Headless Nick - only he was no longer headless. “This should bring an end to that ridiculous nickname,” said Sir Nicholas, proudly adjusting the feather that projected from his hat. “I have as much sense of humour as anybody, but several hundred years of the same childish joke is frankly tiresome.”
The painted versions were free now to travel between their two paintings, and from there of course to all the other paintings in either castle, so they could satisfy their curiosity.
Several of them, to the annoyance of their ghostly selves, greatly enjoyed their new surroundings, and were negligent in returning home to spread all the gossip and news to their transparent alter egos, but as they were several hundred miles away Ginny could allow herself to forget their annoyances for extended periods.
Strangely, Gosse remained cheerful the whole time. He was always happy, she had learned, when he had something to paint.