4Ghosts of the Past
By Oriondruid
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Summary: In the 'final year' of their disrupted schooling Hermione Granger and Ginny Weasley together attend a 'temporary' Day School facility in London's East End, whilst the damage to Hogwarts is being repaired. It is a place where they have many new experiences, not least meeting up again with a much chastened and remorseful Draco Malfoy, who proves far more likeable. Now officially adults and despite the gruelling NEWT level courses they are on they have more freedom outside school hours and forming an unlikely new 'trio' along with their former enemy, (Harry and Ronald themselves being 'out of the picture', away from school and studying full time to become Aurors), the Girls and Draco use their leisure time to investigate an old mystery, one that happened way back in the Victorian era.
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With regard to the following story the characters and settings belong completely to the works and 'world' created by J.K. Rowling and are derived entirely from her work. Only the plot is my own and I am grateful that she so kindly allows us, her fans, to enter her world and 'play' for a while. This is an entirely amateur work and not for profit.
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Author's note: This story follows on from my recent drabble called An Education. It is part of my post war 'future projection' for the Wizarding world and deals with the early days following the war, a time of reconstruction, both of buildings and Wizarding society. It will be published in chapter sections, but only updated on an 'as and when possible' basis. Due to my intermittent clinical depression issues I cannot commit to rapid or regular updates, so don't expect them to happen. But I promise I will do so as often as I feel able. Of late I am well and greatly enjoying writing creatively again, so there may well be some additional material for this and my other current tale that's in progress called No Different Flesh being posted fairly soon.
Many Blessings All.
Oriondruid, (John).
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Chapter One: A New Term.
Hermione Granger and Ginny Weasley both felt it more than a little odd not to be boarding the Hogwarts Express that 1st of September, to recommence their final school term.
Their final year having been disrupted and ruined by the war they had both elected to take the option to return to school to finish their NEWT studies, but Hogwarts was unavailable for for themselves and their fellow students to return to. It was still a partially rebuilt near-ruin, and still being reconstructed, having suffered severe battle damage.
The full extent of this was only discovered after a thorough survey by Wizarding building experts following The Battle of Hogwarts. It was found that even many apparently lightly damaged sections of the castle like the Gryffindor Tower were in fact unstable, cracked to their very foundations by spell blast damage and the huge blows delivered by the physical attacks of the Giants. In places the foundations themselves were unstable, due to subterranean collapses of tunnels and catacombs, such as the Chamber of Secrets, a place which it seemed Hermione and Ron had been lucky to get out of alive before sections of it caved in. All this deep underground damage had to be stabilised even before full reconstruction of the main parts of the building's walls could begin. It was estimated that the dangerous and difficult work might take over two years to complete, even when allowing for the magical techniques that would be used to aid the task.
Luckily the reparation fines against the surviving Death Eaters and the seizure of the lavish vault contents of the senior deceased criminal conspirators would provide the money needed to fund the work, as well as much other needed reconstruction. But no amount of extra gold thrown at the structural problems could much speed up the rebuilding of Hogwarts Castle. It would be done in it's own good time.
As a result and in order to permit younger magical children to continue their education and help those whose education in their last year had been disrupted to begin their final year over again a new 'temporary facility' was needed. This was set up by the 'new' Ministry under Kingsley in an 'apparently' empty warehouse in London's East End, near to the River Thames. A very different setting indeed for a magical school and a very different schooling regime, since due to logistical problems it was to be a 'day school'. No vacant building large enough to contain dorms was available.
The project was aided by much generosity from both the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang Academies of Magic who supplied both much needed school equipment to replace that which was lost in the fighting, and who also supplied some seconded English speaking teachers to help replace the Hogwarts staff members, some of whom had sadly died in the fighting. They also supplied additional staff to help out with the 'extra' amount of Seventh Year returning pupils. As a result the 'temporary school' named The Colin Creevey Memorial College in honour of the former murdered young Hogwarts pupil was opened, right on time, all having been arranged by herculean efforts over that summer, in order to meet the deadline for the start of the new 'school year'. This was the place which Hermione and Ginny would be attending to complete their education, along with many of their friends.
The girls had spent the previous weekend with Ron and Harry at The Burrow, enjoying the last few days of their 'freedom' before they would be off to their new school and the boys also off to commence their Auror training. Things were beginning to become much brighter at the Weasley's lovely and eccentric old house, after the grief and solemnity of the immediate month following all the funerals. The family's home was slowly coming alive again, George showed positive signs of healing, aided by Angelina Johnson's regular presence, with her helping share the burden of Fred's loss with him. Ginny too was getting over her sadness at the loss of her wonderful brother, helped by the presence of Harry and their newly rekindled love to console her. Molly and Arthur too were beginning to recover from the shock of their loss, although of course nobody amongst the family or their friends would ever forget Fred or stop missing him, not to mention their other lost friends.
On the day their classes started both the girls Apparated to a pre-arranged 'safe point' in the small 'playground' of their new school. This was a far cry from the beautiful grounds of Hogwarts, but the tarmacked area that would normally be the car parking and lorry cargo handling area of the former Muggle warehouse was better than nothing and at least meant that the children would be able to get outside and see the sky during breaks between classes. It was only to be a temporary arrangement after all, so there was little grumbling.
The building itself and it's yard was externally Enchanted and Warded to give off the appearance of being empty, run down and deserted and it had strong Muggle Repelling charms which would prevent the unwanted attentions of any burglars who might think there was something to steal inside. A small area of the school yard was allotted that remained open to Apparition, so that the senior pupils qualified to do so could apparate directly onto the school premises from home,in order to attend their day classes. It was considered to be no great risk to permit them to do so, as the demoralised, disorganised and renegade surviving Death Eaters were far too few in numbers and too busy hiding and running for their lives to attack the school and it's pupils. In any case the defences of the actual building itself were far stronger than those of the yard. Also of course it was full of adult Witches and Wizards, members of staff who were fully capable of defending the school, as well as the younger, but very capable veteran pupils who'd been DA members like Hermione and Ginny. Most of the 'returning' Seventh Years were experienced battle hardened veterans, who'd all fought skilfully and bravely in the Final Battle at Hogwarts. The younger pupils of the brand new school, would in any case, be travelling in from their homes direct to the building via the Floo Network, to specially constructed Floos in the adapted warehouse and thus had nothing to fear.
Arriving in the school yard by Apparition with the sound causing a double crack the two girls looked around and then turned to each other, with Hermione saying, "Well Ginny, here we go again, let's hope it's a good year, we don't either of us need one like the last one."
Ginny grinned and replied, "You can say that again Hermione, last year was sheer bloody hell in Hogwarts, what with the Carrows and all, surely NEWT Studies can't be that bad in comparison, can they?"
And hand in hand the two girls strode towards the open door of their new school, curious to see it's interior and meet up again with some old friends. And also, although they didn't know it and much to their surprise, to meet an old enemy!