A Problem With the Plumbing ~ Chapter One
Title: A Problem With the Plumbing
Author: goingbacktosquareone
Ship: Harry/Ginny
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
A/N: This was the winner for "Best Adventure" in SIYE's Hogwart's Reconstruction Challenge.
A Problem With the Plumbing ~ Chapter One
In A Pickle
Harry lay dozing lightly on the bank of the pond at the Burrow, enjoying the soft breeze as it danced through his hair and cooled the perspiration glistening on his skin. The aroma of the pond tantalized his senses as he singled out the fragrance of fresh grass, pond water, what was surely a dead fish, drying mud and his own sweat from baking in the sun. He had spent the better part of the last two months in this same position, doing absolutely nothing but basking in the glory of being completely free and in the arms of the person he planned to marry.
Harry lifted his head to see Ginny floating in the middle of the pond on a Muggle inner-tube she’d nicked from her father’s shed, her fingers and toes delicately skimming the surface of the water as she catnapped, the sun’s rays bouncing radiantly off her wet hair as it dried against the black rubber. She was wearing a swimming costume he’d bought for her in Diagon Alley almost a month ago when he’d finally relented and made the trip to purchase his own rather than wearing Ron’s hand-me-downs.
That day they’d purchased a costume for each day of the week for both of them, Harry directing Ginny to his preferences from the safety of his Invisibility Cloak. Because he’d chosen to stay hidden from the prying eyes of the public, Harry had been completely unable to stop Ginny from purchasing the pair of trunks he was wearing at the moment: a pair of bright green shorts covered with big, yellow smiley faces. Harry felt ridiculous wearing them at first; however, the rest of the Weasley family had found them quite amusing and they’d quickly become his favourite of all the pairs he’d purchased.
Laying his head back in the grass, Harry sighed with lazy contentment, imagining what lay beneath the soft, green fabric of Ginny’s swimming costume. Purring with satisfaction as he fondly reminisced about their previous evening’s activities, Harry blinked with confusion when he felt someone nudge him in the shoulder. Trying desperately to focus on the dark, red-haired thing glowing above him, Harry squinted in annoyance and growled at the ill-timed intrusion.
“Mate, you need to get up,” said Ron as he regarded his bleary-eyed friend on the ground. “McGonagall’s Flooed for you twice this morning and she’s threatening to come and get you herself. Mum wants you to come and answer her before she goes spare.”
“G’way, Ron, you’re standing in my sun,” slurred Harry as he shooed his friend away. “She just wants to badger me into coming back to school next term. I’ve told her a thousand times I’m not going back,” he said dismissively as he shut his eyes and pretended to snore.
“I’m telling you, Harry,” urged Ron, “McGonagall’s not going away. She wants something.”
Harry ignored his friend. Instead he just smiled and waited until he heard Ron’s footsteps fade away across the paddock. Returning to his reverie, he quickly fell back to sleep - waking a short while later with an abrupt start as he heard the whoosh of a broom coming his way. Cracking his eye, he saw Ron hovering above him in a lather.
“I told you she was coming!” he said breathlessly. “McGonagall just came out of the fireplace and is crossing the garden as I speak! She doesn’t want you to come back to school next term! She wants you to come back to repair Hogwarts - TODAY!” barked Ron.
“What!” exclaimed Harry as he sat up and began pawing the grass beside him for his glasses. “I’m not going back to Hogwarts! Blimey!” he crowed. Wrapping his hand around his glasses, he slammed them down over his ears. “Wand, Ron…where is my wand?” said Harry desperately. “Oh bloody hell! I left it in the kitchen! Isn’t this just rich!”
“Why do you need a wand? I’ve got mine…” answered Ginny as she rose gloriously from the water.
“Merlin! Have I told you you’re perfect today?” exclaimed Harry as he stared dimwittedly at his girlfriend and then scrambled down the bank toward her. “Bubblehead…give me a Bubblehead, quick!”
“I can’t, Harry,” apologized Ginny in confusion, “Flitwick didn’t teach us last year. The Carrows wouldn’t let him because of all the Dungbombs going off in the corridors…”
Harry didn’t wait for Ginny to finish her explanation. Glancing back over his shoulder, he could already hear the faint voices of Mrs Weasley and Professor McGonagall as they made their way toward the pond. He grabbed Ginny’s wand from her hand, cast a Bubblehead Charm over his head and ran pell-mell into the pond - diving in with a fantastic splash just as the headmistress came into view.
Ginny stood dumbfounded, looking up at her brother who was still straddling his broom in the air, wondering why Harry was hiding in the middle of the swimming hole. Ron gave her “the look,” the universal Weasley expression used when one wasn’t supposed to ask questions, and turned round for the house. Still dripping and confused, Ginny was standing in the very spot where Harry had been sleeping when McGonagall came upon her.
“Miss Weasley,” greeted the professor, “it’s a beautiful day for a swim.”
“Yes, Professor McGonagall, it is,” answered Ginny as she used a towel to dry her hair. “Hi, Mum!” she greeted warmly as her mother joined them.
“Molly told me I could find Harry here with you. I don’t see him, though,” noted the professor as she keenly examined the area.
“Er, Harry?” stammered Ginny. “Haven’t seen him. I fell asleep in Da’s tube and he was gone when I woke up,” answered Ginny with what she hoped was a convincing smile.
“I believe Ronald just said he was out here,” countered the professor.
“He did?” said Ginny innocently.
“It seems this outline in the grass where we’re standing is a bit large for a girl of your stature, Miss Weasley. Wouldn’t you agree?” questioned the headmistress with a sweet smile as she gestured toward the Harry-print on the ground. “Really, please tell me. It’s quite important. Where is Harry?”
Ginny’s eyes betrayed her boyfriend as she inadvertently glanced at the pond. The quick-witted professor caught her mistake straight away and laughed out loud, patting her on the arm warmly. “I think I know where I might find him, Miss Weasley. Don’t worry,” she winked, “we’ll keep this between us girls,” she said as she nodded to Ginny and Mrs Weasley, who was hiding a smirk behind her hand.
“Ascencio Harry Potter!” shouted Professor McGonagall as she pointed her wand at the pond. A second later Harry came squawking from under the surface of the water, sea-weed wrapped about his legs, dripping, wide-eyed and flailing. “Wingardium Leviosa,” the straight-laced professor chanted with a wry grin, holding Harry high in the air before she summoned him toward her, dropping him with a squishing thud at the murky edge of the pond. She grinned deviously as she cancelled the Bubblehead Charm, shaking her head at the young man sitting splattered in mud a few feet in front of her. “Oh dear! I’m so sorry I didn’t quite get you clear of the water’s edge - how thoughtless of me.”
Harry sat sputtering in the reeds, wiping dirt from his glasses, shooting a fierce glare at the woman in front of him. “Professor McGonagall,” he coughed, “fancy meeting you here.”
“It’s been a beautiful day for a stroll, Molly. Thank you so much for the tour of your garden,” McGonagall said as she turned to the Weasley matriarch. “I think I’ll take you up on your offer of tea. Harry,” she said, staring at the young man with her most grave expression, “you’ll of course be joining us, won’t you?”
“Yes, Professor,” sighed Harry dejectedly as he pulled himself up from the muck, gesturing rudely behind the headmistress’s back as she walked away from him. “This isn’t going to be good. I can tell already,” he said, cringing with distaste at Ginny.
“I wouldn’t stand there if I was you,” laughed Ginny, who turned and walked back toward the house, leaving Harry to the mud.
* * *
“Oh, no,” argued Harry, “I’m not going to lead the reconstruction of Hogwarts. Uh-uh. Why does it have to be me? I’m done with saving things!” he said as he tried to scoot out of the chair in a desperate attempt to dash through the kitchen for the stairway to the attic room he shared with Ron.
“Unfortunately it’s not that simple, Mr Potter,” the headmistress sighed. “I can see you’re not going to come without a bit of persuasion. Molly?” she said as she glanced over her shoulder at the woman standing at the stove. “I think it best we move this meeting back to my office.”
“Go get dressed, Harry dear,” Molly asked politely, even though Harry recognized her request was really a demand. “Ginny - you, too. Ron, grab Hermione from the parlour. You’re all going,” she directed firmly. “There’s no reason for Harry to work alone while you lot laze about doing nothing.”
The two teenagers grumbled up the stairs to change, appearing minutes later freshly-combed and crisply-dressed, but not-at-all amused with the thought of a day-trip to Hogwarts. Ron brought Hermione to the kitchen, blathering excitedly about the possibility of being named as part of the reconstruction process in the forthcoming edition of Hogwarts, A History. Rolling his eyes at Harry, Ron leaned in and whispered, “She’s mental, that one. No one in their right mind should be this keyed up about manual labour.”
The quartet followed the headmistress through the Floo and was shocked to find her office had morphed into a construction command centre: blueprints and plans were stuck to all the open wall surfaces, small models of rooms littered the tabletops and rolls upon rolls of parchment with detailed punch-lists from every area of the castle lay strewn about haphazardly. The headmistress sighed at the mess and simply waved her wand, revealing four previously-buried chairs, motioning for the teens to sit.
Harry looked in aggravation at the headmistress but said nothing as he waited to hear why it was necessary for him to return to Hogwarts to aid in the reconstruction. Tap, tap, tapping his foot anxiously, he grew ever more impatient as Professor McGonagall regarded him from her desk.
“It seems, Mr Potter, we have a problem with the plumbing,” explained the professor staunchly.
“The plumbing?” repeated Harry dumbly.
“The plumbing.”
“You yanked me out of the pond to fix the sodding pipes?” said Harry in utter disbelief. “You can’t find someone better to fix the loos? The ‘Boy-Who-Finally-Did-It’ had to be called in to consult on Hogwarts’ sewage? Barking…the lot of you - barking mad…” he snipped, rising from his chair indignantly.
Ginny, Ron and Hermione sat with their faces downcast and sniggering in their seats, desperately trying to keep from laughing outright and angering Harry even more. It was obvious Harry wasn’t about to be persuaded into helping on such a prestigious project…aiding in the reconstruction of the Great Hall, maybe. Reworking the wards over the school, perhaps. Plumbing? Never.
“Sit down, Mr Potter,” McGonagall demanded sharply, causing Harry to drop into his seat without thinking.
Harry grumbled but obeyed. Years of tutelage under his head-of-house had taught him exactly when she had reached her limit of patience.
“It’s not as simple as it sounds. I didn’t bring you back because I wanted to. I brought you here because I had to. It seems Albus performed some pretty amazing magic with his wand over the years…much of it we weren’t privy to. That’s what leads me to the plumbing,” the headmistress stated blandly.
“When Headmaster Dippet was still over Hogwarts, the responsibility of dipping the honey pot, if you will,” McGonagall started distastefully, “was borne by the House-elves.”
Hermione gasped and looked as if she might swoon. “Surely not!” she started to argue.
“Patience, Miss Granger, patience,” McGonagall crooned. “When Albus took over, he relieved the elves of that duty by instituting a rather complex Banishing Spell so that the elves wouldn’t be forced into such dastardly working conditions. The problem we’re having now is that the Banishing Spell seems to have quit working, leaving us…well, rather in a quandary.”
“A quandary?” parroted Harry sardonically.
“Albus explained to me the mechanics of the spells he used on the plumbing when he told me you’d replaced the Elder Wand in his tomb. It’s going to take a rather powerful bit of magic,” said McGonagall, holding up the Elder Wand for Harry to see. “Since you’re the only one able to use this properly, it puts me in a bit of a pickle,” she said tartly, pursing her lips for dramatic effect.
Harry groaned loudly and sunk his head into his hands. “Let’s get this over with,” he agreed reluctantly.
Author: goingbacktosquareone
Ship: Harry/Ginny
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
A/N: This was the winner for "Best Adventure" in SIYE's Hogwart's Reconstruction Challenge.
A Problem With the Plumbing ~ Chapter One
In A Pickle
Harry lay dozing lightly on the bank of the pond at the Burrow, enjoying the soft breeze as it danced through his hair and cooled the perspiration glistening on his skin. The aroma of the pond tantalized his senses as he singled out the fragrance of fresh grass, pond water, what was surely a dead fish, drying mud and his own sweat from baking in the sun. He had spent the better part of the last two months in this same position, doing absolutely nothing but basking in the glory of being completely free and in the arms of the person he planned to marry.
Harry lifted his head to see Ginny floating in the middle of the pond on a Muggle inner-tube she’d nicked from her father’s shed, her fingers and toes delicately skimming the surface of the water as she catnapped, the sun’s rays bouncing radiantly off her wet hair as it dried against the black rubber. She was wearing a swimming costume he’d bought for her in Diagon Alley almost a month ago when he’d finally relented and made the trip to purchase his own rather than wearing Ron’s hand-me-downs.
That day they’d purchased a costume for each day of the week for both of them, Harry directing Ginny to his preferences from the safety of his Invisibility Cloak. Because he’d chosen to stay hidden from the prying eyes of the public, Harry had been completely unable to stop Ginny from purchasing the pair of trunks he was wearing at the moment: a pair of bright green shorts covered with big, yellow smiley faces. Harry felt ridiculous wearing them at first; however, the rest of the Weasley family had found them quite amusing and they’d quickly become his favourite of all the pairs he’d purchased.
Laying his head back in the grass, Harry sighed with lazy contentment, imagining what lay beneath the soft, green fabric of Ginny’s swimming costume. Purring with satisfaction as he fondly reminisced about their previous evening’s activities, Harry blinked with confusion when he felt someone nudge him in the shoulder. Trying desperately to focus on the dark, red-haired thing glowing above him, Harry squinted in annoyance and growled at the ill-timed intrusion.
“Mate, you need to get up,” said Ron as he regarded his bleary-eyed friend on the ground. “McGonagall’s Flooed for you twice this morning and she’s threatening to come and get you herself. Mum wants you to come and answer her before she goes spare.”
“G’way, Ron, you’re standing in my sun,” slurred Harry as he shooed his friend away. “She just wants to badger me into coming back to school next term. I’ve told her a thousand times I’m not going back,” he said dismissively as he shut his eyes and pretended to snore.
“I’m telling you, Harry,” urged Ron, “McGonagall’s not going away. She wants something.”
Harry ignored his friend. Instead he just smiled and waited until he heard Ron’s footsteps fade away across the paddock. Returning to his reverie, he quickly fell back to sleep - waking a short while later with an abrupt start as he heard the whoosh of a broom coming his way. Cracking his eye, he saw Ron hovering above him in a lather.
“I told you she was coming!” he said breathlessly. “McGonagall just came out of the fireplace and is crossing the garden as I speak! She doesn’t want you to come back to school next term! She wants you to come back to repair Hogwarts - TODAY!” barked Ron.
“What!” exclaimed Harry as he sat up and began pawing the grass beside him for his glasses. “I’m not going back to Hogwarts! Blimey!” he crowed. Wrapping his hand around his glasses, he slammed them down over his ears. “Wand, Ron…where is my wand?” said Harry desperately. “Oh bloody hell! I left it in the kitchen! Isn’t this just rich!”
“Why do you need a wand? I’ve got mine…” answered Ginny as she rose gloriously from the water.
“Merlin! Have I told you you’re perfect today?” exclaimed Harry as he stared dimwittedly at his girlfriend and then scrambled down the bank toward her. “Bubblehead…give me a Bubblehead, quick!”
“I can’t, Harry,” apologized Ginny in confusion, “Flitwick didn’t teach us last year. The Carrows wouldn’t let him because of all the Dungbombs going off in the corridors…”
Harry didn’t wait for Ginny to finish her explanation. Glancing back over his shoulder, he could already hear the faint voices of Mrs Weasley and Professor McGonagall as they made their way toward the pond. He grabbed Ginny’s wand from her hand, cast a Bubblehead Charm over his head and ran pell-mell into the pond - diving in with a fantastic splash just as the headmistress came into view.
Ginny stood dumbfounded, looking up at her brother who was still straddling his broom in the air, wondering why Harry was hiding in the middle of the swimming hole. Ron gave her “the look,” the universal Weasley expression used when one wasn’t supposed to ask questions, and turned round for the house. Still dripping and confused, Ginny was standing in the very spot where Harry had been sleeping when McGonagall came upon her.
“Miss Weasley,” greeted the professor, “it’s a beautiful day for a swim.”
“Yes, Professor McGonagall, it is,” answered Ginny as she used a towel to dry her hair. “Hi, Mum!” she greeted warmly as her mother joined them.
“Molly told me I could find Harry here with you. I don’t see him, though,” noted the professor as she keenly examined the area.
“Er, Harry?” stammered Ginny. “Haven’t seen him. I fell asleep in Da’s tube and he was gone when I woke up,” answered Ginny with what she hoped was a convincing smile.
“I believe Ronald just said he was out here,” countered the professor.
“He did?” said Ginny innocently.
“It seems this outline in the grass where we’re standing is a bit large for a girl of your stature, Miss Weasley. Wouldn’t you agree?” questioned the headmistress with a sweet smile as she gestured toward the Harry-print on the ground. “Really, please tell me. It’s quite important. Where is Harry?”
Ginny’s eyes betrayed her boyfriend as she inadvertently glanced at the pond. The quick-witted professor caught her mistake straight away and laughed out loud, patting her on the arm warmly. “I think I know where I might find him, Miss Weasley. Don’t worry,” she winked, “we’ll keep this between us girls,” she said as she nodded to Ginny and Mrs Weasley, who was hiding a smirk behind her hand.
“Ascencio Harry Potter!” shouted Professor McGonagall as she pointed her wand at the pond. A second later Harry came squawking from under the surface of the water, sea-weed wrapped about his legs, dripping, wide-eyed and flailing. “Wingardium Leviosa,” the straight-laced professor chanted with a wry grin, holding Harry high in the air before she summoned him toward her, dropping him with a squishing thud at the murky edge of the pond. She grinned deviously as she cancelled the Bubblehead Charm, shaking her head at the young man sitting splattered in mud a few feet in front of her. “Oh dear! I’m so sorry I didn’t quite get you clear of the water’s edge - how thoughtless of me.”
Harry sat sputtering in the reeds, wiping dirt from his glasses, shooting a fierce glare at the woman in front of him. “Professor McGonagall,” he coughed, “fancy meeting you here.”
“It’s been a beautiful day for a stroll, Molly. Thank you so much for the tour of your garden,” McGonagall said as she turned to the Weasley matriarch. “I think I’ll take you up on your offer of tea. Harry,” she said, staring at the young man with her most grave expression, “you’ll of course be joining us, won’t you?”
“Yes, Professor,” sighed Harry dejectedly as he pulled himself up from the muck, gesturing rudely behind the headmistress’s back as she walked away from him. “This isn’t going to be good. I can tell already,” he said, cringing with distaste at Ginny.
“I wouldn’t stand there if I was you,” laughed Ginny, who turned and walked back toward the house, leaving Harry to the mud.
* * *
“Oh, no,” argued Harry, “I’m not going to lead the reconstruction of Hogwarts. Uh-uh. Why does it have to be me? I’m done with saving things!” he said as he tried to scoot out of the chair in a desperate attempt to dash through the kitchen for the stairway to the attic room he shared with Ron.
“Unfortunately it’s not that simple, Mr Potter,” the headmistress sighed. “I can see you’re not going to come without a bit of persuasion. Molly?” she said as she glanced over her shoulder at the woman standing at the stove. “I think it best we move this meeting back to my office.”
“Go get dressed, Harry dear,” Molly asked politely, even though Harry recognized her request was really a demand. “Ginny - you, too. Ron, grab Hermione from the parlour. You’re all going,” she directed firmly. “There’s no reason for Harry to work alone while you lot laze about doing nothing.”
The two teenagers grumbled up the stairs to change, appearing minutes later freshly-combed and crisply-dressed, but not-at-all amused with the thought of a day-trip to Hogwarts. Ron brought Hermione to the kitchen, blathering excitedly about the possibility of being named as part of the reconstruction process in the forthcoming edition of Hogwarts, A History. Rolling his eyes at Harry, Ron leaned in and whispered, “She’s mental, that one. No one in their right mind should be this keyed up about manual labour.”
The quartet followed the headmistress through the Floo and was shocked to find her office had morphed into a construction command centre: blueprints and plans were stuck to all the open wall surfaces, small models of rooms littered the tabletops and rolls upon rolls of parchment with detailed punch-lists from every area of the castle lay strewn about haphazardly. The headmistress sighed at the mess and simply waved her wand, revealing four previously-buried chairs, motioning for the teens to sit.
Harry looked in aggravation at the headmistress but said nothing as he waited to hear why it was necessary for him to return to Hogwarts to aid in the reconstruction. Tap, tap, tapping his foot anxiously, he grew ever more impatient as Professor McGonagall regarded him from her desk.
“It seems, Mr Potter, we have a problem with the plumbing,” explained the professor staunchly.
“The plumbing?” repeated Harry dumbly.
“The plumbing.”
“You yanked me out of the pond to fix the sodding pipes?” said Harry in utter disbelief. “You can’t find someone better to fix the loos? The ‘Boy-Who-Finally-Did-It’ had to be called in to consult on Hogwarts’ sewage? Barking…the lot of you - barking mad…” he snipped, rising from his chair indignantly.
Ginny, Ron and Hermione sat with their faces downcast and sniggering in their seats, desperately trying to keep from laughing outright and angering Harry even more. It was obvious Harry wasn’t about to be persuaded into helping on such a prestigious project…aiding in the reconstruction of the Great Hall, maybe. Reworking the wards over the school, perhaps. Plumbing? Never.
“Sit down, Mr Potter,” McGonagall demanded sharply, causing Harry to drop into his seat without thinking.
Harry grumbled but obeyed. Years of tutelage under his head-of-house had taught him exactly when she had reached her limit of patience.
“It’s not as simple as it sounds. I didn’t bring you back because I wanted to. I brought you here because I had to. It seems Albus performed some pretty amazing magic with his wand over the years…much of it we weren’t privy to. That’s what leads me to the plumbing,” the headmistress stated blandly.
“When Headmaster Dippet was still over Hogwarts, the responsibility of dipping the honey pot, if you will,” McGonagall started distastefully, “was borne by the House-elves.”
Hermione gasped and looked as if she might swoon. “Surely not!” she started to argue.
“Patience, Miss Granger, patience,” McGonagall crooned. “When Albus took over, he relieved the elves of that duty by instituting a rather complex Banishing Spell so that the elves wouldn’t be forced into such dastardly working conditions. The problem we’re having now is that the Banishing Spell seems to have quit working, leaving us…well, rather in a quandary.”
“A quandary?” parroted Harry sardonically.
“Albus explained to me the mechanics of the spells he used on the plumbing when he told me you’d replaced the Elder Wand in his tomb. It’s going to take a rather powerful bit of magic,” said McGonagall, holding up the Elder Wand for Harry to see. “Since you’re the only one able to use this properly, it puts me in a bit of a pickle,” she said tartly, pursing her lips for dramatic effect.
Harry groaned loudly and sunk his head into his hands. “Let’s get this over with,” he agreed reluctantly.