Chapter Text
Adrian Pov
Adrian Barnes drilled a hole into a wood plank. He was on Hogwarts grounds replacing a door that had been broken since before muggles discovered indoor plumbing.
It was near the end of summer. He, Filch, and Hagrid had repaired, replaced, and refurbished more items on campus than any of them cared to count. While it would’ve been easy to do it all with magic Adrian had a preference to do it by hand when he was alone.
As a wizard it was easy to forget how nice magic really is. The constant manual labor humbled him. That didn’t stop him from waving his wand or using alchemy on many things. The list was just too long not too.
The stairs had been first on his list and Filch had almost cried with joy when he told him. The trick stairs had only irritated them both. Adrian also saw it as a danger to new students. The fact that one of them had scuffed his favorite set of boots had nothing to do with it. Nothing at all.
Second was the gaping hole where the Chamber of Secrets was. When he chased Arlene and the basilisk down the tubes he had to blast his way through the sink. Until Potter showed up, just as he had finished, saying he could open it with some words. If Potter had been thirty seconds faster he would’ve saved him an afternoon of sink building.
Next he went at the fence surrounding Hogwarts. He updated and strengthened the protective charms on it. He added many of his own as well. He then repaired the physical fence. Many pranksters would hate him for this but he didn’t care.
He begged Dumbledore to let him move the Whomping Willow closer to the forbidden forest. Of course the headmaster said no. That left him the week he had set aside for that free.
Hagrid and him made all new furniture for Hagrid. They added some extra space to his cabin. Cleaned his chimney and redid the roof.
This finished his list about three weeks before school started. Until his office door squeaked one too many times. He fixed the squeak by venting his childhood problems on it with an axe. He then occupied the next week by replacing all the squeaky doors in Hogwarts.
He was putting the hinges into the last one. A radio was playing some classic rock music at a loud volume. Madam Pomfrey came up, turned off the radio, and asked, “How are you?”
Drilling a hole into stone, he answered, “Usual, need a shower and some rum.”
She crossed her arms and pointed out, “Most people would’ve sought out medical treatment after being bitten by a basilisk.”
He grunted out as he lifted the door into place, “Most people would be dead if they had their ribs crushed in the jaws of a basilisk. I’m not most people.” He set the door in place and got to work screwing the hinges in.
She sighed and asked, “I’m a psychiatrist too. Did you want to talk about the camp?”
“No.” He finished one hinge and started on the second.
“Talking might help. I’ve read on what happened there.”
“No” He grunted putting the screws in place.
“That level of mental and physical abuse is nothing to laugh at. No matter what kind of warrior it made you.”
“No.”
“Fine, any pains from the basilisk bite? You know when you got your ribcage crushed? The collapsed lung? The severe internal bleeding? The poison dosage high enough to kill an elephant?”
He grunted and stood back from his work. “No pain. Phoenix tears fixed me up. Not to mention Hogwarts has no squeaky doors left.” He picked up his radio. “Now I have to start planning the semester.”
Madam Pomfrey, irritated look on her face, asked, “Have you been keeping so busy to avoid seeing the children? Are you that afraid of being a father figure again?”
Adrian’s face burned with a mix of shame and rage. He told her, “That is too bold a statement.” He grunted then walked to his room to shower.