Maintaining Hogwarts (1)

By the time they finished, it was lunch, and Harry invited all the teams to stay. He sat with the other two heirs at their customary table, and quickly caught up on the progress each had made that morning.

After giving the others a summary of his morning, Harry turned to Neville. "How are the grounds?"

"Miserable," Neville grumbled. "I don't know when the orchards and fields were last used, but it was probably over a decade ago; they're in horrible disrepair. The gardens have mostly gone to pot, save for the one closest to the greenhouses, which just seems to be a supplement for them. Maybe it was used for a student project, or the NEWT class -- I'm not sure, but it has been used more recently than the others."

"So we're not growing any of our own produce anymore?" Hermione asked, dismayed. "We're importing it?"

"I think we're importing everything," Harry added, equally disgusted. "I didn't see any herds or flocks or any place for them when I was showing the Goblins the warding line. There might still be a bit of game in the forest, but as for the rest…" he looked to Neville for confirmation.

"I saw no places for them to graze. I think the herds are gone, and we're importing all of our food."

"That's insane!" Hermione consulted her notes. "We thought we'd just need to streamline the process to get up to full savings, but if we're importing everything, that's over a hundred thousand galleons wasted every year just on food import!"

"Well we'll have to put out more to start with," Harry said, mentally doing the math on what they would need to restock the school's food animals. "We'll need mature animals for food this year, and possibly next year, as well as breeding stock for the future. At least twenty thousand galleons for me."

"The same for me," Neville said glumly. "We're going to need to order mature trees for the orchards if we want to get anything from them this year, and that will cost much more than saplings. Plus, none of the current elves have experience outside. The oldest one remembers stories about harvesting fresh food, but it sounds like that hasn't happened in well over a hundred years. I'd either need to spend time training these elves in herbology or hire out some who specialize in it."

"Well, we've got a few hundred students not attending classes for the next few days," Hermione suggested. "Why not put them to work?"

Neville's face lit up. "That would help a lot, actually. The younger ones can mark the boundaries, and the upper years can prepare the ground. We could be ready to start planting tomorrow morning! Then we'd only need a few elves to maintain and harvest..."

"Here," Harry conjured a pair of charmed papers and a biro. "Who are you ordering all these plants from?"

"Hardy Herbologists to start," Neville said after a moment's consideration. "We'll need supplies and some of the more common magical plants from them. The mundane trees will need to be transplanted by magical means, and I'm not sure of a company that does that. We'll also need large amounts of mundane vegetables and herbs for the gardens. I don't know if Hardy Herbologists can do that, but if not, then Acacia and Rhodera should be able to."

Harry created another pair of papers, and titled it Acacia and Rhodera, then labeled the first set Hardy Herbologists. He then handed all four pages to Neville. "Here. I'm using something similar with the Goblins. Anything written on one page appears on its mate. Have an elf take these to the shops, and as you're working today, tell them what you need. Oh, here," Harry conjured a third set of papers and handed it over. "If they recommend another location, just label it so you can keep them straight and have a House Elf deliver it. I'll ask Gringotts about arranging for specialist elves while they're looking for professors. Though your Herbology experts might have some ideas on that front as well."

"Thanks, Harry!" Neville accepted the papers. "I'll also send a note to Gringotts that I'm opening accounts at those shops, so we should be able to get everything right away." He conjured spare paper, a biro, and a clipboard -- something the other two had introduced him to in the past as the best way to write on the go.

Harry wrote a quick note to Warclaw, explaining their need for House Elves specialising in herbology, harvesting, and animal husbandry, and handed it to Neville. After a few moments writing his own notes, Neville summoned a House Elf to deliver all of them to Gringotts and the two shops. Then he stood and called for the attention of the students. "After lunch, all students are required to report to the gardens behind the greenhouses," he announced. "You may chose to change first, into something you wouldn't mind getting dirty."

As he sat back down, the students immediately began discussing the announcement, raising the volume of the Hall considerably. Amused, Harry turned to his other side. "Hermione? How was your morning?" Harry asked.

Hermione sighed. "Most parents aren't happy. Thank Merlin for the time limit. It was quite satisfying to call an elf when the timer went off and have them popped away!"

"Do you think they'll pull their children from the school?" Harry asked.

Neville shook his head. "Not the ones I talked to. They seemed more like they just wanted to complain, but didn't intend to take any action."

"Same here," Hermione agreed. "They're blowing off steam because they just don't like change, or don't want to admit that Hogwarts was flawed when they went here, or don't like being told off by children."

"They could also be the ones getting favors from Dumbledore and don't want to lose their inside man," Harry pointed out. He was going to save the tuition information from the goblins until they weren't in public, but he had confirmed that Dumbledore had been embezzling from the Hogwarts account, as that had been mentioned at the trial.