A/N Hello! I'm in a good mood this week; not quite sure why... Anyway, I got two reviews last chapter – thank you NoTyOu3 and Gryffindor Glory! Happy now! Right, so in case you missed it last week, I NEED CHARACTERS! Okay, that's a lie, I don't need them – btw, thanks for the character I got last chapter from Gryffindor Glory, already know exactly what I'm going to do with him! – But I want you to feel involved! And also, it takes up a hell of a lot of time thinking of people. Just to give you an idea, I'm planning on having around 60 people there – So far I have thought of three! So please, leave a review with THEIR FULL NAME, DATE OF BIRTH – this is set in July 2001 – BLOOD STATUS, ANY SIBLINGS, IF THEY ATTEND HOGWARTS, AND THEIR HOUSE. Why they are in the orphanage and their personality would be helpful, but it is not compulsory. In a few chapters time, I will tell you which adult characters I will need, but not yet.
Phew! Long A/N! Most of you won't have read it, but never mind!
On a windy, July morning, a loud 'pop' could be heard; obviously recognisable as an apparation by any witch or wizard. Four young adults stood side by side, all holding hands. The elder girl looked around her, taking in the view of derelict gardens in all directions before frowning and asking,
"Is this the right place?" One of the boys, who was standing to her left, also took a glance around, before squinting due North and replying,
"Yes. If you look closely, you can just see a building." He grinned, "And anyway, with all four us joined and trying to apparate to the same location, we can't have easily gone wrong." At her frown, he added, "You worry too much, Hermione. Come on; let's see if we can find the door." He gestured to the other girl and boy to proceed, then took out his wand. "We're going to have to use severing charms to cut through these weeds." The plants in question were towering over them, at least six feet high. Once all four of them had started to cast charms at them, however, they receded happily and without problem.
After fifteen minutes of solid spell-casting, the four of them were exhausted. Thankfully they had travelled almost all of the way from the gate where they had apparated just inside of. The last stretch of land was paved over, and though it was teeming with weeds between the paving stones, it was easy to walk across. Now that they were all close enough to admire the building properly, they were all speech-less. The house, mansion, was at least five floors high, probably more if you counted the attic. It was a beautiful pale blue colour, with cream edging and pillars. The side of the house that they were facing was the back, judging by the lack of a front door. The boy with black hair dragged the younger girl over to one of the, surprisingly crystal clean, and peered through, cupping his eyes with his hands.
"Look, Ron, 'Mione! This must be a ballroom! And look, you can see the entrance hall if you look through those doors on the other side of the wall! And Ginny..." He turned around, looking for her, but she had disappeared. Ron and Hermione had been too busy smiling at Harry's excitement to notice, but they were all worried. Even though it had been years since Voldemort's downfall, there were still people around who would prefer Harry or the Weasleys dead. On more than one occasion, mad 'fans' or Harry had tried to Avada Kedavra him, just to see if he could be killed. Luckily his auror training came into use then, and he had escaped unscathed, but more serious attempts on his life had happened.
"Gin! Ginny!"
"Ginny!"
"Where are you?" Voices called out to her. Harry, Ron and Hermione made their way carefully around the side of the massive building, just in case someone was lying in wait for them. They edged around the corner, Harry first, followed by Hermione with Ron at the back. They had adopted this strategy sometime after Harry and Ron had both completed their training, just because it protected Hermione – who was still not quite as good at duelling as the boys, much to her disappointment. The idea had come from a training session when they had learnt to do this if they ever had to escort either muggles or wizards in danger from a location. Hermione always seemed to think that it was an unnecessary precaution, but went along with it.
"Look!" said Ron, pointing to the big oak doors. "They're open. She must have gone inside! It's fine, come on..." he started to lower his wand, but Hermione 'shushed' him before saying,
"You don't know. It might be a trap. Oh, don't roll your eyes at me Ronald Weasley, if..."
"Hermione," grumbled Harry, "Can't this wait; can we just go and see if Ginny's okay? Ron, she might be fine, but we don't know. So can we please go?"
"Sure mate, but I'm just saying..." he cut himself off when he caught Hermione's glare. "Right, so you go first Harry, we'll watch out for anybody outside."
Had this been a less stressful day, the trio might have noticed the beautiful gardens rolling out towards the North. This side of the garden seemed to have been kept in good condition. They might also have noticed the amazing exterior of Potter Mansion. The ground floor, on this side, was above a basement level – the ground was on a slope – with marble steps leading up to a veranda that stretched around five metres to either side of the beautiful oak double doors, a beautiful gold lion door knocker on the right door. The banister was similar to the one at Hogwarts leading down to the boathouse. There were arched windows along the stone wall of the basement, with a black painted steel railing about seven metres in front of them. Up the stairs was a walkway lined with six giant marble pillars to the outside, reaching up to the top of the third floor. These supported a magnificent triangular work of stone and marble, depicting a scene from the ancient times. There were two smaller replicas of these pillars standing guard on either side of the front doors, joined by a marble slab above the doors. There were five floor-to-ceiling glass windows to each side of the centre, topped by marble features. There were similar windows, albeit slightly less tall, on each of the five floors above. The most beautiful feature of the house, according to Lily Evans, was the beautiful engraving on a rectangular piece of sandstone just above the doors. It was an engraving of the house and the grounds. Engraved around the marble frame of it were each and every member of the Potter family, with Birth and on most of them death dates, dating back to the 1600s. There were hundreds of them, but because they were only around one centimetre squared, they could all fit on. These were magical engraving that changed whenever a member of the family's image crossed the threshold. Harry's, however, already looked like him at this age.
AS the three of them entered the house, their communal first thought was of confusion. The house looked spotless and lived in; the only thing unusual about it was the lack of furniture. Hermione tiptoed over to the opening in the wooden panelling, which served as door to another room.
"Look, Harry. This must have been the ballroom that you saw earlier!" Harry and Ron also crept over to peer into the room. It was huge, around twelve by fifteen metres and the ceiling was very high. It was decorated in pale green paint, with delicate gold swirls on the walls. The ceiling was ivory white, and also had the golden swirls, although these were raised. The floor was a very shiny wood, and looked like it had been polished recently.
They could have stayed there, transfixed, until they heard a creaking of floor boards overhead.
"Ginny." Harry said, worried, "How could I have forgotten? Come on. Quietly, now." Together, they crept back into the entrance hall. This too had a shiny wooden floor, and high ceilings. On the opposite wall was the same wooden panelling with green inserts that had been on the wall concealing the ballroom. They didn't stop to look into the room however, instead making their way towards the huge, grand staircase at the opposite end of the hall. It too, was polished wood. It started in the centre of the hall, before splitting into two, each side curved round to, presumably land on the floor above, on either side of where the staircase would have started, had it been on the second floor. It had grand wooden banisters with curling decorations on. Along the entire wall in the hall were paintings of Harry's ancestors, but neither he, nor Ron and Hermione were worried about that at the moment.
As they reached the top of the stairs, they looked both left and right, taking their surroundings. To either side was an end of a corridor, with rooms on either side. They were around a third of the size of the ballroom, but still big in comparison to the Burrow and Grimmauld Place. A mumble of voices was coming from one of the rooms down the right hands side of the corridor, so the three of them walked quietly down that way, Harry motioning to them to be quiet.
The decor upstairs was very similar to that of the ground floor, but the colour scheme on this floor was purple and silver. Again, the floor was wooden, and again, it looked polished.
When Harry, Ron and Hermione were stood outside of the door that the sounds were coming from, they paused. Harry put his hand on the door, before sharply pushing it open.
He he! Cliff-hanger! Anyway, please leave a review with a character. Or saying that you are willing to be a BETA. Or just for the sake of it!
