AN: Harry Potter and related canon are the property of JK Rowling. Johan was born in 1899, which makes him 39 years old in 1938, the year Tom starts Hogwarts. Harry Potter was 49 years old when he fell through the veil.
Tuft's Cottage sits where the shrieking shack did in Harry Potter's memories. It was a warm, airy home, built for a small family. Being a wizarding home, and an old one at that (built in the sixteen hundreds) it was bigger on the inside than it was on the outside, with several enlarged spaces hidden throughout the house. The architect who designed and built the house for herself and her family was in fact a descendant of the architect who designed Hogwarts castle. Of course, there was no Rowena Ravenclaw to enchant the staircase to move, or Helga Hufflepuff to convince house-elfs to move in, but Aramina Tufts (the architect) took inspiration from Hogwarts, specifically Ravenclaw Tower, when building a home for her family.
The front door of the cottage opened into a small sitting room with a fireplace (the only one in the cottage). From there, one can go right into a good sized family room, which took up most of the right side of the main floor, or they could take a left as they enter the home and walk into a formal dining room. The kitchen (large with a breakfast nook) was at the back left corner of the main floor. The back, right corner held a good sized library (an enlarged space) that was used as the family library. The staircase could be accessed from the kitchen.
The second floor was also divided into four areas. The first was a small reading room right of the stair landing. The other three were bedroom suites that opened into a shared hallway. Each of the suites contained a bedroom, a bathroom (with magical plumbing, thank you), and a study/library. The stairs went up into the attic, which was an open space that had been used as a work room for a variety of subjects through the generations. Currently, Johan used it for his rune experiments, which included spell creation and enchanting objects. There was also a basement which housed a general storage area as well as a potions lab, the same lab where the child-safe pain-relief potion was first invented. Throughout the cottage were small, out of the way, expanded spaces, just big enough to make cozy reading nooks or handy storage closets. Tufts children for generation had spent hours exploring the house, trying to find an expanded space that no one had discovered (Aramina had made sure to properly catalogue all eight of these spaces, including the one whose location was only told to the owners of the cottage).
The seemingly small, two storey cottage was surrounded a good bit of land, slightly isolated from the rest of Hogsmeade village, which meant that it was a favorite place for anyone wanting a bit of peace and quiet.
Tom, as much as he refused to admit it, loved Tufts Cottage as soon as he stepped out of the fireplace. It was just so opposite of Wool's orphanage, in every possible way. Primarily, it was the quiet, with no children constantly shouting and running around. It was also the antiques that looked so very well cared for, of the type that Tom had always planned to decorate his own future home (read: mansion) with. Beyond that was the magic – the paintings moved, as did the pictures on the magazines spread across a nearby coffee table. There was a feather duster lazily dusting away with no one holding it, and the patterns on the carpet and on the wallpaper kept squiggling around. There was color, nothing was faded or worn out. It was bright, it smelled of old books and wood polish, and Tom felt as if the very walls of the place welcomed him, welcomed his magic. When Johan told him about the magical aspects of the cottage as he lead him to what would be his room, Tom fell even more in love. No muggle mansion, no matter how grand, would ever compare to this. This was home.
Johan lead Tom to the two bedroom suites that were on the right side of the house. "That door," he pointed across the hall to the bedroom suite on the left side of the house, "leads to my rooms. I would ask that you not enter without my express permission. Respect my privacy and I shall respect yours. These two suites are empty, however, this one here," he motioned to the door he was standing in front of, "is my old suite, and is traditionally used as the room for boys. It is, as you may guess, decorated for boys, and holds many of the items that past generations of Tufts boys found interesting. The other suite is decorated for girls with girl objects, though many of the books and toys overlap. Feel free to take a tour of the two and decide which one you like best." With that, he gestured for Tom to go ahead.
After looking through the boy and the girl suites Tom decided to go with the boy suite. The boy's suite was decorated in greens and blues while the girl's was done in soft purples. Also, the boy's room had more books and newer toys, which made sense since Johan had no sisters to receive new items.
After making his selection, Johan helped Tom move in. It was really only his Hogwarts trunk. It was only then that Johan remembered that Mrs. Cole was still expecting Tom to go back to Wool's. Tom also realized that he had no clothes, and though he hated it, he would need his muggle clothing from Wool's until his wizarding clothes were delivered. With no choice, Johan side-apparated Tom to an alleyway near Wool's before the two made their way into the orphanage.
Tom ran to pack his things while Johan confounded Mrs. Cole into signing the paperwork necessary for him to adopt Tom. The matron seemed to almost be jumping for joy at Tom's leaving and did not require much in the way of persuasion.
Tom and Johan were back at Tufts Cottage barely a half hour after they left, and there was just enough time left in the day for Johan to make the two of them supper. If there was one thing Johan appreciated about having Harry Potter's memories, it was the additional skills they came with, specifically cooking, something Johan had not devoted much time to before but now found that he enjoyed from time to time. Johan sent Tom of to explore the cottage (after warning him about the dangerous experiments in the attic) and started cooking.