Author's Notes: Since Cassius is Sirius' cousin on his mother's side and Narcissa Black Malfoy is Sirius'cousin on his father's side, Lucius Malfoy married his cousin's cousin, so it's not TOO close a connection, if anyone else was wondering about that.
Chapter 11
The Guardians
"Meow" The tabby cat Harry had seen on his prior visit to Windy Corner came into the room.
"This is Tabby, she lives here too." Remus said to Harry.
"Now Tabby, show yourself so you can get properly introduced." Cassius gave a mock-glare to the cat. "She's an animagus, a registered one."
The cat transformed into a short salt-and-pepper haired witch, she was round and plump, and reminded Harry of Professor Sprout.
"Hello, Harry. Welcome home." She said with a warm low voice.
"This is Bettina Sprout." Cassius said.
Bettina Sprout nodded at Harry. "Tabby is fine. I've heard about you from my sister. You're not that good at Herbology, are you?"
"Well, no…" Harry felt slightly embarrassed
"That's all right, my dear, neither was I." Tabby smiled.
After Harry had unpacked, he returned to the kitchen for afternoon tea. There were scones and tea and cucumber sandwiches. Harry was hungry, he never got enough to eat at the Dursleys and always made up for it when there was ample food around.
"Harry, we thought, as your new guardians, we should set some rules." Cassius sounded very solemn.
Harry gulped the bite of sandwich down…he hadn't thought about rules. The Dursleys never bothered about him enough to have rules.
"Rule 1." Cassius started.
"Not to be confused with the famous Auror rules, mind you." Remus interjected with a wink at Harry.
"No, these are separate rules, of course…maybe they shouldn't be called rules." Cassius paused thoughtfully as he considered the matter.
"Guidelines, then?" Tabby suggested after she too had thought about it. Remus had simply sipped his tea and smiled at Harry.
"Yes, guidelines…now guideline number one – you need to let one of us know whenever you leave Windy Corner, the blood protection only covers the house and the surrounding property." Cassius looked at Harry intently.
Harry nodded solemnly, these guidelines would be just as important to Harry as the auror rules were to Cassius. He wondered wildly if he should be writing them down.
"Guideline number two, during full moons, our room is off limits. The wolfsbane potion keeps me safe to be around but..." Remus said
"Constant vigilance!" Cassius and Tabby cried out at the same time. Harry jumped. They sounded almost exactly like Moody. Harry nodded at Remus.
"I'm not one of your guardians, Harry but...I do have a guideline." Tabby started.
"You are Harry's guardian too, Tabby, as much as you want to be." Remus said lightly. "Tabby is our housekeeper and we consider her part of the family." Remus explained to Harry.
"Guideline number three, limit the snacking between meals. I cook ample amounts at breakfast, lunch, tea and supper so don't worry that you won't get something to eat. I won't starve you like those muggles you've been living with." Tabby continued. Harry blinked but nodded gravely all the same. "Breakfast is at 8, Lunch at Noon, Tea at 4 and Supper at 7. I don't tolerate lateness. Understood?" Harry nodded again.
"Guideline number four, we expect you will get good marks at school." said Remus.
"Although, don't worry if you get bad marks, …just as long as you try." Cassius added quickly. Harry remembered Moody said Cassius had been beaten for bad marks. Harry nodded again.
"Guideline number five, as our…what is he?" Cassius turned to Remus.
"Our charge? Our ward? Our guardianee?" Remus looked thoughtful this time.
"No, no." Cassius shook his head.
"Fosterling?" Remus suggested.
"Yes, as our fosterling, you will treat this as your home, meaning a messy room is to be expected, as is between-meal snacking" "Limited between-meal snacking" Tabby interjected firmly. "and sleeping in during vacations. And invite your friends over often – just not during the full moon." Cassius finished.
Harry nodded again, with a grin.
"Well, I think that covers the important things, don't you?" Remus asked the others.
"Why don't we agree to reserve the right to add more guidelines as needed, none of us has ever had a child before." said Cassius. All three of them turned to Harry and gazed at him as if he might do something wild at any moment. Harry tried to look very well-behaved, however that might look. He wished his hair would lay flat.
"Does there need to be a guideline about money? My parents left me quite a lot. I don't want to be a burden." Harry blurted out, he had suddenly thought of the fact that Lupin's robes always looked ragged. Maybe Cassius and Remus couldn't afford to have Harry, and he'd have to go back to the Dursleys. He got a sinking feeling in his stomach.
"Harry, I look ragged to keep up appearances that I'm an unemployed and single werewolf." Remus' eyes were twinkling. "Is that what you were thinking about?"
"Um…yes, actually." Harry admitted, as he looked at Remus, noticing that Remus wasn't wearing a shabby robe at the moment.
"Oh, no, we're quite well off, obviously, being the second son, I'm poorer than Lucius and I didn't get the mansion, but I did get a sizable inheritance when I turned 18. That's why it doesn't matter that the wife here can't get steady work." Remus had hit Cassius on the arm when he was referred to as the wife, but Cassius had seemed not to notice. "So, no guidelines needed about money."
"What's the muggle term? He's my sugar daddy." Remus laughed. Then they all started laughing. Harry felt like he was home for the first time in his life.
"So, no more guidelines for now." Harry said happily. If these guidelines were any indication of ones to come, he didn't think he would mind more.
"Now, are you done eating?" Harry nodded. "Remus and I'll give you the tour." Cassius stood. "Come on."
Harry got up and followed Cassius out the door. The one other time he'd been at Windy Corner, he'd seen the kitchen and the stairs up to the bathroom, which was at the top of the stairs. Cassius started up the steps. "I thought we'd start at the top." He said over his shoulder.
"That way it gets better as we go along." Remus said from behind Harry. They walked to the end of the hallway and went up a second narrower flight of stairs.
"Um..ok, this is the attic." Cassius opened the first door on the right. "This room is storage – there's all sorts of stuff in here which I keep forgetting to go through. Remus, why don't you remind me?"
"Out of sight, out of mind. As long as it's up here, I don't remember it either." Remus said with a smile as he stepped forward and pulled Cassius' arm around himself. Cassius was looking down at a portrait leaning against the wall. Harry stood on the other side of him and stared at the portrait of Cassius, his father and brother and a baby, which had to be Draco. Cassius looked about 16 in the portrait. The three men had sleek white blond hair, broad foreheads, straight brows, long straight noses, and pointed chins. Lucius and Cassius were standing behind their father, the baby was sitting on his grandfather's lap. Cassius was a few inches taller than his brother. Julius, Lucius and Draco had the pale grey Malfoy eyes but Cassius had green. All three men were handsome, in a cold way. Harry thought Cassius was the most handsome, his chin wasn't as pointed and his face wasn't as thin as the other two. None of them were moving.
"Three generations of Malfoys. It was painted when Draco was 6 months old." Cassius voice was toneless.
"I thought all wizard portraits moved." Harry said as he looked down at the Malfoys.
"I froze them –
we're all in other portraits in Malfoy Manor." Cassius said slowly, tightening
his arm around Remus, as he continued to stare down at the portrait. "Anyway, storage." Cassius said, breaking out of his
reverie, sweeping his eyes around the rest of the room which
seemed to occupy the whole top right half of the house. There were other trunks
stacked up around the room.
"Some of this is Cassius' and my old school stuff, and things from my parents
house, after they died. I actually have some of your parents' belongings,
they're over there." Remus said pointing to 6 or so
trunks lined up against the far wall, his voice roughening. "And there are a
few trunks that belonged to Sirius, too. Whenever you want to look through
them…alone or with one of us…whenever you want…" Harry nodded, he would, sometime soon but right now he wanted to learn more about
his new home. Cassius led the way out of the room.
"That's Tabby's room." Cassius said indicating the door on the other side of the hallway. "She doesn't sleep in there often, she spends most of her time as a cat. The next door down was the house-elf's room, which has some old furniture in it. But you can assure Hermione that we don't have a house-elf." Cassius grinned at Harry.
Remus started back down the stairs, Harry and Cassius followed. The door to Harry's room was just down from the staircase and to the left. Across from Harry's room was 'The Library.' It had two large desks, two comfy chairs and floor to ceiling bookshelves.
"We put a desk in your room, in case you wanted to be able to study by yourself. There wasn't room for a third desk, but you could share this one with me if you want. Cassius does work here and I read, but we didn't know if you wanted privacy or not." Remus said.
"That's your room, you've already seen that." Cassius continued down the hall, "You share a bathroom with the guest bedroom, here." The door to it was open and there was a comfortable looking bed with a dresser and dressing table. "The bathroom is between the two rooms. Don't ask me, I didn't design the house, but as we don't have guests often, it shouldn't be too inconvenient." Harry just nodded, it was more than he'd ever had at the Dursleys, he didn't mind sharing it every once in a while.
"This is our room." Cassius went in the room across from it. It was a large room that overlooked the garden. There was a big bed centered along one wall opposite the fireplace. There were two dressers, and an armchair in front of the fireplace.
"Would you want a fireplace in your room?" Cassius asked Harry. "We have one, because Remus gets cold around full moons." Cassius absentmindedly pulled Remus into his arms as he spoke, resting his chin on the top of Remus' head. "We could add one if you wanted."
"I think it's ok." Harry said, his head whirling.
"Well, let us know if you change your mind once winter comes." Cassius said as he let go of Remus and headed out of the room.
Harry just nodded, he'd lived in a cupboard under the stairs at the Dursley's for ten years and now Cassius was offering to add a fireplace to his room, the difference was staggering.
"And here's the other bathroom." Cassius waved his arm at it. It was the bathroom Harry had looked into when Cassius had had the raknok bite. "It's got a bigger bathtub than the other one, so feel free to use it whenever." Harry peered inside – the bathtub was huge – it could easily accommodate two people or more…Harry wondered how often Remus and Cassius bathed together, he glanced over at them. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had never been affectionate or demonstrative to each other. Now he was living with two people who loved each other very much and seemed to care for him a great deal – he'd have to get used to this.
They headed downstairs. The kitchen was to the left at the bottom of the stairs. To the right was a short hallway that led to the front door. On the left side was a comfortable sitting room, it had a table with a wizard chess set on it, with two wooden chairs, a sofa along the back wall, a display cabinet along the inside wall, a corner cupboard, and two chairs and a loveseat close by the fire. There was a window seat along one wall that looked out on the garden and an upright piano. On the right side was a dining room, there was a long formal table with chairs, there were portraits on the walls. There were two large ones of a man and woman who both resembled Remus, Harry thought they must have been his parents. The others he didn't recognize. "Who are they?"
"Relatives and ancestors of mine. They're friendly, unlike the Malfoy portraits. The table belonged to my parents. We don't entertain much" "At all." interjected Cassius. "but it seemed a waste to keep the table in the attic, it's over 300 years old." Remus continued, not noticing the interruption, waving to his mother and father, who both smiled widely and waved back. "This is Harry Potter, he's our fosterling." Remus said to the room at large. There was a chorus of "Welcome Harry!" from the portraits. Harry waved back, feeling a little shy."That's the front door. I'll have to change the spells so it recognizes you…we'll do that in a bit." Cassius remarked. They headed back towards the kitchen.
"This way is the backdoor, the laundry and pantry are back here, and the mudroom. We usually use this door to come in and out of the house." Remus said. He led them outside. "This is Cassius' pride and joy," indicating the garden. Harry looked at it, obviously Cassius had been good at Herbology. He recognized several plants that Professor Sprout had in her greenhouse, although he couldn't remember the names, and he noticed vegetables and fruits growing too.
"Wow! It must be hard work." Harry looked over at Cassius, remembering weeding the Dursleys garden."Well, sometimes…magic helps." Cassius said with a faint blush on his cheeks.
"This is Spring Creek." Cassius indicated the small creek that flowed across the property snaking behind the garage and storage shed. "There's a swimming hole that way, past the garage, it's on the property so you can go there whenever you want. There's a map in the kitchen so you know where the boundaries are, there's also a spell so you'll know when you're near to the border. Don't want you getting lost in the forest." Cassius smiled casually, but Harry knew it wasn't a casual comment. "So this is Windy Corner."
"It's not windy, or a corner, just so you know." Remus said slyly, elbowing Cassius..
"It's wonderful." Harry grinned back. Cassius and Remus beamed at the compliment.
Author's Notes: Sorry for the long tour of Windy Corner – but I thought it should be done – let me know if you think it's not needed. Thanks!!
