Chapter 21: Elves of Potter Castle
"Say Harry, anything interesting you brought back from Gringotts besides that ring?" Hermione finally let loose her bottled up curiosity; she had been waiting to ask this since the moment he had sat foot in that hospital corridor. Now that they were back in the house in Norfolk, she could not hold it in anymore.
"Ah, I was wondering when you would ask," Harry chuckled back, clearly enjoying protracting her suffering just a little bit more. "But, as I can see you really really want to know; I brought back a portkey to Potter castle." A wide grin stole itself onto his face.
"You have a castle," she replied surprised.
"I have a castle; we'll go and take a look tomorrow, if I can convince Remus," her boyfriend, who was now also a Lord and a Duke and all those other things replied. It made a strange feeling rise in her she knew all too well; her insecurities were creeping back up.
"What if he needs a highborn girl?" she asked herself, although she was doing her best, not to go there. Their day had been riveting enough for all parties involved; there was no need for her to pile it up.
And so, she went to bed after an early dinner, but she could not sleep; there were unpleasant thoughts gnawing at her.
OOOOOOOO
The next morning saw Harry waking up early; very early.
He was giddy with anticipation for the visit to Potter castle, into which he had been able to annoy Remus. In fact, he could not remember ever being this giddy about anything before; it was a link to his family's long past. Generations of Potters had lived in that castle, and he would too.
Also, as an eighteen-year-old, the prospect of owning an actual, real castle was just mind-bogglingly awesome. The only tarnish on the whole picture was Sirius' absence, he was being kept in the hospital by his healers, despite his only partly mock protests; a slight inconvenience was there as well and it was Remus' stubbornness; the werewolf was, understandably as it might be, still clinging to the idea that Dumbledore's role in this all had been somehow misunderstood.
That was also the reason why, before Easter was over, Harry would again have a change of guardians; at least it was one of the reasons, with the other one being the ease with which Dumbledore could probably contest Remus' claim of guardianship due to his Lycanthropy, if Remus ever saw the truth about Dumbledore's actions. Sirius was just the safer and more preferable option.
"Good morning, sweetie," he greeted his still sleep-headed girlfriend as she came down the stairs from the bedrooms. He eagerly went for a kiss, but she was less enthusiastic than usual, even though they had to curb their levels of affection in front of Remus until they knew they could trust him.
As he tried to kiss her again but she faced away instead, he knew something was up; normally it would often even be Hermione to initiate something like this. "Hey, is something up with you?" He asked compassionately.
Trying to look into her eyes he was unable to achieve his goal as she kept turning away, looking sad and self-conscious; this was starting to get really worrying to Harry. "Hey, did I do something wrong?"
This snapped Hermione out of it immediately; she looked at him, horrified and shook her head energetically. Suddenly, without any kind of forewarning Harry had a shaking witch in his arms. He was rather proud of himself for only stiffening for a second before he enveloped her into a hug and started passing his right hand up and down her back.
"Hey, what is it?" He asked again, knowing it must be bad for Hermione, strong, independent Hermione to act like this. "Shhh, I'm here."
Another minute or two they just stood there like that Harry being squeezed by Hermione like a big fluffy teddy with green eyes, slowly stroking her back. As she started to get herself under control and the shuddering stopped, she released him and instead took his hand, leading him to one of the sofas arrayed around the coffee table, sitting him down before she parked herself on his lap.
"I had a nightmare," she mumbled, barely understandable; seemingly in need of powering through her story, she immediately went on, "After everything yesterday, I was just… I was scare you would somehow need a highborn Lady and wouldn't want me to be your girlfriend anymore."
To say Harry was completely floored was grossly understating the facts; he could not help but feel guilty for obviously not showing her enough how much he loved his girlfriend.
"Well better late than never," he mused and, this time without resistance, he kissed his Hermione. "Hermione, that is probably the most stupid thing I've ever heard you say; I am certainly not out to trade you in for some snobby pureblood heiress. Granted, Tracey and Daphne are really okay, but can you imagine me with the likes of, say… Parkinson," he chuckled, forming some approximation of a smile on her face.
"Believe it or not, Parkinson was the one you chose as your Lady in my nightmare," she sniffled, looking at him deeply. "I know it's silly, but I just can't help myself…"
"Hey," she was interrupted by Harry. "You, Hermione Granger, are such a serious person most of the time, you are allowed the occasional bout of silliness; but don't you dare question that I love you; otherwise, I would not have said so."
"Love you too, Your Grace, the Duke of Occasional Silliness in person."
OOOOOOOO
Harry was beyond astonished; in front of him rose the impressive curtain wall of Potter castle. Easily ten meters high and several meters thick, it must once have been an almost impenetrable barrier of light-grey stone.
The group of Harry, Hermione and Remus was standing in front of the outer gate of the castle and dubiously peering down into the castle's water-filled moat; there was not much else to do, because the drawbridge was pulled up.
"Who's be there," they heard the squeaky voice of what could only be a house elf echo over the battlements of the old fortification; not even over the embrasures the little creature was visible.
"Harry, I think it's your part," Hermione whispered next to him, prompting him to return to the here and now.
"Ah… yes," he replied elegantly, before facing towards the top of the ramparts. "The… uh… the Duke of Potter has returned?" he half announced, half asked, knowing full well he did not come off as completely sure of his own claim.
It turned out he needn't have worried, for as soon as he was done talking the elf's voice behind the castle's battlements climbed a few octaves in pitch with excitement. "Lord Potter be back, Lord Potter be back; we must be letting down draw-bridge."
Sooner than he had expected the excited elf's orders were put into reality and the old piece of craftsmanship that was the drawbridge lowered itself to admit the curious group. They were greeted by a surprisingly large contingent of house elves, all of them wearing rather comical representations of medieval clothing.
"Lord Potter really be back?" The one in the front asked, his wide eyes growing even wider as he looked at Harry's signet ring.
"Yes, I'm back," Harry replied, eliciting a happy squeak from many of the little creatures in their welcoming party. "And it's Harry, just Harry. What is your name?"
"Wonderful news, Master Harry; my name be Steward," he answered, pulling a small snicker from both Hermione and Remus; she did not like the forced servitude of the house elves any more than Harry, he knew that, yet she obviously had the capacity laugh about his apparent troubles in getting to be called 'just Harry'.
"Hello Steward, nice to meet you. These are my friend Hermione," he pointed at the bushy-haired beauty he would, as soon as Remus was out of earshot, reintroduce as his girlfriend, "and this is my temporary guardian, Remus Lupin."
The elves bowed towards both and Steward greeted, "Missy Her-mini, Mister Remus."
A sort of awkward silence ensued that obviously Hermione decided to break, "Steward, how come there are so many elves here?" She asked the now shameful apparent leader of the house elves; and now that Harry thought about it, she was right. There were more than twenty elves in the group that had greeted them.
"They… they be needing place to stay," Steward admitted, frantically looking about.
Harry, recognising the signs of what was about to happen from his encounters with both Dobby and Kreacher, quickly ordered, "Steward, you will not punish yourself!" This earned him an appreciative smile from his girlfriend. Somehow he knew she would be having problems with him having house elves; and frankly, so did he. "Now, please tell me, why did these elves need a place to stay?"
"They be given clothes by their masters and mistresses," the little creature replied sadly, while around two thirds of the gathered elves began looking shamefacedly to the ground. "They be needing magic to sustain them and Potter castle be directly over magical hotspot; it be good for them."
Harry looked at Hermione in surprise; here was something they had never expected. Mostly free from the influence of wizards, these little elves had built some kind of a small society.
"Then they can of course stay," Harry said, before the practicalities caught up to him. "Wait, where do you guys sleep?"
Some of the elves chuckled (chuckled!) a little, while most of them looked just relieved. It was a happy Steward who answered him, "Elveses be sleeping in old servants' quarters; we be building our own beds." At the last sentence, a lot of the elves puffed out their chest a little; it was clear they were proud of their achievement.
"So how did this come to be?" Hermione inquired, obviously no longer able to keep her curiosity in check.
"We elves be getting lonely, with no Potter living at Potter castle; so we went looking for elveses who needed help, because be free," Steward explained, obviously not meeting the requirements Hermione had of a proper retelling of a story. "They not be needing much with all the magic around; whatever elveses did need they could find or Fopey would grow in her garden."
The indicated female elf, Fopey it seemed, blushed a little and nodded eagerly, whipping her ears about wildly. "Fopey be growing herbs and fruit in the castle's garden. Everything elveses need, they have here," she stated proudly, looking about in many happy elven faces.
The whole scene was just too adorable for Harry to bear and he could see Hermione was not faring much better; even Remus seemed much moved by the display of sense of community.
"How come you're all wearing clothes then? Or are you all free elves?" He asked; this was something he really wanted to know, because it could impact the future quite a bit, especially Hermione's upcoming crusade for elf-rights. Making it possible for even unfree elves to wear what a wizard would consider 'decent clothes' could go a long way to changing some mind-sets.
"We be ordered to," Steward replied, as if it was the most natural thing in the world; to him, it probably even was. "Master Harry's father and mother never be here much, she not be liking the castle; but she be giving order for elves to 'find something decent to wear'. It was last order ever given by Mistress Lily."
As Steward seemed to be out of commission for the rest of the story, Fopey took over. "We elveses be looking in library to find out what clothes for servants look like, then we be making it."
This had Harry laughing out loud, while both Remus and Hermione were keeping it better in check. "It seems you stumbled upon a book on the Middle Ages," Harry chuckled back, making the elves look extremely disappointed all of a sudden. Realising his mistake, Harry cushioned the blow, "But I think it looks great on all of you; really fits the mood of the place."
After that, the group retreated through the outer gate with his two portcullises and the gatehouse, through the outer courtyard enclosed by the outer wall and the inner wall set on a further elevated hill, over two more drawbridges and through two more corresponding gatehouses. As they went on, they were introduced to the other two 'original' Potter elves still living at the castle; there was Jarpey, the caretaker and generally also the one who kept the old stones in the supreme condition they could see them in now, and there was Pibley, the Lady-servant. Her job had been less than interesting, so she had taken to other duties in the absence of a 'Lady Potter'.
Along the way they passed what looked like a duelling court and some stables; now they were standing in the castle's main courtyard, looking up at the keep's impressive structure. Jarpey had informed them of the interior layout of the castle's main building and Harry was surprised at the rather modest (at least considering the size of the rest of the castle) facilities contained within; a few bedrooms for family, a great hall that was for both dining and entertaining guests, a sort of 'conference room' where in former times the Lord and his advisers had met and the old 'ladies' room' had been reconfigured as a general sitting room.
On his question why there were no spatial extension charms, or rather enchantments, used, he was firmly reminded that in a building that served a mainly defensive function, having something like that could be bad; he was asked to imagine what would happen if, during a siege, one wall of an enchanted room were to collapse. He had no idea, but it could not be good. And as no one had ever seen the need to retrofit the castle with any enlarging enchantments, it was without them to this day.
The only big retrofits there were, was the addition of magical plumbing (thank Merlin for that, Harry thought) and the retrofit of both the old treasury and the old dungeons, the first of which now held a mostly empty space, free for later use, while the latter held a potions laboratory.
Directly next to the keep and connected to it by an arcade, were guest quarters and a dedicated building for the kitchens, which also housed the servants', or rather house elf quarters. Jarpey proudly demonstrated to Harry where he could see the different steps in refurbishment and addition the castle had taken over the centuries; after it had been pointed out, the differences in both stone and handiwork were clearly visible.
Around the central courtyard were additional, now unused buildings; the old granary, in which the elves stored their limited supplies, the old mess and tavern and the garrison's barracks, the latter two completely empty and like to putting on dust, were it not for the elven inhabitants of the old fortification.
All in all, Harry came to understand this building had been built for function over form and he completely loved the place. While Longbottom Manor, a fortified manor if there ever was one, had given him cool images of armoured knights fighting off bandits, this place conjured up scenes of trebuchets, forgotten kingdoms and fair maidens; although, he was quite happy with the fair maiden he had brought with him.
The castle also gave him one more understanding: Hogwarts 'castle' was severely lacking in its overall actual castleness; the grounds were too large to be easily defensible, there were nor ramparts and arrow-holes. In its form it was fitting for its function, which was being a school.
OOOOOOOO
"Minister Fudge, imagine the media fallout if Sirius Black, who has just been acquitted of his alleged crimes, were to be denied his rights again; not to mention it also involves Harry Potter," Amelia Bones reminded her boss, to the extreme and apparent displeasure of Albus Dumbledore; it seemed they both knew what an attention-whore the minister was.
The portly man with his ridiculous bowler was sitting in his office, facing both Albus Dumbledore and his chief of DMLE at the same time, visibly sweating at having to actually make a real decision for once. It was reasonably clear no one would be giving him an easy out here, and Lucius Malfoy was probably just happy to see the 'light side' take on each other instead of continually trying to pin anything on him.
"But Minister, Sirius Black is clearly damaged from his long stay in Azkaban…" Dumbledore started, with his 'kindly, caring grandfather' allure on full power.
He was interrupted by Amelia, who was getting increasingly fed up with his meddling in justice; it was bad enough he had pushed through that what students did at Hogwarts was out of her jurisdiction, now this was going even a step further. "Something that you had no small part in," she brought up again."
"And it is something I regret deeply," Dumbledore replied, although Amelia thought it seemed quite phoney. "It would really be best if custody be turned over to me; his parents and I were quite close, it is what they would want," the old man tried.
It was time for Amelia's secret weapon. "Really? Because I don't see you named in their will except as the executer; a duty in which, I have to say, you failed spectacularly, Chief Warlock."
"The Potters' will has been opened?" He asked shock visible on his face for a second, before he schooled his features again and the kindly grandfather was back. "Yes, I did not wish for Sirius Black to receive any bequeaths, after all, I was in the assumption he had betrayed the Potters; it would not do for him to receive anything from their legacy."
"Pardon my French here, but bullshit!" Amelia exclaimed. "The will clearly states Pettigrew was the secret keeper, which you knew; you were the witness, weren't you?"
"Albus, is that true?" Fudge now demanded, obviously sensing an acute danger to his political clout if one of his close personal advisers were to be openly implicated like this.
"You can bet all your galleons it is, Minister," Amelia confirmed, Dumbledore's disgruntled expression lending credit to her words. "So now, the question becomes, what will you do? I could, of course, make this a case for open debate on the Wizengamot, full trial and all; with a press contingent."
Amelia nearly snickered at Fudge's horrified expression and decided to pile on a little bit. "But would you imagine what all the self-serving Lords and Ladies would say, seeing two of their peers' rights are being treated like this; the only other thing this could end with is the werewolf retaining custody of Lord Potter, which would be understood as an insult to all the houses. You could both be out of a job."
The very unhappy faces in the room told Amelia she was not the only one acutely aware of this; time to take the spoils. "Of course, the other possibility would be to fast-track Lord Potter's change in guardianship through the bureaucracy; that way the purebloods could be happy their rights are being respected and we all could forget this very unfortunate matter."
She could see she had sold the idea to at least the minister, maybe even Dumbledore. However, she decided to overshoot this one a little more, just to make sure everything went as planned. "It might even curb Mr. Black's ire toward us; after all he could demand substantial restitution from the ministry for his wrongful and illegal incarceration."
A the mention of money leaving the ministry in high amounts Fudge blanched just that tiny bit more she had wanted to see; now she had him firmly in her corner, at least for the moment. Dumbledore was now seriously side-lined, because she did not need him to push things through the usual channels.
No, by the end of the Easter holidays Harry Potter would be with his rightful guardian.
OOOOOOOO
"Lord and Lady Greengrass, Miss Greengrass, please follow me," Sableclaw greeted the Greengrass family in a most neutral voice as they stepped inside the main hall of Gringotts bank. These wand-wielders were to be treated with respect, but not curtesy, as they had shown neither contempt nor honour towards the goblins; they were to be treated neutral until they proved they should receive anything different.
"Greetings," the Lord Greengrass replied, using the human equivalent of the goblin's neutral tone and expression. "We were told to appear here for an appointment regarding a contract."
"That is correct," Sableclaw confirmed. "I have been asked to escort you to your meeting with my client."
"You would not happen to be able to tell me who that client actually is?" Lady Greengrass inquired, eliciting a small smirk on her daughter's face; it seemed she had omitted that detail in telling her parents about the contract. Now, Sableclaw was looking forward to the meeting even more.
"I am terribly sorry, but that would be way outside what I, as a mere financial adviser, am allowed," he said, secretly enjoying the annoyed look on these wizards' faces. It seemed hey were putting on a nice face for him; maybe putting them in front of a teller would be more telling as to their behaviour.
Internally chuckling at his own wordplay, he bade them to follow him; he led the three through corridor after corridor, choosing one of them simply to annoy his guests a little; it was the parallel corridor to another one, but it was built in the goblin way, and most importantly, height. The two adults had to duck down just far enough to make it really uncomfortable.
Therefore, when they reached the doors of the conference room set aside for today's meeting, he was almost sad to see his fun end this soon; inside, they were awaited by a delegation of Sirius Black (the family shuddered a little), Harry Potter and his muggleborn, bushy haired friend.
The elder Greengrasses were looking around questioningly, as if waiting for a crazy scientist/inventor to show up out of nothingness; alas they were disappointed.
"What is this, goblin?" Lord Greengrass demanded in what for goblins was merely an unpleasant tone, considering what they were used to. "I was told we would meet with the inventor of those Scanner Glasses; instead you show us into a room with two children and a recently acquitted convict."
As Sableclaw simply glared at the man, showing his teeth a little, he could hear the little voice of Daphne from behind her parents. "Father… father, these 'children' are the inventors," she said meekly, as if trying to sink into the ground and never come back up. What Sableclaw now estimated to have been a prank seemed to have misfired quite severely. "Please don't be mad," the young girl begged, and Sableclaw could see a slight tightening around Lord Potter's eyes. Obviously, he did not like the meek behaviour of the young Greengrass daughter around her father, either.
However, at the man's next words, his face cleared up significantly. "Of course not, princess but in the future, when it's about business, please give me all the information." The young girl just nodded, looking to the ground in shame, though she was a lot less cowed than before.
OOOOOOOO
Harry watched Xavier, Cypress and their eldest daughter enter the conference room. Watching the byplay between father and daughter, and Daphne's rather meek behaviour worried him, although some of those worries were abated when the father chose to comfort his daughter and made a rather reasonable demand of her.
"Lord Greengrass, as you might have guessed already, I am Harry James Potter, the Duke of Potter and together the delectable Ms. Granger here and I invented the Scanner Glasses," he said in his best understatedly threatening voice; not malicious, just guarded and warning.
"Your Grace, Ms. Granger, an honour to meet you; this is…" he started, but was interrupted by Harry, who chose being rude over being courteous to make the right impression here; however young they might look, they were not to be trifled with.
"Cypress Greengrass," he stated curtly. Sketching a small bow he greeted, "An honour to meet you, Lady Greengrass."
The tone of the talk stayed pretty much the same after that; friendly, but not overly so. They finally agreed on a 70/30 share as planned and all the details for the contract as Harry and Hermione had specified to Daphne. Obviously Greengrass Elixirs stood to earn a lot of money from this for them to agree to such a restrictive contract.
OOOOOOOO
It was the day before the end of the Easter break and Harry and Hermione were strolling around the battlements of Potter Castle. They had managed to talk both Sirius and Remus into staying there during the break and both would be returning to their own homes after dropping the two 'children' off at King's Cross the next day; although Sirius had put up quite the fight over accepting his part of the inheritance, as it of course turned out he had actually never been disinherited. Still, knowing Grimmauld Place and how depressive it could make a person, Harry had insisted on Sirius taking the Isle of Scilly; the sea climate would even help with his recovery.
"Can you believe that in a few months I've changed guardians twice?" Harry asked his girlfriend standing beside him, gazing down onto the not-so-far English Channel. "To imagine I never got rid of the Dursleys the last time, and now I'm not even done with first year and am already away from them."
Could she believe it? Of course, but that made it no less mind-boggling; she voiced that sentiment and received immediate confirmation he was feeling the same.
"You know, at first you having a place like this made me really self-conscious, just like all that nobility stuff," she admitted, laying down her head on his shoulder. ""But I have to admit I love it here; the only downside is it lacks a library…"
Hermione could both feel and hear Harry chuckle under her head. "I was thinking the same; just like it needs a workspace to properly work on all the stuff in my head wanting to get outside," he declared. "But there're three empty buildings worth of space to fill with stuff like that; depending on some of the ideas I have there might also be an addition to the potions lab o work with non-magical chemicals, probably a duelling room somewhere, beside the duelling arena…"
Stopping in the middle of pronouncing his ideas, Harry started laughing again and with laughter in his voice (Hermione never tired of hearing that), he added, "I'm going to need a bigger castle, aren't I?"
OOOOOOOO
AN: Hi,
In the coming weeks updates might be more sparse because I have an exam the coming Friday and am also tutoring a group of first years in anatomy starting Monday.
Also, just as an FYI: I do not have an AO3 (Archive of our Own) account yet, I will make one when it becomes an issue; when the time comes, I will inform you by AN.
Thanks for the reviews on last chapter, keep them coming.
alexandertheII