Chapter 20: Their new home

The group reappeared inside the entrance hall. Everyone was silent for a moment as the younger siblings stared around the room in awe. A wide, sweeping staircase stretched out before them, splitting into two directions at the top. On the wall above it was a large, life-size, portrait of Rowena Ravenclaw - dressed in a dark blue gown.

On the opposite wall stood two floor to ceiling doors. Both were made of oak with the craving of a Raven on each door. On the East wall was two normal sized doors which lead off into different rooms. On the west wall was a passageway that must lead down into the dungeons.

"Shall we sort out rooms first?" asked Kaisha, "where would everyone like to go? Dungeons? Tower room?"

"Can I have the tower room please?" asked Kirsty shyly, "I want a view."

Kaisha nodded, "Missy!"

A small house-elf, with a lilac tea-towel wrapped around its middle, appeared before them, "Yes Mistress?"

Kaisha instructed the house-elf to show Kirsty the tower room, as well as bring her things up there.

"Harry?" she asked her brother, "Where about do you want to go?"

"Somewhere near the Quidditch pitch you were telling us about," he answered excitedly.

Kaisha nodded, laughing, "there's a room near the back of the property that has French doors leading out onto the garden just behind it. Will that be suitable?"

The boy nodded before following another house-elf further into the house.

"Professor?" she asked.

"I am no longer a professor to you Kaisha," he replied, "please call me Severus."

"Of course," she answered, "where would you like to take up residence?"

"How big are your dungeons?" he questioned.

"Very large but they will need a few days to do up to get them to living standards. Until they are ready you can stay in one of the guest rooms on the first floor. If you would like to convert one to a suitable potions lab you are more than welcome. This is your home now, you are part of our family."

He nodded and said "thank you," before being lead down the passageway by a very nervous looking house-elf.

Kaisha smiled serenely before making her way up to the room that she could now call her own.

Up in the tower room Kirsty was examining her new quarters. It turned out the her rooms started from the door at the bottom of the tower - that had to be opened by answering a riddle. From there she had to climb a spiral staircase up to her area. Opening the first door she came to allowed her a view of her living space. It was decorated in a blue and silver colour scheme, with a two seat sofa sitting in front of a grate. A writing desk sat near a small library of books and, walking further into the room, she discovered another door that lead her into what must have once been a potions laboratory. A huge cauldron stood in the middle of the room. Around the stone walls, all neatly labelled on shelves, where hundreds of potions ingredients. Kirsty felt like she must have died and gone to heaven - especially when she discovered that none of them would go off.

Leaving the room reluctantly, she carried on up the spiral staircase. At the top she found one more door. This lead up into a huge bedroom. A double four poster bed sat on the back wall. A large ornate blue rug was in the centre of the space. Opposite the bed was a set of French windows that lead out onto a balcony.

Once she had carefully opened the doors and stepped out onto her new balcony she had to stop. Her heart had been caught in her mouth. The view was unlike anything she had ever seen before. Trees spread out for miles before her. In the garden, hundreds of meters below, she could she patches of colour that could only be flower beds. Looking towards the back of the property allowed her to catch a glimpse of the full size Quidditch pitch. Suddenly, in the pit pf her stomach, she felt a pang of loss. She knew exactly how Fred and George would react to such a sight. How she wished they and all her siblings were here with her.

Harry was standing in the middle of his new living room. This room had once been guest quarters and was decorated in a red and gold colour scheme. Red sofas sat either side of a coffee table and a large grate was sat beneath a mirror. Behind him were a pair of double doors that lead into the garden.

Off to the left was a door that lead into his bedroom. Like Kirsty, he also had a four poster bed and a rug. A large oaken wardrobe, complete with lions craved on the doors, was sat beside a large window.

Kaisha sighed. It had been a long day and she was not looking forward to the amount of work she had to do now. Along with visiting the local village to get supplies and new clothes for her and her siblings, she also needed to sort out an education for the other two. There was now the pressing need to make sure the other two were not discovered. The goblins had already lifted the spells Albus Dumbledore had placed on them - she was certain he would notice soon and kept thinking he was about to burst through her front doors at any second. All he had to do was find her and prove she was not capable of caring for her siblings and they would be gone - whisked from under her very nose once again.

Her rooms were fairly plain. Having no real affection for either of the colours that her family was associated with, she had gone for a natural finish. The walls in her bedroom and lounge remained with the original wood panelling. The floor in the lounge remained bare stone, with just a single large rug in the centre. In the lounge were also two black leather seats, both with fluffy white cushions that she had charmed to stay clean.

In her bedroom a large four poster bed sat in the centre of the room, facing the window. Like Harry's room, her quarters were on ground level and both the lounge and bedroom had French doors opening out onto a small courtyard that she had already filled with flowers and trees.

The ex-Hogwarts professor carefully examined what would eventually be his new quarters. The dungeons were indeed much larger than Hogwarts one had been. One of them had a door that lead into another large dungeon. Taking this as a bare template to start again he started work.

Back at Hogwarts castle everything was in chaos. Dumbledore's office had just recently repaired itself from the old mans fit of rage. The man himself strode menacingly around the Hogwarts grounds. He could not believe something like this could happen to him - After all he had done for that girl? How could she repay him like this? How did she find out?

The latter question was the one he was most interested in. He had contacted the Gringotts bank and they had, repeatedly, informed him that none of the Potters had arrived at their bank. So that must mean, he had eventually concluded, that they were on the run. With this in mind he had sent out letters to each of the major wizarding magazines and newspapers - each now headlined the story that one Professor Severus Snape had kidnapped three Hogwarts students - a lengthy sentence awaited him once he was found.

Albus Dumbledore's mouth curled into a threatening smile - no one messed with him.

"Professor," greeted a timid voice.

He turned to see his librarian behind him, "Yes Madame Prince?"

"They've taken some books of mine without properly registering that they were borrowing them," she stated, "maybe you could trace the tracker I have on each of them?"

The old man's eyes regained their sparkle - now he was getting somewhere.