Title: Baby Boom! 15/18
Author: Mariann
Rating: R
Pairing: Sirius/Remus
Category: Between Fluff, Fun and Fighting
Summary: Sirius and Remus grow up, find love, start a family and fight the Dark Lord
Disclaimer: Belongs to JKR - no money's made from my poor attempts at writing
A/N: AU - The Willow Incident does not happen in this story. Peter is loyal and a spy for Dumbledore. Remus and Sirius are destined to fight Voldemort - will they succeed? A fair amount of children are born in this story - to spite the Death Eaters of course!
15. Out on their own!
It took them only an hour to get their things ready and leave. They took Muggle taxis to the station and rode the night train to Hogsmeade. It was a slow affair, because that train stopped about twenty times in wizarding settlements on the way to Scotland. Only the Hogwarts Express went up there non-stop. But the children were asleep and Remus and Sirius enjoyed some snogging time and a game of chess or two. Once the conductor had stopped by their compartment they had warded it off. They reached Hogsmeade very early in the morning and were expected by a carriage from Hogwarts. Dumbledore had sent it after he had been informed about their return. He waited for them in the Entrance Hall.
"Welcome back, my friends. I hope you had a peaceful journey?"
"Hello Albus! Yes, we had, thank you. The train was a lot more comfortable than the Knight bus, even though it's less safe. But we've warded off the compartment and were undisturbed."
"Good, good."
They went straight to their chambers, where they ate breakfast and told Dumbledore about their three weeks at Grimmauld Place.
"I'm so happy to be back in these bright rooms! You have to fight for every bit of daylight in that house! And it could be quite lovely there if only they'd open those windows," Remus said.
"I can imagine. How did your mother react to the children, Sirius?"
"For a moment I thought they would get through to her, but once father was dead she returned to her coldness. She was quite docile when I set up the new rules though, but I don't think she'll stick to them. But I don't really care what she does. She is on an allowance now and that is set fine for her alone, but she won't be able to spend anything on Voldemort's cause anymore."
He told Dumbledore about the four thousand Galleons he had been able to hold up from being sent to Voldemort.
"And he must have been furious, because he sent Lucius to inquire with my mother what happened to the money. Father has bought his way out of the Death Eaters. That's why he forced Regulus to join. I had taken flight, but Regulus tried to follow the orders. And paid with his life. I'm still not over that, Albus! I just wish I could have helped Regulus more."
"It was too late, Sirius. Someone must have given him away."
"I accused father..."
"How did he respond?"
"Not kindly of course, but he didn't really deny it, so I suppose he actually was the one. This way he would have been free to only 'donate' his money every year and not have to join himself. I found out that the sum he paid Voldemort rose from roughly two thousand Galleons per year ten years ago to about eight thousand in the past five years."
Dumbledore whistled.
"That is an awful lot of money. Could there have been blackmail in the game?"
"If, then it was something entirely between my father and Voldemort, because I haven't been threatened. In fact I have been amazed that we haven't been threatened at all. We've been there for three weeks and my mother didn't even hiss a threat of any kind. Quite amazed me, to be frank. Still, when we had to go to Gringotts together yesterday, Remus warded off the library and one of the younger house-elves looked after the children. There is one very nice one who was ordered not to open the door and not to let anyone in under any circumstances and she didn't. She also looked well after the children. Then I've given mother the rules for when I should turn up in the house. That I don't want to see one of them around at all. I leave her free hand with the house except for the library and the study, which I declared off limits and we've warded them off, so no one can get in. So far the Death Eaters haven't found any counter-spells to Remus' wards yet. But we need to clear that library soon."
"I shall have it organised, thank you for this inventory. Andromeda will be part of the group. She knows where the house is and she has the Black blood needed to reduce and touch the marked books. She will pack them off in special crates. Then we take everything here and enclose it in the secret library. The one you are going to tackle next, Sirius."
Sirius shook his head.
"The secret library? I've never heard about that one before..."
"That would be because it is secret, Sirius. Usually only the staff knows about its existence. And we are all sworn to secrecy, but I am afraid that none of us has really had time to really go through it. Therefore it will become your job. At least until you find your new house. I would like you to establish a proper catalogue. Irma will be helping you with that if you could relieve her during parts of the day at the regular library, Remus."
"Sounds very interesting. I'm quickly becoming a very learnt man! I have read so much in the past years it's a miracle I can still do something with my wand..."
Remus snorted.
"When have you used your wand lately? Your mother HAS noticed that you're doing your magic wandless most of the time, Sirius, and I'm sure Lucius and Narcissa have noticed it as well."
"Then Voldemort only knows there's one more thing he has to fear about me."
"True... yes, Albus, I'll gladly replace Madam Pince so she can join Siri."
"Thank you. Once you find your new house it will be time to set a trap for our esteemed enemy. What do you think?" Dumbledore asked out of the blue.
"YES! Finally! I thought it would never come to be! Do you have an idea, Albus?" Sirius asked eagerly.
"James. And to me it sounds like a good one. Ask him about it tonight."
"We certainly will."
They spent the day resting, napping when the children slept and by the evening they felt quite rested and removed from everything. They had Lily, Harry and James over to share their meal. Little Harry was now an adorable combination of James' lousy eyesight, his unruly black hair and his mother's lovely nose and beautiful emerald green eyes.
"I still wonder why he has to have my negatives and Lily's positives! So far at least he has an even temper. Not so much as Alya, but... quite nice," James said.
The others smiled. Remus told him how Alya had won over little Draco Malfoy. Once they had run out of stories about their stay at Grimmauld Place Sirius asked James about his idea for a trap for Voldemort.
"Oh, yes! I almost forgot. Dumbledore seems to like the idea. I thought that once we have the new house and before we really move in we could let it go through to Voldemort that we're moving out of Hogwarts and into our house together. He will probably try to come and kill us there. So we 'protect' ourselves with the Fidelius charm. Flitwick brought the talk to this the other day. We thought it would be brilliant. We don't need to really perform the charm, but Voldemort will think we have. The Secret Keeper would then be Snape, who has gained our complete trust! And Snape will of course tell Voldemort as soon as we've set up the trap. But we will expect him, the children will be safely at Hogwarts, and as soon as Voldie destroys the door he'll meet Dumbledore, Lily and my humble self. You will be invisible and get in his back as soon as he steps through the door. And the two of you can deck him with everything you've got. We'll take care of the Death Eaters with the Order. Of course we'll have some of them stationed outside, as invisible as you will be. We're pretty good with the Disillusionment charms."
"Sounds feasible. I'll be in," Remus said.
"Me too. That will be sweet!" Sirius said.
"Absolutely!" James said. "And what's best, I have found our house!"
"You have? Really?" Remus asked.
"Yep. It's in Yorkshire. Somewhere not too far away from Scarborough close to North Yorkshire, but still in the coastal region. Just a bit up the hills. Anyway, this is ideal. It's an old castle, not too big, but more rooms than we'll ever need, even if Remus produces another two dozen children to avoid transformations... it's an old wizarding family's home."
Remus swatted his friend. James, Sirius and Peter were the only ones who were allowed to joke about his condition, but that didn't stop him from playfully hitting them. James just grinned sheepishly and showed them some pictures.
"That looks lovely. Why is it on sale?" Remus asked, baffled.
The picture showed a classical castle with four big round towers in the corners, connected by walls and on about three levels the outer walls formed the main body of the houses inside of the castle. On two sides there were a number of floors above the walls and the towers looked quite a bit higher than the rest of the buildings.
"Owners want to leave the country. He's afraid of the Death Eaters. I talked to him, he said he has some relatives in the States and wants to move there. No family left here, only his wife and a granddaughter, as the Death Eaters have killed a good many of them. They were purebloods who intermarried with half-bloods and Muggle-borns in the last two generations."
"Oh dear! I've not got a good feeling moving there then..." Remus said.
"I didn't either, but as I said, I got to speak with the guy. All he has left is his wife and a grandchild. He said if we wanted the house he'd gladly sell it to those who were still ready to fight. Even if we would win he wouldn't come back anymore. He'd rather give the house to us than to any Death Eaters."
"Then let's go and see it together. It'd be a beautiful area," Sirius said.
"I think so, too."
They were all delighted. James and Lily had talked to Dari, Hope, Peter and Sabina and they were all interested to move in together. James had understated the size a bit, Remus thought. When they got there by floo they found themselves in the entrance hall of an old fortress castle. It was decorated in old oak from the rafters on the ceiling high up above to the furniture around the two huge fireplaces in this hall. The fireplaces were situated in the middle of the side walls of a vast room. On one end there was a big oak double door, which marked the main entrance. Near the main entrance on both side walls were double doors leading to the rooms beyond. Two big staircases led up to the next floor of the castle ending in a balcony. Underneath the staircases was an ornate exit to the inner courtyard. The staircases met in the balcony on the first floor and they could see that this balcony came along the outer walls of the entrance hall. There was another set of the same kind of staircases visible from the hall, and another balcony.
The owner of the castle greeted them. He looked a bit glum, but pleased that eight young people were interested in keeping this wonderful house in order.
"Hello, my young friends, and welcome to Green Mountain Castle. I do suppose you would like to take a walk through it?"
"Good morning, Sir Joseph. May I introduce you to everyone?" James asked.
"Yes, please do!"
"Okay, everyone, this is Sir Joseph Green. He has worked for the Ministry for the last sixty plus years but wants to leave the country for good now to join his only remaining son in the States."
James presented everyone and then Sir Joseph gave them a big smile and said:
"I'm very pleased to meet you all. I have read about your exploits against You-Know-Who Mr. Black and Mr. Lupin, I'm very proud to meet you in person!"
"Thank you, Sir Joseph. We didn't have the best feelings when James told us you would leave this behind because the Death Eaters have decimated your family. But then he said you would rather not that your estate falls into the hands of covered up Death Eaters."
"Absolutely not! No matter, how much money they offer. There are several square miles of land coming with this estate and you will get it at a good price! If I know that some people live here who fight this evil, then I know it in good hands and I will remember it fondly but without regrets! So, let us start our walk as soon as Giri has taken your cloaks..."
A house-elf had come in and collected everything the visitors preferred to leave in the hall, then they followed Sir Joseph on the walk through his beautiful house. The girls were very excited, because it was decorated beautifully. They first went into two longish rooms to the left and right of the door to the inner courtyard.
"These here are ante-rooms used for everything you wear outside. That's for this side, the other side, as you've just seen, is the wardrobe to keep cloaks from guests. Both are also good storage rooms for all sorts of knick-knack. The entrance hall here is one of the places we used to have small parties. Let's go through there first. We will come all around the whole castle and then return here."
The corridor led them to the first drawing room. It was quite a big one, covered with thick carpets, because of the cold floors.
"There are a number of drawing and sitting rooms down on this floor. This here is usually our family room. In the last few years we haven't used it so frequently anymore as there were only my wife and one of my grandchildren left. We preferred one of the smaller rooms. Easier to keep warm. Do you have children?"
"Yes, the two of us have four, James and Lily have one so far and there is one on the way here and one there," Sirius explained and pointed at Sabina and Hope.
"That's lovely. The children will adore this house. They will have much to explore!"
"This is furnished beautifully, Sir Joseph. I really like this Oriental ambience," Hope said.
"That was my great-grandfather when he was freshly married. The year was 1815 and everyone ran down to Brighton to admire the Pavilion. So my great-grandfather decided what the Prince Regent could do down there he could do up here. No one bothered to change it much. Some of it does add to the warmth... this next room is a music room."
The music room held a grand piano, a few lovely cabinets with glass windows and a couple of upholstered chairs. They walked through the dining room and then around the corner through the vast kitchens, which followed in three separate chambers. There were staircases leading to the storage cellars. After the kitchens they crossed the house-elf quarters in the back of the castle, which looked friendly and were separated in several nice looking rooms.
"We have fifteen house-elves here. Those who are closest to the family will of course come with us, but if you would like to take the rest of them we would be very relieved, because they are good people who deserve good treatment."
"Which we can guarantee!" Sabina said determinedly.
"Absolutely," the other young women agreed.
"Very good. Thank you, ladies, that relieves me about their destiny."
They crossed a corridor which was cobbled and led to another door to the outside.
"This is where we have our small stables and keep our carriages. That's the opposite side of the entrance hall. This door leads to a small outside couryard, and there is another door to the outside that works similar to the passage to Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross station, you simply have to walk through the wall. But of course we don't want anyone to do that, so it's somewhat more sophisticated and password protected. The password does not open a door though, it just makes the wall penetrable. We reset it frequently. Across the little passage are the stables. Currently I only have two horses in here. And they are getting very old. There would be enough space for ten of them though. Here are the food stores for the animals and this door leads to the second round of house-elf quarters. And now we're back in the main part of the castle. Now these here are the state rooms. There is the state dining room, the small corner room, the ballroom and another very large drawing room at the end. We have rarely used them, but our house-elves have kept them very nicely clean. Would you prefer a little break and something light to eat or should we go straight to the upper floors? There are two floors more that go all around and then there are all the rooms in the towers and two houses above the two floors. Or I could first take you to the inner courtyard."
"Courtyard!" the ladies decided and followed Sir Joseph through the doors into the impressive courtyard. Most of it was covered with a lawn, but there were a few fountains and statues and some flowerbeds. It was big. A part had a covered passage, almost like a cloister. There were two or three doors to the state rooms. And all of the rooms had windows out to the courtyard.
"There's much you can do with this garden. None of us had an interest in it, so it's a bit neglected," Sir Joseph said.
"That's great. I love to garden. I was always good at Herbology," Sabina remarked.
"Wonderful!"
It was a long day. They made the rounds through the cellars and found good rooms to brew potions.
"Oh, this is a good room for me to transform," Remus whispered when they passed one cellar room that had really solid doors and was empty.
"Yes, that's true. We could make it comfortable enough. And it's not too small either," Sirius confirmed.
There were huge storage rooms in the two or three floors underneath the castle. After the cellars they made a stop in the dining room, where Lady Green had a nice lunch served for all of them. Sir Joseph did the introductions and during the meal they got to talk together.
"You know, this castle is so big... you don't need to go away. I can very well see how much you love the place, Sir Joseph, why the heck don't we buy it, move in, and you stay here with us? We DO plan a trap for Voldemort, but that will turn out well enough this time. We'll have the element of surprise even more than last time, when he tried to take Hogwarts. In vain as you know," Lily said.
The Greens looked at each other and started to smile.
"You are really wonderful young people! With so many to defend this place it could be safe enough. Though we have lost so much in the meantime that it didn't seem like we would leave much behind, you know. But I think we could discuss that with our granddaughter."
"Where is she?" asked Remus.
"Still at Hogwarts. She's in her seventh year. We want to leave after she leaves school. She's lost her parents and her younger brother. Her father was my older son. She was only spared because she had been at Hogwarts. She will be free to go where she likes anyway," Lady Green said.
"It's just - not only have I felt that you really love your home, I also thought we get along so nicely, and found common grounds so quickly! I'm sure we would all love to have more generations in the house. I mean, we already decided to live together four families. None of us are related in any way. We were all friends from Hogwarts. All Gryffindors, except for Sabina, who's a Hufflepuff and Hope, who's a Ravenclaw."
"Are you? I've been a Ravenclaw, too, miss! How is good old Filius?" Sir Joseph asked.
Hope smiled and said:
"You have to ask Remus, Sirius and Lily, they are still living at Hogwarts. They do lots of research there. I think, he's still doing very well."
"Yes, he's still everyone's favourite teacher, too," Sirius confirmed.
"What house have you been, Milady?" asked Sabina.
Lady Green smiled.
"Oh please, do call me Gladys! I was a Gryffindor, too. My granddaughter is a Hufflepuff and loves it."
"Christabel Green! Is that her?" Remus asked.
"Yes, that's her."
"I know her. She's quite a spirited young lady. I'm giving some Defence against the Dark Arts lessons sometimes, so I know most of the students."
"Oh, do you? That's lovely."
After lively conversations and a lengthy break they all went up to the upper floors. There was a lot to discover here. There were many smaller rooms, bedrooms, bathrooms and a large library room. The rooms were built in a large rectangle around the courtyard. They climbed the stairs, turned left and followed the balcony on the first floor to the outer side of the castle. From there they entered a long corridor to the right which took them to the tower in the corner. There were many doors leading to the bedrooms along the corridor.
"My granddaughter and the two of us have our rooms here on this floor. There are seven rooms, connected inside through doors to the bathrooms or wardrobes. You could easily spread one family on one half of each of the two floors and have more rooms than you'll need for a long time!"
They were allowed to look inside some of the rooms. Many were timbered with oak and other woods, some had lovely oak floorboards.
Finally they reached the tower in the corner, which was part of the kitchen below, but up here a spiral staircase started to lead to the upper floors. They crossed the towers and got a walk all around the castle again. The corridor had rather small windows, but it was bright and decorated with fabrics and paintings, armours and there were many cabinets, sideboards and chairs. A carpet was marking the middle of the corridor throughout its length. When they reached the side of the castle they saw another staircase. They went up and came to several more bedrooms.
"This is just on the sides of the castle. There are three more floors up here. All bedrooms. This part is a wood structure, very old and therefore magically fire protected. I will teach you the charms to maintain this part. It's very old, as I said, so to care for it will be worth the while."
"It looks great! Superb view out here!" Lily exclaimed.
"But a load of stairs up," James moaned, fearing that his wife might choose this part to set up their rooms.
Everyone laughed. They went back down the stairs and moved on through the corridor and looked into the rooms behind the doors. There was a large library, directly connected with two spiral staircases to the next floor, where the library continued. Again everything was done in oak, but in these rooms the oak had been painted white.
"The library is an oddity from the late seventeenth, early eighteenth century. My ancestors thought it would be nice to give it the typical baroque feel, so they had everything painted and gilded and all those cabinets set up for the books. The furniture is period, too. I really like the rooms."
"I will love them," Remus mumbled.
Again all of them laughed and Sirius kissed his mate.
"Remus loves books. Period," he explained to Sir Joseph.
"That's nice! I thought this was a disease more common in us Ravenclaws..."
"Some Gryffindors have it, too, I assure you. But my mum was a Ravenclaw, too. And I was probably mainly sorted into Gryffindor because I wanted to go there."
"Splendid! You will discover a few nice things in here then!"
"Yet another library to go through," Sirius moaned.
When Sir Joseph looked puzzled again, Remus explained.
"Sirius had to go through the Hogwarts library more intensively than anyone ever had to before in the last more than two years. He's getting tired of reading by now."
"Even I would do that, probably," Sir Joseph admitted, "Though I've read most of what's in here."
When they reached the next tower on their tour around the second floor, Sir Joseph explained:
"All four towers are seven floors up. The top floor of this one contains the owlery. We have a special bell set up to call an owl down if we need one. So you won't have to march up here every time you want to send a letter, James."
That caused another round of giggles. Then Hope remarked:
"Hell, I won't even know which room to choose, there's so many!"
"That shouldn't be much of a problem. As you have seen these rooms are all in good order, but they will have to be furnished still. In the old days the guests brought their furniture with them when they visited."
When they left after a nice dinner they were all tired, but very happy and satisfied. They flooed back to the Three Broomsticks, because they all still wanted to talk about it and discuss the options. They had told Sir Joseph that they couldn't say anything about their plans before they would be started and that the Greens might want to be on a lengthy visit to their American relatives at that time.
Finally assembled in Sirius' and Remus' sitting room they all stayed quiet for a moment. The price for this house would be quite a lot. Peter and Sabina were very worried, but then Sirius said:
"I've only just found out what I've inherited, people. Old family in this case really does mean old money. I'm talking about something like two million Galleons! The castle would cost eighty-thousand, Sir Joseph said. With that we'd buy it including everything inside the four walls minus what the Greens want to take with them to the States, and the land. I can go to Gringotts and have that sum transferred tomorrow and be done with it. And I wouldn't even feel a dent in my possessions, even if I added another ten thousand, just because the Greens are so nice. Mother would probably go frantic, but I couldn't care less. I want that place, people. My lover would be happy there and I'm sure the children will be thrilled. We'd all be happy there."
Everyone except Remus stared at Sirius with open mouths. James knew he was well off from both sides of his family, but that sounded more than impressive.
"Wow."
"That's what I thought. And I thought I was well off with what Uncle Alphard left me. Anyway, it will be a good idea to spend some of that money. I buy the castle and you just care for the furniture you will need for your rooms. And some of you might throw in another house-elf or two, so the ones who are already there won't have much more to do with all the extra people in the house."
"And we might do some renovation on the bathrooms and all..." Hope said.
In the end Sirius did buy the castle. He had the sum transferred to the Green's Gringotts vault and they started to move into the house. Remus of course had something to do to get it warded before they did start to decorate and furnish their own rooms. Christabel Green had decided that she would rather move to her American relatives, so Sir Joseph and Lady Gladys would also leave the castle once Christabel came back from Hogwarts. They did pack up all their personal favourites and many of the portraits of course, but they left a lot behind. They expected to live much smaller in the States and only packed the furniture they needed for a house with a couple of rooms. Most of the furniture at Green Mountain Castle was antique and not suited for modern houses anyway.
While Remus was busy with the wards all through May there were magical builders working on the renovation of all the bathrooms in the house and adding a couple more. Then, just a month before the baby was due, Peter and Sabina moved into their rooms first. Lily and James followed suit with Harry, then Hope and Dari came together with the Black-Lupin family. They all bid farewell to the Greens, who promised to come and see them if they could ever get rid of Voldemort.
"You'll get an owl from us when that happened!" Sirius promised, already at the door.
The Greens waved once more, grabbed their Portkey and were gone in a flash. Sirius slowly closed the big oak door. He saw that the fire turned green.
"Anyone there?" Albus called.
"Hello Albus!" they all said.
"Did you get settled in well?"
"Of course! Would you like to come and see it now or do you want to wait for the official housewarming party?" Lily asked.
"Oh, there will be a party? I'll wait for that!"
"Good! You'll get an owl in the next days! We still have a few things to get ready."
One of the first things they had to do was to put their floo fireplace on restricted use. They could still floo out anytime, but to floo in one had to know the password, which changed on a weekly basis for security reasons. Then Remus set up the wards good and well around the whole building.
They invited all of their friends to the big housewarming party which would start on Friday, 3rd July and last through Sunday. They even provided a Portkey to Lily's parents.
People could apparate during two small open time slots. Others had received a special password for the fireplace. Within an hour the large entrance hall was filled with guests who were mingling and admiring the medieval character of the hall. They were all waiting for any of their hosts, but it took a while until they heard a great gong up above and a few doors banged. And then there was a storm, as all of those people who weren't pregnant in the house came running down the staircases, screeching their welcomes.
"Hey, hey! Look who's here, we've got GUESTS!"
"Oh, act your age!" Roxanne Lupin cried out.
Everyone laughed and the young people started to go through the guests and greeted them warmly. Upon the gong the house-elves had opened the double door to the state drawing room.
"Well, everybody," Sirius' deep voice boomed over the others, "the wonderland has opened up! Enter through the door to your right please! And then please take a seat somewhere, so we can organise who bunks where."
Inside the big room they could find enough space to take seats. There were a few children that had come with their parents, none older than little Nymphadora, who was six.
Sirius took on as the one to explain where they could go and put their things to.
"Welcome to Green Mountain Castle. Since we don't think the name is very special, we've decided to set up a small urn and collect your ideas for a better name for our humble abode. Just note them on one of the slips next to the urn and drop it in. Best one will be used and gets a special gift! Not now, Dora, but don't forget your idea!"
Everyone laughed and little Dora stumbled back to her mother.
"Okay, now Dari, Remus and Peter are going to spread floor plans to you and then you can go off on the search for your rooms. They are ALL up on the third to sixth floors and above in the towers. For all the children there is one big room and two of our dear elves will take care of them, so mummy and daddy can sleep in tomorrow and on Sunday. The room has been made childproof, too. And I mean mischievous childproof."
Everyone laughed again. They all looked at their plans and decided to go and take up their overnight bags.
"Before you go... dinner is served down here two rooms further on at half past six. Before that we'll have a little drink in this room here. Give it a good half hour. That gives you all an hour to go up to your rooms and get ready!" Sirius called.
"Great!"
Lily took Harry up on her arm and led her parents and her in-laws up to her wing. The Potters had their rooms on the first floor on the south-west side of the castle. Peter and Sabina were right above them. And the other side was taken by Hope and Dari on the first, Sirius and Remus on the second floor.
"Here we are. That's our main bedroom, here's our bathroom, through which we can go to Harry's room. Then we'll have a series of rooms and another two bathrooms. We've prepared these two for you."
Lily opened a door and said:
"You just make up your mind, who takes which of the two rooms. Bathrooms are adjacent."
"Thank you so much, Lily. This is one marvellous place! I'm amazed! To think that you are living in a CASTLE!" Mrs Evans said.
"Did you tell Petunia?"
"I might have mentioned it. She blew up like a balloon... I thought she'd go through the ceiling."
Lily couldn't help snickering a little.
"Well, I leave you to it. As you can see we are already prepared. Just come down when you're ready."
The others took their parents close to them as well, while all the young people went to look for their quarters higher up. With time everyone turned up in the drawing room again. The children were still with them until after dinner, when they were taken up to their common room. The atmosphere was meant to be familiar and was cosy and the rooms filled with laughter, just like he Greens wanted it to be. Of course the party lasted into the night. When they finally walked up the stairs to go to bed, Remus came close to Sirius and put his arm around his mate's waist.
"That was brilliant. Just like there was no war..." Remus said.
"That's how it should always be, love. We have to build that plan soon."
"But not here. They don't know we've moved here yet, we should choose some other place. This is too good to let someone like Voldemort soil its floors."
"Yes, you're right about that. But I have a couple of ideas... first we need to know if Voldemort knows that you're a werewolf. If he does, he'll be sure to force something on us to take place on a full moon, and we can't let that happen!" Sirius remarked.
"That will be Snape's job... and Peter's, but Snape can actually find out actively."
"So far Voldemort only gets teased about these two very powerful young wizards, but we haven't been in many fights yet. He doesn't really know how much we can actually achieve, because he's only really been teased..." Sirius said.
"But he's afraid of us..."
"I think, he is afraid of the unknown power. If his position of being the most powerful wizard is threatened he gets very irritated..."
Remus grinned.
"We should use that to do what he does - instil some more fear. Into him! Have some more legends built around our power."
"What a great idea! We'll do that while we form our plan. I thought of luring him to a place we build as a family vacation site. We will have to drop some hints around Hogwarts, when we're there. The odd Slytherin will pick it up and certainly pass it on. Through Peter and Snape we'd find out if the bait has been swallowed. Of course we'd only drop those hints once we have everything in place."
"That's brilliant, Padfoot!"
Author: Mariann
Rating: R
Pairing: Sirius/Remus
Category: Between Fluff, Fun and Fighting
Summary: Sirius and Remus grow up, find love, start a family and fight the Dark Lord
Disclaimer: Belongs to JKR - no money's made from my poor attempts at writing
A/N: AU - The Willow Incident does not happen in this story. Peter is loyal and a spy for Dumbledore. Remus and Sirius are destined to fight Voldemort - will they succeed? A fair amount of children are born in this story - to spite the Death Eaters of course!
15. Out on their own!
It took them only an hour to get their things ready and leave. They took Muggle taxis to the station and rode the night train to Hogsmeade. It was a slow affair, because that train stopped about twenty times in wizarding settlements on the way to Scotland. Only the Hogwarts Express went up there non-stop. But the children were asleep and Remus and Sirius enjoyed some snogging time and a game of chess or two. Once the conductor had stopped by their compartment they had warded it off. They reached Hogsmeade very early in the morning and were expected by a carriage from Hogwarts. Dumbledore had sent it after he had been informed about their return. He waited for them in the Entrance Hall.
"Welcome back, my friends. I hope you had a peaceful journey?"
"Hello Albus! Yes, we had, thank you. The train was a lot more comfortable than the Knight bus, even though it's less safe. But we've warded off the compartment and were undisturbed."
"Good, good."
They went straight to their chambers, where they ate breakfast and told Dumbledore about their three weeks at Grimmauld Place.
"I'm so happy to be back in these bright rooms! You have to fight for every bit of daylight in that house! And it could be quite lovely there if only they'd open those windows," Remus said.
"I can imagine. How did your mother react to the children, Sirius?"
"For a moment I thought they would get through to her, but once father was dead she returned to her coldness. She was quite docile when I set up the new rules though, but I don't think she'll stick to them. But I don't really care what she does. She is on an allowance now and that is set fine for her alone, but she won't be able to spend anything on Voldemort's cause anymore."
He told Dumbledore about the four thousand Galleons he had been able to hold up from being sent to Voldemort.
"And he must have been furious, because he sent Lucius to inquire with my mother what happened to the money. Father has bought his way out of the Death Eaters. That's why he forced Regulus to join. I had taken flight, but Regulus tried to follow the orders. And paid with his life. I'm still not over that, Albus! I just wish I could have helped Regulus more."
"It was too late, Sirius. Someone must have given him away."
"I accused father..."
"How did he respond?"
"Not kindly of course, but he didn't really deny it, so I suppose he actually was the one. This way he would have been free to only 'donate' his money every year and not have to join himself. I found out that the sum he paid Voldemort rose from roughly two thousand Galleons per year ten years ago to about eight thousand in the past five years."
Dumbledore whistled.
"That is an awful lot of money. Could there have been blackmail in the game?"
"If, then it was something entirely between my father and Voldemort, because I haven't been threatened. In fact I have been amazed that we haven't been threatened at all. We've been there for three weeks and my mother didn't even hiss a threat of any kind. Quite amazed me, to be frank. Still, when we had to go to Gringotts together yesterday, Remus warded off the library and one of the younger house-elves looked after the children. There is one very nice one who was ordered not to open the door and not to let anyone in under any circumstances and she didn't. She also looked well after the children. Then I've given mother the rules for when I should turn up in the house. That I don't want to see one of them around at all. I leave her free hand with the house except for the library and the study, which I declared off limits and we've warded them off, so no one can get in. So far the Death Eaters haven't found any counter-spells to Remus' wards yet. But we need to clear that library soon."
"I shall have it organised, thank you for this inventory. Andromeda will be part of the group. She knows where the house is and she has the Black blood needed to reduce and touch the marked books. She will pack them off in special crates. Then we take everything here and enclose it in the secret library. The one you are going to tackle next, Sirius."
Sirius shook his head.
"The secret library? I've never heard about that one before..."
"That would be because it is secret, Sirius. Usually only the staff knows about its existence. And we are all sworn to secrecy, but I am afraid that none of us has really had time to really go through it. Therefore it will become your job. At least until you find your new house. I would like you to establish a proper catalogue. Irma will be helping you with that if you could relieve her during parts of the day at the regular library, Remus."
"Sounds very interesting. I'm quickly becoming a very learnt man! I have read so much in the past years it's a miracle I can still do something with my wand..."
Remus snorted.
"When have you used your wand lately? Your mother HAS noticed that you're doing your magic wandless most of the time, Sirius, and I'm sure Lucius and Narcissa have noticed it as well."
"Then Voldemort only knows there's one more thing he has to fear about me."
"True... yes, Albus, I'll gladly replace Madam Pince so she can join Siri."
"Thank you. Once you find your new house it will be time to set a trap for our esteemed enemy. What do you think?" Dumbledore asked out of the blue.
"YES! Finally! I thought it would never come to be! Do you have an idea, Albus?" Sirius asked eagerly.
"James. And to me it sounds like a good one. Ask him about it tonight."
"We certainly will."
They spent the day resting, napping when the children slept and by the evening they felt quite rested and removed from everything. They had Lily, Harry and James over to share their meal. Little Harry was now an adorable combination of James' lousy eyesight, his unruly black hair and his mother's lovely nose and beautiful emerald green eyes.
"I still wonder why he has to have my negatives and Lily's positives! So far at least he has an even temper. Not so much as Alya, but... quite nice," James said.
The others smiled. Remus told him how Alya had won over little Draco Malfoy. Once they had run out of stories about their stay at Grimmauld Place Sirius asked James about his idea for a trap for Voldemort.
"Oh, yes! I almost forgot. Dumbledore seems to like the idea. I thought that once we have the new house and before we really move in we could let it go through to Voldemort that we're moving out of Hogwarts and into our house together. He will probably try to come and kill us there. So we 'protect' ourselves with the Fidelius charm. Flitwick brought the talk to this the other day. We thought it would be brilliant. We don't need to really perform the charm, but Voldemort will think we have. The Secret Keeper would then be Snape, who has gained our complete trust! And Snape will of course tell Voldemort as soon as we've set up the trap. But we will expect him, the children will be safely at Hogwarts, and as soon as Voldie destroys the door he'll meet Dumbledore, Lily and my humble self. You will be invisible and get in his back as soon as he steps through the door. And the two of you can deck him with everything you've got. We'll take care of the Death Eaters with the Order. Of course we'll have some of them stationed outside, as invisible as you will be. We're pretty good with the Disillusionment charms."
"Sounds feasible. I'll be in," Remus said.
"Me too. That will be sweet!" Sirius said.
"Absolutely!" James said. "And what's best, I have found our house!"
"You have? Really?" Remus asked.
"Yep. It's in Yorkshire. Somewhere not too far away from Scarborough close to North Yorkshire, but still in the coastal region. Just a bit up the hills. Anyway, this is ideal. It's an old castle, not too big, but more rooms than we'll ever need, even if Remus produces another two dozen children to avoid transformations... it's an old wizarding family's home."
Remus swatted his friend. James, Sirius and Peter were the only ones who were allowed to joke about his condition, but that didn't stop him from playfully hitting them. James just grinned sheepishly and showed them some pictures.
"That looks lovely. Why is it on sale?" Remus asked, baffled.
The picture showed a classical castle with four big round towers in the corners, connected by walls and on about three levels the outer walls formed the main body of the houses inside of the castle. On two sides there were a number of floors above the walls and the towers looked quite a bit higher than the rest of the buildings.
"Owners want to leave the country. He's afraid of the Death Eaters. I talked to him, he said he has some relatives in the States and wants to move there. No family left here, only his wife and a granddaughter, as the Death Eaters have killed a good many of them. They were purebloods who intermarried with half-bloods and Muggle-borns in the last two generations."
"Oh dear! I've not got a good feeling moving there then..." Remus said.
"I didn't either, but as I said, I got to speak with the guy. All he has left is his wife and a grandchild. He said if we wanted the house he'd gladly sell it to those who were still ready to fight. Even if we would win he wouldn't come back anymore. He'd rather give the house to us than to any Death Eaters."
"Then let's go and see it together. It'd be a beautiful area," Sirius said.
"I think so, too."
They were all delighted. James and Lily had talked to Dari, Hope, Peter and Sabina and they were all interested to move in together. James had understated the size a bit, Remus thought. When they got there by floo they found themselves in the entrance hall of an old fortress castle. It was decorated in old oak from the rafters on the ceiling high up above to the furniture around the two huge fireplaces in this hall. The fireplaces were situated in the middle of the side walls of a vast room. On one end there was a big oak double door, which marked the main entrance. Near the main entrance on both side walls were double doors leading to the rooms beyond. Two big staircases led up to the next floor of the castle ending in a balcony. Underneath the staircases was an ornate exit to the inner courtyard. The staircases met in the balcony on the first floor and they could see that this balcony came along the outer walls of the entrance hall. There was another set of the same kind of staircases visible from the hall, and another balcony.
The owner of the castle greeted them. He looked a bit glum, but pleased that eight young people were interested in keeping this wonderful house in order.
"Hello, my young friends, and welcome to Green Mountain Castle. I do suppose you would like to take a walk through it?"
"Good morning, Sir Joseph. May I introduce you to everyone?" James asked.
"Yes, please do!"
"Okay, everyone, this is Sir Joseph Green. He has worked for the Ministry for the last sixty plus years but wants to leave the country for good now to join his only remaining son in the States."
James presented everyone and then Sir Joseph gave them a big smile and said:
"I'm very pleased to meet you all. I have read about your exploits against You-Know-Who Mr. Black and Mr. Lupin, I'm very proud to meet you in person!"
"Thank you, Sir Joseph. We didn't have the best feelings when James told us you would leave this behind because the Death Eaters have decimated your family. But then he said you would rather not that your estate falls into the hands of covered up Death Eaters."
"Absolutely not! No matter, how much money they offer. There are several square miles of land coming with this estate and you will get it at a good price! If I know that some people live here who fight this evil, then I know it in good hands and I will remember it fondly but without regrets! So, let us start our walk as soon as Giri has taken your cloaks..."
A house-elf had come in and collected everything the visitors preferred to leave in the hall, then they followed Sir Joseph on the walk through his beautiful house. The girls were very excited, because it was decorated beautifully. They first went into two longish rooms to the left and right of the door to the inner courtyard.
"These here are ante-rooms used for everything you wear outside. That's for this side, the other side, as you've just seen, is the wardrobe to keep cloaks from guests. Both are also good storage rooms for all sorts of knick-knack. The entrance hall here is one of the places we used to have small parties. Let's go through there first. We will come all around the whole castle and then return here."
The corridor led them to the first drawing room. It was quite a big one, covered with thick carpets, because of the cold floors.
"There are a number of drawing and sitting rooms down on this floor. This here is usually our family room. In the last few years we haven't used it so frequently anymore as there were only my wife and one of my grandchildren left. We preferred one of the smaller rooms. Easier to keep warm. Do you have children?"
"Yes, the two of us have four, James and Lily have one so far and there is one on the way here and one there," Sirius explained and pointed at Sabina and Hope.
"That's lovely. The children will adore this house. They will have much to explore!"
"This is furnished beautifully, Sir Joseph. I really like this Oriental ambience," Hope said.
"That was my great-grandfather when he was freshly married. The year was 1815 and everyone ran down to Brighton to admire the Pavilion. So my great-grandfather decided what the Prince Regent could do down there he could do up here. No one bothered to change it much. Some of it does add to the warmth... this next room is a music room."
The music room held a grand piano, a few lovely cabinets with glass windows and a couple of upholstered chairs. They walked through the dining room and then around the corner through the vast kitchens, which followed in three separate chambers. There were staircases leading to the storage cellars. After the kitchens they crossed the house-elf quarters in the back of the castle, which looked friendly and were separated in several nice looking rooms.
"We have fifteen house-elves here. Those who are closest to the family will of course come with us, but if you would like to take the rest of them we would be very relieved, because they are good people who deserve good treatment."
"Which we can guarantee!" Sabina said determinedly.
"Absolutely," the other young women agreed.
"Very good. Thank you, ladies, that relieves me about their destiny."
They crossed a corridor which was cobbled and led to another door to the outside.
"This is where we have our small stables and keep our carriages. That's the opposite side of the entrance hall. This door leads to a small outside couryard, and there is another door to the outside that works similar to the passage to Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross station, you simply have to walk through the wall. But of course we don't want anyone to do that, so it's somewhat more sophisticated and password protected. The password does not open a door though, it just makes the wall penetrable. We reset it frequently. Across the little passage are the stables. Currently I only have two horses in here. And they are getting very old. There would be enough space for ten of them though. Here are the food stores for the animals and this door leads to the second round of house-elf quarters. And now we're back in the main part of the castle. Now these here are the state rooms. There is the state dining room, the small corner room, the ballroom and another very large drawing room at the end. We have rarely used them, but our house-elves have kept them very nicely clean. Would you prefer a little break and something light to eat or should we go straight to the upper floors? There are two floors more that go all around and then there are all the rooms in the towers and two houses above the two floors. Or I could first take you to the inner courtyard."
"Courtyard!" the ladies decided and followed Sir Joseph through the doors into the impressive courtyard. Most of it was covered with a lawn, but there were a few fountains and statues and some flowerbeds. It was big. A part had a covered passage, almost like a cloister. There were two or three doors to the state rooms. And all of the rooms had windows out to the courtyard.
"There's much you can do with this garden. None of us had an interest in it, so it's a bit neglected," Sir Joseph said.
"That's great. I love to garden. I was always good at Herbology," Sabina remarked.
"Wonderful!"
It was a long day. They made the rounds through the cellars and found good rooms to brew potions.
"Oh, this is a good room for me to transform," Remus whispered when they passed one cellar room that had really solid doors and was empty.
"Yes, that's true. We could make it comfortable enough. And it's not too small either," Sirius confirmed.
There were huge storage rooms in the two or three floors underneath the castle. After the cellars they made a stop in the dining room, where Lady Green had a nice lunch served for all of them. Sir Joseph did the introductions and during the meal they got to talk together.
"You know, this castle is so big... you don't need to go away. I can very well see how much you love the place, Sir Joseph, why the heck don't we buy it, move in, and you stay here with us? We DO plan a trap for Voldemort, but that will turn out well enough this time. We'll have the element of surprise even more than last time, when he tried to take Hogwarts. In vain as you know," Lily said.
The Greens looked at each other and started to smile.
"You are really wonderful young people! With so many to defend this place it could be safe enough. Though we have lost so much in the meantime that it didn't seem like we would leave much behind, you know. But I think we could discuss that with our granddaughter."
"Where is she?" asked Remus.
"Still at Hogwarts. She's in her seventh year. We want to leave after she leaves school. She's lost her parents and her younger brother. Her father was my older son. She was only spared because she had been at Hogwarts. She will be free to go where she likes anyway," Lady Green said.
"It's just - not only have I felt that you really love your home, I also thought we get along so nicely, and found common grounds so quickly! I'm sure we would all love to have more generations in the house. I mean, we already decided to live together four families. None of us are related in any way. We were all friends from Hogwarts. All Gryffindors, except for Sabina, who's a Hufflepuff and Hope, who's a Ravenclaw."
"Are you? I've been a Ravenclaw, too, miss! How is good old Filius?" Sir Joseph asked.
Hope smiled and said:
"You have to ask Remus, Sirius and Lily, they are still living at Hogwarts. They do lots of research there. I think, he's still doing very well."
"Yes, he's still everyone's favourite teacher, too," Sirius confirmed.
"What house have you been, Milady?" asked Sabina.
Lady Green smiled.
"Oh please, do call me Gladys! I was a Gryffindor, too. My granddaughter is a Hufflepuff and loves it."
"Christabel Green! Is that her?" Remus asked.
"Yes, that's her."
"I know her. She's quite a spirited young lady. I'm giving some Defence against the Dark Arts lessons sometimes, so I know most of the students."
"Oh, do you? That's lovely."
After lively conversations and a lengthy break they all went up to the upper floors. There was a lot to discover here. There were many smaller rooms, bedrooms, bathrooms and a large library room. The rooms were built in a large rectangle around the courtyard. They climbed the stairs, turned left and followed the balcony on the first floor to the outer side of the castle. From there they entered a long corridor to the right which took them to the tower in the corner. There were many doors leading to the bedrooms along the corridor.
"My granddaughter and the two of us have our rooms here on this floor. There are seven rooms, connected inside through doors to the bathrooms or wardrobes. You could easily spread one family on one half of each of the two floors and have more rooms than you'll need for a long time!"
They were allowed to look inside some of the rooms. Many were timbered with oak and other woods, some had lovely oak floorboards.
Finally they reached the tower in the corner, which was part of the kitchen below, but up here a spiral staircase started to lead to the upper floors. They crossed the towers and got a walk all around the castle again. The corridor had rather small windows, but it was bright and decorated with fabrics and paintings, armours and there were many cabinets, sideboards and chairs. A carpet was marking the middle of the corridor throughout its length. When they reached the side of the castle they saw another staircase. They went up and came to several more bedrooms.
"This is just on the sides of the castle. There are three more floors up here. All bedrooms. This part is a wood structure, very old and therefore magically fire protected. I will teach you the charms to maintain this part. It's very old, as I said, so to care for it will be worth the while."
"It looks great! Superb view out here!" Lily exclaimed.
"But a load of stairs up," James moaned, fearing that his wife might choose this part to set up their rooms.
Everyone laughed. They went back down the stairs and moved on through the corridor and looked into the rooms behind the doors. There was a large library, directly connected with two spiral staircases to the next floor, where the library continued. Again everything was done in oak, but in these rooms the oak had been painted white.
"The library is an oddity from the late seventeenth, early eighteenth century. My ancestors thought it would be nice to give it the typical baroque feel, so they had everything painted and gilded and all those cabinets set up for the books. The furniture is period, too. I really like the rooms."
"I will love them," Remus mumbled.
Again all of them laughed and Sirius kissed his mate.
"Remus loves books. Period," he explained to Sir Joseph.
"That's nice! I thought this was a disease more common in us Ravenclaws..."
"Some Gryffindors have it, too, I assure you. But my mum was a Ravenclaw, too. And I was probably mainly sorted into Gryffindor because I wanted to go there."
"Splendid! You will discover a few nice things in here then!"
"Yet another library to go through," Sirius moaned.
When Sir Joseph looked puzzled again, Remus explained.
"Sirius had to go through the Hogwarts library more intensively than anyone ever had to before in the last more than two years. He's getting tired of reading by now."
"Even I would do that, probably," Sir Joseph admitted, "Though I've read most of what's in here."
When they reached the next tower on their tour around the second floor, Sir Joseph explained:
"All four towers are seven floors up. The top floor of this one contains the owlery. We have a special bell set up to call an owl down if we need one. So you won't have to march up here every time you want to send a letter, James."
That caused another round of giggles. Then Hope remarked:
"Hell, I won't even know which room to choose, there's so many!"
"That shouldn't be much of a problem. As you have seen these rooms are all in good order, but they will have to be furnished still. In the old days the guests brought their furniture with them when they visited."
When they left after a nice dinner they were all tired, but very happy and satisfied. They flooed back to the Three Broomsticks, because they all still wanted to talk about it and discuss the options. They had told Sir Joseph that they couldn't say anything about their plans before they would be started and that the Greens might want to be on a lengthy visit to their American relatives at that time.
Finally assembled in Sirius' and Remus' sitting room they all stayed quiet for a moment. The price for this house would be quite a lot. Peter and Sabina were very worried, but then Sirius said:
"I've only just found out what I've inherited, people. Old family in this case really does mean old money. I'm talking about something like two million Galleons! The castle would cost eighty-thousand, Sir Joseph said. With that we'd buy it including everything inside the four walls minus what the Greens want to take with them to the States, and the land. I can go to Gringotts and have that sum transferred tomorrow and be done with it. And I wouldn't even feel a dent in my possessions, even if I added another ten thousand, just because the Greens are so nice. Mother would probably go frantic, but I couldn't care less. I want that place, people. My lover would be happy there and I'm sure the children will be thrilled. We'd all be happy there."
Everyone except Remus stared at Sirius with open mouths. James knew he was well off from both sides of his family, but that sounded more than impressive.
"Wow."
"That's what I thought. And I thought I was well off with what Uncle Alphard left me. Anyway, it will be a good idea to spend some of that money. I buy the castle and you just care for the furniture you will need for your rooms. And some of you might throw in another house-elf or two, so the ones who are already there won't have much more to do with all the extra people in the house."
"And we might do some renovation on the bathrooms and all..." Hope said.
In the end Sirius did buy the castle. He had the sum transferred to the Green's Gringotts vault and they started to move into the house. Remus of course had something to do to get it warded before they did start to decorate and furnish their own rooms. Christabel Green had decided that she would rather move to her American relatives, so Sir Joseph and Lady Gladys would also leave the castle once Christabel came back from Hogwarts. They did pack up all their personal favourites and many of the portraits of course, but they left a lot behind. They expected to live much smaller in the States and only packed the furniture they needed for a house with a couple of rooms. Most of the furniture at Green Mountain Castle was antique and not suited for modern houses anyway.
While Remus was busy with the wards all through May there were magical builders working on the renovation of all the bathrooms in the house and adding a couple more. Then, just a month before the baby was due, Peter and Sabina moved into their rooms first. Lily and James followed suit with Harry, then Hope and Dari came together with the Black-Lupin family. They all bid farewell to the Greens, who promised to come and see them if they could ever get rid of Voldemort.
"You'll get an owl from us when that happened!" Sirius promised, already at the door.
The Greens waved once more, grabbed their Portkey and were gone in a flash. Sirius slowly closed the big oak door. He saw that the fire turned green.
"Anyone there?" Albus called.
"Hello Albus!" they all said.
"Did you get settled in well?"
"Of course! Would you like to come and see it now or do you want to wait for the official housewarming party?" Lily asked.
"Oh, there will be a party? I'll wait for that!"
"Good! You'll get an owl in the next days! We still have a few things to get ready."
One of the first things they had to do was to put their floo fireplace on restricted use. They could still floo out anytime, but to floo in one had to know the password, which changed on a weekly basis for security reasons. Then Remus set up the wards good and well around the whole building.
They invited all of their friends to the big housewarming party which would start on Friday, 3rd July and last through Sunday. They even provided a Portkey to Lily's parents.
People could apparate during two small open time slots. Others had received a special password for the fireplace. Within an hour the large entrance hall was filled with guests who were mingling and admiring the medieval character of the hall. They were all waiting for any of their hosts, but it took a while until they heard a great gong up above and a few doors banged. And then there was a storm, as all of those people who weren't pregnant in the house came running down the staircases, screeching their welcomes.
"Hey, hey! Look who's here, we've got GUESTS!"
"Oh, act your age!" Roxanne Lupin cried out.
Everyone laughed and the young people started to go through the guests and greeted them warmly. Upon the gong the house-elves had opened the double door to the state drawing room.
"Well, everybody," Sirius' deep voice boomed over the others, "the wonderland has opened up! Enter through the door to your right please! And then please take a seat somewhere, so we can organise who bunks where."
Inside the big room they could find enough space to take seats. There were a few children that had come with their parents, none older than little Nymphadora, who was six.
Sirius took on as the one to explain where they could go and put their things to.
"Welcome to Green Mountain Castle. Since we don't think the name is very special, we've decided to set up a small urn and collect your ideas for a better name for our humble abode. Just note them on one of the slips next to the urn and drop it in. Best one will be used and gets a special gift! Not now, Dora, but don't forget your idea!"
Everyone laughed and little Dora stumbled back to her mother.
"Okay, now Dari, Remus and Peter are going to spread floor plans to you and then you can go off on the search for your rooms. They are ALL up on the third to sixth floors and above in the towers. For all the children there is one big room and two of our dear elves will take care of them, so mummy and daddy can sleep in tomorrow and on Sunday. The room has been made childproof, too. And I mean mischievous childproof."
Everyone laughed again. They all looked at their plans and decided to go and take up their overnight bags.
"Before you go... dinner is served down here two rooms further on at half past six. Before that we'll have a little drink in this room here. Give it a good half hour. That gives you all an hour to go up to your rooms and get ready!" Sirius called.
"Great!"
Lily took Harry up on her arm and led her parents and her in-laws up to her wing. The Potters had their rooms on the first floor on the south-west side of the castle. Peter and Sabina were right above them. And the other side was taken by Hope and Dari on the first, Sirius and Remus on the second floor.
"Here we are. That's our main bedroom, here's our bathroom, through which we can go to Harry's room. Then we'll have a series of rooms and another two bathrooms. We've prepared these two for you."
Lily opened a door and said:
"You just make up your mind, who takes which of the two rooms. Bathrooms are adjacent."
"Thank you so much, Lily. This is one marvellous place! I'm amazed! To think that you are living in a CASTLE!" Mrs Evans said.
"Did you tell Petunia?"
"I might have mentioned it. She blew up like a balloon... I thought she'd go through the ceiling."
Lily couldn't help snickering a little.
"Well, I leave you to it. As you can see we are already prepared. Just come down when you're ready."
The others took their parents close to them as well, while all the young people went to look for their quarters higher up. With time everyone turned up in the drawing room again. The children were still with them until after dinner, when they were taken up to their common room. The atmosphere was meant to be familiar and was cosy and the rooms filled with laughter, just like he Greens wanted it to be. Of course the party lasted into the night. When they finally walked up the stairs to go to bed, Remus came close to Sirius and put his arm around his mate's waist.
"That was brilliant. Just like there was no war..." Remus said.
"That's how it should always be, love. We have to build that plan soon."
"But not here. They don't know we've moved here yet, we should choose some other place. This is too good to let someone like Voldemort soil its floors."
"Yes, you're right about that. But I have a couple of ideas... first we need to know if Voldemort knows that you're a werewolf. If he does, he'll be sure to force something on us to take place on a full moon, and we can't let that happen!" Sirius remarked.
"That will be Snape's job... and Peter's, but Snape can actually find out actively."
"So far Voldemort only gets teased about these two very powerful young wizards, but we haven't been in many fights yet. He doesn't really know how much we can actually achieve, because he's only really been teased..." Sirius said.
"But he's afraid of us..."
"I think, he is afraid of the unknown power. If his position of being the most powerful wizard is threatened he gets very irritated..."
Remus grinned.
"We should use that to do what he does - instil some more fear. Into him! Have some more legends built around our power."
"What a great idea! We'll do that while we form our plan. I thought of luring him to a place we build as a family vacation site. We will have to drop some hints around Hogwarts, when we're there. The odd Slytherin will pick it up and certainly pass it on. Through Peter and Snape we'd find out if the bait has been swallowed. Of course we'd only drop those hints once we have everything in place."
"That's brilliant, Padfoot!"