Standard disclaimers apply!

I do not own Harry Potter. I have nothing to do with Scholastic, Warner Bros or Bloomsbury. I'm not JKR and I am certainly not making any profit out of this.

The Previous House of Black

"I can really see Harry's point about removing this wall," Hermione whispered as they stood in the dank hall of Grimmauld Place.

"Yeah, maybe," Ron agreed, narrowing his eyes in an attempt to picture it all. "There'd be a lot more light, we've just got to sort out HER."

"And 'Old Dusty' as you like to call him. It." She wrinkled her nose and took his hand as they kept forward quietly. "Do you think we'll be able to get the curtain open without waking her up?"

"Probably not," He muttered, sounding slightly sour. "Let's get some light going, if there's going to be screaming, I'd at least like to see what we're doing."

"Wait a minute," she warned, "we need to think this through."

"I don't think lights are going to wake her up, 'Mione," Ron grinned as he directed his wand down the hallway. "That's better," he whispered, leaning in to press a light kiss on her lips. "For fortitude," he grinned.

"You're a horror," she told him, suppressing a smile. "Let's get this over with."

"I'm a horror am I?" Ron chuckled. "Maybe we're approaching this from the wrong angle."

"What do you mean?" Hermione wanted to know.

"I don't know yet." They were standing before the long curtains, still whispering their conversation. "I think it's time we had a chat with the old bag."

Hermione looked weary, but nodded her agreement. "Of you go then, have at it."

"OI!" Ron yelled suddenly, making Hermione jump. "WAKE UP!"

The curtains flew open. "FILTH IN THE HOUSE OF MY FATHERS!"

"No it's not," Ron snorted rudely. "This is the house of Harry Potter."

"YOU!" Mrs Black's portrait seemed to seethe with rage. "BLOOD TRAITOR SCUM! BLIGHT ON WIZARDING KIND! MUDBLOOD! VILE CREATURES IN THE NOBLE HOUSE OF BLACK!"

"Yeah, yeah." Ron grinned and put his arm around Hermione's shoulders. "Thanks for the compliment. What's it going to take to get you off this wall?"

"NEVER! THE HOUSE OF BLACK WILL LIVE ON!" Mrs Black seemed to be trying to claw her way out of the portrait.

"Ron? What exactly are you doing?" Hermione asked, clapping her hands over her ears in a vain attempt to block out some of the ear-splitting noise.

"Having a chat with Aunty Wally," Ron winced slighty. "Oi! The House of Black is dead! The name is gone. It's the House of Potter now. How do you like that?"

"I don't think 'Aunty Wally' likes it much," Hermione muttered, sticking her fingers in her ears. "Are you actually going somewhere with this?"

"I'm not sure," Ron admitted in an undertone. "SHUT IT! Your precious House of Black is going to have a half blood, a muggle born and two blood traitors living in it."

"LIAR'S AND USURPERS! BEGONE FROM THIS PLACE!"

"Nope, not going to happen. Your time is over." Ron stepped closer to the screaming portrait. "You can come down quietly and we'll put you somewhere else in the house, if Kreacher still wants you, or we'll tear the house down brick by brick and start from the beginning. Think about it." Shutting the curtains smartly, he turned to Hermione, who was staring at him with a certain amount of amusement.

"Do you really think that'll work?"

"No idea," Ron laughed as they went into the parlour and he pulled open the curtains. "Worth a try though. Merlin this place is a shit-hole. The floor plans are on the table."

"You're right, it'll be easier if she comes down of her own accord, but I don't think we should hold our breath," Hermione bent over the table to examine the yellowed parchment. "Do you think we should get Bill to give the place a going over before we have Mr Thomas and Mr Finnegan in?"

"Probably wouldn't hurt," Ron agreed, crossing the room to stand behind her and rest a hand on the small of her back. "I'm pretty sure we got everything nasty a few years ago, but with this place ... well ... who knows?"

"Have you ... um ..." Hermione bit her lip and fell silent.

"Told Mum and Dad?" Ron supplied quietly. "No, not yet."

"You're going to have to, soon," she pointed out, "especially if we ask Bill to come and look at the place."

"I know." Ron nodded. "It's not a conversation that I'm particularly looking forward to having, but it'll be alright ... she'll still have Harry and Ginny to fuss over. Anyway," he shook his head suddenly, "No need to worry about that right now. Any idea's for our floor?"

"Yes!" Hermione leafed through the parchment to find what she wanted. "I've been thinking about a home office library sort of thing. I know there's a library down here, but I'd really like one upstairs too – not as big, obviously. These two small rooms here," she tapped on the parchment with her finger, "if Harry has no objections I'd like them connected. What do you think?"

"I think I'm not surprised at all that you'd like a home office and library," Ron needled.

"It'd be for both of us," Hermione poked in the arm as she laughed. "You'll need it too, when go into the Auror Programme."

"True," Ron conceded. "In the meantime, I was thinking about the main bedroom ..."

"Of course you were," Hermione grinned.

"Oh hush," Ron laughed.

"What about the main bedroom?"

"Well, I was looking at a pile muggle magazines that Dad's go in the shed, right, about decorating houses and stuff. One had a little room on the side of the bedroom to put clothes and things in. It was really good." It was his turn to tap his finger on the parchment. "So this is the main bedroom, but there's no window, obviously. I'd really like a window, if we can manage it."

"Ugh, I didn't even think about that," Hermione admitted, frowning at the floor plans.

"It doesn't really matter," Ron said quickly. "This place is really badly designed, heaps of smallish rooms and only a couple of big ones on each floor. I think we should take these three rooms at the back end of the house, and get rid of that wall there ... see? Then that could be our room and we'd get the clothes room too."

"Dressing room," Hermione corrected him automatically. "It's a good idea. You got all this out of a magazine?"

"Yeah," Ron grinned, "there was even this huge one that had a toilet and bubbly bath and everything, but I don't think we've got enough room for that and I don't want to cost Harry too much money."

"You're really enjoying this, aren't you?" Hermione felt a sudden rush of affection at his almost childish enthusiasm. "What we really need to do is go up and have a proper look, then you can show me exactly what you mean."

"Right, and you can explain your office library."

oOo

"Look!" Ron practically bounced across the small room and then tapped the wall in a circular pattern with his wand.

"How did you do that?" Hermione demanded, her eyes flying open in shock when the wall seemed to dissolve into nothing before them, allowing them to see into the next room.

"It's a form of dissolution charm," Ron grinned, "George figured it out a while ago. Give me a minute and I'll have some more light in here too." He stared hard at the tiny window muttering something unintelligible and swishing his wand sharply to the right.

"George again?" Hermione asked, more than slightly impressed as the window appeared to double in width and the room flooded with light.

"Yeah, Geminio fenestra lumos," Ron chuckled, "I hate to admit it, but he's bloody good at spell writing. I've learned more about charms and what-not in the last three months with him than I ever did at Hogwarts."

"You've said that before," Hermione stared at him, still slightly shocked, "but I didn't realise how much." She stepped up to the new window and touched it experimentally, surprised to feel the dusty texture of old silk wall-paper under her fingers. "It's not real."

"'Course not. If I could do this for real, we wouldn't need builders, would we?" Ron shrugged. "Its part of the spell we use for one of the day-dream charms, so it'll only last for half an hour or so. Anyway, that's not the point. If we get rid of that wall," and he pointed at the now-invisible wall, "this is a pretty good size. There's another window in there, obviously, so we can either make it onto one dirty great huge one or just leave them as they are and chuck a third one in the middle," he frowned thoughtfully, "I'd like it to be one great big one, but that depends on what Mr Finnegan says. Aaaaand the third room can be for our clothes."

"It's big enough to have an ensuite," Hermione pointed out. "No one has that many clothes."

Ron shot her a wry look. "Have you seen Fleur's cupboard? She sent me into it to find some box or other once. It looks tiny on the outside, but the inside goes for miles."

"Well, maybe Fleur does," Hermione giggled, "I mean normal people, but you don't have to tell her I said that ... I'm not sure if this is a supporting wall," Hermione added as Ron scribbled over the plans with erasable ink, "if it IS then we can just put in an arch, I've seen that done before."

"I don't think it is," Ron chewed his lip thoughtfully; "I reckon these ones with the thick lines might be though." He glanced at her curiously. "When have you seen it done before?"

Hermione smiled softly. "Mum had a liking of renovation TV shows. Her favourite was one where they only had a few days to get it all done."

"There are renovation TV shows?" Ron's eyes brightened. "Brilliant!" Studying the old floor plan again, he went on, "I don't think this is a supporting wall – the line's a bit thinner, see? I don't know though."

"Well, we've got options," Hermione nodded firmly.

"Exactly." Ron agreed. "Now, what about the office library thing?"

"These two here," Hermione led the way back down the hall and pushed open one of the doors. "What's the spell?"

"Dissultio barius," Ron said promptly. "Once for every tap, starting with north and going around the compass anti-clockwise. You've got to include the middle ones too, like north-west and south west and that."

"Dissultio barius," Hermione repeated, "and if only the main points of the compass are used?"

"Dunno," Ron shrugged, "never tried. Do it and see what happens – you might get an arch out of it or something."

"It needs some fine tuning," Hermione said as they stood back to admire the circle she had made in the middle of the wall. She tapped on the south-east and south-west points, but nothing happened.

"Won't work," Ron told her, "you need to finite it and start again."

"Right."

Within moments they were facing a perfectly formed arch, which gave them a view into the next room.

"That looks quite good," said Ron.

"It does, doesn't it?" Hermione smiled. "That side could be the library and this side could be the office – we'd want the fireplace in the office."

"Oh yeah," Ron agreed. "Which reminds me of something George said! How many do we want on the floo network? You know its 15 Galleons a year just for one, but it gets a little bit less for each extra. I think he said it was 25 for two and 30 for 3. Um ... any more than that are 2 galleons extra."

"At the moment it's just the one in the kitchen connected, isn't it?" Hermione frowned. When Ron nodded, she continued on. "Have a talk to Harry about it, but I think we'd be better off having the main floo in the parlour, don't you? I must admit that I don't know a great deal about how the floo network works, but if we've still got all of the protection and such over the house, and it's unplottable, isn't that negated by the fact that we're on the floo network?"

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" Ron dug into his pockets. "Have you got any parchment with you? I need to write myself a note or I'll forget to find out."

"Put it on the plans," Hermione advised, "then you won't have to worry about losing it."

"Good idea," Ron chuckled. "So ... uh ... any other ideas?"

"Hmm, not really. This one here," Hermione pointed to a long room on the plan. "Family room?"

"Definitely, and leave the bathroom alone obviously – we don't know any muggle pumbles, do we?"

"Plumbers. Not that I'm aware of," Hermione admitted. "Its fine where it is, anyway, and I'll admit I really like the look of the deep tub ... it just needs new minor fittings, and a coat of paint." She shot him a cheeky look. "Maybe that's a little project you could do for yourself."

"Minor fittings?"

"Handles, spouts and that kind of thing," Hermione clarified.

Ron rubbed his hands together and looked excited. "I could do that! I could get Dad to help! He'd love it!"

"I'm sure he would," Hermione agreed, laughing, "You're going to need washers and O rings and all sorts of other muggle things. Now, we haven't talked about the front end yet. There are three rooms there, what are we going to do with them?" She didn't bother to hide her grin at his sudden blushing.

"Well, I suppose those are for the ... uh ... for the kids."

"So we paint them out and leave them be for the moment? That works for me." She looked at him curiously, wondering what was making him gaze at her in such a searching way. "What?"

"So we're really doing this then?" He asked in a quiet voice.

"Yes," she took the parchment and quill from his hands, set them on the mantle-piece of the fireplace and wrapped her arms around his waist. "Yes, we are really doing this."

"Wow."

She couldn't see his face, because he was holding her tightly and had her head tucked under his chin; but she could feel his breathing and the light kiss he pressed into her crown. "Love you, 'Mione."

"Love you too, Ron." She sighed happily, and then giggled when he next spoke.

"So I've been really good," his voice was slightly gravely, "and kept my parts to myself while we've been doing this."

"Hmmmm." She nodded slowly.

"Have we talked about it enough yet?" He asked, sliding his hands down her back to rest on her bum. "Or is there anything else?"

"Now Ron," she made her voice stern, "you know I said one hour for business and one hour for pleasure ..." her fingers were toying with the bottom of his jumper, "but I think my future handy-man deserves an early minute."

"Handy-man?" A low chuckle rumbled through him. "I'll show you handy ...