The Manor buzzed with activity and sounds. Master's son Dreogan had returned not three days past and it had been a whirlwind.
"Gone through the rooms?" Dreogan asked, inspecting another room in the Manor.
"Yes, Master", A female House-Elf named Beeny with sparse, long strands of white hair, thick, abnormally lush-red painted lips and huge, amber eyes. She wore the usual grey, House-elf single-garment.
"Removed any and all enchanted, dangerous and illegal items the raids might have missed?" He ignored her resentful face.
"Yes, Master. Why not ask Averill, sir?" She tried her luck.
"Because he is my father's personal servant and answerable only to him. I can't trust him", Dreogan ended the matter, she dared not ask directly "why not ask someone else do these things?".
"You…you trust me, sir?" she asked, very surprised.
"I mistrust you less. You answer to me," he replied. "Where did you place all the items the Ministerial raids missed?"
"In the cellar's secret crypt, sir."
"The cellar has a secret crypt? Show me", he demanded.
"I can't, sir…Av…" He interrupted her.
"Averill's orders, I know."
"I'm sorry, sir", She started banging her head against a wall.
"Don't be, it's not your fault, and stop that, please", Years of servitude and slavery to humans had left the House-Elves not only completely obedient but in a state where if they were unable to fulfill an order, they would commit self-harm.
"Everything in the kitchen okay? Fully stoked?" He inspected the bathroom.
"We have enough food to feed an army, are we going to, sir?" Her eyes betrayed what she hoped he'd answer.
"We'll be feeding something positively worse!" He could not hide a grin. "Kids my age and younger along with their families."
"Oooh, I do not think Averill is going to like this, much", she said, closing the lights, after him, with a snap of her fingers.
"Oh, I know", The grin turned evil.
Dreogan continued the Manor's inspection and the questions at Beeny.
"How will the guests arrive, sir? Floo network? Apparition? Shall I clean the fireplaces better?" she asked.
"I imagine they'll take the M11. Have the house and rooms been cleaned?" She looked at him weird.
"Daily, sir", she replied, feeling insulted at the mere implication of the rooms, her charge for eighty years straight, being unclean.
"Sorry, just stressed", He turned into the green-tapestry corridor containing the various family emblems married into the Gaunts over the centuries.
"How many guests are we expecting, sir?"
He entered his room. A spacious, mostly empty place, with no toys, a bed, desk, and several shelves and a wardrobe. All of them in various shades of green and black.
"I don't know…These are certain. Claudia with her parents, Emerick with his younger sister and parents, Charles of course with his two younger brothers and parents and I told them all. Bring anyone you want, I have room", He smiled wide.
Beeny stumbled, nearly tripping over. "Oh, Averill will not like it, at all."
"I don't begin to care. There's more Aurors patrolling the grounds than there are in the Ministry. Cillian or his offspring won't be coming. I bet you Aurors placed an anti-apparition jinx around the house as well", Dreogan replied, sternly.
"No, no Averill won't like this at all!" Beeny kept chanting the same line.
Grabbing a sweater, he exited the room, heading to the stairs leading to the Manor's main floor, downstairs.
"Where is he, Averill!" Dreogan shouted.
"Yes, Master's son?" he said appearing in front of him, voice dripping with disgust.
"My friends are coming, they'll be staying for eleven days. I expect you and the others to afford them every courtesy and respect a guest of this house deserves. Even if all of them are either Muggles or Muggle-borns. Am I crystal clear?" he demanded of the House-Elf.
Both House Elves choked.
"Muggles! In this household!" Averill near screamed.
"Am I clear?" Dreogan pressed on. "I am every bit my father's son if and when I so desire to be, yes?" His lips deformed in a grimace of seething anger, brows furrowed together pressing down, eyes contracted.
"Preposterous…" Averill mumbled to himself.
"I will not ask again, I am also Azrail's half-brother. You and I share his torments. Only I have also learned some of his creations, yes?" If looks could kill, Dreogan's would have. He hated having to speak like this.
"Y-yes Master's son", Averill said reluctantly, leaving.
"What! That actually worked? I must bluff more often!" he exclaimed.
"They should be here any moment now!" He beamed, looking at his wrist-watch. He run downstairs, his feet making muffled noises on the velvet-wrapped wooden stairs.
"Candles! Why are the candles not burning!" he asked Beeny.
Beeny smacked the fingers of her left hand, and the candles flared up.
"Make sure they burn every night from sunset on. And I want some… THEY'RE HERE!" he yelled, unable to contain his excitement as sounds of cars pulling up the driveway came from outside.
"Their cars don't fly? How do they move?" Beeny, scratched her near-bold head.
"Electricity, "with auto-road rechargeable batteries" -he mimicked Charles' voice- and Galileo 2.0 sat nav doesn't hurt either", He opened the main entrance, African ebony wood, door.
"Gali-what?" Beeny felt lost, even more than usual.
"Nevermind!" He run outside. Three large SUV's had parked, turning off their engines.
Charles jumped out of the first one, a big red one, followed by his two brothers.
Bumping knuckles, he hugged each of the Blake boys, starting with Charles.
"You live here?" Charles low-whistled, his jaw hanging, eyes bulging.
"Yeah, me, the house-elves and…the past. But now you all are here!" Dreogan grinned wide.
"This place is huge!" Alfred jumped up and down, his mind racing on all the exploring that would of course occur. Every nook and cranny would have to be searched thoroughly.
"Oh my god!" William joined his brother in jumping up and down. "Let's go exploring!"
"William…oh what's the point…" Helen gave up, the two boys already having gone inside the Manor's interior.
"They're safe…so long as they don't find the secret crypt in the cellar…which even I don't know where it is!" Dreogan remarked.
"How well is it locked? These imps can get to everything", Helen wasn't being funny.
"Oh, I wouldn't worry…yet, they haven't gone to Hogwarts. Emerick!" His friend pulling out of the second, silver SUV caught his attention. Now it was he and Charles who jumped up and down, heading over.
"Saved by the friend", Peter Blake chuckled, exiting the vehicle.
Bumping fists with Emerick he looked around in the car. "Where's your sister?"
"Oh, she's coming with my cousins, she was visiting, she and Yoshi, my youngest cousin are same age, so they hang around a lot."
Then Claudia came out of the third, blue SUV with the transparent glass roof, while another car was coming up the road, in the near distance.
"You are all here!" Dreogan was beside himself with joy.
Emerick grinned, himself. "Yeah, and we brought family! Lots of 'em!"
"Uh oh…that sounds ominous!" Dreogan joked.
"Good, I hope you have room in that lil' house of yours", Claudia smirked.
"Fifty rooms okay?"
"Fifty!" A younger girl, behind Emerick exclaimed. "I want to live here!" She had Claudia's long, black hair, with green eyes and freckles on her cheeks.
"Aaaaand that's my lil' cousin on my dad's side, Joy", The little girl, no older than seven, poked her tongue at her. "Say hello to Joy. And I hope between her and William and Alfred, you have the contents of the house insured."
Dreogan laughed. "Averill is going to have a stroke. No worries. Pleased to meet you, Joy. You can call me Dreogan…just call me Dreogan", He smiled at her.
"Joy Mayweather pleased to meet you. I like your name! Just-call-me-Dreogan!" She giggled.
"Yep, that's my cousin", Claudia scoffed.
"Claudia sounds like cloudy!" Joy giggled.
"How old is she?" Dreogan snorted.
"I'm right here ya know! I'm seven", Joy pressed her hands on her waist, pouting.
"And these are mah parents! Mummy and daddy!" She grinned.
"My sister Lucy and her husband, Jeremy", Claudia's father introduced them.
Joy, unable to restraint herself from exploring the Manor, hugged him tight, before running inside, in her navy-blue, knee-high skirt, apple-green tee shirt and riboned sandals.
"There she bloooooooows!" Emerick commented, laughing.
"She's certainly a handful!" Dreogan chuckled.
"I love her to bits, but she can drive me insane!" Claudia exasperated.
"Pleased to…make your acquaintance, Dreogan. Anyone else that will be spending Christmas with us in your house? In the Gaunt Manor?" Joy's mother asked.
Dreogan knew who she meant. "No one on my side. I have no one."
"It's chilly out here, shall we go in?" Jeremy passed his hand around his wife's waist.
"Anyone else coming on your end?" He looked at the three pairs of parents around him.
"Yeah, my cousin and his family and our grandparents, you did say bring family", Emerick said.
"And granny and grumps", Charles said.
Dreogan rubbed his hands together, grinning wide. "Averill's gonna have cascading heart attacks."
"They'll be arriving tomorrow evening", Emerick said.
"This is going to be amazeballs!" Dreogan and Charles exclaimed simultaneously.
They were almost inside when they heard a car coming up the driveway. "Oh, this should be grumps. Looks like he found the exit…eventually", Charles said turning around.
Some ten minutes later a yellow sports car pulled up, behind the other SUVs.
"You can't trust these machines, Mary", A man around his seventies, tall with a pointed, silver beard and kind brown eyes said, the light breeze waving his fluffy-looking silver hued brown hair.
"Well, if you had taken the exit as that machine said you should have, we wouldn't have reached Ely. Now, we're late", A plump woman with long dark blond hair and a round face with green eyes and long arms and legs replied, coming out of the passenger's seat in the front. She looked to be slightly younger than the man.
"Ely is wonderful this time of year", the man said, shrugging his shoulders.
"Men…insufferable…" Mary sighed.
"I know right", Claudia bantered.
"Oh, you must be Claudia. I like you already", Mary said.
"They're not really fighting, it's their thing, they like grumping. Dreogan, meet my oldies! Mary and Edward!" Charles chuckled, hugging his granny and grumps.
"Let me guess, they are already turning the place inside out?" Edward turned his face to Helen.
"Indubitably", his daughter said with a look of resigned despair, before smiling and hugging him.
"Hello, I'm…" Dreogan tried introducing himself.
"Dreogan. Yeah, we might have been told a thing or two about you", Edward laughed. "Nice to finally meet you", They shook hands.
"Charles looks a lot like you, sir", Dreogan smiled.
"Poor lad, at least he got his mother's and father's smarts", Edward replied, making Charles go "Heeeyyyy!"
"Well, it's not your fault you forgot to stop growing up", Charles teased his grumps.
"You, cheeky bugger! Come 'ere!" Edward grabbed hold of him, tickling his ribs.
Charles squirmed and kept his mouth closed, trying very much in vain not to laugh.
"Stahp!" He laughed, trying to stop the tickling.
Passing a hand over Charles' shoulders, they walked in the house.
"Uhm…there's no light switches", Edward scratched his beard. "How do you turn the lights on and off around here?"
"Lumos", Dreogan said, and the lights came on in the main living and dining room. "Nox turns them off. I think even Mu…even non-magical folk should be able to make it work, it's more voice activated magic than magic-required-magic…kinda."
"Lumos, Nox, Lumos, Nox, Lumos", Edward tested the newfound toy. "Well, cool."
"Beeny where's Averill and the others?" Dreogan turned to the House-Elf to his right, standing quietly in the corner, trying to make herself as invisible as possible.
Averill apparated in front of him, looking grim. The other house elves apparated behind Averill.
Dreogan hid a smile. "You all know what you must do, for the next ten or so days. Averill, there's a small change to your duties. You are going to be personally responsible for William, Alfred and Joy, during their stay here. Everything and anything they need, so that their parents can rest", Dreogan managed to say with a straight face.
Charles, Claudia and Emerick snorted so hard that saliva came out of their noses.
Dreogan ignored Averill's shocked face of despair and sheer agony. "Let me show you to your rooms, don't worry about your luggage, it will be taken there", he told his guests.
He walked them upstairs.
"This place is effing huge!" Emerick said, looking around the corridors and rooms as they walked them by.
"I've re-arranged my room, so us three can sleep in there", Dreogan said.
"Hey! What about me!" Claudia cried.
"Uhm…I thought…you know…uhmm…" Dreogan felt lost for words.
"You're right, he's easy to tease", Claudia's mother told her daughter, both laughing.
"Very, but he's cute when he pouts after". Claudia smiled, mischievously.
"Excuse me! I don't pout!" Dreogan protested, making everyone laugh except him.
"I don't pout!" He insisted.
"There, see? Cute", Claudia laughed while Dreogan huffed and sighed.
"Well, I guess I've been called worse, but cute?" Claudia shrugged with a curved smirk.
"What about Azrail's room?" Helen asked, afraid she or her kids would accidentally access it.
Dreogan's face darkened. "The twins' and my father's bedrooms are magically locked; father's study is also similarly inaccessible and not even I have access to it."
He could tell the adults breathed out a -not so- silent sigh of relief.
Half an hour later they were all settled in their rooms.
"It's funny, showing my family how things work in a magical household", Charles chuckled.
"Just as it was showing me how stuff worked in your home, in the first summer. Aren't your dad's parents coming?" Dreogan smiled, remembering.
"They're in New Zealand for three weeks. Second honeymoon or something."
"Oh, cool!"
Dreogan walked them around the grounds and to the nearby muggle village before dinner.
"This place is…amazing!" Alfred run around the fields and forest, running forth then circling back to the group, with Joy and William.
"It is big yeah, one can get lost in the forest for hours, looking at all the flowers during spring", Dreogan told the boy.
Dreogan had never before visited the Muggle Village. Seeing it with all the various Christmas decorations on the stores and the houses and the bustling streets, people going every which way, with their pets, kids and holding various sized shopping bags, was a new experience for him.
"What's a hardware store?" He asked looking at Charles.
"Place where you buy supplies to fix stuff broken in the house", Edward explained, keeping it simple. "How do you fix things in your house?"
"Uhh…we get creative with spells and potions?" Dreogan replied.
"Right, here we use sonic screwdrivers and gyro-hammers…and stuff."
"Cool!"
Charles chuckled.
They walked for an hour more before returning to the Manor, to get cleaned up for dinner.
Dreogan showered, dressed in his favourite casual robes of teal and yellow. A piece of garment Claudia found appalling, of course, but one that Dreogan loved.
"It is so refreshing not having to shower and run after the boys for a change, can we not have a House Elf as well? I promise we'll treat it properly like an employee!" Helen begged.
"Uh…sorry, I don't think muggles can have such nice things", Charles teased his mother.
"Typical…humph", Peter chuckled, sitting to her right on the long, rectangular dining table made from fine dark brown, polished wood.
When everyone sat, Peter stood. "I wanted to thank Dreogan for having us in his…house? Yes, let us call it that, the mind boggles what it really is", he said raising his glass which suddenly filled with red wine.
They, all, exclaimed 'hear hear' raising their glasses, which filled with either orange juice or red wine, according to the age of the holder.
"Not to be grumpy – Charles snorted- but how…where is the food? Where's the little creatures?" Edward ignored his grandson.
"Ah, I'm glad you asked", Dreogan hid a smirk. "This is how we fix stuff around here", He grabbed his glass and smashed it up against the hard surface of the table. "Reparo!" he said with his wand pointed at the various shards. It was as if he had reversed time, as the glass' shards made a motion as if rewinding, re-attaching to the shape the glass had before being broken, then finally the various tears and breaks disappeared as if made of liquid.
"Well, cool!" Edward exclaimed.
Dreogan slapped his hands together, in front of his face and the table filled with platters full of hors' d oeuvres, food, toppings, and sauces.
"And this is a-every-day-sort-of-food", Dreogan grinned wide. "Christmas day dinner is going to be a tad more…majestic", Dreogan dug in to the beef roast with gravy in front of him.
"Who looks after you, now that…" Claudia's father begun saying but his voice trailed. They had almost finished eating, everyone feeling quite full and content.
"Well, Averill has…instructions from Cillian. And that is pretty much it. Which makes it interesting because although he is supposed to be my "governess" while dad and the twins are away waging his megalomania, he is also a House-Elf bound to serving my family. Dad and I indirectly, which has created this…game of cat and mouse between us where either I give him an order and he obeys it or finds out how he can disobey it because it violates one of my father's instructions. Or visa versa he orders me around and I obey or try to find creative ways to countermand his order without him being able to boomerang it on me", Dreogan grinned.
"The cheek is built-in, I see", Robert, Claudia's father chuckled.
"I do have nice cheeks, thanks", Claudia snorted.
Robert laughed, his bent nose flaring, and his semi-bald black-haired head tilting back. His overweight belly jiggled up and down, slightly.
"Must get lonely in this large house", Helen said.
Dreogan shrugged. "Sometimes, but honestly I prefer it to Cillian or the twins being here. My thoughts don't, usually, hurt me."
"Alone? In a large house? Who would want that!" Charles remarked making Dreogan and Emerick laugh.
"Mum?" Alfred and William voiced at the same time.
"No", Helen replied, as if able to read their thoughts.
"Whaaaa?" William said, with a high-pitched voice.
"No, you can't stay here", Helen rolled her eyes.
"Awwww", Alfred puppy eyed her.
"Why not?" William asked, propping his head on his hands.
"Have you two ever seen a secret passage with suits of armour and swords?" Dreogan asked them.
Their heads snapped at him, like a chicken's would snap at a tasty worm. Their eyes bulging at the information.
"Secret passage? Armour? Swords?" Alfred asked, his voice becoming increasingly more excited. "Show us!" both boys said simultaneously.
Dreogan smirked. "Follow me", he told them, standing up.
Charles and Emerick looked at each other, shrugged and followed them.
"What is it about boys and swords? Oh, what the heck, wait up!" Claudia said going after them.
Joy of course had left with the two boys and Dreogan, looking quite infatuated with William.
"Boys and swords? Clever girl she might be, but she's too young to realize it's boys and -their- dicks", Helen said under her breath, yet loud enough for the adults left behind on the dining room to hear her.
Peter chocked on his red wine.
"Alright there, dear?" she asked giving him a hedonistic smirk. Everyone laughed, before returning to the ever-filling glasses of wine.
Next evening Emerick's cousins with his little sister arrived. Unlike Joy, Catherine was more timid, hiding behind her mother, when all the strange faces came out of the Manor's main entrance.
Yoshi was the introvert of the Yang family, while Angel was outgoing and explorative.
Alfred and William took Yoshi under their wing, helping to pull him out of his shell while Joy connected with Catherine playing tea party with various tea kettles and cups they found searching in the cupboards. Their fun magnified all the more as the tea pots would fill with tea on their own, endlessly. Much to the despair of Averill and the other House-Elves.
Dreogan did not care if every tea pot and cup in the Manor broke.
Averill on the other hand cared deeply, for the fate of the contents of the Manor and with five young kids and five teens his work was cut out for him. His day started and ended running after the five young kids and their antics while using his ability to apparate to spy on the teenagers and prevent or repair destruction of items.
On Christmas morning they presented Dreogan with gifts they had bought in the village, when he wasn't looking.
Charles gifted him a framed picture of the four of them, while Claudia gave him a silk scarf and Emerick a notepad of fine parchment.
He was even more surprised to receive gifts from the adults.
In turn, after thanking them all profusely, he gave Charles a broom as a gift, one of the many which Azrail had gotten as gifts, and soon after abandoned. Charles was ecstatic. Claudia received a necklace from a recycled minerals shop Dreogan had found in the Village and then proceeded to shaping the minerals and materials into shape, in the Manor. The silver chain connected to a cyan tear drop inside a glass sphere, allowing light to cast multi coloured refractive plays on it. Emerick got a quill with Augurey feather and a spiral tip.
Christmas day lunch was way more than a tad more majestic, having them eat so much the adults ate nothing the next day but coffee, tea or water and the minors, preteens and teens alike ate so little their parents wondered if they were feeling okay.
"So. Much. Food…" Alfred and William groaned, lying like lions on the sofa, holding their bellies, moving only to go to the toilet and back, for a day.
The main course comprised of turkey and goose, each big enough to feed a small army, along with potatoes, jacket and fried, gravy, vegetables and corn. Various soups and starters had preceded them. The lunch ended with a ginormous pudding that, of course, boys and girls alike decimated.
For the first and last time, Dreogan had been sad to leave the Manor, when time came for them to return to Hogwarts and they had been driven to King's Cross and platform nine and three quarters, at least the ones that were going back to Hogwarts.
Eight hours train drive passed in the blink of an eye as the four friends sat in their compartment, discussed, and joked, buying stuff from the trolley cart and joshing around as kids do.
11