Chapter 27: Lionfire Hall
A phoenix appeared high above the village of Godric's Hollow. Since it was dark, no one really noticed anything out of the ordinary. He flew above the village for a while, joined shortly afterwards by another phoenix. After half an hour of flying, the two birds dropped out of the sky and landed in a thicket of trees and transformed back into Harry and Ginny Potter. They took a couple of steps and then stopped and stared straight ahead. What they saw, which no muggle could see, was Lionfire Hall, or better known as Potter Manor. The ancestral home of the Potter family since Godric Gryffindor first had the home built.
As the Potters walked up towards the gates, the two large Lion statues that stood upon pedestals on either side of the gate sprang to life and began to pace in front of the gates and growled. Harry simply raised his right hand and the two lions returned to their pedestals and their statue forms. Once the lions were back as statues, the gates opened and Harry Potter took his wife's hand began to walk towards the house. As they continued to walk towards the mansion, they saw many different forms of wildlife: Lions, tigers, bears, hippogriffs, griffins, unicorns, panthers, deer, wolves, and many other small, medium and large creatures.
As they approached the manor doors, they swung open and exposed a very well lit entry hall. Inside were six house elves, each one wore clothing with the Gryffindor/Potter crest on them.
"Lord Gryffindor, my name is Brent, I is the head house elf and chief butler for Lionfire Hall. May I present my wife Brianna, who runs the kitchens, our sons Jama and Rama, who handle the stables and the grounds. Then we have Tana and Anga our daughter whom help with the Mansion. We is telling that you is not feeling well, so I will show you to you suite. Please follow me Master and Mistress."
With that, Brent took off up the main staircase and towards the master suite. Once there, Ginny excused Brent and then stripped Harry down to his boxers and put him to bed. Ginny followed a few minutes later. Neither one of them noticed the portrait of Godric Gryffindor above the fireplace walk out of his portrait and into his portrait in the Headmaster's Office at Hogwarts where he told Albus that they were sound asleep.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Harry awoke the next morning feeling terrible. He had dreamt about the girls who they found at Malfoy Manor. In his dream, the girls were zombies like what Harry had watched in a movie once. As he looked around the room he tried to figure out where exactly he was. He knew it was not Hogwarts nor was it Potter's Penthouse, but it looked somewhat familiar. As Harry began to get out of bed, he noticed that his wife's clothing was on the floor, but she was no where to be found. He looked around and found what looked like the loo where he found he wife enjoying a rather hot bath. Suddenly feeing like he was filthy, he stripped off his boxers and joined his wife in the tub.
After what felt like hours, Harry and Ginny talked about the day before and about the dreams that Harry had. "I still can't believe Lucius was that evil. I mean some of those girls were younger then I am." Harry only nodded, thinking long and hard about the images. He was interrupted from his thoughts by the appearance of Anga.
"Pardon the intrusion Master and Mistress Potter, but is been sent in to tell you that Mr. Dumbledore and Mrs. Dumbledore are at the gate, requesting permission to enter."
This brought Harry and Ginny to full attention. "Anga, please escort them in and take them to…Harry, do you have any idea…oh never mind…Anga, please take them to wherever we eat breakfast. And please let Brent know that we would like the six of you join us for breakfast. We'll be down in a few minutes."
With a quick bow, Anga disappeared. After drying off and dressing in some robes that were in the wardrobe, the Potters headed down to meet with the Dumbledores.
When Ginny walked into the kitchen, she saw Albus and Minerva were already seated and drinking coffee. Ginny did notice that Albus also had a glass of some sort of liquid that fizzed.
Harry paid no notice to this and greeted his guests, "Albus, Minerva, how are you doing this morning?"
Minerva smiled, "Very well Harry, thank you. We wanted to come by and check on you and Ginny this morning. You left last night in a hurry." Harry held out Ginny's chair and then pushed it in for her, then sat down at the head of the table.
"Yes, it was rather gruesome. I really had no idea where I wanted to go, so I just flamed away and wound up being in the skies over Godric's Hollow. Ginny joined me and soon we landed here at Lionfire Hall. After a good night's sleep, I am almost back to normal."
Albus eyes sparkled brightly again at this news.
"That is very good Harry. I am glad to see that you are doing well. However, the main reason we are here is see what has changed since Charles and Liz lived here."
Breakfast continued on with pleasant small talk between the wizards and the elves. After breakfast, Brent played tour guide and took the group on a tour of the estate.
"Lionfire Hall is the name of the ancestral manor itself. The rest of estate is simply called 'The Estate'. The entire estate consists of the main manor house, two sets of stables, two barns, workshop, boat house, 20 acres of open grass land, over 300 acres of farm land, and almost three quarters of a mile of forests. We also have a rather large lake completely stocked with many different muggle and magical water faring creatures.
As you know we also have many different forms of land dwelling and air borne animals." Harry was impressed with estate. It was huge, but Harry had no idea where the money came from to pay for all of this. Also, this much work for six little elves seemed cruel, Harry needed to fix that.
"Brent, with this much stuff to do, why don't I hire you some help? And while we are at it, where does the money come from to buy things?"
Brent smiled slightly, "Lord Potter, we is a fully sufficient estate here. All of the employees, which not only include us elves, but fifteen other creatures including veela, vampires, and a couple of werewolves live here on the property. Many of them live on the far side of the meadows in the out lying buildings. The wards on the property, which was recently renewed by the goblins, allow us to leave whenever we wish. We is been selling things in the local market for many years and no one is any wiser. We have our more human looking employees handle the selling and buying of goods and services. However, Griphook is very good to us and makes regular stops to check on us."
Harry was surprised that so many people were working for them on the grounds. He just assumed that the elves were the only people who worked for him. Ginny, who was just as surprised as Harry, decided that she wanted a few changes to be made around the property.
"Brent, Harry and I wish for you officially became the General Manager of the entire Lionfire Hall and Estates. Now are you all paid?" Brent simply nodded, unable to speak due to the fact that he was shocked that Lord and Lady Gryffindor had given a lowly elf this position.
At this point Harry took over, "Excellent Brent, now everyone will receive a hefty pay increase and I want all the employee's residences to be cleaned and remodeled. Now you will be responsible for everything that happens here, that includes the health and safety of everyone here. I'll have a squadron of goblins stationed here by tomorrow to guarantee the safety of everyone and everything here. Now, once a month, I think on the first of the month, I am going to hold a meeting, whether it will be here, Hogwarts, Gringotts, or anther location; at that meeting you will present me with a monthly report.
"This report will detail everything I need to know about the profit and loss. I'll have Griphook train you on what I need. Do you agree to these terms?"
"I, Brent, chief house elf of Lionfire Hall, accept this challenge and this responsibility." With that done, the four wizards excused themselves and apparated to Diagon Alley; Albus and Minerva headed for Flourish and Blots while Harry and Ginny headed for Gringotts and began to setup the board of directors.