After a night on the highest tower, my mind had mostly sorted itself out. I climbed down the tower to take a little walk as I considered things one last time.
I'm a Lord. I'm a Lord in a world full of magic that I can barely make heads or tails of.
There's a bag in my robe that contains over nineteen hundred gold coins, a butt-ton of paperwork, little magic travel doodads, and a set of keys that belongs in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
There's a house, or a manor, or a shack, out there with my name on it. Lord Karnak.
Harry, my ward, who I had sworn to protect with my life, was expected to die in order to destroy Voldemort, and he had absolutely no idea of this.
I was going to have to tell Harry about the horrid destiny Dumbledore had in mind for him.
Well fuck me with a horseshoe!
My head was full of a thousand things when I went in for breakfast.
-**HPDEB**-
Hermione was worried. Frank hadn't been at dinner, and he wasn't in his room the night before. No one had heard anything from him, or even seen him since the middle of the afternoon at the Gryffindor Quidditch practice.
"Did he go somewhere, d'you think?" Ron asked, showing a surprising amount of concern. "Not like him at all to miss breakfast. He's said plenty that he needs his morning coffee to function."
Harry shook his head. "He never said anything to me. I'm sure he's about, somewhere. If anything, he takes his job seriously."
"I'm worried," Hermione admitted.
The front doors of the school swung open just as the Golden Trio made it to the doors of the Great Hall. They stopped dead in their tracks to see who was coming in at such an early hour.
Harry and Hermione let out sighs of relief when it was Frank who came inside.
Ron, on the other hand, pointed at him and said, "Oi! You've got frost on you! Where did you sleep last night?"
Frank looked down at his arms and legs and made a "Hm" noise. "Outside, Ron. I needed a little quiet time."
"Well, don't stand there then! Breakfast!" Ron walked over and pulled Frank along by the arm.
The other students were a little surprised that Weasley would have the stones to do such a thing, but their observations were interrupted by their rumbling stomachs.
-**HPDEB**-
I was drinking my coffee, drying off, and keeping my own council when Hermione asked where I'd been last night.
"Doing a lot of thinking." An understatement.
"Well, if you're going to do that, would you please say something." She didn't bother to lower her voice. I was going to be chewed out like a normal person. "Do you know how worried Harry was, not knowing where you'd gone? Ron was beside himself as well!"
Ron looked at me and shrugged. Hermione was making liberal use of exaggerations.
"Ginny was worried you'd gone back to where you came from!"
Ginny looked at us like that was the first she'd heard about her feelings.
"Lavender was angry you didn't say goodbye, and Parvati didn't sleep well!"
Both of them wore placid, if slightly worried, expressions on their faces. They didn't disagree with Hermione, they simply said nothing in hopes that the madness would pass soon.
"And you were the most worried of them all, Curly." I looked right into her eyes. She fumed, and promptly turned her attention to her eggs and toast.
That's when I announced that I was planning to go have a look at my new manor, as Lord Karnak.
Dear God, but Hermione was miffed when she heard that!
Breakfast became even more tense. She glared at me, which is hard when the glaree is sitting right beside you.
"Hermione, give Frank a break. He's got to go look at his new house sometime." Ron said through a mouthful of croissant. "He may as well go when we're all in class."
"Be quiet, Ronald. You don't know what you're talking about."
"He's got a point, Hermione," Harry commented from his place on my left.
Ginny nodded. Lavender snuggled closer to Ron. Dean shrugged. Neville stuffed grilled tomatoes into his maw. Seamus snickered. Only Parvati had the nerve to comment.
"I believe someone will have some apologizing to do when he returns from the house. Isn't that right Lord Karnak?" she snarked.
"Hey, I'm just scouting the place, not planning on moving in." I told her before tucking into the eggs on my plate.
-**HPDEB**-
Dumbledore felt him fall along beside as he walked towards the Gargoyle Hallway. For a moment, it was though Death had touched him with icy fingers, he shivered so. Why Frank was walking with him, he had no idea, but he imagined that it couldn't be good at all.
"I need something from your office, if you don't mind."
"It isn't my life, is it?" Dumbledore asked under his breath.
"No, just something from my bag."
"Whatever for?"
"I'm going to look over the Karnak house today. I feel the need for a little excursion to clear my head."
They reached the Gargoyle, who graciously allowed them up the stairs.
"Is Hagrid going with you?" asked Dumbledore.
"No," Frank said, following him into the office, "I'm going alone."
"Ah, I suppose you'll need a portkey to return."
"Right, I was about to leave home without a return train ticket, wasn't I?"
The professor nodded, and reached into his desk drawer for a convenient portkey. He rolled it across the desk to Frank, who caught it effortlessly. A moment later, Dumbledore made a complicated gesture with his wand, and Frank's black shoulder bag appeared on the desk.
"Thank you," Frank said, and unzipped the bag.
Dumbledore watched him retrieve something that looked as if it might be a gun of some kind, but more boxy and rectangular than the revolvers he'd seen in the past. Frank seemed to squeeze the handle, and a long box popped out of it. There were bullets stacked in the box; the item was most certainly a gun.
"Are you concerned that there will be trouble at the house?"
Frank reached into his bag, pulled out another bullet-filled rectangle and shoved it into the handle of his gun.
"Let's just say I'd rather be prepared than not," he answered.
"If I may," the headmaster said, "there could be as many as four house elves. I do not know the size of the former Lord Karnak's estate, but I can almost guarantee that there will be two, one of whom would have been his personal valet."
Frank nodded, still cold and quite unfriendly. "I appreciate the advice and the portkey. I'm sure I'll see you when I get back."
"No doubt. Enjoy your exploration."
Frank nodded and left.
Albus Dumbledore had never before been so grateful to close his office door, sit in his chair, and breathe. Sometimes death was too real and too nearby.
-**HPDEB**-
Hermione was less than pleased when Frank brought up the topic of leaving for the day. He'd disappeared last night without so much as a note, and now he planned to be gone all day today as well. On top of that, she'd hoped to go with him when he decided to inspect the fringe benefits of his new Lordship.
From a purely practical, and logical standpoint, the longer they were involved, the more likely it was that she would spend time there. If she spent time there, it would be useful to know where the loos, exits and other features were located.
Her hedonistic side, on the other hand, knew she was lying. She wanted to be wherever he was, and share what he was doing. Then there was the carnal aspect…
She shook her head to clear it. She mustn't let her desires cloud her mind to her anger and concern. Something had to have upset him deeply to just sleep outside in the cold. While she didn't rate herself particularly highly, she was positive that a warm bed and a willing partner must be preferable to the frozen ground outside.
It must have been his meeting with the Headmaster that so upset him. What had he talked about with Professor Dumbledore that made him angry? Perhaps they'd conversed on topics nearer to Frank's past than they had before. She knew his life story upset him deeply, with all the killing and death.
There were times when she felt as though he and Harry had too much in common. Frank's family. Harry's family. Creeping evil that had claws in both men.
For Frank, she believed, loyalty to Harry was an attempt at redemption. Her own love for Harry was intense and loyal, too. It was good to have a comrade in the fight to keep Harry Potter safe, whatever his reasons for becoming a part of the team.
It was good to have a comrade in bed, too. And she was back to the carnal desires. And so her thoughts went, flitting about from topic to topic, analyzing various aspects of their relationship (could one even call it that), and considering various events that had occurred since he'd come into her life.
-**HPDEB**-
After I walked down to Hogsmeade, I pulled the Karnak signet ring out of my pocket and ordered it to take me to the manor. Moments later, I materialized on my knees in the middle of a rather nice lawn, and knew that I wasn't the only person there.
"Very good," a woman's voice called out across the grounds, "on your knees is a good place for you, Muggle murderer."
I raised my head. Sure enough, a lady dressed in black lace, leather and taffeta was coming towards me from the direction of a topiary llama. (There are bush-animals on the lawn! Cool!)
"Good morning. Is this the Gothic Lolita fan club come to greet me?" I quipped loudly.
I saw her frown from thirty feet away. Most of what I said went right over her flaming red hair.
"I haven't come to greet you, I've come to kill you in the name of the Dark Lord himself. Oh, and to take vengeance on you for beheading my lover." She kept coming closer, but pulled out her wand. "I am going to flay you alive and disembowel you before I let you die. I will bathe in your blood and drink your tears."
"That's an awful small bath, lady. Dilute my fluids with water if you want enough to get comfortable in. I might coagulate, so keep the bath warm."
"Insolence!" She shrieked. "Incarcerus! Crucio!"
This time, instead of rope, I got chains and shackles. Of course, Cruico didn't do a damned thing.
"Kinky," I commented. "Oh, right! I'm supposed to writhe on the ground in excruciating pain. I'm sorry, I forgot that part. Want me to do it now? Okay!"
I put on a show, calling out to God for mercy and cursing my mother for ever letting me be born. Lolita saw right through me, and wasn't as amused as I was.
"Eeeeee!" She was ANGRY. "Sectumsempra!"
Cuts appeared all over me, some straight down to the bone. That certainly hurt, but not for long, the wounds closed in seconds.
"Lady, this was a new outfit two days ago. Gonna pay for a replacement?"
I'm pretty certain "Reducto" is meant to blow you to pieces. It shattered the lower half of my legs and threw me about twenty feet. It certainly hurt like hell, but by the time I landed, my technology was already healing me.
She stalked over, laughing like the crazy woman she is, and prepared to do something else to make me more apt to allow blood bathing and flaying. Feeling superior, I suppose, she stepped on my head.
"Are you laughing now, Muggle?"
"Broadly speaking, no." I replied. I could tell my legs were already good as new.
"You can speak?"
"Honey, didn't you listen when they told you magic couldn't kill me? I'm just enjoying a little bondage action before touring my new home." I heaved a melodramatic sigh, and cut myself free of the chains. "You had to ruin my fun by cutting up my clothes and stepping on my head."
Lolita stepped back, and a horrified look spread across her face. She only had one more thing to try.
"Avada kedavra!"
Oh dear. Not again.
-**HPDEB**-
One more Death Eater done in by not listening to what they'd been told.
Her remains were spread over the lawn. I did, in my haste, leave her head intact, but for the wand sticking out of her left eye socket.
"Bother," I said, noting that I'd only been incapacitated for one minute and forty-five seconds.
-**HPDEB**-
I approached the door to the house — a rather large one with four floors, a portico, trimmed bushes out front and a decidedly un-magical appearance — and it opened in front of me.
Standing in the doorway was a peachy-gray skinned house elf, dressed in tatters. He squinted up at me and frowned.
"You is new Master?"
"I am the new Lord Karnak, yes."
"House elves must be bonding to you, new Master."
"Very well, proceed." The little creature took my hand, and a felt a jolt of something.
"Master in not quite Muggle. Master's magic is very weak, makes it difficults to bond with. Crinkle has bonded with Master. Dilly can be bonding with Master, but Loddy and Muppy maybe have troubles bonding, they is still young."
Magic? I have magic? I had a new urge to speak with Dumbledore in depth. I forced my attention back on the elf when I noticed he was still speaking.
"Master's clothing is in terrible shape. Hm. Master is all covered in blood. Crinkle will fix, if Master comes in."
"Thank you, Crinkle. Leave the body outside, I will have need of it." I walked in like I knew what to expect.
I looked around at the entry hall. From what little I knew of architecture and decor, it looked Victorian. Maybe Georgian. Very classy, regardless.
"Would Master turn around?"
I did. The next thing I knew, I was clean and my clothes were mended. I thanked my house elf.
"Better." The elf commented. "Would Master care to take tea in the library?"
"I have a library?"
"Master has a library. Come this way."
Library: through the living room, through the gallery, first door on the left. It screamed Gentleman's Club from an earlier era, and I loved it. The fireplace made me weak in the knees.
"Dilly will bring Master's tea in a moment." Crinkle told me. "Crinkle can answer questions about Master's home."
"Please."
Crinkle explained to me that his role was Head House Elf, and he ran all household operations. Dilly was second in command, followed by Loddy and Muppy. By then, Dilly had arrived with my tea and introduced herself.
"It is my pleasure, Dilly," I responded.
"Master is generous to Dilly." She took my hand and bonded with me. Her eyebrows went up and down a few times before she let go and took her leave.
Crinkle went on describing the layout of the building. Eight guest rooms were on the second floor, surrounding the ballroom, which had a glass ceiling. Third floor rooms were arranged around the perimeter of the glass roof. The fourth floor was storage.
"Crinkle, where do the four of you sleep?" I asked.
"Wherever Master instructs. The previous Master allowed his elves a closet on the fourth floor. Most generous was former Master."
The little being was completely serious!
"That's insane. You now have the entire fourth floor to live in. I expect each of you to make up an area to suit you. If you'd like anything for your rooms, let me know, we can find it. I understand that House Elves do not wear clothes, however, why are you wearing such rags?"
Crinkle looked nervous. "Previous Master only gave house elves one piece of cloth each. Elves must make do."
"I've seen what you can do with clothing. I expect you each to make yourselves whatever you'd like to wear. Whether it looks like a butler outfit, or whether it's a tea towel, I don't care. But I want you to enjoy what you wear, and I expect it to be clean. Keep in mind that you represent me, as does your appearance. I'd like you to look and feel good. Use money from the household budget as often as needed. If it goes over 30 Galleons in a year, just let me know. Is that fair?"
Crinkle looked like he was about to cry. "Thank you, Master! We is making clothing tonight."
"Good. Is there anything else I can do for you, now that I'm," I still had trouble saying it, "Lord Karnak?"
"For us, Master?" Crinkle raised his eyebrows and held out his hands. He looked close to tears. "Master needs not do anything. We belong to Master, and are pleased to serve Master. Master gives us a home! Our own rooms! New outfits! Master has given us great luxury already!"
House elf culture makes my head hurt.
"Very well. I am curious about one thing, if I may ask." I sipped my tea and waited for an answer.
"Yes, Master."
"The previous Lord Karnak served the Dark Lord, so I am assuming that he engaged in unsavory activities. This house seems remarkably civilized for a man of that kind. Did he...do anything unsavory here?"
Crinkle frowned and worried at his hands as he spoke. "House elves is not supposed to be telling Masters' secrets."
"Your former Master is dead. He cannot harm you. I am your new Master, and I have asked you a question."
This seemed to work as I hoped. Crinkle stood taller and looked calmer. "Crinkle's former Master preferred the house kept tidy, but the basement left as he pleased."
"I see." Horrible things where people couldn't see them and pleasant living above ground. "Is there anything left alive in the basement?"
Crinkles eyes widened, and he shook his head. "No, Master. Not a single thing."
"Would it bother you to clean out the basement entirely, save for any plumbing, utilities or structural supports? We can move the fourth floor storage down there."
The house elf nearly wept. "Crinkle would be very happy, Master! Dilly, Muppy, and Loddy would be happy!"
"Thank you," I said and reached out my hand. Crinkle stared at it as though I was about to beat him senseless.
"Is it true, Master," he flinched away from me, "that Master has a magical black arm?"
I realized I was reaching out to him with my right hand. Oops. Disturbing the natives.
"Yes, Crinkle, that's mostly true." I flexed my fingers. "Take my hand."
You would think that I'd ordered him to fist a dragon, the way he looked at me. He followed my order and wrapped his long fingers around my hand.
"My name is Frank Stewart. The Lord Karnak thing is new to me." I smiled at him. "I want you to understand that I care about you, all of you, and your welfare. Please tell me if there is anything I can do to make your life pleasant and easy."
House elves cry. They will make you want to cry, too. Their joy will give you every reason to be kind to them. I have nightmares about how some are treated.
Not very long afterward, Loddy and Muppy appeared, led by Dilly. We tried the bonding thing and the youngsters shook their heads sadly. I tried to reassure them that they still have a home and that I value their help, even if I'm not magical enough to bond.
"We be understanding, new Master," Loddy said, "'cause Dilly tells us abouts you. We is happy to belong."
Muppy leaned in and batted her gigantic eyes at me. "New Master likes a tour? House elves can show his new home!"
"Muppy, that's brilliant!" I smiled and stood up. "Let's go!"
They gave me the full tour, all four of them. They chattered amiably, and pointed out a thousand things to take note of. I remembered all of them.
After the tour, I remembered something else.
"Crinkle, there's a head on the lawn. Is there a bag charmed against decay anywhere around? I expect I need to find out who she was"
Crinkle turned to Muppy and ordered her to fetch the head and bag it. Muppy disappeared.
"Master is satisfied with Crinkle's solution?"
"Yes, Crinkle, thank you."
The words had barely left my mouth when Muppy returned.
"Master, Muppy has brought you the head, with the wand. Muppy knows who it is."
"That's marvelous, Muppy! Who was she?" House elves were better than dragging the bag to Gringotts to have them identify it.
"Master, Lady Damiana Swift, Master. Muppy knows she was a guest here."
"Master," Crinkle spoke up, "the Lady was favored by our former Master."
"Favored?" I asked.
"Favored, Master. Crinkle knows so."
"Oh. How nasty." I really wanted to wash my hands.
Loddy spoke up. "Master, the Lady was the Lady Swift." Loddy wrung his hands...a common thing for house elves, I was learning. "Master, Loddy heard of the bounty on her head. Five thousand galleons, Master."
"Oh. Thank you, Loddy."
Looks like I'll be going to Gringotts anyway. Joy of joys.
"By the way," I told them as I tossed the bag from hand to hand, "this place is now called Donne House. Named after one of my favorite poets."
"Crinkle understands Master. A good name, Crinkle thinks."
"Loddy understands Master."
"Muppy also understands Master!"
"Dilly understands Master, too!"