Disclaimer – Jim Butcher owns these characters. All I get out of this is telling a story in the TV Verse
Baked In
Sequel of sorts to Burnt Out – all the snippets of Harry and Bob and the house being themselves. Plus some small case fics, and well 'five kids in five minutes: ask me how' has some distinct possibilities… consider this well and truly alternate universe
o0o0o
Moving in the Sharpe's
"It's huge," Scott breathed, staring up at the grey stoned building. Sheryl looked a bit intimidated too, but Harry barely glanced up at the facade.
"It's smaller than the ancestor who designed it wanted," Bob offered from where he was standing next to Harry, hands clasped behind his back, "He wanted another two floors and battlements, as I recall, and a tower."
"You remember it being built?" Scott was wide eyed, and Bob nodded. 900 years was a long time to live, and Harry's ancestors were not a topic that Bob felt comfortable discussing with his wizard, given Harry's sole connection to them was a monster.
"He wanted a castle?" Harry let his amusement show, "Wow, how nuts was he?"
"If I understand modern frames of reference correctly, pretty nuts," Bob quirked a small smile at Scott, who giggled. Even Sheryl seemed to be repressing a laugh.
"Well I'm glad he didn't build a castle," Harry mused, "I like this better."
The front door swung open, even though Harry had locked it, and Harry shot Bob a look. The house's 'hearing' range was greater than they'd thought.
"Shall we?" he led the way inside.
"You don't lock the front door?" Sheryl frowned as she stepped into the foyer and Harry snorted.
"I do lock the front door, but the house was inviting us inside, so it unlocked itself," he explained, "Patience is a virtue, unless you're a house I guess."
"It won't let just anyone in, will it?" Sheryl was clearly thinking about safety, and Harry shook his head, sticking his hands in his pockets.
"It has recently refused entry to several people, one of whom used to have very free access," Bob spoke up, "You and your son will be safe here, milady. Shall we begin the tour?"
Harry let Bob lead the Sharpe's around, answering Scott's questions about the history of the place. There was a large front parlour that Sheryl liked the look of, and Harry and Scott pulled the covers off the furniture, revealing brown chesterfield sofas and armchairs and oak tables and consoles. There was an old TV there too, which lead to a discussion about people with powers messing up modern appliances.
"So my computer wouldn't survive here?" Sheryl frowned.
"It might," Harry hedged, "If we stick it in a room that I don't go in. I'm pretty bad for tech, but if I stay away it should be ok."
"Ok, well, it's not a deal breaker," Sheryl smiled, "In fact going low tech doesn't have to be bad."
Harry grinned at her. Bob led the way up the front stairs, and turned away from the wing that Justin had inhabited, leading them instead to the side where Harry had lived.
"These are the chambers for the lady and lord of the house," Bob stopped in front of a door, "They are adjoined by a small sitting room, and have separate bathing rooms."
The door opened as he spoke and he led the way in, "Master Scott, it may suit you better to take the room to the left, and Lady Sharpe to the right."
"Please call me Sheryl," Sheryl looked at the room with wide eyes, "If that doesn't offend you?"
"Not at all," Bob gave her a little bow, and Harry went with Scott to look at the room on the left. It was pretty big, and the furniture in there wasn't so old fashioned that the boy would find it offensive. Neither did his mom when she joined them, having inspected the larger masters chambers that Bob had suggested would suit her.
"It's a bit old fashioned," Harry mentioned as she looked around the bathroom and Sheryl laughed.
"It fits the house perfectly, Harry," she told him, "There's not a thing I would change. I would only need to bring our belongings, and maybe buy some shelves for Scott's toys and my books."
"Actually, my uncle has a study on this floor, lots of shelves and things. I could move them in here – I've been thinking of dismantling that room and the smaller library. There is a library on the ground floor already, and I don't want to have to climb all over the house when I'm looking for a book."
Plus taking apart the study would let him look for his letters to Bob, who was looking out a window and pretending not to listen. Sheryl frowned.
"That sounds like a lot of work, Harry, I don't want to put you out…"
"I won't be moving them very far using my muscles," he hinted, "There are ways to shift things from one location to another that require only a stick of chalk and knowledge of the right words. Bob invented the way I use, actually."
"So we could move all our things from my house to yours without a truck?" Sheryl blinked in astonishment.
"You'd need to move your technology without the spell, as that would certainly fry it, but yeah, I can move boxes and things like that," Harry grinned, "And I work for food, so I'll be cheaper than a moving crew."
That earned him a laugh from Sheryl and a faint snicker from Bob, who was clearly listening. The Ghost turned and walked back to join them, giving up his pretence of not listening.
"Shall I show you the kitchens, Lady Sheryl?" he offered and Harry trailed along after them. Scott appeared as they reached the main floor, clearly having been exploring, and they toured the rest of the downstairs. There was a breakfast room, designed to seat eight, which Sheryl and Harry both agreed was better than the dining room which seated eighteen, and held unpleasant memories of dinners with Justin for Harry. She liked the kitchen immensely, and was pleased to see that the linen cupboard was full and well preserved.
"If you don't want the furniture in the bedroom, we can bring yours over," Harry suggested as they looked through the solar, entering it from the main corridor, "I can store what is in those rooms, there is plenty of space."
"Scott should have his own furniture, I think," Sheryl frowned. She shot her son a smile where he was listening to Bob's plans for the garden and eagerly offering to help, "I'd be worried that he might damage the antiques. But I'd like to keep the set in my room, if that's ok."
"So that's a yes to moving in?" Harry smiled, and she nodded. She looked relieved to have made the decision, and having a haven from the anger of her ex.
"Harry," Bob gestured to the glass doors that led to their workroom and Harry walked over, so the Ghost could take Scott inside, and turned to look at his future apprentices mother with a serious face.
"I sleep in the room at the end of the workroom," Harry pointed to the right door, "I want to be clear, Sheryl, that I don't have any … expectations."
Which was as close as saying he wasn't looking for sex in return for housing her and her son as he could get without coming out and saying it flatly, and Sheryl smiled at him.
"You are far too decent a man to have expectations," she sighed, "Which makes this decision so much easier for me Harry. I'll never be able to repay you for all the help you've given us."
"It's not a balance sheet," Harry ran a hand through his hair, looking at the cluttered workroom, "I'm in a position to help, that's all. If I wasn't able to offer you a place here, I'd still be trying to help some other way."
"Yes," Sheryl smiled, "And that is what I love about you most."
"What's in there?" Scott asked from the workroom, and Sheryl moved past the lab table to the door her son was opening. Harry was too speechless to do anything other than follow slowly. Bob gave him a sharp look, but said nothing as Harry drifted past.
"Honey, this is Harry's space, you shouldn't pry," she scolded, putting a hand on his shoulder.
"It's the ladies morning room," Bob offered, "Used in daylight hours when the sun warms the room. There's no fireplace…"
Bob went on to lecture why the room was used in warm weather or winter mornings only, and Harry pulled himself together. It had been a long time since someone he considered himself responsible for had said those words to him. Bob wasn't in the habit of saying it so blatantly to Harry the child and only in outright emergencies to Harry the adult.
"We could move some of these bookcases in here," Harry mused from the door as Bob's lecture wound up, "It would get some of the clutter out of the workroom. I could put some of this to use in my room and we can store the rest."
"To be honest I had forgotten it was here," Bob replied, "We didn't use it as part of your schoolroom."
"So mom, are we going to move here?" Scott asked impatiently, and whooped when Sheryl nodded, "Now?"
"In a month," she replied firmly, "I need to organise if we're moving your school, and spring break starts in a month, and get the paper work ready for your dad. And Harry has promised me some moving spells, we're going to need to give him time to work that out too."
"Ok," Scott sighed, "If you say so."
"Your mom is going to need your help with the packing and organising, buddy," Harry said firmly, "And I've got a tonne of things to do here to make this place ready for you both too."
"Alright," Scott cheered up, "And you're still coming to dinner next week, right? We can get our plans together then?"
"Absolutely," Sheryl answered for Harry, shooting him a sly smile, "If only so Harry can get an idea of the size of all my boxes."
"What have I done?" Harry overreacted, and Bob tutted at him without any sympathy. Harry grinned and pointed a finger at the Ghost, "Don't forget you'll be the one working on the coordinates for this move, Bob."
Bob looked startled and then a little sour as Scott giggled.
0o0o0
The phone had rung as Harry was walking them to the door, and Sheryl had informed him they could find their own way out as Harry went back to answer it. It was Murphy, wanting a consult, and Harry locked the house behind him, Bob's satchel still over his shoulder.
"I won't be able to assist you much," Bob muttered as the jeep sped along the road, "As I can't be seen."
"Bob, just having you along is a help," Harry replied and the Ghost did his best to disguise his pleased smile, retiring to the skull.
Murphy didn't think twice about the satchel, though she did give his reddened knuckles a second glance. Despite what the movies show, hitting someone bruised the hitter as well as the hittee. Kirmani shot him a nasty look, but didn't say anything as he joined them at the scene.
They were standing in an alley that ran between two tall buildings, which contained a body and a circle with runes inscribed carefully around it in chalk. Blood obscured some of the runes, but Harry squatted down, being careful not to disturb the evidence and pulled out a notebook, copying the runes down and then stepping back to read them over carefully. There was a bit of a commotion and Harry glanced up as Murphy went to deal with the relative that was trying to get onto the crime scene. The body was dead, and if he was reading these runes right it had fallen into the circle from a significant height. Higher than the buildings around them.
"Well?" Kirmani asked sourly, and Harry looked up, squinting at the two buildings either side.
"Can we get onto the roof?" Harry pointed, "That one?"
It was the shorter of the two buildings and a fall from that height would have been survivable, barely. It would not have caused the damage seen in the body here, and Kirmani clearly thought Harry was dumb for not knowing that, but he talked the building's super into letting them up on the roof.
"Son of a bitch," Kirmani swore when he spotted the second rune inscribed circle, "Don't touch anything!"
"I won't," Harry lied, and when Kirmani's back was turned while he called for a forensics team to come to the roof, he slipped the handwritten book of spells resting to one side of the circle into Bob's satchel. It wouldn't do to let whatever was in there get into the hands of the police, especially as the council preferred to keep spell books out of mundane hands.
When Kirmani turned around again, Harry was crouched to the side, copying this diagram as well. He ignored the detectives' aggravated glare in order to make sure he had the details right.
"How did you know that was up here, Dresden?" Kirmani asked as Murphy and the forensics team appeared through the roof door. Murphy joined them, clearly wanting to know the answer as well.
"This … diagram… comes in pairs," Harry said carefully, "So it made sense that it would be here. This is the shorter of the two buildings and if you fell off it, you might be lucky enough to survive it."
"Are you saying our vic did this to himself?" Murphy looked startled. Harry winced. The 'vic' had indeed done it to himself, entirely by accident.
"Yeah, but it's more death by misadventure than death by suicide," Harry offered, "My best guess is he fell."
Which was evident from the state of the body, who had landed pretty damn hard from a substantial height.
"The door was locked," Kirmani said to Murphy, "But the super says that you can get onto the roof from the buildings next door, its a fire safety thing. They don't all lock their roof doors."
"Ok, take a tech with you and see if you can find evidence that there was someone up here with him," Murphy nodded, "It doesn't look like it, but we should make sure."
Kirmani nodded and waved a tech off task to go look at the other roofs. Murphy gave Harry a long look.
"You look better than you did on the weekend," she told him, "You were still pale then."
"All better, Murph," Harry smiled, "And thanks for letting me crash the night of the fire."
"All I can say is you're lucky I didn't dig my camera out," she replied with a wry grin, "I'd have used that picture on my Christmas cards this year."
Harry grasped his chest in mock pain and she waved him off. He headed back down the stairs, still grinning. When he got the street, he noticed Ember hanging around the edge of the crowd, and she met him at the edge of the tape.
"What happened?" she asked tensely, and Harry showed her the diagram from the rooftop and the alley.
"I think he was trying a transportation variant, and got the height denominator wrong," Harry pointed to the part of the rooftop diagram he meant, "If it was wrong on the diagram down in the alley too, then he'd have been almost a mile up when the spell released. But that part of the diagram is … obscured."
By the guys brains and blood mostly, but Harry didn't want to dwell on that. Ember copied his diagrams down, and nodded. "Misadventure, then," she sighed, "His family will be devastated."
"Yeah well, this stuff isn't something to mess with lightly," Harry replied, "I'm crap at this spell, and my arithmetic is better than most."
Ember nodded, "Thanks Dresden," she told him and walked off without further ado. Typical of a warden, he does the work, they get the credit.
Sargent Jones was waiting at Harry's jeep, leaning back against the hood comfortably. Harry had stopped him and his partner from being snacks for a group of vampires hopped up on Third Eye, and Jones had stayed in touch now and then.
"Dresden," Jones nodded, "How's your hand?"
"Feeling fine, Sargent," Harry replied evenly, "Why do you ask?"
He knew of course, because it was the obvious move: Sheryl's ex had gone to the cops and complained about being assaulted. It was a classic bully move, complaining that they had suffered mistreatment when a potential victim put them down.
"I had a complaint come across the wire, and the description sounded a bit like you," Jones mused, "So I thought I'd check in. Plus, your place burned down."
"Hypothetically, I may have gone to help a friend and her son, who was being abused by her ex husband," Harry knew how to play the game, "And I got out of the apartment a little singed, but nothing I couldn't heal from."
"I see," Jones nodded, watching the crime scene over Harry's shoulder, "And hypothetically, in that first situation, what would your reaction be?"
"Well, if the guy in this scenario was built like a line backer, and charging at me screaming abuse, I might get his ex out of the way, throw a single punch, then drag him out of the house. Once he was outside though, there wouldn't be any reason to touch him further," Harry pretended to consider the matter, stroking his chin for effect. Jones grinned in appreciation. Harry had been punching above his weight this morning, but that was often the case for one with the build he had.
"Single punch huh?" Jones sniggered, "God how pathetic."
"He's trying to evict them so he can sell the house, and when I got there his eight year old son was hiding at the top of the stairs and his mom was backed into a corner," Harry said it bluntly, "I made it clear that he wouldn't be doing that again, then he left. I helped her work out a new place to live. She'll be out of there in a month."
"Hypothetically, if you were to encounter that situation again, what would your response be?" Jones frowned.
"I would call the police at once," Harry promised in his most sincere tone, though they both knew it wouldn't happen. He'd never been able to stand back at let bad things happen.
"Then I don't see any problem here," Jones nodded, "And I will make it clear to the complainant that he will speak to his ex through an impartial intermediary from now on."
"Thanks Jones," Harry let his relief show. Not for himself, he'd take what was coming to him, but he didn't want Sheryl to have to deal with another day like today. Jones clapped him on the shoulder and strolled back to his black and white, where his partner was waiting.
Harry waited until they were on an empty section of road before calling to Bob that he could come out if he wanted. The Ghost did, manifesting in the passenger seat quickly, his eyes alight with speculation.
"That book is … terrible," Bob informed him, "I am no arithmancer, as you well know, but even I can spot the errors in his theorem."
Harry was the arithmancer of the two of them, a skill he'd outstripped his tutor in at an early age. He was ok with languages, as this was Bob's speciality, although his accent was atrocious in a few of them, despite Bob's best efforts.
"As far as I can tell, he inverted the distance calculation, twice. The receiving runes are obscured by his blood in places," Harry grimaced, "I think he was trying to set up a permanent transportation spell – like setting up an airport terminal. If you could do it, people would be able to travel long distances quickly and safely, despite their skill level with the transportation spell."
Bob looked intrigued, "Similar to my translocation spell, but for people… this warrants some thought. I may… require your arithmetic skills though."
"Any time," Harry agreed, "But lets get the translocation spell perfected first. We're gonna need it for Sheryl and Scott in a month and I want it to be Council proof."
"Agreed," Bob sounded satisfied, and Harry grinned to himself. The Ghost loved a challenge, and Harry wasn't always able to give him one that was so pure of intent.
o0o0o
Not wanting to take Bob up to the study, Harry came up with the idea of the Ghost spending the day in the downstairs library. On the face of it, he would plan where the extra books would go, while Harry piled said books into boxes he'd scrounged from the back of a Walmart. Harry had taken the dust sheets off the shelves and Bob had requested he be left in a specific section of the library. Harry had left the Ghost reading through books he'd never read before.
The plan was to send the book filled boxes to the ballroom, since Harry was so familiar with those coordinates, and he'd then move them to the library using new coordinates that Bob was ostensibly formulating while he was upstairs. Bob had continued to work on the translocation spell and they would use his new variant to move things from the ballroom to the library to test its safety features.
The house opened the curtains and shutters in the study, and then threw the windows wide open as well. It lit every fitting in the room despite the light pouring in through the now open windows, and Harry thanked it quietly, floating his flattened boxes into the middle of the room and letting them drop onto the small table in front of the fire place.
The shelves were floor to ceiling, but not the same wood as the panelling, or the library shelves. Bob had mentioned that the study used to be the nanny's room, connected via the bathroom to the nursery. Harry suspected the door was hidden behind one of the shelves that sat behind Justin's desk. He rolled his sleeves up and assembled a box, moving to the shelves to the right of the fireplace and starting there. There were knickknacks and photos on the shelves in some places, which Harry packed into a separate box from the books. They could go to the attic eventually. There were also several large carved wooden boxes in the room, and Harry suspected that they hid his letters to Bob. There was one on each side of the fireplace, and both contained various magical paraphernalia, mostly amulets and bracelets. Harry stacked them on top of the boxes he was moving and sent them to the ballroom for Bob to look over with him.
Once the bookcases beside the fireplace were empty, Harry measured them for Sheryl's room. He was pleased to see that they'd fit her fireplace niches, and was working out the matrix to send them there when the house rattled the study door.
"Something wrong?" Harry asked and a light in the hallway flicked on. He followed the lights, hurrying down the stairs and past the front door. The lights led him to the kitchen, where the pantry door swung open pointedly.
"Oh, lunch time," Harry grinned, both relieved that there wasn't an emergency and little annoyed that his task had been interrupted, "You're as bad as Bob."
The kitchen lights rippled on and off in a complex pattern that Harry decided was either laughter or indignation, and he made a sandwich and cup of tea, carrying them into the library where Bob was standing partially buried in a shelf, his face so contented that Harry sat in a chair near a window and ate without bothering him. Bob noticed him as he was sipping the last of his tea, jumping in surprise.
"How long have you been there?" Bob asked, and Harry grinned. It was good to see his mentor so absorbed and happy for a change.
"About thirty minutes. The house reminded me to eat lunch," he informed Bob solemnly, his eyes sparkling a little in good humour, "It's as bad as you."
Bob tutted at him, "If you didn't have the self preservation skills of a concussed lemming, we wouldn't need to nag you to do simple things," he retorted and the house flashed the library lights with a distinct air of smugness.
"As you like, your ghostliness," Harry demurred, and gathered his plate and cup, "Are you still ok here, or would you like to move to another section?"
"No, where I am is sufficient," Bob replied, turning back to the books, "How does the dismantling of upstairs go?"
His tone was supremely unaffected, which said he really didn't want to go up there and look for himself. Harry restrained his urge to curse his uncle aloud and kept his own voice neutral.
"There are a couple of boxes of jewellery I'd like your opinion on, they're down in the ballroom already," he informed Bob, "And I think that there may be some books that we can't shove in here, not with Scott coming into the house. They'd be dangerous in the hands of a curious kid."
"Yes, quite," Bob turned back to look at him, "Perhaps the ladies morning room would be better converted to a library for such things."
"Well, once we've gone through that small library as well we'll have enough shelves to line the room. I don't mind if we block the windows in there off completely," Harry mused, "It would stop anyone climbing in for a starters, as they're at the front of the house, and I didn't even remember the room is there."
"Very well," Bob nodded, "We'll consider our options when the time comes."
Harry nodded and took his plate and cup back to the kitchen, washing them up and leaving them to dry on the rack. He felt a sense of approval from the house, and grinned as he headed back up to the study. He hoped it didn't expect him to be this tidy all the time, he liked a bit of clutter in his living space.
The first thing he did was pull down the three carved chests located at eye height behind Justin's desk. There were four more dotted about and he added them to the empty desk top. He had his suspicions about what he'd find though, and was angry when he was proven right. Justin had been keeping his letters, unopened, in the wooden chests stored at Bob's eye height. Harry kicked the desk in anger and vented quite a few choice swear words as well. Then he stacked all three up and walked them down to the workroom, putting them on the coffee table. He'd show them to Bob later.
He was calmer when he returned to the study and started methodically stripping the shelves into boxes, putting his anger into the task to make it go faster. He didn't want to face Bob in a foul mood, and when the house finally started rattling the door again the shelves were mostly bare. Harry obediently sent the full boxes down to the ballroom, then headed for the ground floor.
He showered and changed into clean clothes before looking in on a still absorbed Bob.
"Have you eaten?" Bob asked archly, and Harry grinned at him, watching as Bob took in the damp hair and change of clothes with a knowing eye.
"I need more boxes," he informed his mentor, "And I was going to get a takeaway while I was out. You can come, or stay, your choice."
"I think I'll stay," Bob looked torn, "I would like to finish this, and I've only a few chapters left."
"Of course," Harry nodded, and then looked at the room in general, "House, no one crosses the wards with Bob except for me, and no one except Sheryl or Scott get in while I'm gone, please."
The shutters at the windows rattled in acknowledgement and Harry nodded at his startled mentor before heading out. It wasn't that he didn't trust the wards, he wanted it made clear that Bob was to be protected.
The boxes were easy to gather, and he made a note to tell Sheryl that he had plenty for her when she was ready before heading to his favourite Chinese takeaway. It was a simple spell to keep the food hot, and he mused that there were definite perks to being a wizard as he pulled up. The boxes floated obediently into the house behind him and he left them on the floor of the lobby before settling into the kitchen courtyard with his meal. Mister came mooching, and accepted chicken morsels as his due before Harry took his rubbish inside and fed the cat.
Bob was trailing his hand through the shelves when Harry returned to the library and looked up as Harry approached.
"We'll have plenty of space here," Bob mused as if they had been still discussing this, "If I recall correctly, a lot of the smaller library's collection was not too controversial, more rare."
"Well that's good," Harry nodded, "Do you want to spend the night here?"
"No," Bob said decisively, "I will return to the workroom with you. I'd like an accounting of what you've found, if you please."
"Sure," Harry scooped up Bob's skull, cradling it against his stomach, "In fact, there is something I wanted to show you specifically."
Bob walked along with Harry, a pensive expression on his face. His memories of the study were so negative, that it was clear he was expecting something unpleasant. Harry had left the boxes open on the coffee table, so the contents were immediately apparent.
"Are these your letters?" Bob hurried forward, "You … found them?"
Harry thought the real question was meant to be 'you actually sent them' but didn't take offence. Making empty promises to a damned and dead sorcerer was something that a lot of Bob's former owners had often done, and Harry couldn't blame him for thinking the worst of a former student who had gone out into the world without an apparent glance backwards.
"I thought I could read them to you," Harry offered, and Bob gave him a suspiciously moist glance before taking his place on the end of the sofa and waving a regal hand. Harry put the skull on the table and went back to his desk for a letter opener.
0o0o0
It took two weeks of fine tuning to rework Bob's spell to a state that he was satisfied with its ethics and safety. They had completely denuded the study of its contents by that time, with Bob deigning to enter it once it was empty to advise on moving the bookcases to Scott's new room, and Sheryl's. They discussed what to do with the desk and the house rattled the study windows invitingly. Bob looked appalled but Harry managed to wrench the top of the desk off with a brute force application of his powers, and shoved it and the drawers out of the window. The resulting crash in the courtyard was quite cathartic, if the expression on Bob's face was anything to go by.
The door to the bathroom was where Harry had thought it was, and he unlocked it easily. They moved the table that was stored in Harry's room up to the attic with its attendant chairs, and the furniture from Scott's room to Harry's empty former bedroom. Harry organised the cleaning team to come through the newly opened rooms, and the house began to smell less dusty and more like a home.
Spring break was just starting when Sheryl had wrapped up her own list of tasks. Scott had confessed to Harry that he didn't mind changing schools, and Harry wasn't sure if that was the memory of his teacher trying to track him down, or the first meeting of the Dominant that soured him on the place. He'd seen the ravens making themselves at home in the trees around the mansion, and one of the groundsmen, who was a bird watcher, had expressed his astonishment that the unkind (which was the collective noun for ravens apparently), had moved into new territory so quickly.
School break didn't mean that Sheryl could just stop her work as a paralegal, so Harry arranged to work with Scott on sending the boxes and bits of furniture she was keeping to the mansion during the day. Bob accompanied him on both of the days that they needed for the move, insisting that Harry take regular breaks from his efforts. The spell needed more energy when it was cast as a one off, rather than as a permanent fixture, and the coordinates for each spell changed from item to item. Sheryl had packed the computer into the trunk of her car on the last day, and Scott met her at the mansion front door with keys to the front door for their new home that night.
Harry had prepared a pot roast, as that could be left in the oven on a slow heat while he and Scott made Sheryl's bed and unpacked the boxes in Scott's room. Sheryl had been very pleased with the wall of shelves that had moved to Scott's room, given that his toys could be put into decorative storage containers and then onto said shelves. Harry had worked on that while Scott put his clothes away in the dressing room that led to the bathroom. Bob had gone with the boy to supervise, suspecting correctly that things would be thrown into place in a tangled mess if left to his own devices. Scott had taken the lecture surprisingly well.
"Man, this place is fancy," Scott said when done arranging things to Bob's satisfaction, coming back to flatten boxes that Harry had emptied. Bob stepped through the wall and folded his arms.
"Generations of Harry's family have lived here," the Ghost mused, "I never considered it to be anything other than their house."
Not a home, Harry thought to himself. His ancestors had a habit of meeting sudden deaths after attempts at gaining greater magical power had backfired, or they'd been caught breaking the law and executed for their troubles.
"It will be good to have you and your mom here," Harry told the boy, "The house needs people to be a home. Now make your bed, so it's ready for you tonight."
"Slave drivers," Scott mock grumbled, but went to gather the sheets from his designated linen box and started making his bed. The sheets were stacked in the closet for now, to get them out of the boxes, and Harry made a mental note to make sure there was room in the linen storage for Sheryl's things as well.
As the furniture was the last thing to come over, they had plenty of time to finish unpacking Scott's room completely, and Harry made the boy scoot the flattened boxes back downstairs to be stacked in the foyer. Harry went to check on dinner, and Scott waited for his mother with the house keys, a book keeping him company as he sat on the stairs. The houses atmosphere felt very light and happy as Harry set the table in the morning room, while Bob strolled the kitchen courtyard, inspecting the plants in their new beds.
"Cleaning tomorrow," Harry sighed, joining him outside and sitting down on the courtyard bench and stretching his legs out comfortably, leaning against the sun warmed stone with a pleased hum, "And then it's moving those shelves from the small library and reorganising the workroom too."
"Your apprentice will help," Bob came back to stand beside him, hands behind his back. The Ghost looked the most relaxed that Harry had seen in a long time, warming his heart.
"He's not my apprentice yet, Bob," Harry reminded him, amused at the slip. There were times when Bob's frame of reference didn't match the more modern reality he dwelt in, "But yes, he will help, if only because we're watching him for the next two weeks and I don't want to deal with a bored eight year old. Do you want to stay here and read tomorrow? It won't be much fun for you, watching me clean or supervising that charity who are collecting Sheryl's unwanted furniture and stuff."
Bob looked taken aback at the offer, "No thank you," he replied sharply, "I would prefer not to be left behind."
"As you like," Harry replied easily, "I just thought you'd want to spend some more time in the library, is all."
Bob shook his head wordlessly, and then the kitchen door opened and a smiling Sheryl joined them. She leaned down and hugged Harry, then sat beside him on the bench.
"Thank you for getting him unpacked," she told Harry, "And for making sure he was tidy," she added to Bob, who offered her a small bow, quirking a smile as he did.
"I wasn't sure you'd want me pawing your unmentionables, so I didn't touch the boxes in your room," Harry confessed lightly and she snorted at him.
"It's fine, Harry. Don't think I haven't noticed that you're doing all the work here," she sighed, "And dinner smells fabulous too. People who work for food usually don't supply it as well."
"I don't mind, Sheryl. The sooner we get you settled, the less contact you'll have with your ex," Harry shrugged. He hadn't told her about the police report, and didn't intend to. She didn't need the additional stress and Bob himself had counselled against it, "Was your desk in the right spot?"
Sheryl had decided to use the sitting room as a sort of office, and since there were power outlets in the room Harry had sent her desk to the corner near the window. Scott had mentioned something about his mothers modem needing a phone line, whatever that meant, and the house had obligingly re spooled the phone line from the garage up to Sheryl's new sitting room, coming out near the power outlets.
"Perfect spot," Sheryl replied, "Scott is plugging the computer in right now. We'll see how it all works out."
"I estimate dinner will be ready soon," Bob announced, "Harry needs to wash up, and I would like to spend some time in the library tonight Harry, if you please."
"Your humble conveyance," Harry sniggered, getting to his feet.
o0o0o