Crookshanks immediately fell in love with Hope. He nearly knocked her over rubbing against her, and even let her pet his stomach without clawing her for it. As for Hope, she watched him chase gnomes in her garden for an hour, cheering him on as though he was flying for her team in the Quidditch World Cup, and took a solid five minutes to say goodbye when it was time for Hermione to take him home. At that point, Hermione almost felt she had to take the Warwick house.

She did ask to sleep on it before signing the paperwork, and the next morning, she blearily rubbed her eyes and looked around the Delamere Forest house. She'd hoped that spending one more night in it would let her see it as home, not as the place where Anissa's parents died. It hadn't worked; she'd hardly slept, constantly remembering what she'd seen in the playback spell. It would probably always be that way. When she had visited Hogwarts during her study of house-elves, she had walked into the dining hall, but she hadn't seen it as the place where she'd spent six wonderful years hanging out with her friends between classes, hadn't seen the balls and the feasts. Instead, she remembered the Battle of Hogwarts, the dining hall filled with the wounded and the dead, and especially Fred Weasley's body lying on the cold stone, never having seen the spell that killed him. If that first came to mind at Hogwarts despite all the wonderful times she had spent there, how could she ever hope for more from this house?

With a sigh, she closed her eyes, concentrated on the house at Warwick, and apparated. The scent of flowers filled her nose, and she opened her eyes to see the garden that would shortly be hers. It was a brisk, sunny day—although whether it was sunny outside the garden, she had no idea. She walked to the house and knocked on the door. Hope immediately opened it, beaming up at her with a wide smile. "Welcome home, Mistress!"

Hermione felt her face turning red. "Thank you, Hope."

"Mr. Cole and Mr. Gurnig are already here, in the sitting room. Did you bring your nice kitty with you?"

That may have been the first time Crookshanks had ever been called "your nice kitty." "Not yet. I thought I'd move him in later today when things are settled a bit."

"Excellent idea."

Hermione had barely gotten her scarf and coat off before Hope took them and hung them up. As Hope had said, Randall and Gurnig were already waiting inside the sitting room, and the occupants of the house's portraits were clustered around the edge of the tiny-mustachioed man's painting.

"Hello, Prof. Granger," Gurnig said, standing as she came in and leading her to one of the Queen Anne chairs. "You are excited about your new home, I hope?"

"Yes, I suppose so."

"Good, good. We just have a little paperwork for you to sign," he said as Randall took some papers from the file he carried and spread them on the game table.

Randall turned towards the portrait. "You know, if you guys popped into that landscape over the mantle, you could probably see better."

"How rude," the lady from the lovers' portrait said, stalking out of the frame. Her boyfriend trailed after her. The tiny-mustachioed man again bit his thumb at Randall and swept out the opposite side.

"I'm gonna miss him," Randall said with a grin before leaning over the papers. Out of the corner of her eye, Hermione saw all three painted figures peek out of the edges of the landscape.

"Just an amendment to the original lease," Gurnig assured her. "Unfortunately, the CEO did say that for accounting reasons, we must close the escape clause this time. But you have a year to decide between this house and the Delamere Forest house."

"That's more than fair," Hermione said.

Gurnig summarized the contents of the contract, but Hermione read over it anyway. She signed each of the papers and shook hands with Mr. Gurnig.

"I hope you will tell your friends that Gringotts has treated you well," he said.

"Definitely," she said. "I might write the CEO about how helpful you've been."

"That would be very much appreciated."

"Mr. Cole," she said, shaking his hand. "Thank you for your help, too."

Randall unthinkingly cast a glance at the chandelier. "Good luck. I hope you'll like the house. Oh, and we got your Floo hooked up and brought you some Floo powder for it. Consider it a housewarming gift."

"Thank you." Hermione realized that as far as she knew, goblins couldn't apparate. "Please, feel free to use it, if that's easier for you."

"Thank you," Gurnig said. Randall took a pinch and tossed it into the fireplace, and they left for Gringotts.

Hermione sat down in the nearest chair. So this was it. This was home now. She became aware of the portraits' whispering and the feeling that someone was watching her. She glanced up, but the portraits were out of the frames. "Hope, is that you?"

"Oh, yes, Mistress," Hope said, bounding into the room. "Is there anything you'd like?"

"Well, um… Could you call me 'Hermione'?"

Hope's ears drooped a little. "Oh. Yes, certainly, Mis—er, Hermione."

"I just think it'd be friendlier, is all."

"Of course. Whatever you want. Have you had breakfast?"

"I did, at my old house." The ears drooped lower. "I thought, while I have the weekend, I'd put things away here so I can move my own things in."

Hope brightened again. "Oh, of course! Would you like me to start by moving the portraits up to the attic?"

"Actually, I might leave them where they are for now." The painted figures returned to the portrait frame.

"We're not going into storage?" the woman from the lovers asked.

"I think we can work something out so we can all live together," Hermione said. The woman clapped, and a cheer went up among her companions. Hermione pointed to the lovers. "Except I need to find somewhere for you two. I don't really want to share my bedroom."

"What about the rear guest room?" the woman asked. "It has such a lovely view of the garden."

"Now you just hold on a moment, young lady," snapped one of the men who had been playing chess during Hermione's earlier visit. "I have been in that room for over 300 years and I have no intention of sharing with two cooing lovebirds if I have any say in the matter." What he'd just said struck him, and he looked sheepishly at Hermione. "That is, do I have any say in the matter?"

"What about the dining room?" the boyfriend asked.

"Oh, wonderful! I love a good party!" his lover agreed, clapping. "Do you like parties, Miss?"

"I've helped my friends with tons of parties," Hope said excitedly. "I know just what to do. It'll be so wonderful to have them here."

"I don't know," said the man who had been reading during Hermione's last visit. "She looks like a bookworm to me."

"You'll have a housewarming party, won't you?" Hope asked.

"Yeah, of course we can have a housewarming," Hermione said. "I'll need some time to plan for it, but we can have one. In the meantime, I think the dining room will be just fine for you two."

"I'll bring them down," Hope said, rushing out of the room.

"Are you sure you can carry that?" Hermione asked, leaning out of the sitting room.

"Of course, Mis—er, Hermione!"

The tiny-mustached man chuckled. "That little elf would bring you a handful of ash from Hell if you asked her for it."

"Rupert! Your language!" the lady lover said, covering her ears with her hands.

He rolled his eyes. "As though your ears are so delicate, Miss Charlotte. But I do apologize if I offended you, Miss Hermione." He bowed towards Hermione.

"You haven't," Hermione said. "Things have changed a bit in the last few centuries."

"They have a habit of doing that," said one of the chess players, who was done in a much older style than Rupert.

Hermione walked into the dining room and looked around. The two lovers followed into a landscape above the mantle.

"Oh, this will be perfect, if we can have up here," Charlotte said. "We can even see the garden through the back windows."

"That'll work fine, then." Hermione lowered the landscape off its hook with a Levitating Charm and leaned it against the wall. While she had her wand out, she cast "Specialis Revelio" on the plates laid out on the table. As she feared, lead paint. Most wizards didn't worry about those things; they trusted their magical potential to protect them from those everyday dangers. Maybe that was why so many of them did such stupid things. In any event, her parents had been religious about it while searching charity shops to furnish her first home, and it seemed silly to take the risk now. She took a cardboard box and an old copy of the Daily Prophet out of her bag.

"Here you are," Hope said, carrying the lovers' frame into the room. It was bigger than she was, and she nearly dropped it when she saw the box. "Oh, what are you doing, Hermione?"

"These plates aren't safe to eat off, so I thought I'd pack them up for storage."

"I can do that!" Hope said, putting the painting down and hurrying to the table.

"Don't worry, I'll be careful." She cast a packing spell, and each plate wrapped itself in newspaper and packed itself into the box. While that was going, she levitated the lovers' painting to its new place above the mantle.

"I can do that!" Hope insisted.

"It's OK; I don't mind helping." Hermione looked over the table as the plates finished packing, then cast the revealing spell on the silverware. They were safe, but they looked so strange. She wasn't sure she wanted to use them for best, much less every day. She picked one up and was about to ask Hope if there was a case for the set, when the house-elf burst into tears and ran out of the room.

"Oh, the poor dear," Charlotte said, trying to get a vantage from her frame.

"Hope, wait!" Hope was already out of sight by the time Hermione reached the hallway, but she guessed and went to the kitchen. She heard sobs in the elf's room by the fireplace. "Hope, what's wrong?"

"I can do this, Mis—Hermione," Hope said. "I know I'm small and I've never had a mistress before, but I can be a good house-elf for you, I promise."

"I know you can."

"Then why won't you let me?"

"Of course I'll let you. I was just trying to help—" Hermione realized what she said and sighed, then sat down on the floor near the door. "Hope, I'm sorry. I think I made a mistake. If you were a human, it'd be nice of me to help. I didn't mean that I thought you couldn't do it. I was just trying to do something nice, and I didn't realize it wouldn't come across that way."

The door to the elf's room squeaked open an inch. "It's not because you don't want me?"

"Of course not!"

"You're not going to give me clothes?"

"Absolutely not! No one's talking about clothes."

The door swung open a little further. "Mr. Gurnig said you would if I wasn't a good elf for you. He said you knew all about us, and you'd know all the tricks my mother used to use, so I better be good for you. He said if you didn't like me, you'd wait me out and give me clothes as soon as you could."

"I ought to hex Mr. Gurnig's ears off!" Hermione said. So much for that letter to the CEO. "Hope, I promise, I will only ever give you clothes if you ask for them."

"I'd never do that!"

Hermione withheld the sigh she so wanted to give. "I know. I know you're a really good house-elf; I can tell that just by looking at the house. But I don't know how to be a good mistress yet."

"But Mr. Gurnig said you knew all about us."

"I've tried to study your culture and history, but that's not the same as living with someone. House-elves are different with guests than they are with their family, right?"

"Right," Hope said slowly.

"Well, I've only ever been a guest. It's going to take me some time to learn how to be a mistress, and I'll need you to help teach me."

Hope's huge blue eyes peeked out of the elf's room. "Really?"

"Yes, really. If I do something to upset you, I want you to tell me so. And if I give you an order you'll have to punish yourself over, I definitely want to know right away. All right?"

"Are you sure?"

"Absolutely. It's the only way I'm going to learn."

Hope stepped into the kitchen and paused thoughtfully. "Can I start now?"

"Okay…"

"Well, mistresses don't generally sit on the floor to talk to their house-elves."

"Sorry," Hermione said, picking herself up.

"And house-elves generally don't refer to their mistresses and masters by their given names with no title whatsoever."

"You're right. I made a mistake there, too. Tell you what, Hope; you can call me whatever you want. 'Mistress', or 'Hermione', or anything else. And if you change your mind later, you can just change then without asking, OK?"

"All right, Mistress!" Hope said, breaking out into a smile.

"OK. Let's get to work on this place. How about I tell you what I want packed up, and you do the actual packing for me?"

"That'll be perfect. Do you want me to take the plates to the attic?"

"Yes, please, and also the landscape. And is there a case for the silverware? I'm not sure what to do with it, so for now I'll think we'll put it away and save it for special occasions."

"I'll go get the silver chest," Hope said, hurrying out of the kitchen.

Hermione sighed and sat on one of the kitchen chairs. This was going to be a more difficult transition than she thought.