A Grim, Old House into a Home
By
Nora Lou Wilson
And
Rebecca S. Smithey
Harry Potter apparated into the small park near 12 Grimmauld Place, then looked carefully about to be sure he was not being watched. Old habits die hard, he thought. Reassured that all was safe, he walked across the narrow street and up the concrete steps to the front door of the house he had inherited from Sirius Black. For better or worse, this place had become his home over the past year.
His nerves were jangled, and he was exhausted, although it was only about one in the afternoon. He had spent the morning at Hogwarts, where he and many others had commemorated the first anniversary of The Battle of Hogwarts and the end of the Second Wizarding War. Opening up the wounds that had only begun to heal had been a dreadful business.
He saw Ron every day in training, of course, but it was good to see the rest of the Weasley family. Still, he missed Ginny.
Ginny was away in a training camp because when the season opened, she would be the new Keeper for the Holyhead Harpies, the all female professional Quidditch team. He was proud of her, but their time together would be hit and miss at best for the near future. They had to be contented with the daily arrival of owls bearing letters and packages.
At the moment all he wanted now was lunch and a long nap. He had been given the entire day off from his Auror training; in fact, most of the Ministry had been at Hogwarts for the memorial. With the rest of the day stretching out in front of him, he felt at loose ends.
Inside, he dropped his backpack in the parlor and made his way down to the kitchen. To his surprise, Kreatcher had already prepared soup and a sandwich, and was pouring pumpkin juice into a tall glass as he stepped inside. He wore a clean white toga in place of the rags he had worn when Harry first met him. Hermione had conjured several togas for the house elf to wear, and since she was not his master, he accepted and wore them.
Harry and Kreatcher still had some differences to work out, but their relationship had become one of grudging respect. Working at Hogwarts, Kreatcher had been around other elves and had become less isolated. When Kreatcher had returned to the house at Grimmauld Place, Harry had offered him a salary, but the proud house elf had stubbornly refused. So Harry had proposed a compromise. The money that Kreatcher would have received would go into the needs around the house, for groceries and the like. Harry made it sound like a partnership, and the house elf had grudgingly accepted the arrangement. Still, Harry could still tell the old elf was quietly pleased.
Harry had also gone to great lengths to improve the elf's living space. He'd actually given the bedroom that had once belonged to Regulus Black to the elf. Harry, Ron and Hermione had spent one full day cleaning every inch of that room, before painting the walls in Emerald Green and Silver, the colors of Slytherin house.
That one cleaning spree had given birth to a few ideas in Harry's head. As it was now, the former Black mansion was terribly dark and foreboding. If he was going to live here, or if in the future he and Ginny made a home here, then changes would have to be made.
His first step was to carefully remove the heads of all the house elves that hung in the hallways. He contacted a mage who arranged to have the heads cremated. Then, the ashes were interred under a tree in the small back yard in an intimate, quiet service. Kreacher, at least, seemed to be moved by the ritual.
He next worked on the windows. It took him several hours to scrub the dust and grime from all of them, inside and out. When he was finished, every window in the place sparkled. Unfortunately, the clean windows let in the sunshine and he could see just how filthy the rest of the house was!
All of his free time was now taken up in cleaning. He knew he could do it all magically, but rolling his sleeves up, scrubbing floors and removing old wallpaper kept his mind occupied and away from how much he missed Ginny. At the same time, he didn't want to make the place TOO clean. He would never go back to the antiseptic atmosphere of Privet Drive. He decided he wanted something a little more like...the Burrow...with a few modern modifications of his own.
Harry knew he could not claim all the credit for the changes however. Ron and Hermione had helped him a great deal over the past several months. Ron saw helping around this house as a way to help him escape his grief over the loss of his brother, and their company helped him adjust to Ginny's absence as she trained with the Holyhead Harpies. Hermione wanted to do all she could to help Ron and Harry in any way she could.
The renovation had all begun with the picture in the front hallway. The portrait of Sirius' mother had been the bane of his existence, screaming epithets whenever anyone made noise coming or going through the hall. They had tried for years to bring the picture down, with no success...until...
Ron and Hermione dropped by one night with pizza and beer, and as they ate, they talked about Harry's plans for his inheritance. The first item on the agenda was to find a way to rid the house of that portrait. Hermione wiped her mouth with a napkin, then stood up. "Come on, I've been doing some thinking, and research…"
"At the library," both young men said, and received a glare from Hermione in return.
"I have an idea about what to do."
Cleaning was only the first step in Harry's plan. One evening when Ron and Hermione came over for dinner, they spent some time trying to figure out a way to get rid of the screeching portrait of Mrs. Black in the front hallway. They tossed around a lot of ideas, until Hermione stood up in front of that dreadful portrait. Brandishing her wand, she cried "Bombarda Minima!" There was a loud crack, and one entire section of the wall fell away, including the portrait. Of course, Mrs. Black began to scream. Ron came up beside Hermione, flicked his wand at the picture, and, said "Reducto!" To Harry's surprise, that huge, heavy portrait and its frame was reduced to the size of an 8 x 10 photo. Mrs. Black was still screaming, of course, but then Ron pointed his wand at her and ordered "Silencio Permanento!" Mrs. Black tried to call him names, but when she opened her mouth, nothing came out. Ron looked at Harry, who stood looking in awe, then shrugged. "Hermione took a lot of time to help me with that charm..." To top off the entire event, the three of them took the portrait to Kreacher's room and placed it next to his bed.
With the downstairs hall blown away, Harry had a brainstorm. He loved magic, and everything about the world he had known since he had been eleven years old. But he still remembered things he had longed for as a kid growing up on Privet Drive. He realized that what he needed was a witch or wizard who was Muggle born and familiar with electrical wiring. After a few weeks of fruitless searching, he was beginning to think that it had been easier hunting Horcruxes! Then Hermione mentioned a friend of hers from the Ministry who had been Muggle born, and raised by a mother who was an electrical engineer in the Muggle world. Her mother was getting on in years, so Hermione's colleague had made the decision to return to her roots and help her mother with her business affairs. Harry met with her one afternoon, told her of his ideas, then watched her eyes light up with excited anticipation of the job ahead.
They tore out walls and wired the entire house with electricity, then she hooked up a state of the art satellite system. They also took safety precautions by installing cameras around the outside of the property, along with the best charms to use inside. She managed to hook into the city's electrical grid in such a way that - on the odd chance someone checked into it - the billing would look like the house had been wired for generations. Then, Harry spent one long weekend magically installing new walls in shades of blue, yellow and white...with the exception of his bedroom. That room he painted in scarlet and gold - Gryffindor colors.
He also purchased lamps, a boat load of light bulbs and had modern kitchen appliances delivered. He then took a trip to an electronics firm downtown and bought computers, gaming systems and televisions. A few nights later, he invited Ron, Hermione, Arthur and Molly Weasley to dinner. Arthur was, predictably, over the moon about all the Muggle technology.
Hermione had been gently introducing Ron to Muggle things, but this night turned into a heavy dose of a world Ron and his family had never experienced. He ordered Chinese food for take out, then watched as all of them struggled with the chopsticks.
The house now looked bright and cheery. In fact, the grim old Black house now was Harry Potter's home. He especially enjoyed entertaining the Weasleys there because they had opened their home to him so often in the past. His next guests would be Luna Lovegood and Neville Longbottom. He might even break down and ask Professor McGonagall over for tea! Maybe even Dudley...someday...maybe...