Chapter 6: Making someone else's house a home

Although Graham tried to update Lily on her sister after leaving the Dursleys, he was surprised to find that both she and James had vanished on his return apparition to the site of the wedding. In fact, the site had largely emptied out by the time of his return; as far as he could tell, only aurors and a few hastily repurposed waiter-constructs remained, picking through the debris of the evening. As he approached the wedding stage, Graham was surprised to find himself suddenly subjected to a fierce interrogation at wand-tip.

"Who the hell are you, then – another journalist come to look for a scoop?" growled a worryingly scarred auror, who Graham quickly realised had to be Alastor Moody, the renowned hunter of Death Eaters. Before Graham could answer, his interrogator continued. "And why d'you think it's okay for you to potter along to an active crime scene? People didn't die tonight just so you could get exclusives."

"No, no – sorry, I didn't realise things had been locked down. I was at the wedding, and Lily sent me to check up on her sister after she got hit with some debris – I was actually wondering if I could talk to her? I just wanted to tell her that I've fixed her sister up and there's nothing to worry about."

Moody was, if anything, slightly disappointed by this explanation, but he relaxed his guard a little and lowered his wand.

"Oh, I see. Longshaw, is it? Lily told me that I should expect you to turn up at some point. I'll make sure your message gets to her, don't you worry - she's gone into protection, see." Moody said, face twisted into a slightly underwhelming attempt at a reassuring smile.

Graham, noticing Moody's use of Lily's first name, decided that he might well be a member of the Order, and relaxed a little – she was clearly in safer hands than those of the ministry.

"Thank you, that's really very kind of you – and thank you for your work this evening, as well." Graham replied, managing a rather more winning smile than Moody had mustered. He turned to leave, but remembered Petunia's last request, and twisted back round again. "One last thing, actually: make sure to tell her that Petunia doesn't begrudge her? She's a muggle, and she was worried Lily would think she hated her after today, you know."

And, with Moody's reassurance that he'd pass on his message, Graham turned back, taking in the debris of Lily's wedding one last time, and apparated home.

"Oh, thank Merlin!"

Graham hadn't known whether (or when) Jessica might have heard the news, but she was very evidently aware by the time Graham apparated into their shared living room and she gave him a crushing hug (one downside of his general gangliness was his vulnerability to such manoeuvres) and burst into wet, heavy tears. Graham patted her back awkwardly, and returned the hug; over her shoulder, David was sitting on the sofa, jacket and bow-tie hanging on the armrest, looking profoundly relieved himself.

At length, they had all calmed down enough to properly discuss the events of the evening.

"So, after we got back – ahem, some time after – Jess said that we could probably hear something about the wedding on the Wizarding Wireless, and got her radio out." David began, taking a sip of the tea which he'd brewed for the three of them.

"So we listened for a bit – standard wizarding verbiage, wittering on about the dress and so on – but it suddenly went all breaking news on us, and that's when we heard about the attack. No details or anything, just that there had been an attack – and that six people had been killed." Jessica continued, her fists clenched against her nightgown. "I had no idea what had happened – God, Graham, I couldn't even bear to think about it. I'm so glad you're alright – I was so worried when you took so long to get back."

Graham patted her on the knee consolingly, before giving the two of them a very brief summary of the attack. He attempted a bravado he certainly did not feel, doing his best to regale the two of them with the funnier aspects – his insect-based assault on Carrow and his encounter with the Dursleys – but, a few moments later, his efforts failed him, and he sunk back into his chair, staring at nothing for a moment; he looked down, and discovered with surprise that his hands were trembling a little.

"I'm – God, I don't – Merlin, I knew some of the people that died." He started, having spent a few moments listening to the slow tick of the clock in the darkened room. "I tried to help a few of them – this lovely witch who was fighting two Death Eaters at once, another man who got hit with an entrail expeller before I could put him in a proper stasis –" he shuddered, looking down again at his hands; although their trembling had lessened, the magnitude of the evening hit him again as the last vestiges of his adrenaline drained away.

"Jess – I saw him, you-know-who, I mean. I was metres away from him at the end – before Lily and James saved us all. And I can't tell you how it felt to be that near to him, to feel the force he puts out just by existing. Do you know - he killed four people without even looking! Without even paying attention, just like that and they're gone. It could have been me."

Again, the three of them fell silent for a minute. Finally, though, the clock began to strike twelve, and David spoke up, smiling at his friends.

"Graham, it's not my place to say – I have no idea just how horrible it must have been, and how scary this evil overlord of yours is – but I think I'm speaking for both of us when I say how proud I am of you. God knows what I'd have done in your place – hidden under a table, maybe? No idea. But you saved peoples' lives today, mate – and you fought those magical Nazis, and you didn't run away. That's amazing, Graham – it really is." He patted Graham on the knee before leaning over to Jess to give her a kiss on the cheek. "Jess, love – why don't you make Graham that sleep-easy potion you told me about? It sounds like he could use it – and we can watch an episode of Dad's Army on the VCR or something in the meantime, if that works for you both?"

Jessica lit up, and climbed to her feet, smiling. "That's a better idea than me moping around, to be sure – if it works for you, Gray?" She leaned over and gave him a hug, then headed off to fetch her potions equipment from her room: and, although it took half an hour to brew a dreamless sleep potion, Graham's sleep afterwards was mercifully free of Voldemort's waxen visage and the crooning taunts of Alecto Carrow.

Although Graham sent Lily an owl asking how she was the next day, he received no reply. At first, this was of no surprise to him; he expected that she and James would currently be buried under the wave of mail in sympathy and concern over the attack on their wedding.

Days turned into weeks, however, and Graham still received no reply. Lily's phone line had also evidently been cut, as he went to a blank dial-tone when he tried to call her; and his subsequent owls failed to even reach their addressee, merely circling around for a few moments before coming back to roost, looking a little baffled.

Finally, Graham decided to throw caution to the wind, and attempted to apparated to –

Where was he trying to apparate to? He wondered, poised on the edge of teleportation. He was going to see Lily, but where did that actually mean? He knew where she lived – could remember bumping his head on her mantelpiece – and yet –

All of a sudden, Graham was gripped with a tremendous headache, and staggered for the support of the wall. Clearly, he surmised, once the pain ebbed away, some serious wards had been put down on the place he could no longer name or locate: he simply did not understand, however, why Lily and James evidently felt themselves to be such a target all of a sudden. Clearly, the Potters were no longer open for business.

A little later, Graham's follow-up owl to Sirius, on the other hand, proved more of a success – and, a short correspondence later, the two of them had a hasty rendezvous in an innocuous park in suburban London.

"So, Sirius –" Graham began, identification checks safely dispensed with – "what the hell's going on with Lily and James? Are they both all right?"

Sirius quickly moved to reassure Graham. "Yeah, of course – don't worry! Nothing wrong with either of them at all, though Lily's about the size of a house by now. Dumbledore has them under strict orders to stay hidden, though. He's discovered some plan Voldemort has to do with them – no idea what it is, myself, but it's something quite serious so they're in deep cover for now. Oh, and by the way – thank you for your help at the wedding. I'm sure things would have been even worse without your help."

"Well, that's better than the alternative, of course – I hope Lily's okay and that everything's in order for the birth, though – even if it's closed doors, make sure Madam Pomfrey or somebody has access or something?" Magical births were, for the most part, less complicated than muggle ones – but a qualified medical professional would certainly ease things along and make the process less painful for Lily.

"Oh, and another thing, Graham – Lily sends her apologies for your project. She told me it didn't look like she'd get much of a chance to get out for the time being, but she did say she was appointing an ambassador to ferry her ideas back and forth – me, that is." Sirius smirked at Graham, before giving him a slightly over-the-top bow. "Sorry to say that I don't have many of those tiny chocolate things ambassadors are meant to give out, but I do look very fetching in my suits. Well, in my suit."

"Well, Sirius – I don't really know what to say. Thank you's a good start, I suppose – and should I fill you in on the rest of the plan I have? I know you've already been told the basics." A few minutes passed as Graham described the rest of his plan to Sirius, drawing suitably horrified sounds as he explained the technical side of the operation. Finally, it all proved a little too much for Sirius, who brightly clapped Graham on the shoulder and congratulated him on his ingenuity, then insisted that they talk about something else.

"So, now that you've proved yourself a mad scientist, why don't you really play the part with an evil lair of your choice – which is to say, I'm up for a bit of real-estate shopping if you are?" From an expanded pocket in his – surprisingly muggle-worthy – suit, Sirius withdrew a sheaf of papers, each of which, Graham realised with a start, was a property deed.

"If she wasn't as awful to me as she was, I'd feel a little sorry for mum, I suppose." Sirius supplied, shuffling the papers into order. "Since Reggie - disappeared, and Dad died last year, she's gone completely round the bend – living in that old wreck with nothing but her house-elf for company, it's not much of a surprise. Barely has the magic left to man the defences on her house, anyway – with James' cloak, I was in and out in minutes, with her none the wiser."

Sirius thumped the papers onto Graham's lap, indicating that he should look them over. "Of course, a few of these still have people living in them." Sirius continued, as Graham examined the documents. "Granddad, Aunt Cassie, and a few others are still knocking around; I left their deeds in place, and transformed a stack of papers into replicas with incorrect addresses for the rest. The wards won't let newcomers without the deeds in, anyway – most of these places have been in lockdown for years. You can take your pick, and I'll be bringing the rest to the Order for use as safe houses – can't believe I didn't think of it before, to be honest."

This was no problem to Graham, and – after an awkward jaunt into the cover of the bushes that would have looked quite suspicious to a passing muggle (for very different reasons) Sirius pulled Graham into a side-along and the first of several bizarre house viewings.

Despite the fact that he'd managed little more than to leaf through the majority of the deeds Sirius had thrust upon him, Graham knew that he'd found what he was looking for by the fourth property. The first three had been certainly shown the range of the Black property portfolio, encompassing a traditional – read crumbling – wizarding tower ("All the rage in the 1850s, apparently – a return to some made up Wizarding antiquity which never actually happened, as far as I can tell."), a hunting lodge in the far reaches of the forbidden forest which was delightfully appointed with body parts from every magical beast under the sun ("Shame about the smell, really; never did understand why Great-uncle Cygnus kept the nundu dung he found on safari."), and, confusingly, an apartment on the top floor of a block of flats in Holland Park ("That'll be Aunt Carina's place – terrible scandal when she went native and married a muggle, blasted off the family tree and passed away in a trademark Black family 'tragic accident' not a year later.") The fourth property, on the other hand, was something rather more exciting.

"Huh – I didn't realise we had something this far south." Sirius mused, looking down at a yellowing deed. "This is Lockwood Manor, apparently, and it's not been inhabited for almost a hundred and twenty years – though it's nearly four hundred years older than that? No word on the last owner, either."

Graham raked his eyes across the Tudor-style garden which had clearly, at some far removed point, been carefully manicured into a charming imitation of the larger muggle efforts of palaces like Hampton Court. By now, of course, a follow-up trimming was long overdue. A set of greenhouses (presumably enchanted for durability) full to bursting with greenery flanked a hedge-like lawn, itself subdivided by pebbled pathways and flanked by a long-stagnant moat. The suggestion of flower-beds at the far end of the garden was overcome by the reality of weeds; but, Graham could tell, this had been a dearly loved garden by one of its past owners, and was not so far removed from its past that a few well-used spells wouldn't fix a great many sins.

The house itself had also seen better days. It had, without doubt, once been a magnificent property, its two wings stretching around a courtyard with a glorious fountain. Its legacy had clearly waned after its abandonment, however: its red-bricked, crenelated façade was largely intact, but part of the roof had caved in on one wing, the fountain had crumbled away, most of the windows had broken under the pressure of the elements, and the main door was hanging off its hinges.

"It's…" Graham trailed off.

"A mess?"

"No – actually, I honestly think this would be perfect!" Graham turned to Sirius in excitement, rolling his eyes at the dubious glance Sirius was giving him.

"I'm serious, Sirius. If you open the plans for me –" Sirius obligingly tapped the deed for Graham, and its text dissolved, leaving a detailed plan in its place. "Thanks! As I was saying, this place has all the space I need – bedrooms I can expand and convert into classrooms, a proper-sized kitchen, greenhouses for a bit of early magical gardening, a great hall – with a minstrel's balcony, whatever that is – and more. I mean, it even has a separate cottage! It'll take a lot of work to fix it up, sure – but I have the time, and it'll give me a chance to start planning the rest of all this."

"The rest of what, exactly?" Sirius asked – he'd been aware that there would be some kind of muggleborn activity in the house, but nothing beyond that.

"Well, making this into the first magical preparatory school, of course!" Graham answered, grinning widely. "At first for newborn magical kids, sure – and I'm sure I'll be up to my ears along with all the other people here making sure they have the basics in hand." He sighed happily, looking the manor over again, before continuing. "But in the longer term, when they're grown up and we've built ourselves a better world? I want this to be a proper school for wizards to go to before Hogwarts. We can expand it – I know there's another few acres around the back of the house which we can build into when the time comes – and, when we get the chance, we'll properly integrate it with Hogwarts."

Sirius laughed, thumping Graham on the back. "Capital idea! And just the right balance of ambition and forethought; nice to see you living up to your Ravenclaw traits. Just promise me that you'll name the school houses 'Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs', won't you?"

"Aha!" Graham cried. "So you do admit a connection to the mysterious and as-yet unidentified Hogwarts pranksters of yore? Well, that's certainly interesting… but of course I can do that, if we make it that far." He grinned again, looking around him. "So, shall we get to the fun and exciting bit where you transfer a deed to me? I know this is the one – and thank you so, so much, Sirius; you've no idea how much this means to me."

The transfer of control over the house was a surprisingly expedited procedure, much to Graham's surprise – he had no experience of the magical world, but a drop of blood on the deed ("Pretty nasty, in theory," Sirius commented, "but practically speaking it's much faster than the registry office.") was all that Graham needed to become the new owner of Lockwood Manor.

"Oh, before I go, Graham – Lily told me to give these to you as well." From within his coat, Sirius withdrew a pair of notebooks. "A housewarming gift, I suppose - she thought a bit of advice from one homeowner to another might be helpful. Anyway, I'll see you around, probably? I'll try and keep in touch when I can, and pass messages from Lily on to you, but it's pretty damned busy in the Voldemort business, if you get my gist. Anyhow, I'll see you later!" And, with a pop and a twist of his ankle, Sirius had gone.

Of course, ownership might have been nine tenths of the law, but owning the house did very little for Graham on its own: there was still a huge amount of work to do, most of which he was not in the least bit qualified for. Reparo might have been a useful catchall spell, he mused, after one final attempt left the fountain in the courtyard in a relatively acceptable condition – but it was functionally useless once you went beyond the detailed work of repairing objects; because it tried to repair every aspect of the object it was cast on, casting on a house was rather like casting it on the earth – in other words, functionally useless (though Graham liked to imagine that, somewhere in the world, his spell would fix a random person's broken shower, leaving them none the wiser). The fact that he had been forced to sever the fountain base from the courtyard to effectively repair it put most renovation jobs out of the spell's useful range.

Luckily for Graham, however, Lily proved her abilities and her foresight with the manuals which she'd provided: her notebooks were filled with the most useful maintenance charms she'd found in designing her own home at Godric's Hollow, as well as her 'failure-proof' space-expanding rune arrays, which were certainly guaranteed for a hundred years and would most likely last a thousand.

Once he had learned these spells, Graham enlisted the help of both David and Jessica; as he'd only received the property in the middle of July, they had plenty of time to spare before they were forced back into the tedium of revision for the doctorate in Medicine which they were both pursuing.

For all that an extra wand proved helpful in carrying out the major repair work which Graham needed to complete, there was far more to be done than could be accomplished in the space of a few weeks. David had managed a little lawn-mowing and gardening (enough to make the courtyard and its lawns presentable) but had mostly relaxed and got on with his revision beyond that, enjoying the sunbathing which Lockwood Manor offered by dint of its being in Devon, the house and the greenhouses both being too risky for someone without a wand to tackle. With Lily's distant help, Lockwood was largely season-proof and pristine by the end of July – at least on the outside.

On the inside the house was a wreck; Graham and Jessica had focused more on renovating the small cottage at the far end of the grounds which they had re-appropriated for human habitation. David would lose his rights to university funded accommodation in October, when he and Jessica returned to study – so Graham had happily given up his bedroom to David, and an hour's careful spellwork had merged two bedrooms into one, leaving a much expanded living room and study area for the two medical students to enjoy on their return to university.

Although July brought Graham and his friends a month of relatively carefree working holiday in the pleasant heat of Devonshire sunlight, it proved far less amenable to the wizarding world. Voldemort was not deterred by the fact that students had returned from Hogwarts to their homes; indeed, the prospect of catching and destroying whole families seemed exciting to him, and several wizarding households disappeared in mysterious circumstances over the month, as Voldemort sought catharsis for his unsuccessful attempt on Lily and James's wedding. Not for the first time, Graham felt profoundly grateful for the fact that he had seized the tome which registered manifested magic: he couldn't bear to think of how excited Voldemort would have been if he had access to every muggleborn's address, let alone the depravities he would wreak upon them. Fortunately, though, the beginning of August brought brighter news than the sporadic attacks which had characterised the rest of the month.

"Jess!" Graham called, reading the message which Sirius' owl had passed on to him a few moments before. "Come and have a look at this!"

Leaving her manipulations of colour in the great stained-glass window which dominated one wall of the dining hall for a moment, Jessica strolled over to Graham, taking the letter which he passed her and scanning through it, along with the enclosed photographs. Then, after a moment, she squealed in excitement.

"It's a boy! Oh, wow – he's so beautiful, Graham! How long has he been around?"

Graham looked through the second page of the latter – it was, he realised, most likely a stock production given the number of people to whom Lily and James wanted to break the news from hiding, but he appreciated their including him in the circular nevertheless.

"Since the thirty-first of July, apparently – David would be happy, that makes two of them." said Graham. David's birthday had been enjoyably depraved; the three of them had ventured into London, managed to destroy their livers in the space of a few hours, and staggered back to their beds shortly afterwards at Lockwood, one hazy set of apparitions later.

"Well, that is lovely. And, honestly, it's making me feel a bit broody: I know that David and I are both going to be busy in the next few years, but, well – Harry's just so cute! Look at his little toes wiggle, it should be illegal to be that adorable." Jessica sighed, and the two of them stood for a moment, a rainbow of colour washing over them as the afternoon sun filtered through her newly coloured window.

"So, Graham – are you ever going to start looking for someone again?" Jessica asked, a few moments later. "It's been two and a half years since we've stopped being together, and you've hardly managed more than a few dates, not that there's anything wrong with that."

Graham looked away in embarrassment, and Jessica rushed to apologise. "No, no – I really do mean that! There's nothing at all wrong with whether you're with someone or not, it's just – " she sighed, looking back to her window. "Well, David and I are going to be in Oxford, and you'll be here, and – well, it's a beautiful house. But I just don't want you to be lonely; I care about you far too much." She flushed, looking away as well.

For a moment, Graham was reminded of why he'd wanted to go out with Jessica in the first place: it wasn't her looks, though she was certainly very pretty – it was how much and how freely she cared for those around her. All of a sudden, he laughed, and pulled her into a hug.

"Never change, Jess – never change. But don't worry about me, really – I'm just stuck in between worlds right now, I suppose, and I need to find out whether my life will be spent in the magical or mundane one before I really commit to anything else. Besides, what's several hundred miles to a teleporter?"

"It's much less significant than a passionate embrace with my betrothed, you ruffian!" declared David, as he strolled into the hall, grinning widely. "Unhand her at once, you devil! Oh, and would you care for sandwiches on the lawn? It's the most wonderful weather." As the three of them headed outside to enjoy the autumn sunshine, Lily's letter lay forgotten on the table – only a year later would Graham realise that the accompanying photo of Lily – exhausted, but elated as she held her son – was the last time he would see her alive.

AN: Thanks again for reading! Please do leave any feedback and criticism you have for me – I hugely appreciate the privilege of having my work critiqued.

To briefly explain why the Potters went into hiding before Harry was born: having heard most of the Prophecy, both Dumbledore and Voldemort realised who it could be referring to, on the basis of Lily's (and Alice's) pregnancies. Voldemort, though, was slightly quicker off the mark – it took his failed attack on the Potters for Dumbledore to connect the dots and send both families into hiding. As my slightly melodramatic ending may indicate, Graham's changes may bring good things in the future, but, alas, they won't do very much to deter fate's determined grip.

I do hope you like Graham's choice of house. If you search "East Barsham Manor" on youtube, you'll get results showing something of a similar flavour to that which I'm envisioning here – and, quite possibly, a good deal of home-envy!