Chapter Twenty-Six: Going Home
Harry was one of very few Ravenclaw students heading home for the Easter holidays. It was obvious, of course, but most went home for Christmas and remained in the castle for Easter to prepare for their exams. Harry had a very good reason to leave over Easter though - he was finally going home.
For once, he was glad that Dumbledore paid very little attention to Harry's home-life with the Dursleys. He hadn't questioned Harry's decision to leave for the holidays, and he had no idea that Harry would actually be spending it with a man the whole world thought was dead.
The train journey from Hogsmeade to London seemed to fly by - Harry spent the journey practicing and perfecting his wandless summoning charm, and reading through a book Sirius had sent on the ridiculously extensive Black family portfolio.
One of his goals for this holiday was to get Sirius into Gringotts, and for him to claim the Black Lordship. For that, he needed to know exactly what Sirius was getting into. Of course, the main goal was to visit Potter Manor and find out if it was habitable. If it was, he'd start warding the place to hell and back and planning a refurbishment with Sirius. If it wasn't, well he'd cross that bridge if it came to it.
The train slowed to a stop with a hiss as platform nine and three quarters came into view. Harry packed away his books and charmed his trunk feather-light before leaving his compartment and walking off the train. The platform was pretty empty - a handful of parents waiting to collect their children, and one great big shaggy dog. Harry grinned.
"Padfoot! You naughty boy, who let you out of your kennel?"
Padfoot growled, Harry snorted.
"C'mon, let's get off the platform."
Harry walked through the barrier and out of King's Cross station, leading Padfoot into a shadowed alleyway before swiftly turning, grabbing a handful of fur, and apparating the two of them to Grimmauld Place.
CRACK.
Padfoot transformed into a dishevelled man who thwacked his knee into a table and howled in pain.
"Harry! I wasn't bloody ready!"
Harry laughed, a full belly laugh that made him double over.
"Sorry Sirius, I couldn't resist."
Sirius rubbed his knee furiously and glared at his godson.
"I'll get you back for that you bastard. You'd better watch out!"
Harry's laughter died down, and he walked up to Sirius to hug him.
"I missed you."
Sirius calmed down immediately. "I missed you too pup. Do you want something to eat?"
"Not if you're cooking," Harry replied.
"Hey! Ah you know what, that's fair enough. But no, our wonderful resident chef, Kreacher, has prepared dinner for us."
With a pop, Kreacher appeared in the dining room and bowed to Sirius. He turned to look at Harry.
"Young Master," he said, "Welcome back to Grimmauld Place. Would you like some tea?"
Harry was stunned. "I'd love some, thanks Kreacher."
Kreacher popped away again, presumably to make the aforementioned tea.
"Since when does Kreacher talk like that? And since when does he bow to you?"
Sirius smiled. "I did tell you we've pretty much worked our relationship out. I've stopped being a prick to him and he's stopped calling me a blood traitor. I've given him a few Black family heirlooms as well. Wouldn't stop bowing to me after that, it creeped me out a bit."
Harry and Sirius sat down to dinner half an hour later, both of their faces aching from smiling and laughing. That's a nice problem to have, Harry thought.
Over dinner, Sirius asked Harry about his plan for the following week.
"So, is step one to get me into Gringotts? Or to visit Potter Manor?"
"I'm open to suggestions, but my plan was Potter Manor first, in case it needs massive renovations. That gives us the most time to figure out how to fix the place up."
Sirius nodded. "That's smart. Are we heading there tomorrow?"
"The sooner the better. Let's try and leave at 9am."
Sirius groaned. "Nine? Are you trying to kill me?"
"You need to get used to being up at a normal hour, Sirius. Especially for our future plans."
"Which plan is this? World domination?"
Harry snorted. "Something like that."
~OvO~
At half past nine the next morning, Harry and Sirius were stood in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place, both holding a short piece of rope.
"We're leaving late, Sirius."
"Big deal, so I wanted to have a leisurely breakfast. Sue me!"
Harry frowned. "Listen, I know you're thrilled at being free, and you're enjoying your freedom as you rightly should, but we need to start being more precise. Plans succeed or fail depending on half an hour, okay?"
"Bloody hell Harry, fine. I swear you sound exactly like Lily sometimes."
"That sounds like a compliment to me. Now then, are you ready?"
Sirius nodded. Harry spoke the activation word and suddenly, the kitchen of Grimmauld Place was empty.
Just under three hundred miles away, a small distance outside the tiny Welsh village of Abergynolwyn, a small boy and a tall man appeared at the top of a hill in an instant, as if by magic. They both looked around, before clearly spotting what they were looking for.
"Bloody hell…"
"It looks… incredible! Sirius this is fantastic!
Twenty metres in front of them, Potter Manor rose from the hills like something out of a forgotten painting. Its weathered stone walls warm with age, ivy creeping up the gables, and tall windows catching the pale morning light. The gravel drive curved around a circular, and very overgrown, topiary, leading to a heavy oak door carved with the Potter crest: a rearing stag above a burning star. Though the grounds were quiet and a touch wild, there was a sense of deep magic in the air; faded, but not gone. The house didn't feel abandoned. It felt... expectant. As though it had been waiting.
They approached the oak door, and Harry lay a hand on the handle. He could feel the energy of the house running to meet him, as if it was thrilled he had come home. It almost brought him to tears.
Opening the door, Harry gasped at the interior. A magnificent spiralled stone stairway branched into the ceiling on the right, and on the left a fireplace at least six feet wide sat, soot coating the rear wall. He and Sirius walked through the entrance hallway into a long room at the rear of the house - clearly a kitchen, before splitting up and exploring the vast manor.
Over the next hour, Harry felt more nostalgic than he ever had before. He had dreamt of a home for twenty years, and it felt as if his dreams had come true. He found the master bedroom; it looked a mess, as if the last people to use it had left in a hurry, and the Lord's study two doors down, which opened for him and, he suspected, him alone.
Back in the entrance hall, Harry and Sirius descended a steep staircase to the right of the fireplace to find a cavernous cellar designed in part as a duelling arena, and part library. The books smelled old, older than those in Hogwarts, and Harry's mind whirred in anticipation of cataloguing what was there and what he hadn't yet read.
They ascended back to the ground floor, and sat down in the kitchen.
"So, what do you think Harry?"
Harry's eyes wandered around the kitchen, glancing out the windows to the rear garden, and back to Sirius.
"I think this will do very nicely indeed," he said, grinning.
~OvO~
While Sirius called Kreacher to help clean up the Manor, Harry started to work on the wards. He'd found the ward book in the study, and was sat behind the large oak desk reading through its entries. Most of the wards were for concealment, with a few of the much earlier, and much later, wards being for protection and security. Harry and Sirius were already logged in the book, as well as James and Lily, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, Albus Dumbledore, Frank, Alice, and Neville Longbottom, Marlene McKinnon, and, oddly, Cyrus and Catherine Greengrass.
Harry had no idea why the Lord and Lady Greengrass were allowed entry to Potter Manor, and decided that needed to be added to his ever-growing list of mysteries to solve.
It pained him to remove most of the entrants in the ward book, but he could always add them back in the future. For now, the list of people allowed entrance would just be himself and Sirius.
He spent a while searching for the wardstone, and eventually found it set in the mantle above the front door. Placing his hand so that his Potter ring was touching the stone, he could feel a warm wave of energy, much the same as when he had first arrived, and felt the wards connecting with him and reactivating after a decade of unuse.
After adding his own layered alarm ward, Harry walked back through the Manor, relishing the feeling of contentedness that was settling deep in his heart. This place was his. His family had lived here going back centuries, and now it was his own safe-haven. He found Sirius in an upstairs bedroom sorting through linens, vanishing those that were too far gone to be reused, and scourgifying the rest.
"Hey, shall we head back to Grimmauld? We've been here a while and while I'd love to stay, all of our stuff is back in London."
Sirius nodded. "That makes sense, we can start moving things over here in the next few days."
He called Kreacher and told him they were going to head back to London, before they both walked downstairs and out into the front garden. Harry looked back at the house, smiling, before swisting on the stop, reappearing in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place.
Sirius appeared two seconds after him, and they both sat down as Kreacher started making dinner.
"So," said Sirius. "Are we planning on heading to Gringotts tomorrow?"
"I think so," said Harry. "It should be easy enough if you go as Padfoot. I'll ask to see Ragthar and give him a warning before you transform. They'll know you're still alive but I still think it'd be a shock to see you with me."
"Agreed. I promise I'll be up earlier tomorrow too" Sirius said, smiling.
"I'll hold you to that."