Babble House
“This isn´t Privet Drive”, Harry commented after Professor Snape had finished apparating them.
They were standing on a narrow pathway leading up to an overgrown manor house. To their left, a stable house was standing open, though it didn´t look unused. Further away to their right, a small lake was situated next to a tower adjacent to the manor. Around the area, deep forest enclosed the grounds, making the pathway behind them look witchy and dark.
“Very intelligent observation”, Professor Snape commented drily, grabbing Harry´s trunk and starting forward on the path towards the house.
Harry quickly grabbed Hedwig´s empty cage and followed his professor, a newfound spring in his step.
“You´re being sarcastic aren´t you?”, he asked.
“Obviously”, Snape stated and the Gryffindor could almost hear the eyeroll accompanying the statement.
“Great”, Harry started. “I´d have died from shock if you had given me an honest compliment. Uh…Sir.”
“Watch your cheek, Mr. Potter”, Snape simply said, his tone deceptively light.
They walked up to the great dark wooden door on the left wing of the manor house, passing the stables on their way. Further away, Harry could catch a glimpse of some horses traipsing peacefully over a large fenced in areal. As they reached the door, Professor Snape took out two identical keys from his pocket, passing one to the Gryffindor, while he used the other one to open the door.
“This is your key. Make sure to always take it with you, the entrance doors are self-locking”, Snape told the Gryffindor. “Welcome to Babble House.”
Harry stepped into the entrance hall. A coat rack shaped like a person drew his attention, the snakes on her head already carrying several coats. To her feet, a row of boots was lined up neatly, all in black and brown except for one pair of dark green sneakers. The coats didn´t look like anything the Dursleys would wear either.
“Is this Medusa?”, Harry asked curiously.
“It´s a Gorgon, yes”, Professor Snape stated drily. “If you would finish coming into the house, I´d like to close the door.”
“So…uh”, Harry started, fiddling nervously with the hem of his shirt. “Where are my relatives, if I´m to stay here? I am to stay here, right?”
Snape rolled his eyes, setting Harry’s trunk down next to the coat rack then taking off his cloak and hanging it on one of the snakes: “In prison I´d imagine.”
“Wait, what?”, Harry blurted, before flushing red.
“Severus”, a familiar voice chided. “Stop acting like your allergic to communication and just tell the boy. You´re not above acting like a normal human being and we all know it.”
Harry whirled around, startled, and stared at Professor Sinistra, who stood in the connecting door to the next room, leaning against the doorframe. Next to her, Professor Babbling was standing, smiling at Harry. His black mane of hair seemed even wilder than it usually looked at Hogwarts and he was wearing a large scarf instead of an outer robe.
“Hello, Mr. Potter. Welcome to our home”, Professor Babbling greeted the Gryffindor.
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“This is my room?”, Harry asked Professor Sinistra – No, Aurora. She had asked him to call her by her first name.
He looked around the big tower room he had been given for the summer. There wasn´t much in the room, just a bed, a few shelves, a desk, two chairs and an owl stand. Harry´s trunk had been placed at the foot of the bed. Both the walls and the ceiling were painted in a midnight blue, showing stars and constellations. Some white paint showed the milky way all the way over the ceiling in the middle of the room.
“This is it, yes”, Aurora Sinistra said. “Tell me if you want to change anything. This used to be my chart room and just recently got converted for you, so there are likely still some things missing that we couldn´t think of.”
“Thank you”, Harry told her honestly. “You didn´t need to do that. I would have taken any room, really.”
“I´ll leave you to unpack then”, Sinistra – Dammit, Aurora. He kept forgetting. – said. “Be down for dinner at eight.”
Professor Sinistra left the tower room, closing the door behind her with a soft click. Harry did another turn around the room, inspecting the shelves, which looked special made to the round walls, before setting the empty owl cage on the table and settling down on his bed. It was quiet here – Like, really quiet. – There was a bird singing in the distance and the sound of something swimming through the water below, but other than that, Harry didn´t hear any noise. He didn´t know if he had ever been in such a quiet space. His cupboard and room at the Dursley´s certainly hadn´t been and the Gryffindor dormitories always had someone making noise, even if you disregarded that they were right next to the common room and his house´s administration didn´t seem to believe in noise wards.
It was discomforting, suddenly being in the quiet, but it was also strangely relaxing to Harry. If this was how he´d spend his summer, he had no complaints, even if he had to do potions with Snape every day. Now he just needed to send a message to Hermione to get Hedwig back. The Professors were magic-workers after all, they should be alright with him having his owl in his room, right?
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When Harry came down for dinner at eight in the evening, still bleary eyed from an accidental nap shortly after he had finished unpacking his wardrobe, he heard voices already coming from the kitchen. Admittedly, he might be a bit late since he had gotten lost within the house twice on his way to find the kitchen, not used to the layout and weird corners that wizarding homes could have. Sure, he´d been at the Burrow before, but the Weasley´s house stretched itself more into the sky than in other dimensions. The Gryffindor had finally surrendered when he had traipsed into a medieval-looking feasting hall – and what on earth was that about? – and had asked the amused portrait on the wall for directions to the kitchen. After that, it had taken Harry only two minutes to reach his destination.
“Aura, have you seen the Daily Prophet today? Should we expect their headquarters to burn down in the night?”, the raven-haired teen heard Babbling say in the kitchen.
“She has a mansion, too, I believe.”, Aurora Sinistra answered drily.
“Should I be prepared to give an alibi?”, Snape interjected into their conversation as Harry rounded the corner. “Glad to see you´ve graced us with your presence, Mr. Potter.”
The Gryffindor shuffled into the room without a word, choosing the empty chair next to Professor Babbling to sit down. A plate filled with roast and potatoes was set down in front of him by Snape, before he sat down next to Aurora Sinistra. Then the teapot levitated around the table, followed by a milk vessel, filling their respective cups with tea and, on a gesture, with milk, too.
“So, Harry”, Sinistra started when they were eating their pudding. “There are a few rules we ask you to adhere to, while you stay here. First, you´re welcome to call us whatever you feel comfortable with, that includes our first names.”
“Secondly, and that´s the first real rule, please do not leave the grounds of Babble House alone”, Professor Babbling interjected. “There is a runic ward-line around the edges that should be obvious, but if you have trouble finding it, I can show you tomorrow.”
“Next”, Sinistra continued. “You´re welcome to come to any of us with any problem. And I do mean any of us. Be it: “I need an owl to send a letter to my friends.” or “Oh, Merlin! The world is ending, and I need this one specific thing to stop it.””
“Uhm…”, Harry started confused. “Why would the world be ending and what would be so important that I would need it?”
“Don’t know, don’t care.”, Sinistra answered with a smile. “You can come to us nevertheless and we´ll try getting it for you.”
“Alright, sure”, Harry agreed, poking the last plum on his plate with his fork distractedly.
“What was the next one?”, Babbling asked, pushing his black mane of hair out of his face behind his ear, from where it bounced right back into his face. “Ah, yes. Do not enter the Potions laboratories without supervision or Severus will Smite you. They´re in the small building in between the paddock and the greenhouses.”
“I do not Smite people”, Snape growled under his breath.
“Yes, you do, dear”, Babbling answered before going on in the same breath. “The same goes for my rune laboratory, really, but as it is in the same building, just keep away from that without an escort and you´re good.”
In the meantime, Sinistra had gotten up to make new tea by hand, carefully measuring the tea leaves and putting them in hot water heated by the stove, not by magic, as Mrs. Weasley liked to do. When she was finished, she tapped her wand to the teapot and it started floating again, making it´s round to fill the cups anew.
“Lastly, there are your chores.” Snape stated, his hands folded on the table before him, his dark eyes trained on Harry. “You will be keeping your room clean. Once a week, on a day of your choice, you will be making dinner. On another day, you will be helping the house-elves with the cleaning of either the living room or the library. Once every fortnight on Saturday, you will be helping us with weeding the garden and greenhouse.”
The Gryffindor nodded, glad their demands sounded reasonable. There was no talk about having to stay in his room or withholding food. A little cleaning every now and then honestly sounded relaxing to Harry. There was just one thing. Would it be too much to ask…? But they´d just said to come to them for anything….
“Do think about where you want to spend August.”, Snape stated, catching Harry of guard.
“Excuse me?”, he asked, bewildered.
“We usually spend August out of the country on holiday”, Sinistra explained, taking cue from the teen’s expression that he might not have heard all that had just been said. “Since you´re with us now, we agreed to let you decide our destination this summer.”
“I, uhm…”, Harry started, unsure. “You said something about letters earlier. Hermione has Hedwig, so…. And I – Wait, am I allowed to write about where I am for the summer?”
“Sure”, Babbling answered instead. “Let me show you where the owlery is located, the house can be a little bit confusing. Your owl is welcome to stay in your room instead, if she wishes such, by the way.”
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Saturday morning greeted Harry with bright light and the soft sound of singing birds coming in through the open windows. For a moment, the Gryffindor was disoriented, not used to the quiet, before he remembered where he was. A quick glance to his alarm clock showed that it was still early in the morning, barely quarter past six. Harry stretched his arms, getting up slowly to trudge over to one of the windows. The view over the small lake and deep forest was spectacular in the early morning light, capturing his attention.
Later, the raven-haired teen was trotting down the stairs towards the kitchen, his hair still a mess though he had changed out of his pyjamas into a dark brown tunic that Ginny Weasley and the Lovegood twins had gifted him as part of his new wardrobe for Christmas. He had already written up letters to each of the members of the “actually decent people” inter-house study group, as well as the Lovegood and Weasley twins, and, of course, Hermione. The letters were currently sitting on his desk neatly stacked and ready to be sent after breakfast, which Harry´s stomach had insisted upon shortly after eight in the morning. As such, the Gryffindor had decided to go down to the kitchen and grab a quick bite, hopefully before any of the adults were awake.
The sound of a cup being set down on the counter alerted the teen that someone was already in the kitchen before he rounded the corner. Nevertheless, Harry couldn´t do much beside stare at the utterly bizarre sight of Professor Snape in muggle jogging shorts and slogan shirt fiddling with a muggle coffee maker, occasionally throwing a glance over at the pan on the stove.
“Good morning, Mr. Potter. Do sit down”, Snape greeted the teen absentmindedly.
“Uh…”, Harry mumbled unintelligently, before deciding to just shut up and do what his professor had told him, sitting down at the table in the seat he had chosen the night before.
A Daily Prophet was lying on the table, the date on the paper indicating that it was the issue of the day before. Curious, Harry grabbed the newspaper, unfolding it carefully to not draw Snape´s attention. He read the first two stories before reaching the title page, which someone had ripped in half in anger. It didn´t take the teen long to understand why.
The Boy-Who-Lived kidnapped by Professor
In a dramatic turn of events, Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived got kidnapped by his own Professor from Hogwarts. How safe are our children really?
Ladies and Gentlemen, you read correctly, Harry Potter got kidnapped from Hogwarts. This reporter will tell you all about the shocking happenstance taking place at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. The castle, often referred to as the safest place in Wizarding Britain, was open to visitors for the third task of the Triwizard Tournament, when one of its students disappeared mysteriously, sending professors and students alike on a wild goose chase to find him.
Hours later, Triwizard Champion Cassius Warrington arrived with the Triwizard Cup from the maze set as Triwizard Task. However, the Slytherin was not alone. No, he was frantically clutching an injured and unconscious Boy-Who-Lived, calling for help as soon as the portkey finished dropping them off on Hogwarts Grounds.
You may be thinking now: How did Harry Potter get into the maze? Why did he disappear from the castle corridors earlier that day? How did no one know where he was? Well, wonder no more.
“Oh, do put that drivel aside!”, a bleary-eyed Professor Sinistra told Harry, disrupting his reading by snatching the rest of the title page away. “Should have just set it on fire, really.”
“I think setting her on fire would be much more effective”, Babbling interjected cheerfully, seating himself across from Harry, this day´s Daily Prophet clutched in his hand.
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After breakfast, Harry collected the letters from his room and went to the owlery to send them. He had thought about adding a letter for Sirius as well but had decided against it for now. He could always write to him later, if he really needed something. Also, the Gryffindor was still unsure about the whole situation he had found himself in and didn´t know how to put it into words for his godfather. The owl had seemed grateful not to get any more letters at any rate, so Harry decided he had made a good call on that one.
On his way back to his room, the teen started thinking about what he wanted to do on this day. He honestly didn´t know what to do with all this free time. At the Dursleys, he would already be scrubbing the kitchens clean or weeding the garden. At Hogwarts, he would either be reading, or roaming the halls – Wait…. He could roam the halls!
Starting with the tower seemed like a good idea to the Gryffindor, seeing as he had already been lost twice in the main house the day before and his room was in second floor from the top of the tower. There were stairs right next to his door leading up into the uppermost floor of the tower from the connection between the tower and the main house. Trudging up the stairs, Harry found himself in a circular room, a little smaller than his own room in parameter. The room had a glass ceiling, round in shape as well, and a big telescope stood on a rotating platform. On the side where the main house was located and blocking the view, a big table took up all the space, a star chart rolled out on the table and already marked up with notes. Remembering Sinistra´s comment about his room from the day before, Harry thought those star charts might have been stored in his room before the professors converted it to host him for the summer. He still didn´t know why they would bother. He probably wouldn´t stay more than one summer anyway, even if he couldn´t go back to the Dursleys. Dumbledore likely would send him somewhere else once he had figured out the new situation.
Working his way down the tower, Harry arrived in a tearoom. Large windows showed a view of the lake and the gardens, giving the tearoom a similar look to a wintergarden. A door, similar in style to the entrance door of the manor house was situated in one of the edges of the room, leading out into the garden via a short flight of stairs. Looking out into the garden, the teen spotted a large treehouse in the distance, right at the treeline of the forest, but was dissuaded from investigating it immediately by his rumbling stomach.
“Right”, the young Gryffindor mumbled to himself. “How do I get to the kitchens from here?”
He hadn´t been far into the ground floor yet, besides the kitchen that is, and walking around entirely unguided when he actually wanted to get somewhere seemed unwise after his stint with the medieval feasting hall the day before, so he decided to ask the next portrait that he met for directions. It didn´t take long to find one either. The portrait of a brown-haired man with a severe looking expression was hanging in two rooms further, right next to the portrait of a young girl with blonde hair, with which he was currently in a conversation.
“Excuse me”, Harry asked politely. “Would you mind pointing me towards the kitchen. I don´t know my way through the house yet.”
“Of course”, the man answered, equally politely. “Down the hall, take the third door right and then the first turn right again.”
“Thank you, Mr….?”, the teen stated, smiling warmly at the portrait.
“Lestrange”, the portrait said. “Archibald Lestrange.”
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