Pack!

Chapter Twenty-Three

               Once back at the courtyard behind the Leaky, Sirius pulled out the floo powder container he’d nicked from Gringotts. “All right, here’s at least the beginning of the plan. Floo to Malfoy Manor, do our song and dance, then fly to all those wonderfully centrally located, extremely wealthy, death eater estates nearby. There’s six of them within a workable radius, and the smallest estate we’re looking at is eighty acres. In order of wealth, it’s Malfoy, Carrow, Lestrange, Dolohov, Yaxley, and Avery, and I think we could grab most if not all of them with the time we have left, which is what…” he cast a tempus, “about four hours. We definitely want the first three of those if we can get them, they’ve got the highest chances for artifacts and supplies. I don’t remember anything particular about the others, but those first three have house specialties that were largely handled on the estate. Got to say I don’t think it’s very likely that they’d have left anything behind, but there’s always a chance. Down the road, if it winds up being just a house, we can spend some time removing any curses or traps then we can sell off the house and various outbuildings. But that being said, Malfoys have bred top of the line Abraxans for the last four decades, the Carrows are currently ward specialists but a several generations back they were potioneering giants, and the Lestranges have been enchanters for centuries, so let’s hope for at least a few goodies that may help somewhere down the line.” Sirius squared his shoulders, saying “Patronus message to Dobby, Dobby, could you please meet us in the Leaky Cauldron? We’ll only keep you a moment, I know you’re busy.” Once his Patronus had flown off, Sirius led Harry back inside the bar, where Dobby stepped out of the floo moments later.

               “Dobby is indeed being very busy, Harry Potter’s dogfather sir, how can Dobby be helping?” Sirius asked Dobby if he’d ever been in a position to overhear the floo address for Malfoy Manor, and Dobby was very pleased to be able to say he had. “Floo address is being Akhal-Teke. Is that all you is needing Dobby for? Dobby is needing to get back to being very busy at this time.”

               “Thank you, Dobby, that’s all we needed.” Harry paused, and once Dobby had flooed back out, asked “What does Akhal-Teke mean?”

               “Knowing the Malfoys, it’s something horse related, they always manage to get a horse motif onto everything they touch. All right, let’s get going, but here’s a warning, once you arrive, don’t move more than a yard away from the floo. Give me enough room to come in and be careful. It’s standard that any wards or traps are going to be set a bit of distance back, but we definitely don’t want to set them off.” And with that, he held out the floo powder bag to Harry to take a pinch, and once Harry had been swept away he followed.

               Arriving to find Harry slightly to his left, he looked around. “Tacky,” was all he said, taking in all the snow white furnishings, overly ornate and absolutely covered in gilt. Harry curled a lip in distaste as well, then raised his wand, looking at Sirius, who nodded. “Let her rip, pup, we’ll see what happens.”

               Harry had three options, the first would be a straightforward use of the Pack! spell, the second would be attempting to claim the building due to abandonment and then using Pack!, and third, being the least desirable, would be manually taking items and packing them without use of their handy cheater spell.

               Pack! worked right off, though, for which he sucked in then blew out a relieved breath. He was completely unaware he’d been the registered owner of Malfoy Manor since he was a toddler, just rolling with the thought that an abandoned structure was apparently fair game. Sirius pulled out the trunk he was using for building storage and stowing the Manor away. Once done, he tossed out his rug. “Let’s get an aerial view of the grounds, yeah? I know they had their studs and mares separated, but I don’t remember where, other than it felt like a hell of a long walk to the stables when I was eight.”

               Drifting up to a height that allowed them a view of the surrounding acreage and various outbuildings, yet staying low enough to hopefully identify building types, they did a thorough visual scan. They saw more than a dozen fenced paddocks, presumably warded to keep the Abraxans on the ground, but as they saw no signs of movement, it seemed unlikely they left any of their stock behind. Most of the barn or barn appearing buildings were clustered near what might be a training area, so that’s where they decided to start the next portion of acquisitions.

               They touched down near the first cluster of four barns, and Harry opened the door, finding it empty, as was the second, third, and fourth. All seemed to be laid out as horse barns, although surprisingly small in size for something like what Harry remembered of Beaubaton’s Abraxans, and none were Stowe and Packers construction. Harry simply Pack!ed them up for later use.

               Heading to the next cluster of four, they passed a stone building that seemed like it was probably storage, the iron bound, barn styled doors fastened shut with a heavy padlock. Sirius wasted no time sending out an Alohomora, which sparked and failed against a ward laid over the lock, but also causing a reactive shimmer over the rest of the building. The ward, or possibly a secondary ward that had been tied in, must extend over the entire structure. “Huh. First time I’ve seen a lock added to a ward. Usually it’d be just a ward,” Sirius said. “Harry, since you Pack!ed the manor, I’m guessing magic has assigned you as the owner of the estate. Come see if this ward opens for you, would you?” Harry stepped forward and picked up the lock, lifting his wand to cast, but before he could do so, the lock popped open, the building ward flashed gold, and the chain holding the padlock slid through one of the handles to hang lifelessly from the other. With a bemused shared glance, he and Sirius slid the chain free section of door to one side. The morning light fell across a dusty cobblestone floor, and partially illuminating a set of built in cabinets along the back wall. There were no other furnishings or equipment to be seen. Sirius stepped in, his boots leaving visible marks in the settled dust. It was clear the building hadn’t been entered for a number of years.

               Curious as to why the ward existed if the building was empty, he sent an independent Lumos up to hover near the ceiling, flooding the space with a bright white light and looking around for anything they hadn’t previously seen. Harry moved over to the cabinets, looking them up and down. Standing before the leftmost cabinet and seeing a shine of metal underneath a layer of grime at what would be eye level for someone Sirius’ height, he used the cuff of his shirt to wipe at it. It appeared to be a bronze name plate, and he moved down the row, wiping them all off. Standing back, he read off Andalusian, Friesian, Akhal-Teke, Jennet, Barb, Percheron. Recognizing a few of the names as horse breeds, he went to open the Akhal-Teke cabinet, being one he’d never heard of.

               Inside the cupboard, the top half consisted of two shelves of well worn notebooks, then three large squares, each containing a lifelike statuette of a horse, one in chestnut, one in black, and one of gold with darker legs. The cubicle for the chestnut had a tag at the upper edge reading “Mayyadah”, the black was “Absent”, and the one of gold was “Melekush”. He took his hat off to the artist, they were stunning. Whatever paint they used didn’t quite cover the metallic shine of the material used for casting. Two lower shelves contained a number of additional statuettes, without any visible tags and in a plethora of colors.

               “Okay, we’re definitely packing this up, I’ve no idea why they left them here, but they’re gorgeous. No idea where I’d use them, but if I have to I’ll build a museum. Those deserve to be seen.” Sirius had a thoughtful look on his face, but just nodded. Harry cast a Pack!, and after scooping up the box they continued on to find another four empty barns, and four more beyond that, all of which were Pack!ed, although the last four were even smaller in size, both internal and external, and Harry suspected were for something other than horses. The smallest four barns, however, were Stowe and Packers, which he collapsed to their door state. After collection of twelve barns, a giant sized indoor training arena tucked into a normal sized building, three tack sheds, one of which still contained it’s equipment, two stasis controlled grain storage barns, one of which was half full, and five barrels marked molasses that had been tucked just inside an empty shed that they elected to leave behind, they approached the last nearby building. It appeared to be double the size, both in length and height, of the previous barns, but to all outward appearance was entirely similar.

               Upon entry, they found a barn full of Abraxans, from palominos to blood bays to blacks, all in stasis. Clearly this was a modern Stowe and Packers barn with the stalls under individual control. There had to be forty very sizeable stalls, everyone occupied, with some few containing both a mare and a foal and each well bedded with straw. The aisles were scrupulously clean, and 12 feet of the barn end had been sectioned off for office space, which didn’t appear to have been disturbed. The oversized second floor was a combination of bags of feed, hay, and storage. “I’m joining up with Ollie,” Harry decided on the spot. “Flying horses, our non-magicals will love this, they can learn to fly!”

               “It’s odd that they left an entire barn of extremely valuable horses, Harry. And I do mean extremely valuable. We absolutely should take full advantage. Let’s find the switch to collapse it to it’s portable state.” They quickly figured out why the barn had been left behind and with contents when after a very thorough ten minute search they failed to locate it. “Well, crap. I’m thinking Malfoy cheaped out on construction, Harry. All those barns that weren’t Stowe and Packers, and now this one which has stasis but not portability? Yeah, I’m thinking Lucy was getting a little tightfisted on the purse strings. Any options come to mind? Those four portable and stasis equipped barns we grabbed are way too small for Abraxans.”

               “Agreed, but I still have one of my original portable stables, and Ollie had thought it could be used for Abraxans. It’s got thirty stalls, so maybe we can double up some of the younger and not quite full grown, what do you think?”

               “I think we need to get moving, shifting this lot around is going to take time. I don’t know about you, but I’m not ready to handle them out of stasis, so we’ll have to work around that.” He paused a moment to consider the issue. “All right, lets try this; go ahead and put up your portable on the office wall there. We can grab some of those hay bales and spread them in your stalls, get a good several inches in them. Once we’re set, I’ll stun them one at a time, lift the stasis on each, and you start levitating them into the portable. Once they’re placed, engage the stasis for that stall and finite the stunner. I’ll help once they’re all stunned.”

               It took them almost an hour to transfer all fifty two of the horses, then Harry stowed his stable and Pack!ed the building. Looking at the clock had them deciding to leave the rest of the Malfoy Estate behind, they were down to three hours. Their growing anxiousness had them taking just a single hour to blaze through the Lestrange and Dolohov estates, grabbing the manor houses only, and then from Carrow estate they took the Manor house and a greenhouse that Harry spotted on their way in. He’d no idea what it contained and didn’t bother wasting time looking around, just throwing out a Pack! and grimly hoping the plants made it. They raced to the Avery estate, and barged inside, looking for a floo. Sirius called out when he found one, they both dove in for a single trip. It was just gone 2 PM when they slid out feet first onto the Hogwarts foyer. They’d made it and with a bit of time to spare.

                A very concerned Somley leaned over to peer into their faces as each stole a few moments to just lay flat, but the sight of the worried elf had both of them rolling to their feet and offering reassurance that they were fine, just taking a breather. Both he and Sirius had been using magic near continuously all day, and they were exhausted.