Chapter 5
The entire process to clean out the house took several years, once the foyer and kitchen had been completed she found a rather extensive basement and several other smaller hidden rooms that the house was not big enough to have. Every time she felt like she had finally found the last hidden place she seemed to find something new. Once she started knocking down walls she discovered that some small pocket of space must have existed she didn’t know about because there would suddenly be a pile of stuff that she had never seen before scattered on the floor. She also noticed that she seemed to lose some of that extra space when certain walls came down. While interesting she did not need the extra space and did not dwell on it. She found more portraits who talked, many clammed up when they figured out she was a muggle, or a squib some thought. Others were just happy to be able to speak with someone new. Those she kept and placed in a sitting room where they could look out the window if they wanted to.
She learned a lot about magic as she continued to read through the Black library she found out from one of the portraits. Some she was warned against and others she could feel the enmity coming from them. After some thought and wheedling at the portraits, she decided the really cursed books were not needed and burned them, along with some of the more… disturbing portraits.
Every once in a while something she burned would scream and it would unnerve her enough for her to retreat from the house for a weekend. She was often brewing potions, some to use and others because she wanted to know if she could. Some she couldn’t, most she could. The magical ingredients she had found and saved around the house were starting to run out though and she felt a tinge of sadness that she had no way of replacing them. One of the portraits took it upon themselves to teach her about herbology and how to grow some of the ingredients herself. The garden had mostly been left untouched since she had moved in. Too many pressing things to do in the house itself for it to be high on her list. Still, she set aside an ever-growing list of things she could use if she ever got to the garden.
The renovations were almost complete, one of the more eclectic portraits decided to tell her the story behind the dark wood floors. Seemed the Blacks were rather bloody and used the blood of their victims for several years to stain the house. She had liked the red cherry-like wood finish she had ground the wood floors too but decided to sand down a bit more, she could almost feel the house settle more as she stripped away things that felt wrong.
Several walls were now gone, the bottom floor an open floor plan circular around the reconstructed gothic stairs. The pillars that held the house were still there. She had lost some space in the magically enlarged ballroom when she knocked down the wall separating it from the family room but found she didn’t really mind, the corner of the room was still expanded. Upstairs she had knocked down the wall that had posters stuck to it and turned an 8 bedroom floor plan into a 5. The library she left intact mostly but expanded it to include her own growing collections.
If not for her selling much of what could be saved of the furniture and jewelry she would have lost a lot of money in her fixing of the house. The jewelry she found was expensive, and she sold most of it for a hefty sum, making up some of the money she had spent on the place. Other pieces she kept or took the stones out of. She saved the outside for last, while she had stripped it when learning of the process to get the pitch-black color, she hadn’t done much past that. Residing the house was difficult and she ended up contracting out when it took a week and she had barely got one up.
She took some glee in painting the once black house as pale pastel blue with lavender accents, she could feel something in the house, not the house itself, recoil from it. Redoing the roof took longer than she had thought as well but was done eventually. The garden she found was bigger once she got rid of the overgrown plants. Following the advice of one of the portraits she started her own garden, she thought of it as a ‘potions’ garden, the thought of which made her laugh to herself. She may not be a magical witch but she knew more about magic than most muggle witches.
She and the house had finally settled several years after she had moved into it. While it was barely recognizable many would still call it haunted. It felt alive and you never felt alone when in it, certain places never quite lost that sense of sadness but the house itself was content. Petunia found she rather liked her haunted house.