The Boy Who Lived

Not Going "Boom!"

Harry knew, inherently, that he could have Apparated straight through the school's Wards but he also felt the danger of drawing on that much power around him.

For the first time, since all this had started, he felt truly scared.

When he got back to Beaumont, he went and hid in Fleamont's old study. Fleamont's study was in the north wing of the hall, next to it, in the north wing turret room was his potions laboratory that Tilly had mentioned. Both spaces, like the tatty snug next to the study, were heavily panelled in dark oak, giving the rooms a warm, intimate feeling. Amazingly, the potion's lab was opened up into an amazing three-storey space with a beautiful wrought-iron spiral staircase up to the galleries. Floor to ceiling office shelves were filled with books while the lab's shelves were filled with more books and ancient ingredients which were probably long since passed their best.

Harry could see how the turret had once been a beautiful library with its ornately carved wood features and deep polished oak. Truthfully, he much preferred it, it was so impressive. It also gave him an idea, the immediate answer to extending and sorting the library space into one contained space. It was a massive job but it made sense, especially if he was thinking of opening up the collection for scholarly research. He decided that he'd open up all three rooms so the entire wing was one huge library. It was probably a better use of the space because, honestly, when else was he going to use all these rooms?

He decided it was time to call a meeting, pulling together the old members of the Order of Phoenix and friends who might be able to help. It felt a little dramatic but he certainly needed to speak to Kingsley and Robards and with others already coming in the morning, it made sense. He didn't feel he could be going into the Ministry, not if he was drawing on magic from his surrounding environment. That would be too volatile.

'Tilly, Ossy?' he called.

Both House-Elves appeared immediately.

'Sorry to summon you so late on, but first, Tilly, do we have any owls?'

'Yes, Master Harry, there is being an owlery up in the top of the fourth-floor north tower. And I is sure that they is pleased to have some proper exercise. Would you like me to be showing you?'

'No but thank you. I need to write some letters first. Also, Tilly, can you put back my meeting with Mr Gulliver until 10am?'

The young elf nodded and disappeared off.

'Ossy, I'm going to move out of the master bedroom temporarily, away from the others. Just in case. I thought one of bedrooms upstairs from here.' He looked up at the wrought-iron spiral staircase which not just led up into the tower but also accessed the corridor to the rooms in the north wing. He couldn't remember from Ossy's tour what state the rooms might be in but judging from Ossy's face, not a good one. 'I'll sort it shortly, even if it means stacking boxes in the corridor. Second, we're going to be having a number of guests tomorrow morning for a breakfast meeting, I'm not sure how many yet, maybe fifteen for a meeting and hopefully six or seven of them can stay on to help during the day. I'm going move the library back here and ask for help with the books. Mione's biggest complaint is there is no order to the books on the shelves; they just don't know what they're dealing with because it's too disorganised, especially with the split between here and the hall gallery. Tilly was saying that the turret used to be the library and I think it makes more sense. I hoping that Kingsley will lend me Madame Tweazle from the Ministry and Madame Pince is coming from Hogwarts to help and ideally start organising and cataloguing what we have here. I wondered if you have a team of elves who can help retrieve any books for the storage boxes in the rooms and bring them to Fleamont's study?'

'Yes, Master Harry, shall I start now?'

'No, it can wait until tomorrow because, well, I was thinking on what we discussed before, and I want to convert this wing into a large open library and study space. It means opening up the walls between the three rooms and I just wanted to warn you before you got worried that I was trashing the place again. I also need to get rid of all the old potions stuff. I'm sure it can't be very good now anyway.'