Summer of the first year

Decorating

After watching the house elves retreat, Harry, Dudley and Lily returned to the castle, deciding against exploring the whole castle, given its enormous size. Being one of the biggest castles in the wizarding world, they thought that they ought to explore one section at a time, and settled in the main wing, which contained many, many bedrooms.

The main bedroom was Harry's, which he kept in its original state- with the exception of the odd repairs. It had a large en suite, which he decided he would need to re decorate, given its rather old state.

Dudley had the next door room to his, which was identical, but had slightly less book shelves, to which Dudley didn't object too much, given that he much preferred more practical studying to reading. He too kept his room how it was, but planned on taking more things from home to furnish it if they were ever going to stay long term.

After Lily claimed an airy room at the end of the hallway, they made the other three bedrooms on the floor into guest rooms, each with two single beds and a spacious wardrobe. Harry decorated one room lilac with sliver and bronze flowers on the walls- charmed to follow the season and time of day, opening early morning and closing in the evening. He then added a charm to have birds fly across at random intervals. Surveying the moth eaten drapes, Harry transfigured them into cream curtains so they were slightly nicer to see. Pulling a battered chest of draws from one of the other rooms, he made a maple writing desk and he took a chair from one of the rooms the floor below. This room he designed with Hermione in mind, as he wanted her to be able to visit regularly.

Another room was set up for Ron and Neville to share whenever they visited, as the two of them were very close. Harry would have had them sleep in his room, but he felt that was unfair on Hermione as she couldn't share and she might feel left out. Their room was yellow with a green carpet. Harry enchanted the ceiling to have wildlife to fly across it. Along the walls, he spelled different plants to 'grow', given Neville's love of Herbology.

After all of this was complete, they headed to the library to look around, and were astonished by the sheer number of books, especially considering the vast number of tomes in the Gringotts vault. It was the size of the Great hall, with a balcony running around half way up, creating a split level. In one corner, there were comfortable chairs and coffee tables and a vast collection of blankets and throws. In another corner, there were a few chess tables (both wizarding chess and muggle chess) in front of a roaring fire. Harry smiled as he saw the library.

After viewing more rooms than they could bear to think about, they decided to view the grounds, primarily, the house elf village. They followed a cobbled path through the trees, and what a sight met their eyes, a village of 50 cottages, all with flowers in the gardens. There were paths through the village, and a village square in the middle where house elves were chatting. Harry noticed one thing as he looked around, there didn't seem to be any house elf children.

Harry walked to the leaders hut, which only housed Blinky and Slinky and knocked on the door. Slinky opened the door and quickly ushered him inside and offered him a seat. Harry accepted the seat and asked the question.

"Slinky, why are there no house elf children around here?"

"Well, master," He began, twiddling his fingers, "House elves must have permission to marry and breed, which we don't have... so, you see, master Potter sir, there are no children here."

"How have you survived this long?"

"Well, sir, given that the house was kept under statis, while master Merlin was dead, we were too, meaning we could not die or age.  Now you are here, we will begin to age like normal."

Harry thought for a while, then spoke.

"I would like all house elves in my possession to meet in the village square as soon as possible."

A crack louder than thunder boomed through the village. Harry hurried to the village square and saw a thousand elves staring at him.

"Hi... I'm Harry, as most of you know... well, I just wanted to make a few things clear. I want house elves, all of you, to be able to marry and breed at will, and married elves should be able to live together with some form of privacy. Build up this village to suit your needs. When you have children old enough, set up a school for them, so they can learn basic skills needed to be successful. Thank you for your time."

All of the house elves gave Harry a round of applause as he left.