Harry and Duddley arrived in the foyer of the Ynys Môn Castle, Harry then led his cousin to the lounge and asked him to wait there while he went to his office, to add him to the wards so he would have access to the castle any time he wanted, he then went back into the lounge, "Dobby," Harry called, well that's what he intended to call out but Dobby arrived just as he said Dob, much to Harry's amusement.
"Yes," Dobby noticing that there was someone new in the room then added, "Your Grace."
"Dobby this is my cousin Duddley, he will be staying with us for a while. Could you put my things away for me and lay out a set of casual robes as well please?" Harry asked his favourite elf. "I'll be up in a few minutes to shower and change, before dinner."
Dobby bowed, "My pleasure My Lord," He then grabbed hold of Harry's trunk and Hedwig's cage and carted them off to his master's suite.
" Cracka" Harry called.
"You called your Grace?" The head elf asked as he popped silently in.
"Yes Cracka, Dudley here is my cousin and will be staying with us so can you appoint an elf as his valet please."
"Certainly Your Grace." Cracka then called "Dandy" and the smallest elf Harry had seen appeared, he bowed to Harry and Cracka.
"You called Cracka sir?"
"Yes Dandy I did, from now on you will be the Personal Valet to Master Dudley sir and make sure you do a good job."
"Thank you Cracka sir, I will be the best valet ever."
Harry smiled at Cracka, "Thank you Cracka, I will give Dandy instructions from here."
Cracka bowed to Harry and popped out.
Harry then looked at Dandy, "from now on you will get ₲4 per month in wages as you have been promoted to Valet. Now I want you to go to Madame Malkin's and get Duddley Clothes, fitting his station as my cousin and make sure he has everything he could need, also get him his first year supplies for School."
Dandy bowed to Harry, "It will be done Your Grace." Dandy then popped out to do as he was told.
It was a week later that Professor Dumbledore tracked down the other three Dursleys. Unfortunately it was not the happy reunion they were hoping for. Vernon and Marge Dursley were quite insane and had to be institutionalised, Petunia was marginal at best, she didn't want anything to do with her freakish son and signed guardianship over to Hermione's parents. Harry bought her a house in a nearby village and provided her with a generous allowance, so that she wouldn't be wanting for anything.
Because of the way things had gone for Dudley, Hermione and her parents had moved back into Ynys Môn. One night Harry and Hermione were cuddling on the love seat in the family living area reading, Harry was reading about wand and staff lore, concentrating on how to make a staff. In Hermione's case she was reading a book on advanced potions and their effects when combined, when she stopped and looking over her shoulder at Harry and gave him a kiss,"what do you think about inviting our friends over for a week and doing some more exploring?" she asked via their link
Harry thought for a bit, "Sounds like fun, maybe we should invite Draco over as well ." After they agreed on who to invite, Harry called Dobby and sent him with invitations to all the families concerned.
Two days later Susan Bones and her Aunt Amelia, Neville and Luna with their whole family, Draco and Narcissa, as well as the Weasleys and the Lupins, arrived for a week long break. Of course Sirius and his fiancée were living at the castle so they were there as well.
Everyone was having a great time, during the day they would play sports and explore the castle. In the evenings they would have dances, games nights and on one occasion they went to the cinema to see Batman Returns. Time seemed to fly by and much to soon it was time for some of them to return home leaving Harry, Hermione, Neville, Luna and Duddley to themselves, studying so they could stay ahead and hopefully finish their NEWTS by the end of the year.
They still had plenty of time for exploration, and it was on one of these explorations that they found a very special room, down in the deepest part of the basement. Duddley was upstairs studying to catch up with his age level when the other four found the hidden door, upon opening it they found a room inside was a large rural landscape with a stream running through it, in the middle of the vast grassy area was an iron age round house, before all of them went inside they decided that Neville and Luna would remain by the door to keep it o-pen while Harry and Hermione did a quick survey of the room come farm. The first thing they noticed were a series of runes down the edge of the doorway with a legend labelled Time Dilation, on the left it said Inside and on the right Outside, and in each column were a series of numbers, 1 day = 1 Hour, 1 month = 1 day and finally 1 year = 1 week, underneath this was written, Warning you will age at the rate of time INSIDE the room, bring plenty of food as once time dilation has started you are unable to leave the room until it is complete. They determined that they would be able to open the door unless they activated the time circuit, then it would lock.
Neville and Luna joined them inside the room, as all four went to explore the round house, upon entering it a 3D projection of a very old man appeared. "Welcome Lord Potter, Lady Ravenclaw, Lord Longbottom and Lady Lovegood, I am Emrys the first Merlin, this house has been set-up to teach you and your companions to the level of masters in all branches of magic. It will take approximately ten years of inside time to achieve this so make sure you have enough food, I would suggest you have a house elf in here to take care of cleaning and cooking, at the end of the training you Lord Potter will become the next Merlin and will be able to wear the cloak and use the staff in the next room in this, my house." With that said the image vanished leaving the four children dumbfounded.
After leaving the room the four went in search of their parents to discuss what they had found and decide whether they would make use of the room or not.
Harry and the others made their way into the lounge, "Dobby" Harry called out and when the little elf popped in he instructed him ask the others to meet him in the lounge as soon as possible and sent another elf off to Hogwarts to request Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall to come as well. After they had all gathered and taken a seat he requested refreshments and snacks, he had a feeling it was going to take some time to discuss all the implications of what he was thinking of doing.
Harry took a deep breath and addressed the extended family, "Just a short while ago the four of us found a hidden room in the basement, inside this room was an iron age roundhouse, apparently the home of the first Merlin. A holographic image of Merlin appeared and informed us that we should enter the room for a period of ten weeks external time, that corresponds to ten years internal time, at the completion of which we will have masteries in all magical subjects. The downside of this is that we will age according to the time spent inside the room, in other words when we come out we will be nearly twenty two years old, also at that time I will become the new Merlin." Harry looked around the room, at all the shocked faces, "well what do you think, should we do this or not?" he asked.
Everyone then started all talking at once, until Remus let out a piercing whistle, "Not all at once people, Mr and Mrs Granger your opinions first." Remus calmly stated.
"Well I think our only concern is missing out on them growing up, I mean this is the most important time of their lives and we will be missing out on it." Emma said with a hitch in her voice. Dan was comforting his wife and nodding in agreement.
Harry looked at not only Emma and Dan but also the Longbottoms and Xenophilius Lovegood as well and they seemed to have the same concerns and in Frank and Alice's case it was even more of a problem as they had already missed out on so much of Neville's life that they didn't want to miss out on any more, "Why don't all the parents join us in the room? We could always get magical tents so that the families could stay together." Harry suggested.
Emma, Dan, Longbottoms and Mr Lovegood were considering the solution that Harry had come up with so Duddley spoke up next. "I'm sure I'll be alright there is bound to be someone staying here to look after me if not then the house-elves will make sure I don't get into any trouble and I can continue studying for next term."
"I'll stay in the castle and look after Duddley." Sirius volunteered, and Remus added that he would stay and look after Sirius to make sure he didn't get into any trouble, which caused them to start verbally sparing, all in jest of course.
Albus told them he thought it was an opportunity to good to miss and that they should avail themselves of it, and Professor McGonagall agreed.
Harry then looked back to the parents, "What do you think Mum, Dad, Mr and Mrs Longbottom, Mr Lovegood, will you come with us?"
The five parents each looked at each other and appeared to come to an understanding without any word being spoken, as only parents seem to be able to do. "Yes we will come with you," Dan answered for the others.
Then Frank added "tomorrow we need to go to Diagon Alley and get some tents or travelling trunks which tend to be more comfortable."
But Xenophilius suggested "maybe if this place is like you say a farm we could get three kit homes, they are self erecting and auto levelling after all we are going to be there for ten years and we do need some comfort and privacy, we could come out every week for a couple of days to restock and take care of any business that arises."
"Cracka, Dobby, " Harry called out, the two elves popped in, "Yes you Grace they both spoke in unison?"
"Dobby, Hermione, her parents and I are going into seclusion for twelve months and need you to get enough food to last us at least a year get plenty of variety as we don't want to be eating the same thing every day. Cracka we need two house-elves one to look after the Lovegoods and another to look after the Longbottoms they will be joining us in seclusion."
Cracka called for Penny and Arcade and gave them their instructions then Harry added "and don't forget to get enough food for yourselves as well as the miniature dragons along with Hedwig and Crookshanks."
The next day the five parents and all children used the portkey on their rings to go to Gringotts where the first order of business was to get a ring for Dudley as well as set him up with a vault of his own. They walked out into Diagon Alley and went over to Olivanders where Dudley got his wand and he then went back to Ynys Môn Castle. Xenophilius showed the others where the house shop was and they spent some time looking over plans, Xeno explained that the only reason he didn't use this method to replace his house is he wanted one that looked like the one that was destroyed in the explosion and it didn't come in the self erecting kit home.
Harry was listening to everyone's opinion and liked the Idea of the houses, "We will go with the houses," Harry said, "I will pay for everything, that way we can leave them in the chamber for any future Merlin apprentices."
Mr and Mrs Granger selected a two story three bedroom house with large family room, lounge room, Library and Study.
Mr and Mrs Longbottom selected a two bedroom bungalow as they were still having difficulty with stairs, they hoped that by the end of their stay in the time chamber they would be fit again. Frank hoped that he would be able to take up the mantle of Head of House as well as his seat on the Wizengamot.
Xeno selected the same type of house as the Longbottoms but with an extension for a printing press.
Harry also added a six bedroom elf house for the house-elves to live in, each of the houses came with furniture and appliances so they didn't have to worry about that, he also got a storage building filled with cabinets that were under a stasis charm so food wouldn't go off.
Hermione was browsing around the shop, looking to see if there was anything else worth getting, when she noticed tucked away in corner almost out of site, a complete potions Lab, fully stocked with all utensils, cauldrons and a reasonably sized collection of ingredients. "Hey everyone look at this, a potions lab."
"We should get that Harry" Neville commented "that way we have somewhere to practice potion making. It might be a good idea to get some ready made potions as well and put them under stasis, especially medicinal ones, just in case someone gets hurt."
Dan Granger thought that was a good idea and suggested he get some mundane medications as well.
After they had finished with the houses they also went to the apothecary to get a large selection of potions and potion ingredients. They went over to the stationers shop to get parchment, quills & ink so they could keep notes on everything they learned and write their own Grimoires, of course as part of their masteries they would have to publish at least one book for each subject they had a mastery in.
Hermione and her parents ducked out into mundane London and bought fiction books for light reading she also got the complete works of Anne McCaffrey as Harry hadn't read them yet, even though Hermione had read them so he technically had, he still wanted to read them for himself. They got enough toiletries and personal hygiene products to last a year and a number of miscellaneous items to make life just a little easier.
Xenophilius Lovegood on the other hand, had gone to get a new printing press, one that would do colour pictures, unlike the one he had at home which was only black and white. He figured that if each week outside was a year inside, he would have plenty of time to improve his publication and maybe print some books and go into opposition to Obscurus Books in Diagon Alley, especially if he had access to Merlin, to find out about some obscure and arcane magic; he might even be able to get some information on so called mythical magical creatures such a the crumpled-horned snorkack, or the blibbering humdinger
Frank and Alice had a quiet word with Neville, Luna and Harry about swords, they knew that Harry's mum and dad had them, so suggested he get them out of their vaults so they could learn how to use them properly. While they made a quick stop at home and picked up their swords, they then went to an armourer in Diagon Alley and purchased two top of the line swords for Neville and Luna.
Harry went to Gringotts and had a look through the family vault and found two swords, which at first looked a bit to big for either Hermione or himself, but when he picked them up they shrank to fit his size. Removing the sword from its scabbard he admired the inlaid gold pattern on the blade up near the hilt, a scroll being held by two dragons with the words Lord Potter on one and Lady Potter on the other and the Potter coat of arms on each end. Harry bundled them both up and left Gringotts.
Harry called Cracka to find out if any of the elves had partners and was told that Penny and Arcade were bound to each other, which is why he assigned them to help out. Harry then asked if Dobby was interested in any particular female house-elf and when Cracka told him that he seemed to hang around Mindy quite a bit, he asked that she be added to the group as well as a couple of gardening elves so they could have fresh fruit and vegetables.
The next morning they started erecting the houses, which was quite an easy task all they had to do was place the box where they wanted the house and tap the go button with their wand, and stand back. The Grangers went first and it was real interesting to watch the box expand to the correct width and length, then the internal ground floor walls unfolded and stood up by themselves, followed by the first floor and it's internal walls, then by the external walls and last of all the roof. The others followed the same pattern only slightly quicker as they were only single story houses.
After everything was packed away they decided to have a feast with those staying outside and enter the time chamber the next morning for the first week/year.
The elves did a great job of packing everything needed for a year in the time chamber, they even planted the vegetable gardens and had two chook runs, one really large one for food, both for the people and for the miniature dragons and another for the layers, so they would have plenty of eggs and with a couple of roosters in the large run they would be breeding replacement chickens as well.
After the feast everyone had an early night so they would be fresh for their first day in the chamber.
Harry, Hermione, Neville and Luna along with their families entered the time chamber with great excitement, Harry called all the time chamber elves together and placed Dobby in overall charge of them with the appropriate pay rise to go along with it. "do we have enough of everything to last us a year?" he asked Dobby looking at all the changes that had been made, the great chook runs, the goat, lamb and cow pastures. Not to mention the orchards and vegetable gardens, there was a lovely stream running through the middle of the property that was stocked with fish. After Dobby confirmed that everything was ready Harry activated the time dilation and they all went to their own houses to get settled in before starting work the next day.
oo00oo
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Raven Spotter