Red House

Author's Note: All characters belong to J. K. Rowling.

Red House

There's a red house over yonder

That's where my baby stays

The red-brick house sat at the end of a row of red-brick houses, bounded on one side by the cracked asphalt of the street and on the other by a scraggly field of wild grass and brambles. The white trim painted onto the window and door frames was cracked and peeling. Divots in the brick testified to the level of local air pollution. In the distance to the east, the rusted chimney of a textile mill loomed. It juxtaposed neatly with the spire of York Minster rising into the grey clouds on the southern horizon. Both towers provided unrepentant evidence of mankind's achievements; each was beautiful – and ugly – in its own way.

Hermione Granger put a hesitant foot on the steps leading to the front door of the house and looked back at her companion uncertainly. 'You're sure about this?'

Kingsley Shacklebolt shoved his hands into the pockets of his Muggle jeans and shrugged. 'Everything was clear and above-board. The will just finished probate yesterday. The house is yours.'

Hermione fingered the Yale key in her hand. Less than a month had passed since the discovery of Severus Snape's last testament in the headmaster's office at Hogwarts. Why has he left this place to me? But the answer was obvious: everyone else Snape knew was either dead or already in possession of a home. With her parents' decision to remain in Australia, Hermione had resigned herself to living at Grimmauld Place with Harry and Ron – until yesterday, that is, when the letter from the Ministry had informed her of her new acquisition.

Snape, dead and gone, buried on the grounds of Hogwarts with all of the other casualties of war. Grief, sharp and fresh, squeezed her chest. Sixty-two days, she thought. It has only been sixty-two days. I'm allowed to feel sad still. She catalogued the list of fallen heroes in her mind, finishing with her former professor. She had not seen the memories Harry had taken from him, but she knew that it was he who had led them to Gryffindor's sword and he who had given Harry the final piece of the puzzle. Snape couldn't have known that Harry would survive; otherwise he might have fought harder for his own life.

And now there was this house – Spinner's End – the last unexplored relic of the man who had given and given of himself for twenty years and continued to give from beyond the grave. It was enough to make her cry again, had she not been standing in front of the acting Minister of Magic. Determined to keep her dignity intact, Hermione turned her focus to the building that was now hers. If Snape's office at Hogwarts was anything to go by, the house would be filled with grotesqueries. Had he practiced the Dark Arts here? Would there be any lingering traces of what had surely been a miserable youth? Nobody had been inside for almost a year; she could imagine, at the very least, mould and mouse droppings. Could I even live in this house? I bet it's disgusting...

'Are you going to go in or what?' Kingsley interrupted. 'If we stand out here much longer, we're going to get soaked.' He angled his head to look up at the lowering sky.

'Right.' Hermione nodded determinedly and climbed the steps. The key turned easily in the lock, and the door glided smoothly open. Her first reaction was one of disappointment: where were all of Snape's books? For obviously he had possessed many, many books – shelves were built onto every wall, ceiling to floor, and over the spots where the windows and fireplace must be. She could not even see any doors to the other parts of the house.

'Ooh,' Kingsley murmured over her shoulder. 'Creepy dark in here.'

Ignoring him, Hermione lit her wand with a non-verbal Lumos and passed over the threshold into the front room. Originally, this space had been a lounge and a dining area: two threadbare armchairs sat forlornly on the brown shag carpet in the near half of the room; through a wide archway, she could see a scarred oak table that, judging by the ink stains, had probably done duty as a desk rather than an eating surface. Dust motes danced through the air in front of her wand.

'Erm, Kingsley?' Hermione asked. 'Any idea how to get into the rest of the house?'

'Not a clue.' He stepped around her and headed for the back of the room, beyond the dining table. She followed, passing her wand-light over the shelves, looking for cracks.

'Here,' Kingsley murmured. He was standing in the back left-hand corner of the room. Hermione peered into the gloom and saw a set of hinges. Experimentally, she reached out and tugged on the nearest shelves. With a faint creak, they swung toward her and revealed a staircase that travelled up behind the back wall of the room to the first floor. The stairwell was pitch-black. Are there any windows in this house at all?

Kingsley had crossed the room and was examining the right-hand corner. Leaving the upstairs for later, Hermione approached him just as he gave a tentative push against a section of shelving. The wall opened away from him, and light, grey and rainy but nevertheless illuminating, filtered into the front room.

'This looks like the kitchen,' he said, walking forward. She strode behind him into a space half-heartedly brightened by yellow linoleum and wallpaper. Cabinets, worktop, refrigerator, hob: a perfectly respectable, if grimy, Muggle kitchen. Curiously, Hermione opened a few of the cabinets, but they all appeared to be empty. So were the oven and the refrigerator. She twisted the hot tap in the sink: clean, steaming water poured out. At least Snape paid his bills! A battered electric kettle and toaster sat on the worktop near the hob. Looking up, Hermione saw a coffee press on top of the fridge. A small round table with two chairs was nestled into the corner of the room under the windows.

'Look out here,' Kingsley said, drawing Hermione's attention to the heavy door that stood at the far end of the room. It led into a small laundry area – washing machine but no tumble dryer – fitted with, naturally, more shelves, which held a few bottles of household cleaner and one lone hammer, the plastic on its handle blue and worn. A screen door opened into the back garden.

Despite the rain, Hermione wanted to see what was out there. Pulling up the hood on her jumper, she descended a few stairs onto a concrete walk that passed through the sparse grass of the yard to a wooden shed against the back wall of the garden. The shed wasn't locked; peering through the doorway, Hermione could just make out a rusty lawnmower and a bottle of weed-killer. Between the shed and the back of the house, someone had strung clothesline; wooden pins hung on it, covered in lacy cobwebs.

Returning to the kitchen, Hermione found that Kingsley had made his way into the front room and was now standing in the doorway to the staircase.

'Where do you think these go?' he asked, motioning.

'They go up.' Lighting her wand again, feeling a twinge of trepidation, Hermione ascended the stairs – carpeted in the same brown shag – to a dim hallway. To her left, she discovered an entirely unremarkable bathroom and another small room whose walls had not escaped Snape's shelving obsession. To the right of the stairway was a small bedroom: low single bed, desk, chest of drawers, wardrobe. Brief investigation revealed these items of furniture to be as empty as the kitchen cabinets. And at the far end of the hallway, a closed door, dark and forbidding.

When she opened it, Hermione decided that inheriting this house hadn't been a waste after all. In contrast to the rest of the place, this room was light and clean. Two windows looked onto the street in front of the house; a third gave an eastward view across the scraggly field. The four-poster bed still bore the frame for a canopy. Its dark mahogany contrasted beautifully with the small pine dressing table between the front windows and the twin pine wardrobes on either side of the east window. A tall bureau, its drawers shallow and elegantly carved, made up the set.

'I'll take it,' she said delightedly to Kingsley, who was hovering in the hallway.

'You sure?' he asked, eyes glinting speculatively. 'What do you think this place would fetch on the market?'

'I'm not selling it,' Hermione said firmly. 'I would have made it into a memorial for Professor Snape, but I'm going to live in it now instead.'

Kingsley raised one eyebrow. 'To each his own, I suppose. Sure hope you're going to tear down some of those shelves.' He walked away; Hermione heard his light tread going back down the stairs.

She ran her hand over the mattress on the four-poster bed and gazed dreamily around the room. In her mind's eye, she imagined what it might look like if she had the money to renovate. Light carpet in here instead of this horrible brown stuff – maybe grey or beige with sheer drapes over the windows. A canopy of pale green muslin for the bed and a matching skirt for the dressing table, darker green bedclothes. I reckon I could knock out most of the walls up here and have one huge bedroom and one huge bathroom. The idea of a separate shower and tub seduced her. She wandered to the opposite end of the hallway and inspected the plumbing. I could even put jets in the bathtub...

Reluctantly, she focussed her eyes and pulled her mind back to the present. First, she would have to deep-clean everything, maybe even repaint the trim outside. Get duplicate keys made. Seed the back garden. Mentally compiling a list of 'house tasks,' she ambled down the staircase and into the kitchen. No dishes in the cupboards – she would have to buy or borrow some. Sitting down at the little round table, she pulled some parchment from her bag and began to write. After a few moments, she looked up to see Kingsley standing just inside the shelf-door, seemingly inspecting the blank wall there.

'What is it?' she asked.

'The stairs run right above here,' he answered, pointing. He cocked his head thoughtfully.

'So?'

'You said, "those stairs go up" – and where stairs go up, they also go down.'

Intrigued, Hermione hurried from her chair to stand next to him. 'You think there might be a basement?'

'If there were...' He ran his hands lightly along the wall. 'If there were, this is where the entrance would be. Don't you think?'

Hermione narrowed her eyes and looked closely at the stretch of wall. She couldn't see any seams or hinges. Placing both palms flat against it, she gave a firm push, but nothing happened. Balling her hands into fists, she rapped her knuckles lightly against the wall.

'You're not going to find out anything that way,' Kingsley scoffed. He walked across the room into the laundry area and came back bearing the hammer. Holding it by the head, he pounded on the wall with the handle. Low booms echoed through the room. 'It's hollow,' he confirmed.

'How do we get down there?' Hermione asked wonderingly.

'Exterior entrance?' Kingsley suggested.

'I didn't see one,' she said.

'Best leave it alone, then,' he cautioned, returning the hammer to its shelf. 'If you can't get in, nothing can get out.'

'I'll find a way,' Hermione said determinedly.

Kingsley wrinkled his brow in concern. 'If you do find a way,' he said, 'don't go down there alone. Get Harry or Ron to go with you.'

The image of a giant snake in an old woman's bedroom erupted in her mind. Did Kingsley think it had been Harry and Ron doing the protecting all these months? 'I will,' she promised. Like hell.

He made his way back to the front door. 'When will you move in?'

'As soon as I can,' she called to him, gathering up her things and taking one final, lingering look around the double front room. Must remember to put the paperbacks on those shelves that are doors – otherwise they'll be too heavy to open. I wonder who got all of Snape's books. She thought ruefully that, however horrible this house might have been, it couldn't possibly be worse than the ancestral Black home with its dark corridors and screaming portraits. Flash of Kreacher, skulking in his lair behind the kitchen. Remus Lupin's last visit, his argument with Harry. That narrow upstairs hallway where Sirius had lived, his room rummaged by Snape last summer. The bedroom of teenaged Regulus, gone forever into the cave by the seaside. The entire place held the bittersweet breath of too many people loved and lost. Snape is one of those people, she thought suddenly – that stark, grey bedroom he had sometimes slept in, the swishing sound of his black robes sweeping malevolently through the dirty kitchen or the darkened library. There was more of Snape at Grimmauld Place than in this lonely house in northern York.

'Coming?' Kingsley shouted from the road.

She stepped onto the front stoop and locked the door carefully, depositing the key in the pocket of her jeans.

'Back to the Ministry?' he asked when she approached.

'No,' she said, gazing at the late-afternoon sky. The air was damp with drizzle. 'I think I'll go into York and have a look around.'

'See you later, then.' He walked round the far end of the house. A moment later there was an abrupt crack. Hermione hoisted her bag securely on her shoulder and strolled down the street.

At the bottom of the close, she turned into another street and followed it to Water Lane where she caught a bus going into the city centre. It let her off a few minutes later just outside Bootham Bar. The façade of York Minster loomed over the stone gateway; through the arch, she could see the famous Heart of Yorkshire window. Tourists streamed in and out of the west doors of the cathedral.

Hermione walked slowly along High Petergate, the medieval buildings on either side of the narrow street so close together that they seemed to meet overhead, and emerged into the Minster Yard. The cathedral was huge, one of the biggest in the country. Its spire seemed to touch the low, heavy clouds. With a start, she realised it was touching the clouds, and that the rain was going to start pouring any minute now. Unfurling her umbrella, she continued onward into Deangate, pausing to admire the statue of the Roman emperor Constantine in the cathedral garth.

Beyond the eastern end of York Minster, she passed St William's College, another fabulously medieval building, and at last found herself standing under the archway of Monk Bar, sheltering from the rain with a load of other bedraggled pedestrians. There was enough history in this city to keep her occupied for years. Even as she stood there under the ancient stones, she noticed a sign for the Richard III Museum. And the libraries! The Minster had one, surely, and the city must have its own archives. Hadn't Alcuin, Charlemagne's court magician, been from York?

Yes, Hermione thought with satisfaction. I could definitely live here.