The Old School
Ignan Storm purchased the converted dwelling in March 2010. For a time he and Miranda Elliot lived there until they uprooted to Hogsmeade so Ignan could more easily spend time at home during term time.
From the Front
February 2010
They trailed off the main street and rambled past a row of cottages .... Then there it was, just as it had been on the parchment Johann had handed to him in the Leaky Cauldron that morning.
"Used to be the village school once," .... Ignan surveyed the state of the front garden which had the original wrought iron fence wound round with brambles. The thorns spat out a startled blackbird as he stepped through the gate which was pushed open and almost off its hinges. The grass was up to mid-thigh height, and there were several swaying trees that needed tending to, including a crab-apple. All in all, the place needed a lot of tending to, before being restored to something half smart. ...
The front door opened ahead of them, a dark blue and peeling paint.
April 2010
The grass had grown again, especially now that Spring had burst through winter's hard earth. The front garden vegetation was heavy with dew where shadows were, and quite lumpy and uneven in places.
May 2010
Now she was stood at the gate, the address Ignan had given her in hand. The house looked practically abandoned, something left alone for years to become unloved and untended to. The area that had once been the front garden was overgrown, weeds sprouting between slaps and long grass growing, a haven for insects and creatures. Miranda was not quite so sure she wanted to touch the gate, neither was she certain this was the right address. She hadn’t been sure what to expect of Storm’s home. He wasn’t the sort to have frilly pink cushions or a fountain in the garden with perfectly laid cobblestones leading to a flower surrounded door. Neither, she had thought, was he the kind to live in a house as unloved and uncared for as this.
June 2010
... he looked over her head to the building before them, which had the signs of a recently repaired roof, but the paint on the windows peeled, and it could all do with washing down. It looked a little unloved, but not abandoned, and all the windows were open and noise could be heard from within, footsteps, sweeping.
...
... he raised a hand and knocked on the front door firmly, the sound echoing behind the door.
Downstairs
April 2010
Gerda had been fast asleep in the cupboard under the stairs, the place in the house she had elected to call her own when they had moved in not too many weeks ago.
May 2010
Johann's jaw hung slack in the kitchen doorway. Late afternoon light fell in through the short windows beside the back door that led out up onto the hillside.
... "Gerda's setting the dining table. We never eat at the dining table." He pointed out of the door behind him into what was once the classroom ...
The [kitchen] ceiling height was lower, the beams only a few inches higher than Ignan's head, and the window was low and only a foot and a half high, just above the line of the sink. It looked out on the hills and the equally ratty back garden, which had a gate set into the wall at the very far end, that was hanging off its hinges.
Several hooks above the window were empty, their pans on the stove, and a mixture of copper and other alloys, none of them matching. But the tiled floor space was dominated by the kitchen table, which was where ordinarily the Storms would eat, and above the kitchen hearth on the thin mantle was a stack of post (one from an electricity supplier, such chancers considering no electrician had ever stepped foot inside). The pile was propped beneath a large cream-faced kitchen clock whose ticking was barely noticeable until one realised it was there. Altogether it was homely, and one area of the house that had seen some paint. Gerda kept it spotless, well, until Ignan had taken charge of cooking that afternoon. ....
She gratefully accepted the wine from Ignan and followed his signalling towards what turned out to be the living room. Another bare and masculine room. There was no doubt that no woman lived here.
June 2010
... alighting at the front door beside the rows of boots, and the hooks that were full of cloaks and coats.
...
"One advantage to not having too much furniture." He shrugged and extended his wand arm at pieces of furniture which scuttled and scraped across the floor to make some space, the dining table where the disastrous pie shuffled against the wall towards the front door and folded its leaves beneath it. A trunk packed itself and retreated into the corner, taking with it copies of the summer examination papers and a stack of correspondence.
August 2010
The living room looked altogether a lot better than it had at the start of the summer, not that Sasha had seen it. The improvements to turn it into a homely space were mostly down to Miranda's work. The space was open, with a high, pitched ceiling with beams, from when it had once been the classroom space. It was well lit with natural light, not too far placed from the Professor's Hogwarts class, only it felt warmer. At one end, to Sasha's left past the end of the sofa, was the door to the kitchen, the foot of the stairs, behind him was the front door, beside a line of hooks full of cloaks and a rack of boots. To the eagle-eyed, it wasn't just Ignan's coats, Mira's were amongst them, and although it wasn't visible from where they sat, there was one of Johann's buried beneath one of Ignan's cloaks. The other side of the low coffee table Ignan sat in his preferred armchair .... Although it was clear Gerda had cleaned up, there was still a stack of journals and books sat on the floor on Ignan's right.
October 2010
The house appeared somewhat deserted, but Ignan could see to his right through the windows to the back garden from the living room, once a classroom, that there was light in the back garden. Strange.
Upstairs
June 2010
enjoying the sight of an empty study where Wolfgang and Camille had slept, and the tidy and almost reclaimed spare room which Johann had occupied during the past term. His younger relative hadn't entirely removed his belongings
July 2010
[Spare room] Turning away from the open window which overlooked the back of the house and the ragged garden...
Back Garden
February 2010
There appeared to be nothing that couldn't be rectified until they reached what was the study overlooking the back of the house. Outside below them was a garden of rambling trees and bramble bushes secluding it from neighbours. ... The hints that it had been a school were diminished from modifications and what looked like the remnants of flower beds and a vegetable patch through the rain covered window.
May 2010
The witch had been looking out of the window at the neglected garden with weeds attacking the various vegetable plants. Moulded slab stones were cracked and showing years of mistreatment and carelessness.
Resident Ghost
February 2010
"Here we go again!" A disembodied voice moaned at their arrival inside the room. Johann jumped out of his skin, but Ignan addressed the semi-transparent form of a wizard sat on the top of the bookshelves behind the door with an interested smirk.
April 2010
"What about your spook?" Johann asked, looking back to the house and clasping the book in both arms, brow furrowed as the breeze caught his curls. The ghost they'd encountered on seeing the house for the first time had put practically any other buyers off. Ignan didn't mind him much, and if he ended up being a pain, there were ways to get rid of ghosts, the real ones much easier than the ones that were in the back of a mind. "He's still there." Ignan raised an eyebrow, wondering how Johann would feel about it, "He can stay there as long as he wants too, he's a very effective unwanted guest deterrent. Besides, you need some company, he's a little more well-read than the elf. All in all, you're fiendishly well catered for, cousin, you shouldn't complain."
August 2010
The wailing was supposedly singing.
"Just the ghost." Ignan explained halfheartedly as all three sets of eyes raised to the ceiling. Gerda resumed pouring tea into Sasha's cup, one of her ears twitching as she did, listening for any other signs the ghost was going to warble some more. She couldn't apply a frying pan to it, unfortunately, but she could always threaten it with Spirit Division.
Looking back to Sasha, Ignan explained:
"Impaled by a hippogriff in front of village children when this place was still a school. I'm sure he'll introduce himself along the way."
