Arundel Granville and the Cursed Crown

7 Home improvements

The lights were on in Snape's house at Spinner's End. As she pushed open the door a dog barked, it's sound cut crisp through the darkness. She was hit by a blast of hot air and the sound of a vinyl player cracking the Boditch Chamber Warlocks rendition of Muggle Classics.

"Sev?" she called, her mind immediately going to the possibility that she was about to be attacked.

"Living room," he called in response.

She found him sitting with a glass of cheap muggle merlot surrounded by dusty books piled as high as a man.

"What on earth-" she started.

He studied her without smiling "You went to see Moody?"

"Yes," she skirted around a pile and sunk into a threadbare armchair by the fire. "I didn't think you would be back yet? It's not even four."

"Dumbledore asked me to keep an eye on you when I told him you wanted to decorate."

She hummed in displeasure, "You started without me?"

"Me mum liked her books," Snape turned and spoke in a northern accent, a humorous glint in his eyes. "Dad used to give her an allowance from his wages, it was supposed to go on food but she'd go to Diagon Alley and spend all her money on books."

"Bet that upset him?"

"Most things did," Snape shrugged, as if it were inconsequential. Arun's eyes slid across to a large curio that looked like a dark paperweight, it was his mother's body transfigured, she'd done it only a few months ago when his dad had died and his mum had overdosed. She wasn't sure Snape had even bothered to host a funeral for his father. "I think he got more angry when she started selling them," he said quietly.

"There used to be more?" Arun whistled.

"She kept the best ones. The potions and the dark arts books are still here, and the ones from her father's library too. I was thinking maybe that the front door should open in to the living room, and the other doors should be hidden behind bookshelves, that way when people come round I can trap them in one bit of the house," he gave her a lopsided grin. "Damned by the knowledge of our forfathers."

"It would be cozy, we could get some candles hanging from a chain in the middle of it. What happened to your grandparents?" Arun asked as she kicked off her shoes and curled her legs under her, she'd come dangerously close to talking about his mother's addiction and she really didn't want to get into that with Severus, she still wasn't sure he had clocked the methadone bottle.

"Gran died of Dragon Pox, Grandad had a gambling addiction, by the time he died the Prince family had no money," Snape shook his head and took another book off a pile and placed it into a different one. "What do you want to do to the house?"

"Take the carpet up for a start, it smells like rat piss."

"Can we strip the wallpaper?"

"And change the lights, expand the cellar so you can have a lab, extend the rooms upstairs and make them a bit nicer. Change the bathroom."

"Can we do the bathroom first?" Snape asked quietly. "I pissed in the sink earlier, I can't bring myself to go up there."

Arun nodded, he was looking at her as if daring her to laugh but she had no intention of it.

"I'll do it now."

Eager to have something to do she rushed upstairs to start work on it. Decorating spells were surprisingly complex and required multiple transfigurations. If not done properly the spells would reverse themselves over time or warp into much darker and sometimes dangerous things. The best way was to use muggle building materials but charm them into place and so Arun spent the first hour vanishing the bath, taps, showers, floor tiles and wallpaper and the rest of the night summoning (stealing) the objects she wanted from a local muggle DIY store before transfiguring them so small they would fit in her carry bag. After that it was a matter of decorating, and by midnight Snape had a clawfoot bath, a walk in shower, new sink and toilet. She transformed the old light shade to a deep green glass dish held up in the corners with curling serpents and transfigured the towel hooks into serpents that held the towels in their fangs. As a last act of rebellion she charmed the mirror to be able to speak, and give an honest opinion on cleanliness, knowing full well that Snape would hate her for it. A shelf above the bath would eventually hold some of his experimental bubble bath potions and very pleased with herself she backed out of the bathroom and called him up stairs. He didn't come.