Chapter Text
Chapter 16
Tom graduated with full honors and gave a speech as was called for since he was head boy. The speech had been slightly controversial since he had mentioned his desires to preserve the Olde Ways and learn as many different types of High magic as he could. Harry’s mother had come, and had sat with Harry and Sirius Black as he cheered on his lover as he accepted his certificate. Lily had been quietly approving and had quickly recognized the number of bonds between her son and his lover, due to the fact she also shared bonds with her son.
Sirius had confided in both Lily and James the planning that had gone into Dumbledore’s psychotic break. It had been a conversation tittering on going over the edge that even good friends didn’t want to discuss. But Sirius statement that it had been necessary to test Albus when he wasn’t surrounded by unsuspecting and defenseless children had called a halt to any possible accusations.
James had not been pleased that Albus had been tested since James had trusted him as a general, but he had been horrified that Albus had failed. He had been part of the group that had talked to Dumbledore when he had woken up in St. Mungo’s. Seeing the calculating edge Albus had had once he heard that a select group of students and professors had been prepared for his flashback had been disturbing. Albus had quickly professed his gratitude that they had taken such precautions to make sure that he wouldn’t hurt anyone. The fact that he had hurt people despite their preparation had certainly angered Dumbledore. James hadn’t been sure if he was angry that he had hurt his own students and colleagues or angry that he had been exposed as such a dangerous and powerful wizard. Despite his defeat of Grindlewald, and the power he had shown he had been looked at like a savior. The incident had exposed to the public something the Order of the Phoenix had always known. Albus Dumbledore was a dangerous man. James had seen quite a few of Dumbledore’s political allies step back a bit from him, no longer seeing him as a powerful but eccentric teacher, but as someone else all together.
The healers had quickly determined what had caused the flashback and Albus had been banned from Hogwarts for its safety, due to the high levels of High magic likely inducing another flashback. Albus hadn’t even been awake when that decision had been made. James knew that this was exactly what his son’s lover had wanted, and while being wary of his methods, in this instance he couldn’t doubt his motivation. Sirius had told him quite clearly that without his lover’s help, his Harry might have been severely wounded.
Tom and Harry had come to Potter Manor to continue working on refitting the building they were turning into an apartment complex. James still approved of the project from a monetary perspective, but he was wondering what the outside motivation was for such a project, because however much he wanted to distrust Tom Riddle, he knew the young man was interested in money only as a tool rather than a goal itself. He was not using his son. And despite his past political associations he didn’t actually disagree with what his son and his son’s lover were doing. He just thought their methods were rather extreme, a bit to Slytherin for his tastes, not that such a methodology was surprising.
**Kiss**
Tom and Harry were looking over the plans that Harry and Tom, but mostly Tom had created for the apartment building. Harry could help with the general stuff, but he came up with the unique ideas that would make it original and successful while Tom figured out how to do it. Tom lacked the creativity to do more than look outside the box, while Harry on the other hand could tell it was a cube that was part of a bridge.
“So the plan is to double every floor but the first floor?” Harry asked looking through the plans for the space expansion. They were quite complicated but in the end they just required talent in Arithmacy, Runes, and Potions to implement.
“Why wouldn’t we double the first floor as well?” Tom asked, he knew there were multiple reason’s not to, most specifically magical stability but he was curious at what in particular Harry wanted to include that would cause a conflict.
“Well, first of all we will need a ritual room. It should be available to the residents if they book it in advance,” Harry stated seeing the growing realization in Tom’s eyes.
“And if they have access to a ritual room, they might wonder why we consider it necessary. They also might investigate various wizarding rituals deepening their exposure to the Olde Ways,” Tom replied intrigued.
“Exactly. I also think we should include a potions lab of some sort, with space for residents to keep their supplies. We wouldn’t want a potion gone wrong to collapse the space expansion, the words, or the walls. It would be a very useful safety feature. As for other rooms that should be available to the residents: a small library, mail room and common area both inside and outside the wards.”
“What exactly do you mean outside the wards? How tight do we want to make them?” Tom asked. He knew private homes, particularly of notable pureblood families were quite tight, but most other housing had varying degrees depending on the resident.
“I think we should model them on general muggle security systems for apartment complexes. Each resident is given an individual code to go along with their magical signature; if they don’t match then it would alert us or whoever the manager is. If a resident has a visitor coming, they would type in their room number and it would connect a mirror by the entry to a paired mirror in the apartment, like an intercom,” Harry explained, not sure if Tom had heard of it in his brief periods of time in the muggle world.
“We would have to make sure that no magical means of disguise would work in the mirror, otherwise it wouldn’t be very secure,” Tom stated. Security was an issue that he agreed could be a very profitable and unique investment. It would also give on residents, especially with small children, a more secure feeling, and lessen the chances of property damage. “But deliveries would have to be handled differently, since they would come through the floo.”
“I had already planned to have a public and private floo. One for the residents and one for the guests, etcetera outside security. I also think we should have a floo per floor for residents to make firecalls from, but can’t be used to enter the building.”
“Won’t that be very limiting for them, in terms of communication?”
“You forget were aiming at the muggleborn population. Anyways they would be able to communicate by phone. But I am sure any pure of half blood that stays here would appreciate being a bit harder to talk to, not at the mercy of their family’s beck and call as the floo shows their living area. It gives much more privacy,” Harry said delighting in the thought. Draco and Harry had managed to be caught making out in the living room by Draco’s father, it had not gone over well.
“I suppose,” Tom replied never having any difficulties with the floo, especially since he hadn’t lived anywhere where it was available. “How are we going to make sure the electricity and phone systems are working? I doubt there are spells that can tell you.”
“We should get a muggle to check the system and to install a two sided elevator so we could have the space expanded floors accessed from one side and the normal floors from the other,” Harry said flipping through the plans.
“If we have the normal floors in good condition when we do the space expansion we could include runes to make it a complete duplication. It would be a bit difficult to determine what the right configuration would be for the electronic aspects, but with a bit of experimentation it would definitely be doable,” Tom declared, glossing over the fact that nobody had done it before. But having a good challenge along with the security invention would keep him interested while Harry dealt with the muggles and fixed the interior. They would both deal with accepting tenants.
“Let’s do it then.”
**Kiss**
It was already a month, into the summer break before Tom and Harry had their first visitor to the apartment complex. They had seen quite a bit of Harry’s family because they had been staying at Potter Manor until a week ago when they had finally fixed up the first floor apartment to their specifications. Their first visitor was Draco Malfoy, of course, come to protest at how slowly Harry had been responding to his letters.
Draco had come to the interior door where the words started, and had puzzled his way through activating the mirror as the instructions next to it said. “Hello … mirror. I am looking for Harry Potter,” Draco said completely skeptical that it would work.
Harry’s face popped up almost immediately to his surprise. “Hey, Draco. I wasn’t expecting you to come visit. Anything wrong?”
“Besides you not responding to my owls … not really. I am mostly just worried and stressing myself on what I should do for my initial investment to show my maturity and help the cause at the same time,” Draco said.
“Struck by a thought, Harry led Draco into the mail room explaining what it was for. He opened the 000 mailbox and inside was a small pile of mail including a letter from Draco, “Sorry, Draco. With the words set up, the automatic mail filing spell started working even before we started living here because we only left to sleep.”
“So you’ve haven’t been shacking up and enjoying your break, how disappointing. I had such grandiose thoughts about all the trouble you had gotten into, and all the sex you had,” Draco said disappointed.
“Oh, we’ve had lots of sex since we need to raise magic for the building expansion. We also needed to raise magic to get the wards set even if we only raised them layer by layer, they are still quite complicated.”
“You raised all the wards by yourselves,” Draco whistled in amazement. “I’m impressed. But both Tom and you have ridiculous amounts of magic, and once you amplify it with sex magic you could have raised enough power to flatten the surrounding buildings.”
Harry finally led Draco to their apartment, giving a quick description of what they would be used for, he also mentioned how the roof would be available to all residents and their planes to put in a small greenhouse to grow common potions ingredients. Tom looked up from the building plans for a moment, saw Draco, and then turned back to his work. “Ignore him,” Harry said, “He’s on the verge of a breakthrough on how to manage the duplication of the muggle aspects that need duplication.”
“Muggle thing, Harry?”
“The apartment complex is aimed at muggleborns. What did you expect Draco, all the conveniences of Malfoy Manor?” Harry asked.
“I didn’t know what to expect. But anyway that isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about. I’m not sure what I should do for my initial investment; there are just too many options.”
“Well it should have something to do with the ministry, because not only is that your families power base but also because politics interests you. You always did love a good argument,” Harry said teasingly but truthfully.
“He should start a law firm,” Tom interjected finally putting his paper’s down.
“What is a law firm?” Draco asked.
“Law firms have lawyers on retainer that take on clients to protect them in criminal trials, to write official documents, and to handle complicated permits and documents with the government,” Tom explained, know that while Harry had a vague idea of what a lawyer was, he didn’t realize how necessary the profession was for the magical world.
“But my father can do all those things appropriately, and he taught me as well. Why would someone need help with something so straight forward?” Draco asked.
“I learned some of that from my father, but I’m certainly not an expert,” Harry admitted, not particularly liking to fall short in comparison to Draco. “But only purebloods get that type of education on how to navigate the pit falls of the ministry. Everyone else just struggles along with the help of their friends.”
“I guess I could try offering services like that this summer and see if people do want that type of help,” Draco admitted. He had great respect for the leader of the movement and suspected that most of the advice he gave was accurate as well as thoughtfully considered. “So, how would I go about rounding up customers?”
**Kiss**
Their next visitor was a bit more expected, Neville Longbottom showed up at precisely five minutes before the time he had been invited to arrive. He had walked from the closest floo which was an antique shop at least thirty minutes away, so he was sweating lightly in his gardening clothes. Tom and Harry had commissioned him to get the greenhouse into working order and to start growing a few plants, that at least they could use even if they didn’t get any tenants after they completed the expansion.
“Hello, Harry, Riddle. I’m grateful that you trust my skills enough in this area to pay me for my services,” Neville said a tad too formal.
“Well, Longbottom, you have always had the easiest time with earth elementals and now that you are gaining control of them I imagine that you expertise will have only improved,” Tom stated giving Neville one of the appreciated complements of his life.
“Thank you. I have considered opening up a greenhouse after Hogwarts because they want to have a couple years of experience before you can apprentice for you mastery,” Neville said modestly.
“But you definitely want to get your mastery?” Harry asked.
“Of course, it’s the only way to learn green magic.”
“Then I have an idea for how you would go about starting a greenhouse that you wouldn’t be horrified to leave behind. I know how attached you were to the plants that you had to leave at Longbottom Manor during the school year. But what if you teamed up with a potions master,” Harry said getting wrapped up in his ideas and not paying attention to the terrified look on Neville’s face.
“Like Professor Snape?”
“Not all Potions Master’s are like Professor Snape, Longbottom,” Tom said putting in his two sickles despite his better judgment. Neville Longbottom was Harry’s friend, ally and roommate, which meant he had nothing to do with Tom. “He is particularly strict because he is teaching. Potions has the highest chance of student deaths than any other subject, the rate can be as high as 9 out of every 100 students. He hasn’t lost a student since he has started teaching.”
“That makes a lot of sense,” said both Neville and Harry. Tom looked incredulously at Harry, who should have known better.
“I also wondered why he was so mean at school and nice when he visited the family. I just thought he felt like he had to be a really strict teacher because he is so young,” Harry explained sheepishly. “But, anyway Neville if you grow just a few really rare plants then you could easily move them to your next greenhouse while still supplying the potion master that you have teamed up with.”
“That sounds like a very interesting idea, Harry. I’m sure that you wouldn’t try to maneuver me into working with someone in the movement,” Neville stated knowing the exact opposite.
Harry just laughed and headed up to the roof. Tom somewhat curious about how much Neville could do in so little time. Once on the roof Neville brought out two bags, after he cleaned out the raised beds adjusting the heights for variation, he opened the first bad and dirt poured out. Tom could see Neville’s magic filtering the dirt with a few insects and rocks being shunted to the side. Neville then quickly disposed of them mentioning how some insects were parasites while others were necessary to a plants life cycle. He then opened the other bag and brought out containers of seeds that he organized by danger of the plant to wizards, and size of the plant fully grown. As he actually put them in the dirt his magic encouraged them to grow as he watered them. It was like a father looking after his children checking to make sure they were fed right, and had a comfortable place to sleep. The fact that Neville started taking to the plants once he forgot they were still watching him, was just on eccentricity that Harry had always suspected Neville had. He had walked in on Neville cooing to his Miblius Mibliotoma a few too many times for it to be coincidence.
“After Hogwarts, if you want to live here, we’ll reduce your rent if you look after the plants,” Tom said starting Neville into dropping one of his thankfully closed seed containers.
“I would like that. My parents might be alright to live with but my Gran is a bit overpowering all the time,” Neville admitted. And Harry knew it was true since his grandmother had been the person who spent the most time with him due to his parents’ tremendously busy work schedule as auror partners.