Chapter 5 - Beach House

(Word Count: 2,442)

After they arrived back at Mrs. Figgs' house, Harry told her about Tripsy and his family's beach house and told her that he would be staying there from now on but would return before the Dursleys. He called for Tripsy, who immediately popped over and took him away.

The beach house was a two story building, with large windows overlooking the ocean. It was an isolated private building, on top of a cliff. There was a large patio and pool, then stairs leading down the cliff to a strip of beach and a small jetty of stone for boats.

Inside the house, there wasn't anything too special. Just some paintings of landscapes and knick knacks for decoration. There were a total of 5 separate bedrooms, living room, kitchen, and a dining room with a large table. It was very well decorated, but it didn't have that "lived in" feel to it. It didn't feel like home, more like a resort stay. There were a handful of books on a bookshelf in the living room, but they were boring historical books. Many were about the Goblin Rebellions in the 1400's. The more interesting ones were on WWII and Grindelwald's influence on the muggle war.

"Young master Harry, sir! Tripsy has finished dinner!" Tripsy's squeaky voice called from inside the dining room. Harry decided that was enough exploring and went to eat.

Tripsy had set out a large spread of classic Italian dishes. Harry was shocked at how a little elf like her could make so much food.

"Tripsy, this all looks delicious, but I don't know if we can eat all of this."

"This is all for young master Harry! Tripsy can wrap up the leftovers for later."

"All for me? What are you going to eat?"

"Tripsy doesn't want to use more money than necessary so Tripsy makes herself porridge, sir. Tripsy will eat afterwards."

Harry frowned at that. "From now on, we'll share meals. I want you to eat together with me at the table."

Tripsy looked horrified. "Tripsy mustn't! How could Tripsy sit at the table with a wizard? Tripsy is not worthy of such kindness!"

He grew stern. "Tripsy, please do not degrade yourself like that. Everyone deserves at least a little respect. You deserve it much more than many wizards that I know of. You were the one to maintain this house and my parents things all this time, not knowing if I was alive or if I would return. You are one of the few closest people I can call family that I have left. Besides, I was hoping you could tell me some stories of my family as we ate."

At Harry's continued insistence, Tripsy finally sat at the table to eat with him. Though he did have to frame it as if she was helping by eating with him. Even then, she grabbed a cheap wooden bowl and a cheap spoon and fork instead of the fine china that Harry was using. It was going to take a while to get her self confidence up. He wondered how she would react when he started paying her.

As they ate, Tripsy told him stories of his grandparents, Fleamont and Euphemia Potter, and his great grandparents Charlus Potter who married Dorea Black, causing a huge scandal with the families opposing political views. There were also loads of stories of his dad when he was younger.

From the stories, it would seem like Charlus was the Sirius of his generation, causing all sorts of mischief, and was a womanizer. That is until he was finally tamed by Dorea Black, who had started out very antagonistic to Charlus. Dorea was like a younger sister to Arcturus Black, so this caused a lot of tension between him and Charlus. That is, until they fought together in the war against Grindelwald and they earned each other’s respect.

Fleamont on the other hand was the wrong sort of troublemaker, always getting into fights when other kids made fun of his name. He was an unruly delinquent. He did have a soft spot though, which led him to settle down with Euphemia. He eventually became a gifted duelist and potioneer.

Then there were stories about James's days at Hogwarts and the Marauders crashing at the Potter Manor. Tripsy also told him of his mother Lily and how she would visit in their 6th and 7th years.

It didn't seem like Tripsy was a fan of Lily because his mother was against the slavery of the house elves. When his grandparents died, Lily couldn't stomach the thought of owning a house elf and wanted to release her. James instead had Tripsy go live at the beach house as a sort of retirement.

Harry could relate to both sides. It was slavery, which is wrong, pure and simple. However, to send Tripsy off without any sort of recourse would have condemned her to live on the streets. Though fanfics would lead him to assume they would die a slow death, after his blunder of trusting fanfics at Gringotts, Harry didn't know what to believe about the bond of a house elf. He did know that no Power was being taken from him due to the bond, so at the very least it's not parasitic.

Which led him to wonder how the bond actually worked, and why was it broken by giving them clothes? Would Tripsy die like the fanfics say? Could he break her bond, and still have her live with him? He would have to research house-elves to know more. For now though, he just couldn't risk it. Besides, having someone look after him so lovingly after years of neglect was a balm on his soul.

After dinner, Tripsy insisted that he go rest while she took care of the dishes. They could be cleaned easily with magic, so he didn't put up much of a fight, and just went to his room where his mother's trunk was.

That night, Harry dug into the journals and photo albums that he found. The first one was the young pre-hogwarts years, in it his mother talked about how she discovered that she could do special things, or made strange accidents occur when she was angry. It did scare her a little bit. However, she met a strange young boy her own age that could do the same thing. Severus Snape. It was a little weird to read about Lily and Snape's friendship. It was a relief to read that Lily never had romantic feelings for Snape, Harry didn't know if he could handle reading that. The man was a git and obsessed. Harry didn't think Snape truly loved her. It was a sick obsession. Regardless of Harry's feelings on Snape though, it was obvious that his mother considered him a close friend, possibly even a brother. He taught her a little about magic and the magical world.

He also looked through the albums. There were so many pictures of both his parents as they grew up, then there were pictures of their wedding day, and then the last album was of him. To see the joy and love in his parents eyes brought tears to his own. Logically, Harry knew that he was a 25 year old man before this with another set of loving parents, and he loved them still and missed them. Emotionally though, Lily and James were also his parents and he loved them beyond words. They died for him. Now, seeing their love in these pictures, Harry's heart broke at never being able to meet them.

~~ ITW, H ~~

The next day, Harry began reading through the book he had bought on self care spells. There were a whole lot more spells than he had imagined for household chores and cleaning. Tergeo, Scourgify, Reparo, spells to animate dishes to clean themselves, prevent accidental spills, spells to polish, fold clothes, iron clothes, animate clothes to dress you, spells to clean your teeth, trim and style your hair perfectly, give you a fresh scent and so on. There were a whole bunch.

Luckily, the actual theory wasn't required very much to cast a spell and he only had to memorize the wand motion and incantations. Though he did read the entire chapter dedicated to each spell before he actually tried it. He didn't want to try the spell and only see the warning at the end after all, he wasn’t Doctor Strange. Despite the common, trivial effects of the spells, casting any spell without knowing the effects and potential errors, could be dangerous.

Each chapter started with depictions of the wand motions and the incantations. Then it went into the uses, and the do's and don'ts of the spell. For example, he couldn’t use Tergeo or Scourgify to clean his teeth. If he did, he could very well vanish his teeth or gums, or dry out all moisture from his mouth and throat. He could also vanish the roof of his mouth, and spill his brain fluid. Could be very dangerous.

This book was more for the homebody, so it didn't go into the Arithmancy or magic theories for the spells though.

As Harry was reading this, he couldn't help but wonder why so many of the shops in Diagon Alley were so dusty and dirty. Literally a wave of their wands and it would be clean, but they couldn't do that? Just how lazy did wizards get?

Harry practiced these spells until he could reliably do them every time. That was enough for him, as these weren't important for life or death. Turns out that he had a lot of Power for a kid so young. As expected of Harry Potter, the protagonist of the series. Because of this, he could not only handle the simpler spells in here like mouth cleaning, clothes straightening, hair fixing (which only lasted around 10 minutes for his stubborn hair), and glass repair. He could also get the more complicated spells like Scourgify and Tergeo spells to trigger, and he could clean the entire floor of the kitchen in one go with the amount of power he had.

He spent the entire day on this. Tripsy would occasionally come in with snacks and tea for him to rest. In the evening, he would be tuckered out, exhausted. Turns out that while he didn't really run out of magic, it did require a lot of mental focus which tired him out mentally. He was also channeling magic through his body to use magic, which took its own toll on his body. He had a feeling that the more in-shape he was, the longer he could go on.

When he got too tired to carry on his magic practice, he sat down in the living room/lounge and read by the fireplace sipping hot chocolate or tea. Tripsy was really spoiling him. Harry began reading the next of his mother's journals, which covered her experiences as a first year in Hogwarts. 

With this same schedule, Harry spent the next few days practicing magic and learning about his mother. This week, he already went through the first year's Charms and Transfiguration textbooks. Of course, he didn't really spend the time on the theories, as these books went deeper into the how and why's of each spell and its various applications. Harry only learned the wand movements and incantations for now, he would have to go back and spend time on the theoretical parts later. Going through the first year spells, he found that he could cast everything, making him wonder just how much more Power did he have than other wizards. 

With these though, he learned the full body bind, the jelly leg jinx, how to shoot sparks, incendio, and more.

One thing he noticed though was when he would try and cast some of the simpler spells without the incantation and wand movements, it would cost a lot more Control and Focus than he had right now. Incantations helped with the Focus, as it helps form a clear mental image and intent. The wand movements helped a lot with the Control. As of now, the only spells he could do point-casting or non-verbal, were the very basic charms that he was practicing before. Alohomora, Leviosa, and Lumos.

Close to the end of the Dursley’s vacation, Harry received some bank statements from Noggrap about his initial investments. The Goblin really did work fast. He was able to find sellers for some of the shares of the companies he wanted.

For the Muggle side:

ExxonMobil 0.9% Shares, General Motors 0.5% Shares, Boeing 1% Shares, Kraft 2.3% Shares, McDonald's 2% Shares, Microsoft 3% Shares, Apple 2.5% Shares, Coca-Cola 1% Shares, Nintendo 1.2% Shares, and Sony 3.1% Shares.

For the Magical side:

Daily Prophet 4% Shares, Wizarding Wireless 5% Shares, and Nimbus Broom Company 5.2% Shares.

It wasn't until the last day of his little vacation when Harry dug out the most recent journal to read the entries of his first year of life, which talked about the events leading up to their deaths. It wasn't until closer to the end when an entry was describing the realization that the dark lord was after Harry, where it talked about the Fidelius charm that he realized that he had physical proof of Sirius's innocence. Lily clearly states the ruse they pulled, where Peter is the secret keeper and Sirius pretends.

This, combined with his own memories of the events, should at least get Sirius a proper trial. Then we can just insist on veritaserum. Genius. There is still the problem of catching Pettigrew. Maybe he can send Tripsy after him.

“Tripsy!” Harry called. She popped in, rubbing her eyes sleepily.

“Yes, young master Harry?”

“Look at this! My mother wrote proof that uncle Sirius is innocent!” He spun the journal around to show her the entry.

She read through it, and began bawling her eyes out. "Young Sirius is innocent! Tripsy should have known, should have known! Sirius was always a good boy, a brother to Master James. Bad Tripsy! Should have known shifty Peter was bad! Tripsy is deserving of punishment, young master Harry sir!"

She wrung her pillowcase dress in anxiety. Harry hugged her, and patted her back. "Shh, Tripsy. It's not your fault. Pettigrew fooled everyone. Don't you worry. Tomorrow, we'll find a good lawyer to get Sirius free. Then the three of us can live together. How does that sound?"

She sniffled and rubbed her wrinkled face free of tears. "Tripsy would like that very much, young master Harry sir."

"Let's get some rest then. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow."