"Are you two ladies just going to stand in the doorway?" asked Harry with a grin plastered across his face looking back at them.
Hermione rolled her eyes and asked, "You done?"
"Some time ago," he replied.
"Oh," she said. "Back to the kitchen, then?"
"That'd be nice," he said.
Back in the kitchen they were just in time to say good bye to Sirius, Matthias and Deece. Sirius was heading back to the Black House and resuming an argument with Remus about renaming the place, while Deece and Matthias were heading back to Greengrass Farm
"If we're lucky, Astoria wouldn't have managed to set fire to the place yet," said Deece, just before she apparated away.
Hermione turned to Daphne and asked, "Was she serious?"
"No," laughed Daphne. "She always says something like that when leaving from visiting friends; and either I or Astoria was home."
"Now," said Ant. "It was suggested to me to show the three of you our new escape tunnel as a matter of priority."
They were shown to a section of wall behind the stairs. Letting them in they found a trapdoor with a narrow set of stairs going back and under the main stairs of the house, and towards the front of the property. It went quite deep.
That led down to a u-bend that had them walking down a slight slope towards the back of the house.
"It was explained to me that we can't have a lot of the wards that wizarding homes have," said Ant. "However, we can still have the tunnel with a hidden entrance. The only way you three saw it was because you're keyed - I think is the term - into what wards we do have."
As Hermione began to ask her father what sort of wards they had, and he explained the goblins had left detailed information on them because he knew she'd ask, Harry noticed they were heading almost directly back and away from the house.
Eventually, by Harry's calculation, they came to the area beyond the back fence of the house and quite well within the woods located there.
In a similar layout to the Greengrass Farm tunnel, Ant led them into a hidden room well before the end of the tunnel. And, inside, was an actual CCTV system. Ant turned the television monitors on and showed views of the front of the house and down one side; the back of the house and down the other; and the hallways of both ground and first floors.
As you can see, from here we can monitor what's going on all around outside the house, plus watch those moving through the downstairs and upstairs hallways. Of course, the one for the downstairs hallway also shows us if they're trying to chase us down through the tunnel.
He quickly turned those off and pointed to a small telephone. "That's hooked up to the house and will work right through to them cutting the line for it. That is, of course, if they even know what a telephone is and what the line for it looks like. We doubt they do.
"If necessary, we can use that to contact the MPS, muggle aurors, letting them know our house is being attacked, and give them approximate numbers. We're still trying to work out a way to let them know that the 'sticks' the bad guys carry will actually be deadly weapons."
He indicated a half-dozen children's quoits sitting on a shelf and said, "Those are portkeys. They will not work with either Cele or myself, as we have no inherent magic. However, testing has shown that they'll work if we grip them while a wizard or witch grabs on as well."
In the back of a room he indicated a ladder bolted to the wall. "That goes up and comes out inside a fake tree. The entrance to the ladder from outside is hidden, somehow. We've noticed that, once we go up and exit the tree, we can't get back in that way."
Looking back to the three he asked, "Any questions?"
"How much..."" asked Hermione.
"No idea," Ant replied with a smile. "Apparently it was all taken care of by Matthias and Sirius. Those two claimed they'd carry the cost to ensure the safety of their daughter, daughter-in-law and son-in-law slash godson. Once I found out your mother was pregnant, I was grateful."
"One of Daphne's letters from home told us it was the... dwarves?... who were contracted to excavate it and build it," said Hermione. "I didn't know they knew anything about muggle electronics."
"Surprised us, too," said Ant. "Even Matthias didn't know when he sent them to see me that they understood muggle technology."
"So, I take it this place will act as a... what do they call it?... Safe room?... until the DEs are gone or someone can come get you?" asked Harry.
"Yes," replied Ant. "However, if something bad happens... such as the house gets burned down, or they find the hidden entrance in the house... we can still get out of here by way of the ladder up through the tree."
When it appeared no one else had any questions, he said, "Anyway. Let's get back to the house."
The four of them trooped back to the house. However, just before they arrived, Harry noticed what appeared to be a groove with a sliding door flush with one wall off to one side.
"Ant?" he asked, indicating the door.
"A blast door," said Ant. "Once we know everyone from the good guy's side we know is going to come past here, we can slam the door shut. It'll also protect us from the fire if they set fire to the house. It's another safety feature." Harry nodded and said, "Good to know."
The next morning saw Harry downstairs early and cooking in the kitchen. He and Winky had started with a bit of a minor argument about who was going to be doing the cooking. However, voices were not raised out of respect for those still sleeping and they quickly agreed to work together.
Harry was even explaining to the little elf what he was doing and why. He even explained the operation of muggle kitchen appliances such as the coffee percolator, the gas cooker, the toaster, the refrigerator, the hand-cranked egg-beater, and the microwave.
He went on to explain and demonstrate the operation of the washing machine and dryer - though the dryer was way out of reach being mounted on the wall above the washing machine. He showed them the vacuum but Dobby explained back it was far easier to clean the carpet using elf magic than the vacuum, and the carpet was far cleaner after they'd finished.
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