Dabbling With The Dark

Chapter 28

A quiet hiss from the corner of his study made him turn from the bookshelf in front of him to look at Nagini. Seeing the snake blissfully asleep curled up in the cushioned basket he'd put there for her while Voldemort and the Death Eaters were out running 'errands', he smiled looking away from Nagini around the rest of the room feeling completely at home. He should since it really was one now.

Starting in his study, the room was remodeled exactly the way he wanted it. The wood paneled walls were a rich cherry color and the bookshelves, desk, end tables, and coffee table were a few shades lighter with a burnt red leather sofa under the windows at the front of the house to finish off the décor. Slowly but surely, his whole house had been cleaned top to bottom and the work on remodeling had begun. So far he'd only gotten through the master bedroom, the study, the sitting room, and the dining room, but eventually he'd get through them all. For now, he was having too fantastic a summer to concentrate that hard on the renovations.

For the past two weeks, half of his days were spent in his home really working on making the Shrieking Shack look the way he wanted it to. By his birthday, his three new house elves and three more from Voldemort had finished the hard work of scrubbing the place down, patching up the holes in the walls, fixing the broken stairs and railings, and removing old wallpaper to eventually just paint all the walls white for a clean fresh feel. While they'd done a great job, the place looked bland and empty, something he wanted nothing to do with.

He'd had the elves go out and get him catalogs and had gone through one after another picking out new patterns and furniture one room at a time. Once he'd settled on everything for a particular room, he worked with the elves to put everything into place. Voldemort seemed amused by his enthusiasm to renovate the Shrieking Shack, and surprisingly, had given him a few ideas on things to do. Even the Death Eaters, Bella in particular of course, walked through frequently to see what changes he'd made. While she'd naturally teased him about the red hues in the study with the subtle gold accents, she did admit the room was beautiful. Honestly, it was his favorite room in his home now and he spent a lot of time there.

The renovations to his home weren't all he'd done. With the entire day everyday at his disposal to do what he wanted, when he wasn't renovating he was enjoying himself with books and conversation and fun. He'd gotten through all of his summer homework already, and thanks to all the lessons he'd received from his lover over the past year, he'd really only had to spend an hour a day at most for two weeks to do it. He didn't need more time than that a day to do at least one assignment even with the frequent interruptions of Death Eaters walking around his home and treating his home as an extension of Voldemort's. Though he'd hated the idea of the Order doing that, he had no problem with the Death Eaters doing so.

While he'd laughed with everyone else when they'd done it, he hadn't complained when Bella and Rodolphus had claimed the bedroom above his on the third floor and started renovating it to their liking as their private space. He cared even less when Voldemort claimed the attic for a new storage area, the dark wizard not liking that the Order knew where one of his storage houses was and having everything from there moved into it. He was compensated well for the loss of storage space for himself.

He wasn't the only one that was immersed in work everyday. Voldemort and the Death Eaters were busy with their usual plans of stealing this or that and dealing with those who opposed the Dark Lord's will. He knew everything that went on, and while more than a few times he'd actually wanted to go along, he knew he couldn't. Not yet anyway and he couldn't wait for the day it did.

That was nearly a constant thought on his mind. When he'd blown out the candles on the birthday cake that Narcissa had the elves bake for him, his wish had been to be completely free of Dumbledore and the Order. His lover told him to have some patience, but he was getting damned tired of pretending that Dumbledore and the Weasleys' frequent invites for lunch, dinner, and tea in an attempt to urge him to be more active with them weren't annoying as Hell. If he'd wanted to do that, he wouldn't have bought the Shrieking Shack and would've spent the summer at Twelve Grimmauld Place.