It had a nice stone wall with elaborate gardens, water features, and statuary circling the house, adding to its grandeur as well as providing a buffer zone for security and privacy.
...
The manor backed up onto the docks with amazing panoramic views of the sea from virtually every room in the manor home, especially where his corner office would be located, which had wide views of the sea, docks, and high street.
The front garden would be mainly for show, with a fountain in the middle of the garden with a polished stone-lined path around it, leading to the massive wooden front door, where he planned to have the Potter crest proudly on display, a statement of his importance and his family's long history in Britain.
Inside, it was divided into four floors; first, the basement for storage. The ground floor would contain a traditional reception room and front room, with a designer kitchen, mostly magical in style, but with some Muggle influences where possible.
The main dining room would be set on the same floor, with the main window looking out onto the high street, another reminder of his power and position for guests, as well as providing an excellent view on a good day, with a connecting ballroom.
On the second floor, his own private office and study would be located, along with a magical gym, looking out onto the sea and street, with a library and a smaller washroom for guests.
The third floor would contain his bedroom, a main bathroom, which he planned to furnish with modern Muggle luxuries, and a few bedrooms, for either family usage or overnight guests. "I like it," he said simply as the designers seemed to let out a collective sigh of relief. "Now where are the plans for the high streets?"
"Here," the second wizard offered as Harry took them and laid them out. He saw neat rows of traditional shop fronts along with three main high streets.
Looking over the standardized shop plan, the plan gave each shop enough front space to both personalize their store and effectively market their wares, with an included basement for storage or a workshop. The top floor for each shop was free for living in or a secondary work area or whatever purpose they had need for.
Of course, this wasn't taking into consideration the total space available after space expansion charms were liberally applied and tied into the structure, which could easily triple the available shop space or more if the owner fuelled the expansion charms with their own magic.
Naturally, there would be larger shops available on the high street for businesses such as restaurants and clothing stores.
Smiling as he envisioned stores conducting daily business, he noticed the interlocking standardized security over the area, preventing individuals from apparating or portkeying straight into the alley at will.
The wards would, in fact, redirect people to pre-selected apparition points, which could be monitored and locked down if need be, either from his own office or the main security office. The main security office would be set up to monitor the alley's activities and coordinate with the Aurors.
From his main office or the security office, he, or his future head of security, could also erect powerful anti-portkey and apparition wards over the whole area, effectively locking the whole area down from magical transport altogether. This could even be done by individual sectors in times of civil unrest, as well as preventing criminals from escaping.
This would also disable the Floo system, since the main hub would be under his direct control, forcing criminals to flee by foot. Even then, the access points to the Muggle world could be remotely locked down also, trapping any criminals. The events of the last war, where Death Eaters could apparate or portkey into Diagon Alley, torture and kill a dozen people, and escape immediately after, were long gone.
All of this was not something he planned to actively advertise, since any ward or security plan could be broken with enough raw power and forewarning, but it would be effective in buying time and catching the unprepared. So, in other words, it wouldn't stop an army, but it would be highly effective against criminals or terrorists like Death Eaters who sought to get in, do as much damage as they could, and leave immediately after before the Aurors arrived.
Unfortunately, besides the high-security areas like his docks, warehouses, and dry dock, or relatively isolated or off-limits areas, the wards had to be primarily non-lethal in nature according to the law, to ensure that the chances for civilian deaths were limited.
An exception existed, though; the wards for public areas could be tightened and made more dangerous only when an official state of war or emergency was declared by the Wizengamot. Unlike these public areas, his private city house had no such restrictions on ward types. He planned to rig the place with enough lethal wartime and siege-level wards to make it a small fortress.
Naturally, a lot of the warding on the residential housing would be up to the individual witch or wizard to decide prior to moving in. Each person could customize their home's warding package to a degree for a moderate fee, but every Potter rental home's security would automatically have certain minimum security standards as disclosed in their rental contracts.
This would make the homes that much more desirable. The guidelines would, at a minimum, include anti-portkey wards, a strictly defined and keyed apparition point to enter and exit the home and area, as well as the home's internal Floo system being restricted to family members only.
...
( Gringotts Bank )
It never got old looking at the massive piles of shiny gold coins in his Peverell vault and knowing that this was just one of a pair of family vaults he had access to, about equal in wealth.
It gave him quite a sense of satisfaction to know that he was far richer than his former abusers and that he was effectively nobility in magical society. Of course, this "nobility" didn't command the respect that it once did due to the decline of his family's fortunes and influence, but that would certainly change in the future if the docks were as successful as he thought they'd be.
He picked up a handful of the beautiful gold coins and allowed the shiny coins to slip through his fingers like running water, his thoughts, like most days, on the distant future.
Dropping the last coin into the pile, he moved towards the area of the vault containing his family's rarer tomes; it contained both his family's private histories and journals, as well as priceless books his ancestors had collected over the centuries, before being safely stored away during the war. Good thing too, considering that the Potter family's ancestral manor had been attacked and destroyed by Death Eaters towards the end of the war, claiming his grandparents' lives.
He shook his head at the odd feelings of loss, both for the grandparents he would never know, as well as the home that had sheltered many generations of his family for centuries. Why he felt such loss for people he'd never met and had no memories of, he just couldn't explain.
He would love to rebuild the ancient family manor in the future, as well as the other residential family holdings in Britain which had been destroyed, but for now he was focusing his limited resources and capital on expanding his business empire, rather than spending gold on homes that he had no immediate use for and wouldn't generate income.
Logically, he was living quite happily with his godfather Sirius for the time being, and would soon have an impressive city house by his docks that he could always occupy after leaving Hogwarts if he desired to move out for whatever reason.
Yet, the ancestral manor and lands were as much a fundamental part of the Potter family's history and DNA as the docks were, and by that same logic, should be rebuilt sooner rather than later. It was interesting; he'd never seen the place, had only heard fond stories from Sirius of his time there during the summer, yet something about the idea of his ancestral home called to him, resonated on a soul-deep level in his magic.
'This could be a manifestation of family magics at work,' he thought. Family magic was a very real phenomenon in the wizarding world, although it wasn't all that well understood. Beyond the basics, it bordered on mysticism, really. Objectively, though, this pull did make sense on an almost instinctual level. The Potter ancestral home had sheltered generation after generation of Potters.
For centuries, it had served as the seat of the Potter family; it had nurtured, protected, and sheltered the family from all that would harm them. So many Potters had been conceived there, born there, lived and grew up there, performed magic there, and died there. Like any artefact or place exposed to great amounts of magic, sometimes magic conveys something more, a personality, maybe even a pseudo-sentience.
Whatever it was, the home and lands of the Potters had obviously become something more than just a building over the centuries. Potter magic had given it something akin to life, and he could feel it even now, reaching out to his very blood and magic, calling him home like a loving mother, patiently waiting. In time, he would answer that call; he had no doubt.
And when he returned, he would build it bigger and grander than before. A beautiful home wrapped in the armour and weapons of a fortress. He had long vowed to rebuild the Potter family, and he would do just that.
...
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