27 27 - Wards, Manor and House Elves.

"Of course, Master!" The excitable little elf squeaked.

"Oh and please call me Leo."

"Yes, Mas- Leo."

Tiffy then walked up to me, grabbed my hand, and with a 'pop', I found myself in a room. Looking around, I immediately felt the wards and was astonished, they felt just as strong as Hogwarts did, and while I admittedly was no expert in wards just yet, I could tell that it would take a ridiculous amount of effort to break past them.

Not to mention it was under the fidelius charm, and considering I was the last Ignis, I assume the secret keeper is a house elf which now that I think about, is an ingenious idea. House elves are some of the most loyal creatures in the world and are literally bound by magic not to betray their master, the fact that this wasn't used in canon has me questioning the wizarding worlds sanity.

Returning my attention to the room that I was in, I noticed the room was fairly plain. Well, plain for a mansion, it was still a high quality room made of fine materials, it was around 5 x 5 meters with white walls and wooden support pillars in each corner.

The next thing that I saw made me gape. In front of me, was the wardstone of the manor. It was a piece of mythril.. the size of a quaffle.

I stared at the beautiful pale green stone in awe, 'That must have cost millions of galleons at least, no, you need more than just money to get a piece of mythril this large.'

My concentration on the wardstone was interrupted as Tiffy started speaking to me, "Ma- Leo, you is have to touch the wardstone and say "I, Leo Ignis, claim control of Ignis Manor"

Nodding, I did just as Tiffy said, reaching towards the wardstone, I felt my hand breach an invisible barrier which I recognised was a heavily runed space surrounding the wardstone.

You couldn't cast charms or enchantments within a certain distance of a wardstone because the ambient magic it releases will interfere, leaving the only option of protection as runes, which wasn't too inconvenient as runes were the best method of protection when setup correctly anyway.

When my hand finally touched the stone, I immediately felt a connection and was in awe at just how much magic it contained, and it felt like it could store more than what it already had.

I repeated what Tiffy told me, "I, Leo Ignis, claim control of Ignis Manor" and I felt like I had breached a bubble.

If before I was a visitor here, now I was the master. I felt the layers of powerful wards under my control and knew that if I wanted to, I could shut them down or bring them up at will.

Turning back to Tiffy, I said "Thank you, Tiffy. Could you tell me how I can key others into the wards? Also, I was wondering if you could show me how to activate the floo, too."

"Of course, Ma-Leo, I is happy to help!" He then grabbed my hand again and I felt myself being popped to another location. Once the brief moment of disorientation was over, I analysed the new room that I was in.

It was a large room, around half the size of Hogwarts Great Hall, it had multiple sets of furniture that were mostly blue and there were 2 large windows on the far oak wood wall. On the same wall was a large fireplace that wasn't lit and I saw 2 paintings on each side of the fireplace which looked to be previous Ignis Lords, they appeared to be sleeping so I assumed they were deactivated ever since the previous Lord died.

I gave Tiffy a questioning look and he motioned me towards a desk to my left.

On the desk, there was a large open book with a long list of names on it, a few were crossed out while others remained.

Looking at the last few names, they read:

𝕬𝖗𝖓𝖔 𝕴𝖌𝖓𝖎𝖘

𝕳𝖊𝖆𝖙𝖍𝖊𝖗 𝕴𝖌𝖓𝖎𝖘 𝕹𝖊𝖊 𝕸𝖊𝖗𝖗𝖞𝖌𝖔𝖑𝖉

𝕷𝖊𝖔 𝕴𝖌𝖓𝖎𝖘

It seems my parents were the last people tied to the wards before me. I've wondered for quite a while why my family is almost all gone. We did lose a few family members during the war with Voldemort, but that shouldn't have killed all of us, and yet for some reason, i'm the only Ignis left, I still don't know nearly as much as I want to about Ignis Family matters.

I decided that I need to look into this topic more, but for now, I suppose I should find out more about the manor. I looked to Tiffy who explained, "to key someone into the wards, you has to write their name on the Ward Book with the Blood Quill."

"Thank you, Tiffy, now could you show me how the floo works, please?"

Despite the weird appearance of the house elf, the eagerness and sincerity he showed to everything I said was endearing and I found myself quickly warming up to the excitable little house elf.

"Say, Tiffy, are there any other Ignis Elves?" I asked when I realised that there was no way a single elf could keep an entire mansion clean.

"Yes, M-Leo, there are currently 37 Ignis Family House Elves!" Tiffy explained while almost shaking in excitement at being able to help his master with something.

"I see, so do I have to bond with them or something?"

At that, Tiffy rapidly shook his head, "No, Ma- Mr. Leo, there is 3 types of bonds, House Bonds, Family Bonds, and Personal Bonds. House Bonds is for elves who do work and don't talk to Masters much, Family Bonds is for elves who work for a family and Personal Bonds is for elves who serve only 1 master."

I idly noticed that he settled for calling me Mr. Leo instead of just Leo during his surprisingly informative explanation, but just shrugged and moved on.

"Hmm, I know House Elves get sick and go either insane or die if they don't have a bond, so i'm guessing the House Bonded elves are tied to the wardstone for their bond? So are you also a House Bonded Elf, Tiffy?"

At this, Tiffy sadly nodded his head and replied, "I used to be Personal Elf of Master Arno, but when he passed away, I has had a House Bond, but I hasn't had much work to do."

I was a little sympathetic towards the little elf, I knew that elves needed to work or it was almost torture for them, so I thought for a bit before asking him:

"Say, Tiffy, would you like to be my Personal Elf?" I thought about just what I could do with a house elf, I could have them fetch money from my vault or do daily errands, and their unique teleporting abilities could be useful for getting around restricted/warded areas, actually, the more I thought about it, the more I realised just how under-utilised house elves were despite their usefulness.

'How can the wizarding world be so stupid?'

Once Tiffy heard my words, his attitude took an immediate 180 and he looked like he was about to faint from happiness.

"Yes, of course Master! I is not need to be payed, I is love to be your personal elf!" He almost shouted while his body was starting to vibrate in happiness.

I couldn't help but smile at the enthusiasm, "So, could you tell me how to do the bond? I'm new to this stuff.."

Tiffy immediately grabbed my hand and placed it on his forehead and after a brief flash on my hand, I felt a small connection where I could somewhat feel the emotions of my new personal elf which at the moment was complete happiness.

Tiffy had a smile that almost split his face as I asked my next question, "So could you tell me how to activate the floo now, Tiffy?"

"Of course, Master! You just have to light the fire place and throw some floo's powder on it!"

"Also, as I said before, please call me Leo."

"Yes.." The house elf hesitated before saying "Mr. Leo"

Deciding that was the best I was going to get, I did as my new elf said and watched the fireplace spring to life from a wandless and chantless 'Incendio' and then turn green after I threw the powder onto it.

Deciding this was a good time to wrap up for the time being, I walked into the floo and called out "Gringotts Office 29!" and with a flash, I disappeared, only to reappear a minute later in Riptooths office.

The cross-country floo was even worse than the portkey and I decided I never wanted to do this again, after who knows how long, I finally stumbled out of the floo and landed on the floor.

"Ah Leo, back so soon? How was the manor?" Riptooth asked with a grin, showing off his sharp and menacing teeth.

Wincing from the harsh landing, I brushed all of the dust from my armor/clothes, forgetting that I could just magically clean it off, before answering "It was.. good, i'm going to go talk to the matron of the orphanage and let her know that I've found a home."

Calling out "Tiffy" I waited for a few moments before I felt a tiny drain in my core and he appeared in front of me, still smiling like an idiot from getting a new master, "What can I do for you, Mr. Leo?"

"First, did you just use my magic to get here?"

The elf lowered his head a little and his smile dimmed, "I'm sorry Mr. Leo, but I was very far away and had to use a bit of your magic to 'pop' to you, I will use my own magic next time!"

"It's okay, Tiffy, i'm not mad at you, I was just curious, why did it cost such a small amount of magic to travel so far?"

The elf brightened up once again, "I have a connection to Mr. Leo and I can 'pop' to you from very far away more easily if I use some of your magic to 'pop' to your location!"

'That's useful' I decided before sending an image of an alley, not too far from the orphanage into Tiffy's mind and asking "Could you 'pop' us to the place I just showed you Tiffy? I need your help with something."

He close his eyes in thought for a moment before saying "Of course, Mr. Leo, right away!" before immediately grabbing my hand and popping us there. As we were in Gringotts, I couldn't teleport myself out and had to rely on Tiffy's elf magic.

Turning around, I was met with 4 children around 10-11 years old with 2 of them grabbing one kid and another was in front of him, obviously about to punch the kid who was being grabbed. They were all looking at me with expressions of shock, awe and a bit of fear on their faces.

'Bugger.'