Dumbledore and Sirius came to the Wulfhall on the Wednesday before the leaving feast.
Ron had arranged it with the specific logistics he brought to things that required coordination across multiple parties — a brief owl to Sirius confirming the date, a note to Dumbledore with the Floo destination and the instruction to arrive through the Trelawns' cottage in Padstow, which had the existing connection and whose owners he had already written to with another jar of jam and a request.
He Apparated to the Wulfhall at half past two and was in the grounds when the Floo chimney in the kitchen produced first Dumbledore and then Sirius in quick succession.
Sirius stepped out of the kitchen door into the June afternoon and stopped.
He looked at the grounds — the four acres, the grass properly itself in June now rather than the bare March version, the kitchen garden coming into something at the east wall, the wood at the far boundary with the light in it the way June light was in established trees. He looked at the house behind him with the specific expression of someone encountering something that was both new and familiar — not architecturally, but in the quality it had, the quality of a place that expected to receive people.
'You bought this,' Sirius said.
'In March,' Ron said. 'Easter break.'
'While you were also doing everything else.'
'The planning runs in parallel,' Ron said. 'Come on.'
He took them through the house, which was in better condition than the March version — the warder had been, the initial wards were in place and held cleanly, the work crews had been through and the functional restoration was largely complete. The kitchen had been addressed: new worktops, the Aga that he had specified in February and which had arrived in April and which now had the quality of something that had been waiting for the house rather than installed in it. The library shelves were in — Hermione's specification, adjustable spacing, properly fitted, currently empty but with the quality of something that would not stay empty long.
Dumbledore moved through the house with the quality he brought to spaces he was assessing — not the warm appreciation of a guest but the specific attention of someone understanding a place's structure and considering its uses. He stopped in the library doorway.
'East-facing,' he said.
'Morning light,' Ron said.
Dumbledore looked at the room for a moment. Something in his expression had the quality it had in the office after the oath — the recalibration, the specific shift of someone who had received a picture that was larger than expected and was still adjusting to the size.
'The ward architecture,' Dumbledore said. 'The outer perimeter — I could feel it from the lane. Two systems, independently anchored.'
'Outer on the property boundary, inner on the building itself,' Ron confirmed. 'The warder did the professional framework. I incorporated a directional intent modifier into the outer perimeter — Hermione developed the final specification.'
Dumbledore looked at him. 'A directional intent modifier. In the outer ward of a residential property.'
'The intent definition needed to be precise,' Ron said. 'A standard exclusionary ward would have triggered on anyone carrying a defensive curse. That includes most of the people I want inside the ward.'
Sirius, who had been listening to this exchange from the doorway with the quality of someone who had known Ron for two years and still occasionally found the specifics startling, said: 'You designed a better ward than the standard because the standard had a definitional flaw.'
'Hermione found the directional modifier,' Ron said. 'In the Northumbrian transitional corpus.'
'Of course she did,' Sirius said, with the specific warmth he reserved for things he found excellent.
They sat in the main reception room — the one with the oversized fireplace and the ceiling height that communicated gatherings — and Ron walked them through the plan. The Fidelius Charm, with Dumbledore as Secret Keeper till the end of the war. Harry moved to the Wulfhall as soon as the charm was in place. The Dursleys relocated next year if needed as the protection should still last till then.
'You want to move Harry here,' Sirius said.
'Yes,' Ron said. 'Within the week after the Fidelius is cast. He's been at the Dursleys because of the blood protection. But the blood protection's primary function was protecting Harry from Voldemort's direct action — now that Voldemort has Harry's blood in his own body, the Dursley location's magical protection is less significant than having Harry in a properly warded headquarters with people who can actually respond if something happens.'
Sirius looked at him with the specific expression he had in the office conversation at Christmas — the one that was not quite what he showed Harry but was the adjacent thing, the look of someone who had decided a person was worth having in the specific orbit of the people he loved. 'You've been planning to move him here since March,' he said.
'Since I signed the contracts,' Ron said. 'Yes.'
Sirius looked at the room — the fireplace, the ceiling, the proportions of a space designed for gatherings. 'The Wulfhall,' he said.
'The Wulfhall,' Ron confirmed.
Sirius looked at him.
His expression held something large and carried it. The kind of holding Sirius had learned in the years after he'd had no choice but to learn it. 'It's feels right,' he said.
'Thanks,' Ron said.