He found Clara outside the Leaky Cauldron at half one. She'd been thorough. Cleaning supplies, basic kitchen stores, candles, bedding, and a heavy iron kettle that she carried with conviction.
"Weasley's approved the purchase," Rowan said, holding up the authorization that had arrived via Hogwarts owl twenty minutes earlier. Weasley's signature, her Hogwarts seal, and a line of enchanted text that would bind itself to the bill of sale upon contact.
"Then let's not keep Mr. Griggs waiting."
They returned to Carkitt Market well before four o'clock. Edgar Griggs had the paperwork ready, a bill of sale on heavy parchment with spaces for both signatures and a binding charm embedded in the ink. His wife was nowhere in sight.
Rowan counted out six hundred Galleons on the writing desk in the back room. Five hundred and sixty-three from his personal vault, the remaining thirty-seven from the converted alchemical gold. The rest of the Flamels' money he kept separate, earmarked for materials, wages, and the dozen other expenses that would come before the first luminaire sold.
Griggs counted the coins twice, signed the bill of sale, and Rowan signed beneath him. Weasley's enchanted authorization flowed across the parchment of its own accord, her signature appearing beside Rowan's in neat copperplate. The binding charm sealed the document with a flash of gold light.
Griggs handed Rowan a heavy iron key.
"The cottage is yours." His expression was complicated, relief tangled up with something that might have been shame. "For what it's worth, you negotiated well. Better than most adults I've dealt with."
"Thank you, Mr. Griggs."
Griggs left within the quarter hour, pausing at the door just long enough to look around the ground floor one last time. The door closed behind him and the building was quiet.
Rowan stood in the middle of the empty ground floor with the key in his hand.
His shop. His building. Six hundred Galleons poorer and the owner of a property that needed more work than most people would consider worthwhile.
Clara was already examining the walls, tapping the plaster with her wand and listening to the sound it made. "The damp is superficial on the east wall. Deeper on the west, where the stonework is crumbling. I can handle the interior cleaning if you tackle the structural charms."
"My Reparo's never been tested on masonry."
"There's a first time for everything." She rolled up her sleeves. "Let's see what we've got upstairs."
The upper floor was in better condition than the ground level. Two rooms, a narrow corridor, and a lavatory with plumbing that groaned when Clara tested the taps. The larger room had a window overlooking Carkitt Market, and despite the grime on the glass, the view confirmed what Rowan had hoped. You could see the entrance to the main Alley from here.
"Larger room for you and Lawrence," Rowan said. "I'll take the smaller one."
Clara nodded and was already casting a Scouring Charm on the nearest wall before he'd finished the sentence.
They worked through the rest of the afternoon. Rowan cast Reparo on the crumbling west wall, feeding magic into the stonework until the mortar reformed and the cracks sealed shut. The effort was enormous, far more draining than repairing a broken teacup or a window frame. Structural repair required sustained concentration and a feel for the material that he hadn't developed yet, and twice the charm failed partway through and he had to start again. By the time the wall was sound, his magical reserves were noticeably depleted.
Clara attacked the interior with a ferocity that suggested years of frustration being channelled into productive work. Scouring Charms stripped the grime from the floors and walls. She banished the accumulated dust with a sweep of her wand and then went after the windows with a Muggle rag and a bucket of water, because, as she put it, "charms clean the surface but elbow grease gets into the grain."
Lawrence arrived at half five.
He stepped out of the Leaky Cauldron's fireplace with his trunk, crossed through Diagon Alley at what Clara later described as "very nearly a run," and appeared in the doorway of the cottage flushed and slightly out of breath.
"You bought it?" He looked around the ground floor, taking in the stripped walls, the wet flagstones, Clara on her knees scrubbing the staircase. "You actually bought it."
"This morning. The key's in my pocket and the seller is probably having a row with his wife about it as we speak."
"It's brilliant." Lawrence turned a full circle, seeing what Rowan saw. Not the damp or the bare plaster or the sagging roof, but the bones of a workshop, a shop floor, a place where things could be made and sold. "Where's the production space going?"
"The back room. I'm expanding it with an Expansion Charm once the Flamels send instructions."
"And the shop floor?"
"The display cases along the front where the light hits. There's a counter near the back. We need shelving, which means we need wood, which means we need money, which means we need to stop talking and start working."
Lawrence dropped his trunk in the corner, pulled out his wand, and joined Clara on the staircase without being asked. Within ten minutes he'd repaired three of the balusters and was arguing with Clara about the most efficient order to clean the upper floor.
"Ceilings first," Lawrence said. "The dust falls down. If you clean the floors first, you just have to do them again."
"I've been cleaning houses since before you were born."
"And I've been told I'm wrong about the order of operations since before I could hold a wand. Doesn't mean I am wrong."
"You're wrong," Clara said, and continued scrubbing the floor.
Lawrence looked at Rowan, who shook his head slightly. Don't.
"Ceilings next time," Lawrence muttered, and went to work on the window frames.
By evening, the ground floor was unrecognisable. The flagstone floor gleamed. The walls were bare but clean. The ceiling beams, stripped of cobwebs, turned out to be solid English oak in excellent condition. The front window, cleared of its grime, let the last of the daylight flood the room with warm golden light.
The upper floor was habitable, if spare. Clara had cleaned both rooms, aired the mattresses she'd found in a cupboard, and laid out the fresh bedding she'd purchased. The plumbing, after aggressive charm work and a great deal of swearing under Clara's breath, produced hot water that only occasionally ran brown.
They ate a simple dinner from Clara's provisions, sitting on conjured chairs in the ground floor. The empty room echoed around them.
"It needs shelving," Clara said, surveying the space. "Display cases along the front wall. A counter near the back for transactions. Storage behind that. And the production space has to be completely separated from the shop floor. Customers wandering into a working alchemical laboratory is a liability I don't want to think about."
"Agreed. The back room gets the Expansion Charm and a locked door."
Lawrence was studying the ceiling beams. "The oak is good enough to hang display fixtures from. If we run a rail along the main beam, we could suspend luminaires at different heights. Show people what the light looks like in actual use rather than just sitting on a shelf."
"That's good," Rowan said. "Do that."
"I'll need brackets. And wire. And something to hang them from that doesn't look terrible."
"Make a list. We'll source it tomorrow."
Clara collected the plates and carried them to the back room, which was serving as a makeshift kitchen until the Expansion Charm gave them a proper workspace. Lawrence went upstairs to unpack. Rowan sat by the front window, looking out at Carkitt Market in the evening light.
The other shops in the square were closing for the day. A stationery shop. A secondhand robe shop. A tea room with lace curtains that appeared to be closed permanently. A narrow storefront advertising bespoke wand holsters and leather goods. The foot traffic had thinned to a few stragglers cutting through on their way home.
Rowan wrote two letters by the light of a conjured flame.
The first was to Nicholas and Perenelle.
Dear Nicholas and Perenelle,
I've secured a property. Number four, Carkitt Market, just off the main stretch of Diagon Alley. The location is strong and the building is sound, if rough. Clara, Lawrence, and I have spent the day cleaning and repairing it. I expect we'll have the ground floor ready for shelving and equipment within the week.
The alchemical equipment can be delivered to the shop directly. I may also need your guidance on an Expansion Charm for the production room. I've never attempted one on a space larger than a cupboard.
Thank you again for the loan. I've used a portion of it for the property purchase. I intend to repay every Knut.
R.
The second was to Weasley.
Professor,
The purchase is complete. Clara, Lawrence, and I are settled in the shop on Carkitt Market. Thank you for the co-signature. I'll try not to make you regret it.
Ashcroft
He tied the letters to one of the pub owls Clara had brought along and watched it disappear over the rooftops.
Below him, the shop floor was dark and empty, waiting to be filled. Tomorrow he would begin building shelves. The day after, the Flamels' equipment would arrive, if the owls were fast enough. Within the week, they'd begin production.
Rowan closed the window, lay down on a mattress that smelled of cleaning charms and old cotton, and slept better than he had in weeks.