The Big Dipper

A Very Important Question

"... so I'm thinking pink for my sitting room, green for the library, red for the drawing room, and purple for our bedroom. The dining room will be blue, of course, probably royal blue, and each of the bedrooms will be a different color. Oh, and the greenhouse will be yellow, and my office will be a soft sort of orange. I want to go with white for the ballroom, with a black ceiling and gold light fixtures, so the decorations for every event will match. What do you think, Fred?"

Fred looked over the top of his paperwork at his girlfriend, who was talking to the French interior decorator they had hired to redo Corvus Manor. The Frenchman nodded along as Ursula spoke, tapping his wand on a model of the mansion, reminiscent of a doll house, so that the rooms changed color at Ursula's direction.

"Terrific, darling," he said. "How about yellow for my office as well?"

Ursula snapped her fingers.

"Excellent idea! But make it a darker yellow, like the petals of a sunflower," she said. "Now, onto the lakehouse... I'm thinking pale blue."

"Exquisite," said the Frenchman.

Just because Ursula was no longer juggling being a dragonologist, her Transfiguration research, and fighting a war didn't mean she wasn't as busy as ever. Now that Corvus Manor was done being a convalescent home, and Black Manor was empty again, she had work to do.

Ursula decided that, tradition be damned, she was going to live in a house not haunted with bad memories. She was going to make it her own, not to the tastes of her late forebearers. Ursula was a stylish woman, always wearing tailored suits and elegant dresses, her hair and makeup done to perfection, so there was no reason her house shouldn't match her style.

To that end, Ursula, with Fred's input, made plans for a complete redecoration. Her private sitting room, for instance, would be painted in vivid pink, with the furniture shades of magenta, pale pink, and white to match. The library's walls would be mint green, with accents of black, and the bookshelves would be dark green. The drawing room, in all its gothic glory, would be red and black. The rest of the mansion would be decorated in a similar glorious manor. It was sheek, vintage, and exactly the sort of thing a woman as rich as Ursula would do.

At the same time, work was underway to turn Black Manor and its hundreds of sprawling acres into a sanctuary. There would be all sorts of creatures, not just dragons, so there were hundreds of permits to secure. She had already received building permission from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, and the law surrounding keeping dragons in Britain was about to be changed regarding sanctuaries, of which hers, though not the first, would be by far the largest.

In line with building a sanctuary, she needed people to run it, meaning she needed experts on each respective creature. Rue had already committed to being the head healer, and similarly, Ursula had her staff for the dragons already settled.

"Fine! Fine, I'll do it!" said Charlie, after Ursula pestered him for the third time. "Mum wants me to live closer to home anyway."

"Good," said Ursula, sitting back in her chair. She had visited the Ridgebit Dragon Sanctuary to recruit Charlie and a handful of others.

"Oy!" Marius poked his head inside Charlie's tent. "Stop poaching my dragonologists!"

"Too late!" retorted Ursula. "I've already got Felix and Flora, and now I've got Charlie!"

Speaking of Felix Rosier, he was doing much better now that the war was over, like they all were. He was excited about moving back to England with his wife, who was expecting their first child. Everything was coming up roses — well, almost everything.