Smoke-Novel

The building before him was a double-winged manor, with a smaller, earlier
building between the 17 th century wings, which slightly went back in a 'U'
shape from the original building. Russell frowned. It looked right, in the long
shadows of the long-northern July day, but it did not feel right.
Russell very gently tested a few threads of the wards. All the obvious wards
were still present, but his was a sensitive touch -- he could tell that while these
were the same wards, they had been put up by someone other than himself.
Testing a few of the more obscure spells protecting his property, Russell was
able to piece together what had happened. His eyebrows furled together as he
thought:
No one had any cause to have come to this land, unplottable since the
mid-1400s.
Whomever had broken his wards had to be a brilliant curse breaker.
Whomever had replaced the wards had been skilled and powerful.
No one had any cause to replace the broken wards, and remain on the
property (as one person had, his spells told him), unless they were an
enemy.
The only enemies he had were Death Eaters.
Russell smiled as he reached the conclusion on what had happened, and what
he should do, in less than five seconds.
William Flint sat quietly at the top of the main staircase. In many ways, he had
not been happy to have been recalled by his family. He had been working for
Gringotts as a curse breaker for ten years, and had enjoyed the work. He had
learned to work with a wide variety of people, both magical and Muggle, and
even a wide variety of beings. Still, he had been raised to a belief in his family,
and his family had called.
Breaking into this house had been much more taxing than he had imagined
possible when he had first been told his assignment. He had studied the wards
and other spells for a week, and still worried that he might have missed
something. The Master had actually had to come in early June to help take
down and restore the wards, right before whatever had happened at the
Ministry had happened.
Flint was very happy he had already been watching here for his old professor to
make a visit when the disaster at the Ministry had happened.