Three or four days later, on the hill where Roy's new home stood.
Dumbledore appeared out of thin air on the fancy pebble path Roy had newly laid across the hill. Not far away, cheerful laughter from the children drifted out of the little wooden house Roy had built brick by brick with his own hands.
Dumbledore looked around and could not help marveling at Roy's talent and skill for creating beauty. In just a few short days, the once barren and dilapidated hill had been completely transformed.
The tangled wild grass covering the hill had all been uprooted by Roy, and fresh grass and all manner of vivid flowers had been planted in the bare earth. Nurtured by Ancient Magic, these newly planted vegetation were even more lush than the wild grass that had grown freely for years.
Dumbledore then looked down at the pebble path beneath his feet. It stretched from the main road to the house atop the hill, with another branch leading from behind the wooden house to the river at the back of the hill.
Roy had just laid it over the past two days. The stones had all come from the river behind the hill. Roy and Mia had spent an entire day barefoot in the river, turning over rocks until they had collected enough neat, rounded pebbles. Dumbledore could not help recalling the days he had spent living here as a child, when he had still run up and down dirt paths.
And that was not all Roy had done. A swing bench made of dark wooden planks now stood on the neatly trimmed lawn before the wooden house, beneath the shade of the great oak tree by the door. A fence had also been built around the house, enclosing the rear to