The Black family home.
In the basement, Shawn was sorting through some equipment.
There was a cloak that blocked prying eyes, a wand suited to casting dark magic, and Polyjuice Potion.
And most importantly, a lock of hair from someone who looked very much like Voldemort in his youth, which Albert, his general agent for Muggle affairs, had helped him find.
He put everything into his ring. Just as he went upstairs, Kreacher came looking for him.
"Young master, the master in the portrait on the second floor is asking for you. He's in a temper, and he says he has something important to tell you."
Shawn couldn't help pressing a hand to his forehead.
Strictly speaking, Phineas Black was Shawn's great-great-great-grandfather, with six generations between them.
That required a long string of prefixes in translation, so Shawn generally just called Phineas his great-grandfather.
Now he had come back from Hogwarts, and Shawn had no idea what he wanted.
There was actually an unwritten rule in the wizarding world about making magical portraits: the subject could imbue them with his life experiences, personality, and so on, but not his insights into magic.
This was to prevent advanced family magic from leaking out, or to stop ill-intentioned portraits hanging on public walls from misleading others.
Whether anyone broke that rule in private was unknown. In any case, since Phineas's portrait had to hang in the Headmaster's Office, he certainly wouldn't have broken it.
Since he couldn't teach magic, Shawn couldn't be bothered to have a conversation with the sharp-tongued, foul-mouthed Phineas.
Seeing Kreacher gaze at him pleadingly, Shawn reckoned he might have served Phineas before. After all, Kreacher really was very old.
So old that Shawn wanted to let him enjoy his remaining years in retirement, though he didn't dare say