AN: Sorry for not updating in a while. I had to fix this chapter and then write chapter 5 to stay one chapter ahead like I want to, and I had a really busy week. Two Finite tests, a chem test, an apush test, an english test, surprisingly no physics test, and an english project. Well thank god it's thanksgiving, right. Wrong. Two words for you, college apps. KILL ME NOW

On another note, I'm learning a lot in chemistry, physics, bio, finite, and multivariable that can be applied to the technology in this story or the events that happen in this story. So yes, naturally I will be using it to explain some of the technology that will be going on in this story. No, it does not make a difference if you understand it or not, just thought I'd give it a try. I know that I once read this fic that had some pretty gnarly differential equations in their explanation, that I barely understood.

So anyways, I'm going to try to wrap up the pre-Hogwarts stuff by chapter 6, and my plan is for chapter 7 to be the train ride and sorting, and chapters 8-13 will be first year.

Additionally, Harry's first year will be set in 2005 so that his seventh year will be in 2012. I really can't keep up with the history of what was going on in 1991, so you're stuck with that, I guess.

Also, a lot of what I write on word is being unformatted and reformatted here, so I decided that I would be better off just using this site's inbuilt html text editor to write in. If anyone knows whether that is a problem, could you please tell me. I'm not having any problems so far, just saying.

Chapter 4: Meet the Family

As Harry stumbled into the Potter manor, falling down for it was his first time using a floo, he took note of his immediate surroundings. When Lily, called out Potter manor, he imagined a big house from the name manor, but this was just plain extravagant. There was a huge chandelier in the entrance hall, and it sparkled as if it were made out of diamonds. And from the size of the entrance hall alone, he could tell that the house was extremely large.

Harry stepped out of the fireplace as he felt it heat up behind him, and he saw his father, James, come out of the floo. James quickly and professionally walked out, as if he had done it a hundred times before, which he probably had. James patted his son on the back as Harry gazed in wonder at the wonderful house, and said "Come on, I'll show you around. I know that this is all new to you, Merlin, an hour ago you were living with the Dursleys, and now your whole life is changing. But change is a part of life, Harry."

"Mr. Potter-" Harry said, before being interrupted.

"Harry, don't call me Mr. Potter. Call me dad, father, or any other variation of a fatherly word." James said.

"Do you really mean it?" Harry asked. "I've always wanted a father." He said, half truthfully, for as a child he had always really wanted a father. Although past the age of seven, he had stopped needing a father.

"Of course, Harry. Don't let anything those Dursleys did to you stop you from having a good life. I am your father, and you can call me whatever you want." James said.

"Dad, why did you say Merlin?" Harry asked, intrigued.

"Harry, Merlin was the most powerful wizard in the world. Out of respect to him, nowadays wizards and witches say Merlin to signify something incredulous, similarly to how Muggles say God." James explained.

"Oh, that makes sense," Harry said.

"Yes, well, here is the main hall," James said as they walked through the hall. They reached the living room, and James showed him to where he would be staying. James explained to him that Muggle technology could not work in magical homes after Harry asked why there was no TV, and showed him the kitchen. Soon they reached the bedrooms, and James showed Harry his new bedroom. And it was huge. There was a large king-sized bed in the middle, with a pool table and a foosball table on the side.

"Like it," James said. "Lily put these Muggle games in all the main bedrooms of the house, and they're so cool."

Harry soaked in his large room as he realized that from that point forward, he would never have to worry about money again. It seemed that the Potters were extremely well off and had no restraints to share their wealth with him. Although, one small concern was pulling him from enjoying his luxurious room. Dumbledore said he had a brother, and Harry needed to know whether his brother would be opposed to his presence in the household. With such wealth, the Potters had probably spoiled their child, and as an only child, he might not have been willing to share his parents' affections. So, Harry decided that now was the optimal time to meet his brother. "Dad, Dumbledore said that I had a brother, right. Can I meet him?"

James sighed, as he realized that Harry was too observant. Currently, Lily was in the process of explaining the entire thing to Charles, and he did not want to show Harry until Lily was done with her explanation. Deciding that the truth was the best option in this case, James said "I don't think that would be a good idea, Harry. Right now, Lily is talking to Charles about you, and I-" James said before being cut off by a loud shout.

"I HAVE A BROTHER," a loud voice yelled from downstairs.

'Oh great' Harry thought. It seemed that Charles would not take well to his presence.

James and Harry finished a friendly game of foosball, which James won by a landslide because Harry's foosball experience was limited to playing real life football in P.E. in school. Right after they finished their game, during which they got to know each other a little more, Lily called them downstairs for lunch, giving James the signal that she had explained everything to Charles. James offered Harry a chance to freshen up, which Harry gladly took, and he went to the bathroom to wash up.

Harry washed his hands and swished water on his face, when he stopped cold. There was definitely something off about his face, but he couldn't put his finger on it. His scar was there, his face seemed the same size, it seemed aligned as usual, wait. His eyes. Instead of their usual shade of green with small red circles, it was just... just green. It was uncanny how his eyes changed colors like that. Harry looked closer and realized that his eyes were not their usual shade of green, but it seemed that extremely tiny red particles were scattered throughout the aqueous humor of his eye, and they gave off the appearance of just standard nerves that appeared in one's eyes. In other words, his heterochromia was temporarily gone, and his eyes looked normal.

Shrugging the differences in his eyes off as being in a magical environment, Harry quietly followed James down the large set of elegant stairs in the Potter Manor and they were ushered into the dining hall. Immediately, something caught Harry's eye. A small humanoid creature about three fourths the size of the average human was setting the table, bringing out plates of food. The creature had extremely large ears, wrinkled skin, and almost comically huge eyes, the size of large light bulbs. Harry could not figure out why, but for some reason the creature seemed familiar. Not the individual creature, no, the class of creatures itself. It was almost as if he had seen one before... but where? Oh, right, he used to live with the Potters.

Noticing Harry's confusion, James quickly explained. It seemed that those creatures were house-elves, and were prevalent in all major wizarding homes. He explained that house-elves had to be bound to a house in order to prevent them from going insane, and that the Potter family had 14 house elves. James's explanation was cut short by a loud thud. It seemed that someone was coming through the back door. Harry opened the dining hall door to see Lily Potter and someone who could only be the son of Lily and James.

While Harry had dark black hair, which both James and Lily did not seem to have, the other child, Charles as James said, had dark red hair, much like his mother. His skin was a slightly darker shade than Harry's, which could probably be attributed to the extra time he spent in the sun. He was about three centimeters shorter than Harry, who was currently pushing 158 centimeters, which was much taller than the national average, but Charles was slightly more muscled in his arms and legs. Their eyes were the major point of disparity though. While Harry's eyes were green and piercing, Charles's eyes were hazel but seemed to have a hardened tone to them. In addition, Charles too had a scar on his face: a jagged ill-formed V. Harry wondered whether they had gotten their scars together; after all, it was extremely unlikely that their scars would be a result of different accidents. Or maybe all magicals had scars, but Lily and James didn't have them. This was going to be another point of inquiry.

"Hi" Charles nervously said. "I'm Charles."

'Wait' Harry thought. 'No signs of any resentment toward me, and no signs of any sort of spoiled nature from Charles. Although I haven't gotten to talk to him much yet, I can guess that his outburst was purely based on the news that he had a new brother. I suppose that makes him a little boisterous, but not bad per say.'

"Hello Charles," Harry said. "I'm Harry, but I think you already know that."

"Okay," James said. "Now, why don't you two get to know each other, while Lily and I will be right back." They walked out of the kitchen and floo'd to Diagon Alley, whatever that was, which was odd for the house-elves had just set the table.

"So Charles," Harry awkwardly began. "What do you like to do for fun?"

"Oh, I like to fly," Charles said. "But I'm sure that since you lived with Muggles you don't know how, right."

"Yeah sure," Harry said evasively. Since his flying skill was so odd around Dumbledore, Lily, and James, Harry decided not to show it again so easily. "The Dursleys were the worst."

"Hang on. You lived with the Dursleys." Charles said.

"Yes," Harry replied.

"Mum's relatives who hate magic?" Charles asked.

"Yes," Harry said.

"Oh" Charles said, deflated. "So," he said quietly as if whispering a secret. "How bad was it?"

"It wasn't too bad," Harry said.

"Yeah right," Charles snorted. "Mum made sure that we never went there, because she says that her sister completely hates magic. Apparently they had a big falling out after mum married dad. I bet they did something stupid to you like locked you up in a closet."

"Cupboard actually," Harry said.

"Seriously," Charles said, in awe.

"Yeah," Harry said. "I lived in a cupboard under the stairs for most of my life."

James and Lily took that moment to come back inside after their visit to Diagon Alley, holding two wrapped parcels. "We're home," James called out.

"YOU LEFT HARRY WITH THE DURSLEYS" Charles yelled to Lily and James, walking into the entrance hall of the manor. "THE PEOPLE WHO YOU NEVER LET ME VISIT BECAUSE THEY HATE MAGIC."

"If you recall, Charles," James calmly said, "We left Harry with the Dursleys because we thought he did not have magic."

"But why did we never visit him?" Charles asked. "Didn't you suspect the Dursleys could be maltreating him? Don't you care about YOUR SON?"

Harry's respect for Charles grew as he watched Charles berating his own parents. It seemed that Harry's initial impression of Charles was far too inadequate. Not only was Charles not spoiled, but he openly accepted having a brother all of a sudden and was able to turn it around on their parents. And he was saying all of the things that Harry would have said to the Potters had he not wanted to keep his innocent scared kid act up. Yes, Charles would make a good ally indeed.

"Of course we care, Charles," Lily said, her eyes watering. "We cared so much that we suppressed our love toward Harry. We realized that he would have a far better life away from us, away from magic, away from what we represented. We decided that he could never be introduced to us because he would want to know why we left him, and we just wouldn't be able to get through the explanation of what a wizard or witch was and then tell him that this whole new world of powers was cut off to him because he did not have magic. We thought he would have a good life at the Dursleys; after all, how were we to know that they would mistreat him?" And it was true. Dumbledore's letter explicitly told the Dursleys that Harry was a squib, and perfectly explained what a squib was. For his first week at the Dursleys, Harry was not maltreated the slightest; although the Dursleys did not shower him with as much affection as they did Dudley, they still gave him a bedroom in their house and had the basic human decency to not mistreat him. But then, one week later, when Vernon saw Harry summon a bottle of milk to his mouth, he completely lost it. He forced Harry to live in the cupboard under the stairs, where Harry remained for as long as he could remember.

"Still, that doesn't excuse you. You could have gone there under dad's invisiblity cloak to see how Harry was doing without showing yourself to him. There are so many things you could have done to give Harry a better life. Did you know he lived in a cupboard under the stairs for most of his life?" Charles said unrelenting.

"Yes, Charles," James said. "And that is our fault. We failed Harry as parents, and we fully admit to it. We're sorry, Harry. And I know you can never forgive us for what we put you through, but just know that we're sorry."

Harry quickly mumbled "I forgive you," even though he didn't, when James stopped him.

"No, Harry, you cannot forgive us, for we must first forgive ourselves, which Lily and I can never do. You are our son, and we should have never left you with the Dursleys even if you did not have magic." James said.

"Then what were you going to do?" Harry said rationally. "Leave me here, where I would be ridiculed as a squib before being forced to accept a low-end position as a squib. No, you made the right decision." Of course, Harry realized that they should have made sure he was fine at the Dursleys, but did not bring it up to keep his totally forgiving and innocent act up.

"Regardless Harry, we should have checked up on you at the least. Charles is right, and we are sorry. But, we brought you two gifts," he said, holding out the parcels he had brought. One was shaped like a box, the other was shaped like a long thin item. "Well go on, open them," James said.

Harry unwrapped the long gift first to see a large oddly-shaped broom. It was oddly shaped because its handle was not uniform; its handle had small bends to it. Charles gasped and said "Wicked, it's a nimbus 2000, just like mine."

Harry stared at James questionably, and said "You want me to clean the house or something?"

"No, Harry. In the wizarding world, brooms are used for flying." James exclaimed. "Which goes along with our second gift for you." He drew out a book-shaped box, and Harry was almost sure that it contained a book in it. He opened it up, and surprise surprise, it was an extremely large book titled "An introduction to the wizarding world".

"Why don't you read that, Harry," James said. "It has all you need to know about the wizarding world, and it will explain it much better than we can. You can fly on your broom later. You should go to your new room while reading it too."

"Okay," Harry said, as he went up the stairs eager to learn about the wizarding world.

"Wait, what about lunch?" Charles asked.

"Oh yes," Lily said. "Harry come down for lunch, honey."

Harry walked back down the huge flight of stairs and quickly ate his sandwich, eager to read his book. He noticed that Lily and James shared a glance.

"Harry, how much did you get to eat at the Dursleys?" James asked.

Harry decided to tell them what he did before he used his powers against the Dursleys. "I usually got a slice of bread for breakfast, and one for dinner. But I was usually able to sneak some food during the night, as my cupboard was near the fridge."

"Oh," James said. Harry certainly did not look underfed, so the food he ate at night must have been enough to cover for the food he missed during the day. When Harry was done eating, a house-elf that did not look exactly like the first one took it, presumably to wash it. Harry raced upstairs, eager to read his book.

Harry got upstairs and quickly opened the book. He saw that it was organized into chapters with chapter one: terminology, chapter two: general wizarding history, chapter three: wizard colloquialisms, chapter four: magical creatures, chapter five: limits of magic, and so on and so forth. Eager to learn what sorts of magic were normal and which were not, he flipped the book open to chapter one.

Two hours later, Harry finished reading the 14 chapter book detailing the wizarding world, and had at least some sort of knowledge of the wizarding world. He was heavily disappointed to learn that not only was flying abnormal, but all of the magic he could do was also abnormal in the wizarding world. What he called magic, other wizards called accidental magic, and they said it could only be activated by emotions or need. But he was able to activate his magic without emotions, as evidenced by his levitating. Instead of channeling their magic through their bodies, like Harry did, wizards used wands as the focal points of their magic. Harry was not sure whether he would decide to use a wand or not; it depended on whether he got any power from using a wand as at the moment he did not need a wand to do whatever he wanted to do.

Also, wizards had no clue what wind-teleportation was, and instead used apparition, which basically worked as a switching spell between you and where you wanted to travel. Harry's wind teleportation was essentially teleportation through the wind. He would disperse in one area, and re-appear in another by actually converting all of his molecules to air and reconverting them back to his body. In addition, the magical world was extremely behind the newly-christened Muggle world. Harry noted that most of the technologies used to create things possible at that moment were made through war. If magicals had weapons that they carried around with them at all times, they would have no need for the higher technologies offered by Muggle world such as guns, which would have delayed the industrial revolution. In fact, Harry was not even sure that the magical world was industrialized. It seemed that every one of their brooms they made was hand-crafted by individual broom-smiths; well that was for the good brooms of course. Other un-food-related goods included clothes, and wands, each of which was hand-crafted, though the fabric was produced by magical means. It seemed to Harry that wizards had no need to industrialize; the marginal efficiency that using machines would give wizards was not worth the upkeep costs seeing as with magic, those chores were extremely easy. Since magic was essentially limitless to wizards and witches, they did not have to worry about using it for household tasks or industrialization. Of course, this had the negative effect of not having cell phones or email, and having to use "floo-calls", which seemed extremely uncomfortable as you had to stick your head in a fireplace in order to floo-call. It also had negative effects of the lack of television sets, computers, and most importantly, the internet, arguably the greatest Muggle invention of all time. Wizards had to resort to getting information through unorganized bookstores or hearing about it through gossip.

In addition, it seemed that the average wealth for members of the wizarding world was much higher than the average wealth for regular people, or Muggles. With the going conversion rate of 100 pounds equals one galleon, it seemed that wizards had it made. The average monthly earning per household was 80 galleons per month, which was equivalent to 8,000 pounds per month, an extremely high figure. Yet there was a disparity between the prices of common items and the prices of magical items in the magical world. While common items such as food items went at low rates, probably due to wizards selling food grown by house-elves, or day-to day clothing went at low rates, magical items which had no parallel in the real world went at extremely high rates. For example, a wand would cost about 7 galleons, which was equal to 700 pounds, yet it was necessary for every young wizard to get a wand and a replacement if broken. In addition, racing brooms were very expensive, with the cheapest, a Cleansweep 7, going for at least 15 galleons. Harry's new Nimbus 2000 costed probably 50 galleons, an equivalent of 5000 pounds; in other words, a small fortune for a child. And the Potters seemed to be throwing money around readily. Harry realized that he must have come from a very rich house. And the Potters were mentioned in Harry's book, if briefly, as being one of the twelve biggest houses in all of magical England. While it did not give a numerical value of the Potter assets, Harry quickly realized that the Potters were well off.

The next thing that shocked Harry was the monetary system, although it seemed to make sense to Harry the more he thought about it. There were 17 sickles in a galleon and 29 knuts in a sickle, which were numbers that were extremely hard to work with. And yet, it all made sense because a galleon was literally worth its value. A galleon in the magical world had enough gold to be worth 17 sickles, and a sickle had enough silver to be worth 29 knuts. Harry assumed that the values were standardized at one point to be 10 knuts per sickle and 10 sickles per galleon, or some other reasonable ratio, but the relative value of gold must have increased compared to silver, and the value of silver must have increased compared to bronze, making the ratio change. But this meant that there was no inflation in the wizarding world, except for the changing values of bronze, silver, and gold. It also meant that if enough gold was found incredibly quickly, the galleon would crash, the downside to having a worth-based system. But wizards were able to live a peaceful life without industrializing by using magic, for the heavy galleons that normal people would have traded for bills or credit cards could just be lifted with featherlight charms that each galleon was equipped with, and the massive space that each galleon took could be remedied with space compressing charms. Wizards were geniuses when it came to taking the easy way out, even better than Muggles.

Harry walked down the stairs, knowledgeable about the basic magics used in the wizarding world. He bumped into James on the way down, who was sizing him up for some reason.

"Well Harry, you certainly don't have a seeker's build. No, you're too tall for that. And you won't be a great keeper either; no, you're much too thin. You can't be a beater for the same reason, which just leaves chaser. You have a great build for a chaser," James exclaimed. "Just like Charles."

Harry knew all about Quidditch, having just read about it in his book. Quidditch was basically the equivalent of football in the Muggle world; it was the most important magical sport. Though there were a few other sports, such as gobstones, Quidditch was key through the magical world. Kids zoomed around on brooms attempting to be future Quidditch stars at some point, and even non-professional Quidditch player adults took pleasure in flying on brooms. Since the magical population was only about 70 million people worldwide, compared to the 7 billion non-magicals wordwide, the number of people who could be deigned celebrities was only one hundredth of the non-magical population, and most of the celebrities in the magical world were in fact Quidditch players. In the English circuit alone, there were 22 Quidditch teams, and that did not even include Ireland.

Speaking of celebrities, Harry learned that Charles, his brother, was one of the most famous celebrities in the magical world. Since his defeat of someone named "you-know-who" (Harry didn't know who), when he was one year old, Charles had been incredibly famous. It seemed that a "dark lord" named "you-know-who" who had about 500,000 followers was extremely powerful and was threatening to take over the wizarding world. 500,000 followers was a phenomenal number compared to the 70 million people in the magical word, and You-Know-Who, whoever he was, had structured his empire brilliantly. He had created leadership figures in all of the magical countries who were subordinate to him, and had almost taken over England, posing to strike toward the rest of the world. Charles's stopping of You-know-who was a cause of celebration throughout the entire world, and Charles was a celebrity in England. To be that young and to be a celebrity and still be so courteous ... Harry really had gained a lot of respect for Charles.

"Well Harry," James said. "You wanna learn how to fly?"

"Sure," Harry agreed. James brought him outside the house, where Charles was waiting, holding Harry's new broom. They walked out from under the shade, and what Harry saw took his breath away. It was a huge Quidditch stadium complete with goalposts and stands for spectators. They entered the enormous stadium and James handed Harry his broom.

"So, Harry," Charles said, "You're going to want to hold your broom like this and kick off," he explained the proper way to grip a broom.

Harry followed Charles's careful instructions and kicked off the ground on his broom, only to lose control. His broom jerkily made its way up, as if it were controlled by an entity other than himself, and quickly bucked him off from 30 feet up in the air. Harry, realizing that he had to show his ability of flight now in order to save himself, slowly landed on the ground, his broom falling quickly next to him.

"Harry," Charles screamed. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Harry said. "I'm fine, I just don't know what happened. It seemed that the broom had a mind of its own."

Charles shot him a sympathetic glance, and said "Well it's a good thing that your accidental magic saved you. I don't think that you should be using a broom again for quite a while. Some people have the flying gift, but not everyone can do it. But hey, mum's pants at flying too."

"Actually Charles," Harry said, levitating himself, figuring that if he had already shown Lily, James, and Dumbledore his secret, he might as well show Charles who he trusted more than them. And it was not like flight was his biggest secret; it was just a fun past time of his. "I'm actually not too bad at flying. I just can't seem to use that darn broom that you all use." he said.

"Woah, sick," Charles exclaimed. "You're doing that with accidental magic!"

"Well, it's hardly accidental," Harry said. "But yeah, in general, I'm not using a wand."

"Wicked," Charles said. James ran over.

"Wait Harry, are you saying that you can actually control your flight without a broom?" James said.

"No, I can't," Harry lied, realizing what a big deal it was to be able to fly without a broom after reading his introduction to the Wizarding world book. "I just levitate, that's all."

"Oh," James deflated. "Well that's still pretty cool. But, if you haven't inherited my flying, then you must have inherited your mum's brains."

"Yeah, I was pretty bored throughout elementary school," Harry said. "It was so easy." Harry learned that wizards did not learn any math or science beyond basic arithmetic in their primary schools, which were non-magically based. After primary school, they basically ignored any mention of a non-magical subject (besides English) and the only history they learnt was magical history. They knew nothing of the current events in the Muggle world, and they knew little to no non-magical education. Supposedly "educated men" in the wizarding world knew various theories of spell creation and performance, and did not concern themselves with muggle maths and sciences. In fact, ninety five percent of the non-Muggle born population did not even know what a cell phone was.

"Well, that was a let-down," Charles said. "Oh well, Quidditch isn't for everyone. Hey, do you want to go to my friend's house? I'll introduce you to him."

"Cool, what's his name," Harry said.

"Anthony Black, but we like to call him Tony for short. He has a twin sister who's kind of annoying, but he's an okay person himself." Charles said.

"Okay, sure," Harry agreed.

"You know, you're different Harry," Charles reflected.

"How so?" Harry asked.

"You're the first person, besides Tony of course, not to try to get into my good graces because I'm the boy-who-lived. I'd rather just be an average kid than be the boy who lived." Charles explained.

"Yeah, I get that people would treat you differently," Harry said. "But hey, since we're brothers, we might as well be friends too, and I don't kiss up to any of my friends."

"Good," Charles said. "Well, wanna go to Tony's house now?"

"Sure," Harry agreed.

"Hey dad, we're going to Tony's house," Charles yelled.

Just then the floo activated and Lily stepped out. "Mum, we're going to Tony's house," Charles said.

"Oh good," Lily exclaimed. "Have fun over there."

"Cool, Harry. Let's go," Charles said.

Harry followed Charles through the floo, where he yelled Black Manor and in a flash was off. As Harry stumbled to follow Charles, he realized that Charles was one of the few people who he had met so far who he actually respected. Charles was different, in a good way.