Chapter Notes:

Please pardon me if the chapter seems lame, flat, or disjointed. I did my best, particularly with the second part (which I spent 3 days in writing and a few painstaking revisions, believe it or not). I hope you will like it. Please tell me if my guess is correct; no worry, I am not considering such comments as flames (as long as you keep it clean of any insults).

This chapter is indeed divided into two parts. The first part occurs several days after the last chapter, and the second one leaps yet more days from the first. In the next chapter, we will see glimpses about Petunia, Vernon, and Dudley as they were dealing with the law and the law enforcement people (as wished by one of the reviewers). We will also see how Harry acted on what he experienced in this chapter there, and some more titbits about the Kensingtons.

But for now, enjoy!

- Rey

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Chapter 7: Kensington Manour

The ringing noise resounded slightly in the spacious room. Harry blinked, rubbed his eyes, and rolled over. He sat up, crawled across the large bed, then fumbled on the nightstand to its left for the alarm clock. Next, when the ringing sound had ceased to bother his ears, his sleep-warm fingers went in search of his new, tape-free glasses, bought for him by the Kensingtons some days ago.

He could not believe that it had been several days. It felt like it had only been yesterday, always. The events that day were still etched vividly in his mind, regardless of whatever he had done to get rid of them. They were not thoroughly unpleasant, but they were all life-changing, and it overwhelmed him.

His glasses perched safely on his nose, he began to look around the bedroom. He had been sleeping there for four nights now, and he was still unused to how large or well-equipped and well-cared it was. For someone who had been living in a small, dark, dingy, spider-invested cupboard, the prospect of sleeping there had been rather daunting at first. Thankfully, he did not stay there for long everyday, and oftentimes he was too tired when he returned to care about anything else except the invitation of his comfy bed. He had been attached to the soft, lavished mattress and all its paraphenalia rather quickly, to his own surprise. If he were to return to living in his cupboard now, he was sure he would have trouble sleeping.

The twins went back to their routine after their sojourn in Surrey; that is (surprisingly), lessons taught by Viniele and some other private tutors, with some time to play slipped in between. William and Henry joined in all the lessons and play times, giving Harry the idea that they had been spending summers together ever since the twins had come into the noble couple's life. Not having anything else to do, Harry chose to also participate, thinking that now he could finally tame his thirst of books and knowledge.

Some of the lessons seemed to be meant for children of royal or noble lineage, yet he tried his best to ignore that fact and just soldiered on. The lessons were not all about theories, though; those belonging to the practical field were, for examples, the music and vocal lessons (which Harry was always nervous about), the defense practice (which he secretly loved), and swimming (which strokes he surprisingly excelled after a few tries). When they played, it was mostly outdoors, in the large yards around the manour.

Yes, a manour, despite the Kensington couple's insistence to call it a house. It was simply too large and grand to be a house, although it did lent a sense of home to its occupants. Harry had not explored every nook and cranny of it – he did not dare to, anyway –, and neither had he seen the estate the family owned, which was said to surround the manour. Harry had been asleep during the ride to the manour, and so he missed seeing a part of the estate as they passed through it.

Today, though, the Kensington couple had promised all the children to tour around the estate (Harry still had to acquaint himself with being included in the number, because the Dursleys had always counted him as nonexistent whenever possible), and Harry looked forward to it despite the fact that they would do it on horseback. Even after four days of constant exercise with a placid gelding, he had not been able to control the horse well, lest to do some dressage movements like the twins on their noble-looking steeds, and it was his only fear on the impending tour.

`Perhaps they'd come up with something for me when they proposed that? They've known about my horse-riding skill, after all.`

It was a fragile hope, and Harry was not comfortable with it. He had no other option, all the same, so, for now, he had to let himself depend heavily on others and pure luck.

It was the drawback of his building confidence and skills, he mused as he took a shower in the em-suite bathroom on one corner of his bedroom. He had had no qualms being dependent on the Dursleys, taking their demeaning attitude towards him in bland acceptance. Now, though, if he were to live with the Dursleys again, he would likely have fled them to instead live in the streets. He would not be able to accept a belittling attitude towards him without some defense or challenge. Living with the Kensingtons and the two royal princes had slowly molded him into a new being who was more confident, learnt and independent than the old Harry. It seemed as if he had left his old self behind in Privet Drive Number 4.

Well, he would never return to that house ever again, it seemed, for three days ago George, on returning from the police station in Little Winging, informed him (with a wrathful expression on his face) that his uncle had declared that "the freakish, ungrateful boy" would never be granted entry again into his house under any circumstance. Harry had been living with the Kensingtons since then, and secretly hoped to do so until he was of age.

Humming a song to himself, he put on his riding suit, selected a hat from the pile of it the Kensington couple had bought him, and strode outside the bedroom after making sure that he had turned off the electricity there. He had been lectured about the danger of electrical power surge and the bad habit of wasting energy by Harriet once, two days ago, in her daily checking of his rooms. Suffice to say, he did not want to displease her ever again; not wanting to listen to her fretting about the mistake, and wishing to impress her – the latter being the product of his subconscious thought.

"…There's another place for you and me in paradise – Hey. What are you doing there?"

William and Henry were standing outside his door, hand in hand. They appeared to have been waiting there for some time.

"Waiting for you, of course," Henry answered immediately. "What else?" He shrugged off his older brother's reproving glare and tugged at Harry's hand, simultaneously releasing his grip on William's. "Come on. The twins are saddling the horses. Uncle George said you have to saddle your own." He dragged Harry down the corridor, past the twins' bedroom, the brothers', the Kensington couple's, and finally to a flight of stairs which brought them near one of the side doors.

"I haven't eaten anything," Harry protested half-heartedly. It was not a problem for him, since he had been used to be starved in Privet Drive Number 4, but he had learnt to eat three meals a day so that he would worry nobody.

"Aunt Harriet has packed you some sandwiches and a bottle of water. We can ask for milk in the milk factory later if you want," Henry chirped. "We'll pass the strawberry fields first, so you can eat some as your dessert there too."

"Little bro, it isn't polite to drag anyone," William, laughter in his voice, piped up at length. Harry exhaled silently. Even though Henry was smaller than he, he had a hard time keeping pace with the bundle of energy. The seven-year-old uttered a short whine, but he stopped dragging Harry, although he did not let go of the other's hand. That was when William quickened his pace and walked in line with the two. He grinned widely on Harry's grateful wink.

After that, Harry had no more time for vrivolity. He was busy saddling the gelding and maintaining a firm seat on the saddle itself, in spite of the generous help the others in the company lent him.

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The day after William and Henry had gone back home was strangely silent. The lessons – gymnastics, the ever-present swimming and horse-riding, mathematics, and manners – seemed blander and less appealing. It was exacerbated by the fact that Harry took the lesson of manners alone, whereas the energetic, chirpy Henry had accompanied him before.

On second thought, this sense of loneliness probably also had something to do with the celebration of William's ninth birthday yesterday; it was much different from today's lack of interesting activities or the spirit to realise it. It had been a day full of activities and merriment, and the royal siblings had been both asleep when their father brought them home late yesterday night. They had begun the day with a morning jogging around the yards of the manour, as usual, yet then they had also made their breakfast together, not letting the servants do the job for once. Harry's favourite activity that day was when they had gone to a water park some miles from the estate, directly after breakfast until just after lunch time. The children had been too tired to do anything afterwards, and so they contented themselves with lounging in the family-room while the adults were away doing something they did not care about, watching William open his birthday presents – which had been all sent to the manour on prior notice. Harry could not forget how the younger boy's face had lit up with sincere joy and instant possessiveness upon coming to his present, which was a drawing he had made of the five of them unified in a cozy room but with each doing their own favourite activities.

Today, unlike so many days before, it was raining heavily too. Neither of the children could sneak out to play under the rain, and to Harry (agreed whole-heartedly by the twins), there were only so many things they could do indoors which would occupy them for a long span of time. As a result, they huddled in a rather gloomy atmosphere after their respective lessons for the day had been ended in the back porch – ore more precisely, a section of it which contained two porch swings and some cozy couches plus a low tea table.

It was four in the afternoon, but the sky, or at least the part of it which was visible over the ceiling of the porch roof, was much darker than it should be in such hour in early summer. The rain poured down in thick rivulets, drumming on the roof with a continuous harsh noise and pelting the grassy earth just as relentlessly. Dila was sketching in her ever-present drawing tablet with a pencil on the tea table, Ana was listening to an audiobook through a pair of headphones connected to her pocket tape while swinging gently in one of the porch swings, and Harry was pacing back and forth restlessly on the slippery marbel floor perilously near to the drenched lawn beyond the porch. Harriet joined the children a while later, followed by a grim-looking George.

Harry noticed the frazzled look on the couple before anyone else, yet he was uncertain about how to address them about it, or if he should talk about it at all. Such concern belonged to kin and close friends, right? He was not either… right?

But the couple must have perceived something from just his stare, because they nodded at him, as if affirming that they were not in a good mood, that there was a problem plaguing their minds.

Oddly, they did not ask him to take a seat, unlike in previous events similar to this, and they did not greet anyone either, just seating themselves heavily in each a couch. They appeared distracted, thoughtful.

So intent was Harry in watching them, he did not see a large leaf blown to the floor by a sudden gust of wind together with a generous amount of water, to his path. His foot stepped on it and he toppled to the hard, smoothe, water-coated surface of the marble tiles. His heart froze when he found out that he was actually hovering an inch from the floor. In this way, he was free from the danger of concussion, but…

He rose slowly to a crouching position and regarded the couple with wide, terrified eyes. He had grown attached to them despite his unwillingness to open his heart for anyone, but now he would lose them because of what he had performed. Perhaps they would send him to an orphanage now? Or perhaps even to an asylum, as Uncle Vernon had often threatened to send him to?

There. Harriet looked shocked. George seemed unperturbed, though… but he beckoned Harry to him.

Harry gulped. `A spanking?` he thought uneasily. After all, Uncle Vernon had never hesitated to inflict that kind of punishment on him.

Feeling strangely pained and daunted by the prospect, he walked up to George, resigned with his fate. He stopped short in his track, though, when the lord patted the space beside him (seeing that he was sitting on one end of a longer couch than where his wife seated herself in) and said quietly, "Sit with me, Harry."

`Sit with him?`

Harry, bewildered but still apprehensive and distressed, obeyed nonetheless. He only relaxed a bit when Harriet shook off her stupor and sidled quickly across the space before her husband, fussing over him, fearing for injuries. He would not be punished, if her treatment towards him was of any indication.

"Let go of him, my beloved. You are just making him more terrified," George chuckled softly. "There. Just sit by his side if you would. Perhaps then he can't escape to continue his scating anymore." He smiled at Harry, his eyes shining with mirth.

On that last prove that he would not be punished, Harry was assaulted by many kinds of feeling, which some of them were opposite to each other. He was curious about the couple's unflappability in regard to magic, apprehensive about the big news that George seemed about to deliver to his ears only (since the man appeared disinclined to include his daughters in the conversation, for once), and he both hated and loved his current position: flanked by the couple; he hated it because it made him uncomfortable, but he loved it because it lent him a sense of belonging, as if they were his parents. They could never be his parents… could they?

"Harry?"

"Yes?" He mentally shook himself from the battle of his emotions. George was addressing him, and he had just noticed that Harriet had an arm around his shoulders, encompassing him in a loose motherly embrace. He tried not to squirm, therefore announcing his discomfort of the gesture. Harriet did not mean to inflict inconvenience on him, he knew… but he simply could not make himself used to such display of affection – at least not yet.

Harriet's support proved its worth to him, all the same, when George handed him a manila folder. Harry's eyes widened considerably when he opened it and gazed into the paper positioned on the top of the pile in the folder. His body sagged heavily into the generous padding of the sofa, his bright green orbs fixed on the line of words which seemed to glare challengingly at him from the upmost part of the paper, under the official title that signified the paper as someone's birth act. "Name: Harlend James Potter," it was written there, and Harry could not avert his stare from it. So engrossed was he that he was not aware that Harriet had maneuvered him slightly. Now Harry was leaning to her front, sitting almost sidewise in the long couch with her arms encircling his midriff.

"W-what is this?" he croaked at length. With an effort, he lowered the folder down and stared right into George's eyes pleadingly, imploringly.

"I retrieved it from Privet Drive Number 4 alongside all the things which belong to you," the man answered steadily. "There were many items and facts concealed by Petunia Dursley about her own sister and you." The statement hit Harry hard. He thought he had realised that his aunt had hidden much from him and had been prepared for it; he had not expected to be affected this greatly by what he viewed as her betrayal to him.

"You are the son of James Potter and Lily Evans," George continued. Then, in a much quieter voice and a sorrowful expression in his eyes, he continued, "They died to save you. Your relatives told you that your parents died in a carcrash, did they not?" On Harry's mute nod, he stated in the same quiet voice, "They were killed by a powerful, mad man who named himself Lord Voldemort."

Harry's mouth went dry. His heart squeezed. `Killed. They were killed. A mad man did it.` He veered his eyes to the folder sitting in his lap.

"Those are your legal documents, Harry, and the copy of your parents' will I got from Gringotts."

"W-what is Gringotts?" against his better judgement, Harry asked. He felt that he could not take any more surprises, yet he knew that there was a missing piece that George had not told him about.

Unlike his aunt, George did divulge the information. Harry wished the man would have held the piece longer, though.

"Gringotts is a bank run by goblins, Harry. It is for people in the magical world, like you and me."

`Like you and me.`

Harry looked intently into the pale eyes of the man, doe-eyed.

"It was I who prevented you from banging your head on the floor. With practice, you will be able to do so yourself."

Harry wished he could be as calm as the lord. His mind was reeling from all the information, and he could not even open his mouth to utter anything. He was in a daze; his brain was overloaded. He just barely noticed George lifting him into the man's arms, carrying him as though he were a baby. The man bent down, possibly to kiss his wife's cheek, then he walked away.

Hours later, Harry still lay in his bed, staring unseeingly at its canopy, not moving even an inch from the position in which George had laid him. He did not know what time it was now, and he partially did not want to know anyway. The shock had not worn off.

He had an identity, after nearly ten years of being just "boy" or "freak." He knew his parents now and why he had ended up on the doorstep of Privet Drive Number 4, and the reason why he had been a freak in his relatives' eyes. Most importantly, however, now he knew that he was not alone in being a "freak." The lord whom he admired, whom he had seen as a father figure since the day they had met, was also magical – and proud of it too.

On the thought of George, a small smile brushed his lips. The smile came again, wider and steadier, when he realised that, in extention, he also had Harriet, the twins, and the two jovial young princes. `I have a family,` he thought, although it barely registered in his fogged mind.

When some time more had passed, Harry rose slowly from his bed and looked around. His mind had cleared somewhat, although it had not returned to normal. He was in his bedroom, seeing from the light-blue décor of it and his personal items littering the desk and rugs.

There was something which had not been there before, he noticed when he swept his gaze around the room for the second time. A sheet of paper lay on his right nightstand. It contained a picture, seemingly sketched by pencil over the white expanse. The paper itself seemed to be generated from the giant of a drawing tablet owned by Dila.

And the picture was that of him, or what looked like him. He could not recognise the boy as himself, despite the striking facial similarities to what he knew of himself. For one, the boy in the picture exuded grace and confidence, made more prominent by the feel of vexation he seemed to emit.

But the background and the face…

And there was a writing too, in a firm, bold script, under the frame formed by pencil lines. "Dear One."

Harry could no longer deny himself. He was changed, whether he liked it or not, and the changes were not always bad, as shown in those two words written in a very conspicuous manner. The words emboldened him too, somehow, and the confidence the Harry in the picture felt and emanated began to seep bit by bit into this Harry who was sitting on the edge of his bed alone. But there was a difference between the two persons of the same being: this Harry had passed the toughest of the changes and his confidence had been tried, but that condition convinced him not to shirk from the changes and instead use them to their full potentials.

The Harry who went out from his bedroom afterwards was indeed a changed young man.