Chapter 6
The next day, Harry, slowly coming out of his sleep, felt that he was sleeping on a very comfortable bed and buried deeper into the softness. His old, lumpy mattress in the cupboard never felt half as comfortable…wait…bed? He wasn't allowed to sleep in any of the beds! What if uncle or aunt caught him or if Dudley saw him! He would surely tattle about it to them. Panicking, he bolted up, put on his glasses with one hand and looked around.
He was in his room, in his home. He let out a sigh of relief and fell back on the pillows musing about the previous day. All that had happened seemed too good to be true but here was the proof that it was. He snapped out of it after a few minutes and sat up, as he was getting off the bed, he saw a pair of fur slippers waiting for him and slipped into them.
Just as he was thinking that it must have been Mipsy who put the slippers there, the very object of his thoughts appeared in front of him. "Mipsy came to wake you up Young Master but you are already awake, Good Morning", the excited elf said. "Good Morning Mipsy" Harry replied and moved as to make his bed.
Mipsy squeaked, almost on the verge of tears, "Did Mipsy do something wrong Young Master?".
"No Mipsy, of course not, what made you think so?" he asked startled.
"Then why is Young Master not letting Mipsy make his bed?", she asked, still sounding like she was going to start crying any moment.
Harry pulled his hands back swiftly and said in the most reassuring voice he could muster, "You didn't do anything wrong Mipsy, it's just that I did everything in my aunt's house, myself and it had become a habit but you can make my bed if that's what you want".
Mipsy nodded her head vigorously, "Yes Young Master, Mipsy be making your bed. You go and take a bath. There are a couple of sets of robes in your closet that Mipsy be magicking to adjust according to your size." Harry thanked her and smiled at her, she returned it with one of her own.
As he turned around and moved towards the bathroom, he heard some mutterings coming from Mipsy that sounded suspiciously like some colourful words being used for 'bad muggles' and 'evil aunts'.
He entered the bathroom grinning and as he experimented with the functions of the various faucets of the bath tub, he thought about how having someone feeling bad if he didn't let them serve him would take some getting used to. He lowered himself into the warm bubble bath and picked up the sandalwood body wash, he had chosen. This was certainly something he could get used to.
After he had taken his bath, he entered the walk-in closet and saw a set of undergarments and two sets of robes as Mipsy had told him- one, all black and white and the other, in royal blue and black. After a few moments of contemplation, he chose the latter.
It consisted of black slacks, black silk shirt, a lighter blue underrobe and a royal blue velvet outer robe with black velvet trimmings, the outer robes had the, by now, familiar Potter crest. His clothes looked well made and expensive. He held them in his hands unbelievingly.
He had clothes that would actually fit him. He felt emotional, and stupid about feeling emotional over clothes, but he never had clothes of his own. He never had parents before either. Since the moment he got their portrait, everything was changing for the better; the best one being, having them back in his life.
Shaking his head to get rid of the tears that had welled up in his eyes, he shed off his bath robe and put on the clothes. As soon as he put them on, they adjusted to fit him perfectly.
He looked at the mirror of the dressing table on the farther end of the closet. 'I look quite good,' he blushed when he realized what he had just thought. His hair was still a mess and he didn't even try to fix it. He had got it from his father and didn't want to change it.
He got out of the closet and saw Mipsy waiting for him. He smiled at her, "Thanks for charming the robes Mipsy, they fit me perfectly and are very comfortable".
She smiled brightly and replied, "No need to thank Mipsy, Young Master. If you are done Master and Mistress will be waiting for you in the dining room and have called you there".
Harry skipped out of his room and Mipsy popped away. He was looking at all the doors to the guest rooms and spotted the three rooms with the name tags on them, he smiled when he saw the tags that said Sirius Black and Remus Lupin thinking of all the time they would have spent there with his father but his smile quickly turned into a frown as soon as he spotted the name on the third door, it was Peter Pettigrew. His eyes flashed with the same furious glint that his father's had when he had told him about his friends.
He called Torry and asked him to remove the metal tag and destroy it. Torry too recognised the name of 'the traitor', as the house elves now called him and didn't take more than ten seconds to remove the tag and put it on fire.
Harry watched with a strange sense of satisfaction as it melted gradually and the smell of melting metal filled his nostrils. Within a few moments all that remained of it was a blob of hot melted metal which Torry cooled magically. Harry picked it up, thanked Torry and resumed his skipping towards the informal dining room.
The heavy oak doors opened on their own and Harry entered the room to see his parents' portrait on the left wall, he smiled at them. They had to bend down so Harry could kiss both of them good morning.
Lily chimed, "Oh Merlin! You look so good Harry. James, our son is just too cute, isn't he?".
"He had to be, he takes after his father", James responded grinning like a Cheshire cat. Harry blushed while Lily playfully aimed a swat at the said father's head which, of course, he dodged.
All were laughing when Sippy brought in the breakfast and Harry thanked him before he popped away. He turned back towards his parents and took out the metal blob he had picked up earlier, from his pocket and said, "This used to be the name tag that marked one of the rooms as Peter Pettigrew's, I had Torry take it off and destroy it; I'm sorry if I was wrong in doing that, I was just too angry to see that it was still there after what he did".
James said abruptly, "Yes you were wrong Harry", Lily looked at him, appalled and Harry looked up sadly, "you were wrong to have just the name tag removed. All his possessions should be removed from the room".
Harry and Lily both let out a sigh of relief and Harry sat down to have his breakfast as his parents called Torry and instructed him to have the elves remove all of the rat's stuff that was still in the room as well as replace the bedsheet, pillow covers and curtains.
After Harry had finished his breakfast, James and Lily instructed him about the correct way to greet the goblins and how to talk to them. Then they moved on to telling him about his ancestry.
James began, "Harry do you remember we told you about the four Hogwarts houses?"
"Yes, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin", Harry replied.
"How do you remember? We'll have to have you tested for your abilities, you could have photographic memory. Tell me Harry, did you ever have trouble remembering anything?", Lily asked.
"No", Harry answered, "that's why aunt Petunia let me tend to the garden, I could always remember exactly how to take care of different plants".
Storing that information for later, they continued with telling him about his ancestry. James stopped with, "…and that's how Harry you are the descendant of Peverell family and Godric Gryffindor himself. I wasn't aware that we are the last living descendants of Gryffindor, after the only branch closer than us died out in the war, until I went to Gringotts with Lily to take our lineage test". [I didn't want to get into useless details just to increase the word count, you create the ancestry as you like 😉]
"Wow", was all Harry managed to say before Lily started about his maternal ancestry. "Like I told you before Harry, I thought I was a muggle-born but later on my parents told me about their being squibs. When I took the blood test at Gringotts after I got to know about it, I found out that I was the closest descendant of Salazar Slytherin. The only reason my family couldn't claim the inheritance for generations because they were squibs and only magical relations claim it and I wasn't able to claim it because the wizarding world has a paternal structure and only male heirs can do so."
"Before we could get you to Gringotts to do so, we had to go into hiding but I did get a few books which helped me in my research. I found out that Voldemort's real name is Tom Marvolo Riddle, he is quite a distant descendant of the Slytherin line and he is a half blood, his father was a muggle. Quite hypocritical he is, in my humble opinion, if you ask me", Lily said sarcastically and both her husband and son smirked.
"The only reason why he could claim to be the only heir of Slytherin was that my ancestors were squibs but now that you are here, he cannot do anything to prevent you from taking the heirship from him. You also have the right to all that was his through conquest, as he was defeated by you.
Also, to be considered a pure blood you should be at least the third magical descendant of your line and my grandfather and father both ended up marrying other squibs so I am a pure blood and so is your father, so, you're a pure blood; but always remember Harry, blood purity doesn't mean that half-bloods, or people who are unaware of linage and are still considered muggle-borns, or squibs don't deserve your respect.
Always remember, once your mum was considered a muggle-born too. As a pure-blood you'll have quite a few privileges, always make sure that you use them for doing the right thing. Not just wizards but other creatures, house-elves, centaurs, werewolves (your uncle Moony is one, as we told you yesterday), too, deserve to be treated with respect", Lily ended. Harry nodded his head obediently.
He asked a question that had been troubling him, "You said Voldemort was a dark wizard, are all dark wizards bad and is dark magic something bad?"
"No Harry, the Slytherins were a dark family and so, I am a dark witch, too", Lily answered, "dark magic doesn't mean something bad. It's just one of the 2 branches of magic, the other being the light magic. Let me explain this from the beginning, the wizarding culture is much older than Christianity and has its own customs and festivals, Halloween is derived from our Samhain.
Some wizarding family used to disown squibs born to them and some helped them financially, in both cases they had to settle in the muggle world. Many a times their family and descendants had to live in the muggle world for so long that they stopped telling them about the wizarding world and they were brought up like muggles and they observed muggle traditions.
When they entered the wizarding world, they found it entirely different. The Ministry, instead of educating them about it and accepting them into the world, began changing the wizarding world itself, to become the mesiha of the muggle-borns."
"The dark wizards were more traditional", James continued, "and were not ready to stand up with this and protested against it vehemently. The Ministry started painting them as evil wizards who were against muggle-born people. Muggle-borns turned against them and vice versa. All this is just misunderstanding created by politicians for their own benefit.
As long as proper steps are not taken one or the other dark wizard will keep rising to return the society to the wizarding one it should always have been. Voldemort, though, is not one of them, he is a homicidal lunatic. He doesn't care about anything other than himself."
Harry nodded slowly as he took in all the information. He looked at them and smiled, "Thank You for telling me all this, I'll do my best to make everything be as it should have been. I'll never let you both down".
They returned his smile and Lily said, "You can never let us down. We trust you, we will be proud of you no matter what".
James raised his head proudly and addressed Harry, "Harry as you father and previous Head of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Potter I always want you to be proud of your heritage and family. The Potters have worked hard and have always done kind and good deeds to make the name as respected as it is today. Always walk with your head held high and do your duty to your house".
Harry had never been taught this but the reply came to him, naturally. He got up from his chair and bowed to his father and said, "I will do all my duties to the house to the best of my ability and will make you and all my ancestors proud".
Both his parents swelled with pride and Lily felt a prickling behind her eyes. They wanted to hug him desperately but Harry solved the problem for them and asked them to bend down and touched his forehead to where their shoulders touched. It wasn't the same as hugging him but they felt almost as good.
/hp/
As you have already read, Harry is not going to be a light wizard dancing on Dumbledore's fingertips, he will be more of a grey wizard.
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