Disclaimer:I do not own Harry Potter. Kudos go to J.F.C. for allowing me to adopt his ideas and allowing me to bounce ideas off him as well as suggesting or improving quite a few of the ideas that are going into this.

Chapter 3

"You had a twin, Harry," Dumbledore said with an air of revealing some magnificent secret that no one was supposed to know to Harry.

Harry saw Aunt Dorea and Uncle Charlus wince and then glare at the old man from where they sat on the couches. Aunt Dorea's fists were clenched in fury and Uncle Charlus looked like he was ready to kill the professor. The latter was a startling reaction from his usually calm and easygoing uncle who almost never took anything seriously. Aunt Dorea and Uncle Charlus had to know his birth parents then. Harry wondered if that meant they were related to him somehow. He would not mind being related to them especially if that meant he was blood related to Aunt Carina.

"Had a twin? What do you mean?" Harry asked, tilting his head to the side curiously. He wondered about the past tense of the professors sentence and what had happened to the 'twin' he had who he did not even know. If they were twins why had his birth parents decided to only keep one twin and not the other?

"Yes, Harry, had. You see, your brother, your twin, had an unfortunate accident during the last school year while in a tournament. We tried to heal him to the best of our abilities but unfortunately he did not make it," Dumbledore said, his voice somber.

Uncle Charlus was visibly holding himself back at this point. Harry could make out his lips muttering choice cuss words that Aunt Dorea could probably hear but she was not doing anything about it or even scolding him. She probably agreed with him then because Harry knew that Uncle Charlus could get rather creative with his swearing when he was as angry as he looked now.

The wording Dumbledore had used to explain his supposed twin's death did not sit right with Harry. He had used the word 'heal' and no one used that word for when they were trying to fix gravely injured people. Those people usually got operated on in an attempt to save their life. 'Heal' was used for the smaller injuries that could not kill you like a small cut or a bruise, or some injury that was not life threatening but would take a long time to get better.

"Heal?" Harry questioned.

Dumbledore paused as he realized his slip, Harry could see him thinking hard about how to fix the slip. When he finally sighed and looked serious, Harry saw Aunt Dorea and Uncle Charlus freeze and exchange glances with each other and Aunt Carina behind him. The entire room went unexpectedly silent and Harry glanced around at the other three people in confusion, trying to figure out what had caused the change in atmosphere of the room.

"Harry, there is a world of magic that lies hidden within the muggle world. Yes, magic is real as are wielders of magic. Your Aunt Dorea and Uncle Charlus are a witch and wizard, they are able to use magic as I am, as you are. You're a wizard," Dumbledore said in a very secretive voice.

"But I have never done anything vaguely magical," Harry said, "no one had been turned into a toad when I was angry. You have to be mistaken. I don't have magic, I can't be a wizard!"

"You do have magic and you are a wizard," Dumbledore said, suddenly looking much older than he had been a minute ago. "Almost fourteen years ago a dark wizard attacked you and your twin and marked your twin for a destiny to defeat him. I bound your magic on that night, for you own safety. I did not want that evil wizard to target you to get to your twin and reasoned that if you did not have magic and grew up in the muggle world that he would not target you. I had been right in that regard."

This was obviously news to Aunt Dorea and Uncle Charlus along with Aunt Carina who had come to sit next to him. Their expressions were so furious that Harry doubted he would have been particularly shocked if the professor started to spontaneously combust right there in the middle of the lounge from their heated glares if magic truly did exist. Harry decided to question his aunts and uncle later after this professor had left. He would be able to ask them anything then and would probably receive more objective answers than he would with this professor.

"I assume that you wish to remove the binds on my magic then?" Harry asked. That question in itself was a loaded one. If the professor said yes then that meant that he obviously wanted Harry to become a target to this evil wizard and take up his brothers position and destiny to save a world that he did not even know nor understand. This professor would probably expect him to fight and defend something he knew nothing about and from what Harry could tell of the professor's personality, he would also be kept in the dark about everything that did not directly concern him.

Harry already knew the answer to the question because if the professor did not want to remove the binds from his magic, he would not be here at all. This was not simply a friendly visit, Harry had known that from a start but Harry really did not like the price of receiving his magic back because he knew he would end up being forced to live with his birth parents, who he doubted really cared about him, and fight a war that he was both not supposed to fight at his age and defend something he did not understand and would probably not believe in if it had people like this professor leading it.

"Yes," Dumbledore said simply, nodding his head.

"I don't know," Harry said, making sure there was an uncertain and slightly shocked expression on his face. "I think I need some time to take all of this in. I'm not entirely sure that magic exists yet and to have all of this thrust on me so suddenly … I think I just need some time to … try and take everything in and try to understand everything that I've been told. I'll have to get used to the idea back and become more comfortable around it before I think I will be able to manage to get my magic back."

Dumbledore nodded with understanding eyes. "Of course, I understand that this will be a bit much to take in all at once. I'll be back in a week to remove the binds," Dumbledore said. He looked slightly relieved that Harry had believed him to easily and probably thought that Harry trusted him. Harry snorted at the thought of ever trusting Dumbledore.

Dumbledore left not long afterwards, much to the relief of the other current occupants of the house. Once he had left though, the atmosphere got a bit awkward between the four, especially on the side of the adults who had already known of the world of magic. None of them knew quite what to say that would make everything that Dumbledore had revealed a bit less shocking than it currently was to Harry.

"I don't blame you for not telling me," Harry said suddenly, causing the adults to jump slightly. "If any of you had told me that magic was real and that someone had sealed my magic, I probably would have thought you were crazy."

"We didn't know that your magic had been sealed," Aunt Dorea said softly from her place on the couch. "We believed that you had been born a squib, like your Aunt Carina had been, because children under the age of one do not generally produce accidental magic. If we had known," she shook her head slightly, "if we had known that your magic had been blocked we would have found a way, any way to unseal your magic even make threats if we had to."

"A squib?" Harry prodded further, his head tilted slightly while looking at Aunt Carina, half expecting to suddenly see tentacles instead of arms. "I don't see anything different about Aunt Carina."

Aunt Carina laughed. "Not a squid, Harry, a squib. A squib is a person who was born to a magical family but cannot use magic like me. That's why I moved to the muggle world, such a thing tends to be unnatural in the Wizarding World and is often mocked by the purebloods," she said.

Harry gave Aunt Carina a half hug from where he sat next to her and redirected his questioning towards Aunt Dorea and Uncle Charlus.

"What's a muggle and pureblood?" he asked.

"A muggle is a normal person who does not have magic in their family nor are they likely to ever encounter magic in their life. They don't believe in magic, like all of your neighbors. There is nothing physically different between a muggle and a wizard with the exception of a witch's or wizard's magical core that allows them to cast magic," Aunt Dorea explained. "A pureblood is a witch or wizard who is born of a long line of wizards. They consider their blood to be 'pure' because they do not have any muggles or muggleborns in their family for as long as the family tapestry had been around. Muggleborns are witches and wizards who have magic despite being born from two muggles," she answered before he could even voice his question.

"You're taking the entire magic thing rather well," Uncle Charlus noted.

"It's easier to believe in magic than to believe that the professor that had just left had managed to navigate through London dressed as he was. It is extremely hard to believe no one had done anything if they had seen him as he was dressed," Harry grinned. "I mean just imagine what would happen if he had run into Mrs. Davidson next door! He would have received a very good talking to for how he dressed in public. She would probably even give him hints on how to chose his clothing in the future before she allowed him to continue to his destination."

Aunt Carina was laughing by now, her previous glum mood disappearing much to Harry's pleasure. Aunt Dorea and Uncle Charlus joined in one the laughter once the mental image of Dumbledore getting scolded by a half-blind old lady as he walked past.

Harry continued bombarding Aunt Dorea and Uncle Charlus with whatever questions popped into his mind with Aunt Carina joining in every now and then to clarify some unclear points to Harry. Aunt Dorea had even demonstrated small bits of magic to Harry upon request, they were simple things like levitation and summoning but they still managed to awe Harry.