Dusk approached and Harry was still tucked away in his room, avoiding an awkward meeting with Severus. But this time, the twins joined him. They lounged on his bed, the twins leaning against the pillowed headboard and Harry himself curled up leaning against the wall on one side of it. He had a strong suspicion that they were also fleeing from Severus – from the obligation to tell him that they had informed Harry about his past. Fortunately for them, he had no desire to confront them about it. (The comeback would have been more than he could handle, he knew.)

It was only the third time they could just sit back doing nothing in one of their rooms like this, and he enjoyed every one of them. It was also a chance that he could use to explore aspects of the twins without being dubbed gawking.

And it was when his unease rose another few notches regarding the twins' origin.

Jerry had always treated the girls as individuals, not as twins, and Ardila loved to operate alone so much anyway. And now, they looked so similar and yet so different that Harry would dub them only siblings instead of twins. And there was the fact that they looked nothing similar to their parents nor their brother too.

Ana smirked. Harry frowned. It was really true, then?

Ana nodded. But how could she still hear his thoughts? His mind-shield was perfect…

She grinned and shrugged. Ardila snorted softly. Harry inched away from them. They chuckled, amused.

"Other people were faster to be unnerved with us, congratulations for that," confessed Ana at last, now chuckling openly. "And yes, you're right. We weren't twins. We weren't siblings at all in fact."

Harry was dumbfounded: shocked, bewildered and overwhelmed by a slew of new questions. Judging from Ana's massaging her temples, she heard them all and thus fell into the same predicament.

But thankfully – or not – Ardila was there to break the ice.

"Friend-bond, sibling-bond, family-bond."

… In her own way, of course.

"What do you mean?" Harry asked weakly. "Are you adopted?"

The twins hummed affirmatively.

An indescribable feeling rose in him, mounting nearly to the point of explosion. But only one word rang in his mind: adoption – hopeful, terrified, flabbergasted.

Ardila met his eyes at length, smiling her tiny, assured smile – a promise. His heart pounded in his chest, his throat and in his ears. Adoption.

"Family," said she. He would agree with her whole-heartedly. Family, at last – if indeed.

Then she invited him to look outside the window, which overlooked the hut's small side-garden. He obeyed.

And there, he witnessed Jerry, Ed and Severus in a kind of playful wrestling match.

"But… but…"

"Family, Harry," Ardila reminded him, smiling. For the second time ever, he could glimpse pride lurking in her impassive countenance.

"Adopted?" he asked, his hope rising.

"Family."

The rising hope was tempered by uncertainty now, and watching the match became somehow painful. He looked away. Would he ever…?