AN: Sorry about the late update, I was away at a conference (and speaking of conferences, could you please click that link on the top of my author page? I need that survey for a paper at another conference). I will try to make up for it by two updates this week, but I'm not promising anything.

Quite a lot of explaining in this one too. It will ease off in the next, I promise.

I don't own them!

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Once back in his bedroom, Harry looked around. So far, it appeared this room was really to be his, but he didn't want to expect too much. He would rather avoid disappointment. Nevertheless, he climbed onto the bed and lied down, thinking about what he just heard. First, there was something disturbing about finding out his parents have been murdered, even though it appeared lots of people were at the time. But in some ways he supposed it was better than what he had believed before – they they had just randomly died in a car crash, and always with the cold suspicions that they might have been drunk, like Aunt Marge said...No, at least they died for what they believed for.

The truly disquieting part was his own survival. Why didn't that Riddle manage to kill him too? Did he make a mistake? From what Mr. Travers said, it seemed he was quite a pro at killing, so why should it go wrong at just that moment? Besides, if he had made a mistake, wouldn't it have just not worked at all, instead of producing the scar and destroying Riddle? He had to ask at dinner.

And then there was the business of his godfather betraying his parents. That was vile and disgusting, maybe even worse than the Riddle guy – this man pretended to be their friend! Harry was glad he was in prison, and couldn't help hoping that wizarding prisons were really nasty and that other prisoners were mean to him. He curled up on his side and tried to think about something else, because this man made his stomach turn.

Fortunately there was quite enough to distract him, most importantly the life-changing discovery that he was a wizard. Harry wasn't sure he quite believed it himself, but it did explain the weird things that have been happening around him pretty well. And if it was true...did it mean he would be able to teleport like Mr. Travers did today? No, not teleport – it was like teleporting, but he had called it something else...appearing? Not quite...he would have to learn all this, Harry supposed. And were all wizards equally powerful? Maybe only the best ones could learn to teleport. But surely he would be able to do at least something, and something more useful than have his hair grow, too.

Harry spent the remaining time musing about these problems, and then, when the clock told him it was time, he descended to dinner – or rather to the hall, when he stood, unsure of himself, before calling: "Mr. Travers?"

"In here," he heard from a door to his right, and following the voice, arrived in a different parlour than the one they sat in in the afternoon. Right after they entered, the small creature he had already seen before appeared before him, opened a different door and announced: "Dinner is served, Masters."

It disappeared afterwards, so Harry turned to his cousin and asked: "What is it?"

"What is what?" Mr. Travers returned, sitting down.

"This creature that just let us in," Harry clarified, gingerly placing himself on the edge of the chair Mr. Travers had indicated for him.

"Oh!" The older man smiled. "That is a house-elf. They do the work that is done by human servants in the Muggle world. You have already seen one in the afternoon, the one who was serving us tea. That was Nitty, my parlour elf. Call for her when you want something to eat during the day. The one who let us in was Tobby, who is my butler. If you need something, you should turn either to him or to Lenny, my housekeeper. They are the two heads of staff, and will be best able to help you, even though every house elf here will be glad to, of course."

So there were more of them? "But how can I tell them apart? Nitty and Tobby looked exactly the same to me!"

Mr. Travers laughed heartily. "That was only because they were the first two house elves you have ever seen. I assure you, they look very different. In fact, don't let Nitty hear you say this – she is about forty years younger than Tobby, and she is a girl! It would upset her." He paused as food appeared on his plate, and motioning for Harry to eat, he added: "And talking about upsetting the elves, the most important thing you need to know about them is never give them clothes. Giving a house-elf clothes means you are firing them, and you can only do that if you are extremely dissatisfied with their work. They take it very hard, like extreme shame, that they disappointed their family. You see, they are connected to the families they serve, and this clan has been serving the House of Travers for hundreds of years. I never had an occasion to give any of them clothes."

"But, I mean, what about doing the laundry? Do you do it yourself, because the elves can't...?" Somehow, the idea of his cousin doing his own laundry seemed completely preposterous to Harry, even though he had only known him for a few hours.

Mr. Travers was already shaking his head. "No. They can touch clothes, and work with it, and everything of the sort. But you can't give it to them – so, for example, you can't hand them your dirty shirt, saying 'please, Milly, launder this for me' – but you can put the shirt on your bed and ask Milly to launder it, and it will be fine."

"Phew. It's complicated."

Mr. Travers smiled. "It just seems so to you because it is new. For witches and wizards, this is automatic."

They ate in silence for a little while, then Harry said: "Mr. Travers-"

"Come on, Harry. Don't call me Mr. Travers. Did you call your cousin from your mother's side Mr. Dursley?"

The boy laughed. The man smiled in return. "I didn't think so."

"So what should I call you?" Harry asked uncertainly.

In response, he got a shrug. "Just Alduin, or, if this makes you uncomfortable, you can call me cousin Alduin or just cousin."

All of it sounded uncomfortable to Harry, but he promised himself to try. "Okay, so, um, cousin, I was thinking about destroying this Riddle guy, and it all seems very fishy to me. How did that happen? Do you think he made a mistake, or...?"

His cousin seemed to hesitate. "There are many theories, Harry, some more convincing, some less so. I think this would be easier to discuss in depth when you meet my friend, Miss Burke. She is very interested in history and can tell you a little more about it than I can."

"All right." Harry was silent for a moment, then asked, hoping it wasn't impolite: "So your friend is a historian...and what do you do?"

Mr. Travers – no, cousin Alduin – smiled. "You will find that most heads, or even members, of Noble and Most Ancient Houses do not work in the normal sense of the word – we don't have day jobs. We do something, of course – lots of things – but it's usually not a job in the ordinary sense of the word. Miss Burke doesn't work as a historian either, she simply spends a lot of her time studying history. As for me, my chief interest is magical theory, and especially the theory of what we would call transcendental sciences – the most mystical of all sciences, that is. It includes questions like what happens after death, how does time work, and similar. It's very arcane."

"It sounds very mysterious." Harry paused. "So does everyone just kinda study when they are adults in the wizarding world?"

Cousin Alduin laughed. "Certainly not." He paused. "I suppose now I must make a small digression, to Hogwarts. There are four Houses there, and at the beginning of their studies, all students are sorted into one. It's Ravenclaw, Slytherin, Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. Where the students are sorted depends on their personal qualities, and what they value the most. The names, you see, are names of the four founders of Hogwarts, and each of them founded a House where the students were accepted according to the quality they prized the most. Rowena Ravenclaw though that thirst for knowledge was the most important trait. It is crucial to understand this about Ravenclaw – many people just think that the house is for the clever. It's certainly true that most of its members are no bumbling idiots, but that's not the defining trait. They have to consider knowledge very important, more important than the other traits, and they have to be very interested in it. Usually it also means they have to want to really understand things, as opposed to just memorizing things by heart because it will help in their exam. So, those are the qualities that get you in Ravenclaw. Then there is Slytherin. Salazar Slytherin prized ambition the most, together with shrewdness. Historians say he kept arguing with Rowena Ravenclaw about this – because, you see, he prized knowledge and cleverness very high too, only he was more interested in what could be used in practice. What I just talked about, magical theory and transcendental sciences, would be of little interest to him, while it would be the most important thing to Rowena Ravenclaw. The third House is Gryffindor, and Godric Gryffindor thought courage was important, fighting for what was right and never backing down. He clashed with Slytherin the most, because Slytherin preferred careful methods and consideration and weighting one's chances, while Gryffindor believed that if something was important for you, you simply had to go for it with all you had and hope for the best. And then there was Helga Hufflepuff, a kindly woman who looked at the others' demands and decided that the rest of the students had to go somewhere after all, the ones who were neither intellectually curious nor shrewd nor brave...and she founded her House. She is said to have valued hard work and loyalty, but the fact is that the House was founded with the intention of providing space for all the others, who never fit anywhere else.

"Now, the reason why I started to talk about this is that Houses often run in families. And so most Noble and Most Ancient Houses – indeed, most wizarding families older than a couple of generations – are associated with a particular House. There are flukes, of course, but there are also general trends. And the House of Travers, I am proud to say, has a long tradition of association with Ravenclaw. As does House Burke. So the reason me and Miss Burke are both scholars is because our family tradition and legacy made us so."

"And House Potter?" Harry asked curiously.

"I expected you would ask. Potters have long been associated with Gryffindor, and both your parents were members of that house," cousin Alduin explained.

"Do you think I will be, too?" Harry wondered.

The older man shrugged elegantly. "I do not know, but it is likely. Don't worry about it, though, Hogwarts provides excellent education no matter what house you are in."

"But it's kind of embarrassing to be in Hufflepuff, isn't it?" Harry muttered.

"Many people think so," his cousin admitted, "but there is also a number of Noble and Most Ancient families that are traditionally associated with that House and proud of it. The Smiths, for example, are descended from Helga Hufflepuff herself. Many of them would certainly be ambitious enough for Slytherin, but the sorting takes into account your own preference – what you consider important – and their members usually ask for Hufflepuff. Actually they rarely have people somewhere else, because, well...when you ask for Ravenclaw, but you simply aren't clever or interested in knowledge at all and only wanted to be there because your father was, for example, you are not going to get that House, the Sorting will just ignore your wish. But with Hufflepuff, this problem doesn't appear, because there isn't any necessary qualification to be in that house. Nevertheless, as I said, its members often take pride in their hard work and loyalty and just overly being decent people, which they say is the most important part. They paint is as a virtue, you see – at Sorting, they rejected all the other houses not because the don't have their qualities, but because they know the most important thing is being moral."

Harry nodded, musing about it, and then asked: "You talked about Noble and Most Ancient Houses. What does that mean?"

"It's the official designation of the forty-one oldest wizarding families in Britain, ones that have been in existence already when the Wizengamot was founded. Well, it used to be fifty families when the body was founded, actually, but nine of them have died out. Each of these families, you see, has a representative on the Wizengamot. The representatives of the extinct families have been substituted by representative of various public organizations, like Hogwarts and the Ministry and St. Mungo's."

Harry must have looked very confused, because his cousin said: "Sorry. Wizengamot is a magical High Court, which serves a little like Muggle parliament too. St. Mungo's is our hospital, and the Ministry of Magic is the government."

Harry nodded, then backtracked. "Wait, didn't you say Potters were ones of these Noble and Most Ancient Houses?"

"They most certainly are."

"Does that mean I have a seat at the Wizengamot?" Harry was amazed.

"Not quite yet. But once you are of age, yes, you will." Cousin Alduin explained seriously.

"Do you?"

"Naturally."

"Cool."

The dinner was done with by now, and looking at the clock, cousin Alduin said: "I think you should go to sleep. You have had a turbulent day, and there is a lot of work ahead of us tomorrow."

Harry nodded and got up, feeling rather tired now that he thought about it. "Good night, cousin Alduin."

"Good night, cousin Harry," the older man said with a smile.

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When Harry woke up in the morning, it was to an unfamiliar feeling of softness and space around him. He opened his eyes, disorientated, and then he remembered. He was in Travers Manor, his cousin's house, and he was going to live here!

He put on his glasses, but otherwise kept lying in bed, thinking. So far, so good – he had really been allowed to sleep in this splendid room. He even put his things in the chest of drawers last evening, and no one seemed to be angry about it. He still didn't entirely believe this would last, but even a little bit of it was fantastic, although it would make returning to the Dursleys that much harder.

He contemplated the things he learned about his family history, too, and the Hogwarts houses. Gryffindor really sounded the best to him, and not just because his family had been in it. The second would probably be Slytherin, though he wasn't going to tell cousin Alduin that, because he seemed to really like Ravenclaw, his old house. Harry was sure Helga Hufflepuff had been a nice woman, but ending up in her house would be the most embarrassing. Besides, he didn't quite understand what those Hufflepuff families meant about being a good person – it wasn't enough to just want to be one, was it? One had to do something good, help some people, and for that you needed courage. Harry thought that getting him from the Dursleys had been rather Gryffindor of cousin Alduin, because he had to face shouting aunt Petunia. If he had been more Hufflepuff, maybe he would have just sat and thought about how nice it would be to be able to help him. Maybe if some of the teachers at school had been more Gryffindor, they would have tried helping him in some way, instead of just looking at him sadly from time to time. Or some of the children from his class, too – sometimes someone looked like they wanted to talk to him, but then they got too scared of Dudley. Being nice just wasn't enough, he decided. He didn't much care if people charge into situations head-on or planned them in detail, as long as they did something. And he still thought you needed bravery for both.

A pop interrupted Harry's thoughts. A house-elf appeared, bearing a tea tray. Seeing that he was awake, the elf said: "Good morning, master Harry."

"Er, good morning. What's your name?"

"I'm Sibby," the elf squealed, "and I will be your personal elf. Here is your morning tea."

"Thanks," Harry replied, rather unsure of himself.

"It is my honour to serve you, Master Harry."

All this talk about serving was making Harry rather nervous, but he wasn't sure what was the usual way to answer, so he just drank his tea and then got up. It was still dark outside, it being winter, but Sibby turned on the lights, allowing him to dress comfortably and then move to the bathroom to wash his face. Then he went down, wondering about breakfast.

Cousin Alduin called to him from yet another parlour, this one done in all light colours, and said: "This is the breakfast parlour, where I normally eat in the morning, when I don't have visitors. Take whatever you want to."

The choice was impressive. Harry was a little nervous about it, but seeing how much his cousin had on his plate, he allowed himself to take some little bacon, one sausage and a little of scrambled eggs. "Are you sure this is enough?" Alduin asked.

"Yes, it's all right," Harry said awkwardly.

"Really, don't hesitate to have another helping if you want to," his cousin replied from piling his eggs on the fork. "You don't want the elves to have to throw it out, do you?"

The thought of such waste drew Harry to add much more to his plate, and he discovered that he found this way of having breakfast, with so much of it, very satisfying.

After they were done, cousin Alduin said: "Now we will go to Diagon Alley. But first, I need to make you a little more presentable. Come with me."

He led Harry upstairs and to the other side than where his bedroom laid. A the end of that corridor, he said: "This is my bedroom, in case you ever need to find it. I am going to see if I can resize some of my robes to fit you, for now." He went to a door, which proved to lead to a dressing room, and looked through his clothes for a while. "This would do," he said in the end, and handed Harry navy blue robes of a simple cut. "Put it on."

Harry started to do so, but his cousin stopped him. "Harry," he said, "we don't wear robes over muggle clothes. We wear them instead of it."

That threw Harry a little, but he obediently took off his T-shirt and pulled the robes over his head instead. They were huge, but his cousin took out the thin piece of wood again – Harry supposed it must be his magic wand – and did something with it, and suddenly the robes seemed to fit him just fine.

"Should I take the trousers off too?" Harry asked, worried.

"Well, we don't wear them," was the reply, "but if it would make you uncomfortable, don't worry about it now. You can get used to the wizarding fashion later." Alduin looked him over. "Oh, of course! Sorry I didn't notice earlier." He took off Harry's glasses, did something with his wand again – and all the spellotape was gone, the glasses as good as new!

"Thank you!" Harry said, excited. He couldn't wait until he would be able to do things like this himself, if he really could.

"Now, are we ready to go?"

"Yes!" Harry was incredibly curious about what a wizarding shopping area looked like.

"Then hold on to my arm, we are going to Apparate again."

And before Harry had time to ask what it meant, he was once more surrounded by the terrible feeling of air being squished out of his lungs. And they stood on a small, dirty backyard. Alduin took out his wand and tapped a wall, and the brick he touched started to move...and ten a door opened, and Harry saw the most amazing street of his life.

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AN: The clothes thing is a pet peeve of mine, so I just had to include it!