"Hello Harry, my sweetheart, we finally meet again". Harry could not believe what he was seeing in this portrait, he had to double take to make sure this wasn't some dream he was having, as if escaping Hogwarts wasn't hard enough to comprehend actually happening and now a portrait of his mother was here to greet him, make him feel loved properly for the first time! He checked the portrait a third time and behind his mother was the unmistakable almost double look of himself, eyes excepted, his father! Seeing both of his parents in a setting he actually felt safe in even if they were just a portrait rather than shadows from a wand as he saw in his battle with Voldemort in that graveyard brought him so much joy, he could feel his eyes burning with tears.

"Well, if it isn't my little stag", cooed James, (Harry knew this was a reference to his father's animagus form being a stag as well as his patronus firm). "I…. I…. love you both so much", Harry fell to his knees and burst into tears. Both his parents looked at him knowingly, after about a minute Lily soothed Harry, "Sssh sssh sssh, come on my brave little man it's OK". Harry wished so much she was alive so he could feel her and his father, the pain felt like the Gryffindor sword had been plunged through his heart.

Once Harry had calmed down enough, James spoke again. "We can't even begin to express how proud we are to see you made it through another battle against him. Though of course we don't minimize your sufferings, especially losing one of your Hogwarts friends in the process. If I had been in your shoes, I really don't think I would have been able to cope with the trauma with the addition of bringing Cedric's body back in front of the whole school on top of that. You are the biggest consummate survivor I have ever seen, I don't think even Dumbledore is as battle scarred as you have been."

"Ooooh, somebody's blushing!" cooed Lily as Harry felt himself go slightly red in the face at the praise he received from his father, whilst feeling a warm tingling sensation surge through the rest of his body, nobody had compared him with Dumbledore favorably better than Dumbledore before, and the praise meant even more to him now given the way he was currently feeling about the barmy old codger. That suddenly reminded him of a question he had to ask.

"Is Dumbledore himself aware of this portrait of yourselves or even of this house?"

Both Lily and James looked at each other. Lily answered first.

"Of this portrait, yes. As he is unaware of this house however, he has no idea where this portrait is actually located."

"In addition to that, thanks to the magic contained within this portrait, the two of us can visit the portaits in Hogwarts without either any persons in Hogwarts knowing, (not even Dumbledore himself) or even any persons in those portaits. Which has come in very handy for keeping an eye on our little stag." James added with a wink at the end.

"Except for one portrait and it's one you saw in your first year of Hogwarts" added Lily. Harry's expression on his face was unreadable for a good three to four minutes as he tried to think which portaits he could have seen any signs of his parents in. The only time during his first year he could remember seeing his parents was in the…..

"Mirror of Erised!" exclaimed Harry. "But that wasn't a portrait", he was very confused. James spoke again. "Yes it was, but it's function as a mirror helped disguise that fact. You might also be interested to know that what old Dumbles saw", (earning a playful punch at the side from Lily for calling Dumbledore that) "was nothing at all like what he claimed he saw. If Dumbledore ever knew what I'm about to tell you, he would murder you on the spot, I can guarantee you that 100%. Now are you ready to hear the truth?"

Harry could feel his heart pounding and his mouth going incredibly dry but answered numbly that he was ready.

"Are you sure? Are you really, really, really sure?"

"James!"

"OK then. What Dumbledore saw in the mirror was himself with his own family. Now, you may be asking yourself why? Dumbledore himself had a broken family. Had his father Percival Dumbledore, (who was sent to Azkaban for attacking a group of muggles, he died in his cell eight years later) informed the authorities that his actions were in retaliation for the group of muggles launching a traumatising attack on his daughter, Ariana, at worse, he might have served a year in Azkaban, but Dumbledore's family would have been far more wholesome."

The Dumbledores were the subject of much gossip, since Ariana was rarely seen, since the family was forced to hide Ariana as the traumatising attack had caused her to become so unstable, she was unable to control her suppressed powers. Dumbledore's mother, Kendra was ill able to cope with any of this, so much so, she committed suicide by Diffindo to the wrists.

After losing three of his family members, this caused Dumbledore a burning desire to gain control over other people's affairs, especially if money was to be had from it which is why he stole money from your vaults, our vaults we left you as an inheritance and withheld crucial information from you for so long."

Harry had this most peculiar sensation of both numbness and feeling like he was slowly sinking through the floor, combined with shaking with rage. Now it was all beginning to make sense.

"Mum, dad, would you mind if I just go to the bathroom for a few minutes?" They both nodded, they couldn't blame him if he was going to be sick after hearing the revelations about Dumbledore, but they felt he should have known about it since at least his first year in Hogwarts.

"When you come back in this room, we've got another surprise for you, dear!" called out Lily as Harry closed the door behind him.

No, he didn't even feel remotely sick, but he thought splashing himself with some water out of the tap would do himself a world of good.

As he looked at himself in the mirror, he vaguely wondered what other surprise his parents had for him, but the thoughts of Dumbledore canceled that thought out. As if he didn't think he could feel any more betrayal towards the old man and now this?!

He let out his temper on the mirror, shattering it heavily, but a hasty reparo restored the mirror in a blink. His knuckles were bleeding, however. Whilst sucking the blood off and moaning in pain, he thought to himself what questions he was going to ask his parents next and what else the old man or indeed anyone else had been hiding from him.