Not updating other stories due to university stress. Wrote this in four hours on my way back to uni from the holidays. No pairings as of yet. Beware: references to the netflix series 'The Crown'.

Towns and countryside whipped past the window of Hogwarts Express, speeding by so fast that it all seemed more of a blur to Harry than anything else. A vision of Dumbledore'S corpse swam to the forefront of his mind and he reflexively closed his eyes to keep the emotion at bay. He felt a hand squeeze his knee: Hermione was staring at him, eyebrows drawn into a concerned frown.

"We'll find out who this R.A.B. is," Hermione said quietly, so as not to wake Ron who lay sprawled on the other bench in their compartment.

In his pocket, he could feel the weight — both emotional and physical — of the fake locket, for which Dumbledore had died. Slipping it onto his hand, he gently opened the piece of jewellery and stared down at the note that had been placed within. R.A.B.

Hermione squeezed his knee once more and then her hand fell away. She soon became absorbed with her piece of 'light reading' which for once, actually was relatively light.

Soon, the scenery outside began to turn greyer and darker and brick buildings began growing around them. Then suddenly the train was turning corners and travelling through city tunnels. Finally they began slowing and Hermione poked Ron awake who stared at them blearily before grumbling something about 'not disturbing people in their sleep'. Hermione shut the book she'd been reading and tucked it in her satchel.

They spilled out onto platform and 9 3/4, picking up their trunks from the luggage carriage as they went. Out there they were greeted by the Weasleys, who they'd seen at Dumbledore's funeral only a few hours ago.

"Oh Harry…" Mrs Weasley began, but found herself at loss for words. Her husband stood at her side, hands primly folded behind his back and standing upright, but he too looked emotionally distressed.

"I'm fine," Harry muttered on reflex. Hermione shot him a disbelieving look.

"It's just until your birthday, dear," Mrs Weasley began, eyes flickering to the three figures cowering together several feet away. Three figures that Harry recognised very well.

"Dumbledore left clear instructions to the Order, regarding your 17th birthday," Mr Weasley whispered lowly so as not to be overhead.

"If those muggles try anything…" Ron's face betrayed no humour but Harry cracked a smile nonetheless. They hugged goodbye.

Once everyone had said their goodbyes, Harry trepidatiously approached the Dursleys. Vernon's piggy eyes were jumping from one wizarding family to the next. Dudley, who for some reason had tagged along, was clutching his buttocks and Petunia was staring at everything with an almost amusing mixture of hate and fear.

"Come along boy, we don't have all day!" Were the first words out of Vernon's mouth. Harry almost rolled his eyes at the so-typical behaviour.

"Great to see you too," he muttered lowly. Dudley shot him a suspicious look.

"What do these… freaks," Vernon lowered his voice once they had emerged into the muggle King's Cross Station. "Think they are? Waltzing around in those silly dresses?!"

"Frightful, simply frightful," Petunia said haughtily, raising her nose into the air.

"They're cloaks, aren't they?" Dudley said, voice surprisingly lacking the usual hostility. Harry blinked at him — so did his parents.

"What?" Vernon barked.

"They're called cloaks, not dresses, right Harry?"

Harry slowly nodded, mouth slightly open in surprise. Dudley offered a small shrug. Once his parents were a little ahead and Harry and he were lagging behind, he nudged the Boy-Who-Lived.

"I, erm, began playing Dungeons and Dragons a few weeks ago with a few mates… I know the sorcerers wear cloaks."

Harry hadn't the slightest idea what Dungeons and Dragons was, but if it was anything like Dudley implied it to be, he supposed it was a game that focused on the fantastical world, which to Harry, was his reality.

"Do you have dragons and all?"

"Er, yeah. I fought one in fourth year."

Dudley's eyes widened in newfound respect and he seemed about to say something when the little family stopped in front of Vernon's newly polished car and the conversation had to be cut off. The car drive was tense, more so than usual. Harry knew that the Dursleys had been approached by the order in previous weeks and from what Kingsley had told him, he had gathered that they were going to move once he turned seventeen.

Vernon made fun of the houses leading up to theirs — remarking on the less than optimal gardens and imperfect facades. What he perhaps failed to note, was that Harry was usually the one taking care of the garden, hence its flawlessness at the end of every summer. Harry was preparing to see his summer prison house any moment now: with those ugly burgundy doors and white window-frames. It never seemed to change or evolve.

Only this time something was different.

Parked directly in front of the house was a nondescript black car, perhaps somewhat more carefully and meticulously taken care of, than most cars that one saw. A gentleman with dark sunglasses (although it wasn't an altogether sunny day) leant against it. Another (with an impressive moustache) stood directly by the door. He had evidently just rang the doorbell.

Upon hearing the sounds of Vernon's loud engine, he turned and began strolling over to them.

"Who's that?" Dudley asked, leaning forwards in his seat to get a better look at the man.

"Stay inside," Vernon growled as he parked in the little driveway. However, as he got out of said car, his whole demeanour changed and he became the manager of a drilling firm once more, ever so suave and sleazy.

As he and the tall, moustached gentleman spoke, Harry turned his gaze to the house opposite and the neighbours on either side. Everywhere, some person's head was peaking out the window or over the hedge, attempting to overhear what situation that Potter boy had gotten into this time.

"BOY!" Came from outside. Harry blinked dazedly as he attempted to jolt himself into the present.

"You heard him, Potter," aunt Petunia hissed. Harry rolled his eyes and joined the two men on the driveway.

"This man wants to talk to you." Vernon's moustache began to tremble with fury. He spun and turned towards the car, ushering his family to get into the house as soon as possible before he was caught talking to the moustached man any longer.

"You are Mr. Harry James Potter?" The man asked. He was very primly dressed in a dark bespoke suit and shoes that were so shiny, that Harry could see his own reflection in them. His hairline was receding, but he bore it gracefully, that is to say, without a comb over.

"Uh, who're you?" Harry's hand's folded behind his back, a finger or two touched his wand that he had placed in his enlarged back pocket. Better safe than sorry — constant vigilance, eh?

"Perhaps we should take this conversation inside?" The man said with a small, nervous smile. "It is… a sort of delicate matter, sir."

Harry bit the inside of his cheek somewhat indecisively. Theoretically the wards that had been placed around the house by his mother wouldn't allow anyone within it's walls with any ill intentions to Harry — they were supposed to hold until his seventeenth birthday anyway. Besides, Order agents had been stationed to guard him up until his birthday anyway and if he wasn't mistaken, he was pretty sure he'd seen Tonk's pink hair poking out over a bush from an invisibility cloak just a few moments ago.

Frowning, Harry nudged his head in the direction of the door. "After you."

The man hesitated for a short moment and then led the way.

The Dursleys were huddled up in the living room when they entered it. With a huff, both Vernon and Petunia disappeared into the kitchen and Dudley into his room. Harry inconspicuously transferred his wand from his pocket into the sleeve of his long-sleeved shirt and sat down. The man remained standing.

"Please, sit." Harry waved a vague hand at the sofa opposite.

"You are Harry Potter, are you not?" The man stressed. Harry squinted at him.

"And you are?"

"My name is Martin Charteris. I am the Assistant Private Secretary to the Sovereign and I have been sent here to represent her."

Harry stared at him blankly. Assistant-what to whom? Sovereign? He couldn't possibly mean…

"The Queen, yes sir."

Harry's wand arm relaxed. The royal family was notoriously muggle, producing only the occasional muggle-born. There was no way the man before him was a wizard, especially not with that muggle sense of style. However, that begged the question: what the bloody hell did the bloody Queen of England want with him?

"And you are looking for me?" The 'for what' hung in the air unsaid. Charteris reached into the briefcase that he had placed on the floor and pulled out a small stack of documents. He coughed uncomfortably.

"A rather delicate matter has arise, sir."

"Right, and this has to do with the bloody Queen?" Harry asked with a small smirk. The man looked vaguely uncomfortable at Harry using that language. He almost rolled his eyes, muggles and their protocol…!

"As a matter-of-fact, yes. How much do you know about your parents, Mr. Potter?"

Harry frowned at the odd question. "Well, their names were James Potter and Lily Evans. I live with my sister's mother, her husband, and their son. Erm, I look like my dad, have my mother's eyes?"

Charteris licked his lips in the manner people did when they unenthusiastically were about to prove someone wrong. He laid out the first two documents onto the tabletop between them. A birth certificate and an adoption paper! With a trembling finger, Charteris slid it forwards. Frowning at his nervousness, Harry quickly raised it to his face, adjusted his glasses and began to read.

The first was a birth certificate proclaiming the birth of a Prince Hadrian George Philip Windsor in 1980, firstborn son to Charles Philip Arthur Windsor and a Diana Frances Spencer.

The second was an adoption paper for an unknown orphan who had been adopted by a James and Lily Potter just a week later.

A chill instantly ran down his spine. Was it possible that the James Potter and Lily Potter nee Evans in this adoption paper were his own parents? Had they adopted him? He wasn't a Potter after all? Questions upon questions exploded in his mind, each more mind-shattering than the previous. Swallowing heavily, Harry placed both documents back on the table, not liking what Charteris was implying.

"On the sixth of August 1980, a week after His Royal Highness Prince Hadrian was born, he was stolen from St. Mary's Hospital in London. A day later, a Harry James Potter was adopted by a young couple in an orphanage merely two miles away from said hospital. This baby boy matched the exact description of the newly born Prince and the orphanage records show exact finger-print matches." Charteris managed this all with a sort of calm stare that seemed to penetrate Harry to his very depths. The assistant secretary placed a sheet with twenty fingerprints, the first ten matching the second set perfectly.

When he attempted to swallow, Harry found that his mouth was completely dry. After waiting for a moment to let that sink in, Charteris placed a fourth sheet on the table between them: a family tree.

His finger began at Queen Victoria (whose name Harry recognised), then dropped to Edward the seventh, then George the fifth, then the sixth, then finally Elizabeth the second and then Prince Charles, who had married a Diana Spencer. They had three children, the oldest of them: a Hadrian George Philip Windsor.

"…which means," the assistant secretary was saying, "that you are the second in line of succession to the British throne, sir."