A Wizard Among Bats

Chapter 9 - Wayne Manor

The three of them then made their way up to the bedrooms. Harry's room already had his trunk and Hedwig in it. He assumed that Bruce and Alfred brought it up. It was a nice room done in a light blue with matching drapes and bedclothes. Hedwig, rather than being in her cage, was comfortably perched on a wooden stand, which seems its only use could be to hold Hedwig and Harry took a moment to feel grateful to this wonderful and open family who wont force him to keep Hedwig in her cage. The window by Hedwig was open, letting a nice breeze into the big room.

"You'll need some posters or something," Dick said once he looked around. "The walls are bare."

"You could paint them," Tim suggested. "The color is nice, but we could find something else too."

"Good idea, Timmy," Dick agreed, and Harry is wondering why on earth they would want to change anything at all about this beautiful room.

"No. I think it's perfect," Harry said quickly, and Dick had shrugged and said, "Well, it's your room." And that was that.

Harry's room was next to a bathroom, which he was dragged past to look at Dick's room on the other side. The floor of Dick's room was pretty neat, with a few scattered articles of clothing, but the walls were covered, full of posters, pictures of friends and family, newspaper clippings, tickets to events, and anything else it seemed could be taped to a wall. Harry could barely find a bit of free space in the whole room.

Tim's room, on the other hand, had mostly blank walks with a few pieces of artwork that must have been in the room before him. But the floor was a complete disaster. Harry was a little afraid to step into the room, with there being no where to step without hitting some clothes, books, or who knows what else. And Harry was pretty sure he even saw Tim's laptop under a sweatshirt on the floor.

Bruce's room was at the end of the hall, the master bedroom which was closest to Dick's room, and Harry didn't get to go in there, but he had a feeling it would be spotlessly clean like most of the rest of the house. The hallway they were in had five other bedrooms. Four were empty and served as guest bedrooms, but the fifth, the one across from Dick's room and in between Tim and Bruce's rooms was closed, and it didn't take a genius to guess that was Jason's room.

Tim had stayed in his room briefly to answer a text from some person named Bart, when Dick leaned down to tell him something. "Just so you know," Dick confided. "Timmy usually uses our bathroom, rather than his," Dick gestured to the bathroom between Tim's and Jason's rooms, and Harry understood that some ghosts didn't need to be touched.

"That's fine," Harry answered quietly and Dick smiled before calling for Tim to hurry up before they missed dinner.

Dinner was an odd affair. The food was amazing, Harry wasn't quite sure what he was eating but he knew he wanted more of it. The company was relaxing, conversation seemed to flow easily. Harry felt a bit left out at first, since the rest spent some time talking about people he didn't know, but the family made an effort to include him in dinner and made promises to introduce him to some of the topics of conversation.

Harry still kept up his calls to Hermione, who seemed content with being the go between him and the Weasleys as well. He always promised her he was doing well, and she nagged him a bit about starting his summer work. Strangely enough, he had already started the work because Tim had asked him about magic, and having Tim help him with his homework actually seemed to interest the kid. Not that Tim knew much about magic, but he seemed to pick up things quickly.

Hermione talked about her summer with her family and some old primary school friends, and Harry returned that by talking about how his summer was going. He told her all about Tim trying to help with his homework, and Tim trying to teach him how to skateboard in return. Harry wasn't very good at it yet, but he was trying. Tim also liked to introduce him to new TV shows and video games, much to Dick's annoyance. Despite the fact that Harry had never had the chance to play video games before, he still soundly beat Dick every time. He had told Tim he was worried Dick was losing on purpose, but Tim had laughed at said that Dick was just bad at them.