Author's Notes:

And Other Things To Whine About: Ummm, we are of two minds about this fic. Probably because we ARE two different minds. We're sisters, both collaborating on our first fic. We'd love to hear your reviews, and are not above begging. Seriously, reviews will be highly rewarded. Well,maybe not. But it'll keep one or both of us from crying if you do.

We intend to have a series called The Sons of Dumbledore. And it should mix up their years in Hogwarts pretty dang good. There won't be Ginny/Harry action in this first one, but know that we intend to down the line. It seemed too hard to pair the two of them up while they are still in nappies, you know? It'd be a rather boring relationship if you think about it.

Again, if you see any discrepancies, problems, or things you hate about this story, feel free to let us know by, you guessed it, reviewing. Flames make us laugh, or feel challenged. And, as we are, unfortunately, Americans, and as such are unable to be in any of the HP movies, please forgive the Americanisms that slip through. We'll try to posh it up for you, but that's not saying much, in our experience.

Love and stuff,
Kenyon and Mia

The Sons of Dumbledore

Prologue:

Aberforth Dumbledore was concerned. As the barkeep of The Hogshead, he was no stranger to gossip. Truth be told, he usually was among the first to know when rumors started flying. The unusual news today had hit him hard, and rang of truth. That is, before the celebrations began, and the firewhiskey started to flow, loosening the tongues, and the wits, of those telling the stories. The fantastic events grew more outlandish with every shot of whiskey, and pint of ale. And the consumption of alcohol had begun extremely early that November morning. Needless to say, it had been a very long day. And it wasn't over yet. Not by a long shot.

He cursed Dedalus Diggle colorfully as a green and pink pinwheel firework exploded less than a meter from his head. He suddenly wished that he had gone ahead and made that illegal portkey, Ministry be damned. His roundabout flight over Bristol was going to be the death of him. And he was afraid he wouldn't make it on time. Above him, if he listened hard enough, he could make out the rumbling sound of a motorcycle amid the booms, whizzes and crashing noises of Diggle's sky bound light show. If his suspicions were correct, he was definitely going to be late.

Under normal circumstances he reveled in the feeling of the wind pushing against the wings of his animagus form. But these were not normal circumstances, and he was, once again, forcing himself to remember why he hadn't simply flooed directly into The Leaky Cauldron at Diagon Alley. 'No,' he reminded himself. 'Can't take the chance on being recognized tonight.' The last thing he wanted was for his brother to catch wind that he'd been anywhere near London. 'Right. Best to be paranoid and sore,' he thought to himself, then urged his aching muscles to take him ever faster to follow the Thames River towards Surrey.

If he knew Albus, and there were very few alive that could claim to be able to anticipate that man's thinking, he knew exactly where he planned to take the boy. Well, he thought bitterly, perhaps not exactly. From his position in the airspace above Little Whinging, it was proving to be quite the task to find a specific location. 'Guess I'll just have to go it on a wing and a prayer', he thought, amused by his own terrible pun.

As luck would have it, he didn't have to pray very long. A glimmer of moving light caught his eye, before the luminous globe found its location, and was extinguished. He'd seen this phenomenon before. Albus.

The trick now, was to see without being seen, and to hear without being heard. No use throwing up a silencing charm, or anything of the sort. He knew his brother would detect his magical signature as surely as if he decided to show up wearing a neon flashing sign announcing his presence.

He was grateful for his dark coloring and silent wings as he lit softly upon a fully dimmed light post to eavesdrop on his older brother. He was surprised to hear him conversing with the groundskeeper and transfiguration professor of Hogwarts. He listened intently as his more talented brother detailed his plan to leave Harry with his mother's sister, and how he wanted Harry to have a normal childhood, away from the celebrity that was sure to follow the events of the previous night. This was all as he had suspected.

Aberforth's mind had raced over these possibilities ever since his first customer had burst into the dingy pub that morning, shouting the praises of the boy-who-lived and demanding an entire bottle of fire whiskey to toast him with. His brain was trying to sort out a number of puzzling events that must somehow be connected. He recalled throwing Severus Snape from his pub, as Sybil Trelawney voiced what he judged to have been a prophesy, from what little he heard. He recalled the births of The Potter's and Longbottom's sons at the end of July of the same year, and their mysterious self-imposed exile shortly after. Pondering on this had led, oddly enough, to a very long and tiresome flight across Britain, to a too normal house on a too normal street, and a handful of powerful magical beings discussing the future of an infant outside, in the street, at nearly 1 am.

Indeed, it was quite remarkable that, given the amount of information he had, Aberforth had been able to anticipate what his brother would have decided to do with said child. He determined to watch over this boy, and see for himself what kind of life his brother was fating him to. While the rest of the wizarding world might take it for granted that their beloved and esteemed Albus Dumbledore would always know what was best, his brother had no such blind spot towards him. He would find out for himself.

Aberforth watched silently as the child was placed with care upon the steps of Number 4 Privet Drive. He listened to the drone of the motorbike as Hagrid disappeared from view. He heard the familiar pops as Minerva McGonagall and Albus disapparated. And he was there to witness the looks of horror and shock upon the face of Harry's Aunt Petunia, as she came to the realization of just whom she had been landed with.

Chapter One: Dudley's Birthday

"Duddikins!"

"Happy Birthday son."

"Ohhhh is my wittle boy all grown up? Is he? Is he?"

If anyone had known what to look for, they may have noticed the unusual behavior of a certain large, shiny blackbird perched upon a low-lying branch on a particularly harshly manicured crab apple tree. They might have puzzled that this same blackbird had taken up residence in this neighborhood, yet had no nest to call home. They might have found it odd that a bird of the wild seemed to take an unlikely interest in the goings on of the decidedly domestic inhabitants of a meticulously fusty dwelling. But the inhabitants of Little Whinging were much more likely to enjoy pressing their noses against their neighbor's window panes, much in the same fashion as said bird, than to be engaged with watching the bizarre behavior of the local wildlife.

The youngest of the Dumbledore brothers was watching with disgust through the window of Number 4 Privet Drive, as Petunia Dursley mollycoddled her young lump of a son. Judging by the vast amount of presents surrounding the blond little boy, it was his birthday, and he was certainly milking his parents for all they were worth.

Aberforth had been watching the Dursleys for just over two weeks now, and so far he saw nothing to his liking. Vernon Dursley and his wife Petunia were abysmal parents to their son. They gave the boy absolutely everything that he could possibly want, and he fully knew this. He would scream and cry whenever he wanted something and wouldn't stop until he got it. He usually didn't have to cry for very long. As though determined that their son should feel superior to the new addition to their home, Dudley would only get one or two squawks out before his parents would come running with presents to appease him (even when it wasn't his birthday).

What absolutely astonished the old man was they Dursley's behavior towards their new inconvenience, Harry Potter. The poor boy had the same instinct that any fifteen-month-old child would have. He wanted to walk around; he was curious about the world. The Dursleys however, had other ideas. From the time he woke up in the morning to the time he was tucked unlovingly onto the bare mattress in 'his' cupboard under the stairs, he was consistently ignored. His natural curiosity was looked upon with disdain, and was generally met with an ugly face and a sharp word of displeasure.

Aberforth was both disgusted and deeply saddened that before the Dursleys had been in charge of Harry for a single week, he had learned not to cry or express himself whatsoever. He knew the boy cried himself to sleep every night, and shuddered to think of what confused dreams likely plagued his sleep. His cries were never answered unless they continued to the point of depriving the Dursley's of their own sleep.

For what was probably appearance's sake, his nappy diapers were changed with military precision. His meals were always squarely on time, though the portions were always significantly smaller that those given to the Dursley's own son. Most of his waking hours were spent in something Petunia had called a "play pen". Though he thought it was probably broken, as it didn't do any playing with its occupant, but acted more like a cage. The last of the Potters spent his considerable spare time pulling himself up on the sides of the pen, only to be scolded intermittently that he was going to topple the whole contraption over, and then what will we do with you.

The Dursley's own son was quite unusual himself, by normal standards of development. The already hefty 2 year-old rarely left his mother's side. Literally. Petunia miraculously performed all her household chores with only one hand, as the other was always occupied with snuggling her 'precious boy' upon her bony hip. As a result, young Dudley had yet to learn to walk on his own. In fact, Aberforth mused, he doubted if the lad could support his own weight if he tried. Perhaps the fact that this was something that the Potter boy had already accomplished was the reason why he was not allowed to roam freely. Wouldn't want him showing up little Dudders, now would we? Or perhaps it was simply because Petunia had a deep seated fear of her home becoming in any way messy or disorganized.

At present, Dudley was sitting happily on his mother's lap, as relatives and a few friends of his parents gathered around in anticipation of the gifts waiting to be opened. He was dressed in a too cute sailor outfit, complete with a red bow and sailor's cap sitting at a jaunty angle upon his nearly baldhead. He was looking greedily at his presents atop his mother's lap, while she helped him tear apart a baby blue package. He was so preoccupied with his presents, that he didn't see his little cousin in the corner eyeing his presents excitedly.

Harry was sitting in his "play pen" looking at the little red train set with a longing look in his bright green eyes.

Harry's cousin was now reaching for the brightly colored crinkly papers -they made such lovely crunching sounds- as his mother continued to hand gift after gift to him to open, only to take away his favorite part of the presents, and cast them into the rubbish bin nearby. For once in his life, fussing about something got him nowhere. Petunia would simply giggle, Vernon would chuckle and pat his back, and he was handed another box to open, crinkly paper taken away immediately. After about the 8th time this had occurred, Dudley became bored with opening his presents, and began plotting a way to get out of his mother's grasp, and retrieve his lovely crinkly papers, when something unexpected happened. The red train set began slowly chugging its way towards the playpen, where Harry had pulled himself up to his fullest height, and was stretching his arm over the top of the baby cage, while making gurgling train noises.

The guests really didn't think much of this, as the little train was battery operated. But Petunia Dursley turned 3 shades paler as the toy approached Harry's playpen. She wasn't the only one to be taking this scene in, or to recognize it for what it was. Showing surprising intelligence for one so young, not to mention encumbered with the genes of both, Petunia and Vernon Dursley, Dudley found this small burst of magic to be fascinating. Reveling in the hint of power he recognized, he decided, as small children are prone to do, to give it a try himself.

Petunia Dursley's bony grip had slackened as she watched her son's toy choo-choo it's self towards her nephew. Despite early appearances, Dudley was not a stupid child, and seized his opportunity. Floating 3 feet off the floor, he levitated himself until he was positioned precariously above the rubbish bin containing his precious crinkly papers. Then, with a giggle of happiness, the charm was cancelled, and he came crashing down amongst the bright papers and ribbons that had so recently adorned his birthday presents. Petunia's shrieks of horror and astonishment mingled with that of a certain blackbird's gleeful caws.

It was possibly the best laugh that Aberforth had had since the incident with the overly drunken Irishman, 3 years ago. He and Aberforth had disagreed that he'd had enough to drink for the night, and Abe had ended up charming the man's mouth shut. The man, determined to have the final say in the matter, decided to consume his beverage through his nose. For future reference, this does not work well if your mouth is magically sealed. This had been very amusing to watch until he had been sprayed with what was no longer Ogden's Finest, through the patron's nose. He was pretty sure that this event topped the drunken Irishman.

Albus Dumbledore was not having a good day. Ever since that un-godly hour this morning, his day was doomed. Precisely at five AM he was awakened out of his slumber by a tawny owl bearing a message requesting his presence in a trial at the Ministry of Magic, and in no less than an hour! He was not only irritated at the lack of consideration from the Minister, but also because of exactly why he was going to the trial. Lucius Malfoy was on trial for being a loyal follower of Voldemort's. Of course, now that Voldemort was gone, Lucius was pleading that he was put under the Imperius Curse. So naturally, after many bribes and donations, he was let go. Then after the trial Albus had to watch Fudge sign a completely useless law, go through mountains of paperwork for Hogwarts, then to top his day off, he was out of Lemon Drops.

The Headmaster sighed as he made his way back to his desk. He gave the stiff, wing-backed chair a long look, furrowed his brow, smiled slyly, and then waved his wand. Instantly a large blue Lazy Boy chair replaced the stiff black one.

As Dumbledore sat down comfortably in his squashy blue chair, he looked over at his faithful companion, Fawkes. His phoenix just looked at him with sympathy and trilled a few notes. This calmed him down even better than his Lemon Drops.

Not many people knew that Albus laced his Lemon Drops with a small dose of Calming Potion. These always seemed to help when he was about to get into a particular intense or uncomfortable conversation. The muggle candies always helped him to keep his cool in difficult situations. He would simply pop one in his mouth and offer one to his present company. They certainly made things less complicated. His lack of having his Lemon Drops did not make it any easier to go throughout the day.

Albus looked around his office at the portraits of the late headmasters, the uncomfortable looking chairs in front of his desk, his mahogany bookcase, and his various magical detectors. As his twinkling eyes came across the detectors they stopped all of a sudden when they spotted a green tinted glass globe filling with purple smoke. He raised his eyebrows slightly and grinned. Then as he was thinking about the meaning of the purple smoke, a yellow smoke began appearing in the glass ball. This made Dumbledore's grin get even wider.

The Headmaster stood up from his recliner and walked briskly over to his bookcase. His eyes went over all of the books until they came upon the book he was looking for. He pulled out the ancient and leather-bound book. The book's pages were yellowed with age, though the ink still looked as though it was written an hour or so ago.

Albus flipped through the huge tome trying to find the chapter he was looking for. "D...D...D...Dursley! Here it is!"

The top of the page he was currently opened to was titled,"Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry: Enrollment: Last Name: D" There were about forty names in an alphabetical list on the parchment.

Starting with "Danes" his long, wrinkled finger traveled down the list quickly trying to find what he was looking for. His grin got even wider. "Oh, Petunia, I don't think you're going to like this..."

As a matter of fact, Petunia didn't like it. She didn't like anything about it. This was just about the worst news, in her opinion, that she could have ever received.

Around the room, everyone was showing some form of reaction to what had happened. A group of three that was seated furthest from the scene had continued their cheerful conversation until they heard Petunia's sudden cries of alarm. Suddenly, the atmosphere seemed to silence strangely. Even little Harry had ended his summons to the toy train in anticipation. One young woman with fashionably fluffy bangs had just now noticed the young round boy playing amid the wrappings and trash, and whispered to her companion, "What happened, Lori?" She merely received a shrug in response, as all continued to ogle the spectacle, waiting for the reaction from the parents. Vernon Dursley had begun to involuntarily shake as he realized the implications of what had happened. His face was becoming darker shades of pink by the minute in his extreme embarrassment. And his double chins had begun quivering from the chills that had been shaking his body.

The atmosphere of the room turned stranger still, if it was possible, as a group of four adults in extremely odd costumes suddenly appeared, accompanied by a series of loud bangs. Petunia and Vernon were either stunned into silence, or possibly too fearful to respond to the intruders verbally. Some of the guests' mouths had dropped open with blatant astonishment. A few of the women, and one of the men had emitted a surprised squeak or two at the bangs of what were assumed to be fireworks. After a moment of shocked silence, the party guests began to applaud the spectacular entrance of the Dursley's hired entertainers.

After taking a moment to gather themselves together, and assess the situation, one of the "entertainers" brandished a thick switch of a wand, and poker cards began spilling from his costume sleeves. They arched themselves over the man's head, only to disappear down the neck of his outfit. The guests all broke out into an enthusiastic applause as the "entertainers" joined hands together and bowed. Another slender stick was produced, and flashes of pyrotechnic light filled the sitting room with blue and gold sparks. The other three "performers" began waving their own wands intricately, as beams of yellow light encircled the party guests individually. As the "finale" ended, the performers bowed yet again, and walked through the door to await their hosts in the kitchen.

As the guests gathered their things dazedly and said their goodbyes, none had noticed when Petunia had gathered her son in shaking arms. Or when she had placed her gleeful son beside her nephew in the playpen, still clutching happily to his prized paper. They didn't notice that neither of the Dursley adults had smiled or applauded the entertainment, but instead cowered together silently to wait out the end of their catastrophic party. Oddly enough, if asked later on, the guests simply remembered that they had attended a birthday party for the Dursleys' son that had ended with a rather good magic show. They were rather vague on the details of what the entertainers had done that was so good, or indeed any minute details of the party. But it didn't seem to bother them at all.

One of the women from the delegation stepped towards the cowering Dursleys, as soon as the guests had parted. She was wearing navy blue robes with a red patch sewn on the left breast of the material. The patch had black initials reading "M.R.S. Member: Alexandria Beirnon ". She was a middle aged African woman. Her dark hair with golden-blond highlights was in a high ponytail. She had a bemused look upon her face as she extended her hand to Vernon Dursley.

"Good afternoon sir, I am Alexandria Beirnon from the Magical Reversal Squad. These are my colleagues Matthias Kroger, Alexandra Druid (a bit confusing at times), and Toby Ofoot." Said Beirnon.

"We are here because your sons have displayed accidental magic in front of other non-magical folk." Put in the silver haired man, standing closest to Alexandria.

"Normally we would have not responded to such a situation, except that this occurred in front of your guests, who incidentally have had their memories modified. They will remember nothing of the party except that they had a wonderful time and there was a magnificent magic show at the end."

Petunia let out a sigh of a relief. She was torn between being grateful that her reputation among her friends was not damaged, and being horrified that such freaks were standing in her kitchen talking about MAGIC that her SON had caused to happen. 'No,' she thought, 'that my nephew had caused. It was his fault. He was the one who showed Dudders magic'. Her Duddikins would never thought to have done something so freakish if it hadn't been for that boy. She frantically ran around kitchen closing all windows and pulling across shutters. She didn't want any of the neighbors learning of her affiliation with these strange people.

Vernon was currently going so many different shades of purple; you'd think he was a giant bruise. It was highly amusing for the M.R.S. members to witness. They were all attempting to stifle their laughter as Petunia scampered all about the kitchen like a nervous Fwooper, and also trying not to loose their breakfast whilst watching Vernon imitate a chameleon. The tall strawberry blond man leaned over to the silver haired man near him whispering in his Irish accent, "I think we are getting better entertainment than we gave." The silver haired man grinned at him.

Then Petunia remembered something the man had said. "That boy is not my son."

"Excuse me?" asked the brunette, presumptuously, Alexandra Druid, "Is the blond your son?"

"Yes." Petunia replied stiffly, "He is our son."

"And the other child?" Alexandra inquired

"He is…er…our charge."

"Alright then. Now because of this, we are able to discern that your son and…charge are wizards, sir and madam. This means that when they are of age they may be accepted into our community to be trained and taught the uses and limits of their abilities." Recited the silver haired man, judging by his name patch, he was Matthias Kroger. He gave them an encouraging smile.

Petunia was gaping at them, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, no sound coming out. She glanced in a panicked jerky motion to her husband who rather resembled a walrus about to do battle. His jowls were shaking in his fury. Little drops of spittle were flying from beneath his mustache as he emitted a low growling sound that really didn't resemble speech at all. If not for the need of professionalism, it was certain that the M.R.S. members would have been clutching their sides in peals of laughter.

The strawberry blond, Toby Ofoot, broke in, "Sir? Do you need a drink?" As he said this he waved his wand towards the cabinets. Two shot glasses and a bottle of brandy flew from the shelves, stopped in mid-air, and the bottle started filling the glasses with the amber liquid.

To the ignorance of the Squad, the Dursleys were becoming more and more indignant with each passing moment. Petunia had started hyperventilating and Vernon was looking at the shot of whiskey like it was poison.

As she was hyperventilating, Petunia involuntarily looked through the kitchen door at her son and nephew. They were playing happily in the "play-pen". Harry looked like Christmas had come early; he had a friend to play with. Dudley seemed to be enjoying his wrapping paper immensely. They both had large smiles upon their chubby little faces and were proceeding to make Dudley's wrapping paper into confetti/baby food. Harry didn't seem to mind the taste of it but that did not deter Dudley who squashed another handful of blue striped paper into his mouth. He was in heaven.

Petunia was now hyperventilating so badly she almost couldn't breathe. She hurried over to her cabinets looking for a paper bag, but couldn't find one. Seeing that the situation was getting out of hand, Toby cast a Calming Charm on her. Vernon saw this and slammed his fist into the wizard's face. Toby was clutching his face in pain until Alexandra whispered a few words, waved her wand, healing his face. Then the women cast an isolation bubble on Vernon. Lets just say that he was…angry.

Despite the fact that she was breathing properly, Petunia was flaming mad. What right did these freaks have to be in her house attacking her husband and herself!?

She didn't want this; she didn't ask for this, she didn't want any of it. This was entirely fault. He brought this upon her home. She'd worked too hard for this to touch her life. Especially not now; especially not her son. She would go right to the source. Albus Dumbledore.

"I want to talk to Albus Dumbledore."

Four faces turned and looked at her in shock.

"Petunia, no." whispered Vernon, his voice sounding oddly distorted form his bubble of isolation.

"I don't care Vernon. He WILL fix this!" She spat back.

The Squad members were completely flabbergasted.

"Madam? Are you a squib?" asked Matthias.

Petunia slapped him. Hard. Matthias leaned over to Toby while rubbing his cheek. "So do you reckon that was a yes or a no, mate?"

He just shrugged; still a bit shocked that Vernon punched him in the face and then his wife slapped his co-worker in the face. This was definitely one of the oddest days he'd ever had. And for a wizard, that was saying something.

The Reversal Squad wasn't quite sure what to do now. You couldn't just owl Albus Dumbledore in the middle of the day, asking him to help you out with a simple muggle problem. Could you? No, definitely not.

After sizing the situation up for a moment, Alexandria leaned over to whisper to Matthias, "Chances are that she's not a squib. People usually seem to be overjoyed that their child is magical. These people," she gestured to the Dursleys, "seem to hate magic."

"Really? You don't say?" Toby said while rubbing his jaw.

"I want to talk to Albus Dumbledore and I want to talk to him now!" Petunia was getting a bit frustrated by the fact that the squad had completely stopped talking to her. They were all standing together muttering amongst themselves as though they didn't know what to do and they weren't going to discuss it with her.

"Well she's obviously not a squib"

"Yeah? Well how does she know about Dumbledore?"

"Dunno."

"She must have a reason to hate magic so much."

"I don't know. What do we do? Ask her wh-"

The doorbell chimed a boring tune.

"Oh, Alexandra, please tell me that you didn't forget to put up the muggle repelling charms after the guests left."

"Oops." She said clapping her hand on her mouth.

Petunia fainted. They all turned to look at her and then back at each other.

"Well is someone going to get the door?"

Alexandra walked to the door, a smile plastered on her face, wand in hand. Reaching out her left wandless hand, she turned the doorknob. There standing in the doorway was an ancient old man dressed in magenta robes with odd shaped figures adorning them. His electric blue eyes were twinkling madly, and his smile couldn't get any bigger.

"Hello, I am Albus Dumbledore, is Mrs. Dursley here?"