In Albus's mind, he was the greatest young wizard before he even started Hogwarts. In others' minds, he was a complete imbecile. However, whenever Albus would dream, it was nearly always about attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the greatest wizarding school for generations. He dreamed of becoming Head Boy, like his Uncle Bill, and becoming a Prefect, like both of his uncles Charlie and Percy. Above these, however, he wished to become Quidditch Captain (hopefully of Gryffindor; if not Gryffindor he prayed it not be Slytherin, no matter how many times his father told him that there was no reason for a Slytherin to be ashamed of his Sorting). But preceding all three of these on his Hogwarts to-do list, there was one thing.

He wished to make a difference, just like his father had. He wanted to become a legend, and live up to his father's expectations, along with the expectations of nearly everyone else in the wizarding world. He had very large shoes to fill; and he was determined to fill them, no matter what.

Albus Severus knew before he could even ride his first broom that he would one day have a lot of pressure riding on him to become a great wizard. Everyone knew the legendary story of his father, his uncle and his aunt. They had all led the war against Voldemort (Albus was taught to always say his name, due to how fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself, not that he was ever afraid of the name, that would have been ridiculous), fought to save millions, and came into direct contact with Voldemort at least a dozen times. This was an unprecedented achievement, especially for young adults of their age. Every child in the wizarding world was taught at a young age the story of Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley. If it weren't for their story being put in many textbooks, nobody would have believed it. Even for wizards, who could believe that three eleven year old children had come face to face with Voldemort and all three had lived to tell the tale? Then again when they were twelve, and Harry when he was fourteen at the Triwizard Tournament? Nobody believed it! It was miraculous.

Albus longed to be like his father from the second he found out who he truly was. Harry Potter was a man of morals, never having killed a single soul without a reason, never speaking of himself in a proud manner, and never telling his three children that they needed to be better to live up to his legacy. He never talked about his experiences at all, really, until Albus's aunt and uncle came over and they were speaking of their experiences. Albus overheard, as did Lily Luna and James Sirius, a story involving a strange man by the name of Wormtail. Apparently they had battled Wormtail in an extremely old house, which had been home to his father's old schoolteacher, Remus Lupin, when he would turn into a werewolf once a month. Albus heard all of this in one sitting of eavesdropping on their conversation. Once they got to the part of Wormtail belonging to a seemingly evil man by the name of Voldemort, James had had enough. Little James, of only 10 years old, stormed into the dining room and asked why they hadn't told him that they had faced one of the most powerful wizards of all time. James seemed to know a lot about Voldemort, while both Lily and Albus had never heard a word of this man. When James had asked this, the other two children came out of the hallway as well. Their father looked somewhat horrified when he found out that they knew of his time at Hogwarts, even the small event that Pettigrew featured in. Absolutely horrified.

"Go to your rooms," their mother said. When none of them moved an inch, she got louder. "I said, go to your rooms!"

She really began to become their grandmother by then. Molly Weasley, the kids' grandmother on their mother's side, was an angry, but very, very protective and loving, woman. But that got them to listen. They left without a second thought.

Back up in their rooms, however, they could still hear the yelling that was going on downstairs, mostly coming from their mother and father. Albus was still confused as to who the man named Voldemort was.

"Who is he, James?" Albus squeaked once the yelling had died down. "Voldemort? How do you know who he is?"

"He was on one of the chocolate frog cards, back when we were allowed to have those," James said. "Now I see why we aren't allowed to have any of these… He was trying to hide him from us, Al…"

James looked as though he was seriously shaken up about this. Albus didn't see what was wrong, he saw the situation as his father trying to protect him, his brother and his sister. James was only a year older than Albus, so there was no way James could possibly use the older sibling card as an excuse to not tell him who this Voldemort was. Albus, as always, was determined.

"James!" Al said. "Who is he?"

James hesitated for a moment, giving him the stare that Albus knew all too well that clearly said I'm the older brother so you'll never truly know why I'm trying so hard to keep this from you still even though you just heard word of how terribly awful he was.

"He was a dark wizard," James said slowly. "He killed thousands, maybe millions, of people when he was a tyrant over the wizarding world way before we were even born."

James went back and sat on his bed. He was hurt. Albus began to worry about him. Why is he so angry and Dad? he thought. I don't think he did anything wrong…

Albus left his room to go across the hall to Lily's. As soon as he opened the door, he could hear the snoring of Lily's extremely fat cat, Grindy. He was originally named Bumblebee, because Lily thought the name her father always spoke, Dumbledore, sounded like it. Iit was changed after he scratched her on the shoulder, so she renamed him Grindy after the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald. Grindy wasn't necessarily evil, he just really didn't like to be accidentally turned back into a kitten, then a puppy, then finally back to a fully-grown cat when their mother or father stepped in to help. Lily started accidental magic at an extremely young age, maybe four years old, at the oldest. Albus, however, was nine years old and still, nothing extraordinary had happened to him. He was about un-wizardish as he could be.

"Lily?" Al whispered, afraid that his parents might hear him downstairs. "Are you okay?"

Lily didn't answer for awhile, so Albus was closing her door carefully, as to not wake her up, when he heard a clang on the floor and a slight buzzing noise. Albus walked back into her room and instead of looking at her back like last time, he went to the opposite side of her bed so that they were face-to-face. Lily's eyes were open when he came around, and then she instantly closed them when she saw him watching her. He tried to find what the source of the clanging was, but couldn't. Lily was still pretending to be asleep when Albus crawled under her bed and found a long black velvet box with satin draping out of the far edges. The Ollivanders symbol was on the lower right corner. Albus opened the box and, sure enough, a broken, battered wand was inside. The tip of the wand was held on with what seemed to be some very, very old Spello-Tape. So this was how Lily was doing all of her magic at such a young age! But this was illegal! How could she do this? Minded, she was only seven years old, but that didn't give her the excuse to do something that she had to have known was wrong! Albus was furious.

"Lily!" Albus shouted, not caring anymore if their parents heard him. "What is this? No, who's is this?"

"Albus!" Lily whisper-shouted. "Will you please quiet down!"

"Lily!" Albus shouted again. "You are going to get Mum and Dad into huge trouble for this! This is not something that we can just ignore! You're seven years old! You don't even start going to school for another four years! Where did you even get this?"

But before Lily could answer the door to her room swung open. Albus's uncle, aunt, mother and father came rushing into the room, wands in hand. Once they saw that no one was in immediate danger, they lowered their wands and stuck them back in their cloaks.

"Are you okay, Lily?" their father said, stroking her hair. Albus wasn't even given a lick of attention, even though he was standing right next to her bed. It was often like this, he was stuck being another middle child.

"Father," he spoke up. "I found this under Lily's bed…"

He handed his father the Ollivander's box with the wand still tucked safely inside. He took the box with great hesitation and didn't even open it. He looked at Lily with disappointment in his eyes.

"Lily!" Harry boomed, opening the box while he spoke. "Where did you get this? Did someone give it to you? If they did you know it's probably cursed! Don't you think you should have known better than to have started magic without permi-"

He stopped cold once the box was opened. He turned around and looked Uncle Ron straight in the eye. There was such a look of disgust that couldn't even be named. Albus had never seen him look so infuriated. Tonight was a night of beginnings.

"Ron," he spoke quietly. "Would you mind telling me why in God's name my daughter has your old wand that was beaten up in the Whomping Willow all those years ago?"

And that was when all hell broke loose.