Albus muses thoughtfully as a boy sleeps upstairs in his room. The boy, or rather infant had just been dropped off a few months ago. Its drop off was unexpected at the very least, and unusual would be putting too broad of a term on the thing. He still couldn't believe it. Someone, a unknown someone who had looked, for some reason, quite familiar to Albus, had just walked up, knocked on his door, and then just walked away after handing him the child. Now the question wasn't so much what to do with the child, because he had made a rather hasty promise to always look after him, but where to go from here. Surely, this boy had a past; someone must be looking for him somewhere. The question was though, where and who?
Upstairs, the infant cries, now wanting attention from it's only known caretaker and Albus happily obliges.
"Good afternoon Tom." He says picking up the child.
"Goo!" Tom manages happily waving his hands around in the way of most babies after a nap.
"Yes, good afternoon." Albus repeats and Tom happily claps.
"So Tom, what are we going to tell Min?" Albus half asks the child and half thinks aloud as he changes him.
"Min, his wife has been away for the past nine months in the states helping a mutual friend of his and Mins to rebuild their school that had been destroyed. It was destroyed after Japans ex Emperor of Magic, Torah Kyoto decided to launch a war of his own to rival their muggle emperor.
"No!" Tom wails, bringing Albus's thoughts to the here and now with an abrupt jerk. Tom, now sitting on the changing table point's one finger over Albus's shoulder.
"No! No no!" He manages.
"Bah!" Tom manages, his whole arm radiating a white glow that travels down to his fingertip and is lancing out towards the visitor. Albus whirls around, wand half drawn, only to realize that Tom is now fending off Cornelius Fudge, Britain's newest politician to attempt to run for Minister of Magic.
"Albus!" Fudge yelps, thinking that surely his eyes are playing tricks on him and that it is not the little boy holding him in place, but Albus.
"Tom." Albus says calmly and quietly in that voice of his that lets the child know that they should defenatly not continue on their present course of action. Innocently the boy on the changing table looks at Albus and manages,
"No. He bah.
"He won't hurt you and he won't hurt me. I promise you that, but first you have to let him go." Albus says as Fudge attempts to talk but manages to have nothing but air comes out. Looking anything but trustingly at Fudge Tom drops his hand and then raises it again quickly.
"Be goo, ou be goo!" He manages as he shakes a finger over Albus's shoulder. Albus's eyes twinkle with suppressed mirth as he picks Tom off of the changing table.
"What?" Fudge asks, clearly looking for a translation from baby speak to adult language.
"I think he wants you to promise that you'll behave." Albus says, just barely managing to not crack a smile as he turns to face the minister, Tom now securely in his grip.
"Albus, whose child is that," Fudge asks, ignoring Tom's demand for the moment. Albus heads in to the living room and frowns slightly. This defenatly wasn't an area he'd wanted to get in to. If truth be known, he was braking quite a few laws by not reporting the child to the department of magical health and welfare. As if on cue, his fireplace roared to life, green flames sillowetting a rather too fimilliar shape.
"Honey! I'm home!" Albus thinks roofully.
"And what a homecoming it's about to be." He adds in his thoughts.
"So, is this the wee one you've told me about then?" Minerva asks, catching sight of the current house guest behind Albus. Albus grins gratefully and with a significant look that clearly states he will explain everything later, but he needs time with fudge now, he hands Tom over to Minerva.
"Hey laddie." Minerva says instantly calming Tom's fitfull crying in the way of all women. She grins, winks at Albus as if to say,
"I'll see you later then and it had better be one hell of an explination." She walks off, up the stairs, to give Fudge and Albus some talking time.
"Who's child is that then?" Fudge asks again, becoming annoyed that Albus has ignored his question for the time being.
"It's currently mine." Albus says in a tone that brooks no argument and deaftly he changes the subject.
"What is it that I can help you with Cornelius?" Albus asks, now sitting down on the sofa and cungering a tea set that sits it's self down on the table in front of him. The teapot pours two cups of tea and the sugar container spits out the appropriate number of cubes in to Albus's tea before the cream container dumps in a nice helping of it's contence. Fudge watches it as though it were the most fasinating thing in the world, instead of an everyday occurrence for him as he says,
"I have some quite distressing news to report. Bert has just had a heart attack and is currently in Saint Mungo's. They don't think he can do the job anymore. Too much stress, they're saying."
"Jesus!" Albus manages, now thinking of the minister that had seemed to fill a room just by being their. The hole ministry was loyal to him and would do anything and all he can think now is,
"Please don't let this bumbling ittiot get the job. I'll be doing it for him in less than a week."
"Albus, would you mind to support my running for minister?" Fudge asks, looking to Albus with an expression quite like an over eager puppy will to someone it idolizes. Briefly considering everyone else running for minister of magic made Albus discusted. Everyone had asked him of course, but he had turned them all down. He loved teaching too much to give it up for politicks and now, here in front of him was probably the smartest of the lot of candidates, bar Bert.
"I'm sorry Cornelius, but until it's confirmed that it's necessary I can't support you." Albus nearly grinned though as he heard Tom's continual and by now, frantic wailing from one of the upstairs rooms.
"I do have to go though. That child you saw needs me I'm afraid." Albus says, blue eyes seeming to spark eith humor. Fudge indignently stands up.
"Good day Albus." He says, and there is something in fudges "Good day." That makes Albus stop, check his steps towards the stairs and look round. When he does, he can almost see a gleem of triumph on the candidates face.
Albus now sits downstairs in the livingroom, Tom happily sleeping on his lap as he attempts to answer Minerva's barrage of questions.
"In your owls you said that someone just dropped him off, so what did they say?" Minerva asks, now drinking a cup of Chamomile tea.
"Not much I'm afraid. They said his name was Tom Riddle, that he had no parents, that he was more important than we could ever know and that loving him no matter what would be our best gift to him. They also wouldn't say more nor leave until I'd made a promise to take care of him until he was eighteen."
"Albus! Let me get this strait, you just made a random promise to take care of a wee one until he was eighteen with out knowing who the person was? You made it with out knowing anythin about this boy? And yeh made it wi' out the consent of your wife?" She asks, her Scottish accent deepening to a near incomprehensible broag before she was done. On his lap Tom stirs slightly and Albus takes a deep breath, prepairing for a huge tirade, or to be slapped, but at the moment he isn't sure wich.
"I don't exactly think so, yes, and not exactly." He says, casually waving one hand towards Minerva. Minerva tenses, eyes clouding over with the lifting of a memory charm and Albus waits, unclear as to what imformation he has just lifted. Albus wraps Toms blanket tighter around him in preparation for sitting him on the coutch beside him when Minerva's tea cup slams down on the coffee table so hard that it nearly shatters.
"Holey God!" She manages before staring longingly at the brandy decanter across the room.
"Min?" Albus half asks, half orders, wanting to know what exactly he has just given back to his wife.
"What would you say if I told you that lad isn't exactly supposed to be here?" Minerva asks after a long pause.
"I'd say most defenatly, but the fact of the matter is he is here, not… Not where ever he is supposed to be."
"PerhapsI should start at the beginning." Minerva says idelly twirling her wand wich seemed to come from no where, between her hands.