I loved the reviews and how so many people have been putting this story on alert, favorite stories, and favorite authors. It's flattering and I love you for it. Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, just this story. I wish I owned Harry Potter though.
I knocked on the door of the rickety old house. The shutters creaked, the paint was chipping, and the door was tall and grand. Inside of the house lived Aldus Cater. The reason why I was visiting this man was because he seemed to like my sister Lily and me. He said it was fate that he and I met considering our names are so similar to each other.
An old man with tan, wrinkly skin opened the door. "Wearing your white skirt, Lily?" He smiled. He knew the white skirt she was wearing was her favorite article of clothing.
"Hi, Aldus!" Lily greeted him warmly. She handed him the plate of cookies in her hand. "I made these just for you! Oatmeal raisin, I know that's your favorite."
I rolled my eyes and laughed loudly. "More like Mum made them and I remembered that oatmeal raisin cookies were his favorite," I said. "You just like taking credit for stuff you didn't do."
And that she did. Lily really liked to make herself appear greater than she really was. Don't get me wrong, Lily's a great person, but she liked to make herself seem better than she was.
Lily was a proud girl. If she did something worth talking about, trust me, the talkative Lily would tell you about it. And though Lily was proud of anything she slightly accomplished, she was lazy, so what she accomplished wasn't a whole lot.
"Ah, Albus the realist," Aldus said with a chuckle.
"Albus woke up at seven thing morning," Lily stated. "I heard him using the bathroom." Okay…that was creepy, but I decided to ignore it. Lily wasn't a creepy girl, but she had a tendency to say creepy comments.
"He's an early riser," Aldus responded. "And he's usually a people pleaser. Come on in." He led us into his rather large house.
We walked through the front door and turned to the left. All of us took a seat in the parlor. It was a very nice and neat parlor, I'll admit.
"Would you like any tea?" Aldus asked us. He got up from his twenty year old chair to make tea for us. Aldus was a nice old man but he could be tough on me. Never to Lily though. Lily was too sweet to be super tough on in my opinion.
Aldus walked back into the room with two mugs in his hands.
"Here you go." He handed us each our mugs. On my mug was a picture of the Queen of England. Apparently Aldus was a big fan of hers. It was definitely a Muggle cup.
I glanced around the parlor and studied the old fashioned style in which it was decorated. The chairs were from the eighteenth century. He had inherited them from his grandparents a year back. I always liked antique furniture a lot more than modern. Antiques had actual history. I always liked history a lot, too.
In reality, I was a weird guy. I really enjoyed the class History of Magic, unlike everyone else in Hogwarts. Not that I would admit that to anyone. Also, origami was a passion of mine. I got into it when I was twelve.
"What did you do this summer?" Aldus asked Lily.
"I hung out with Hugo most of the time," Lily answered. "We played down by the stream." Running behind our neighborhood was a stream filled with tadpoles. It was where most of the younger children liked to play. By the time a kid was a teenager, they would usually stop though.
"Albus, I have a proposal for you." Aldus turned to me. "When I was twenty I learned Legilimency. It has been a very helpful skill in my life. Now, Albus, I want to teach you how to read minds." My jaw dropped. "You didn't know I could read your mind, did you?" He smiled a crooked smile. "I just love surprising you."
"I've known you my whole life and only found out you were a wizard last year," I replied.
Did I mention I live in a half Muggle and half wizard neighborhood? I liked Muggles, so I didn't mind living near them.
"Why do you want to teach Albus Legilimency?" Lily asked. "What's so special about him?"
She was right. Learning Legilimency was a privilege for only those who truly deserved it. At the time, I didn't believe I did.
"Your brother is a very talented wizard," Albus responded. He took a sip of his tea. "I never had a child, and I want to pass this knowledge on to someone else. It will also be beneficial for him to learn this during a time of war."
"You really want to teach me?" I was honored that he believed in me so much. I don't think anyone ever really believed in me like that but him.
Aldus nodded his head. "Lessons start tomorrow. Bright and early. Be here at seven-thirty AM. Though waking up early should be easy for you. Trust me when I say that Legilimency is a lot of hard word. And it will take time. It's also illegal for me to teach someone so young but…" His voice drifted off. "I can make an exception considering the circumstances."
It all happened so fast. Aldus offered and I agreed for him to teach me Legilimency. Though it was illegal, it would be worth it. You had to be of age to start learning Legilimency, and if the Ministry found out you were learning it before age there was a fine to pay for both the student and the teacher. Hardly any wizards knew Legilimency at that time, and if they did know it they only taught it to one, at most two, people in their whole lives, which is why it wasn't so common for wizards to know. Some Legilimens didn't teach anyone at all.
"Can you teach me?" Lily asked Aldus with a bright and optimistic smile.
Sweet little Lily. Though she was eleven, I never pictured her as a girl that old. She looked and acted like a young child still. Innocence just glowed throughout her.
A smile spread across Aldus' face too. "Lily, you know you're a great little girl. I don't think you'll like Legilimency, though. Albus will, I can just tell. Trust me, honey."
A frown graced Lily's face. She wasn't buying his story. Neither was I, but I was a bit more experienced with people than she was.
"It's really hard, Lily. You wouldn't like it." I patted her on the back. "Plus, you have better things to be doing with your time. Like trying to beat me at Quidditch."
She always tried to beat me at Quidditch even though she knew she never would. It was a friendly competition between the two of us.
She nodded her head. "Okay." I was sitting next to her on an old brown couch, and I decided to put my arm around her. "It would be boring, anyway. Not for me." She smiled at me. "I am not boring at all."
Lily was gullible, to say the least. I could get her to believe anything I said. Most of the time I had her best intentions at heart, but sometimes I was selfish. At that moment, though, I had her best intentions at heart. Not only was Lily gullible, she had a short attention span. She wasn't stupid at all, but she couldn't handle Legilimency. It would be far too much for her.
&
Rose gasped. "You're going to learn Legilimency!? That's fascinating!"
It was a few hours after I had visited Aldus with Lily, and I was sitting in my room with my cousin Rose.
"I know. Don't tell anyone, okay? I'm telling you, Freddie, and Mackenzie. That's it. I don't even think I'll tell Mum and Dad yet."
"No wonder, it's illegal. Oh…that's exhilarating! You'll be a criminal, technically." She smiled brightly. "Who would have thought that my cousin would be a criminal? It's a thrilling thought."
Though Rose thoroughly enjoyed school, she did like to break rules every once in a while. She wasn't just a goody-two-shoes like everyone thought. Rose had an unpredictable and wild side to her that not too many people ever got the chance to see.
Rose's wild side was fun. I remember one time we snuck out at two in the morning at her house and walked to a local store. Why? Because Rose was bored and wanted to do something spontaneous. And she also wanted food badly. She's a pig and thinks about food constantly. It's gross sometimes.
"I start tomorrow. So we have to go to bed early tonight." Rose was sleeping over for the night.
"Of course! This is so exciting. Do you think….? Nah. Never mind. It's a stupid thought," she said.
"No, what is it? What do you want?" She bit her lip and then smiled at me deviously. Uh oh. That couldn't be good. She had a scandalous thought on her mind. I could tell by the look on her face.
"Since you'll be learning Legilimency, once you get pretty good at it can you teach it to me? I want to learn it so bad, you have no idea! And I'm a fast learner. It wouldn't be hard for you to teach me. Quite easy in fact. You just have to show me the basics. It's not like I can look it up in a book on how to read minds. That would be very dangerous."
And you couldn't. Legilimency was something you had to be taught by another human being. There was nothing written down about learning and perfecting it. It was a skill taught orally.
"I don't know…I'm not sure if Aldus wants me telling other people that I'm going to learn it, let alone teaching them. What if he gets mad at me?"
"Oh, grow some balls!" she exclaimed. She didn't even seem fazed, though I was, about her profane language. "I want to learn! Forget about the rules. Just teach me, please?"
"Well…I guess after I learn a bit and I'm really good I could show you some pointers." I shrugged. "Maybe, how does that sound? If I'm good at it, I'll teach you."
She nodded her head. "You should also teach Freddie and Mackenzie. We'll need to learn this if we want to survive the next few years."
I was shocked. How could she ask me to do all that? I mean, teaching three people Legilimency would be hard!
"Rose, how can you ask me to do that?"
I understood where she was coming from, but for an almost fourteen-year-old boy to try and teach three others Legilimency when he would hardly know it...that was a ridiculous request.
"Do you want us to live, Albus?" She rolled her eyes. "I'm not thinking of this as a new way to find out if boys fancy me or something. I'm thinking of this as a way to keep ourselves and our best friends alive. Are you with me? If you want us all to die, just say the word."
"But what if we get caught!? It's okay if one person under age learns, but four? The Ministry will have to find out. They'd think we were doing something terrible, too."
Rose looked at me and laughed. "So we all pay some stupid fine and it's over and done with. No big deal. How much is the fine anyway?"
"A lot. That's all you need to know," I answered. She pouted her lips.
"Please, do this. Do you know how handy it will be for all of us? Albus, just think about it. Okay? Just think about it, that's all I ask of you."
I nodded my head. "I'll think about it."