A/N: Time for Albus's POV, I think. Hope you like it!

At five years old, Albus Dumbledore was a precocious child. This, perhaps, was the reason he was to be found in the library curled up in an armchair with a small, brightly illustrated children's book in front of him one Sunday afternoon.

He was a small, gangly child with large blue eyes and shaggy auburn hair that reached his shoulders. He was slightly thinner and smaller than was normal and one noticeable feature emphasised by the fact he disliked wearing shoes inside was his abnormally large feet. These were stuck out in front of him, not reaching the floor and the library was silent except for the whisperings of his childish voice.

"Then he… went into the… palace…" intoned Albus softly, following the text with his finger and pausing to look at the brightly coloured picture of Merlin on the opposite page. He thought that Merlin looked old and wise and awesome, and turned the page to look at the big picture of the dragon spewing fire at a tower.

"Albus," came his father's voice from the doorway.

Albus looked up and grinned at his father, who remained standing in the doorway, looking around the library as though it was dangerous foreign territory. Ulfin had been home for several days but Albus was always grateful to see him - Father wasn't home very often.

"Don't you want to go outside and play?" asked his father.

"No, Father, I'm reading," said Albus. "It's a book about Merlin," he added as an afterthought.

"Yes…" His father sighed. "Don't you want to go and play with some other little boys?"

Albus blinked. The possibility of other little boys had never been mentioned before.

"Who?" he demanded, book momentarily forgotten.

"Well, I was thinking that perhaps Nurse could take you to the park - there are lots of other little boys there."

"Yes, but who?"

"Well…" Ulfin waved a hand vaguely. "You might meet your cousin Septimus Malfoy…"

"I didn't know I had a cousin!" said Albus indignantly. Even at his tender age, he felt that it was something one should know.

"Uh-" Ulfin stepped hesitantly into the room. "Second cousin, actually - you have lots of cousins, Albus."

"Oh," said Albus blankly.

"Albus?"

"Yes?"

"Tomorrow, a tutor will be coming - Professor Wood - to teach you letters and numbers."

"I already know how to read!"

"Yes, I know," said Ulfin shortly.

"And I can count up to thirty."

"Yes, well… Be polite to Professor Wood - he will be teaching you every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday from one till three. Nurse will tell you when you need to go." There was a pause. "Are you sure you don't want to go to the park?"

"Yes, Father. I'm okay here."

Ulfin swept out without another word and Albus got the impression that he'd done something wrong, but didn't know what and so dismissed it from his mind. Before he could return to his book, however, there was a crack and a house-elf appeared next to his chair.

"Would young Master Dumbledore like something to eat?" squeaked the elf, bulbous green eyes fixed on him.

"No thank you. I don't want dinner yet," said Albus quietly. He was glad Father had gone - Father didn't like Albus saying thank you to the house-elves, for some unknown reason. However, Albus had always thought that he should, as Mother had always been very firm about saying please and thank you. Mother liked it when Albus said thank you to the house-elves; she'd said that it made him sound like a 'gentleman.'

"Not dinner, young Master," chirruped the elf. "Moopy was thinking young Master would like some sweets!"

"Sweets?" repeated Albus, lowering his book again. The offer of this forbidden luxury was certainly tempting. Neither Mother nor Father liked Albus eating sweets; Mother said that it would rot his teeth and Father said only babies ate sweets.

"Yes, sir! Moopy has some Sherbet Lemons, young master!"

The elf was suddenly holding a paper bag. Albus stared at it.

"What are Sherbet Lemons?"

"Muggle sweets, sir!"

Muggle sweets were even more forbidden than wizard sweets. Albus had had some problems with the concept of a muggle - the fact he would one day be able to do magic was the given, and the idea of some people in the world never being able to do magic came as quite a shock to him.

Tentatively, he reached into the back and grabbed one of the sweets, before shoving it in his mouth. A wonderful taste burst on the tip of his tongue, and before Albus knew what had happened, he had eaten five of them in a row. The house-elf insisted on giving Albus the rest of the bag before disappearing with a pop.

Albus went up to his room to stow the bag away in a safe hiding place. Apart from the library, his room was his favourite in the house. It was painted blue and dominated by a four-poster bed with dark blue hangings that completely dwarfed Albus when he was in it. There was a brightly-painted toy box, containing such wonderful things as miniature flying broomsticks and a toy wand, a chest of drawers and a lamp decorated with moving dragons. A sign also decorated with dragons hung on the door, with the name 'Albus' written in big blue letters on it.

He hid the bag in his chest of drawers before going downstairs to finish his book but he never reached the library as the doorbell rung. He halted on the landing, waiting to see the butler answer the door and see who it was. Little was Albus to know that the butler was otherwise engaged in a broom closet with Nurse. As the doorbell rang again, Albus decided that he'd be like a grown-up and answer the door. Perhaps Father would be pleased with him.

Albus had some problems reaching the door-handle but he finally managed to open the door to see an unknown man standing on the doorstep, who looked quite taken aback to be confronted by a five-year-old.

"Good afternoon," said Albus in what he thought was a grown-up sort of way. He noticed that the man had sandy hair and brown eyes and wore robes which weren't as nice as Father's.

"Hello," said the man, recovering and smiling kindly down at him. "I'm Marcus Lupin. And who would you be?" He held out a hand for Albus to shake.

"I'm Albus Dumbledore," he said solemnly, shaking Mr Lupin's hand.

The sight was quite strange: a worn-looking man in his thirties shaking the hand of a serious-faced five-year-old with wild hair.

"Is your mother or father there?" asked the nice Mr Lupin.

Albus nodded. "I'll go and get Father for you," he said.

He left Mr Lupin at the door to search for Father. Father was in the drawing room, smoking a cigar. He had to tug at Father's robes to get his attention.

"Father, there's a man at the door," said Albus, chest swelling slightly: Father would be pleased that he'd answered the door.

"Why didn't the butler get it?" snapped Father. He didn't seem very pleased - in contrast, he seemed quite irritated.

"He wasn't there," explained Albus. "It's Mr-"

But Father swept out of the room before Albus could say anything more. He followed and stood at the end of the hallway listening - but he couldn't hear what Father said to Mr Lupin - except that the few words exchanged were short and curt. A few moments later, the door closed and Father strode back into the drawing room. Albus wanted to ask what Mr Lupin had wanted but the annoyed expression on Father's face scared him a bit.

At dinner, Mother and Father were talking about Mr Lupin. Dinner was dragon steak - Albus didn't like the look of it at all and thought that it tasted horrible but whenever he hesitated, Mother glared at him. He was choking it down and so wasn't even listening to the conversation until Mr Lupin was mentioned.

"…Moved in over near where the Malfoys are," said Mother. "Persephone is not pleased."

"Hmph," snorted Father. "I knew that already. A…" He paused and made a face as though saying a crude word. "…Mr Lupin arrived on the doorstep this afternoon."

"Oh, really?" said Mother. "Persephone told me that they have a little boy - about Albus's age-"

"Well, that's one boy Albus will not be playing with." He looked suddenly at Albus. "Hear that, Albus? Don't you go near any boys called Lupin."

Albus opened his mouth to ask why but Mother told him to keep his mouth closed when chewing his food.

"Does he work?" she asked. "Persephone says that they don't seem to be terribly well off-"

"Yes," said Father in distaste. "As an Auror." He made another expression of disgust. "Useless layabouts, every single one of them, if you ask me-"

"I wouldn't know what to say if he came to the door again," sniffed Mother. "Understandably, we don't want to associate with that family - but I can hardly slam the door in his face-"

Father waved his fork about dismissively. "Just inform him that we're not interested and if he doesn't go away, give him a good hex. We don't want to have anything to do with people like that."

"Why?" asked Albus, who had not understood everything that had been said but had caught the unmistakeable tone of it and who had thought that Mr Lupin had seemed nice.

Father sighed and leant over to put a hand on Albus's shoulder. "Listen to me carefully, Albus. Some wizards are better than others and…"

"Why?" asked Albus confusedly.

"Well - Albus - you wouldn't want to be a muggle, would you?"

"Oh no!" said Albus vehemently, thinking how awful it would be not to be able to do any magic ever.

"Well, some wizards, like… Mr Lupin, aren't really proper wizards."

"Oh. Why not?" asked Albus, who had not noticed anything abnormal about Mr Lupin at all.

"Because they're part Muggle and you can't trust Muggles."

Albus blinked. Did that mean that Mr Lupin couldn't do very much magic? "Why can't you trust Muggles, Father?"

"Because," said Father darkly, "Muggles once tried to kill all wizards."

"Really?" Albus dropped his fork in surprise.

"Oh yes, Albus. Which means that you should never trust mudbloods. You're better than them, Albus; you're a real wizard."

Albus heard a note of pride in his Father's voice on the phrase 'real wizard' and he was suddenly convinced that being a real wizard was a very wonderful thing indeed. "What are mudbloods?"

"They're wizards, like Mr Lupin, who are part Muggle. They're mudbloods because they have filthy blood - mud in their blood, Albus. That's why I don't want you going near anybody called Lupin or any other mudbloods."

"Oh, okay," said Albus, wondering whether Mr Lupin had just been pretending to be nice and was actually nasty.

He could be proud of being a 'real wizard.'

A/N: Aww, poor Albus. He doesn't yet know the meaning of the word 'indoctrination'…