A/N: Reviewers! You rock!

AnnaK - Glad to see you're still reading! And THANK YOU VERY MUCH for your constructive criticism. I'm afraid I was getting so wrapped up in the story that I'd forgotten the time period. To be honest, I'm not sure whether I have either the skill or knowledge to carry it off. Any suggestions would be very helpful, as I hardly learnt anything about the Victorian era in school. In response, however, I've gone back over the previous chapters and altered things very slightly so that the language is a wee bit more 'old.' 'Mummy and Daddy' are now 'Mother and Father' and I shall try to insert whatever Victorian slang I actually understand where I can. I have more to say on the matter at the end of this chapter.

Dark Angel's Blue Fire - THANKS! Hope you continue to like it!

Shifter1 - Thanks! Am loving Naked Time! Keep writing it!

Sorry for the delay (ahem, loss of concentration). On we go.

When Albus woke up the next morning, he at first did not remember Fawkes and only had the vague sensation that something important had happened the day before - but couldn't think what. It was only when he had leapt out of bed and run towards the door in his nightshirt that a loud squawk brought the memories back.

Fawkes had woken up several hours before Albus and had desperately wanted to relieve himself. Knowing that Mrs Dumbledore would throw him out if he did so inside, he'd sat with his legs crossed for what seemed forever, watching the splodge of orange on the pillow that was Albus's head for any signs of movement. Unfortunately, the boy seemed to want to sleep for what seemed to Fawkes for a ridiculous amount of time. Now that Albus was finally awake, Fawkes did not want him striding out of the room without him.

Albus stared at the phoenix in delight. "Oh! You're real!" he cried out in sudden appreciation of the fact.

"Yes, yes," said Fawkes, flapping his stubby wings impatiently. "Take me outside!"

"Why? You're not going, are you?" asked the boy in a small voice. The idea of Fawkes flying away was unthinkable; unbearable.

"No, no, no," said Fawkes hastily. "I just want to… go outside."

"Okay then."

Albus smiled and went over to the window sill. He scooped Fawkes up before walking out onto the chilly landing. He couldn't help but hug the bird as he did so; it was almost instinctive and he liked the idea that Fawkes needed him to look after him. Before the pair had even reached the stairs, however, Albus's special friend appeared.

"Good morning," said the sable-haired boy cheerily. "Shall we play later?"

"Yes," replied Albus eagerly, about to explain that Fawkes wanted to go outside anyway, but as his friend's fringe moved slightly, a question leapt to his tongue and swept all else aside. "How did you get that?"

"Get what?"

Albus pointed at the lightning-bolt scar on the other boy's forehead. "That."

His friend looked puzzled and slightly confused, as though Albus had asked why humans have five fingers. "I don't know. It's always been there."

"Oh," said Albus and the topic was dismissed. Later on, he would wonder about it more.

Father came home the following fortnight. By that time, Fawkes had regained a good deal of his plumage; his feathers growing so fast that his body seemed to be struggling to catch up. Albus proudly went to show Father his pet, whilst Mother stood looking apprehensive in the background.

Ulfin Dumbledore had had a tiring few weeks. Being Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic, especially at such a troubling time, was by no means easy. When confronted by Albus and what was apparently a new pet, his first impulse was to shoo the boy away back to his infamous books and ask Maria about it later. Before acting upon this impulse, he happened to glance at the new pet.

Albus was pleased that Father did not seem to object to Fawkes the way Mother had. However, Father was curiously silent, to the point that Albus wondered if he had somehow displeased his Father again and launched into a repertoire of the good things Professor Wood had said about him whilst he had been away. Father seemed even less interested in this and Albus went away disappointed.

As his son departed from the room, Ulfin shrugged off his travelling cloak and turned to his wife, eyebrows raised. He had the satisfaction of seeing Maria look guilty.

"I'm sorry Ulfin - but he was so insistent about it, the little lamb. I'm afraid I just couldn't resist him." There was a pause and then she continued on in an almost defiant tone of voice. "You're always going on about how you would like to make a real boy of him and a pet-"

Ulfin held up a hand to hush her. "Maria," he said slowly and carefully, "do you have any idea what he has got there? A phoenix, Maria, no less! Do you have any idea how valuable one of those is?" he added excitedly.

Maria's hand went to her mouth and her eyes widened. Ulfin, meanwhile, was evaluating the possibilities whilst stroking his thin beard.

"I'd say we could get about five Galleons per feather… Merlin knows why it's chosen to stay with a small boy - but then, Albus is so very quiet-"

"My special little boy," whispered Maria, hugging an invisible Albus to her. "It's staying with him because he's special, Ulfin."

Ulfin waved his hand at this irrelevancy. "The problem is, I've heard that they're quite selective about whom they let near… I suppose we could persuade Albus to-"

"Ulfin, you're not listening!" said Maria, eyes sparkling. "You just said it yourself: phoenixes don't stay with just any Tom, Dick or Harry off the street. My Albus is going to grow up into a wonderful person."

"Maria," sighed Ulfin, rolling his eyes. "Firstly - and I like to believe that this is because of my intervention when he was born - our son is not any Tom, Dick or Harry - and secondly, you read far too much into old folk tales. A phoenix is a magical beast that we can make use of, and that is that."

So it was that Albus was asked, to his great confusion, to pluck one of the warm feathers from Fawkes's colourful plumage once every few weeks. Fawkes submitted to this with bad grace but accepted that Mr Dumbledore was unlikely to let him stay unless he did so. Also to Albus's bewilderment, for Professor Wood had not yet proclaimed Albus a genius above all others in the world, Mother began to assure Albus regularly that he was special and looked at him with such pride glinting in her soft brown eyes that sometimes the boy felt quite shy.

Over the next two months, Albus enjoyed his time with Fawkes and his special friend. Fawkes often talked about things that Albus did not understand and several times seemed to find Albus so annoying that the boy was afraid he would fly away. Luckily the bird never did - Fawkes somehow found that he could never quite bring himself to fly away - perhaps having something to do with the fact that, despite multiple assurances, Albus never failed to become upset when Fawkes Burned.

Albus's special friend remained as mysterious and yet as friendly as ever. The pair had to put up with Thom brooding in the background but as he did nothing but brood and occasionally tell Albus nasty things about Father not loving him as much as Mother, he was usually successfully ignored. The only time when he drew their attention was when Albus spotted him hissing at a grass snake in the orchard one day.

Albus and his friend watched him spitting and hissing for a while and the snake hissing and spitting back. It sounded quite ominous.

"He's like that," said Albus's friend vaguely. "He's talked to them before."

"I didn't know you could talk to snakes," thought Albus aloud.

"I don't know whether I can talk to snakes," said his friend. "I've never tried."

"I wonder what they're talking about."

"I don't know. How about you try, Albus?"

Albus crawled towards the snake, unafraid, knowing from what Nurse had said to him that this one wasn't dangerous - it was only the stripy ones with Vs on their heads he had to be scared of. He tried making snake noises at it but he didn't understand what it said in reply and Thom snarled at him to go away. Albus scuttled back to his friend, disappointed.

"I couldn't do it."

"Doesn't matter. Boring, anyway. Thom's just like that."

Albus cocked his head at Thom, who had resumed his chat with the snake. "He's queer."

For some reason, his friend seemed to find that funny. He laughed and laughed and eventually Albus started laughing too, until both were rolling hysterically in the grass, the original meaning of the joke entirely lost. Only afterwards did Albus remember to check to see if anyone had been watching - he knew that it would look very strange for him to be laughing his head off at thin air.

In spite of his best efforts, however, his friend was not quite as secret as he should have been. Several times, Nurse caught him playing with someone she couldn't see and a few times, Albus had looked up to see Mother staring at him in consternation. Once, Father had sat unnoticed on the garden bench for an hour and Albus had seen him far too late. The look on his face had made his heart sink and caused Thom to again imply some difference in affections between Mother and Father.

Another secret Albus actually managed to keep was his friendship with Samuel Lupin. Father was too pleased at Albus's willingness to go the park to question it and Nurse made no protest when Albus played with Samuel. She watched them with a blank look on her face and never said a word to either Mother or Father. Albus was silently grateful for this. There was some unshaped idea in his head that Nurse was somehow risking something by not making a fuss but he could not sort it out enough to make sense of it. Mrs Lupin had never been cold to him again and there was the unspoken agreement between all three parties that neither boy could ever be invited around the other's house.

Time passed. Fawkes often flew off and left him on his own but now the boy trusted the phoenix to come back and happily settled down with his books or played as discretely as he could with his special friend. Albus worked hard at his lessons with Professor Wood and received plenty of praise from Mother. Father remained as distant as ever on the subject of Professor Wood's lessons and Thom grew ever more acidic and vocal about it.

On some deep level, Albus was finding this more and more disturbing. He did not consciously understand why but his efforts to impress Father grew ever more drastic and desperate. He read books that were considered big for his age and applied himself so vigorously to his lessons that Professor Wood eventually made him take a break and have a glass of water during one lesson. He drew pictures of his family, particularly Father, and showed Father them in the hope that he would be pleased. Thinking perhaps that he was not being polite enough, he became very quiet around Father, remembering how he sometimes annoyed Fawkes by talking too much. Yet Thom continued to assure him of his failure.

He did not understand it - how Thom somehow managed to take that small swell of disappointment inside him and translate it into mean, quiet little words. Thom's usually silent presence became a kind of itch on the back of his mind and he found himself going to Mother simply to obtain some sort of compliment. Yet Mother was odd these days - she wasn't very happy in the mornings and Albus vaguely thought that she was eating too much…

Fawkes watched all this with apprehension. He never heard what Thom said to Albus sometimes but knew from the way Albus bit his lip and frowned that whatever it was was making the boy unhappy. He also knew that the female Dumbledore was soon to have little time for complimenting Albus.

One day, when Albus could proudly boast that he was five and a half, Mother and Father called the boy into the living room and sat him on the sofa. Albus could tell that something serious was happening, as Mother was smiling in that way that meant she was trying to reassure him about something. Mother took his hand and laid it on her round stomach.

"Albus, we've got something very important to tell you." She smiled at his apparent confusion. "Soon, you will have a little brother."

Albus was so shocked that for a moment, he said nothing at all. Then he asked:

"Will you buy him in a shop?"

"No, no-" Mother said, sharing an amused glance with her husband. "The baby's in here." She patted his hand on her stomach.

The look on Albus's face was priceless. Maria fought laughter as Albus stared with big eyes at her belly. Ulfin was too busy gazing hungrily at her stomach to notice Albus's expression.

"When he's born and a bit older, you will be able to play with him," assured Maria.

Albus considered this, then grinned. "A little brother!" he said breathlessly. Then he stopped, a small frown on his face. "He won't be nasty, will he? Only, in my book, the King's brother-"

Mother laughed. "No, Albus, he'll be a nice little brother."

"Good!" said Albus and he hugged Mother, feeling very excited. He wished his little brother would come now!

He walked out of the living room, beaming, to be confronted by Thom. Thom's lips were twisted in a sneer.

"They're getting another boy," he said quietly. "Because you went wrong. Mother doesn't like you any more."

Albus blinked, startled at this new way of looking at it. Something trembled inside him. Once again, Thom had managed to articulate that slight pang in his heart.

A/N: Following on from what I was saying earlier in a vague explanation of what I have done and why… Firstly, Fawkes's modern language is intact. There's absolutely no good reason for it but I'm afraid I simply can't imagine this version of him being formal at all. Just an idiosyncrasy of mine (as in, I have no excuse). Secondly, I imagine the wizarding world to be slightly more advanced in attitude than the Muggle one. All I know about Victorian times is how husbands ruled over their wives completely. In the wizarding world, I imagine the whole gender debate to be long over with - but with traditional stereotypical roles still intact. This means that Maria is nowhere near as submissive as she should be for the time frame… What I have done and will do, however, is include oldy colloquialisms such as 'queer' (which, I hope, most people know once had a different meaning) and 'lads…' Reviewers, tell me if I overdo it or underdo it or whether I'm being plain inaccurate! Thanks again!