"Well now," Severus said as I froze in abject horror at being the new owner of a monstrous killer doll. "Isn't that… something."
"Isn't it just?" Lockhart replied, and clapped his hands sounding extremely impressed with himself. Then he produced a camera out of nowhere and made us pose for a slew of photographs with him. The flash blinded us into submission.
"I'm not going to keep that—that thing!" I hissed at Snape the moment Lockhart rushed off to bestow his delightful presence on others, indicating Chucky's twin. "It's evil! Haven't you seen the film!"
"I don't frequent Muggle cinemas, so no. You don't need to play with it, Albus, but it was a gift so you will keep it. Behave."
Behave! Fuck. Nevermind. When Severus was on a 'behave yourself path' there was no moving him. I was just going to have to get rid of it myself.
Severus refused to join the party games. "I am way too old for such nonsense," he said acerbically, eyeing Minerva and Poppy, still in her Dumbledore guise, playing musical chairs with six others. The chairs were circling the players in their version. It made no sense.
"I am grounded," I told Lockhart when he tried to drag me away instead. "You are not supposed to have fun when you are grounded."
"Oh dear, that is too sad," he said, and pulled an exaggerated sad face that didn't manage to look sad at all. Did he think I was a baby? "Then, as host I will have no option but to sit here with the wonderful little Snape family." He moved to settle into the chair opposite ours while I was still wondering who or what made him the host. "Have you read about the time I caught a whole colony of vampire bats with a toy fishing rod? Shall I sign the book you have brought with you? I saw you holding it earlier, darling. I'm truly blessed to see I've a new little fan. He clicked his fingers and the most ostentatious peacock quill and inkpot appeared on the low table between us.
Fuck. I had already forgotten I came here expecting to be bored. Gadding with Ghouls was covered in devil's horns, inside and out, and I could just imagine his reaction to it, let alone Snape's.
I quickly hid my inky fingers but never had time to shout a desperate no, and Lockhart never had time to properly sit down. Instead, at the dire threat of the impostor's company, Severus pushed me off his lap with the order: "Go play, Albus."
"But—"
"Now."
"Oh how delightful!" Lockhart exclaimed and grabbed my hand. "Come little one, there will be prizes!"
One of them had better be a ray gun to obliterate bats!
It wasn't so bad.
The games were fun.
In fact, I had a great time.
Lockhart was everywhere. Organising, making sure no one besides Snape had time to sit, playing games and dealing out prizes. All the while mugging and taking photos. Everyone seemed to be in one mind and as the smallest—or rather the youngest, sorry Professor Flitwick—I was given every opportunity to win. I'm sure Lockhart struggled to keep his happy face, he seemed to be a wizard that needed to be the best in everything. Instead of getting the prizes he had to settle for handing it out and soon I had a stack of trinkets heaped next to his horrible gift, each accompanied with a signed photograph of the happy handover. I refrained with great effort from the very childish action of sticking my tongue out at him each time. Hell, I should get a prize just for that!
It was the weirdest thing seeing myself moving on a photo. Yes, sure, smartphones and videos was a thing already in my own time, but I never held an actual square of paper on which I moved. I looked like a wild eyed, flushed faced urchin, having the time of my life. The fuck, was that cake on my chin?
"You need a haircut," said Severus, looking over my shoulder at the same picture. "Is that cake on your chin?" A handkerchief appeared, and channeling Molly Weasley he swiped at my face while I sputtered. The me in the picture danced in a happy circle, oblivious to his pink frosted chin.
There was no meeting but there was lunch, the party snacks making way for a dining table and by the time I ate the last bite of roast my eyes were heavy and I longed for my bed.
Severus rightly guessed my state and kindly gathered me and my prizes up, stating it was time for my nap. It's one of the few benefits to having a toddler, he had told me before, the fact that he could use me an easy excuse to get out of unwelcome social obligations. 'Albus needs x', and off we would go.
I made him carry me back while I hung on his neck and blew a whistle that I had won playing Bite the Bag. In the shape of a bluebird, it promised to mimic every bird in existence but I think it already did a finch twice. Lies. I blew it again. A near deafening high trill echoed down the hall. Before I could figure out what bird it was—if you said he right name it would repeat the call—Snape took the whistle off.
I sighed and looked over his shoulder but the other party favours were too far to grab. Unnaturally bright blue orbs looked back at me and I shuddered. Wasn't his damn eyes closed a second ago? No, Snape was right, the thing was just ugly, nothing more. "Lockhart might know how to throw a good party but he gives awful gifts," I complained.
"He does, doesn't he," Snape agreed.
We both turned to look at the small procession of party favours floating behind us. The doll dominated the lot. His smile was, if possible, creepier than his eyes.
"Please can we burn it," I begged shamelessly.
"It's only a doll."
"From that awful shop where they all move, Harry and I saw him try to bite another one's nose off!"
"Animation to bring in customers, we don't need to put its batteries in."
"It's evil!" I kicked out at him in frustration, swinging my legs wildly. "Why won't you listen to me!"
"Stop that, Albus. You've been a moody brat ever since your little trip to Diagon Alley. Excuse me if I am somewhat tired of it. I will give you that the damn thing is ugly but it is still just a toy and not evil."
"Fine, don't bother crying if the TOY killed me. Let me down."
He dropped me to my feet and I stomped ahead to our rooms, feeling hard done by. In the doorway of my bedroom we had another standoff. I spread my arms wide and refused him entry.
"I will not have that thing in my room."
"Your toys belong in your room, we've been over this enough times," the awful Dungeon Bat said, and pushed me aside without so much as a by-your-leave.
The trinkets floated to the top of my bookcase and Snape put the doll, still thankfully in its box, in the far corner next to my overflowing closet. After a moment's thought he turned the box around to face the wall.
"See!" I crowed. "Admit it! It's evil!"
"It's ugly."
"I bet he chose the ugliest one on purpose!"
"Do you need to shout?" Returning to me he kneeled and plucked my boots off with practiced efficiency. "Why would he do that? You're being ridiculous and I think it's high time for your nap, I am sure everything will look better when you wake."
"I don't want to." Of course I wanted to. Dropping down for a nap when you're played out is the best feeling in the world. Also extremely easy when you have no responsibilities to keep you awake. I just didn't want to do it because he ordered it. Why should I listen to him if he did not bother to listen to me?
"You definitely need one," Snape said, and scooped me up to dump me on my bed. I made to scramble off but found myself firmly tucked inside the blankets instead. The Bat's a Wizard!
"Fine! You can put me to bed but you can't make me sleep. I'm not tired. I'm going to be five soon and five-year-olds do not need naps," I said, swallowing tears of frustration at being ignored and bit my tongue instead of swearing the room blue. I was willing to give up all the naps for the rest of my life not to have to sleep in the same room as the Chucky lookalike.
"You'll stop having naps when I say so, lie down and close your eyes. Do we need to have a talk?"
It was no use. "Stop trying to have talks with me I am older than you." I turned my back on him and pulled the covers over my head.
The bed dipped as he sat down beside me, and I stifled a frustrated groan when he said, "For someone older than me, you've been very excited for your fifth birthday."
"For the gifts." It's not shameful to like gifts. Magical gifts in particular was amazing and people tended to give me toys which I could never ask from Snape while I still had to play the role of old Dumbledore. My personal belief was that no one was too old for toys. "For the gifts," I repeated. "Not because I'm happy to be five." The last might be the tiniest of lies. "And the cake." He had promised a special treat for the cake and I was quite looking forward to it.
I did sleep. I was given little option. Severus sat with me until I couldn't resist the drag on my eyelids anymore. Which was probably not even five minutes. When I woke my bedside clock told me it was half past three, and the room was bathed in afternoon shadows, the only light an eerie blue glow from the corner. I battled my glasses on and turned to look straight into Chucky's open eyes. On the floor next to him lay the open box…
Accidental magic was junk, just in case anyone wanted to know. The doll did not magically disappear into a tornado of fiendfyre. I did not spontaneously apparate to the furthest reaches of the Forbidden Forest, a bloody scary place that now felt much safer than my own bedroom. No, I had to do it all by myself. Shouting, I fell out of my bed, still tangled in my blankets, scraped my elbow hard on the carpet and ran out of my room, banging the door behind me.
No Dungeon Bats came to investigate. He wouldn't be anywhere else but his office, always within calling distance, which was strange until I realised that all my freaked out screaming was just in my head. For a moment I felt highly incensed and considered screaming out loud, but then realised that I did not want him to come anyway. For one, I was still angry at him, you have to bloody well listen to your children when they were scared of something, and for another, his absence gave me the perfect opportunity to get rid of the evil incarnate thing that he called 'Just a toy'. Now to gather up the courage to go back inside my bedroom.
It took some very harsh talking to myself, words like chicken and spineless was thrown about the empty hallway, and deep breathing exercises that left me quite light headed before I had gathered enough willpower to return to my bedroom.
The box stood upright in the corner, facing the wall. Fuck.
Did I dream it? Was the Bat right and was I exaggerating the issue? Wait, just because the box was in place didn't mean Chucky was still in it. A shiver ran down my spine. My knees turned to water and I'm sorry but I had a desperate urge to pee. I blame being five, no fuckit, I blame never having been stuck inside a horror movie. I needed to go to the toilet more than I needed to go turn the box around to see if the demonspawn was still inside. Halfway to the bathroom I stopped cold. Oh God, what if it was waiting for me in the bathroom? I couldn't risk it. Best to get it over with, go see if he is in the box, if not then I can call Snape and show him proof, no need to live through any murderous bathroom scenes...
Easier said than done. Have you ever touched something you didn't want to? I don't know how long I stood behind that box, reaching out and pulling back again, nerving myself up to turn it around before finally I reached and tugged, jumping away as it fell over on its back. I was already screaming, preparing to see the empty box but the doll was still where it should be. Standing lifeless behind the plastic window, and firmly tied to the carton with little silver wires, its blank, lifeless eyes stared past me at nothing.
It was fucking with me. That's what. Fine. I'll play. Let's see how it liked to fuck with fire.
The boxed evil was nearly as big as myself but anger gave fuel to my bones and I muscled it out of my room, down the hallway and to the sitting room where the fire burned bright. One heave and it will burn down to nothing—no wait. Better to be sensible. This much plastic in the fire will make the rooms unbreathable. I can't remember if there even existed an air purifying spell and even if it did then Snape would have to be the one to wield it. I would prefer it if he didn't find out about this just yet. Floo!
Honestly, sometimes I get the brightest ideas. I would chuck Chucky's twin in the Floo and let the void take it. Reaching the floo powder on the high mantelpiece needed moving an armchair over and keeping a sharp eye on the connecting door to Snape's office. Lately he had been very busy with his brewing, more often than not having greasy hair and stained fingers again, so I prayed he would be busy deeper in his potions room instead, impossible to hear the harsh scrape of wood on the stone floor from there.
The fireplace was necessarily tall to accommodate people and I had to stand on the back of the chair to reach the urn. I was much more accustomed to the smaller limbs now than when I had started off, and climbed the chair like a monkey. I easily managed to get a handful of the glittery powder and shimmied down again to gather the box.
Where to send it? Will it actually reach if I threw it in or just float around like I was hoping? Surely if it was going to reach then people could just throw their mail and packages through the fire at each other instead of sending it by owl, right? Oh why haven't I ever asked Percy these questions! Wait. We can only go inside the castle from here, I would have to go to Dumbledore's office to actually throw it out, wouldn't I? That decided it. I would just have to trust that I can manage the small skip from here to the office, there's no way I can drag the box all the way up there without being found. I gripped the box tighter and threw the floo powder into the flames. It flared green. "Dumbledore's Office!"
"No you don't," Snape said behind me and grabbed me away. Twisting me away from the green flames and turning me around his hand floated past my face, and I did the only thing I could under the extremely wrought circumstances. I bit himand tried to jump back to the hearth.
"Extinguo!" Snape shouted at the fire, his wand extended. It snuffed out, plunging the room into semi-darkness, the afternoon sun through the window our only light. "Don't you dare move a hair, Albus," Severus said, and gripped the back of my collar. As if I could. He was three times my size. I was done for.
Fuck. Would it have been so bad to just let Chucky suck out my soul?
The wall sconces lit up. Severus put his wand away and glanced at the hand that I had just bitten.
"I'm sorry," I said. And I was. Even though he was being totally unfair in disregarding my issues with the doll I still wouldn't have bitten him if I had had a moment to think. I went willingly when he nudged me to the couch and scooted myself into the farthest corner.
"Why?" he asked.
I tried to gauge his ire but his face was a blank mask, his eyes emotionless, and my heart sank to my stomach. "For biting you?"
"Not for nearly killing yourself in the Floo?"
"I was just going to the office, nowhere else!"
Snape frowned. "Albus. What happens when an underaged wizard steps unaccompanied into a Floo?"
"I'm not really underaged, am I? And besides, my accidental magic started. I was just going to my office…"
"You are four! Your body is four! Not a hundred and twelve, I thought you understood it by now! Why would you do such an idiotic thing! No, this is beyond idiocy! What happens when an underaged Wizard steps unaccompanied through the Floo, answer me, Albus!"
This one I had from Percy. They are ripped apart in the void. We had experienced some of that when it tried to pull me away from Severus to Diagon Alley, it was bloody scary. It was also why I was currently grounded. Did he think I forgot? "I was only going to go to the office."
"To do what."
"Nothing."
"Nothing." His face darkened, and I made myself as small as possible. "Nothing," he repeated, sounding beyond exasperated. "The Albus I know would never have thrown himself headlong at a certain death. Go to your room, you can expect a visit from Poppy."
Relieved not to have to listen to a diatribe I rushed off. I was halfway there when he called me back to collect my doll. He stood arms crossed, a Bat from Hell, watching me struggle off with the box, not offering any assistance. Poppy! She was his go-to when he thought I was not myself. Not Dumbledore. Doing something he thought idiotic. Didn't know something I ought to. The latter happened often enough that they've decided memory loss must be one of the side effects of being my new age, for all of Poppy's tests, each and every time, said I was Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. Minerva always appeared soon after.
In my room I threw the box on the floor, kicked Chucky/Not-Chucky viciously under the bed and flopped onto it. Burying my face into the pillow I let out a smothered scream. I didn't have time for this, this whole thing started because I needed to save Ginny from the diary and I am not any closer to that than I had been days ago in Diagon Alley. Instead we were fighting over a bloody doll! By now Severus was just being stubborn, standing his ground, not to be that parent that wavered in his decisions, we've both read Poppy's childcare book and that was a point they hammered on. Of all the wrong times to do this! And where the fuck was that diary!