"Did you really know immediately that I wasn't your Albus?" I asked him the next morning, tackling him in his bedroom, poking him on his large nose until he opened his eyes to scowl at me. I would have sworn I had them all fooled.
I had spent the previous day in bed, as tired as Arthur had warned, with enough time to mull everything over. Endlessly. Over and over again. In between all the mulling I had slept enough to last me a week and woke before sunrise. Waking at five was an aberration for me. I did not like it, and if I had to be awake then others needed to suffer too. "I know you suspected, you tried to catch me out enough times, but when did you know?"
"I knew for sure when we were at the Ministry. What's the time?" He yawned and sat up, moving back against the headboard.
Really? When I was at the ministry? It was ages ago and I couldn't remember half of what we did there. It was also in the first month that I came here. "The Ministry?"
He misunderstood and clarified. "The time you ran away to Molly's."
"I didn't run away to her, I was sidetracked there. When exactly did you stop believing that I was your Albus?" I thought I had them fooled for a few months at least, not so early. And all the time I thought I was fooling them they were actually doing the same to me. I don't know if I liked it. At all.
"I think your exact words were: 'Voldemort is alive and on the back of Quirrell's head!'"
"How did that tell you I wasn't him!"
"It was such a childish thing to say, Albus. Happy Birthday by the way." He tugged me up onto the bed and into a squashing hug and smacked a kiss on my hair. I flapped my hands at him in irritation. What was with all this kissing suddenly?! "How does it feel to be five," he asked.
"I don't like it."
"You want to be older?" he asked, a strange inflection to his voice.
"Yes. I want to be eleven already, five feels no different to four."
"Do I want to know why eleven?"
"Magic." I pushed my face millimeters from his just to see him go cross-eyed, that was always a treat. "And speaking of magic, you said I could get my wand back on my birthday. Which is today. So. Hand it over."
"Really, Albus? That is how you want to do it? Try: Daddy, may I please have my wand back, I have learned my lesson and will not colour the furniture ever again. Say that and I might consider it."
"Consider it!" I struggled up and out of his arms. "You said I would get it back, you said nothing about considering it!"
"At that point I still had no idea that you were actually from another world or that you did not know the first thing about handling wands safely."
"Percy taught me—" Ah, fuck. I clasped my hands over my mouth. Oh, wait, I didn't have to hide it anymore, did I? Oh, it was all so confusing!
"No more lies," Snape said, pulling my hands away. "I don't mind Percy Weasley teaching you, you can do worse. What exactly did he teach is what I want to know. How do you handle a wand safely, Albus? Answer that and I will tell you if you can get it back."
"I don't want to. It's silly."
"There's nothing silly about being safe," Snape said, sounding more like he should be Percy's dad than mine. "Do you want your wand back or not?"
I did. I had plans for it.
"Fine." Percy had drilled it into me by the lake one day, and I still remember it word for word. I ticked it off my fingers. "One. Keep it in your sleeve unless you want to use it. Two. Always ask permission before casting a spell on someone. Three. Never point it at anyone in anger. Four. Never point it at anything you're not willing to destroy. Five. Always know your target and be aware of what is behind it. Six. Hexing someone will have dire consequences, Albus. Seven. Never take your wand out when you're drunk."
Snape blinked.
"Well? Is that good enough? Can I have it?"
"Remind me to have a word with Percy. New rule, you can only cast spells that I approved."
"That's so boring." And a very useless rule since I can only do the colouring one STILL.
"Agree to it and I will also teach you some more spells—"
"I agree!"
"Good. You can get if after we've slept some more, this is too early." I had no option. He grabbed me into a cuddle and settled back down, closing his eyes. "Wake me at eight."
I didn't want to go out of the rooms and face Minerva and Poppy. Yesterday was such a stressful and confusing mess of a day, that it didn't really sink in that they now knew all about me. They were going to hate me.
When Snape finally let me get up and send me off to get ready for the day, I hid in my room and busied myself with inking horns on all of Lockhart's pictures.
He found me still at it. "Why are you not dressed?"
"I'm not hungry, you can go eat if you want," I said.
He came closer to feel my forehead and tsked when he saw what I was doing. "Stop that. You'll need a bath if you're going to get ink all over yourself."
Which was a great idea. I promptly turned the inkpot over my lap. "Sorry!"
"Bath," he ordered.
I took the longest bath in the history of baths, I bathed so long that Severus came to help me. Then I diverted him on clothes, getting him to make sure there was no Chucky in my closet and refusing each outfit he chose.
"What's going on with you, Albus?"
"Nothing! I just don't like the clothes, I'm allowed to not like something, am I not?"
"Let's try the truth this time."
Okay, I'm game. "Poppy and Minerva will hate me."
"For what?"
"You know."
"No, I don't. Was there anything else you hid from them?"
"No!"
"Then you are just making drama now. Both of them had forgiven you months ago and they told you so yesterday. You might have heard Minerva say it if your fingers weren't in your ears. Stop that by the way, we all approved Lockhart, she had not done that alone." He picked a light green robe out and made me dress. He always subconsciously picked something green, the snake. "Move it, Albus. This is your birthday, no one is going to spoil it for you with recriminations."
Even so I dragged my feet down the halls.
All my delay was for naught. We made it to breakfast with plenty of time to spare, the meal scarcely started.
"Our birthday boy!" Dumbledore called from the middle of the Great Hall where he stood amidst a group of teachers old and new, all wearing pointy party hats. He was resplendent in a glittery silver robe, a huge pink ribbon tied to his beard. The room was filled with balloons and streamers covered the floor. It all looked very festive. Everyone turned to look at me. I hid behind Snape.
Breakfast was a feast in my honour. And also in Poppy's, since she was playing the older version of me this morning. She collected me from my hiding spot, smiling with the full blue eyed twinkle, and plopped a shiny red party hat on my head before swinging me up in a wide circle. "Happy birthday, little Albus! Let's have a party!"
Everyone felt the need to comment on our shared birthday, which would not have been so odd if we hadn't shared names also. And eye colour. And we were wearing the same glasses. Both of which they hadn't noticed. Were they all blind?
"Daddy always liked him so much that when I was born on the same day they named me after him," I told Flitwick when he mentioned it, handing me a small package.
"True. I also enjoyed Beedle the Bard's stories when I was his age. If he was born two days earlier you would be saying happy birthday to Beedle Snape," said the Dungeon Bat. Silence fell around us. "I'm joking," he clarified to the stunned group.
Oh God, the poor man had just made his first dad joke. No one was ever going to laugh at his jokes again. It was going to be downhill from here. I patted his hand consoling. "It was very funny, Daddy."
"Indeed. Open your gift."
The gift was a small coin bank in the shape of a white elephant, and extremely cute. It also rattled and I peered inside the small slit on its back to spy a Galleon inside.
"It's a goblin tradition to add a coin to such a gift," Flitwick explained, showing me how the elephant's trunk moved to take the coin you held out. "It will also gather any change lying around the house so if you see him roaming he's after fallen treasure." I thanked him, showing my best manners, while inside I screamed in terror at having another animated toy. I still held fast to my goal to be polite to the teachers for Snape's sake though, and did not let my horror show. It was working in my favour today as each had a small gift for me. Next to me Dumbledore exclaimed in happiness over a pair of plain brown socks.
Hagrid's gift brought Snape to despair. A Flobberworm farm. "It's a good start for young' uns to learn responsibility for pets. Da' gave me the same when I was five, I still have their great-great-great grandchildren's children's children on my windowsill, they do live a long time if not used for potions," Hagrid said, eyeing Snape who had trouble hiding his disgust.
The farm was very similar to a muggle ant farm except much larger. It was filled with slimy green mud and held three ten inch long worms. That just lay there.
"Thank you, Mr Hagrid. I'll make sure my Daddy doesn't use them. Do they do anything?"
"They mostly eat and sleep," Hagrid told me very seriously. "The males blink once every few years, that's how you know their sex." Then he proceeded to give me a parchment nearly as long as my arm with a full dietary schedule, restrictions and all.
"They are only useful in potions," Snape told me in an undertone when Hagrid had moved off. "I've never heard of a flobberworm farm in my life. Good luck."
Definitely I would need luck. Since the damn Bat had shown with Lockhart's doll that I wasn't allowed to return or hide gifts, I was going to have to be very wiley if I wanted to get rid of them. I shuddered. Which was cue for Sybill Trelawney to give me the psychedelic scarf she had knitted for me. A miniature of the one she had made for Dumbledore. The patterns swirled in a nauseating spiral, never stopping a second.
Teachers seemed to have no clue what gifts to give a five year old. Not one had thought of candy. I longed for Dumbledore's socks.
I was able to get Poppy aside to ask her if Severus Snape was Severus Snape. "Can you check? He's acting very strange."
"He is? What is he doing that's odd, dear?"
In for a penny in for a pound. "He's not shouting at me."
She frowned.
It took a minute to explain that no he wasn't abusing me when they weren't looking. That I was just worried about their extremely easy acceptance of my story. That they're ALL not shouting at me.
"We are not going to punish a five-year-old for something that wasn't his fault. Perhaps for the excessive amount of lies you told but then again we could have stopped that early on, it shouldn't have gone on for a year." She pursed her lips. I figured she had been a dissenter in the Let's Wait Him Out club. "And we also lied, didn't we? For that I apologise."
"What?"
"I'm sorry, Albus. We could have solved this issue a long time ago and then you would not have been worried about it now. I can only hope we've all learned from it and will try being honest from this moment on."
What?
"Minerva did try to apologise for our ruse yesterday, but you had your fingers in your ears."
She did? Minerva's gift to me had been a Gringotts savings plan for minors in the name of Albus Snape, and it burned in my pocket. She looked up from where she sat conversing with Alastor, perhaps feeling my gaze from across the room, like the cat that she was, and gave me a small smile. Ah damn. I'm going to have to forgive her. I turned back to Poppy. "I would feel better if you did the spell on him anyway."
"Would you dear? It hadn't worked on you, after all."
"It is just like you to be unhappy that we are happy," Snape said when we walked back to our rooms. Behind us floated the small haul of gifts.
"Poppy told!"
"You didn't tell her it was a secret discussion."
"I thought it was implied when I took her aside." I scuffed my boot against the stone floor, feeling irritated. I'll definitely know better next time. "I'm not unhappy that you're happy, you can be happy."
"Hm."
"It just feels so…"
"So?"
"I don't know."
"You had a big secret that you worried about for a year and we didn't show what you think should be an appropriate response." He stopped short and went down on one knee to be eye level with me. The procession of gifts floated sedately past. "What you seem to be forgetting is that we are also to blame, more so because we are the adults here. I apologise for lying to you, Albus. It was not right. If it helps to know Poppy was against it from the start."
Perhaps I was overreacting. This world has a history of letting children do as they pleased. Magic warped their minds, was my personal opinion, look how no one turned a hair in the books beyond taking a few paltry points. If he lied to me… "Can I ground you?"
"No."
"Can I be ungrounded?" I still had a week.
"No. It is an unrelated issue."
I couldn't even remember why I had been grounded but it was probably not a smart thing to say. For good measure I gave him a glare and stuck my bottom lip out. To no effect. I was starting to feel somewhat better though. "I'll give you three Flobberworms if you unground me."
"No." He straightened up and started again down the hall.
"Three Flobberworms and one Galle—"
"No."
Fine.
"Have you ever had a beard?"
"No." He missed a step. "What?"
"Poppy didn't spill one crumb in her beard, I watched her the whole time. I think I found egg in mine and there wasn't even egg at the feast! I keep wondering if it was leftover from his breakfast that day. Did he used to spill food in his beard? Because maybe Poppy should start, someone may notice. Minerva once came back with ketchup in it but she pretended it wasn't there when I pointed it out and—"
Grounding might have been a childish thing to want to do to him, but there was a more fun way to make him sorry. I kept up my prattle on Minerva's eating habits and halfway down the long hallway I started walking in circles around him.
"—so if you grow a beard I can braid it when I'm bored, like when I'm grounded with nothing else to do. Is there a potion that makes hair grow?" And wasn't it a great thing that I could now ask him anything I wanted? I had stored a lot of questions up this summer to ask Percy. "Or a potion that colours it without having to put chemicals in your hair—that would be amazing! They are not really good for kids, you know. The chemicals. And if I wanted my hair pink I would have to bleach it first before they can colour it, it's too dark." I turned and walked counterclockwise around him. "Would you let me colour my hair pink?"
"You want to have pink hair?"
"Green. But not Slytherin green, more like Flobberworm slime green—are you sure you don't want the Flo—"
"No."
"No, you're not sure or no you don't want them? It will save you money if you just use mine, you know. I can give it to you for free, you don't have to do anything for them. It's the worst—no second worst gift I have ever received. I'm only praying I get nicer stuff at the party." This reminded me that Snape himself had not given me any gift. I twisted to walk clockwise again, and while Snape pinched his nose for patience—ha!—I bit my tongue not to ask.
Christmas he had given me a stack of books, a mix of muggle and magical fiction, which was always the best kind of gift for me. He had given it early in the morning, but today nothing. Yet. Maybe it was something big. Maybe the party was the gift? Wait, I sounded spoiled. "I don't need to get any gifts, I am just saying. I already have a closet full of toys. As long as they enjoy the party I will be happy. I liked the socks they gave Dumbledore, but do you think Poppy exaggerated her happiness or does she really like brown that much—"