Hel-lo there! Yay… looks like you guys really like this, I swear I hadn't expected so many reviews :D smiles happily Thanks a ton to all those who reviewed. And I am so sorry for the super-long update, I was going through hell studying for exams … and now I'm free!! I am not sticking to my usual style of writing for this one, just writing it as a break from other fics, so it won't be half as descriptive as the others.
Oh yeah, do I need to reiterate the disclaimer? You must know it by heart …
Chapter 2 – In which Albus Dumbledore decides that seven year olds are not necessarily as naive as they seem
Albus Dumbledore made to move forward, breathing in deeply and bracing himself inwardly for an intolerably pink room with red roses, white balloons, stuffed dolls and everything else a seven-year old girl would fawn over, all around, but Milan suddenly stuck his arm before him and barricaded him off the room.
Albus stopped obligingly and took a step back into darkness as he shot Milan a questioning glance.
'Well,' Milan replied, looking torn between worry, amusement and apprehension at the same time, as he shut the door noiselessly behind him and mutely hoped his daughter would not notice. 'I really don't think it's good for you to just barge in her room-' he hesitated slightly '-she appreciates her privacy.'
Albus shrugged noncommittally in reply. 'What do you want me to do?' he enquired politely, not very certain of how he was supposed to go the apparently strenuous task of a
babysitting a supposedly "rational" seven-year old; notwithstanding that he didn't have any babysitting experiences in the first place.
'Maybe, I should tell her first,' Milan suggested simply as he slowly pushed open the door, still facing Albus. 'Perhaps, she might take to you kindly, then.' The sceptical look on his face did nothing to improve Albus' already doubtful spirits. 'Might,' he emphasized pointedly.
Albus sighed morosely. He hadn't expected babysitting to be so problematic; he had only been looking forward to it as a welcome break from the extraneous paperwork he had been so unsympathetically subjected to before and after Grindelwald's campaign. 'I suppose,' he muttered incoherently, but Milan had already opened the door. Bright light emanated through the unbolted door and Albus peered furtively over Milan's shoulders and attempted to catch a glimpse of his babysitee, whilst staying in the shadows.
'Ahem,' Milan cleared his throat authoritatively, addressing both Albus, who was now leaning heavily on his shoulder without apparent cause, unless he was trying to exercise his neck, which was unlikely, and his young daughter, whose face was obscured by some ancient book which she had obviously managed to extract from the family's huge library upstairs.
'Uh-huh,' someone replied from behind the book distractedly.
Albus gave up trying to look across Milan's shoulders; it was futile, the man was too tall, anyway. This was unfortunate though; at that precise moment, Milan shoved a defeated-looking Albus into his young daughter's room.
Albus shut his eyes quickly and then opened them again, overwhelmed by the bright light, having carried out a whispered conversation in the dark for the past few minutes. When his eyes finally adjusted to the radiance, he quickly scanned the room. And what he saw wasn't exactly what he had been expecting.
Minerva McGonagall's room extended over quite a large span and was ostensibly devoid of anything seven-year old. In fact, Albus would have reflected the room to be some studious OWL year student's had he not been aware of Minerva's tender age. The walls were covered more charts on Transfiguration and Defence against Dark Arts than was requisite for a seven-year old, though a few posters of Autumn Kerrie, a eminent and accomplished female Quidditch player, dotted the walls in some places. A bookshelf adorned the adjacent wall and seemed to be groaning piteously under the weight of myriad ancient manuscripts and a half-opened trunk near the bed revealed a collection of old newspaper cuttings of all-important events in wizarding history. His eyes finally fell on the bed, where the girl was sitting, engrossed in the book (black cover and golden lettering – Dark Arts through the Ages) and oblivious to their presence; he could only make out the top of her midnight black hair. Albus was deeply shocked that a seven year old would read a text so full of the Dark Arts, but kept his superfluous thoughts and opinions to himself.
'Minerva,' Milan called out sharply again, sounding distinctly annoyed as Albus continued his survey of the chamber. 'Minerva, the book down for Merlin's sake!'
'Huh?' Minerva returned vaguely, her head obedient to her father's call, her eyes still lingering on the receding print of the book. 'What?'
'Come on, Minerva,' Milan snapped finally, pulling the book out of her reluctant hands. She jerked back in surprise and squinted at him quizzically.
Albus caught his first glance of the young girl - Minerva McGonagall was a tall and lanky but pretty girl for her age; she seemed to have inherited her attractive appearance entirely from her rather handsome father. Her hair fell straight down to her shoulders and was curled at the tips and her emerald green eyes bore straight onto her father's green ones, looking both irritated and questioning.
'Now listen, I have a Ministry meeting –' he began tentatively, once he was sure he had her undivided attention.
'And Mum's gone to work, so Aunt Maria's coming over to see to me,' she finished in a bored voice, a trace of hurt evident in her explicitly biting tone as she made to snatch the book back from him. 'Why don't you just get her to live here? Anyway, she's more at home than you are.'
Albus was a bit taken aback by her quick and cutting retort, and then felt a pang of sorrow for both Minerva and Milan, who looked stung by her words, but recovered swiftly.
'Minerva-'
'Yeah, I know you love me, I love you too,' she interrupted in the same, monotonous, uninterested tone of voice. 'Can I have the book back now?'
Milan sighed wearily and opened his mouth to speak, hoping she would not cut across him in that painfully sharp tone once more. 'Minerva, listen, Aunt Maria isn't home today,' he stated slowly, waiting to see how she would react, but she was reaching out for the book from the bed.
'Yay, celebrate, I get to stay home alone,' she returned sarcastically, folding her skinny arms across her chest in defiance when her father put the book on the top of the wardrobe, well out of her reach. 'Big deal,' she snorted grumpily.
'No, I've got someone else to baby-sit you,' Milan countered, pulling Albus, who had until now been engaged in familiarizing himself with the manifestation of the room, clearly into view.
'Great – I get to make new friends,' she breathed cynically, and then, it suddenly seemed to strike her what he had just said. 'WHAT?!'
Milan mentally braced himself for abundant yelling; seeing as he was already running ten minutes late for the meeting, he might as well listen to one of Minerva's entertaining tirades before the dreary convention.
'I-have-got-a-new-baby-sitter-for-you.' Milan said clearly, avoiding the death glare she was sending him. It sometimes made him wonder how she could be so fearless and intrepid, completely unafraid of him, or anything for that matter.
And he was supposed to be the father.
'I AM NOT BEING LOOKED AFTER BY A COMPLETE STRANGER!' she yelled loudly, glaring fiercely at her father.
Albus, who had been watching the scene all along with unrivalled curiosity and interest mixed with a dash of bewilderment at her unique and unsurpassed retorting ability, smiled privately. He could not but help feel a resentful, unholy admiration for the girl's complete lack of fear. If there was any house young Minerva McGonagall would be placed into when she went to Hogwarts, it would most certainly be Gryffindor.
'Yes, you are, young lady,' Milan said, just as stridently in his best no-nonsense voice, looking straight in the defiant eye. 'Now thanks to you, I am already running a good fifteen minutes late for the meeting –'
'Oh, so it's my fault, is it?' she fumed angrily, getting out of bed and placing her hands on her hips, looking rather ominous for her age.
'Minerva, this really isn't the time,' Milan sighed wearily, gently ruffling her hair, not in the least attempting to soothe her because he knew it was ineffectual to do so, in any case. She pulled away from his hands instantly albeit a tad regretfully.
'Well, I still mean what I say,' she said irritably, slumping back into the bed. 'I AM NOT BEING SITTED BY ANYONE OTHER THAN AUNT MARIA!'
She shot Albus an irate glower but he was staring at the ceiling and twiddling his thumbs nonchalantly, deaf to the heated discussion between father and daughter taking place before him.
Then, she turned to her father, her sharp mind fresh with a diatribe of indispensable arguments. 'How do you know if you can trust however this person is?' she shot pointedly. 'Suppose he only offered to baby sit me so that he can take the house for himself?'
Milan looked bowled over for a split second, and then a sudden thought struck him out of the blue. He pulled down the book Minerva had been reading from its perch on the cupboard top. 'Dark Arts through the Ages,' he muttered. 'What have you been reading, honestly…'
'At least, I'm aware the world isn't all full of brilliant wizards,' she snapped testily, wrenching the book from his firm grasp. 'There are loads of cases here, see page nine hundred and forty six, where-' She flipped through the pages quickly and shoved the book under Milan's nose.
'Minerva, I'm late,' Milan said in a very final sort of a way, pushing the yellowed pages of the book away. 'I really have no wish to put any restrictions on what you read but if you get such dangerous ideas from them … anyway, Albus has already agreed to babysit you.'
He turned on his heel and whispered into an unsuspecting Albus' ears, 'Best of luck.' Then, with one brisk trot, he was out of the room.
'Albus – you don't mean … wait, who?' she queried, mystified for a split second and then, her eyes fell on Dumbledore, who was eyeing her amicably. 'Him?' she breathed, voice dripping with revulsion as though Albus was some new species of an objectionable Flobberworm that had landed right next to her. She glanced at him quickly, taking in his auburn hair, warm, twinkly blue eyes, long, eccentric-looking, outlandish robes. Her mind was clouding with suspicion. Why had he offered to look after me? Voluntarily? Looks garish … Maybe…
'DAD, WAIT!' she shouted defiantly, skidding across her room, pushing Albus brusquely out of the way. 'DAD, I'M NOT BEING LOOKED AFTER BY SOME ANONYMOUS PERSON! How do you think you can trust him? I mean, look at him … dad?"
Fifteen minutes later, Albus could still hear her flinging pointless and largely farfetched accusations at both him and Milan.
He ran his fingers glumly through his beard to occupy his redundant fingers and shook his head in clear defeat. "Boy, what did I get my self into?"
To be continued…He, he … next chapter … Albus has an interrogation from an unimpressed Minerva! Please, please, please reviews!