Author's Note:

I'm sorry it's been so long since I've updated, but work has been keeping me busy (damn Burger King). Hopefully this chapter will make up for the long delay. Enjoy.

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It's good to be home, Minerva thought to herself, as she stepped out of the fireplace in her office and placed Alan on his own two feet.

Her mother had been right, Florence was an excellent idea. After all, she was fond of the city and had taken Alan there, on a whim, not long after he was born. It was not an entirely far-fetched idea that Alan's father might be some Italian wizard she had met on a previous trip, and thus, as her mother had suggested, she made certain she visited ever few months. She and Alan had made five trips there in the past two years and in addition to pleasing fact that Alan was beginning to pick up a significant amount of Italian (a feat only a child was capable of), her mother's idea seemed to be working. Jove, Minerva knew, was quite convinced that Alan's father lived somewhere in Italy. He was quite certain that she'd been swept off her feet by some tall, dark, cultured Italian.

It was, in some ways, very comforting that she could fool someone so close to her. After all, if Jove was fooled, then surely other people were too. Conversely, however, she hated that it worked. It made her feel as though she was poisoning one of her closest relationships. There was definitely a part of her that felt that tricking her brother, whom she admired and loved dearly, was simply wrong. It left a bad taste in her mouth whenever she thought about it.

She tried to avoid thinking about it.

"Go get ready for bed now, love. You should have been asleep an hour ago."

"I'm not tired," Alan argued, looking up at her hopefully. He had her eyes. When he had been a baby, she had thought that he might end up with Albus' eyes as well as his hair, but he had her eyes instead. The only way those eyes resembled his father's was in their constant twinkle.

"Scoot," she told him firmly, indicating the painting behind which their personal quarters lay.

"Yes, Mummy."

The auburn-haired little boy moved toward the bedroom at a pace not quite as fast as his usual one, but still quick enough to not evoke a reprimand. Minerva's eyes followed him for a moment before she turned back to the fire still burning in her office fireplace.

"I'll be there to tuck you in momentarily." she called behind her. "Right after I've finished speaking with the Headmaster."

"Is Albus going to be coming here?"

"Maybe," she answered, "however you will be in bed."

The acquiescing moan that sounded behind her as Alan gave the portrait, Darmond, the password into their rooms showed very clearly how much Alan hated missing an opportunity to spend time with Albus. It was not a common for such an opportunity to be missed but when it happened, Minerva always knew she would hear that moan escape her son's lips. He adored Albus and looked up to him in the same way most sons looked up to their fathers—even though he lacked the knowledge that Albus was indeed his father.

It was only natural, really. Albus was around the boy a lot. He and Minerva were still quite close, even if they weren't as close as either of them would like, and their jobs required a lot of interaction. Albus had been a familiar face to Alan ever since Minerva had returned to Hogwarts the summer after he born. To Alan, Albus was his mother's good friend and boss, and Alan's personal buddy while he was at the castle. Every summer, when he and his mother went returned to their home in Scotland, he always seemed to be counting down the days until he went back to Hogwarts and saw Albus again.

She wished that she could actually convince Albus to come see them sometimes during the summer, but she'd only succeeded twice for all of her pleadings. Albus was afraid that if he made himself too familiar, someone might notice and piece the puzzle together. She suspected he would have stopped their weekly chess games to that end, if she hadn't casually 'dropped' the notion that deviating from the pattern they'd established before Alan had been born might catch someone's attention. The last thing Albus, or she, wanted to do was attract attention of any sort towards Alan and themselves.

She heard the portrait close behind Alan and tossed a handful of floo powder into the fire. She'd promised Albus that she'd inform him of when she and Alan returned, as well as a chess game if it wasn't too late at night for one.

As soon as her head popped into his office, Minerva spotted Albus sitting at his desk and going through both his mail and a bag of sweets simultaneously. Minerva wished he wouldn't eat so many sweets. It taught Alan bad habits, laboring against her own efforts to curb their son's own sweet tooth. Every time she mentioned it, however, Albus would simply laugh and twinkle his eyes at her. He almost seemed to believe in sweets as a great force of good in the universe.

She believed it rotted the teeth of boys of all ages.

"Albus."

He looked up from his letter to the fire and smiled warmly at her, his eyes twinkling at her. "You've returned then."

"Just a few moments ago."

Silence fell momentarily and Minerva knew that Albus was holding back a 'thank you.' He always thanked her for notifying him immediately when she and Alan returned. It drove her crazy. She knew he worried while they were away, but she worried when he was away and would doubly so if he were to ever take their son with him. It was a small courtesy to tell him that they were back but she knew it did wonders for his peace of mind. She would never do otherwise and she didn't want him continually thanking her for something she would do even if he did not ask.

"The night is still young," she noted. "Are you interested in a game of chess?"

His eyes twinkled brightly at her, as soon as the words left her mouth. She hated it when he looked at her like that. It filled her with a variety of feelings she knew she could never again indulge in.

"That would be marvelous. I'm not quite finished with my mail but I should be shortly. I'll meet you in your office when I'm done. Is that all right?"

"That's fine. I still need to tuck Alan in."

Right about here was where a normal father would have asked her to say good night for him, but Albus and Alan did not share a normal father-son relationship. Normal sons knew that their fathers were their fathers.

It was amazing how even after three and half years moments like this still felt awkward and wrong. One would think a person would get used to that sort of thing but Minerva and Albus certainly never had. Perhaps it was because nearly every time it came up both had to struggle with the impulse to not simply act as anyone else would. Perhaps it was because both knew the other one struggled that way every time it came up despite the fact that neither had ever mentioned it happened.

"I'll see you when I'm finished then," said Albus, trying to carry on the conversation as normally as he could.

"I'll have the chess board set up when you arrive,"she said in way of farewell, and pulled her head from the fireplace.

She stood, and brushed the dirt from her knees, deciding as she did that she'd not cleaned her office in far too long. Normally it was absolutely spotless. She'd make sure to get to that tomorrow.

She walked over to where Darmond's portrait hung on the wall and gave him the password—'book,' Alan's first word—and entered her chambers. She lit her wand, not wanting to bother with the lights as she wouldn't be using them for very long and made her way to Alan's room, placed right next to hers courtesy of the castle (though how the castle had known she needed another room in her chambers, she had no idea).

She found Alan sitting on his bed in his Montrose Magpies pajamas, stroking their pet kneazle, Hewitt, as he read a short book. He'd started reading, real, phonetic reading not just sight reading, a month or two before and ever since he'd been reading almost constantly—especially around bedtime. He knew that his mother hated to stop him to make him go to bed.

Minerva sat down next to her son, who looked up as he felt the bed shift. "Can I just finish this? Then I'll go to sleep, mummy. I promise."

"I've heard that one before," she told him, gently lifting the book from his hands and placing it on his night stand. "Come on, into bed."

He complied, and she tucked him in, kissing him softly on both cheek and hair. She needed to have his hair cut again. It was getting a little long—not that she minded her son having long hair, in fact she thought that when his hair got a little long he bore something of a resemblance to her father. The problem was, however, that he also began to bear a stronger resemblance to his own father, whose hair was longer than Minerva's own, as well. So made sure his hair stayed above his shoulders.

She kissed him once more, for good measure, and Alan smiled sleepily at her. He might argue about it but he was well ready to sleep. He'd had that same groggy look in his eyes for the past half hour.

"Good night, wee one."

With a wave of her wand, Minerva swept all light from the room and turned to leave. She was nearly out of the room when Alan's voice called her back.

"Mum . . ."

She turned, hands on her hips. "Yes?"

"Is Albus my da?"

It took a moment or two for Minerva to recover from the great shock she'd experienced at the words that had just come out of her three year old's mouth. Even then all she could manage through the quiet panic that suddenly gripped her was an awkward utterance of "what?"

"I think Albus is my da."

She tired to recover as best she could. How could he know that? He was only three and she'd never breathed a word to or near him about his father. He couldn't possibly actually know.

"What makes you think that?"

She tried to keep her breathing even.

"I can just tell," he answered and Minerva heard the faint rustle of his sheets as he shrugged. "From the way he treats me and the way you act together." There was a momentary pause. "And he has my hair, like Uncle Jove has Vulcan's hair."

He knew. He actually knew. Her three year old had quickly and easily figured out a secret which she had not plan to let him in on for a number of years. She needed to sit down. Where was that chair? It was too dark in here to find it. She settled for leaning back against the door frame instead.

"He is my da, isn't he, mum?"

She could stop this all right now. She could make life far easier and less stressful by telling him 'no,' but she couldn't do that. She couldn't lie to him, especially when she knew that she would have to tell him the truth sooner or later. She didn't want to have to tell him later that she'd lied when she'd denied Albus was his father. She had to tell him the truth right now. She could figure out what else to do about it later.

"Yes, he is. Now go to sleep. We can talk about this tomorrow."

"But mummy—"

"Goodnight, Alan."

She shut the wooden door behind her and made her way shakily to wear she kept her chess board and chessmen. God, she was so out of sorts even her wand was sparking. Maybe she shouldn't have told him. How could she expect a three year old to keep a secret like that? It was a preposterous idea . . .

But then again, that's what she had thought of the idea of him figuring out who his father was and look what had happened. Maybe she wasn't wrong. Lying to children was rarely a good idea and the fact was that Alan might very well have known if she had. He was very perceptive. If she hadn't known it before, this little incident would have proven it. It was his perceptions and intuition which had lead him to his father's identity.

Her pieces were half set up on the chess board when she heard a knock on her office door. That would be Albus. She was going to have to tell him about this too. She hadn't even thought about that until now.

She set down the chess piece she was holding and went to answer the door.

The words were out of her mouth before he had even spoken a greeting.

"Albus, he knows."