A Magical Offer

Anakin is playing tag with Tom in the front yard when he gets a visitor.

The man is wearing a suit of burnt orange with a green tie and handkerchief in the front pocket, all of which clashes horribly with his red hair. (Anakin only knows because Padme once gave him a personal two day fashion show where she explained several different ways to tell if something looked good or bad while trying on every piece of clothing in her personal dressing room. They'd been newlyweds. And he'd bought her an ugly dress. In the end he'd decided never to try to buy her clothing and to only dress in Jedi robes. They had never had a single problem with clothing after that.)

"Are you A. S. Walker?" The man in the ugly suit asked.

"Yes, sir," Anakin said.

"Mr Dumbledore is here about schooling, Amos," Mrs. Cole says, her hands clasped in front of herself. She doesn't sound too hopeful. To be fair she had made the mistake of telling Anakin that he wasn't responsible for Tom and should just go to school. It had been the first time in this life that Anakin had been frustrated enough that he yelled at someone. He'd gotten extra chores when he went back to apologize to her. But she never brought it up to him again.

"Could we perhaps speak elsewhere?" Mr Dumbledore asks. "I have an offer to a school that might suit you very well indeed."

"It's nearly time for Tom's nap anyway," Anakin scoops up the 15 month old child and pulls him close. He still isn't tall enough to carry Tom comfortably. But he has hopes that he'll grow faster than Tom soon enough. If he gets any of his old height back there shouldn't be a problem.

He leads the way to he and Tom's small closet of a bedroom. He's had the good luck to keep it to himself. He settles Tom into the bed with his toy and sits on the bed next to him. His chair is shared with Mr Dumbledore.

"Mr Walker," The professor starts when he has settled. "I'm here representing the Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The best school of Magic in Europe, if I may say so. As a Wizard you have access to a scholarship that will provide you free schooling for the next seven years. This is a great opportunity for you."

"What?"

"I'm a what?" Amos Walker asked.

This was the part of teaching that Albus loved. To see a child's eyes light up as they learned and understood something new! The fresh breath of air that followed when the child tried to use what they learned and their world was never the same. Though at the moment little Amos seemed more of the opinion that Albus was an idiot than that he'd just shared a secret of the universe upon him.

"A wizard," Professor Albus Dumbledore explained patiently. It was his first year doing a home visit. As the youngest of the new teachers he had been volunteered for the obligation of taking on the hardest of muggle born visits: the one student who had no parents.

"And this Hoggy school thing-" Amos started again. "It's for kids who have magic?"

"Yes," Albus confirmed, "It is the best wizarding school in Europe and one of the oldest of its kind. There you will be taught how to fly and how to brew potions that heal broken bones. You will learn to charm bags into holding more than they should and transfigure stones into hedgehogs."

He smiled and waited for some kind of reaction- a laugh or disbelief or something! What he got was a sullen look.

"If I'm magic, shouldn't I be able to do those things on my own?" Amos asked. "Why would I need to go to school?"

Albus glanced over at the child that Amos had put down to rest. The child had dark hair and thin features and pale skin, like Amos Walker did. But Albus couldn't tell if the boys were brothers. It was hard with children so young. In any case, the protective and caring manner that Amos displayed towards the child may have been the reason for the attitude.

"Can you do any of that on your own?"

"Well," Amos said cautiously, "It's hard since I have to hide it all the time. And I have to cover it up when . . . when I use it. So it's not like I've had a chance to really experiment."

"Hogwarts is a safe environment," Albus hastened to add. "Where you could learn and experiment all you wanted."
"With anything I wanted?" Amos asked, an edge to his voice.

The edge paused Albus's answer. Maybe he shouldn't give an indulgent 'yes' answer to the child. Maybe he should step up his replies and treat Amos more like a seventh year than a first.

"Well," Albus continued. "There are many areas of magic. Many are good and helpful. Some few are more . . .dangerous. There are rules at Hogwarts. But I imagine that anything you are able to learn in first year isn't going to get you in trouble while experimenting."

Amos reacted to that as an adult would, relaxing rather than looking disappointed that there were restrictions and rules.

"Good," Amos said. "There should always be limits to how far a person should go."

"I agree," Albus said. He felt a bit of a . . . wonder, an amazement, at this child who knew something that Albus had taken decades to learn. "May I ask how you learned that?"

The sharp look returned and Albus resisted the desire to look into the boy's mind.

"How does anyone learn that lesson?" He asked acidly. "I went too far and got in trouble and had to stop and go back. And now I know that there are things that people shouldn't meddle with. How did you learn that lesson?"
"Ahh," Albus had the strangest feeling he was being tested, and not by a student or a seventh year. His mind flashed to Gelert.

"I tried to help a friend." He felt his mouth say. He felt his hands shake ever so slightly. He had never spoken about this to anyone. Not when the wounds were still so fresh. "He had such great plans. Grand plans. And we were going to make wonderful changes and do great things together. But then . . . we were going too far. And I was leaving so many . . . things . . .so many people behind that I - I didn't notice. And in the end I lost to much. I lost all of it. And I shouldn't have gone anywhere near any of . . . that stuff- but I did and it was my fault that I lost everything that mattered."

His hands are shaking on his knees. At least the trembling wasn't visible. His insides are all shaken up too. For Merlin's sake! This boy needs to go to Hogwarts. He doesn't need to hear a garbled story of betrayal and tragedy and forbidden magic.

But when he turns to look at the young man he sees a look of understanding. He sees a softness that he had only caught a glimpse of when he was coming out of the building to fetch him while Amos was playing with the child in the front yard.

"Before my Mum died I knew she was going to die." Amos says, surprising Albus. "Months before she was hit by the car, and I was dreaming of her dieing."

The boy turns to the smaller child and places a hand against his forehead. He smooths sweaty hair back and away from the eyes. A tired smile graces his face as he mutters.

"I could see the same for Tom's mum."

When he turns to Albus again he must see the confusion on the professor's face.

"She came to the Orphanage to give birth. When she came in, I could tell she was wasn't going to make it."

"Are all of these . . .moments, about death?" Albus asks. Amos turns thoughtful before answering.

"No. No. I also knew that I needed to be there when she died. I was awake all night, waiting. And when Tom was born I knew that I was going to take care of him too." He glances back at the boy and then turns to Albus again. "That's why I can't go to Hogwarts, you see. I have to be here for Tom."

Albus is quiet as his ears ring with everything he just had shoved in his face.

A Seer. The boy must have some kind of gift of divination. Albus has never had much interest in prophecies or in divination. He's of the opinion that that stuff only has sway if you let it. But to know when Death approaches is one of the Great Gifts that his mother used to read him bedtime stories about. It's the purest form of divination and sometimes considered the darkest. If this were any other child, one raised in the wizarding world, or tried to get any recognition out of their actions, then Albus would cry fraud. But to hear a muggleborn, muggle-raised child claim such a gift as though mentioning accidental magic . . .

In an effort to get his feet under him he explains that Walker's gift is a strong talent for a branch of magic called Divination. He reverts into teaching mode and explains a little of the class that is taught at Hogwarts.

Meanwhile, his mind whirls. There is no way that he can- simply by talking- convince a seer to give up something he has self prophesied. It is one of the downsides of being divination magic inclined: you tend to believe in things too strongly. (Albus will admit that he has the same problem and that he isn't a seer.)

So Albus needs to speak to the Headmaster and Deputy Headmaster. There is no way that a seer is going to avoid education simply because he believes he needs to raise a baby. And he needs to take Amos Walker to Diagon Alley or other wizarding places where he could get attached to their world. And he could show off how much safer he would be among his own. (Ariana . . . no, don't go there.)

"Mr Walker, would it be possible for me to come back another day." Albus asked. "I could give you a tour of some parts of Wizarding London and present you with different options for the child? It so would be a shame not to have you learn more about your magic."

"All right," Amos says amicably. He's been much more pleasant since Albus's small break down. Actually Walker's maturity might be a side effect of his gift. Some seers are able to recognize truth from falsehoods, after all. So strange to find a muggleborn with such magic. Albus sets up a meeting for the next week.

"And we'll make a small trip to Diagon Alley," He says with a smile. He's going to show the child their world with everything it offers and the child will not be able to say no. "You'll get to see others like us, won't that be nice?"

Then, still attempting to impress Walker, Albus apperates directly away.

So this was short. But it's an important scene. And who else thinks the similarity/contrast of Vader and Dumbledore is cool? Vader in on the path to the dark side and kills Padme and turns even Darker. But when Dumbledore is on the same path, he might have had a hand in his sister's death and that turns him away from the path of a Dark Lord.