Raising Albus

CH 24 Christmas Two-Thousand Fourteen

Albus was getting ready to go to bed that Christmas Eve. He looked around his bedroom. His bedroom was a comfortable place, one place in the house that was uniquely his. He had been given a chance to decorate the room any way he liked. It was a light green, almost an off white, with some darker green accents. Al thought the green accents were similar to the dark green that was one of the colors of the Holyhead Harpies. The woodwork was all light, and any metalwork, sconces for light, door handles and the like, were chrome. James called anything that looked like chrome "silver" and said that Albus' room was decorated in Slytherin colors, although that was certainly not Albus' intent. Albus had charts on the walls, things that he could know with certainty. He had a periodic table of elements, a chart of all the kings and queens of England, another chronology of English history, and still another chronology of world history. Albus had maps, of England, of Europe, of North America, of the world. There were maps and charts and lists from some of his magical books too, including a large chronology of Magi history going back almost five-thousand years. Anything he could put on the wall that was certain helped Albus feel like he could control his world, or at least know what was in the world. There were also bookcase of books, a good working desk and a couple of different comfortable reading chairs, with plenty of light. It was about as different from James Red and Gold room as possible, no Quidditch posters on the wall, nothing about Harry Potter or Ginny Potter on the wall. Lily's room was, Al knew, pink and white and looked like a pampered little girl's room.

Albus knew he was smart and an unusually good wizard for his age. He also knew he was doing things that he really should not be doing at his age. As new skills came to him they were not only a source of great satisfaction but a worry. Al was worried about his future; why was all this happening to him. This fifth incident of prophecy was not exactly welcome. Al was not looking forward to being a prophet, although he liked talking to the prophets in Switzerland. Al was always good at reading people, but he knew the difference between a natural reading of people and Legilimency. What he did in both reading the minds of Melody and little Phil and in calming them down was Legilimency, not just a natural sympathy. This was a very handy talent this night, but it was a scary talent. It wasn't just that he could almost read little Phil and Melody's mind, and calm them down. He saw more than before how worried his mother was, and had some additional insight into Teddy's awareness that he was different. Al was going to have to talk to his dad about this new skill. This was something else to worry about, being a Legilimens at such a young age.

Al knew that his father was upset that the Auror department and the Department of Magical Law Enforcement that his grandfather was head of could not do anything about the Colburn family until Mr. Colburn had killed Mrs. Colburn. Al knew that was not right. Al just did not understand why people could be mean, would want to hurt anyone. It just wasn't right! And then what about the Colburn children? From what Albus could sense little Phil would probably be all right. His mind was full of a lot of confusion, but his memories were not all that clear. Al hoped he would be all right. Melody was another matter. She remembered her mother as the one who tried to save her from her father's beatings, and saw her mother's death. She was going to have a much harder time getting over what she had seen and experienced. Albus knew there was really nothing more that he could do, but he still felt bad for the children.

Harry and Ginny put the children to bed and kissed them good night in reverse order, youngest to oldest. When Harry and Ginny went into Albus's room this Christmas Eve Albus asked his dad, "Could you come back and talk to me. Please!" Harry could tell it was important and agreed immediately, and as soon as he and Ginny had finished with James Harry was back in the bedroom of Albus.

Harry was upset. They knew about the Colburn family, but no one was responsible for that type of problem until someone was hurt, and they could prove it. He knew that one area he had made very little progress with might be called "family law." No one in the Ministry of Magic was really paying much attention to families in trouble. There was one healer working out of St. Mungo's, who had about fifty families she was working with. One family took a day every week; the parents had their own problems, and both children were having a hard time. There were a couple of other families that she tried to see for part of a day each week. Before she was done with the people who she felt she had to see there was way too much left to do and way too little time left to do it. Harry and Arthur had tried to recruit more people, and have a liaison with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Harry was beginning to think he was going get Cindy Hudson to tell the story of the Colburn family. Most of the families that needed help did not want to have publicity, and most family matters were confidential, so getting any publicity was difficult. Harry always had a hard time getting to sleep whenever he felt that there was a failure of any kind in the Department of Law Enforcement, even when he was not officially in charge, and he felt the Colburn family was a major failure. All this was on his mind as he walked into Albus's room that night.