Dumbledore was on his way towards a muggle psychiatric ward. He had gotten wind of a most peculiar situation. A series of letters were unable to reach a soon to be Hogwarts student. Someone he hadn't been able to pay attention with young Harry attending school soon.
This ones situation was so out of the ordinary that it took a while for him to understand the situation. According to the muggle records the boy was put into a mental institute after the child doctors diagnosed him with multiple personality disorder. His parents, overworked from his strangeness saw no other way after years of caring for him. It hurt them to see their precious child taken away from their home even if it was their choice and the best that they could do for him.
But that made it only harder for Dumbledore. He had looked into the smuggle records as well as magic history and he found not a single case as severe as this one.
That's why he finally arrived here. The London institute for the Mentally Ill.
It was guarded like any other hospital, but nothing for an accomplished wizard as he was. A careful confundus here a bit of legilimency there and he was clear to meet the boy.
He did not expect to be lead to a white cell.
The child didn't like natural material they said, manmade ones made him calmer, quieter they said.
The attendant, who accompanied Dumbledore to the boy's room tapped in the numbers and opened the door. "Here he is Dr. Dumbledore."
"Thank you very much." he would be lying if he said he wasn't a tiny bit nervous, but even for someone as old as Dumbledore life still had surprises.
And imagine his when an eleven year old boy, upon seeing your entrance warmly greets you with a smile, "Ah, patient Miller a pleasure seeing you every time. Are you ready for your examination?"
Dumbledore was truly baffled as he watched the child's clothes transfigure into the white lab coats the doctors outside wore, as well as a pair of spectacles.
He also felt a 'mind', if you still could call it that, unlike any he had seen before press onto his own.
A smile of his own formed on his wrinkled face, "Yes I am, Dr."
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When Dumbledore returned from his trip the first thing he did was call for all four house of heads. He had to prepare them for the irregularity that was going to attend this year as well as make sure all preparations for Harry were well on their way.
McGonagall, as the vice headmistress, was in the know where Dumbledore had gone and was equally intrigued by this new student the Hogwarts letter couldn't reach, regardless how often they tried. "What was the situation, Albus?"
A childish smile met her question, "It will be a very whimsical year."
"And what does that mean?" Professor Snape asked monotonously.
"You will see." The headmaster's smile grew bigger, which only irritated Snape further. Sometimes he forgets that this person could be equally as childish as strong as he was.
"Sigh,... ok. Do we need to prepare anything out of the ordinary for him?" Snape just gave up and moved on.
"As a matter of fact there is. We should run a few tests on how good you can contain a fellow legilimens." That was the only precaution Dumbledore would take and Snape, someone who was extremely gifted in the mind arts, had to shoulder that responsibility. After all Dumbledore wouldn't expose the other children to that monstrous mind.
After meeting the boy, he had to admit his talent in legilimens was monstrous. He was far superior to Dumbledore's own talent in transfiguration and alchemy. He might be even more talented than the likes of the four founder/Flamel or even Merlin, but he wasn't sure about that yet.
Regardless he looked forward to their shopping trip in Diagonal Ally. The childish smile bloomed once more. He definitely had taken a liking to the boy, it wasn't everyday that he met someone more childish and whimsical than himself. Maybe that's why he was drawn to Hogwarts, here he was away from the irritating politics of the grown ups.
"Oh, almost forgot," he looked back at Snape, "you might want to accompany us on his shopping trip. Then we can test for a final time if it works."
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Snape hated a few things, let's not kid ourselves, he hated most things. However, one of those he couldn't stand to the core was waking up early. So imagine how he felt when Dumbledore dragged him out of his room before 6 am. Not even the first ray of the morning sun had fallen.
At least he would finally meet the child.
The bane of his existence for the last month.
Instead of being able to brew to his leisure in his cozy room, he was training with Dumbledore.
Anyway, they apparated to the mental hospital, where they without big fuzz made their way to his room.
Dumbledore almost skipped along the way, which Snape couldn't understand why. What was so special, apart from his legilimency prowess. Why was the strongest wizard alive so happy to meet someone in a mental institution. Regardless how much he wanted to be a pureblood and acknowledged by them, he was born not one of them that's why he knew what this hospital was more clearly than any of them. So why?
Dumbledore quickly tapped in the code for the door.
Finally it was time.
The door swang open and Snape was met with the reality inside, a padded room.
The headmaster paid no attention to that and swiftly moved inside, where a small child was sleeping soundly.
"If I may be so frank my friend, this is Mr. Maxim Miller, as far as his legal name is concerned." Dumbledore introduced, "let's wake him up."
The old man brought out his wand and produced a feather at its end, with which he proceeded to tickle the boy's nose.
Snape was lost for words and he was about to say something, but Maxim woke up.
A multitude of different voices immediately bombarded his mind, all of them eager and curious to meet another one. All of them flooded his mind with their own perception, imagination and mindspace. You know the place where the apple appears once you imagined it.
He saw himself in those minds as well as Dumbledore, but all of them were slightly different. Some simply deviated in color, others were like paintings from different painters, some even had forgone the need for images and represented them in words. The most bizarre ones were the ones where he was some kind of mathematical concept as well as those where he was disfigured. The one which almost scared him was the one where he didn't have a face, just a blank wall of skin.
However, it didn't stop there and slowly even more mindboggling ones started to show up.
That was as far as he was willing to take it and he shut all of them out via occlumency. He didn't fancy humouring it any further than this and he also didn't want to know what else was lurking.
"Fascinating isn't it?" Snake turned away to a now fully serious Dumbledore.
"It certainly is... fascinating." Snake responded as he now fully grasped the full weight of what the headmaster wanted him to shoulder. "Dum..."
The headmaster interrupted him, "Don't worry. I have talked with a few of them, you will not be the only one carrying the burden. But you will be the guardian for the other children should he loose himself."
They looked at each other intently as a few scenarios ran through their heads.
Dumbledore eventually continued, "I believe you can do it Severus."
Something warm spread out in Snape's chest. Acknowledgement.
The headmaster went back to the child to speak to him. "Morning. Can you get Alex, I need to speak to him."
The boy looked at him for barely a second, when a beaming smile spread on his face, "Gramps, you came! Are we going to the magic world?"
"Yes my dear, we are." He then turned to Snape with an asking look.
The potions professor merely nodding as he created a protective shell around the child, shielding others from the multitude of minds. It was the result of their training and should be enough if Alex or other benevolent personalities were driving.
I didn't take long for them to reach Diagon Ally. On the way Dumbledore showed a plethora of different magic tricks which made Alex giggle non stop.
The reason for their early visit was to make sure that the boy had a more relaxing and stress free first experience. Which was successful. This early no one was around with the shops still closed.
They came to a stop before Ollivanders.
Snape was about to ask whether he even needed a ward or if it was a good idea in the first place, but Dumbledore shut him off before he could say anything by opening the door and announcing, "this here is Mr. Ollivander's shop, here we will get you your own wand. Then you can also play around like we did earlier." Hr continued with a more serious tone, "keep in mind wands have their own wills and preferences, so you have to take good care of yours."
"Yeah, I can already hear them." Alex yelled with excitement.
And it was true, to him magic was just another voice, which was less intrusive compared to the other ones, but there nonetheless. Although that was true for most magic and natural materials like wood or stone for example, here he was met with a chorus. Some cried like a phoenix others roared like dragons and everything in between. Even though most didn't interact with him, he didn't mind, because there was one all the way in the back, who cried just for him.
Alex abandoned any of his already missing manners and made his way towards it. On the way he happened to cross paths with the shop owner.
"You must be the young wizard Dumbledore mentioned." Ollivander greeted him warmly "you are an eager one aren't you?"
Alex was confused. There definitely was a person standing in front of him, then why couldn't he hear him. This was the first time this happened.
Snape had only been able to cut off other people's minds, the magic of the world didn't care what a human wanted. It continued to talk with him regardless.
"Grandpa this one is strange." He screamed.
Dumbledore and Snape made their way over only to see the situation and understood what the misunderstanding was. "Dear, remember we talked about this."
"Yeah, yeah use words with my mouth." It made him sad. "But it feels wrong."
"You promised me, remembered, you are only allowed to speak with your mouth unless I give you permission. Otherwise I can't show you more magic. Do you want that." Dumbledore swiftly shut down Alex's protest.
"Noooooo."
"Good. Now then Mr. Ollivander would you mind." The headmaster gestured to the small boy.
"Of course not, I love a challenge." Ollivander replied.
However, before he could go through his normal process, Alex walked past him and only came to a stop when he arrived at a specific place.
"Come down," he yelled excitedly and to the surprise of Ollivander only one box slowly drifted down. It gently landed on Alex' outstretched hand. He hastily opened it and stared at the wand. "Hello there."
Ollivander wasn't mad at all that he couldn't go through his normal ritual. On the contrary he was overwhelmingly fascinated by what he observed.
The young child which Dumbledore had warned him could cause tremendous amounts of damage to his shop when he found his wand or grabbed a wand that was unsuitable seemed to be currently talking to one of his wands. It was a full blown conversation, from which he only understood a fraction thanks to his years of working with wands. But whatever actually happened it wasn't bad. The wand actually trembled with excitement here and there as it seemed to answer and talk with the boy.
Eventually, curiosity got the better of him, "who is he?"
Dumbledore never stopped smiling as he watched Alex interact with his new companion, "I don't actually know. Isn't that exciting."
He let that hang in the room for a while until he continued, "as far as I know he is a muggleborn. There is no connection whatsoever to any of the existing magical families. He does, however, have a tremendous innate talent for legilimency, to the point that his own mind couldn't cope with it. If you really want Snape can show you."
Ollivander looked back to the joyful child-wand interaction and said, "I would like that."
"Severus please, only a bit."
And he did. He lowered the shield to the point that they could understand the flow of the conversation, but not to the point where they could hear them.
It was simply beautiful. None of the three could stop the smile forming on their faces as they basked in the wholesome atmosphere before them. It felt like the reunion of two friends after years of separation, who couldn't wait to catch up.
For Ollivander that was it. The dream of every wand maker. He had found it.
Dumbledore ans Snape needed to leave at some point, there were other shops they also needed to visit.
So Snape closed the shields again and they made their way over to him.
That's when they caught something very strange.
"Yes, yes. That makes sense. You should be." And before they could react Alex's right index finger detached itself. Then he pressed the base of the wand against his stump and the wand transfigured itself into a wooden replica of his finger. His severed finger wiggled on the floor like a worm.
Alex looked over to the flabbergasted crowd, "we can go now."
He walked past them and when he was almost out of sight he added with a smile like it was the most normal thing ever, "you can keep that. I don't need it anymore."
"..."
"..."
"..."
Dumbledore couldn't help but break out in laughter. A genuine laugh that came from deep in his soul.