AN: A Harry Potter fusion, based on a prompt from cyanclouds for her Secret Santa fic on the USUK LJ comm.

In the instant that a happy yearmate, bubbling over with the latest gossip regarding the Boy Who Didn't Die, told Arthur that Alfred had been selected for the Quidditch team - the youngest Seeker appointed in over five hundred years - a thousand deaths-by-Quidditch flashed behind Arthur's eyes. Bludger to the head - a fall hundreds of feet down - smashing into the unforgiving ground - a Quaffle, ill-thrown, knocking a little, light-boned boy off his broom - Beaters wielding their bats with malevolent glee - a Snitch to the eye - rival Seekers bashing their brooms into his - and yet more horrible fates. Overwhelmed, he slipped into darkness.

When he awoke, with a weeping and fearful Alfred beside him and a ring of interested classmates watching - one having just upended a conjured bucket of ice-cold water over Arthur's head - he did not even stop to give his classmates consideration. He merely rushed for his rooms, Alfred tucked under his arm like a puppy, adrenaline from bad dreams giving him the strength of ten men and the purpose of a hundred.

The next morning, he had prepared - with Alfred watching his labors the whole time, in the library, while Arthur explained to the little boy exactly his arguments - a presentation for the staff, based heavily upon that vision of death and destruction that had come upon him, supplemented lavishly with researched figures, illustrations, and charts. He applied to his Head of House, who had dropped a hundred notches in Arthur's estimation by suggesting the whole horrible idea, but by the end, drawn by the lurid lights and gruesome sound effects, the whole staff was watching.

He began by explaining that the ban of having first-years in the Quidditch teams was there for a hundred and one good reasons and then he proceeded to elaborate on these good reasons. His first argument was about the statistical likelihood of death and injury - and then about the psychological effects, on the team, on the House, on other Houses, and on the young player himself, that were sure to ensue - he had only gotten into Part III: The Delicate Nature of First-year Skeletal Structures and How Easily Bones Are Broken At That Age (Subtitle: The Breaks That Stay For A Lifetime) when the Gryffindor head, looking a bit green, put up his hands and surrendered - a complete and utter surrender, backwards and forwards, and even apologized.

The staff applauded.

In order to soothe Alfred's mild disappointment (although, since he believed utterly that Arthur had forbidden Quidditch in order to save him from death, the only evidence of disappointment was a slight sadness in his eyes), Arthur decided to give the boy private flying lessons. Arthur's dorm-mate Mathias Kohler, the disappointed Captain of Gryffindor, offered to take the boy under his wing - but Arthur, regarding him with the same suspicion a mother offers a scorpion found in her baby's crib, rejected it on behalf of Alfred, and immediately went to the library to read up on every book they had on broomsticks.

He ordered a Nimbus Two-Thousand, said it was his to get around the first-year ban on owning brooms but told Alfred it was really all for the boy's very own. Alfred then burst into tears - alarming Arthur - and he hugged the prefect, managing to gulp out that it was the first present he'd ever received and he loved it, thank you! Arthur hugged him back.

Though Arthur tried to keep their private flying lessons private, interested classmates had seen him and Alfred - had seen Alfred take to flying like a duck to water or - more to the point - like a young eagle to the sky. They reported with hushed voices that the Boy Who Didn't Die was also the Boy Who Could Really Fly - and Seeker-lacking Mathias glowered at Arthur whenever they met.

Alfred found flying sheerest ecstasy, which was enough for Arthur to get over his mild dislike of the practice (he much preferred being on land - or sea) and even if he lacked Alfred's natural broom-talent, he had a quick mind and access to books to coach Alfred into a solid grasp of the basic principles. Alfred decided that this was much better than being on a Quidditch team, where he'd have to deal with big scary Viking-looking captains and even more crowds.

Matthew, resentful that Alfred had come out of the whole affair with even more positive attention, challenged Alfred to a duel.

Alfred promptly told Arthur, who gleefully used the opportunity to entrap Malfoy (mildly disappointed that there was no way to implicate Bonnefoy as well) and take away a large number of points from Slytherin.

Alfred's entire first year at Hogwarts went similarly smoothly - buffered from harsh and traumatic events by Arthur's ever-watchful presence. There was a three-headed dog Alfred never discovered, because he would never go out of bounds - the bounds Arthur enforced; there was a philosopher's stone that Alfred never knew was being hidden in the Castle; and there was a jinxed broomstick Alfred never rode, because he wasn't on the Quidditch team.

There was a Dark Lord-possessed teacher Alfred never interacted with, because being around him gave him a headache and in the end he found it easier to skip all Defense Against the Dark Arts classes and be personally tutored by Arthur instead.

There was an enchanted mirror Alfred never found, and an Invisibility Cloak he received anonymously one Christmas and never used - because he immediately showed it to Arthur, who ran a battery of tests on it, and then - still suspicious - told Alfred he'd have it kept safely in the Kirkland family vault and to ask for it if he wanted it. Alfred only nodded and smiled, too busy playing with the set of enchanted wooden soldiers Arthur had gotten him for Christmas to care about the strange silvery cloak.

The end of the year came with a strange anonymous note that informed Alfred that "the treasure of Hogwarts is in great danger" and "Only you can save the school from the Dark Lord" and "Your parents would be proud." A helpful map and description of the Philosopher's Stone was provided.

Alfred immediately showed it to Arthur, of course, who took swift and decisive action.

He contacted his barristers via owl, who - after checking with Gringott's and Nicolas Flamel through Floo - had a detachment of Aurors sent to the school. They immediately stormed the third-floor passageway, drawn by the magical signature of - all things! - a Cerberus-hound, and found a hidden hallway fiendishly yet stupidly trapped.

"It was all deadly, and bloody careless to keep in a castle full of children," as one Auror later described it, "But nothing a determined first-year couldn't handle - thereby combining the faults of being both useless and lethal into one ill-thought-out venture."

The Stone was taken away for safekeeping, the Headmaster fined, an investigation launched, and no one noticed the shy meek DADA professor disappearing from the Castle. Later they thought he had simply fled from the excitement, his frazzled nerves too overwhelmed to take any further strangeness.

Alfred cried at the end of the school-year - not because of his grades (which were excellent, thanks to Arthur's tutoring) - but because he had to go back to the States, and Arthur back to his relatives.

Arthur, feeling wretched himself, comforted the still tiny boy, promised to write every day, to visit when he could, and told Alfred to "keep your chin up, and study hard."

They wouldn't meet again until the start of the next school-year, but that is another story.

fin