House: Gryffindor
Position: HoH
Category: Short
Prompt: Fog
Word Count (excluding header and AN): 1566
Betas: Tigger and Shiba
-AN: According to my research, Ariana was 6 years old when her father was sent to Azkaban for killing the Muggles. Albus and Aberforth would have been about 10 and 8, respectively. This story utilizes the fan theory that Ariana was an Obscurial who tried to suppress her magic following trauma.
It was another overcast and dreary day in Mould-on-the-Wold, but Ariana was determined to play outside in the back garden.
The unrelenting, drizzling rain had kept her and her siblings inside with her mother for the past week straight. This morning, her brothers, Albie and Abey, had managed to convince their father to take them to visit Diagon Alley. She wished they were around to play with her. Albie was usually willing to play a few rounds of Wizard Chess and Abey knew everything there was to know about the goats living in the fields nearby.
But her brothers couldn't play with her today. She was alone and stuck inside the house once more. The persistent rain had finally receded, but it left a dense cloak of fog in its place.
Her mother was busy with mending a quilt that Albie and Abey had torn in their most recent fight, leaving Ariana with nothing better to do than to stare longingly out the window into the abyss.
The fog was so thick that she couldn't see very far into the garden. The bright colored flowers in the boxes that lined the windows were dulled. The shed that held the broomstick that Albie had been sneaking out without permission was completely obscured. The little rope swing that her father had hung for her off of the big yew tree was little more than a hazy dream.
Ariana sighed and stared glumly into the fog.
'I want to play outside,' she thought. 'Go away fog. Go away.'
Suddenly, a pathway to the swing that she had been dreaming of appeared. It was as if an invisible wall pushed back the dense fog. It was like magic.
Grinning, Ariana threw open the door and skipped to her swing. She had barely kicked off the damp ground when she felt a presence by the low hedge at the edge of the garden.
"How'd you do that?" sneered one of the neighbor boys.
Ariana ignored him, as her parents had taught her to do if Muggles ever came by. If Albie or Abey were here, they would have said something smart, but Ariana kept her mouth shut.
"I'm talking to you, girly," the same boy said. "How'd you make the fog go away? Me and my friends want to play too."
Ariana turned her head to find three boys, a little older than Albie, leering at her. Ariana did not like the boys looking at her; it made her nervous. She spun away from their stares and began to swing in the opposite direction.
Ariana swung for a few minutes. When she didn't hear the boys anymore, she began to relax.
Higher and higher she went. She felt like she was really flying when she reached the crest of the arc, her toes piercing the dense fog.
'This must be why Albie likes sneaking rides on that broom so much,' she giggled to herself.
Suddenly, her momentum was stopped.
"Are you laughing at us?" asked the neighbor boy who was now gripping her swing.
"N-n-no," Ariana stuttered. "I'm not laughing at you. I'm just enjoying my swing."
The boy snarled, "How're you doing this? How'd you make the fog go away? Tell us!"
"I don't know," she said, honestly.
"You're one of those freaks my father told me about."
The boy's face was now inches from her own and she could feel his putrid breath on her cheeks. She sensed the boy's friends had crept up behind her.
"Please, just leave me alone," she begged.
"Not until you show us your little trick," the boy ordered.
"I-I don't know," she began. The fog was beginning to creep closer.
"TELL US!" he roared.
Ariana began to cry as the dense cloak of fog snapped back into place, completely obscuring her vision.
"Get her!" she heard the boy call to her friends moments before she was shoved to the ground.
Ariana curled up into a tight ball to try to protect herself from their attacks. Feet and hands flew at her from all directions. She twisted and turned in the hopes of finding a path to escape. But between the boys and the fog, she was completely surrounded.
Ariana shut her eyes tight and buried her head beneath her arms to try to protect herself.
She had caused this, she had no doubt. Her parents had warned her brothers and her about the dangers of using magic around Muggles. This was all her fault.
Ariana retreated into herself as the boys continued to attack her.
"Freak!" they yelled and delivered a blow to her stomach.
She cried and tried to forget where she was. Tried to forget what she was.
"Come on, show us your little trick!"
'No more tricks,' she thought. 'No more. It hurts.'
A hard kick landed underneath her jaw, snapping her head back. Ariana cried out in pain, wishing she could make the attack end. She'd do anything to make them stop.
But she was powerless.
The blows kept coming, just as hard and fast but Ariana crawled into herself so that they didn't hurt so much. But she could still feel every hit nonetheless.
Suddenly, Ariana could feel no more. For a brief moment, she hoped that the boys had killed her and that her pain was truly over.
"Ariana!"
She recognized the voice, but couldn't understand why.
"Ariana! It's me, Albus. It's alright, now. We're here. I'm here. Aberforth too. Father is going to take care of everything."
Albus. Albie. She knew her brother was there, but she couldn't see him clearly. It's like the fog that had loomed out in the garden now took up residence in her mind. Her vision was impaired and her mind was obscured.
She felt her brother cradle his arms around her prone form, but was unable to react.
"Get her inside," she heard her father order.
"But, Dad—" Albie began.
"Inside, Albus," he commanded.
Ariana felt her body being carried into their home and deposited into a kitchen chair. She stared out into the dense fog as Albie ran through the halls calling, "Mum! Mum, it's Dad! Come quickly."
Ariana watched through her haze as the fog changed colors. Yellow swirled through the clouds of water vapor. Blue illuminated the air. Red pierced through the dense weather. And green struck like lightning. Once, twice, three times.
"Percival!" her mother cried as she ran out into the back garden. "Meteolojinx Recanto," she yelled and the fog lifted from the garden.
Ariana stared blankly ahead as Albie raced past her. She felt Abey come up behind her.
"Oh Merlin," he whispered.
"That'll teach you to mess with my daughter, you Muggle bastards!" her father roared.
"Stop, Percival," her mother sobbed. "Stop it! You've done enough."
"It's not enough," he screamed. "They hurt her. They could have killed her."
"And now you've killed them," Albie said.
Her father froze. Glancing around, he fell to his knees in shock. "What? What have I done?"
"Ariana!" her mother called. "Aberforth, bring Ariana out here."
She felt her brothers hands gently lift her from the kitchen chair and slowly guide her into the garden.
Her parents patted her down and smoothed kisses onto her skin.
"Are you alright?" her mother asked.
"How did this happen?" her father added.
"They wanted to know how I did my trick," Ariana whispered. "I don't want to do tricks."
"You were doing magic?"
"Quiet, Albus," her father said. "What happened?"
"No more tricks," Ariana mumbled. "No more. Tricks are bad. They hurt."
"Oh, Ariana," her mother cried as she pulled Ariana into her chest. "What do we do, Percival?"
"We call the Aurors."
"No, Dad! They'll just lock you away!"
"Albus, it's the right thing to do."
"But it was the Muggles' fault! They were torturing Ariana. They would have killed her because they're jealous that magic is superior."
"ALBUS! It doesn't matter whose fault it is. I killed them."
"In defense of Ariana! She's only six-years-old. The authorities will understand that those boys attacked her over a bout of accidental magic. Just tell them that Ariana is too young to control her magic. See? Ariana, try to make the swing move."
She rapidly shook her head. "No tricks. No more tricks."
"No?" Albie tried again. "Try to summon a biscuit from the kitchen. Just think really hard and wish for it to happen."
Ariana snapped her head up and for a brief moment, the fog obscuring her mind cleared. "NO!" she cried. A dark pulse raced from her body, decimating the garden hedge in an instant.
"Ari—" Albie reached for her as she buried her face in her mother's chest once more.
"Stop, Albus," her mother ordered.
"We'll call the Aurors. Tell them that I caught the boys trespassing on our property. They can never know about Ariana. They'd lock her away in St. Mungo's and throw away the key. You know what they do to children like her."
"But Percival—" her mother began.
"We must do this to protect Ariana. No one can find out what really happened. Promise me!"
Ariana heard her brother and mother murmur their affirmation.
"Ariana?" her father whispered.
She turned around and stepped into his embrace.
"It's going to be alright. You're going to be alright."
He held her in the garden as the fog descended once more, completely obscuring her in oblivion.