Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all characters and concepts affiliated are the property of JK Rowling, not me.
Posted: 4th July 2008
Revamped: 9th September 2009
(I was procrastinating on my German homework.)
Yellow Frock
(She has the mind of a little girl, trapped in a body far too old.)
She is five years old, and Mummy has bought her a new dress. It is bright yellow, the colour of the sun, or the daffodils that her brother Abe planted in the garden last year. She wears it every day, until her Mummy has to force it off her to be washed, and dances around the garden, pretending that she is a fairy and this is her royal gown.
-
She is six years old, and Mummy says the yellow dress is too small now. But she wears it one more time – one last time – anyway. That day, Mummy lets her play on the street without her brothers for the first time. She plays "catch" and "hide-away" with the two little girls from the house down the road.
One time when they are hiding and she has to look for them, she wanders down an alley by accident. She is desperate, and cannot find her way out, and she accidentally uses a Seeking Charm, even though Mummy says she mustn't use magic outside of the house.
Some older boys see her and ask her to show them, but they are not very nice, and she is scared. She fumbles, and can't say the spell anymore, and then they get angry. They throw her down on the ground, and rip her yellow dress, and do some things that she knows are wrong. She screams and screams until she loses her voice, but no one hears, and no one comes.
At the time, all she can wonder is where are Abe and Al?
She goes home alone, much later (too late), and she doesn't speak to Abe or Al or Mummy or Daddy anymore. A few days later Daddy disappears. He doesn't come back, and when Abe and Al ask, Mummy won't tell them where he went.
She decides she wants to talk again, but for some reason her mouth won't move the way she thinks it should any more.
She never wears yellow again.
-
She is seven years old, and scared by every little thing, and she still can't talk. Mummy has to come into her room at night, because she wakes up screaming. Sometimes, Abe comes too. But Al never comes.
That is when they move. Mummy comes home one day, muttering something about "words getting around" and "rumours" and other big concepts that Ari doesn't understand yet. They pack up their things that evening – Abe and Al taking turns because Mummy insists that someone watches Ari – and the next day they leave.
They go to somewhere called Godric's Hollow. Mummy says they will be happier there, but to her it doesn't feel like home.
There is a strange old lady living next door, who dotes on her whenever she sees here. Mummy says she must let the lady fuss, because she doesn't have children of her own, and besides, she is probably going senile with age.
Al mutters that Ari is going senile too, and taking them all with her. Ari isn't sure what senile means – though she is sure it is something mean, because Abe tells Al not to be horrid after that – but she cannot get her mouth to move in the right direction to ask.
All that comes out is a muffled "what", but no one takes any notice but Abe, and he refuses to answer.
-
She is eight years old, and Al is going away. "To school," her Mummy tells her. She knows what school is, Al and Abe went to school before as well. But she doesn't understand why Al is going away. Will she still see him? Is he leaving them like Daddy did?
She is sad, especially when her mouth sticks together when she tries to tell him goodbye.
-
She is nine years old, and Mummy lets her leave the house (and garden) for the first time since they arrived in their new home. Mummy hurries down the road, with autumn tinged leaves blowing around her in the wind, but Ari follows slowly, dancing down the road and staring at every sight that is vaguely familiar, and yet at the same time so frustratingly new.
They go shopping. Mummy takes her into lots of shops- food shops and book shops, and then, lastly, a clothes shop.
Mummy lets her try lots of different clothes on. Pretty dresses in every colour of the rainbow. The shop assistant says she should wear yellow- that it would suit her- and fetches a pretty yellow dress that looks oh so like the one she had when she was five.
They hand it to her, but she pushes away their hands, shoves the dress on the ground.
"No!" she screams, "No, no, no!" And then her mouth sticks together again, and all she can do it whimper and sob.
They buy the blue dress instead, and her Mummy takes her home quickly after that.
-
She is ten years old, and Abe goes away too. This time, she manages to tell him "goodbye". She is getting better at getting the words out – not sentences, just words – but her mouth still gets stuck sometimes.
He kisses her on the forehead and promises to write to her every day.
He doesn't keep his promise, but Ari doesn't mind. She thinks that he is probably happier at school, with his friends, than at home with her, and she is content with his letters that come once a week, that Mummy reads out to her, because she still can't read herself.
Albus has never written, she comforts herself silently when the letters slow to once every three weeks, and then once a month.
-
She is fourteen years old and alone at home when it happens. Her Mummy has gone out to get butter, because they have none left, and has left Ari alone in the house for a few minutes because "what harm can it do?"
She is a little scared of being home alone, but she doesn't tell Mummy because if Mummy doesn't get butter then she won't be able to have any cake tonight, and she really would like to have cake tonight, so she keeps quiet. But she is scared, because she has noticed that today Mummy is wearing a yellow scarf, which she wraps gently around Ari's neck before she leaves ("I want you to keep that on, Ari.").
She is jumping at every little sound; and then someone bangs on the door. She screams, and screams, and she can't stop screaming (because she knows), and she is surprised because this time her mouth is not getting stuck.
It was just Mummy at the door, and she comes in quickly when Ari starts screaming, but she can't comfort her this time. Ari carries on screaming and convulsing, like in the fits she has sometimes that only Abe can wake her up from.
Mummy touches her on the shoulder. It is just a little touch, but her mind grabs it and turns it into something so much bigger, and she screams again and lashes out. There is an explosion, and then everything goes silent, and all that is left is Ari sobbing and whimpering.
(It was the yellow scarf.)
The old lady from next door takes care of her until Abe and Al get home from school, and then they hold the funeral. She doesn't quite understand – does this mean that Mummy isn't coming back either?
That night she overhears Al yelling at Abe. He has to cancel the trip he was going to take and stay at home to look after her. Abe offers to do it, but Al shouts some more and forces him to go back to school and finish his education.
Ari is sad, but she doesn't quite manage to tell them (her mouth sticks again). Why can't Abe take care of her?
-
She is fourteen years old when Gellert moves in next door, and Mummy still hasn't come home.
Abe tells her that Gellert is living with the old lady next door for a while, because he can't stay at home. He says Gellert was a bad boy, so he had to come here for a while.
Al says that Abe is telling lies. He says that Gellert is a wonderful person, and he has never done anything bad. But then, he spends most of his time with Gellert now, and he goes red whenever Ari asks him about Gellert.
Abe says that Gellert is colouring Al's perspective with his lies, but Ari isn't sure what he means, and he won't explain it properly to her.
She meets Gellert one day, and decides that he is wonderful. He has such pretty golden hair (not yellow, because yellow is a bad colour) and bright blue eyes that look like the sky. He is very nice and polite to her, and her treats her like an adult, instead of just a little girl who doesn't understand anything. And he is very nice and explains things to her when she doesn't understand them.
He gives her a present, too. She unwraps it with all the excitement of a little girl (even though she is trying to act like a grown up so that Gellert won't start treating her like a child) and finds a yellow dress.
"It would suit you," he tells her, and she resolves to try to wear it, just once, so that he wouldn't be sad and think she hated it.
She is terrified that something bad would happen, because bad things always happen when she wears yellow, but she does it anyway.
-
She is fourteen years old when she dies.
That day, she decides to wear the yellow dress from Gellert. She has just finished dressing, and brushing out her blond hair the way Mummy taught her to, when suddenly she hears shouting from downstairs.
She is a bit scared, but it sounds like Abe and Al (and maybe Gellert will be there, and she can show off the dress) so she goes down. They are in the front room, the one with the flowers at the window, standing in a little circle.
Al and Gellert are on one side and Abe is on the other, and they all have their wands drawn. Abe is shouting the most, but she can hear Al as well, and Gellert. But everything is blurring in her ears, and she can't make out the words; just that they are shouting and she wants them to stop.
She runs across the room, waving her arms and nearly falling over as she goes. All the while, she tries to un-stick her mouth, but it feels like someone has fed her extra-sticky toffee, like Al did once as a joke.
"No!" she manages to squeak out, but everyone ignores her, and she thinks they probably didn't hear her over the roar.
And then there is one shout that stands out from the roar. She is not sure who shouted it – maybe Abe or Al, or maybe even Gellert – but she is sure it is a spell, and it comes just as she is standing in between them, throwing herself at Abe to stop the fight.
And she falls short, never reaching Abe, because she is dead. She lays there, her brand new yellow frock spread out around her body. And her last thought is that maybe now she would find out where her Mummy and Daddy had been hiding all the time.
AN: Whew, and after not being able to write since May, it is quite a relief to discover that I still have the ability. Writer's Block nearly killed me!
Anyway, I had this idea, and Ariana seems to get so little love around here, and I have never written her before, though I am immensely fascinated by the Dumbledore family, so I decided to have a go. All written in about an hour, and unbeta-ed, because I actually don't have a beta at the moment.
If anyone would like to beta for me, drop me a message, yeah?
Thanks for reading and reviewing.
And by the way, why on Earth is there no Ariana Dumbledore under the character lists? That is just not fair!
EDIT: There is now, so I've added the character settings.