Disclaimer: Everything you see here is J.K. Rowling's. Except for Jamie, Luka, and Ariana.
In the End… (Together We Stand Book 7)
They say that a person's true character is revealed with how they act in true adversity. Seventh Year never looked like it was going to be a good one. There was no home for NEWTs, no looking forward to lazy Sundays lounging by the lake, talking about what careers we were going to get. It was like the entire future was ripped away from us. There was only one inevitability on the horizon— war. The dark times were descending, and there was nothing anyone could do about it except— fight.
Chapter 1- Calm Before the Storm
CRACK! The once silent lane is disturbed by the sound of apparation, my apparation to be exact. I chuckle lightly to myself at the pair of disgruntled birds who fly away from the vicinity of me. I have only been here twice before, but I was getting an appreciative feel for the private people who live on Chesser Loan. I had only been to Scotland a few times in my life before, but I could see why people would want to come here, a much different feel from England though still technically in the UK, a world apart though.
I quietly crunch down the lane taking my time in getting towards the house that I'm looking for. I slowly feel the tension that has rested squarely between my shoulder blades lessen each step I take closer to my destination. As much as I love my family— and I do, they can all get to be a bit much.
I get to the end of the lane and stop at the gate on the corner. I push open the small gate, which creaks with age. I continue up the slightly clopping lawn until I climb to the small porch on the front of the house. I stop at the door, and knock out a before agreed upon rhythm on the wood. I can hear the sounds of shuffling from inside, and wait for the door to be opened.
After a minute the door is flung open and standing before me looking like a tempest of beautiful fury is none other than Ariana Dumbledore, my girlfriend. It still quirks a smile to my lips whenever I think of her as such.
"Well don't just stand there, get in here before anyone notices." Ariana huffs. My smile drops quickly and I slide past her into the house before she shuts the door and arms the house again with a quick protective spell. I clasp my hands behind me still much to off put to be here even when this is not my first time here.
When I was younger I had always assumed that McGonagall had just lived at the castle like I had assumed most professors did. Being in her home feels like I'm intruding on something private, even though she told me weeks ago that there was nothing for me to worry about, that I was welcome here anytime.
"Are you okay Ari? I got your owl. You seemed distressed." I say glancing at the girl who has gone back to looking extremely agitated.
"No I'm not okay. I have a serious bone to pick with Hermione." She growls storming into the living room. I follow behind her unsure exactly how to deal with this new information. After Professor Dumbledore's death Ariana had been near inconsolable for two weeks. Then its like the switch flipped in her, and we've all been dealing with this fiery anger ever since.
"What has Hermione done?" I ask, feeling so lost already and only at the beginning of the discussion.
"She didn't squash Skeeter when she had the chance. I always knew she was a cockroach, but I didn't realize how fitting that really was." She says flinging herself back down on the overstuffed green couch, and pulling the red tartan blanket off the back of it around herself like a shield.
I know what this is about. I make my way over to her, and sink down next to her grabbing the Prophet off of the table in front of her.
Across the bottom half of the front page a smaller headline is set over a picture of Dumbledore striding along looking harried:
DUMBLEDORE — THE TRUTH AT LAST?
Coming next week, the shocking story of the flawed genius considered by many to be the greatest wizard of his generation. Stripping away the popular image of serene, silver-bearded wisdom, Rita Skeeter reveals the disturbed childhood, the lawless youth, the lifelong feuds, and the guilty secrets that Dumbledore carried to his grave. WHY was the man tipped to be Minister of Magic content to remain a mere headmaster? WHAT was the real purpose of the secret organization known as the Order of the Phoenix? HOW did Dumbledore really meet his end?
The answers to these and many more questions are explored in the explosive new biography, The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore, by Rita Skeeter, exclusively interviewed by Betty Braithwaite, page 13, inside.
Sighing I open up the paper to the proper pages. It is a miracle if I actually get to read the paper at home since there are so many bodies curious about what is or isn't being said about the going's on in the world. Usually by the time that I get it, its lining the bottom of an owl cage, virtually unrecognizable, so I've taken to reading my news over people's shoulders or not at all. I find the article, and steel myself for something that I most likely won't like.
In person, Rita Skeeter is much warmer and softer than her famously ferocious quill-portraits might suggest. Greeting me in the hallway of her cozy home, she leads me straight into the kitchen for a cup of tea, a slice of pound cake and, it goes without saying, a steaming vat of freshest gossip.
"Well, of course, Dumbledore is a biographer's dream," says Skeeter. "Such a long, full life. I'm sure my book will be the first of very, very many."
Skeeter was certainly quick off the mark. Her nine-hundred-page book was completed a mere four weeks after Dumbledore's mysterious death in June. I ask her how she managed this superfast feat.
"Oh, when you've been a journalist as long as I have, working to a deadline is second nature. I knew that the Wizarding world was clamoring for the full story and I wanted to be the first to meet that need."
I mention the recent, widely publicized remarks of Elphias Doge, Special Advisor to the Wizengamot and longstanding friend of Albus Dumbledore's, that "Skeeter's book contains less fact than a Chocolate Frog card."
Skeeter throws back her head and laughs.
"Darling Dodgy! I remember interviewing him a few years back about merpeople rights, bless him. Completely gaga, seemed to think we were sitting at the bottom of Lake Windermere, kept telling me to watch out for trout."
And yet Elphias Doge's accusations of inaccuracy have been echoed in many places. Does Skeeter really feel that four short weeks have been enough to gain a full picture of Dumbledore's long and extraordinary life?
"Oh, my dear," beams Skeeter, rapping me affectionately across the knuckles, "you know as well as I do how much information can be generated by a fat bag of Galleons, a refusal to hear the word 'no,' and a nice sharp Quick-Quotes Quill! People were queuing to dish the dirt on Dumbledore anyway. Not everyone thought he was so wonderful, you know — he trod on an awful lot of important toes. But old Dodgy Doge can get off his high hippogriff, because I've had access to a source most journalists would swap their wands for, one who has never spoken in public before and who was close to Dumbledore during the most turbulent and disturbing phase of his youth."
The advance publicity for Skeeter's biography has certainly suggested that there will be shocks in store for those who believe Dumbledore to have led a blameless life. What were the biggest surprises she uncovered, I ask?
"Now, come off it, Betty, I'm not giving away all the highlights before anybody's bought the book!" laughs Skeeter. "But I can promise that anybody who still thinks Dumbledore was white as his beard is in for a rude awakening! Let's just say that nobody hearing him rage against You-Know-Who would have dreamed that he dabbled in the Dark Arts himself in his youth! And for a wizard who spent his later years pleading for tolerance, he wasn't exactly broad-minded when he was younger! Yes, Albus Dumbledore had an extremely murky past, not to mention that very fishy family, which he worked so hard to keep hushed up."
I ask whether Skeeter is referring to Dumbledore's brother, Aberforth, whose conviction by the Wizengamot for misuse of magic caused a minor scandal fifteen years ago.
"Oh, Aberforth is just the tip of the dung heap," laughs Skeeter. "No, no, I'm talking about much worse than a brother with a fondness for fiddling about with goats, worse even than the Muggle-maiming father — Dumbledore couldn't keep either of them quiet anyway, they were both charged by the Wizengamot. No, it's the mother and the sister that intrigued me, and a little digging uncovered a positive nest of nastiness — but, as I say, you'll have to wait for chapters nine to twelve for full details. All I can say now is, it's no wonder Dumbledore never talked about how his nose got broken."
Family skeletons notwithstanding, does Skeeter deny the brilliance that led to Dumbledore's many magical discoveries?
"He had brains," she concedes, "although many now question whether he could really take full credit for all of his supposed achievements. As I reveal in chapter sixteen, Ivor Dillonsby claims he had already discovered eight uses of dragon's blood when Dumbledore 'borrowed' his papers."
But the importance of some of Dumbledore's achievements cannot, I venture, be denied. What of his famous defeat of Grindelwald?
"Oh, now, I'm glad you mentioned Grindelwald," says Skeeter with a tantalizing smile. "I'm afraid those who go dewy-eyed over Dumbledore's spectacular victory must brace themselves for a bombshell — or perhaps a Dungbomb. Very dirty business indeed. All I'll say is, don't be so sure that there really was the spectacular duel of legend. After they've read my book, people may be forced to conclude that Grindelwald simply conjured a white handkerchief from the end of his wand and came quietly!"
Skeeter refuses to give any more away on this intriguing subject, so we turn instead to the relationship that will undoubtedly fascinate her readers more than any other.
"Oh yes," says Skeeter, nodding briskly, "I devote an entire chapter to the whole Potter–Dumbledore relationship. It's been called unhealthy, even sinister. Again, your readers will have to buy my book for the whole story, but there is no question that Dumbledore took an unnatural interest in Potter from the word go. Whether that was really in the boy's best interests — well, we'll see. It's certainly an open secret that Potter has had a most troubled adolescence."
I ask whether Skeeter is still in touch with Harry Potter, whom she so famously interviewed last year: a breakthrough piece in which Potter spoke exclusively of his conviction that You-Know-Who had returned.
"Oh, yes, we've developed a close bond," says Skeeter. "Poor Potter has few real friends, and we met at one of the most testing moments of his life — the Triwizard Tournament. I am probably one of the only people alive who can say that they know the real Harry Potter."
Which leads us neatly to the many rumors still circulating about Dumbledore's final hours. Does Skeeter believe that Potter was there when Dumbledore died?
"Well, I don't want to say too much — it's all in the book — but eyewitnesses inside Hogwarts castle saw Potter running away from the scene moments after Dumbledore fell, jumped, or was pushed. Potter later gave evidence against Severus Snape, a man against whom he has a notorious grudge. Is everything as it seems? That is for the Wizarding community to decide — once they've read my book."
On that intriguing note, I take my leave. There can be no doubt that Skeeter has quilled an instant bestseller. Dumbledore's legions of admirers, meanwhile, may well be trembling at what is soon to emerge about their hero.
"This is Skeeter we're talking about. You can take anything that she says with a grain of salt." I attempt to reason with her, even though my blood is at a low simmer now.
"I know that but there are enough daft— idiotic people out there in the world who would and do believe the garbage that she spews. Its not fair Jamie! My grandfather was a good man— and even good men can have flaws, and she's going to vilify him for being nothing more than human." Ariana cries throwing the teacup that she was drinking from across the room. It shatters against the warm brown wall, and I cringe.
"I know that Ari, I truly do. I'm sorry that this is happening, but there's nothing that we can do but tell the truth to as many people as we can. Hermione isn't to blame for Skeeter doing this— besides would you want Hermione to be responsible for killing a woman… ending a life?" I ask her softly.
Ariana sighs heavily and deflates back into the couch looking extremely defeated— something that I hate seeing, but am growing used to viewing. I get up from the couch and walk over to the broken cup pieces, waving my wand to repair them. I have to admit that life is so much easier now that I can do magic outside of school.
"I know. I'm sorry for that— it just hurts that now that he's no longer— here that everyone feels the needs to come out and comment about what he was like when they didn't even know him themselves!" She says. I nod my head sympathetically, and place the cup back on the table.
"I get it you know. People have always thought that it was there place to discuss my family. We've been around since Arthur and Merlin for crying out loud, and people love a scandal. You've seen what they've said about my family and Augustus. They practically make a farce out of quarreling familial old blood. It's my family, and my story that they're making a mockery of, but I can't come out and just bash them for it, I have to be proper." I say, not even noticing that by this time my entire left arm is encased in happily licking blue flames.
Ariana jumps up from the couch, and puts her hand on my cheek. I startle back into the present at the feel of her cool hand on my warm cheek. "You need to stop getting so worked up Jame, one of these days you're liable to burn down the house, and I don't want to see you hurting yourself." She huffs, giving me one of her cuter grumpy pouts.
I can't help the wry smile that comes to my lips. "Says the pot to the kettle. You should take some of your own advice love." I say softly pressing my lips to hers in a gentle kiss. Ariana melts into the kiss with a sigh of relaxation.
"I just hate this. Everything is changing, and there's no going back. I'm going to lose you soon, and who's going to take care of you then?" She mutters burrowing into my neck. I wrap my arms around her, and feel a shiver run through me at the press of her lips on my neck.
"I'll be safe. I have the others there with me. I don't think that Harry or Hermione would let anything happen to me if they could help it. Ron kinda has to protect me for Mum would skin his behind if she found out that he let me get hurt." I chuckle, and grin when I feel the soft laughter coming from my girlfriend.
"I could see that." Ariana says softly. We stay like that in content silence for a while. "You know, Mama Weasley is not going to be pleased when you all disappear. You're her babies and she's not going to be happy that she won't be able to protect you anymore." She says.
"Well we're seventeen now. Technically we're adults and can do whatever we please. How do you think I got here?" I admit. Ariana pulls away from me with a stern look on her face.
"You didn't let anyone know where you were going?" She demands. I shake my head.
"Do I look stupid to you? Of course I let someone know. Besides its not like they couldn't tell where I was by just looking at that ruddy clock. Mum has been carrying it around everywhere muttering about the state of the world these days." I say, running my hand through my hair, trying to relieve the stress that's beginning to creep back.
"Good. I quite like you the way that you are. Relationships between ghosts and mortals have never ended well." Ariana says pulling away from me completely and walking over to the fireplace. I follow behind her and look at what she's staring at. It's the same thing that has fascinated her since she moved here.
On the mantle piece are a series of photographs. The same few people are depicted in each one. There's one of an obviously younger McGonagall standing arm in arm with a very handsome man with a very well groomed beard. His dark eyes are shining, and there's an almost stupefied look on his face as he gazes lovingly at McGonagall, who is blushing very prettily I might add.
The next photo shows the same couple a little bit older and perched in the man's arms is a little baby girl in a flowing white christening dress. The baby looks to be making happy gurgling noises, and the man looks like he's practically bursting with pride. McGonagall has her hand on her daughter's head, and is gazing at the pair of them lovingly.
The next photograph is of the couple again, this time with a small brunette toddler standing between them, looking like the parents are supporting her. The next few pictures are of the family with an ever growing girl. She has long pretty dark hair, big brown doe eyes that are found on the girl standing next to me, and a mischievous smile that spells trouble.
Sadly the man in the pictures disappears around the time the girl looks like she's in her late teens. The smiles on McGonagall and the girl's faces are a bit sadder, but they're not entirely wiped out. That's when photographs of a new man come in. Pictures of the dark haired girl with a handsome blond haired blue-eyed man pop up. The pair looks ridiculously in love, and in one of the frames a proud watery eyed McGonagall stands behind them, the pair of them adorned in dress robes and a dress.
In the last photograph on the mantle has the blond man and the dark haired girl (now a woman) sitting in the grass together, and propped in her arms is a small baby with wispy blond hair on her head, and identical big brown eyes as her mother.
"I still can't believe that they kept this from me." Ariana says with a bittersweet smile on her face. I reach for her hand and tangle our fingers together maybe more so for me than for her.
"I'm sure they were only trying to protect you." I say softly. Ariana sends me a sad look, and nods her head.
"I know, but there's a fine line between protection and negligence. See there, that's Aidan, he was Minerva's husband. They were together for thirty years before he died and she never loved another man. He's my grandfather, and she's my grandmother. That girl in the pictures… her name is Mira. She's my mother, and the blond man is my father. How could they… I should have known. I had this connection to my mother all this time, and I didn't even realize it." She says with a small sob.
I pull her close to me, and she rests her head on my shoulder. We turn our attention to the shelf next to the mantle and see that the entire shelf is dedicated to the small blond baby— to Ariana. Various pictures of her from all ages even through Hogwarts sit on that shelf.
"She loves you. They all loved you." I tell her giving her a squeeze.
"I know." Is all she says. We stand like that for a little while longer, before I sigh.
"What time is it?" I ask her, hating to disturb this moment. I know that its going to take a lot long, and a lot more than some nicely dressed up words to make her feel better.
"Quarter after four." She murmurs almost sadly. I frown, realizing that I have to be getting back soon, for my own previously scheduled hell.
"I hate to leave, but if I'm not there for this forsaken fitting, then I'm sure that it will be my head on a platter." I say shivering. If you thought that the fighting between Fleur and Mum was bad before, having them actually getting along is eighty times worse. When the two of them are mad about something wedding related everyone suffers.
"Go. I'll be fine. Minerva is coming back soon anyway." Ariana says pulling me in for another lasting kiss. I'm the one to melt into her this time.
"I really don't want to go." I tell her. She nods her head.
"I know but you have to." She walks me to the door and we kiss again almost a little desperately this time. "Here take this, you may as well at least have one good thing to remember grandfather by."
She hands me another section of an older Daily Prophet. I nod my head in thanks, and slowly depart from the house, feeling sad as the door closes behind me. I make it back to the safe point of apparation, and soon the world realigns itself to show my home full to busting, and loud as ever.
That night after a thoroughly exhausting evening I lay down on my bunk and pull out the article that she gave me.
ALBUS DUMBLEDORE REMEMBERED
by Elphias Doge
I met Albus Dumbledore at the age of eleven, on our first day at Hogwarts. Our mutual attraction was undoubtedly due to the fact that we both felt ourselves to be outsiders. I had contracted dragon pox shortly before arriving at school, and while I was no longer contagious, my pockmarked visage and greenish hue did not encourage many to approach me. For his part, Albus had arrived at Hogwarts under the burden of unwanted notoriety. Scarcely a year previously, his father, Percival, had been convicted of a savage and well-publicized attack upon three young Muggles.
Albus never attempted to deny that his father (who was to die in Azkaban) had committed this crime; on the contrary, when I plucked up courage to ask him, he assured me that he knew his father to be guilty. Beyond that, Dumbledore refused to speak of the sad business, though many attempted to make him do so. Some, indeed, were disposed to praise his father's action and assumed that Albus too was a Muggle-hater. They could not have been more mistaken: As anybody who knew Albus would attest, he never revealed the remotest anti-Muggle tendency. Indeed, his determined support for Muggle rights gained him many enemies in subsequent years.
In a matter of months, however, Albus's own fame had begun to eclipse that of his father. By the end of his first year he would never again be known as the son of a Muggle-hater, but as nothing more or less than the most brilliant student ever seen at the school. Those of us who were privileged to be his friends benefited from his example, not to mention his help and encouragement, with which he was always generous. He confessed to me in later life that he knew even then that his greatest pleasure lay in teaching.
He not only won every prize of note that the school offered, he was soon in regular correspondence with the most notable magical names of the day, including Nicolas Flamel, the celebrated alchemist; Bathilda Bagshot, the noted historian; and Adalbert Waffling, the magical theoretician. Several of his papers found their way into learned publications such as Transfiguration Today, Challenges in Charming, and The Practical Potioneer. Dumbledore's future career seemed likely to be meteoric, and the only question that remained was when he would become Minister of Magic. Though it was often predicted in later years that he was on the point of taking the job, however, he never had Ministerial ambitions.
Three years after we had started at Hogwarts, Albus's brother, Aberforth, arrived at school. They were not alike; Aberforth was never bookish and, unlike Albus, preferred to settle arguments by dueling rather than through reasoned discussion. However, it is quite wrong to suggest, as some have, that the brothers were not friends. They rubbed along as comfortably as two such different boys could do. In fairness to Aberforth, it must be admitted that living in Albus's shadow cannot have been an altogether comfortable experience. Being continually outshone was an occupational hazard of being his friend and cannot have been any more pleasurable as a brother.
When Albus and I left Hogwarts we intended to take the then-traditional tour of the world together, visiting and observing foreign wizards, before pursuing our separate careers. However, tragedy intervened. On the very eve of our trip, Albus's mother, Kendra, died, leaving Albus the head, and sole breadwinner, of the family. I postponed my departure long enough to pay my respects at Kendra's funeral, then left for what was now to be a solitary journey. With a younger brother and sister to care for, and little gold left to them, there could no longer be any question of Albus accompanying me.
That was the period of our lives when we had least contact. I wrote to Albus, describing, perhaps insensitively, the wonders of my journey, from narrow escapes from chimaeras in Greece to the experiments of the Egyptian alchemists. His letters told me little of his day-to-day life, which I guessed to be frustratingly dull for such a brilliant wizard. Immersed in my own experiences, it was with horror that I heard, toward the end of my year's travels, that yet another tragedy had struck the Dumbledores: the death of his sister, Ariana.
Though Ariana had been in poor health for a long time, the blow, coming so soon after the loss of their mother, had a profound effect on both of her brothers. All those closest to Albus — and I count myself one of that lucky number — agree that Ariana's death, and Albus's feeling of personal responsibility for it (though, of course, he was guiltless), left their mark upon him forevermore.
I returned home to find a young man who had experienced a much older person's suffering. Albus was more reserved than before, and much less lighthearted. To add to his misery, the loss of Ariana had led, not to a renewed closeness between Albus and Aberforth, but to an estrangement. (In time this would lift — in later years they reestablished, if not a close relationship, then certainly a cordial one.) However, he rarely spoke of his parents or of Ariana from then on, and his friends learned not to mention them.
Other quills will describe the triumphs of the following years. Dumbledore's innumerable contributions to the store of Wizarding knowledge, including his discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's blood, will benefit generations to come, as will the wisdom he displayed in the many judgments he made while Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. They say, still, that no Wizarding duel ever matched that between Dumbledore and Grindelwald in 1945. Those who witnessed it have written of the terror and the awe they felt as they watched these two extraordinary wizards do battle. Dumbledore's triumph, and its consequences for the Wizarding world, are considered a turning point in magical history to match the introduction of the International Statute of Secrecy or the downfall of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.
Albus Dumbledore was never proud or vain; he could find something to value in anyone, however apparently insignificant or wretched, and I believe that his early losses endowed him with great humanity and sympathy. I should say that one of his greatest achievements was raising his granddaughter into the lovely young woman she is today, after the unfortunate death of his son and daughter-in-law. I shall miss his friendship more than I can say, but my loss is as nothing compared to the Wizarding world's. That he was the most inspiring and the best loved of all Hogwarts headmasters cannot be in question. He died as he lived: working always for the greater good and, to his last hour, as willing to stretch out a hand to a small boy with dragon pox as he was on the day that I met him.
I lay the paper down on my stomach and stare at the ceiling for a few minutes fully taking in what I had just read. Yes that's a far more fitting tribute to a man who had given so much for everyone else, and had raised the girl dearest to me. I carefully fold the paper and tuck it away under my mattress for later.
My one hope is though to never have to read another one of those articles for the people that I love.
AN: Hello there! Year 7 is officially here! I hope you're all excited for I know that I am. Jamie is finally grown up, and with that comes responsibilities beyond imagined. I would like to say that I'm a little sad as well for this is the beginning of the end of a time spent with my very good friend Jamie Pendragon, and her love Ariana Dumbledore. Thank you again for all of you who have stuck with me since the beginning, middle, and wherever you jumped in! :)
Lastly, this book is dedicated to me greatest fan, critic, and beta reader Kaitlin. Without you writing about Jamie and Ariana would not seem half as special.
-99bottlestogo