Author's Note: I would like to thank my betas – davros fan, Paddy and Bex – for reading through this confusing mess of a plot line and telling me what I needed to emphasize on. Please read and review if you have anything to say!
Based on an AU where Aberforth was in love with Grindelwald, but Gellert did not love him back. Assumed that Albus and Gellert were dating. After Ariana's death and Aberforth being tortured by the man he loves, Albus obliviates him to protect Aberforth's mind from breaking. This fic is about Aberforth seeing visions of Gellert as he used to when he was in love, and slowly realizing that he needs to let go of his past and move on, even if he doesn't remember the exact details of his past.
Title/Link: remembering the forgotten
Team: Kenmare Kestrels
Position: Beater 2
Extension Used: No
Season 6, Round 10: Write about a character suffering from amnesia (or relevant memory impairment).
Optional Prompts: (object) blanket, (setting) a graveyard
remembering the forgotten by ValkyrieAce
When Aberforth wakes, it is already well past noon during the summer. It is around the time lunch is served in the Hog's Head, but he can't find the strength to lift himself out of bed, much less work through the bustle of the weekend's crowd. He has always been the boring child of the Dumbledore family. The drop out. The brother to a magical genius and a dangerous but innocent girl. And yet, there were people who brought up memories, horrible memories, of Ariana's death. Since then, he'd taken to perfecting the art of being boring and blending into the shadows.
His eyes roam through his room, catching a glimpse of an orange liquid in a vial, the temptation to both break and consume it pulling at his conscience.
Suddenly, his memory is assaulted by visions of a handsome man with sky blue eyes and he is drowning. He remembers being in love with those eyes, even though he doesn't remember who the man was. All he knows is that he still loves him – is still in love with him, but that it would be near impossible for the man to return his feelings.
His heart hurts too much to think about him any further. Clutching at his chest, he grabs the bottle of alcohol next to him – exactly what it is, he has no idea – and decants it straight into his mouth. He wills the alcohol to course through his veins and remove any traces of his thoughts.
His chest constrict before he falls into laughter and giggles and tears because they just won't stop falling. Once the episode fades into nothingness, he wraps the blanket tightly around himself and falls back into a restless sleep.
The second time he sees a vision, he is standing in the sunny graveyard in Godric's Hollow. The vial of orange liquid sloshes around, hung around his neck on a string. At first, he is only there to see his – their, Albus is still alive, after all – family home. But after taking two steps towards the house, he comes upon the site where Ariana was killed and he hears rather than feels the blood rushing to his head.
Memories of shoulder length blond hair assault his senses, the soft strands flitting across his face. The wind blows through it gently, as though it were caressed by an invisible hand. Faint flashes of reds and greens and blues and whites shine across the blond locks, his hair shimmering in a myriad of deep colours. After the flashes fade, longer auburn strands of hair tangles with the blond in the sunlight, leaving a distasteful bright orange in its wake.
He doesn't notice his eyes closing at the faint remembrance, or his breath catching in his throat at the sight of the blond locks. Most of all, he doesn't understand why he thinks of his brother immediately after that and feels angry.
He reaches up for his own hair and scoffs at the mess of salt and pepper curls.
He thinks it's too boring to catch anyone's attention. To him, that's a good thing. That's one less rejection to face.
Still, he yearns to be the one with the auburn locks.
The third time he sees a vision, he is cleaning his room. It had been too long since he last cleaned it, and he is determined to make the living space better for Ariana's eyes, at least. The portrait of Ariana smiles down at him softly as he dons an apron and grabs a broomstick, and he feels as though he's falling and floating at the same time.
He sees Ariana's smile on another face, a face he'd longed to see in his dreams and his reality. The warmth soothes his heart and brings him happiness, a feeling that pulls at his very soul.
But the smile turns cold in moments and he feels the iciness of the smile crawl up his spine. He feels the dull ache of pain equivalent to the piercing of a thousand needles all over his body. He thinks he must have experienced this in his life before, though he could not remember.
The boy walks towards him and hands him the blanket – the same blanket he uses when he sleeps every day – and a vial of orange liquid. At the time, he knows exactly what it was. The Forgetfulness Potion.
Forget.
It is why he was given the vial. To forget the pain of past.
To forget the boy he loves.
Huddled into his blanket, he looks up at Ariana. Sweet Ariana, whose eyes quickly fill with tears for the pain others suffer rather than her own. He gets up and stumbles to her, each step taking away magnitudes of his resolve to stay strong, until he reaches her.
And he bawls.
He finds himself back at the graveyard in the Hollows, only now, it is night time and he's almost completely sober. The night is warm as expected for a summer night, but he has his blanket with him in any case.
It has been almost two months since Voldemort had been defeated, but it has been exactly one year since his brother died. And it has been half a year since he discovered his brother had Obliviated him to protect his mind from… he didn't yet know what from.
But with the dawn of a new era rising, it was time to forget the past.
He unstoppers the vial that hangs around his neck, the orange liquid shimmering brightly in the moonlight. He tips the vial back, and the liquid pours into his throat.
He swallows once, and he loses sight of the smile on the other man's face.
He swallows again, and he loses sight of the wind blowing through the other man's hair.
He swallows a last time, and he loses sight of the blue eyes that consume all his attention.
But, after all that he had lost, he is left with a name.
Gellert Grindelwald.
And blissfully, he realizes, it doesn't matter who they are anymore. He is free to live without the shackles of the past now.
Fin
Word Count: 1,035
Additional Prompts:
The Golden Snitch - Through the Universe - (character) 44. Cosmology — Gellert Grindelwald
The Golden Snitch - Ollivander's Wand Shop - Poplar: Write about Aberforth Dumbledore.
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry – Term #9: Assignment #5 – Charms: Dark Charms, Task #6 - Mutatio Skullus: Write about a half-blood.
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry - The 365 Prompts Challenge - 245. Restriction - Characters from only one era
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry - The Insane House Challenge - 345. Potion – Forgetfulness Potion
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry - Sewing 101 - (object) portrait, (word) pull, (colour) sky blue
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry - Slash September - Aberforth Dumbledore
Writing Club:
Character Appreciation, Queenie Goldstein - [Drink] 25. Gigglewater
Disney Challenge, Characters - 6. King Louis - Write about someone who wants the impossible.
Dark Lady's Diabolical Lair - 7. Shimmering
Book Club, "Release" by Patrick Ness - Marty: (relationship) brothers, (trait) boring, (word) handsome
Showtime, Phantom of the Opera - 7. All I Ask of You - (season) Summer
Count Your Buttons, Words - 5. Decant
Amy's Audio Admirations, The No Sleep Podcast: Ep 1 - 13. Home Alone — (setting) at night.
Bex's Basement, Roald Dahl - 7. George's Marvellous Medicine - Write about a potion doing something unexpected.