My grandfather told me a long time ago that we should never depend on the ones we love. They'll always leave us in the end, whether it be due to a tragic death or the need to follow their own path. He never told me why this was so, but I always look back on those conversations and think how sad it must be, never to trust anyone around you.

"Aberforth," my father whispered quietly, almost inaudible. "Please. Not in front of her."

"What use does it make," he scoffed back. "It's a lesson she needs to learn at some point."

"She's only seven, Father, let her keep her innocence," Mother pleaded with him. She stood in front of me protectively, her hand outstretched behind her to clasp mine. I held it loosely, more for her benefit than for mine.

Aberforth, my grandfather, stood from his seat behind the dusty countertop. He reached his wand in front of him, not menacingly but in curiosity. My mother stepped aside, still holding my hand, as he knelt in front of me. "Ariana, surely you don't believe that your parents will be here for you forever, don't you?"

Mother's hand gripped mine tighter as I spoke, my voice cracking. "I do, though. They won't leave me. They wouldn't."

Little did I know.

My father wanted to name me Siobhan. My mother didn't. They eventually compromised and made it my middle name. The name on my birth certificate from St. Mungo's says Ariana Siobhan Lannon, after my great aunt and my paternal grandmother, respectively. My grandmother was and remains to this day a wonderful woman, completely worthy of such an honor. Mother insisted on the name Ariana, but she never told me why the name holds such significance in her family and why Grandfather never uses it unless he is gravely serious.

"You wouldn't understand," she would tell me, her voice soft. "You're much too young."

"But when will I understand? Why can't you just tell me?"

"Sweetie, I would if I could. But this, well, it's very dark, and I don't want you to be exposed to that. You're so little, you're only nine."

Only seven when Grandfather introduced the idea that would shatter my family. Only nine when my mother tried to shield me from my family's history. Only ten when Father left and the house collapsed.

The day before my eleventh birthday, I found Mother crying in his study, tears staining the parchment left on his desk and making the ink bleed. "He only left a note, Ari, that's all we mean to him. All I mean to him." When she buried her head in her hands, I looked down at the letter he left. Most of it was wet ink now, but I could make out the words leaving and affair.

There was only one thing I knew to do- I ran.

The neighbors thought I was out of my mind, which they assumed I was anyway but never had much reason to think so. What other child would blow things up accidentally to the point that I was prohibited from playing with any other child within three miles of my house? Mother always told me that it was my magic and I couldn't control it, which I knew was true despite the fact that I wished it wasn't.

I sat underneath the oak tree in front of the pond near the family-friendly park and cried. Deep inside of me, I knew that Grandfather was right. The ones we love never stay, they stop loving you and move on to greener pastures.

It was hours later that one of the neighbors, an elderly man named Clarence, came hobbling towards me, his face pale. He was the only other wizard in our entire town and made it clear to us that he could offer his assistance whenever he was needed. "Miss Ariana, Miss Ariana," he wheezed. "Come quickly. It's your mother."

I stood much too quickly, my vision spotty as I tried to regain my balance. "What is it?"

"There was an incident, and she may have caused it, but the house collapsed. She's, well, she's dead, Miss Ariana."

He held my hand the entire way back to the ruins of my childhood home, where smoke was still bursting from the cracks in the walls and the crowd was beginning to thin. The whole scene felt as if it were passing in slow motion at that point. Clarence held me back as I screamed and tried to run in towards the house, and the Muggle police officers questioned me for hours. I didn't know what had happened myself, let alone how to explain it to someone who would and could never understand.

Clarence let me sleep on his couch that night, and on the morning of my birthday, I woke up to an unfamiliar face with familiar piercing blue eyes gazing at me. He looked remarkably like my grandfather, with long white hair and a beard that went down to his belt buckle. He was dressed in Muggle clothing except for his hat, which was long, black, and pointed, falling down his back and reaching past his hair.

"You must be…" I couldn't find the words inside of me to speak. I knew who this man was; I had seen his face on Chocolate Frog cards and in the Daily Prophet before I knew how to read, and even then I knew that his name was taboo. My mother never spoke of him, the man who carried her maiden name with him and had done so much for the wizarding world.

"Albus Dumbledore. It's a pleasure to meet you at last, Ariana."