"It destroyed her, what they did: She was never right again. She wouldn't use magic, but she couldn't get rid of it; it turned inward and drove her mad, it exploded out of her when she couldn't control it, and at times she was strange and dangerous. But mostly she was sweet and scared and harmless."
--Aberforth Dumbledore about his sister Ariana (DH28)
She watches.
She stands behind her brother as he wipes glasses and serves drinks. She watches as he doesn't ask questions, as the world moves past him. She watches the constant flow of people, and she watches a few eyes drift toward her.
Smiling vaguely, she wonders how she should feel about being a wall-flower. She wishes she could reach out and touch her brother and be a part of the world she watches so vividly.
She knew she wasn't real. Only a bit of emotion ingratiated into ink on canvas. Vague memories were all she had of herself.
Sometimes she hated it. As much as she could hate anything.
Was this her existence?
The small part of her that remembered, longed for the warm sun on her eyelids, prickling grass between her toes. A warm summer in Godrics Hollow.
She thought that maybe somewhere beyond her comprehension, she – the real Ariana – was happy and with her family.
But it was a fleeting thought.
She lived only in the here and now, with brief flickers of something more.
And so, as Aberforth closes the pub and turns out the lights, she smiles softly at him though he doesn't look at her, and thinks that if her artist had painted her tears, she'd cry.