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Chapter 1: Old Memories

Albus Dumbledore apparated near Godric's End. This summer he had promised himself to revisit his parental house in Godric's End and after he would have a nice cup of tea at Bathilda Bagshot's house. When he arrived in the woods near Godric's End, he was a bit disorientated. After all, he hadn't been there for years.

He saw the tree house he and his brother Aberforth had built before they went to Hogwarts. Aberforth… Where did he end up? Dumbledore thought. We were so close all these years, but bad tidings drove us apart.

Albus remembered all the hours he had spent with Grindelwald up there in the tree house. Making plans to conquer the world, or sometimes just talking about their everyday life.

Albus sighed. I knew it was a bad idea to come back!

He walked to the village and crossed a small river where he used to have picnics with his family. He stood at the bridge and stared in the small open patch of grass that was near a big tree. The tree was even older than his grandfather, his father once said.

I once was foolish enough to believe it? Now that makes me sad!

After having walked for a good 10 minutes, passing several other memories, he saw the first houses.

Albus was now flooded with memories. How he had secretly bought a broom in Diagon Alley and wanted to test it out by jumping of the highest rooftop. After he had "landed", there wasn't much left of his broomstick , but what was left, was being used by his father to spank his back after he had healed.

Albus caught himself feeling his back. Ouch! That had really hurt me. After being in pain several weeks I then wasn't even able to sit again.

Albus remembered himself playing hide and seek with all the neighbor kids. He remembered all the games he had played with Aberforth and Ariana.

Oh no, Ariana….. I definitely shouldn't have come. Well, it's too late now, so I have to go on.

Near the church and the graveyard Albus entered the city.

A quick stop at the graveyard wouldn't hurt me more than all those memories did.

How wrong he was. How terribly wrong he was at that very simple statement. When he arrived at his parents' and Ariana's grave he burst out in tears. After one hour he was finally out of tears and slowly his vision was getting clearer. He looked around to see if anyone was near, drew out his wand and covered the three graves with flowers.

I promise I will come back here, mum, dad, sister. I will. More often than I could ever have foreseen.

While he walked out of the graveyard, he was already regretting his promise. But now he couldn't fail his family.

Suddenly, he sensed that someone was watching him. He already had suspected spies of Tom would be posting in Godric's End. But when he looked carefully, he saw just a small face in an alley further in the street. The face immediately shot back as Albus made eye-contact with it.

It's just a boy. Although, "just"….. I can feel he will be important to the wizard world.

Albus walked through one of the other streets, shot into an alley, walked through some more (good thing I used to hide myself here while playing hide and seek, or when my parents were angry), and eventually found himself behind the boy. It looked like he had just started looking into the street again and was unable to find him now.

"Hello young boy, are you looking for someone?"

When he looked at the boy carefully, he noticed a dark spot on his left arm.

The young boy got scared and nearly dropped dead. He turned around, and looked Albus straight in the eyes. He gulped. There was an awkward silence.

Finally the boy seemed to be able to move again and with a nervous voice, he said: "Ehm hi. No no no, I am j-j-just looking around." After that, he immediately ran off.

Strange boy.

Albus walked on and finally found his parental house. It hadn't been inhabited for ages, or at least, it looked that way. He walked through the doorway and suddenly stopped walking.

"Aberforth? Are you here?" No answer.

"Abe?"

"DON'T CALL ME ABE!"

Aberforth rushed down from the stairs.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? YOU KNOW I DON'T WANT TO SEE YOU BECAUSE OF THAT TERRIBLE ACCIDENT!"

Albus thought back to that one day. It was speeding through his mind. Him and Grindelwald talking, getting into a fight with Aberforth, and, worst of all, finding Ariana dead on the floor.

While this memory replayed in his head, Albus stared into nothing, frozen.

"Al?" Aberforth waved his hand in front of Albus.

"Are you in there?"

Albus now woke up from the memory, fell over to Aberforth, leant on him and started crying again.

Aberforth was surprised at first. Then, he remembered himself that this was Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, the greatest wizard of all times, and that would probably be able to produce some fake tears.

He brought Albus to a chair (notice, it was the worst chair in the whole house) and went to the kitchen to make something to drink. After all, he couldn't just kick his brother out of their parental house, which wasn't even for him to own, but for both of them. When he got back in the living room, Albus had calmed down a bit.

"Why are you here?"

"I could ask you the same thing."

And here they went, as how they always had talked to each other, in youth with a humorous tone, but later a serious one.

"Al, don't play this with me now."

"Alright, I came to visit our parental house, to relive old memories. I promised myself to do it for decades now, but I never dared to approach our parents' graves from this close, or being haunted by memories of Ariana's death. It's the biggest mistake I have made though, apart from trusting Grindelwald, because I keep getting hurt by all these memories. Here I thought nothing would hurt me anymore, after all that happened, but here I am, heartbroken."

"Why didn't you use that pensieve of yours? That wouldn't hurt that much and you also wouldn't even get close to our parents." Aberforth spat out.

"No, I felt like I actually had to revisit Godric's End."

That being said, Albus rose up from his seat and went to walk through the house. With every room, his heart grew heavier and heavier, but he was convinced he had to do it.

In the meantime, Aberforth was flown off into his thoughts.

Albus seemed to be serious. But, after all, he always was really good at deceiving me, and others also. Why would he make up a lie like this though? That's nothing for him. Well, being friends with Grindelwald was also something I didn't see in Albus.

After a good few hours, Albus came down. He sat himself on the chair, and started to look through the living room.

After another hour, Albus finally spoke up.

"So, Abe, where have you been the last few decades?"

Aberforth didn't really feel like talking about his life to his brother.

"Maybe that's for another time to tell."

"Indeed, right you are. Now isn't the time to talk about it, if you're still holding grudges against me. But I hope, that one day, it will be the right time to simply sit together and talk through our lives."

"Maybe there will be."

"What has brought you here?"

"You-know-who." Aberforth simply stated.

"Care to explain?"

"He's been trying to recruit me for years now. He thinks I'm a source of information about you, about what would hurt or even break you. He seems to be quite scared of you." Aberforth said, and added inaudible for Albus: "can't disagree with that."

"What do you think of this man?"

"You-know-who? That's not a man, that's a monster! He is the devil himself."

"No, not the devil, but I would say he would be a rather good successor to Satan's throne."

"Yeah, right." Aberforth was a confused now. Was that an admiral, anxious or neutral statement?

"Anyway, it was good to have chatted with you again, Abe."

"Yeah, right." Aberforth was still confused. Then he woke up from confusion. Wait, what did I just say? Did I agree with him? Did it actually feel good to chat with Albus again? Aberforth couldn't say.

"I hope we can talk again soon, but until then, I wish you all the luck in the world to defy Lord Voldemort's recruitment attempts."

Aberforth cringed at hearing the name.

"Oh c'mon, it's just a name Abe. You shouldn't be afraid of the name."

And with those words, Albus stood up and left the living room. He entered the hallway, and walked to the door. There he turned around.

"Aberforth, is Bathilda Bagshot still living next door?"

"Why, yes she is, I visit her once a week."

"Good."

When Albus walked outside, he noticed that the boy from earlier was watching him again. He sighed.

"What is it, Al?"

"See that boy across the street, hiding in the alley?"

Aberforth nodded.

"He's been watching me since I arrived in Godric's End, but when I tried to talk to him, he ran away."

"Not everything is about you, Al."

"Good. Now, if you will excuse me, I'm going to pay miss Bagshot a visit."

"Bye."

Albus walked outside of the garden, while he heard Aberforth close the door. That went better than expected.

Albus neared Bathilda's house and knocked on the door. No answer. He knocked again. "Bathilda?"

"Easy, easy, I'm not the youngest anymore. I can't walk that fast."

She opened the door and saw Albus.

"A-albus. Is that you?"

"Yes it is, my dear Bathilda. I know it's late in the afternoon, but I was wondering if we could have a drink and talk a little, about good and old times."

"That sounds perfect. Come in, come in, it's been so long."

Albus entered the house. Again, he was flooded with memories. When he was a child, Bathilda would be babysitting him and his brother and sister if their parents were gone for a few hours, and sometimes even days. To him, Bathilda was like the grandma he never had.

"So, how are things in Godric's End?"

"Oh well, things are coming and going, just like the people. A few weeks ago, a new family moved in next door. The previous inhabitants were murdered by You-know-who."

"Are they magical?"

"Yes, I just can't recall their names. That comes with age, I guess. Well, they are a beautiful young couple with a lovely son. At first the young boy seems rather nice, then, after he's comfortable with you, he pulls pranks on you, but when you really get to know him, he is actually quite nice."

Albus lead her to the window.

"Is that their son?" he said, pointing to the boy in the alley.

"No. Why are you asking?"

"That boy has been watching me since I arrived."

"Well, you are quite the famous man, Albus."

"I suppose that will be the matter." Albus said, while thinking: there's something more to that boy.

"And how are things at school? I heard you were name headmaster of Hogwarts!"

"Hogwarts is the only place not suffering from Lord Voldemort's dark magic." (Bathilda cringed at the name.) "It was like a dream coming true when Armando named me headmaster. I had fallen in love with the school, and this was the perfect way to spend the rest of my life at Hogwarts."

"You surely found your dream then."

They chatted on like this for one more hour. Then, Albus stood up.

"I'm sorry, Bathilda, but I have to go back. It was nice to see you again. We should do this more often."

"I fully agree with you, Albus."

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