Disclaimer: Settings, characters and anything else you recognise belongs to JK Rowling. We just like to play with her ideas.
Chapter 4
Albus Dumbledore wants riddance of guilt
However boldly their warm blood was spilt,
Their life was shame, their epitaph was guilt;
And this they knew and felt, at least the one,
The leader of the hand he had undone,
Who, born for better things, had madly set
His life upon a cast, which linger'd yet."
-Anon.
---
He gazed at the Mirror of the Erised. His own withered, wrinkled face covered with white hair with the piercing, aquamarine blue eyes, reflected back for a moment. And then it changed. The silver surface rippled for a fraction of a second; it became smooth and solid again (although he didn't know if had changed into liquid). The eyes remained the same. Sparkling, laughing blue eyes. And yet, if one observed carefully, he could see the hollowness, the emptiness, the sorrow in them. But only the eyes remained the same.
Her skin was smooth, flawless -- porcelain-like. Her brown curls danced about her pretty face, the shadow of a dimple showing on her cheek. It was almost ghost-like. As if the mirror was just a grey veil between him and her, and all he needed to do was push the cloth and reach her. But there lay the problem. The Mirror, unfortunately, was not a piece of cloth. And so he couldn't reach her; couldn't hold her face, couldn't caress the shadow-of-a-dimple, couldn't kiss her forehead, couldn't tell her, "It's ok, everything's going to be all right." No, unfortunately, he couldn't. All he could do was to sit in an abandoned classroom, and gaze at the Mirror of Erised.
Unfortunately for him (how unfortunate that misery and guilt make everything so unfortunate), the laugh on her face faded. It turned into an expression of horror, which lasted for a few seconds. The expression was about to change into that of acceptance, when it froze, so that it looked like she was horrified, confused and resigned at the same time. Which she probably had been. But he wouldn't know -- ever. And like a feather in the winds, the pale frail body of Ariana Dumbledore fell back into the black mist of the Mirror.
Why did he do this to himself? See her death every second – be it in the Mirror or in his mind? And like almost everything in the world, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore knew the answer. Because this guilt, this pain, which felt like a thousand knives stabbing and twisting his heart, was his only redemption.
"Sir-Professor Dumbledore? Can I ask you something?"
"Obviously you've just done so," Dumbledore smiled. "You may ask me one more thing, however."
What do you see when you look in the Mirror?"
"I? I see myself holding a pair of thick, woolen socks."
Harry stared.
"One can never have enough socks," said Dumbledore. "Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn't get a single pair. People insist on giving me books."
Only if Harry knew what the great Albus Dumbledore really wanted for Christmas – an answered question, a mind at peace… the riddance of guilt.
By koolgirl1993
