The Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition

[Season Nine] Game Day: Round Three / Keeper - The Woman in Black by Susan Hill: Write about someone trying to put the past behind them.

Word Count: 1,274

The cold used to bother him. The sharp winter wind, piercing his skin, brought memories of better days back, of days where bitterness wasn't the emotion that made up his life, of days where he wasn't so pathetic, so self-destructive. If he concentrated hard enough, he could hear the phantom laughs of children, feel the snow sliding against his skin, see the footprints of tiny old boots, and a pair of gloves someone had lost in the middle of a blizzard.

That biting chill spoke of days spent begging father to cast warming charms, to let them stay out in the snow for just another minute, to help them find a stick or a pebble, for a misshapen snowman that would be gone the next day, anyway.

After outside excursions came hot soup, the rare dessert or treat that could be afforded at that time, or if they'd been disobedient and naughty, a trip to the front porch, shovel in hand, so mucky snow could be cleared up, no magic allowed.

Yes, the cold had once been a catalyst of many emotions. But now, it was almost like a memory, like a faraway sensation he could use to characterize his childhood, the days where everything seemed to be alright, before it at all ended the way it did.

For Aberforth Dumbledore, many things ended the day Ariana died. His childhood, his happiness, his hopes and dreams, and not least of all, his relationship with his older brother.

For yes, many now knew Albus' greatest secret, of his dalliance with Gellert Grindelwald, not because Aberforth had let loose after so many decades of keeping silent and furiously bitter, but because that Skeeter woman had snooped, poking her nose where it didn't belong. She had stolen his revenge from him, but after so many years of pent up anger and rage, he couldn't bring himself up to a reasonable level of hatred, an emotion he had definitely felt many times over the years past.

Many would call him a "bitter old goat" for remaining so resentful at his dead brother (some already did), but what relationship had they had left by the end of 1996? Little to none.

They'd barely talked, and Albus' attempts usually ended up rebuffed, kicked out of the Hog's Head that had, over the years, become Aberforth's livelihood, and life itself. He had no children, no wife to speak of, only a portrait of Ariana, who would give him a gentle chiding look every time he threatened their older brother with dismemberment if he came too close to the bar, and he had his customers, his regulars who would greet him with gruff scoffs of "just the usual, Ab."

Very few knew who his brother was, and Aberforth didn't broadcast his last name to everyone he came across - partly because he wanted no part of Albus' misgiven fame, and partly because were people to find out, he'd be the subject of the same scrutiny he'd been under, years and years ago, after it had been revealed that muggles had turned his sister into an Obscurial.

Oh, yes. Were he to speak of muggles, he could go off on a whole other tangent, rage simmering in his veins every time he remembered Ariana's terrified screams, his father's blistering rage, the three dead boys who'd terrorized his sister, who landed Percival Dumbledore a life sentence in Azkaban, who had ended their lives as they knew it.

Muggles were the cause of his family's fracture. His father was gone, his sister just one temper tantrum away from leveling the house to the ground, Albus having untimely teenage puberty issues with holding everything on his shoulders, and Aberforth doing his best to keep Ariana happy, keep her safe while their brother went off gallivanting with his boyfriend.

Over the years, he'd pondered many times how unfair life had been to him. He was the forgotten, and never the missed. The shadow in the darkness, and the "in" in the word "invisible." So similar to Albus bloody Dumbledore, yet never good enough to measure up to his feats, not even in death could he best the old fool, the subject of so many of his drunken rants over the last couple of decades.

Aberforth now walked the snowy streets of Godric's Hollow, a town he used to live in, a town where so many memories had been formed and unmade, and with all the resentment in his heart, he just couldn't let the cold bother him.

There was no joy when the snowflakes hit his skin, when his boots formed patterns in the crystalline white gravel, and though he hadn't cast a warming charm on himself, the chill went ignored, because hadn't he done this before? Didn't he do this every year? Come to the graveyard to pay tribute to his dead sister, his dead mother?

He did.

But this year was different. This year, he also had a dead brother. A dead brother who lay in state at Hogwarts, a dead brother whom he knew would've much rather been buried here rather than there, but since when had Aberforth cared about Albus? When was the last time he thought of the man with anything less than contempt?

Ariana Dumbledore stood stark against the grey slab of stone that was his sister's grave marker, and he could practically feel her disapproval wafting out of the ground at his thought process.

"Albie's just died, Ab. Don't you think you can cut him some slack?"

Her voice had always been sweet, like honeysuckle, and not for the first time, he wondered if she'd have been alive today, had she not been caught in the crossfire, all those years ago.

"Maybe, Ab, it's time to put your grudge aside. Maybe, in his death, you can be kinder to him, kinder than perhaps you think he deserves."

Scratchy white hair and beard bowed as Aberforth put a bouquet of everlasting roses on her grave, the kind she had always loved in life. Every year he came, he heard those words in his head, the words of a compassionate sister who had always been too sweet for her own good, and every year, he ignored them, but now... he was the only Dumbledore left. Perhaps, indeed, an effort could be made.

Aberforth knew he was a bitter old man. His legendary temper, almost as bad as his brother's when Albus had been made angry, had landed him into many tight spots. Years of accumulated resent and his own wretched stubbornness had prevented him from reconciling with his brother, but perhaps he could try now. Make an attempt, so at least his own conscious would be freed.

And not in the least... for Ariana.

Because hadn't everything been for Ariana?

A.N. This just brought so many feelings in my heart and I think I made it a bit too angsty, but there ya go. I thought Aberforth was perfect for this prompt, his character was just so bitter, and diving into his world was really very interesting, especially with the added Fantastic Beasts element of Obscurials. I may just be tempted to write more for him. You never know *shrugs*

Anyway, I just hope you liked it.

xo, Lily