September 1, 1971
The first time Riona Dumbledore laid eyes on Eszter Grindelwald was in a candlelit, beautiful hall, in a time when she'd been naïve. Painfully blind to the future ahead, too. She, like everyone else in the middle of that hall, had been eleven then, watching her twin brother's Sorting with curious, bright eyes.
"Dumbledore, Jack!"
The name spread across the Great Hall like a ripple on water, capturing the attention of everyone in the room. All eyes were on a lanky, freckled boy in the front, and under all those stares he seemed to falter, anxiously shifting into the chair in the middle of the room.
The Sorting Hat was placed on his head with a ceremonial flourish by a spectacled woman Riona had yet to properly meet. There was silence, one that lasted a good ten seconds until it was broken by the Hat's decision.
"GRRYYYFFFIINNNDOOOR!"
Riona cheered as loudly as she could, clapping excitedly as her brother practically leaped off the chair. She knew the result was predictable—the house of the lion had taken in many a Dumbledore for years now—but it excited her nevertheless. Her happiness offered a break from the butterflies twisting in her stomach with every name before her own. The cheers were silenced by the spectacled woman—Professor McGonagall—whose imposing stare swept across the crowd, quieting them all. She cleared her throat, adjusted her glasses, and began to speak.
"Dumbledore, Riona!"
Only then did Riona's light feet turn to stone.
Sweet Merlin, it's my turn.
With a deep, quick inhale, she marched forward, stepping through the sea of first years and towards the chair and hat that would decide her house. All eyes shifted from Jack to her, and as they bored into her like drills into the ground, she tried her level best to ignore them all.
Don't look at them, she chided herself, gritting her teeth, Just keep staring ahead and everything's going to be fine.
The whole way forward, she kept her eyes up front, careful not to look to the side and let herself shrink under all of those stares. But she reached the chair, she couldn't help herself, taking a look around at everyone below her.
At the Hufflepuff table, she noticed an older girl with messy, straight auburn hair, staring right at her with thoughtful dark eyes.
Kendra.
Out of Riona's three siblings, Kendra Dumbledore was the second oldest, the most recent one sorted in the family. In terms of Hogwarts houses, Kendra was the black sheep of her siblings, sorted into Hufflepuff while her sister and brother wound up in Gryffindor. Certainly she'd be happy with Riona going into the same house as she had.
At the Gryffindor table, watching her as intently as Kendra with a steady gaze, was her remaining sibling. At thirteen, Alia Dumbledore was the eldest of the Dumbledore children, and her gaze, as bright of a green as Jack's, seemed to stare right through her when their eyes locked.
Alia would hope she'd be Sorted into her house. At least that was obvious from the way she looked at her.
As soon as Riona stopped analyzing her siblings' faces, the Sorting Hat was placed on her head, shifting and grumbling on top of her curly mass of hair. Not even a second later, the Sorting Hat began whispering to her.
"You are the last of the lot, I presume?" It began. Riona could only nod at that.
The hat seemed to chuckle at her silence. "Right then. Let's see here, my dear."
It shuffled around on her head again, pushing a few locks of her hair into her eyes.
"Mmm, there's bravery, honesty, integrity. Very Dumbledore-typical. But ooh...what else? I see a knack for fairness, loyalty. As expected...oh, what's this?"
The Sorting Hat lurched slightly forward on her head, the brim moving down to cover her eyes.
"Why, you're a little more...tricky to sort than I thought, my dear. However, my choice is made."
The Sorting Hat leaned back up, and screeched loud enough to make a good half of the people in the room cover their ears and wince.
"GRRRRRYYYYYYFFFFINNDDOOR!"
Cheers and claps bombarded Riona from her new House as she finally stepped off the platform. The butterflies in her stomach promptly vanished. When she reached her new table, smiling from ear to ear, Alia and Jack grinned right back, indicating a spot next to them for her to take.
Then, the bespectacled woman announced the next name.
"Grindelwald, Eszter!"
There was an enormous, heavy pause as all heads turned to the front of the room. Eyes shot up to the front. Jaws went slack. All conversation stopped.
If everyone had been cheering before, then they were all dead silent now.
Every pair of eyes in the room went wide with shock, and they were all focused on the not yet sorted first years. For the next fifteen seconds, it seemed that everyone in the Great Hall had up and forgotten how to breathe.
The woman cleared her throat, and repeated herself.
"Grindelwald, Eszter?"
And only then did someone step up to the front.
That someone was a girl Riona didn't even remotely recognize. She was tall for her age, pale with dark hair that was left to run down a little past her shoulders. Strangely, she didn't look nervous, or scared, or anything even remotely close to worried at all. Instead of shrinking into herself, Eszter Grindelwald stepped up to the platform as calmly as can be, eyes forward and head held high. All while retaining that same composure, she sat down.
In the few seconds before the Sorting Hat landed on her head, she looked around the entire Great Hall, revealing cold, frosty eyes. In that moment they seemed like a pair of pale blue knives, stabbing into everyone they focused on through the deafening quiet.
Riona could almost feel them shank her in the heart.
There were no words at all.
A small smile appeared on Eszter Grindelwald's all too placid face.
"RAAAAAAAVEEENNNCCLLLAWWW!"
The silence lasted for another twenty, terrible seconds. And then came the cheers.
The Ravenclaws started them, hollering and applauding and welcoming the new girl as if everything was normal. As if a descendant of one of the darkest wizards to ever walk the earth hadn't just joined their ranks. But nevertheless, the awkward silence dissolved after that, giving way to more loud, wobbly cheering from everyone else. And the new girl stepped off the platform, steadily walking to her new house table with the smile, now wider with joy, still on her face.
Her gaze then fell on Riona. Someone beside her whispered something inaudible in her ear, and the smile slid down into an apathetic, contemptuous frown.
Riona felt a slight flare of surprise, then anger, register in her brain. No one, not one person, had ever looked at her in such a way before, not in this pointedly disapproving manner that made her feel just a little lower than dirt. Holy Merlin, was that expression frustrating, so cold and horrendously sharp that it made Riona itch to send Eszter an ugly reply to it.
Everything about this girl was unknown to her, but she could assume only a single idea.
She doesn't like me.
That she contemplated for a second. Then added another thought.
And, honestly, neither do I.
Riona didn't know it then, not when she was still too young to predict what would become of her future, but her thoughts would quickly turn into reality. The feelings would become mutual. All hopes of friendship between her and the other girl would be dashed to pieces before their very eyes.
She and Eszter wouldn't have simple animosity, or just a bit of hate.
They would be on either side of an all-out rivalry.
3 Years Later:
October 6, 1974
"You call that a hit, Dumbledore?! Don't make me laugh."
Riona gritted her teeth hard, tightening her hold on her bat. Being a Quidditch player meant focus and concentration, but Emerson Jeong's yelling wasn't particularly helping any of those aspects. But when the Bludger, brown and gleaming in the late autumn sun, flew towards her, Riona swung her bar and knocked it back with an audible slam. As the Gryffindor Keeper stopped making comments, the Bludger sailed down onto the grass below.
Emerson, be a good Keeper and give me a bit of peace, will you?
"Well, for Merlin's sake, I haven't been here for the last week! The hell did you expect, perfection?" Riona snapped as she prepared for another hit, clutching her bat even tighter to a point where her knuckles turned white.
"Alright, alright, calm down," Emerson sighed, nonchalantly running a hand through his hair. "Don't get mad over something as little as this. Save it for when one of your siblings gets attacked or something."
This time, Riona shot him a glare and hit the returning Bludger in his direction. With a surprised yelp, Emerson dodged, with the ball nearly slamming into his arm as it whizzed by.
"Now I see why Madam Hooch regrets her decision of putting you on the team…" The Keeper wheezed as he easily dodged the ball. "Geez, talk about anger issues. Now practice's done, you can go."
"Thanks, Jeong," Riona huffed, but trailed off as she saw two familiar figures on the field below. Recognition replaced her anger and she maneuvered her broom downwards, waving at them as a smile tugged at her lips.
"Oh, Alia! Jack!" The redhead flew low enough to end up a yard or so off the ground, nearly hitting her younger twin brother in the face with the end of her broom. Jack ducked in time and gently pushed it away, and returned her smile with one of his own.
"Hi, Ronnie." He playfully dragged out Riona's annoying childhood nickname with a mocking laugh. Heat rose to Riona's face at the sound of it, and with an irritated scowl, she jumped off her broom and onto the ground.
"JACK!" She cried, smacking her own forehead. "You can't just say that anymore! We're not five!"
"Can so!" Jack snorted, eyes flashing with mirth.
"Can not! I swear to Merlin, how many times have I—Jeong, are you seriously—?"
When the redhead noticed that Emerson was standing a few feet away, biting his lip and covering his mouth to hold back laughter, she shot him an annoyed glare, earning a raise of the Keeper's eyebrows and an upwards movement of his hands in surrender.
"He can say it whenever he wants. Just relax, will you?" Alia chimed in, placing a gentle, calming hand on her sister's shoulder. Despite the tranquility she offered, Riona saw past it in seconds. Her face held a smile with enough mischief for her to realize who she was siding with here, and exactly what her sister was about to say next.
She was proven right not even a moment later.
"Ronnie."
Riona let out a loud groan, swatting her sister's hand off. "You two are evil."
Alia smiled sweetly at her. "Love you too."
In turn, the redhead rolled her eyes and left her broom behind, offering a quick goodbye to Emerson as she began to walk with her siblings. So far, fourth year had been going well enough. Her grades stayed up, her Quidditch position of two years was still stable, and all in all, life was as normal as it could get at Hogwarts for her. And as far as she knew, it was going to stay that way.
Riona relaxed, breathed in the sweet smell of the crisp autumn air before—
"Girls like that are hard to come by, Hendricks. Take a shot at the Beater while you still can."
The sentence that hit Riona's ears immediately made her tense up and turn around. A group of boys sat on the fields, chatting and laughing over a few apples. She recognized them from the Hufflepuff Quidditch teams, and this particular bunch tended to whistle at the pretty girls walking by or corner an unfortunate witch they'd set their eyes on every now and then, spitting dirty words that could bring anyone to tears or even fury. They were obviously talking shamelessly about her, the only Beater in the area, and she, unable to ignore that, got a little closer.
"It'll be hard, though," the blonde boy in the middle, Hendricks, muttered, "since she wears the Quidditch stuff most of the time and doesn't hang around boys much, unless her shithead brother is walking around—"
At this, Riona's feet shuffled forward on their own. Her hand curled into a fist. She felt her eyes narrow on her own, turn into dark brown slits.
"Did you hear that?" She asked softly, turning her head to face Alia. Her sister looked annoyed bordering on angry, and Jack, clearly oblivious, eyed them both with concern on his face.
"Yeah." The oldest of them replied, tone sharp and very, very cold. "Want to go give them a talking to?"
"Gladly."
Riona broke away from her siblings and marched forward
Three equally large, athletic male bodies turned to face her simultaneously. Hendricks, not even batting an eye at how irritated she was, smirked at her.
"Well, look who it is. Ronnie Dumbledore's here." The blonde boy drawled at her, and looked her up and down in a way disgusting enough to cause Riona's temper to flare. Dear Merlin, that look felt absolutely violating. So horrible it made her skin crawl like nearly never before. Made her fist itch to make itself very acquainted with Hendricks' pudgy, smirking face.
"Don't call me that. And why is my brother suddenly a shithead?" Riona snapped, clenching her fist even tighter and walking closer to the boys.
At this, Hendricks' eyes narrowed, and his lips turned up. His face went from smirking to flat-out condescending as he took a deep breath. Then laughed at her.
"Right, suppose we call you that again. Then what? You'll call your big sisters to come over and lecture us? Tattle to your dear old granddad about how we hurt wittle Wonnie's feelings?" Hendricks cackled, eyes flashing with mockery. "Nice try, sweetheart, but you can't shut us up."
Riona's anger began to rapidly rise at the taunt about her grandfather, and she could already feel an extra wave of furious heat flooding her face. Although Albus Dumbledore, one of the most renowned wizards of the century, was the headmaster of Hogwarts, she never asked him for special treatment when it came to academics. Ever. It was a strict rule in her family not to purposely mooch off of other family members for certain privileges, and for Hendricks to even insinuate that...
A small crowd began to gather as the argument heated up between her and the other boy, whispering about everything that was happening, but Riona didn't care.
"Excuse me, sweetheart? I am not your fucking sweetheart, you arrogant son of a bit—!"
Suddenly, the mass around the two of them parted like the Red Sea. A person with hair tied back in a neat, loosened braid began to slowly walk towards her and the other boy, arms folded across her chest.
The person was a girl her age, pale, willowy, and tall enough to stand a good two or so inches over every other fourth year girl in the crowd. The ebony slacks she wore were simple and a bit loose, and their black, spit-shined boots with iron capping their heels gleamed in the sun as the person walked forward. The familiar girl's arrival brought a small twitch to Riona's hand. She knew exactly who'd joined the fight.
Eszter Grindelwald, the one and only, had randomly decided to waltz into the argument, to Riona's complete and utter annoyance.
The foreign Ravenclaw girl the redhead hated with her very soul and being hadn't changed much over the years, minus the fact that her hair was longer and that by some growth spurt miracle she'd gotten five inches taller. Her narrowed gaze, sharp as it was on that first day of school, was cold and questioning, cutting into everyone in her vision with the precision of a brand new ice pick.
Yes, she was a prefect at a surprisingly young age, only due to her top marks and magical talent. That surprised many, but despite the overall opinion on that, her promotion hadn't been revoked since.
No, she did not like Riona Dumbledore. They were rivals, after all.
"Dumbledore?" She asked in her low, slightly accented voice. "What's going on here?"
Hendricks' face lit up with mirth, and he turned from Riona to Eszter. His eyes still held the mockery they had from earlier, and he took in the sight of the prefect like a lieutenant did a general—in other words, with leagues more respect than he had eyed Riona.
"Oh, it's Grindelwald!" He stated, shoving his hands in his pockets in a show of fake nonchalance. "Trust me, I didn't do anything just now, so why are you here—?"
"Is your last name Dumbledore?"
Hendricks closed his mouth, then opened it again. Realizing his mistake, he shut it once more, looking away with something like a flinch.
Eszter's expression went from cold to freezing. "Then don't answer my question."
Then, almost as an afterthought...
"Dumbass."
The mockery in his eyes promptly withered up and died, replaced by indignation. Before Riona could speak, he cut her off, spitting out his words through gritted teeth.
"Oi, watch it. Or do you want to start something?"
"No, not particularly. But if you want a free pass to detention, then you can just try that. Take your pick." Eszter replied without missing a beat, earning a few nervous looks from the crowd. When Hendricks, having the sense not to answer, remained quiet, she went on.
"Right then, back to the person I was actually going to talk to."
Her eyes shifted to Riona, and she stepped just a little closer. At this distance, the shorter of the two realized that the prefect didn't look questioning. More like bored. Very, very, very bored, which was not a good sign.
"Now, I'll ask you again, Dumbledore," Eszter said coolly, "What is going on here?"
"Those boys, especially him, were insulting Jack, and I started defending him," Riona snapped, pointing at Hendricks with all the disdain she possibly could. The boy grimaced at her, clearly irritated, then shrugged, as if she was joking and she hadn't been more than ready to introduce her nose to his nose.
For a long moment, Eszter was quiet, watching her and Hendricks without a word. But soon the silence ended, and she spoke up, eyes now trained only on Hendricks.
"Insulting?" She repeated slowly, as if trying to fully understand, and her tone turned flat. "That's more of a minor offense. However, if it was more provocative, offending a prefect, or there were witnesses to report it, then maybe I could ask to dock points."
Hendricks went red with mixed surprise and anger. Riona couldn't help herself and let out a little laugh.
"Oi!" He sputtered, stomping forward to tower over Eszter. "Wait a damn minute! Listen to me now, Grindelwald! If you saw this situation from my point of view, we wouldn't need to dock points—"
All at once, the entire crowd went totally silent, and with it, Riona, while Eszter slowly blinked up at Hendricks. The prefect seemed much less bored now, and everyone around knew damn well why—Hendricks, idiot he was, had slipped up. Started blurting and being emotional. Gave the girl in front of him a perfect opportunity to relieve her boredom and talk him down practically on a silver platter.
Eszter never missed any chance to put down anyone stupid enough to force their opinion on her. She almost always did it verbally, viciously, stabbing egos and absolutely crushing the dignity of the unlucky people who crossed her.
Over the years, there'd been quite a few Hogwartians who'd fucked with Eszter Grindelwald. All of them paid a price, whether dignity, pride, or everything in between.
Today, it was Hendricks' turn.
And for a moment, Riona actually pitied him.
"I'm sorry," Eszter began, locking eyes with Hendricks with more ice in her gaze, "who here said we were docking points? If I remember right, I am the prefect, not you. Know your place, and listen up."
"Ha ha." Jack snickered from the crowd. "He's fucked."
"Tell me about it," Riona whispered back while the anger began to slide off Hendricks' face, "Wonder what state he'll be in once she's done with him."
But their whispering died down as Eszter kept going, in a tone far too calm for the sheer coldness her face held.
"If you're going to try and put yourself above me, do that to someone else. I am not here so that you can spit bullshit, deny the obvious, and exude whatever you call your superiority for everyone here to watch." The prefect continued in the same calm, mild tone, all while Hendricks steadily began to glare at her. "I'm here to solve a problem, which we all know you caused. So stop denying it and face it instead of being awfully pathetic and trying to worm your way out."
Some jeering and shouting followed her statement, like dissonant echoes all around. Hendricks let out a series of shaky, furious breaths.
"Merlin, you're a asshole," Hendricks muttered, but not quietly enough for a fully aware Eszter to miss his insult.
"I've been told." The prefect replied, and the smallest of smirks began to pull at the corners of her mouth. "And thank you for the language I need to dock five points from Hufflepuff."
Hendricks' head snapped up as his face turned the color of a blank sheet of paper. "Eh?"
"You just called me an asshole. Yes, that's a description, but it's derogatory. Offending a prefect. So there go your House points," Eszter noted, as if she were merely talking about the weather on a nice Sunday morning, "I hope that's simple enough for you to understand."
Hendricks didn't respond this time, too surprised for words. The crowd merely looked on, watching Hendricks stay stock still, play helpless prisoner, and Eszter taking her sweet time to play executioner. Soon enough, the prefect looked up at the boy before her, with a smile that looked physically painful to keep on her face.
"Now, please. Do me a favor and scram."
Hendricks didn't need to be told twice. As soon as the words left her mouth, he bolted with his friends in tow, head lowered and shoulders slumped in defeat. The outcome, expected by all, led the crowd to disperse, leaving only Riona to sigh in relief as the issue with Hendricks promptly ended.
Her relief was short-lived, as everyone but Eszter left the area where the argument had been. Cold blue eyes met dark brown ones as the brunette proceeded to brush invisible flecks of dust off of her clothing.
Eszter was always needlessly meticulous with her appearance; a neat freak in terms of how she looked. It was one of the plethoras of ways that the girls' personalities clashed, and added to their ongoing hate. The two students continuously tried to outdo each other, no matter what the situation. Either it was to prove one was indefinitely better, or it was to cement that Grindelwald was better than Dumbledore, or vice versa, but either way, all of their motives only fed their rivalry. If one of them got a great score on an exam, the other would try their best to do just as well, if not better. If one of them started a verbal fight, the other would finish it. It was a kind of war where actions and words spoke equally loudly and equally painfully, and talking only exchanged more blows.
Many had tried to end the rivalry or at least improve relations, but all had failed, spectacularly so. Eszter and Riona's mutual dislike for each other was one that knew absolutely no bounds; there was always some way that one would find the other to be a problem, and more than one reason for them to strike at each other whenever they could.
The rivalry was like a continuously ticking time bomb—one never knew when it would explode and wreak havoc upon everything, just like their grandfathers' enmity had decades ago.
And the entire school was waiting for it to detonate.
Riona spoke first after a long silence. "So, why did you just decide to come over here? For real?"
"Patrolling halls after class got boring. Going outside seemed alright," Eszter replied with a small shrug, and Riona's annoyance flared again.
"Okay, that actually makes sense," The redhead murmured, then her tone went from musing to demanding, "But seriously, why'd you just barge into this whole fight in the first place, Grindelwald?"
"Oh, I don't know, because you were about to have a nice little fistfight with Hendricks over an insult or two?" Eszter answered the question with one of her own. "Honestly, a 'thank you' would be nice."
"Alright, fine, thank you!" Riona groaned, frustratedly throwing her hands up in the air. "God, you're an ass."
"You're welcome," Eszter laughed dryly, and her face lit up with an expression she knew all too well.
It was a smirk that turned her face into something odd and mocking, one that irritated Riona to absolutely no end the sheer number of times it had been used on her. The expression was condescending, amused, and insensitive all rolled into one simple smirk that had Riona fuming minimum twice a week.
After some time, Eszter stopped laughing, but the smirk didn't vanish from her face.
"Ass? Dumbledore, do you know how boring that one is? Get creative. Think of something better to insult me with."
Riona let out a derisive snort. "Well, it's the most accurate one there is."
"Ouch, that was offensive." Eszter drawled all too placidly, tone dripping with feigned annoyance. "How long did it take you to come up with that one?"
"Not even a few seconds, mind you."
"Shut up, and with your vocabulary? Don't lie to me, Dumbledore, you aren't quick enough to think up something like that that soon."
"Oh, you take that back—!"
"HEY!" A voice rang out from behind Riona before she could spit out her own witty response. She and Eszter turned around, and that moment alone would change their lives for good.